William Congreve

“ Let me excuse him,—I can defend most of his faults, except one or two; one he has, that’s the truth on’t,—if he were my brother I could not acquit him—that indeed I could wish were otherwise.
MIRA. Ay, marry, what’s that, Witwoud?
WIT. Oh, pardon me. Expose the infirmities of my friend? No, my dear, excuse me there.
FAIN. What, I warrant he’s unsincere, or ’tis some such trifle.
WIT. No, no; what if he be? ’Tis no matter for that, his wit will excuse that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant: one argues a decay of parts, as t’other of beauty. ”

“ Lady Wishfort at her toilet, Peg waiting.
LADY. Merciful! No news of Foible yet?
PEG. No, madam.
LADY. I have no more patience. If I have not fretted myself till I am pale again, there’s no veracity in me. Fetch me the red—the red, do you hear, sweetheart? An errant ash colour, as I’m a person. Look you how this wench stirs! Why dost thou not fetch me a little red? Didst thou not hear me, Mopus?
PEG. The red ratafia, does your ladyship mean, or the cherry brandy?
LADY. Ratafia, fool? No, fool. Not the ratafia, fool—grant me patience!—I mean the Spanish paper, idiot; complexion, darling. ”

“ I shan’t endure to be reprimanded nor instructed; ’tis so dull to act always by advice, and so tedious to be told of one’s faults, I can’t bear it. Well, I won’t have you, Mirabell—I’m resolved—I think—you may go—ha, ha, ha! What would you give that you could help loving me?
MIRA. I would give something that you did not know I could not help it.
MILLA. Come, don’t look grave then. Well, what do you say to me?
MIRA. I say that a man may as soon make a friend by his wit, or a fortune by his honesty, as win a woman with plain-dealing and sincerity.
MILLA. Sententious Mirabell! ”

“ FAIN. Prithee, why so reserved? Something has put you out of humour.
MIRA. Not at all: I happen to be grave to-day, and you are gay; that’s all.
FAIN. Confess, Millamant and you quarrelled last night, after I left you; my fair cousin has some humours that would tempt the patience of a Stoic. What, some coxcomb came in, and was well received by her, while you were by?
MIRA. Witwoud and Petulant, and what was worse, her aunt, your wife’s mother, my evil genius—or to sum up all in her own name, my old Lady Wishfort came in. ”

“ Millamant, Sir Wilfull.
SIR WIL. Aunt, your servant.
LADY. Out, caterpillar, call not me aunt; I know thee not.
SIR WIL. I confess I have been a little in disguise, as they say. ’Sheart! and I’m sorry for’t. What would you have? I hope I committed no offence, aunt—and if I did I am willing to make satisfaction; and what can a man say fairer? If I have broke anything I’ll pay for’t, an it cost a pound. And so let that content for what’s past, and make no more words. For what’s to come, to pleasure you I’m willing to marry my cousin. ”

“ MIRA. So one will be rotten before he be ripe, and the other will be rotten without ever being ripe at all.
FAIN. Sir Wilfull is an odd mixture of bashfulness and obstinacy. But when he’s drunk, he’s as loving as the monster in The Tempest, and much after the same manner. To give bother his due, he has something of good-nature, and does not always want wit.
MIRA. Not always: but as often as his memory fails him and his commonplace of comparisons. He is a fool with a good memory and some few scraps of other folks’ wit. ”

“ Nay, ’tis true; you are no longer handsome when you’ve lost your lover: your beauty dies upon the instant. For beauty is the lover’s gift: ’tis he bestows your charms:—your glass is all a cheat. The ugly and the old, whom the looking-glass mortifies, yet after commendation can be flattered by it, and discover beauties in it: for that reflects our praises rather than your face.
MILLA. Oh, the vanity of these men! Fainall, d’ye hear him? If they did not commend us, we were not handsome! Now you must know they could not commend one if one was not handsome. Beauty the lover’s gift! ”

“ In three weeks he shall be barefoot; in a month out at knees with begging an alms; he shall starve upward and upward, ’till he has nothing living but his head, and then go out in a stink like a candle’s end upon a save-all.
LADY. Well, Sir Rowland, you have the way,—you are no novice in the labyrinth of love,—you have the clue. But as I am a person, Sir Rowland, you must not attribute my yielding to any sinister appetite or indigestion of widowhood; nor impute my complacency to any lethargy of continence. I hope you do not think me prone to any iteration of nuptials? ”

