Public Domain Monologues

CHARLOTTA. [Thoughtfully] I haven’t a real passport. I don’t know how old I am, and I think I’m young. When I was a little girl my father and mother used to go round fairs and give very good performances and I used to do the salto mortale and various little things. And when papa and mamma died a German lady took me to her and began to teach me. I liked it. I grew up and became a governess. And where I came from and who I am, I don’t know. . . . Who my parents were–perhaps they weren’t married–I don’t know. [Takes a cucumber out of her pocket and eats] I don’t know anything. [Pause] I do want to talk, but I haven’t anybody to talk to . . . I haven’t anybody at all.

CORNELIA: (holding newspaper at arm’s length. Testily) My eyes are all right – but my arms aren’t long enough. (She reads) “Police again baffled by the Bat! This unique criminal, known to the underworld as `The Bat,’ has long baffled the Police. The record of his crimes shows him to be endowed with almost diabolical ingenuity. So far there is no clue to his identity-but Anderson, City Detective, today said. `We must cease combining the criminal world for The Bat and look higher. He may be a merchant-a lawyer-a doctor, honored in his community by day-and at night a blood-thirsty assassin’”.

NORA: It is perfectly true, Torvald. When I was at home with papa, he told me his opinion about everything, and so I had the same opinions; and if I differed from him I concealed the fact, because he would not have liked it. He called me his doll-child, and he played with me just as I used to play with my dolls. And when I came to live with you—

I mean that I was simply transferred from papa’s hands into yours. You arranged everything according to your own taste, and so I got the same tastes as you—or else I pretended to, I am really not quite sure which—I think sometimes the one and sometimes the other. When I look back on it, it seems to me as if I had been living here like a poor woman—just from hand to mouth. I have existed merely to perform tricks for you, Torvald. But you would have it so. You and papa have committed a great sin against me. It is your fault that I have made nothing of my life.

And you have always been so kind to me. But our home has been nothing but a playroom. I have been your doll-wife, just as at home I was papa’s doll-child; and here the children have been my dolls. I thought it great fun when you played with me, just as they thought it great fun when I played with them. That is what our marriage has been, Torvald.

SIR ROBERT CHILTERN: There was your mistake. There was your error. The error all women commit. Why can’t you women love us, faults and all? Why do you place us on monstrous pedestals? We have all feet of clay, women as well as men; but when we men love women, we love them knowing their weaknesses, their follies, their imperfections, love them all the more, it may be, for that reason. It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us—else what use is love at all? All sins, except a sin against itself, Love should forgive. All lives, save loveless lives, true Love should pardon. A man’s love is like that. It is wider, larger, more human than a woman’s. Women think that they are making ideals of men. What they are making of us are false idols merely. You made your false idol of me, and I had not the courage to come down, show you my wounds, tell you my weaknesses. I was afraid that I might lose your love, as I have lost it now. And so, last night you ruined my life for me—yes, ruined it!

What this woman asked of me was nothing compared to what she offered to me. She offered security, peace, stability. The sin of my youth, that I had thought was buried, rose up in front of me, hideous, horrible, with its hands at my throat. I could have killed it for ever, sent it back into its tomb, destroyed its record, burned the one witness against me. You prevented me. No one but you, you know it. And now what is there before me but public disgrace, ruin, terrible shame, the mockery of the world, a lonely dishonoured life, a lonely dishonoured death, it may be, some day? Let women make no more ideals of men! let them not put them on alters and bow before them, or they may ruin other lives as completely as you—you whom I have so wildly loved—have ruined mine!

PHYSICIAN: She has asked me for poison. There is a mystery over the castle, and I believe its walls will fall upon our heads. And woe to the little ones in the house! There are already strange rumors in the air, and it seems to me that on the other side of this world they are beginning to be a little uneasy about adultery. Mean-while, the people here wade in misery up to their lips; and the old King will die in the Queen’s bed before the end of the month. . . . He has been growing strangely white for several weeks; and his mind begins to totter, as well as his body. I must not be caught in the midst of the storms that are coming. It is time I should be gone; it is time I should be gone! I have no desire to go blindly with her into that hell! I must give her some almost harmless poison to deceive her; but I shall break silence before they close a tomb. Mean-while I wash my hands of it. I will not be killed trying to hold up a crumbling tower.

ELEANORA: He may come, and we can go–from everything! — from all the old furniture which father has been accumulating for us, and which I have seen ever since I was a little child. One should not own anything that binds one to earth. Go out on the stony highways and wander with bleeding feet, for that way leads upwards, therefore it is difficult– [Pause] Do you know what I find hardest to part with? It is the old clock over there. That was here when I was born, and it has measured my hours and my days. Hear how it beats, exactly like a heart. It stopped on the hour that grandfather died — for it was here even then. Farewell, little clock, may you soon stop again! Do you know that it used to hasten when we had ill-luck in the house — as though it wanted to get past the evil, for our sakes, of course. But when the times were bright, it slowed down, that we might enjoy them all the longer. It was the good clock. But we had a bad one too. It has to hang in the kitchen now. The bad clock couldn’t tolerate music, and as soon as Elis touched the piano, it began striking. Not I alone, but all noticed it; and that is why it has to stand in the kitchen. Lina does not like it, either, for it isn’t quiet at night, and she can’t boil eggs by it because they always become hard-boiled, she says. Now you are laughing!

