The Way of the World
independent on the bounty of his mistress. There is not so impudent a
thing in nature as the saucy look of an assured man confident of success:
the pedantic arrogance of a very husband has not so pragmatical an air.
Ah, I’ll never marry, unless I am first made sure of my will and
pleasure.
MIRA. Would you have ’em both before marriage? Or will you be contented
with the first now, and stay for the other till after grace?
MILLA. Ah, don’t be impertinent. My dear liberty, shall I leave thee?
My faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then
adieu? Ay-h, adieu. My morning thoughts, agreeable wakings, indolent
slumbers, all ye _douceurs_, ye _sommeils du matin_, adieu. I can’t
do’t, ’tis more than impossible—positively, Mirabell, I’ll lie a-bed in a
morning as long as I please.
MI RA. Then I’ll get up in a morning as early as I please.
MILLA. Ah! Idle creature, get up when you will. And d’ye hear, I won’t
be called names after I’m married; positively I won’t be called names.
MIRA. Names?
MILLA. Ay, as wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweetheart, and
the rest of that nauseous cant, in which men and their wives are so
fulsomely familiar—I shall never bear that. 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.
MIRA. Have you any more conditions to offer? Hitherto your demands are
pretty reasonable.
MILLA. Trifles; as liberty to pay and receive visits to and from whom I
please; to write and receive letters, without interrogatories or wry
faces on your part; to wear what I please, and choose conversation with
regard only to my own taste; to have no obligation upon me to converse
with wits that I don’t like, because they are your acquaintance, or to be
intimate with fools, because they may be your relations. Come to dinner
when I please, dine in my dressing-room when I’m out of humour, without
giving a reason. To have my closet inviolate; to be sole empress of my
tea-table, which you must never presume to approach without first asking
leave. And lastly, wherever I am, you shall always knock at the door
before you come in. These articles subscribed, if I continue to endure
you a little longer, I may by degrees dwindle into a wife.
MIRA. Your bill of fare is something advanced in this latter account.
Well, have I liberty to offer conditions:—that when you are dwindled into
a wife, I may not be beyond measure enlarged into a husband?
MILLA. You have free leave: propose your utmost, speak and spare not.
MIRA. I thank you. _Imprimis_, then, I covenant that your acquaintance
be general; that you admit no sworn confidant or intimate of your own
sex; no she friend to screen her affairs under your countenance, and
tempt you to make trial of a mutual secrecy. No decoy-duck to wheedle
you a _fop-scrambling_ to the play in a mask, then bring you home in a
pretended fright, when you think you shall be found out, and rail at me
for missing the play, and disappointing the frolic which you had to pick
me up and prove my constancy.
MILLA. Detestable _imprimis_! I go to the play in a mask!
MIRA. _Item_, I article, that you continue to like your own face as long
as I shall, and while it passes current with me, that you endeavour not
to new coin it. To which end, together with all vizards for the day, I
prohibit all masks for the night, made of oiled skins and I know not
what—hog’s bones, hare’s gall, pig water, and the marrow of a roasted
cat. In short, I forbid all commerce with the gentlewomen in
what-d’ye-call-it court. _Item_, I shut my doors against all bawds with
baskets, and pennyworths of muslin, china, fans, atlases, etc. _Item_,
when you shall be breeding—
MILLA. Ah, name it not!
MIRA. Which may be presumed, with a blessing on our endeavours—
MILLA. Odious endeavours!
MIRA. I denounce against all strait lacing, squeezing for a shape, till
you mould my boy’s head like a sugar-loaf, and instead of a man-child,
make me father to a crooked billet. Lastly, to the dominion of the
tea-table I submit; but with proviso, that you exceed not in your
province, but restrain yourself to native and simple tea-table drinks, as
tea, chocolate, and coffee. As likewise to genuine and authorised
tea-table talk, such as mending of fashions, spoiling reputations,
railing at absent friends, and so forth. But that on no account you
encroach upon the men’s prerogative, and presume to drink healths, or
toast fellows; for prevention of which, I banish all foreign forces, all
auxiliaries to the tea-table, as orange-brandy, all aniseed, cinnamon,
citron, and Barbadoes waters, together with ratafia and the most noble
spirit of clary. But for cowslip-wine, poppy-water, and all dormitives,
those I allow. These provisos admitted, in other things I may prove a
tractable and complying husband.
MILLA. Oh, horrid provisos! Filthy strong waters! I toast fellows,
odious men! I hate your odious provisos.
MIRA. Then we’re agreed. Shall I kiss your hand upon the contract? And
here comes one to be a witness to the sealing of the deed.
SCENE VI.
[_To them_] MRS. FAINALL.
MILLA. Fainall, what shall I do? Shall I have him? I think I must have
him.
MRS. FAIN. Ay, ay, take him, take him, what should you do?
MILLA. Well then—I’ll take my death I’m in a horrid fright—Fainall, I
shall never say it. Well—I think—I’ll endure you.
MRS. FAIN. Fie, fie, have him, and tell him so in plain terms: for I am
sure you have a mind to him.
MILLA. Are you? I think I have; and the horrid man looks as if he
thought so too. Well, you ridiculous thing you, I’ll have you. I won’t
be kissed, nor I won’t be thanked.—Here, kiss my hand though, so hold
your tongue now; don’t say a word.
