"The School For Scandal"

[fiefoe]

By Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It reminds me of Oscar Wilde a bit.

-when you shall
see in a beautiful Quarto Page how a neat rivulet of Text shall
meander thro' a meadow of margin--'fore Gad, they will be the most
elegant Things of their kind--

LADY TEAZLE.  Lord!  Sir Peter am I to blame because Flowers are dear
in cold weather?  You should find fault with the Climate, and not with me.

But I vow I bear no malice against the People I abuse, when I say
an ill-natured thing, 'tis out of pure Good Humour--

... surely that's better than the careless manner
in which the widow Ocre caulks her wrinkles.
SIR BENJAMIN.  Nay now--you are severe upon the widow--come--come,
it isn't that she paints so ill--but when she has finished her Face
she joins it on so badly to her Neck, that she looks like a mended
Statue, in which the Connoisseur sees at once that the Head's modern
tho' the Trunk's antique----

Nay I vow Lady Stucco is very well with the Dessert
after Dinner for she's just like the (Spanish)/ French Fruit one cracks
for mottoes--made up of Paint and Proverb.

SIR PETER.  Ah Madam true wit is more nearly allied
to good Nature than your Ladyship is aware of.
LADY SNEERWELL.  True Sir Peter--I believe they are so near akin
that they can never be united.
SIR BENJAMIN.  O rather Madam suppose them man and wife because
one seldom sees them together.

ROWLEY.  Yes, I heard they were a-going.  But I wonder you can
have such spirits under so many distresses.
CHARLES.  Why, there's the point! my distresses are so many, that
I can't afford to part with my spirits;    

SURFACE.  An infallible one believe me--Prudence like experience must be paid for--

He appears to have as much speculative benevolence as
any private gentleman in the Kingdom --though he is
seldom so sensual as to indulge himself in the exercise of it----

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