The Importance of Being Earnest | Page 8

presume. What are your polities?
Jack. Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist.
Lady Bracknell. Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come in the evening, at
any rate. Now to minor matters. Are your parents living?
Jack. I have lost both my parents.
Lady Bracknell. To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to

lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? He was evidently a man of some
wealth. Was he born in what the Radical papers call the purple of commerce, or did he
rise from the ranks of the aristocracy?
Jack. I am afraid I really don't know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I said I had lost my
parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my parents seem to have lost me . . . I
don't actually know who I am by birth. I was . . . well, I was found.
Lady Bracknell. Found!
Jack. The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable and kindly
disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, because he happened to have
a first-class ticket for Worthing in his pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It
is a seaside resort.
Lady Bracknell. Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first- class ticket for this
seaside resort find you?
Jack. [Gravely.] In a hand-bag.
Lady Bracknell. A hand-bag?
Jack. [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag-- a somewhat large,
black leather hand-bag, with handles to it--an ordinary hand-bag in fact.
Lady Bracknell. In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew come across this
ordinary hand-bag?
Jack. In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in mistake for his own.
Lady Bracknell. The cloak-room at Victoria Station?
Jack. Yes. The Brighton line.
Lady Bracknell. The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat
bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate bred, in a hand-bag,
whether it had handles or not, seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary
decencies of family life that reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution.
And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular
locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway station might serve
to conceal a social indiscretion--has probably, indeed, been used for that purpose before
now-but it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good
society.
Jack. May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly say I would do
anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen's happiness.
Lady Bracknell. I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some

relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one
parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.
Jack. Well, I don't see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can produce the
hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I really think that should
satisfy you, Lady Bracknell.
Lady Bracknell. Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly imagine that I and
Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter--a girl brought up with the
utmost care--to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good
morning, Mr. Worthing!
[Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation.]
Jack. Good morning! [Algernon, from the other room, strikes up the Wedding March.
Jack looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door.] For goodness' sake don't play that
ghastly tune, Algy. How idiotic you are!
[The music stops and Algernon enters cheerily.]
Algernon. Didn't it go off all right, old boy? You don't mean to say Gwendolen refused
you? I know it is a way she has. She is always refusing people. I think it is most
ill-natured of her.
Jack. Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is concerned, we are engaged.
Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know
what a Gorgon is like, but I am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a
monster, without being a myth, which is rather unfair . . . I beg your pardon, Algy, I
suppose I shouldn't talk about your own aunt in that way before you.
Algernon. My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that
makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of