“Lady Wishfort. Fetch me the red—the red, do you hear, sweetheart? An arrant ash colour, as I’m a person. Look you how this wench stirs! Why dost thou not fetch me a little red? Didst thou not hear me, Mopus?

Peg. The red ratafia does your ladyship mean, or the cherry-brandy?

Lady Wishfort. Ratafia, fool. No, fool. Not the ratafia, fool—grant me patience! I mean the Spanish paper, idiot, complexion, darling. Paint, paint, paint, dost though understand that, changeling, dangling thy hands like bobbins before thee”

—William Congreve, The Way of the World, 1700.