Marchbanks: I go about in search of love; and I find it in unmeasured stores in the bosoms of others. But when I try to ask for it, this horrible shyness strangles me; and I stand dumb, or worse than dumb, saying meaningless things: foolish lies. And I see the affection I am longing for given to dogs and cats and pet birds, because they come and ask for it. It must be asked for; it is like a ghost: it cannot speak unless it is first spoken to. All the love in the world is longing to speak; only it dare not, because it is Shy! Shy! Shy!

Proserpine: Wicked people get over that shyness occasionally, don’t they?

Marchbanks: Wicked people means people who have no love; therefore they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because they don’t need it; they have the power to offer it because they have none to give. But we, who have love, and long to mingle it with the love of others; we cannot utter a word. You find that, don’t you?

Proserpine: Look here if you don’t stop talking like this, I’ll leave the room, Mr. Marchbanks: I really will. It is not proper.

Marchbanks: Nothing that’s worth saying is proper. I can’t understand you, Miss Garnett. What am I to talk about?

Proserpine: Talk about indifferent things. Talk about the weather.

Marchbanks: Would you talk about indifferent things if a child were nearby, crying bitterly with hunger?

Proserpine: I suppose not.

Marchbanks: Well: I can’t talk about indifferent things with my heart crying out bitterly in its hunger.

Proserpine: Then hold your tongue.

Marchbanks: Yes: that is what it always comes to. We hold our tongues. Does that stop the cry of your heart? For it does cry: doesn’t it? It must, if you have a heart.

[ Candida, by Bernard Shaw, Act II]