Classic Monologues for High School Girls
Below are over 130 monologues taken from classic plays and literature! Performing classic
monologues can help students expand their ability to take on more challenging texts.
Ways to use this list!
Assigned Monologues
You may choose to assign students monologues, letting them know that actors
cannot always choose their roles and often, they must portray characters with
whom they don’t identify.
Student’s Choice
Allow students access to this list so that they may choose their own.
Monologues in a Hat
You may also print out enough monologues of equal length for each female
student and put them in a hat, and allow them to draw randomly.
‘Cold’ Readings
Hand out monologues randomly and allow students a few minutes to read their
piece before dramatizing it in front of the class. This builds improvisation skills
and helps prepare students for cold-reading in an audition experience.
Researched Monologues
When practical, assign or have students
choose a monologue and then have
them read/research the play/literature
and analyze their character in
preparation for performance.
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Page 1
The Crucible
From the play by Arthur Miller
MARY WARREN: I never knew it before. I never knew anything before. When she come into
the court I say to myself, I must not accuse this woman, for she sleeps in ditches, and so very
old and poor. But then- then she sit there, denying and denying, and I feel a misty coldness
climbin' up my back, and the skin on my skull begin to creep, and I feel a clamp around my
neck and I cannot breathe air; and then (entranced) I hear a voice, a screamin' voice, and it
were my voice- and all at once I remembered everything she done to me! (Like one awakened
to a marvelous secret insight) So many times, Mr. Proctor, she come to this very door, beggin'
bread and a cup of cider-and mark this: whenever I turned her away empty, she mumbled. But
what does she mumble? You must remember, Goody Proctor. Last month-a Monday, I think-she walked away, and I thought my guts would burst for two days after. Do you remember it?
And so I told that to Judge Hathorne, and he asks her so. "Sarah Good," says he, "what curse
do you mumble that this girl must fall sick after turning you away?" And then she replies
(mimicking an old crone) "Why, your excellence, no curse at all. I only say my commandments;
I hope I may say my commandments," says she! Then Judge Hathorne say, "Recite for us your
commandments!" (Leaning avidly toward them) And of all the ten she could not say a single
one. She never knew no commandments, and they had her in a flat lie!
The Crucible
From the play by Arthur Miller
ELIZABETH: (Upon a heaving sob that always threatens.) John, it come to naught that I
should forgive you, if you'll not forgive yourself. It is not my soul, John, it is yours. (it is difficult
to say, and she is on the verge of tears) Only be sure of this, for I know it now: Whatever you
will do, it is a good man does it. I have read my heart this three month, John. (Pause) I have
sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery. (Now pouring out her heart)
Better you should know me! You take my sins upon you, John. John, I counted myself so plain,
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Page 2
so poorly made, no honest love could come to me! Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never
knew how I should say my love. It were a cold house I kept!
Death of a Salesman
From the play by Arthur Miller
LINDA LOMAN: Then make Charley your father, Biff. You can’t do that, can you? I don’t say
he’s a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper.
He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is
happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an
old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. You called him crazy, no, a
lot of people think he’s lost his balance. But you don’t have to be very smart to know what his
trouble is. The man is exhausted. A small man can be just as exhausted as a great man. He
works for a company thirty six years this March, opens up unheard-of territories to their
trademark, and now in his old age they take his salary away. Are they any worse than his sons?
When he brought them business, when he was young, they were glad to see him. But now his
old friends, the old buyers that loved him so and always found some order to hand him in a
pinch, they’re all dead, retired. He used to be able to make six, seven calls a day in Boston.
Now he takes his valises out of the car and puts them back and takes them out again and he’s
exhausted. Instead of walking he talks now. He drives seven hundred miles, and when he gets
there no one knows him anymore, no one welcomes him. And what goes through a man’s
mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent? Why shouldn’t he talk
to himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and pretend to
me that it’s his pay? How long can that go on? How long? You see what I’m sitting here and
waiting for? And you tell me he has no character? The man who never worked a day but for
your benefit? When does he get the medal for that?
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Page 3
A Matter of Husbands
From the play by Ferenc Molnar
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. And hasn't he left any of my love letters lying around? Don't be alarmed. I haven't written
him any. I might have if he had come to me frankly and said: "I say, Sara, will you do
something for me? My wife and I aren't getting on so well. Would you write me a passionate
love letter that I can leave lying around at home where she may find it?" I should certainly have
done it for him. I'd have written a letter that would have made you weep into your pillow for a
fortnight. I wrote ten like that for a very eminent playwright once. But he had no luck with
them. His wife was such a proper person she returned them all to him unread.
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Page 4
Dark at the Top of the Stairs
From the play by William Inge
LOTTIE: Cora, did you hear what the old maid said to the burglar? You see, the burglar came
walking into her bedroom with this big, long billy club and...(she is laughing so hard she can
hardly finish the story)...and the old maid...she was so green she didn't know what was
happening to her, she said...(stopped by Cora, and a bit shamed and embarrassed) Shucks,
Cora, I don't see what's wrong in having a little fun just telling stories. Oh, Mama and Papa,
Mama and Papa! I know the way they brought us up. And maybe they didn't know as much as
we gave them credit for. Do you remember how Mama and Papa used to caution us about men,
Cora? My God, they had me so afraid of ever giving in to a man, I was petrified. So were you
until Rubin came along and practically raped you. (chuckling at the memory) My God, Cora, he
had you pregnant inside of two weeks after he started seeing you. I never told. I never even
told Morris. My God, do you remember how Mama and Papa carried on when they found out?
And Papa had his stroke just a month after you were married. Oh, I just thought Rubin was the
wickedest man alive. Maybe I shoulda married a man like that. I don't know. Maybe it was as
much my fault as Morris'. Maybe I didn't...respond right...from the very first. Cora, I'll tel you
something. Something I've never told another living soul. I never did enjoy it the way some
women...say they do. Why are you so surprised? Because I talk kinda dirty at times? But that's
all it is, is talk. I talk all the time just to convince myself that I'm alive. And i stuff myself with
victuals just to feel I've got something inside me. And I'm full of all kinds of crazy curiosity
about...all the things in life I seem to have missed out on. Now I'm telling you the truth, Cora.
Nothing ever really happened to me while it was going on. That first night Morris and I were
together, right after we were married, when we were in bed together for the first time, after it
was all over, and he had fallen asleep, I lay there in bed wondering what in the world all the
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Page 5
cautioning had been about. Nothing had happened to me at all, and I thought Mama and Papa
musta been makin' things up. So don't come to me for sympathy, Cora. I'm not the person to
give it to you.
Cat on A Hot Tin Roof #1
From the play by Tennessee Williams
MAGGIE: Yes, it's too bad because you can’t wring their necks if they've got no necks to wring!
Isn't that right honey? Yep, they're no-neck monsters, all no-neck people are monsters?
(children shriek downstairs) Hear them? Hear them screaming? I don't know where their voice
boxes are located since they don't have necks. I tell you I got so nervous at that table tonight, I
thought I would throw back my head and utter a scream you could hear across the Arkansas
border an' parts of Louisiana an' Tennessee. I said to our charming sister-in-law, Mae, "honey,
couldn't you feed those precious little things at a separate table with an oilcloth cover? They
make such a mess an' the lace cloth looks so pretty!" She made enormous eyes at me and said,
"Ohhh, nooooo! On Big Daddy's birthday? Why, he would never forgive me!" Well, I want you
to know, Big Daddy hadn't been at the table two minutes with those five no-neck monsters
slobbering and drooling over their food before he threw down his fork an' shouted, "Fo' God's
sake, Gooper, why don't you put them pigs at a trough in th' kitchen?"- Well, I swear, I simply
could have di-ieed! Think of it, Brick, they've got five of them and number six is coming.
They've brought the whole bunch down here like animals to display at a county fair. Why, they
have those children doin' tricks all the time! "Junior, show Big Daddy how you do this, show Big
Daddy how you do that, say your little piece fo' Big Daddy, Sister. Show you dimples, Sugar.
Brother, show Big Daddy how you stand on your head!"- it goes on all the time, along with
constant little remarks and innuendos about the fact that you and I have not produced any
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Page 6
children, are totally childless and therefore totally useless!- Of course it's comical but its also
disgusting since it so obvious what they're up to!
Cat on A Hot Tin Roof #2
From the play by Tennessee Williams
MAGGIE: Brick, y'know, I've been so God damn disgustingly poor all my life!- that's the truth,
Brick! Always had to suck up to people I couldn't stand because they had money and I was
poor as Job's turkey. You don't know what that's like. Well, I'll tell you, it’s like you would feel a
thousand miles away from Echo Spring!- And had to get back to it on that broken ankle?
without a crutch! That's how it feels to be as poor as Job's turkey and have to suck up to
relatives that you hated because they had money and all you had was a bunch of hand-medown clothes and a few old moldy three-per-cent government bonds. My daddy loved his liquor,
he fell in love with his liquor the way you've fallen in love with Echo Spring!- And my poor
Mama, having to maintain some semblance of social position, to keep appearances up, on an
income of one hundred and fifty dollars a month on those old government bonds! When I came
out, the year that I made my debut, I had just two evening dresses! One, mother made me
from a pattern in Vogue, the other a hand-me-down from a snotty rich cousin I hated! - The
dress that I married you in was my grandmother's weddin' gown? So that's why I'm like a cat
on a hot tin roof! You can be young without money, but you can't be old without it. You've got
to be old with money because to be old without it is just too awful, you've got to be one or the
other, either young or with money, you can’t be old and without it. - That's the truth, Brick?
Well, now I'm dressed, I'm all dressed, there's nothing else for me to do. (Forlornly, almost
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Page 7
fearfully) I'm dressed, all dressed, nothing else for me to do? (She moves about restlessly,
aimlessly, and speaks, as if to herself.) What am I-? Oh!-my bracelets? (She starts working a
collection of bracelets over her hands onto her wrists, about six on each, as she talks.) I've
thought a whole lot about it and now I know when I made my mistake. Yes, I made a mistake
when I told you the truth about that thing with Skipper. Never should have confessed it, a fatal
error, tellin' you about that thing with Skipper.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof #3
A monologue from the play by Tennessee Williams.
MAGGIE: You know, Brick. You know what’s wrong with us. You know you care bout our
marriage, crumblin right before our eyes and not bein able to satisfy me or yourself or givin me
things I want. Things I need. Love. But you’re just fillin your hurt with liquor, filling it with
thoughts of what could have been and past regrets, and right now, Brick Pollitt, you’re makin
regrets you’ll wish you hadn’t later. My daddy was a drinkin man, loved his liquor, the way you
have with yours. Why, your own sober daddy is right here, sitting right here about to die and all
you can think about is your liquor. All you can think about is your Echo Spring, not your wife,
this official who’s been elected to the care of Brick Pollitt, the alcoholic. But I love you, Brick. I
love you with all I have left and if-when we have children, they’ll love me too. They love you
and you’ll love them and me, but right now all you love is your liquor! But Baby, that’s the
truth. Mae and Gooper’s plan to freeze us out of the estate for my state of barrenness and your
alcoholism won’t happen. We can defeat that plan, we will defeat that plan! I wouldn’t be
barren if we slept together and you wouldn’t be an alcoholic if you woke up and realized that
the past is the past, and we’ve got to live in the now, Brick! You could give me a nice home,
nice things. Nice, beautiful, lovely children, but Brick, you don’t. I could give you all of my love
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Page 8
and all of the world, but all you’d have is your Echo Spring and I’d be stuck suckin up to people
I can’t stand because that’s the only way anyone gets anything around here. I can stand you,
Brick, but can you stand me? Can you stand anything but your liquor? Can you stand the fact
that your Big Daddy’s dyin and you don’t seem to care one bit? Look what all he’s done, for
you, for Gooper, for us! The biggest an’ finest plantation in the Delta, or a share of it, and
you’re throwin it away. I’ve always liked Big Daddy and Big Daddy’s always loved you, but you
don’t show him no love back. You don’t show no one no love back but your glass and your
bottles. Brick, my parents, my drunken father and my poor, poor mother, she had to keep our
social position up. What position do we have now, Brick? You’re an alcoholic and who am I, the
alcoholic’s wife? I was raised on nearly nothin, but we could have so much now, Brick. So many
things. So much love. So many little hands and faces, pawing at us to scoop them up and hold
them, but Brick we can’t even hold ourselves up. I’m tryin as hard as I can to stand it, Brick,
but I’m like a cat. I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof! The old government bonds may have gotten
me through my childhood and we may be gettin by now, but you can be young with money.
But you can’t be old without it! We can’t be old without it!
Street Car Named Desire
From the play by Tennessee Williams
BLANCHE: I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade
to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, couldn't be put in
a coffin! But had to be burned like rubbish! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella.
And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths- not always.
Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out
to you, "Don't let me go!" Even the old, sometimes, say, "Don't let me go." As if you were able
to stop them! But funerals are quiet, with pretty flowers. And, oh, what gorgeous boxes they
pack them away in! Unless you were there at the bed when they cried out, "Hold me!" you'd
never suspect there was a struggle for breath and bleeding. You didn't dream, but I saw! Saw!
Saw! And now you sit here telling me with your eyes that I let the place go! How in hell do you
think all that sickness and dying was paid for? Death is expensive, Miss Stella! And old Cousin
Jessie's right after Margaret's, hers! Why, the Grim Reaper had put up his tent on our doorstep!
? Stella. Belle Reve was his headquarters! Which of them left us a fortune? Which of them left a
cent of insurance even? Only poor Jessie- one hundred to pay for her coffin. That was all,
Stella! And I with my pitiful salary at the school. Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me,
thinking I let the place go! I let the place go? Where were you! In bed with your- Polack!
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Page 9
Street Car Named Desire #2
From the play by Tennessee Williams
BLANCHE: I understand what it is to be lonely. I loved someone, too, and the person I loved I
lost. He was a boy, just a boy, when I was a very young girl. When I was sixteen, I made the
discovery--love. All at once and much, much too completely. It was like you suddenly turned a
blinding light on something that had always been half in shadow, that's how it struck the world
for me. But I was unlucky. Deluded. There was something different about the boy, a
nervousness, a softness, tenderness which wasn't like a man's although he wasn't the least bit
effeminate looking-- still--that thing was there...He came to me for help. I didn't know that. I
didn't find out anything till after our marriage when we'd run away and come back and all I
knew was I'd failed him in some mysterious way and wasn't able to give him the help he
needed, but couldn't speak of! He was in the quick sands clutching at me--but I wasn't holding
him out, I was slipping in with him! I didn't know that. I didn't know anything except I loved
him unendurably but without being able to help him or help myself. Then I found out. In the
worst of all possible ways. By suddenly coming into a room that I thought was empty--which
wasn't empty, but had two people in it...the boy I married and an older man who had been his
friend for years. Afterwards we pretended that nothing had been discovered. Yes, we all drove
out to Moon Lake Casino, very drunk and laughing all the way. We danced the Varsouviana!
Suddenly, in the middle of the dance, the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out
of the Casino. A few moments later--a shot! I ran out, all did--all ran and gathered around this
terrible thing at the edge of the lake! I couldn't get near for the crowding. Then somebody
caught my arm.--"Don't go any closer! Come Back! You don't want to see!" See? See what?
Then I heard voices say, "Allan! Allan! The Gray boy!" He'd stuck a revolver into his mouth and
fired!--so that the back of his head had been blown away! It was because, on the dance floor-unable to stop myself--I'd suddenly said--"I know! I saw! You disgust me!" And then the
searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one
moment since has there been any light stronger than this kitchen candle.
Street Car Named Desire #3
From the play by Tennessee Williams
BLANCHE: May I speak plainly?...If you'll forgive me, he's common!...Suppose? Surely you
can't have forgotten that much of our upbringing, Stella, that you suppose there's any part of a
gentleman in his nature. Oh, you're hating me saying this, aren't you?...He's like an animal. He
has an animal's habits. There's even something subhuman about him. Thousands of years have
passed him right by, and there he is! Stanley Kowalski, survivor of the Stone Age, bearing the
raw meat home from the kill in the jungle! And you - you here waiting by it. Maybe he'll strike
you or maybe grunt and kiss you. That's if kisses have been discovered yet. His poker night,
you call it. His party of apes! Maybe we are a long way from being made in God's image, but
Stella, my sister, there's been some progress since then. Such things as art, as poetry, as
music. In some kinds of people, some tenderer feelings have had some little beginning that we
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Page 10
have got to make grow and to cling to, and hold as our flag in this dark march toward whatever
it is we're approaching. Don't, don't hang back with the brutes!
Street Car Named Desire #4
From the play by Tennessee Williams
BLANCHE: It won't be the sort of thing you have in mind. This man is a gentleman - he
respects me. What he wants is my companionship. Having great wealth sometimes makes
people lonely. A cultivated woman - a woman of breeding and intelligence - can enrich a man's
life immeasurably. I have those things to offer, and time doesn't take them away. Physical
beauty is passing - a transitory possession. But beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit,
tenderness of the heart - I have all those things - aren't taken away but grow! Increase with
the years! Oh! Strange that I should be called a destitute woman when I have all these
treasures locked in my heart. I think of myself as a very, very rich woman. But I have been
foolish - casting my pearls before....(swine). Yes, swine! And I'm thinking not only of you, but
of your friend Mr. Mitchell. He came here tonight, he did, coming in his work clothes, to repeat
slander, vicious stories he'd gotten from you. I gave him his walking papers. But then he
returned, he returned with a box of roses to beg my forgiveness. He implored my forgiveness.
Some things are not forgivable. Deliberate cruelty is not forgivable. It is the one unforgivable
thing, in my opinion, and the one thing of which I have never, never been guilty. So I said to
him, 'Thank you,' but it was foolish to think that we could ever adapt ourselves to each other.
Our ways of life are too different. Our backgrounds are incompatible. So farewell, my friend and
let there be no hard feelings.
