“An Ideal Husband”

Act I

I.Active Vocabulary

-to take to politics (12)

-to make smth out

-a swindle (29)

-to inquire about smb/smth

-to do smb justice (30)

-to withdraw a report (31)

-to be prejudiced (31)

-to lay a foundation of smth (33)

-to make terms (34)

-to suppress smth (35)

-to sacrifice smth (35)

-to be susceptible to reason (39)

-to uphold

-fraudulent (43)

-fraud (n)

-to decline smth

-to despise smb/smth (44)

-to drift apart (48)

a) Find the sentences with these words and reproduce the situations.

II.Paraphrase

  1. …Lord Cavershan, an old gentleman of seventy. A fine Whig type. (9)
  2. Has my good-for-nothing son been here?
  3. Shouldn’t mind being introduced to my own tailor, he always votes on the right side (7, 8).
  4. There is nothing like race, is there? (9)
  5. Sir Robert Chiltern enters … A personality of mark. (11)
  6. I don’t care about the London season. (16)
  7. You are not going to plunge us into a European war. (19)
  8. Then, my dear Nanjac, you must certainly read between the lines. (21)
  9. The thing has gone to the dogs… (21)
  10. … London Society was entirely made up of dowdies and dandies. (24)
  11. And then the family skeleton is always reading family prayers. (28)
  12. My dear Sir Robert, you are a man of the world. (32)
  13. The House of Commons had not yet passed the bill. (35)
  14. You all go over like ninepins one after the other. (34)
  15. I should fancy she came to grief if she tried to get Robert into her
    toils. (43)
  1. Who said it and in what context. Explain the meaning of the sentence and comment on it.
  2. It (education) puts one almost on a level with the commercial classes, doesn’t it? (5)
  3. It is entirely composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics. Just what society should be. (8)
  4. They actually succeeded in spelling his name right in the newspapers. That in itself is fame, on the continent. (10)
  5. Optimism begins in a broad grin, and pessimism ends with blue spectacles. Besides, they are both of them merely poses. (14)
  6. The strength of women comes from the fact that psychology cannot explain us. Men can be analysed, women … merely adored. (15)
  7. Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, everyone has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues… (34)
  8. You have a splendid position, but it is your splendid position that makes you so vulnerable. (35)
  9. One should always play fairly … when one has the winning cards. (37)
  10. Truth is a very complex thing, and politics is a very complex business. There are wheels within wheels. (46)
  11. But power is nothing in itself. It is power to do good that is fine… (47)
  12. That great inheritance throw not away – that tower of ivory do not destroy. (47)
  1. Fill in the blanks with prepositions.
  2. A man who took me … … dinner talked … me … his wife the whole time.
  3. I have been obliged … the present to put Lord Goring … a class quite … himself.
  4. I hardly think there will be much … common … you and my husband.
  5. One feels that he is conscious … the success he has made in life.
  6. … any rate we do our best to waste the public time.
  7. An acquaintance that begins … a compliment is sure to develop … a real friendship.
