Major Barbara

LADY BRITOMART. Well, dear, there were other differences. I really cannot bear an immoral man. I am not a Pharisee, I hope; and I should not have minded his merely doing wrong things: we are none of us perfect. But your father didn’t exactly do wrong things: he said them and thought them: that was what was so dreadful. He really had a sort of religion of wrongness just as one doesn’t mind men practising immorality so long as they own that they are in the wrong by preaching morality; so I couldn’t forgive Andrew for preaching immorality while he practised morality. You would all have grown up without principles, without any knowledge of right and wrong, if he had been in the house. You know, my dear, your father was a very attractive man in some ways. Children did not dislike him; and he took advantage of it to put the wickedest ideas into their heads, and make them quite unmanageable. I did not dislike him myself: very far from it; but nothing can bridge over moral disagreement.

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Major Barbara

BARBARA: Yes, you, and all the other naughty mischievous children of men. But I can’t. I was happy in the Salvation Army for a moment. I escaped from the world into a paradise of enthusiasm and prayer and soul saving; but the moment our money ran short, it all came back to Bodger: it was he who saved our people: he, and the Prince of Darkness, my papa. Undershaft and Bodger: their hands stretch everywhere: when we feed a starving fellow creature, it is with their bread, because there is no other bread; when we tend the sick, it is in the hospitals they endow; if we turn from the churches they build, we must kneel on the stones of the streets they pave. As long as that lasts, there is no getting away from them. Turning our backs on Bodger and Undershaft is turning our backs on life.

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Twelfth Night

VIOLA: I left no ring with her. What means this lady?

Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her.

She made good view of me; indeed, so much

That, as methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,

For she did speak in starts distractedly.

She loves me sure; the cunning of her passion

Invites me in this churlish messenger.

None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none.

I am the man. If it be so, as ’tis,

Poor lady, she were better love a dream.

Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness

Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.

How easy is it for the proper false

In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!

Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,

For such as we are made of, such we be.

How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;

And I (poor monster) fond as much on him;

And she (mistaken) seems to dote on me.

What will become of this? As I am man,

My state is desperate for my master’s love.

As I am woman (now alas the day!),

What thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?

O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;

It is too hard a knot for me t’ untie.

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Uncle Tom’s Cabin

CASSY: Don’t call me missis. I’m a miserable slave like yourself- a lower one than you can ever be! It’s no use, my poor fellow, this you’ve been trying to do. You were a brave fellow. You had the right on your side; but it’s all in vain for you to struggle. You are in the Devil’s hands; he is the strongest, and you must give up. (…) You see you don’t know anything about it; I do. Here you are, on a lone plantation , ten miles from any other, in the swamps, not a white person here who could testify, if you were burned alive. There’s no law here that can do you, or any of us, the least good; and this man! There’s no earthly thing that he is not bad enough to do. I could make one’s hair rise, and their teeth chatter, if I should only tell what I’ve seen and been knowing here; and it’s no use resisting! Did I want to live with him? Wasn’t I a woman delicately bred? and he!- Father in Heaven! What was he and is he? And yet I’ve lived with him these five years, and cursed every moment of my life, night and day. (…) And what are these miserable low dogs you work with, that you should suffer on their account? Every one of them would turn against you the first time they get a chance. They are all of them as low and cruel to each other as they can be; there’s no use in your suffering to keep from hurting them.

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The Cherry Orchard

The Cherry Orchard-Anton Chekhov

MADAME RANEVSKY: Please don’t go; I want you. At any rate it’s gayer when you’re here. [A pause] I keep expecting something to happen, as if the house were going to tumble down about our ears. We have been very, very sinful! Oh, the sins that I have committed . . . I’ve always squandered money at random like a madwoman; I married a man who made nothing but debts. My husband drank himself to death on champagne; he was a fearful drinker. Then for my sins I fell in love and went off with another man; and immediately–that was my first punishment–a blow full on the head . . . here, in this very river . . . my little boy was drowned; and I went abroad, right, right away, never to come back any more, never to see this river again. . . . I shut my eyes and ran, like a mad thing, and he came after me, pitiless and cruel. I bought a villa at Mentone, because he fell ill there, and for three years I knew no rest day or night; the sick man tormented and wore down my soul. Then, last year, when my villa was sold to pay my debts, I went off to Paris, and he came and robbed me of everything, left me and took up with another woman, and I tried to poison myself. . . . It was all so stupid, so humiliating. . . . Then suddenly I longed to be back in Russia, in my own country, with my little girl. . . . [Wiping away her tears] Lord, Lord, be merciful to me; forgive my sins! Do not punish me any more! [Taking a telegram from her pocket.] I got this to-day from Paris. . . . He asks to be forgiven, begs me to come back. . . .

