PET. The quintessence. Maybe Witwoud knows more; he stayed longer.
Besides, they never mind him; they say anything before him.
MIRA. I thought you had been the greatest favourite.
PET. Ay, tete-e-tete; but not in public, because I make remarks.
MIRA. You do?
PET. Ay, ay, pox, I'm
malicious, man. Now he's soft, you know,
they are not in awe of him. The fellow's well bred, he's what you
call a--what d'ye-call-'em--a fine gentleman, but he's silly withal.
MIRA. I thank you, I know as much as my
curiosity requires.
Fainall, are you for the Mall?
FAIN. Ay, I'll take a turn before dinner.
WIT. Ay, we'll all walk in the park; the ladies talked of being
there.
MIRA. I thought you were obliged to watch for your brother Sir
Wilfull's arrival.
WIT. No, no, he comes to his aunt's, my Lady Wishfort; pox on him,
I shall be troubled with him too; what shall I do with the fool?
PET. Beg him for his
estate, that I may beg you afterwards, and so
have but one trouble with you both.
WIT. O rare Petulant, thou art as quick as fire in a frosty
morning; thou shalt to the Mall with us, and we'll be very severe.
PET. Enough; I'm in a
humour to be severe.
MIRA. Are you? Pray then walk by yourselves. Let not us be
accessory to your putting the ladies out of
countenance with your
senseless ribaldry, which you roar out aloud as often as they pass
by you, and when you have made a handsome woman blush, then you
think you have been severe.
PET. What, what? Then let 'em either show their
innocence by not
understanding what they hear, or else show their
discretion by not
hearing what they would not be thought to understand.
MIRA. But hast not thou then sense enough to know that thou
ought'st to be most
ashamed thyself when thou hast put another out
of
countenance?
PET. Not I, by this hand: I always take blushing either for a sign
of guilt or ill-breeding.
MIRA. I
confess you ought to think so. You are in the right, that
you may plead the error of your judgment in defence of your
practice.
Where modesty's ill manners, 'tis but fit
That impudence and
malice pass for wit.
ACT II.--SCENE I.
St. James's Park.
MRS. FAINALL and MRS. MARWOOD.
MRS. FAIN. Ay, ay, dear Marwood, if we will be happy, we must find
the means in ourselves, and among ourselves. Men are ever in
extremes; either doting or
averse. While they are lovers, if they
have fire and sense, their jealousies are insupportable: and when
they cease to love (we ought to think at least) they
loathe, they
look upon us with
horror and distaste, they meet us like the ghosts
of what we were, and as from such, fly from us.
MRS. MAR. True, 'tis an
unhappy circumstance of life that love
should ever die before us, and that the man so often should outlive
the lover. But say what you will, 'tis better to be left than never
to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull
indifference, to
refuse the sweets of life because they once must leave us, is as
preposterous as to wish to have been born old, because we one day
must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and waste, but it shall
never rust in my possession.
MRS. FAIN. Then it seems you dissemble an aversion to mankind only
in compliance to my mother's
humour.
MRS. MAR. Certainly. To be free, I have no taste of those insipid
dry discourses with which our sex of force must
entertain themselves
apart from men. We may
affect endearments to each other,
professeternal friendships, and seem to dote like lovers; but 'tis not in
our natures long to persevere. Love will resume his empire in our
breasts, and every heart, or soon or late, receive and readmit him
as its
lawful tyrant.
MRS. FAIN. Bless me, how have I been deceived! Why, you
profess a
libertine.
MRS. MAR. You see my friendship by my freedom. Come, be as
sincere,
acknowledge that your sentiments agree with mine.
MRS. FAIN. Never.
MRS. MAR. You hate mankind?
MRS. FAIN. Heartily, inveterately.
MRS. MAR. Your husband?
MRS. FAIN. Most transcendently; ay, though I say it, meritoriously.
MRS. MAR. Give me your hand upon it.
MRS. FAIN. There.
MRS. MAR. I join with you; what I have said has been to try you.
MRS. FAIN. Is it possible? Dost thou hate those vipers, men?
MRS. MAR. I have done hating 'em, and am now come to
despise 'em;
the next thing I have to do is
eternally to forget 'em.
MRS. FAIN. There spoke the spirit of an Amazon, a Penthesilea.
MRS. MAR. And yet I am thinking sometimes to carry my aversion
further.
MRS. FAIN. How?
MRS. MAR. Faith, by marrying; if I could but find one that loved me
very well, and would be throughly
sensible of ill usage, I think I
should do myself the
violence of undergoing the ceremony.
MRS. FAIN. You would not make him a cuckold?
MRS. MAR. No; but I'd make him believe I did, and that's as bad.
MRS. FAIN. Why had not you as good do it?
MRS. MAR. Oh, if he should ever discover it, he would then know the
worst, and be out of his pain; but I would have him ever to continue
upon the rack of fear and jealousy.
MRS. FAIN. Ingenious mischief! Would thou wert married to
Mirabell.
MRS. MAR. Would I were.
MRS. FAIN. You change colour.