The Glass Menagerie
From the play by Tennessee Williams
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Page 11
LAURA: No, Mom, please! I have to say this. I can’t go outside these walls. There’s just too
much pain! I can feel everyone staring at me–staring at this. (She points to the braced
leg.) The noise it makes, it’s just so loud! That’s why I dropped out of high school! I felt
everyone’s eyes staring at me, heard all the giggles they tried to suppress as I clomped and
limped down the hall. Especially when I would enter the choir room! Jim would never want to
be around me again. Sure, we talked sometimes, but he wouldn’t want to be around me any
more than those few occasions–not around the limping girl who makes such a racket! Nobody
would want to be near me. So I tuned out from the rest of the world before it could cause me
any more pain than I have already suffered. And it seems that whatever crippled my leg–
(Amanda opens her mouth as if about to interject.)–yes, Mom, you might as well admit that I’m
crippled!–has crippled the rest of my being throughout time. It seems I just got worse and
worse at school. And then at business college, in that confined typing room, that quick clacking
of keyboards surrounded me as I stumbled and fat-fingered all the letters. It felt as if the
professor was breathing down my neck, silently mocking me as I continued to fail. Until finally,
all that pressure poured out of me–and into a toilet. Mom, secluded from the world in this home
listening to phonograph records and dusting my glass collection–this is where I belong! I fail
everywhere else in the outside world. Here, there’s nothing to fail at! I’ll never succeed at
finding a husband or a job, so I might as well give up trying now and just be content in my
bubble with at least having no additional failure for the rest of my life! I can’t see
Jim! (Tears are welling in her eyes.) It would only result in the ultimate failure–rejection from
the only person I have ever loved! Mom, I can’t! Just have dinner without me. Please, Mom.
Bus Stop
From the play by William Inge
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Page 12
CHERIE: Mebbe I'm a sap. I dunno why I don't go off to Montana and marry Bo. I might be a
lot better off'n I am now. But all he wants is a girl to throw his arms around and hug and kiss,
that's all. The resta the time, he don't even know I exist. I never did decide to marry him.
Everything was goin' fine till he brought up that subjeck. Bo come in one night when I was
singin' "That Ole Black Magic." It's one a my best numbers. And he liked it so much, he jumped
up on a chair and yelled like a Indian, and put his fingers in his mouth and whistled like a steam
engine. Natur'ly, it made me feel good. Most a the customers at the Blue Dragon was too drunk
to pay any attention to my songs. Anyway...I'd never seen a cowboy before. Oh, I'd seen 'em in
movies, a course, but never in the flesh...Anyway, he's so darn healthy-lookin', I don't mind
admittin, I was attracted right from the start. But it was only what ya might call a sexual
attraction. The very next mornin', he wakes up and hollers, "Yippee! We're gettin' married." I
honestly thought he was crazy. But when I tried to reason with him, he wouldn't listen to a
word. He stayed by my side all day long, like a shadow. At night, a course, he had to go back to
the rodeo, but he was back to the Blue Dragon as soon as the rodeo was over, in time fer the
midnight show. If any other fella claimed t'have a date with me, Bo'd beat him up. He kep tellin'
me all week, he and Virge'd be by the night the rodeo ended and they'd pick me up and we'd
all start back to Montana t'gether. I knew that if I was around the Blue Dragon that night, that's
what'd happen. So I decided to beat it. One a the other girls at the Blue Dragon lived on a farm
'cross the river in Kansas. She said I could stay with her. So I went to the Blue Dragon last
night and just sang fer the first show. Then I told 'em I was quittin'...I'd been wantin' to find
another job anyway...and I picked up my share of the kitty...but darn it, I had to go and tell
'em I was takin' the midnight bus. They had to go and tell Bo, a course, when he come in a li'l
after eleven. He paid 'em five dollars to find out. So I went down to the bus station and hadn't
even got my ticket, when here come Bo and Virge. He just steps up to the ticket window and
says, "Three tickets to Montana!" I din know what to say. Then he dragged me onto the bus
and I been on it ever since. And somewhere deep down inside me, I gotta funny feelin' I'm
gonna end up in Montana.
Our Town
From the play by Thornton Wilder
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Page 13
EMILY: (Defensive.) I’m not mad at you. (Dreading to face the issue.) But, since you ask me, I
might as well say is right out, George – (turns to him, catches sight of TEACHER, who has
passed above to their right.) Oh goodbye, Mrs. Corcoran. (Faces down again. Then finding it
hard to say) I don’t like the whole change that’s come over you in the last year. (She glances at
him.) I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings; but I’ve just got to – tell the truth and shame the
devil. (Facing mostly out, on the verge of tears.) Well up to a year ago, I used to like you a lot.
And I used to watch you while you did everything – because we’d been friends so long. And
then you began spending all your time at baseball. (She bites the word.) And you never
stopped to speak to anyone anymore – not to really speak – not even to your own family, you
didn’t. And George, it’s a fact – ever since you’ve been elected Captain, you’ve got awful stuck
up and conceited, and all the girls say so. And it hurts me to hear ‘em say it; but I got to agree
with ‘em a little, because it’s true. I always expect a man to be perfect and I think he should
be. (All innocence, yet firm.) Well, my father is. And as far as I can see, your father is. There’s
no reason on earth why you shouldn’t be too. But you might as well know right now that I’m
not perfect – It’s not easy for a girl to be perfect as a man, because, well, we girls are more –
nervous. Now, I’m sorry I said all that about you. I don’t know what made me say it. (Cries.)
Now I can see it’s not true at all. And I suddenly feel that it’s not important, anyway. (Cries.)”
Our Town #2
From the play by Thornton Wilder
(Emily has just died during childbirth and has been given a chance
to go back home one more time-although no one can see her.)
EMILY: I can't bear it. They're so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old?
Mama, I'm here. I'm grown up. I love you all, everything. - I can’t look at everything hard
enough. (Talking to her mother who does not hear her. She speaks with mounting urgency) Oh,
Mama, just look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have
gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama. I married George Gibbs, Mama. Wally's dead,
too. Mama, his appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it
- don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment
we're happy. Let's look at one another. I can't. I can't go on. It goes so fast. We don't have
time to look at one another. I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed.
Take me back, up the hill, to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by,
world. Good-by, Grover's Corners. Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking and Mama's
sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths, and sleeping and
waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings
ever realize life while they live it? Every, every minute? I'm ready to go back. I should have
listened to you. That's all human beings are! Just blind people.
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Page 14
The Diary of Anne Frank
From the play adapted from the book by Anne Frank
ANNE: Look, Peter, the sky. (she looks up through the skylight) What a lovely, lovely day!
Aren't the clouds beautiful? You know what I do when it seems as if I couldn't stand being
cooped up for one more minute? I think myself out. I think myself on a walk in the park where
I used to go with Pim. Where the jonquils and the crocus and the violets grow down the slopes.
You know the most wonderful part about thinking yourself out? You can have it any way you
like. You can have roses and violets and chrysanthemums all blooming at the same time? It's
funny. I used to take it all for granted. And now I've gone crazy about everything to do with
nature. Haven't you? (softly) I wish you had a religion, Peter. Oh, I don't mean you have to be
Orthodox, or believe in heaven and hell and purgatory and things. I just mean some religion. It
doesn't matter what. Just to believe in something! When I think of all that's out there. The
trees. And flowers. And seagulls. When I think of the dearness of you, Peter. And the goodness
of people we know. Mr. Kraler, Miep, Dirk, the vegetable man, all risking their lives for us
everyday. When I think of these good things, I'm not afraid any more. I find myself, and God,
and I... We're not the only people that've had to suffer. There've always been people that've
had to. Sometimes one race, sometimes another, and yet...I know it's terrible, trying to have
any faith when people are doing such horrible things, but you know what I sometimes think? I
think the world may be going through a phase, the way I was with Mother. It'll pass, maybe not
for hundreds of years, but some day I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are really
good at heart. Peter, if you'd only look at it as part of a great pattern? That we're just a little
minute in the life? (she breaks off) Listen to us, going at each other like a couple of stupid
grownups! Look at the sky now. Isn't it lovely?
The Diary of Anne Frank #2
From the play adapted from the book by Anne Frank
ANNE: (Writing in diary)The air raids are getting worse. They come over day and night. The
noise is terrifying. Pim says it should be music to our ears. The more planes, the sooner will
come the end of the war. Mrs. Van Daan pretends to be a fatalist. What will be will be. But
when the planes come over, who is the most frightened? No one else but Petronella!…Monday,
the ninth of November, nineteen forty-two. Wonderful news. Allies have landed in Africa. Pim
says we can look for an early finish to the war. Just for fun he asked each of us what was the
first thing we wanted to do when we got out of here. Mrs. Van Daan longs to be home with her
own things, her needlepoint chairs, the Beckstein piano her father gave her…the best money
could buy. Peter would like to go to a movie. Mr. Dussel wants to get back to his dentist’s drill.
He’s afraid he is losing his touch. For myself, there are so many things…to ride a bike again…to
laugh till my belly aches…to have new clothes from the skin out…to have a hot tub filled to
overflowing and wallow in it for hours…to be back in school with my friends.”
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Page 15
After the Fall
From the play by Eugene O’Neill
HOLGA: It was the middle of the war. I had just come out of a class and there were leaflets on
the sidewalk. A photograph of a concentration camp. And emaciated people. It was dropped
there by British Intelligence; one tended to believe the British. I had no idea. Truly. Any more,
perhaps, than Americans know how a Negro lives. I was seventeen; I lived my studies; I
planned how to cut my hair differently. It is much more complicated than it seems later. There
were many officers in my family. It was our country. It isn’t easy to turn against your country;
not in a war. There are always reasons — do Americans turn against America because of
Hiroshima? No, there are reasons always. (Pause.) And I took the leaflet to my godfather — he
was still commanding our Intelligence. And I asked if it were true. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘why
does it excite you?’ And I said, ‘You are a swine. You are all swine.’ I threw my briefcase at
him. And he opened it and put some papers in and asked me to deliver it to a certain address.
And I became a courier for the officers who were planning to assassinate Hitler…they were all
hanged.
The Web
From the play by Eugene O’Neill
ROSE: (Scornfully) Oh, couldn’t he? D’yuh suppose they’d keep me any place if they knew
what I was? And d’yuh suppose he wouldn’t tell them or have someone else tell them? Yuh
don’t know the game I’m up against. (bitterly)I’ve tried that job thing. I’ve looked fur decent
work and I’ve starved at it. A year after I first hit this town I quit and tried to be on the level. I
got a job at housework—workin’ twelve hours a day for twenty-five dollars a month. And I
worked like a dog, too, and never left the house I was so scared of seein’ someone who knew
me. But what was the use? One night they have a guy to dinner who’s seen me some place
when I was on the town. He tells the lady—his duty he said it was—and she fires me right off
the reel. I tried the same thing a lot of times. But there was always someone who’d drag me
back. And then I quit tryin’. There didn’t seem to be no use. They—all the good people—they
got me where I am and they’re goin’ to keep me there. Reform? Take it from me it can’t be
done. They won’t let yuh do it, and that’s Gawd’s truth.
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Page 16
Warnings
From the play by Eugene O'Neill
MRS. KNAPP: Give up your job? Are you a fool? I suppose you think it's right to loaf around
here until we all get out in the streets? God knows your salary is small enough but without it
we'd starve to death. Can't you think of others besides yourself? How about me and the
children? What's goin' to buy them clothes and food? I can't earn enough, and what Charlie
gets wouldn't keep him alive for a week. Jim sends us a few dollars a month but he don't get
much and he ain't workin' regular. We owe the grocer and the butcher now. If they found out
you wasn't workin' they wouldn't give us any more credit. And the landlord? How long would he
let us stay here? You'll get other work? Remember the last time you tried. We had to pawn
everything we had then and we was half-starved when you did land this job. You had to go
back to the same old work, didn't you? They didn't want you at any telegraph office, did they?
You was too old and too slow, wasn't you? Well, you're older and slower than ever now and
that's the only other job you're fit for. [With bitter scorn.] You'll get another job! And this all the
thanks I get for slavin' and workin' my fingers off! What a father for my poor children! Oh, why
did I ever marry such a man? It's been nothin' but worryin' and sufferin' ever since.
Anna Christie
From the play by Eugene O'Neill
ANNA: [Trying to keep up her hard, bitter tone, but gradually letting a note of pitiful pleading
creep in.] I s’pose if I tried to tell you I wasn’t—that—no more you’d believe me, wouldn’t you?
Yes, you would! And if I told you that yust getting out in this barge, and being on the sea had
changed me and made me feel different about things, ’s if all I’d been through wasn’t me and
didn’t count and was yust like it never happened—you’d laugh, wouldn’t you? And you’d die
laughing sure if I said that meeting you that funny way that night in the fog, and afterwards
seeing that you was straight goods stuck on me, had got me to thinking for the first time, and I
sized you up as a different kind of man—a sea man as different from the ones on land as water
is from mud—and that was why I got stuck on you, too. I wanted to marry you and fool you,
but I couldn’t. Don’t you see how I’d changed? I couldn’t marry you with you believing a lie—
and I was shamed to tell you the truth—till the both of you forced my hand, and I seen you was
the same as all the rest. And now, give me a bawling out and beat it, like I can tell you’re going
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Page 17
to. [She stops, looking at BURKE. He is silent, his face averted, his features beginning to work
with fury. She pleads passionately.] Will you believe it if I tell you that loving you has made
me—clean? It’s the straight goods, honest! [Then as he doesn’t reply—bitterly.] Like hell you
will! You’re like all the rest!
The First Man
From the play by Eugene O'Neill
MARTHA: You must make allowances for me, Curt. And forgive me. I AM getting old. No, it's
the truth. I've reached the turning point. Will you listen to my side of it, and try to see it--with
sympathy--with true understanding--[With a trace of bitterness.]--forgetting your work for the
moment? [Pause.] I have to confess frankly--during the past two years I've felt myself-- feeling
as if I wasn't ... complete. I tried my best to conceal it from you. It would have been so unfair
to let you guess while we were still in harness. But oh, how I kept looking forward to the time
when we would come back--and rest--in our own home! You know--you said that was your
plan--to stay here and write your books--and I was hoping-- But you've got to go. I won't try to
stop you. I'll help all in my power--as I've always done. Only--I can't go with you any more. And
you must help me--to do my work--by understanding it. Oh, Curt, I wish I could tell you what I
feel, make you feel with me the longing for a child. If you had just the tiniest bit of feminine in
you--! [Forcing a smile.] But you're so utterly masculine, dear! That's what has made me love
you, I suppose--so I've no right to complain of it. [Intensely.] I don't. I wouldn't have you
changed one bit! I love you! And I love the things you love--your work--because it's a part of
you. And that's what I want you to do--to reciprocate--to love the creator in me--to desire that
I, too, should complete myself with the thing nearest my heart! After all, your work is yours,
not mine. I have been only a helper, a good comrade, too, I hope, but-- somehow--outside of it
all. Do you remember two years ago when we were camped in Yunnan, among the aboriginal
tribes? It was one night there when we were lying out in our sleeping-bags up in the mountains
along the Tibetan frontier. I couldn't sleep. Suddenly I felt oh, so tired--utterly alone--out of
harmony with you--with the earth under me. I became horribly despondent--like an outcast
who suddenly realizes the whole world is alien. And all the wandering about the world, and all
the romance and excitement I'd enjoyed in it, appeared an aimless, futile business, chasing
around in a circle in an effort to avoid touching reality. Forgive me, Curt. I meant myself, not
you, of course. Oh, it was horrible, I tell you, to feel that way. I tried to laugh at myself, to fight
it off, but it stayed and grew worse. It seemed as if I were the only creature alive--who was not
alive. And all at once the picture came of a tribeswoman who stood looking at us in a little
mountain village as we rode by. She was nursing her child. Her eyes were so curiously sure of
herself. She was horribly ugly, poor woman, and yet--as the picture came back to me--I
appeared to myself the ugly one while she was beautiful. And I thought of our children who had
died--and such a longing for another child came to me that I began sobbing. You were asleep.
You didn't hear. [She pauses--then proceeds slowly.] And when we came back here--to have a
home at last, I was so happy because I saw my chance of fulfillment--before it was too late. [In
a gentle, pleading voice.] Now can you understand, dear? Can you?
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Page 18
The Tragedy Of Pudd'nhead Wilson
From the book by Mark Twain
ROXY: Shet down dat light a little. More. More yit. A pusson dat is hunted don't like de light.
Dah--dat'll do. I kin see whah you is, en dat's enough. I's gwine to tell you de tale, en cut it jes
as short as I kin. Dat man dat bought me ain't a bad man; he's good enough, as planters goes;
en if he could 'a' had his way I'd 'a' be'n a house servant in his fambly en be'n comfortable: but
his wife she was a Yank, en not right down good lookin', en she riz up agin me straight off; so
den dey sent me out to de quarter 'mongst de common fiel' han's. Dat woman warn't satisfied
even wid dat, but she worked up de overseer ag'in' me, she 'uz dat jealous en hateful; so de
overseer he had me out befo' day in de mawnin's en worked me de whole long day as long as
dey'uz any light to see by; en many's de lashin's I got 'ca'se I couldn't come up to de work o' de
stronges'. Dat overseer wuz a Yank too, outen New Englan', en anybody down South kin tell
you what dat mean. DEY knows how to work a nigger to death, en dey knows how to whale
'em too--whale 'em till dey backs is welted like a washboard. 'Long at fust my marster say de
good word for me to de overseer, but dat 'uz bad for me; for de mistis she fine it out, en arter
dat I jist ketched it at every turn--dey warn't no mercy for me no mo'. 'Bout ten days ago I 'uz
sayin' to myself dat I couldn't las' many mo' weeks I 'uz so wore out wid de awful work en de
lashin's, en so downhearted en misable. En I didn't care no mo', nuther--life warn't wuth noth'n'
to me, if I got to go on like dat. Well, dey was a little sickly nigger girl 'bout ten year ole dat 'uz
good to me, en hadn't no mammy, po' thing, en I loved her en she loved me; en she come out
whah I uz' workin' en she had a roasted tater, en tried to slip it to me--robbin' herself, you see,
'ca'se she knowed de overseer didn't give me enough to eat--en he ketched her at it, en give
her a lick acrost de back wid his stick, which 'uz as thick as a broom handle, en she drop'
screamin' on de groun', en squirmin' en wallerin' aroun' in de dust like a spider dat's got
crippled. I couldn't stan' it. All de hellfire dat 'uz ever in my heart flame' up, en I snatch de stick
outen his han' en laid him flat. He laid dah moanin' en cussin', en all out of his head, you know,
en de niggers 'uz plumb sk'yred to death. Dey gathered roun' him to he'p him, en I jumped on
his hoss en took out for de river as tight as I could go. I knowed what dey would do wid me.
