No, my friend. Give me time to proceed. You are irritable, weak, and ambitious! Do you think, that, on the summit which you now stand, you can render yourself useful to your fellow subjects with these three--I had almost called them vices. (P. Coun: Not if I remain as I am.) You have hitherto been the instrument of strangers, and, in proportion as you rose in extrinsic pomp, you sunk in intrinsic merit. (P. Coun: True, it is too true.) You are not possessed of sufficient resolution to stand at the helm of a government; but you have genius, a good heart, and learning enough, sufficient to secure a tranquil passage through life. Let my love supply the whole of my father's considerable fortune; I cannot muster the requisite resolution. Can your esteem for me induce you to renounce the gilded splendor of state and office, and to spend the remainder of your days in the calm retirement of obscurity? (Eagerly.) Have you the resolution, Clarenbach, to resign the Privy Counsellorship?--I do not want an immediate answer.

Sophia Monologue from The Lawyers, A Drama in Five Acts

Rehearse Sophia's monologue