Oscar Wilde: The Complete Works. Knowledge house
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. 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, land has ceased to ·34· 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 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, 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.
·35· lady bracknell
Ah, now-a-days 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.
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?
·36· jack
I have lost both my parents.
lady bracknell
Both? … That seems [M: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks] 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 the aristocracy?
jack
I 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?
·37· jack
[Gravely.] In a hand-bag.
lady bracknell
A hand-bag?
jack
[Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag—a somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it—an ordinary hand-bag in fact.
lady bracknell
In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?
jack
In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.
lady bracknell
The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
jack
Yes. The Brighton line.
lady bracknell
The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just ·38· told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that remind 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 hand-bag 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.
jack
Well, I don’t see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.
·39· lady bracknell
Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell 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. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon … 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 ·40· rather unfair … I beg your pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn’t talk about your own aunt in that way before you.