The Importance of Being Earnest and Five Other Plays

By Oscar Wilde

Witty playwright Oscar Wilde is most famous for his 1895 play "The Importance of Being Earnest." The two protagonists use a false identity, Earnest, as a way to escape from unwanted social obligations. However, they encounter difficulties keeping up their personas as their social circles draw closer together. Wilde drew upon what he thought were outrageous social conventions of the Victorian Era and used satire to show the absurdity of its beliefs, like how marriage was more of a boring burden than a joyous commitment. "The Importance of Being Earnest" is one of the best known plays of the Victorian Era and has endured many revivals over the past one-hundred years. It is also a prime example of many Victorian gaffes, though they have to be viewed through the lens of Wilde's sardonic humor. Gathered in the collection "The Importance of Being Earnest and Five Other Plays" are "Lady Windermere's Fan," "A Woman of No Importance," and "An Ideal Husband", all of which speak to Wilde's satirical tone and attitude toward the Victorian Era. Also included are the fragmentary play, "A Florentine Tragedy" and "Salome," a retelling of the Biblical story where Salome asks for John the Baptist's head on a platter. Its tone is much darker and tragic than most of Wilde's other works, but its ability to portray such a gruesome event in a respectful way only proves that Oscar Wilde is one of the most important writers of the nineteenth century.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Digireads.com Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781420947304

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a Dublin-born poet and playwright who studied at the Portora Royal School, before attending Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford. The son of two writers, Wilde grew up in an intellectual environment. As a young man, his poetry appeared in various periodicals including Dublin University Magazine. In 1881, he published his first book Poems, an expansive collection of his earlier works. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was released in 1890 followed by the acclaimed plays Lady Windermere’s Fan (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).

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THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

AND FIVE OTHER PLAYS

BY OSCAR WILDE

The Importance of Being Earnest and Five Other Plays

By Oscar Wilde

Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4699-4

eBook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-4730-4

This edition copyright © 2017. Digireads.com Publishing.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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CONTENTS

BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

SALOMÉ

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

AN IDEAL HUSBAND

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

A FLORENTINE TRAGEDY—A FRAGMENT

LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

ACT I

ACT II

ACT III

ACT IV

Biographical Introduction

OSCAR WILDE

Oscar Wilde is one of the most widely recognized names in British literature. An accomplished journalist, poet, storyteller and playwright, Wilde is also well known as the leader of the Fin de siècle (end of the century) aesthetic movement that helped shape modern Britain. But Wilde’s legacy is not merely about his aesthetic, as his dramatic personal life has sometimes overshadowed his literary accomplishments. He published widely, often to critical acclaim, before his life combusted in a controversial trial for indecent homosexual activity – a trial that saw the ruin of Wilde’s personal and professional success. Often, Wilde’s art imitates his life, both are complex and insistently demand the audience’s attention, and undoubtedly this dramatic demand is what fuels Wilde’s legacy today. Since his death in 1900, interest in Wilde’s private life, particularly his sexuality, his criminal offences and his imprisonment, have never waned. One critic sums up Wilde’s life by saying, His story is like a vivid Victorian soap opera with shocking twists and turns in plot lines, taking in on the way love, hate, sex, treachery, fame, success, conspiracy, blackmail, dramatic courtroom scenes, prison, redemption and finally death (Marshall).

Born in Dublin, Ireland in 1854 Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was the second son of the eccentric Sir William and Lady Jane Wilde. Sir William Wilde was a renowned philanthropist and surgeon, Lady Jane was a poet and fierce supporter of the Irish Nationalist Movement. In the mid 1860’s, Lady Jane published a series of poems denouncing the Irish potato famine, dedicating the collection to her two sons, Willie and Oscar. Lady Jane had always wanted a daughter, so following popular practice of the time she dressed Oscar solely in girls’ clothing for the first few years of his life. Wilde lived a quiet family life, marred only by the unexpectedly tragic death of his younger sister at the age of nine. He moved to Trinity College to study the classics at the age of 20. From there, Wilde went to study at Oxford, dropping his unfashionable Irish accent in favor of a stately English tone, and took a keen interest in fashion, particularly formalwear. He joined the Freemasons, as his father had done before him, and established himself as a dramatic aesthetician brimming with bitingly sarcastic wit.

