Lady Fidget Character Analysis

Mrs. Squeamish: ’Tis true, nobody takes notice of a private man, and therefore with him ’tis more secret, and the crime’s the less when ’tis not known.

Lady Fidget: You say true; i’faith, I think you are in the right on’t. ’Tis not an injury to a husband till it be an injury to our honors; so that a woman of honor loses no honor with a private person; and to say truth.

Lady Fidget: Well, that’s spoken again like a man of honor; all men of honor desire to come to the test. But, indeed, generally you men report such things of yourselves, one does not know how or whom to believe; and it is come to that pass we dare not take your words, no more than your tailor's, without some staid servant of yours be bound with you. But I have so strong a faith in your honor, dear, dear, noble sir, that I’d forfeit mine for yours at any time, dear sir.

Horner: No, madam, you should not need to forfeit it for me; I have given you security already to save you harmless, my late reputation being so well known in the world, madam.

If you talk a word more of your honor, you’ll make me incapable to wrong it. To talk of honor in the mysteries of love is like talking of heaven or the deity in an operation of witchcraft, just when you are employing the devil; it makes the charm impotent … I tell you, madam, the word ‘money’ in a mistress’s mouth, at such a nick of time, is not a more disheartening sound to a younger brother than that of ‘honor’ to an eager lover like myself.

Why should our damned tyrants oblige us to live
On the pittance of pleasure which they only give?
We must not rejoice
With wine and with noise.
In vain we must wake in a dull bed alone.
Whilst to our warm rival, the bottle, they’re gone.
Then lay aside charms
And take up these arms.
Tis wine only gives ’em their courage and wit,
Because we live sober, to men we submit.

Lady Fidget: Our reputation! Lord, why should you not think that we women make use of our reputation, as you men of yours only to deceive the world with less suspicion? Our virtue is like the statesman’s religion, the Quaker’s word, the gamester’s oath, and the great man’s honor – but to cheat those that trust us.

Squeamish: And that demureness, coyness, and modesty that you see in our faces in the boxes at plays is as much a sign of a kind woman as a vizard-mask in the pit.

Dainty: For, I assure you, women are least masked when they have the velvet vizard on.

Mrs. Squeamish: ’Tis true, nobody takes notice of a private man, and therefore with him ’tis more secret, and the crime’s the less when ’tis not known.

Lady Fidget: You say true; i’faith, I think you are in the right on’t. ’Tis not an injury to a husband till it be an injury to our honors; so that a woman of honor loses no honor with a private person; and to say truth.

Lady Fidget: Well, that’s spoken again like a man of honor; all men of honor desire to come to the test. But, indeed, generally you men report such things of yourselves, one does not know how or whom to believe; and it is come to that pass we dare not take your words, no more than your tailor's, without some staid servant of yours be bound with you. But I have so strong a faith in your honor, dear, dear, noble sir, that I’d forfeit mine for yours at any time, dear sir.

Horner: No, madam, you should not need to forfeit it for me; I have given you security already to save you harmless, my late reputation being so well known in the world, madam.

If you talk a word more of your honor, you’ll make me incapable to wrong it. To talk of honor in the mysteries of love is like talking of heaven or the deity in an operation of witchcraft, just when you are employing the devil; it makes the charm impotent … I tell you, madam, the word ‘money’ in a mistress’s mouth, at such a nick of time, is not a more disheartening sound to a younger brother than that of ‘honor’ to an eager lover like myself.

Why should our damned tyrants oblige us to live
On the pittance of pleasure which they only give?
We must not rejoice
With wine and with noise.
In vain we must wake in a dull bed alone.
Whilst to our warm rival, the bottle, they’re gone.
Then lay aside charms
And take up these arms.
Tis wine only gives ’em their courage and wit,
Because we live sober, to men we submit.

Lady Fidget: Our reputation! Lord, why should you not think that we women make use of our reputation, as you men of yours only to deceive the world with less suspicion? Our virtue is like the statesman’s religion, the Quaker’s word, the gamester’s oath, and the great man’s honor – but to cheat those that trust us.

Squeamish: And that demureness, coyness, and modesty that you see in our faces in the boxes at plays is as much a sign of a kind woman as a vizard-mask in the pit.

Dainty: For, I assure you, women are least masked when they have the velvet vizard on.