AN IDEAL HUSBAND
A comic monologue from the play by Oscar Wilde

MABEL CHILTERN: Well, Tommy has proposed to me again. Tommy really does nothing but propose to me. He proposed to me last night in the music-room, when I was quite unprotected, as there was an elaborate trio going on. I didn't dare to make the smallest repartee, I need hardly tell you. If I had, it would have stopped the music at once. Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf. Then he proposed to me in broad daylight this morning, in front of that dreadful statue of Achilles. Really, the things that go on in front of that work of art are quite appalling. The police should interfere. At luncheon I saw by the glare in his eye that he was going to propose again, and I just managed to check him in time by assuring him that I was a bimetallist. Fortunately I don't know what bimetallism means. And I don't believe anybody else does either. But the observation crushed Tommy for ten minutes. He looked quite shocked. And then Tommy is so annoying in the way he proposes. If he proposed at the top of his voice, I should not mind so much. That might produce some effect on the public. But he does it in a horrid confidential way. When Tommy wants to be romantic he talks to one just like a doctor. I am very fond of Tommy, but his methods of proposing are quite out of date. I wish, Gertrude, you would speak to him, and tell him that once a week is quite often enough to propose to any one, and that it should always be done in a manner that attracts some attention.

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ROMEO AND JULIET
A comic monologue from the play by William Shakespeare

NURSE: Even or odd, of all days in the year,

Come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen.

Susan and she (God rest all Christian souls!)

Were of an age. Well, Susan is with God;

She was too good for me. But, as I said,

On Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen;

That shall she, marry; I remember it well.

'Tis since the earthquake now eleven years;

And she was weaned (I never shall forget it),

Of all the days of the year, upon that day;

For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,

Sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall.

My lord and you were then at Mantua.

Nay, I do bear a brain. But, as I said,

When it did taste the wormwood on the nipple

Of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,

To see it tetchy and fall out with the dug!

Shake, quoth the dovehouse! 'Twas no need, I trow,

To bid me trudge.

And since that time it is eleven years,

For then she could stand high-lone; nay, by th' rood,

She could have run and waddled all about;

For even the day before, she broke her brow;

And then my husband (God be with his soul!

'A was a merry man) took up the child.

'Yea,' quoth he, 'dost thou fall upon thy face?

Thou wilt fall backward when thou hast more wit;

Wilt thou not, Jule?' and, by my holidam,

The pretty wretch left crying and said 'Ay.'

To see now how a jest shall come about!

I warrant, an I should live a thousand years

I never should forget it. 'Wilt thou not, Jule?' quoth he,

And, pretty fool, it stinted and said 'Ay.'

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