Gwen: Yes.
John: If you can, you’re a fanatic! But I believe you’ve got to have something of a fanatic in you to do anything worth while these days. The thing is to keep one’s fanaticism, and to keep one’s humanity.
Gwen: Jacko! It is important to live what you believe, isn’t it?
John: I think so; tremendously; I think, if this generation misses its opportunity, which it may, it’s because we’ve lost the old beliefs and haven’t taken the trouble to get a new one for ourselves.
Gwen: Yes. Oh, there are such heaps of people “lost and discontented”; I know such heaps of girls like that. They just don’t know where they are; they make an awful mess of things sometimes.
John: You do, if you don’t know where you are. You know, if we’re not careful, there’ll be a period of aimless licence, and then reaction. It’s a critical time all right. A puritan reaction; and all the old inhibitions and denials and secrecies clamped down on our children again.
Gwen: It makes everything seem unimportant except doing one’s bit; doesn’t it?
John: Yes.
Gwen: It’s funny that just when I’m beginning to feel like that, there is something in my life that’s important.
John: What?