PLAYS: FIRST SERIES:

PLAYS: FIRST SERIES:

THE SILVER BOX /gutenberg/etext01/silbx10.txt

PASSAGES FROM THE TEXT:

I've no patience with your talk of reform—all that nonsense about social policy. We know perfectly well what it is they want; they want things for themselves. Those Socialists and Labour men are an absolutely selfish set of people. They have no sense of patriotism, like the upper classes; they simply want what we've got.

I quite agree with what this man says: Education is simply ruining the lower classes. It unsettles them, and that's the worst thing for us all. I see an enormous difference in the manner of servants.

He 's not a bad man really. Sometimes he'll speak quite kind to me, but I've stood so much from him, I don't feel it in me to speak kind back, but just keep myself to myself.

JOY /gutenberg/etext01/gljoy10.txt

PASSAGES FROM THE TEXT:

If only I could believe I was necessary to you!

Ah, my dear! We're all the same; we're all as hollow as that tree! When it's ourselves it's always a special case!

Positive cool voice of a young man who knows that he knows everything.
He is perfectly calm.

They must go their own ways, poor things! She can't put herself in the child's place, and the child can't put herself in Molly's. A woman and a girl—there's the tree of life between them!

Ashamed? Am I to live all my life like a dead woman because you're ashamed? Am I to live like the dead because you 're a child that knows nothing of life? Listen, Joy, you 'd better understand this once for all. Your Father has no right over me and he knows it. We 've been hateful to each other for years. Can you understand that? Don't cover your face like a child—look at me.

STRIFE /gutenberg/etext01/strif10.txt

PASSAGES FROM THE TEXT:

ENID. [In a changed voice, stroking his sleeve.] Father, you know you oughtn't to have this strain on you—you know what Dr. Fisher said! ANTHONY. No old man can afford to listen to old women.

I am not aware that if my adversary suffer in a fair fight not sought by me, it is my fault. If I fall under his feet—as fall I may—I shall not complain. That will be my look-out—and this is—his. I cannot separate, as I would, these men from their women and children. A fair fight is a fair fight! Let them learn to think before they pick a quarrel!

These are the words of my own son. They are the words of a generation that I don't understand; the words of a soft breed.

It seems the fashion nowadays for men to take their enemy's side. I have not learnt that art.