Soon as he got well he would start in en work me to death if marster let him; en if dey didn't do
dat, they'd sell me furder down de river, en dat's de same thing. so I 'lowed to drown myself en
git out o' my troubles. It 'uz gitt'n' towards dark. I 'uz at de river in two minutes. Den I see a
canoe, en I says dey ain't no use to drown myself tell I got to; so I went on a-spinnin' down de
river--paddled mo'n two days--and when I got here I went straight to whah you used to wuz,
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Page 19
en den I come to dis house, en dey say you's away but 'spected back every day; so I didn't dast
to go down de river to Dawson's, 'ca'se I might miss you. Well, las' Monday I 'uz pass'n by one
o' dem places in fourth street whah deh sticks up runaway nigger bills, en he'ps to ketch 'em,
en I seed my marster! I 'mos' flopped down on de groun', I felt so gone. He had his back to
me, en 'uz talkin' to de man en givin' him some bills--nigger bills, I reckon, en I's de nigger.
He's offerin' a reward--dat's it. Ain't I right, don't you reckon? [Pause--apprehension in her
voice.] Turn up dat light! I want to see yo' face better. Dah now--lemme look at you.
Chambers, you's as white as yo' shirt! Has you see dat man? Has he be'n to see you?
Eve's Diary
A monologue from the book by Mark Twain
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!
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Page 20
Doll’s House
From the play by Henik Ibsen
NORA: Sit down there, Torvald. I have a lot to talk about. Sit down. It’s going to take a long
time. I’ve a lot to say to you. You don’t understand me. And I’ve never understood you - until
this evening. No, don’t interrupt me Just listen to what I have to say. You and I have got to
face facts, Torvald. Doesn’t anything strike you about the way we’re sitting here? We’ve been
married for eight years. Does it occur to you this is the first time we, two,, you and I, man and
wife, have ever had a serious talk together? In eight whole years - no, longer - ever since we
first met — we have never exchanged a serious word on a serious subject. You have never
understood me. A great wrong has been done to me~ Torvald. First by papa, and then by you.
You have never loved me. You just thought it was fun to be in love with me. It’s the truth,
Torvald. When I lived with papa, he used to tell me what he thought about everything, so that I
never had any opinions but his. And if I did have any of my own, I kept than quiet, because he
wouldn’t have liked them. He called me his little doll, and he played with me just the way I
played with my dolls. Then I came here to live in your house I mean, I passed from papa’s
hands into yours. You arranged everything the way you wanted it, so that I simply took over
your taste in everything — or pretended I did it’s as if I’ve been living here like a pauper, from
hand to mouth. I performed tricks for you, and you gave me food and drink. But that was how
you wanted it You and papa have done me a great wrong. It’s your fault that I have done
nothing with my life. Have I been happy here? No; never. I used to think I was. But I haven’t
ever been I’ve just had fun. You’ve always been very kind to me. But our home has never been
anything but a playroom. I’ve been your doll-wife, just as I used to be papa’s doll-child. And the
children have been my dolls. I used to think it was fun when you came in and played with me,
just as they think it’s fun when I go in and play games with them. That’s all our marriage has
been. Oh, Torvald, you are not the man to educate me into being the right wife for you. And
now what about me? Am I to educate the children? Didn’t you say yourself a few minutes ago
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Page 21
that you dare to leave them in my charge? You were perfectly right. I am not fitted to educate
them. There’s something else I must do first. I must educate myself And you can’t help me with
that. It’s something I must do by myself That’s why I’m leaving you. Here is your ring back.
Give me mine. Torvald, for me to come back, you and I would have to change so much that—
life together between us would have to become a marriage. it would be the miracle of miracles.
And I do not believe in miracle any longer. Goodbye, Torvald.
Doll’s House #2
From the play by Henik Ibsen
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. You neither think nor
talk like the man I could bind myself to. As soon as your fear was over--and it was not fear for
what threatened me, but for what might happen to you--when the whole thing was past, as far
as you were concerned it was exactly as if nothing at all had happened. Exactly as before, I was
your little skylark, your doll, which you would in future treat with doubly gentle care, because it
was so brittle and fragile. Torvald--it was then it dawned upon me that for eight years I had
been living here with a strange man, and had borne him three children--. Oh! I can't bear to
think of it! I could tear myself into little bits!
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Page 22
The Wild Duck
From the play by Henik Ibsen
HEDWIG: Daddy! Daddy! Don't go away from me. He'll never come back to us again. I think
I'm going to die of all this. What have I done to him? Mother, why doesn't Daddy want to see
me any more? I think I know what it is. Perhaps I'm not Daddy's real child. And now perhaps
he has found it out. I've read about that sort of thing. But I think he might be just as fond of
me for all that. Almost more. The wild duck was sent us as a present too, and I'm
tremendously fond of that, just the same. The poor wild duck! He can't bear to look at that any
more, either. Just think he wanted to wring its neck. I say a prayer for the wild duck every
night and ask that it shall be protected from death and everything bad. I taught myself to say
my prayers because there was a time when Daddy was ill and had leeches on his neck and said
he was lying at death's door. So I said a prayer for him when I'd gone to bed. And I've gone
on with it ever since. I thought I'd better put in the wild duck too, because she was so delicate
at first. And now you say I should sacrifice the wild duck to prove my love for Daddy. I will try
it. I will ask Grandfather to shoot the wild duck for me.
Ghosts
From the play by Henik Ibsen
MRS. ALVING: If I were not such a miserable coward, I would say to him: "Marry her, or
make any arrangement you like with her– only let there be no deceit in the matter." Unheard
of? Tell me honestly, Mr. Manders, don't you suppose there are plenty of married couples out
here in the country that are just as nearly related as they are? Indeed you do understand me.
But I am not willing to allow it; I would not allow it for anything in the world; that is just what I
was saying. We are all descended from a union of that description, so we are told. And who
was it that was responsible for this state of things, Mr. Manders? Of course, you can’t discuss
such questions with me. But, I will tell you what I mean by that. I am frightened and timid,
because I am obsessed by the presence of ghosts that I never can get rid of. Ghosts. When I
heard Regina and Oswald in there, it was just like seeing ghosts before my eyes. I am half
inclined to think we are all ghosts, Mr. Manders. It is not only what we have inherited from our
fathers anal mothers that exists again in us, but all sorts of old dead ideas and all kinds of old
dead beliefs and things of that kind. They are not actually alive in us; but there they are
dormant, all the same, and we can never be rid of them. Whenever I take up a newspaper and
read it, I fancy I see ghosts creeping between the lines. There must be ghosts all over the
world. They must be as countless as the grains of the sands, it seems to me. And we are so
miserably afraid of the light, all of us. You are wrong there, my friend. You are the one who
made me begin to think; and I owe you my best thanks for it. By forcing me to submit to what
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Page 23
you called my duty and my obligations; by praising as right and lust what my whole soul
revolted against, as it would against something abominable. That was what led me to examine
your teachings critically. I only wanted to unravel one point in them; but as soon as I had got
that unravelled, the whole fabric came to pieces. And then I realised that it was only machinemade. One so easily forgets one's own feelings. Not I. I am the same as I always was. You are
buried up to your eyes now in committees and all sorts of business; and I am here, fighting
with ghosts both without and within me.
For Whom the Bell Tolls
From the book by Earnest Hemingway
MARIA: My father and my mother. I saw them killed. My father was the mayor of our town
and a Republican. And when the Nationalists took the town, they lined up all the Republicans
against the wall. My father cried out very loud, “Long live the Republic!” And then they shot
him. But my mother was not a Republican. She had no politics. But she loved my father, she
couldn’t say that. So she just looked at my father who lay there on his face at her feet and she
said, “Long live my husband who was the mayor of this town!” She said it very loud, like a
shriek and then they shot her and she fell and I wanted to go to her. We were all tied. We were
tied by the wrists in a long line of girls and women and I wanted to be shot too and I was going
to say, “Long live the Republic and my mother and my father.” But instead there was no more
shooting. They herded us up the hill through the streets, through the square. My father’s office
was at the city hall. They took us across the street, to the barber shop … I want to tell you! … I
do not know how to kiss, or I would kiss you. Where do the noses go?
The Little Foxes
From the play by Lillian Hellman
BIRDIE: That was the first day I ever saw Oscar. The Ballongs were selling their horses and he
was going there to buy. He passed and lifted his hat–we could see him from the window–and
my brother, to tease Mama, said maybe we should have invited the Hubbards to the party. He
said Mama didn’t like them because they kept a store and he said that was old-fashioned of
her. (Her face lights up) And then, and then I saw Mama angry for the first time in my life. She
said that wasn’t the reason. She said she was old-fashioned, but not that way. She said she was
old-fashioned enough not to like people who killed animals they couldn’t’ use, and who made
their money charging awful interest to poor, ignorant blacks and cheating them on what they
bought. She was very angry, Mama was. I had never seen her face like that. And then suddenly
she laughed and said, "Look, I frighted Birdie out of the hiccoughs. And so she had.... Who
would have thought–(quickly) You all want to know something? Well, I don’t like Leo. My very
own son, and I don’t like him. (Laughs gaily) My, I guess I even like Oscar more. Why did I
marry Uncle Oscar? I don’t know. I thought I liked him. He was kind to me and I thought it was
because he liked me too. But that wasn’t the reason—Ask why he married me. I can tell you
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that: he’s told it to me often enough. (Speaking very rapidly, tensely) My family was good and
the cotton on Lionnet’s fields was better. Ben Hubbard wanted the cotton and Oscar Hubbard
married for him. He was kind to me, then. He used to smile at me. He hasn’t smiled at me
since. Everybody knew that’s what he married me for. Everybody buy me. Stupid Stupid me. I
don’t have a headache!! I’ve never had a headache in my life. You know it as well as I do. I
never had a headache, Zan. That’s a lie they tell for me. I drink. All by myself, in my own room,
by myself, I drink. Then, when they want to hide it, they say, "Birdie’s got a headache again"
You know what? In twenty-two years I haven’t had a whole day of happiness. Oh, a little, like
today with you all. But never a single, whole day. I say to myself, if only I had one more whole
day...
The Importance of Being Earnest
From the play by Oscar Wilde
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. I should 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 everyone has practically said whatever
they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much.
The Importance of Being Earnest #2
From the play by Oscar Wilde
GWENDOLEN: Oh! It is strange he never mentioned to me that he had a ward. How secretive
of him! He grows more interesting hourly. I am not sure, however, that the news inspires me
with feelings of unmixed delight. I am very fond of you, Cecily: I have liked you ever since I
met you! But I am bound to state that now that I know that you are Mr. Worthing’s ward, I
cannot help expressing a wish you were – well, just a little older than you seem to be – and not
quite so very alluring in appearance. In fact, if I may speak candidly, I wish that you were fully
forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age. Ernest has a strong upright nature. He is
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the very soul of truth and honour. Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception. But
even men of the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the influence of
the physical charms of others. Modern, no less than Ancient History, supplies us with many
most painful examples of what I refer to. If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite
unreadable.
Salome
From the play by Oscar Wilde
SALOME: There is no sound. I hear nothing. Why does he not cry out, this man? Ah, if any
man sought to kill me, I would cry out, I would struggle, I would not suffer…Strike, strike,
Naaman, strike, I tell you…No, I hear nothing. There is a silence, a terrible silence. Ah!
Something has fallen upon the ground. I heard something fall. It is the sword of the headsman.
He is afraid, this slave. He has let his sword fall. He dare not kill him. He is a coward, this slave!
Let soldiers be sent. (She sees the Page of Herodias and addresses him.) Come hither! Thou
wert the friend of him who is dead, is it not so? Well, I tell thee, there are not dead men
enough. Go to the soldiers and bid them go down and bring me the thing I ask, the thing the
Tetrarch has promised me, the thing that is mine. (The Page recoils. She turns to the soldiers.)
Hither, ye soldiers. Get ye down into the cistern and bring me the head of this man. Tetrarch,
Tetrarch, command your soldiers that they bring me the head of Jokanaan.
Lady Windermere's Fan
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Page 26
From the play by Oscar Wilde
MRS. ERLYNNE: Believe what you choose about me. I am not worth a moment's sorrow. But
don't spoil your beautiful young life on my account! You don't know what may be in store for
you, unless you leave this house at once. You don't know what it is to fall into the pit, to be
despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at--to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one,
to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped
from one's face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a
thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed. You don't know what it is. One
pays for one's sins, and then one pays again, and all one's life one pays. You must never know
that.--As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults,
whatever they have been; for to-night you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it
and broken it.--But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck
yours. You--why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven't got the kind of brains that
enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn't stand
dishonor! No! Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love. You
have a child, Lady Windermere. Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be
calling to you. God gave you that child. He will require from you that you make his life fine, that
you watch over him. What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you? Back
to your house, Lady Windermere--your husband loves you! He has never swerved for a moment
from the love he bears you. But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child.
If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child. If he ill-treated you, you must stay with
your child. If he abandoned you, your place is with your child.
The Seagull
From the play by Anton Chekhov
NINA: All men and beasts, lions, eagles, and quails, horned stags, geese, spiders, silent fish
that inhabit the waves, starfish from the sea, and creatures invisible to the eye--in one word,
life--all, all life, completing the dreary round imposed upon it, has died out at last. A thousand
years have passed since the earth last bore a living creature on her breast, and the unhappy
moon now lights her lamp in vain. No longer are the cries of storks heard in the meadows, or
the drone of beetles in the groves of limes. All is cold, cold. All is void, void, void. All is terrible,
terrible-- [A pause.] The bodies of all living creatures have dropped to dust, and eternal matter
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Page 27
has transformed them into stones and water and clouds; but their spirits have flowed together
into one, and that great world-soul am I! In me is the spirit of the great Alexander, the spirit of
Napoleon, of Caesar, of Shakespeare, and of the tiniest leech that swims. In me the
consciousness of man has joined hands with the instinct of the animal; I understand all, all, all,
and each life lives again in me. [A pause.] I am alone. Once in a hundred years my lips are
opened, my voice echoes mournfully across the desert earth, and no one hears. And you, poor
lights of the marsh, you do not hear me. You are engendered at sunset in the putrid mud, and
flit wavering about the lake till dawn, unconscious, unreasoning, unwarmed by the breath of
life. Satan, father of eternal matter, trembling lest the spark of life should glow in you, has
ordered an unceasing movement of the atoms that compose you, and so you shift and change
forever. I, the spirit of the universe, I alone am immutable and eternal. [A pause.] Like a
captive in a dungeon deep and void, I know not where I am, nor what awaits me. One thing
only is not hidden from me: in my fierce and obstinate battle with Satan, the source of the
forces of matter, I am destined to be victorious in the end. Matter and spirit will then be one at
last in glorious harmony, and the reign of freedom will begin on earth. But this can only come
to pass by slow degrees, when after countless eons the moon and earth and shining Sirius
himself shall fall to dust. Until that hour ... [A pause.] Satan, my mighty foe, advances; I see his
dread and lurid eyes!
The Seagull #2
From the play by Anton Chekhov
NINA: Why do you say that you kissed the ground on which I walked? You should kill me. I’m
exhausted. If only I could rest…rest! I am a seagull…that’s not right. I am an actress. Yes!
(Hearing Arkadina) And he’s here…Yes…It doesn’t matter…Yes…He didn’t believe in the theatre,
he went on mocking my dreams, and little by little I too stopped believing and lost heart…And
then came the troubles of love, jealousy, the constant fear for my child…I became petty,
worthless, I acted mindlessly…I didn’t know what to do with my hand, didn’t know how to stand
on the stage, wasn’t in control of my voice. You can’t understand what it’s like to feel you’re
acting terribly. I am a seagull. No, that’s not right…Do you remember, you shot a seagull? A
man just came along, saw it and killed it from having nothing to do…A plot for a short story.
That’s not right. What was I…? I was talking about the stage. Now I am not so…I am now a
real actress, I act with enjoyment, with ecstasy, I get intoxicated on the stage and feel that I’m
beautiful. And now, while I’ve been staying here, I’ve walked everywhere, I walk and walk, and
think, think and feel how everyday my spiritual powers grow…Kostya, I know now, I
understand. In what we do – whether we act on the stage or write – the most important thing
isn’t fame or glory or anything I used to dream about – but the ability to endure. To know how
to bear your cross and have faith. I have faith, and my pain is less, and when I think about my
vocation I’m not afraid of life.
Three Sisters
From the play by Anton Chekhov
IRENA: Tell me, why is it I’m so happy today? As if I were sailing, with the wide, blue sky
above me, and great white birds soaring in the wind. Why is it? Why? I woke up this morning, I
got up, I washed - and suddenly I felt everything in this world was clear to me - I felt I knew
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Page 28
how life had to be lived. Dear Ivan Romanich, I can see it all. A human being has to labour,
whoever he happens to be, he has to toil in the sweat of his face; that’s the only way he can
find the sense and purpose of his life, his happiness, his delight. How fine to be a working man
who rises at first light and breaks stones on the road, or a shepherd, or a teacher, or an engine
driver on the railway… Lord, never mind being human even – better to be an ox, better to be a
simple horse, just so long as you work – anything rather than a young lady who rises at noon,
then drinks her coffee in bed, then takes two hours to dress… that’s terrible! In hot weather
sometimes you long to drink the way I began longing to work. And if I don’t start getting up
early and working, then shut your heart against me, Ivan Romanich.
