vol6-no3

IN THIS ISSUE

(;/wr/ps 11. Newman BUT THAT'S THE WAY THE AMERICAN PEOPLE LIKE TO DO

Edith B. Farnsworth POEMS

Carl W. Condit ARCHITECTURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

David Neelon. and Patricia Rabby POEMS

Gary Lee Blonstoti FUTURE TENSE

Russell L. Merritt THE INTERNAL MONOLOGUE IN BOOKS AND FILMS

Robert Lee Moore POEMS

Mary E. Henrikson VIRTUE IS NOT DEAD

R. Barry Farrell THE STUDENT AND THE UNIVERSITY UNDER COMMUNISM

Laurel Tether, Patricia Rabby, Mark Reinsberg, and Vaughn Koumjian POEMS

THE TRI-QUARTERLY is a magazine devoted to fiction, poetry, and articles of general interest, published in the fall, winter, and spring quarters at Northwestern University. Evanston, Illinois. Subscription rates: $2.00 yearly within the United States; $2.15, Canada; $2.25, foreign. Single copies will be sold locally for $.70. Contributions, correspondence, and subscriptions should be addressed to THE TRI-QUARTERLY, care of the Northwestern University Press, 816 University Place, Evanston, Illinois. Contributions unaccompanied by a self-addressed envelope and return postage will not be returned. Except by invitation, contributors are limited to persons who have some connection with the University. Copyright, 1964, by Northwestern University. All rights reserved.

Views expressed in the articles published are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the editors.

Tether, Patricia Rabby, Mark

EDITORIAL BOARD: The editor is EDWARD B. HUNGERFORD. Senior members of the advisory board are Dean JAMES H. MCBURNEY of the School of Speech, Dr. WILLIAM B. WARTMAN of the School of Medicine, Mr. ROBERT P. ARMSTRONG, Director of the Northwestern University Press, and Mr. JAMES M. BARKER of the Board of Trustees.

UNDERGRADUATE EDITORS: BARRY G. BRISSMAN, GARY T. COLE, MARY HENRIKSON, LINDA O'RIORDAN, and FRED W. STEFFEN.

THE TRI-QUARTERLY is distributed by Northwestern University Press, and is under the business management of the Press. Design, layout, and production are by the University Publications Office.

Art Editor is Lauretta Akkeron.

By Charles H. Newman

"But that's the way the american people like to do"

"We are a 'WE', not because we hold communion, but because our contours overlap"

HERMANN BROCH

You can always talk cute," Moult began, his mouth full, "say 'I guess,' take the end off adjectives, say 'sort of' and ramble, but that doesn't fool anybody any more. Maybe you'll understand better if I tell you that I had a professor my first year at Purk who said we ought to get out and meet the Proletariat. The way he said it sounded very much like my mother when she spoke of the 'common people,' although she'd just as soon that I stayed away from them. They were agreed in one respect however; that I couldn't handle them. As I look back on it now, I think the professor's vested interest in me oddly stronger, so it's only fair to begin with him. Because he was frightened (as opposed to my mother who merely suffered) he provided me with a surer principle of selection. He was born on an Iowa farm, the high table gossip went; one of those guys who read all night after the chores were done, standing up of course, "so's he could stamp 'is feet, keep warm." He still worked standing up when I knew him, at a stoolless accountant's desk, but I think more because of bad circulation than from habit. By the time he was twelve, so the story goes, he had read every single book in the village library, including the encyclopedias, mail order catalogs and train schedules. Blessed at birth with an incredible memory, he could recite entire Robert Ingersoll lectures without a stutter. His spelling bees had the quality of a revival meeting. He could tell you today the time, destination, and second-class fare of every train that left Ames, Iowa, between 1913 and 1922.

Spring, 1964

He was not withered by his brilliance largely as a result of his size, a stooped seven feet due to a pituitary as far ranging as his memory. He could fell a small town dolt with either a quip or a fist. And I have seen him many times in the University Post Office go through spectacular feats of coordination to retrieve his mail from a box, allotted on purpose, certainly, in the row six inches off the floor. His face was indented and his skin shingly. His hair was more maroon than red, falling in half-hearted ringlets. His ears were enormous. He walked with his arms motionless and stooped over, like a pajamaed child in the morning trying to conceal an erection. For that, we called him Mr. Pants.

The town banker, as a matter of personal and professional pride, had seen Mr. Pants through the State University, where he had taken a degree in Romance Languages in two years, and then like so many Americans who see their future too clearly, who feel themselves trapped on a gradient even though it is ascending, willfully broke the inevitability of his progress, tried to find out more. He held the usual jobs; he worked for a year on a Ford assembly line, washed dishes, managed a Y.M.C.A. locker room, boxed kangaroos at county fairs, punched cattle, sold encyclopedias door to door, dug graves, edited a radical journal (suppressed in the mails), rode the rods for a time, drove a stock car, painted a mural for the dining room of a Panamanian Hotel, stoked boilers on a freighter; you know, the whole bit that qualifies you for dissent in this country, a book jacket full of occupations to document your

sensitivity. The whole world is easier to come by than any single part of it. Particularly if you have a good memory.

Mr. Pants was not as hurt by the Depression as he was fascinated by it: the concept of failure engages us much more than the brute facts of failing - just as it is the idea of success and not its fruits which compel us. For analysis, he chose Marxism, admittedly, because it was quicker. Marxism, he told us once, failed not because of any perversion of the system, but was doomed from the first, since it misunderstood the nature of capitalism. The thing that one learned in the thirties, was not particularly that the Soviets were corrupt, but that capitalism doesn't require prey as much as successive enemies! Without a feudal structure to attack, Capitalism had become unchallenged and irresponsible. The Communists were not destroying capitalism; they were making possible its resurrection - justifying it at the very moment it had become impossible.

Sociological investigation bored him after a time however, and around 1936 he went back to the farm to help. Things got better, but shortly after his return, on a foggy fall harvest evening, his father fell into a reaper and died, as it were, without even jamming the mechanism. His mother had already died and his sisters married, so he went to New York to work simultaneously on degrees in law and medicine. Unfortunately or no, the Spanish Civil War soon cut those interests short. He recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for, purchased a pair of Beretta

These pages are from an unfinished novel by Charles Newman and are printed here at the invitation of the editors.

"This is a bi-valved narrative," Newman explains, "in which personalities are developed, not through plot or psychological prescience, but simply through the metaphors each finds useful. The characters, then, live only through the stories they tell on others."

Newman graduated summa cum laude from Yale in 1960 where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, won the W. Wilder Bellamy Prize for Scholarship, the Strong Prize for the best thesis in American History, and for two years was editor of the literary magazine Criterion. The following year he studied philosophy at Balliol College, Oxford. He has received both a Woodrow Wilson Teaching Fellowship and a Fulbright Grant. Presently he is an instructor in the English Department, teaching composition.

He has recently been appointed editor of The Tri-Quarterly to replace Mr. Hungerford whose resignation, after six years as editor, goes into effect after this issue.

automatics with guttapercha handles and showed up one night in a hotel on the Via San Antonio in Madrid, where several prominent American journalists were hoarding food. Shocked by this, he allowed himself to be goaded into a fight, subsequently breaking the arm of the largest and most belligerent of the journalists who had to cancel his trip to the front and stayed in Madrid for the duration. Each time the shelling began, this man would dash through the streets brandishing his damaged arm and crying "Falangiste! Falangiste!" in the brevity of which, no one knew if he were cheering or cursing them. (His dispatches were later incorporated into the Alcapulco Notebooks.)

Mr. Pants, who will remain nameless for security reasons (mine, not his) was, incidentally, a member of my secret fraternity. We had a house near the ocean, and once a year, without fail, he would come and tell us about his part in the Civil War. There was neither nostalgia nor feigned dryness to his account. He just related what had happened - about how difficult it was to choose which outfit to fight with - whether it was better to use good Soviet. arms with the labor union front or obsolescent arms with the Trotskyites, things like that - but, as he said, all tension was soon to be relieved by a sniper's bullet in the retreat from Toledo Alcazar! He was shot through the windpipe, and saved himself by performing a self-tracheotomy with his fountain pen. He spent the duration in the hospital like the rest of them, writing gentle letters to the parents of those he had known in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, furious letters to Roosevelt, doing neck exercises, and translating neglected Spanish poets. When he got back to the States, he found that the letters to the President had made him a security risk, and that, coupled with his injury, kept him out of the Great War he had anticipated and fought to prevent. He took a job as a male nurse during the day and worked the night shift in a munitions factory. He did this for four years, until Hiroshima, when he was among the first, in a long letter of denunciation to the New York Times, to protest the act. Later he was arrested for picketing the White House during a national emergency, and spent the duration in a special detention camp in Vermont among Trotskyites, conscientious objectors, anarchists, a few Japanese truck gardeners, and a great many Nazi prisoners of war. Nevertheless, in the aftermath, suspicion gave way to the bull market - he was set free and found to his amazement that not only had his book of Spanish translations been awarded a Modern Library edition, but his letters to Roosevelt had been clandestinely circulated by the Republican National Committee in areas of anti-Catholic sentiment. He made use of several foundation fellowships, took a position at some progressive worn-

en's college in the East and then, at the height of the McCarthy scare, presented himself at Purk with an agonizingly long list of his past indiscre tions and dared them to hire him. Of COUriH' thl'Y did. Mr. Pants resisted trends for their own sake, but he knew too the place where one must become irrational- and admit it.

"Irony always saves us from profundity," he used to say to close our secret fraternity meeting; "to stand firm in the middle is, I assure you, gentlemen, the most difficult of stances. But because it is the most difficult, you must not confuse it with the most moral. It is easy to see what is right; the difficulty is to attain the position from which being right matters. That is something I never achieved. Morality without power is meaningless, 'to reverse a political cliche (I assume you are aware it is a cliche), and quite possibly immoral as well. The choice always seems to be between morality and humanity. There are times when civilization itself needs defending; that's humanity. And other times when a single human or perhaps a single idea, must be protected from civilization itself. That's morality. If you ever, gentlemen, see an occasion where the two are combined; don't pass it up."

The secret meetings were good, but the best times were the Thursday evenings when he invited a group of us up to his house for spaghetti. It was a fantastic household. A duplex above a garage on the outskirts of Purk. There were such things as a special chair Mr. Pants had made for himself from seaman's rope and wrought iron, and when he sank into it, it sounded as if a mizzen mast was coming down out of the dark. He was also an amateur archaeologist, and along the length of his concrete block and pine plank bookcases glittered hundreds of arrowheads, amulets, pestles, coprolites and rare quartzes. Once, when I was going through an old National Geographic in the stacks I came across a picture of him. He was on some expedition, Peru, I think, and the picture had been taken with him standing in an excavation to minimize his size in relation to the others clustered about him. His name was in the credits, although misspelled, but you knew it was him - even though he had a sombrero pulled over his face - by how tiny the pick hammer seemed in his hand. He dangled it between two fingers. Yet when I asked Mr. Pants about this, he denied ever having been to Peru.

Mr. Pants had married one of his graduate students, a full twenty years younger than himself, very Jewish, bowlegged, but beautiful like Egyptian queens from the long neck up. She looked as if she had just come in from throwing marbles under the cop's horses' feet at the Haymarket. They had two children when I last saw them, five-year-old-boy-twins, with sharp dark Semitic features and Iowan dispositions. They sat like Roman wolves under his swollen legs the entire Spring, 1964

evening, saying nothing, playing half-heartedly with broken autos and listening to the break and full of conversation. I remember picking them up; they we-rt- always perfectly calm and affectionate, but there was nothing easy about them, they searched you out with their eyes and fingersit was like picking up a miniature concert pianist or physicist. His wife, Katrin, usually stood in a corner with her arms folded, smiling, her head cocked to one side, listening to her husband put his students on. One time she evidently grew tired of this ritual, brought out a balalaika, and sang some central European songs in a pure arching alto. When she was through, Mr. Pants disappeared for a moment and returned with a homemade single-string washtub bass viol, to provide a resonant continuo. Things like that were always happening at his place. The first few times I went, I remember having a terrible compulsion to see their bed, and on the pretext of going to the bathroom I snuck into their bedroom. I was amazed to find only a bed of average size, not even a double, and realized that considering his bulk and the severity of his desires, she must have slept literally on top of him or not at all. The simplicity of the thing made a great impression on me at the time.

I mentioned once, offhand, that the thing which dissuaded me from going into teaching was the general homeliness of faculty wives. Katrin was passing his chair at the time and he grabbed her by the waist, spinning her around to face me.

"You find my wife homely, Mr. What's-yourname?"

I stammered, saying I didn't mean her; that, in fact, I found her quite disconcerting. But both of them just stood there and stared at me, and in the end, I had to get up and kiss her. Just once, lightly. It was the only way to get out of it. He was always putting you in positions like that, and yet he was never threatened. You see, he wanted us to go through the same experiences he had. It was the only way to perpetuate, justify, empiricism. He had to populate that enormous memory. In that, he was like my mother. The educator, like the entrepreneur, wants you free so he can control you. His life was to build us up above our doubts upon his own fine aspirations and sacrifices, knowing that we would inevitably construct our own private Soviet-Nazi pact, and betray ourselves. He personalized what otherwise we could have handled abstractly and saved ourselves. It is what American Progressive .Education is all about and why it is the most brutal in the world.

I didn't see much of Mr. Pants my last few years at Purk. His care for us had its calculated effect. We withdrew more and more into our own confusions. I no longer had the time for a pleasant Thursday evening. He needed us, but it is to his credit that he never catered to proteges.

The last time I saw him was during those first days of Their Revolution. There was a rally on the steps of the library to raise money for refugees after it became apparent that we were hamstrung. Mr. Pants had been asked to speak in lieu of the President of PUTk who had cancelled out as a result of cancer at the last moment. There were bonfires in the street, and he stood against the leaded windows casting his absurd shadow up into the arches. He made a short quiet speech in which he quoted Burkeyou know, about" all that evil needs to triumph is that good men do nothing" - and after that, fire buckets were passed for contributions. Then one of the singing groups broke out banjos, guitars, and started yelling the good old songs, "Which Side Are You On," "Row the Boat, Michael," "The Union Way," "This Land is My Land." Can you imagine that? It was fantastic! The same music, the same militance just flip-flopped; they had forgotten everything! I couldn't believe it. Mr. Pants passed me in the crowd and I grabbed his coat sleeve. He winked, stooped beneath an arch, and disappeared into the rare book room.

Incidentally, the money collected brought three Hunky refugees to Purk, fine high-cheekboned very brilliant guys, and one was taken into our secret fraternity for a night to tell how he had pitched Molotov cocktails at tanks, and the rest.

The last I heard of Mr. Pants was in a newspaper clipping somebody forwarded to me. He evidently had been passed up for tenure at Purk: and was out on the West Coast teaching at some big public university. He had caused quite an unprecedented furor there by flunking an entire class for plagiarism. They had all used the same fraternity file or something. He hadn't understood that it had been that way for years, that they knew exactly what they were doing. He thought by catching them up, he could shame them. It was the same thing with us, you see. He believed we were scared because we didn't know the Proletariat, when the truth was, we did our ignoring by choice."

II

I finished eating and said I thought I understood what he meant, which was true. And then I tried to think about all the common people I had known. All those people! The ones who live in towns that have "Join the U.S. Marines" in block letters on the movie marquee instead of a movie, the ones who squat a Jesus on their big dashboards, the ones who wear nylon socks with a little arrow running up the anklebone, the ones who buy the jelly in gas station johns that either speeds you up or holds you back, the ones who buy suction pistols to remove blackheads, the guys who sell four thousand packages of garden

seed for one set of china, the people who almost always have to say hello.

"They were mostly maids in the beginning," I said, "the ones I really knew."

For instance, I can remember lying on the checkerboard linoleum floor of a kitchen, looking up the legs of my grandmother's laundress. She washed, and 1 watched the mammoth pink Irish thighs caress eachother. If she moved, I followed her along the floor, pushing myself on my back like a grasshopper. She always wore sweat socks and crepe soled sandals. I followed underneath her for hours at a time and I can't remember her ever saying anything about it, or for that matter, my seeing anything.

When I was a little older, we moved to the suburbs where we had no basement or attic. That was fine for me as the maid's room could be approached on anyone of a number of pretexts; I hid among the whining gas meters listening to Lena entertaining friends. They would drive for two hours from South Chicago, enormous mortgaged autos, pick her up, go all the way back to the city, get her back in time to fix breakfast. She was a lovely girl and a kind of genius. One night her apron caught fire and she just walked into the dining room ablaze and asked to be put out. My father tore a curtain down and rolled her up in it. In the summer, when she returned from those late dates, I used to climb out on the roof and listen to the Buicks and Mercuries and DeSotos ease her back. I watched the parked cars sway through the pneumatic summer night. And in the morning, at breakfast, I stared at her, amazed that anyone was capable of such savage rhythmic weight.

Otherwise, Lena was unsatisfactory. Her cure for a common cold was to spit it out, and she carried a coffee can with her for that purpose when she was ill, which was often. We used to watch the wrestling matches on TV with a can between us on the sofa. Occasionally, if I concentrated on the spot in the middle of my forehead, I could muster up enough juice to add to the pot.

Then, in the middle of one winter, my mother discovered that all the door handles seemed to slip slightly in your hand, and we let Lena go. And you shouldn't get the wrong idea about that, because she let us go too.

"Well, that's nothing," Moulton said, unimpressed. "On our street, for instance, there was a funny little woman working for the Scribners who turned out to be a Nazi spy. Mrs. Scribner got suspicious because one day she saw her walking into the German embassy in a fur coat. We deported that pervert all right. And then there was the time Mrs. Cole had someone come out for the day from the Domestic Service. She was a big strange black woman, in a big white babushka, who didn't seem to know how to do anything. About noon, she went up to the attic for some

reason and didn't come down. Mrs. Cole called and called, but she didn't answer. She started upstairs but got scared and, as she said later, very wisely, called the police instead. The police went to the attic and found a Negro man stark naked on an old divan."

"OK," I said, "but I'll bet you didn't know Jimmy Gene Ray, did you? He was common. His father drove a cab in town. They lived in the city and the father brought his son out to play in the park while he worked. That's where I met him. In the rose garden. I knew him before you moved here, in about fifth grade. He used to sit right here and talk or sing. We could pick things off the radio pretty well and harmonize. And we weren't ashamed of it. You'd be surprised how many people are. People would stand around the cupola just to hear us. When we quit they would say things like, "This is certainly a nice way to spend a Sunday." Young girls would pinch their escort's arm, gaze into his face, and he would straighten up and perhaps ask us if we knew their favorite. We never did.

But there were other things we did too. Or rather Jimmy Gene did them, and I went along. That was to run along these walks, right here in the rose garden, and pull up ladies' Sunday dresses. Jimmy Gene would run in front, and run as if I were chasing him, see, and then when we got near the appropriate couple, he would veer in, and with a grand swipe, send that lady's skirt above her midriff.

I never did any of the yanking myself. I ran along in front; at first the pretext, then the judge. I announced the extent of the attempt. 'Legger,' I yelled, if it were that, 'yowsa,' if there was a glimpse of those great pastel triangles, and of course, 'You got it,' too. The thing was incomplete without me. Jimmy Gene did it. But I humiliated."

"So there was Jimmy Gene," I pointed out into the roses, "stooped over at fifty miles an hour, the escort yelling wild with helpless rage, his fine defenses outflanked, the lady locked in a swirl of her own devices, and then me, gliding by, noting the moment.

