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    The Old Bachelor: A Comedy
    The Old Bachelor: A Comedy
    The Old Bachelor: A Comedy
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    The Old Bachelor: A Comedy

    By William Congreve

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    The Old Bachelor is Heartwell, a surly old pretended woman-hater, who falls in love with Silvia, not knowing her to be the forsaken mistress of Vainlove, and is lured into marrying her, only discovering her true character afterwards, from the gibes of his acquaintances. The parson who has been brought in to marry them, however, is in fact Vainlove's friend Belmour, who has assumed the disguise for the purpose of an intrigue with Laetitia, the young wife of an uxorious old banker, Fondlewife; and Heartwell is relieved to discover that the marriage was a pretence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSovereign
    Release dateNov 15, 2015
    ISBN9781911144380
    The Old Bachelor: A Comedy
    Author

    William Congreve

    William Congreve was an English playwright and poet of the Restoration period. He is known for his clever, satirical dialogue and influence on the comedy of manners style of that period. He was also a minor political figure in the British Whig Party.

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      Book preview

      The Old Bachelor - William Congreve

      off.]

      DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

      Scene: London.

      ACT I.

      SCENE I.

      SCENE: The Street.

      Bellmour and Vainlove meeting.

      BELL. Vainlove, and abroad so early! Good-morrow; I thought a contemplative lover could no more have parted with his bed in a morning than he could have slept in’t.

      VAIN. Bellmour, good-morrow. Why, truth on’t is, these early sallies are not usual to me; but business, as you see, sir—[Showing Letters.] And business must be followed, or be lost.

      BELL. Business! And so must time, my friend, be close pursued, or lost. Business is the rub of life, perverts our aim, casts off the bias, and leaves us wide and short of the intended mark.

      VAIN. Pleasure, I guess you mean.

      BELL. Ay; what else has meaning?

      VAIN. Oh, the wise will tell you—

      BELL. More than they believe—or understand.

      VAIN. How, how, Ned! A wise man say more than he understands?

      BELL. Ay, ay! Wisdom’s nothing but a pretending to know and believe more than we really do. You read of but one wise man, and all that he knew was, that he knew nothing. Come, come, leave business to idlers and wisdom to fools; they have need of ’em. Wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation; and let Father Time shake his glass. Let low and earthly souls grovel till they have worked themselves six foot deep into a grave. Business is not my element—I roll in a higher orb, and

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