Mark André ’s Reviews > The Importance of Being Earnest: Oscar Wilde's Beloved Comedy with Full Text and Exclusive Commentary > Status Update

JACK.
Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you forgive me?
GWENDOLEN.
I can. For I feel that you are sure to change.
JACK.
My own one!
CHASUBLE.
[To Miss Prism.] Lætitia! [Embraces her]
MISS PRISM.
[Enthusiastically.] Frederick! At last!
ALGERNON.
Cecily! [Embraces her.] At last!
JACK.
Gwendolen! [Embraces her.] At last!

JACK.
Unmarried! [. . .] Why should there be one law for men, and another for women?

GWENDOLEN.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

LADY BRACKNELL.
Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her age.

We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces.

GWENDOLEN.
Then you think we should forgive them?
CECILY.
Yes. I mean no.

GWENDOLEN.
Are there many interesting walks in the vicinity, Miss Cardew?
CECILY.
Oh! yes! a great many. From the top of one of the hills quite close one can see five counties.
GWENDOLEN.
Five counties! I don’t think I should like that; I hate crowds.

CECILY.
Uncle Jack, if you don’t shake hands with Ernest I will never forgive you.
JACK.
Never forgive me?
CECILY.
Never, never, never!

CHASUBLE.
What seem to us bitter trials are often blessings in disguise.

MISS PRISM.
This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind.

CHASUBLE
. . . [All sigh.] I have preached it at harvest celebrations, christenings, confirmations, on days of humiliation and festal days. The last time I delivered it was in the Cathedral, as a charity sermon on behalf of the Society for the Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders.