Book: The Way of the World

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WIT. Madam, truce with your similitudes.--No, you met her husband,
and did not ask him for her.

MIRA. By your leave, Witwoud, that were like enquiring after an old
fashion to ask a husband for his wife.

WIT. Hum, a hit, a hit, a palpable hit; I confess it.

MRS. FAIN. You were dressed before I came abroad.

MILLA. Ay, that's true. Oh, but then I had--Mincing, what had I?
Why was I so long?

MINC. O mem, your laship stayed to peruse a packet of letters.

MILLA. Oh, ay, letters--I had letters--I am persecuted with
letters--I hate letters. Nobody knows how to write letters; and yet
one has 'em, one does not know why. They serve one to pin up one's
hair.

WIT. Is that the way? Pray, madam, do you pin up your hair with
all your letters? I find I must keep copies.

MILLA. Only with those in verse, Mr. Witwoud. I never pin up my
hair with prose. I think I tried once, Mincing.

MINC. O mem, I shall never forget it.

MILLA. Ay, poor Mincing tift and tift all the morning.

MINC. Till I had the cramp in my fingers, I'll vow, mem. And all
to no purpose. But when your laship pins it up with poetry, it fits
so pleasant the next day as anything, and is so pure and so crips.

WIT. Indeed, so crips?

MINC. You're such a critic, Mr. Witwoud.

MILLA. Mirabell, did you take exceptions last night? Oh, ay, and
went away. Now I think on't I'm angry--no, now I think on't I'm
pleased:- for I believe I gave you some pain.

MIRA. Does that please you?

MILLA. Infinitely; I love to give pain.

MIRA. You would affect a cruelty which is not in your nature; your
true vanity is in the power of pleasing.

MILLA. Oh, I ask your pardon for that. One's cruelty is one's
power, and when one parts with one's cruelty one parts with one's
power, and when one has parted with that, I fancy one's old and
ugly.

MIRA. Ay, ay; suffer your cruelty to ruin the object of your power,
to destroy your lover--and then how vain, how lost a thing you'll
be! 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! 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.

MIRA. Yet, to those two vain empty things, you owe two the greatest
pleasures of your life.

MILLA. How so?

MIRA. To your lover you owe the pleasure of hearing yourselves
praised, and to an echo the pleasure of hearing yourselves talk.

WIT. But I know a lady that loves talking so incessantly, she won't
give an echo fair play; she has that everlasting rotation of tongue
that an echo must wait till she dies before it can catch her last
words.

MILLA. Oh, fiction; Fainall, let us leave these men.

MIRA. Draw off Witwoud. [Aside to MRS. FAINALL.]

MRS. FAIN. Immediately; I have a word or two for Mr. Witwoud.


SCENE VI.


MRS. MILLAMANT, MIRABELL, MINCING.

MIRA. I would beg a little private audience too. You had the
tyranny to deny me last night, though you knew I came to impart a
secret to you that concerned my love.

MILLA. You saw I was engaged.

MIRA. Unkind! You had the leisure to entertain a herd of fools:
things who visit you from their excessive idleness, bestowing on
your easiness that time which is the incumbrance of their lives.
How can you find delight in such society? It is impossible they
should admire you; they are not capable; or, if they were, it should
be to you as a mortification: for, sure, to please a fool is some
degree of folly.

MILLA. I please myself.--Besides, sometimes to converse with fools
is for my health.

MIRA. Your health! Is there a worse disease than the conversation
of fools?

MILLA. Yes, the vapours; fools are physic for it, next to
assafoetida.

MIRA. You are not in a course of fools?

MILLA. Mirabell, if you persist in this offensive freedom you'll
displease me. I think I must resolve after all not to have you:- we
shan't agree.

MIRA. Not in our physic, it may be.

MILLA. And yet our distemper in all likelihood will be the same;
for we shall be sick of one another. 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! Prithee don't look with that violent
and inflexible wise face, like Solomon at the dividing of the child
in an old tapestry hanging!

MIRA. You are merry, madam, but I would persuade you for a moment
to be serious.

MILLA. What, with that face? No, if you keep your countenance,
'tis impossible I should hold mine. Well, after all, there is
something very moving in a lovesick face. Ha, ha, ha! Well I won't
laugh; don't be peevish. Heigho! Now I'll be melancholy, as
melancholy as a watch-light. Well, Mirabell, if ever you will win
me, woo me now.--Nay, if you are so tedious, fare you well: I see
they are walking away.

