Read the excerpt from Act I of The Importance of Being
Farnest.
The epigram that Algernon uses in his last line provides
a critique about
Jack. Of course it's mine. [Moving to him.) You have
seen me with it a hundred times, and you have no right
whatsoever to read what is written inside. It is a very
ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette case.
Algernon. Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule
about what one should read and what one shouldn't.
More than half of modern culture depends on what one
shouldn't read
O how the rules of Victorian society were not very strict
and were not taken seriously.
O how members of the upper class were not concerned
with the rules of society and rarely followed them.
O how the rules of Victorian society dictated many
things, even what was proper to read.
Ohow members of high society rarely read books and
were not concerned with cultural knowledge.