“ Lord, what is a lover, that it can give? Why, one makes lovers as fast as one pleases, and they live as long as one pleases, and they die as soon as one pleases; and then, if one pleases, one makes more.
WIT. Very pretty. Why, you make no more of making of lovers, madam, than of making so many card-matches.
MILLA. One no more owes one’s beauty to a lover than one’s wit to an echo. They can but reflect what we look and say: vain empty things if we are silent or unseen, and want a being. ”

“ WIT. Raillery, raillery, madam; we have no animosity. We hit off a little wit now and then, but no animosity. The falling out of wits is like the falling out of lovers:—we agree in the main, like treble and bass. Ha, Petulant?
PET. Ay, in the main. But when I have a humour to contradict—
WIT. Ay, when he has a humour to contradict, then I contradict too. What, I know my cue. Then we contradict one another like two battledores; for contradictions beget one another like Jews.
PET. If he says black’s black—if I have a humour to say ’tis blue—let that pass—all’s one for that. ”

“ LADY. But art thou sure Sir Rowland will not fail to come? Or will a not fail when he does come? Will he be importunate, Foible, and push? For if he should not be importunate I shall never break decorums. I shall die with confusion if I am forced to advance—oh no, I can never advance; I shall swoon if he should expect advances. No, I hope Sir Rowland is better bred than to put a lady to the necessity of breaking her forms. I won’t be too coy neither—I won’t give him despair. But a little disdain is not amiss; a little scorn is alluring.
FOIB. A little scorn becomes your ladyship. ”

“ When they are together, then come to me, Foible, that I may not be too long alone with Sir Rowland.
SCENE II. Mrs. Millamant, Mrs. Fainall, Foible.
FOIB. Madam, I stayed here to tell your ladyship that Mr. Mirabell has waited this half hour for an opportunity to talk with you; though my lady’s orders were to leave you and Sir Wilfull together. Shall I tell Mr. Mirabell that you are at leisure?
MILLA. No. What would the dear man have? I am thoughtful and would amuse myself; bid him come another time.
There never yet was woman made,
Nor shall, but to be cursed. ”

“ Good Mirabell, don’t let us be familiar or fond, nor kiss before folks, like my Lady Fadler and Sir Francis; nor go to Hyde Park together the first Sunday in a new chariot, to provoke eyes and whispers, and then never be seen there together again, as if we were proud of one another the first week, and ashamed of one another ever after. Let us never visit together, nor go to a play together, but let us be very strange and well-bred. Let us be as strange as if we had been married a great while, and as well-bred as if we were not married at all. ”

“ FAIN. O brave Petulant! Three!
BET. I’ll tell him.
COACH. You must bring two dishes of chocolate and a glass of cinnamon water.
SCENE VIII. Mirabell, Fainall, Witwoud.
WIT. That should be for two fasting strumpets, and a bawd troubled with wind. Now you may know what the three are.
MIRA. You are very free with your friend’s acquaintance.
WIT. Ay, ay; friendship without freedom is as dull as love without enjoyment or wine without toasting: but to tell you a secret, these are trulls whom he allows coach-hire, and something more by the week, to call on him once a day at public places. ”

“ WAIT. A woman’s hand? No madam, that’s no woman’s hand: I see that already. That’s somebody whose throat must be cut.
LADY. Nay, Sir Rowland, since you give me a proof of your passion by your jealousy, I promise you I’ll make a return by a frank communication. You shall see it—we’ll open it together. Look you here. [Reads.] Madam, though unknown to you (look you there, ’tis from nobody that I know.) I have that honour for your character, that I think myself obliged to let you know you are abused. He who pretends to be Sir Rowland is a cheat and a rascal. ”

“ SIR WIL. ’Sheart, you’ll have time enough to toy after you’re married, or, if you will toy now, let us have a dance in the meantime; that we who are not lovers may have some other employment besides looking on.
MIRA. With all my heart, dear Sir Wilfull. What shall we do for music?
FOIB. Oh, sir, some that were provided for Sir Rowland’s entertainment are yet within call. [A dance.]
LADY. As I am a person, I can hold out no longer: I have wasted my spirits so to-day already that I am ready to sink under the fatigue ”

“ Marwood.
FAIN. What should provoke her to be your enemy, unless she has made you advances which you have slighted? Women do not easily forgive omissions of that nature.
MIRA. She was always civil to me, till of late. I confess I am not one of those coxcombs who are apt to interpret a woman’s good manners to her prejudice, and think that she who does not refuse ’em everything can refuse ’em nothing.
FAIN. You are a gallant man, Mirabell; and though you may have cruelty enough not to satisfy a lady’s longing, you have too much generosity not to be tender of her honour. ”

