"But it is a most impossible situation," he said sternly. "Don't you understand? In the case of women of deep passions, like these beautiful Delarayne girls, it is a harrowing drama."
Sir Joseph looked up. Lord Henry's words had sobered him.
"You don't say so!" he muttered.
"I do, most emphatically," the young man continued "All our plan of life in England, you see, is founded on the assumption that only people of mediocre and diluted passion will hold the stage. We allow our girls to go about freely with young men, for instance. Why?"
"Because we can trust the young men," suggested Sir Joseph.
"Not a bit of it!—because both men and girls are usually so very much below par temperamentally that they can exercise what is called 'self-control,'—that is to say their passions are relied upon always to be weaker than their 'self-control'."
Sir Joseph was by now utterly bewildered.
"We allow our daughters to exercise the most heartless rivalry one against the other in the matrimonial field—why?"
Sir Joseph, who imagined that the young nobleman was growing impatient with him, did not venture to reply.
"Because," continued Lord Henry, "we know perfectly well that they are too tame, too mild, too listless about life, ever to become homicidal in their hatred of one another. The moment two deep, eager and adorable girls, like these daughters of Mrs. Delarayne, walk on to our English boards, our whole fabric, our whole scenery, and stage machinery, is shown to be wrong to the last screw. God! How different this country must have been when Shakespeare was able to say that thing about one touch of nature! Now one touch of nature in England sets the whole world by the ears!"