My dear cousin, mother and I contribute regularly to a
temperance society.
OCEANA. But that hasn't helped, has it? I'm almost wild about such
things--they were the real reason I came home, you know.
MRS. MASTERSON. How do you mean?
OCEANA. They had got to my island! They are turning it into a hell!
DR. MASTERSON. In what way?
OCEANA. Why, it's a long story. I didn't write . . . it would have
taken too long. Two years ago there was a ship laid up . . . and the
crew found, quite by accident, that our island rock is all phosphate;
something very valuable . . . for fertilizer, it seems. So they bought
land from the natives, and now there's a company, and a trading-post,
and all that. And oh, my people are going all to pieces!
MRS. MASTERSON. The natives, you mean?
OCEANA. Yes . . . the people I have loved all my life. And I've tried
so hard . . . I've pleaded with them, I've wept and prayed with them!
But they're lost!
LETITIA. You mean rum?
OCEANA. I mean everything. Rum, and cocaine, and sugar, and canned
food, and clothes, and missionaries . . . all civilization! And worse
yet, Aunt Sophronia . . . ah, I can't bear to think of it!
MRS. MASTERSON. What?
OCEANA. You wouldn't let me tell you what. [In a low voice.] Imagine
my people, my beautiful people, with the soft, brown skins and the big
black eyes, and hair like the curtains of night. They are not savages,
you understand . . . they are gentle and kindly.
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