“ I heard the villain was in the house indeed; and now I remember, my niece went away abruptly when Sir Wilfull was to have made his addresses.
FOIB. Then, then, madam, Mr. Mirabell waited for her in her chamber; but I would not tell your ladyship to discompose you when you were to receive Sir Rowland.
WAIT. Enough, his date is short.
FOIB. No, good Sir Rowland, don’t incur the law.
WAIT. Law? I care not for law. I can but die, and ’tis in a good cause. My lady shall be satisfied of my truth and innocence, though it cost me my life. ”

“ FAIN. Are you jealous as often as you see Witwoud entertained by Millamant?
MIRA. Of her understanding I am, if not of her person.
FAIN. You do her wrong; for, to give her her due, she has wit.
MIRA. She has beauty enough to make any man think so, and complaisance enough not to contradict him who shall tell her so.
FAIN. For a passionate lover methinks you are a man somewhat too discerning in the failings of your mistress.
MIRA. And for a discerning man somewhat too passionate a lover, for I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. ”

“ Sure I was born with budding antlers like a young satyr, or a citizen’s child, ’sdeath, to be out-witted, to be out-jilted, out-matrimonied. If I had kept my speed like a stag, ’twere somewhat, but to crawl after, with my horns like a snail, and be outstripped by my wife—’tis scurvy wedlock.
MRS. MAR. Then shake it off: you have often wished for an opportunity to part, and now you have it. But first prevent their plot:—the half of Millamant’s fortune is too considerable to be parted with to a foe, to Mirabell. ”

“ FOIB. But I told my lady as you instructed me, sir, that I had a prospect of seeing Sir Rowland, your uncle, and that I would put her ladyship’s picture in my pocket to show him, which I’ll be sure to say has made him so enamoured of her beauty, that he burns with impatience to lie at her ladyship’s feet and worship the original.
MIRA. Excellent Foible! Matrimony has made you eloquent in love.
WAIT. I think she has profited, sir. I think so.
FOIB. You have seen Madam Millamant, sir? ”

“ Fainall of your ladyship then?
MRS. FAIN. Ay, all’s out: my affair with Mirabell, everything discovered. This is the last day of our living together; that’s my comfort.
FOIB. Indeed, madam, and so ’tis a comfort, if you knew all. He has been even with your ladyship; which I could have told you long enough since, but I love to keep peace and quietness by my good will. I had rather bring friends together than set ’em at distance. But Mrs. Marwood and he are nearer related than ever their parents thought for.
MRS. FAIN. Say’st thou so, Foible? Canst thou prove this? ”

“ SIR WIL. I’m very well, I thank you, aunt. However, I thank you for your courteous offer. ’Sheart, I was afraid you would have been in the fashion too, and have remembered to have forgot your relations. Here’s your cousin Tony, belike, I mayn’t call him brother for fear of offence.
LADY. Oh, he’s a rallier, nephew. My cousin’s a wit: and your great wits always rally their best friends to choose. When you have been abroad, nephew, you’ll understand raillery better. [Fainall and Mrs. Marwood talk apart.] ”

“ SCENE IX. Petulant, Mirabell, Fainall, Witwoud, Betty.
BET. Sir, the coach stays.
PET. Well, well, I come. ’Sbud, a man had as good be a professed midwife as a professed whoremaster, at this rate; to be knocked up and raised at all hours, and in all places. Pox on ’em, I won’t come. D’ye hear, tell ’em I won’t come. Let ’em snivel and cry their hearts out.
FAIN. You are very cruel, Petulant.
PET. All’s one, let it pass. I have a humour to be cruel. ”

“ I wonder, Fainall, that you who are married, and of consequence should be discreet, will suffer your wife to be of such a party.
FAIN. Faith, I am not jealous. Besides, most who are engaged are women and relations; and for the men, they are of a kind too contemptible to give scandal.
MIRA. I am of another opinion: the greater the coxcomb, always the more the scandal; for a woman who is not a fool can have but one reason for associating with a man who is one. ”

“ Fainall, you have met with your match.—O man, man! Woman, woman! The devil’s an ass: if I were a painter, I would draw him like an idiot, a driveller with a bib and bells. Man should have his head and horns, and woman the rest of him. Poor, simple fiend! ‘Madam Marwood has a month’s mind, but he can’t abide her.’ ’Twere better for him you had not been his confessor in that affair, without you could have kept his counsel closer. ”

“ I knew Fainall to be a man lavish of his morals, an interested and professing friend, a false and a designing lover, yet one whose wit and outward fair behaviour have gained a reputation with the town, enough to make that woman stand excused who has suffered herself to be won by his addresses. A better man ought not to have been sacrificed to the occasion ”