Bernard Shaw

“ McCOMAS. Well, well: "True hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood."
WAITER. That depends a good deal on one's station in life, sir. If you were a waiter, sir, you'd find that simple faith would leave you just as short as Norman blood. I find it best to spell myself B. double-O.N., and to keep my wits pretty sharp about me. But I'm taking up your time, sir. You'll excuse me, sir: your own fault for being so affable, sir. I'll tell the ladies you're here, sir. (He goes out into the garden through the window.)
McCOMAS. Crampton: I can depend on you, can't I? ”

“ MRS. CLANDON (with suppressed impatience) . Mr. Valentine: do you think there is anything fast or loud about Phil and Dolly?
VALENTINE. Certainly not. It's utter bosh. Nothing can be in better taste.
CRAMPTON. Oh, yes: of course you say so.
MRS. CLANDON. William: you see a great deal of good English society. Are my children overdressed?
WAITER (reassuringly) . Oh, dear, no, ma'am. (Persuasively.) Oh, no, sir, not at all. A little pretty and tasty no doubt; but very choice and classy—very genteel and high toned indeed. Might be the son and daughter of a Dean, sir, I assure you, sir. ”

“ CRAMPTON. I'm very well content with that division, my dear. Thank you. (Valentine arrives. Gloria immediately becomes deliberately haughty.)
VALENTINE. Excuse me; but it's impossible to find a servant to announce one: even the never failing William seems to be at the ball. I should have gone myself; only I haven't five shillings to buy a ticket. How are you getting on, Crampton? Better, eh?
CRAMPTON. I am myself again, Mr. Valentine, no thanks to you.
VALENTINE. Look at this ungrateful parent of yours, Miss Clandon! I saved him from an excruciating pang; and he reviles me! ”

“ VALENTINE. Have you ever studied the subject of gunnery—artillery—cannons and war-ships and so on?
MRS. CLANDON. Has gunnery anything to do with Gloria?
VALENTINE. A great deal—by way of illustration. During this whole century, my dear Mrs. Clandon, the progress of artillery has been a duel between the maker of cannons and the maker of armor plates to keep the cannon balls out. You build a ship proof against the best gun known: somebody makes a better gun and sinks your ship. You build a heavier ship, proof against that gun: somebody makes a heavier gun and sinks you again. ”

“ MRS. CLANDON. This is just what I suspected. (Severely.) Mr. Valentine: you are one of those men who play with women's affections.
VALENTINE. Well, why not, if the Cause of Humanity is the only thing worth being serious about? However, I understand. (Rising and taking his hat with formal politeness.) You wish me to discontinue my visits.
MRS. CLANDON. No: I am sensible enough to be well aware that Gloria's best chance of escape from you now is to become better acquainted with you.
VALENTINE (unaffectedly alarmed) . Oh, don't say that, Mrs. Clandon. You don't think that, do you? ”

“ Gloria and Dolly look at one another; then at Valentine and Philip. Valentine and Philip, unequal to the occasion, look away from them at one another, and are instantly so disconcerted by catching one another's eye, that they look back again and catch the eyes of Gloria and Dolly. Thus, catching one another all round, they all look at nothing and are quite at a loss. Crampton looks about him, waiting for them to begin. The silence becomes unbearable. ”

“ Read them, Mr. Valentine: they'll improve your mind.
DOLLY. But not till we've gone, please.
PHILIP. Quite so: we prefer people with unimproved minds. Our own minds are in that fresh and unspoiled condition.
VALENTINE (dubiously) . Hm!
DOLLY (echoing him inquiringly) . Hm? Phil: he prefers people whose minds are improved.
PHILIP. In that case we shall have to introduce him to the other member of the family: the Woman of the Twentieth Century; our sister Gloria!
DOLLY (dithyrambically) . Nature's masterpiece!
PHILIP. Learning's daughter!
DOLLY. Madeira's pride! ”

“ MRS. CLANDON (horrified, springing to her side and catching her uplifted arm) . Gloria!! My dear! You're forgetting yourself. (Gloria, with a deep expiration, slowly relaxes her threatening attitude.)
VALENTINE. Remember: a man's power of love and admiration is like any other of his powers: he has to throw it away many times before he learns what is really worthy of it.
MRS. CLANDON. Another of the old speeches, Gloria. Take care.
VALENTINE (remonstrating) . Oh!
GLORIA (to Mrs. Clandon, with contemptuous self-possession) . Do you think I need to be warned now? (To Valentine.) ”

