allonby
Ah! don’t become quite perfect all at once. Do it gradually!
lord illingworth
I don’t intend to grow perfect at all. At least, I hope I sha’n’t. It would be most inconvenient. Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, they will forgive us everything, even our gigantic intellects.
mrs. allonby
It is premature to ask us to forgive analysis. ·102· We forgive adoration; that is quite as much as should be expected from us.
[Enter Lord Alfred. He joins Lady Stutfield.]
lady hunstanton
Ah! we women should forgive everything, shouldn’t we, dear Mrs. Arbuthnot? I am sure you agree with me in that.
mrs. arbuthnot
I do not, Lady Hunstanton. I think there are many things women should never forgive.
lady hunstanton
What sort of things?
mrs. arbuthnot
The ruin of another woman’s life.
[Moves slowly away to back of stage.]
lady hunstanton
Ah! those things are very sad, no doubt, but I believe there are admirable homes where people of that kind are looked after and reformed, and I think on the whole that the secret of life is to take things very, very easily.
mrs. allonby
The secret of life is never to have an emotion that is unbecoming.
·103· lady stutfield
The secret of life is to appreciate the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.
kelvil
The secret of life is to resist temptation, Lady Stutfield.
lord illingworth
There is no secret of life. Life’s aim, if it has one, is simply to be always looking for temptations. There are not nearly enough. I sometimes pass a whole day without coming across a single one. It is quite dreadful. It makes one so nervous about the future.
lady hunstanton
[Shakes her fan at him.] I don’t know how it is, dear Lord Illingworth, but everything you have said to-day seems to me excessively immoral. It has been most interesting, listening to you.
lord illingworth
All thought is immoral. Its very essence is destruction. If you think of anything, you kill it. Nothing survives being thought of.
lady hunstanton
I don’t understand a word, Lord Illingworth. But I have no doubt it is all quite true. Personally, I have very little to reproach myself with, on the score of thinking. I don’t believe in women ·104· thinking too much. Women should think in moderation, as they should do all things in moderation.
lord illingworth
Moderation is a fatal thing, Lady Hunstanton. Nothing succeeds like excess.
lady hunstanton
I hope I shall remember that. It sounds an admirable maxim. But I’m beginning to forget everything. It’s a great misfortune.
lord illingworth
It is one of your most fascinating qualities, Lady Hunstanton. No woman should have a memory. Memory in a woman is the beginning of dowdiness. One can always tell from a woman’s bonnet whether she has got a memory or not.
lady hunstanton
How charming you are, dear Lord Illingworth. You always find out that one’s most glaring fault is one’s most important virtue. You have the most comforting views of life.
[Enter Farquhar.]
farquhar
Doctor Daubeny’s carriage!
lady hunstanton
My dear Archdeacon! It is only half-past ten.
·105· the archdeacon
[Rising.] I am afraid I must go, Lady Hunstanton. Tuesday is always one of Mrs. Daubeny’s bad nights.
lady hunstanton
[Rising.] Well, I won’t keep you from her. [Goes with him towards door.] I have told Farquhar to put a brace of partridge into the carriage. Mrs. Daubeny may fancy them.
the archdeacon
It is very kind of you, but Mrs. Daubeny never touches solids now. Lives entirely on jellies. But she is wonderfully cheerful, wonderfully cheerful. She has nothing to complain of.
[Exit with Lady Hunstanton.]
mrs. allonby
[Goes over to Lord Illingworth.] There is a beautiful moon to-night.
lord illingworth
Let us go and look at it. To look at anything that is inconstant is charming now-a-days.
mrs. allonby
You have your looking-glass.
lord illingworth
It is unkind. It merely shows me my wrinkles.
·106· mrs. allonby
Mine is better behaved. It never tells me the truth.
lord illingworth
Then it is in love with you.
[Exeunt Sir John, Lady Stutfield, Mr. Kelvil, and Lord Alfred.]
gerald
[to Lord Illingworth] May I come too?
lord illingworth
Do, my dear boy. [Moves towards door with Mrs. Allonby and Gerald.]
[Lady Caroline enters, looks rapidly round and goes out in opposite direction to that taken by Sir John and Lady Stutfield.]
mrs. arbuthnot
Gerald!
gerald
What, mother!
[Exit Lord Illingworth
