The Way of the World: Scene V.
Scene V.
MRS. MILLAMANT, MIRABELL.
MIRABELL
Like Daphne she, as lovely and as coy.
Do you lock yourself up from me, to make my search more curious? Or is this pretty artifice contrived, to signify that here the chase must end, and my pursuit be crowned, for you can fly no further?
MILLAMANT
Vanity! No--I'll fly and be followed to the last moment;
though I am upon the very verge of matrimony, I expect you should
solicit me as much as if I were wavering at the grate of a
monastery, with one foot over the threshold. I'll be solicited to
the very last; nay, and afterwards.
MIRABELL
What, after the last?
MILLAMANT
Oh, I should think I was poor and had nothing to bestow if I
were reduced to an inglorious ease, and freed from the agreeable
fatigues of solicitation.
MIRABELL
But do not you know that when favours are conferred upon
instant and tedious solicitation, that they diminish in their value,
and that both the giver loses the grace, and the receiver lessens
his pleasure?
MILLAMANT
It may be in things of common application, but never, sure,
in love. Oh, I hate a lover that can dare to think he draws a
moment's air 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.
MIRABELL
Would you have 'em both before marriage? Or will you be
contented with the first now, and stay for the other till after
grace?
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? 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.
MIRABELL
Then I'll get up in a morning as early as I please.
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?
MILLAMANT
Ay, as wife, spouse, my dear, joy, jewel, love, sweet-heart,
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.
MIRABELL
Have you any more conditions to offer? Hitherto your demands
are pretty reasonable.
MILLAMANT
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.
MIRABELL
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?
MILLAMANT
You have free leave: propose your utmost, speak and spare
not.
MIRABELL
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.
MILLAMANT
Detestable IMPRIMIS! I go to the play in a mask!
MIRABELL
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
-
MILLAMANT
Ah, name it not!
MIRABELL
Which may be presumed, with a blessing on our endeavours -
MILLAMANT
Odious endeavours!
MIRABELL
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.
MILLAMANT
Oh, horrid provisos! Filthy strong waters! I toast
fellows, odious men! I hate your odious provisos.
MIRABELL
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.