TERESA: Do you know how I would like to spend my life? All of it? Sitting on the ground at his feet, looking up into his eyes, just listening to him talk. You don’t know how he can talk. He knows everything – everything that there is to know in the world, and he tells you such things! The things that you always have known yourself, in your heart, and you couldn’t find out how to say them. Even when he doesn’t say anything, if he should be speaking some language which you didn’t understand, it is wonderful – his voice – I don’t know how to explain it, but it is his voice – a voice that seems as if it had been talking to you ever since the day you were born! You don’t hear it only with your ears, but with your whole body. It’s like the air which you see and breathe and taste, and which smells so sweetly in the garden beneath the tree of paradise. Ah, Mother! The first day that he said to me “Teresa” – you see what a simple thing it was, my name, Teresa – why, it seemed to me as if nobody ever had called me by my name before, as if I never had heard it, and when he went away, I ran up and down the street saying to myself “Teresa, Teresa, Teresa!” under my breath, without knowing what I was doing, as if I walked on air!

THE BOY: It isn’t that, with me. I can’t write…. I had one splendid teacher. He used to talk about things right in class. He said that most educated people think that intellect is a matter of making fine distinctions—of seeing as two separate points what the unintelligent would believe was one point; but that this idea was finicky. He wanted us to see that intelligence might also be a matter of seeing the connection between two things so far apart that most people would think they were always separate. I like that. It made education mean something, because it made it depend on imagination instead of grubbing. And then he told us about the history of our subject—grammar. How it began as poetry, when every word was an original creation; and then became philosophy, as people had to arrange speech with thought; and then science, with more or less exact, laws. I could see it—the thing became alive. And he said all knowledge passed through the same stages, and there isn’t anything that can’t eventually be made scientific. That made me think a good deal. I wondered if somebody couldn’t work out a way of preventing anybody from being poor. It seems so unnecessary, with so much work being done. That’s what I want to do.

LADY BRACKNELL: Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or die. This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor uncle, but he never seems to take much notice . . . as far as any improvement in his ailment goes. Well, Algernon, of course if you are obliged to be beside the bedside of Mr. Bunbury, I have nothing more to say. But I would be much obliged if you would ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.

MRS. PRINGLE: I shall go mad! I’ll never entertain again–never–never–people ought to know whether they’re coming or not–but they accept and regret and regret and accept–they drive me wild. This is my last dinner party–my very last–a fiasco–an utter fiasco! A haphazard crowd–hurried together–when I had planned everything so beautifully–now how shall I seat them–how shall I seat them? If I put Mr. Tupper here and Mrs. Conley there then Mrs. Tupper has to sit next to her husband and if I want Mr. Morgan there–Oh! It’s impossible–I might as well put their names in a hat and draw them out at random–never again! I’m through! Through with society–with parties–with friends–I wipe my slate clean–they’ll miss my entertainments–they’ll wish they had been more considerate–after this, I’m going to live for myself! I’m going to be selfish and hard–and unsociable–and drink my liquor myself instead of offering it gratis to the whole town!–I’m through–Through with men like Oliver Farnsworth!–I don’t care how rich they are! How influential they are–how important they are! They’re nothing without courtesy and consideration–business–off on train–nonsense–didn’t want to come–didn’t want to meet a sweet, pretty girl–didn’t want to marry her–well, he’s not good enough for you!–don’t you marry him! Don’t you dare marry him! I won’t let you marry him! Do you hear? If you tried to elope or anything like that, I’d break it off–yes, I would–Oliver Farnsworth will never get recognition from me!–He is beneath my notice! I hate Oliver Farnsworth!

TATIANA: In a minute, in a minute. I’ll tell you everything in one minute and go. I’ll tell you from the very beginning. Well…. When you were seeing me off, you remember I was sitting next to that stout lady, and I began to read. I don’t like to talk in the train. I read for three stations and didn’t say a word to anyone…. Well, then the evening set in, and I felt so mournful, you know, with such sad thoughts! A young man was sitting opposite me—not a bad-looking fellow, a brunette…. Well, we fell into conversation…. A sailor came along then, then some student or other…. I told them that I wasn’t married… and they did look after me! We chattered till midnight, the brunette kept on telling the most awfully funny stories, and the sailor kept on singing. My chest began to ache from laughing. And when the sailor—oh, those sailors!—when he got to know my name was TATIANA, you know what he sang? (Sings in a bass voice) “Onegin don’t let me conceal it, I love Tatiana madly!”

FAMOUS ACTRESS: It happens to every actress who is moderately pretty and successful. It’s one of the oldest expedients in the world, and we actresses are such conspicuous targets for it! There is scarcely a man connected with the theater who doesn’t make use of us in that way some time or another–authors, composers, scene designers, lawyers, orchestra leaders, even the managers themselves. To regain a wife or sweetheart’s affections all they need to do is invent a love affair with one of us. The wife is always so ready to believe it. Usually we don’t know a thing about it. But even when it is brought to our notice we don’t mind so much. At least we have the consolation of knowing that we are the means of making many a marriage happy which might otherwise have ended in the divorce court. [With a gracious little laugh] There, dear, you mustn’t apologize. You couldn’t know, of course. It seems so plausible. You fancy your husband in an atmosphere of perpetual temptation, in a backstage world full of beautiful sirens without scruples or morals. One actress, you suppose, is more dangerous than a hundred ordinary women. You hate us and fear us. None understands that better than your husband, who is evidently a very cunning lawyer. And so he plays on your fear and jealousy to regain the love you deny him. He writes a letter and leaves it behind him on the desk. Trust a lawyer never to do that unintentionally. He orders flowers for me by telephone in the morning and probably cancels the order the moment he reaches his office. By the way, hasn’t he a lock of my hair? They bribe my hair-dresser to steal from me. It’s a wonder I have any hair left at all.

