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Dicky:
Loved any one before? I should think I had! Who hasn’t?
Tilly:
I haven’t.
Dicky:
I meant men, not girls. Girls are different. Not that some of them don’t fall in and out of love rather easily, but they only do it as a sort of pleasant emotional exercise. The average male lover, however youthful, means business all the time. Quite right, too. So he picks out the first nice girl he meets, endows her in his mind with all the virtues, and tries to marry her. Usually it comes to nothing; and in any case it’s hardly likely that he would meet the right girl straight off. So this child of nature goes on seeking for his mate, in a groping, instinctive sort of way, until at last he finds his Pearl of Great Price. Then he sells all he has—which means he straightway forgets all about every other girl he ever knew—and loves his Pearl for ever and ever. Therefore, Tilly, if ever a man tells you that you are the only girl he ever loved—terrust him not!
Tilly:
A girl likes to believe it, all the same.
Dicky:
I don’t see why she should. It’s no compliment to be loved by a man who has had no experience. Now I can love and appreciate you properly, because I am able to compare you with about—(he counts on his fingers, finally having recourse to his waistcoat buttons)—with about fourteen other girls of all ages whom I have admired at one time and another; and can unhesitatingly place you in Class One, Division One, all by your own dear self. Isn’t that something?
Tilly:
And you will go on loving me—always?
Dicky:
Madam, your fears are groundless. Poverty, sickness, misunderstanding, outside interference—nothing will have any effect. I shall go on loving you.
Tilly:
But how do you know? You can’t be sure!
Dicky:
Yes, I can! Because you love me. You have said it. Don’t you see that that makes all the difference? The moment a man discovers that the woman he loves loves him in return, he is hers, body and soul. I’ve been keeping my best for you, little thing, though neither of us knew it. Such as it is you have it. That is why I know I can never go back on you.
| Compare to: Oscar Wilde
Topic: Love
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| Act III |
Welwyn:
Mr. Mainwaring, I thank you. I can do no more. If I possessed a less intimate knowledge of my own character, I should hasten to give expression to the sentiment which at this moment possesses me—namely a sincere determination to set to work at once and never rest till I have repaid you. But I have not arrived at my present age without having learned that any such resolution on my part would be entirely transitory.
| Topics: Character
Resolutions
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Welwyn:
[...] I was invited to lecture to a very learned body on a very special occasion. The natural and proper thing to do would have been to deliver the lecture first and treat myself to a magnum of champagne afterwards. Unfortunately, I reversed the order. I may say with all due modesty that that lecture created a profound sensation!
Dick:
I wish I had heard it.
Welwyn:
It is still quoted—but not in the text-books [....] You see the manner of man I am—a seasoned philosopher—protected from sudden upheaval by a sense of proportion, and from depression of spirits by a sense of humour.
| Topics: Drink
Scholarship
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Connie:
So you’ve been on the stage?
Stillbottle:
I ’ave.
Dick:
Why did you leave it?
Stillbottle:
The old story—professional jealousy. [...]
Connie:
Do tell us about it.
Stillbottle:
After a lot of ups and downs on the road, I got a job in pantomime. I was cast for the front legs of a elephant. And that was only the stage manager’s bit of spite.
Dick:
How?
Stillbottle:
He knew my specialty was hind-legs. And hind-legs take a bit of doing, I can tell you.
Dick:
They must!
Stillbottle:
The hind-legs has to wag the tail.
Dick:
But what was the trouble with the front legs?
Stillbottle:
The trouble was that they wasn’t hind legs; and not bein’ used to them, I stepped in wrong way round. We got shoved on the stage somehow, but every time we started to move I ran straight into the ’ind-legs. In the end we broke the elephant’s back between us. What was more, we spoiled the Principal Boy’s best song. The audience was much too occupied watchin’ a elephant givin’ a imitation of a camel to listen to ’er. Besides, she was sitttin’ on the elephant ’ersself at the time, and bein’ rather stout, ’ad ’er work cut out to ’old on. She got me sacked next day.
Connie:
Oh!
Stillbottle:
Said the elephant wasn’t sober.
Dick:
That was a libel, of course.
Stillbottle:
On one end—yes.
| Topics: Theater
Elephants
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