The Way of the World - William Congreve (free ereaders txt) 📗

this time, has been his sole pretence,
He’ll not instruct, lest it should give offence.
Should he by chance a knave or fool expose,
That hurts none here, sure here are none of those.
In short, our play shall (with your leave to show it)
Give you one instance of a passive poet,
Who to your judgments yields all resignation:
So save or damn, after your own discretion. Dramatis Personae

Fainall, in love with Mrs. Marwood

Mirabell, in love with Mrs. Millamant

Witwoud, follower of Mrs. Millamant

Petulant, follower of Mrs. Millamant

Sir Wilfull Witwoud, half brother to Witwoud, and nephew to Lady Wishfort

Waitwell, servant to Mirabell

Lady Wishfort, enemy to Mirabell, for having falsely pretended love to her

Mrs. Millamant, a fine lady, niece to Lady Wishfort, and loves Mirabell

Mrs. Marwood, friend to Mr. Fainall, and likes Mirabell

Mrs. Fainall, daughter to Lady Wishfort, and wife to Fainall, formerly friend to Mirabell

Foible, woman to Lady Wishfort

Mincing, woman to Mrs. Millamant

Betty, Waiting-maid at a Chocolate-house

Peg, Maid to Lady Wishfort

Coachmen, Dancers, Footmen, and Attendants

Scene: London.

The time equal to that of the representation.

Act I Scene I

A Chocolate-house.

Mirabell and Fainall rising from cards. Betty waiting. Mirabell You are a fortunate man, Mr. Fainall. Fainall Have we done? Mirabell What you please. I’ll play on to entertain you. Fainall No, I’ll give you your revenge another time, when you are not so indifferent; you are thinking of something else now, and play too negligently: the coldness of a losing gamester lessens the pleasure of the winner. I’d no more play with a man that slighted his ill fortune than I’d make love to a woman who undervalued the loss of her reputation. Mirabell You have a taste extremely delicate, and are for refining on your pleasures. Fainall Prithee, why so reserved? Something has put you out of humour. Mirabell Not at all: I happen to be grave today, and you are gay; that’s all. Fainall 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? Mirabell 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. Fainall Oh, there it is then: she has a lasting passion for you, and with reason.⁠—What, then my wife was there? Mirabell Yes, and Mrs. Marwood and three or four more, whom I never saw before; seeing me, they all put on their grave faces, whispered one another, then complained aloud of the vapours, and after fell into a profound silence. Fainall They had a mind to be rid of you. Mirabell For which reason I resolved not to stir. At last the good old lady broke through her painful taciturnity with an invective against long visits. I would not have understood her, but Millamant joining in the argument, I rose and with a constrained smile told her, I thought nothing was so easy as to know when a visit began to be troublesome; she reddened and I withdrew, without expecting her reply. Fainall You were to blame to resent what she spoke only in compliance with her aunt. Mirabell She is more mistress of herself than to be under the necessity of such a resignation. Fainall What! though half her fortune depends upon her marrying with my lady’s approbation? Mirabell I was then in such a humour, that I should have been better pleased if she had been less discreet. Fainall Now I remember, I wonder not they were weary of you; last night was one of their cabal nights: they have ’em three times a week and meet by turns at one another’s apartments, where they come together like the coroner’s inquest, to sit upon the murdered reputations of the week. You and I are excluded, and it was once proposed that all the male sex should be excepted; but somebody moved that to avoid scandal there might be one man of the community, upon which motion Witwoud and Petulant were enrolled members. Mirabell And who may have been the foundress of this sect? My Lady Wishfort, I warrant, who publishes her detestation of mankind, and full of the vigour of fifty-five, declares for a friend and ratafia;9 and let posterity shift for itself, she’ll breed no more. Fainall The discovery of your sham addresses to her, to conceal your love to her niece, has provoked this separation. Had you dissembled better, things might have continued in the state of nature.10 Mirabell I did as much as man could, with any reasonable conscience; I proceeded to the very last act of flattery with her, and was guilty of a song in her commendation. Nay, I got a friend to put her into a lampoon, and compliment her with the imputation of an affair with a young fellow, which I carried so far, that I told her the malicious town took notice that she was grown fat of a sudden; and when she lay in of a dropsy, persuaded her she was reported to be in labour. The devil’s in’t, if an old woman is to be flattered further, unless a man should endeavour downright personally to debauch her: and that my virtue forbade me. But for the discovery of this amour, I am indebted to your friend, or your wife’s friend, Mrs. Marwood. Fainall 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. Mirabell 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. Fainall 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. Yet you speak with