VERSHININ: When the fire broke out, I hurried off home; when I get there I see the house is whole, uninjured, and in no danger, but my two girls are standing by the door in just their underclothes, their mother isn’t there, the crowd is excited, horses and dogs are running about, and the girl’s faces are so agitated, terrified, beseeching, and I don’t know what else. My heart hurt me, when I saw those faces. My God, I thought, what these girls will have to put up with if they live long! I caught them up and ran, and still kept on thinking the one thing: what they will have to live through in this world! [Fire-alarm; a pause] I come here and find their mother shouting and angry. … And when my girls were standing by the door in just their underclothes, and the street was red from the fire, there was a dreadful noise, and I thought that something of the sort used to happen many years ago when an enemy made a sudden attack, and looted, and burned. … And at the same time what a difference there really is between the present and the past! And when a little more time has gone by, in two or three hundred years perhaps, people will look at our present life with just the same fear, and the same contempt, and the whole past will seem clumsy and dull, and very uncomfortable, and strange. Oh, indeed, what a life there will be, what a life! [Laughs] Forgive me, I’ve dropped into philosophy again. Please let me continue. I do long to philosophize, I’m in just that sort of mood. [Pause] As if they are all asleep. As I was saying: what a life there will be! Only just imagine … There are only three persons like yourselves in the town just now, but in future generations there will be more and more, and still more, and the time will come when everything will change and become as you would have it, people will live as you do, and then you, too, will go out of date; people will be born who are better than you ... [Laughs] Yes, to-day, I am in a most peculiar mood. I am devilishly keen on living.

PHOEBE: I am tired of being ladylike. I am a young woman still, and to be ladylike is not enough. I wish to be bright and thoughtless and merry. It is every woman’s birthright to be petted and admired; I wish to be petted and admired. Was I born to be confined within these four walls? Are they the world, Susan, or is there anything beyond them? I want to know. My eyes are tired because for ten years they have seen nothing but maps and desks. Ten years! Ten years ago I went to bed a young girl and I woke up with this cap on my head. It is not fair. This is not me, Susan, this is some other person, I want to be myself. If you only knew how I have rebelled at times, you would turn from me in horror. I have a picture of myself as I used to be; I sometimes look at it. I sometimes kiss it, and say, “Poor girl, they have all forgotten you. But I remember.” I keep it locked away in my room. Would you like to see it? I shall bring it down. My room! Oh, it is there that the Phoebe you think so patient has the hardest fight with herself, for there I have seemed to hear and see the Phoebe of whom this [looking at herself] is but an image in a distorted glass. I have heard her singing as if she thought she was still a girl. I have heard her weeping; perhaps it was only I who was weeping; but she seemed to cry to me, “Let me out of this prison, give me back the years you have taken from me. Where is my youth? Oh, where are my pretty curls?”

SILVER: Avast there, Tom Morgan. Maybe you think you’re cap’n here. By the powers I’ll teach you better. Have I lived this many years and a son of a rum puncheon cock his hat athwart my hawse at the latter end of it? Well, I’m ready. Take a cutlass — him that dares — and I’ll see the color of his insides. (As the men all draw away in a group and whisper together) I’m cap’n here by ‘lection and because I’m the best man by a long sea mile. You won’t fight; then by thunder you’ll obey — I like that boy — he’s more man than any pair of rats of you here and — let me see him that’ll lay a hand on him. (During this part of the speech the men have come back with MERRY at their head) Well, you seem to have something to say. Pipe up and let me hear it.

THE BOY: Well, maybe I’m wrong, but whenever I think of the Old Testament I see an old man under a tree—A man who has lived it all through, you know, and found out something real about it; and he sits there calm and strong, something like a tree himself; and every once in a while somebody comes along—a boy, you know, the boy talks to him all about himself, just as we imagine we’d like to with our fathers, if they weren’t so busy, or our teachers, if they didn’t depend so much upon books, or our ministers, if we thought they would really understand, the old man doesn’t say much maybe, but the boy goes away much stronger and happier….What I can’t understand is how nowadays people seem more grown up and competent than those men were, in a way, and we do such wonderful things—skyscrapers and aeroplanes—and yet we aren’t half so wonderful as they were in the Old Testament with their jugs and their wooden plows. I mean, we aren’t near so big as the things we do, while those old fellows were so much bigger. We smile at them, but if some day one of our machines fell over on us what would we do about it?

OLDBUTTON: Why, sir, I’ll give you my opinion. Of all failings, that of an idle curiosity is the most abject and contemptible: it is generally found in those whose utter littleness of mind prevents their engaging in any useful or honourable pursuit, and who, thus incapable of action themselves, seek to be distinguished by meddling in the affairs of others. A curious man is, in my opinion, a species of thief. Men are so branded who enter our abodes and abstract our property; and is not the individual who violates every law of decency and social life, and seeks to clandestinely possess himself to the secrets of another, only a robber in a different degree? Such I man I think you, Mr. Pry, and I should feel as little compunction in throwing you over the bannisters were I to catch you in my dwelling-place, as I should a swindler or a house-breaker.

NIGHT: (Maternally) Listen to me, child. … I have been kind and indulgent. … I have done for you what I have never done for any one before. … I have given up all my secrets to you. … I like you. I feel pity for your youth and innocence and I am speaking to you as a mother. … Listen to me, my child, and believe me; relinquish your quest, go no further, do not tempt fate, do not open that door. … I do not wish you to be lost. … Not one of those, do you hear, not one of those who have opened it, were it but by a hair’s breadth, has ever returned alive to the light of day. … Every awful thing imaginable, all the terrors, all the horrors of which men speak on earth are as nothing compared with the most harmless of those which assail a man from the moment when his eye lights upon the first threats of the abyss to which no one dares give a name. … So much so that I myself, if you are bent, in spite of everything, upon touching that door, will ask you to wait until I have sought safety in my windowless tower.