  8. … least that it the only way I can account … the terrible haggard look … most … your pretty women … London.
  9. We poor women who are … thirty have nothing open … us but politics and philanthropy.
  10. He plays … life, and he is … perfectly good terms … the world.
  11. I delight … your bad qualities.
  12. You seem to be living entirely … pleasure.
  13. Let us call things … their proper names.
  14. I sent … a special Commission to enquire … the matter privately.
  15. I hope you have not invested … it.
  16. I remember hearing … the time … his death that he had been mixed … the whole affair.
  17. I hope you will be more reasonable … your terms.
  18. It is … my possession.
  19. You owe … it your fortune and position.
  20. You do it … the terms I wish, I shall hand you back your letter … the prettiest thanks.
  21. I always pass .. good advice. It is never … any use … oneself.
  1. Questions.
  2. What is the time period of the play?
  3. Where is the scene laid? What is the occasion for the gathering? Who receives the guests? Describe Lady Chiltern.
  4. Who are the guest of the Chilterns? Reproduce the conversation between Mrs. Marchmont and Lady Basildon. How does it characterize the ladies?
  5. What do you come to know about Lord Caversham and Lord Goring?
  6. Who is Mabel Chiltern to Lady Chiltern and her husband? How does she portray the London society?
  7. What do you learn about Sir Robert Chiltern? What is his position in the society? Speak about Lady Chiltern’s opinion of her husband.
  8. Who brings Mrs. Cheveley to the party? What is her background? In what way does she differ from other ladies at the party? How does Lady Chiltern happen to know Mrs. Cheveley? What are Lady Chiltern’s schoolday recollections?
  9. What does Mrs. Cheveley want to meet Sir Robert for? How does she approach the subject of her interest? Why has she invested largely in the Argentine Canal Scheme?
  10. Speak about Sir Robert’s opinion of the Suez Canal Scheme and the Argentine Canal Scheme. Why does he qualify the Argentine Canal as “a second Panama”? What did the commission sent out to Argentina report? What is Sir Robert going to do with the report of the Commission?
  11. What reasons does Mrs. Cheveley give suggesting that Sir Robert should withdraw or suppress the report? What are her terms? What does she threaten to do in case he refuses to uphold the scheme?
  12. How did Mrs. Cheveley manage to reveal the origin of Sir Robert’s wealth and career? How did she get hold of his letter to Baron Arnheim?
  13. What does Mrs. Cheveley preach? What is her philosophy in life?
  14. What makes Sir Robert accept Mrs. Cheveley’s terms?
  15. Why does Mrs. Cheveley drop a hint to Lady Chiltern that her husband is going to lend his support to the enterprise she is interested in? What is Lady Chiltern’s reaction to the news?
  16. How does Sir Robert account for the change in his attitude to the Argentine Canal Scheme? How does he try to whitewash Mrs. Cheveley? Why does he call politics a complex business? What does he mean saying that public and private life are different things?
  17. How does Lady Chiltern manage to talk her husband into writing Mrs. Cheveley a letter declining his support?
  18. Speak on the incident with the brooch. What is Lord Goring’s reaction when he catches sight of the brooch?

