b
You are here: The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive > American Musical Theatre > Mr. Pickwick > Act I No. 6

No. 6 - Quintet and Chorus - "To ascertain the knowledge."

MIDI File

Pickwick: To ascertain the knowledge of the college I'll endeavor
Arabella: Did you ever?
Girls: No, I never, never did.
Pickwick: A bid I'm going to make to gain your education reputation.
I want to know the whereabouts
Of ev'rything you hear about;
My stock of information I'm desirous to enrich
On the when, why, what, and the whither and the which!
Chorus: His stock of information he's desirous to enrich
on the when, why, what, and the whither and the which!
Pickwick: Jot it down.
Tupman: I've got it down.
Snodgrass: I've got it down.
Winkle: I've got it down.
Pickwick: Describe to me your notion
Of the ocean!
Arabella: It is water.
Tup., Snod. & Winkle: Now who taught her?
Girls: And it's very very wet.
Pickwick: Please let me hear a little more that's scientific and specific.
Arabella: It's agglomerated particles
Of all cohesive articles,
Reduced by liquefaction from an elemental state
To a wholly unified precipitate.
Pickwick: She is right!
Tupman: I see it quite,
Snodgrass: I see it quite,
Winkle: I see it quite.
   
Pickwick: Now gravity has laws of which the cause was found by Newton,
why the fruit on apple trees was bound to fall.
I call upon you all to tell me how he knew it had to do it.
Arabella & Girls: It's a question of vibration that's produced by occillation;
His discovery of gravity we ought to celebrate
For it shows us why our hats won't stay on straight!
Pickwick: So is does.
Tupman: We know it does.
Snodgrass: We know it does.
Winkle: We know it does.
Pickwick: The survival of the fittest you'll admit is now acknowledged.
Arabella: Here at college we cannot admit it's so.
Pickwick: Oh! oh! The fittest are quite sure to outlast us, say the masters.
Arabella & Girls: It's different you see with us.
We think you will agree with us,
It's clothes that make the woman and the way her dresses sit,
So that we prefer the survival of the Fit.
Pickwick: What's the use!
Tupman: They're too abstruse.
Snodgrass: They're too abstruse.
Winkle: They're too abstruse.

Back
List of Musical Numbers
Next

American Musical Theatre | Mr. Pickwick

Page modified 11 February 2017