'Crotch-hopping,' Jimmy Gene called it. He got so good at it that he could run full speed bent close to the ground like an Indian scout and lift everything, crinolines, halfslips, knit wear, even shifts. And we were in dead earnest. We did it because it was better than singing in the cupola, because nothing like that had ever happened in the rose garden before, and because we left in our wake, astonishment. It's a very important thing to be able to pull a big surprise these days."

"You weren't taking any chances," Moult broke in, "those people lost their capacity for disgust a long time ago."

"The people aren't important," I said, "it was the way Jimmy Gene Ray and I worked together. Don't you see that?"

"You were just bored and you know it. If you met this Jimmy Whazit on the street today, that's tho only thing you could talk about. You didn't help him too much, did you?"

"Help him? What more could I do? Jesus, are you ever a snob! I don't pretend to know all the answers but I know something of what Jimmy Gene felt. For instance, I worked a summer in a filling station, Rudy's, up on the main drag. I worked there from six to ten at night, cleaned the grease pits and lift, washed the pumps, closed the place down. Polish Rudy who ran the station was a good guy. He had a knot in his back from a Jap bayonet and whenever he lifted anything the veins stood out in his arms like a road map. Every night when I came to relieve him he asked me good naturedly, "Getting any ass lately, guy? Getting any on the side?" Then he would grin and take a mock swing at me, making a noise of destruction with his tongue.

Once he pulled it in front of a customer, some salesman in a Pontiac. "Hey punk," he yelled. I was washing the windshield while he got the gas. "Getting any on the side lately?"

But I was ready for him. After all, it was at least the hundredth time he had said it. And I went on wiping the window as I answered. "Oh, is there a place for it there too?"

Well, that was it. Again I had humiliated and got away clean, as it appeared I was defending myself. Polish Rudy's mouth dropped open and he doubled up over the fender until the tank overfilled and gas cascaded over the Pontiac's trunk. The salesman was the same way; helplessly pointing a finger at Rudy, then at me, shaken in a noiseless rupturing guffaw. Rudy, soaked with gasoline and tears limped around the car, holding himself, repeating that comeback over and over in hisses between his laughs. "Is there a place Hee Is there a Haa," and so on. Finally he disappeared down the ramp into the grease pit, still squeezing himself.

I made change for the salesman but he closed his hand around mine when I gave it to him.

"Keep it buddy," he said, "You've made my day." Then he put his hydromatic in gear and went.

I had gotten $1.35 clear, and for the first time I knew how Jimmy Gene felt about those strangely flattered ladies in the rose garden, and their tips. Our lasting gifts come through such spontaneous humiliation. But spontaneity, when it works, is deeply practiced. It's practice that makes a comeback to the hundredth repetition possible, the capacity to run at full speed close to the ground. Practicing to be spontaneous has a lot to do with commonness.

At any rate, late that night when Rudy, the salesman, and I had tired of surprising each other, I was very depressed and felt like driving the Jeep. I didn't want to take it out on the highway

Spring, 1964

where I was liable, so I just circled the pumps in second, tires hissing on the hot tar, cruising around until it was time to close. So I know what happens when you're common. I've done my espionage.

Moulton didn't say anything at first. Then he stretched out, peering over his glasses. "Wow," he said. "Labor theory of value at thirteen. That must be some kind of a record."

I knew what he meant in a way, but I didn't say anything.

"And I suppose what you're saying," he went on, "is that by going along with these people you aren't helping them. The salesman should just have given you the dough and let it go at that. Even if he misunderstood. And when we're the salesmen, we shouldn't reward because that's so pretentious, and we shouldn't tell them what to do because that's just bossism. We ought to just hand out the cash, to Rudy, to Africa, to Jimmy Gene Whatsit and expect a little civility and be happy that they don't have a reason to beat you over the head."

"Isn't that all you can do? At least then they don't have an excuse."

"Christ, man, who's the snob? You just reverse it, that's all. You don't accuse them; you just assume them. You take them for granted. You leave them alone. That's the final prejudice, you know. That's the last thing people want. To be left alone. The only class distinction I know of is between those people who prefer to be left alone when they're screwed up, and those who want to be comforted. You may be on the right track, kiddo, but you'll take a lot of cleaning up."

It was funny. He ignored them but he liked them. I wanted to help them because I didn't like them.

Moult looked at me quizzically.

"What do you want out of them, anyway?" he asked.

"Well, it's very simple what I want," I said slowly, proud I could make him ask me a big question. "What I want is to be able to take my family to a good restaurant once a week. This restaurant has been around for a long time, always been run by the same family. One of them is always there, overseeing things. On the inside, it has no music or pictures, but just a lot of red wood - not redwood - but real red wood. It is one of the best restaurants in the world. They make their own ice-cream, bread, and chili. They put a dish of butter on the table, and you put it on your plate yourself. And the catsup is in its own unwiped bottle, instead of in a plastic gun with water. They ask you if you want seconds. In this restaurant there is a waiter, say named Hermann, who is not a member of the family, but has been there from the beginning anyway. He knows everyone's name, including mine; he knows my wife and kid on sight. Once a week, we come in. I shake

hands with Hermann, he takes the wife's coat and tells the kid he's bigger. Then we all sit down in the booth and he tells us what's good. We don't ask. He tells us. 'My wife's not very hungry so she wants the small filet, the boy wants a hot fudge walnut sundae without the walnuts, and you know what I want.' He takes the order and then comes back right away with two old John Jamison's on shaved ice and a cranberry cocktail for m'boy.

As we finish I call Hermann over and mention that the kid is captain of his ball team and is currently hitting a hefty .527. Hermann is delighted by this, and the kid dumps on me the rest of the dinner for embarrassing him like that.

When we're done Hermann forgives me for overtipping as I forgive his obsequiousness - and when Hermann goes home to his bachelor fiat, removes his white coat and his enormous black shoes, he lies down on the bed and hopes my kid will keep his streak going so it won't be difficult to ask me about it next week.

See, because if you can't have all that, if you can't pull that sort of thing off effortlesslyyou spend your whole god-damned life looking for it."

Moulton's mouth W3S wide open. "Why, there's more to clean up than I thought," he laughed.

I searched for a few moments for something more to say. I wanted to make it particularly big and reduce the argument.

"OK," I said, "what happens when the common people are Commies?"

It didn't take him any time at all.

"Well, man" he said laconically, "you just gave yourself away, that's all. But if you're interested, just look at our history. Look, we got our wealth looking for something else, salvation or something. And we got our power without looking for it at all. That makes some people think we've been playing our second team all these years. But what it means, I think, is that as long as we keep looking around I mean if we really pay any attention to them, it'll be the first time we ever met anything head-on except ourselves, and I'm afraid, then, we'll lose ourselves."

I had given myself away because I had used up my last Big Question. I was glad it was overwith.

"All right," I said. "I don't have any sharp theories like that, but you didn't let me finish about Jimmy Gene Ray."

So as a finisher, I told Moult as much as I could remember. I told him about how we fished in the park duck pond after dusk. It was full of goldfish, some a foot long, bloated with bread thrown from the shore. Whole loaves were thrown there. Kids slung them like disci. Slice after slice of miracle-whipped sun-cracked, vitaminenriched golden crusted manna spiraled out over the water.

If a duck got to the bread first he would eat it this way: down with the eight-color head like a

rocker arm, right through the center of the slice. He kept at it, hammering, squeezing the wah'!' from the pulp before he swallowed it, wcrking from the center out, until there was nothtng It-'t but a circle of crust. Then with a single movem ent he broke the circle, dove beneath one tattered end, and leaning back, swallowed it like a snake.

The carp, goldenfish, were more subtle. When they got there first, the slice would quaver, bob, until in a matter of minutes, its miracle fibers sufficiently punished, the bread simply separated like a cloud, broke into a film of particles which sank to orange blunt lipless mouths.

Either way they both got fat. And we would lie in the shrubbery at night, Jimmy Gene and I, with a loaf of bread between us, and with a hooked string and sinker, pull those carp flopping and shimmying across the olive water like nothing at all.

We never ate them, of course, they were filthy fish. We just put them in a pile and let them strangle. They stank even before they died.

Once in a while, too, we got a duck. Unintentionally, of course. When a greedy bill swooped and swallowed in one motion there was nothing you could do. Or rather there were two things. With the hook gone smoothly to the gullet you could just yank and rip that duck right through the throat. The red bread would sink, the duck would scream, stand in the water, swim a spiral, drown.

That only happened a few times and usually we just let the string go. Then the old bird would swing away, trailing twenty feet of twine from the corner of his mouth. He swallowed it slowly, I suppose, unconscious of it at first, only when it caught on some bottom snag and jerked him off course did he know. Gradually, the hook's legacy would be absorbed until it formed a compact sodden mass against the ribs, a false entangled heart next to the gaudy real one.

I did some research once to ascertain whether a duck's gullet is like that of the oyster or deer who make functional use of their cancers. But I found nothing. I would like to think that he has no such coating, no inner defenses, and that the hook, wound with string by the convulsions of his own chemistry, rests against his chest like a locket on the inside of a soldier's lapel. And that one day, while flying south for the winter, a shot will ring out and he will fall into the reeds. But before the dogs reach him, as in the movies, he will awake, and inspecting himself, find that the absorbed old wound has deflected the shot from softer regions, that he just has been dazed, that a miracle has saved his life.

So we lay in the bushes with bread, rolls of hemp, irreversible hooks, and the strench of inconsequential but still immoral death. Jimmy Gene the Carp and me the Duck.

Spring, 1964

POEMS

By Edith B. Farnsworth

The editors are pleased to be able to present these new poems by Edith 8. Farnsworth, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Northwestern Medical School. The Tri-Quarterly first printed two of her poems in the fall of J959, and in the following fall a much wider selection, together with an article by her on modern poetry. Dr. Farnsworth, who is a practicing physician and a research specialist, as well as a teacher and poet, is a native Chicagoan. She attended as undergraduate both the University of Chicago and Northwestern, and took her M.D. at the latter in J939. She has served Chicago hospitals in various capacities and is presently on the Attending Staff of Passavant Memorial Hospital. She has published extensively in her field of internal medicine.

The Egg-plant of a Prince

Thank Y00 Mr. Stevens*

The prince is written in cuneiform, Molded, imprinted in character, The Prince is a hieroglyph.

Rotunda his egg-plant his leptoderm, Mahogany brown to lavender, By no means a pineapple.

Hieroglyphic is not agitating

And the prince does not prance at night In Thebes or Sebastopol.

But the egg-plant is a sleep-annihilating And if She were sleeker or slender, More perfectly curved, more prescient, exhilarating, Handsomer, more elegant, I could never sleep at all.

"Extracts from Addresses to the Academy of Fine Ideas." by Wallace Stevens.

MY OWN

When I came back to my own, last night, The day, and the day, were nearly gone; The crows still planed in after-light, The low sun stained The empty land with past.

From out of the tall trees

The Red Bird had departed. With its long coiled crest, With its great plumed tail, Male and female subtly expressed, From the tallest of my own fall trees

The Scarlet Bird had taken flight Back to the South Quadrant, broken-hearted.

Night Fishermen of Chicago

The fish run by the shores to-night, The fish are running heavy, and from Certain dingy doors emerge

The anglers: let's go down to the Lake to fish, let's sit on the edge, Let's set up our poles and light

Our lights, we'll take a folding chair

And hope, we'll bait our lines

And take a lunch, we'll take a chance, We'll fish through the night to-night

While the fish are running.

The great fresh lake is full to-night

And fuming, straining, out of Mind and into sight, It brims its glooming, ebbing surge

Over the city's concrete shores.

Now from a hot hand eager on the verge Of darkling luck, the baited fishhook flies, Swings on the tensed line to submerge

A sparkling hope into the cold surge, Rising and falling at the city's stony doors.

Behind the curved backs crouching on the brink

Of foundering fortune, flow the damped streets

Apathetic, furnaces nightfallen, banked

For the long rest; the old dog hesitates

At the comer, the cat waits

For the passing car, to slink Into its destiny; the cellar vibrates

With the purring of the ocelot.

With the whining ragweed of the vacant lot Periodic lilacs in the city parks, With rows of elms and prostrate thyme, Tremble damply in their dark procession, Deployed to be the scene of love and crime.

And if in the great dark lake there were Lavender as in the sea, Rockweed, kelp, anemone, What organpoint in harmony, Dissolved, suspended, would concur

To sound the marine litany?

The fishermen, sitting on the floor, In the dark of all that seems to be, On the border of mortality,

The heavy buttocks and the hamstrings

Spry, wind-breakers, sweaters and the denim Fly, all gripping hard within the door

Of the world; those solitaries

Stretched upon the water's flanks

Like suckling cubs in new-born ranks

-They angle for a talisman and Slyly cast the baited soul

Into the swell, beneath the dark pole

Of a dark sky.

Long are the fluent waves that roll In from the south-east. Hand

Over nerveless hand they climb the docks, Finger the slimy piles and spread

Their avid fans over the rocks.

And if from the Great Lake were to come, In the footprints of the long ground-swell

And the deep hours of the night,

The jewelry of beauty from

The dead, if from the drowned who dwell, Dissolved, suspended, in the sight Of none, there were to come

The judges with their white jabots, Evangels and their long flambeaux, The orphans with their dolls; If the divine despair were there

And with its subtle, unpredicted glow

Would flood the water-

Would draw the fishermen to light

Then what allure

Their lights and pass the lonely night

Fishing for perch?

Will they who fish for luck endure

The bleak glow at the edge of the world, The tokens by the long waves hurled

Upon the rocks?

Translucent to the dawning day, The tender, milk-white undersides And moss green scales lie still.

Thirst fills

The gaping mouth and glues

The parching gills.

The sun comes up; the seagull shrills, Soaring from the far seawall.

Wild luck from the dark-bodied lake Springs high with the hook, to fall Expiring in the fisherman's pail.

November, 1960.

Amaryllis

Amaryllis, lily Asphodel, Waxing form Elaborelle;

Does it launch into the ages Or does it only grow, Asphodel, slow, slow In limpid cages Of my eyes?

I cannot tell the time, Decode the rages, Parching in the winter slime.

Soar daily in the twisted ages, Hirondelle, With waxing torrid wings

Tilt, weld the clouded skies, Measure the numbered stages

Undecipherable; With graphic ribs, with swelling heart, Wax slowly, amaryllis, lily Asphodel.

By Carl W. Condit

ARCHITECTURE in the NINETEENTH CENTURY

The Antecedents of the Chicago School

The architectural and technical achievement of the Chicago school marked the establishment of a new style of architecture, but at the same time it was the culmination of a structural evolution that extended over the century preceding it. This dual character was reflected in the two major developments of the school, which existed side by side throughout the central portion of its history. One was highly utilitarian, marked by a strict adherence to function and structure, and was in great part derived from certain forms of urban vernacular building in Europe and the eastern United States. The other was formal and plastic, the product of a new theoretical spirit and the conscious determination to create rich symbolic forms - to create, in short, a new style expressive of contemporary American culture. Thus the architecture of the Chicago school must be interpreted from several standpoints: first, in terms of the structural techniques and building forms from which it grew; second, in relation to the architectural dress, so to speak, of the reviva1istic building of the nineteenth century; and finally, in comparison with the later development of the stylistic revolution which it set in motion.

Style in architecture represents or stands for those essential characteristics of construction, form, ornament, and detail that are common to all the important structures of any definable period in history. But it also stands for those technical and aesthetic qualities of the artistic product that grow directly and organically out of the conditions of human existence and out of the aspirations and powers of human beings. We rightly feel that the buildings of a certain style - if it is

Spring, 1964

a genuine style - symbolize in their form the realities of man's experience and the attempt to master and give adequate emotional expression to those realities. These buildings are constituent facts of man's history, and their revelation is a part of truth itself.

The refined architectural classicism that became dominant in the latter half of the eighteenth century eventually faced the social and economic revolution brought about by the largescale application of steam power to industrial techniques and by the new mechanical inventions that accompanied this application. The first clumsy steam engine might have seemed remote from the proud dignity of the Royal Crescent or Cumberland Terrace; yet it represented a force that soon engulfed all the arts and all the modes of action of Western civilization. In the face of this unprecedented phenomenon, the ancient and vital art of architecture was threatened by powerful disintegrative forces. With respect to utilitarian needs, the traditional techniques of construction eventually fell hopelessly short of meeting the requirements and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the new age of mechanized industrialization. Architectural revivalism struggled bravely with the social and technical forces of the age and frequently produced functionally successful and aesthetically valid works of building art, but as the century moved on revivalism grew increasingly out of touch with the realities of the time. The ultimate artistic failure of architecture in the nineteenth century can be stated very simply as the failure to form a consistent style. It was the failure to provide, in its own vocabulary, an aesthetic discipline that would combine the expression of science, technology, mechanized industry, and modern urban life with the deeper-lying emotional needs of the human spirit.

Architecture had once been what it ought to be - the structural art. It is the combined art and technique of designing, shaping, organizing, and decorating the stone, iron, wood, and glass of which a building is composed. It is not one of these activities alone, but all of them together, making an organic unit with a form and expression and use of its own. But as the nineteenth century progressed, the architect, instead of being a master builder or a designer of a whole structure, increasingly became the person who applies an arbitrary dress to a structure which was largely designed and wholly built by others who cared little about the niceties of scale, proportion, and rhythm. The architect did the best that he could in the face of unprecedented demands, but it became more and more difficult for him to develop an exterior form that grew out of and gave expression to the dominant social factors of the time, chiefly the new conditions of urban life in the great centers of trade and manu-

facture.

The failure of the nineteenth-century architects, however, cannot be ascribed simply to perversity or to ignorance; nor can it be understood as an escape into fantasies that seemed more pleasing than the harsh realities of the time. It is true that before the challenge of the machine they sought refuge in styles with literary, historical, and even ethical associations. But that challenge was so extreme, so complex, and so unprecedented that much of the best talent went to finding ways in which well-known architectural forms could be adapted to the new exigencies. In a positive sense, the architects of the time reflected the extent to which the age was imbued with the historical spirit and its associated points of view. In this respect the nineteenth century was unique: no other period was so deeply conscious of the historical process as an essential dimension of man's selfawareness. The borrowing of exterior architecturaJ details was often indiscriminate and sometimes merely capricious, so that when we view the century as a whole from our own vantage point, we feel that styles came and went like fashions in dress. But if we consider the names of only a few of the best American architects of the past cen-

This article is, with some additions and different illustrations, the first chapter of Carl W. Condit's book The Chicago School of Architecture, which will be published this summer by the University of Chicago Press. This book is an extensive revision and expansion of his earlier (1952) The Rise of the Skyscraper.

Condit is Professor of English at Northwestern, where he directs the Senior Tutorial Reading Program and teaches a course in the development of science. His interests are primarily technological and historical. His two volume American Building Art (published by the Oxford University Press in 1960 and 1961) is a pioneer work on the history of structural technology in the United States, including bridges, highways, and the structures of waterway control as well as buildings in the usual sense of the word. He was one of the founders of the Society for the History of Technology and is co-editor of its iourna/, Technology and Culture.

tury, we realize that, however much the succession of revivals prevented them from forming an architectural style, they were in no way inhibited from creating impressive individual buildings. Some of them, indeed, are superior to anything we have produced today, at least in the richness of the visual experience that they can offer.

