The strangeness of it! Sometimes my whole being rises up in revolt... I could tear the skies apart, to wrest the secret from them! You see, we don't know anything. We don't know what's right, we don't know what's wrong. We're in a trap! (She rises suddenly.) No, no, I mustn't talk that way. I've lost my self-control. I let myself go, and I had no right to. Now, what shall I do? Wait, dear... let me think, let me think calmly. (Stares about her.) I want to remember what father said to me; what I promised to do. See, Ethel... the sun is setting. Look at the sky! And it's the last day of the month, isn't it? (ETHEL: Yes.) If father had been here we should have sat us down to one of our services! Look here. (She goes to trunk, and takes out a human skull.) Ah, old friend! (ETHEL: Oceana!) He came from the Marquesas, I think. And here's where he was hit with the spear. You see? Sit down. (She places the skull before her.) See, Ethel--he used to smile. And now and then he had the toothache... see that? He took himself very seriously; he was all wrapped up in the things that went on in this little cracked skull. But he lacked imagination. He never foresaw that somebody would carry him off to the New Hampshire mountains, and make him the text for a Hamlet soliloquy. Alas, poor Yorick! He did not know that he was immortal, you see; that life proceeded from him... unrolling itself for generation after generation without end; that all that he did would be perpetuated... that where he sinned we would suffer, and where he fought we would be strong. He did not know that he was the creator, the mystic fountain of an unexplored stream... the maker of an endless future... (She stops; a spasm of pain crosses her face.) Oh, Ethel! (Clasps her hand.) It is terrible to die young, is it not?

Oceana Monologue from The Naturewoman

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