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In Good King Charles's Golden Days/Act I, § vi
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| Act I, § v | In Good King Charles's Golden Days ~ Act I, § vi written by George Bernard Shaw | ActII |
KNELLER. No. I can paint a woman's beauty; but I cannot measure it in a pint pot. Beauty is immeasurable.
NEWTON. I can measure gravitation. Nothing exists until it is measured. Fine words are nothing. Do you expect me to go to the Royal Society and tell them that the orbits of a planet are curved because painters think them prettier so? How much are they curved? This man cannot tell you. I can. Where will they be six months hence? He cannot tell you. I can. All he has to say is that the earth is a moon of the sun and that the line of beauty is a curve. Can he measure the path of the moon? Can he draw the curve?
KNELLER. I can draw your portrait. Can you draw mine?
NEWTON. Yes, with a camera obscura; and if I could find a chemical salt sensitive to light I could fix it. Some day portraits will be made at the street corners for sixpence apiece.
KNELLER. A looking glass will make your portrait for nothing. It makes the duchess's portrait fifty times a day.
BARBARA. It does not. I dont look at myself in the glass fifty times a day. Charles never passes one without looking at himself. I have watched him.
CHARLES. It rebukes my vanity every time, Barbara. I am an ugly fellow; yet I always think of myself as an Adonis.
LOUISE. You are not so ugly as you think, Charles. You were an ugly baby; and your wicked mother told you so. You have never got over it. But when I was sent to England to captivate you with my baby face, it was you who captivated me with your seventy inches and your good looks.
BARBARA. Ay, flatter him, flatter him: he loves it.
CHARLES. I cannot bear this. The subject is to be dropped.
LOUISE. But, Charles—
CHARLES. No, no, No. Not a word more. The King commands it.
- Dead silence. They sit as if in church, except Fox, who chafes at the silence.
FOX. In the presence of this earthly king all you great nobles become dumb flunkeys. What will you be when the King of Kings calls you from your graves to answer for your lives?
NELL. Trust you, George, to put in a cheerful word. Rowley darling: may we all stop being dumb flunkeys and be human beings again?
CHARLES. Mr Rowley apologizes for his lapse into royalty. Only, the King's person is not to be discussed.
LOUISE. But, Charles, I love you when you put on your royalty. My king, Louis Quatorze, le grand monarque, le roi soleil, never puts off his royalty for a moment even in the most ridiculous circumstances.
BARBARA. Yes; and he looks like a well-to-do grocer, and will never look like anything else.
LOUISE. You would not dare to say so at Versailles, or even to think so. He is always great; and his greatness makes us great also. But it is true that he is not six feet high, and that the grand manner is not quite natural to him. Charles can do it so much better when he chooses. Charles: why dont you choose?
CHARLES. I prefer to keep the crown and the grand manner up my sleeve until I need them. Louis and I played together when we were boys. We know each other too well to be pleasant company; so I take care to keep out of his way. Besides, Louise, when I make you all great you become terrible bores. I like Nelly because nothing can make a courtier of her. Do you know why?
BARBARA. Because the orange girl has the gutter in her blood.
CHARLES. Not at all. Tell her the reason, Nell.
NELL. I dont know it, Rowley darling. I never was an orange girl; but I have the gutter in my blood all right. I think I have everything in my blood; for when I am on the stage I can be anything you please, orange girl or queen. Or even a man. But I dont know the reason why. So you can tell it to her, Rowley darling, if you know it.
CHARLES. It is because in the theatre you are a queen. I tell you the world is full of kings and queens and their little courts. Here is Pastor Fox, a king in his meeting house, though his meetings are against the law. Here is Mr Newton, a king in the new Royal Society. Here is Godfrey Kneller: a king among painters. I can make you duchesses and your sons dukes; but who would be mere dukes or duchesses if they could be kings and queens?
NELL. Dukes will be six a penny if you make all Barbara's sons dukes.
BARBARA. Oh! My sons have gentle blood in their veins, not gutter dirt.
CHARLES. For shame, Nelly! It was illbred of you to reproach her Grace for the most amiable side of her character.
NELL. I beg pardon. God forgive me, I am no better myself.
BARBARA. No better! You impudent slut.
NELL. Well, no worse, if you like. One little duke is enough for me.
LOUISE. Change the subject, Charles. What you were saying about little kings and queens being everywhere was very true. You are very spiritual.
BARBARA. Ha ha! Ha ha ha! He spiritual!
LOUISE. Clever, you call it. I am always in trouble with my English. And Charles is too lazy to learn French properly, though he lived in France so long.
BARBARA. If you mean clever, he is as clever as fifty foxes.