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The Bear

The Bear-Anton Chekhov

POPOVA: The man! [Laughs bitterly] Men are faithful and constant in love! What an idea! [With heat] What right have you to talk like that? Men are faithful and constant! Since we are talking about it, I’ll tell you that of all the men I knew and know, the best was my late husband. … I loved him passionately with all my being, as only a young and imaginative woman can love, I gave him my youth, my happiness, my life, my fortune, I breathed in him, I worshipped him as if I were a heathen, and … and what then? This best of men shamelessly deceived me at every step! After his death I found in his desk a whole drawerful of love-letters, and when he was alive– it’s an awful thing to remember!–he used to leave me alone for weeks at a time, and make love to other women and betray me before my very eyes; he wasted my money, and made fun of my feelings. … And, in spite of all that, I loved him and was true to him. And not only that, but, now that he is dead, I am still true and constant to his memory. I have shut myself for ever within these four walls, and will wear these weeds to the very end. …

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School For Scandal

LADY TEAZLE: I, who was late so volatile and gay, Like a trade-wind must now blow all one way, Bend all my cares, my studies, and my vows, To one dull rusty weathercock–my spouse! So wills our virtuous bard–the motley Bayes Of crying epilogues and laughing plays! Old bachelors, who marry smart young wives, Learn from our play to regulate your lives: Each bring his dear to town, all faults upon her– London will prove the very source of honour. Plunged fairly in, like a cold bath it serves, When principles relax, to brace the nerves: Such is my case; and yet I must deplore That the gay dream of dissipation’s o’er. And say, ye fair! was ever lively wife, Born with a genius for the highest life, Like me untimely blasted in her bloom, Like me condemn’d to such a dismal doom? Save money–when I just knew how to waste it! Leave London–just as I began to taste it! Must I then watch the early crowing cock, The melancholy ticking of a clock; In a lone rustic hall for ever pounded, With dogs, cats, rats, and squalling brats surrounded? With humble curate can I now retire, (While good Sir Peter boozes with the squire,) And at backgammon mortify my soul, That pants for loo, or flutters at a vole? Seven’s the main! Dear sound that must expire, Lost at hot cockles round a Christmas fire; The transient hour of fashion too soon spent, Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content! Farewell the plumed head, the cushion’d tete, That takes the cushion from its proper seat! That spirit-stirring drum!–card drums I mean, Spadille–odd trick–pam–basto–king and queen! And you, ye knockers, that, with brazen throat, The welcome visitors’ approach denote; Farewell all quality of high renown, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious town! Farewell! your revels I partake no more, And Lady Teazle’s occupation’s o’er! All this I told our bard; he smiled, and said ’twas clear, I ought to play deep tragedy next year. Meanwhile he drew wise morals from his play, And in these solemn periods stalk’d away:— “Bless’d were the fair like you; her faults who stopp’d, And closed her follies when the curtain dropp’d! No more in vice or error to engage, Or play the fool at large on life’s great stage.”

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Macbeth

LADY MACBETH: He has almost supped. Why have you left the chamber? Was the hope drunk Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? And wakes it now to look so green and pale At what it did so freely? From this time Such I account thy love. Art thou afeard To be the same in thine own act and valor As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that Which thou esteem’st the ornament of life, And live a coward in thine own esteem, Letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would,” Like the poor cat i’ the adage? What beast was’t then That made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; And to be more than what you were, you would Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place Did then adhere, and yet you would make both. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me: I would, while it was smiling in my face, Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you Have done this. If we should fail? Screw your courage to the sticking place And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep (Whereto the rather shall his day’s hard journey Soundly invite him), his two chamberlains Will I with wine and wassail so convince That memory, the warder of the brain, Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason A limbeck only. When in swinish sleep Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death, What cannot you and I perform upon Th’ unguarded Duncan? what not put upon His spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt Of our great quell? Learn the secrets of becoming a better actor

Lady Windermere’s Fan

Lady Windermere: Believe what you choose about me. I am not worth a moment’s sorrow. But don’t spoil your beautiful young life on my account! You don’t know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once. You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at–to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one’s face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. You don’t know what it is. One pays for one’s sin, and then one pays again, and all one’s life one pays. You must never know that.–As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for to-night you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it and broken it.–But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours. You- -why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven’t got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn’t stand dishonour! No! Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you. [LADY WINDERMERE rises.] God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you? Back to your house, Lady Windermere–your husband loves you! He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you. But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child. If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child. If he ill-treated you, you must stay with your child. If he abandoned you, your place is with your child.

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Lady Windermere’s Fan

Lady Windermere’s Fan-Oscar Wilde

LADY WINDERMERE. [Standing by the fireplace.] Why doesn’t he come? This waiting is horrible. He should be here. Why is he not here, to wake by passionate words some fire within me? I am cold– cold as a loveless thing. Arthur must have read my letter by this time. If he cared for me, he would have come after me, would have taken me back by force. But he doesn’t care. He’s entrammelled by this woman–fascinated by her–dominated by her. If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him. We make gods of men and they leave us. Others make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful. How hideous life is! . . . Oh! it was mad of me to come here, horribly mad. And yet, which is the worst, I wonder, to be at the mercy of a man who loves one, or the wife of a man who in one’s own house dishonours one? What woman knows? What woman in the whole world? But will he love me always, this man to whom I am giving my life? What do I bring him? Lips that have lost the note of joy, eyes that are blinded by tears, chill hands and icy heart. I bring him nothing. I must go back– no; I can’t go back, my letter has put me in their power–Arthur would not take me back! That fatal letter! No! Lord Darlington leaves England to-morrow. I will go with him–I have no choice. [Sits down for a few moments. Then starts up and puts on her cloak.] No, no! I will go back, let Arthur do with me what he pleases. I can’t wait here. It has been madness my coming. I must go at once. As for Lord Darlington–Oh! here he is! What shall I do? What can I say to him? Will he let me go away at all? I have heard that men are brutal, horrible . . . Oh! [Hides her face in her hands.]

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