The Way of the World

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.

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?

Witwoud

Indeed, so crips?

Mincing

You’re such a critic, Mr. Witwoud.

Mrs. Millamant

Mirabell, did you take exceptions last night? Oh, aye, and went away.⁠—Now I think on’t I’m angry⁠—no, now I think on’t I’m pleased⁠—for I believe I gave you some pain.

Mirabell

Does that please you?

Mrs. Millamant

Infinitely; I love to give pain.

Mirabell

You would affect a cruelty which is not in your nature; your true vanity is in the power of pleasing.

Mrs. Millamant

Oh, I ask your pardon for that. One’s cruelty is one’s power, and when one parts with one’s cruelty one parts with one’s power, and when one has parted with that, I fancy one’s old and ugly.

Mirabell

Aye, aye; suffer your cruelty to ruin the object of your power, to destroy your lover⁠—and then how vain, how lost a thing you’ll be! Nay, ’tis true; you are no longer handsome when you’ve lost your lover: your beauty dies upon the instant. For beauty is the lover’s gift; ’tis he bestows your charms⁠—your glass is all a cheat. The ugly and the old, whom the looking-glass mortifies, yet after commendation can be flattered by it, and discover beauties in it: for that reflects our praises rather than your face.

I have no more patience.⁠—If I have not fretted myself till I am pale again, there’s no veracity in me. Fetch me the red⁠—the red, do you hear, sweetheart?⁠—An errant ash colour, as I’m a person. Look you how this wench stirs! Why dost thou not fetch me a little red? Didst thou not hear me, Mopus?

Peg

The red ratafia, does your ladyship mean, or the cherry brandy?

Lady Wishfort

Ratafia, fool? No, fool. Not the ratafia, fool⁠—grant me patience!⁠—I mean the Spanish paper, idiot; complexion, darling. Paint, paint, paint, dost thou understand that, changeling, dangling thy hands like bobbins before thee? Why dost thou not stir, puppet? Thou wooden thing upon wires!

Peg

Lord, madam, your ladyship is so impatient!⁠—I cannot come at the paint, madam: Mrs. Foible has locked it up, and carried the key with her.

Lady Wishfort

A pox take you both.⁠—Fetch me the cherry brandy then.Exit Peg. I’m as pale and as faint, I look like Mrs. Qualmsick, the curate’s wife, that’s always breeding. Wench, come, come, wench, what art thou doing? Sipping? Tasting?⁠—Save thee, dost thou not know the bottle?

Mrs. Millamant

Ah, don’t be impertinent.⁠—My dear liberty, shall I leave thee? My faithful solitude, my darling contemplation, must I bid you then adieu? Aye-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 abed in a morning as long as I please.

Mirabell

Then I’ll get up in a morning as early as I please.

Mrs. Millamant

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.

Mirabell

Names!

Mrs. Millamant

Aye, 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.