The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

8. Sliding door of his lantern. 1. Powerfully impressive. 9. Sudden chill.

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1674 / ROBERT Louis STEVENSON

pations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer me to muster.

"I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied civilly enough. "What you say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown its heels to my politeness. I come here at the instance2 of your colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of business of some moment; and I understood . . ." He paused and put his hand to his throat, and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria�"I understood, a drawer . . ."

But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some perhaps on my own growing curiosity. "There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the drawer, where it lay on the floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.

He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his heart: I could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed both for his life and reason.

"Compose yourself," said I.

He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision of despair, plucked away the sheet. At sight of the contents, he uttered one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified. And the next moment, in a voice that was already fairly well under control, "Have you a graduated' glass?" he asked.

1 rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him what he asked.

He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims4 of the red tincture and added one of the powders. The mixture, which was at first of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the crystals melted, to brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly, and to throw off small fumes of vapour. Suddenly and at the same moment, the ebullition' ceased and the compound changed to a dark purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green. My visitor, who had watched these metamorphoses with a keen eye, smiled, set down the glass upon the table, and then turned and looked upon me with an air of scrutiny.

"Aid now," said he, "to settle what remains. Will you be wise? will you be guided? will you suffer me to take this glass in my hand and to go forth from your house without further parley? or has the greed of curiosity too much command of you? Think before you answer, for it shall be done as you decide. As you decide, you shall be left as you were before, and neither richer nor wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a man in mortal distress may be counted as a kind of riches of the soul. Or, if you shall so prefer to choose, a new province of knowledge and new avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you, here, in this room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted by a prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan."

"Sir," said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from truly possessing, "you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder that I hear you with no very strong impression of belief. But I have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause before I see the end."

"It is well," replied my visitor. "Lanyon, you remember your vows: what follows is under the seal of our profession. And now, you who have so long been bound to the most narrow and material views, you who have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine, you who have derided your superiors� behold!"

2. Request. '/tsoth of an ounce). 3. Marked with lines to indicate quantities. 5. Bubbling. 4. Drops (a minim is a liquid measure equal to

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THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1675

He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected6 eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change�he seemed to swell�his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter�and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arm raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.

"O God!" I screamed, and "O God!" again and again; for there before my eyes�pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death�there stood Henry Jekyll!

What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to set on paper. I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and 1 cannot answer. My life is shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror sits by me at all hours of the day and night; I feel that my days are numbered, and that I must die; and yet I shall die incredulous. As for the moral turpitude that man unveiled to me, even with tears of penitence, I cannot, even in memory, dwell on it without a start of horror. I will say but one thing, Utterson, and that (if you can bring your mind to credit it) will be more than enough. The creature who crept into my house that night was, on Jekyll's own confession, known by the name of Hyde and hunted for in every corner of the land as the murderer of Carew.

HASTIE LANYON.

Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case

I was born in the year 18� to a large fortune, endowed besides with excellent parts,7 inclined by nature to industry, fond of the respect of the wise and good among my fellow-men, and thus, as might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honourable and distinguished future. And indeed the worst of my faults was a certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than commonly grave countenance before the public. Hence it came about that 1 concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame. It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man's dual nature. In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; 1 was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged

6. Swollen. 7. Abilities.

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1676 / ROBERT Louis STEVENSON

in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members. With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved day-dream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots8 were thus bound together�that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then, were they dissociated?

I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table. I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mist- like transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired. Certain agents I found to have the power to shake and to pluck back that fleshly vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion. For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific branch of my confession. First, because I have been made to learn that the doom and burthen of our life is bound forever on man's shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure. Second, because, as my narrative will make, alas! too evident, my discoveries were incomplete. Enough, then, that I not only recognised my natural body for the mere aura and effulgence of certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted, none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul.

I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of practice. I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity, might by the least scruple9 of an overdose or at the least

8. Bundles of sticks used for fuel. 9. A minute amount (literally, an apothecaries' weight equal to about 1.3 grams).

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THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1677

inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change. But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound, at last overcame the suggestions of alarm. I had long since prepared my tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists, a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided, with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and 1 came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a mill race1 in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine. I stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost in stature.

There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which stands beside me as I write, was brought there later on and for the very purpose of these transformations. The night, however, was far gone into the morning�the morning, black as it was, was nearly ripe for the conception of the day�the inmates of my house were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in my new shape as far as to my bedroom. I crossed the yard, wherein the constellations looked down upon me, I could have thought, with wonder, the first creature of that sort that their unsleeping vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.

I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know, but that which I suppose to be most probable. The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine-tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine. And in so far I was

1. Water current that drives a mill wheel.

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1678 / ROBERT Louis STEVENSON

doubtless right. I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.

1 lingered but a moment at the mirror: the second and conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying back to my cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup, once more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to myself once more with the character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.

That night I had come to the fatal cross roads. Had 1 approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prison-house of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth.2 At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly towards the worse.

Even at that time, I had not yet conquered my aversion to the dryness of a life of study. I would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing towards the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the time to be humorous; and I made my preparations with the most studious care. I took and furnished that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged as housekeeper a creature whom I well knew to be silent and unscrupulous. On the other side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to have full liberty and power about my house in the square; and to parry mishaps, I even called and made myself a familiar object, in my second character. I next drew up that will to which you so much objected; so that if anything befell me in the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss. And thus fortified, as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities of my position.

Men have before hired bravos' to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings4 and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it�I did not even exist! Let

2. Cf. Acts 16.26: when the apostle Paul and his 3. Thugs. friend Silas were imprisoned at Philippi, a city in 4. Borrowed clothing; a reference to King Lear's eastern Macedonia, an earthquake freed all the cry on the heath "Off, off you lendings!" (Shakeprisoners (none of whom fled). speare, King Lear 3.4.97).

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THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1679

me but escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll.

The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn towards the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar5 that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.

Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design of entering; I mean but to point out the warnings and the successive steps with which my chastisement approached. I met with one accident which, as it brought on no consequence, I shall no more than mention. An act of cruelty to a child aroused against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised the other day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor and the child's family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life; and at last, in order to pacify their too just resentment, Edward Hyde had to bring them to the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn in the name of Henry Jekyll. But this danger was easily eliminated from the future, by opening an account at another bank in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and when, by sloping my own hand backward, I had supplied my double with a signature, I thought I sat beyond the reach of fate.

Some two months before the murder of Sir Danvers, I had been out for one of my adventures, had returned at a late hour, and woke the next day in bed with somewhat odd sensations. It was in vain I looked about me; in vain I saw the decent furniture and tall proportions of my room in the square; in vain that I recognised the pattern of the bed curtains and the design of the mahogany frame; something still kept insisting that I was not where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to be, but in the little room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the body of Edward Hyde. I smiled to myself, and, in my psychological way began lazily to inquire into the elements of this illusion, occasionally, even as I did so, dropping back into a comfortable morning doze. I was still so engaged when, in one of my more wakeful moments, my eyes fell upon my hand. Now the hand of Henry Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was professional in shape and size: it was large, firm, white and comely. But the hand which I now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London morning, lying half shut on the bed clothes, was lean, corded, knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart6 growth of hair. It was the hand of Edward Hyde.

I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I was in the mere

5. Spirit or demon. 6. Dark.

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168 0 / ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and bounding from my bed, I rushed to the mirror. At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained? I asked myself; and then, with another bound of terror�how was it to be remedied? It was well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my drugs were in the cabinet�a long journey down two pair of stairs, through the back passage, across the open court and through the anatomical theatre, from where I was then standing horror-struck. It might indeed be possible to cover my face; but of what use was that, when I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature? And then with an overpowering sweetness of relief, it came back upon my mind that the servants were already used to the coming and going of my second self. I had soon dressed, as well as I was able, in clothes of my own size: had soon passed through the house, where Bradshaw stared and drew back at seeing Mr. Hyde at such an hour and in such a strange array; and ten minutes later, Dr. Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was sitting down, with a darkened brow, to make a feint of breakfasting.

Small indeed was my appetite. This inexplicable incident, this reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the Babylonian finger on the wall,7 to be spelling out the letters of my judgment; and I began to reflect more seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities of my double existence. That part of me which I had the power of projecting, had lately been much exercised and nourished; it had seemed to me of late as though the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though (when I wore that form) I were conscious of a more generous tide of blood; and I began to spy a danger that, if this were much prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine. The power of the drug had not been always equally displayed. Once, very early in my career, it had totally failed me; since then I had been obliged on more than one occasion to double, and once, with infinite risk of death, to treble the amount; and these rare uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole shadow on my contentment. Now, however, and in the light of that morning's accident, I was led to remark that whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but decidedly transferred itself to the other side. All things therefore seemed to point to this: that I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse.

Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a

7. In Daniel 5.5�31; the writing foretold the overthrow of Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, because of his transgressions against the Lord.

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THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1681

blow and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.

Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a resolute farewell to the liberty, the comparative youth, the light step, leaping impulses and secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde. I made this choice perhaps with some unconscious reservation, for I neither gave up the house in Soho, nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in my cabinet. For two months, however, I was true to my determination; for two months I led a life of such severity as I had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an approving conscience. But time began at last to obliterate the freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught.

I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these that I was punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall.

Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror. A mist dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene of these excesses, at once glorifying and trembling, my lust of evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the topmost peg.8 I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance doubly sure) destroyed my papers; thence I set out through the lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future, and yet still hastening and still hearkening in my wake for the steps of the avenger. Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the draught, and as he drank it, pledged9 the dead

8. Strained to the highest point. 9. Drank a toast to.

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1682 / ROBERT Louis STEVENSON

man. The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.1 I saw my life as a whole: I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had walked with my father's hand, and through the self- denying toils of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening. I could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my memory swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul. As the acuteness of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a sense of joy. The problem of my conduct was solved. Hyde was thenceforth impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the better part of my existence; and O, how I rejoiced to think it! with what willing humility, I embraced anew the restrictions of natural life! with what sincere renunciation, I locked the door by which I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under my heel!

The next day, came the news that the murder had been overlooked,2 that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and that the victim was a man high in public estimation. It was not only a crime, it had been a tragic folly. I think I was glad to know it; I think I was glad to have my better impulses thus buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the scaffold. Jekyll was now my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an instant, and the hands of all men would be raised to take and slay him.

I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good. You know yourself how earnestly in the last months of last year, I laboured to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for myself. Nor can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and innocent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for license. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea of that would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own person, that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it was as an ordinary secret sinner, that I at last fell before the assaults of temptation.

There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made my discovery. It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the Regent's Park3 was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with spring odours. I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then 1 smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vain-glorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shud

1. See Matthew 27.5 1: "the veil of the temple was 2. Seen from above. rent in twain, from the top to the bottom." 3. A large park in northwest London.

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THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1683

dering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn the faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde. A moment before I had been safe of all men's respect, wealthy, beloved�the cloth laying for me in the dining-room at home; and now I was the common quarry of mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to the gallows.

My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that, in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment. My drugs were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach them? That was the problem that (crushing my temples in my hands) I set myself to solve. The laboratory door I had closed. If I sought to enter by the house, my own servants would consign me to the gallows. I saw I must employ another hand, and thought of Lanyon. How was he to be reached? how persuaded? Supposing that I escaped capture in the streets, how was I to make my way into his presence? and how should I, an unknown and displeasing visitor, prevail on the famous physician to rifle the study of his colleague, Dr. Jekyll? Then I remembered that of my original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end.

Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I could, and summoning a passing hansom, drove to an hotel in Portland Street, the name of which I chanced to remember. At my appearance (which was indeed comical enough, however tragic a fate these garments covered) the driver could not conceal his mirth. I gnashed my teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury; and the smile withered from his face�happily for him�yet more happily for myself, for in another instant I had certainly dragged him from his perch. At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with so black a countenance as made the attendants tremble; not a look did they exchange in my presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led me to a private room, and brought me wherewithal to write. Hyde in danger of his life was a creature new to me; shaken with inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of murder, lusting to inflict pain. Yet the creature was astute; mastered his fury with a great effort of the will; composed his two important letters, one to Lanyon and one to Poole; and that he might receive actual evidence of their being posted, sent them out with directions that they should be registered.

Thenceforward, he sat all day over the fire in the private room, gnawing his nails; there he dined, sitting alone with his fears, the waiter visibly quailing before his eye; and thence, when the night was fully come, he set forth in the corner of a closed cab, and was driven to and fro about the streets of the city. He, I say�I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred. And when at last, thinking the driver had begun to grow suspicious, he discharged the cab and ventured on foot, attired in his misfitting clothes, an object marked out for observation, into the midst of the nocturnal passengers, these two base passions raged within him like a tempest. He walked fast, hunted by his fears, chattering to himself, skulking through the less frequented thoroughfares, counting the minutes that still

.

1684 / ROBERT Louis STEVENSON

divided him from midnight. Once a woman spoke to him, offering, I think, a box of lights.4 He smote her in the face, and she fled.

When I came to myself at Lanyon's, the horror of my old friend perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon these hours. A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me. I received Lanyon's condemnation partly in a dream; it was partly in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into bed. I slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me could avail to break. I awoke in the morning shaken, weakened, but refreshed. I still hated and feared the thought of the brute that slept within me, and I had not of course forgotten the appalling dangers of the day before; but I was once more at home, in my own house and close to my drugs; and gratitude for my escape shone so strong in my soul that it almost rivalled the brightness of hope.

