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Glaspell, Susan, 1882-1948

"Plays"

Aren't you indiscreet? Harry will be
suspecting that I am your latest strumpet.
HARRY: Claire! What language you use! A person knowing you only by
certain moments could never be made to believe you are a refined woman.
CLAIRE: True, isn't it, Dick?
HARRY: It would be a good deal of a lark to let them listen in at
times--then tell them that here is the flower of New England!
CLAIRE: Well, if this is the flower of New England, then the half has
never been told.
DICK: About New England?
CLAIRE: I thought I meant that. Perhaps I meant--about me.
HARRY: (_going on with his own entertainment_) Explain that this is what
came of the men who made the laws that made New England, that here is
the flower of those gentlemen of culture who--
DICK: Moulded the American mind!
CLAIRE: Oh! (_it is pain_)
HARRY: Now what's the matter?
CLAIRE: I want to get away from them!
HARRY: Rest easy, little one--you do.
CLAIRE: I'm not so sure--that I do. But it can be done! We need not be
held in forms moulded for us. There is outness--and otherness.
HARRY: Now, Claire--I didn't mean to start anything serious.
CLAIRE: No; you never mean to do that. I want to break it up! I tell
you, I want to break it up! If it were all in pieces, we'd be (_a little
laugh_) shocked to aliveness (_to_ DICK)--wouldn't we? There would be
strange new comings together--mad new comings together, and we would
know what it is to be born, and then we might know--that we are.


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