Jeremy . Sir, you're a gentleman, and probably understand this fine feeding: but if you please, I had rather be at board wages. Does your Epictetus, or your Seneca here, or any of these poor rich rogues, teach you how to pay your debts without money? Will they shut up the mouths of your creditors? Will Plato be bail for you? Or Diogenes, because he understands confinement, and lived in a tub, go to prison for you? 'Slife, sir, what do you mean, to mew yourself up here with three or four musty books, in commendation of starving and poverty?

Valentine . Why, sirrah, I have no money, you know it; and therefore resolve to rail at all that have. And in that I but follow the examples of the wisest and wittiest men in all ages, these poets and philosophers whom you naturally hate, for just such another reason; because they abound in sense, and you are a fool.

Jeremy . Ay, sir, I am a fool, I know it: and yet, heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit. But I was always a fool when I told you what your expenses would bring you to; your coaches and your liveries; your treats and your balls; your being in love with a lady that did not care a farthing for you in your prosperity; and keeping company with wits that cared for nothing but your prosperity; and now, when you are poor, hate you as much as they do one another.

Valentine . Well, and now I am poor I have an opportunity to be revenged on them all. I'll pursue Angelica with more love than ever, and appear more notoriously her admirer in this restraint, than when I openly rivalled the rich fops that made court to her. So shall my poverty be a mortification to her pride, and, perhaps, make her compassionate the love which has principally reduced me to this lowness of fortune. And for the wits, I'm sure I am in a condition to be even with them. (Act I, Scene I)

Basic set up:

Valentine, the hero of Congreve's Love for Love , has piled up a lot of debt. His servant, Jeremy, tells him that reading books all day certainly isn't going to help him pay his way out of it.

Themes of money, sex, class and romance are at the center of the play… and what equates to "social life" more than money, sex, class and romance? The play begins with Valentine and Jeremy talking about money, and about Valentine's pile o' debt. His terrible financial situation, Jeremy worries, isn't going to help him to get the girl he wants: Angelica.

The conversation between Valentine and Jeremy in the scene above revolves around issues pertaining to life in society. It's all about money and romance.

In Congreve's play, we'll find a lot of the witty dialogue that's characteristic of Restoration drama. Even Jeremy, the servant (who is presumably uneducated), is witty. He tells Valentine:

"Does your Epictetus, or your Seneca here, or any of these poor rich rogues, teach you how to pay your debts without money? Will they shut up the mouths of your creditors? Will Plato be bail for you? Or Diogenes, because he understands confinement, and lived in a tub, go to prison for you?"

And the wordplay doesn't stop there. When Valentine accuses Jeremy of being a fool, Jeremy tells him, "Ay, sir, I am a fool, I know it: and yet, heaven help me, I'm poor enough to be a wit." This type of punchy wit is common in Restoration comedy. In fact, it's one of its defining hallmarks.