MABEL. I need not wait to express my gratitude—say in what way can I ever thank you?
WOFF. Dear sister, when hereafter in your home of peace you hear harsh sentence passed on us, whose lot is admiration, but rarely love, triumph but never tranquillity—think sometimes of poor Peg Woffington, and say, stage masks may cover honest faces, and hearts beat true beneath a tinselled robe—
Nor ours the sole gay masks that hide a face
Where care and tears have left their withering trace,
On the world’s stage, as in our mimic art,
We oft confound the actor with the part.
POM. Distrust appearances—an obvious moral—
With which, however, I’ve no time to quarrel;
Though for my part, I’ve found, the winning riders
In the world’s race are often the outsiders.