Wild Honey
From the play by Anton Chekhov
ANNA: How can you say that? How can you lie to me, on such a night as this, beneath such a
sky? Tell your lies in autumn, if you must, in the gloom and the mud, but not now, not
here. You’re being watched! Look up, you absurd man! A thousand eyes, all shining with
indignation! You must be good and true, just as all this is good and true. Don’t break this
silence with your little words! There’s no man in the world I could ever love as I love
you. There’s no woman in the world you could ever love as you love me. Let’s take that love;
and all the rest, that so torments you – we’ll leave that to others to worry about. Are you really
such a terrible Don Juan? You look so handsome in the moonlight! Such a solemn face! It’s a
woman who’s come to call, not a wild animal! All right – if you really hate it all so much I’ll go
away again. Is that what you want? I’ll go away, and everything will be just as it was
before. Yes…? (she laughs) Idiot! Take it! Snatch it! Seize it! What more do you
want? Smoke it to the end, like a cigarette – pinch it out – tread it under your heel. Be
human! You funny creature! A woman loves you – a woman you love – fine summer
weather. What could be simpler than that? You don’t realise how hard life is for me. And yet
life is what I long for. Everything is alive, nothing is ever still. We’re surrounded by life. We
must live, too, Misha! Leave all the problems for tomorrow. Tonight, on this night of nights,
we’ll simply live!
The Cherry Orchard
From the play by Anton Chekov
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MADAME RANESVSKY: [Deeply agitated] Why doesn't Leoníd come? Oh, if only I knew
whether the property's sold or not! It seems such an impossible disaster, that I don't know
what to think. . . . I'm bewildered . . . I shall burst out screaming, I shall do something idiotic.
Save me, Peter; say something to me, say something. You can see what's truth and untruth,
but I seem to have lost the power of vision; I see nothing. You settle every important question
so boldly; but tell me, Peter, isn't that because you're young, because you have never solved
any question of your own as yet by suffering? You look boldly ahead; isn't it only that you don't
see or divine anything terrible in the future; because life is still hidden from your young eyes?
You are bolder, honester, deeper than we are, but reflect, show me just a finger's breadth of
consideration, take pity on me. Don't you see? I was born here, my father and mother lived
here, and my grandfather; I loved this house; without the cherry orchard my life has no
meaning for me, and if it must be sold, then for heaven's sake sell me too! My little boy was
drowned here. Be gentle with me, dear, kind Peter. I am so wretched today, you can't imagine!
All this noise jars on me, my heart jumps at every sound. I tremble all over; but I can't shut
myself up; I am afraid of the silence when I'm alone. Don't be hard on me, Peter; I love you
like a son. I would gladly let Anya marry you, I swear it; but you must work, Peter; you must
get your degree. You do nothing; Fate tosses you about from place to place; and that's not
right. It's true what I say, isn't it? And you must do something to your beard to make it grow
better. I can't help laughing at you. [Showing him a telegraph] It's a telegram from Paris. I get
them every day. One came yesterday, another today. That savage is ill again; he's in a bad
way. . . . He asks me to forgive him, he begs me to come; and I really ought to go to Paris and
be with him. You look at me sternly; but what am I to do, Peter? What am I to do? He's ill, he's
lonely, he's unhappy. Who is to look after him? Who is to keep him from doing stupid things?
Who is to give him his medicine when it's time? After all, why should I be ashamed to say it? I
love him, that's plain. I love him, I love him. . . . My love is like a stone tied round my neck; it's
dragging me down to the bottom; but I love my stone. I can't live without it. Don't think ill of
me, Peter; don't say anything! Don't say anything!
Ivanov
From the play by Anton Chekhov
SASHA: There are a great many things a man cannot understand. Any girl would rather love an
unfortunate man than a fortunate one, because every girl would like to do something by loving.
A man has his work to do, and so for him love is kept in the background. To talk to his wife, to
walk with her in the garden, to pass the time pleasantly with her, that is all that love means to
a man. But for us, love means life. I love you; that means that I dream only of how I shall cure
you of your sadness, how I shall go with you to the ends of the earth. If you are in heaven, I
am in heaven; if you are in the pit, I am in the pit. For instance, it would be the greatest
happiness for me to write all night for you, or to watch all night that no one should wake you. I
remember that three years ago, at threshing time, you came to us all dusty and sunburnt and
tired, and asked for a drink. When I brought you a glass of water you were already lying on the
sofa and sleeping like a dead man. You slept there for half a day, and all that time I watched by
the door that no one should disturb you. How happy I was! The more a girl can do, the greater
her love will be; that is, I mean, the more she feels it.
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The Marriage
From the play by Nikolai Gogol
AGAFYA: Honestly, this choosing business is so difficult. If there were just one or two, but
four! Take your pick. Mr Anuchkin isn’t bad-looking, but he’s a bit skinny, of course. And Mr
Podkolyosin isn’t too bad, either. And truth to tell, though he’s rather stout, Mr Omelet’s still a
fine figure of a man. So what am I to do, if you please? Mr Zhevakin’s also a man of distinction.
It really is difficult to decide, you can’t begin to describe it. Now, if you could attach Mr
Anuchkin’s lips to Mr Podkolyosin’s nose, and take some of Mr Zhevakin’s easy manner, and
perhaps add Mr Omelet’s solid build, I could decide on the spot. But now I’ve got to rack my
brains! And it’s giving me a fearsome headache. I think it’d be best to draw lots. Turn the whole
matter over to God’s will, and whichever one comes out, that’ll be my husband. I’ll write all
their names on a bit of paper, roll them up tight, then so be it. (She goes to her desk, gets
some paper and writes the names on them.) Life’s so trying for a girl, especially when she’s in
love. It’s something no man will ever understand, and anyway they just don’t want to. Now,
that’s them ready! All that remains is to put them in my purse, shut my eyes, and that’s it –
what will be, will be. (She places papers in her purse and give it a shake.) This is dreadful… oh
God, please make it Anuchkin! No, why him? Better Mr Podkolyosin. But why Mr Podkolyosin?
In what way are the others worse? No, no, I won’t… whichever comes out, so be it. (She
rummages in her purse and pulls them all out instead of one.) Oh! All of them! They’ve all come
out! And my heart’s pounding. No, no, it’s got to be one! (She puts the papers back in her
purse.) Oh, if only I could draw out Baltazar… no, what am I saying? I mean Mr Anuchkin…no, I
won’t, I won’t. Let fate decide.
Anne of Green Gables
From the play adapted from the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery
ANNE: Oh, Mrs. Lynde. I am so extremely sorry. I could never express all my sorrow, no, not if
I used up a whole dictionary. You must just imagine it. I behaved terribly to you--and I've
disgraced the dear friends, Matthew and Marilla, who have let me stay at Green Gables
although I'm not a boy. I'm a dreadfully wicked and ungrateful girl, and I deserve to be
punished and cast out by respectable people forever. It was very wicked of me to fly into a
temper because you told me the truth. It was the truth; every word you said was true. My hair
is red and I'm freckled and skinny and ugly. What I said to you was true, too, but I shouldn't
have said it. Oh, Mrs. Lynde, please, please, forgive me. If you refuse it will be a lifelong sorrow
to me. You wouldn’t like to inflict a lifelong sorrow on a poor little orphan girl would you, even if
she had a dreadful temper? Oh, I am sure you wouldn't. Please say you forgive me, Mrs. Lynde.
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The Doctor's Dilemma
From the play by George Bernard Shaw
MRS. DUBEDAT: I had a great many dreams; but at last they all came down to this. I didn't
want to waste myself. I could do nothing myself; but I had a little property and I could help
with it. I had even a little beauty: don't think me vain for knowing it. I knew that men of genius
always had a terrible struggle with poverty and neglect at first. My dream was to save one of
them from that, and bring some charm and happiness into his life. I prayed Heaven would send
me one. I firmly believe that Louis was guided to me in answer to my prayer. He was no more
like the other men I had met than the Thames Embankment is like our Cornish coasts. He saw
everything that I saw, and drew it for me. He understood everything. He came to me like a
child. Only fancy, doctor: he never even wanted to marry me: he never thought of the things
other men think of! I had to propose it myself. Then he said he had no money. When I told him
I had some, he said "Oh, all right," just like a boy. He is still like that, quite unspoiled, a man in
his thoughts, a great poet and artist in his dreams, and a child in his ways. I gave him myself
and all I had that he might grow to his full height with plenty of sunshine. If I lost faith in him,
it would mean the wreck and failure of my life. I should go back to Cornwall and die. I could
show you the very cliff I should jump off. You must cure him: you must make him quite well
again for me. I know that you can do it and that nobody else can. I implore you not to refuse.
Frankenstein
A monologue from the novel by Mary Shelley
ELIZABETH: I am the cousin of the unhappy child who was murdered, or rather his sister, for
I was educated by, and have lived with his parents ever since and even long before his birth. It
may, therefore, be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion. But when I see a
fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be
allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character. I am well acquainted with the
accused. I have lived in the same house with her, at one time for five and at another for nearly
two years. During all that period she appeared to me the most amiable and benevolent of
human creatures. She nursed Madame Frankenstein, my aunt, in her last illness, with the
greatest affection and care. And afterward attended her own mother during a tedious illness, in
a manner that excited the admiration of all who knew her, after which she again lived in my
uncle's house, where she was beloved by all the family. She was warmly attached to the child
who is now dead, and acted toward him like a most affectionate mother. For my own part, I do
not hesitate to say that, notwithstanding all the evidence produced against her, I believe and
rely on her perfect innocence. She had no temptation for such an action. As to the bauble on
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Page 32
which the chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have willingly given it to
her, so much do I esteem and value her.
Miss Julie
From the play by August Strindberg
JULIE: We must go away, but we must talk first. That is, I must speak, for until now you have
done all the talking. You have told me about your life--now I will tell you about mine, then we
will know each other through and through before we start on our journey together. You see,
my mother was not of noble birth. She was brought up with ideas of equality, woman's freedom
and all that. She had very decided opinions against matrimony, and when my father courted her
she declared that she would never be his wife--but she did so for all that. I came into the world
against my mother's wishes, I discovered, and was brought up like a child of nature by my
mother, and taught everything that a boy must know as well; I was to be an example of a
woman being as good as a man--I was made to go about it boy's clothes and take care of the
horses and harness and saddle and hunt, and all such things; in fact, all over the estate women
servants were taught to do men's work, with the result being that the property came near being
ruined--and so we became the laughing stock of the countryside. At last my father must have
awakened from his bewitched condition, for he revolted and ran things according to his ideas.
My mother became ill--what it was I don't know, but she often had cramps and acted queerly-sometimes hiding in the attic or the orchard, and would even be gone all night at times. Then
came the big fire which of course you have heard about. The house, the stables--everything
was burned, under circumstances that pointed strongly to an incendiary, for the misfortune
happened the day after the quarterly insurance was due and the premiums sent in by my father
were strangely delayed by his messenger so that they arrived too late. My father was utterly at
a loss to know where to get money to rebuild with. Then my mother suggested that he try to
borrow from a man who had been her friend in her youth--a brick manufacturer here in the
neighborhood. My father made the loan, but wasn't allowed to pay any interest, which surprised
him. Then the house was rebuilt. Do you know who burned the house? [Pause] My mother. Do
you know who the brick manufacturer was? [Pause] My mother's lover. Do you know who's
money it was? [Pause] My mother's. There was no contract. My mother had some money which
she had not wished to have in my father's keeping and therefore, she had entrusted it to her
friend's care. All this came to my father's knowledge. He couldn't proceed against him, wasn't
allowed to pay his wife's friend, and couldn't prove that it was his wife's money. That was my
mother's revenge for his taking the reins of the establishment into his own hands. At that time
he was ready to shoot himself. Gossip had it that he tried and failed. Well, he lived it down--and
my mother paid full penalty for her misdeed. Those were five terrible years for me, as you can
fancy. I sympathized with my father, but I took my mother's part, for I didn't know the true
circumstances. Through her I learned to distrust and hate men, and I swore to her never to be
a man's slave.
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The Stronger
From the play by August Strindberg
MADAME X: I don't know why, but women are crazy about my husband. They must think he
has something to say about theater engagements because he's connected with the
government. Perhaps you were there yourself and tried to influence him! I don't trust you any
too much. But, I know he's not concerned about you, and you seem to have a grudge against
him. [Pause. They look quizzically at each other.] Come to see us this evening, Amelia, and
show that you're not angry with us -- not angry with me at any rate! I don't know why, but it's
so uncomfortable to have you an enemy. Possibly it's because I came in your way [rallentando]
or -- I really don't know -- just why. [Pause. MLLE. Y stares at MME. X curiously.] Our
acquaintance has been so peculiar. [Thoughtfully] When I saw you the first time I was so afraid
of you, so afraid, that I couldn't look you in the face; still as I came and went I always found
myself near you -- I couldn't risk being your enemy, so I became your friend. But there was
always a discordant note when you came to our house, because I saw that my husband
couldn't bear you -- and that was as annoying to me as an ill-fitting gown -- and I did all I could
to make him friendly toward you, but before he consented you announced your engagement.
Then came a violent friendship, so that in a twinkling it appeared as if you dared only show him
your real feelings when you were betrothed -- and then -- how was it later? -- I didn't get
jealous -- how wonderful! And I remember that when you were Patin's godmother, I made Bob
kiss you -- he did it, but you were so confused -- that is, I didn't notice it then -- thought about
it later -- never thought about it before -- now! [Gets up hastily] Why are you silent? You
haven't said a word this whole time, but you have let me go on talking.
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Page 34
Les Miserables
From the novel by Victor Hugo
FANTINE: Monsieur Javert, I beseech your mercy. I assure you that I was not in the wrong. If
you had seen the beginning, you would have seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was
not to blame! That gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has
anyone the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along peaceably, and doing
no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see. And then, he had been saying impertinent
things to me for a long time: "You are ugly! You have no teeth!" I know well that I have no
longer those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, "The gentleman is amusing himself." I was
honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that moment that he put the snow down my
back. Monsieur Javert, good Monsieur Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and
can tell you that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You know that one is not
master of one's self at the first moment. One gives way to vivacity; and then, when someone
puts something cold down your back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil
that gentleman's hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my God! It makes no
difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the favor to-day, for this once, Monsieur
Javert. You know that in prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the government's
fault, but seven sous is one's earnings; and just fancy, I must pay one hundred francs, or my
little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh,
my Cosette! Oh, my little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of her, poor creature? I will
tell you: it is the Thenardiers, inn-keepers, peasants; and such people are unreasonable. They
want money. Don't put me in prison! You see, there is a little girl who will be turned out into
the street to get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter; and you must have pity
on such a being, my good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, she might earn her living; but it
cannot be done at that age. I am not a bad woman at bottom. It is not cowardliness and
gluttony that have made me what I am. If I have drunk brandy, it was out of misery. I do not
love it; but it benumbs the senses. When I was happy, it was only necessary to glance into my
closets, and it would have been evident that I was not a coquettish and untidy woman. I had
linen, a great deal of linen. Have pity on me, Monsieur Javert!
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Page 35
I’ll Never Fit In
From Luisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”
JO MARCH: Well, of course Aunt March prefers Amy over me. Why shouldn’t she? I’m ugly and
awkward and I always say the wrong things. I fly around throwing away perfectly good
marriage proposals. I love our home, but I’m just so fitful and I can’t stand being here! I’m
sorry, I’m sorry Marmee. There’s just something really wrong with me. I want to change, but I
– I can’t. And I just know I’ll never fit in anywhere.
Hand-me-downs
From Luisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”
AMY: I hate having to wear my cousin’s clothes. Having to wear a red instead of a blue bonnet,
unbecoming gowns, and fussy aprons that do not fit. My school dress is a dull purple with
yellow dots and no trimming. My only comfort is that Mother doesn’t take tucks in my dresses
whenever I’m naughty, as Maria Park’s mother does. My dear, it’s really dreadful, for sometimes
she is so bad her frock is up to her knees, and she can’t come to school. When I think of this
degradation, I feel that I can bear even my flat nose and purple gown with yellow sky-rockets
on it.
Christmas Presents
From Luisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”
JO MARCH: Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents. I know what Mother said, but
I don’t think the little we should spend would do any good to the army. We’ve each got a dollar,
and the army wouldn’t be much helped by our giving that. I agree not to expect anything from
Mother or you, but I do want to buy Undine and Sintran for myself. I’ve wanted it so long!
(beat) Mother didn’t say anything about our money, and she won’t wish us to give up
everything. Let’s each buy what we want, and have a little fun; I’m sure we work hard enough
to earn it.
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Page 36
I’m Not a Young Lady
From Luisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”
JO MARCH: I’m not a young lady! I’m not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I’ll wear it
in two tails till I’m twenty. I hate to think I’ve got to grow up, and be Miss March, and wear
long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster! It’s bad enough to be a girl, anyway, when I
like boy’s games and work and manners! I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy.
And it’s worse than ever now, for I’m dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home
and knit, like a poky old woman!
Rascals and Wretches
From Luisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”
JO MARCH:We are a set of rascals this morning, but we’ll come home regular angels. Now
then, Meg! If Marmee shook her fist instead of kissing her hand to us, it would serve us right,
for more ungrateful wretches than we are were never seen. You’re a blighted being, and
decidedly cross today because you can’t sit in the lap of luxury all the time. Poor dear, just wait
till I make my fortune, and you shall revel in carriages and ice cream and high-heeled slippers,
and posies, and red-headed boys to dance with. Ridiculous? Lucky for you I am ridiculous, for if
I put on crushed airs and tried to be dismal, as you do, we should be in a nice state. Thank
goodness, I can always find something funny to keep me up. Don’t croak any more, but come
home jolly. There’s a dear.
Wild Brothers
From Luisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”
MEG: That reminds me that I’ve got something to tell. It isn’t funny, like Jo’s story, but I
thought about it a good deal as I came home. At the Kings’ today I found everybody in a flurry,
and one of the children said that her oldest brother had done something dreadful, and Papa
had sent him away. I heard Mrs. King crying and Mr. King talking very loud, and Grace and
Ellen turned away their faces when they passed me, so I shouldn’t see how red and swollen
their eyes were. I didn’t ask any questions, of course, but I felt so sorry for them and was
rather glad I hadn’t any wild brothers to do wicked things and disgrace the family.
