How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Act.Line). Every time a character talks counts as one line, even if what they say turns into a long monologue.
Quote #1
MRS. CHEVELEY. Do you know, I am quite looking forward to meeting your clever husband, Lady Chiltern. […] They actually succeed in spelling his name right in the newspapers. That in itself is fame, on the continent. (1.43)
Mrs. Cheveley seems to think that any attention is good attention.
Quote #2
LADY MARKBY. Oh! she goes everywhere there, and has such pleasant scandals about all her friends. (1.60)
For Lady Markby, scandal is something delicious and exotic – to be kept far away from her, preferably across an ocean.
Quote #3
Nowadays, with our modern mania for morality, every one has to pose as a paragon of purity, incorruptibility, and all the other seven deadly virtues – and what is the result? You all go over like ninepins - one after the other. (1.268)
Like Lord Goring, Mrs. Cheveley believes that human beings are fundamentally flawed. Unlike him, she uses this knowledge for personal profit.