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

an indifference which seems to be affected, and confesses you are conscious of a negligence. Mirabell You pursue the argument with a distrust that seems to be unaffected, and confesses you are conscious of a concern for which the lady is more indebted to you than is your wife. Fainall Fie, fie, friend, if you grow censorious I must leave you.⁠—I’ll look upon the gamesters in the next room. Mirabell Who are they? Fainall Petulant and Witwoud.⁠—To Betty. Bring me some chocolate. Exit. Mirabell Betty, what says your clock? Betty Turned of the last canonical hour,11 sir. Exit. Mirabell How pertinently the jade answers me! Looking on his watch. Ha! almost one a’ clock!⁠—Oh, y’are come! Enter Footman. Mirabell Well, is the grand affair over? You have been something tedious. Footman Sir, there’s such coupling at Pancras12 that they stand behind one another, as ’twere in a country-dance. Ours was the last couple to lead up; and no hopes appearing of dispatch, besides, the parson growing hoarse, we were afraid his lungs would have failed before it came to our turn; so we drove round to Duke’s Place,13 and there they were riveted in a trice. Mirabell So, so, you are sure they are married? Footman Married and bedded, sir; I am witness. Mirabell Have you the certificate? Footman Here it is, sir. Mirabell Has the tailor brought Waitwell’s clothes home, and the new liveries? Footman Yes, sir. Mirabell That’s well. Do you go home again, d’ye hear, and adjourn the consummation till farther order. Bid Waitwell shake his ears, and Dame Partlet14 rustle up her feathers, and meet me at one o’clock by Rosamond’s Pond,15 that I may see her before she returns to her lady. And, as you tender your ears, be secret. Exeunt. Scene II

The same.

Mirabell, Fainall, and Betty. Fainall Joy of your success, Mirabell; you look pleased. Mirabell Aye; I have been engaged in a matter of some sort of mirth, which is not yet ripe for discovery. I am glad this is not a cabal-night. I wonder, Fainall, that you who are married, and of consequence should be discreet, will suffer your wife to be of such a party. Fainall Faith, I am not jealous. Besides, most who are engaged are women and relations; and for the men, they are of a kind too contemptible to give scandal. Mirabell I am of another opinion: the greater the coxcomb, always the more the scandal; for a woman who is not a fool can have but one reason for associating with a man who is one. Fainall Are you jealous as often as you see Witwoud entertained by Millamant? Mirabell Of her understanding I am, if not of her person. Fainall You do her wrong; for, to give her her due, she has wit. Mirabell She has beauty enough to make any man think so, and complaisance enough not to contradict him who shall tell her so. Fainall For a passionate lover methinks you are a man somewhat too discerning in the failings of your mistress. Mirabell And for a discerning man somewhat too passionate a lover, for I like her with all her faults; nay, like her for her faults. Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her, and those affectations which in another woman would be odious serve but to make her more agreeable. I’ll tell thee, Fainall, she once used me with that insolence that in revenge I took her to pieces, sifted her, and separated her failings: I studied ’em and got ’em by rote. The catalogue was so large that I was not without hopes, one day or other, to hate her heartily. To which end I so used myself to think of ’em, that at length, contrary to my design and expectation, they gave me every hour less and less disturbance, till in a few days it became habitual to me to remember ’em without being displeased. They are now grown as familiar to me as my own frailties, and in all probability in a little time longer I shall like ’em as well. Fainall Marry her, marry her; be half as well acquainted with her charms as you are with her defects, and, my life on’t, you are your own man again. Mirabell Say you so? Fainall Aye, aye; I have experience. I have a wife, and so forth. Enter Messenger. Messenger Is one squire Witwoud here? Betty Yes; what’s your business? Messenger I have a letter for him, from his brother Sir Wilfull, which I am charged to deliver into his own hands. Betty He’s in the next room, friend. That way. Exit Messenger. Mirabell What, is the chief of that noble family in town, Sir Wilfull Witwoud? Fainall He is expected today. Do you know him? Mirabell I have seen him; he promises to be an extraordinary person. I think you have the honour to be related to him. Fainall Yes; he is half-brother to this Witwoud by a former wife, who was sister to my Lady Wishfort, my wife’s mother. If you marry Millamant, you must call cousins too. Mirabell I had rather be his relation than his acquaintance. Fainall He comes to town in order to equip himself for travel. Mirabell For travel! Why the man that I mean is above forty. Fainall No matter for that; ’tis for the honour of England that all Europe should know we have blockheads of all ages. Mirabell I wonder there is not an act of parliament to save the credit of the nation and prohibit the exportation of fools. Fainall By no means, ’tis better as ’tis; ’tis better to trade with a little loss, than to be quite eaten up with being overstocked. Mirabell Pray, are the follies of this knight-errant and those of the squire, his brother, anything related? Fainall Not at all: Witwoud grows by the knight like a medlar grafted on a crab. One will melt in your mouth and t’other set your teeth on edge; one is