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Page 37
The Invitation
From Luisa May Alcott’s novel “Little Women”
MEG: Jo! Jo! Where are you? I have news! Such fun! Only see! A regular note of invitation
from Mrs. Gardiner for tomorrow night! (reading) “Mrs. Gardiner would be happy to see Miss
March and Miss Josephine at a little dance on New Year’s Eve.” Marmee is willing we should go,
now what shall we wear? Oh, if I only had a silk! Mother says I may when I’m eighteen
perhaps, but two years is an everlasting time to wait. I shall have a new ribbon for my hair, and
Marmee will lend me her little pearl pin, and my new slippers are lovely, and my gloves will do,
though they aren’t as nice as I’d like. Gloves are more important than anything else. You can’t
dance without them, and if you go without them, I should be so mortified.
Wuthering Heights
A monologue from the novel by Emily Brontë
CATHERINE: I wouldn't be you for a kingdom! Nelly, help me to convince her of her madness.
Tell her what Heathcliff is: an un-reclaimed creature, without refinement, without cultivation; an
arid wilderness of furze and whinstone. I'd as soon put that little canary into the park on a
winter's day, as recommend you to bestow your heart on him! It is deplorable ignorance of his
character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head. Pray, don't
imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior! He's not
a rough diamond - a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man. I
never say to him, "Let this or that enemy alone, because it would be ungenerous or cruel to
harm them;" I say, "Let them alone, because I should hate them to be wronged:" and he'd
crush you like a sparrow's egg, Isabella, if he found you a troublesome charge. I know he
couldn't love a Linton; and yet he'd be quite capable of marrying your fortune and expectations:
avarice is growing with him a besetting sin. There's my picture: and I'm his friend -- so much
so, that had he thought seriously to catch you, I should, perhaps, have held my tongue, and let
you fall into his trap. Banish him from your thoughts. He's a bird of bad omen: no mate for you.
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Page 38
Wuthering Heights
A monologue from the novel by Emily Brontë
MRS. LINTON: How long is it since I shut myself in here? It seems a weary number of hours
... it must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had quarrelled, and Edgar being
cruelly provoking, and me running into this room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the
door, utter blackness overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn't explain to Edgar how
certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he persisted in teasing me! I had no
command of tongue, or brain, and he did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense
to try to escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see and hear, it
began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I'll tell you what I thought, and what has kept recurring and
recurring till I feared for my reason. I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table
leg, and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was enclosed in the
oak-panelled bed at home; and my heart ached with some great grief which, just waking, I
could not recollect. I pondered, and worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most
strangely, the whole last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that they had
been at all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my misery arose from the separation
that Hindley had ordered between me and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time; and,
rousing from a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the panels aside:
it struck the table-top! I swept it along the carpet, and then memory burst in: my late anguish
was swallowed in a paroxysm of despair. I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched: it must
have been temporary derangement; for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at twelve years
old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early association, and my all in all, as
Heathcliff was at that time, and been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of
Thrushcross Grange, and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth, from what
had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where I grovelled! Shake your head
as you will, Nelly, you have helped to unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed
you should, and compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I'm burning! I wish I were out of doors! I
wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and laughing at injuries, not
maddening under them! Why am I so changed? why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at
a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open
the window again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don't you move?
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Page 39
Jane Eyre
A monologue from the novel by Charlotte Brontë
JANE: There was I, then, mounted aloft, condemned to stand on that stool for the remainder
of the day. I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the
middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my
sensations were no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and
constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a
strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How
the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and
imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a
firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith,
was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she
again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine
intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eyes,
like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm
"the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a
dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out.
Such is the imperfect nature of man! Such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet;
and eyes like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full
brightness of the orb.
Jane Eyre #2
A monologue from the novel by Charlotte Brontë
JANE: I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I
will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and
how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me
with miserable cruelty -- because it is the TRUTH. You think I have no feelings, and that I can
do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall
remember how you thrust me back -- roughly and violently thrust me back -- into the red-room,
and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while
suffocating with distress, "Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!" And that punishment you
made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me -- knocked me down for nothing. I will tell
anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are
bad, hard- hearted. You are deceitful! You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a
deceitful disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have
done. Send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.
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Page 40
Pride and Prejudice
A monologue from the book by Jane Austin
(Lydia has run away with Mr. Wickham. She believes they’re going to get married and hasn’t
thought at all about how her choices will negatively affect her family or her friend, Harriet
Forster.)
LYDIA: Dear Harriet, You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help
laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to
Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but
one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think
it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like
it, for it will make the surprise the greater when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia
Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to
Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will
excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet with
great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell
Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before theyare packed up. Goodbye. Give
my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey. Your Affectionate Friend,
Lydia Bennet.
Pride and Prejudice #2
A monologue from the book by Jane Austin
MRS. BENNET: You there! Inform Miss Bingley that Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are here to call
upon her! ( T o Mr. Bennet) Here is what Lizzie said in her note, my dear. "Pray do not be
alarmed. The physician was here very early and said that Jane will mend nicely if she
remains in bed. He absolutely forbade her being moved for several days, perhaps a week.She
is being given every attention, and I do not leave her side." I am delighted at this event!
She is in no danger from a trifling little fever! And she is right where I want her to be ...
Surely you saw that Mr. Bingley was captivated by Jane!
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Page 41
Pride and Prejudice #3
A monologue from the book by Jane Austin
CAROLINE: At last! Miss Bennet is well enough to leave her room! After a week of having
two extra people in the house, my nerves are exhausted! Jane is quite well enough to return
home, although I doubt if dear Elizabeth will allow it. Jane is a sweet girl, but her shrewish
sister is more than I can bear! The airs she puts on. She thinks of herself as quite the
intellectual! Charles, I know you like them, and I do myself like Jane immensely. I heartily
wish she could be well married, but with such a family and no dowry, there is not a chance of
it.
Pride and Prejudice #4
A monologue from the book by Jane Austin
ELIZABETH: The unsuitableness of our union! Yes, it is unsuitable indeed! (Trying to calm
herself.) I believe that courtesy demands that I thank you for your proposal, and if I could
feel gratitude, I would. But you have bestowed your love very unwillingly, and I have
received it even more unwillingly! I am certain that your disappointment will be short-lived!
Ever since the first moment of our acquaintance, your selfish disdain for the feelings of
others, your pride, your insolence have disgusted me! If for no other reason, your treatment
of Mr. Wickham would turn me from you. HE is a gentleman!
Call of the Revolution
From the play by Leonid Andreyev
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.] … 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! 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!
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Page 42
Don Garcia of Navarre
From the play by Molière
ELVIRA: Listen to me a little longer, and you shall know what I have resolved. It is necessary
that our fates should be decided. You are now upon the brink of a great precipice; you will
either fall over it, or save yourself, according to the resolution you shall take. If,
notwithstanding what you have seen, Prince, you act towards me as you ought, and ask no
other proof but that I tell you you are wrong; if you readily comply with my wishes and are
willing to believe me innocent upon my word alone, and no longer yield to every suspicion, but
blindly believe what my heart tells you; then this submission, this proof of esteem, shall cancel
all your offenses; I instantly retract what I said when excited by well-founded anger. And if
hereafter I can choose for myself, without prejudicing what I owe to my birth, then my honour,
being satisfied with the respect you so quickly show, promises to reward your love with my
heart and my hand. But listen now to what I say. If you care so little for my offer as to refuse
completely to abandon your jealous suspicions; if the assurance which my heart and birth give
you do not suffice; if the mistrust that darkens your mind compels me, though innocent, to
convince you, and to produce a clear proof of my offended virtue, I am ready to do so, and you
shall be satisfied; but you must then renounce me at once, and forever give up all pretensions
to my hand. I swear by Him who rules the Heavens, that, whatever fate may have in store for
us, I will rather die than be yours! I trust these two proposals may satisfy you; now choose
which of the two pleases you.
The Miser
From the play by Moliere
FROSIN: Who needs a dowry?! Why, this girl will bring you more than twelve thousand francs
a year! To begin with, she has been nursed and brought up with the strictest notions of
frugality. She is a girl accustomed to live upon salad, milk, cheese, and apples, and who
consequently will require neither a well served up table, nor any rich broth, nor your everlasting
peeled barley; none, in short, of all those delicacies that another woman would want. This is no
small matter, and may well amount to three thousand francs yearly. Besides this, she only cares
for simplicity and neatness; she will have none of those splendid dresses and rich jewels, none
of that sumptuous furniture in which girls like her indulge so extravagantly; and this item is
worth more than four thousand francs per annum. Lastly, she has the deepest aversion to
gambling; and this is not very common nowadays among women. Why, I know of one in our
neighborhood who lost at least twenty thousand francs this year. But let us reckon only a fourth
of that sum. Five thousand francs a year at play and four thousand in clothes and jewels make
nine thousand; and three thousand francs which we count for food, does it not make you
twelve thousand francs?
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Page 43
Psyche
From the play by Moliere
PSYCHE: Princes, you both display to my eyes a choice so precious and dazzling that it would
satisfy the proudest heart. But your passion, your friendship, your supreme virtue, all increase
the value of your vows of fidelity, and make it a merit that I should oppose myself to what you
ask of me. I must not listen to my heart only before engaging in such a union, but my hand
must await my father's decision before it can dispose of itself, and my sisters have rights
superior to mine. But if I were referred absolutely to my own wishes, you might both have too
great a share in them, and my entire esteem be so evenly balanced between you that I should
not be able to decide in favour of either. I would indeed respond with most affectionate interest
to the ardour of your suit, but amid so much merit two hearts are too much for me, one heart
too little for you. The accomplishment of my dearest wishes would be to me a burden were it
granted to me by your love. Yes, Princes, I should greatly prefer you to all those whose love will
follow yours, but I could never have the heart to prefer one of you to the other. My tenderness
would be too great a sacrifice to the one whom I might choose, and I should think myself
barbarously unjust to inflict so great a wrong upon the other. Indeed, you both possess such
greatness of soul that it would be wrong to make either of you miserable, and you must seek in
love the means of being both happy. If your hearts honour me enough to give me the right of
disposing of them, I have two sisters well fitted to please, who might make your destinies
happy, and whom friendship endears to me enough for me to wish that you should be their
husbands.
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray
From the play by Arthur Wing Pinero
PAULA: Hah! That's where we've made the mistake, my friend Aubrey! Do you believe these
people will ever come round us? Your former crony, Mrs. Cortelyon? Or the grim old vicar, or
that wife of his whose huge nose is positively indecent? Or the Ullathornes, or the Gollans, or
Lady William Petres? I know better! And when the young ones gradually take the place of the
old, there will still remain the sacred tradition that the dreadful person who lives at the top of
the hill is never, under any circumstances, to be called upon! And so we shall go on here, year
in and year out, until the sap is run out of our lives, and we're stale and dry and withered from
sheer, solitary respectability. Upon my word, I wonder we didn't see that we should have been
far happier if we'd gone in for the devil-may-care, café-living sort of life in town! After all, I
have a set, and you might have joined it. It's true, I did want, dearly, dearly, to be a married
woman, but where's the pride in being a married woman among married women who are . . .
married!
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Page 44
Bernice
From the play by Susan Glaspell
ABBIE: Wednesday night, about eight o'clock, about an hour after she told me to telegraph
you, she said, "Why, Abbie, I believe I'm going to die." I said no, but she said, "I think so." I
said we'd send for Mr. Norris. She said no, and not to frighten her father. I -- I didn't think she
was going to die. All the time I was trying to get the doctor. There were two hours when she
was -- quiet. Quiet -- not like any quiet I ever knew. Thinking. You could see thinking in her
eyes -- stronger than sickness. Then, after ten, she called me to her. She took my hands. She
said, "Abbie, you've lived with me all my life." "Yes," I said. "You love me." "Oh, yes," I said.
"Will you do something for me?" "You know I will," I told her. "Abbie," she said, looking right at
me, all of her looking right at me, "if I die, I want you to tell my husband I killed myself." I
thought it was her mind. But I looked at her, and oh, her mind was there! It was terrible -- how
it was all there. She said -- and then she [The sobs she has been holding back almost keep
ABBIE from saying this] -- held out her hands to me -- "Oh, Abbie, do this last thing for me!
After all there has been, I have a right to do it. If my life is going -- let me have this much from
it!" And as still I couldn't -- couldn't -- the tears ran down her face and she said, "I want to rest
before pain comes again. Promise me so I can rest." And I promised. And you would have too!
The Weavers
From the play by Gerhart Hauptmann
LUISE: Has lost all control of herself.] You an' your piety an' religion -- did they serve to keep
the life in my poor children? In rags an' dirt they lay, all the four -- it did n't as much as keep
them dry. Yes! I set up to be a mother, that's what I do -- an' if you'd like to know it, that's why
I would send all the manufacturers to hell -- because I'm a mother! -- Not one of the four could
I keep in life! It was cryin' more than breathin' with me from the time each poor little thing
come into the world till death took pity on it. The devil a bit you cared! You sat there prayin'
and singin', and let me run about till my feet bled, tryin' to get one little drop o' skim milk. How
many hundred nights have I lain an' racked my head to think what I could do to cheat the
churchyard of my little one? What harm has a baby like that done that it must come to such a
miserable end -- eh? An' over there at Dittrich's they're bathed in wine an' washed in milk. No!
you may talk as you like, but if they begin here, ten horses won't hold me back. An' what's
more -- if there's a rush on Dittrich's, you'll see me in the forefront of it -- an' pity the man as
tries to prevent me -- I've stood it long enough, so now you know it.
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Page 45
The Cradle Song
From the play by Gregorio Martinez Sierra
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! You mustn't be angry with me, Mother. Look at me! It isn't wrong, I
know. Loving him, I . . . he is so good, so good . . . and good, it cannot pass away! One day he
said to me: "I love you because you know how to pray." Don't you see? And another time: "I
feel a devotion toward you as toward some holy thing." He! Devotion! To me! And whenever I
think of that, it seems to me as if I was just growing better, as if all at once I was capable of
everything there was to do or suffer in the world--so as to always have him feel that way!
The Vultures
From the play by Henry Becque
MRS. DESAINT-GENIS: Child that you are to speak of dying at your age! Come, get up and
listen to me now. I see that you really do love my son more than I thought, if you still cling to a
boy who is almost poverty-stricken. But if I should consent to this marriage, in a year--yes, in
six months, you would bitterly reproach me for my weakness. Love would pass, but you would
have a household still. What do you think would be your lot then? Shabby, worried, vulgar,
nursing your children yourself, while your discontented husband would be reproaching you all
the time on account of the sacrifice he had made for you. Do what I ask. Make the sacrifice
yourself instead. Can't you see how different all will be then? George will not have abandoned
you; it will be you who have dismissed him generously. He will be under obligation to you. You
will hold forever a place way down deep in his heart. Men always remain sensitive to the
memory of a woman they have truly loved, even for an hour. It is so rare! And what will
happen to you after that? I'll tell you. Little by little the love for my son, which seems so
tremendous to you just now, will disappear. Yes; quicker than you think. You are young, pretty,
full of charm for young men. Ten, yes, twenty young fellows will come along. You will chose,
not the most attractive, but the one who is best off. And on your wedding day you will think of
me and say to yourself: "Mrs. de Saint-Genis was right."
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Page 46
Enigma
From the play by Floyd Dell
SHE: I know you hate me. You have a right to. Not just because I was faithless--but because I
was cruel. I don't want to excuse myself--but I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't realize I
was hurting you. Yes. I've said that before. And you've answered me that that excuse might
hold for the first time, but not for the second and the third. You've convicted me of deliberate
cruelty on that. And I've never had anything to say. I couldn't say anything, because the truth
was ... too preposterous. It wasn't any use telling it before. But now I want you to know the
real reason. Something I've never confessed to you. Yes. It is true that I was cruel to you-deliberately. I did want to hurt you. And do you know why? I wanted to shatter that Olympian
serenity of yours. You were too strong, too self-confident. You had the air of a being that
nothing could hurt. You were like a god. You are still Olympian. And I still hate you for it. I wish
I could make you suffer now. But I have lost my power to do that. You sit there--making
phrases. Oh, I have hurt you a little; but you will recover. You always recovered quickly. You
are not human. If you were human, you would remember that we once were happy, and be a
little sorry that all that is over. But you can't be sorry. You have made up your mind, and can
think of nothing but that. do you remember when we fell in love? No--it happened to me. It
didn't happen to you. You made up your mind and walked in, with the air of a god on a holiday.
It was I who fell--headlong, dizzy, blind. I didn't want to love you. It was a force too strong for
me. It swept me into your arms. I prayed against it. I had to give myself to you, even though I
knew you hardly cared. I had to--for my heart was no longer in my own breast. It was in your
hands, to do what you liked with. You could have thrown it in the dust. It pleased you not to.
You put it in your pocket. But don't you realize what it is to feel that another person has
absolute power over you? No, for you have never felt that way. You have never been utterly
dependent on another person for happiness. I was utterly dependent on you. It humiliated me,
angered me. I rebelled against it, but it was no use. I was in love with you. And you were free,
and your heart was your own, and nobody could hurt you. When I found out that I could hurt
you, I could hardly believe it. It wasn't possible. Why, you had said a thousand times that you
would not be jealous if I were in love with some one else, too. It was you who put the idea in
my head. It seemed a part of your super-humanness. And the moment I first realized that it
might be hurting you--that you were human after all--I stopped. You know I stopped. Can't you
understand? I stopped because I thought you were a person like myself, suffering like myself. It
wasn't easy to stop. It tore me to pieces. But I suffered rather than let you suffer. And then
when I saw you recover your serenity in a day while the love that I had struck down in my
heart for your sake cried out in a death agony for months, I felt again that you were superior,
inhuman--and I hated you for it. And when the next time came, I wanted to see if it was real,
this godlike serenity of yours. I wanted to tear off the mask. I wanted to see you suffer as I had
suffered. And that is why I was cruel to you the second time. And the third. There will be no
more joy or pain of love for me. You do not believe that. But that part of me which loves is
dead. Do you think I have come through all this unhurt? No. I cannot hope any more, I cannot
believe. There is nothing left for me. All I have left is regret for the happiness that you and I
have spoiled between us ... Oh, why did you ever teach me your Olympian philosophy? Why did
you make me think that we were gods and could do whatever we chose? If we had realized
that we were only weak human beings, we might have saved our happiness!
