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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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20 JACK Upon my word, if I thought that, I’d shoot myself... [A pause.] You don’t think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy? ALG All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his. JACK Is that clever? ALG It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation in civilized life should be. JACK I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever now-a- days. 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. ALG We have. JACK I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? ALG The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course. JACK What fools! ALG By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being Ernest in town, and Jack in the country? JACK [In a very patronising manner.] 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! ALG 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. JACK Oh, that is nonsense. ALG What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest? JACK 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? ALG 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. JACK You are sure a severe chill isn’t hereditary, or anything of that kind? ALG Of course it isn’t! |
