Monologue

Faulkland Monologue from The Rivals

From The Rivals by Richard Brinsley Sheridan

male · anguished · 2:01 min

In tears! Stay, Julia: stay but for a moment.--The door is fastened!--Julia!--my soul--but for one moment!--I hear her sobbing!--'Sdeath! what a brute am I to use her thus! Yet stay!--Ay--she is coming now:--how little resolution there is in a woman!--how a few soft words can turn them!--No, faith!--she is not coming either.--Why, Julia--my love--say but that you forgive me--come but to tell me that--now this is being too resentful. Stay! she is coming too--I thought she would--no steadiness in anything: her going away must have been a mere trick then--she shan't see that I was hurt by it.--I'll affect indifference-- No--zounds! she's not coming!--nor don't intend it, I suppose.--This is not steadiness, but obstinacy! Yet I deserve it.--What, after so long an absence to quarrel with her tenderness!--'twas barbarous and unmanly!--I should be ashamed to see her now.--I'll wait till her just resentment is abated--and when I distress her so again, may I lose her for ever! and be linked instead to some antique virago, whose gnawing passions, and long hoarded spleen, shall make me curse my folly half the day and all the night. * * * * * * * Mrs. MALAPROP Your being Sir Anthony's son, captain, would itself be a sufficient accommodation; but from the ingenuity of your appearance, I am convinced you deserve the character here given of you.

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