ACT I Flashcards
ALGERNON: Dear me, you are smart!
GWENDOLEN: I am always smart, and I not Mr. worthing?
JACK: You are 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.
BRACKNELL: Won’t you come sit here, Gwendolen?
GWENDOLEN: Thanks, Mamma. I’m quite comfortable where I am.
BRACKNELL: Thank you, Algernon. It is very thoughtful of you. I’m sure the programme 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.
JACK: Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax.
GWENDOLEN: Pray don’t talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. Whenever 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: 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 well 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 we met, I was far from indifferent to you. 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 Ernest. There is something in that name that inspires absoloute 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 mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?
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: 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 ncer 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 in my lifetime and they all, without exception, were more than unusually 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?
