William Congreve

“ SIR PAUL. Why, what’s the matter now? Good Lord, what’s all this for? Pooh, here’s a joke indeed. Why, where’s my wife?
LADY TOUCH. With Careless, in the close arbour; he may want you by this time, as much as you want her.
SIR PAUL. Oh, if she be with Mr. Careless, ’tis well enough.
LADY TOUCH. Fool, sot, insensible ox! But remember what I said to you, or you had better eat your own horns, by this light you had.
SIR PAUL. You’re a passionate woman, gads-bud! But to say truth all our family are choleric; I am the only peaceable person amongst ’em.
SCENE IX.
Mellefont, Maskwell, and Cynthia. ”

“ I assure you, Sir Paul, I laugh at nobody’s jest but my own, or a lady’s, I assure you, Sir Paul.
BRISK. How? how, my lord? what, affront my wit! Let me perish, do I never say anything worthy to be laughed at?
LORD FROTH. Oh, foy, don’t misapprehend me; I don’t say so, for I often smile at your conceptions. But there is nothing more unbecoming a man of quality than to laugh; ’tis such a vulgar expression of the passion; everybody can laugh. Then especially to laugh at the jest of an inferior person, or when anybody else of the same quality does not laugh with one—ridiculous! ”

“ SIR JO. Nay, now I’m in, I can prattle like a magpie. [Aside.]
SCENE X.
[To them] Sharper and Vainlove at some distance.
BELIN. Dear Araminta, I’m tired.
ARAM. ’Tis but pulling off our masks, and obliging Vainlove to know us. I’ll be rid of my fool by fair means.—Well, Sir Joseph, you shall see my face; but, be gone immediately. I see one that will be jealous, to find me in discourse with you. Be discreet. No reply; but away. [Unmasks.]
SIR JO. The great fortune, that dined at my Lady Freelove’s! Sir Joseph, thou art a made man. Agad, I’m in love up to the ears. ”

“ LORD FROTH. Heaven, Sir Paul, you amaze me, of all things in the world. You are never pleased but when we are all upon the broad grin: all laugh and no company; ah, then ’tis such a sight to see some teeth. Sure you’re a great admirer of my Lady Whifler, Mr. Sneer, and Sir Laurence Loud, and that gang.
SIR PAUL. I vow and swear she’s a very merry woman; but I think she laughs a little too much.
LORD FROTH. Merry! O Lord, what a character that is of a woman of quality. You have been at my Lady Whifler’s upon her day, madam?
CYNT. Yes, my lord. I must humour this fool. ”

“ Yet so much tenderness and beauty and honesty together is a jewel. Stay, Silvia—But then to marry; why, every man plays the fool once in his life. But to marry is playing the fool all one’s life long.
SILV. What did you call me for?
HEART. I’ll give thee all I have, and thou shalt live with me in everything so like my wife, the world shall believe it. Nay, thou shalt think so thyself—only let me not think so.
SILV. No, I’ll die before I’ll be your whore—as well as I love you.
HEART. [Aside.] A woman, and ignorant, may be honest, when ’tis out of obstinacy and contradiction. ”

“ LADY TOUCH. Where she’s serving you, as all your sex ought to be served, making you a beast. Don’t you know you’re a fool, brother?
SIR PAUL. A fool; he, he, he, you’re merry. No, no, not I, I know no such matter.
LADY TOUCH. Why, then, you don’t know half your happiness.
SIR PAUL. That’s a jest with all my heart, faith and troth. But harkee, my lord told me something of a revolution of things; I don’t know what to make on’t. Gads-bud, I must consult my wife:—he talks of disinheriting his nephew, and I don’t know what. ”

“ SIR JO. No, no; never fear, man; the lady’s business shall be done. What, come, Mr. Setter, I have overheard all, and to speak is but loss of time; but if there be occasion, let these worthy gentlemen intercede for me. [Gives him gold.]
SET. O lord, sir, what d’ye mean? Corrupt my honesty? They have indeed very persuading faces. But—
SIR JO. ’Tis too little, there’s more, man. There, take all. Now—
SET. Well, Sir Joseph, you have such a winning way with you—
SIR JO. And how, and how, good Setter, did the little rogue look when she talked of Sir Joseph? ”

“ CYNT. I’ll wait upon your ladyship.
BRISK. Pray, madam, how old is Lady Sapho?
LADY FROTH. Three-quarters, but I swear she has a world of wit, and can sing a tune already. My lord, won’t you go? Won’t you? What! not to see Saph? Pray, my lord, come see little Saph. I knew you could not stay.
SCENE XII.
Cynthia alone.
CYNT. ’Tis not so hard to counterfeit joy in the depth of affliction, as to dissemble mirth in company of fools. Why should I call ’em fools? The world thinks better of ’em; for these have quality and education, wit and fine conversation, are received and admired by the world. ”

