The Importance of Being Earnest

Cecily.
How nice of you to like me so much after we have known each other 
such a comparatively short time. Pray sit down. 
Gwendolen.
[Still standing up.] I may call you Cecily, may I not? 
Cecily.
With pleasure! 
Gwendolen.
And you will always call me Gwendolen, won’t you? 
Cecily.
If you wish. 
Gwendolen.
Then that is all quite settled, is it not? 
Cecily.
I hope so. [A pause. They both sit down together.] 
46

---

Gwendolen.
Perhaps this might be a favourable opportunity for my 
mentioning who I am. My father is Lord Bracknell. You have never heard of 
papa, I suppose? 
Cecily.
I don’t think so. 
Gwendolen.
Outside the family circle, papa, I am glad to say, is entirely 
unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems to me to be 
the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man begins to neglect 
his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, does he not? And I 
don’t like that. It makes men so very attractive. Cecily, mamma, whose 
views on education are remarkably strict, has brought me up to be 
extremely short-sighted; it is part of her system; so do you mind my looking 
at you through my glasses? 
Cecily.
Oh! not at all, Gwendolen. I am very fond of being looked at. 
Gwendolen.
[After examining 
Cecily
carefully through a lorgnette.] You are 
here on a short visit, I suppose. 
Cecily.
Oh no! I live here. 
Gwendolen.
[Severely.] Really? Your mother, no doubt, or some female 
relative of advanced years, resides here also? 
Cecily.
Oh no! I have no mother, nor, in fact, any relations. 
Gwendolen. Indeed?