There are
wheels within wheels. One may be under certain obligations to people
that one must pay. Sooner or later in political life one has to
compromise. Every one does.
LADY CHILTERN. Compromise? Robert, why do you talk so differently
to-night from the way I have always heard you talk? Why are you
changed?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. I am not changed. But circumstances alter
things.
LADY CHILTERN. Circumstances should never alter principles!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. But if I told you -
LADY CHILTERN. What?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. That it was necessary, vitally necessary?
LADY CHILTERN. It can never be necessary to do what is not
honourable. Or if it be necessary, then what is it that I have
loved! But it is not, Robert; tell me it is not. Why should it be?
What gain would you get ? Money? We have no need of that! And
money that comes from a tainted source is a degradation. Power? But
power is nothing in itself. It is power to do good that is fine -
that, and that only. What is it, then? Robert, tell me why you are
going to do this dishonourable thing!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Gertrude, you have no right to use that word.
I told you it was a question of rational compromise. It is no more
than that.
LADY CHILTERN. Robert, that is all very well for other men, for men
who treat life simply as a sordid speculation; but not for you,
Robert, not for you.
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