Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 29, 1893

Excerpt

STRAY THOUGHTS ON PLAY-WRITING.

From the Common-place Book of The O'Wilde.—The play? Oh, the play be zephyr'd! The play is not the thing. In other words, the play is nothing. Point is to prepare immense assortment of entirely irrelevant epigrams. "Epigram, my dear Duke, is the refuge of the dullard, who imagines that he obtains truth by inverting a truism." That sounds well; must lay it by for use. Take "Virtue," for instance. "Virtue" offers a fine field for paradox, brought strictly up to date. Must jot down stray thoughts. (Good idea in the expression "Stray Thoughts." Will think over it, and work it up either for impromptu or future play.) Here are a few examples:—

• (1) Be virtuous, and you will be a County Councillor.
• (2) Nothing is so dull as a life of virtue—except a career of vice.
• (3) "Virtue, my dear Lady Chillingham, is the weakness of the masses, acting under the force of their circumstances."
• (4) Virtue, no doubt, is a necessity; but, to be necessary, is the first step to abolition.
• (5) If you wish to become virtuous, you have only to be found out.
• (6) There is nothing a man resents so much as the imputation of virtue.
• (7) Virtue, my dear Horace, is a quality we inculcate upon our wives mainly by a lack of example.
• (8) I want to be rich merely in order to have the chance of overcoming the difficulties in the way of being virtuous. Virtue on a pound a week is so easy as to repel all but the indolent and worthless.

So much for Virtue. Repentance may be treated according to the same formula.

• (1) My dear boy, never repent. Repentance leads inevitably to repetition.
• (2) Repentance is like a secret. If you keep it to yourself it loses all interest. Nobody can repent on a desert island.
• (3) To repent is to have been unsuccessful.
• (4) Not to be repentant is never to have enjoyed.
• (5) Repentance in a man means nothing more than an intention to change his methods; in a woman it is a last tribute to an expiring reputation.

Having finished these examples, I will put down a few notions for general use.

• (1) Necessity knows no law, and therefore has to learn.
• (2) Everything comes to the man who is waited upon.
• (3) The later the bird the better for the worm.
• (4) It is never too late to—dine.

There you have the whole secret. Be fearfully cynical, dreadfully bold, delightfully wicked, and carefully unconventional; let paradox and epigram flow in copious streams from your pen. Throw in a few aristocrats with a plentiful flavouring of vices novelistically associated with wicked Baronets. Add an occasional smoking-room—(Mem. "Everything ends in smoke, my dear boy, except the cigars of our host." Use this when host is a parvenu unacquainted with the mysteries of brands)—shred into the mixture a wronged woman, a dull wife, and, if possible, one well tried and tested "situation," then set the whole to simmer for three hours at the Haymarket. The result will be—— But to predict a result is to prophesy, and to prophesy is to know. (N.B.—Work up this rough material....