THE MAN: Look at those nasty scoundrels, those blue toads, those idiotic fools! Just because they’re titled, they think they can make laws for free men! Bourgeois! The moment four of them gather together, they form committees and spoil good paper with their rules and regulations! “Show your papers!” As if we had to have their permission, their signatures, and the rest of it, to defend ourselves when we’re attacked! Let every one protect himself! It’s shameful to think a man has to let some one else defend him! They tried to make us give up our muskets, and throw us into prison. Can’t do that! And those other fools, who think they’re being betrayed, and at the first injunction, throw up a barricade out of respect for the constituted authorities and the moneyed classes! They’re used to serving, and I suppose they can’t get over their old habits in a day. Luckily, there are other wandering dogs like me, who haven’t any home, and respect nothing. Well, I’ll stay here and keep guard. By God, they won’t take our Paris! Never mind if I haven’t a thing to my name, it belongs to us all, and we’re going to hold on to it. Yesterday, I didn’t have any idea of all this. What was this city to me, where I hadn’t a blessed hole to crawl into when it rained, or a place to get a crust of bread? What did I care about it? What did I care about any one’s happiness or sorrow? But now everything’s changed. I’ve got a part to play; I feel that everything belongs just a little to me: their houses, their money, and their thoughts—I must watch over them; they are working for me. Everybody is equal, equal and free, God, I always felt that, but I couldn’t say it. Free! I’m a vagabond, I’m hungry, but I don’t care: I’m free. Free! It makes my chest swell, it does! I’m a king. I could walk over the world. [He becomes excited as he talks, striding back and forth.] It’s like as if I was drunk; my head’s turned—though I haven’t drunk a drop. What is it? It’s glory!

BLAND: Hello, is that you, Andy? …. This is Bland. … Yes, Baldpate. … Yes, damn near frozen. … Oh, awful! It’s like Napoleon’s tomb. … I thought you said Mayor Cargan would meet me here? … No, no, I can’t stay here all night; I’d go mad. … Listen, I’ll hide the money here in the safe, and meet him at nine o’clock in the morning and turn it over to him then. … There isn’t a chance in the world of anything happening. … The money’s safer here than any spot on earth. … I’ll lock the safe as soon as I put the package in. … Mayor Cargan knows the combination. … My advice is to let it lay here a week. It’s the last place they’ll look for it. Besides, how could they get in? My key to Baldpate is the only one in existence. They don’t figure we’d take the chance after the other exposure. I tell you I know best. … I’ll be back in town by one o’clock. … I’ve got the president’s machine waiting at the foot of the mountain. … All right; good-bye.

JOHN: How can you expect a man to be brave when he meets with nothing in life but misfortune? Everything has gone wrong with me since the day I was born. Whatever I put my hand to fails utterly. You know it better than I do. I was brought up to be rich, and I am poor. I studied law, and I cannot string three words together. A man must be strong in that profession, he must have vigor of body and mind, yet I am all out of breath if I walk up a hill; I have not the heart to crush even a fly. To save the little that remains to us after the folly of my father, I need to be unscrupulous and bold, yet my mother, God bless her, has taught me to be good, good, always good! Yes, laugh … but this is not living. I don’t know what I should do if it were not for you. If it were not for you … I might be the one who shot myself. But you have been so good to me, so kind … all the happiness I have ever known in my life until now, has sprung from you–it may have been only a little, now and then, in small things, trifles, help, advice. It was presumptuous of me, Mariana, but I am so accustomed to relying upon you, that I imagined that the treasure was all mine. Besides, I love you so–why should you not be all goodness, Mariana, and take me like a little child into your life, like a toy that you play with, or a dog of which you are fond? But let me be yours, all yours, because I love you! If you could love me only a little I should be satisfied. A little is enough.

GLOVER. (Springing to his feet) No, no, Your Honor, it isn’t true! I didn’t kill him! I took the money, but I didn’t kill him! I’ll tell you where the money is, I don’t want it. I don’t want it! I’ll plead guilty — I’ll go to jail, but don’t arrest me for the murder. I’ll tell you how it happened — I’ll tell everything. I didn’t know Strickland was coming. I planned the robbery that night. When Trask gave me the money, I put it in the safe, but I didn’t lock the safe. I left it open — he didn’t notice it. Then I came back to get the money. I didn’t know about Strickland — it’s God’s truth! Mrs. Trask heard me come in, and I choked her! But she’s all right — she’s not hurt. That’s not murder! I got the money, then I saw Strickland come in. I didn’t know he was coming. I didn’t. I swear I didn’t! I’m innocent! I’m innocent, I tell you! I left the room. Then I heard the shot and came in. It was the first I knew of it. I’m innocent, I tell you! Send me to jail — give me twenty years —I don’t care, but don’t try me for murder.

THE MAN: A man’s life is a rhythm. Eating, sleeping, working, playing, loving, thinking—everything. And when we live so that each activity comes at the right interval, we gain power. When one interrupts another, we lose. Weakness is merely the thrust of one impulse against another, instead of their combined thrust against the world. When I came here, feeling like a criminal, I was obeying the one right instinct in a welter of emotions. It was like the faintest of heart beats in a sick body. I listened to that. Then I learned physical hunger, then sleep, and so on. It’s incredible how stupid I was about the elemental art of living! I had to begin all over from the beginning, as if no one had ever lived before. As time went on it became instinctive to live for and by the rhythm. Everything about my life here was caught up and used in the vision of power—drawing water, cutting wood, digging in the garden, dawn. It was all marvelous—I couldn’t help writing those poems. They are the natural joys and sorrows of ten years. As a matter of fact, though, I grew to care less and less about writing, as living became fuller and richer. People write too much. They would write less if they had to make the fire in the morning.