I was stepping leisurely across the court after breakfast, drinking the chill of the air with pleasure, when I was seized again with those indescribable sensations that heralded the change; and I had but the time to gain the shelter of my cabinet, before I was once again raging and freezing with the passions of Hyde. It took on this occasion a double dose to recall me to myself; and alas! six hours after, as I sat looking sadly in the fire, the pangs returned, and the drug had to be re-administered. In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great effort as of gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll. At all hours of the day and night, I would be taken with the premonitory shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened. Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self. But when I slept, or when the virtue of the medicine wore off, I would leap almost without transition (for the pangs of transformation grew daily less marked) into the possession of a fancy brimming with images of terror, a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and a body that seemed not strong enough to contain the raging energies of life. The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred of

4. Matches.

.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE / 1685

Hyde for Jekyll, was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded. Hence the apelike tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.

It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought�no, not alleviation�but a certain callousness of soul, a certain acquiescence of despair; and my punishment might have gone on for years, but for the last calamity which has now fallen, and which has finally severed me from my own face and nature. My provision of the salt, which had never been renewed since the date of the first experiment, began to run low. I sent out for a fresh supply, and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed, and the first change of colour, not the second; I drank it and it was without efficiency. You will learn from Poole how I have had London ransacked; it was in vain; and I am now persuaded that my first supply was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity which lent efficacy to the draught.

About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement under the influence of the last of the old powders. This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his apelike spite. And indeed the doom that is closing on us both, has already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I shall again and forever reindue5 that hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless;6 this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.

1885 1886

5. Put on again. 6. Indifferent.

.

1686

OSCAR WILDE 1854-1900

In Oscar Wilde's comedy The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) there is an account of a rakish character, Ernest Worthing, whose death in a Paris hotel is reported by the manager. Five years later Wilde died in Paris (where he was living in exile) attended by a hotel manager. The coincidence seems a curious paradigm of Wilde's career, for the connections between his life and his art were unusually close. Indeed, in his last years he told Andre Gide that he seemed to have put his genius into his life and only his talent into his writings.

His father, Sir William, was a distinguished surgeon in Dublin, where Wilde was born and grew up. After studying classics at Trinity College, Dublin, he won a scholarship to Oxford and there established a brilliant academic record. At Oxford he came under the influence of the aesthetic theories of John Ruskin (who was at the time professor of fine arts) and, more important, of Walter Pater. With characteristic hyperbole Wilde affirmed of Pater's Studies in the Histor)' of the Renaissance (1873): "It is my golden book; I never travel anywhere without it. But it is the very flower of decadence; the last trumpet should have sounded the moment it was written."

After graduating in 1878, Wilde moved to London, where his fellow Irishmen Bernard Shaw and William Butler Yeats were also to settle. Here Wilde quickly established himself both as a writer and as a spokesperson for the school of "art for art's sake." In Wilde's view this school included not only French poets and critics but also a line of English poets going back through Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre- Raphaelites to John Keats. In 1882 he visited America for a long (and successful) lecture tour, during which he startled audiences by airing the gospel of the "aesthetic movement." In one of these lectures, he asserted that "to disagree with three fourths of all England on all points of view is one of the first elements of sanity."

For his role as a spokesperson for aestheticism, Wilde had many gifts. From all accounts he was a dazzling conversationalist. Yeats reported, after first listening to him: "I never before heard a man talking with perfect sentences, as if he had written them all overnight with labour and yet all spontaneous." Wilde delighted his listeners not only by his polished wordplay but also by uttering opinions that were both outrageous and incongruous�for example, his solemn affirmation that Queen Victoria was one of the three women he most admired and whom he would have married "with pleasure" (the other two were the actress Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry, reputedly a mistress of Victoria's son Edward, Prince of Wales).

In addition to his mastery of witty conversation, Wilde had the gifts of an actor who delights in gaining attention. Pater had been a very shy and reticent man, but there was nothing reticent about his disciple, who had early discovered that a flamboyant style of dress was one of the most effective means of gaining attention. Like the dandies of the earlier decades of the nineteenth century (including Benjamin Disraeli and Charles Dickens), Wilde favored colorful costumes in marked contrast to the sober black suits of the late-Victorian middle classes. A green carnation in his buttonhole and velvet knee breeches became for Wilde badges of his youthful iconoclasm; and even when he approached middle age, he continued to emphasize the gap between generations. In a letter written when he was forty-two years old, he remarks: "The opinions of the old on matters of Art are, of course, of no value whatever."

Wilde's campaign quickly gained an amused response from middle-class quarters. In 1881 W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan staged their comic opera Patience, which mocked the affectations of the aesthetes in the character of Bunthorne, especially in his song "If You're Anxious for to Shine in the High Aesthetic Line."

Wilde's successes for seventeen years in England and America were, of course, not limited to his self-advertising stunts as a dandy. In his writings he excelled in a variety of genres: as a critic of literature and of society {The Decay of Lying, 1889, and The

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IMPRESSION DU MATIN / 1687

Soul of Man under Socialism, 1891) and also as a novelist, poet, and dramatist. Much of his prose, including The Critic as Artist (1890), develops Pater's aestheticism, particularly its sense of the superiority of art to life and its lack of obligation to any standards of mimesis. His novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, which created a sensation when it was published in 1891, takes a somewhat different perspective. The novel is a strikingly ingenious story of a handsome young man and his selfish pursuit of sensual pleasures. Until the end of the book he remains fresh and healthy in appearance while his portrait mysteriously changes into a horrible image of his corrupted soul. Although the preface to the novel (reprinted here) emphasizes that art and morality are totally separate, in the novel, at least in its later chapters, Wilde seems to be portraying the evils of self-regarding hedonism.

As a poet Wilde felt overshadowed by the Victorian predecessors whom he admired�Robert Browning, D. G. Rossetti, and Algernon Charles Swinburne�and had trouble finding his own voice. Many of the poems in his first volume (1881) are highly derivative, but pieces such as "Impression du Matin" (1885) and "The Harlot's House" (1881) offer a distinctive perspective on city streets that seems to anticipate early poems by T. S. Eliot. His most outstanding success, however, was as a WTiter of comedies; staged in London and New York from 1892 through 1895, these included Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest.

In the spring of 1895 this triumphant success suddenly crumbled when Wilde was arrested and sentenced to prison, with hard labor, for two years. Although Wilde was married and the father of two children, he did not hide his relationships with men, and in fact ended up shaping, to his personal cost, a long-standing public image of "the homosexual." When he began a romance (in 1891) with the handsome young poet Lord Alfred Douglas, he set in motion the events that brought about his ruin. In 1895 Lord Alfred's father, the marquess of Queensberry, accused Wilde of homosexuality; Wilde recklessly sued for libel, lost the case, and was thereupon arrested and convicted for what had only recently come onto the statute books as a serious offense. (A late addition to the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885, known as the Labouchere Amendment after the member of Parliament who had proposed it, effectively criminalized all forms of sexual relations between men.) The revulsion of feeling against him in Britain and America was violent, and the aesthetic movement suffered a severe setback not only with the public but among writers as well.

His two years in jail led Wilde to write two sober and emotionally high-pitched works, his poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898) and his prose confession De Profundis (1905). After leaving prison, Wilde, a ruined man, emigrated to France, where he lived out the last three years of his life under an assumed name. Before his departure from England he had been divorced and declared a bankrupt, and in France he had to rely on friends for financial support. Wilde is buried in Paris in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

Impression du Matin1

The Thames nocturne of blue and gold2

Changed to a harmony in grey;

A barge with ochre-colored hay

Dropped from the wharf:3 and chill and cold

1. Impression of the morning (French). Wilde may be referring to an earlier painting by 2. Cf. the "Nocturnes" (paintings of nighttime Whistler, Harmony in Gray and Green: Miss Cicely scenes) by James McNeill Whistler in the 1870s. Alexander (1872-74). Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge 3. I.e., left the wharf and went down river with the was one of this series; it was painted by 1875 but ebb tide. given its present title in 1892. In the next line

.

1688 / OSCAR WILDE

5

The yellow fog came creeping down

The bridges, till the houses' walls

Seemed changed to shadows, and St. Paul's

Loomed like a bubble o'er the town.4

Then suddenly arose the clang

10 Of waking life; the streets were stirred

With country wagons; and a bird

Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.

But one pale woman all alone,

The daylight kissing her wan hair,

15 Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare,

With lips of flame and heart of stone.

1881

The Harlot's House

We caught the tread of dancing feet,

We loitered down the moonlit street,

And stopped beneath the Harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,

5 We heard the loud musicians play

The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.1

Like strange mechanical grotesques,

Making fantastic arabesques,

The shadows raced across the blind. io We watched the ghostly dancers spin

To sound of horn and violin,

Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,

Slim silhouetted skeletons

15 Went sidling through the slow quadrille,2 Then took each other by the hand,

And danced a stately saraband;3

Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed

20 A phantom lover to her breast,

Sometimes they seemed to try to sing,

4. I.e., the large dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1899). London. 2. An intricate dance involving four couples facing 1. Heart of True Love, a waltz by the Austrian com-each other in a square. poser and "Waltz King" Johann Strauss (1825� 3. A slow and stately dance, originating in Spain.

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THE CRITIC AS ARTIST / 168 9

Sometimes a horrible marionette

Came out, and smoked its cigarette

Upon the steps like a live thing.4

25 Then turning to my love I said,

"The dead are dancing with the dead,

The dust is whirling with the dust."

But she, she heard the violin,

And left my side, and entered in;

30 Love passed into the house of Lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,

The dancers wearied of the waltz,

The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl,

And down the long and silent street,

35 The dawn, with silver-sandaled feet,

Crept like a frightened girl.

1885, 1908

From The Critic as Artist1

[CRITICISM ITSELF AN ART]

ERNEST

Gilbert, you sound too harsh a note. Let us go back to the more

gracious fields of literature. What was it you said? That it was more difficult

to talk about a thing than to do it?

GILBERT

[After a pause.] Yes: I believe I ventured upon that simple truth.

Surely you see now that I am right? When man acts he is a puppet. When he

describes he is a poet. The whole secret lies in that. It was easy enough on

the sandy plains by windy Ilion2 to send the notched arrow from the painted

bow, or to hurl against the shield of hide and flamelike brass the long ash-

handled spear. It was easy for the adulterous queen to spread the Tyrian

carpets for her lord,3 and then, as he lay couched in the marble bath, to

throw over his head the purple net, and call to her smooth-faced lover to stab

through the meshes at the heart that should have broken at Aulis.4 For

4. In an illustration for the poem by Althea Gyles our actions it may be that those who call them( approved by Wilde), the marionette is pictured as selves good would be sickened by a dull remorse, a man in evening dress. and those whom the world calls evil stirred by a 1. In "the library of a house in Piccadilly," Gilbert noble joy." The excerpt printed here begins immeand Ernest, two sophisticated young men, are talk-diately following this digression. ing about the use and function of criticism. Earlier 2. Troy. Gilbert is referring to Homer's Iliad. in the dialogue Ernest had complained that criti-3. Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Aeschylus's cism is officious and useless: "Why should the art-tragedy of that name tells how his wife, Clytemist be troubled by the shrill clamour of criticism? nestra ("the adulterous queen"), and his cousin Why should those who cannot create take upon Aegisthus ("her smooth-faced lover") conspired to themselves to estimate the value of creative work?" murder him. He hubristically walked on carpets Gilbert, in his reply, argues that criticism is crea-dyed purple, a color derived from shellfish off Tyre tive in its own right. He digresses to compare the (a city located in what is today Lebanon). life of action unfavorably with the life of art: 4. Where Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter actions are dangerous and their results unpredict-Iphigenia (so that the Greek fleet could sail for able; "if we lived long enough to see the results of Troy), thus incurring Clytemnestra's wrath.

.

1690 / OSCAR WILDE

Antigone5 even, with Death waiting for her as her bridegroom, it was easy to pass through the tainted air at noon, and climb the hill, and strew with kindly earth the wretched naked corse that had no tomb. But what of those who wrote about these things? What of those who gave them reality, and made them live forever? Are they not greater than the men and women they sing of? "Hector that sweet knight is dead."6 And Lucian7 tells us how in the dim underworld Menippus saw the bleaching skull of Helen, and marveled that it was for so grim a favour that all those horned ships were launched, those beautiful mailed men laid low, those towered cities brought to dust. Yet, every day the swanlike daughter of Leda comes out on the battlements, and looks down at the tide of war. The greybeards wonder at her loveliness, and she stands by the side of the king.8 In his chamber of stained ivory lies her leman.'J He is polishing his dainty armour, and combing the scarlet plume. With squire and page, her husband passes from tent to tent. She can see his bright hair, and hears, or fancies that she hears, that clear cold voice. In the courtyard below, the son of Priam is buckling on his brazen cuirass. The white arms of Andromache1 are around his neck. He sets his helmet on the ground, lest their babe should be frightened. Behind the embroidered curtains of his pavilion sits Achilles,2 in perfumed raiment, while in harness of gilt and silver the friend of his souP arrays himself to go forth to fight. From a curiously carven chest that his mother Thetis had brought to his shipside, the Lord of the Myrmidons4 takes out that mystic chalice that the lip of man had never touched, and cleanses it with brimstone, and with fresh water cools it, and, having washed his hands, fills with black wine its burnished hollow, and spills the thick grape-blood upon the ground in honor of Him whom at Dodona5 barefooted prophets worshipped, and prays to Him, and knows not that he prays in vain, and that by the hands of two knights from Troy, Panthous' son, Euphorbus, whose love- locks were looped with gold, and the Priamid,6 the lion-hearted, Patroclus, the comrade of comrades, must meet his doom. Phantoms, are they? Heroes of mist and mountain? Shadows in a song? No: they are real. Action! What is action? It dies at the moment of its energy. It is a base concession to fact. The world is made by the singer for the dreamer.

