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Congreve, William, 1670-1729

"The Old Bachelor: a Comedy"

[Reads.]
VAIN. Hold, hold, 'slife, that's the wrong.
BELL. Nay, let's see the name--Sylvia!--how canst thou be
ungrateful to that creature? She's extremely pretty, and loves
thee entirely--I have heard her breathe such raptures about thee -
VAIN. Ay, or anybody that she's about -
BELL. No, faith, Frank, you wrong her; she has been just to you.
VAIN. That's pleasant, by my troth, from thee, who hast had her.
BELL. Never--her affections. 'Tis true, by heaven: she owned it
to my face; and, blushing like the virgin morn when it disclosed
the cheat which that trusty bawd of nature, night, had hid,
confessed her soul was true to you; though I by treachery had
stolen the bliss.
VAIN. So was true as turtle--in imagination--Ned, ha? Preach this
doctrine to husbands, and the married women will adore thee.
BELL. Why, faith, I think it will do well enough, if the husband
be out of the way, for the wife to show her fondness and impatience
of his absence by choosing a lover as like him as she can; and what
is unlike, she may help out with her own fancy.


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