WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS
A monologue from the
play by J.M. Barrie
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from What Every Woman Knows. J.M. Barrie. New York: Scribners,
1921. |
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CHARLES: Your husband has been writing the speech here,
and by his own wish he read it to me three days ago. The occasion
is to be an important one; and, well, there are a dozen young
men in the party at present, all capable of filling a certain
small ministerial post. And as he is one of them I was anxious
that he should show in this speech of what he is capable. It
is a powerful, well-thought-out piece of work, such as only a
very able man could produce. But it has no special quality
of its own -- none of the little touches that used to make an
old stager like myself want to pat Shand on the shoulder. He
pounds on manfully enough, but, if I may say so, with a wooden
leg. It is as good, I dare say, as the rest of them could have
done; but they start with such inherited advantages, Mrs. Shand,
that he had to do better. I am sorry, Mrs. Shand, for he interested
me. His career has set me wondering whether if I had begun
as a railway porter I might not still be calling out, "By
your leave."
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