ERNEST While you talk it seems to me to be so.

GILBER T It is so in truth. On the mouldering citadel of Troy lies the lizard like a thing of green bronze. The owl has built her nest in the palace of Priam. Over the empty plain wander shepherd and goatherd with their flocks, and where, on the wine-surfaced, oily sea, oivoip Jtovrog,7 as Homer

5. Antigone defied Creon, king of Thebes, by sprinkling earth on the body of her brother whose burial Creon had forbidden, and was punished by death; see Sophocles' play Antigone (ca. 441 B.C.E.). 6. Cf. Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost 5.2.647: "The sweet war-man [Hector] is dead and rotten." 7. Greek satirist (b. ca. 120 C.E.), one of whose main influences was Menippus (early 3rd century B.C.E.), a Greek philosopher who was the first to express his views in a seriocomic style. The reference is to Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead. 8. Priam. Homer in Iliad 3.156�58 describes the old men of Troy admiring the beauty of Helen, daughter of Leda and of Zeus (who came to Leda in the form of a swan).

9. Lover (i.e., Paris). 1. Wife of Hector, one of the sons of Priam and the finest Trojan warrior. 2. Son of Peleus and of the sea nymph Thetis; Achilles was the greatest Greek warrior fighting in the Trojan War. The scene set here is a tissue of recollections from the Iliad. 3. I.e., Patroclus. 4. Warriors who accompanied Achilles to Troy. 5. Seat of a very ancient oracle of Zeus. 6. The son of Priam, i.e., Hector. With Euphorbus's help he killed Patroclus, and in turn he was slain by Achilles. 7. Wine-dark sea (Greek).

.

THE CRITIC AS ARTIST / 1691

calls it, copper-prowed and streaked with vermilion, the great galleys of the

Danaoi8 came in their gleaming crescent, the lonely tunny-fisher9 sits in his

little boat and watches the bobbing corks of his net. Yet, every morning the

doors of the city are thrown open, and on foot, or in horse-drawn chariot,

the warriors go forth to battle, and mock their enemies from behind their

iron masks. All day long the fight rages, and when night comes the torches

gleam by the tents, and the cresset1 burns in the hall. Those who live in

marble or on painted panel know of life but a single exquisite instant, eternal

indeed in its beauty, but limited to one note of passion or one mood of calm.

Those whom the poet makes live have their myriad emotions of joy and

terror, of courage and despair, of pleasure and of suffering. The seasons

come and go in glad or saddening pageant, and with winged or leaden feet

the years pass by before them. They have their youth and their manhood,

they are children, and they grow old. It is always dawn for St. Helena, as

Veronese saw her at the window.2 Through the still morning air the angels

bring her the symbol of God's pain.3 The cool breezes of the morning lift

the gilt threads from her brow. On that little hill by the city of Florence,

where the lovers of Giorgione4 are lying, it is always the solstice of noon,

made so languorous by summer suns that hardly can the slim naked girl dip

into the marble tank the round bubble of clear glass, and the long fingers

of the lute player rest idly upon the chords. It is twilight always for the

dancing nymphs whom Corot5 set free among the silver poplars of France.

In eternal twilight they move, those frail diaphanous figures, whose trem

ulous white feet seem not to touch the dew-drenched grass they tread on.

But those who walk in epos,6 drama, or romance, see through the labouring

months the young moons wax and wane, and watch the night from evening

unto morning star, and from sunrise unto sunsetting can note the shifting

day with all its gold and shadow. For them, as for us, the flowers bloom and

wither, and the Earth, that Green-tressed Goddess as Coleridge calls her,7

alters her raiment for their pleasure. The statue is concentrated to one

moment of perfection. The image stained upon the canvas possesses no

spiritual element of growth or change. If they know nothing of death, it is

because they know little of life, for the secrets of life and death belong to

those, and those only, whom the sequence of time affects, and who possess

not merely the present but the future, and can rise or fall from a past of

glory or of shame. Movement, that problem of the visible arts, can be truly

realized by Literature alone. It is Literature that shows us the body in its

swiftness and the soul in its unrest. ERNES T Yes; I see now what you mean. But, surely, the higher you place the

creative artist, the lower must the critic rank. GILBERT Wh y so?

ERNES T Because the best that he can give us will be but an echo of rich

8. Greeks. liant colorist of his time. The painting is The Con9. Tuna-fishers. cert. 1. Metal basket holding fuel burned for illumina-5. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), tion, often hung from the ceiling. French painter best-known for his shimmering 2. One of the best-known works of the Italian trees. painter Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari, 1528� 6. Epic poetry. I 588) is Helena's Vision. 7. Cf. S. T. Coleridge's "Hymn to the Earth" 3. I.e., the cross. (1834), line 10, where Earth is called "Green4. Italian painter (ca. 1477-1511), the most bril-haired Goddess."

.

1692 / OSCAR WILDE

music, a dim shadow of clear-outlined form. It may, indeed, be that life is chaos, as you tell me that it is; that its martyrdoms are mean and its heroisms ignoble; and that it is the function of Literature to create, from the rough material of actual existence, a new world that will be more marvellous, more enduring, and more true than the world that common eyes look upon, and through which common natures seek to realize their perfection. But surely, if this new world has been made by the spirit and touch of a great artist, it will be a thing so complete and perfect that there will be nothing left for the critic to do. I quite understand now, and indeed admit most readily, that it is far more difficult to talk about a thing than to do it. But it seems to me that this sound and sensible maxim, which is really extremely soothing to one's feelings, and should be adopted as its motto by every Academy of Literature all over the world, applies only to the relations that exist between Art and Life, and not to any relations that there may be between Art and Criticism.

GILBER T But, surely, Criticism is itself an art. And just as artistic creation implies the working of the critical faculty, and, indeed, without it cannot be said to exist at all, so Criticism is really creative in the highest sense of the word. Criticism is, in fact, both creative and independent.

ERNES T Independent?

GILBER T Yes; independent. Criticism is no more to be judged by any low standard of imitation or resemblance than is the work of poet or sculptor. The critic occupies the same relation to the work of art that he criticizes as the artist does to the visible world of form and colour, or the unseen world of passion and of thought. He does not even require for the perfection of his art the finest materials. Anything will serve his purpose. And just as out of the sordid and sentimental amours of the silly wife of a small country doctor in the squalid village of Yonville-l'Abbaye, near Rouen, Gustave Flaubert8 was able to create a classic, and make a masterpiece of style, so, from subjects of little or of no importance, such as the pictures in this year's Royal Academy,9 or in any year's Royal Academy for that matter, Mr. Lewis Morris's poems, M. Ohnet's novels, or the plays of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones,1 the true critic can, if it be his pleasure so to direct or waste his faculty of contemplation, produce work that will be flawless in beauty and instinct with intellectual subtlety. Why not? Dullness is always an irresistible temptation for brilliancy, and stupidity is the permanent Bestia Trionfans2 that calls wisdom from its cave. To an artist so creative as the critic, what does subject matter signify? No more and no less than it does to the novelist and the painter. Like them, he can find his motives everywhere. Treatment is the test. There is nothing that has not in it suggestion or challenge. ERNES T But is Criticism really a creative art? GILBER T Why should it not be? It works with materials, and puts them into a form that is at once new and delightful. What more can one say of poetry? Indeed, I would call criticism a creation within a creation. For just as the

8. French novelist (1821-1880); the reference is (1848-1918) was a French novelist and dramatist; to his novel Madame Bovaiy (1857). and Jones (1851�1929) was one of the leading 9. The Royal Academy of Arts, founded in 1768, English playwrights of his time. holds an annual summer exhibition of new work. 2. Triumphant beast (Wilde's mixture of Italian 1. Wilde is mischievously suggesting his low opin-and Latin); a reference to Spaccio della Bestia ion of the contemporary writers just named. Morris Trionfante (Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast, (1833�1907) was a popular Welsh poet and essay-1 584), a philosophical allegory by the Italian phiist often ridiculed by the critics; Georges Ohnet losopher Giordano Bruno.

.

THE CRITIC AS ARTIST / 169 3

great artists, from Homer and Aeschylus, down to Shakespeare and Keats, did not go directly to life for their subject matter, but sought for it in myth, and legend, and ancient tale, so the critic deals with materials that others have, as it were, purified for him, and to which imaginative form and colour have been already added. Nay, more, I would say that the highest Criticism, being the purest form of personal impression, is in its way more creative than creation, as it has least reference to any standard external to itself, and is, in fact, its own reason for existing, and, as the Greeks would put it, in itself, and to itself, an end. Certainly, it is never trammeled by any shackles of verisimilitude. No ignoble considerations of probability, that cowardly concession to the tedious repetitions of domestic or public life, affect it ever. One may appeal from fiction unto fact. But from the soul there is no appeal.

ERNEST From the soul?

GILBER T Yes, from the soul. That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul. It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself. It is more delightful than philosophy, as its subject is concrete and not abstract, real and not vague. It is the only civilized form of autobiography, as it deals not with the events, but with the thoughts of one's life, not with life's physical accidents of deed or circumstance, but with the spiritual moods and imaginative passions of the mind. I am always amused by the silly vanity of those writers and artists of our day who seem to imagine that the primary function of the critic is to chatter about their second-rate work. The best that one can say of most modern creative art is that it is just a little less vulgar than reality, and so the critic, with his fine sense of distinction and sure instinct of delicate refinement, will prefer to look into the silver mirror or through the woven veil, and will turn his eyes away from the chaos and clamour of actual existence, though the mirror be tarnished and the veil be torn. His sole aim is to chronicle his own impressions. It is for him that pictures are painted, books written, and marble hewn into form.

ERNES T I seem to have heard another theory of Criticism.

GILBER T Yes: it has been said by one whose gracious memory we all revere,3 and the music of whose pipe once lured Proserpina from her Sicilian fields, and made those white feet stir, and not in vain, the Cumnor cowslips, that the proper aim of Criticism is to see the object as in itself it really is. But this is a very serious error, and takes no cognizance of Criticism's most perfect form, which is in its essence purely subjective, and seeks to reveal its own secret and not the secret of another. For the highest Criticism deals with art not as expressive but as impressive purely.

ERNEST But is that really so?

GILBER T Of course it is. Who cares whether Mr. Ruskin's views on Turner4 are sound or not? What does it matter? That mighty and majestic prose of his, so fervid and so fiery-colored in its noble eloquence, so rich in its elaborate symphonic music, so sure and certain, at its best, in subtle choice of

3. I.e., Matthew Arnold, whose poem "Thyrsis" passage about the "aim of Criticism," see Arnold's (1866; lines 91 � 100) evokes the legend of Proser-"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" pina, a goddess associated with the pastoral (1864; p. 1384). landscapes of Sicily. Arnold believed that it would 4. For John Ruskin's defense of the paintings of be "in vain" to summon Proserpina to visit the J. M. W. Turner, see Modern Painters (1843), Cumnor hills landscape (near Oxford), but Wilde's especially his praise of Turner's Tiie Slave Ship speaker here flatters Arnold that the summons was (p. 1321). so beautiful that it was "not in vain." For the prose

.

1694 / OSCAR WILDE

word and epithet, is at least as great a work of art as any of those wonderful sunsets that bleach or rot on their corrupted canvases in England's Gallery; greater indeed, one is apt to think at times, not merely because its equal beauty is more enduring, but on account of the fuller variety of its appeal, soul speaking to soul in those long-cadenced lines, not through form and colour alone, though through these, indeed, completely and without loss, but with intellectual and emotional utterance, with lofty passion and with loftier thought, with imaginative insight, and with poetic aim; greater, I always think, even as Literature is the greater art. Who, again, cares whether Mr. Pater has put into the portrait of Mona Lisa5 something that Leonardo never dreamed of? The painter may have been merely the slave of an archaic smile, as some have fancied, but whenever I pass into the cool galleries of the Palace of the Louvre, and stand before that strange figure "set in its marble chair in that cirque of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under sea," I murmur to myself, "She is older than the rocks among which she sits; like the vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned the secrets of the grave; and has been a diver in deep seas, and keeps their fallen day about her: and trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants; and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and, as St. Anne, the mother of Mary; and all this has been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and the hands." And I say to my friend, "The presence that thus so strangely rose beside the waters is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand years man had come to desire"; and he answers me, "Hers is the head upon which all 'the ends of the world are come,' and the eyelids are a little weary."

And so the picture becomes more wonderful to us than it really is, and reveals to us a secret of which, in truth, it knows nothing, and the music of the mystical prose is as sweet in our ears as was that flute-player's music that lent to the lips of La Gioconda6 those subtle and poisonous curves. Do you ask me what Leonardo would have said had any one told him of this picture that "all the thoughts and experience of the world had etched and moulded therein that which they had of power to refine and make expressive the outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of Rome, the reverie of the Middle Age with its spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias?" He would probably have answered that he had contemplated none of these things, but had concerned himself simply with certain arrangements of lines and masses, and with new and curious colour-harmonies of blue and green. And it is for this very reason that the criticism which I have quoted is criticism of the highest kind. It treats the work of art simply as a starting point for a new creation. It does not confine itself�let us at least suppose so for the moment�to discovering the real intention of the artist and accepting that as final. And in this it is right, for the meaning of any beautiful created thing is, at least, as much in the soul of him who looks at it, as it was in his soul who wrought it. Nay, it is rather the beholder who lends to the beautiful thing its myriad meanings, and makes it marvelous for us, and sets it in some new relation

5. All remaining references in this paragraph and 6. I.e., the Mona Lisa (the portrait was of the wife the first in the next are to Walter Paters Studies in of Francesco del Gioconda�hence "La Giothe History of the Renaissance (p. 1507). conda").

