Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

lord illingworth

So Lady Hunstanton told me.

gerald

It is very curious, my mother never talks to me ·89· about my father. I sometimes think she must have married beneath her.

lord illingworth

[ Winces slightly .] Really? [ Goes over and puts his hand on Gerald’s shoulder .] You have missed not having a father, I suppose, Gerald?

gerald

Oh, no; my mother has been so good to me. No one ever had such a mother as I have had.

lord illingworth

I am quite sure of that. Still I should imagine that most mothers don’t quite understand their sons. Don’t realise, I mean, that a son has ambitions, a desire to see life, to make himself a name. After all, Gerald, you couldn’t be expected to pass all your life in such a hole as Wrockley, could you?

gerald

Oh, no! It would be dreadful!

lord illingworth

A mother’s love is very touching, of course, but it is often curiously selfish. I mean, there is a good deal of selfishness in it.

gerald

[ Slowly .] I suppose there is.

·90· lord illingworth

Your mother is a thoroughly good woman. But good women have such limited views of life, their horizon is so small, their interests are so petty, aren’t they?

gerald

They are awfully interested, certainly, in things we don’t care much about.

lord illingworth

I suppose your mother is very religious, and that sort of thing.

gerald

Oh, yes, she’s always going to church.

lord illingworth

Ah! she is not modern, and to be modern is the only thing worth being now-a-days. You want to be modern, don’t you, Gerald? You want to know life as it really is. Not to be put off with any old-fashioned theories about life. Well, what you have to do at present is simply to fit yourself for the best society. A man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world. The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are going to rule.

gerald

I should like to wear nice things awfully, but ·91· I have always been told that a man should not think too much about his clothes.

lord illingworth

People now-a-days are so absolutely superficial that they don’t understand the philosophy of the superficial. By the way, Gerald, you should learn how to tie your tie better. Sentiment is all very well for the button-hole. But the essential thing for a necktie is style. A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.

gerald

[ Laughing .] I might be able to learn how to tie a tie, Lord Illingworth, but I should never be able to talk as you do. I don’t know how to talk.

lord illingworth

Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.

gerald

But it is very difficult to get into society, isn’t it?

lord illingworth

To get into the best society, now-a-days, one has either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people—that is all? [ E:all!]

·92· gerald

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful!

lord illingworth

To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy. Society is a necessary thing. No man has any real success in this world unless he has got women to back him, and women rule society. If you have not got women on your side you are quite over. You might just as well be a barrister, or a stockbroker, or a journalist at once.

gerald

It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?

lord illingworth

You should never try to understand them. Women are pictures. Men are problems. If you want to know what a woman really means—which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do—look at her, don’t listen to her.

gerald

But women are awfully clever, aren’t they?

lord illingworth

One should always tell them so. But, to the philosopher, my dear Gerald, women represent the triumph of matter over mind—just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.

·93· gerald

How then can women have so much power as you say they have?

lord illingworth

The history of women is the history of the worst form of tyranny the world has ever known. The tyranny of the weak over the strong. It is the only tyranny that lasts.

gerald

But haven’t women got a refining influence?

lord illingworth

Nothing refines but the intellect.

gerald

Still, there are many different kinds of women aren’t there?

lord illingworth

Only two kinds in society: the plain and the coloured.

gerald

But there are good women in society, aren’t there?

lord illingworth

Far too many.

gerald

But do you think women shouldn’t be good?

·94· lord illingworth

One should never tell them so, they’d all become good at once. Women are a fascinatingly wilful sex. Every woman is a rebel, and usually in wild revolt against herself.

gerald

You have never been married, Lord Illingworth, have you?

lord illingworth

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.

gerald

But don’t you think one can be happy when one is married?

lord illingworth

Perfectly happy. But the happiness of a married man, my dear Gerald, depends on the people he has not married.

gerald

But if one is in love?

lord illingworth

One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.

gerald

Love is a very wonderful thing, isn’t it?

·95· lord illingworth

When one is in love one begins by deceiving one’s-self. And one ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance. But a really grande passion is comparatively rare now-a-days. It is the privilege of people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes in a country, and the only possible explanation of us Harfords.

gerald

Harfords, Lord Illingworth?

lord illingworth

That is my family name. You should study the Peerage, Gerald. It is the one book a young man about town should know thoroughly, and it is the best thing in fiction the English have ever done. And now, Gerald, you are going now into a perfectly new life with me, and I want you to know how to live. [ Mrs. Arbuthnot appears on terrace behind .] For the world has been made by fools that wise men should live in it!

[ Enter L.C. Lady Hunstanton and Dr. Daubeny .]

lady hunstanton

Ah! here you are, dear Lord Illingworth. Well, I suppose you have been telling our young friend, Gerald, what his new duties are to be, and giving him a great deal of good advice over a pleasant cigarette.

·96· lord illingworth

I have been giving him the best of advice, Lady Hunstanton, and the best of cigarettes.

lady hunstanton

I am so sorry I was not here to listen to you, but I suppose I am too old now to learn. Except from you, dear Archdeacon, when you are in your nice pulpit. But then I always know what you are going to say, so I don’t feel alarmed. [ Sees Mrs. Arbuthnot .] Ah! dear Mrs. Arbuthnot, do come and join us. Come, dear. [ Enter Mrs. Arbuthnot .] Gerald has been having such a long talk with Lord Illingworth; I am sure you must feel very much flattered at the pleasant way in which everything has turned out for him. Let us sit down. [ They sit down .] And how is your beautiful embroidery going on?

mrs. arbuthnot

I am always at work, Lady Hunstanton.

lady hunstanton

Mrs. Daubeny embroiders a little, too, doesn’t she?

the archdeacon

She was very deft with her needle once, quite a Dorcas. But the gout has crippled her fingers a good deal. She has not touched the tambour frame for nine or ten years. But she has many other amusements. She is very much interested in her own health.