Three Plays for Puritans

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Brentano's, 1906 - 301 pages
 

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Page 101 - I am he of whose genius you are the symbol: part brute, part woman, and part god — nothing of man in me at all.
Page 144 - Majesty: when a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
Page 32 - The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; thats the essence of inhumanity.
Page 56 - Martyrdom, sir, is what these people like: it is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.
Page 54 - I had no motive and no interest: all I can tell you is that when it came to the point whether I would take my neck out of the noose and put another man's into it, I could not do it. I dont know why not: I see myself as a fool for my pains; but I could not and I cannot. I have been brought up standing by the law of my own nature; and I may not go against it, gallows or no gallows.
Page 54 - I said. — to please you — that I did what I did ever so little for your sake, I lied as men always lie to women. You know how much I have lived with worthless men — aye, and worthless women too. Well, they could all rise to some sort of goodness and kindness when they were in love [the word love comes from him with true Puritan scorn].
Page 119 - Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
Page 199 - APPARENT ANACHRONISMS The only way to write a play which shall convey to the general public an impression of antiquity is to make the characters speak blank verse and abstain from reference to steam, telegraphy, or any of the material conditions of their existence. The more ignorant men are, the more convinced are they that their little parish and their little chapel is an apex to which civilization and philosophy has painfully struggled up the pyramid of time from a desert of savagery. Savagery,...
Page xxxvi - But my stories are the old stories; my characters are the familiar harlequin and columbine, clown and pantaloon (note the harlequin's leap in the third act of Caesar and Cleopatra) ; my stage tricks and suspenses and thrills and jests are the ones in vogue when I was a boy, by which time my grandfather was tired of them.
Page 184 - And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace, until the gods are tired of blood and create a race that can understand.

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