FOX. He may be fifty times as clever as I; but so are many of the blackest villains. Value him rather for his flashes of the inner light. Did he not stop the butchering of the regicides on the ground that if he punished them they could never punish themselves? That was what made me his loyal subject.
BARBARA. I did not mean fifty of you: I meant real foxes. He is so clever that he can always make me seem stupid when it suits him: that is, when I want anything he wont give me. He is as stingy as a miser.
CHARLES. You are like a dairymaid: you think there is no end to a king's money. Here is my Nelly, who is more careful of my money than she is of her own. Well, when I am dying, and all the rest of you are forgotten, my last thought will be of Nelly.
NELL. Rowley darling: dont make me cry. I am not the only one. Louise is very thoughtful about money.
BARBARA. Yes: she knows exactly how much he has: she gets it for him from the King of France.
LOUISE. This subject of conversation is in the worst possible taste. Charles: be a king again; and forbid it.
CHARLES. Nobody but Barbara would have introduced it. I forbid it absolutely.
- Mrs Basham returns.
MRS BASHAM. Mr Newton: dinner is served.
BARBARA. You should address yourself to His Majesty. Where are your manners, woman?
MRS BASHAM. In this house Mr Newton comes first. Come along quick, all of you; or your victuals will be cold.
NEWTON [rising] Mr Kneller: will you take her Grace of Cleveland, as you are interested in her curves?
BARBARA [violently] No. I am the senior duchess: it is my right to be taken in by the King.
CHARLES [rising and resignedly giving her his arm] The Duke of York will follow with the junior duchess. Happy man!
- All rise, except Fox.
BARBARA. Brute! [She tries to disengage herself].
CHARLES [holding her fast] You are on the King's arm. Behave yourself. [He takes her out forcibly].
MRS BASHAM. Now, your Highness. Now, Madam Carwell.
JAMES [taking Louise] You have remembered, I hope, that Madam Carwell is a Catholic?
MRS BASHAM. Yes: there will be enough cod for the two of you.
LOUISE. Provided Charles does not get at it first. Let us hurry. [She hurries James out].
MRS BASHAM. Will you take the player woman, Mr Kneller?
NELL. No no. The player woman goes with her dear old Fox. [She swoops on the Quaker and drags him along] George: today you will dine with publicans and sinners. You will say grace for them.
FOX. You remind me that where my Master went I must follow. [They go out].
MRS BASHAM. There is no one left for you to take in, Mr Kneller. Mr Newton must take me in and come last.
KNELLER. I will go home. I cannot eat in this house of straight lines.
MRS BASHAM. You will do nothing of the sort, Mr Kneller. There is a cover laid for you; and the King expects you.
NEWTON. The lines are not straight, Mr Kneller. Gravitation bends them. And at bottom I know no more about gravitation than you do about beauty.
KNELLER. To you the universe is nothing but a clock that an almighty clockmaker has wound up and set going for all eternity.
NEWTON. Shall I tell you a secret, Mr Beautymonger? The clock does not keep time. If it did there would be no further need for the Clockmaker. He is wiser than to leave us to our foolish selves in that fashion. When He made a confusion of tongues to prevent the Tower of Babel from reaching to heaven He also contrived a confusion of time to prevent us from doing wholly without Him. The sidereal clock, the clock of the universe, goes wrong. He has to correct it from time to time. Can you, who know everything because you and God are both artists, tell me what is amiss with the perihelion of Mercury?
KNELLER. The what?
NEWTON. The perihelion of Mercury.
KNELLER. I do not know what it is.
NEWTON. I do. But I do not know what is amiss with it. Not until the world finds this out can it do without the Clockmaker in the heavens who can set the hands back or forward, and move the stars with a touch of His almighty finger as He watches over us in the heavens.
KNELLER. In the heavens! In your universe there is no heaven. You have abolished the sky.
NEWTON. Ignoramus: there may be stars beyond our vision bigger than the whole solar system. When I have perfected my telescope it will give you your choice of a hundred heavens.
MRS BASHAM. Mr Kneller: your dinner will be cold; and you will be late for grace. I cannot have any more of this ungodly talk. Down with you to your dinner at once.
KNELLER. In this house, you said, Mr Newton comes first. But you take good care that he comes last. The mistress of this and every other house is she who cooks the dinner. [He goes out].
MRS BASHAM [taking Newton out] Thats a funny fellow, sir. But you really should not begin talking about the stars to people just as they are going away quietly. It is a habit that is growing on you. What do they know or care about the perry healing of Mercury that interests you so much? We shall never get these people out of the house if—[They pass out of hearing].
There is peace in the deserted room.
