Jack.  I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Lady Bracknell, but this engagement is quite out of the question.  I am Miss Cardew’s guardian, and she cannot marry without my consent until she comes of age. That consent I absolutely decline to give.

Miss Prism. Child, you know how anxious your guardian is that you should improve yourself in every way.  He laid particular stress on your german, as he way leaving for town yesterday.

Miss Prism. Your guardian enjoys the best of health, and his gravity of demeanor is especially to be commended in one so comparatively young as he is.  I know no one who has higher sense of duty and responsibility.

Jack.  I am in love with Gwendolen.  I have come up to town expressly to propose to her.

Jack.  May I ask you then what you would advise me to do?  I need hardly say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen’s happiness.

Lady Bracknell.  I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over.

Algernon. Because you are like a pink rose, cousin Cecily.

Cecily. I don't think it can be right for you to talk to me like that. Miss Prism never says such things to me.

Cecily.  Yes. I  mean no.

Gwendolen. True! I had forgotten.  There are principles at stake that one cannot surrender.            Which of us should tell them? The task is not a pleasant one.

Cecily.  Could we not both speak at the same time?

Gwendolen.  An excellent idea! I nearly always speak at the same time as other people.  Will you take the time from me?

Cecily.  Certainly.

Gwendolen and Cecily.  Your Christian names are still an insuperable barrier.  That is all!

(they rise together)

Lady Bracknell. Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to someone, I, or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself…. And now I have a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am making these inquiries, you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the carriage.

Cecily.  [Coming over very slowly.]  But I don’t like German.  It isn’t at all a becoming language.  I know perfectly well that I look quite plain after my German lesson.

Miss Prism.  Child, you know how anxious your guardian is that you should improve yourself in every way.  He laid particular stress on your German, as he was leaving for town yesterday.  Indeed, he always lays stress on your German when he is leaving for town.

Algernon. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!

Jack. Gwendolen—Cecily—it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind. However, I will tell you quite frankly that I have no brother Ernest. I have no brother at all.