Oliver Goldsmith

She Stoops to Conquer Oliver Goldsmith

Publisher Marketing: Enter MR. WOODWARD, dressed in black, and holding a handkerchief to his eyes. Excuse me, sirs, I pray-I can't yet speak- I'm crying now-and have been all the week. "'Tis not alone this mourning suit," good masters: "I've that within"-for which there are no plasters! Pray, would you know the reason why I'm crying? The Comic Muse, long sick, is now a-dying! And if she goes, my tears will never stop; For as a player, I can't squeeze out one drop: I am undone, that's all-shall lose my bread- I'd rather, but that's nothing-lose my head. When the sweet maid is laid upon the bier, Shuter and I shall be chief mourners here. To her a mawkish drab of spurious breed, Who deals in sentimentals, will succeed! Poor Ned and I are dead to all intents; We can as soon speak Greek as sentiments! Both nervous grown, to keep our spirits up. We now and then take down a hearty cup. What shall we do? If Comedy forsake us, They'll turn us out, and no one else will take us. But why can't I be moral?-Let me try- My heart thus pressing-fixed my face and eye- With a sententious look, that nothing means, (Faces are blocks in sentimental scenes) Thus I begin: "All is not gold that glitters, "Pleasure seems sweet, but proves a glass of bitters. "When Ignorance enters, Folly is at hand: "Learning is better far than house and land. "Let not your virtue trip; who trips may stumble, "And virtue is not virtue, if she tumble." Contributor Bio:  Goldsmith, Oliver Oliver Goldsmith (10 November 1728 - 4 April 1774) was an Anglo-Irish novelist, playwright and poet, who is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770), and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1771, first performed in 1773). He also wrote An History of the Earth and Animated Nature. He is thought to have written the classic children's tale The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, the source of the phrase "goody two-shoes."