LETITIA. 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