William CongreveAmerican Book Company, 1912 - 466 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Almeria Alphonso Angelica astrologer aunt better Brisk Careless comedy confess Congreve Congreve's Cynthia d'ye dear dost thou Double-Dealer Enter Exeunt Exit eyes Fain Fainall faith father Foib Foible fool Fore Foresight fortune Frail gadsbud give hand hast hear heart Heaven Heli honour hope husband JEREMY Lady Froth Lady Ply Lady Plyant Lady Touch Lady Touchwood Lady Wish Lady WISHFORT ladyship laugh look Lord Froth Lord Touch Lord Touchwood Love for Love lover madam marriage marry Marwood Mask Maskwell Mellefont Millamant Mirabell never on't Osmyn passion Petulant play Pray Prue Scan Scandal SCENE servant Sir Paul Sir Rowland Sir Samp Sir Sampson Sir Wil Sir Wilfull speak sure swear Tattle tell thee there's thing thou art thought Valentine what's wife WILLIAM CONGREVE Witwoud woman Zara
Popular passages
Page 46 - And just abandoning the ungrateful stage : Unprofitably kept at Heaven's expense, I live a rent-charge on his providence. But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn, Whom I foresee to better fortune born, Be kind to my remains ; and, oh defend, Against your judgment, your departed friend! Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue, But shade those laurels which descend to you : And take for tribute what these lines express ; You merit more, nor could my love do less.
Page 276 - And for a discerning man, somewhat too passionate a lover; for I like her with all her faults, nay, like her for her faults. Her follies are so natural, or so artful, that they become her, and those affectations which in another woman would be odious serve but to make her more agreeable.
Page 44 - The second temple was not like the first ; Till you, the best Vitruvius, come at length, Our beauties equal, but excel our strength. Firm Doric pillars found your solid base ; The fair Corinthian crowns the higher space : Thus all below is strength, and all above is grace.
Page 366 - May such malicious fops this fortune find, To think themselves alone the fools designed: If any are so arrogantly vain, To think they singly can support a scene, And furnish fool enough to entertain. For well the learned and the judicious know That satire scorns to stoop so meanly low, As any one abstracted fop to show.
Page 280 - Tis no matter for that, his wit will excuse that. A wit should no more be sincere than a woman constant: one argues a decay of parts, as t'other of beauty.
Page 299 - But I know a lady that loves talking so incessantly, she won't give an echo fair play ; she has that everlasting rotation of tongue, that an echo must wait till she dies, before it can catch her last words.
Page 320 - S'life, Witwoud, were you ever an attorney's clerk? of the family of the Furnival? Ha! ha! ha! Wit. Ay, ay, but that was but for a while: not long, not long. Pshaw! I was not in my own power then; — an orphan, and this fellow was my guardian; ay, ay, I was glad to consent to that, man, to come to London: he had the disposal of me then. If I had not agreed to that, I might have been bound 'prentice to a felt-maker in Shrewsbury; this fellow would have bound me to a maker of fells.
Page 301 - To know this, and yet continue to be in love, is to be made wise from the dictates of reason, and yet persevere to play the fool by the force of instinct.
Page 157 - O Mr. Trapland, my old friend, welcome ! — Jeremy, a chair quickly ; a bottle of sack and a toast ; — fly — a chair first.
Page 153 - The man of the house would have been an Alderman by this time with half the trade, if he had set up in the City.