Richard Steele: Edited, with an Introduction and Notes by G. A. AitkenSteele, Richard, Sir
General
Richard Steele: Edited, with an Introduction and Notes by G. A. Aitken
Steele, Richard, Sir
English drama (Comedy); Steele, Richard, Sir, 1672-1729
_Pen._ I am, indeed, downright ashamed for him that speaks 'em. Whence
this insolence, if not from utter distraction, under this roof?
_Love._ Oh, the ingrate! Have not I, madam, two long years, two ages,
with humblest resignation, depended on your smile? and shall I suffer
one of yesterday's to treat you, to dance all night with you?
_Pen._[57] Speak softly; my father's coming down.
_Love._ Thy father's coming down! Faithless! Thou hast no father--But
to cross me by night upon the water!
_Pen._ Well, by night upon the water; what then?
_Love._ Yes, all night.
_Pen._ What of that?
_Love._ Without blushing when you hear of 't!
_Pen._ Blush for what? What do you drive at?
_Love._ Can you, then, coolly ask what 'tis I mean, thou reveller, thou
rambler? A fine young lady, with your midnight frolics! But what do I
pretend to? I know not how with bended knees to call you Ceres; make
you an offering of summer fruits, and deify your vanity! Thou art no
goddess; thou'rt a very woman, with all the guile! Your barges! your
treats! your fireworks!
_Pen._ What means the insolent? You grow insufferable!
_Love._ Oh, Penelope! that look, that disdainful look has pierced my
soul, and ebbed my rage to penitence and sorrow. I own my fault; I'm
too rash----
_Pen._ The imaginary enemies you raise are but mere forms of your
sickly brain: so I think, and scorn 'em. A diffident, a humorous, and
ungenerous man, who, without grounds, calls me inconstant, shall surely
find me so. She will be very happy that takes a constant man with
twenty thousand humours.
_Love._ Is it a fault my life's bound up in thee,
That all my powers change with thy looks,
That my eyes gloat on thee when thou'rt present,
And ache and roll for light when thou'rt absent?
_Pen._ A little ill-usage, I see, improves a lover. I never heard him
speak so well in my life before. [_Aside._
_Love._ Of you I am not jealous:
'Tis my own indesert[58] that gives me fears,
And tenderness forms dangers where they're not;
I doubt and envy all things that approach thee:
Not a fond mother of a long-wished-for only child beholds with such
kind terrors her infant offspring, as I do her I love. She thinks its
food, if she's not by, unwholesome; and all the ambient air made up of
fevers and of quartan agues, except she shrouds it in her arms. Such is
my unpitied, anxious care for you; and can I see another----
_Pen._ What other?
_Love._ Nay, if you make a secret of your meeting, there's all that I
suspect in it. Another? Young Bookwit is another----
_Pen._ I never saw his face. Young Bookwit?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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