Lydia.—Willingly, ma'am—I cannot change for the worse.(Exit)
Mrs. Malaprop.—There's a little intricate hussy for you!
Sir Anthony.—It is not to be wondered at, ma'am: all this is the natural consequence of teaching girls to read. Had I a thousand daughters, by heaven I'd as soon have them taught the black art as their alphabet!
Mrs. Malaprop.—Nay, nay, Sir Anthony: you are an absolute misanthropy.
Sir Anthony.—In my way hither, Mrs. Malaprop, I observed your niece's maid coming forth from a circulating library! She had a book in each hand; they were half-bound volumes with marble covers! From that moment I guessed how full of duty I should see her mistress!
Mrs. Malaprop.—Those are vile places indeed!
Sir Anthony.—Madam, a circulating library in a town is an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge,—it blossoms through the year! And depend on it, Mrs. Malaprop, that they who are so fond of handling the leaves will long for the fruit at last.
Mrs. Malaprop.—Fy, fy, Sir Anthony! you surely speak laconically.
Sir Anthony.—Why, Mrs. Malaprop, in moderation now, what would you have a woman know?
Mrs. Malaprop.—Observe me, Sir Anthony. I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning; I don't think so much learning becomes a young woman: for instance, I would never let her meddle with Greek, or Hebrew, or algebra, or simony, or fluxions, or paradoxes, or such inflammatory branches of learning; neither would it be necessary for her to handle any of your mathematical, astronomical, diabolical instruments. But, Sir Anthony, I would send her at nine years old to a boarding-school, in order to learn a little ingenuity and artifice. Then, sir, she should have a supercilious knowledge in accounts; and as she grew up I would have her instructed in geometry, that she might know something of the contagious countries: but above all, Sir Anthony, she should be mistress of orthodoxy, that she might not misspell and mispronounce words so shamefully as girls usually do; and likewise that she might reprehend the true meaning of what she is saying. This, Sir Anthony, is what I would have a woman know; and I don't think there is a superstitious article in it.