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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, profess
eternal 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 insensible.
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 neglect
the 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 infidelity, 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 insensible, 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


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