OSCAR WILDE: The Importance of Being Earnest Remember to support your ideas with details from the text. Read this passage, and then answer the question that follows it: Algernon: [raising his hat] You are my little cousin Cecily, I'm sure. Cecily: You are under some strange mistake. I am not little. In fact, I believe I am more than usually tall for my age. [ALGERNON is rather taken aback.] But I am your cousin Cecily. You, I see from your card, are Uncle Jack's brother, my cousin Ernest, my wicked cousin Ernest. Algernon: Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn't think that I am wicked. If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in a very inexcusable manner. I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy. Algernon: [looks at her in amazement] Oh! Of course I have been rather reckless. Cecily: I am glad to hear it. Algernon: In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in my own small way. Cecily: I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure it must have been very pleasant. Algernon: It is much pleasanter being here with you. Cecily: I can't understand how you are here at all. Uncle Jack won't be back till Monday afternoon. Algernon: That is a great disappointment. I am obliged to go up by the first train on Monday morning. I have a business appointment that I am anxious....to miss! Cecily: Couldn't you miss it anywhere but in London? Algernon: No: the appointment is in London. Cecily: Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of life, but I still think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives. I know he wants to speak to you about your emigrating. Algernon: About my what? Cecily: Your emigrating. He has gone up to buy your outfit. Algernon: I certainly wouldn't let Jack buy my outfit. He has no taste in neckties at all. Cecily: I don't think you will require neckties. Uncle Jack is sending you to Australia. Algernon: Australia! I'd sooner die. Cecily: Well, he said at dinner on Wednesday night, that you would have to choose between this world, the next world, and Australia. Algernon: Oh, well! The accounts I have received of Australia and the next world are not particularly encouraging. This world is good enough for me, cousin Cecily. Cecily: Yes, but are you good enough for it? Algernon: I'm afraid I'm not that. That is why I want you to reform me. You might make that your mission, if you don't mind, cousin Cecily. Cecily: I'm afraid I've no time, this afternoon. Algernon: Well, would you mind my reforming myself this afternoon? Cecily: It is rather Quixotic of you. But I think you should try. Algernon: I will. I feel better already. Cecily: You are looking a little worse. Algernon: That is because I am hungry. Cecily: How thoughtless of me. I should have remembered that when one is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome meals. Won't you come in? Algernon: Thank you. Might I have a buttonhole first? I have never any appetite unless I have a buttonhole first. Cecily: A Maréchal Niel? [Picks up scissors.] Algernon: No, I'd sooner have a pink rose. Cecily: Why? [Cuts a flower.] 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. Algernon: Then Miss Prism is a short-sighted old lady. [CECILY puts the rose in his buttonhole.] You are the prettiest girl I ever saw. Cecily: Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare. Algernon: They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be caught in. Cecily: Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I shouldn't know what to talk to him about. [from Act 2]

1. How does Wilde make this first meeting between Algernon and Cecily so entertaining?[25]