Love for Love [36]
us know one another better, for the pleasure of a masquerade is done when we come to show our faces; but I'll tell you two things before I leave you: I am not the fool you take me for; and you are mad and don't know it.
SCENE XXI.
VALENTINE, JEREMY.
VAL. From a riddle you can expect nothing but a riddle. There's my instruction and the moral of my lesson.
JERE. What, is the lady gone again, sir? I hope you understood one another before she went?
VAL. 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.
JERE. I have heard 'em say, sir, they read hard Hebrew books backwards; maybe you begin to read at the wrong end.
VAL. 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.
ACT V.--SCENE I.
A room in Foresight's house.
ANGELICA and JENNY.
ANG. Where is Sir Sampson? Did you not tell me he would be here before me?
JENNY. He's at the great glass in the dining-room, madam, setting his cravat and wig.
ANG. How! I'm glad on't. If he has a mind I should like him, it's a sign he likes me; and that's more than half my design.
JENNY. I hear him, madam.
ANG. Leave me; and, d'ye hear, if Valentine should come, or send, I am not to be spoken with.
SCENE II.
ANGELICA, SIR SAMPSON.
SIR SAMP. I have not been honoured with the commands of a fair lady a great while,--odd, madam, you have revived me,--not since I was five-and-thirty.
ANG. Why, you have no great reason to complain, Sir Sampson, that is not long ago.
SIR SAMP. Zooks, but it is, madam, a very great while: to a man that admires a fine woman as much as I do.
ANG. You're an absolute courtier, Sir Sampson.
SIR SAMP. Not at all, madam,--odsbud, you wrong me,--I am not so old neither, to be a bare courtier, only a man of words. Odd, I have warm blood about me yet, and can serve a lady any way. Come, come, let me tell you, you women think a man old too soon, faith and troth you do. Come, don't despise fifty; odd, fifty, in a hale constitution, is no such contemptible age.
ANG. Fifty a contemptible age! Not at all; a very fashionable age, I think. I assure you, I know very considerable beaus that set a good face upon fifty. Fifty! I have seen fifty in a side box by candle-light out-blossom five-and-twenty.
SIR SAMP. Outsides, outsides; a pize take 'em, mere outsides. Hang your side-box beaus; no, I'm none of those, none of your forced trees, that pretend to blossom in the fall, and bud when they should bring forth fruit: I am of a long-lived race, and inherit vigour; none of my ancestors married till fifty, yet they begot sons and daughters till fourscore: I am of your patriarchs, I, a branch of one of your antedeluvian families, fellows that the flood could not wash away. Well, madam, what are your commands? Has any young rogue affronted you, and shall I cut his throat? Or -
ANG. No, Sir Sampson, I have no quarrel upon my hands. I have more occasion for your conduct than your courage at this time. To tell you the truth, I'm weary of living single and want a husband.
SIR SAMP. Odsbud, and 'tis pity you should. Odd, would she would like me, then I should hamper my young rogues. Odd, would she would; faith and troth she's devilish handsome. [Aside.] Madam, you deserve a good husband, and 'twere pity you should be thrown away upon any of these young idle rogues about the town. Odd, there's ne'er a young fellow worth hanging--that is a very young fellow. Pize on 'em, they never think beforehand of anything;
SCENE XXI.
VALENTINE, JEREMY.
VAL. From a riddle you can expect nothing but a riddle. There's my instruction and the moral of my lesson.
JERE. What, is the lady gone again, sir? I hope you understood one another before she went?
VAL. 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.
JERE. I have heard 'em say, sir, they read hard Hebrew books backwards; maybe you begin to read at the wrong end.
VAL. 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.
ACT V.--SCENE I.
A room in Foresight's house.
ANGELICA and JENNY.
ANG. Where is Sir Sampson? Did you not tell me he would be here before me?
JENNY. He's at the great glass in the dining-room, madam, setting his cravat and wig.
ANG. How! I'm glad on't. If he has a mind I should like him, it's a sign he likes me; and that's more than half my design.
JENNY. I hear him, madam.
ANG. Leave me; and, d'ye hear, if Valentine should come, or send, I am not to be spoken with.
SCENE II.
ANGELICA, SIR SAMPSON.
SIR SAMP. I have not been honoured with the commands of a fair lady a great while,--odd, madam, you have revived me,--not since I was five-and-thirty.
ANG. Why, you have no great reason to complain, Sir Sampson, that is not long ago.
SIR SAMP. Zooks, but it is, madam, a very great while: to a man that admires a fine woman as much as I do.
ANG. You're an absolute courtier, Sir Sampson.
SIR SAMP. Not at all, madam,--odsbud, you wrong me,--I am not so old neither, to be a bare courtier, only a man of words. Odd, I have warm blood about me yet, and can serve a lady any way. Come, come, let me tell you, you women think a man old too soon, faith and troth you do. Come, don't despise fifty; odd, fifty, in a hale constitution, is no such contemptible age.
ANG. Fifty a contemptible age! Not at all; a very fashionable age, I think. I assure you, I know very considerable beaus that set a good face upon fifty. Fifty! I have seen fifty in a side box by candle-light out-blossom five-and-twenty.
SIR SAMP. Outsides, outsides; a pize take 'em, mere outsides. Hang your side-box beaus; no, I'm none of those, none of your forced trees, that pretend to blossom in the fall, and bud when they should bring forth fruit: I am of a long-lived race, and inherit vigour; none of my ancestors married till fifty, yet they begot sons and daughters till fourscore: I am of your patriarchs, I, a branch of one of your antedeluvian families, fellows that the flood could not wash away. Well, madam, what are your commands? Has any young rogue affronted you, and shall I cut his throat? Or -
ANG. No, Sir Sampson, I have no quarrel upon my hands. I have more occasion for your conduct than your courage at this time. To tell you the truth, I'm weary of living single and want a husband.
SIR SAMP. Odsbud, and 'tis pity you should. Odd, would she would like me, then I should hamper my young rogues. Odd, would she would; faith and troth she's devilish handsome. [Aside.] Madam, you deserve a good husband, and 'twere pity you should be thrown away upon any of these young idle rogues about the town. Odd, there's ne'er a young fellow worth hanging--that is a very young fellow. Pize on 'em, they never think beforehand of anything;