Read Ebook: Plays of Near & Far by Dunsany Lord

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Ebook has 117 lines and 5707 words, and 3 pages

SLADDER: Aha! Aha! I thought I would. Now you know what it's like when you make people ashamed of themselves. You don't like it when they do it to you. Aha!

HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, I spoke to you as my conscience demanded, and you have shown me that I have done wrong in not speaking sooner about our engagement. I would have spoken to you, but I could not say that and the other thing in the same day. I meant to tell you soon;--well, I didn't, and I know it looks bad. I've done wrong and I admit it.

SLADDER: Aha!

SLADDER: Wait a moment; we're coming to that. There's some bad animal that I've heard of that lives in France, and when folks attack it it defends itself. I've just been defending myself. I think I've shown you that you're no brand-new extra-gilt angel on the top of a spire.

SLADDER: Quite so. Well, now we come on to the other part. Very well. Those lords and people, they marry one another's daughters, because they know they're all no good. They're afraid it will get out like, and spread some of their damned mediaeval ideas where they'll do harm. So they keep it in the family like. But we people who have had the sense to look after ourselves, we don't throw our daughters away to any young man that can't look after himself. See?

SLADDER: She's my only daughter, and if any of my grandchildren are going to the work-house, they'll go to one where the master's salary is high, and they'll go there as master.

HIPPANTHIGH: I am aware, Mr. Sladder, that I have very little money; as you would look at it, very little.

SLADDER: It isn't the amount of money you've got as matters. The question is this: are you a young man as money is any good to? If I died and left you a million, would you know what to do with it? I've met men what wouldn't last more than six weeks on a million. Then they'd starve if nobody gave them another million. I'm not going to give my daughter to one of that sort.

HIPPANTHIGH: I was third in the classical tripos at Cambridge, Mr. Sladder.

SLADDER: I know all about that. I don't care what it is that keeps you on the bottom rung of the ladder. Conscience, you say. Well, it's a different thing with every man. It's conscience with some, drink with others, sheer stupidity with most. It's pretty crowded already, that bottom rung, without me going and putting my daughter on it. Where do you suppose I'd be now if I'd let my conscience get in my way? Eh?

HIPPANTHIGH: Mr. Sladder, I cannot alter my beliefs.

SLADDER: Nobody asks you to. I only ask you to leave the bishop alone. He says one thing and you preach another whenever you get half a chance; it's enough to break up any firm.

SLADDER: Now, Mr. Hippanthigh, that's got to stop. I don't mind saying, now that I've given you What For, that you don't seem a bad young fellow: but my daughter's not going to marry on the bottom rung, and there's an end of that.

SLADDER: Me? No.

HIPPANTHIGH: Then, how can you ask me to?

SLADDER: That particular belief never happened to stand between me and the top of the tree. Many things did, but they're all down below me now, Mr. Hippanthigh, way down there where I can hardly see them. You get off that bottom rung as I did years ago.

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot go back on all I've said.

SLADDER: I don't want to make it hard for you. Only just say you believe in eternal punishment, and then give up talking about it. You may say it to me if you like. We'll have one other person present so that there's no going back on it, my daughter if you like. I'll let the bishop know, and he won't stand in your way any longer, but at present you force his hand. It's you or the rules of the firm.

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot.

SLADDER: You can't just say to me and my daughter that you believe in eternal punishment, and leave me to go over to Axminster and put it right with the bishop?

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot say what I do not believe.

SLADDER: Think. The bishop probably doesn't believe it himself. But you've been forcing his hand,--going out of your way to.

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot say it.

SLADDER : Mr. Hippanthigh, there's two kinds of men, those that succeed, those that don't. I know no other kind. You ...

HIPPANTHIGH: I cannot go against my conscience.

SLADDER: I don't care what your reason is. You are the second kind. I am sorry my daughter ever loved a man of that sort. I am sorry a man of that sort ever entered my house. I was a little, dirty, ragged boy. You make me see what I would be to-day if I had been a man of your kind. I would be dirty and ragged still.

: O, the mice have died, John. The mice have died. O, Ermyntrude's poor mice! And father's great idea! Whatever shall we do?

SLADDER: Er? Eh? Died have they?

ANTONINUS: ... and finally beat down Satan under our feet.

TRUNDLEBEN : Here's a very funny one. This is funnier than "Hamlet." "The Tempest." And the stage directions are "The sea, with a ship."

SIR WEBLEY : Oh, that's lovely! That's really too good. The sea with a ship! And what's it all about?

TRUNDLEBEN: Well, I rather gathered that it was about a magician, and he--he makes a storm.

SIR WEBLEY: He makes a storm. Splendid! On the stage, I suppose.

TRUNDLEBEN: Oh yes, on the stage.

NEEKS: He'd ... He'd have to be a magician for that, wouldn't he?

SIR WEBLEY: Ha, ha! Very good! He'd have to be a magician to do that, Trundleben.

TRUNDLEBEN: Yes, indeed, Sir Webley; indeed he would, Mr. Neeks.

SIR WEBLEY: But that stage direction is priceless. I'd really like to copy that down if you'd let me. What is it? "The sea with a ship"? It's the funniest bit of the lot.

TRUNDLEBEN: Yes, that's it, Sir Webley. Wait a moment, I have it here. The--the whole thing is "the sea with a ship, afterwards an island." Very funny indeed.

SIR WEBLEY: "Afterwards an island"! That's very good, too. "Afterwards an island." I'll put that down also. And what else, Trundleben? What else?

and painters too. All the great things of the world are those abstract things.

PRATTLE: But what I mean is, they're not really there, like you or me.

DE REVES: To us these things are more real than men, they outlive generations, they watch the passing of kingdoms: we go by them like dust; they are still there, unmoved, unsmiling.

DE REVES: Not to me. Never to me. She of the golden trumpet and Greek dress will never appear to me.... We all have our dreams.

PRATTLE: I say--what have you been doing all day?

DE REVES: I? Oh, only writing a sonnet.

PRATTLE: Is it a long one?

DE REVES: Not very.

PRATTLE: About how long is it?

DE REVES: About fourteen lines.

PRATTLE : I tell you what it is.

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