Act III - Page 2

They are awfully interested, certainly, in things we don't
care much about.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. I suppose your mother is very religious, and
that sort of thing.

GERALD. Oh, yes, she's always going to church.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. Ah! she is not modern, and to be modern is the
only thing worth being nowadays. You want to be modern, don't you,
Gerald? You want to know life as it really is. Not to be put of
with any old-fashioned theories about life. Well, what you have to
do at present is simply to fit yourself for the best society. A
man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.
The future belongs to the dandy. It is the exquisites who are
going to rule.

GERALD. I should like to wear nice things awfully, but I have
always been told that a man should not think too much about his
clothes.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. People nowadays are so absolutely superficial
that they don't understand the philosophy of the superficial. By
the way, Gerald, you should learn how to tie your tie better.
Sentiment is all very well for the button-hole. But the essential
thing for a necktie is style. A well-tied tie is the first serious
step in life.

GERALD. [Laughing.] I might be able to learn how to tie a tie,
Lord Illingworth, but I should never be able to talk as you do. I
don't know how to talk.

LORD ILLINGWORTH. Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and
to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first
season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect
social tact.

GERALD. But it is very difficult to get into society isn't it?

LORD ILLINGWORTH. To get into the best society, nowadays, one has
either to feed people, amuse people, or shock people - that is all!

GERALD. I suppose society is wonderfully delightful!

LORD ILLINGWORTH. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of
it simply a tragedy. Society is a necessary thing. No man has any
real success in this world unless he has got women to back him, and
women rule society. If you have not got women on your side you are
quite over. You might just as well be a barrister, or a
stockbroker, or a journalist at once.

GERALD. It is very difficult to understand women, is it not?

LORD ILLINGWORTH. You should never try to understand them. Women
are pictures. Men are problems. If you want to know what a woman
really means - which, by the way, is always a dangerous thing to do
- look at her, don't listen to her.

GERALD. But women are awfully clever, aren't they?

LORD ILLINGWORTH. One should always tell them so. But, to the
philosopher, my dear Gerald, women represent the triumph of matter
over mind - just as men represent the triumph