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Page 47
A Curious Mishap
From the play by Carlo Goldoni
GIANNINA: I do not believe you have so little resolution as not to be able to control your
passion, and you do me injustice if you think I cannot resist the inclinations of my heart. I own
my love for you without a blush: this virtuous love, I feel, will never leave me, and I cannot
persuade myself a man is less able than I am to sustain with glory the conflict of his passions. I
can love you without danger; it is happiness enough for me to see you. You, on the contrary,
by determining to depart, go in quest of more easy enjoyment, and show that your obstinacy
prevails over your love. It is said hope always comforts a lover. He who will not use the means
proves he cares but little for the end, and, if you go, you will still suffer the tortures of
disappointed desire; you will act either with culpable weakness, or unfeeling indifference.
Whatever cause hurries you away, go, proud of your resolution, but be at least ashamed of
your cruelty.
Vermin
From Franz Kafka’s book, “Metamorphosis”
MOTHER: My poor child, turned into some monstrous vermin, has been gravely injured by my
husband! Seeing him towering over Gregor, slowly lifting the black sole of his shoe to end our
son’s life… My asthma has made this situation altogether worse. Where are his affections for
Gregor? Recently, I had visited his den, a small cove with sticky green slime dripping from the
sides of the walls, and found no Gregor. He probably hid; I would have called to him, but his
mind certainly has become bug-like. I then thoroughly cleaned his room, but my husband and
daughter reproached me for it. Because every start I make towards Gregor’s room leads to
protests by my husband and daughter, I devote my time to them instead. I feel happy with my
husband, so strong, firm, powerful, and my daughter, compassionate and emotional. She is not
the useless daughter my husband had said. Soon after Gregor’s unfortunate transformation, I
became obliged to find a job. As a worker at a fashion shop, I make a small living. Barely do I
make any money – compared to the income we made before Gregor’s metamorphosis.
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Page 48
While the Auto Waits
From the play by O. Henry
GIRL: I will excuse the remark you have just made because the mistake was, doubtless, not an
unnatural one—in your circle. I asked you to sit down; if the invitation must constitute me your
honeysuckle, consider it withdrawn. Now, tell me about these people passing and crowding,
each way, along these paths. Where are they going? Why do they hurry so? Are they happy?
How fascinating they seem to me—rushing about with their petty little dreams and their
common worries! I come here to sit because here, only, can I be near the great, common,
throbbing heart of humanity. My part in life is cast where its beating is never felt. Can you
surmise why I spoke to you, Mr. Parkenstacker? It is simply impossible to keep one's name out
of the papers. Or even one's portrait. This veil and this hat—my maid’s, of course—are my only
protection. They furnish me with an incog. You should have seen the chauffeur staring when he
thought I did not see. Candidly, there are five or six names that belong in the holy of holies,
and mine, by the accident of birth, is one of them. I spoke to you, Mr. Stackenpot, because I
wanted to talk, for once, with a natural man—a real man—one unspoiled by the despicable
gloss of wealth and supposed social superiority. Oh! You have no idea how weary I am of it—
money, money, money! And of the men who surround me, dancing like little marionettes all cut
from the same pattern. I am sick of pleasure, of jewels, of travel, of society, of luxuries of all
kinds! A competence is to be desired, certainly. But when you have so many millions that—!
[She concludes the sentence with a gesture of despair.] It is the monotony of it that palls.
Drives, dinners, theatres, balls, suppers, balls, dinners, more balls, followed of course by
dinners and suppers, with the gilding of superfluous wealth over it all. Sometimes the very
tinkle of the ice in my champagne glass nearly drives me mad. You must understand that we of
the non-useful class depend for our amusement upon departure from precedent. Just now it is
a fad to put ice in champagne. The idea was originated by a visiting Prince of Tartary while
dining at the Waldorf. It will soon give way to some other whim. Just as, at a dinner party this
week on Madison Avenue, a green kid glove was laid by the plate of each guest to be put on
and used while eating olives. These special diversions of the inner circle do not become familiar
to the common public, of course. We are drawn to that which we do not understand. For my
part, I have always thought that if I should ever love a man it would be one of lowly station.
One who is a worker and not a drone. But, doubtless, the claims of caste and wealth will prove
stronger than my inclination. Just now I am besieged by two suitors. One is Grand Duke of a
German principality. I think he has, or has had, a wife, somewhere, driven mad by his
intemperance and cruelty. The other is an English Marquis, so cold and mercenary that I prefer
even the diabolical nature of the Duke. What is it that impels me to tell you these things, Mr.
Packenwacker? I am sure you understand when I say there are certain expectations of a young
lady in my position. It would be such a disappointment to certain members of my family if I
were to marry a commoner as we like to call them. You simply cannot imagine the scandal it
would cause. All the magazines would remark upon it. I might even be cut off from the family
fortune. And yet … no calling could be too humble were the man I loved all that I wish him to
be.
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Page 49
Their Only Child
From the play by Laura M. Williams
MOTHER: Ralphie, come here. Come to Mother, darling. I want you to sing for Miss Harris. [To
MISS HARRIS.] Wouldn't you like to hear him? Ralphie, you can play with your choo-choos
later. Mother wants you to imitate Mrs. Jones. Yes, you do, dear, the lady with the red hair,
don't you remember? Of course you do. [To MISS HARRIS.] Isn't it perfectly killing to see him?
He can imitate anybody. We encourage him because he has such a wonderful talent. Ralphie,
are you coming to Mother? Mrs. Jones, dear, you did it this morning for Papa. [To MISS
HARRIS.] Mrs. Jones was here yesterday and Ralphie mimicked her at breakfast. I thought
George would choke. It was so funny. Ralphie, please show Miss Harris. Don't take your tie off,
darling. I know, sweetheart, Mrs. Jones doesn't wear ties, but you can sing with it on. Well,
dear, take it off then if you want to. [Sharply.] Don't tear it. [Stoops for tie.] Not your collar.
Then give it to Mama. Ralphie, pass it to Mama. [Stoops for collar.] Naughty boy. Now, Ralphie,
sing for Miss Harris. [To MISS HARRIS, laughing.] Isn't that funny? Oh, isn't that funny? He
imitates everyone. We ought to put him on the stage but George won't hear of it. That's
enough, Ralphie. Ralphie, that is enough. Ralphie! [Slaps hands together.] Mama said enough.
Yes, dear, I forgot that one. [To MISS HARRIS.] Wouldn't you like to see him walk like Charlie
Chaplin? [To RALPH.] Yes, dear, she says she would. [Laughs.] Isn't he the funniest child you
ever saw? He's a whole vaudeville show. He ought to be in the movies but George won't allow
that. Run along and play. Yes, we see you. Yes, Ralphie, we see you. Ralph, go play with your
choo-choos, there's a good boy. Mama hasn't any candy, no, no candy to-day. Why, Ralphie,
Mama never knew you to act like this, and Miss Harris has come to spend the day with us too.
What will she think of Mama's little boy? No, Ralphie. [Wavers.] Will you be a good boy if I give
you a nickel? Well, be careful, dearie, and don't buy any of those licorice drops. You know they
made you sick the day before yesterday and I said then, Ralphie, you'd never have another
penny from Mama. Buy an ice-cream horn, dearie. [Sighs.] Then buy what you like, Ralph, only
don't bring those licorice drops in the house. If you do Mama will give you castor oil again, yes
she will. [To MISS HARRIS.] Don't you think the child has remarkable talent? I can't see where
he gets it from. It's an art. I could never mimic anyone and George [smiles], well, he's just
George always. I don't know what we'll do with Ralphie, his mind is so mature. It rather worries
me at times. I wish sometimes he were more like ordinary children. [To RALPHIE.] Why,
Ralphie, you ran all the way. Why did you? Hasn't Mother told you not to run like that? Come
here. Ralph Kinney, I told you not to buy those! Didn't Mother tell you not to bring those things
into this house, didn't she? Well, why don't you like something else? Give them to Mother--this
minute. [Smiles.] What? Why, honey lamb, Mother isn't cross. She knows those candies aren't
good for you. Well, one, don't you eat them all. Put them in your pocket. That's it. [Kisses him,
puts candy in pocket.] Run along. [To MISS HARRIS.] I don't suppose they will hurt him, but I
have to be so careful. Ralphie, don't stand on your head. Ralphie! All the blood will rush to your
brain. Stop it! [Rises and rights RALPH.] [To MISS HARRIS.] What were you saying, oh yes,
about Emma. What has she done now? [To RALPH.] Yes, dear, we see you. [To MISS HARRIS.]
What were you saying? Ralphie, what are you doing? Stop it. [To MISS HARRIS.] I'm so sorry.
He's only a little child. Ralphie, do you think Miss Harris looks like that? [Laughing; to MISS
HARRIS.] Please don't mind. He can't help it. He means no offense. Ralphie, Miss Harris doesn't
limp like that. Oh--[bursts into laughter] he's copying you per-perfectly. Isn't it funny? [Laughs.]
[Sobering.] Eh? Don't be angry. Ralphie mimics me and his father. Of course he exaggerates.
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Page 50
Yes, you do when you're excited. Nothing escapes that child's attention. But, Miss Harris [rises
and follows her], how silly to be so sensitive. But there isn't a thing to apologize for.
[Indignantly.] I know what I'm doing. I shall not suppress my boy's talent for you or anybody. I
think you are behaving very childish over this. Ralphie isn't to blame that you squint and limp.
[Coldly.] Well, if you feel that way I am very sorry, but I can't see how anyone could be
offended at a little child. [Stops short.] Oh, then good-bye, Miss Harris. Come, Ralphie, do it
again for Mama.
A Bill from the Milliner
From the play by May Isabel Fisk
WOMAN: Katie! Katie, has she gone? What did she say? Tell me every word.... Oh, oh, oh!
Katie, you oughtn't to have told me that.... Well, I know I told you to tell me, but-- Never mind;
it's all right. What else did she say?... Oh, the wretch! That she would send and take the hat
back if she wasn't paid by tomorrow morning? So vulgar of her--bringing the bill herself. I never
heard of such a thing.... And she said I was no lady? She's a beast! To think I've been buying
my hats all this time from such a low woman. Katie--you're sure Mr. Carson didn't hear a
word?... Oh, Katie, what do you think she can do to me? Do you think she could put me in
prison, just for a few hats?... No, Katie, you're a good girl, but you can't help me. Only, don't
you ever let that dreadful woman in again. That's all, Katie. I--I--almost thought I'd paid that
other bill. I--I--I'm pretty sure I thought I had when I bought this other hat. Well, why
shouldn't she let me have it--she's got a whole store full of hats! If I had the money I'd give it
to her. Now, she has the hats--why shouldn't she let me have one? The world is full of horrid
people who are always wanting money, money, money. Perhaps I'd better just look over those
perfectly awful accounts again and see if I can make them come out different. Different! That's
just the trouble. I get a different answer every single time I go over them. And this last time I
found I had $87 left by the accounts, but I hadn't a cent in my pocketbook. And last week the
accounts said I oughtn't to have had any money left--and I did. I had $10. Oh, I wonder where
it is. Oh, I guess I've spent it. I wish I hadn't paid the grocer. He's such a nice man I'm sure he
wouldn't have minded waiting if I'd told him about the hats.
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Page 51
Keeping a Seat at the Benefit
From the play by May Isabel Fisk
WOMAN: Got a seat! Got a seat ... I beg your pardon, I'm keeping this seat for a friend. Oh
my! I--I-- How dreadful! I thought it was the friend I'm waiting for. I don't know how I could
have made such a mistake, but, don't you know, so many women seem to look alike with their
hats on! So stupid! Boy, boy, programme boy, what time is it?... Five minutes of two? They are
to commence at two, aren't they?... Well, they never do commence on time, do they?... Come
back; wait a minute. Now, do you mean two o'clock by your time or the time down on the
stage? Couldn't you find out? And, boy, if you see a lady in a dark skirt and a light waist, who
seems to be looking for someone, won't you please tell her I'm here, way up in the second
balcony, round by the stage? And--boy, boy, come back here! I want a programme.... I beg
your pardon, I'm keeping this seat for-- Twenty-five cents! Well, I don't want it. I never heard
of charging twenty-five cents for a programme.... I don't care if it is a benefit. Besides, all those
you want to hear never come, and they fill up with anybody, and ... I'm keeping this seat for a
friend.... No, I don't think there is any rule about it. Of coure, if the performance begins before
my friend comes, I ... It's not two o'clock yet.... Well, it may be by your watch, but it's not by
the programme boy's time, and they are going to begin by his time, and be late at that.... I
don't care to quarrel over a question of that description with an utter stranger, but I certainly
shall not give up this seat!... No, I am keeping this seat for a woman who was once my friend. I
beg you will pardon my being so upset, but that woman over there--the one in the hideous red
hat just going around the corner--fairly insulted me because I wouldn't give up these seats....
Yes, yes--I'd be very glad to have your little boy sit here while you look for seats. You see,
when you are really sitting in them they can't turn you out. What a dear little man he is! I'm so
fond of children.... All right, take your time.... Yes, you can hold the umbrella, but don't thump
on the floor with it. Ouch! That went right on my foot. Don't do that again.... Oh, I wouldn't do
that--little gentlemen don't put umbrella handles in their mouths. That isn't nice for little men to
stand in seats.... Well, perhaps your mamma does let you, but you shant do it while you're with
me. Now, get down--get down!... Don't cry! Don't cry! Don't scream so! Everybody is looking at
us.... Stand up again if you want to--eat the umbrella if you like, but stop screaming, you
naughty boy, give me my umbrella. You are very, very wicked--you will never go to heaven,
you dreadful child!
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Page 52
Chitra
From the play by Rabindranath Tagore
CHITRA: At evening I lay down on a grassy bed strewn with the petals of spring flowers, and
recollected the wonderful praise of my beauty I had heard from Arjuna; --drinking drop by drop
the honey that I had stored during the long day. The history of my past life like that of my
former existences was forgotten. I felt like a flower, which has but a few fleeting hours to listen
to all the humming flatteries and whispered murmurs of the woodlands and then must lower its
eyes from the sky, bend its head and at a breath give itself up to the dust without a cry, thus
ending the short story of a perfect moment that has neither past nor future. The southern
breeze caressed me to sleep. From the flowering Malati bower overhead silent kisses dropped
over my body. On my hair, my breast, my feet, each flower chose a bed to die on. I slept. And,
suddenly in the depth of my sleep, I felt as if some intense eager look, like tapering fingers of
flame, touched my slumbering body. I started up and saw the Hermit standing before me. The
moon had moved to the west, peering through the leaves to espy this wonder of divine art
wrought in a fragile human frame. The air was heavy with perfume; the silence of the night was
vocal with the chirping of crickets; the reflections of the trees hung motionless in the lake; and
with his staff in his hand he stood, tall and straight and still, like a forest tree. It seemed to me
that I had, on opening my eyes, died to all realities of life and undergone a dream birth into a
shadow land. Shame slipped to my feet like loosened clothes. I heard his call -- "Beloved, my
most beloved!" And all my forgotten lives united as one and responded to it. I said, "Take me,
take all I am!" And I stretched out my arms to him. The moon set behind the trees. One curtain
of darkness covered all. Heaven and earth, time and space, pleasure and pain, death and life
merged together in an unbearable ecstasy. . . . With the first gleam of light, the first twitter of
birds, I rose up and sat leaning on my left arm. He lay asleep with a vague smile about his lips
like the crescent moon in the morning. The rosy red glow of the dawn fell upon his noble
forehead. I sighed and stood up. I drew together the leafy lianas to screen the streaming sun
from his face. I looked about me and saw the same old earth. I remembered what I used to be,
and ran and ran like a deer afraid of her own shadow, through the forest path strewn with
shephali flowers. I found a lonely nook, and sitting down covered my face with both hands, and
tried to weep and cry. But no tears came to my eyes.
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Page 53
The Country Wife
From the play by William Wycherley
MRS. PINCHWIFE: ‘For Master Horner' -- So, I am glad he has told me his name. Dear
Master Horner! But why should I send thee such a letter that will vex thee and make thee angry
with me? -- Well, I will not send it. -- Ay, but then my husband will kill me -- for I see plainly,
he won't let me love Master Horner -- but what care I for my husband? -- I won't, so I won't
send poor Master Horner such a letter -- but then my husband -- But oh, what if I writ at
bottom, my husband made me write it? -- Ay, but then my husband would see't -- Can one
have no shift [1]? Ah, a London woman would have had a hundred presently. Stay -- what if I
should write a letter, and wrap it up like this, and write upon't too? Ay, but then my husband
would see't -- I don't know what to do -- But yet i'vads [2] I'll try, so I will -- for I will not send
this letter to poor Master Horner, come what will on't. [She writes, and repeats what she hath
writ.] 'Dear Sweet Master Horner' -- so -- 'My husband would have me send you a base, rude,
unmannerly letter -- but I won't' -- so -- 'and would have me forbid you loving me -- but U
won't' -- so -- 'and would have me say to you, I hate you poor Master Horner -- but I won't tell
a lie for him' -- there -- 'for I'm sure if you and I were in the country at cards together' -- so -- I
could not help treading on your toe under the table' -- so -- 'or rubbing knees with you, and
staring in your face till you saw me' -- very well -- 'and then looking down and blushing for an
hour together' -- so -- 'but I must make haste before my husband come; and now he has
taught me to write letters, you shall have longer ones from me, who am, dear, dear, poor dear
Master Horner, your most humble friend, and servant to command till death, Margery
Pinchwife'. -- Stay, I must give him a hint at bottom -- so -- now wrap it up just like t'other -- so
-- now write 'For Master Horner'. -- But, oh now, what shall I do with it? For here comes my
husband.
The Double Dealer
From the play by William Congreve
LADY PLYANT: How can you talk of Heaven! and have so much wickedness in your heart?