Wilde thrived in London’s superficial, artistic circles. While his literary work was not well received, Wilde was in high demand at dinner parties due to his sparkling wit. Wilde later reflected that during this period of his life he strove to honor the Pater quote, To burn always with this hard, gemlike flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life (Black). He strove to maintain its message in even the most mundane daily activities, which he desired to make beautiful. For the majority of his life, Wilde surrounded himself with elements of beauty, of art, and arguably, of surface vanity. He wore his hair long, decorated his home with peacock feathers and the frivolities of lilies and sunflowers alongside imported blue china. At the time, British culture did not like to be seen taking art seriously, and liked even less an artist who took himself seriously, as Wilde clearly did. Many critics of the aesthetic movement found interest in interior design, fashion, and art to be vacuous, and their arguments were only strengthened when Wilde made comments like, I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china (Cohen). Despite the critics’ arguments, Wilde toured through Britain and then America lecturing on the value of aesthetics, beauty, and art. He earned a fair sum and returned to England with the hopes of propelling his future with literary works that would challenge the hypocrisy of society and embrace the delicate intricacies of artistic beauty.

Upon returning home, Wilde married an acquaintance, Constance Lloyd, and fathered two sons: Cyril and Vyvyan. Wilde adored his children and was a doting father to them, loving nothing better than conjuring up fairy tales to send them to sleep. After becoming editor of Woman’s World Magazine (for which he wrote a plethora of reviews and journalistic essays), Wilde published a variety of short stories and novels, including The Happy Prince and Other Tales, and later, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

On the surface, Wilde seemed to have it all: a successful job, a beautiful wife, two charming children. But underneath, his life was beginning to fray. After years spent lecturing aestheticism to the masses, Wilde’s home was expected to be at the cutting edge of fashion. But true fashion never comes cheap. Despite Constance’s generous £250 annual allowance (equivalent to £19,300 today) in addition to Wilde’s lectureship fees, the family struggled financially. Wilde lost interest in playing husband to Constance, and his homosexual predilections circled as scandalous rumors throughout his social circles.  In 1888, Wilde met the seventeen-year-old student Robert Ross and, despite their sixteen-year-age-difference, engaged in a romantic relationship with him. As Wilde gave in to his homosexual desires, throngs of young men, whom historians have said needed only be young, handsome, and in awe of Oscar’s wit and wisdom, gathered to make his acquaintance (Marshall). Remarkably, Constance appeared to have no knowledge of her husband’s homosexual dalliances.

In 1891, Wilde released the theatrical success, A Play About a Good Woman to such critical acclaim that he quickly became the most sought-after artist in all of Britain. This same year, Wilde met Lord Alfred Douglas (known as Bosie to his family) – the lover who would lead to his downfall. Bosie, who was known to be promiscuously homosexual, quickly introduced Wilde to the rough trade rent boys who would do almost anything for a quick buck. Many of these trade boys were seasoned blackmailers, and Wilde seemed to embrace the imminent threat of being discovered. Of his relationships with the prostitutes, Wilde famously said, It’s like feasting with panthers. The danger is half the excitement (Hyde). Many of Wilde’s close friends were alarmed by his seeming recklessness in the public sphere, and by the toxic influence Bosie had on Wilde’s existence, both private and professional. Bosie frequently erupted in childlike tantrums, rife with jealously over Wilde’s success, but the two always reconciled despite the urgings from both sides to end the relationship. Bosie’s father, the Marquees of Queensberry, was outspoken, even brutish, regarding Wilde’s relationship with his son. In June 1894, the Marquees confronted Wilde saying, I do not say that you are it, but you look it, and pose at it, which is just as bad. And if I catch you and my son again in any public restaurant I will thrash you (Redman).

In 1895, Wilde enjoyed the success of two simultaneous West End smashes, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest – plays noted for their excesses and indiscretions – which were, of course, mirrored in the playwright’s life. In an ominous foreshadowing of his own fate, frequent themes in Wilde’s work were the uncovering of a hidden secret and the subsequent disgrace of the guilty individual. In the same year of Wilde’s West End success, the Marquees’ threats were realized and Wilde’s homosexual trysts came to legal light. Wilde was found guilty of gross indecency in homosexual acts and was sentenced to two years imprisonment with hard labor. A prison chaplain wrote of Wilde, "As soon as the excitement aroused by the trial subsided and he had to encounter the daily routine of prison life his fortitude began to give way and rapidly collapsed altogether. He is now quite crushed and broken … I need hardly tell you that he is a man of decidedly morbid disposition … In fact some of our most experienced officers openly say that they don’t think he will be able to go through the two years" (Ellman).

Wilde was released from prison in 1897, socially disgraced and financially bankrupt. He moved to France and attempted to reestablish himself as a writer publishing the poem, The Ballad of Reading Goal under the pseudonym C33 – his prison identification number. It is widely regarded as his best poem. Despite the success of The Ballad of Reading Goal, Wilde made little money from its publications and he never fully recovered from the effects of his treatment in prison. In an echoing of his mother’s published poems, themes of inequality and poor treatment – particularly of children and the mentally disabled in English prisons – were tantamount in Wilde’s letters and editorials published after his release. After the public humiliation of his trials and imprisonment, the decorative luxuries of Wilde’s existence were stripped away, forcing him to reflect on the true drama and metaphor of his existence. Wilde’s whole life was arguably a conscious process of self-expression. He saw his role of artist as a vocation, impossible to reconcile with the social conventions of an English gentleman. To Wilde, an artist must be a profoundly public and active role, in which his voice and presence were as integral to art as his written words.

