LADY PLYANT. O Lord! sir, pardon me, we women have not those advantages; I know my imperfections. But at the same time you must give me leave to declare in the face of the world that nobody is more sensible of favours and things; for with the reserve of my honour I assure you, Mr. Careless, I don’t know anything in the world I would refuse to a person so meritorious. You’ll pardon my want of expression.
CARE. O, your ladyship is abounding in all excellence, particularly that of phrase.
LADY PLYANT. You are so obliging, sir.
CARE. Your ladyship is so charming.
SIR PAUL. So, now, now; now, my lady.
LADY PLYANT. So well bred.
CARE. So surprising.
LADY PLYANT. So well dressed, so bonne mine, so eloquent, so unaffected, so easy, so free, so particular, so agreeable.
SIR PAUL. Ay, so, so, there.
CARE. O Lord, I beseech you madam, don’t.
LADY PLYANT. So gay, so graceful, so good teeth, so fine shape, so fine limbs, so fine linen, and I don’t doubt but you have a very good skin, sir,
CARE. For heaven’s sake, madam, I’m quite out of countenance.
SIR PAUL. And my lady’s quite out of breath; or else you should hear — Gads-bud, you may talk of my Lady Froth.
CARE. O fie, fie, not to be named of a day. My Lady Froth is very well in her accomplishments. But it is when my Lady Plyant is not thought of. If that can ever be.
LADY PLYANT. O, you overcome me. That is so excessive.
SIR PAUL. Nay, I swear and vow that was pretty.
CARE. O, Sir Paul, you are the happiest man alive. Such a lady! that is the envy of her own sex, and the admiration of ours.
SIR PAUL. Your humble servant. I am, I thank heaven, in a fine way of living, as I may say, peacefully and happily, and I think need not envy any of my neighbours, blessed be providence. Ay, truly, Mr. Careless, my lady is a great blessing, a fine, discreet, well-spoken woman as you shall see, if it becomes me to say so, and we live very comfortably together; she is a little hasty sometimes, and so am I; but mine’s soon over, and then I’m so sorry. — O Mr. Careless, if it were not for one thing —
SCENE VII.
Careless, Sir Paul, Lady Plyant, Boy with a letter.
LADY PLYANT. How often have you been told of that, you jackanapes?
SIR PAUL. Gad so, gad’s-bud. Tim, carry it to my lady, you should have carried it to my lady first.
BOY. ’Tis directed to your worship.
SIR PAUL. Well, well, my lady reads all letters first. Child, do so no more; d’ye hear, Tim.
BOY. No, and please you.
SCENE VIII.
Careless, Sir Paul, Lady Plyant.
SIR PAUL. A humour of my wife’s: you know women have little fancies. But as I was telling you, Mr. Careless, if it were not for one thing, I should think myself the happiest man in the world; indeed that touches me near, very near.
CARE. What can that be, Sir Paul?
SIR PAUL. Why, I have, I thank heaven, a very plentiful fortune, a good estate in the country, some houses in town, and some money, a pretty tolerable personal estate; and it is a great grief to me, indeed it is, Mr. Careless, that I have not a son to inherit this. ’Tis true I have a daughter, and a fine dutiful child she is, though I say it, blessed be providence I may say; for indeed, Mr. Careless, I am mightily beholden to providence. A poor unworthy sinner. But if I had a son! Ah, that’s my affliction, and my only affliction; indeed I cannot refrain tears when it comes in my mind. [Cries.]
CARE. Why, methinks that might be easily remedied — my lady’s a fine likely woman —
SIR PAUL. Oh, a fine likely woman as you shall see in a summer’s day. Indeed she is, Mr. Careless, in all respects.
CARE. And I should not have taken you to have been so old —
SIR PAUL. Alas, that’s not it, Mr. Careless; ah! that’s not it; no, no, you shoot wide of the mark a mile; indeed you do, that’s not it, Mr. Careless; no, no, that’s not it.
CARE. No? What can be the matter then?
SIR PAUL. You’ll scarcely believe me when I shall tell you — my lady is so nice. It’s very strange, but it’s true; too true — she’s so very nice, that I don’t believe she would touch a man for the world. At least not above once a year; I’m sure I have found it so; and, alas, what’s once a year to an old man, who would do good in his generation? Indeed it’s true, Mr. Careless, it breaks my heart. I am her husband, as I may say; though far unworthy of that honour, yet I am her husband; but alas-a-day, I have no more familiarity with her person — as to that matter — than with my own mother — no indeed.
