I'm completely out- side the bounds of your understanding — in every way. And yet I know you, Marion, through and through — far better than you know yourself. You're a pitiful figure, and there are thousands like you — victims of convention and upbringing. All your life you've ground down perfectly natural sex im- pulses, until your mind has become a morass of inhibitions — your repression has run into the usual channel of religious hysteria. You've placed physical purity too high and mental purity not high enough, And you'll be a miserable woman until the end of your days unless you readjust the balance. You need love and affection terribly — you'd go to any lengths to obtain it except the right ones. You swear and smoke and assume an air of spurious heartiness because you're not sure of your own religion and are afraid of being thought a prude. You try to establish a feeling of comradeship by sanctimonious heart-to-heart talks. All your ideals are confused and muddled — you don't know what to ask of life, and you'll die never having achieved any- thing but physical virtue. And God knows I pity you. Noel Coward. Easy Virtue. Harper & Brothers, 1926. pp.219-220.

Larita Monologue from Easy Virtue

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