Scene I.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

St. James's Park.

MRS. FAINALL and MRS. MARWOOD.

MRS. FAINALL
Ay, ay, dear Marwood, if we will be happy, we
must find the means in ourselves, and among ourselves. Men are ever
in extremes; either doting or averse. While they are lovers, if they
have fire and sense, their jealousies are insupportable: and when
they cease to love (we ought to think at least) they loathe, they
look upon us with horror and distaste, they meet us like the ghosts
of what we were, and as from such, fly from us.

MRS. MARWOOD
True, 'tis an unhappy circumstance of life that
love should ever die before us, and that the man so often should
outlive the lover. But say what you will, 'tis better to be left
than never to have been loved. To pass our youth in dull
indifference, to refuse the sweets of life because they once must
leave us, is as preposterous as to wish to have been born old,
because we one day must be old. For my part, my youth may wear and
waste, but it shall never rust in my possession.

MRS. FAINALL
Then it seems you dissemble an aversion to
mankind only in compliance to my mother's humour.

MRS. MARWOOD
Certainly. To be free, I have no taste of
those insipid dry discourses with which our sex of force must
entertain themselves apart from men. We may affect endearments to
each other, profess eternal friendships, and seem to dote like
lovers; but 'tis not in our natures long to persevere. Love will
resume his empire in our breasts, and every heart, or soon or late,
receive and readmit him as its lawful tyrant.

MRS. FAINALL
Bless me, how have I been deceived! Why, you
profess a libertine.

MRS. MARWOOD
You see my friendship by my freedom. Come, be
as sincere, acknowledge that your sentiments agree with mine.

MRS. FAINALL
Never.

MRS. MARWOOD
You hate mankind?

MRS. FAINALL
Heartily, inveterately.

MRS. MARWOOD
Your husband?

MRS. FAINALL
Most transcendently; ay, though I say it,
meritoriously.

MRS. MARWOOD
Give me your hand upon it.

MRS. FAINALL
There.

MRS. MARWOOD
I join with you; what I have said has been to
try you.

MRS. FAINALL
Is it possible? Dost thou hate those vipers,
men?

MRS. MARWOOD
I have done hating 'em, and am now come to
despise 'em; the next thing I have to do is eternally to forget
'em.

MRS. FAINALL
There spoke the spirit of an Amazon, a
Penthesilea.

MRS. MARWOOD
And yet I am thinking sometimes to carry my
aversion further.

MRS. FAINALL
How?

MRS. MARWOOD
Faith, by marrying; if I could but find one
that loved me very well, and would be throughly sensible of ill
usage, I think I should do myself the violence of undergoing the
ceremony.

MRS. FAINALL
You would not make him a cuckold?

MRS. MARWOOD
No; but I'd make him believe I did, and that's
as bad.

MRS. FAINALL
Why had not you as good do it?

MRS. MARWOOD
Oh, if he should ever discover it, he would
then know the worst, and be out of his pain; but I would have him
ever to continue upon the rack of fear and jealousy.

MRS. FAINALL
Ingenious mischief! Would thou wert married to
Mirabell.

MRS. MARWOOD
Would I were.

MRS. FAINALL
You change colour.

MRS. MARWOOD
Because I hate him.

MRS. FAINALL
So do I; but I can hear him named. But what
reason have you to hate him in particular?

MRS. MARWOOD
I never loved him; he is, and always was,
insufferably proud.

MRS. FAINALL
By the reason you give for your aversion, one
would think it dissembled; for you have laid a fault to his charge,
of which his enemies must acquit him.

MRS. MARWOOD
Oh, then it seems you are one of his favourable
enemies. Methinks you look a little pale, and now you flush again.

MRS. FAINALL
Do I? I think I am a little sick o' the
sudden.

MRS. MARWOOD
What ails you?

MRS. FAINALL
My husband. Don't you see him? He turned
short upon me unawares, and has almost overcome me.