MISS PRISM
[Drawing herself up.] Your guardian enjoys the best of health, and his gravity of demeanour is especially to be commended in one so com
paratively young as he is. I know no one who has a higher sense of duty and
responsibility.
CECILY
I suppose that is why he often looks a little bored when we three are
together.
MISS PRISM
Cecily! I am surprised at you. Mr. Worthing has many troubles
in his life. Idle merriment and triviality would be out of place in his con
versation. You must remember his constant anxiety about that unfortunate
young man his brother.
CECILY
I wish Uncle Jack would allow that unfortunate young man, his brother, to come down here sometimes. We might have a good influence over him, Miss Prism. I am sure you certainly would. You know German, and geology, and things of that kind influence a man very much, [CECILY
begins to write in her diary.] MISS PRISM [Shaking her head.] I do not think that even I could produce any effect on a character that according to his own brother's admission is irre
trievably weak and vacillating. Indeed I am not sure that I would desire to
reclaim him. I am not in favor of this modern mania for turning bad people
into good people at a moment's notice. As a man sows so let him reap.7 You
must put away your diary, Cecily. I really don't see why you should keep a
diary at all.
CECILY
I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my life. If I
didn't write them down I should probably forget all ahout them. Miss PRISM Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.
CECILY
Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never happened,
and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is responsible
for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie8 sends us.
MISS PRISM
Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. I
wrote one myself in earlier days.
CECILY
Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I hope
it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They depress me
so much.
7. Cf. Calatians 6.7. tales) to subscribers for a moderate fee. Mudie's 8. Mudie's Circulating Library, which lent copies power in controlling the book market, especially of new three-volume novels (usually sentimental for novels, was on the wane by 1895.
.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST, ACT 1 / 17 11
MISS PRISM
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what
Fiction means. CECILY I suppose so. But it seems very unfair. And was your novel ever published?
MISS PRISM
Alas! no. The manuscript unfortunately was abandoned. I use
the word in the sense of lost or mislaid. To your work, child, these specu
lations are profitless. CECILY [Smiling.] But I see dear Dr. Chasuble9 coming up through the garden. MISS PRISM [Rising and advancing.] Dr. Chasuble! This is indeed a pleasure. [Enter CANON CHASUBLE.]
CHASUBLE