CARE. Alas-a-day, this is a lamentable story. My lady must be told on’t. She must i’faith, Sir Paul; ’tis an injury to the world.
SIR PAUL. Ah! would to heaven you would, Mr. Careless; you are mightily in her favour.
CARE. I warrant you, what! we must have a son some way or other.
SIR PAUL. Indeed I should be mightily bound to you if you could bring it about, Mr. Careless.
LADY PLYANT. Here, Sir Paul, it’s from your steward. Here’s a return of 600 pounds; you may take fifty of it for the next half year. [Gives him the letter.]
SCENE IX.
[To them] Lord Froth, Cynthia.
SIR PAUL. How does my girl? Come hither to thy father, poor lamb: thou’rt melancholic.
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. [Aside.]
LORD FROTH. Well, and how? hee! What is your sense of the conversation?
CYNT. Oh, most ridiculous, a perpetual comfort of laughing without any harmony; for sure, my lord, to laugh out of time, is as disagreeable as to sing out of time or out of tune.
LORD FROTH. Hee, hee, hee, right; and then, my Lady Whifler is so ready — she always comes in three bars too soon. And then, what do they laugh at? For you know laughing without a jest is as impertinent, hee! as, as —
CYNT. As dancing without a fiddle.
LORD FROTH. Just i’faith, that was at my tongue’s end.
CYNT. But that cannot be properly said of them, for I think they are all in good nature with the world, and only laugh at one another; and you must allow they have all jests in their persons, though they have none in their conversation.
LORD FROTH. True, as I’m a person of honour. For heaven’s sake let us sacrifice ’em to mirth a little. [Enter Boy and whispers Sir Paul.]
SIR PAUL. Gads so. — Wife, wife, my Lady Plyant, I have a word.
LADY PLYANT. I’m busy, Sir Paul, I wonder at your impertinence.
CARE. Sir Paul, harkee, I’m reasoning the matter you know. Madam, if your ladyship please, we’ll discourse of this in the next room.
SIR PAUL. O ho, I wish you good success, I wish you good success. Boy, tell my lady, when she has done, I would speak with her below.
SCENE X.
Cynthia, Lord Froth, Lady Froth, Brisk.
LADY FROTH. Then you think that episode between Susan, the dairy-maid, and our coachman is not amiss; you know, I may suppose the dairy in town, as well as in the country.
BRISK. Incomparable, let me perish. But then, being an heroic poem, had you not better call him a charioteer? Charioteer sounds great; besides, your ladyship’s coachman having a red face, and you comparing him to the sun — and you know the sun is called Heaven’s charioteer.
LADY FROTH. Oh, infinitely better; I’m extremely beholden to you for the hint; stay, we’ll read over those half a score lines again. [Pulls out a
paper.] Let me see here, you know what goes before, — the comparison, you know. [Reads.]
For as the sun shines ev’ry day,
So of our coachman I may say.
BRISK. I’m afraid that simile won’t do in wet weather; because you say the sun shines every day.
LADY FROTH. No; for the sun it won’t, but it will do for the coachman, for you know there’s most occasion for a coach in wet weather.
BRISK. Right, right, that saves all.
LADY FROTH. Then I don’t say the sun shines all the day, but that he peeps now and then; yet he does shine all the day too, you know, though we don’t see him.
BRISK. Right, but the vulgar will never comprehend that.
LADY FROTH. Well, you shall hear. Let me see. [Reads.]
For as the sun shines ev’ry day,
So of our coachman I may say,
He shows his drunken fiery face,
Just as the sun does, more or less.
BRISK. That’s right, all’s well, all’s well. ‘More or less.’
LADY FROTH reads:
And when at night his labour’s done,
Then too, like Heav’n’s charioteer the sun:
Ay, charioteer does better.
Into the dairy he descends,
And there his whipping and his driving ends;
There he’s secure from danger of a bilk,
His fare is paid him, and he sets in milk.
For Susan you know, is Thetis, and so —
BRISK. Incomparable well and proper, egad — but I have one exception to make — don’t you think bilk — (I know it’s good rhyme) — but don’t you think bilk and fare too like a hackney coachman?
LADY FROTH. I swear and vow I’m afraid so. And yet our Jehu was a hackney coachman, when my lord took him.
BRISK. Was he? I’m answered, if Jehu was a hackney coachman. You may put that in the marginal notes though, to prevent criticism — only mark it with a small asterism, and say, ‘Jehu was formerly a hackney coachman.’
LADY FROTH. I will. You’d oblige me extremely to write notes to the whole poem.
BRISK. With all my heart and soul, and proud of the vast honour, let me perish.
