Mrs. Warren’s Profession

means a new dress every day; it means theatres and balls every night; it means having the pick of all the gentlemen in Europe at your feet; it means a lovely house and plenty of servants; it means the choicest of eating and drinking; it means everything you like, everything you want, everything you can think of. And what are you here? A mere drudge, toiling and moiling early and late for your bare living and two cheap dresses a year. Think over it. Soothingly. You’re shocked, I know. I can enter into your feelings; and I think they do you credit; but trust me, nobody will blame you: you may take my word for that. I know what young girls are; and I know you’ll think better of it when you’ve turned it over in your mind. Vivie So that’s how it is done, is it? You must have said all that to many a woman, to have it so pat. Mrs. Warren Passionately. What harm am I asking you to do? Vivie turns away contemptuously. Mrs. Warren follows her desperately. Vivie: listen to me: you don’t understand: you’ve been taught wrong on purpose: you don’t know what the world is really like. Vivie Arrested. Taught wrong on purpose! What do you mean? Mrs. Warren I mean that you’re throwing away all your chances for nothing. You think that people are what they pretend to be⁠—that the way you were taught at school and college to think right and proper is the way things really are. But it’s not: it’s all only a pretence, to keep the cowardly, slavish, common run of people quiet. Do you want to find that out, like other women, at forty, when you’ve thrown yourself away and lost your chances; or won’t you take it in good time now from your own mother, that loves you and swears to you that it’s truth⁠—gospel truth? Urgently. Vivie: the big people, the clever people, the managing people, all know it. They do as I do, and think what I think. I know plenty of them. I know them to speak to, to introduce you to, to make friends of for you. I don’t mean anything wrong: that’s what you don’t understand: your head is full of ignorant ideas about me. What do the people that taught you know about life or about people like me? When did they ever meet me, or speak to me, or let anyone tell them about me?⁠—the fools! Would they ever have done anything for you if I hadn’t paid them? Haven’t I told you that I want you to be respectable? Haven’t I brought you up to be respectable? And how can you keep it up without my money and my influence and Lizzie’s friends? Can’t you see that you’re cutting your own throat as well as breaking my heart in turning your back on me? Vivie I recognize the Crofts philosophy of life, mother. I heard it all from him that day at the Gardners’. Mrs. Warren You think I want to force that played-out old sot on you! I don’t, Vivie: on my oath I don’t. Vivie It would not matter if you did: you would not succeed. Mrs. Warren winces, deeply hurt by the implied indifference towards her affectionate intention. Vivie, neither understanding this nor concerning herself about it, goes on calmly. Mother: you don’t at all know the sort of person I am. I don’t object to Crofts more than to any other coarsely built man of his class. To tell you the truth, I rather admire him for being strong-minded enough to enjoy himself in his own way and make plenty of money instead of living the usual shooting, hunting, dining-out, tailoring, loafing life of his set merely because all the rest do it. And I’m perfectly aware that if I’d been in the same circumstances as my aunt Liz, I’d have done exactly what she did. I don’t think I’m more prejudiced or straitlaced than you: I think I’m less. I’m certain I’m less sentimental. I know very well that fashionable morality is all a pretence: and that if I took your money and devoted the rest of my life to spending it fashionably, I might be as worthless and vicious as the silliest woman could possibly be without having a word said to me about it. But I don’t want to be worthless. I shouldn’t enjoy trotting about the park to advertise my dressmaker and carriage builder, or being bored at the opera to show off a shopwindowful of diamonds. Mrs. Warren Bewildered. But⁠— Vivie Wait a moment: I’ve not done. Tell me why you continue your business now that you are independent of it. Your sister, you told me, has left all that behind her. Why don’t you do the same? Mrs. Warren Oh, it’s all very easy for Liz: she likes good society, and has the air of being a lady. Imagine me in a cathedral town! Why, the very rooks in the trees would find me out even if I could stand the dullness of it. I must have work and excitement, or I should go melancholy mad. And what else is there for me to do? The life suits me: I’m fit for it and not for anything else. If I didn’t do it somebody else would; so I don’t do any real harm by it. And then it brings in money; and I like making money. No: it’s no use: I can’t give it up⁠—not for anybody. But what need you know about it? I’ll never mention it. I’ll keep Crofts away. I’ll not trouble you much: you see I have to be constantly running about from one place to another. You’ll be quit of me altogether when I die. Vivie No: I am my mother’s daughter. I am like you: I must have work, and must make more money than I spend. But my work is not