.

THE CRITIC AS ARTIST / 169 5

to the age, so that it becomes a vital portion of our lives, and symbol of what we pray for, or perhaps of what, having prayed for, we fear that we may receive. The longer I study, Ernest, the more clearly I see that the beauty of the visible arts is, as the beauty of music, impressive7 primarily, and that it may be marred, and indeed often is so, by any excess of intellectual intention on the part of the artist. For when the work is finished it has, as it were, an independent life of its own, and may deliver a message far other than that which was put into its lips to say. Sometimes, when I listen to the overture to Tannhauser,8 I seem indeed to see that comely knight treading delicately on the flower-strewn grass, and to hear the voice of Venus calling to him from the caverned hill. But at other times it speaks to me of a thousand different things, of myself, it may be, and my own life, or of the lives of others whom one has loved and grown weary of loving, or of the passions that man has known, or of the passions that man has not known, and so has sought for. Tonight it may fill one with that EPQ2 TQN AAYNATQN, that amour de I'impossible,9 which falls like a madness on many who think they live securely and out of reach of harm, so that they sicken suddenly with the poison of unlimited desire, and, in the infinite pursuit of what they may not obtain, grow faint and swoon or stumble. Tomorrow, like the music of which Aristotle and Plato tell us, the noble Dorian music of the Greek,1 it may perform the office of a physician, and give us an anodyne against pain, and heal the spirit that is wounded, and "bring the soul into harmony with all right things." And what is true about music is true about all the arts. Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.

ERNES T But is such work as you have talked about really criticism?

GILBER T It is the highest Criticism, for it criticizes not merely the individual work of art, but Beauty itself, and fills with wonder a form which the artist may have left void, or not understood, or understood incompletely.

ERNES T The highest Criticism, then, is more creative than creation, and the primary aim of the critic is to see the object as in itself it really is not; that is your theory, I believe?

GILBER T Yes, that is my theory. To the critic the work of art is simply a suggestion for a new work of his own, that need not necessarily bear any obvious resemblance to the thing it criticizes. The one characteristic of a beautiful form is that one can put into it whatever one wishes, and see in it whatever one chooses to see; and the Beauty, that gives to creation its universal and aesthetic element, makes the critic a creator in his turn, and whispers of a thousand different things which were not present in the mind of him who carved the statue or painted the panel or graved the gem.

It is sometimes said by those who understand neither the nature of the highest Criticism nor the charm of the highest Art, that the pictures that the critic loves most to write about are those that belong to the anecdotage

7. I.e., designed to create an impression of the senses. 8. The 1845 opera by Richard Wagner, based on the legend of a 14th-century German poet who fell under the spell of Venus and lived with her in a mountain, Horselberg. 9. Love of the impossible, in Greek (in capital letters, perhaps to give the effect of an inscription) and in French.

1. Both Plato (Republic 3) and Aristotle (Politics 8) praise the educational appropriateness of the Dorian mode (Aristotle calls it especially steady and manly), as opposed to eastern music; the Dorians were a people of ancient Greece, the last of the northern invaders (ca. 1100�950 B.C.E.) .

.

1 1696 / OSCAR WILDE

of painting, and that deal with scenes taken out of literature or history. But

this is not so. Indeed, pictures of this kind are far too intelligible. As a class,

they rank with illustrations, and even considered from this point of view are

failures, as they do not stir the imagination, but set definite bounds to it.

For the domain of the painter is, as I suggested before, widely different from

that of the poet. To the latter belongs life in its full and absolute entirety;

not merely the beauty that men look at, but the beauty that men listen to

also; not merely the momentary grace of form or the transient gladness of

colour, but the whole sphere of feeling, the perfect cycle of thought. The

painter is so far limited that it is only through the mask of the body that he

can show us the mystery of the soul; only through conventional images that

he can handle ideas; only through its physical equivalents that he can deal

with psychology. And how inadequately does he do it then, asking us to

accept the torn turban of the Moor for the noble rage of Othello, or a dotard

in a storm for the wild madness of Lear! Yet it seems as if nothing could

stop him. Most of our elderly English painters spend their wicked and

wasted lives in poaching upon the domain of the poets, marring their

motives by clumsy treatment, and striving to render, by visible form or col-

our, the marvel of what is invisible, the splendour of what is not seen. Their

pictures are, as a natural consequence, insufferably tedious. They have

degraded the invisible arts into the obvious arts, and the one thing not worth

looking at is the obvious. I do not say that poet and painter may not treat

of the same subject. They have always done so, and will always do so. But

while the poet can be pictorial or not, as he chooses, the painter must be

pictorial always. For a painter is limited, not to what he sees in nature, but

to what upon canvas may be seen.

And so, my dear Ernest, pictures of this kind will not really fascinate the

critic. He will turn from them to such works as make him brood and dream

and fancy, to works that possess the subtle quality of suggestion, and seem

to tell one that even from them there is an escape into a wider world. It is

sometimes said that the tragedy of an artist's life is that he cannot realize

his ideal. But the true tragedy that dogs the steps of most artists is that they

realize their ideal too absolutely. For, when the ideal is realized, it is robbed

of its wonder and its mystery, and becomes simply a new starting point for

an ideal that is other than itself. This is the reason why music is the perfect

type of art. Music can never reveal its ultimate secret. This, also, is the

explanation of the value of limitations in art. The sculptor gladly surrenders

imitative colour, and the painter the actual dimensions of form, because by

such renunciations they are able to avoid too definite a presentation of the

Real, which would be mere imitation, and too definite a realization of the

Ideal, which would be too purely intellectual. It is through its very incom

pleteness that Art becomes complete in beauty, and so addresses itself, not

to the faculty of recognition nor to the faculty of reason, but to the aesthetic

sense alone, which, while accepting both reason and recognition as stages

of apprehension, subordinates them both to a pure synthetic impression of

the work of art as a whole, and, taking whatever alien emotional elements

the work may possess, uses their very complexity as a means by which a

richer unity may be added to the ultimate impression itself. You see, then,

how it is that the aesthetic critic rejects these obvious modes of art that

have but one message to deliver, and having delivered it become dumb and

sterile, and seeks rather for such modes as suggest reverie and mood, and

.

PREFACE TO THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY / 1697

by their imaginative beauty make all interpretations true, and no interpre

tation final. Some resemblance, no doubt, the creative work of the critic

will have to the work that has stirred him to creation, but it will be such

resemblance as exists, not between Nature and the mirror that the painter

of landscape or figure may be supposed to hold up to her, but between

Nature and the work of the decorative artist. Just as on the flowerless carpets

of Persia, tulip and rose blossom indeed and are lovely to look on, though

they are not reproduced in visible shape or line; just as the pearl and purple

of the sea shell is echoed in the church of St. Mark at Venice; just as the

vaulted ceiling of the wondrous chapel at Ravenna is made gorgeous by the

gold and green and sapphire of the peacock's tail, though the birds of Juno2

fly not across it; so the critic reproduces the work that he criticizes in a

mode that is never imitative, and part of whose charm may really consist in

the rejection of resemblance, and shows us in this way not merely the mean

ing but also the mystery of Reauty, and, by transforming each art into lit

erature, solves once for all the problem of Art's unity.

Rut I see it is time for supper. After we have discussed some Chambertin

and a few ortolans,' we will pass on to the question of the critic considered

in the light of the interpreter.

ERNEST

Ah! you admit, then, that the critic may occasionally be allowed to

see the object as in itself it really is.

GILBERT 1

am not quite sure. Perhaps I may admit it after supper. There is a

subtle influence in supper.

1890, 1891

Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things.

The highest, as the lowest, form of criticism is a mode of auto

biography.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being

charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the

cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Reauty.

There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.

Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

The nineteenth-century dislike of Realism is the rage of Caliban1 seeing his

own face in a glass.

The nineteenth-century dislike of Romanticism is the rage of

Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass.

2. Peacocks, associated in classical mythology icate flavor. "Chambertin": one of the finest wines with the goddess Juno {in Greek, Hera) because of Burgundy. she is said to have set in the bird's tail the eyes of 1. The character in Shakespeare's The Tempest hundred-eyed Argus, who died in her service. who is half-human, half-monster. 3. Small birds esteemed by epicures for their del

.

1 1698 / OSCAR WILDE

The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist, but

the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.

No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be

proved.

No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is

an unpardonable mannerism of style.

No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.

Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art.

Vice and Virtue are to the artist materials for an art.

From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician.

From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new,

complex, and vital.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself. We

can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it.

The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

1891

The Importance of Being Earnest Of the four stage comedies by Wilde, his last, The Importance of Being Earnest, is generally regarded as his masterpiece. It was first staged in February 1895 and was an immediate hit. Only one critic failed to find it delightful; curiously, this was Wilde's fellow playwright from Ireland, Bernard Shaw, who, though amused, found Wilde's wit "hateful" and "sinister," and thought the play exhibited "real degeneracy." Despite Shaw's complaints, the first London production ran for eighty-six performances; but when Wilde was sentenced to prison, production ceased for several years. Shortly before his death it was revived in London and New York, and it has subsequently become a classic.

In its original version the play was in four acts. At the request of the stage producer, Wilde reduced it to three acts�the version almost always used in performances and

therefore the version reprinted here. A few of the notes in the text cite passages from

the four-act version.

The play was first published in 1899. Earlier, in an interview, Wilde had described his overall aim in writing it: "It has as its philosophy . . . that we should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality." Just before his death he remarked that although he was pleased with the "bright and happy" tone and temper of his play, he wished it might have had a "higher seriousness of intent." Later critics have found this seriousness of intent in the play's deconstruction of Victorian moral and social values. Like another Victorian masterpiece of the absurd, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), The Importance of Being Earnest empties manners and morals of their underlying sense to create a nominalist world where earnest is not a quality of character but a name, where words, to paraphrase Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass (1871), mean what you choose them to mean, neither more nor less.

The literary ancestry of Wilde's play has been variously identified. In its witty wordplay and worldly attitudes it has been likened to comedies of the Restoration period

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

such as William Congreve's Love for Love (1695). In its genial and lighthearted tone,

it has some affinities with the festive comedies of Shakespeare, such as Twelfth Night

(ca. 1601), and with Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer (1773). A more imme

diate predecessor was Engaged (1877), a comic play by W. S. Gilbert that anticipated

some of the burlesque effects exploited by Wilde, such as the inviolable imperturb

ability of the speakers and the interrupting of sentimental scenes by the consumption

of food. Gilbert's advice to the actors who were putting on his Engaged is worth citing

as a clue to how The Importance of Being Earnest may be most effectively imagined

as a stage representation: It is absolutely essential to the success of this piece that it should be played with

the most perfect earnestness and gravity throughout. . . . Directly the actors

show that they are conscious of the absurdity of their utterances the piece begins

to drag.

The Importance of Being Earnest

First Act

SCENE�Morning room in ALGERNON'S flat in Half-Moon Street.'

The room is luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in the adjoining room.

[LANE is arranging afternoon tea on the tahle, and after the music has ceased, ALGERNON enters.]

ALGERNON

Did you hear what I was playing, Lane?

LANE

I didn't think it polite to listen, sir.

ALGERNON

I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play accurately�anyone

can play accurately�but I play with wonderful expression. As far as the

piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I keep science for Life.

LANE Yes, sir.

ALGERNON

And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the cucumber

sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell?2 LANE Yes, sir. [Hands them on a salver.] ALGERNON [Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh! ... by

the way, Lane, I see from your book3 that on Thursday night, when Lord

Shoreham and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of cham

pagne are entered as having been consumed.

LANE

Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint.

ALGERNON

Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants invariably

drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.

LANE

I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have often

observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate

brand.

ALGERNON

Good Heavens! Is marriage so demoralizing as that?

LANE

I believe it is a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very little experience

of it myself up to the present. I have only been married once. That was in

1. A highly fashionable location (at the time of the summer home, which Wilde had visited. play) in the West End of London. 3. Cellar book, in which records were kept of 2. Bracknell is the name of a place in Berkshire wines. where the mother of Lord Alfred Douglas had her

.

1 1700 / OSCAR WILDE

consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young person. ALGERNON [Languidly.] I don't know that I am much interested in your family life, Lane.

LANE

No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of it myself.

ALGERNON

Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you. LANE Thank you, sir. [LANE goes out.] ALGERNON

Lane's views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the lower

orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of them? They

seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral responsibility.

[Enter LANE.]

LANE

Mr. Ernest Worthing. [Ewter JACK.] [LANE goes out. ] ALGERNON

How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town?

JACK

Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? Eating as usual, I see, Algy! ALGERNON [Stiffly.] I believe it is customary in good society to take some

slight refreshment at five o'clock. Where have you been since last Thursday? JACK [Sitting down on the sofa.] In the country. ALGERNON

What on earth do you do there? JACK [Pidling off his gloves.] When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

ALGERNON

And who are the people you amuse? JACK [Airily.] Oh, neighbours, neighbours. ALGERNON

Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?

JACK

Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.

ALGERNON

How immensely you must amuse them! [Goes over and takes sandwich.] By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?

JACK

Eh? Shropshire?4 Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why

cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young?

Who is coming to tea?

ALGERNON

Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen.

JACK

How perfectly delightful!

