Scene XXI.

Love for Love

by William Congreve

VALENTINE, JEREMY.

VALENTINE
From a riddle you can expect nothing but a riddle.
There's my instruction and the moral of my lesson.

JEREMY
What, is the lady gone again, sir? I hope you
understood one another before she went?

VALENTINE
Understood! She is harder to be understood than a
piece of Egyptian antiquity or an Irish manuscript: you may pore
till you spoil your eyes and not improve your knowledge.

JEREMY
I have heard 'em say, sir, they read hard Hebrew
books backwards; maybe you begin to read at the wrong end.

VALENTINE
They say so of a witch's prayer, and dreams and
Dutch almanacs are to be understood by contraries. But there's
regularity and method in that; she is a medal without a reverse or
inscription, for indifference has both sides alike. Yet, while she
does not seem to hate me, I will pursue her, and know her if it be
possible, in spite of the opinion of my satirical friend, Scandal,
who says -

That women are like tricks by sleight of hand,
Which, to
admire, we should not understand.