American architecture in the nineteenth century began with the variations on Palladian and allied classical forms which are generally comprehended in the term "Federal style." Thomas Jefferson was the best-known exponent of its Roman enthusiasm, but many others contributed to a body of architectural work distinguished by a harmony, dignity, and repose that seem remote from our frantic time. The Greek Revival might be regarded as a simplification of the earlier movement, sometimes combining a dedicated antiquarianism with a perfectly sound understanding of its adaptability to the needs of the young republic. The possibilities of this romantic classicism, as it has sometimes been called, are most fully revealed in the work of William Strickland, Robert Mills, and Thomas Ustick Walter.

The revivals which followed the Greek came at shorter intervals. By mid-century, Gothic was in the ascendant. It is best represented in the ecclesiastical designs of James Renwick and Richard Upjohn in New York. Shortly after the Civil War the restless age demanded another change, and the Gothic was superseded by the Romanesque, most poserfully and creatively exploited by Henry Hobson Richardson in ways that ultimately pointed toward genuinely contemporary forms. The last phase before the end of the century was the Renaissance Revival, dominated by the great town houses and public buildings of McKim, Mead and White. In the heyday of their lavish practice, however, Sullivan was enjoying his largest commissions and thus providing the perfect antithesis to the revivalistic spirit of the age. Yet eclecticism was to continue as the dominant mode of building until the third decade of the twentieth century.

For all the excellence of individual buildings, the whole pattern of architectural development revealed to a growing degree a serious malaise at the roots of nineteenth-century culture. The artist in part creates the character of his time, but he must at the same time be nourished by what his age gives him. Architecture, in the period of its decline, reflected certain cultural failures of the new industrial age. Most pervasive, as we can now see, was the collapse of the traditional well-ordered cosmos that embraced a moral, or at least a rational, as well as a physical order. Associated with this loss was the progressive decline of a public or civic world in which human beings might find scope for meaningful action and the potential self-realization that accompanies it. The growth of the industrial megalopolis of the

nineteenth century quickly destroyed the remaining vestiges of the humane urban order that once provided some measure of self-identity and digmty to the citizen. The past century seemed stubl« on the surface, but in truth the unstable and ephemeral quality of many of its cultural achievements provided increasing evidence of an inner disharmony and confusion that persists to this day, although in different forms.

What the nineteenth century suffered from was in part a split personality, a "cultural schizophrenia," as Sigfried Giedion explained it. This state has been characteristic of other highly creative periods of confused or rapidly changing spiritual orientation. The emotional statisfactions and the aesthetic experiences of people were split off from their intellectual and practical activities. Science and technology parted company from art, and both were ultimately divided into an ever growing number of separate, isolated compartments. Eventually specialization reached such a point that one could not even see the world beyond one's own special activity, much less comprehend it.

Thus at a time when the technical and intellectual elements of culture were most in need of a humanizing discipline, the one best calculated to achieve it in the public world failed to realize its highest function. Architecture in one of its aspects is a utilitarian art. Function, structure, and form are indissolubly wedded. Applied science and technology provide it with materials and with their known mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties; the artist's sense of form and order and harmony, his capacity to create symbolic images, transform the physical elements into emotionally satisfying objects that live in the imaginations of men while giving voice to their ideals, aspirations, and capacities. A genuine architecture is a technical-aesthetic synthesis that makes it possible for the world of technology to enter into the domain of feeling and morality.

In order to achieve this end architects in the nineteenth century eventually had to turn their back on imitations of the past, for they were faced with conditions and opportunities that had no precedent. They had to master new materials and offer solutions to new problems. The forms of the past, however vital they once were, came to have little meaning in the face of the conditions which came to exist in New York or Chicago. But just as the great majority of nineteenth-century architects seemed to have lost contact with the social and technical realities of their time, individuals began to appear who, consciously or unconsicously, accepted the challenge of their age and built directly and boldly on its basis.

It was the engineers who first pointed the way that a new structural art might profitably take. They built primarily for use, and whatever form their structures took at least had the merit of ex-

Spring, 1964

pressing directly, simply, and honestly the system of construction they employed. However, some of the bridge engineers had a strong sense of form. They looked upon techniques somewhat as the artist looks on the material of his painting or poetry, and they wanted to celebrate the powers they possessed by means of a new kind of monumentalism. Industry had provided them with new structural materials, cast and wrought iron, and they exploited their possibilities with an exuberance unparalleled in the history of building. Early in the nineteenth century some of the bridge engineers, imbued with a sense of harmony and proportion characteristic of trained architects, developed structural forms that pointed toward an organic architecture appropriate to a mechanized industrial culture.

The first cast-iron structure was a small arch bridge over the River Severn at Coalbrookdale, England. It was built by the iron founders Abraham Darby and John Wilkinson between the years 1775 and 1779. Following the precedent of two thousand years of masonry bridge construction, the builders employed the fixed semicircular arch as the only acceptable form. Thomas Telford's great project of 1801 for a bridge over the Thames at London involved a flattened arch of 600-foot span. In its size, its effortless grace, and the delicacy of its iron ornament, it would have been a major aesthetic achievement. Telford's finest completed span was the suspension bridge over Menai Strait, built between 1819 and 1826,

Brooklyn Bridge, East River, New York City, 1869-83. John and Washington Roebling, engineers.

the first big bridge to embody the new system of suspended construction.

The success of Telford's Menai Bridge led to the extensive employment of the suspension principle in Europe, England, and America. The triumph of the cable form came with the Brooklyn Bridge, built by John and Washington Roebling over the years from 1869 to 1883. Contemporary with this structure was James B. Eads's bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis, built between 1868 and 1874. For this bridge Eads returned to the older form, using a series of fixed steel arches of 520-foot span. Most significant for Chicago architecture was the profound effect that the bridge exercised on Louis Sullivan. Equal in its architectonic excellence was Gustave Eiffel's Garabit Viaduct, completed in 1884. The great engineer of the Eiffel Tower used the two-hinged arch in the Garabit span and thus provided the structural art with a large-scale demonstration of another impressive form, the crescent-shaped arched truss. These immense bridges stand today, monumental pioneer exhibitions of a new building technology rich in promise for the whole architectural art.

Of more immediate significance for the architects, especially those of the Chicago school, was the application of iron to conventional types of building. Cast-iron structural elements began to appear in the eighteenth century. An early and extensive use of the material was in St. Anne's Church, Liverpool (1770-72), in which all the interior columns - that is, the compressive members - were of cast iron. An even larger installation formed part of the internal frame of William Strutt's Calico Mill at Derby, England (1792-93), which was composed of iron columns and timber beams. Within the following decade Matthew Boulton and James Watt began to build multistory factories with complete internal frames of cast iron. In the United States the new system of framing was first adopted by the architect-engineer William Strickland, who introduced castiron columns as balcony supports in the Chestnut Street Theater in Philadelphia (1820-22). Within a generation Daniel Badger and James Bogardus, the two most influential builders in the pioneer phase of iron construction, established their respective factories in New York (Badger in 1847 and Bogardus the following year). Their buildings often revealed great refinement of form, with street elevations reduced to a rhythmic pattern of rectangular openings enframed by the columns and spandrel girders of the iron frame. The structure of James Bogardus that most clearly anticipated the iron-framed skyscraper developed by the Chicago builders was the shot tower constructed for the McCullough Shot and Lead Company in New York (1855). In this tower brick panels were carried entirely on the posts and beams of the cast iron frame. A similar system

of construction was used by George H. Johnson in the warehouse of the United States Warehousing Company in Brooklyn, New York (1860). An early example of large-scale iron framing that prefigured the dominant mode of the Chicago work was the John Shillito Store in Cincinnati, Ohio (1876-77), designed by James McLaughlin. By combining interior iron columns and beams with narrow masonry piers in the exterior enclosure, McLaughlin turned all four elevations of the block-long six-story building into the open cellular walls that the Chicago school later developed into forms of great architectonic power. Meanwhile, the builders of England and the Continent were rapidly exploiting the potentialities of the structural techniques introduced by Strutt and by Boulton and Watt. One of the most promising and original works of the nineteenth century was Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, erected for the London International Exhibition of 1851. Paxton reduced the huge building to a tr ansparent, neutral skin of glass stretched over a delicate frame of iron members. The construction of the Crystal Palace was carried out by assembling prefabricated elements of curtain wall and skeleton. It was an invention the useful consequences of which are just beginning to be realized by the building industry. A similar system of construction was embodied in Carstensen and Gildemeister's Crystal Palace for the New York Exhibition of 1853. The great significance of both these buildings was largely lost on the architects of the nineteenth century. The fact that they were erected for the ephemeral purposes of an exposition contributed to the feeling that they were novelties without serious architectural meaning. More influential because of its relative permanence is Hippolyte Fontaine's warehouse of the St. auen docks near Paris (completed in 1866).

Eads Bridge, Mississippi River, St. Louis, Mi>5ouri, 1868·74. James B. Eads, Chief en9ineer.

Shot tower. McCullough Shot and Lead Company. 63-65 Centre Street. New York City. 1855.

The warehouse is a larger and more thoroughly developed example of the early essays in iron framing produced by Bogardus and Johnson. There is good evidence that this extraordinary building is the first multistory structure carried entirely on an iron frame without any assistance from masonry bearing elements. It is thus a strictly utilitarian forerunner of Jenney's Home Insurance Building in Chicago (1884-85). Within five years Jules Saulnier produced one of the curiosities of early iron framing in his Menier Chocolate Works at Noisiel, France (1871-72). The braced framing in the curtain walls of this building, undoubtedly derived from the iron bridge truss, is an important step in the development of windbracing for the tall building.

A peculiar problem posed by the industrial demands of the nineteenth century was the need to span wide enclosures without intermediate supports. The early market halls and theaters were examples in traditional forms. The train shed of the metropolitan railway terminal, however, offered novel difficulties because of its great size and unique function. The engineers attacked the problem with characteristic directness and courage, and by mid-century they had produced the great balloon shed that was once the most striking feature of the transportation structures. I. K. Brunel and M. D. Wyatt, in Paddington Station, London (1852-54), created a huge vault of wroughtiron ribs carrying a shell of glass and iron. The Spring, 1964

two materials were perfectly integrated in a form of great size. St. Pancras Station (1863-76), the creation of W. H. Barlow, R. M. Ordish, and Sir George Gilbert Scott, revealed further refinements of the glass and iron vault in a structure of even greater dimensions. The first Grand Central Terminal in New York (1869-71), designed by John B. Snook and Isaac Buckhout, was the first American structure comparable to these extraordinary British achievements. The train sheds of the nineteenth century embodied a prevision of the twentieth-century builder's treatment of space, not as an inclosed volume, but as a free-flowing element integrated with an open and buoyant structure.

The great bulk of iron-framed buildings in the past century belong to the domain of vernacular architecture. Although it is impossible to define this type of building exactly and to separate it from architecture consciously designed for expressive and symbolic ends, one can readily distinguish its dominant visual and utilitarian characteristics. Vernacular building comprehends all those structures erected by carpenters, masons, ironworkers, and others with the requisite technical skills but without formal training in architectural design, and planned usually for strictly utilitarian ends such as shelter, containment, and protection. Vernacular form is thus purely functional, but this does not preclude the possibility of its possessing a genuine aesthetic distinction. The earliest colonial residences and churches belonged to the vernacular tradition of the carpenter-builder, but as the American economy expanded, such building was progressively restricted to barns, mills, warehouses, factories, and the like. These structures are usually marked by extreme sev-

Home Insurance Building. Chicago. 1884-85. William LeBaron Jenney, architect. The first multi-story office building supported on an internal iron and steel skeleton and thus the prototype of the contemporary skyscraper.

erity of form, an elemental geometry of flat rectangular wall planes and gabled roofs. The timber mill building, for example, might consist simply of a New England braced frame covered by a sheathing of clapboard siding. The common structural alternative was a building of masonry bearing walls with an interior frame of wooden columns and beams, wooden trusses, or combinations of timber and iron. Materials were generally directly presented, and openings were as simple in shape, as regularly spaced, and as large as structural exigencies permitted. The use of cast and wrought iron for wall framing, as in the buildings of James Bogardus, allowed the builder to open the exterior walls almost entirely to glass. Many of the surviving vernacular classics of the pre-iron age are the early mills of New England and the barns of eastern Pennsylvania.

Chicago's first major contribution to the building art grew out of the vernacular tradition. The balloon frame, invented in 1833 by Augustine D. Taylor, was an enormously useful and influential variation on the heavy New England frame. For the stout girts and posts of the older system, Taylor substituted a closely ranked series of light studs, joists, roof rafters, and purlins joined by simple nailing. The resulting structure was usually covered with clapboard siding nailed to the studs. St. Mary's Church in Chicago, built by Taylor, was the first building carried on a balloon frame. From it grew a countless progeny in the towns and on the farms of the West. One can

trace a fairly direct line from the little church through the cast-iron fronts of Badger and Bogardus to the mature architecture of steel framing that Chicago produced at the end of the century. A good example of vernacular building in masonry, wood, and iron is one of the few survivors of the Chicago fire of 1871: the Inbound Freight House of the Illinois Central Railroad, on South Water Street a block east of Michigan Avenue. Originally built in 1855, the interior timber work of the station was destroyed by the fire and replaced in 1872. The building measures 45 by 572 feet 6 inches on the exterior in plan, with a clear interior space of 40-foot span. The bearing walls, 2 feet 6 inches thick, are composed of irregular blocks of Niagara limestone, which was available in great quantities following the completion of the Illinois and Michigan Canal in 1847. The gable roof is supported by purlins in turn resting on curious trusses built up of heavy timbers and wrought-iron rods. In its homely simplicity, relieved only by the texture of the limestone walls, it represents a perfectly functional approach to building. Yet it was this strict utilitarian functionalism that formed the very foundation of even the most sophisticated designs of the Chicago school. Only a short step removed from this vernacular essay was the first passenger terminal of the Illinois Central in Chicago. Known as Great Central Station, it was designed by Otto H. Matz and built in 1856. With its vaulted shed of wood and its arched openings in the masonry end wall

Grand Central Terminal, Park Avenue at 42nd Street, New York City, ISb9-71. John B. Snook, architect; Isaac C. Buckhout, engineer. Interior of the trainshed, looking toward the head house, or station building.

Crystal Palace, London Exhibition, IS51. Joseph Paxton, designer. Interior of the central transverse vault.

St. Mary's Church, Chicago, Illinois, 1833. Augustine Deodat Taylor, builder. (Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architenture)

for the passage of trains, it actually belonged to the vernacular phase of the metropolitan terminal. It was demolished in 1892, when the present Central Station was completed.

The transmutation of vernacular building, with its exclusive emphasis on immediate utility, into a genuine architectural style was in part the product of a relatively long theoretical preparation. The growth of a functionalist and organic theory of architecture was one of the numerous by-products of the pragmatic and evolutionary currents in nineteenth-century thought. Among European theorists the most influential was Eugene Emanuel Viollet-le-Duc. The English translation of his Discourses on Architecture was published in the United States in 1881, but his proposals for a new architecture consistent with the physical properties and the structural potentialities of iron had gained wide currency before that date. Gottfried Semper, a German historian and theorist who derived his organic doctrine of architectural style partly from the Darwinian hypothesis, was read and discussed in Chicago around 1890. A native organic theory, however, had begun to develop before the middle of the century. Its founder was Andrew Jackson Downing, who proposed in his Landscape Architecture (1844) that a building ought to be adapted to its site and ought to express its end or purpose. A more thoroughly developed organic theory, with transcendentalist elements, was worked out by Emerson in a series of disconnected fragments scattered through his journals and lectures. The essential idea in his doctrine is that architecture

Spring, 1964

is the only art that is both utilitarian and aesthetic and hence ought to express its practical function as well as the inspiration that leads to the creation of beauty. Emerson held that the architect derives his forms from nature - that is, from natural structures such as trees and shells - and that his work is the imaginative embodiment of the physical laws of natural processes.

The first strictly functionalist theory of design was developed around the middle of the century by the sculptor Horatio Greenough, who was a contemporary of Emerson and possibly an influence on his thought. Although Greenough himself did not present an organized and consistent doctrine, his friend and admirer Henry T. Tuckerman provided a comprehensive statement of the artist's ideas in A Memorial of Horatio Greenough (1853). Like Emerson, Greenough believed that nature is the primary source of form in architecture and that just as the form of an organism reveals its functional capacity, so should the form of a building reveal its function. The chief characteristic of the natural organism, he said, "is the consistency and harmony of the parts juxtaposed, the subordination of details to masses, and of masses to the whole. The law of adaptation is the fundamental law of nature in all structure." As examples of human creations in which this law is embodied, he cites various machines and the clipper ships. His extreme admiration for ships led him to assert that if civil architecture were as well designed as the sailing vessels, public buildings would soon become superior to the Parthenon. Beauty in architecture, then, was

Inbound Freight House, Illinois Central R.R., South Water Street, Chicago, 1855, 1872. End Elevation.

Inbound Freight House, Illinois Central Railroad, Chicago, Illinois, 1855, 1872. Cross-section showing the roof truss.

simply the promise of function. Greenough's concept of the aesthetic quality is thus highly empirical and positivistic and is strictly bound up with a scientific understanding of nature.

I call therefore upon science in all its branches to arrest the tide of sensuousness and arbitrary embellishment not negatively by criticism thereof alone, but positively by making the instrument a many-sided response to the multiform demands of life. The craving for completeness will then obtain its normal food in results, not the opiate and deadening stimulus of decoration. Then will structure and its dependent sister arts emerge from the standstill of ipse dixit and. like the ship. the team. the steam engine. proceed through phases of development toward a response to need.

Greenough's organic and functionalist theory remained the most extensive and thorough until Sullivan elaborated his own aesthetic philosophy at the end of the century. However, the twin themes of natural adaptation and empirical fitness continued to be presented with variations in a steady stream of essays and books. Attacks on eclecticism began to appear in the engineering press in the 1860's. Calvert Vaux argued in his Villas and Cottages (1857) for an architecture built to suit the needs of the American people and the local climate. James J. Jarves, in The ArtIdea (1864), repeated Greenough's doctrine that if the functional and pragmatic basis of American technical creations was applied to the design of buildings, America could quickly create an original and beautiful native architecture. John Burroughs, whose Signs and Seasons (1886) was extremely popular, presented a romantic naturalistic variation on the fundamental theme. In addition to adaptation to site and need, he argued for the honest presentation of natural materials in their rudeness and simplicity. By the last decade of the century, these doctrines were beginning to impress the architects themselves,

some of whom, most notably Joseph W. Yost, began to demand a modern style emancipated from tradition and consistent with the new structural materials and utilitarian demands. Thus many of the ideas from which a new philosophy and a new style of architecture might be derived had been given a wide currency in numerous writings by the time the Chicago movement began the material revolution in the building arts.

The architects who came together in Chicago following the fire of 1871 included men of rare creative talent who had no formal education in architecture but who had a remarkable capacity for learning their craft through direct attack on the problems of large-scale commercial building. Few of the leading figures were born or grew to manhood in Chicago. The city had no schools of architecture and only a handful of architects who could train apprentices. Yet in little more than a decade after the fire they invented and mastered the modern technique of riveted steel framing and were thus able to develop the office building, hotel, and apartment block as we know them today. But these categories hardly exhaust the areas in which the architects of the Chicago school worked. These included every type of building: residences, railway terminals and way stations, warehouses, factories, churches, schools, hospitals, museums, theaters, and even tombs. Nor was their work confined to a single city. They designed buildings erected in New York. Buffalo, Cincinnati, St. Louis, New Orleans, Kansas City, Omaha, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Pueblo, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle. They were the acknowledged leaders of their profession in the Middle West and among those few critics in the East who were willing to risk their reputations by making an objective assessment of what the Chicago group was doing. That they were either forgotten or condemned in the period between the two World Wars is one of the major ironies of American history.