May be you don't think it a sin,-----they say some of you Gentlemen don't think it a sin,-----may
be it is no sin to them that don't think it so;-----indeed, if I did not think it a sin,-----but still my
honour, if it were no sin,-----but then, to Marry my Daughter, for the convenience of frequent
opportunities,-----I'll never consent to that, as sure as can be, I'll break the Match. I know Love
is powerful, and no body can help his passion: 'Tis not your fault; nor I swear it is not mine,-how can I help it, if I have Charms? And how can you help it, if you are made a Captive? I
swear it's a pity it should be a fault,-----but my honour-----well, but your honour too-----but the
sin!-----well but the necessity-----O Lord, here's some body coming, I dare not stay. Well, you
must consider of your Crime; and strive as much as can be against it,--strive be sure-----but
don't be melancholy, don't despair,-----but never think that I'll grant you any thing; O Lord, no,----but be sure you lay aside all thoughts of the Marriage, for tho' I know you don't love
Cynthia, only as a blind for your Passion to me; yet it will make me jealous,--O Lord, what did I
say? Jealous! no, no, I can't be jealous, for I must not Love you,--therefore don't hope,--but
don't despair neither,--O, they're coming, I must fly.
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Page 54
The Fan
From the play by Carlo Goldoni
SUSANNA: Bad times, little business to be done in this village. I have as yet sold but one fan,
and that I have given for a price--really just to get rid of it. The people who can spend take
their supplies in the city. From the poor there is little to earn. I am a fool to lose my time here
in the midst of these peasants, without manners, without respect, who do not know the
difference between a shopwoman of education and those who sell milk, salad, and eggs. My
town education stands me no stead in the country. All equal, all companions, Susanna, Nina,
Margherita, Lucia; the shopkeeper, the goatherd, the peasant, all one. The two ladies yonder
are a little more considered, but little, very little. As for that impertinent Nina, because she is a
little favoured by the gentry, she thinks she is something great. They have given her a fan.
What will a peasant girl do with such a fan? Cut a dash, eh! The minx must fan herself, thus.
Much good may it do you! Why, it's ridiculous, and yet these things at times make me rage. I,
who have been well educated, I can't tolerate such absurdities.
Fourteen
From the play by Alice Gerstenberg
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!
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Page 55
Making Reuben Propose
From the play by Mayme Riddle Bitney
SUSAN BOGGS: Come in, Reuben. Have a chair. [Pause.] This is a real nice day, except fer
the wind blowin' an' bein' sort of cold, an' fer that shower we had this mornin'. Paw's real well - aside from a little touch of lumbago. Maw's enjoyin' real poor health -- sort of neuralgy in the
head. Our crop's lookin' fine. You just oughter see our taters. It beats all how they're growin'.
[Pause.] How's your mother now? Feelin' real miserable? You think she has to work too hard?
Wal, I think so, too. The truth is she needs some one to take the burden of work off 'er
shoulders. If you'd jest git married, now, an' take a good, strong wife home to help 'er -- What?
That's jest what yer folks say? Wal, I should think ye'd mind 'em long as the Bible says childrun
obey yer parents. Now there's Emmeline Gilbert. She's a good housekeeper an' -- oh, you don't
want her? Then Car'line Tayler ought to -- What? She's too cranky? Wal, it seems like there
ought ter be some one ye'd fancy, Reuben. Oh, there is some one ye want? They why don't ye
git tied up? A fellow ain't got much grit if he can't pop the question to a girl. That's what yer
folks say? Wal, they ought ter know. What? You've got something to tell me? All right. [Moves
chair as if getting closer to him.] Oh [in disappointed tone], you've bought five new cows?
[Hopefully.] Then I should think you'd jest have ter git a wife to help take care of all that extry
milk. What? You've thought that -- what is it you've thought, Reuben? [Moves chair closer.] Oh,
[very disappointed tone] you've thought you'd plant the south forty all to corn? [Cheerfully.]
That'll make extry men to cook fer when huskin' time comes. Seems like you'll have to git some
one ter help yer mother, sure. You ain't never goin' ter be hung fer yer beauty, Reuben, but
they's a lot of girls that'd be willin' ter marry ye. What? That's what yer folks say? They surely
ought ter know. They's going ter be quite a few weddin's this summer. I'm thinkin' some of
gettin' married myself. George Melcher'd be awful tickled ter git me, an' I spose I might's well
make up my mind ter take 'im. Maw don't really need me at home any longer sence Dollie's
gettin' to be so much help. What? You've thought that -- what is it you've thought, Reuben? Oh
[hopelessly], that it's real warm fer this time of year? Yes, I spose it is. I should think you'd git
married, Reuben, when so many other fellers does. That's what yer folks says? Wal, they surely
ought ter know what's best. I don't know's I'd think of takin' George Melcher if anybody else
wanted me. What? Somebody else does want me? [Very coaxingly.] Now who in the world is it?
Oh-h-h-h, you don't know? I was in hopes you'd tell me, Reuben. [Moving chair closer.] Now if
it was you that wanted me, Reuben, why -- what? You do want me? Do you mean you want ter
marry me, Reuben? You do? Wal, if that's the case, you can have me. What a fool you were not
to tell me so a long time ago! What? That's what yer folks says? Wal, they oughter know, I
guess!
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Page 56
Love and Intrigue
From the play by Friedrich Schiller
LADY MILFORD: Pray spare me. I would gladly give a jewel in exchange for every hour's
respite from such company! I always have my rooms tapestried with these creatures! --Narrowminded, miserable beings, who are quite shocked if by chance a candid and heart-felt word
should escape one's lips!--and stand aghast as though they saw an apparition--Slaves, moved
by a single puppet wire, which I can govern as easily as the threads of my embroidery!--What
can I have in common with such insipid wretches, whose souls, like their watches, are regulated
by machinery? What pleasure can I have in the society of people whose answers to my
questions I know beforehand? How can I hold communion with men, who dare not venture on
an opinion of their own, lest it should differ from mine! Away with them--I care not to ride a
horse that has not spirit enough to champ the bit!
The Big Scene
From the play by Arthur Schnitzler
SOPHIE: How can you jest about it? Don't you understand? It is over and done with forever.
Nothing remains, nothing but nauseau, no, horror, an overwhelming horror of it all. How can I
go back to him? One can go back to a man when he has failed miserably, when he has
committed a crime, when he's wounded somebody unto death; one can go back to one who is
repentant and to one who is not repentant. But a man must recognize what he's done. Herbot
doesn't recognize it. He doesn't understand me and he doesn't understand himself and he
doesn't understand anybody else. Love, hypocrisy, murder, everything which pervades reality is
of no greater moment to him than if he were playing one of his parts. He and I speak different
tongues, and there is no longer an interpreting medium between us. If, from the depths of my
despair I were to throw myself out of the window, it would merely be the end of an act for him.
The curtain falls and he goes out for his "pottle of Sec." A human being -- he? A maddened
harlequin, rather, who when occasion serves is also ready to play the human being. But no
human being he -- no.
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Page 57
Margot
From the play by Hermann Sudermann
MARGOT: But you mustn't think that I'm trying to make myself interesting, or that I stand her
before you beautifully whitened of purified! Oh, no! What I'm going to say to you now has
never been said to any one, to any man before. And you are going to despise me utterly. But I
must say it -- once, once in my life -- and then the old hypocrisy can go on again. Well, I don't
know what it is, but it's like a fire in me. No, worse, much worse! When I think of that frightful
man, my heart fairly shrivels up. And yet -- I can never get away from it. There's always a
terror, a horror in me; and yet there is always an eternal -- an eternal hunger. Yes -- a
restlessness -- a search -- the whole day long. It's strongest toward twilight. Then I want to go
out -- out into the wide world -- to fly to unknown lands. Then I think to myself -- out there, no
one knows you; out there, there is no sin. Ah, it's as if I were lashed! And I heap such
reproaches on myself because of it! Even now you have not heard the worst. I must tell you the
worst, too. Well, you know how I hate that man -- yet, sometimes it seems to me that I must
go to him -- into the arms of that beast.
Mary Magdalene
From the play by Maurice Maeterlinck
MARY MAGDALENE: He foretold this many times . . . that was because he knew the
cowardice of those who pretended to love him! . . . Ah, men are great and heroic and proud! . .
. The only men who have not fled, those who tremble least, the best of you discuss and argue
as though they had to do with a measure of wheat; and the women are silent and weep! . . .
Well, what do you say, my sisters? . . . Is not this the moment to show your love? . . . And
those whom he has healed, where are they, what are they doing? . . . You there, who want to
flee, blind Bartimaeus, the other one from Jericho, the other from Siloam: those eyes, which he
has opened, you turn from me, because I have the courage to speak to you of him! . . . You,
Simon the Leper, you, the other from Samaria, have you forgotten that, before he came, you
were more hideous than death? . . . I see nothing around me but miracles in hiding! . . . The
man whose hand was withered, the man who was healed of a dropsy on the Sabbath and the
man of Gerasa possessed by a devil, who dares not lift up his head! . . . And among the palsied,
he of Bethesda who is running to the door, using his legs only to forsake the God who healed
him! . . . Even those whom he raised from the dead are afraid! . . . Why, look at Lazarus: he is
more pale than any of you! . . . And yet you saw death, you; you lay touching it for four long
days . . . Is it more terrible than men thought? . . . You do not answer?
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Page 58
Maternity
From the play by Eugène Brieux
MADAME BERNIN: No, no, no; we are not happy, because we have worn ourselves out
hunting after happiness. We wanted to "get on," and we got on. But what a price we paid for it!
First, when we were both earning wages, our life was one long drudgery of petty economy and
meanness. When we set up on our own account we lived in an atmosphere of trickery, of
enmity, of lying; flattering the customers, and always in terror of bankruptcy. Oh, I know the
road to fortune! It means tears, lies, envy, hate; one suffers--and one makes other people
suffer. I've had to go through it: my children shan't. Instead of a husband and wife helping one
another, we have been partners spying upon one another; calling one another to account for
every little expenditure or stupidity; and on our very pillows disputing about our business.
That's how we got rich; and now we can't enjoy our money because we don't know how to use
it; and we aren't happy because our old age is made bitter by the memories and the rancor left
from the old bad days: because we have suffered too much and hated too much. My children
shall not go through this. I endured it that they might be spared. [Pause.] Goodbye.
A Modern Linguist
From the play by Laura M. Williams
MOLLY: [She speaks very bad French with an English accent and English with French gestures
and some sort of affected accent; with enthusiasm.] Oooo! Bon Jour mamsell, bon jour. Setzen
sich. [Shakes hands; starts.] What have I said? Oh, I mean sit down. That's it, isn't it? Setzen
sich. Oh, Lord, I--I beg your pardon. I'm getting my German mixed with my French. It's awfully
hard to keep them separate. [Boastingly.] I speak so many tongues. Yesterday, I said, "come
sta." [Patronizingly.] That's Italian, perhaps you know--to my French teacher, and "Guten
Morgen" to my dancing master, and he's French! [Laughs.] You're French, aren't you, Miss
Valier? I thought you were. You look French. You're so thin and you wear such short skirts. It's
awfully sweet of you. Oh, oui, oui [shrugs shoulders Frenchily], I insist it is--to answer my
'phone call this way. I want to ask a favor. Si si fraulein. [Bends forward eagerly.] You know, I
think it would be lovely if you would talk only French to me and I would speak only French to
you. It's the only way to learn. Of course I know my accent is all right. [Holds nose with fingers
and says ong-ong through nostrils, making peculiar nasal sounds.] See, right through the
nostrils. I do that splendidly.
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Page 59
The Other Danger
From the play by Maurice Donnay
CLAIRE: Ah! You would not speak that way if you had seen her; if, like me, you had held her
in your arms a miserable child, white and trembling; if, like me, you had read in her anxious
eyes the terror of my fault and the shame of her besmirched love! You would understand how I
have not had the courage--the barbarity--to tell her the cruel truth. Yes, I have promised her
everything; I have pledged my sacred word, because, above and beyond the truth, there is her
purity--her tender youth; because, above everything, there is pity. And since you speak of
crime, the real crime would have been to smite, perhaps fatally, an innocent child--do you
understand, innocent? If you don't think so, tell Madeleine yourself your resolution; tell her you
are going away, and that you will not return. If you have decided that that is your duty, assume
all the responsibility of it with her, and spare me, at least, the torture of a new explanation with
my child. Besides, I could not--I have no more strength. I am going to have her called, and you
will speak to her. [She rings the bell.]
The Peace of the Family
From the play by Guy de Maupassant
MADAME DE SALLUS: Oh, how annoying you are! Understand that this man has me in his
power, that I belong to him more than his valet, even more than his dog, that he has over me
the most horrible rights. The Code, your Code for savages, gives me to him defenseless,
without possible rebellion; except kill me, he can do anything. Do you understand that? Do you
comprehend the horror of this law? He can do anything but kill me. And he has the strength,
the strength and the police to demand everything! And I--I have no means of escaping this
man whom I hate and despise! Yes, that is your law! He took me, married me, and left me. I
have the moral right, the absolute right, to hate him. And yet, notwithstanding this legitimate
hatred, notwithstanding the disgust, the horror with which he fills me, this husband, who has
despised and deceived me, who has run before my eyes from one girl to another, at his will he
can demand of me a shameful, an infamous surrender! I have not the right to hide myself, for I
have not the right to a key to lock my door. Everything is his, key, door, and wife! It is
monstrous! To be no longer mistress of oneself, to have no longer the sacred liberty of
defending one's flesh from such defilement--is not that the most abominable law that you men
have established?
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Page 60
In And Sorrow Are Common To All
From the play by Alexander Ostrovsky
LUKERYA: Considering the type, he's a very nice man, and he loves sister very dearly. Yet
there is something so inherently bad about his calling that, judge as you will, he's still not very
far removed from a peasant. That trait of character, if you boil a man for seven years in a
kettle, you cannot boil out. Yet I must give him credit for taking good care of his house. He
doesn't give himself any rest day or night; he toils hard all the time. As for my sister, he's
willing to give her whatever her heart desires, even his last kopek, just to please her, so that
she does absolutely nothing, and lives like a lady. But his manners are boorish, and his
conversation embarrasses us very much. Altogether this is not the kind of happiness I wished
for Tanya. Judging by her beauty and the standing of her former admirers, she should now be
riding in a carriage. As it is, necessity has forced her to marry a peasant, almost for a crust of
bread, and to blush for him whenever she sees anybody. [Pause.] I must hurry home now. I
have to attend to some matters with sister. Shall I extend your greetings? Why don't you invite
sister and me to call on you? If you wish to see her, where's the obstacle? She isn't a princess
imprisoned behind ten locks. You'll go for a walk, no doubt, as you can't remain in your room.
You needn't go far. Stroll out of the rear gate of the river-bank, sit down on the bench and
enjoy the beauty of nature. It's a quiet, secluded place; few people ever go there. It's a most
delightful walk for sentimental young people. Sister and I will go that way, and there you may
be able to see her. [Pause.] Good day.
The Three Daughters of Monsieur Dupont
From the play by Eugène Brieux
JULIE: I tell you that I do not love you, and you shrug your shoulders. You say that you don't
understand, but you do! Your vanity makes you try to escape, but you shall understand. You
think I daren't speak, but I will. Do you suppose I will stay dumb and bear the kisses you give
me, kisses which I end by returning. My lips when you kiss them draw back in repulsion and yet
in the end they yield and go out to meet yours. Shall I go on? Do you understand now? You can
never again imagine the tears I shed are tears of love. They are tears of remorse and misery. I
hate you after your kisses. Our love is a duel in which I am worsted because what is best in me
turns traitor. I blush at your victories because you could never have gained them without the
help of what is base in me, without the baseness you know how to excite. It is not I who yield.
It is the animal in me. It is all that is vile. I hate you for the crime of our loveless marriage, the
crime you force me to share. I admit you are not the only guilty one, you are not the only one
worthy of contempt. But I have had enough of it. Enough of it. I will no longer spend my days
weeping over the shame of my nights. Every evening I have said I will regain my freedom. Till
now I have not dared to say the words that would release me. Now I have done it. I am free.
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Page 61
The Protégée of the Mistress
From the play by Alexander Ostrovsky
NADYA: What comparison could there be between country and city life! Everything is different
there, in the city; the people themselves, and even the whole social order are entirely different.
When I was in Petersburg with the mistress, one had only to take a look at the sort of people
who came to see us, and at the way our rooms were decorated; besides, the mistress took me
with her everywhere; we even went on the steamer to Peterhof, and to Tsarskoe Selo. Yes
indeed, it was so splendid that words can't describe it! Because, no matter how much I may tell
you about it, if you haven't seen it yourself, you'll never understand. And when a yound lady,
the mistress's niece, was visiting us, I used to chat with her the whole evening--for the most
part about the ways of high society, about her dancing partners, and about the officers of the
guard. And as she was often at balls, she told me what they talked about there, and whom she
had liked best. Only how fine those young ladies are! They're very gay. And where did they
learn all that? Afterwards we lived a whole winter in Moscow. Seeing all this, my dear, you try
to act like a born lady yourself. Your very manners change, and you try to have a way of talking
of your own. You see, the ladies promised to marry me off, so I am trying to educate myself, so
that no one'll be ashamed to take me. You know what sort of wives our officials have; well,
what a lot they are! And I understand life and society ten times better than they do. Now I
have just one hope: to marry a good man, so I may be the mistress of my own household. You
just watch then how I'll manage the home; it will be no worse at my house than at a fine lady's.
What a joy it would be to marry a really fine man! I, thank God, am able to distinguish between
people: who is good, who bad. That's easy to see at once from their manners and conversation.