“ Sir, I honour you; I understand you love fighting, I reverence a man that loves fighting. Sir, I kiss your hilts.
SHARP. Sir, your servant, but you are misinformed, for, unless it be to serve my particular friend, as Sir Joseph here, my country, or my religion, or in some very justifiable cause, I’m not for it.
BLUFF. O Lord, I beg your pardon, sir, I find you are not of my palate: you can’t relish a dish of fighting without sweet sauce. Now, I think fighting for fighting sake’s sufficient cause; fighting to me’s religion and the laws. ”

“ LUCY. Ah, the devil is not so cunning. You know my easy nature. Well, for once I’ll venture to serve you; but if you do deceive me, the curse of all kind, tender-hearted women light upon you!
BELL. That’s as much as to say, the pox take me. Well, lead on.
SCENE IV.
Vainlove, Sharper, and Setter.
SHARP. Just now, say you; gone in with Lucy?
SET. I saw him, sir, and stood at the corner where you found me, and overheard all they said: Mr. Bellmour is to marry ’em.
SHARP. Ha, ha; it will be a pleasant cheat. I’ll plague Heartwell when I see him. Prithee, Frank, let’s tease him ”

“ Araminta, Belinda, Vainlove, and Bellmour.
BELL. Why, you won’t hear me with patience.
ARAM. What’s the matter, cousin?
BELL. Nothing, madam, only—
BELIN. Prithee hold thy tongue. Lard, he has so pestered me with flames and stuff, I think I sha’n’t endure the sight of a fire this twelvemonth.
BELL. Yet all can’t melt that cruel frozen heart.
BELIN. O Gad, I hate your hideous fancy—you said that once before—if you must talk impertinently, for Heaven’s sake let it be with variety; don’t come always, like the devil, wrapt in flames. ”

“ BELL. Hold, hold. What the devil—thou wilt not draw upon a woman?
VAIN. What’s the matter?
ARAM. Bless me! what have you done to him?
BELIN. Only touched a galled beast until he winced.
VAIN. Bellmour, give it over; you vex him too much. ’Tis all serious to him.
BELIN. Nay, I swear, I begin to pity him myself.
HEART. Damn your pity!—but let me be calm a little. How have I deserved this of you? any of ye? Sir, have I impaired the honour of your house, promised your sister marriage, and whored her? Wherein have I injured you? ”

“ Lady Touchwood and Maskwell.
LADY TOUCH. Was’t not lucky?
MASK. Lucky! Fortune is your own, and ’tis her interest so to be. By heaven I believe you can control her power, and she fears it: though chance brought my lord, ’twas your own art that turned it to advantage.
LADY TOUCH. ’Tis true it might have been my ruin. But yonder’s my lord. I believe he’s coming to find you: I’ll not be seen.
SCENE II.
Maskwell alone.
MASK. So; I durst not own my introducing my lord, though it succeeded well for her, for she would have suspected a design which I should have been puzzled to excuse. ”

“ MASK. You oppress me with bounty. My gratitude is weak, and shrinks beneath the weight, and cannot rise to thank you. What, enjoy my love! Forgive the transports of a blessing so unexpected, so unhoped for, so unthought of!
LORD TOUCH. I will confirm it, and rejoice with thee.
SCENE IV.
Maskwell alone.
MASK. This is prosperous indeed. Why let him find me out a villain, settled in possession of a fair estate, and full fruition of my love, I’ll bear the railings of a losing gamester. But should he find me out before! ’Tis dangerous to delay. Let me think. ”

“ LADY PLYANT. Fiddle faddle, don’t tell me of this and that, and everything in the world, but give me mathemacular demonstration; answer me directly. But I have not patience. Oh, the impiety of it, as I was saying, and the unparalleled wickedness! O merciful Father! How could you think to reverse nature so, to make the daughter the means of procuring the mother?
MEL. The daughter to procure the mother!
LADY PLYANT. Ay, for though I am not Cynthia’s own mother, I am her father’s wife, and that’s near enough to make it incest.
MEL. Incest! O my precious aunt, and the devil in conjunction. ”

“ LORD FROTH. Foh!
LADY FROTH. Then she’s always ready to laugh when Sneer offers to speak, and sits in expectation of his no jest, with her gums bare, and her mouth open—
BRISK. Like an oyster at low ebb, egad. Ha, ha, ha!
CYNT. [Aside] Well, I find there are no fools so inconsiderable in themselves but they can render other people contemptible by exposing their infirmities.
LADY FROTH. Then that t’other great strapping lady—I can’t hit of her name; the old fat fool that paints so exorbitantly.
BRISK. I know whom you mean—but deuce take me, I can’t hit of her name neither. Paints, d’ye say? ”

“ BELL. Truth on’t is she fits his temper best, is a kind of floating island; sometimes seems in reach, then vanishes and keeps him busied in the search.
SHARP. She had need have a good share of sense to manage so capricious a lover.
BELL. Faith I don’t know, he’s of a temper the most easy to himself in the world; he takes as much always of an amour as he cares for, and quits it when it grows stale or unpleasant.
SHARP. An argument of very little passion, very good understanding, and very ill nature.
HEART. And proves that Vainlove plays the fool with discretion. ”