MIRA. Can you not find in the variety of your disposition one
moment -

MILLA. To hear you tell me Foible's married, and your plot like to
speed? No.

MIRA. But how you came to know it -

MILLA. Without the help of the devil, you can't imagine; unless she
should tell me herself. Which of the two it may have been, I will
leave you to consider; and when you have done thinking of that,
think of me.


SCENE VII.


MIRABELL alone.

MIRA. I have something more.--Gone! Think of you? To think of a
whirlwind, though 'twere in a whirlwind, were a case of more steady
contemplation, a very tranquillity of mind and mansion. A fellow
that lives in a windmill has not a more whimsical dwelling than the
heart of a man that is lodged in a woman. There is no point of the
compass to which they cannot turn, and by which they are not turned,
and by one as well as another; for motion, not method, is their
occupation. To know this, and yet continue to be in love, is to be
made wise from the dictates of reason, and yet persevere to play the
fool by the force of instinct.--Oh, here come my pair of turtles.
What, billing so sweetly? Is not Valentine's day over with you yet?


SCENE VIII.


[To him] WAITWELL, FOIBLE.

MIRA. Sirrah, Waitwell, why, sure, you think you were married for
your own recreation and not for my conveniency.

WAIT. Your pardon, sir. With submission, we have indeed been
solacing in lawful delights; but still with an eye to business, sir.
I have instructed her as well as I could. If she can take your
directions as readily as my instructions, sir, your affairs are in a
prosperous way.

MIRA. Give you joy, Mrs. Foible.

FOIB. O--las, sir, I'm so ashamed.--I'm afraid my lady has been in
a thousand inquietudes for me. But I protest, sir, I made as much
haste as I could.

WAIT. That she did indeed, sir. It was my fault that she did not
make more.

MIRA. That I believe.

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?

MIRA. Yes.

FOIB. I told her, sir, because I did not know that you might find
an opportunity; she had so much company last night.

MIRA. Your diligence will merit more. In the meantime--[gives
money]

FOIB. O dear sir, your humble servant.

WAIT. Spouse -

MIRA. Stand off, sir, not a penny. Go on and prosper, Foible. The
lease shall be made good and the farm stocked, if we succeed.

FOIB. I don't question your generosity, sir, and you need not doubt
of success. If you have no more commands, sir, I'll be gone; I'm
sure my lady is at her toilet, and can't dress till I come. Oh
dear, I'm sure that [looking out] was Mrs. Marwood that went by in a
mask; if she has seen me with you I m sure she'll tell my lady.
I'll make haste home and prevent her. Your servant, Sir.--B'w'y,
Waitwell.


SCENE IX.


MIRABELL, WAITWELL.

WAIT. Sir Rowland, if you please. The jade's so pert upon her
preferment she forgets herself.

MIRA. Come, sir, will you endeavour to forget yourself--and
transform into Sir Rowland?

WAIT. Why, sir, it will be impossible I should remember myself.
Married, knighted, and attended all in one day! 'Tis enough to make
any man forget himself. The difficulty will be how to recover my
acquaintance and familiarity with my former self, and fall from my
transformation to a reformation into Waitwell. Nay, I shan't be
quite the same Waitwell neither--for now I remember me, I'm married,
and can't be my own man again.


Ay, there's my grief; that's the sad change of life:
To lose my title, and yet keep my wife.



ACT III.--SCENE I.



A room in Lady Wishfort's house.

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.
Paint, paint, paint, dost thou understand that, changeling, dangling
thy hands like bobbins before thee? Why dost thou not stir, puppet?
Thou wooden thing upon wires!

PEG. Lord, madam, your ladyship is so impatient.--I cannot come at
the paint, madam: Mrs. Foible has locked it up, and carried the key
with her.

LADY. A pox take you both.--Fetch me the cherry brandy then.


SCENE II.


LADY WISHFORT.

I'm as pale and as faint, I look like Mrs. Qualmsick, the curate's
wife, that's always breeding. Wench, come, come, wench, what art
thou doing? Sipping? Tasting? Save thee, dost thou not know the
bottle?


SCENE III.


LADY WISHFORT, PEG with a bottle and china cup.

PEG. Madam, I was looking for a cup.