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Page 62
Spring Awakening
From the play by Frank Wedekind
ILSE: Last Carnival I went for three days and three nights without getting into bed, or even out
of my clothes. From masquerade ball to café; noontimes at Bellavista, evenings at the cabaret,
nights to another ball! Lena was along, and fatty Viola. -- The third night, Henry found me. He'd
stumbled over my arm. I was lying senseless in the gutter-snow. -- So then I joined up with
him. For two weeks I never left his lodgings. That was a horrible time! -- Mornings I had to
throw on his Persian dressing-gown, and evenings walk about the room in a black page's
costume--white lace at the collar, cuffs, and knees. Every day he'd photograph me in a new
arrangement: one time on the back of the sofa, as Ariadne, another time as Leda, another as
Ganymede, and once on all fours as a female Nebuchadnezzar. And then he would rave about
killing--about shooting, suicide, and charcoal fumes. Early mornings he'd bring a pistol into bed,
load it full of cartridges and poke it into my breast: one wink, and I'll fire! --Oh, he would have
fired, Moritz; he would have fired! -- Then he'd stick the thing in his mouth like a bean-shooter.
Brrr! The bullet would have gone through my spine. Over the bed was a mirror let into the
ceiling. You saw yourself actually hanging down from the sky. I had the most frightful dreams
at night. God, O God! One day when he went to get some absynth I threw my cloak on and
slipped out into the street. The Carnival was over. The police snapped me up. What was I after
in men's clothes? -- They took me to headquarters, and there came Nohl, Fehrendorf, Padinsky,
Spühler, Oikonomopulos, the whole Priapia, and bailed me out. In a cab they transported me to
Adolar's studio. Ever since I've been true to the gang. Fehrendorf is a monkey, Nohl is a pig,
Boyokevitch an owl, Loison a hyena, Oikonomopulos a camel--but that's why I love them one
and all the same, and don't care to take up with anyone else, though the world were full of
archangels and millionaires!
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Page 63
The Next Mrs. Jacob Anderson
From the play by Ann Wuehler
MRS. ANDERSON: Adults are never honest. Let’s be children. Let’s throw rocks, let’s weep
and say everything we actually think. Why do you love him? He says you can’t find a job right
now. He says you’re so pretty and so nice. Nice-- you’re what every man wants a woman to be.
Nice. [Mrs. Andersen smiles very gently at Lisa, beckons her closer. Lisa does not move.] Here
we are...both picking out vegetables for the same man. Well...Lisa, is it? What a cheerleader
sort of name. Do you cheerlead for him now? Tell him he’s the best, the brightest, the bravest?
I can see you doing it. With pompoms in your hands. With that little flippy skirt. You’d look nice
in navy. [Sighs. But still steady and calm.] I once had a name. But now it’s bitch and secondbest. It’s Mrs. Andersen. Why would you give up your name? Why would you let him erase it
from your head with his acid? His sweet...numbing acid...I’ll take care of you, I’ll take care of
everything. All I want is a confession. Is that so hard? Can you face me and confess...confess
how you love my husband? [Lisa puts her hand into the vegetables. She examines them.] It’s
hard, isn’t it. Sleeping with him is easy. Telling me about it...difficult. The second Mrs. Jacob
Andersen. There are many nameless women behind you...many before you. You are not the
only one. And what a beautiful love story. We met, we fought it, we fucked. Spare, succinct, to
the point. Nothing flowery or pretty. Just bodies and selfishness. I looked in the mirror one day.
I looked and I could not see myself. I had no face, no features. There was only...Mrs. Jacob
Andersen...a wife, a woman with no children, a woman who helps out in her church.
Shh...listen. You see...I had a sort of vision. A presentiment...a feeling of doom. Not for me...for
you. For all women like you. Women who give up their identities....their souls...the secret
sweetness of their hearts. I saw in my mirror many women...of all sizes, all shapes. With kinky
hair, with straight, with curly and short. With wide dark faces, narrow pale ones, and every sort
of face in between... All these different, glorious women. And then came this mist, this fog. It
covered them, every one. And it took their faces and made them all the same. And I was so
afraid...so afraid. Because they were dead. They had given up their faces, their names...and
now they were dead in that mist. And they were lost. As I was lost since I was fourteen.
Someday, it's going to be you here in my place, a name with nothing to it, looking at a young,
stupid woman. Because it won't end with you. Jacob always tires of his new toys.
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Page 64
The Possessed
From the novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky
VARVARA: Stay, hold your tongue, don't be in a hurry! You're a sensible girl, and there must
be no mistakes in your life. Now ... though you will have money under my will, yet when I die,
what will become of you, even if you have money? You'll be deceived and robbed of your
money, you'll be lost in fact. But married to him you're the wife of a distinguished man. Look at
him on the other hand. Though I've provided for him, if I die what will become of him? But I
could trust him to you. Stay, I've not finished. He's frivolous, shilly-shally, cruel, egoistic, he has
low habits. But mind you think highly of him, in the first place because there are many worse. I
don't want to get you off my hands by marrying you to a rascal, you don't imagine anything of
that sort, do you? He's an old woman, but you know, that's all the better for you. You
understand me, don't you? Do you understand me? He will complain of you, he'll begin to say
things against you behind your back, he'll whisper things against you to any stray person he
meets, he'll be for ever whining and whining; he'll write you letters from one room to another,
two a day, but he won't be able to get on without you all the same, and that's the chief thing.
Make him obey you. If you can't make him you'll be a fool. He'll want to hang himself and
threaten, to--don't you believe it. It's nothing but nonsense. Don't believe it; but still keep a
sharp look-out, you never can tell, and one day he may hang himself. It does happen with
people like that. It's not through strength of will but through weakness that people hang
themselves, and so never drive him to an extreme, that's the first rule in married life. Of course
I'm not forcing you. It's entirely for you to decide. Sit down--I haven't finished. In my will I've
left you fifteen thousand roubles. I'll give you that at once, on your wedding-day. You will give
eight thousand of it to him; that is, not to him but to me. He has a debt of eight thousand. I'll
pay it, but he must know that it is done with your money. You'll have seven thousand left in
your hands. Never let him touch a farthing of it. Don't pay his debts ever. If you pay them,
you'll never be free of them. Besides, I shall always be here. You shall have twelve hundred
roubles a year from me, with extras, fifteen hundred, besides board and lodging, which shall be
at my expense, just as he has it now. Only you must set up your own servants. Your yearly
allowance shall be paid to you all at once straight into your hands. But be kind, and sometimes
give him something, and let his friends come to see him once a week, but if they come more
often, turn them out. Of course, I shall be here, too. And if I die, your pension will go on till his
death, do you hear, till his death, for it's his pension, not yours. And besides the seven
thousand you'll have now, which you ought to keep untouched if you're not foolish, I'll leave
you another eight thousand in my will. And you'll get nothing more than that from me, it's right
that you should know it. Come, you consent, eh? Will you say something at last?
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Quality Street
A monologue from the play by J.M. Barrie
MISS SUSAN: Phoebe, I have a wedding gift for you. It has been ready for a long time. I
began it when you were not ten years old and I was a young woman. I meant it for myself,
Phoebe. I had hoped that he -- his name was William -- but I must have been too unattractive,
my love. I always associate it with a sprigged poplin I was wearing that summer, with a breadth
of coloured silk in it, being a naval officer; but something happened, a Miss Cicely Pemberton,
and they are quite big boys now. So long ago, Phoebe -- he was very tall, with brown hair -- it
was most foolish of me, but I was always so fond of sewing -- with long straight legs and such
a pleasant expression. It was a wedding gown, my dear. Even plain women, Phoebe, we can't
help it; when we are young we have romantic ideas just as if we were pretty. And so the
wedding-gown was never used. Long before it was finished I knew he would not offer, but I
finished it, and then I put it away. I have always hidden it from you, Phoebe, but of late I have
brought it out again, and altered it. You will wear it, my love ... won't you? And the tears it was
sewn with long ago will all turn into smiles on my Phoebe's wedding day.
The Lower Depths
From the play by Maxim Gorky
NASTYA: At night he came into the garden. I had been waiting for him quite a while. I
trembled with fear and grief--he trembled, too . . . he was a white as chalk--and he had the
pistol in his hand . . . and he says to me in a dreadful voice: "My precious darling ... My one and
only love," he says, "my parents," he says, "refuse to give their consent to our wedding--and
threaten to disown me because of my love for you. Therefore," he says, "I must take my life."
And his pistol was huge--and loaded with ten bullets . . . "Farewell," he says, "beloved
comrade! I have made up my mind for good and all . . . I can't live without you . . ." and I
replied: "My unforgettable friend--my Raoul--joy of my life! My bright moon! I, too, I can't live
without you--because I love you madly, so madly--and I shall keep on loving you as long as my
heart beats in my bosom. But--" I say--"don't take your young life! Think how necessary it is to
your dear parents whose only happiness you are. Leave me! Better that I should perish from
longing for you, my life! I alone! I--ah--as such, such! Better that I should die--it doesn't matter
. . . I am of no use to the world--I have nothing, nothing at all--" [Covers her face with her
hand and weeps--then jumping up.] Shut up, you bastards! Ah--you lousy mongrels! So help
me God--it happened! It happened! He was a student, a Frenchman--Gastotcha was his name-he had a little black beard--and patent leathers--may God strike me dead if I'm lying! And he
loved me so--my God, how he loved me!
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Page 66
The Phantom of the Opera
From the novel by Gaston Leroux
CHRISTINE: I had heard him for three months without seeing him. The first time I heard it, I
thought, as you did, that that adorable voice was singing in another room. I went out and
looked everywhere; but, as you know, my dressing-room is very much by itself; and I could not
find the voice outside my room, whereas it went on steadily inside. And it not only sang, but it
spoke to me and answered my questions, like a real man's voice, with this difference, that it
was as beautiful as the voice of an angel. I had never got the Angel of Music whom my poor
father had promised to send me as soon as he was dead. I thought that it had finally come, and
from that time onward, the voice and I became great friends. It asked leave to give me lessons
every day. I agreed and never failed to keep the appointment which it gave me in my dressingroom. You have no idea, though you have heard the voice, of what those lessons were like. We
were accompanied by a music which I do not know: it was behind the wall and wonderfully
accurate. The voice seemed to understand mine exactly, to know precisely where my father had
left off teaching me. In a few weeks' time, I hardly knew myself when I sang. I was even
frightened. I seemed to dread a sort of witchcraft behind it. My progress, by the voice's own
order, was kept a secret. It was a curious thing, but, outside the dressing-room, I sang with my
ordinary, every-day voice and nobody noticed anything. I did all that the voice asked. It said,
`Wait and see: we shall astonish Paris!' And I waited and lived on in a sort of ecstatic dream. It
was then that I saw you for the first time one evening, in the house. I was so glad that I never
thought of concealing my delight when I reached my dressing-room. Unfortunately, the voice
was there before me and soon noticed, by my air, that something had happened. It asked what
was the matter and I saw no reason for keeping our story secret or concealing the place which
you filled in my heart. Then the voice was silent. I called to it, but it did not reply; I begged and
entreated, but in vain. I was terrified lest it had gone for good. I wish to Heaven it had!
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Page 67
Quality Street
From the play by J.M. Barrie
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 asy, "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?"
The Magnanimous Lover
A monologue from the play by St. John Ervine
MAGGIE CATHER: Listen, Henry Hinde. All the time you were away in Liverpool where nobody
knew you, I was here where everybody knew me. Do you know what that means? People
staring at me, and turning up their noses at me? There was nothing but contempt for me at
first. I was a bad woman, and I wasn't asked nowhere. Fellows in the street treated me like dirt
beneath their feet. They spoke to me as if I was a bad woman. And all that time you were in
Liverpool, and were thought a lot of. It wasn't fair. And it wasn't me only. I mind once I was
coming down an entry, and I saw a lot of children tormenting the child. He was standing in the
middle of them, and they were making him say things after them. I heard them saying, "What
are you, Willie?" And then they made him say, "I'm a wee bastard!" Aw, if I could have laid
hands on you then, Henry, I would have throttled you. An sure, you'll be saying it's all over
now. Aye, they don't treat me with contempt now. I've lived that down. They just pity me now.
Sometimes when I go past their doors, an old woman'll hear me passing, and ask who it is, and
they always say, "It's only poor Maggie Cather." I could thole their contempt better nor their
pity, but I didn't run away from either of them. I faced it all, and I've brought up the child as
good as any of them. And now when I've bore the hardest of it, you come back to marry me.
Maybe, you'll be ordering me about, and bossing the child. I'm to do what you tell me. I've to
love, honour and obey you. What for, Henry, that's what I'd like to know?
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Page 68
Tamburlaine the Great
From the play by Christopher Marlowe
ZENOCRATE: Earth, cast up fountains from thy entrails,
And wet thy cheeks for their untimely deaths;
Shake with their weight in sign of fear and grief.
Blush, heaven, that gave them honour at their birth
And let them die a death so barbarous.
Those that are proud of fickle empery
And place their chiefest good in earthly pomp,
Behold the Turk and his great emperess!
Ah, Tamburlaine, my love, sweet Tamburlaine,
That fights for scepters and for slippery crowns,
Behold the Turk and his great emperess!
Thou that in conduct of thy happy stars
Sleep’st every night with conquest on thy brows,
And yet wouldst shun the wavering turns of war,
In fear and feeling of the like distress
Behold the Turk and his great emperess!
Ah, mighty Jove and holy Mahomet,
Pardon my love! O, pardon his contempt
Of earthly fortune and respect of pity,
And let not conquest, ruthlessly pursu’d,
Be equally against his life incens’d
In this great Turk and hapless emperess!
And pardon me that was not mov’d with ruth
To see them live so long in misery!–
Ah, what may chance to thee, Zenocrate?
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Page 69
Volpone
From the play by Ben Jonson
CELIA: Good sir, these things might move a mind affected
With such delights; but I, whose innocence
Is all I can think wealthy or worth th’ enjoying,
And which, once lost, I have nought to lose beyond it,
Cannot be taken with these sensual baits:
If you have conscience –
If you have ears that will be pierced; or eyes
That can be opened; a heart that may be touched;
Or any part that yet sounds man about you:
If you have touch of holy saints, or heaven,
Do me the grace to let me ‘scape. If not,
Be bountiful, and kill me. You do know
I am a creature hither ill-betrayed
By one whose shame I would forget it were.
If you will deign me neither of these graces,
Yet feed your wrath, sir, rather than your lust
(It is a vice comes nearer manliness)
And punish that unhappy crime of Nature
Which you miscall my beauty: flat my face,
Or poison it with ointments, for seducing
Your blood in this rebellion. Rub these hands
With what may cause an eating leprosy
E’en to my bones and marrow; anything
That may disfavour me, save in my honour.
And I will kneel to you, pray for you, pay down
A thousand hourly vows, sir, for your health;
Report and think you virtuous –
Oh! Just God!
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Page 70
The Spanish Tragedy
From the play by Thomas Kyd
BEL-IMPERIA: Is this the love thou bear'st Horatio?
Is this the kindness that thou counterfeits?
Are these the fruits of thine incessant tears?
Hieronimo, are these thy passions,
Thy protestations and thy deep laments,
That thou wert wont to weary men withal?
O unkind father! O deceitful world!
With what excuses canst thou show thyself-With what dishonor and the hate of men-From this dishonor and the hate of men,
Thus to neglect the loss and life of him
Whom both my letters and thine own belief
Assures thee to be causeless slaughteréd?
Hieronimo, for shame, Hieronimo,
Be not a history to aftertimes
Of such ingratitude unto thy son.
Unhappy mothers of such children then!
But monstrous fathers to forget so soon
The death of those whom they with care and cost
Have tendered so, thus careless should be lost.
Myself a stranger in respect of thee,
So loved his life as still I wish their deaths.
Nor shall his death be unrevenged by me,
Although I bear it out for fashion's sake,
For here I swear, in sight of heaven and earth,
Shouldst thou neglect the love thou shouldst retain,
And give it over and devise no more,
Myself should send their hateful souls to hell
That wrought his downfall with extremest death.
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Page 71
Antigone
From the play by Sophocles
ANTIGONE: So to my grave,
My bridal-bower, my everlasting prison,
I go, to join those many of my kinsmen
Who dwell in the mansions of Persephone,
Last and unhappiest, before my time.
Yet I believe my father will be there
To welcome me, my mother greet me gladly,
And you, my brother, gladly see me come.
Each one of you my hands have laid to rest,
Pouring the due libations on your graves.
It was by this service to your dear body, Polynices,
I earned the punishment which now I suffer,
Though all good people know it was for your honour.
O but I would not have done the forbidden thing
For any husband or for any son.
For why? I could have had another husband
And by him other sons, if one were lost;
But, father and mother lost, where would I get
Another brother? For thus preferring you,
My brother, Creon condemns me and hales me away,
Never a bride, never a mother, unfriended,
Condemned alive to solitary death.
What law of heaven have I transgressed? What god
Can save me now? What help or hope have I,
In whom devotion is deemed sacrilege?
If this is God’s will, I shall learn my lesson
In death; but if my enemies are wrong,
I wish them no worse punishment than mine.
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Page 72
Rhesus
From the play by Euripides
MUSE: I say to thee: Curse Odysseus, and cursèd by Diomede!
For they made me childless, and forlorn for ever, of the flower of sons.
Yea, curse Helen, who left the house of Hellas.
She knew her lover, she feared not the ships and sea.
She called thee, called thee, to die for the sake of Paris,
Belovèd, and a thousand cities she made empty of good men.
O conquered Thamyris, is this thy bane
Returned from death to pierce my heart again?
Thy pride it was, and bitter challenge cast
'Gainst all the Muses, did my flesh abase
To bearing of this Child, what time I passed
Through the deep stream and looked on Strymon's face,
And felt his great arms clasp me, when to old
Pangaion and the earth of hoarded gold
We Sisters came with lutes and psalteries,
Provoked to meet in bitter strife of song
That mountain wizard, and made dark the eyes
Of Thamyris, who wrought sweet music wrong.
I bore the, Child; and then, in shame before
My sisterhood, my dear virginity,
I stood again upon thy Father's shore
And cast thee to the deeps of him; and he
Received and to no mortal nursing gave
His child, but to the Maidens of the Wave.
And well they nursed thee, and a king thou wast
And first of Thrace in war; yea, far and near
Through thine own hills thy bloody chariot passed,
Thy battered helm flashed, and I had no fear;
Only to Troy I charged thee not to go:
I knew the fated end: But Hector's cry,
Borne overseas by embassies of woe,
Called thee to battle for thy friends and die.
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