Oliv. O horrid! marriage! what a pleasure you have found out! I nauseate it of all things.
Let. But what does your ladyship think then of a liberal handsome young lover?
Oliv. A handsome young fellow, you impudent! begone out of my sight. Name a handsome young fellow to me! foh, a hideous handsome young fellow I abominate! [Spits.
Eliza. Indeed! But let's see—will nothing please you? what d'ye think of the court?
Oliv. How, the court! the court, cousin! my aversion, my aversion, my aversion of all aversions!
Eliza. How, the court! where—
Oliv. Where sincerity is a quality as much out of fashion and as unprosperous as bashfulness: I could not laugh at a quibble, though it were a fat privy-counsellor's; nor praise a lord's ill verses, though I were myself the subject; nor an old lady's young looks, though I were her woman; nor sit to a vain young smile-maker, though he flattered me. In short, I could not glout[99] upon a man when he comes into a room, and laugh at him when he goes out; I cannot rail at the absent to flatter the standers-by; I—
Eliza. Well, but railing now is so common, that 'tis no more malice, but the fashion; and the absent think they are no more the worse for being railed at, than the present think they're the better for being flattered. And for the court—
Oliv. Nay, do not defend the court; for you'll make me rail at it like a trusting citizen's widow.
Eliza. Or like a Holborn lady, who could not get in to the last ball, or was out of countenance in the drawing-room the last Sunday of her appearance there. For none rail at the court but those who cannot get into it, or else who are ridiculous when they are there; and I shall suspect you were laughed at when you were last there, or would be a maid of honour.