Their achievement was not an accident, and we now know that they belonged in the mainstream of a world movement. They knew exactly what they were doing and why they ought to do it. They recognized their problem with relentless clarity of insight, and the solutions they developed represented a mode of attack very much in the spirit of creative scientific inquiry and theorizing. They believed that they had created a new style of architecture by means of a new kind of thinking about it. Several of them, most notably John Wellborn Root and Louis Sullivan, wrote extensively about the technical and aesthetic aspects of their art. Architectural journals and societies were founded in Chicago to preserve their words. Sullivan, the most sensitive and subtle personality among them, in developing his own aesthetic philosophy recognized the true value of their achievement: that they had taken a long

step toward the development of an aesthetic discipline of the powerful forces of nineteenth-century industrialism. The whole forward movement of contemporary architecture lies in the dil'('!'I1111l of that synthesis.

The recorders of building progress in Chicago were also aware of the unique success of the local architects. The best evidence of this understanding lies in the pages of Industrial Chicago, whose anonymous authors were tireless in their praise of the originality and greatness of what they called "Chicago construction." They coined the phrase "commercial style" to designate a form of building that had no counterpart in the past. What is most remarkable, however, is their recognition of the union of science, technology, and art that reveals itself in the structural-utilitarian-aesthetic unity of the best Chicago buildings.

Among the critics and scholars of the East, a few saw the importance of the architecture that was growing up in the city of the prairies. Chief among them were Montgomery Schuyler and Russell Sturgis, the leading exponents of a rational and realistic architecture. The latter consistently maintained that work like that of the Chicago school represented the only genuine structural art of the time. He pointed out in nu-

OCTOBER BEACH

On this very beach, This spit of sand rimmed by a sea With no end,

I have touched my love.

As I do now the sterile grains of sand. Or the blades of beach grass, Or the oak leaves that pass on the wind, Once I touched her here.

Lips, Her fingers, Her hair.

I have touched her here.

Along there in the wet, Along the land-most fringes of the foam, I have seen her walking, Washing her ankles in the sea.

I have seen her footprints there, And counted her toes.

There, where the sandpipers dart against the foam, I have seen her walking.

Far out on the swell I can see black petrels dunk and bob, And once I saw her swimming there Among them, Dunking and bobbing.

I have swum to meet her

Spring, 1964

merous articles that no school of architecture could train men like Sullivan, Jenney, and Root, that it could not, as a matter of fact, turn out an architect at all, and that any real imagination and technical skill would be corrupted by it. By the time of Sullivan's death in 1924, the ideal that he stood for seemed to be a lost cause. As a consequence, the Chicago school had to be rediscovered by a later generation. Perhaps the first to do so was Lewis Mumford, whose discerning chapter on Richardson, Root and Sullivan in The Brown Decades (1931) awakened interest in the background of the modern movement in the building arts. In 1932 the Museum of Modern Art in New York showed a small exhibit entitled "Early Modern Architecture in Chicago" and issued a slim catalogue on some of the architects and their works. Hugh Morrison, in connection with another exhibit of the Museum of Modern Art, wrote a comprehensive critical and biographical study of Sullivan that was published in 1935. The most thorough treatment of the school in its full historical setting appeared in Giedion's Space, Time and Architecture, first published in 1941. Today recognition of the school is worldwide, and its once forgotten principles now constitute the basis of architecture as it is practiced on every continent.

And to swim with her. Where I can see black petrels on the swell, I have seen her swimming.

Along this strip of beach, From the point northward in the haze, Along the rim of waves where I am walking, There is no one, But for me, But for having seen my love, But for having lost her.

I have passed this way before And waded in the sea, Felt the chill, Touched the grains of sand And seen them blowing on the wind. I have passed this way before, And I have posed the question, How can I begin again.

DAVID

NEELoN, L.A., '63

LOVE: A DEFINITION

Love is finding Two snowflakes Exactly alike: You can never prove it.

PATRICIA RABBY, L.A., '64

PROFESSOR EDWARD B. HUNGERFORD

After six years, Professor Edward B. Hungerford is retiring as editor of the Tri-Ouorterly, this is his last issue. The following note from Vice-President Wild is inserted by the undergraduate editors.

Were it not for Professor Hungerford's initiative and his devotion to the concept of a magazine reflecting the University's intellectual interests, there probably would have been no Tri-Quarterly. At least, there would not have been a magazine of the Tri-Quarterly's special character of excellence at this time. Professor Hungerford carried the idea of such a publication into reality, and virtually single-handed has served as editor in a highly effective and distinguished fashion. All members of the Northwestern community, faculty, students and those in the University administration, are grateful beyond measure to him for inaugurating and then producing a magazine of the finest quality, a journal which has been of invaluable assistance in providing an outlet for faculty and student literary efforts as well as for significant works of alumni and others. Just as the Administration was delighted to help Professor Hungerford's efforts, whenever possible, the objective now is that of making certain that the magazine goes forward in line with the standards already set. The continuation of the Tri-Quarterly is the best possible way to express adequately the gratitude of Northwestern to Professor Hungerford for his outstanding accomplishments.

February 14, 1964

PAYSON S. WILD

by Gary Lee Blonston

Future Tense

When's

she get in?" Sid slumped in the chair.

"About five. I'm gonna go to bed." Stan kicked off his shoes and began unbuttoning his shirt.

"In the morning? What's she going to do while you're in class?"

"No, no, in the afternoon."

"And you're going to bed now?"

"Sure. Have to get my rest." Stan threw the shirt in the closet.

"Stanley, is there something you're not telling 01' Sid? Why is it you must build up all this strength? She making promises already?"

"Hell, how many promises did you ever get from a girl like her? I'm amazed she's even coming."

"So am I, buddy. I don't see much you got to offer. That's no damn state school she goes to."

"Get out of here. If I can work her up to a night like last year, you won't have much to say. I'm going to bed and dream about you getting plastered while you jealously watch us whirling around the floor." Stan pirouetted across the room.

"Crap." Sid picked up his jacket and walked out down the hall. Stan turned to the mirror and combed his hair, brushing the dandruff from his temples with his free hand. He pulled his shoulders back, turned away from the mirror, and looked at himself over his shoulder.

Man, I just ripple.

He struggled to scratch a skinny shoulder blade, then took off his pants and tossed them on

Spring, 1964

top of the discarded shirt. Lights out, radio on, and he rolled into bed. The sheets were new and cold, and they made him even more nervous and anxious for the girl's arrival. He drummed his fingers on the bedstead in time to the radio. It had been two months since he had been home for Christmas and since he had seen her.

Still riding on the homecoming float. Queen Carol. Too bad she knows she's so good. Strut and preen and squawk like a bird. "Don't get my hair wet," so snow down your back, dear lady. Didn't like that much or me either. "No, Stan, not tonight. Busy." But there was that one night no, couldn't happen again. Going to be a bad weekend. Probably foul up everything, and then she'll squawk some more. Damn car won't start, and I'll be late to the station. "Can't you do anything right? You knew what time I was coming. I have better things to do with my time than sit in a train station. Just leave me with all these people." Bitch, bitch, bitch. All the way back. Be good to have her in the car again, though. Sits nice. Lots of body. Shoulders back, chin up, stomach in, hup. "What are you looking at?" Bad, bad weekend.

He turned over and bent his pillow in half, burrowing his head into the sponge rubber.

"So remember, gents, for the best in evening attire, for that feeling of confidence that comes with immaculate dress, rent your formal wear from Adelo and Sons, 4954 East Static popped in the radio.

Have to get Dietrich's tux in the morning. That feeling of confidence that comes with borrowed clothes. She'll probably check it out for rental tags. Things won't fit. "Lose some weight, Stan?" And then smirk. So sure of herself. Maybe a couple drinks and she'll corne around. No, maybe not. "Stan, aren't you going to have one, too?" "Sure." "Stan, aren't you going to have one, too?" "Sure." "Stan, aren't vou going to have one, too?" And then drop the goddam thing in my lap.

He yawned and kicked at the sheets.

Allenson seemed pretty interested. Probably bird dog all night. "Stan, you don't mind if I dance with Carol just once." And away we go. Maybe just forget about the dance and go to a drive-in. That'd go over big. No sex this weekend. Not from royalty. Bet she'd be good, though. Fat chance.

He lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. The wind rattled the window, a warm wind for March. The sparse snow that had come and gone all winter was gone again. Stan's eyes crept shut. The radio popped, so he snapped it off and sighed his eyes closed again.

Maybe it'll be all right. Get out of the dance early and walk a while and talk. Might work out

He drifted, his hand in Carol's, into a dark green park, moist and comfortable, aphrodisiac with early March. She smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"It's much nicer out here than inside."

"Yeah, I get tired of all the fakes that show up at these things."

"Like Dick Allenson?"

"For one."

"I know what you mean. He's not hard to dislike. All that beautiful blond hair and big talk. And his tux didn't even fit." She laughed and squeezed his hand. He put his arm around her and maneuvered her to a big tree. She grasped his shoulders and kissed him. She was soft, and she molded against him, willing.

"I'm glad you carne."

"So am 1." She smiled and leaned back against the tree. Her eyes looked beyond him, hazy and happy. Then she looked hard over his shoulder. "Stan." Strange tone. He turned around. Two men were coming toward them up the narrow path. One carried something Stan couldn't see.

"Nice stuff, kid. How about sharing her?"

Stan pushed Carol around the tree. "Let's get out of here." He turned back just as one of the men lifted a length of pipe. His head exploded, and he could feel blood in his eyes. The ground came up and hit him again. "Stan!" She was frantic, but he couldn't move. She screamed, one of the men laughed, cloth ripped, and something heavy hit the ground. Stan's brain was filling with clouds of blood and color. Carol screamed again.

He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. His hand moved to his chest and he could feel his heart double-timing under his fingertips. Switching on the light, he picked up a cigarette and lit it.

What's wrong with me? Damn. It was so easy. Nothing I could do. Nothing at all. Just like that. Come on, slow down.

He stood in front of the mirror, watching the smoke as he blew it through his nose. A history book lay on the table, and he thumbed through it absently until the filter on the cigarette began to burn. He put it out, turned off the light and got back into bed. His thoughts skirted the park, and he finally slept without dreaming.

The next morning passed from class to class like every other Friday. By four, Dietrich's tux was in Stan's closet, there was money in his wallet, and he had started the drive to the station. He felt good, the car felt good in his hands, his hair looked good, everything was good. Trees and lawns, then buildings passed quickly. He left the car in the station parking lot and walked into the terminal several minutes before five. The long green benches were full of old men and children and sailors. And on one sat Carol. He walked up to her, wearing a smile she didn't return.

"Hi. You're in early."

·'No., right on time. Four o'clock." She shook her head and looked at him in disgust.

"But you said five. In your letter that's what you said."

"No, four. And really, you should have let me know you were going to be late. There are lots 01' things in town I could have seen while I was waiting. But it's my fault. I should have known you wouldn't be on time. Pick up my bag."

She got up, and Stan followed her out of the station.

"I called your dorm, and they said you had left, so 1 waited. An hour is a long time to just sit.

"Okay, 1 did it again. I'm sorry. Take it easy."

"Well, after all, Stan, 1 didn't have to come clear up here just to sit in a train station. The least you could do is meet me on time."

"1 know. I'm sorry." He opened the car door for her, put the bag in the trunk and began the drive back to school. She sat on the far side of the car, facing straight ahead.

"This is your first time in the city, isn't it?" He smiled eagerly.

"Heavens, no, we used to live here."

"Oh.

They said nothing more until Stan pulled up in front of a girls' dormitory, took Carol's bag inside and delivered her to Marge, the girl who had agreed to put her up for the weekend. Carol seemed much happier to see Marge than she had been when she greeted Stan. He walked out of the dormitory frowning.

Gray day should have left well enough alone. A homecoming queen's place is at home. Smart aleck bitch.

Two hours later he was back, well ring 011" trich's tuxedo. Carol was even more impressive and even less hospitable than she had been earlier in the day. She wore a shiny green cocktail dress that moved nicely and a frozen expression that didn't. Stan took her to the car but sat without turning on the engine.

"Look, if you don't want to go to this thing, I could take you back down to the station. I don't want to put you out any."

"Oh, stop it. What do you want me to do-crawl all over you? You asked me to com e up, and I said all right. That's all there is to it. Maybe I shouldn't have, but since you borrowed a tuxedo, we might as well go through with it."

"Why can't you say just one thing civil? And didn't borrow the tux. It's mine."

"Then you bought it too big."

Stan twisted the key viciously, raced the engine and spun the tires on the gravel as he pulled out. He said nothing until they sat down in the big country club ball room. Carol slowly became talkative, and the situation seemed to be improving.

"Would you like a drink?'

"If you have one." Stan looked at her hard for a second, and she looked back, puzzled. "What's the matter? My face dirty?"

"No. Nothing." A quizzical sound worked out of his throat, and he went to the bar. Allenson was there ahead of him, wearing a red plaid dinner jacket.

"Hello, Stan, that babe of yours make it?"

"Yeah. Two Manhattans."

"Guess I'll have to drop over and say hello."

"Hey, look, sport, I've got enough trouble as it is. How about spending one night with your own date?

"Don't get excited, Stan. You don't think I could give you any problems, do you? Me, horn in on the great lover? I have great respect for your prowess."

Stan looked at him and opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes blurred. He dropped two bills on the bar and left with the drinks. Carol handled a Manhattan glass well, curving her fingers as if holding a flower. From the other side of his drink, she seemed to be changing her mind about him. The conversation relaxed, and her laugh was almost friendly. He suddenly wanted to be able to see her again.

"Really, why don't you see if you could make it to Florida in the spring? I'll probably drive another couple if you want to go. You'd like it. I mean if you'd like it."

"Well, I already have a couple invitations to go home with people. I couldn't say right now." She was surprised at the suggestion.

"Come on. What could be better? Tall, waving l'alm trees. Broad, sweeping beach." His hand dcscrrbed the broad, sweeping beach, in the process sweeping his drink into his lap.

"Uoddammit, not this soon." He stood up, shaking bourbon and vermouth on the table cloth and dabbing at his borrowed pants with a napkin.

"Not this soon? You had that planned?"

He sat down, running a new crease in his pants with thumb and index finger. "No, dammit, I just knew it would happen."

"You knew it would happen?"

"Yeah. I knew last night. only it wasn't supposed to happen like that. It was supposed to be your fault, sort of. Indirectly, anyway."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's stupid. You wouldn't be interested."

"No, tell me." She put a hand on his wrist and looked at him as though she knew what he was going to say.

"Well, last night I started getting nervous. And don't think you're anything special. This happens a lot. Anyway, I started predicting things that would go wrong. And they all have, some way or other. I figured the car would break down, and I'd be late to pick you up. Managed that pretty well without the car's help. And then I thought about the ride back to school and hit it pretty well, too. And I borrowed this tux, and it's too big. You didn't have to say anything about it, but I knew you would. And then I thought maybe if I got you drinking you wouldn't be so hard to get along with, but I decided that wouldn't be a very good idea because you wouldn't drink any more than me, and I'd get tight and dump my drink on the tux or something." He shrugged and smiled.

She shook her head and laughed. "Amazing. Planned incompetence."

Stan's smile faded, and he stared at her narrowly until she looked down to sip her drink.

"You're really hard to believe. So thoughtful."

"Oh, stop pouting. With that expression and those pants, it looks like you didn't make the men's room. Dry off and dance with me." She tossed a napkin at him and they stood up. Far across the dance floor, Stan could see Dick Allenson's plaid coat weaving among the couples, homing in on their table. Stan hustled Carol out from among the tables, but Allenson was faster.

"Hello, Stanley. I came over to meet your friend.

"I know, I know. Carol, this is Dick Allenson. He's not worth knowing."

"Yeah, but I dance well. You don't mind, do you, buddy?"

Of course not. You're right on schedule." Carol looked at him and giggled as she and Dick walked onto the dance fioor. The music ended quickly, and she returned to the table alone.

"What happened to your partner?"

"Oh, you might say we didn't hit it off. He is

Spring, 1964

really obnoxious." She sat down.

"You want another drink?"

"Might as well. Ought to do something."

Stan jammed his cigarette into the ash tray. "Well, you sure as hell don't have to. I'd just as soon save my money, if you're having such a goddam rotten time. I don't know what you think you are, but I'm tired of it, whatever it is. I don't much enjoy getting dumped on all night." He glared at her, and she smiled back. Putting her empty glass down, she reached out and pinched his nose.

"You're sweet."

He sat an instant, swore at her, and then went to the bar. He made the trip twice more in the next half hour, refilling her glass as soon as she could see the bottom. The band stopped playing, and couples began returning to tables around them.

"Hot in here. Finish your drink, and let's go out. It's a nice night." He said it as though he had rehearsed it. She looked at him levelly and poured down the drink.

"All right." She turned the glass upside down and shook a few drops out. Then she set it on the table with exaggerated care and stood up. One ankle bent, and for a moment she looked very foolish - drunk and finally slightly human. Stan wondered.

They walked out of the clubhouse and turned down a paved path onto the golf course. A chill was replacing the warm night air, and Stan put his jacket around Carol's shoulders.

"What a pretty night."

"So are you." He swallowed hard.

"What an impetuous youth you are to say such things. She slurred, but she smiled, too.

"Sorry." He put his arm around her, disturbing her alcohol-ridden balance. They walked on, and suddenly he stopped.

"Hey, let's not go down there." A grove of trees stood a few yards in front of them. She looked up at him.

"What's wrong? 'Fraid of the dark? Don't worry. I'm here." She grasped his arm maternally and started to walk on. He didn't move.

"No, really, I'd just as soon not."

"Why not?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Oh. You're not afraid of the dark. You're 'fraid of me."

"No, dammit. I just don't want to go down there.

"More predictions?"

"No, a dream." She looked at him and laughed. "I'd just as soon not talk about it. Let's go back to the car instead."

"Back to the car? But it's such a nice night. Don't be so superstitious. You're silly. I'm being nice. Now come on."

She released his arm and walked away. He

caught up with her, and they went on down the path, stopping within the shadow of the trees. She pulled him to her. "Now, isn't this better than the car?" She was flying.

He shrugged and breathed the whisky in her breath. "You win."

She tossed her head. "Of course." They kissed for the first time, harshly, as if competing. Several minutes passed before Stan looked up.

"What was that?"

"What?"

"I thought I heard something." They both stood silent a moment. The clubhouse shined a distant, unsure light on the trees. "I guess not." He pushed his face into her hair. She was warm, receptive, expert, completely different from the afternooon, like that wild night before. She kissed his ear, sighed into it and kissed his lips. He looked up again.

"Listen." She did. "You hear that?"

"Huh uh. There wasn't anything. Why are you so nervous?"

"I don't know. I just don't like it here. Let's go to the car, all right?"

"All right. Kiss me again first."

He bent to her lips and she held him tightly. She was close, and she smelled alive and warm. The sounds around them blurred to a steady murmur like flowing water in his ears as he kissed her again. She leaned back against the tree, closed her eyes, and smiled at him. So sure, so confident, so much in control. Her eyelids lifted slowly. Then she looked up, her smile faded and her eyes widened in fear.

