The Importance of Being Earnest - Jack's lines (Act One)

Lady Bracknell: ... What is your income?

Between seven and eight thousand a year.

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

149

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

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

Algy: ... Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.

And very good bread and butter it is too.

Algy: 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.

Cecily! What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by Cecily! I don't know anyone of the name of Cecily.

Gwen: Certainly, mamma.

Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax

Algy: I would rather like to see Cecily.

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

Lady Bracknell: ... but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society.

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.

Algy: ... Now go one. Why are you Ernest in town and Jack in the country?

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 had 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.

Algy: Well, what shall we do?

Nothing!

Algy: Of course it isn't!

Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest is carried off suddenly, in Paris, by a severe chill. That gets rid of him.

Algy: It isn't!

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

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

What fools!

Algy: Your aunt!

Yes. Charming old lady she is too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. Just give it back to me Algy.

Algy: 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.

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

Gwen: Passionately!

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

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

You know what I have got to say to you.

Gwen: ... The moment Algernon first mentioned to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love you.

You really love me, Gwendolen?

Gwen: I am always smart! Am I not, Mr Worthing?

You're quite perfect Miss Fairfax.

Algy: ... In the second place, I don't give my consent.

Your consent!

Lane: Yes, sir

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.

Algy: ... Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once.

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.

Algy: What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre?

Oh no! I loathe listening.

Algy: And who are the people you amuse?

Oh, neighbours, neighbours.

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

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.

Algy: The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

That wouldn't be a bad thing.

Lady Bracknell: ... There are far too many idle men in London as it is, How old are you?

Twenty-nine.

Algy: ... I may mention that I have always suspected you of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now.

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

Algy: How immensely you must amuse them! By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?

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?

Algy: Then your wife will. You don't seem to realise, that in married life three in company and two is none.

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

Lady Bracknell: ... Good morning, Mr Worthing!

Good morning! For goodness' sake don't play that ghastly tune, Algy! How idiotic you are!

Gwen: ... I think it only fair to tell you quite frankly beforehand that I am fully determined to accept you.

Gwendolen!

Gwen: Yes, but you don't say it.

Gwendolen, will you marry me?

Gwen: ... Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous.

I do mean something else.

Lady Bracknell: ... That's all that can be said about land.

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: ... Are your parents living?

I have lost both my parents.

Lady Bracknell: ... Which do you know?

I know nothing, Lady Bracknell

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

May I ask why?

Algy: ... 'From little Cecily with her fondest love'.

My dear fellow, what on earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case.

Algy: ... Do you know it is nearly seven?

Oh! it always is nearly seven.

Algy: What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest?

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?

Algy: Well, we might trot around to the Empire at ten?

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

Algy: Well, let us go to the club?

Oh, no! I hate talking.

Lady Bracknell: Lady Bloxham? I don't know her.

Oh, she goes about very little. She a lady considerably advanced in years.

Lady Bracknell: A hand-bag?

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: The cloakroom at Victoria Station?

Yes. The Brighton line.

Gwen: My own Ernest!

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

The unfashionable side. I thought there was something. However, that could easily be altered.

Do you mean the fashion or the side?

Gwen: ... The only really safe name is Ernest.

Gwendolen, I must get christened at once - I mean we must get married at once. There is no time to be lost.

Algy: Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen

How perfectly delightful!

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

How utterly unromantic you are!

Lady Bracknell: ... Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?

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.

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

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

Algy: ... More that half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn't read.

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.

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

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.

Algy: ... If I ever get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact.

I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The divorce court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted.

Algy: Well, I'm hungry.

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

Algy: We have.

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

Algy: ... may I dine with you tonight at Willis's?

I suppose so, if you want to.

Algy: ... Bunbury is perfectly invaluable

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.

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

In a hand-bag.

Lady Bracknell: In land, or in investments?

In investments, chiefly.

Lady Bracknell: In what locality did this Mr James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this ordinary hand-bag?

In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.

Algy: I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o'clock. Where have you been since last Thursday?

In the country

Algy: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

Is that clever?

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

It isn't Ernest; it's Jack.

Gwen: 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.

Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired you more than any other girl... I have ever met since... I met you.

Algy: By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country?

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!

Algy: Here it is. Now produce your explanation, and prat make it improbable.

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, make me in his will guardian to his granddaughter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her uncle from motives of respect that you could nor possible appreciate, lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable governess, Miss Prism.

Gwen: 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.

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

Algy: ... I find that the thing isn't yours at all.

Of course it's mine. 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.

Algy: Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively pretty ward who is only just eighteen?

Oh! one doesn't blurt these things out to people. Cecilt 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.

Algy: ... I think it is most il-natured of her.

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 rather unfair... I beg you pardon, Algy, I suppose I shouldn't talk about your own aunt in that way before you.

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

Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring anyone anywhere? Eating as usual I see, Algy!

Algy: ... Won't she feel his loss a great deal?

Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays no attention at all to her lessons.

Algy: ... 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.

Oh, that is nonsense!

Algy: Well, in the first place, girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don't think it right.

Oh, that is nonsense!

Algy: The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she is pretty, and to someone else, if she is plain.

Oh, that is nonsense.

Algy: Got nice neighbours in you part of Shropshire?

Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.

Gwen: 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.

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.

Lady Bracknell: You can take a seat, Mr Worthing

Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing.

Algy: ... A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a very tedious time of it.

That is nonsense. If I marry a chamring 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.

Lady Bracknell: Found!

The late Mr Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable 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.

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

There's no use offering a large reward now that the thing is found.

Algy: That is exactly what things were originally made for.

Upon my word, if I thought that, I'd shoot myself. ... You don't think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy?

Lady Bracknell: Both, if necessary, I presume. What are you politics?

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

Lady Bracknell: ... to produce at any rate one parent, or either sex, before the season is quite over.

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.

Lady Bracknell: ... A girl with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected to reside in the country.

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.

Algy: Yes; but this isn't your cigarette case. This cigarette case is a present from someone of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn't know anyone of that name.

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

Algy: ... It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn'r Ernest.

Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the cigarette case was given to me in the country.

Algy: 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.

Well, produce my cigarette case first.

Gwen: It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has music of its own. It produces vibrations.

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.

Lady Bracknell: ... However I am quite ready to enter your name, should your answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke?

Well, yes, I must admit I smoke.

Algy: ... Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.

Well, you have been eating them all the time.

Gwen: 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.

Well... may I propose to you now?

Gwen: Married, Mr Worthing?

Well... surely. You know that I love you, and you led me to believe, Miss Fairfax, that you were not absolutely indifferent to me.

Algy: ... You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.

What on earth do you mean?

Algy: What on earth do you do there?

When one is in town one amuses oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.

Algy: ... You are not married to her already, and I don't think you ever will be.

Why on earth do you say that?

Gwen: But your name is Ernest.

Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn't love me then?