LADY. A cup, save thee, and what a cup hast thou brought! Dost
thou take me for a fairy, to drink out of an acorn? Why didst thou
not bring thy thimble? Hast thou ne'er a brass thimble clinking in
thy pocket with a bit of nutmeg? I warrant thee. Come, fill, fill.
So, again. See who that is. [One knocks.] Set down the bottle
first. Here, here, under the table:- what, wouldst thou go with the
bottle in thy hand like a tapster? As I'm a person, this wench has
lived in an inn upon the road, before she came to me, like
Maritornes the Asturian in Don Quixote. No Foible yet?

PEG. No, madam; Mrs. Marwood.

LADY. Oh, Marwood: let her come in. Come in, good Marwood.


SCENE IV.


[To them] MRS MARWOOD.

MRS. MAR. I'm surprised to find your ladyship in DESHABILLE at this
time of day.

LADY. Foible's a lost thing; has been abroad since morning, and
never heard of since.

MRS. MAR. I saw her but now, as I came masked through the park, in
conference with Mirabell.

LADY. With Mirabell? You call my blood into my face with
mentioning that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent
her to negotiate an affair, in which if I'm detected I'm undone. If
that wheedling villain has wrought upon Foible to detect me, I'm
ruined. O my dear friend, I'm a wretch of wretches if I'm detected.

MRS. MAR. O madam, you cannot suspect Mrs. Foible's integrity.

LADY. Oh, he carries poison in his tongue that would corrupt
integrity itself. If she has given him an opportunity, she has as
good as put her integrity into his hands. Ah, dear Marwood, what's
integrity to an opportunity? Hark! I hear her. Dear friend,
retire into my closet, that I may examine her with more freedom--
you'll pardon me, dear friend, I can make bold with you--there are
books over the chimney--Quarles and Pryn, and the SHORT VIEW OF THE
STAGE, with Bunyan's works to entertain you.--Go, you thing, and
send her in. [To PEG.]


SCENE V.


LADY WISHFORT, FOIBLE.

LADY. O Foible, where hast thou been? What hast thou been doing?

FOIB. Madam, I have seen the party.

LADY. But what hast thou done?

FOIB. Nay, 'tis your ladyship has done, and are to do; I have only
promised. But a man so enamoured--so transported! Well, if
worshipping of pictures be a sin--poor Sir Rowland, I say.

LADY. The miniature has been counted like. But hast thou not
betrayed me, Foible? Hast thou not detected me to that faithless
Mirabell? What hast thou to do with him in the park? Answer me,
has he got nothing out of thee?

FOIB. So, the devil has been beforehand with me; what shall I say?-
-Alas, madam, could I help it, if I met that confident thing? Was I
in fault? If you had heard how he used me, and all upon your
ladyship's account, I'm sure you would not suspect my fidelity.
Nay, if that had been the worst I could have borne: but he had a
fling at your ladyship too, and then I could not hold; but, i'faith
I gave him his own.

LADY. Me? What did the filthy fellow say?

FOIB. O madam, 'tis a shame to say what he said, with his taunts
and his fleers, tossing up his nose. Humh, says he, what, you are
a-hatching some plot, says he, you are so early abroad, or catering,
says he, ferreting for some disbanded officer, I warrant. Half pay
is but thin subsistence, says he. Well, what pension does your lady
propose? Let me see, says he, what, she must come down pretty deep
now, she's superannuated, says he, and -

LADY. Ods my life, I'll have him--I'll have him murdered. I'll
have him poisoned. Where does he eat? I'll marry a drawer to have
him poisoned in his wine. I'll send for Robin from Locket's--
immediately.

FOIB. Poison him? Poisoning's too good for him. Starve him,
madam, starve him; marry Sir Rowland, and get him disinherited. Oh,
you would bless yourself to hear what he said.

LADY. A villain; superannuated?

FOIB. Humh, says he, I hear you are laying designs against me too,
says he, and Mrs. Millamant is to marry my uncle (he does not
suspect a word of your ladyship); but, says he, I'll fit you for
that, I warrant you, says he, I'll hamper you for that, says he, you
and your old frippery too, says he, I'll handle you -

LADY. Audacious villain! Handle me? Would he durst? Frippery?
Old frippery? Was there ever such a foul-mouthed fellow? I'll be
married to-morrow, I'll be contracted to-night.

FOIB. The sooner the better, madam.