MANUS: There was respect for cooks in the early days of the world. What way did the Sons of Tuireann get their death but going questing after a cooking spit at the bidding of Lugh of the Long Hand! And if a spit was worthy of the death of heroes, what should the man be worth that is skilled in turning it? What is the difference between man and beast? Beast and bird devour what they find and have no power to change it. But we are Druids of those mysteries, having magic and virtue to turn hard grain to tender cakes, and the very skin of a grunting pig to crackling causing quarrels among champions, and it singing upon the coals. A cook! If I am, I am not without good generations before me! Who was the first old father of us, roasting and reddening the fruits of the earth from hard to soft, from bitter to kind, till they are fit for a lady’s platter? What is it leaves us in the hard cold of Christmas but the robbery from earth of warmth for the kitchen fire of {takes off cap) the first and fore-most of all master cooks—the Sun!

CAPTAIN: What’s he know about it? Doctors is all swabs, and that doctor there, why, what do he know about sea-faring men? (Rise) I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes — (Drops glass) — what do the doctor know of lands like that ?— a — and I lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me, and if I don’t get me rum, I’m a battered old hulk on the lee shore. My blood’ll be on your head Jim — and on that doctor swab. You will give me one more noggin, won’t you? (Seems to grow fainter. … Recovering.) Now, listen, Jim — that man just here — he’s a bad ‘un — but there’s worse put him on — and they’re out there on that ship — in the fog — waitin’ — they’re trying to get me — to tip me the Black Spot. The Black Spot— that’s about the worst disgrace can come to a pirate Captain — it means he must step down — that he’s gone — done for — that he’s got to do what his men say instead of them doing what he says — sometimes it means worse than that, too — that’s what I’m fearing from that crowd out there — take a look at the door.  … Close the door. Come here. … It’s up there in my old sea-chest — what they’re after — but I’m going to try to get away first — and if I do — I’ll promise you — I’ll come back for you some day — and we’ll go to sea — ah !— Aye, as I told you — in a schooner with a piping boatswain and pig-tailed singing sea-men— to sea, Jim, bound for an unknown island to seek buried treasure — You’d like that ?

ADAM: She has no discrimination. She takes to all the animals–all of them! She thinks they are all treasures, every new one is welcome. When the brontosaurus came striding into camp, she regarded it as an acquisition, I considered it a calamity; that is a good sample of the lack of harmony that prevails in our views of things. She wanted to domesticate it, I wanted to make it a present of the homestead and move out. She believed it could be tamed by kind treatment and would be a good pet; I said a pet twenty-one feet high and eighty-four feet long would be no proper thing to have about the place, because, even with the best intentions and without meaning any harm, it could sit down on the house and mash it, for any one could see by the look of its eye that it was absent-minded. Still, her heart was set upon having that monster, and she couldn’t give it up. She thought we could start a dairy with it, and wanted me to help milk it; but I wouldn’t; it was too risky. The sex wasn’t right, and we hadn’t any ladder anyway. Then she wanted to ride it, and look at the scenery. Thirty or forty feet of its tail was lying on the ground, like a fallen tree, and she thought she could climb it, but she was mistaken; when she got to the steep place it was too slick and down she came, and would have hurt herself but for me. Was she satisfied now? No. Nothing ever satisfies her but demonstration; untested theories are not in her line, and she won’t have them. It is the right spirit, I concede it; it attracts me; I feel the influence of it; if I were with her more I think I should take it up myself. Well, she had one theory remaining about this colossus: she thought that if we could tame it and make him friendly we could stand in the river and use him for a bridge. It turned out that he was already plenty tame enough–at least as far as she was concerned–so she tried her theory, but it failed: every time she got him properly placed in the river and went ashore to cross over him, he came out and followed her around like a pet mountain. Like the other animals. They all do that.

WOMAN: Something like this happens once in what a hundred years? A thousand? Do you really expect me to stay here and change diapers? Yes! I want to come with you! [Pause.] Don’t be angry.  Please. But tonight … when the sounds began … when the hammers and the axes began to fall … you were still asleep … and I suddenly understood that my husband, my children—all these things are temporary…. I love you very much … [She clasps his hand again.] … but can’t you hear how they are hammering out there?!  They are pounding away, and something seems to be falling, breaking apart, some kind of wall seems to be coming down—the earth is changing—and it is so spacious and wide and free!  It’s night now, but it seems to me the sun is shining!  I’m thirty years old and already I’m like an old woman, I know it, you can see it in my face.  And yet … tonight I feel like I’m only seventeen, and that I’ve fallen in love for the first time—a great, boundless love that lights up the sky! [Pause.] They’re pounding, and it sounds to me like music, like singing of which I’ve always dreamt—all my life—and I didn’t know who it was that I loved with such a boundless love, which made me feel like crying and laughing and singing!  This is freedom!  Don’t deny me my place—let me die with those who are working out there, who are calling in the future so bravely and rousing the dead past from its grave!

JONES: I’ve had enough o’ this tryin’ for work. Why should I go round and round after a job like a bloomin’ squirrel in a cage. “Give us a job, sir”—”Take a man on”—”Got a wife and three children.” Sick of it I am! I ‘d sooner lie here and rot. “Jones, you come and join the demonstration; come and ‘old a flag, and listen to the ruddy orators, and go ‘ome as empty as you came.” There’s some that seems to like that—the sheep! When I go seekin’ for a job now, and see the brutes lookin’ me up an’ down, it’s like a thousand serpents in me. I ‘m not arskin’ for any treat. A man wants to sweat hisself silly and not allowed that’s a rum start, ain’t it? A man wants to sweat his soul out to keep the breath in him and ain’t allowed—that’s justice that’s freedom and all the rest of it! [He turns his face towards the wall.] You’re so milky mild; you don’t know what goes on inside o’ me. I’m done with the silly game. If they want me, let ’em come for me!

