The Plays of Oscar Wilde

LORD ALFRED: One must have some occupation nowadays. If I hadn’t my debts I shouldn’t have anything to think about. All the chaps I know are in debt.

LADY STUTFIELD: But don’t the people to whom you owe the money give you a great, great deal of annoyance?

Enter Footman.

LORD ALFRED: Oh, no, they write; I don’t.

LADY STUTFIELD: How very, very strange.

LADY HUNSTANTON: Ah, here is a letter, Caroline, from dear Mrs. Arbuthnot. She won’t dine. I am so sorry. But she will come in the evening. I am very pleased, indeed. She is one of the sweetest of women. Writes a beautiful hand, too, so large, so firm. (Hands letter to LADY CAROLINE.)

LADY CAROLINE (looking at it): A little lacking in femininity, Jane. Femininity is the quality I admire most in women.

LADY HUNSTANTON (taking back letter and leaving it on table): Oh! She is very feminine, Caroline, and so good, too. You should hear what the Archdeacon says of her. He regards her as his right hand in the parish. (Footman speaks to her.) In the Yellow Drawing-room. Shall we all go in? Lady Stutfield, shall we go in to tea?

LADY STUTFIELD: With pleasure, Lady Hunstanton.

They rise and proceed to go off. SIR JOHN offers to carry LADY STUTFIELD’S cloak.

LADY CAROLINE: John! If you would allow your nephew to look after Lady Stutfield’s cloak, you might help me with my work-basket.

Enter LORD ILLINGWORTH and MRS. ALLONBY.

SIR JOHN: Certainly, my love.

Exeunt.

MRS. ALLONBY: Curious thing, plain women are always jealous of their husbands, beautiful women never are!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Beautiful women never have time. They are always so occupied in being jealous of other people’s husbands.

MRS. ALLONBY: I should have thought Lady Caroline would have grown tired of conjugal anxiety by this time! Sir John is her fourth!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: So much marriage is certainly not becoming. Twenty years of romance make a woman look like a ruin; but twenty years of marriage make her something like a public building.

MRS. ALLONBY: Twenty years of romance! Is there such a thing?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Not in our day. Women have become too brilliant. Nothing spoils a romance so much as a sense of humour in the woman.

MRS. ALLONBY: Or the want of it in the man.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: You are quite right. In a Temple every one should be serious, except the thing that is worshipped.

MRS. ALLONBY: And that should be man?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Women kneel so gracefully; men don’t.

MRS. ALLONBY: You are thinking of Lady Stutfield!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: I assure you I have not thought of Lady Stutfield for the last quarter of an hour.

MRS. ALLONBY: Is she such a mystery?

LORD ILLINGWORTH: She is more than a mystery – she is a mood.

MRS. ALLONBY: Moods don’t last.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: It is their chief charm.

Enter HESTER and GERALD.

GERALD: Lord Illingworth, every one has been congratulating me, Lady Hunstanton and Lady Caroline, and … every one. I hope I shall make a good secretary.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: You will be the pattern secretary, Gerald. (Talks to him.)

MRS. ALLONBY: You enjoy country life, Miss Worsley?

HESTER: Very much, indeed.

MRS. ALLONBY: Don’t find yourself longing for a London dinner-party?

HESTER: I dislike London dinner-parties.

MRS. ALLONBY: I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.

HESTER: I think the stupid people talk a great deal.

MRS. ALLONBY: Ah, I never listen!

LORD ILLINGWORTH: My dear boy, if I didn’t like you I wouldn’t have made you the offer. It is because I like you so much that I want to have you with me.

Exit HESTER with GERALD.

Charming fellow, Gerald Arbuthnot!

MRS. ALLONBY: He is very nice; very nice indeed. But I can’t stand the American young lady.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Why?

MRS. ALLONBY: She told me yesterday, and in quite a loud voice too, that she was only eighteen. It was most annoying.

LORD ILLINGWORTH: One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that, would tell one anything.

MRS. ALLONBY: She is a Puritan besides –

LORD ILLINGWORTH: Ah, that is inexcusable. I don’t mind plain women being Puritans. It is the only excuse they have for being plain. But she is decidedly pretty. I admire her immensely. (Looks steadfastly at MRS. ALLONBY.)

MRS. ALLONBY: What a thoroughly bad man you must be!