From The Admirable Bashville; Or, Constancy Unrewarded Being the Novel of Cashel Byron's Profession Done into a Stage Play in Three Acts and in Blank Verse, with a Note on Modern Prize Fighting by Bernard Shaw

Is it so? I have hardly noticed that, So cruel are all callings. Yet this hand, That many a two days' bruise hath ruthless given, Hath kept no dungeon locked for twenty years, Hath slain no sentient creature for my sport. I am too squeamish for your dainty world, That cowers behind the gallows and the lash, The world that robs the poor, and with their spoil Does what its tradesmen tell it. Oh, your ladies! Sealskinned and egret-feathered; all defiance To Nature; cowering if one say to them "What will the servants think?" Your gentlemen! Your tailor-tyrannized visitors of whom Flutter of wing and singing in the wood Make chickenbutchers. And your medicine men! Groping for cures in the tormented entrails Of friendly dogs. Pray have you asked all these To change their occupations? Find you mine So grimly crueller? I cannot breathe An air so petty and so poisonous. (LYDIA: But find you not their manners very nice?) To me, perfection. Oh, they condescend With a rare grace. Your duke, who condescends Almost to the whole world, might for a Man Pass in the eyes of those who never saw The duke capped with a prince. See then, ye gods, The duke turn footman, and his eager dame Sink the great lady in the obsequious housemaid! Oh, at such moments I could wish the Court Had but one breadbasket, that with my fist I could make all its windy vanity Gasp itself out on the gravel. Fare you well. I did not choose my calling; but at least I can refrain from being a gentleman. (LYDIA: You say farewell to me without a pang.) My calling hath apprenticed me to pangs. This is a rib-bender; but I can bear it. It is a lonely thing to be a champion.

Cashel Monologue from The Admirable Bashville; Or, Constancy Unrewarded Being the Novel of Cashel Byron's Profession Done into a Stage Play in Three Acts and in Blank Verse, with a Note on Modern Prize Fighting

Rehearse Cashel's monologue