Scene V.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

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.