Author:  Tom Stoppard
Book:    Arcadia
Viewed: 29 - Published at: 9 years ago

LADY CROOM: ....My lake is drained to a ditch for no purpose I can understand, unless it be that snipe and curlew have deserted three counties so that they may be shot in our swamp. What you painted as forest is a mean plantation, your greenery is mud, your waterfall is wet mud, and your mount is an opencast mine for the mud that was lacking in the dell. {Pointing through the window} What is that cowshed?
NOAKES: The hermitage, my lady?
LADY CROOM: It is a cowshed.
NOAKES: It is, I assure you, a very habitable cottage, properly founded and drained, two rooms and a closet under a slate roof and a stone chimney --
LADY CROOM: And who is to live in it?
NOAKES: Why, the hermit.
LADY CROOM: Where is he?
NOAKES: Madam?
LADY CROOM: You surely do not supply an hermitage without a hermit?
NOAKES: Indeed, madam --
LADY CROOM: Come, come, Mr Noakes. If I am promised a fountain I expect it to come with water. What hermits do you have?
NOAKES: I have no hermits, my lady.
LADY CROOM: Not one? I am speechless.
NOAKES: I am sure a hermit can be found. One could advertise.
LADY CROOM: Advertise?
NOAKES: In the newspapers.
LADY CROOM: But surely a hermit who takes a newspaper is not a hermit in whom one can have complete confidence.

( Tom Stoppard )
[ Arcadia ]
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