The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie TV - Hugh Kelly - Jane Austen - William Shakespeare - Oscar Wilde - The Royle Family TV - George Eliot - Thomas Hardy - Richard Brinsley Sheridan - John Mortimer - Hour of Decision 1957 -
I was engaged to a young man at the beginning of the great war ... Hugh was one of the flowers of the forest ... ‘Autumn and death’. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie III starring Geraldine McEwan & Amanda Kirby & Lynsey Baxter & Vivienne Ross et al, Brodie to class, ITV 1978
Of all the stages in a woman’s life, none is so dangerous as the period between her acknowledgement of a passion for a man, and the day set apart for her nuptials. Hugh Kelly, Memoirs of a Magdalen, 1767
An engaged woman is always more agreeable than a disengaged. She is satisfied with herself. Her cares are over, and she feels that she may exert all her powers of pleasing without suspicion. All is safe with a lady engaged: no harm can be done. Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
I was told that you, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, were shortly to be engaged to my nephew Mr Darcy. Of course I could not believe this report could possibly be true. Jane Austin, Pride & Prejudice
The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. ibid.
It were all one
That I should love a bright particular star
And think to wed it, he is so above me. William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well I i 97
I would not wish
Any companion in the world but you;
Nor can imagination form a shape
Besides yourself to like of. William Shakespeare, The Tempest III I @54, Miranda
Look down, you gods,
And on this couple drop a blessed crown. ibid. V i 204-205, Gonzalo
To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable. Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Lady Bracknell
Anthony: Me and Emma – we’re getting engaged.
Barbara: You’re not pregnant, are you, Emma?
Jim: Course she bloody is. The Royle Family s3e6: Christening, David, BBC 2000
I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to think of being married soon, and I should like everything to go on for a long while just as it is. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
9She always said that the one feature in his proposal which overcame her hesitation was the obvious purity and straightforwardness of his intentions. He showed himself to be so virtuous and kind: he treated her with a respect to which she had never before been accustomed; and she was braced to the obvious risks of the voyage by her confidence in him. Thomas Hardy, Wessex Tales
Sir Anthony: If she rejects the proposal – clap her under lock and key: and if you were just to let the servants forget to bring her dinner for three or four days, you can’t conceive how she’d come about! Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The Rivals
Sir Anthony: The fortune is saddled with a wife. ibid.
Sir Anthony: Zounds! sirrah! The lady shall be as ugly as I choose: she shall have a hump on each shoulder; she shall be as crooked as the Crescent; her one eye shall roll like a bull in Cox’s museum – she shall have a skin like a mummy, and the beard of a Jew – she shall be all this, sirrah! ibid.
Sir Anthony: Jack! Jack! What think you of blooming, love-breathing seventeen? ibid.
Absolute: Come, come, we must lay aside some of our romance – a little wealth and comfort must be endured after all. ibid.
To begin with she seemed part of life in chambers … One year I was detailed off to be her partner at an Inns of Court ball. There it became clear to me that I was expected to marry Hilda; it seemed a step in my career like getting a brief in the Court of Appeal, or doing a murder. When she proposed to me, as she did over a glass of claret after an energetic waltz, Hilda made it clear that, when old Wystan finally retired, she expected to see me Head of Chambers. I, who have never felt at a loss for a word in court, found absolutely nothing to say. In that silence the matter was concluded. John Mortimer, Rumpole and the Younger Generation
Teddy and I are engaged. Hour of Decision 1957 starring Jeff Morrow & Hazel Court & Anthony Dawson & Mary Laura Wood & Lionel Jeffries & Alan Gifford & Vanda Godsell & Garard Green & Marne Maitland & Arthur Lowe et al, director C Pennington-Richards, Miss March