“ MRS. CLANDON (shocked) . Socialism.
McCOMAS. Yes, Socialism. That's what Miss Gloria will be up to her ears in before the end of the month if you let her loose here.
MRS. CLANDON (emphatically) . But I can prove to her that Socialism is a fallacy.
McCOMAS (touchingly) . It is by proving that, Mrs. Clandon, that I have lost all my young disciples. Be careful what you do: let her go her own way. (With some bitterness.) We're old-fashioned: the world thinks it has left us behind. There is only one place in all England where your opinions would still pass as advanced. ”

“ PHILIP (throwing away Dolly's arm and coming ill-humoredly towards the operating chair) . That wretched bankrupt ivory snatcher makes a compliment of allowing us to stand him a lunch—probably the first square meal he has had for months. (He gives the chair a kick, as if it were Valentine.)
DOLLY. It's too beastly. I won't stand it any longer, Phil. Here in England everybody asks whether you have a father the very first thing.
PHILIP. I won't stand it either. Mamma must tell us who he was.
DOLLY. Or who he is. He may be alive.
PHILIP. I hope not. No man alive shall father me. ”

“ Valentine's judgment. He is right. Let me introduce Miss Dorothy Clandon, commonly called Dolly. (Valentine bows to Dolly. She nods to him.) I'm Philip Clandon. We're from Madeira, but perfectly respectable, so far.
VALENTINE. Clandon! Are you related to—
DOLLY (unexpectedly crying out in despair) . Yes, we are.
VALENTINE (astonished) . I beg your pardon?
DOLLY. Oh, we are, we are. It's all over, Phil: they know all about us in England. (To Valentine.) Oh, you can't think how maddening it is to be related to a celebrated person, and never be valued anywhere for our own sakes. ”

“ They pass, an exquisite and dazzling apparition, between McComas and Bohun, and then back in a circle to the end of the table, where, as the final chord of the waltz is struck, they make a tableau in the middle of the company, the harlequin down on his left knee, and the columbine standing on his right knee, with her arms curved over her head. Unlike their dancing, which is charmingly graceful, their attitudinizing is hardly a success, and threatens to end in a catastrophe. ”

“ The majestic one, however, comes straight into the room to the end of the table, where, with impressive deliberation, he takes off the false nose and then the domino, rolling up the nose into the domino and throwing the bundle on the table like a champion throwing down his glove. He is now seen to be a stout, tall man between forty and fifty, clean shaven, with a midnight oil pallor emphasized by stiff black hair, cropped short and oiled, and eyebrows like early Victorian horsehair upholstery. Physically and spiritually, a coarsened man: in cunning and logic, a ruthlessly sharpened one. ”

“ McCOMAS (wistfully) . Women can be very hard, Mrs. Clandon.
VALENTINE. That's true.
GLORIA (angrily) . Be silent. (He subsides.)
McCOMAS (rallying all his forces) . Let me make one last appeal. Mrs. Clandon: believe me, there are men who have a good deal of feeling, and kind feeling, too, which they are not able to express. What you miss in Crampton is that mere veneer of civilization, the art of shewing worthless attentions and paying insincere compliments in a kindly, charming way. ”

“ DOLLY. Mr. Bohun: please bully Finch for us.
BOHUN. I will. McComas: you're making yourself ridiculous. Sit down.
McCOMAS. I—
BOHUN (waving him down imperiously) . No: sit down, sit down. (McComas sits down sulkily; and Crampton, much relieved, follows his example.)
DOLLY (to Bohun, meekly) . Thank you.
BOHUN. Now, listen to me, all of you. I give no opinion, McComas, as to how far you may or may not have committed yourself in the direction indicated by this young lady. (McComas is about to protest.) No: don't interrupt me: if she doesn't marry you she will marry somebody else. ”

“ If my income is mostly tips, and there's a pretence that I don't get them, why, his income is mostly fees, sir; and I understand there's a pretence that he don't get them! If he likes society, and his profession brings him into contact with all ranks, so does mine, too, sir. If it's a little against a barrister to have a waiter for his father, sir, it's a little against a waiter to have a barrister for a son: many people consider it a great liberty, sir, I assure you, sir. Can I get you anything else, sir?
CRAMPTON. No, thank you. ”

“ London society! London society!! You're not fit for any society, child.
DOLLY (losing her temper) . Now look here, Mr. Crampton. If you think—
WAITER (softly, at her elbow) . Stone ginger, miss.
DOLLY (taken aback, recovers her good humor after a long breath and says sweetly) . Thank you, dear William. You were just in time. (She drinks.)
McCOMAS (making a fresh effort to lead the conversation into dispassionate regions) . If I may be allowed to change the subject, Miss Clandon, what is the established religion in Madeira?
GLORIA. I suppose the Portuguese religion. I never inquired. ”