ALGERNON

Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won't quite approve of your being here.

JACK

May I ask why?

ALGERNON

My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly

disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you.

JACK

I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to

propose to her.

ALGERNON

I thought you had come up for pleasure? .. . I call that business.

JACK

How utterly unromantic you are!

ALGERNON

I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very roman

tic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal.

Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement

is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married,

I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

4. As we learn later, the estate is in Hertfordshire, about geography? No gentleman is accurate about a long distance from Shropshire. In the four-act geography. Why, 1 got a prize for geography when version of the play, when this discrepancy is I was at school. I can't be expected to know any- pointed out by Algernon, Jack replies: "My dear thing about it now." fellow! Surely you don't expect me to be accurate

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

JACK

I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was specially

invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.

ALGERNON

Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in Heaven�[JACK -puts out his hand to take a sandwich. ALGERNON at once interferes.] Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. [Takes one and eats it.]

JACK

Well, you have been eating them all the time. ALGERNON That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. [Takes plate from below.] Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen.

Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter. JACK [Advancing to table and helping himself. ] And very good bread and butter it is too.

ALGERNON

Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to eat

it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are not married

to her already, and I don't think you ever will be.

JACK

Why on earth do you say that?

ALGERNON

Well, in the first place, girls never marry the men they flirt with.

Girls don't think it right.

JACK

Oh, that is nonsense!

ALGERNON

It isn't. It is a great truth. It accounts for the extraordinary number

of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In the second place, I don't

give my consent.

JACK

Your consent!

ALGERNON

My dear fellow, Gwendolen is my first cousin. And before I allow

you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of Cecily.

[Rings bell.]

JACK

Cecily! What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by

Cecily? I don't know anyone of the name of Cecily.

[Enter LANE.]

ALGERNON

Bring me that cigarette case Mr. Worthing left in the smoking-

room the last time he dined here. LANE Yes, sir. [LANE goes out.] JACK

Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I wish

to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic letters to

Scotland Yard5 about it. I was very nearly offering a large reward.

ALGERNON

Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than usually hard up.6

JACK

There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is found.

[Enter LANE with the cigarette case on a salver. ALGERNON takes it at once, LANE goes out.]

ALGERNON

I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. [Opens case and examines if.] However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn't yours after all.

JACK

Of course it's mine. [Moving to him.] You have seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written inside.

It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.

ALGERNON

Oh! it is absurd to have a hard-and-fast rule about what one

should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture

depends on what one shouldn't read.

5. Police headquarters in London. 6. Short of money.

.

1 1702 / OSCAR WILDE

JACK

I am quite aware of the fact, and I don't propose to discuss modern

culture. It isn't the sort of thing one should talk of in private. I simply want

my cigarette case back.

ALGERNON

Yes; but this isn't your cigarette case. This cigarette case is a pres

ent from someone of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn't know

anyone of that name.

JACK

Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt.

ALGERNON

Your aunt!

JACK

Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells.7 Just give

it back to me, Algy.

ALGERNON [retreating to back of sofa. ] But why does she call herself little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? [Reading.] "From little Cecily with her fondest love."

JACK [Moving to sofa and kneeling upon it.] My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case. [Follows Algy round the room.]

ALGERNON

Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? "From little

Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack." There is no objection,

I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no matter what

her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I can't quite make

out. Besides, your name isn't Jack at all; it is Ernest.

JACK

It isn't Ernest; it's Jack.

ALGERNON

You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't Ernest. It's on your cards. Here is one of them. [Taking it from case.] "Mr. Ernest Worthing,

B. 4, The Albany."8 I'll keep this as a proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or to Gwendolen, or to anyone else. [Puts the card in his pocket.] JACK

Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the

cigarette case was given to me in the country.

ALGERNON

Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small Aunt

Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. Come, old

boy, you had much better have the thing out at once.

JACK

My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces a false impression. ALGERNON Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you of being

a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and 1 am quite sure of it now.

JACK

Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist?

ALGERNON

I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as

soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and

Jack in the country.

JACK

Well, produce my cigarette case first.

ALGERNON

Here it is. [Hands cigarette case.] Now produce your explanation, and pray make it improbable. [Sits on so/a.]

7. A fashionable resort town south of London. (brother of George IV) near Piccadilly that had 8. A former residence of the duke of Albany been converted into elegant apartments.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

JACK My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation at

all. In fact it's perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who adopted

me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his granddaugh

ter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from

motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, lives at my place

in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, Miss Prism.

ALGERNON

Where is that place in the country, by the way?

JACK That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited. .. . I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire. ALGERNON

I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over Shrop

shire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in town

and Jack in the country?

JACK My dear Algy, I don't know whether you will be able to understand my

real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in the

position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects.

It's one's duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly be said to

conduce very much to either one's health or one's happiness, in order to get

up to town I have always pretended to have a younger brother of the name

of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes.

That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and simple.

ALGERNON

The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be

very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

JACK

That wouldn't be at all a bad thing.

ALGERNON

Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't try it.

You should leave that to people who haven't been at a University. They do

it so well in the daily papers. What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was

quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most

advanced Bunburyists I know.

JACK

What on earth do you mean?

ALGERNON

You have invented a very useful young brother called Ernest, in

order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have

invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I

may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is

perfectly invaluable. If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for

instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's tonight, for I have

been really engaged9 to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

JACK

I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere tonight.

ALGERNON

I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations.

It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving

invitations.

JACK

You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta.

ALGERNON

I haven't the smallest intention of doing anything of the kind. To

begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite enough to

dine with one's own relations. In the second place, whenever I do dine there

I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent down with' either

no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know perfectly well whom she

will place me next to, tonight. She will place me next Mary Farquhar, who

always flirts with her own husband across the dinner table. That is not very

pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent . . . and that sort of thing is enor

9. I.e., committed to attend her dinner party. St. James's Street, in the center of London. "Willis's": a first-class restaurant in the vicinity of 1. I.e., required to escort, as a dinner partner.

.

1 1704 / OSCAR WILDE

mously on the increase. The amount of women in London who flirt with

their own husbands is perfectly scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply

washing one's clean linen in public. Besides, now that I know you to be a

confirmed Bunburyist, I naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I

want to tell you the rules.

JACK

I'm not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going to kill

my brother, indeed I think I'll kill him in any case. Cecily is a little too much

interested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am going to get rid of Ernest. And

I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr. . . . with your invalid friend

who has the absurd name.

ALGERNON

Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever get

married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very glad to

know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very

tedious time of it.

JACK

That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and she

is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I certainly won't

want to know Bunbury.

ALGERNON

Then your wife will. You don't seem to realize, that in married life three is company and two is none. JACK [Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years.2

ALGERNON

Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the time.

JACK

For heaven's sake, don't try to be cynical. It's perfectly easy to be cynical.

ALGERNON

My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's such a lot of beastly competition about. [The sound of an electric bell is heard.] Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, ever ring in that

Wagnerian manner.3 Now, if I get her out of the way for ten minutes, so

that you can have an opportunity for proposing to Gwendolen, may I dine

with you tonight at Willis's?

JACK

I suppose so, if you want to.

ALGERNON

Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are not

serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.

[Enter LANE.]

LANE

Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax.

[ALGERNON goes forward to meet them. Enter LADY BRACKNELL and

GWENDOLEN.]

LADY BRACKNELL

Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving

very well.

ALGERNON

I'm feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.

LADY BRACKNELL

That's not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely

go together. [Sees JACK and bows to him with icy coldness.] ALGERNON [To GWENDOLEN.] Dear me, you are smart!4 GWENDOLEN

I am always smart! Aren't I, Mr. Worthing?

JACK

You're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.

GWENDOLEN

Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for develop

2. Almost all the plays by the leading French play-"almost universal" in the French theater. wrights of the second half of the 19th century 3. Insistently loud, like some of the music in the (Alexandre Dumasfils, Emile Augier, andVictorien large-scale operas of Richard Wagner (1813� Sardou) focus on marital infidelity. As Brander 1883). Matthews, an American critic, noted in 1882, "the 4. Elegantly fashionable. trio�husband, wife, and lover" had become

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

ments, and I intend to develop in many directions. [ GWENDOLEN and JACK sit doivn together in the corner. ]

LADY BRACKNELL

I'm sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was obliged

to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn't been there since her poor husband's

death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty years younger.

And now I'll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice cucumber sandwiches you promised me.

ALGERNON Certainly, Aunt Augusta. [Goes over to tea-table.]

LADY BRACKNELL

Won't you come and sit here, Gwendolen?

GWENDOLEN

Thanks, mamma,5 I'm quite comfortable where I am. ALGERNON [Picking wp empty plate in horror.] Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially. LANE [Gravely.] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, sir. I went down twice.

ALGERNON No cucumbers!

LANE

NO, sir. Not even for ready money.6

ALGERNON That will do, Lane, thank you.

LANE

Thank you, sir.

ALGERNON I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no cucumbers, not even for ready money. LADY BRACKNELL

It really makes no matter, Algernon. I had some crumpets7

with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for pleasure now.

ALGERNON

I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief.

LADY BRACKNELL

It certainly has changed its colour. From what cause I, of course, cannot say. [ALGERNON crosses and hands tea.] Thank you. I've quite a treat for you tonight, Algernon. I am going to send you down with Mary

Farquhar. She is such a nice woman, and so attentive to her husband. It's

delightful to watch them.

ALGERNON

I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the pleasure of

dining with you tonight after all.

LADY BRACKNELL

[Frowning.] I hope not, Algernon. It would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs.8 Fortunately he is

accustomed to that.

ALGERNON

It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a terrible disappointment

to me, but the fact is I have just had a telegram to say that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. [Exchanges glances with JACK.] They seem to think I should be with him.

LADY BRACKNELL

It is very strange. This Mr. Bunbury seems to suffer from curiously bad health.

ALGERNON

Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid. LADY BRACKNELL Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. This

shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of

the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind

is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of

life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take

much notice .. . as far as any improvement in his ailments goes. I should

5. Pronounced with the accent on the second syl-7. Round griddle breads, served toasted. lable. 8. Because otherwise she would have more 6. Immediate payment in cash (rather than on women than men at the table. credit).

.

1 1706 / OSCAR WILDE

be obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not

to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me.

It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage con

versation, particularly at the end of the season9 when everyone has practi

cally said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not

much.

ALGERNON I'll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still conscious, and I think I can promise you he'll be all right by Saturday. Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music, people don't talk. But I'll run over the program I've drawn out, if you will kindly come into the next room for a moment. LADY BRACKNELL Thank you, Algernon. It is very thoughtful of you. [Rising, and following ALGERNON.] I'm sure the program will be delightful, after a few expurgations. French songs I cannot possibly allow. People always seem to think that they are improper, and either look shocked, which is vulgar, or laugh, which is worse. But German sounds a thoroughly respectable language, and indeed, I believe is so. Gwendolen, you will accompany me. GWENDOLEN

Certainly, mamma.

[LADY BRACKNELL and ALGERNON go into the music room, GWENDOLEN remains behind.]

JACK Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax.

GWENDOLEN

Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. When

ever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that

they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.

JACK I do mean something else.

GWENDOLEN

I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong.

JACK

And I would like to be allowed to take advantage of Lady Bracknell's

temporary absence . . .

GWENDOLEN

I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of

coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her

about.

JACK [Nei~vously. ] Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any girl .. . I have ever met since .. . I met you. GWENDOLEN

Yes, I am quite aware of the fact. And I often wish that in public,

at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you have always had

an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was far from indifferent

to you. [JACK looks at her in amazement.] We live, as I hope you know, Mr.

Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is constantly mentioned in the more

expensive monthly magazines, and has reached the provincial pulpits, I am

told: and my ideal has always been to love someone of the name of Ernest.

There is something in that name that inspires absolute confidence. The

moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest,

I knew I was destined to love you.

JACK

You really love me, Gwendolen?

GWENDOLEN

Passionately!

JACK

Darling! You don't know how happy you've made me.

GWENDOLEN

My own Ernest!

JACK

But you don't really mean to say that you couldn't love me if my name

wasn't Ernest?

9. The social season, extending from May through July, when people of fashion came into London from their country estates for entertainments and parties.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 1707

GWENDOLEN But your name is Ernest.

JACK

Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to

say you couldn't love me then? GWENDOLEN [Glibly.] Ah! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual

facts of real life, as we know them.

JACK

Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don't much care about

the name of Ernest .. . I don't think the name suits me at all. GWENDOLEN It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own. It produces vibrations.

JACK

Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other

much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name. GWENDOLEN Jack? . . . No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations. .. . I

have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than

usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity

any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never

be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment's solitude.

The only really safe name is Ernest.

JACK

Gwendolen, I must get christened at once�I mean we must get married

at once. There is no time to be lost.

GWENDOLEN

Married, Mr. Worthing? JACK [Astounded. ] Well . . . surely. You know that I love you, and you led me to believe, Miss Fairfax, that you were not absolutely indifferent to me.

GWENDOLEN

I adore you. But you haven't proposed to me yet. Nothing has

been said at all about marriage. The subject has not even been touched on. JACK Well . . . may I propose to you now? GWENDOLEN

I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare you

any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing, I think it only fair to tell you

quite frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you. JACK Gwendolen! GWENDOLEN

Yes, Mr. Worthing, what have you got to say to me?

JACK

YOU know what I have got to say to you. GWENDOLEN

Yes, but you don't say it. JACK Gwendolen, will you marry me? [Goes on his knees.] GWENDOLEN

Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! I

am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose.

JACK

My own one, I have never loved anyone in the world but you.

