William Congreve

“ SCENE I. Valentine's lodging.
SCANDAL and JEREMY.
SCAN. Well, is your master ready? does he look madly and talk madly?
JERE. Yes, sir; you need make no great doubt of that. He that was so near turning poet yesterday morning can't be much to seek in playing the madman to-day.
SCAN. Would he have Angelica acquainted with the reason of his design?
JERE. No, sir, not yet. He has a mind to try whether his playing the madman won't make her play the fool, and fall in love with him; or at least own that she has loved him all this while and concealed it. ”

“ SCENE XIV. MRS FRAIL, MRS FORESIGHT.
MRS FRAIL. O sister, had you come a minute sooner, you would have seen the resolution of a lover: --honest Tar and I are parted;--and with the same indifference that we met. O' my life I am half vexed at the insensibility of a brute that I despised.
MRS FORE. What then, he bore it most heroically?
MRS FRAIL. Most tyrannically; for you see he has got the start of me, and I, the poor forsaken maid, am left complaining on the shore. ”

“ Say you so; nay, then, I'm convinced. And if I don't play trick for trick, may I never taste the pleasure of revenge.--Acknowledgment of love! I find you have mistaken my compassion, and think me guilty of a weakness I am a stranger to. But I have too much sincerity to deceive you, and too much charity to suffer him to be deluded with vain hopes. Good nature and humanity oblige me to be concerned for him; but to love is neither in my power nor inclination, and if he can't be cured without I suck the poison from his wounds, I'm afraid he won't recover his senses till I lose mine. ”

“ I am no blab, sir.
VAL. Acquaint Jeremy with it, he may easily bring it about. They are welcome, and I'll tell 'em so myself. [To SCANDAL.] What, do you look strange upon me? Then I must be plain. [Coming up to them.] I am Truth, and hate an old acquaintance with a new face. [SCANDAL goes aside with JEREMY.]
TATT. Do you know me, Valentine?
VAL. You? Who are you? No, I hope not.
TATT. I am Jack Tattle, your friend.
VAL. My friend, what to do? I am no married man, and thou canst not lie with my wife. I am very poor, and thou canst not borrow money of me. ”

“ But it's wonderful strange, Jeremy.
JERE. What is, sir?
VAL. That gray hairs should cover a green head--and I make a fool of my father. What's here! Erra Pater: or a bearded sibyl? If Prophecy comes, Truth must give place.
SCENE XI. SIR SAMPSON, SCANDAL, FORESIGHT, MISS FORESIGHT, MRS FRAIL.
FORE. What says he? What, did he prophesy? Ha, Sir Sampson, bless us! How are we?
SIR SAMP. Are we? A pox o' your prognostication. Why, we are fools as we use to be. ”

“ Since women love to change, and so do we.
No more, for I am melancholy. [Walks musing.]
JERE. I'll do't, sir. [To SCANDAL.]
SCAN. Mr Foresight, we had best leave him. He may grow outrageous, and do mischief.
FORE. I will be directed by you.
JERE. [To MRS FRAIL.] You'll meet, madam? I'll take care everything shall be ready.
MRS FRAIL. Thou shalt do what thou wilt; in short, I will deny thee nothing.
TATT. Madam, shall I wait upon you? [To ANGELICA.]
ANG. No, I'll stay with him; Mr Scandal will protect me. Aunt, Mr Tattle desires you would give him leave to wait on you. ”

“ SCENE XVII. ANGELICA, VALENTINE, SCANDAL.
SCAN. Jeremy, follow Tattle.
ANG. Mr Scandal, I only stay till my maid comes, and because I had a mind to be rid of Mr Tattle.
SCAN. Madam, I am very glad that I overheard a better reason which you gave to Mr Tattle; for his impertinence forced you to acknowledge a kindness for Valentine, which you denied to all his sufferings and my solicitations. So I'll leave him to make use of the discovery, and your ladyship to the free confession of your inclinations.
ANG. O heav'ns! You won't leave me alone with a madman? ”

“ SCAN. We are all under a mistake. Ask no questions, for I can't resolve you; but I'll inform your master. In the meantime, if our project succeed no better with his father than it does with his mistress, he may descend from his exaltation of madness into the road of common sense, and be content only to be made a fool with other reasonable people. I hear Sir Sampson. ”

“ Sir Sampson is enraged, and talks desperately of committing matrimony himself. If he has a mind to throw himself away, he can't do it more effectually than upon me, if we could bring it about.
MRS FORE. Oh, hang him, old fox, he's too cunning; besides, he hates both you and me. But I have a project in my head for you, and I have gone a good way towards it. I have almost made a bargain with Jeremy, Valentine's man, to sell his master to us.
MRS FRAIL. Sell him? How?
MRS FORE. Valentine raves upon Angelica, and took me for her, and Jeremy says will take anybody for her that he imposes on him. ”

“ Hadst thou the impudence to aspire at being a husband with that stubborn and disobedient temper? You that know not how to submit to a father, presume to have a sufficient stock of duty to undergo a wife? ”

“ ANG. But I have considered that passions are unreasonable and involuntary; if he loves, he can't help it; and if I don't love, I can't help it; no more than he can help his being a man, or I my being a woman: or no more than I can help my want of inclination to stay longer here. Come, Jenny.
SCENE IV. SCANDAL, JEREMY.
SCAN. Humh! An admirable composition, faith, this same womankind.
JERE. What, is she gone, sir? ”

“ Sir Sampson will wait upon you presently. [Aside to ANGELICA.]
VAL. You are not leaving me in this uncertainty?
ANG. Would anything but a madman complain of uncertainty? Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking and possessing of a wish discovers the folly of the chase. Never let us know one another better, for the pleasure of a masquerade is done when we come to show our faces; but I'll tell you two things before I leave you: I am not the fool you take me for ”

“ JERE. Why, faith, madam, he's mad for want of his wits, just as he was poor for want of money; his head is e'en as light as his pockets, and anybody that has a mind to a bad bargain can't do better than to beg him for his estate. ”