I wanted my success when I was young. Youth is the
time for success. I couldn't wait.
LORD GORING. Well, you certainly have had your success while you are
still young. No one in our day has had such a brilliant success.
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs at the age of forty - that's good
enough for any one, I should think.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. And if it is all taken away from me now? If I
lose everything over a horrible scandal? If I am hounded from public
life?
LORD GORING. Robert, how could you have sold yourself for money?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Excitedly.] I did not sell myself for money.
I bought success at a great price. That is all.
LORD GORING. [Gravely.] Yes; you certainly paid a great price for
it. But what first made you think of doing such a thing?
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. Baron Arnheim.
LORD GORING. Damned scoundrel!
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. No; he was a man of a most subtle and refined
intellect. A man of culture, charm, and distinction. One of the
most intellectual men I ever met.
LORD GORING. Ah! I prefer a gentlemanly fool any day. There is more
to be said for stupidity than people imagine. Personally I have a
great admiration for stupidity. It is a sort of fellow-feeling, I
suppose. But how did he do it? Tell me the whole thing.
SIR ROBERT CHILTERN. [Throws himself into an armchair by the
writing-table.] One night after dinner at Lord Radley's the Baron
began talking about success in modern life as something that one
could reduce to an absolutely definite science.
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