Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

I tried to remember that quote from Oscar Wilde but he is such an artist with words that approximations never do him justice..

Here is an extract from yesterdays reading, 'The Ideal Husband'

 Sir Robert Chiltern, the respected and admired Underscretary for Foreign affairs,  wrestles with the possibility of seeing his whole world collapse  because eighteen years beforehand

'he laid the foundation of his fortune by selling to a Stock Exchange speculator a cabinet secret.'

and admits

'Wealth has given me enormous power.'

 Lord Goring does not understand ,

'How you of all the men could have been so weak as to yield to such temptation.'

And yet Sir Robert still argues,

'To stake all one's life on a single moment,to risk everything on one throw, whether the stake be power or pleasure, I care not - there is no weakness in that.'


What a plot, what an argument!

NEXT READING

An Ideal Husband  by Oscar Wilde

This is the intriguing title of our next reading. It is a play by Wilde with lots of colourful characters and his provocative witticisms. The plot is woven around guilt and the terrible fear of being caught.

He describes life's temptations :

' ....he expounded to us the most terrible of all philosophies, the philososophy of power, preached to us  the most marvellous of all gospels, the gospel of gold'

and remorse

'I have distributed twice over in public charities since then'

'In public charities? Dear me, what a lot of harm you must have done.'

Wilde preferred social justice over charity.

We will read the first two acts hopefully.