NEIL: I know you must be surprised to see so young a man stand up before you, but I have trained myself to occupy the position I am now in. I have learned my facts. That is how I happen to own my own home. It simply took up my spare time in the evenings. Then, one day, the head of the factory came through the room where I happened to be working on a very difficult piece of machinery. ‘Who is that?” he asked the foreman. ‘‘He seems to be brighter than the others.” “Not at all,’? answered the foreman. ‘He has simply applied himself and I think we must raise his pay, if we want to hold him.” A few weeks later I was able to solve in five minutes a problem that had puzzled the best brains in our organization. I am now the head of my department, and my old foreman is working under me.

JIM: It was I who killed the men you had aboard her. … I killed them I tell you and I brought that ship where you’ll never se her more, not one of you. The laugh’s on my side. I’ve had the top of this business from the first and I no more fear you than I do a fly! … Kill me if you please or spare me—but one thing I’ll say — if you spare me, bygones are bygones, and when you fellows are in court for piracy — I’ll save you all I can — Kill me and do yourselves no good or spare me and keep a witness to save you from the gallows.

MRS. ALLONBY: The Ideal Man! Oh, the Ideal Man should talk to us as if we were goddesses, and treat us as if we were children. He should refuse all our serious requests, and gratify every one of our whims. He should encourage us to have caprices, and forbid us to have missions. He should always say much more than he means, and always mean much more than he says. He should never run down other pretty women. That would show he had no taste, or make one suspect that he had too much. No; he should be nice about them all, but say that somehow they don’t attract him. If we ask him a question about anything, he should give us an answer all about ourselves. He should invariably praise us for whatever qualities he knows we haven’t got. But he should be pitiless, quite pitiless, in reproaching us for the virtues that we have never dreamed of possessing. He should never believe that we know the use of useful things. That would be unforgivable. But he should shower on us everything we don’t want. He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he should be always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever we want one, and to become miserable, absolutely miserable, at a moment’s notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in less than twenty minutes, and to be positively violent at the end of half an hour, and to leave us for ever at a quarter to eight, when we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after that, one has seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back the little things he has given one, and promised never to communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere with one’s husband, just to show how absolutely lonely one was, he may be given a third last parting, in the evening, and then, if his conduct has been quite irreproachable, and one has behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted that, it becomes a woman’s duty to forgive, and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with variations.

THE LUXURY OF BEING RICH: I am the biggest of the Luxuries, the Luxury of Being Rich; and I come, in the name of my brothers, to beg you and your family to honour our endless repast with your presence. You will find yourself surrounded by all that is best among the real, big Luxuries of this Earth. Allow me to introduce to you the chief of them. Here is my son-in-law, the Luxury of Being a Landowner, who has a stomach shaped like a pear. This is the Luxury of Satisfied Vanity, who has such a nice, puffy face. These are the Luxury of Drinking when you are not Thirsty and the Luxury of Eating when you are not Hungry: they are twins and their legs are made of macaroni. Here are the Luxury of Knowing Nothing, who is as deaf as a post, and the Luxury of Understanding Nothing, who is as blind as a bat. Here are the Luxury of Doing Nothing and the Luxury of Sleeping more than Necessary: their hands are made of bread-crumb and their eyes of peach-jelly. Lastly, here is Fat Laughter: his mouth is split from ear to ear and he is irresistible. … (TYLTYL asks about a Luxury who is standing a little on one side) Do not ask about him: he is a little awkward and is not fit to be introduced to children.

THE FAIRY: Of course you can! … I hate unnecessary questions. … The soul of sugar is no more interesting than the soul of pepper. … There, I give you all I have to help you in your search for the Blue Bird. I know that the flying carpet or the ring which makes its wearer invisible would be more useful to you. … But I have lost the key of the cupboard in which I locked them. …Oh, I was almost forgetting! … (Pointing to the diamond) When you hold it like this, do you see? … One little turn more and you behold the past. … Another little turn and you behold the future. … It’s curious and practical and it’s quite noiseless. … No one can see it as long as it’s on your head. … Will you try it?

THE AGENT: Marriage, my young friends, is an iniquitous arrangement devised by the Devil himself for driving all the love out of the hearts of lovers. They start out as much in love with each other as you two are today, and they end by being as sick of the sight of each other as you two will be five years hence if I don’t find a way of saving you alive out of the Devil’s own trap. It’s not lack of love that’s the trouble with marriage—it’s marriage itself. And when I say marriage, I don’t mean promising to love, honour, and obey, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health till death do you part—that’s only human nature to wish and to attempt. And it might be done if it weren’t for the iniquitous arrangement of marriage.

ADAM: This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals. I get no chance to name anything myself. The new creature names everything that comes along, before I can get in a protest. And always that same pretext is offered–it LOOKS like the thing. There is a dodo, for instance. Says the moment one looks at it one sees at a glance that it “looks like a dodo.” It will have to keep that name, no doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does no good, anyway. Dodo! It looks no more like a dodo than I do. I built me a shelter against the rain, but could not have it to myself in peace. The new creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it away with the back of its paws, and made a noise such as some of the other animals make when they are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is always talking. The naming goes recklessly on, in spite of anything I can do. I had a very good name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty–GARDEN OF EDEN. Privately, I continue to call it that, but not any longer publicly. The new creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery, and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. Says it LOOKS like a park, and does not look like anything BUT a park. Consequently, without consulting me, it has been new-named NIAGARA FALLS PARK. This is sufficiently high-handed, it seems to me. And already there is a sign up: KEEP OFF THE GRASS. My life is not as happy as it was. She has littered the whole estate with execrable names and offensive signs: THIS WAY TO THE WHIRLPOOL; THIS WAY TO GOAT ISLAND; CAVE OF THE WINDS THIS WAY. I escaped last Tuesday night, and traveled two days, and built me another shelter in a secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well as I could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that water out of the places she looks with. I was obliged to return with her, but will presently emigrate again when occasion offers. She engages herself in many foolish things; among others; to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand, is called “death”; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.