LADY. Will Sir Rowland be here, say'st thou? When, Foible?

FOIB. Incontinently, madam. No new sheriff's wife expects the
return of her husband after knighthood with that impatience in which
Sir Rowland burns for the dear hour of kissing your ladyship's hand
after dinner.

LADY. Frippery? Superannuated frippery? I'll frippery the
villain; I'll reduce him to frippery and rags, a tatterdemalion!--I
hope to see him hung with tatters, like a Long Lane pent-house, or a
gibbet thief. A slander-mouthed railer! I warrant the spendthrift
prodigal's in debt as much as the million lottery, or the whole
court upon a birthday. I'll spoil his credit with his tailor. Yes,
he shall have my niece with her fortune, he shall.

FOIB. He? I hope to see him lodge in Ludgate first, and angle into
Blackfriars for brass farthings with an old mitten.

LADY. Ay, dear Foible; thank thee for that, dear Foible. He has
put me out of all patience. I shall never recompose my features to
receive Sir Rowland with any economy of face. This wretch has
fretted me that I am absolutely decayed. Look, Foible.

FOIB. Your ladyship has frowned a little too rashly, indeed, madam.
There are some cracks discernible in the white vernish.

LADY. Let me see the glass. Cracks, say'st thou? Why, I am
arrantly flayed: I look like an old peeled wall. Thou must repair
me, Foible, before Sir Rowland comes, or I shall never keep up to my
picture.

FOIB. I warrant you, madam: a little art once made your picture
like you, and now a little of the same art must make you like your
picture. Your picture must sit for you, madam.

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.

LADY. Yes, but tenderness becomes me best--a sort of a dyingness.
You see that picture has a sort of a--ha, Foible? A swimmingness in
the eyes. Yes, I'll look so. My niece affects it; but she wants
features. Is Sir Rowland handsome? Let my toilet be removed--I'll
dress above. I'll receive Sir Rowland here. Is he handsome? Don't
answer me. I won't know; I'll be surprised. I'll be taken by
surprise.

FOIB. By storm, madam. Sir Rowland's a brisk man.

LADY. Is he? Oh, then, he'll importune, if he's a brisk man. I
shall save decorums if Sir Rowland importunes. I have a mortal
terror at the apprehension of offending against decorums. Oh, I'm
glad he's a brisk man. Let my things be removed, good Foible.


SCENE VI.


MRS. FAINALL, FOIBLE.

MRS. FAIN. O Foible, I have been in a fright, lest I should come
too late. That devil, Marwood, saw you in the park with Mirabell,
and I'm afraid will discover it to my lady.

FOIB. Discover what, madam?

MRS. FAIN. Nay, nay, put not on that strange face. I am privy to
the whole design, and know that Waitwell, to whom thou wert this
morning married, is to personate Mirabell's uncle, and, as such
winning my lady, to involve her in those difficulties from which
Mirabell only must release her, by his making his conditions to have
my cousin and her fortune left to her own disposal.

FOIB. O dear madam, I beg your pardon. It was not my confidence in
your ladyship that was deficient; but I thought the former good
correspondence between your ladyship and Mr. Mirabell might have
hindered his communicating this secret.

MRS. FAIN. Dear Foible, forget that.

FOIB. O dear madam, Mr. Mirabell is such a sweet winning gentleman.
But your ladyship is the pattern of generosity. Sweet lady, to be
so good! Mr. Mirabell cannot choose but be grateful. I find your
ladyship has his heart still. Now, madam, I can safely tell your
ladyship our success: Mrs. Marwood had told my lady, but I warrant
I managed myself. I turned it all for the better. I told my lady
that Mr. Mirabell railed at her. I laid horrid things to his
charge, I'll vow; and my lady is so incensed that she'll be
contracted to Sir Rowland to-night, she says; I warrant I worked her
up that he may have her for asking for, as they say of a Welsh
maidenhead.

MRS. FAIN. O rare Foible!

FOIB. Madam, I beg your ladyship to acquaint Mr. Mirabell of his
success. I would be seen as little as possible to speak to him--
besides, I believe Madam Marwood watches me. She has a month's
mind; but I know Mr. Mirabell can't abide her. [Calls.] John,
remove my lady's toilet. Madam, your servant. My lady is so
impatient, I fear she'll come for me, if I stay.

MRS. FAIN. I'll go with you up the back stairs, lest I should meet
her.