Act II

I.Active Vocabulary

-to turn from smb in contempt (52)

-to alter one’s views (52)

-to distract public attention (53)

-at all costs (54)

-to act on smth (54)

-to underrate oneself (54)

-to judge by smth (57)

-to yield to temptation (58)

-to suffer remorse (59)

-to be in store (62)

-to have the scruple in doing smth (63)

-to be above reproach (68)

-to conceal smth (69)

-to make allowances (70)

-to detest smb/smth (88)

-to be tempted (91)

-to be bewildered (93)

a) Find the sentences with these words and reproduce the situations.

II.Paraphrase

  1. …the sin of one’s youth … should wreck a life of mine, should place me in the pillory. (54)
  2. I am hounded from public life. (55)
  3. I have paid conscience money many times. I had a wild hope that I might disarm destiny. (60)
  4. Besides, if you make a clean breast of the whole affair… (60)
  5. Have you tried her with money. (62)
  6. But everyone has some weak point. There is some flaw in each one of us. (62)
  7. I shall send a cipher telegram. (63)
  8. She must have had a curious hold over Baron Arnheim. (64)
  9. Once a man has set his heart and soul on getting to a certain point… (69)
  10. Robert is a great champion of the Higher Education of Women. (80)
  11. Sir John has taken to attending the debates regularly… (82)
  12. In this world like meets with like. (89)
  1. Who said it and in what context. Explain the meaning of the sentence and comment on it.
  2. I had the double misfortune of being well-born and poor, two unforgivable things nowadays. (54)
  3. Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own
    weapons. (54)
  4. … he expounded to us the most terrible of all philosophies, the philosophy of power; preached to us the most marvelous of all gospels, the gospel of gold. (56)
  5. … power over other men, power over the world, was the one thing worth having… (57)
  6. I tell you that there are terrible temptations that it requires strength and courage to yield to. (58)
  7. And in England a man who can’t talk morality twice a week to a large, popular, immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician. (61)
  8. Then the marvelous gospel of gold breaks down sometimes. The rich can’t do everything, after all. (62)
  9. Your husband is an exception, mine is the general rule, and nothing ages a woman so rapidly as having married the general rule. (87)
  10. I don’t mind your talking morality. Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike. (88)
  11. It is when we are wounded … that love should come to cure us.
  1. Fill in the blanks with prepositions.
  2. He paces … and … the room.
  3. Under-Secretary … Foreign affairs … the age … forty – that’s good enough … any one.
  4. … the worst it would be a psychological experiment.
  5. Is it fair that a man’s whole career should be ruined … a fault done … one’s boyhood?
  6. I bought success … a great price.
  7. I was dazed … the prospect he held … … me, and my desire … pave … that time was boundless.
  8. He made three-quarters … a million … the transaction.
  9. The Baron advised me … finance … time to time.
  10. The English can’t stand a man who is always saying he is … the right, but they are fond of a man who admits that he has been … the wrong.
  11. How can I defend myself … her?
  12. I will fight her … her weapons.
  13. I live … hopes now. I clutch … every chance.
  14. Of which I know nothing … experience, though I know something by observation.
  15. I have a particular reason … asking you.
  16. Robert think very highly … him.
  17. I wouldn’t marry a man … a future … him for anything … the sun.
  18. With regard … women you belong … the younger generation and I am sure it is all right if you approve … it.
  19. A house, everything … which has been paid … … fraud.
  1. Questions.
  2. Why is Sir Robert in a state of mental excitement? What makes him disclose the truth about his past to Lord Goring? Why can’t he bring himself to make a confession to his wife? How does Lord Goring qualify the whole affair?
  3. In what way does Sir Robert try to justify his dishonourable past? What does he say of the importance of wealth? What did he achieve thanks to the wealth he had got then? Did he ever suffer remorse?
  4. Under what circumstances did Baron Arnheim come into Sir Robert’s life? What impression did the luxury of the Baron’s house make on Sir Robert? Speak on the philosophy the Baron preached? Why was Sir Robert ready to yield to temptation? Did he wrong anybody by what he had done?
  5. Why does Lord Goring say that in Sir Robert’s case “confession won’t do”? How does Sir Robert plan to fight Mrs. Cheveley?
  6. Reproduce the conversation between Lord Goring and Lady Chiltern. Why does he try to convince her to make allowances to other people? What surprises Lady Chiltern about Lord Goring? Why does he ask for the list of guests?
  7. What do Mrs. Cheveley and Lady Markby come to the Chilterns’ for? Speak on Lady Markby’s views on marriages, fathers- and sons- problems, politics, women’s education.
  8. What is the main reason for Mrs. Cheveley’s visit to Lady Chiltern? What does she mean saying that she and Sir Robert pair so well together? Why is she sorry for Lady Chiltern?
  9. Speak on Lady Chiltern’s reaction to the news that her husband built up his career on dishonour? What does Sir Robert think of love and women who make ideals of men?

Act III

I.Active Vocabulary

-to stand by smb (97)

-on smb’s account (100)

-to give precise directions (103)

-to alter smth (104)

-to detest smb (105)

-to be at stake (106)

-to tempt smb (108)

-to entrust smth to smb (108)

-to do indiscretion (110)

-from one’s standpoint (111)

-to put smth down by law (120)

-to stand up for smb (120)

-to taunt (122)

-to do smth out of malice (123)

-to pin smth in (123)

-to (un)clasp (125)

-to prosecute (125)

-to render smb a service (127)

a) Find the sentences with these words and reproduce the situations.