THE CAT: Come, stop chattering, time presses. … Our future is at stake. … You have heard­ – the Fairy has just said so – that the end of this journey will, at the same time, mark the end of our lives. … It is our business, therefore, to prolong it as much as possible and by every possible means. … But there is another thing: we must think of the fate of our race and the destiny of our children. … Listen to me! All of us here present, Animals, Things and Elements, possess a soul which man does not yet know. That is why we retain a remnant of independence; but, if he finds the Blue Bird, he will know all, he will see all and we shall be completely at his mercy. … This is what I have just learned from my old friend, Night, who is also the guardian of the mysteries of Life. … It is to our interest, therefore, at all costs to prevent the finding of that bird, even if we have to go so far as to endanger the lives of the children themselves.

MABEL CHILTERN: Well, Tommy has proposed to me again. Tommy really does nothing but propose to me. He proposed to me last night in the music-room, when I was quite unprotected, as there was an elaborate trio going on. I didn’t dare to make the smallest repartee, I need hardly tell you. If I had, it would have stopped the music at once. Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf. Then he proposed to me in broad daylight this morning, in front of that dreadful statue of Achilles. Really, the things that go on in front of that work of art are quite appalling. The police should interfere. At luncheon I saw by the glare in his eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I don’t know what bimetallism means. And I don’t believe anybody else does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He looked quite shocked. And then Tommy is so annoying in the way he proposes. If he proposed at the top of his voice, I should not mind so much. That might produce some effect on the public. But he does it in a horrid confidential way. When Tommy wants to be romantic he talks to one just like a doctor. I am very fond of Tommy, but his methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often enough to propose to any one, and that it should always be done in a manner that attracts some attention.

GLADYS: Oh, how do you do, Aunt Gertrude? You know Willie, of course. Willie, you remember Aunt Gertrude. Aunt Gertrude, you remember Willie. Yes; — this is our beautiful home. My husband’s very talented. No, you didn’t interrupt him a bit. He’s awfully glad you came. He wasn’t going to do anything this afternoon. Anyway, we always have tea, And if it isn’t tea, it’s something else. We’re always having such a good time, Neil and I. Yes, that’s my husband there. He plays the piano beautifully. Shall I get him to play? I think he would if I ask him. Oh, Neil, darling, play something. Please, Neil! Neil, for my sake, you’ll play, won’t you?

EVE: We are getting along very well now, Adam and I, and getting better and better acquainted. He does not try to avoid me any more, which is a good sign, and shows that he likes to have me with him. That pleases me, and I study to be useful to him in every way I can, so as to increase his regard. During the last day or two I have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful. He can’t think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this way I have saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like this. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don’t have to reflect a moment; the right name comes out instantly, just as if it were an inspiration, as no doubt it is, for I am sure it wasn’t in me half a minute before. I seem to know just by the shape of the creature and the way it acts what animal it is. When the dodo came along he thought it was a wildcat–I saw it in his eye. But I saved him. And I was careful not to do it in a way that could hurt his pride. I just spoke up in a quite natural way of pleasing surprise, and not as if I was dreaming of conveying information, and said, “Well, I do declare, if there isn’t the dodo!” I explained–without seeming to be explaining–how I know it for a dodo, and although I thought maybe he was a little piqued that I knew the creature when he didn’t, it was quite evident that he admired me. That was very agreeable, and I thought of it more than once with gratification before I slept. How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it!

LUBOV: What truth? You see where truth is, and where untruth is, but I seem to have lost my sight and see nothing. You boldly settle all important questions, but tell me, dear, isn’t it because you’re young, because you haven’t had time to suffer till you settled a single one of your questions? You boldly look forward, isn’t it because you cannot foresee or expect anything terrible, because so far life has been hidden from your young eyes? You are bolder, more honest, deeper than we are, but think only, be just a little magnanimous, and have mercy on me. I was born here, my father and mother lived here, my grandfather too, I love this house. I couldn’t understand my life without that cherry orchard, and if it really must be sold, sell me with it! My son was drowned here…. Have pity on me, good, kind man.

EVE: When I look back, the Garden is a dream to me. It was beautiful, surpassingly beautiful, enchantingly beautiful; and now it is lost, and I shall not see it any more. The Garden is lost, but I have found HIM, and am content. He loves me as well as he can; I love him with all the strength of my passionate nature, and this, I think, is proper to my youth and sex. If I ask myself why I love him, I find I do not know, and do not really much care to know; so I suppose that this kind of love is not a product of reasoning and statistics, like one’s love for other reptiles and animals. I think that this must be so. I love certain birds because of their song; but I do not love Adam on account of his singing–no, it is not that; the more he sings the more I do not get reconciled to it. Yet I ask him to sing, because I wish to learn to like everything he is interested in. I am sure I can learn, because at first I could not stand it, but now I can. It sours the milk, but it doesn’t matter; I can get used to that kind of milk. It is not on account of his brightness that I love him–no, it is not that. He is not to blame for his brightness, such as it is, for he did not make it himself; he is as God made him, and that is sufficient. There was a wise purpose in it, THAT I know. In time it will develop, though I think it will not be sudden. It is not on account of his gracious and considerate ways and his delicacy that I love him. No, he has lacks in this regard, but he is well enough just so, and is improving. It is not on account of his industry that I love him. I think he has it in him, and I do not know why he conceals it from me, but I will put it out of my mind; it shall not trouble my happiness, which is otherwise full to overflowing. It is not on account of his education that I love him. He is self-educated, and does really know a multitude of things, but they are not so. It is not on account of his chivalry that I love him–no, it is not that. He told on me, but I do not blame him; it is a peculiarity of sex, I think, and he did not make his sex. Of course I would not have told on him, I would have perished first; but that is a peculiarity of sex, too, and I do not take credit for it, for I did not make my sex. Then why is it that I love him? He is strong and handsome, and I love him for that, and I admire him and am proud of him, but I could love him without those qualities. If he were plain, I should love him; if he were a wreck, I should love him; and I would work for him, and slave over him, and pray for him, and watch by his bedside until I died. I think I love him merely because he is MINE. There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings and statistics. It just COMES–none knows whence–and cannot explain itself. And doesn’t need to. That is what I think. But I am only a girl, the first that has examined this matter, and it may turn out that in my ignorance and inexperience I have not got it right.