SCENE VII.


MRS. MARWOOD alone.

MRS. MAR. Indeed, Mrs. Engine, is it thus with you? Are you become
a go-between of this importance? Yes, I shall watch you. Why this
wench is the PASSE-PARTOUT, a very master-key to everybody's strong
box. My friend Fainall, have you carried it so swimmingly? I
thought there was something in it; but it seems it's over with you.
Your loathing is not from a want of appetite then, but from a
surfeit. Else you could never be so cool to fall from a principal
to be an assistant, to procure for him! A pattern of generosity,
that I confess. Well, Mr. 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
shall not prove another pattern of generosity; he has not obliged me
to that with those excesses of himself, and now I'll have none of
him. Here comes the good lady, panting ripe, with a heart full of
hope, and a head full of care, like any chymist upon the day of
projection.


SCENE VIII.


[To her] LADY WISHFORT.

LADY. O dear Marwood, what shall I say for this rude forgetfulness?
But my dear friend is all goodness.

MRS. MAR. No apologies, dear madam. I have been very well
entertained.

LADY. As I'm a person, I am in a very chaos to think I should so
forget myself. But I have such an olio of affairs, really I know
not what to do. [Calls.] Foible!--I expect my nephew Sir Wilfull
ev'ry moment too.--Why, Foible!--He means to travel for improvement.

MRS. MAR. Methinks Sir Wilfull should rather think of marrying than
travelling at his years. I hear he is turned of forty.

LADY. Oh, he's in less danger of being spoiled by his travels. I
am against my nephew's marrying too young. It will be time enough
when he comes back, and has acquired discretion to choose for
himself.

MRS. MAR. Methinks Mrs. Millamant and he would make a very fit
match. He may travel afterwards. 'Tis a thing very usual with
young gentlemen.

LADY. I promise you I have thought on't--and since 'tis your
judgment, I'll think on't again. I assure you I will; I value your
judgment extremely. On my word, I'll propose it.


SCENE IX.


[To them] FOIBLE.

LADY. Come, come, Foible--I had forgot my nephew will be here
before dinner--I must make haste.

FOIB. Mr. Witwoud and Mr. Petulant are come to dine with your
ladyship.

LADY. Oh dear, I can't appear till I am dressed. Dear Marwood,
shall I be free with you again, and beg you to entertain em? I'll
make all imaginable haste. Dear friend, excuse me.


SCENE X.


MRS. MARWOOD, MRS. MILLAMANT, MINCING.

MILLA. Sure, never anything was so unbred as that odious man.
Marwood, your servant.

MRS. MAR. You have a colour; what's the matter?

MILLA. That horrid fellow Petulant has provoked me into a flame--I
have broke my fan--Mincing, lend me yours.--Is not all the powder
out of my hair?

MRS. MAR. No. What has he done?

MILLA. Nay, he has done nothing; he has only talked. Nay, he has
said nothing neither; but he has contradicted everything that has
been said. For my part, I thought Witwoud and he would have
quarrelled.

MINC. I vow, mem, I thought once they would have fit.

MILLA. Well, 'tis a lamentable thing, I swear, that one has not the
liberty of choosing one's acquaintance as one does one's clothes.

MRS. MAR. If we had that liberty, we should be as weary of one set
of acquaintance, though never so good, as we are of one suit, though
never so fine. A fool and a doily stuff would now and then find
days of grace, and be worn for variety.

MILLA. I could consent to wear 'em, if they would wear alike; but
fools never wear out. They are such DRAP DE BERRI things! Without
one could give 'em to one's chambermaid after a day or two.

MRS. MAR. 'Twere better so indeed. Or what think you of the
playhouse? A fine gay glossy fool should be given there, like a new
masking habit, after the masquerade is over, and we have done with
the disguise. For a fool's visit is always a disguise, and never
admitted by a woman of wit, but to blind her affair with a lover of
sense. If you would but appear barefaced now, and own Mirabell, you
might as easily put off Petulant and Witwoud as your hood and scarf.
And indeed 'tis time, for the town has found it, the secret is grown
too big for the pretence. 'Tis like Mrs. Primly's great belly: she
may lace it down before, but it burnishes on her hips. Indeed,
Millamant, you can no more conceal it than my Lady Strammel can her
face, that goodly face, which in defiance of her Rhenish-wine tea
will not be comprehended in a mask.

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