ACT 1 SCENE 2 Flashcards
LANE: Mr. Earnest Worthing.
How are you, my dear Earnest? What brings you up to town?
JACK: Oh, pleasure, pleasure…
… Eating as usual, I see, 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?
JACK: In the country.
What on earth do you do there?
JACK: … When one is in the country, one amuses other people. It is excessively boring.
And who are the people you amuse?
JACK: Oh, neighbours, neighbours.
Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire?
JACK: Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them.
How immensely you must amuse them…
By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not?
JACK: … Who is coming to tea?
Oh! Merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen.
JACK: How perfectly delightful!
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?
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.
I thought you had come up for pleasure, I call that… business.
JACK: How utterly unromantic you are!
I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing! No, it is very romantic to be in love.
There is nothing romantic about a definite proposal!
One usually is accepted, I believe. Then the excitement is all over.
The very essence of romance is uncertainty! If I ever get married… I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.
JACK: … The Divorce Court was specially invented for those whose memories are so curiously constituted.
Oh, there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are made in heaven -
Please! Don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are ordered specially for Aunt Augusta.
JACK: Well, you have been eating them all the time.
That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt.
Have some bread and butter, the bread and butter is for Gwendolen.
Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter!
JACK: And very good bread and butter it is too.
My dear fellow, you behave as if you are 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?
Well, in the first place, girls never marry the men they flirt with. Girls don’t think it right.
JACK: Oh, that is nonsense!
It isn’t. It’s the 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.
