William Congreve

“ You see, Mr. Sharper, after all I am content to retire; live a private person. Scipio and others have done it.
SHARP. Impudent rogue. [Aside.]
SIR JO. Ay, this damned modesty of yours. Agad, if he would put in for’t he might be made general himself yet.
BLUFF. Oh, fie! no, Sir Joseph; you know I hate this.
SIR JO. Let me but tell Mr. Sharper a little, how you ate fire once out of the mouth of a cannon. Agad, he did; those impenetrable whiskers of his have confronted flames—
BLUFF. Death, what do you mean, Sir Joseph?
SIR JO. Look you now. I tell you he’s so modest he’ll own nothing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For importunity in love, like importunity at Court, first creates its own interest and then pursues it for the favour.
ARAM. Favours that are got by impudence and importunity, are like discoveries from the rack, when the afflicted person, for his ease, sometimes confesses secrets his heart knows nothing of.
VAIN. I should rather think favours, so gained, to be due rewards to indefatigable devotion. For as love is a deity, he must be served by prayer.
BELIN. O Gad, would you would all pray to love, then, and let us alone. ”

“ O Gad, I hate your horrid fancy. This love is the devil, and, sure, to be in love is to be possessed. ’Tis in the head, the heart, the blood, the—all over. O Gad, you are quite spoiled. I shall loathe the sight of mankind for your sake.
ARAM. Fie! this is gross affectation. A little of Bellmour’s company would change the scene.
BELIN. Filthy fellow! I wonder, cousin—
ARAM. I wonder, cousin, you should imagine I don’t perceive you love him.
BELIN. Oh, I love your hideous fancy! Ha, ha, ha, love a man!
ARAM. Love a man! yes, you would not love a beast. ”

“ But my tyrant there and I, are two buckets that can never come together.
BELIN. Nor are ever like. Yet we often meet and clash.
BELL. How never like! marry, Hymen forbid. But this it is to run so extravagantly in debt ”

“ VAIN. You are the temples of love, and ’tis through you, our devotion must be conveyed.
ARAM. Rather poor silly idols of your own making, which upon the least displeasure you forsake and set up new. Every man now changes his mistress and his religion as his humour varies, or his interest.
VAIN. O madam—
ARAM. Nay, come, I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull. If my music-master be not gone, I’ll entertain you with a new song, which comes pretty near my own opinion of love and your sex. Who’s there? Is Mr. ”