THE GENTLEMAN: You remember when the crash came? We were all in the salon. You were singing — a Cockney song I think? You were very beautiful. I was looking at you and wondering what kind of a woman you were. You know I had never met you personally— only seen you in my walks around the deck. Then came the crash — that horrible dull crash. We were all thrown forward on the floor of the salon; then screams, oaths, fainting women, the hollow boom of a bulkhead giving way. I vaguely remember rushing to my stateroom and picking up my wallet. It must have been that menu that I took instead. Then I was on deck fighting. in the midst of the crowd. Somehow I got into a boat — but it was overloaded and was swamped immediately. I swam to another boat. They beat.me off with the oars. That boat too was swamped a moment later. And then the gurgling, choking cries of the drowning! Something huge rushed by me in the water leaving a gleaming trail of phosphorescence. A woman near me with a life belt around her gave a cry of agony and disappeared — then I realized— sharks! I became frenzied with terror. I swam. I beat the water with my hands. The ship had gone down. I swam and swam with but one idea — to put all that honor behind me. I saw something white on the water before me. I clutched it— climbed on it. It was this raft. You and he were on it. I fainted. The whole thing is a horrible nightmare in my brain — but I remember clearly that idiotic remark of the woman in the salon. What pitiful creatures we are!

GREGORY: Not at all. You see, it’s a great many years since I’ve been able to allow myself to fall in love. I know lots of charming women; but the worst of it is, they’re all married. Women don’t become charming, to my taste, until they’re fully developed; and by that time, if they’re really nice, they’re snapped up and married. And then, because I am a good man, I have to place a limit to my regard for them. I may be fortunate enough to gain friendship and even very warm affection from them; but my loyalty to their husbands and their hearths and their happiness obliges me to draw a line and not overstep it. Of course I value such affectionate regard very highly indeed. I am surrounded with women who are most dear to me. But every one of them has a post sticking up, if I may put it that way, with the inscription Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. How we all loathe that notice! In every lovely garden, in every dell full of primroses, on every fair hillside, we meet that confounded board; and there is always a gamekeeper round the corner. But what is that to the horror of meeting it on every beautiful woman, and knowing that there is a husband round the corner? I have had this accursed board standing between me and every dear and desirable woman until I thought I had lost the power of letting myself fall really and wholeheartedly in love.

GUENEVERE: Do you want a kiss that brings with it grief and fear and danger and heartbreak? If you had believed, for one moment, that it was worth the price of grief and heartbreak, I should have believed it too, and kissed you, and not cared what happened. I should have risked the love of my husband and the happiness of your sweetheart without a qualm. And who knows? It might have been worth it. An hour from now I shall be sure it wasn’t; I shall be sure it was all blind, wicked folly. But now I am a little sorry. I wanted to gamble with fate. I wanted us to stake our two lives recklessly upon a kiss and see what happened. And you couldn’t. It wasn’t a moment of beauty and terror to you. You didn’t want to challenge fate. You just wanted to kiss me…. Go!

SIR STEPHEN: You won’t misunderstand me, dear. I’m old enough to be your grandfather. [Very seriously.] Take care how you choose your partner for life. You’ll have a wide choice, and all your future happiness, and the happiness of many generations to come, will depend on the one moment when you say “Yes” to one of the scores of young fellows who’ll ask you to be his wife. Take care! Look him thoroughly up and down! Be sure that he has a good full open eye that can look you straight in the face; and be sure that the whites of his eyes are clear. Take care he hasn’t got a queer-shaped head, or a low forehead. A good round head, and a good full high forehead, do you hear? Notice the grip of his hand when he shakes hands with you! Take care its strong and firm, and not cold and dry. Don’t say “Yes” till you’ve seen him out of trousers, in riding dress, or court dress. Look at the shape of his legs — a good, well-shaped leg, eh, Peggie? And take care it is his leg! See that he’s well-knit and a little lean, not flabby; doesn’t squint; doesn’t stammer; hasn’t got any nervous tricks or twitchings. Don’t marry a bald man! They say we shall all be bald in ten generations. Wait ten generations, Peggie, and then don’t marry a bald man! Can you remember all this, dear? Watch his walk! See that he has a good springy step, and feet made of elastic — can do his four or five miles an hour without turning a hair. Don’t have him if he has a cough in the winter or the spring. Young men ought never to have a cough. And be sure he can laugh well and heartily — not a snigger, or a wheeze, or a cackle, but a good, deep, hearty laugh right down from the bottom of his chest. And if he has a little money, or even a good bit, so much the better! There now! You choose a man like that, Peggie, and I won’t promise you that you’ll be happy, but if you’re not, it won’t be your fault, and it won’t be his, and it won’t be mine!