GWENDOLEN

Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother

Gerald does. All my girlfriends tell me so. What wonderfully blue eyes you

have, Ernest! They are quite, quite blue. I hope you will always look at me

just like that, especially when there are other people present.

[Enter LADY BRACKNELL.]

LADY RRACKNELL

Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture.

It is most indecorous. GWENDOLEN Mamma! [He tries to rise; she restrains him.] I must beg you to retire. This is no place for you. Besides, Mr. Worthing has not quite finished

yet.

LADY BRACKNELL

Finished what, may I ask?

GWENDOLEN

I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma.

[They rise together.]

LADY BRACKNELL

Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do

.

1 1708 / OSCAR WILDE

become engaged to someone, I, or your father, should his health permit

him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young

girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a

matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself. . . . And now I have

a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am making these

inquiries, you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage. GWENDOLEN [Reproachfully.] Mamma! LADY BRACKNELL

In the carriage, Gwendolen! [GWENDOLEN goes to the door. She and JACK blow kisses to each other behind LADY BRACKNELL'S back, LADY BRACKNELL looks vaguely about as if she coidd not understand what the noise was. Finally turns round.] Gwendolen, the carriage!

GWENDOLEN Yes, mamma. [Goes out, looking back at JACK.] LADY BRACKNELL [Sitting down.] You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing. [Looks in her pocket for notebook and pencil.]

JACK

Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing. LADY BRACKNELL [Pencil and notebook in hand.] I feel bound to tell you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I have the same

list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, in fact. However,

I am quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really

affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?

JACK

Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.

LADY BRACKNELL

I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an occu

pation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it is.

How old are you?

JACK

Twenty-nine.

LADY BRACKNELL

A very good age to be married at. I have always been of

opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything

or nothing. Which do you know? JACK [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell. LADY BRACKNELL

I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything that

tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit;

touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is

radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces

no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper

classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.1 What

is your income?

JACK

Between seven and eight thousand a year. LADY BRACKNELL [Makes a note in her book.] In land, or in investments? JACK

In investments, chiefly.

LADY BRACKNELL

That is satisfactory. What between the duties expected of

one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's death,2

land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one position, and

prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be said about land.

JACK

I have a country house with some land, of course, attached to it, about

fifteen hundred acres, I believe; but I don't depend on that for my real

income. In fact, as far as I can make out, the poachers are the only people

who make anything out of it.

LADY BRACKNELL

A country house! How many bedrooms? Well, that point

1. A fashionable residential area in the West End 2. The wordplay is on "death duties"�i.e., inherof London. itance taxes.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

can be cleared up afterwards. You have a town house, I hope? A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the country.

JACK Well, I own a house in Belgrave Square,3 but it is let by the year to Lady Bloxham. Of course, I can get it back whenever I like, at six months' notice.

LADY BRACKNELL

Lady Bloxham? I don't know her.

JACK Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady considerably advanced in years. LADY BRACKNELL

Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character. What number in Belgrave Square?

JACK 149. LADY BRACKNELL [Shaking her head..] The unfashionable side. I thought there was something. However, that could easily be altered.

JACK Do you mean the fashion, or the side? LADY BRACKNELL [Sternly.] Both, if necessary, I presume. What are your politics? JACK

Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.4

LADY BRACKNELL

Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening, at any rate. Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?

JACK

I have lost both my parents.

LADY BRACKNELL

Both? To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune� to lose both seems like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of aristocracy?

JACK

1 am afraid I really don't know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me. .. . I don't actually know who I am by birth. I was . . . well, I was found.

LADY BRACKNELL Found!

JACK

The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside resort.

LADY BRACKNELL

Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class ticket for this seaside resort find you?

JACK [Gravely.] In a handbag. LADY BRACKNELL A handbag?

JACK [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a handbag�A somewhat large, black leather handbag, with handles to it�an ordinary handbag, in fact. LADY BRACKNELL

In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary handbag?

JACK

In the cloak room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.5 LADY BRACKNELL The cloak room at Victoria Station?

3. Another fashionable residential area in the 5. In the four-act version of the play, Jack explains West End. further what happened to Mr. Cardew: "He did not 4. A splinter group of members of the Liberal discover the error till he arrived at his own house. Party who in 1886, led by Joseph Chamberlain, All subsequent efforts to ascertain who I was were joined forces with the Conservative Party (the unavailing." "Tories") in opposing home rule for Ireland.

.

1 1710 / OSCAR WILDE

JACK Yes. The Brighton line. LADY BRACKNELL The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate, bred in a handbag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular locality in which the handbag was found, a cloak room at a railway station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion�has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before now�but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society. JACK

May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen's happiness.

LADY BRACKNELL

I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and

acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to

produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.6

JACK

Well, I don't see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce

the handbag at any moment, it is in my dressing room at home. I really think

that should satisfy you, Lady Rracknell.

LADY BRACKNELL

Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine

that I and Lord Rracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter�a

girl brought up with the utmost care�to marry into a cloak room, and form

an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing!

[LADY BRACKNELL sweeps out in majestic indignation.]

JACK Good morning! [ALGERNON, from the other room, strikes up the Wedding March, JACK looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door.] For goodness' sake don't play that ghastly tune, Algy! How idiotic you are! [The music stops, and ALGERNON enters cheerily.] ALGERNON Didn't it go off all right, old boy? You don't mean to say Gwendolen refused you? I know it is a way she has. She is always refusing people. I think it is most ill-natured of her. JACK

Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet.7 As far as she is concerned, we

are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgons

.. . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady

Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, without being a myth, which

is rather unfair .. . I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn't talk about

your own aunt in that way before you.

ALGERNON

My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only

thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious

pack of people who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor

the smallest instinct about when to die.

JACK

Oh, that is nonsense!

6. In the four-act version of the play, Jack later are certainly not popular just at present. . . . They comments to Algernon about Lady Bracknell's are like these chaps, the minor poets. They are demands about locating parents: "After all what never quoted." does it matter whether a man has ever had a father 7. Proverbial expression meaning reliably steady, and mother or not? Mothers, of course, are all like a tripod ("trivet") used to support pots over a right. They pay a chap's bills and don't bother him. (ire. But fathers bother a chap and never pay his bills. 8. In classical mythology a snake-haired female I don't know a single chap at the club who speaks monster; at the sight of her, other creatures turned to his father." And Algernon remarks: "Yes. Fathers to stone.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

ALGERNON

It isn't!

JACK

Well, I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue about

things.

ALGERNON

That is exactly what things were originally made for.

JACK

Upon my word, if 1 thought that, I'd shoot myself. . . [A pause.] You don't think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in

about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

ALGERNON

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No

man does. That's his.

JACK

IS that clever? ALGERNON

It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be.

JACK

I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You

can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an

absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.

ALGERNON

We have.

JACK

I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about?

ALGERNON

The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course.

JACK

What fools!

ALGERNON

By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country? JACK [In a very patronizing manner.] My dear fellow, the truth isn't quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice sweet refined girl. What extraordinary ideas

you have about the way to behave to a woman!

ALGERNON

The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to9 her, if she

is pretty, and to someone else if she is plain. JACK Oh, that is nonsense. ALGERNON

What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

JACK

Oh, before the end of the week I shall have got rid of him. I'll say he

died in Paris of apoplexy. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite suddenly,

don't they?

ALGERNON

Yes, but it's hereditary, my dear fellow. It's a sort of thing that

runs in families. You had much better say a severe chill.

JACK

You are sure a severe chill isn't hereditary, or anything of that kind?

ALGERNON

Of course it isn't!

JACK

Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly in Paris,

by a severe chill. That gets rid of him.1

ALGERNON

But I thought you said that . . . Miss Cardew was a little too much

interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won't she feel his loss a good deal?

JACK

Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say.

She has got a capital appetite, goes on long walks, and pays no attention at

all to her lessons.

ALGERNON

I would rather like to see Cecily.

JACK

I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively pretty, and

she is only just eighteen.

ALGERNON

Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty

ward who is only just eighteen? 9. Woo, court. mourning. I think that all black, with a good pearl 1. In the four-act version of the play, Jack explains pin, rather smart. Then I'll go down home and further: "I'll wear mourning for him, of course; that break the news to my household." would be only decent. I don't at all mind wearing

.

1 1712 / OSCAR WILDE

JACK

Oh! one doesn't blurt these things out to people. Cecily and Gwendolen

are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet you anything you

like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other

sister.

ALGERNON

Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of

other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at Willis's,

we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven? JACK [Irritably.] Oh! it always is nearly seven. ALGERNON

Well, I'm hungry.

JACK

1 never knew you when you weren't. . . .

ALGERNON

What shall we do after dinner? Go to the theatre?

JACK

Oh no! I loathe listening.

ALGERNON

Well, let us go to the club?

JACK

Oh, no! I hate talking.

ALGERNON

Well, we might trot around to the Empire2 at ten?

JACK

Oh no! I can't bear looking at things. It is so silly.

ALGERNON

Well, what shall we do?

JACK

Nothing!

ALGERNON

It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind hard

work where there is no definite object of any kind.

[Enter LANE.]

LANE

Miss Fairfax.

[Enter GWENDOLEN, LANE goes out.]

ALGERNON

Gwendolen, upon my word!

GWENDOLEN

Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very particular to say to Mr. Worthing.

ALGERNON

Really, Gwendolen, I don't think I can allow this at all.

GWENDOLEN

Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards life. You are not quite old enough to do that. [ALGERNON retires to the fireplace.] JACK

My own darling! GWENDOLEN Ernest, we may never be married. From the expression on mamma's face I fear we never shall. Few parents nowadays pay any regard

to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young

is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I lost at the

age of three. But although she may prevent us from becoming man and wife,

and I may marry someone else, and marry often, nothing that she can pos

sibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you.

JACK

Dear Gwendolen!

GWENDOLEN

The story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma,

with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the deeper fibres of my

nature. Your Christian name has an irresistible fascination. The simplicity

of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to me. Your town

address at the Albany I have. What is your address in the country?

JACK

The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire.

[ALGERNON, who has been carefully listening, smiles to himself, and writes the address on his shirt-cuff.3 Then picks up the Railway Guide.]

GWENDOLEN

There is a good postal service, I suppose? It may be necessary

to do something desperate. That of course will require serious consideration.

I will communicate with you daily.

2. A music hall in Leicester Square that featured 3. Because shirt cuffs were heavily starched they light entertainment. provided a good surface on which to make notes.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 2 / 1713

JACK My own one!

GWENDOLEN

How long do you remain in town? JACK Till Monday. GWENDOLEN

Good! Algy, you may turn round now.

ALGERNON

Thanks, I've turned round already.

GWENDOLEN

YOU may also ring the bell. JACK

You will let me see you to your carriage, my own darling?

GWENDOLEN

Certainly. JACK [To LANE, who now enters.] I will see Miss Fairfax out. LANE Yes, sir. [JACK and GWENDOLEN go off.]

[LANE presents several letters on a salver to ALGERNON. It is to he surmised that they are hills, as ALGERNON after looking at the envelopes, tears them up.]

ALGERNON

A glass of sherry, Lane.

LANE Yes, sir.

ALGERNON

Tomorrow, Lane, I'm going Bunburying.

LANE Yes, sir. ALGERNON I shall probably not be back till Monday. You can put up my dress

clothes, my smoking jacket,4 and all the Bunbury suits . . . LANE Yes, sir. [Handing sherry.] ALGERNON I hope tomorrow will be a fine day, Lane. LANE

It never is, sir.

ALGERNON

Lane, you're a perfect pessimist.

LANE

I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.

[Enter JACK, LANE goes off.]

JACK There's a sensible, intellectual girl! the only girl I ever cared for in my life. [ALGERNON is laughing immoderately.] What on earth are you so amused at?

ALGERNON Oh, I'm a little anxious about poor Bunbury, that is all. JACK

If you don't take care, your friend Bunbury will get you into a serious

scrape some day.

ALGERNON

I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never serious.

JACK

Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense.

ALGERNON

Nobody ever does.

[JACK looks indignantly at him, and leaves the room. ALGERNON lights a cigarette, reads his shirt-cuff, and smiles.]

ACT-DROP5

Second Act

SCENE�Garden at the Manor House. A flight of grey stone steps leads up to the house. The garden, an old-fashioned one, full of roses. Time of year, July. Basket chairs, and a table covered with hooks, are set under a large yew tree.

[MISS PRISM6 discovered seated at the table, CECILY is at the back watering flowers.]

4. Coat worn when gentlemen assembled in a scenes. room designated for smoking. The object was to 6. The name recalls Charles Dickens's Little Doravoid contaminating their regular clothing with the rit (1855�57), in which Mrs. General, a prim and smell of cigars or pipes, which was considered proper teacher of manners for young ladies, trains offensive to ladies. "Put up": pack up. them to repeat "prunes and prism" aloud because 5. A special curtain lowered during theatrical per-this exercise "gives a pretty form to the lips." formances to denote intervals between acts or

.

1 1714 / OSCAR WILDE

MISS PRISM [Calling.] Cecily, Cecily! Surely such a utilitarian occupation as the watering of flowers is rather Moulton's duty than yours? Especially at a moment when intellectual pleasures await you. Your German grammar is on the table. Pray open it at page fifteen. We will repeat yesterday's lesson.

CECILY [Coming over very slowly.] But I don't like German. It isn't at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson.

MISS PRISM Child, you know how anxious your guardian is that you should

improve yourself in every way. He laid particular stress on your German, as

he was leaving for town yesterday. Indeed, he always lays stress on your

German when he is leaving for town.

