Fanny’s First Play

what it means. Duvallet Shrugging his shoulders. What does it mean, Rudolph? Mrs. Knox If it’s not proper for her to say, it’s not proper for a man to say, either. Mr. Doovalley: you’re a married man with daughters. Would you let them go about with a stranger, as you are to us, without wanting to know whether he intended to behave honorably? Duvallet Ah, madam, my daughters are French girls. That is very different. It would not be correct for a French girl to go about alone and speak to men as English and American girls do. That is why I so immensely admire the English people. You are so free⁠—so unprejudiced⁠—your women are so brave and frank⁠—their minds are so⁠—how do you say?⁠—wholesome. I intend to have my daughters educated in England. Nowhere else in the world but in England could I have met at a Variety Theatre a charming young lady of perfect respectability, and enjoyed a dance with her at a public dancing saloon. And where else are women trained to box and knock out the teeth of policemen as a protest against injustice and violence? Rising, with immense elan. Your daughter, madam, is superb. Your country is a model to the rest of Europe. If you were a Frenchman, stifled with prudery, hypocrisy and the tyranny of the family and the home, you would understand how an enlightened Frenchman admires and envies your freedom, your broadmindedness, and the fact that home life can hardly be said to exist in England. You have made an end of the despotism of the parent; the family council is unknown to you; everywhere in these islands one can enjoy the exhilarating, the soul-liberating spectacle of men quarrelling with their brothers, defying their fathers, refusing to speak to their mothers. In France we are not men: we are only sons⁠—grown-up children. Here one is a human being⁠—an end in himself. Oh, Mrs. Knox, if only your military genius were equal to your moral genius⁠—if that conquest of Europe by France which inaugurated the new age after the Revolution had only been an English conquest, how much more enlightened the world would have been now! We, alas, can only fight. France is unconquerable. We impose our narrow ideas, our prejudices, our obsolete institutions, our insufferable pedantry on the world by brute force⁠—by that stupid quality of military heroism which shows how little we have evolved from the savage: nay, from the beast. We can charge like bulls; we can spring on our foes like gamecocks; when we are overpowered by reason, we can die fighting like rats. And we are foolish enough to be proud of it! Why should we be? Does the bull progress? Can you civilize the gamecock? Is there any future for the rat? We can’t even fight intelligently: when we lose battles, it is because we have not sense enough to know when we are beaten. At Waterloo, had we known when we were beaten, we should have retreated; tried another plan; and won the battle. But no: we were too pigheaded to admit that there is anything impossible to a Frenchman: we were quite satisfied when our Marshals had six horses shot under them, and our stupid old grognards died fighting rather than surrender like reasonable beings. Think of your great Wellington: think of his inspiring words, when the lady asked him whether British soldiers ever ran away. “All soldiers run away, madam,” he said; “but if there are supports for them to fall back on it does not matter.” Think of your illustrious Nelson, always beaten on land, always victorious at sea, where his men could not run away. You are not dazzled and misled by false ideals of patriotic enthusiasm: your honest and sensible statesmen demand for England a two-power standard, even a three-power standard, frankly admitting that it is wise to fight three to one: whilst we, fools and braggarts as we are, declare that every Frenchman is a host in himself, and that when one Frenchman attacks three Englishmen he is guilty of an act of cowardice comparable to that of the man who strikes a woman. It is folly: it is nonsense: a Frenchman is not really stronger than a German, than an Italian, even than an Englishman. Sir: if all Frenchwomen were like your daughter⁠—if all Frenchmen had the good sense, the power of seeing things as they really are, the calm judgment, the open mind, the philosophic grasp, the foresight and true courage, which are so natural to you as an Englishman that you are hardly conscious of possessing them, France would become the greatest nation in the world. Margaret Three cheers for old England! She shakes hands with him warmly. Bobby Hurra-a-ay! And so say all of us. Duvallet, having responded to Margaret’s handshake with enthusiasm, kisses Juggins on both cheeks, and sinks into his chair, wiping his perspiring brow. Gilbey Well, this sort of talk is above me. Can you make anything out of it, Knox? Knox The long and short of it seems to be that he can’t lawfully marry my daughter, as he ought after going to prison with her. Dora I’m ready to marry Bobby, if that will be any satisfaction. Gilbey No you don’t. Not if I know it. Mrs. Knox He ought to, Mr. Gilbey. Gilbey Well, if that’s your religion, Amelia Knox, I want no more of it. Would you invite them to your house if he married her? Mrs. Knox He ought to marry her whether or no. Bobby I feel I ought to, Mrs. Knox. Gilbey Hold your tongue. Mind your own business. Bobby Wildly. If I’m not let marry her, I’ll do something downright disgraceful. I’ll enlist as a soldier. Juggins That is not a disgrace, sir. Bobby Not for you, perhaps. But you’re only a footman. I’m a gentleman. Mrs. Gilbey Don’t dare to speak disrespectfully to Mr. Rudolph, Bobby. For shame! Juggins Coming forward to the middle of the table. It is not gentlemanly to regard the