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SCENE I] THE OLD BACHELOR 49
puny stomachs. Your love is like your courage, which you
show for the first year or two upon all occasions; till in a
little time, being disabled or disarmed, you abate of your
vigour, and that daring blade which was so often drawn
is bound to the peace for ever after.
Bell. Thou art an old fornicator of a singular good
principle indeed! and art for encouraging youth, that they
may be as wicked as thou art at thy years.
Heart. I am for having everybody be what they pretend
to be; a whoremaster be a whoremaster, and not like Vainlove,
kiss a lapdog with passion, when it would disgust him
from the lady's own lips.
Bell. That only happens sometimes, where the dog has
the sweeter breath, for the more cleanly conveyance. But,
George, you must not quarrel with little gallantries of this
nature: women are often won by 'em. Who would refuse
to kiss a lapdog, if it were preliminary to the lips of his
lady?
Sharp. Or omit playing with her fan and cooling her if
she were hot, when it might entitle him to the office of
warming her when she should be cold?
Bell. What is it to read a play on a rainy day, though
you should now and then be interrupted in a witty scene,
and she perhaps preserve her laughter, 'till the jest were
over! even that may be borne with, considering the reward
in prospect.
Heart. I confess, you that are women's asses bear greater
burdens; are forced to undergo dressing, dancing, singing,
sighing, whining, rhyming, flattering, lying, grinning, cringing,
and the drudgery of loving to boot.
Bell. D brute! the drudgery of loving!
Heart. Ay, why to come to love through all these encumbrances,
is like coming to an estate overcharged with
debts; which, by the time you have paid, yields no further
profit than what the bare tillage and manuring of the land
will produce at the expense of your own sweat.
Bell. Prithee, how dost thou love?
Sharp, He! he hates the sex.
Heart, So I hate physic too—yet I may love to take it
for my health.
Bell. Well come off, George, if at any time you should
be taken straying.