Lord Henry Wotton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
epigrammatical) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tushanshu2013-07-13 04:50 pm
epigrammatical) wrote in tushanshu2013-07-13 04:50 pm
VIII. Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you!
[AUDIO, public. The morning after the event ends and Tu Vishan starts moving again.]
I am not alone, I gather, in detecting a change in the air here. It is rather like waking on the very first day of the Season, with all the possibility that lies ahead—or waking the morning after the last day, with the happy knowledge that one need not be at home to anyone that day. We have, I suppose, escaped the fate of Des Esseintes's tortoise.
[AUDIO, private to Dorian Gray.]
I have finished Mr Findley's novel, Dorian. A most marvellous book; quite gorgeous and affecting.
But I must ask you, dear boy—is what he writes about Oscar true?
[He's already guessed that it is. This is less a real question than the confirmation of a sense of creeping dread.]
video;
Re: video;
The East End of London is a dire mass of poverty and human misery, the ostensible improvement of which is a pet project of many a well-bred lady. It is nobly meant, to be sure, but poorly executed. I think in the end their methods only breed more resentment amongst the lower orders, rather than uplifting them in any real way.
video;
Why is it only the women?
video;
And I am sorry for the answer, though Henry is not.]Because they have little head for business and much idle time on their hands, and many are afflicted with a positive mania for religion, which encourages such endeavours.
video;
...
Give her a minute.
...
No seriously though what. ]
That doesn't answer my question at all. Why is it only the women that have these qualities?
video; (I really am sorry for this retrograde jerk)
[Perhaps just a fraction of a second too late, he remembers the cautions about modern women handed to him by people like Dorian. He also remembers Aisha punching him in the face. Thus, a hasty amendment:]
It is no doubt different in your world and time, of course, and in the future of my own world.
video; TwT at least she isn't planning on punching him, it would probably kill him
I see. I understand that your world has a much poorer knowledge of science than mine. I can see how you might make that mistake.
video; (it's a good thing this is happening over video, probably.)
We may all be very grateful for more enlightened worlds and times, my dear. I apologise if I have inadvertently offended you.
[Said smoothly, even contritely; it's not even a false apology, even if his essential opinions on women's natures remain fundamentally unchanged.]
video;
video;
Well, that is one wonderful thing about this city, is it not? That we should all have such a remarkable opportunity to learn from one another.
video;
video;