CECILY Dear Uncle Jack is so very serious! Sometime he is so serious that I

think he cannot be quite well.

MISS PRISM

[Drawing herself up.] Your guardian enjoys the best of health, and his gravity of demeanour is especially to be commended in one so com

paratively young as he is. I know no one who has a higher sense of duty and

responsibility.

CECILY

I suppose that is why he often looks a little bored when we three are

together.

MISS PRISM

Cecily! I am surprised at you. Mr. Worthing has many troubles

in his life. Idle merriment and triviality would be out of place in his con

versation. You must remember his constant anxiety about that unfortunate

young man his brother.

CECILY

I wish Uncle Jack would allow that unfortunate young man, his brother, to come down here sometimes. We might have a good influence over him, Miss Prism. I am sure you certainly would. You know German, and geology, and things of that kind influence a man very much, [CECILY

begins to write in her diary.] MISS PRISM [Shaking her head.] I do not think that even I could produce any effect on a character that according to his own brother's admission is irre

trievably weak and vacillating. Indeed I am not sure that I would desire to

reclaim him. I am not in favor of this modern mania for turning bad people

into good people at a moment's notice. As a man sows so let him reap.7 You

must put away your diary, Cecily. I really don't see why you should keep a

diary at all.

CECILY

I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I

didn't write them down I should probably forget all ahout them. Miss PRISM Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.

CECILY

Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened,

and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible

for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie8 sends us.

MISS PRISM

Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I

wrote one myself in earlier days.

CECILY

Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope

it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me

so much.

7. Cf. Calatians 6.7. tales) to subscribers for a moderate fee. Mudie's 8. Mudie's Circulating Library, which lent copies power in controlling the book market, especially of new three-volume novels (usually sentimental for novels, was on the wane by 1895.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

MISS PRISM

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what

Fiction means. CECILY I suppose so. But it seems very unfair. And was your novel ever published?

MISS PRISM

Alas! no. The manuscript unfortunately was abandoned. I use

the word in the sense of lost or mislaid. To your work, child, these specu

lations are profitless. CECILY [Smiling.] But I see dear Dr. Chasuble9 coming up through the garden. MISS PRISM [Rising and advancing.] Dr. Chasuble! This is indeed a pleasure. [Enter CANON CHASUBLE.]

CHASUBLE

And how are we this morning? Miss Prism, you are, I trust, well?

CECILY

Miss Prism has just been complaining of a slight headache. I think

it would do her so much good to have a short stroll with you in the Park,

Dr. Chasuble.

MISS PRISM

Cecily, I have not mentioned anything about a headache.

CECILY

No, dear Miss Prism, I know that, but I felt instinctively that you had

a headache. Indeed I was thinking about that, and not about my German

lesson, when the Rector came in.

CHASUBLE

I hope, Cecily, you are not inattentive.

CECILY

Oh, I am afraid I am.

CHASUBLE

That is strange. Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism's pupil, I would hang upon her lips, [MISS PRISM glares.] I spoke metaphorically.� My metaphor was drawn from bees. Ahem! Mr. Worthing, I suppose, has

not returned from town yet?

MISS PRISM

We do not expect him till Monday afternoon. CHASUBLE Ah yes, he usually likes to spend his Sunday in London. He is not one of those whose sole aim is enjoyment, as, by all accounts, that unfor

tunate young man his brother seems to be. But I must not disturb Egeria1

and her pupil any longer.

MISS PRISM

Egeria? My name is Laetitia, Doctor. CHASUBLE [Bowing.] A classical allusion merely, drawn from the Pagan authors. I shall see you both no doubt at Evensong?2

MISS PRISM

I think, dear Doctor, I will have a stroll with you. I find I have a headache after all, and a walk might do it good.

CHASUBLE

With pleasure, Miss Prism, with pleasure. We might go as far as

the schools and back.

MISS PRISM

That would be delightful. Cecily, you will read your Political

Economy3 in my absence. The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee4 you may

omit. It is somewhat too sensational. Even these metallic problems have their melodramatic side. [Goes down the garden with

DR. CHASUBLE.] CECILY [Piclis up hooks and throws them hack on table. ] Horrid Political Economy! Horrid Geography! Horrid, horrid German!

[Enter MERRIMAN with a card on a salver.]

MERRIMAN

Mr. Ernest Worthing has just driven over from the station. He

has brought his luggage with him.

9. A chasuble is an ornate garment worn by a 2. Evening church services. priest. 3. I.e., book about economics. 1. In Roman legend a nymph who gave counsel to 4. The basic unit of currency in India. British civil the second king of Rome. Her name was therefore servants who worked in India were paid in rupees also used as an epithet for a woman who provides and would suffer from its fall in value. guidance.

.

1 1716 / OSCAR WILDE

CECILY [Takes the card and reads it.] "Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany, W." Uncle Jack's brother! Did you tell him Mr. Worthing was in town?

MERRIMAN

Yes, Miss. He seemed very much disappointed. I mentioned that

you and Miss Prism were in the garden. He said he was anxious to speak to

you privately for a moment. CECILY. Ask Mr. Ernest Worthing to come here. I suppose you had better

talk to the housekeeper about a room for him. MERRIMAN Yes, Miss. [MERRIMAN goes off.] CECILY

I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like everyone else. [Enter ALGERNON, very gay and debonair.] He does!

ALGERNON [Raising his hat.] You are my little cousin Cecily, I'm sure. CECILY

You are under some strange mistake. I am not little. In fact, I believe I am more than usually tall for my age. [ALGERNON is rather taken aback.] But I am your cousin Cecily. You, I see from your card, are Uncle Jack's

brother, my cousin Ernest, my wicked cousin Ernest.

ALGERNON

Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn't think

that I am wicked.

CECILY

If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very

inexcusable manner. I hope you have not been leading a double life, pre

tending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be

hypocrisy. ALGERNON [Looks at her in amazement.] Oh! Of course I have been rather reckless.

CECILY

I am glad to hear it.

ALGERNON

In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my

own small way.

CECILY

I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must

have been very pleasant.

ALGERNON

It is much pleasanter being here with you.

CECILY

I can't understand how you are here at all. Uncle Jack won't be back

till Monday afternoon.

ALGERNON

That is a great disappointment. I am obliged to go up by the first

train on Monday morning. I have a business appointment that I am anxious

.. . to miss.

CECILY

Couldn't you miss it anywhere but in London? ALGERNON No: the appointment is in London. CECILY

Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business

engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life, but still

I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives. I know he wants to speak

to you about your emigrating.

ALGERNON

About my what?

CECILY

Your emigrating. He has gone up to buy your outfit.

ALGERNON

I certainly wouldn't let Jack buy my outfit. He has no taste in

neckties at all.

CECILY

I don't think you will require neckties. Uncle Jack is sending you to Australia.5

5. The British had originally viewed Australia as a ters as a place, like Canada, to which families place to which they banished their criminals. By might send harmless but useless members, who this time, however, it was perceived in some quar-would be paid an allowance to remain abroad.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 2 / 171 7

ALGERNON Australia? I'd sooner die.

CECILY

Well, he said at dinner on Wednesday night, that you would have to

choose between this world, the next world, and Australia.

ALGERNON

Oh, well! The accounts I have received of Australia and the next

world are not particularly encouraging. This world is good enough for me,

cousin Cecily.

CECILY

Yes, but are you good enough for it? ALGERNON I'm afraid I'm not that. That is why I want you to reform me. You might make that your mission, if you don't mind, cousin Cecily.

CECILY

I'm afraid I've no time, this afternoon.

ALGERNON

Well, would you mind my reforming myself this afternoon? CECILY It is rather Quixotic of you. But I think you should try. ALGERNON I will. I feel better already. CECILY

You are looking a little worse. ALGERNON That is because I am hungry. CECILY How thoughtless of me. I should have remembered that when one is

going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome

meals. Won't you come in?

ALGERNON

Thank you. Might I have a buttonhole6 first? I never have any

appetite unless I have a buttonhole first. CECILY A Marechal Niel?7 [Picks up scissors.] ALGERNON

No, I'd sooner have a pink rose. CECILY Why? [Cuts a flower.] ALGERNON

Because you are like a pink rose, cousin Cecily. CECILY I don't think it can be right for you to talk to me like that. Miss Prism never says such things to me. ALGERNON Then Miss Prism is a shortsighted old lady, [CECILY puts the rose in his buttonhole.] You are the prettiest girl I ever saw.

CECILY

Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare.

ALGERNON

They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught

in. CECILY Oh! I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about.

[The)' pass into the house, MISS PRISM and DR. CHASUBLE return.]

MISS PRISM

YOU are too much alone, dear Dr. Chasuble. You should get mar

ried. A misanthrope I can understand�a womanthrope, never! CHASUBLE [With a scholar's shudder.]8 Believe me, I do not deserve so neologistic a phrase. The precept as well as the practice of the Primitive Church9

was distinctly against matrimony. MISS PRISM [Sententiously.] That is obviously the reason why the Primitive Church has not lasted up to the present day. And you do not seem to realize,

dear Doctor, that by persistently remaining single, a man converts himself

into a permanent public temptation. Men should be more careful; this very

celibacy leads weaker vessels astray.

6. I.e., a flower to wear in the buttonhole of his rect word for woman hater, misogynist, she has coat lapel. coined her own term, one that is etymologically 7. A chrome-yellow variety of rose named after nonsensical. Adolphe Niel (1802-1869), one of the generals of 9. The early Christian Church, of the 1st to 4th Napoleon III. centuries. 8. He shudders because instead of using the cor

.

1 1718 / OSCAR WILDE

CHASUBLE

But is a man not equally attractive when married?

MISS PRISM

NO married man is ever attractive except to his wife. CHASUBLE

And often, I've been told, not even to her.

MISS PRISM That depends on the intellectual sympathies of the woman. Maturity can always be depended on. Ripeness can be trusted. Young women are green, [DR. CHASUBLE starts.] I spoke horticulturally. My metaphor was drawn from fruits. Rut where is Cecily?

CHASUBLE

Perhaps she followed us to the schools.

[Enter JACK slowly from the hack of the garden. He is dressed in the dee-pest mourning, with crape hat-band and black gloves.]

MISS PRISM

Mr. Worthing!

CHASUBLE

Mr. Worthing?

MISS PRISM

This is indeed a surprise. We did not look for you till Monday

afternoon. JACK [Shakes MISS PRISM'S hand in a tragic manner.] I have returned sooner than I expected. Dr. Chasuble, I hope you are well?

CHASUBLE

Dear Mr. Worthing, I trust this garb of woe does not betoken some

terrible calamity?

JACK

My brother.

MISS PRISM

More shameful debts and extravagance?

CHASUBLE

Still leading his life of pleasure? JACK [Shaking his head.] Dead! CHASUBLE

Your brother Ernest dead?

JACK

Quite dead.

MISS PRISM

What a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it.

CHASUBLE

Mr. Worthing, I offer you my sincere condolence. You have at

least the consolation of knowing that you were always the most generous

and forgiving of brothers.

JACK

Poor Ernest! He had many faults, but it is a sad, sad blow.

CHASUBLE

Very sad indeed. Were you with him at the end? JACK NO. He died abroad; in Paris, in fact. I had a telegram last night from the manager of the Grand Hotel.

CHASUBLE

Was the cause of death mentioned? JACK A severe chill, it seems. MISS PBISM

AS a man sows, so shall he reap. CHASUBLE [Raising his hand.] Charity, dear Miss Prism, charity! None of us are perfect. I myself am peculiarly susceptible to drafts. Will the interment

take place here?

JACK

No. He seemed to have expressed a desire to be buried in Paris.

CHASUBLE

In Paris! [Shakes his head.] I fear that hardly points to any very serious state of mind at the last. You would no doubt wish me to make some slight allusion to this tragic domestic affliction next Sunday, [JACK presses his hand convulsively.] My sermon on the meaning of the manna in the wilderness can be adapted to almost any occasion, joyful, or, as in the present case, distressing. [All sigh.] I have preached it at harvest celebrations, christenings, confirmations, on days of humiliation and festal days. The last

time I delivered it was in the Cathedral, as a charity sermon on behalf

of the Society for the Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders.

The Bishop, who was present, was much struck by some of the analogies I

drew.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

JACK

Ah! That reminds me, you mentioned christenings, I think, Dr. Chasuble? I suppose you know how to christen all right? [DR. CHASUBLE looks astounded.] I mean, of course, you are continually christening, aren't you?

MISS PRISM

It is, I regret to say, one of the Rector's most constant duties in

this parish. I have often spoken to the poorer classes on the subject. But

they don't seem to know what thrift is.

CHASUBLE

But is there any particular infant in whom you are interested, Mr. Worthing? Your brother was, I believe, unmarried, was he not?

JACK Oh yes. MISS PRISM [Bitterly.] People who live entirely for pleasure usually are. JACK But it is not for any child, dear Doctor. I am very fond of children. No!

the fact is, I would like to be christened myself, this afternoon, if you have

nothing better to do.

CHASUBLE

But surely, Mr. Worthing, you have been christened already?

JACK

I don't remember anything about it.

CHASUBLE

But have you any grave doubts on the subject?

JACK

I certainly intend to have. Of course I don't know if the thing would bother you in any way, or if you think I am a little too old now. CHASUBLE Not at all. The sprinkling, and, indeed, the immersion of adults is a perfectly canonical practice.

JACK

Immersion! CHASUBLE You need have no apprehensions. Sprinkling is all that is necessary, or indeed I think advisable. Our weather is so changeable. At what

hour would you wish the ceremony performed?