“ She is the incarnation of haughty highmindedness, raging with the impatience of an impetuous, dominative character paralyzed by the impotence of her youth, and unwillingly disciplined by the constant danger of ridicule from her lighter-handed juniors. Unlike her mother, she is all passion; and the conflict of her passion with her obstinate pride and intense fastidiousness results in a freezing coldness of manner. In an ugly woman all this would be repulsive; but Gloria is an attractive woman. ”

“ McCOMAS (with humorous solemnity) . Would you employ a solicitor with a beard?
MRS. CLANDON (pointing to the silk hat on the table) . Is that your hat?
McCOMAS. Would you employ a solicitor with a sombrero?
MRS. CLANDON. I have thought of you all these eighteen years with the beard and the sombrero. (She sits down on the garden seat. McComas takes his chair again.) Do you go to the meetings of the Dialectical Society still?
McCOMAS (gravely) . I do not frequent meetings now.
MRS. CLANDON. Finch: I see what has happened. You have become respectable. ”

“ MRS. CLANDON (going) . Oh, very well: I'll go to him.
WAITER (holding the door open for her) . Thank you, ma'am. (She goes out. He comes back into the room, and meets the eye of Valentine, who wants him to go.) All right, sir. Only the tea-things, sir. (Taking the tray.) Excuse me, sir. Thank you sir. (He goes out.)
VALENTINE (to Gloria) . Look here. You will forgive me, sooner or later. Forgive me now.
GLORIA (rising to level the declaration more intensely at him) . Never! While grass grows or water runs, never, never, never!!! ”

“ BOHUN. That's because you think an impression of sincerity will produce a better effect on Miss Clandon than an impression of disinterestedness. (Valentine, utterly dismantled and destroyed by this just remark, takes refuge in a feeble, speechless smile. Bohun, satisfied at having now effectually crushed all rebellion, throws himself back in his chair, with an air of being prepared to listen tolerantly to their grievances.) Now, Mr. Crampton, go on. It's understood that self is put aside. Human nature always begins by saying that.
CRAMPTON. But I mean it, sir. ”

“ I don't know anything about women: twelve years' experience is not enough. (In a gust of jealousy she throws him away from her; and he reels her back into the chair like a leaf before the wind, as Dolly dances in, waltzing with the waiter, followed by Mrs. Clandon and Finch, also waltzing, and Phil pirouetting by himself.) ”

“ I'm eating and drinking on credit; my landlord is as rich as a Jew and as hard as nails; and I've made five shillings in six weeks. If I swerve by a hair's breadth from the straight line of the most rigid respectability, I'm done for. Under such a circumstance, is it fair to ask me to lunch with you when you don't know your own father?
DOLLY. After all, our grandfather is a canon of Lincoln Cathedral.
VALENTINE (like a castaway mariner who sees a sail on the horizon) . What! Have you a grandfather? ”

“ Only, one observes that this reasonableness and intense personal privacy, which leaves her relations with Gloria and Phil much as they might be between her and the children of any other woman, breaks down in the case of Dolly. Though almost every word she addresses to her is necessarily in the nature of a remonstrance for some breach of decorum, the tenderness in her voice is unmistakable; and it is not surprising that years of such remonstrance have left Dolly hopelessly spoiled.
Gloria, who is hardly past twenty, is a much more formidable person than her mother. ”

“ DOLLY. What cheer, Finch?
McCOMAS (sternly) . Very serious news from your father, Miss Clandon. Very serious news indeed. (He crosses to the ottoman, and sits down. Dolly, looking deeply impressed, follows him and sits beside him on his right.)
VALENTINE. Perhaps I had better go.
McCOMAS. By no means, Mr. Valentine. You are deeply concerned in this. (Valentine takes a chair from the table and sits astride of it, leaning over the back, near the ottoman.) Mrs. Clandon: your husband demands the custody of his two younger children, who are not of age. ”

“ MRS. CLANDON (remonstrating) . Dear, dear children: don't be silly. Everything is so new to them here, Finch, that they are in the wildest spirits. They think every Englishman they meet is a joke.
DOLLY. Well, so he is: it's not our fault.
PHILIP. My knowledge of human nature is fairly extensive, Mr. McComas; but I find it impossible to take the inhabitants of this island seriously.
McCOMAS. I presume, sir, you are Master Philip (offering his hand) ? ”