Something reverberated through his head, and a red, swirling curtain fell before his eyes. He heard Carol struggling, heard cloth tear, heard something heavy hit the ground. The grass was wet under his knees, but he couldn't see. His hands groped forward. Then his head filled with her scream, high-pitched and hysterical.

"Stan, stop!"

This is the second story by Gary Lee Blonston to appear in The Tri-Quarterly, his "Wedding Knot" having been published in the spring issue last year. 8/0nston ;s presently studying for his master's degree in ;ournalism at Northwestern. As an undergraduate here, (Journalism, '63) he was a member of the honorary journalism society Sigma Delta Chi, a scholarship student, and the Managing Editor of the Daily Northwestern.

He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, went to school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Gainesville, Florida. He has worked on the Harrisburg (Po.) Evening News and on the Miami Herald, and hopes to resume work on the latter as reporter when he has received his M.S. degree in June.

By Russell L. Merritt

Iffi(Q)OOC§ ANI[)) IFllIL�§

Russell L. Merritt (L.A., '63) has made four films, in three of which he was writer, director, and producer. The most recent of these, made at U.C.LA. is Time of the Horn. As an undergraduate at Northwestern he wrote and produced several radio programs, including a hook review series, a children's program, and a series of detective and horror stories. He wrote two articles on films for Dimension Magazine and notes for the Northwestern University Film Society. He is a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast-a Baker Street Irregular who in 1960 won the coveted Irregular Shilling.

Born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, he grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, and now lives in Stamford, Connecticut. He attended Boston University for two years before coming to Northwestern, and he is presently a first year graduate student at Harvard working for a master's degree in English.

From the earliest days of film, movies and books have been uncomfortable bedfellows. Filmmakers as early as D. W. Griffith and Erich von Stroheim battled some film producers as well as contemporary film critics when they borrowed subjects and techniques from the pages of Charles Dickens and Frank Norris who said audiences would be confused and bored. Today the situation has not much changed. As filmmakers continue to ransack novels and short stories for new material, literary and film critics are still hesitant about the result but certain that it is not "pure cinema" and therefore less than golden. It is altogether appropriate, therefore, that the current focus of this controversy should be on the internal monologue, developed and made popular in literature, now being taken over by the movies. And as more and more filmmakers are becoming convinced that there is a place for the internal monologue on the movie screen as well as on the printed page, and as more and more films like

Spring, 1964

Last Year at Marienbad and 8% are being called "pretentious bores" and "interesting failures" by literary magazines, it seems time to consider what film can and cannot do with literature's latest and most controversial gift.

In literature we are enabled, very roughly, to make out at least two theories regarding the language of the mind. The first regards the thought process as an essentially verbal one. It is clear from the "Proteus" and "Penelope" chapters of ULysses that this is what Joyce believed. For Joyce, the mind thought in terms of words and the impressions words radiate. The mind channelled thoughts of past experiences, impressions of present events, and clouds of vaguely realized subconscious responses into a stream of words forever unreeling in continuous silent speech. The direction of thought was channelled by the words and quality of that speech as well. For instance, part way through "Proteus," Stephen Dedalus thinks to himself, "I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. TerribiLia meditans. A primrose doublet."

Here it is the words themselves that link the three sentences rather than any plot or rational progression. "Pale, silent, bayed about" brings to Stephen's mind the fearsome words of the Catholic Mass. TerribiHa meditans, on the other hand, a medieval phrase in Latin, brings Stephen's mind back to a medieval time and helps shape the next phrase "a primrose doublet." In each case it is the quality of the words themselves that allows Joyce to make the transition. Perhaps an even better example can be seen further on. "For that are you pining, the bark of their applause? It is the pining and the connotative meanings of the word "pine," the feelings of forelorn despair, that originally leads Stephen to use the word "pine." But it is the word "pine" as a pine tree that leads him on to use the word "bark." Not as a part of a pine, but as a description of a noise, the same word is

used to trigger off the next thought, "bark of their applause.

Yet other writers have regarded the thought process as an essentially imagistic one. This is what William Faulkner thought. In The Sound and the Fury the continuity of thought is preserved not with words, but through external action and through pictures of past impressions. The "Benjy" section of the book, for instance, begins on a golf course where the idiot Benjy and his thirteen year old guardian Luster are searching for a missing quarter. Yet with a little impetus Benjy's mind is thrust back to thoughts of his lost sister Caddy and thoughts of his childhood:

(Luster and I) went along the fence and came to the garden fence, where our shadows were.

My shadow was higher than Luster's on the fence. We came to the broken place and went through it.

"Wait a minute," Luster said. "You snagged on that nail again. Can't you never crawl through here without snagging on that nail."

Caddy uncaught me and we crawled through. Uncle Maury said to not let anybody see us, so we better stoop over, Caddy said. Stoop over, Benjy. Like this, see. We stooped over and crossed the garden, where the flowers rasped and rattled against us Keep your hands in your pockets, Caddy said. Or they'll get froze. You don't want your hands froze on Christmas, do you.

"It's too cold out there." Versh said. "You don't want to go out doors."

"What is it now." Mother said.

"He want to go out doors." Versh said.

It is the action of pushing Benjy through the wire of a fence that connects the past and the present in this passage, just as several lines later it is Caddy's remembered statement, "You don't want your hands froze on Christmas, do you" that links the past to another time when Versh says, "It's too cold out there. You don't want to go out doors."

That is, in this passage and throughout The Sound and the Fury, the mind works as a stage upon which various scenes are played. The curtain on a particular scene goes up when the proper words are spoken or the proper event remembered; the curtain falls when a word or action of that scene reminds the playwright of another scene. Where for Joyce the mind thinks and connects primarily with words and symbols, for Faulkner the mind thinks and connects primarily with pictures and images.

Film can work effectively only by following the second impression. If the mind does think in terms of words, film cannot possibly render the thought process more succinctly than the printed word. There can be no imagistic equivalent for "if he knew how he came out on the cards this

morning hed have something to sigh for a dark man in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for Lord knows what he does that I dont know and Im to be slooching around down in the kitchen to get his lordship his breakfast while hes rolled up like a mummy will I indeed did you ever see me running."

But if the mind does indeed think with images rather than with words, film can do much with the mind that the printed word cannot.

For instance, all writers must use a linear descriptive pattern to present their scenes. In the internal monologue this becomes a special handicap because it inevitably slows up a swift mental process. Faulkner has limited control over the pace of his characters' minds because he must pause before each scene to describe - however ingeniously - detail by detail, the ever-changing surroundings the character's mind encounters. But as our experience will testify, this is not how the human mind works. Details are presented to the mind not linearly, not one at a time, as literature must present them, but with apparent sirnultaneity.

This is how film works. As the middle part of Last Year at Marienbad insists, a woman can be at a cocktail party, think back to a scene in her bedroom, and come back to the party instantaneously. The flashing images accurately mime the lightning-swift pace of the mind at work. Faulkner on the other hand must allow for a few words to orient the reader to a new time and place. Whereas film can cut from one scene to the next in Ij24th of a second, and instantaneously give the viewer all the physical information needed to understand that shot, the author must put one word after another, must assemble paragraph after paragraph to give us a gradual and incomplete picture formed in his subject's mind.

Moreover, by working with both an auditive and visual medium, film can assail eye and ear simultaneously as literature cannot do. Where Joyce in "Circe" attempted with such difficulty and with such stilted style to suggest a musical tone by selecting words for alliterative and onomatopoeic qualities, film is able to present literal music. But even more significantly, music as part of the sound track can be used contrapuntally, can be played against as well as with the images on the screen. In the British Free Cinema film Nice Time, for instance, we see on the screen a picture of a Coca-cola sign flashing on and off as we hear the British National Anthem. In 0 Dreamland we hear Frankie Laine crooning "I Believe" as we watch children making themselves repulsive at an amusement park. This same technique, used in the internal monologue, allows the filmmaker special opportunities denied the novelist. In Last Year at Marienbad, the narrator tells the heroine what happened last year, the image simultaneously reveals a con-

tradictory scene, while the context and mood of the scene are underscored by the heavy sound of organ music. Just as a chord of music is able to blend the sounds of several notes to sugg('st II musical impression that could not be evoked by any of the notes alone, so the sound track allows the filmmaker to blend image with dialogue, music, and local effects to present a simultaneous effect the printed word cannot suggest by itself.

Film, then, by use of the image, the editing trope, and the use of sound, can do much with the internal monologue that literature can't.

And yet, there are problems; and one of the reasons Last Year at Marienbad and films like it have met with such a violent response is that their directors apparently haven't yet recognized those problems. For if film can color more quickly and more comprehensively than can literature, it cannot color as deeply.

For with the advantages of representation film also suffers the limitations of representation. Whatever message film has to deliver, it must deliver directly to eye and ear. It cannot appeal directly to taste or touch or smell. It is true that it can display objects that will appeal to our sense of smell - a picture of a steaming stew, a picture of a man eating - yet the appeal to these senses is invariably secondary and for the most part ineffectual. When we help a detective crash through a door and discover a gagged wretch bound in a room filled with carbon-monoxide, we are impressed not by the smell of the gas, even though the detective whipping out a handkerchief lets us know he is dazed by the foul smell and even though we are familiar with that odor ourselves. We are instead impressed by the foggy appearance of the room and the creepy vapour that swirls about.

Literature on the other hand is extra-sensory. It appeals directly to no sense and thus to every sense. For the printed word is not a medium in the way film is. It is not the appearance of the word, the form of the letters or the shape of the page that brings us into the author's world; it is instead the denotative and connotative meanings our minds give these words and sentences that brings that world alive. Whereas the images on the screen exist and are comprehensible regardless of the audience's understanding of them, the words of the book are dead unless the reader brings his active mind into play. For this reason the novelist can suggest much more and much less than the cameraman can. He is not fettered to a literal representation as the filmmaker is. He can suggest aroma, tactile sensations, as well as images and sounds, by triggering off with words in the reader's mind an impression of these sensations. He can suggest the inside of a character's mind by guiding our imaginations with the proper words. All he need write is "Phillip thought about and we have entered Phillip's mind.

Film, on the other hand, can't do that. It is limited to what the mind sees and hears - the sensory raw material for thought. It cannot actually show the thinking process. Marienbad cannot parallel the narrator's mind reasoning, as Joyce and Faulkner can. It can merely show the outward results of those thoughts. The reasoning, which must be left to the audio, becomes of secondary concern in an essentially visual medium, less forceful because it is competing with the images; less convincing because it is articulating aloud a process which is by its nature silent. For this reason, the narrated portion of the film, as the makers of Marienbad have acknowledged, is not intended to serve as the source of the internal monologue. The images alone assume the task of showing what the narrator remembers, while the narration contains only what the narrator articulates to the woman.

More important, this difference between the two media has forced a second restriction on film as well, a difference apparently neglected by the makers of Marienbad. Words can work as syrnbols ; pictures must work primarily as images. In literature the word trope allows the imagination to soar to two or more levels of comprehension simultaneously and unaffectedly. Several levels of reality - photographic actuality, hypothetical reality, the reality of a dream, allegorical reality are all equally "real" and concurrently present before the reader. In "Proteus," for instance, Stephen's thoughts travel simultaneously on upper and lower levels of consciousness and are directed by greater and lesser levels of symbolic meanings throughout the chapter. Franz Kafka's zoo, peopled with apes and bugs, can be significant not only as animals, but as symbols of filth, of pathos, of bestiality, of conformism, of man's relation to God. In "The Judgment," for instance, Miss Katherine Flores has shown that Kafka can use the word cover to suggest a literal covering up of Georg's father and suggest at the same time a symbolic gesture of trying to suffocate the old order so that youth may be free. Physical reality becomes then only secondarily important in a non-visual medium. In literature, removed from the reader by the medium, the realities work as effectively on all levels.

Film, from its early affinities to literature, has thought it could do much the same thing. As great a practitioner as Sergei Eisenstein thought that film's trope, the art of editing, could somehow parallel literature's trope, the use of words, as a symbolic system. Thus he believed that by joining two images, the image of a man smiling and one of a bird chirruping, that the filmmaker could suggest a man singing or suggest the feeling "to sing," just as Japanese hieroglyphic writers had done years before. Yet, for the same reason Marienbad fails in certain respects, Eisenstein's "conflict-juxtaposition of accompany-

Spring, 1964

ing intellectual effects" failed." For by linking the images metaphorically and intellectually, Eisenstein denied the all-important visual integrity of each shot. A picture of a bird chirruping is far different from the words, "a bird chirruping," as far different as an image of a red rose is from the phrase "a rose is a rose IS a rose." I do not mean to challenge Eisenstein's theory of editing, but I submit that it can only work, that shot "A" added to shot "B" can only produce "a new quality arising out of that juxtaposition" when the shots are used for the visual statement that the image in itself suggests as well as for the meaning it gives to the montage when added to other separate shots.

For the same reason, film cannot suggest more than one level of a multiple reality as effectively as literature. Because it is a visual medium appealing primarily to the eye, film is inevitably weighted to a visual and physical actuality. By its very nature, film is essentially a reporting medium, describing the reality of nature as it is presented to the naked eye. In Marienbad, then, we first identify the balcony as a balcony and the hotel as a series of rooms before we consider them as anything else. "Just as a grinning death's head does not in a film appear as a symbol but as an actual part of the human skeleton, so the connection between two objects shown on a film simultaneously never seems metaphorical but always at once real and ontological. In short, there can be no metaphysical poets in film.

This would all seem obvious enough, and yet by ignoring this limitation, by confusing the symbol with the image, Marienbad had crippled its effectiveness and its statement. For instance, the broken balcony and shattered railing Resnais has interpreted as statements on the relation between love and war. The narrator has been called a death force in addition to being a persuader, convincing the heroine that she should step out of the hotel ("Life") and come into the less confusing, the freer, the less stifling world of Death. Hence her hesitation in following him and yet her ultimate Freudian Willingness; hence the association of death with sex, and her final persuasion coming at "the end of the picture, and thus of life.

Film can suggest metaphor, but not in this way. In Lonely Are the Brave, the image of a hat being run over by cars can sum up the futility of a man trying to go his own way in a modern society, but only after we recognize that it is a picture of a hat and that the cars are crushing it. The makers of Last Year at Marienbad are asking us to think of the hotel as life and the narrator as death by asking us to forget that the hotel is a hotel and that the narrator is a man.

·In fairness to Eisenstein, it should be said that he clarified and modified his famous statements thirteen years later in "Word and Image." pp. 9-10 in Film Sense, Meridian Books. New York. 1959.

The inability of film to suggest as effectively the simultaneous levels and depths of thought, but instead inevitably to favor the objective and visual, cripples the medium even more as an effective means of presenting the internal monologue, where these multiple levels continually exist.

The visual aspect of the film limits the medium in yet a third way. Film cannot pinpoint detail within a scene as well as literature can. If, for instance, a filmmaker wished to film an aspect of Joyce's "Penelope" he would confront a passage like' 'the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leap-year like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath ." He would realize at once that he must film an establishing shot of Molly and Leopold, showing them in the garden at Howth head. Yet whereas Joyce can in a few words highlight exactly what Molly remembers about Bloom, film must treat all the objects it photographs in that sort with the same seniority. Even when it jumps to the close-up, there is nothing in the close-up of a tweed suit that tells us that it was because it was grey and a tweed that Molly remembered it. As Basil Wright wrote, "First and foremost we must remember that the camera does not see things in the same way as the human eye. The brain behind your eye selects the points of emphasis in the scene before you Not so the camera. The lens soullessly records on a sensitized piece of celluloid simply the amount of light difference that passes through it. No amount of thinking on the part of the cameraman will achieve any other emphasis."

Yet the internal monologue demands that the filmmaker show precisely what provided the link between the first image and the next. Moreover, as we have seen before, he is limited to visible and auditive linkage. He cannot as effectively suggest a linkage of mood or of tone between the clouds of consciousness as Joyce can with the written word. The innate imprecision and limitation of the linkage are yet further handicaps to the internal monologue in film.

Generalities and rules are risky for a medium that is every year developing new techniques and creating new styles of expression: a medium which has already brought forth such impressive studies in the internal monologue as Last Year at Marienbad, Hiroshima, Mon Amour, 8lf2, and on a humbler level, This Sporting Life and The Manchurian Candidate. Yet the very limitations the film form has imposed on the internal monologue suggest the direction the filmed internal monologue might take in the future.

The most readily apparent direction is a firm step away from literature. An art whose limits

depend on a moving image, a sound track, and an editing principle can't help differing from an art whose limits depend on language, a printed page, and the word metaphor. As we have �1·1·1I, the fact that both film and novel feature a stream of life does not mean that they are able to focus on the same aspects of it. The novelist is most at home weaving an infinite fabric of observations and recollections in order to evolve a languagebound mental continuum, reveling in memories, thoughts, and relationships that no longer have an equivalent in the visible world. A medium relying on language and metaphor is well suited to that purpose. Film, on the other hand, has been most successful when it has followed a strictly material or physical continuum. In short, if the internal monologue is to be a permanent part of film, it is clear that filmmakers cannot rely on literature's internal monologue for their model.

Nor does film need to. For the internal monologue has given film an extraordinary opportunity to exploit those' aesthetic properties peculiar to film, properties which film can render as no other art form can. And before finally exploring a direction for the filmed monologue, it might be as well to review briefly those special properties of film.

Surely Siegfried Kracauer was right when he recognized that the photograph's senior contribution to art has been its ability to draw out from the physical universe hitherto unsuspected forms of familiar sights. Photography, and later film, was able to give new dimensions to such seeming commonplaces as mudpuddles, slum tenements, and eyeglasses. The German photographer Gustav Schenk uncovered in a square millimeter of moving plain water "an endless succession of shapes so fantastic they seem to have been dreamed rather than found." Photographers like Eugene Atget, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Walker Evans came back from the ugliest slum neighborhoods with breathtakingly beautiful and deeply moving pictures of people and buildings. As Kracauer said of yet another photographer, "He knows how to make walls and wet cobblestones eloquent." What thrills us today, then, is the power of the photograph, so greatly increased by technical innovations and scientific discoveries, to open up new perspectives of the physical universe.

When pictures began to move, the revelations multiplied. With use of the moving camera, inanimate and moving objects were given still newer dimensions. Even more important, the less tangible and more complex phenomena of movement and time became subjective as well. Places and events widely separated from each other in an objective world could now be dramatically brought together in film as in no other media. In Intolerance D. W. Griffith could jockey an audience back and forth from the fall of Babylon to the 17th Century St. Bartholemew Massacre, shutSpring, 1964

tle from the crucifixion of the Saviour to a 20th Century criminal execution. Babylon of the Old Tr-stament was separated from the United States today by a fraction of a second. Objective time, as discussed before, could be juggled and destroyed in ways closed to the playwright and novelist.

It is in this direction, it seems to me, suggesting new subjective relationships between past, present, and future; suggesting subjective relationships between divergent places and objects, that film can make the most effective use of the internal monologue. In 8%, for instance, how effectively film was able to juxtapose scenes of Guido's childhood with scenes of Guido at the rest home, in order to bring new insights to his personality. In the same way it was able to hop from Guido, wife, and mistress at a cafe, to Guido in his imaginary brothel, to Guido alone in his preview theater, for effective and comic comment on his love life. In Marienbad, as suggested before, the filmmakers were able to mix the past and present in order to suggest startlingly new, purely subjective relationship between separate events of the past with events of the present.

