Well?
LORD GORING. He walks in the mire. Of course I am only talking
generally about life.
LADY CHILTERN. [Gravely.] I hope so. Why do you look at me so
strangely, Lord Goring?
LORD GORING. Lady Chiltern, I have sometimes thought that . . .
perhaps you are a little hard in some of your views on life. I think
that . . . often you don't make sufficient allowances. In every
nature there are elements of weakness, or worse than weakness.
Supposing, for instance, that - that any public man, my father, or
Lord Merton, or Robert, say, had, years ago, written some foolish
letter to some one . . .
LADY CHILTERN. What do you mean by a foolish letter?
LORD GORING. A letter gravely compromising one's position. I am
only putting an imaginary case.
LADY CHILTERN. Robert is as incapable of doing a foolish thing as he
is of doing a wrong thing.
LORD GORING. [After a long pause.] Nobody is incapable of doing a
foolish thing. Nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing.
LADY CHILTERN. Are you a Pessimist? What will the other dandies
say? They will all have to go into mourning.
LORD GORING. [Rising.] No, Lady Chiltern, I am not a Pessimist.
Indeed I am not sure that I quite know what Pessimism really means.
All I do know is that life cannot be understood without much charity,
cannot be lived without much charity. It is love, and not German
philosophy, that is the true explanation of this world, whatever may
be the explanation of the next.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73