Several phrases are echoed throughout the play. In Act I, for example, Fred describes Mrs. Van Brugh as "beloved, honoured, and courted by all" – a phrase that Mrs. Van Brugh will repeat in her Act II scene with Smailey (as seen in the quote to the right): "Woman—loved, honoured, courted by all. Woman—shunned, loathed, and unutterably despised, but still—Woman", foreshadowing the change in status that she will undergo by the end of the play. Ruth, in her Act I description of people who claimed to be trying to help her, describes people who have claimed to be trying to help her before: "There's ladies come odd times. I call to mind one—come in a carriage "she" did. Same story—poor, miserable, lost one—wretched, abandoned, fellow-creetur, and that." This gets echoed in Mr. Smailey's catchphrase, "I have no desire to press hardly on any fellow creature" (also seen in the quote), which becomes more and more ironic in usage as the play goes on, finally being uttered by Fitz-Partington as he informs Mr. Smailey: "I desire to press hardly on no fellow-creature, but your own policeman is without, and he will be happy to walk off with you whenever you find it convenient to be arrested."