The Way of the World
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.
MILLA. I’ll take my death, Marwood, you are more censorious than a
decayed beauty, or a discarded toast:—Mincing, tell the men they may come
up. My aunt is not dressing here; their folly is less provoking than
your malice.
SCENE XI.
MRS. MILLAMANT, MRS. MARWOOD.
MILLA. The town has found it? What has it found? That Mirabell loves
me is no more a secret than it is a secret that you discovered it to my
aunt, or than the reason why you discovered it is a secret.
MRS. MAR. You are nettled.
MILLA. You’re mistaken. Ridiculous!
MRS. MAR. Indeed, my dear, you’ll tear another fan, if you don’t
mitigate those violent airs.
MILLA. O silly! Ha, ha, ha! I could laugh immoderately. Poor
Mirabell! His constancy to me has quite destroyed his complaisance for
all the world beside. I swear I never enjoined it him to be so coy. If
I had the vanity to think he would obey me, I would command him to show
more gallantry: ’tis hardly well-bred to be so particular on one hand and
so insensible on the other. But I despair to prevail, and so let him
follow his own way. Ha, ha, ha! Pardon me, dear creature, I must laugh;
ha, ha, ha! Though I grant you ’tis a little barbarous; ha, ha, ha!
MRS. MAR. What pity ’tis so much fine raillery, and delivered with so
significant gesture, should be so unhappily directed to miscarry.
MILLA. Heh? Dear creature, I ask your pardon. I swear I did not mind
you.
MRS. MAR. Mr. Mirabell and you both may think it a thing impossible,
when I shall tell him by telling you—
MILLA. Oh dear, what? For it is the same thing, if I hear it. Ha, ha,
ha!
MRS. MAR. That I detest him, hate him, madam.
MILLA. O madam, why, so do I. And yet the creature loves me, ha, ha,
ha! How can one forbear laughing to think of it? I am a sibyl if I am
not amazed to think what he can see in me. I’ll take my death, I think
you are handsomer, and within a year or two as young. If you could but
stay for me, I should overtake you—but that cannot be. Well, that
thought makes me melancholic.—Now I’ll be sad.
MRS. MAR. Your merry note may be changed sooner than you think.
MILLA. D’ye say so? Then I’m resolved I’ll have a song to keep up my
spirits.
SCENE XII.
[_To them_] MINCING.
MINC. The gentlemen stay but to comb, madam, and will wait on you.
MILLA. Desire Mrs. — that is in the next room, to sing the song I would
have learnt yesterday. You shall hear it, madam. Not that there’s any
great matter in it—but ’tis agreeable to my humour.
SONG.
Set by Mr. JOHN ECCLES.
I
Love’s but the frailty of the mind
When ’tis not with ambition joined;
A sickly flame, which if not fed expires,
And feeding, wastes in self-consuming fires.
II
’Tis not to wound a wanton boy
Or am’rous youth, that gives the joy;
But ’tis the glory to have pierced a swain
For whom inferior beauties sighed in vain.
III
Then I alone the conquest prize,
When I insult a rival’s eyes;
If there’s delight in love, ’tis when I see
That heart, which others bleed for, bleed for me.
SCENE XIII.
[_To them_] PETULANT, WITWOUD.
MILLA. Is your animosity composed, gentlemen?
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. If I have a humour to prove it, it must be
granted.
WIT. Not positively must. But it may; it may.
PET. Yes, it positively must, upon proof positive.
WIT. Ay, upon proof positive it must; but upon proof presumptive it only
may. That’s a logical distinction now, madam.
MRS. MAR. I perceive your debates are of importance, and very learnedly
handled.
PET. Importance is one thing and learning’s another; but a debate’s a
debate, that I assert.