Many critics have analyzed Wilde’s work through a homosexual lens, searching out themes in such works as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest. However, homosexuality provides too narrow a lens to fully explore the nuances of Wilde’s work, which is noted more broadly for its themes of guilty secrets and suppressed confusion. The trouble is that it creates a darkly unbalanced legacy of Wilde as little more than a notorious homosexual character, even scapegoat, at the end of the 19th century.  Despite this legacy, Wilde is also well remembered for his sharp wit, used to attack the subjects of hypocrisy, absolute morality, uniformity, and other distorted social conventions he believed perpetuated Anglo-Saxon stupidity in the late 19th century. Generally thought to be politically advanced for his time, Wilde’s work often sympathized with feminism and highlighted the dramatic inequalities – poverty, oppression, and hunger – of Victorian England.  Shifting between the vernacular of a comedic conversationalist, literary connoisseur, and academic lecturer, Wilde demonstrated his keen audience awareness, whether in a private or public context.

Wilde, who was noted for having an encyclopedic memory, often made nuanced literary and mythological references in his work that, without notated supplement, may be lost on modern readers who therefore miss out on the full lilt of Wilde’s commentary. In fact, Wilde made so many references, and some so thinly veiled, that he was frequently accused of plagiarizing the works of William Shakespeare, Phillip Sydney, John Donne, Lord Byron, William Morris, among many others. Modern critics have claimed that to accuse Wilde of plagiarism is to miss the point of his work: because Wilde was acutely aware of the artistic value of his writing, and because plagiarized lines have never been linked back to single sources, it is believed that he set out to include his contributions in the resonant tradition of writers he admired. Wilde drew widely on literary tradition to expand and underscore the intended impact of art. Literary historians have often found the speaking voices of Wilde’s characters to be veiled orations of Wilde himself as the storyteller.

Just before the public trials that would forever haunt his legacy as a writer, Wilde ominously said in an interview, I have put my genius into my life, and only my talent into my work (Miller). Shortly after his release from prison, Wilde began experiencing increasingly severe headaches and was diagnosed with cerebral meningitis. He spent what little income he earned on alcohol, further addling his thoughts when mixed with prescribed morphine. After a series of embarrassing encounters with artists he had known during his life’s success further darkened Wilde’s mood, he sequestered himself in his hotel stating, My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One of us has got to go (Ellman). Wilde died on November 30, 1900, at the age of 46.

AMY HOLWERDA

2011.

The Importance of Being Earnest

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

JOHN WORTHING, J.P.

ALGERNON MONCRIEFF

REV. CANON CHASUBLE, D.D.

MERRIMAN, Butler.

LANE, Manservant.

LADY BRACKNELL

HON. GWENDOLEN FAIRFAX

CECILY CARDEW

MISS PRISM, Governess.

THE SCENES OF THE PLAY

ACT I. ALGERNON MONCRIEFF’s Flat in Half-Moon Street, W.

ACT II. The Garden at the Manor House, Woolton.

ACT III. Drawing-Room at the Manor House, Woolton.

TIME: The Present. PLACE: London.

ACT I

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 table, 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—any one 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?

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 book that on Thursday night, when Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of champagne 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 demoralising 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 consequence of a misunderstanding between myself and a young woman.

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. Lanes 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.

[Enter 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. [Pulling 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? 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 romantic 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.

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 any one 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 Yard 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.

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 it.] 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.

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 present from some one of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn’t know any one 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. 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 ALGERNON 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 every one 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.’ 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 any one 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 I 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 sofa.]

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 grand-daughter, 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 in 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 Shropshire 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 younger 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 to-night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.

JACK. I haven’t asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night.

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, to-night. 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 enormously 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 realise, 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.

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. 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 to-night 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!

GWENDOLEN. I am always smart! Am I not, Mr. Worthing?

JACK. You’re quite perfect, Miss Fairfax.

GWENDOLEN. Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for developments, and I intend to develop in many directions. [GWENDOLEN and JACK sit down 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, I’m quite comfortable where I am.

ALGERNON. [Picking up 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.

ALGERNON. That will do, Lane, thank you.

LANE. Thank you, sir. [Goes out.]

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 crumpets 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 to-night, 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 to-night after all.

LADY BRACKNELL. [Frowning.] I hope not, Algernon. It would put my table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. 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