II.Paraphrase

  1. I am the only person of the smallest importance in London at present who wears a buttonhole. (95)
  2. Makes me look a little too old almost in the prim of time. (96)
  3. The ten commandments in every stroke of the pen, and the moral law all over the page.
  4. Of course I only speak from hearsay. (107)
  5. …that I sold, like a common huckster, the secret that had been entrusted to me as a man of honour. (108)
  6. What a mess I am in. I think I’ll get through it. I’ll give her a lecture through the door. (110)
  7. Doesn’t that sound rather like temptating Providence. (115)
  8. Don’t use big words. It is a commercial transaction. (121)
  9. A woman whose size in gloves is seven and three-quarters never knows much about anything. (121)
  10. …one of the most noble and gentle women in the world to degrade her husband in her eyes, …to put poison in her heart, to break her idol. (122)
  1. Who said it and in what context. Explain the meaning of the sentence and comment on it.
  2. Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. (95)
  3. It is the growth of the moral sense in women that makes marriage such a hopeless, one-sided institution. (97)
  4. If there was less sympathy in the world there would be less trouble in the world.
  5. Romance should begin with science and end with a settlement. (105)
  6. Spies are of no use nowadays. Their profession is over. The newspapers do their work instead. (109)
  7. The English think that a check-book can solve every problem in life. (116)
  8. I suppose that when a man has once loved a woman, he will do anything for her, except continue to love her. (118)
  9. And self-sacrifice is a thing that should be put down by law. It is so demoralizing to the people for one sacrifices oneself. (120)
  10. There is only one real tragedy in a woman’s life. The fact that her past is always her lover, and her future invariably her husband. (121)
  1. Fill in the blanks with prepositions.
  2. The letter was brought … hand just after you went … the club.
  3. It is only ten o’clock. What is your objection … the hour?
  4. You can’t be always living … pleasure. Every man … position is married nowadays.
  5. … present I make your mother’s life miserable … your account.
  6. I have called … a definite purpose, and I am going to see it through … all costs … my health or yours.
  7. Who … earth writes to him … pink paper?
  8. I began my career … an act of dishonesty, I built up my life … sands of shame.
  9. I said to her things that were hideously true, … my side … my standpoint.
  10. I swear … you … my honour that lady is stainless and guiltless … all offence towards you.
  11. I have come here to offer Sir Chiltern’s letters to you … conditions.
  12. I am … the impression that my lawyer settled that matter with you … certain terms.
  13. When I last saw you … the Chilterns’, I knew you were the only person I had ever cared …, if I ever have cared … anybody.
  14. You went this afternoon … the husband of one of the most noble women … the world to degrade her house … her eyes, to try and kill her love … him, to put poison … her heart.
  15. You stole that ornament … my cousin, and suspicion fell … a wretched servant, who was sent … … disgrace.
  16. I will do anything .. the world you want.
  17. He takes the letter, examines it and burns it … the lamp.
  1. Questions.
  2. Where is the setting laid? Describe Lord Goring’s buttler. What can be said of Lord Goring’s concern for his appearance? How does his witty expressions characterize him?
  3. Why does he decide to stay in? Why does he look at Lady Chiltern’s letter with a puzzled look? What line is he going to take when speaking to Lady Chiltern? What instructions does he give to Phipps?
  4. Why is Lord Goring not delighted to see his father? What is the purpose of Lord Caversham’s visit? What are his views on marriage? Why is he so eager to have his son married?
  5. Who calls on Lord Goring while he is speaking to his father? Who does the buttler take her for? How does Mrs. Cheveley behave when she is left alone? What does she mean by saying: “I’ll have to alter all this?” What does she find among Lord Goring’s correspondence? Why does a look of triumph come over her face when she reads Lady Chiltern’s letter?
  6. What brings Sir Robert to Lord Goring’s house so late at night? Why is Lord Goring not surprised to see him? What has Sir Robert found out about Mrs. Cheveley from the message received from Vienna? How does he speak of his wife? Explain his words “I am a ship without a rudder on a night without a star”? Why did he place his wife apart from other people?
  7. Why does Sir Robert suspect that there is someone in the next room? What are Lord Goring’s reasons for not allowing Sir Robert to enter that room? Why does Lord Goring say that the lady is “stainless and guiltless of all offence” towards Sir Robert? Why does Sir Robert leave Lord Goring’s house enraged?
  8. How does Lord Goring receive Mrs. Cheveley? What is the true reason for her visit? Why is she so eager to talk Lord Goring into marrying her? What is she ready to sacrifice? What does she threaten to do if he turns down her proposal?
  9. How does Lord Goring happen to know that it is Mrs. Cheveley who lost the brooch at the Chilterns’? How does Lord Goring manage to get hold of Sir Robert’s letter? Why is Mrs. Cheveley’s face “illumined with evil triumph” when she leaves Lord Goring’s house?

Act IV