JACK

Oh, I might trot round about five if that would suit you.

CHASUBLE

Perfectly, perfectly! In fact I have two similar ceremonies to per

form at that time. A case of twins that occurred recently in one of the

outlying cottages on your own estate. Poor Jenkins the carter, a most hard

working man.

JACK

Oh! I don't see much fun in being christened along with other babies. It would be childish. Would half-past five do? CHASUBLE Admirably! Admirably! [Takes out watch.] And now, dear Mr. Worthing, I will not intrude any longer into a house of sorrow. I would

merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us

bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

MISS PRISM

This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind.

[Enter CECILY from the house.]

CECILY

Uncle Jack! Oh, I am pleased to see you back. But what horrid clothes

you have got on! Do go and change them.

MISS PRISM

Cecily! CHASUBLE My child! my child! [CECILY goes towards JACK; he kisses her brow in a melancholy manner.]

CECILY

What is the matter, Uncle Jack? Do look happy! You look as if you

had toothache, and I have got such a surprise for you. Who do you think is

in the dining room? Your brother!

JACK

Who?

CECILY

Your brother Ernest. He arrived about half an hour ago.

JACK

What nonsense! I haven't got a brother!

CECILY

Oh, don't say that. However badly he may have behaved to you in the

past he is still your brother. You couldn't be so heartless as to disown him.

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1 1720 / OSCAR WILDE

I'll tell him to come out. And you will shake hands with him, won't you, Uncle Jack? [Runs back into the house.]

CHASUBLE

These are very joyful tidings.

MISS PRISM

After we had all been resigned to his loss, his sudden return

seems to me peculiarly distressing.

JACK

My brother is in the dining room? I don't know what it all means. I

think it is perfectly absurd.

[Enter ALGERNON and CECILY hand in hand. They come slowly up to

JACK.] JACK Good heavens! [Motions ALGERNON away.] ALGERNON

Brother John, I have come down from town to tell you that I am

very sorry for all the trouble I have given you, and that I intend to lead a better life in the future, [JACKglares at him and does not take his hand.]

CECILY

Uncle Jack, you are not going to refuse your own brother's hand?

JACK

Nothing will induce me to take his hand. I think his coming down here disgraceful. He knows perfectly well why.

CECILY

Uncle Jack, do be nice. There is some good in everyone. Ernest has

just been telling me about his poor invalid friend Mr. Bunbury whom he

goes to visit so often. And surely there must be much good in one who is

kind to an invalid, and leaves the pleasures of London to sit by a bed of

pain.

JACK

Oh! he has been talking about Bunbury, has he?

CECILY

Yes, he has told me all about poor Mr. Bunbury, and his terrible state

of health.

JACK

Bunbury! Well, I won't have him talk to you about Bunbury or about

anything else. It is enough to drive one perfectly frantic.

ALGERNON

Of course I admit that the faults were all on my side. But I must

say that I think that Brother John's coldness to me is peculiarly painful. I

expected a more enthusiastic welcome, especially considering it is the first

time I have come here.

CECILY

Uncle Jack, if you don't shake hands with Ernest, I will never forgive

you.

JACK

Never forgive me?

CECILY

Never, never, never! JACK Well, this is the last time I shall ever do it. [Shakes hands with ALGERNON and glares. ]

CHASUBLE

It's pleasant, is it not, to see so perfect a reconciliation? I think

we might leave the two brothers together.

MISS PRISM

Cecily, you will come with us. CECILY Certainly, Miss Prism. My little task of reconciliation is over. CHASUBLE

You have done a beautiful action today, dear child.

MISS PRISM

We must not be premature in our judgments. CECILY I feel very happy. [They all go off.] JACK

You young scoundrel, Algy, you must get out of this place as soon as

possible. I don't allow any Bunburying here.

[Enter MERRIMAN.]

MERRIMAN

I have put Mr. Ernest's things in the room next to yours, sir. I

suppose that is all right?

JACK

What?

MERRIMAN

Mr. Ernest's luggage, sir. I have unpacked it and put it in the

room next to your own.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

JACK

His luggage?

MERRIMAN

Yes, sir. Three portmanteaus, a dressing case, two hat-boxes, and a large luncheon basket.1

ALGERNON

I am afraid I can't stay more than a week this time.

JACK

iMerriman, order the dogcart2 at once. Mr. Ernest has been suddenly

called back to town. MERRIMAN Yes, sir. [Goes back into the house.] ALGERNON

What a fearful liar you are, Jack. I have not been called back to

town at all.

JACK

Yes, you have. ALGERNON I haven't heard anyone call me. JACK

Your duty as a gentleman calls you back.

ALGERNON

My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures

in the smallest degree.

JACK

I can quite understand that.

ALGERNON

Well, Cecily is a darling.

JACK

YOU are not to talk of Miss Cardew like that. I don't like it. ALGERNON

Well, I don't like your clothes. You look perfectly ridiculous in

them. Why on earth don't you go up and change? It is perfectly childish to

be in deep mourning for a man who is actually staying for a whole week

with you in your house as a guest. I call it grotesque.

JACK

You are certainly not staying with me for a whole week as a guest or

anything else. You have got to leave .. . by the four-five train.

ALGERNON

I certainly won't leave you so long as you are in mourning. It

would be most unfriendly. If I were in mourning you would stay with me, I

suppose. I should think it very unkind if you didn't.

JACK

Well, will you go if I change my clothes?

ALGERNON

Yes, if you are not too long. I never saw anybody take so long to

dress, and with such little result.

JACK

Well, at any rate, that is better than being always overdressed as you

are.

ALGERNON

If I am occasionally a little overdressed, I make up for it by being

always immensely overeducated.

JACK

Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your presence

in my garden utterly absurd. However, you have got to catch the four-five, and I hope you will have a pleasant journey back to town. This Bunburying, as you call it, has not been a great success for you. [Goes into the house.]

ALGERNON

I think it has been a great success. I'm in love with Cecily, and

that is everything.

[Enter CECILY at the back of the garden. She picks up the can and begins to water the flowers.]

But I must see her before I go, and make arrangements for another Bunbury.

Ah, there she is.

1. According to Cassell's Domestic Dictionary "scent bottles, jars for pomade and tooth-powders, (1877�79), "a convenient little receptacle in which hair brushes and combs, shaving, nail and tooth gentlemen who are going out shooting for the day, brushes, razors and strop, nail scissors, button- or artists who wish to sketch, can carry their lunch-hook, tweezer, nail file and penknife" [noted by eon with them." "Portmanteaus": large leather Russell Jackson]. suitcases. A "dressing case" (also according to Cas-2. A horse-drawn cart with seats, originally sell's) was "ordinarily made of rosewood, mahogany designed to carry hunters and their hunting dogs. or coromandel wood." It was supposed to include

.

1 1722 / OSCAR WILDE

CECILY

Oh, I merely came back to water the roses. I thought you were with

Uncle Jack.

ALGERNON

He's gone to order the dogcart for me.

CECILY

Oh, is he going to take you for a nice drive?

ALGERNON

He's going to send me away.

CECILY

Then have we got to part?

ALGERNON

I am afraid so. It's very painful parting.

CECILY

It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for a

very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure with

equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one

has just been introduced is almost unbearable.

ALGERNON

Thank you. [Enter MERRIMAN.] MERRIMAN The dogcart is at the door, sir. [ALGERNON looks appealingly at CECILY.]

CECILY

It can wait, Merriman . . . for . . . five minutes. MERRIMAN Yes, Miss. [Exit MERRIMAN.] ALGERNON

I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and

openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of

absolute perfection.

CECILY

I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you will allow me I will copy your remarks into my diary. [Goes over to table and begins writing in diary.]

ALGERNON

Do you really keep a diary? I'd give anything to look at it. May I?

CECILY

Oh no. [Pitts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently meant for

publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will order a copy.

But pray, Ernest, don't stop. I delight in taking down from dictation. I have

reached "absolute perfection." You can go on. I am quite ready for more. ALGERNON [Somewhat taken aback.] Ahem! Ahem! CECILY

Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough. [Writes as ALGERNON speaks.]

ALGERNON [Speaking very rapidly.] Cecily, ever since I first looked upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you wildly, pas

sionately, devotedly, hopelessly.

CECILY

I don't think that you should tell me that you love me wildly, pas

sionately, devotedly, hopelessly. Hopelessly doesn't seem to make much

sense, does it?

ALGERNON

Cecily!

[Enter MERRIMAN.]

MERRIMAN

The dogcart is waiting, sir.

ALGERNON

Tell it to come round next week, at the same hour. MERRIMAN [Looks at CECILY, who makes no sign.] Yes, sir. [MERRIMAN retires.]

CECILY

Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were staying

on till next week, at the same hour.

ALGERNON

Oh, I don't care about Jack. I don't care for anybody in the whole

world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won't you?

CECILY

You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the last

three months.

.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11

ALGERNON For the last three months?

CECILY

Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday.

ALGERNON But how did we become engaged?

CECILY Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he had a

younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have formed

the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And of

course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One feels

there must be something in him after all. I daresay it was foolish of me, but

I fell in love with you, Ernest.

ALGERNON

Darling! And when was the engagement actually settled?

CECILY

On the 14th of February last. Worn out by your entire ignorance of

my existence, I determined to end the matter one way or the other, and after

a long struggle with myself I accepted you under this dear old tree here.

The next day I bought this little ring in your name, and this is the little

bangle with the true lovers' knot I promised you always to wear.

ALGERNON

Did I give you this? It's very pretty, isn't it?

CECILY

Yes, you've wonderfully good taste, Ernest. It's the excuse I've always

given for your leading such a bad life. And this is the box in which I keep all your dear letters. [Kneels at table, opens box, and produces letters tied up with blue ribbon.]

ALGERNON

My letters! But my own sweet Cecily, I have never written you

any letters.

CECILY

You need hardly remind me of that, Ernest. I remember only too well

that I was forced to write your letters for you. I always wrote three times a

week, and sometimes oftener.

ALGERNON

Oh, do let me read them, Cecily?

CECILY

Oh, I couldn't possibly. They would make you far too conceited. [Replaces box.] The three you wrote me after I had broken off the engagement are so beautiful, and so badly spelled, that even now I can hardly read

them without crying a little.

ALGERNON

But was our engagement ever broken off?

CECILY

Of course it was. On the 22nd of last March. You can see the entry

if you like. [S/irnvs diary.] "Today I broke off my engagement with Ernest. I

feel it is better to do so. The weather still continues charming."

ALGERNON

But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I had

done nothing at all. Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed to hear you broke

it off. Particularly when the weather was so charming.

CECILY

It would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it hadn't

been broken off at least once. But I forgave you before the week was out.

ALGERNON [Crossing to her, and kneeling.] What a perfect angel you are, Cecily.

CECILY You dear romantic boy. [He kisses her, she puts her fingers through his hair.] I hope your hair curls naturally, does it?

ALGERNON

Yes, darling, with a little help from others.

CECILY

I am so glad.

ALGERNON

You'll never break off our engagement again, Cecily?

CECILY

I don't think I could break it off now that I have actually met you.

Besides, of course, there is the question of your name.

ALGERNON

Yes, of course. [Nervously.]

CECILY

You must not laugh at me, darling, but it had always been a girlish dream of mine to love someone whose name was Ernest. [ALGERNON rises,

.

1 1724 / OSCAR WILDE

CECILY also.] There is something in that name that seems to inspire absolute confidence. 1 pity any poor married woman whose husband is not called

Ernest.

ALGERNON

But, my dear child, do you mean to say you could not love me if

I had some other name?

CECILY

But what name?

ALGERNON

Oh, any name you like�Algernon-�for instance . . .

CECILY

But I don't like the name of Algernon.

ALGERNON

Well, my own dear, sweet, loving little darling, I really can't see

why you should object to the name of Algernon. It is not at all a bad name.

In fact, it is rather an aristocratic name. Half of the chaps who get into the

Bankruptcy Court are called Algernon. But seriously, Cecily . . . [Moving to

her.] .. . if my name was Algy, couldn't you love me? CECILY [Rising.] I might respect you, Ernest, I might admire your character,

but I fear that I should not be able to give you my undivided attention. ALGERNON

Ahem! Cecily! [Picking up hat.] Your Rector here is, I suppose, thoroughly experienced in the practice of all the rites and ceremonials of the Church?

CECILY

Oh, yes. Dr. Chasuble is a most learned man. He has never written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows.

ALGERNON

I must see him at once on a most important christening�I mean

on most important business.

CECILY Oh!

ALGERNON

I shan't be away more than half an hour.

CECILY

Considering that we have been engaged since February the 14th, and

that I only met you today for the first time, I think it is rather hard that you

should leave me for so long a period as half an hour. Couldn't you make it

twenty minutes? ALGERNON I'll be back in no time. [Kisses her and rushes down the garden. ] CECILY

What an impetuous boy he is! I like his hair so much. I must enter

his proposal in my diary.

[Enter MERRIMAN.]

MERRIMAN

A Miss Fairfax has just called to see Mr. Worthing. On very impor

tant business, Miss Fairfax states.

CECILY

Isn't Mr. Worthing in his library?

MERRIMAN

Mr. Worthing went over in the direction of the Rectory some time

ago.

CECILY

Pray ask the lady to come out here; Mr. Worthing is sure to be back

soon. And you can bring tea. MERRIMAN Yes, Miss. [Goes out.] CECILY

Miss Fairfax! I suppose one of the many good elderly women who are

associated with Uncle Jack in some of his philanthropic work in London. I

don't quite like women who are interested in philanthropic work. I think it