Moreover, it was within the limits of matter that Last Year at Marienbad was able to bring an array of technical innovations to make its statement most impressive. The moving camera, the overexposed and underexposed picture, the slow-motion and fast-motion frame, the varying grades of film itself-from the very grainy and coarse newsreel-like film to the glowing "sunlight" film-all allowed the filmmakers creative opportunities denied the novelist. To summarize: if literature has used the internal monologue to explore the world of the mind through the subjective language of symbol and metaphor, film is uniquely able to explore that mind through the subjective world of time and matter.

But perhaps just as important as the direction film can give the internal monologue is the direction the internal monologue can give film. Last Year at Marienbad has shown at least part of the way. It has shown that it is no longer necessary to depend on the traditional awkward flash-back devices for transition from present to past, that the thought process in film can be rendered visually rather than orally, and perhaps most impressively, that it is possible to make contrapuntal use of all the parts of film-music, narration, sound effects, as well as photographic image-to suggest more accurately the nature of that stream of consciousness. In short, by giving film a further opportunity to exercise its unique powers-the extraordinary power of editing, the ability to reproduce accurately portions of the physical world, the power to juggle time and space-the internal monologue can expand the realm of film as it has already expanded the realm of the novel.

POEMS By Rohert Lee Moore

If Robert Lee Moore discovers these undergraduate poems of his in The Tri-Quarterly, I hope he will forgive me for printing them without his permission. He left them with me in manuscript when, many years ago, i/l health forced him to leave college unexpectedly. I have cherished the poems but lost track of the poet.

These poems of the early 1930's have given pleasure to many Northwestern people. Indeed, the manuscript itself is falling apart from many readings, and I am glad to save a few pages of this last issue of The TriQuarterly which will fall under my editorship to give the poems a more permanent form and make them available to other readers.

E. H.

From THE SOLILOQUY

Grant that a spring love could be true, That man could know a woman's heart. In spite of all that love could do They still remain apart.

And though their mouths press each to each And through their heart-beats pulse as one, J know their souls can never reach And touch, as stars have done.

For every woman lives alone

And likewise every man must dwell As though some sin he needs atone In penitential cell.

At first I had planned to print only four or five of Moore's poems, but the undergraduate editors urged me to leave out none of them. So I'll include in this footnote the charming little dedication which Moore put at the head of his manuscript.

TO

MR.

and MRS. HUNGERFORD

Poor little songs, this my dedication is: Although you may be ragged, as I wis, And 'though your content may be mostly rot,

Yet you're the best I have, God wot. And so I you send forth, withouten fear. Go, Beggar Verse, on limping feet, and sore; Be not downcast of heart, be of good cheer, All will not turn Lazarus from the door.

CHANT FOR PAGANS

We are the wasters, we, Skipping the life to come, No disrespect to Thee, God, or the Holy Three. We hear the distant drum But do not choose to come.

We hear the rolling tide Surge toward the shore divine. We choose the earthly side; Here where the meadow wide And the cool arbor vine Make earth itself divine.

We are the wasters, we; Let the dull tide depart, Just so the sparkling sea With its bright gems is free. When we have filled the heart Let the dull tide depart.

We are the wasters, we, Hearing the distant drum Call from beyond the sea. We hear the calling drum But do not choose to come.

BALLAD

My love is walking down a rose-thick lane, Far away, 0 far far away, With two red blossoms in her hand. Her eyes, as deep as violet rain Dream of the spot where I am lain, Far away, 0 far far away.

My love is walking by the willow row, Far away, 0 far far away. Her face is white, her hands are cold; She wonders where the waters flow; "Where does the Other River go?" I cannot tell her, though I know: Far away, 0 far far away.

My love is riding down the village street, Far away, 0 far far away, But does not see the weeping eyes, The lilies by her winding sheet, The horses' slowly moving feet; Far away, 0 far far away.

And now my love lies rotting in the mold. Far away, 0 far far away. I would have told her, if I could; But now it is done, and Time grows old; The snow lies heavy on the wold; Our graves are far apart, and cold; And far away, 0 far away.

FROM KANSAS

We lived upon a farm, when I was five. Our drafty, old frame farmhouse was alive With spiders, mice and crickets. There, at night I used to listen often to a slight Rustling and scurrying inside the wall, Or to tiny footbeats scampering down the hall. My mother hated mice. She was afraid Of snakes and crawling things, a fear which made

Her life unpleasant on that Kansas farm. She scrubbed and mopped, and with a vigorous arm

Fought back the daily dust the wind blew in; Swept from the road in clouds, that laid a thin Veneer upon the chairs. Beneath the door, An inch or two of space; and warped the floor, And warped the planks and shingles on the wall.

My mother then was young and fair and tall, Though always tired, and burdened with dispair, Weighted somewhat with worry, thin from care, From doing all the thousand piled-up tasks And all the crude demands a farmhouse asks.

But now, on with the tale. One day in June, A blistering sultry day, an afternoon When on the fields the soaking sunshine beat. I lay upon the parlor rug; the heat Had kept me from the yard, and so I slept. Near, sitting where I lay, my mother kept Close watch upon my slumber, as she sewed. Around the house the heated current flowed; The flies droned drowsily against the pane; And creaked the ever-swinging weathervane.

My mother sewed away, 'till suddenly She glanced up from her work, and looked at me.

She screamed. There where my head lay near the door, A blacksnake slid its length across the floor.

I woke and looked at it, transfixed with fear. It pulled its black repulsive body nearer, Its bright eyes gleaming, then, like little beads. I gave a cry. My mother came and seized The writhing mass. Afraid, yet risking harm, She ran into the yard. Around her arm

The snake wrapped coil on coil its glistening length.

She pulled it from her with the nervous strength

That fear provokes; then with a heavy chain

She killed it, striking hard, again, again.

Then coming in, shaking, cold, and weak, She sank into a chair. I pressed my cheek

To hers, and held her tight, and there, She cried, and ran her moist hand through my hair.

SONGS

Here is sixpence to buy some songs, Songs with a lilting April note.

Let one be a tune for carnival throngs, And one for the lonely shepherd's oat.

Let one be a song for a maypole dance

And one for a gypsy serenade.

Let one have a magic spell and a trance; Let one be the tale of an old romance;

Let one be of spears, and a bannered lance,

And armor and bugles, and cavalcade.

Let there be songs for exulting breath, Of love and of joy, but I pray

Let there be no songs of death

This bright April day.

From THE SOLILOQUY

Tomorrow will be a spun-glass day. There will be prisms hanging from the trees.

At every breeze, Aeolian chimes will play, Filling the air with tinkling melodies.

There will be mirrors to walk upon And every branch will be a work of art. There will be a fragile beauty seen at dawn, Silver and grey, and brittle as a heart.

Only one day a year does nature give Unto the world a dress of glass to wear, And though it fade, the memory yet will live

Like Cinderella's slipper on the stair.

TIGER IN THE GARDEN

Through a garden in Versailles

Once my dreaming eye did pass And there were hedges carefully trimmed And there were nurtured floors of grass And there, I was surprised to see, A tiger prowling, secretly.

But dreams are evil visions Which the daylight should dispel As matins of the morning cock The erring spirits send to Hell. But this dream somehow seemed to stay Upon my soul, until this day.

For now in every mind I see The cultivated garden of my dream; And in the formal walks of life

I see the savage eyeballs gleam, And deep in every woman's face, Her jungle heritage, the tiger-trace.

Spring, 1964

REMINISCENCE OF KANSAS

Birthplace for me an old frame farm-house, bleached

And sweetened by long years of Kansas sun. In front a row of lilacs grew, and reached The always-opened windows. There was one Which by my bedroom grew, and in the spring Its never-cloying sweetness used to blow Into my room, and with the morning bring The awakening hour.

When I was yet too young

To seek the fields wherein my father toiled, I spent the fleeting happy hours among A thousand country pleasures, yet unspoiled. I used to dig around the chicken-coop And fill up holes I dreamed that foxes dug; Or watched, upon the hard-baked earth, a troop

Of ants besiege some crippled waterbug; Or watched the wrigglers in the water trough; Or played upon the summer-kitchen floor; At times, I'd pry the cistern cover off And drop in stones to hear the echoes roar.

Within the cozy house, on rainy days I talked with corn-cob people on the floor, Or passed the time a hundred other ways; By listening to the rain beat on the door; Or, with my face pressed to the window pane Watching the rolling yellow fields of wheat Bend down their heavy heads beneath the rain,

While plodding steaming cattle slowly beat Familiar homeward way across the plain.

And now how many years are in the night, How many springs and summers come and gone, How many drifts piled on the farmhouse site Have melted lonely where horizons yawn?

For me there is a land, beyond the stars, Where furrowed hills unending rise and fall, Where thick green grasslands are, and never bars.

And where at even comes the distant call Of whippoorwill, or hoot-owl after mouse, And where the winds come up, great-lunged, and roar

Around the corners of an old grey house, And rattle in a wash-pan by the door.

RETURN OF ADONIS

Pale Venus walks amid the melting snow. Upon the trees her doves sit motionless. About the field is all the bitterness Of winter, and the lovelessness of woe.

Sad are her eyes; her footsteps sad and slow. But now she stops, and bends in eagerness Above a bank, where bold in forewardness Some little clumps of purple flowers glow.

"Anemones!" she sings. "Adonis now Draws near! Her doves are fluttering white About her head, and all the land is changed. Adonis comes, the radiance of his brow Again has put the spectre snow to flight And stirred the world again with something strange.

AMARYLLIS

'To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,' Now there's a peg to hang one's credo on.

To crush the lushy grasses of the lawn With Amaryllis, loving, unafraid.

To make of life a bauble, like the jade Which hangs upon her throat and glitters there;

To make of time a garland in her hair, An endless dewy chain. Within this glade Would brilliant space be bound. And sitting here, I'd pipe melodious echoes of her name Until young Pan, in jealousy and fear Would creep away, and break his reeds in shame."

-Thus the young poet sighs and writes A brief philosophy for summer nights

SONNET WINTER

Now is the time to write of winter woes' The frantic wind that sought among the leaves

For someone he had lost, now only grieves Disconsolately; and the gathering snows Against the bleak skies pile their heavy drifts.

Autumn is dead, and now the feeble sun

In mourning creeps away, and there in none But thinks of death and tears. And no song lifts

The dull oppression of the season's weight. It is the time to write of death and fear.

Of things macabre, blood, and lust, and hate; To put upon a melancholy art; To paint the world as loveless, bitter, drear; And to ignore the laughter in your heart.

The DRYAD'S LOVER

My love is too wild To be an Earth-child.

Her dark eye's light Gleams green at night.

Her tresses flutter slow Though no winds blow.

Her songs are strange - I hear And shudder, cold with fear.

I know that Dryads' grey-green dresses Are woven out of willow tresses, With the whisper of the wind And the forest-song left in; For once I hid, in forest deep Where they their secret meetings keep, And saw them dance inside the ring, And heard the haunting song they sing:

"0 dryads are fairer than flowers, And sweeter than moon-showered trees.

Come away, come away. Come away where our leaf-sheltered bowers Will hide you away from the search of the hours, And bed you in rose blossoms, lull you with ease. Come away, come away."

That was their song, which they sang, and departed,

Nimbly pursued by a satyr, who started

Up from the brush where he long had laid hidden

(He came, as I came, expected, unbidden),

But then as they ran, one turned, and she cast

A smile and a beckon at me as she passed.

Then I grew cold, and I fled from the place:

My love's eyes were there, my love's face!

Under the spell of a Dryad's eye

I know that a man will wane and die.

Alas, my love's too wild

To be an Earth-child.

In her low-pitched refrain I hear a Delphic strain.

Under the spell of a Dryad's eye

I shall pine and die.

Thus do I love and fear, With a kiss, with a tear.

Spring, 1964

LANDSCAPE

The tall trees, soft with greenish grays Shine indistinctly through the haze. The western sun's diluted rays Send vague tints filtering through the mist. And rose, diffused with amethyst Has lightly stained that crystal cyst, The pale suggestion of a sky. Here floating strands of cloud sweep by, Their vapors tinged with that same dye Which makes the lake a gauzy sheen Of languid indistinguishable green. The world, in one harmonious scene Of pearly multi-tinted gray Is like a landscape by Monet.

From THE SOLILOQUY

She is not gone forever, that I know. Love is but latent now, and sleeping lies

Waiting to wake again when melting snow Runs in fresh rivulets from the land, and skies

Glow with the fresh warmth of an April sun. She is not gone, and she will come again I know. What brings me sorrow is this one Sad fact: the inevitability of pain. For after Spring there lies another Fall; And nothing lasts, however good it seems. All will be lost. Love, happiness, they all Will vanish as the daylight shatters dreams.

All through the night the clock of life ticks on; At dawn - the bell - and all our dreams are gone.

SONNET TO A CASUAL KISS

"And have you ever loved before?" she said. He closed his eyes. His mind was far away.

He thought of one whose hair had seized the red

Gold of the sun, to wear for everyday.

He thought of one whose solemn eyes were dark,

Remembering her smile, and quiet air; How on one foggy-night-walk through the park

The dew strung beaded diamonds in her hair.

He thought of slender hands, and then of one Who gaily once petitioned to be kissed, And he had laughed, and when the deed was done,

Had noticed that her eyes were soft as mist.

"Loved before this?" His voice was husky, flat.

"No, dearest, no. What made you think of that?

HILLS

Why do we climb hills? Is it because We long for vistas, crave the far-away? Or is it something from an ancient day, A vestige instinct, one of nature's laws That says: here, safe from predatory claws Is point of vantage, sanctuary, stay! Or is it that the soul, inclined to pray Feels some resistless force which upward draws?

Why do we seek high hills and mountain peaks? Because we dislike earth! The spirit seeks For something kindred to it in the skies. Thus we climb hills, and thus we train our eyes

On stars; and in our gazings are the same Bright aspirations of the moth and flame.

SONNET

I said my love was fairer than the sun And fairer than Dian, who is the moon. I said she sings more sweetly than that one Who set the trees to dancing from his tune. I called her fragrant as the month of June, Said from her eyes the heavens take their hue.

I said her hair did glisten at high noon As, in the sunshine, golden towers do. But when I tell her this, in accents true, My love but laughs, and says I only flatter, And calls this conceit fair, and that one new; But love, she says; "Ah, that's another matter!

Ah me! I flatter her! And if I do? Gadzooks! Cannot one love and flatter too?

APPRECIATION

Friends of the old years, the dusty years, Singers of songs and sonneteers of old, Men who wrote lyrics while their hearts were cold,

Dampening the fertile manuscript with tears; Great-hearted solemn men, whose listening ears Heard in the air the instruments of gold, Bringing to those who hear, in music's mold The answer to the world and all its fears.

Poets of old, who dwell in regions bleak Show me the path which all the shades have trod,

That I may leave my silent cell to seek The land that Keats and Spenser knew, the sod

That Dante knelt upon to pray, or speak

To the poetic spirit known as God.

HERCULES

When the hero's ship had slid upon the sand Of the Isle of Amazons, and Hercules Met with Hippolyte, with all her band Of warrior women beside her on the strand, Their bows bent back, grim, in a warning smile,

The arrow tusk bared in the threatening snarl; -He knew the prize was his, without a trial Of arms, or the necessity of parle.

For when the queen saw Hercules advance She marveled at the power in his stride, And loved at once his strength and kingly stanceAnd motioned back the archers at her side.

That moment he had borne away the prize And left her pyre-plume bent against the skies.

TEATIME

I offer her my love, as on a tray One brings in tea and cakes, at four o'clock. I try to sound quite steady as I say,

"I'm sorry, but the sugar's hard as rock.

"The tea's too weak, I fear. The cook was out."

I hold my breath as she inspects its hue. Cup to her lips, my future hangs in doubt. She smiles, and all my rarest dreams come true.

"Do have another cookie, I insist.

"Here's one with cocoanuts, as white as snow.

"Do take another one, it won't be missed."

(Each cake's a kiss, but that she doesn't know, Nor does she know the way my heart leaps up When she decides to drink another cup! )

THE SCHIZOPHRENIAC'S REPLY

I ask the world no questions, let it ask Of me no explanations. If a dream Composes my reality, why scheme To lure me back to yours? No. Let me bask

In the warm sunshine of my thoughts. The mask Of fantasy is sweet, and the rare gleam That colors my existence makes it seem More fair than any earthly love or task.

Dementia precox! You have named my case

As senseless to environment, mute, and blind.

Well, you have never seen this other place, Here where a thousand colors, undefined, Blend with a soundless harmony and trace In fire the bright creations of the mind.

ISAAC, SON OF ABRAHAM

Mother, for three days we scarcely slept, But rode the rocky plain, nor stopped to rest From dawn until the searing sun had crept Its fiery arc from east to smoky west. We rode all day, and when at last the sun

Slanted up its last heat-burnished ray, We stopped, our day's tired journey finally done, Eager for rest. Then Father knelt to pray And till he finished, neither food nor drink Could we prepare, though hunger made us weak. And when at last we ate, he seemed to shrink From all of us - from me - nor would he speak,

But only stared at me with sad strange eyes. I tried to speak with him. I asked him why He did not bring the lambmy heart's own prizeI offered him. He tried to tell me why: The journey was too long for it, he said, We'd buy a fatter one along the wayPray speak no more. His face was overspread With such a look I could not disobey. And yet we bought no lamb, although we passed Field after field.

On the fourth day we came Unto Moriah, land of peaks, at last. We wandered long among them, each the same, Until at last he seemed to think he'd found A certain one. At foot of it we stopped. "Here we will build the sacrificial mound."

He looked at me again, and shaking, dropped Upon his knees and prayed aloud to God.

"But Father, still we have no lamb," I said. He pulled me down beside him on the sod And placed his shaking hand upon my head. "God will provide, my son" - the words my son Stuck in his throat, and I was sore afraid. He seemed to tremble with an inner fright. He placed his forehead to the ground and prayed;

And when he rose, a strange ecstatic light Burned in his eyes, a savage gleam, and new. He took a long knife then, and washed it clean, Anointed it with oil, and thrust it through His girdle - the one you wove, of gold and green.

Then, "Come, my son, now we will go prepare A sacrifice unto the Lord Most High, Whose ways are past our knowledge; in whose care

We lay our lives, and at whose will, we die."

He started up the slope, I followed him. He walked as one who walketh in a dream. I asked to lead him, for his eyes are dim.

He took my hand; across each rocky seam I guided him, until we reached the peak.

"This is the place," he said, "It is the same

As in my vision; rocky, bold, and bleak, Yet lit throughout by God's eternal flame."

"Father," I said, "what will you sacrifice? No lamb, nor dove, nor sacrificial bull

Have we brought with us, neither myrrh nor spice,

Though all our fields at home are bountiful."

My father looked at me, he saw me not. He spoke out in a deep and solemn tone

As though he spoke to God: "It is your lot To die upon Jehovah's altar stone."

I stood too paralyzed to move. He tied Me fast, piled heaps of brush about my feet; He rose and prayed, drew out the knife - I cried, Mother, as lambs upon the altar bleat.

The knife-stroke never fell. My opening eyes

Beheld my father standing, knife in air, Transfixed, as though he saw step from the skies

Angels of God. I looked, no angels there, And yet he answered them, "Lord, here am 1."

And then he prayed, with me before his feet, And lifted up his white hands toward the sky. Behind me then I heard a sound, a bleat As of a lamb. I turned. A goat I saw, Caught in a bush, held prisoner by its horns. My father loosed me then. I watched him draw The goat from out the clinging of the thorns.