MRS. FAIN. Mirabell, there’s a necessity for your obedience: you have
neither time to talk nor stay. My mother is coming; and in my conscience
if she should see you, would fall into fits, and maybe not recover time
enough to return to Sir Rowland, who, as Foible tells me, is in a fair
way to succeed. Therefore spare your ecstasies for another occasion, and
slip down the back stairs, where Foible waits to consult you.
MILLA. Ay, go, go. In the meantime I suppose you have said something to
please me.
MIRA. I am all obedience.
SCENE VII.
MRS. MILLAMANT, MRS. FAINALL.
MRS. FAIN. Yonder Sir Wilfull’s drunk, and so noisy that my mother has
been forced to leave Sir Rowland to appease him; but he answers her only
with singing and drinking. What they may have done by this time I know
not, but Petulant and he were upon quarrelling as I came by.
MILLA. Well, if Mirabell should not make a good husband, I am a lost
thing: for I find I love him violently.
MRS. FAIN. So it seems; for you mind not what’s said to you. If you
doubt him, you had best take up with Sir Wilfull.
MILLA. How can you name that superannuated lubber? foh!
SCENE VIII.
[_To them_] WITWOUD _from drinking_.
MRS. FAIN. So, is the fray made up that you have left ’em?
WIT. Left ’em? I could stay no longer. I have laughed like ten
Christ’nings. I am tipsy with laughing—if I had stayed any longer I
should have burst,—I must have been let out and pieced in the sides like
an unsized camlet. Yes, yes, the fray is composed; my lady came in like
a _noli prosequi_, and stopt the proceedings.
MILLA. What was the dispute?
WIT. That’s the jest: there was no dispute. They could neither of ’em
speak for rage; and so fell a sputt’ring at one another like two roasting
apples.
SCENE IX.
[_To them_] PETULANT _drunk_.
WIT. Now, Petulant? All’s over, all’s well? Gad, my head begins to
whim it about. Why dost thou not speak? Thou art both as drunk and as
mute as a fish.
PET. Look you, Mrs. Millamant, if you can love me, dear Nymph, say it,
and that’s the conclusion—pass on, or pass off—that’s all.
WIT. Thou hast uttered volumes, folios, in less than decimo sexto, my
dear Lacedemonian. Sirrah, Petulant, thou art an epitomiser of words.
PET. Witwoud,—you are an annihilator of sense.
WIT. Thou art a retailer of phrases, and dost deal in remnants of
remnants, like a maker of pincushions; thou art in truth (metaphorically
speaking) a speaker of shorthand.
PET. Thou art (without a figure) just one half of an ass, and Baldwin
yonder, thy half-brother, is the rest. A Gemini of asses split would
make just four of you.
WIT. Thou dost bite, my dear mustard-seed; kiss me for that.
PET. Stand off—I’ll kiss no more males—I have kissed your Twin yonder in
a humour of reconciliation till he [_hiccup_] rises upon my stomach like
a radish.
MILLA. Eh! filthy creature; what was the quarrel?
PET. There was no quarrel; there might have been a quarrel.
WIT. If there had been words enow between ’em to have expressed
provocation, they had gone together by the ears like a pair of castanets.
PET. You were the quarrel.
MILLA. Me?
PET. If I have a humour to quarrel, I can make less matters conclude
premises. If you are not handsome, what then? If I have a humour to
prove it? If I shall have my reward, say so; if not, fight for your face
the next time yourself—I’ll go sleep.
WIT. Do, wrap thyself up like a woodlouse, and dream revenge. And, hear
me, if thou canst learn to write by to-morrow morning, pen me a
challenge. I’ll carry it for thee.
PET. Carry your mistress’s monkey a spider; go flea dogs and read
romances. I’ll go to bed to my maid.
MRS. FAIN. He’s horridly drunk—how came you all in this pickle?
WIT. A plot, a plot, to get rid of the knight—your husband’s advice; but
he sneaked off.
SCENE X.
SIR WILFULL, _drunk_, LADY WISHFORT, WITWOUD, MRS. MILLAMANT, MRS.
FAINALL.
LADY. Out upon’t, out upon’t, at years of discretion, and comport
yourself at this rantipole rate!
SIR WIL. No offence, aunt.
LADY. Offence? As I’m a person, I’m ashamed of you. Fogh! How you
stink of wine! D’ye think my niece will ever endure such a Borachio?
You’re an absolute Borachio.
SIR WIL. Borachio?
LADY. At a time when you should commence an amour, and put your best
foot foremost—
SIR WIL. ’Sheart, an you grutch me your liquor, make a bill.—Give me
more drink, and take my purse. [_Sings_]:—
Prithee fill me the glass,
Till it laugh in my face,
With ale that is potent and mellow;
He that whines for a lass
Is an ignorant ass,
For a bumper has not its fellow.
But if you would have me marry my cousin, say the word, and I’ll do’t.
Wilfull will do’t, that’s the word. Wilfull will do’t, that’s my
crest,—my motto I have forgot.
LADY. My nephew’s a little overtaken, cousin, but ’tis drinking your
health. O’ my word, you are obliged to him—
SIR WIL. _In vino veritas_, aunt. If I drunk your health to-day,
cousin,—I am a Borachio.—But if you have a mind to be married, say the
word and send for the piper; Wilfull will do’t. If not, dust it away,
and let’s have t’other round. Tony—ods-heart, where’s Tony?—Tony’s an
honest fellow, but he spits after a bumper, and that’s a fault.
We’ll drink and we’ll never ha’ done, boys,