LORD FROTH. Hee, hee, hee, my dear, have you done? won’t you join with us? We were laughing at my Lady Whifler and Mr. Sneer.
LADY FROTH. Ay, my dear, were you? Oh, filthy Mr. Sneer; he’s a nauseous figure, a most fulsamic fop, foh! He spent two days together in going about Covent Garden to suit the lining of his coach with his complexion.
LORD FROTH. O silly! yet his aunt is as fond of him as if she had brought the ape into the world herself.
BRISK. Who, my Lady Toothless? Oh, she’s a mortifying spectacle; she’s always chewing the cud like an old ewe.
CYNT. Fie, Mr. Brisk, eringo’s for her cough.
LADY FROTH. I have seen her take ’em half chewed out of her mouth, to laugh, and then put ’em in again. Foh!
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? Why, she lays it on with a trowel. Then she has a great beard that bristles through it, and makes her look as if she were plastered with lime and hair, let me perish.
LADY FROTH. Oh, you made a song upon her, Mr. Brisk.
BRISK. He! egad, so I did. My lord can sing it.
CYNT. O good, my lord, let’s hear it.
BRISK. ’Tis not a song neither, it’s a sort of an epigram, or rather an epigrammatic sonnet; I don’t know what to call it, but it’s satire. Sing it, my lord.
LORD FROTH sings.
Ancient Phyllis has young graces,
’Tis a strange thing, but a true one;
Shall I tell you how?
She herself makes her own faces,
And each morning wears a new one;
Where’s the wonder now?
BRISK. Short, but there’s salt in’t; my way of writing, egad.
SCENE XI.
[To them] Footman.
LADY FROTH. How now?
FOOT. Your ladyship’s chair is come.
LADY FROTH. Is nurse and the child in it?
FOOT. Yes, madam.
LADY FROTH. O the dear creature! Let’s go see it.
LORD FROTH. I swear, my dear, you’ll spoil that child, with sending it to and again so often; this is the seventh time the chair has gone for her to-day.
LADY FROTH. O law! I swear it’s but the sixth — and I haven’t seen her these two hours. The poor creature — I swear, my lord, you don’t love poor little Sapho. Come, my dear Cynthia, Mr. Brisk, we’ll go see Sapho, though my lord won’t.
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. If not, they like and admire themselves. And why is not that true wisdom? for ’tis happiness: and for ought I know, we have misapplied the name all this while, and mistaken the thing: since
If happiness in self-content is placed,
The wise are wretched, and fools only bless’d.
ACT IV.
SCENE I.
Mellefont and Cynthia.
CYNT. I heard him loud as I came by the closet-door, and my lady with him, but she seemed to moderate his passion.
MEL. Ay, hell thank her, as gentle breezes moderate a fire; but I shall counter-work her spells, and ride the witch in her own bridle.
CYNT. It’s impossible; she’ll cast beyond you still. I’ll lay my life it will never be a match.
MEL. What?
CYNT. Between you and me.
MEL. Why so?
CYNT. My mind gives me it won’t, because we are both willing. We each of us strive to reach the goal, and hinder one another in the race. I swear it never does well when the parties are so agreed; for when people walk hand in hand there’s neither overtaking nor meeting. We hunt in couples, where we both pursue the same game but forget one another; and ’tis because we are so near that we don’t think of coming together.
MEL. Hum, ‘gad I believe there’s something in it. Marriage is the game that we hunt, and while we think that we only have it in view, I don’t see but we have it in our power.
CYNT. Within reach; for example, give me your hand. You have looked through the wrong end of the perspective all this while, for nothing has been between us but our fears.
MEL. I don’t know why we should not steal out of the house this very moment and marry one another, without consideration or the fear of repentance. Pox o’ fortune, portion, settlements, and jointures.
CYNT. Ay, ay, what have we to do with ’em? You know we marry for love.
MEL. Love, love, downright, very villainous love.
CYNT. And he that can’t live upon love deserves to die in a ditch. Here then, I give you my promise, in spite of duty, any temptation of wealth, your inconstancy, or my own inclination to change —
MEL. To run most wilfully and unreasonably away with me this moment and be married.
> CYNT. Hold. Never to marry anybody else.
MEL. That’s but a kind of negative consent. Why, you won’t baulk the frolic?
CYNT. If you had not been so assured of your own conduct I would not. But ’tis but reasonable that since I consent to like a man without the vile consideration of money, he should give me a very evident demonstration of his wit: therefore let me see you undermine my Lady Touchwood, as you boasted, and force her to give her consent, and then —
Complete Works of William Congreve Page 36