MRS. MAR. Because I hate him.
MRS. FAIN. So do I; but I can hear him named. But what reason have
you to hate him in particular?
MRS. MAR. I never loved him; he is, and always was, insufferably
proud.
MRS. FAIN. By the reason you give for your aversion, one would
think it dissembled; for you have laid a fault to his
charge, of
which his enemies must
acquit him.
MRS. MAR. Oh, then it seems you are one of his favourable enemies.
Methinks you look a little pale, and now you flush again.
MRS. FAIN. Do I? I think I am a little sick o' the sudden.
MRS. MAR. What ails you?
MRS. FAIN. My husband. Don't you see him? He turned short upon me
unawares, and has almost
overcome me.
SCENE II.
[To them] FAINALL and MIRABELL.
MRS. MAR. Ha, ha, ha! he comes opportunely for you.
MRS. FAIN. For you, for he has brought Mirabell with him.
FAIN. My dear.
MRS. FAIN. My soul.
FAIN. You don't look well to-day, child.
MRS. FAIN. D'ye think so?
MIRA. He is the only man that does, madam.
MRS. FAIN. The only man that would tell me so at least, and the
only man from whom I could hear it without mortification.
FAIN. Oh, my dear, I am satisfied of your
tenderness; I know you
cannot
resent anything from me; especially what is an effect of my
concern.
MRS. FAIN. Mr. Mirabell, my mother interrupted you in a pleasant
relation last night: I would fain hear it out.
MIRA. The persons
concerned in that affair have yet a tolerable
reputation. I am afraid Mr. Fainall will be censorious.
MRS. FAIN. He has a
humour more
prevailing than his
curiosity, and
will
willinglydispense with the
hearing of one scandalous story, to
avoid giving an occasion to make another by being seen to walk with
his wife. This way, Mr. Mirabell, and I dare promise you will
oblige us both.
SCENE III.
FAINALL, MRS. MARWOOD.
FAIN. Excellent creature! Well, sure, if I should live to be rid
of my wife, I should be a
miserable man.
MRS. MAR. Ay?
FAIN. For having only that one hope, the
accomplishment of it of
consequence must put an end to all my hopes, and what a
wretch is he
who must
survive his hopes! Nothing remains when that day comes but
to sit down and weep like Alexander when he wanted other worlds to
conquer.
MRS. MAR. Will you not follow 'em?
FAIN. Faith, I think not,
MRS. MAR. Pray let us; I have a reason.
FAIN. You are not jealous?
MRS. MAR. Of whom?
FAIN. Of Mirabell.
MRS. MAR. If I am, is it
inconsistent with my love to you that I am
tender of your honour?
FAIN. You would
intimate then, as if there were a fellow-feeling
between my wife and him?
MRS. MAR. I think she does not hate him to that degree she would be
thought.
FAIN. But he, I fear, is too in
sensible.
MRS. MAR. It may be you are deceived.
FAIN. It may be so. I do not now begin to
apprehend it.
MRS. MAR. What?
FAIN. That I have been deceived, madam, and you are false.
MRS. MAR. That I am false? What mean you?
FAIN. To let you know I see through all your little arts.--Come,
you both love him, and both have
equally dissembled your aversion.
Your
mutual jealousies of one another have made you clash till you
have both struck fire. I have seen the warm
confession red'ning on
your cheeks, and sparkling from your eyes.
MRS. MAR. You do me wrong.
FAIN. I do not. 'Twas for my ease to oversee and wilfully
neglectthe gross advances made him by my wife, that by permitting her to be
engaged, I might continue unsuspected in my pleasures, and take you
oftener to my arms in full
security. But could you think, because
the nodding husband would not wake, that e'er the
watchful lover
slept?
MRS. MAR. And wherewithal can you
reproach me?
FAIN. With in
fidelity, with
loving another, with love of Mirabell.
MRS. MAR. 'Tis false. I
challenge you to show an
instance that can
confirm your groundless
accusation. I hate him.
FAIN. And
wherefore do you hate him? He is in
sensible, and your
resentment follows his
neglect. An
instance? The injuries you have
done him are a proof: your interposing in his love. What cause had
you to make discoveries of his pretended
passion? To
undeceive the
credulous aunt, and be the officious
obstacle of his match with
Millamant?
MRS. MAR. My obligations to my lady urged me: I had
professed a
friendship to her, and could not see her easy nature so abused by
that dissembler.
FAIN. What, was it
conscience then? Professed a friendship! Oh,
the pious friendships of the
female sex!
MRS. MAR. More tender, more
sincere, and more
enduring, than all
the vain and empty vows of men, whether
professing love to us or
mutual faith to one another.
FAIN. Ha, ha, ha! you are my wife's friend too.
MRS. MAR. Shame and ingratitude! Do you
reproach me? You, you
upbraid me? Have I been false to her, through
strictfidelity to
you, and sacrificed my friendship to keep my love inviolate? And
have you the baseness to
charge me with the guilt, unmindful of the
merit? To you it should be meritorious that I have been vicious.
And do you
reflect that guilt upon me which should lie buried in