Mother, I saw him kill it then, the knife Plunge deep into the whiteness of its throat

And then the flames lick up its quivering life. I shuddered then. There where he slew the goat, But for that voice he heard, I would have lain.

Mother, he is mad, I tell you, mad!

To offer up his own son to be slain!

He bears upon his head the curse of Cain. I would have died, 0 Mother, had He not again heard voices in his brain.

Mother I fear to look upon his face again.

Spring, 1964

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

It stood on Maple street, below the hill, A house whose soul had felt the ruthless will Of time and slow decay. It seemed festooned

With dust and age. The hedges were unpruned; The rusty boards bore many a weather-crack; A tangle of weeds and bushes hid the back. The spacious yard, too bare and quiet, gave A hush of isolation like the grave.

The night wind through the shutters sometimes sighed.

Long ago the garden oak had died. No intruder ever breaks the spell That hangs around the house. The old folks tell Of strange sights they have seen, and strange things heard.

The eaves give shelter to no nest, no bird; A woman's voice in song is heard at night; Sometimes between the shutters comes a light Of an unearthly texture.

Some folks say

That they have seen the ghostly play Of shimmering lights, and then, the singer's face, A floating star within that dismal place. A woman's face, they say, her hair

A brilliant black, and gleaming with a rare And subtle sort of iridescent light, Bright as high noon, but beautiful as night. Face of unearthly beauty, all took heed, -Whether from hell or heaven, none agreed.

(1 heard this story from an ancient dame, A lonely woman, old and gray and lame, Who knew all things, and watched the work of Fate

With an approving eye. Not love nor hate Were in her narratives, but in them deep A vibrant consciousness of those who sleep.)

The house once burned with beauty's light; (She said) there wit and beauty, love and might Were wont to meet.

What sights this house had seen:

The glow of glimmering ladies, silken sheen, Soft hands and brilliant fingers, bright with fire!

A hundred jewels in feminine attire, In laughing groups, all powdered and perfumed. The grounds were greener then, and roses bloomed

Where all is bleak today. Where laughter rung

Now dusty silence holds her muted tongue. Here dwelt a man and maid. 0 it would be Too weak to call them happy - ecstasy

Long drawn out through their days, and still uncloyed,

A pagan happiness, the pair enjoyed. ("And thus the pair forgot, 'mid all their pleasure,

That joy and sorrow come in equal measure. Such happiness as theirs could never last," So my informer said, "Their fates were cast Into a plan immutable. Their joys Weighed with their sorrows hung in equipoise.")

But for a happy time, they watched the sun Count off the days, until a year had run Into the well of time. Then came a day And war, and he was called away.

And sad their parting. Many were the tears And tightened throats, and empty-sounding cheers.

Then he was gone. The winds began to moan. She sat and dressed her hair for hours alone. At night she walked the grounds, and sometimes cried.

The leaves fell from the trees, the bushes died; The house took on a melancholy air Until a sable-bordered message brought despair. For he had died. ("And thus the Balance swung So sorrow in the trays the lower hung.")

What would the widow do? The neighbors feared To guess. One lonely day she disappeared. The house was boarded up. No one could say If she had killed herself, or gone away

To some far land.

But so the story goes That when the second year drew to a close A ghost was seen among the barren trees. And thus there grew by slow degrees A ghostly legend, full of chants and moans And rattling chains and closets filled with bones. Until a youthful parson, strong in grace, Proposed to lead a party through the place. They searched, and in an upper chamber's gloom They found, upon a table in the room, A long thick silky mop of graying hair. The party gazed in awe, and left it there, Its silver waves still falling as they fell When close against her neck they used to dwell.

But no one knew just what the woman's fate; Whether she lived within some convent gate, Or (as my withered dame has often said) She drifted in some reedy river bed.

And then the years rolled on, a score or so, And men forgot the tragedy and woe That caused the sad old house to sigh. And when at night the children pass it by They shudder at its dank and ghostly look. But when I pass, I think of that great Hook Held in the steady hand of grim old Fate, Who deals to every mortal his just due; On which the balance swings, and how the weight Of joy and sorrow always balance true.

TRIVIA

(stanzas to whoever will listen)

IHow long a week may be, How short a minute! And how distorted time, When Love is in it!

I think, when you're away - So slow the hours passThat Father Time forgets To turn his hour glass.

II

I thought that I'd remember Your voice, and eyes, and hair. Yet strange - I did forget, And stranger - did not care.

All memories are faint, And scarcely bring a sigh. Save oneyour coldly cruel Dispassionate goodbye.

VALE

A week or more, and they will all be goneThese days that I have loved, and cherished more And more since rarity made them so dear. These last few days, I hold them close to me Although the dawn with silver arrows kills One after one - the days I loved so well. A week or two, and I shall only have The memory-pictures of a face or two Fast fading in the sunlight of the world; Only a dim collection of old prints Of scenes, of buildings, and the campus trees - All gathering dust, and used for anchorage By spiders spinning threads from wall to chair.

Ah, but to outwit the spiders, I Will take this fragment of my fading days And make a record proof against all time, - My time, I mean, for this is interest to No one but me: These are the things I loved, The things I shall remember when old age Has set me reading psalms and hoping for Another Dawn in a more radiant East. These are the things that made the days so dear, So hard to lose, so sad to bid goodbye.

Spring, 1964

I love my room, it is so well acquainted

With all my needs, my comforts and despairs. I love the grey white light that filters through The interlacing tracery of twigs

Thut m ake a scroll-work on my window pane

More delicate than any carved by man.

The bookstand by my bed, I love - the books

Of Keats and Spenser, my beloved friends, Bound all in deepest red, in leather soft

And loving to the touch and to the eye.

I love the etchings on the wall, the two Italian hillside towns, with sunlight bright; With beauty trembling in the airy poise

Of poplar trees along a river bank.

And then, the woodcuts, strong and dark and chaste

Against the whiteness of the papered wall.

And then the rack of pipes with deep thick bowls

Fragrantly mellow, sweet in rainy weather (Lacking the prettiness of cigarettes, Blue-plumed, and white against the ebony tray

Dignified by beauty of their own),

Like fragrance of the woods, the quickening smell

Of distance, fog-borne on a misty sea.

Then there are people I have loved, some friends

And some whom I have seen at times and felt

A friendship for, although I knew them not.

Friends who have made me grateful for a smile.

A casual smile, like sunshine beating through And warming up the drifts of self-reserve.

Friends with whom I've sung familiar songs And rollicked home, the while the staid old sun Lifted an eyebrow at me from the east.

Friends with whom I've sat past mid-night hour

In reading well-known verses which we loved; New friend with whom I walked beside the lake

In spite of rain; and felt a kinship with Because of mutual young romanticism, Foolishly sweet, and all too soon out-grown.

And lastly, friends who taught me how to look For something in myself, and offered all

The help that older minds can give, who watched My efforts kindly - friends who never laughed.

These are the people I have loved: And last of all

The scene: the lake; the fog grey-green against The red-tile roof of Fisk; the lanterns wrought Of iron that hang above the U.H. door; The spots of light above the campus walks; The cinder-crunch of footsteps scarcely heard; The light up in the tower, dim at night.

Virtue

IS NOT DEAD

By Mary E. Henrikson

"It's Time to Face Facts; Teenagers and V.D." (McCalls, January, 1963)

"The Moral Disarmament of Betty Co-ed" (Esquire, September, 1962)

"Sex on the Campus; The Real Issue" (Redbook; October, 1962)

"Sex in the U.S.: Mores & Morality" (Time, January 24, 1964)

ThiS

list could be made infinitely long with magazine articles of only the past two years. Every article points out the loss of morality among the teenage and, more particularly, among the college co-ed set. Many irate, red-blooded American college women would like to stand up and shout to every magazine editor in the country that virtue in the "old-fashioned" sense of the word is not dead on the college campus. True, they will not deny that keeping it is an ever-trying battle, but it is not yet as dead as the current reading public is being led to believe.

If we read the numerous articles now on the magazine stands - in perfectly respectable magazines and from seemingly accurate polls - it would seem that today's college woman thinks no more of going to bed with her current date than she would of going to a cocktail party or to the movies. There may be college women who feel this way, and sexual relations may be promiscuous among the college set - this is an almost inevitable result of the freedom possessed by today's college women. Yet the college women who graduate with their virtue include more than just those who have lacked the opportunity to do otherwise.

Just as there are numerous reasons why a co-ed may be promiscuous, there are also many reasons why a co-ed may be virtuous. Before going into the reasons for a co-ed's remaining virtuous, let me "re-hash" the reasons why her friends and sorority sisters may be promiscuous.

Seldom does the thought of a possible pregnancy enter the mind of the co-ed who frequently indulges in sexual relations, yet in many cases this is precisely the reason why another co-ed may abstain. The promiscuous co-ed often feels that birth control methods have been perfected to the

point where the problem does not exist. My freshman year in one of the many dormitory "bull sessions" - which almost without exception come around to sex sooner or later - I commented that I was surprised that more girls did not become pregnant when they were so frequently indulging in extra-curricular sex. To my astonishment, one of the girls replied, "Good grief, Mary, pregnancy went out with the Middle Ages!" I think this is the way many co-eds feel - that they could not possibly become pregnant - it is simply unthinkable to them. At another session two years later, I was asked in all earnestness by another girl, "Isn't virtue awfully dull?"

Many promiscuous girls do, though, recognize at least the remote possibility of pregnancy. Of these, many abstain for that reason and that reason only; yet even while recognizing the possibility, many still indulge, some hoping it will not happen to them and counting on luck. Others also recognize the possibility and figure that they can get the boy concerned to marry them - if they can determine who he is. Many engaged girls feel that they could move up their wedding dates "if anything should happen"; and many, too many will not hesitate to "see about an abortion.

Why do college women indulge in sex? Excluding those who merely "think it is fun" - for while these exist, hopefully they are few in number - I think it can be safely said that the majority of promiscuous co-eds are so because they are, or think that they might be in love. Some even go so far as to use sexual experiences as a test of their love. A great many of the college women who indulge in pre-marital sexual relations do so with their "pin-mates" and their fiances. This type of relationship, while not yet completely approved, is an accepted fact among college students. Several engaged couples I know frequently take week-ends together with everyone's knowledge; their action is not really approved, but neither is it condemned.

The mere necessity of the college co-ed's finishing college before she can establish her family may be one of the factors leading to her promis-

Mary Henrikson is a senior in the College of Liboral Arts, maioring in English. For last year's WAA·MU Show she was Wardrobe Mistress and is this year a Board Member for the show. Her satirical article, "The Maior Concern of Today's College Woman," which won her a membership on the College Board of Mademoiselle, appeared in the winter (1963) issue of The Tri-Quarterly, and she is now an undergraduate editor of the magazine.

She was born in Johnson City, New York, went to school in Canton, Massachusetts and Grand Rapids, Michigan. At Northwestern she is a member of Alpha Delta Pi Sorority. Editorial work for a magazine or publishing house is what she would like eventually to do.

cuity. A working couple may, after dating for a period of time, become engaged and set a wedding date in the near future. A college couple may meet and fall in love their freshman year with no possibility of marrying until they both graduate. They may even have law or medical school through which to wait. The contemplation of this wait is simply overwhelming to many students, so they participate in the sexual part of married life although they are yet unable to enjoy breakfast for two, or four o'clock feedings. At some point in this discussion, it should be mentioned that the so-called "double standard" plays some part in many women's decisions that there is nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage. In previous times it has been up to the male to "know what to do" when it came to sex. The woman was to be totally inexperienced and was not expected even to be very well-informed. Today, both sexes are expected to be wellinformed, and many women feel that if their husbands-to-be can be out gaining experience, there is no reason why they too can not be. Some women even think - possibly correctly - that men desire their wives to be sexually experienced.

Last summer, while living in an apartment in Chicago with some young college-graduate working women, I heard what I considered to be the most logical justification of pre-marital sex relations that I have ever heard. It was explained to me that the young men and women of today are of a generation made up largely of the sons and daughters of divorces, separations, and unhappy marriages in general. Many of this generation can see the extreme folly of those - who in many cases were their parents - who marry for sex and primarily sex. In order to make sure that they themselves do not marry for the same reason that many of their now divorced parents did, they participate in sexual relations with a possible permanent mate. After the newness of sex wears off, they feel they will be able to tell whether there is enough of the non-physical aspect

Spring, 1964

of love remammg on which to base a marriage. Though this whole argument is an obvious result of insecurity, it nevertheless has validity, and it points out the concern that today's college graduate has for creating a happy and permanent marriage.

Of course the currently popular arguement for pre-marital sex is the intellectual one. It seems that the new "free" woman is not to consider herself truly free until she has experienced every phase of life -every phase, naturally means primarily the sexual one. (I wonder just how much we women really feel we would like to be liberated -oh how loud we scream that men no longer hold doors and give up bus seats! To the women who would like to abolish the double standard, I say abolish it all the way -don't expect to have all of the freedoms you desire and still be treated as the "weaker sex.")

But from this discussion of the reasons for promiscuity, readers may think that I am defeating the purpose of this article, which is to maintain that there still are some virtuous women to be found on college campuses. After reading the first half of what I have to say -just as after reading one or more of the current articles on "sex on the college level"you may readily get the impression that "everyone indulges." For someone to draw a conclusion like that is just as invalid as for him to conclude that everyone in the United States is a vegetarian after he has read a discussion of the values of an all vegetable diet. My point is this: though many co-eds have many different reasons for having pre-marital sexual relations, there are just as many co-eds who can give just as many reasons for remaining chaste as there are reasons for eating meat.

I probably should add at this point that although I write of virtue in the "old-fashioned" sense of the word - and chastity will forever mean chastity - today's chaste and virtuous cooed is not as totally inexperienced as her grandmother probably was on her wedding day. Furthermore,

if she is skillful, she will conduct her "love life" so that no one will ever be sure that she isn't "just like the rest of the girls."

A discussion of chastity should, though, for the sake of its scorners, begin with the mention of those who remain chaste because of lack of opportunity to be otherwise. The mocker of virtue would like to say that the majority of virtuous women are so for this reason. But such an assumption could be an enormous untruth. A cooed today may have a problem with such tasks as biology mid-terms and philosophy finals, but if she sets her mind on losing her virginity, the opportunity will come to her. She need do no more than wait - briefly.

On the other hand, the scorners of virtue will have to put up a real battle with those who remain virtuous from fear of pregnancy. The first knows that birth control methods are today foolproof and feels that the second is a Victorian fool; the second knows that the first is the fool who could someday "get caught" because no method is foolproof. Neither person will be able to persuade the other that she is wrong, and the second will remain virtuous.

The psychological argument is also frequently used. Not being a psychologist, I find it hard to state this one accurately, but it goes something like this: psychologically it is unsound for a person to give himself (or in this case herself) as completely as it is necessary to do in the sex act, outside of a marriage relationship. The indulgence in extra-marital sexual relations causes guilt feelings which later may bring real harm and difficulty in a socially acceptable marriage relationship. This particular argument is actually quite easy to get around, for we find many happy, normal marriages taking place today among couples who have had previous sexual relations either with each other or with others. However, if a woman has decided that she will use this argument as hers, she will use it.

The moral issue is probably still one of the strongest deterrents for most women - college or otherwise. Many women abstain from pre-marital sex simply because they feel it is morally wrong. This feeling that something is morally right or wrong is, it cannot be denied, a result of the feelings of right and of wrong that have been passed down from generation to generation: neither can it be denied that in this chain of generations, our Victorian forefathers (and mothers) played a large part. Just the same, moral attitudes toward right and wrong do keep many college women virtuous. It also should be added for the benefit of this group that just because something is old, or even Victorian, it may not necessarily be outdated.

Socially, it is difficult to say just what is considered right or wrong. Here there is definitely a confusion as to mores, which differ from group to

group and in different sections of the country. Whereas moral ideals are determined by the individual, social ideals are determined by a group; as a result, we end up with two not-so-distinct sets of social mores - those of the "in" group, and those of the "out" group. The question becomes obvious: on the subject of sex morality, just what attitude is considered "in group," and what is considered "out group"? I would like to be able to say that virtue is still "in," but such is not the case. With today's emphasis on the individual and his right to his own opinions, the only attitude that is really "in" is an almost unhealthy tolerance of any opinion about anything that anyone might have. And this tolerance results in the fact that almost "anything goes" as long as you aren't bothering anyone by it. "Do what you please, but be discreet" is the cooed's credo. This means that on the question of sexual morality, the only people who are really considered "out" are the indiscreet. From the same standpoint, we can be thankful that the coe-ed is not yet condemned for remaining virtuous - as long as she is discreet about it.

Rather significantly, the religious attitude against pre-marital sex is seldom heard. Many girls who originally may have abstained from sexual relations on a religious basis have been forced to base their abstinence on other reasons, at least for the benefit of those who ask the "why?" The practice of religion on today's college campus is definitely "out group." It is difficult for a non-religious person to understand the feelings of a religious one on any issue on the college campus, but it is particularly hard for him to comprehend the girl who states that she "will not" because it is against her religion. She is forced, if she is to defend her virtue at all, at least to use a "logical" defense.

The logic of virtue is an important topic with which to close this discussion, for in this very logical age the majority of the defenses of virtue are simply not logical. The fact that indulgence is unhealthy psychologically, or is wrong morally or religiously is incomprehensible to those who indulge. They tend to have very logical explanations of why they are right; so why, they reason, cannot the virtuous person at least have as logical a reason for virtue being right? I have no answer for this question, but I hope that the world does not become so logical that all of its virgins give up to logic. At this point let it be enough for me to emphasize for the magazine editors of the country that there still do remain women on college campuses who are illogical enough and/or stubborn enough to stay out of the statistics printed in their magazines. Women, even today, will graduate with their diplomas in hand, and, after a long, hard four years - their chastity.

by R. Barry Farrell

The Student and the University Under Communism"

R. Barry Farrell is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. He is also CoDirector of Northwestern's program of graduate training and research in Comparative Politics. He is a Canadian, coming from Ottawa, Canada. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Harvard in 1953 and served as a member of the Department of Political Science at Yale until 1957. He has been at Northwestern since then. When this article is published he will be on his fourth visit to the communist countries in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. His research has taken him there previously in 1954, 1956, and 1960. Farrell has lectured extensively in the United States and Canada, Western Europe and Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia and Poland. His volume, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, 1948-1956, was published in 1956.

SEVERAL

western scholars have referred to universities under communism as possible centers of actual or potential political resistance. On the other hand at Party congresses and in economic plans communist authorities have customarily referred to their universities as a sound resource in their national power. At this time it is not possible to judge whether the communist universities constitute "a sound resource" or "cen-

-Revised from a paper delivered before the National Association

June 26, 1963.

ters of resistance." It is possible, however, to examine some of the efforts made to develop the new communist university and the new communist student. These efforts are particulary interesting in the countries of Eastern Europe where the process of transition from the old to the new is still in progress.

There are many similiarities in the pattern of administrative organization of universities in the Eastern European countries. Notable exceptions are in Poland, Yugoslavia, and Eastern Germany, but the other Eastern European countries have a great deal in common. In Poland and Yugoslavia the Stalin era model of university organization has been more sharply altered than elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In Eastern Germany several elements of the old German academic tradition have persisted in association with efforts to copy the Soviet model.

1. GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION OF THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY

At the top of the academic hierarchy in Eastern European countries is the Ministry of Higher Education. This organization has a general overall administrative responsibility for curriculum, textbooks, teaching staffs, certification for degrees, organization of various areas of student extracurricular life, student exchanges abroad,

and the implementation of plans in association with the academy of Sciences for academic research. Typically also the Ministry of Higher Education has responsibility for the work not only of universities but of higher technical schools and other institutions classed as engaged in higher education. Certain faculties such as Medicine, which come under the jurisdiction of other ministries, may be excepted. In several countries there were indications that the administrative load on the Ministry of Higher Education was excessive. Thus instances of slow processing of materials occurred, and of administrative bottle-necks, and obviously overworked officials.

In the countries under discussion general policy originates with the Communist Party. The Ministry serves as an executor and administrator of policy which originates with the Communist Party. Thus the organization of the Party Central Committee and its subordinate staffs in the capital of a socialist country in some respects parallels the organization of the government and its respective ministries. Thus typically a department of the Party headquarters is concerned with education and there may be several persons on the Central Committee of the Party who specialize in questions of higher education.

The Communist Party must have two over-all interests in the activities of the Ministry of Higher Education. The first concerns the fulfillment of the plans laid down by the Party for the undertaking of research projects specified in current plans and the training of scientists in scientific areas and in numbers prescribed in Party plans. The second major area of the Party's interest concerns the ideological and organizational aspects of student life. These interests of the Communist Party are not fulfilled through the Ministry of Higher Education alone. Particularly the ideological and organizational interests may come under the jurisdiction of the youth organizations and the Party organizations in the universities. Nevertheless, as the Party is interested in the general fulfillment of its plans and the Ministry of Higher Education is the ministry responsible for the university activities, the Party has a very direct role in guiding the Ministry.

There is, of course, some overlapping of personnel. High officials of the Party concerned with higher education may also serve as senior officials in the Ministry of Higher Education. In many areas the guidance of the Party may not be in the form of detailed instructions sent from the Party to the Ministry. In informal as well as formal ways the officials of the Ministry become aware of Party policies. These officials may be responsible for the day-to-day decisions in carrying out those policies. Nor should it be suggested that there is a complete separation of policy and administration, partly for the reason

that some Party and Ministry personnel overlap as already mentioned, and partly because there are areas of less interest to the Party and in these areas officials will have wider decisionmaking discretion.

Of less concern in the field of student affairs but of great importance to professors is the role of the Academy of Sciences in the general organization of the academic community. For the purposes of the present discussion with its emphasis on the student university organization, it is only necessary to mention that the Academy of Sciences assumes a role of the importance of a ministry of the government. It is responsible for the planning and organization of all of the scientific resources of the country and for the assignment of research tasks to specific institutions and individuals. Policy guidance for the Academy of Sciences comes from the plans drawn up by the Party.

The universities tend to be less research organizations and more teaching organizations than would be typically the case of major universities in the United States. Though research is carried on in the university, the professor will normally find it to his advantage economically and scientifically to work under one of the departments or sections of the Academy of Sciences. Most research funds are controlled by the Academy of Sciences, with the exception of specialized research which may come under specific ministries, such as Agriculture. Some research will be conducted by the universities under arrangements with the Ministry of Higher Education, but most will be conducted under the direct organization of the Academy of Sciences and within its structure. Many of the employees of the Academy of Sciences are not associated with the universities. Conversely, many university professors are not associated with the Academy of Sciences. Those who do have double appointments tend to fare much better economically. A professor fares particularly well economically if he is elected as a corresponding or full member of the Academy of Sciences. Then he takes home with him his university salary, an income for being one or other grade of Academician, and probably a salary coming from his research work in one of the sections of the Academy of Sciences.

A final element in the general administrative organization of the academic community is the Communist Party youth organization. Normally there is in each East European country a Party youth organization like the Soviet Komsomol which has a student department. The Party youth organization also embraces membership of younger people in the factories and other areas of activity, and thus the student group is typically only one section of the organization. As in the Soviet Union, memberships from eighty to ninety per cent of the students are claimed for the

Party youth organization in several of the Eastern European countries. There is also typically another organization called an association or II union of students which tends to look after questions of student welfare such as health insurunce, housing, travel and tourism, and physical conditions within the university. Typically this organization tends to be rather less important than the communist youth organization, although in Poland the reverse is the case. Since 1956, membership in the Polish Party youth organization, now called the ZMS, has fallen off sharply and the student organization has assumed some of the roles in social affairs and university activities which are performed by the communist youth organization in other socialist countries. The student organization tends to be far less political than the Party youth organization. In Poland this means that at the present time the student is rather less organized politically than is true in other socialist countries.

2. RECRUITMENT OF STUDENTS

Before we examine the actual oganization within the university it is important to look at the general structure of admission and recruitment. In western countries it is well known how the university Office of Admissions can, by its selection policies and activities, materially affect the character of the student body. As countries undertaking a revolution - a social and class revolution - this process of influencing recruitment of the future intelligentsia is perhaps more important to the leaders of socialist countries.

The mechanics of recruitment or admission to the communist university tend to be in superficial respects similar to our own, although there is typically a much greater stress on an oral admissions interview or examination. The student fills out a long questionnaire, submits records of his high school work, and then appears before a committee whose members judge his capability. The latter step is not invariable, but it seems to be quite common. Since Eastern European societies are undertaking a revolution, a revolution which favors the peasant and the proletariat, they have concluded that the intelligentsia of their society should so far as possible have origins among the industrial proletariat and the agricultural peasantry. This means that special advantages are given in recruitment to students with such origins. There are frequent appeals in the press and at Party gatherings to increase the proportion of the total student population with students of worker and peasant origins. The preferred targets would place the majority of students in these categories. One suspects that by elastic definition of the term "worker" and the term "peasant" these quotas have been reached better on paper than in reality. A policy of wholesale discrimination such

as was followed in the Stalin era produced students with the correct peasant or proletarian ��('nealogy but often with narrow perspectives and c apabilities. In the relaxation following 1956 a grouter representation of the sons and daughters of the old middle classes and of the communist officialdom has occurred.

Nevertheless, the goal is a social and class revolution, a new intelligentsia which supports the Party and is both scientifically and politically contributing to the socialist society. And though the worker-peasant ratio of the total student population may be rather less than some of the Party activists would wish, there is no question that it is enormously higher than it was before the coming of the communist leadership.

The mechanics of recruitment and admission reflect the class goals and the political goals as well as the drive for scientific competence in areas the Party deems important. The first step has been the enlargment of the pool of potentially eligible students by substantially increasing the number of students who receive a primary and high school education. From this enlarged pool of potentially eligible students questionnaires and special recommendations attempt to identify those who possess both academic ability and desirable political qualities. The student applying for university will typically have to receive recommendations from his high school section of the Party youth organization, from his academic authorities in high school, and sometimes from such officials as trade union leaders. He will probably have to provide data on his parents' political backgrounds. This is particularly true in Eastern Germany and those countries which were in association with Hitler in World War II.

When the student comes up for his oral interview, he will face an examining committee made up not only of academic officials of the university but also of representatives of the Party, the youth organization, and possibly the trade unions. They will ask themselves whether this candidate is competent academically and at the same time loyal politically. They will explain this dual interest on the grounds that they have no interest in training a student scientifically so he will be better equipped to undermine the regime politically. In the Stalin era it was frequently the case that worker-peasant genealogy, Party youth organization activity, and general political loyalty were regarded as more important than academic competence. With the enlargement of the pool of eligibles and less dogmatic application of political policy, the tendency now seems to be more in the other direction. Students with what the communists regard as dubious political backgrounds do get admitted to university on the gamble that in the course of their college education they will become more politically dependable and thus serve as useful resources for the communist system.

Spring, 1964

An example of the extreme to which this political element in recruitment went in the Stalin era was the story of a woman who had two sons. She, but not they, had been regularly attending church services and manifesting her religious devotion. When her eldest son applied for admission to the university it was clear from the record that he was one of the strongest candidates academically. He was in fact first in his class in his large school. Nevertheless he was rejected. The high school principal told the woman that if she did not want the same thing to happen to her younger son, she had better discontinue her religious activities. It might also be pointed out that the son who was rejected was not himself attending church services but it was regarded as important that he was being brought up in an "unscientific" environment. This sort of Stalinist dogmatism undoubtedly resulted in the wastage of talent. It is worth noting that in the Khrushchev era, particularly in the last two or three years, increasing efforts are being made to make maximum use of available resources of talent.

In recent years it has become common in several of the countries of Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union to recruit students who have spent a few years working in factories, on the farms, or undertaking their military service before enterting the university. There are also many cases of students who have worked for several years in factories before being admitted to the university. It is claimed by the communists that this provides the university with a more mature student, one who has been observed under mature adult conditions. The communist hopes also this may possibly serve his objective of breaking down the wall between the intelligentsia and the proletariat, giving the intelligentsia a sense of awareness of the broad masses.

One final comment on recruitment. The Communist Party policy in Eastern European countries has placed very great emphasis on the recruitment of students for training in the natural sciences and much less for training in the humanities. Education from the beginning of college tends to be heavily vocationally oriented. The great majority of students in higher education in socialist countries are studying in the sciences, and in many instances the pressure seems to be to increase this percentage rather than diminish it.

3. ORGANIZATION WITHIN THE UNIVERSITY

The organization of universities still varies a great deal according to the historical tradition of each. In East Germany one will still find a somewhat decorative officer who will be known as "His Magnificence, the Rector" - who, by

the way, spends most of his time being "His Magnificence." Typically in Eastern European universities there is a symbolic head who is often not a Party member. Below him there is a vicerector, or otherwise appropriately titled official, who generally has enormous power and generally is a Party member. This official will very often serve to join the interest of the Party and the interest of the university leadership. His powers may extend over budget, hiring, promotions, job placement for students, curriculum, and publications. He will also be important in organizing the research activities of the university. This is not to say that he will make all policy regarding all of these matters but he will probably have a hand in policy and a power of veto which will be of great importance.

The person with the title of "dean" is primarily an academic official and his responsibilities refer most directly to matters of curriculum, standards and promotion of students, and the general organization of the academic activities in the specific area in which the individual is dean. He will be responsible for the carrying out of the directives of the Ministry of Higher Education and the aims of the state scientific plans in collaboration with his colleagues. He is more analogous to an academic dean in the United States than to a dean of students.

In Eastern Europe the professor, particularly the head of the Chair, seems to be rather more important than a professor in the United States. There are far fewer people with the title "professor" and the head of a Chair may be more important than a chairman of a department in the American system. �uch a person will have associated with him a "cabinet" of scholars and assistants. In accordance with European traditions which are by no means communist, the professor has typically at his control a group of assistants whose careers depend on him and who tend to remain as assistants for rather longer periods than would be the case in the United States. These people will help him in his teaching and research and also perform a variety of administrative duties. For the student, education may be more personalized. He may attach himself to a professor and rely on his support, patronage, advice, and censure. Some of the functions which might be performed by deans of students in the United States are undoubtedly performed by heads of Chairs in Eastern Europe.

We must now examine further the role of the Party organization and the Party youth organizatron in the university. It is worth noting that a great deal of extracurricular advice and counsel and even administration of discipline takes place through the Party and Party youth organization.

In a typical university in Eastern Europe there are several manifestations of the Party. One is in connection with the Party youth organization

and its leadership. As mentioned before, membership in this organization in some East European countries is as high as ninety per cent of university students. Membership can serve as u training ground for membership in the Party itself. The youth organization is responsible for helping students in academic activities, for arranging social affairs, for developing Party consciousness among the students, for organizing demonstrations like the May Day demonstrations, for helping with job placement, and for several aspects of student discipline. Since the university section of the Party youth organization is only a part of the total organization, the university section also has a responsibility for bringing the students in contact with industrial workers and other segments of the orgnization. In different countries the organization has different names. For example, in the Soviet Union it is called the Komsomol; in Bulgaria it is called the Dimitrov Komsomol; in Hungary it is the KISZ; in East Germany the Free German Youth. It should be underscored again that in Poland the equivalent organization - the ZMS - is much weaker in the universities and the Polish Student Organization is the principal organization for Polish students. Probably also in Poland a relatively larger percentage of politically active students in universities join the Party itself than is the case in other Eastern European countries. Normally membership in the Party itself is open to a very small number of students. Nevertheless, the Party has a strong influence in the university. Several of the leading professors are Party members. The heads of the student youth organization and its professional managers are almost invariably Party members. In most universities in Eastern Europe there is a Party Secretary who is responsible for coordinating all of the political activities of the university. He works in close association with the university Party Committee, which serves as the executive cabinet for the full party membership in the university. Each faculty of the university may have a similar Party Committee and Party Secretary who are in turn responsible to the university Party Committee.

In most universities in Eastern Europe there are required courses in Marxism-Leninism and other political subjects, and their organization and close scrutiny represent a further duty of the university Party organizations. Finally, the Party cooperates with the Party youth organization in organizing student demonstrations on political occasions, in Party propaganda, in the correct presentation of the political line, in the organization of political "circles" for discussion of political and other issues, and in the correction of political influences which are regarded as undesirable. In collaboration with the Party youth organization the officials of the Party help organize

summer activities, make recommendations on scholarships, arrange excursions and vacations, and help in the admission to university and eventually in the placement of students in jobs after graduation.

4. THE CHARACTER OF ADMINISTRATIVE INFLUENCES ON STUDENT LIFE

The word "administrative" has a special meaning in communist countries. It implies the application of coercive methods to direct behavior along desired channels. It also implies the application of punishment for undesirable behavior. Thus if an Eastern European communist were to look at the activities of the office of an American dean of students, he would say that that office was responsible for the application of "administrative measures." It may be appropriate, therefore, to examine here the elements of the system of rewards and punishments - including subtle coercion as well as direct coercion - to be found in the communist university structure.

Two generalizations are in order at the outset. The communists tend to be rather more permissive in areas of personal conduct than is the case in many American institutions. The university worries less about student social gatherings, panty raids, sexual improprieties, and the complaints of distraught parents. A second generalization is that the dean's office is rather less concerned with the planning of a student's curriculum so that he may get what we call a broad, liberal education. In fact undergraduate training tends to be highly professionalized and specialized from freshman year on. As mentioned before, the majority of students study in the natural and physical sciences and almost all look on their training as direct professional preparation. Apart from courses in the Russian language and in Marxism-Leninism, the student is required to take very few courses outside his field of specialization. He plans his courses according to his professional interests and with the advice of his professor. He does this within the framework of requirements provided for degrees in various subject areas. The examinations at the end of courses tend to be oral examinations and professors devote much of their lives in the late spring conducting oral examinations for each of their students.

The academic and Party establishments are interested in fulfilling their objectives, training top scientists who are politically supportive, and these in numbers more or less according to the quotas established in the scientific plan. It is in the fulfillment of these objectives that the specific system of rewards and punishments operates. This should now be examined.

A major administrative influence on student

Spring, 1964

life is the assignment of scholarships, prizes, and awards. Most students are on scholarships. These scholarships are adequate for a frugal existence, an existence which is low by our standards. On the other hand, for meritorious political and academic activity there are a good many special scholarships and prizes available, some of which are so large as to more than double the amount of the basic scholarship. This makes it possible for the student to live in obviously much better conditions. Likewise there are conditions under which the basic scholarship can be reduced or withdrawn for unsatisfactory behavior. In some countries the scholarship is controlled by the university, but the Party youth organization can give important advice which is very often followed. In other instances the Party youth organization seems to have almost controlling power. Whoever the ultimate authority may be, the fact remains that an ultimate sanction of reducing or cancelling the scholarship can bring disastrous hardship to the student. Cancellation may be tantamount to dismissal from the university. Similarly an increased scholarship can be of greatest aid for the student's living conditions and social activities.

Placement on graduation has already been mentioned. In a planned economy there is probably a closer relationship between the authorities within a university and job placement than there is in a society such as ours. As a consequence, a student's activity in the university may have very decisive influence on his future life. One stepping stone to a successful career is Party membership. Eligibility for membership in the Party can be greatly influenced by scholastic, political, and social behavior while in the university. In the case of younger candidates recommendations for membership will naturally be sought from distinguished Party members on university faculties who have known the candidate while he was at university. Thus both the assignment to jobs and the determination of eligibility for Party membership will be substantially influenced by the university record. The ambitious student will be anxious to keep his file looking as acceptable as possible.

In some but not all socialist countries assignment to "practice" can involve reward or sanction. "Practice" refers to the policy of having students undertake during their vacations summer work which is supposed to help them gain an awareness of the practical applications of their studies and improve their political perspectives. Not all jobs are equally desirable, and less desirable assignments may go to those whose records have been less satisfactory politically or academically.

Another form of influence on student life is the discussion or group "circles" set up by the Party youth organization. This form of organization is

to be found in some, but not all, socialist countries, and in not all faculties in each university. Discussion groups of limited size meet at regular intervals to discuss political and academic topics. These groups also arrange study aids, including assistance to beginning students by more senior ones, or help of poorer students by better ones. In these groups students and faculty watch over the actual processes of study and learning. In these groups also there may be a discussion of individual members. A member who has exhibited bad political attitudes or incorrect Party youth organization behavior, who has neglected his studies, or who has otherwise created a negative impression may be subject to criticism and discipline by other members of the group or by higher authorities on recommendation of the group. This kind of discipline can range from a mild word of criticism to a rather harrowing emotional ordeal.

Both assignment to assistantships and general professorial patronage represent further forms of influence over the student. With degrees much more professionally oriented than in American society, a proportionately larger number of students look to the assistance of professors or receive other forms of professorial patronage. Such benefits go to those who in the eyes of the professor best fulfill the ideals of the system as he interprets them. Sometimes the Party youth organization may have a veto or at least an influence in the selection of a professor's assistants.

Another form of outside influence on the student's behavior comes in the evaluation of requests to attend summer vacation camps or participate in trips abroad. When a student applies for such benefits he can probably not expect a favorable decision in the event that his record shows unsatisfactory behavior. Regulations for foreign travel permits are much more strict in some socialist countries than others. Where the regulations are most strict the check on a student's political reliability is particularly careful. A great deal of politically important prestige attaches to travel at home or abroad as a member of a delegation with some cultural or exchange purpose. Those selected to be delegates are commonly those most active in political organizations. Thus the student who has pleased the political establishment may have more opportunities for travel within his own country and abroad, and he may have wider opportunities for participation in summer vacation camps.

The ultimate form of administrative influence on the student is of course expulsion from the university or ultimately even police action. In the Stalin era, students, like all others in the population, did go to jail for unacceptable political behavior, and for the same reasons many others were dismissed from the university. In recent years the tendency has been away from this kind of sanction and more in the direction of develop-

ing a system of rewards and punishments of a less brutal sort. The student receives substantial political training designed to create favorable attitudes and he is strongly encouraged to do his best academic work. In this line lies reward while he is at university and the possibilities of a bright future after he graduates. Many of these benefits are denied him if he chooses the opposite course. Likewise if he chooses that course he will

be admonished along the way and perhaps even dismissed from his studies. Of course, there is e-vidence of opportunism, student contrariety, and nonconformity. The ultimate verdict on the Stalinist methods which relied heavily on coercive action, or the post-Stalinist methods which rely more heavily on other forms of persuasion, will await the judgment of time.

POEMS

See here, how the cottonwood fills my mouth, my eyes;

I have slept long, and long will be

The waking.

No place of residence-

Around my throat a necklace of goodbyes

Around me here a room no longer me,

A house with empty symbols of forever, mocking

The spent illusions of a time-worn dream.

For that which once we had, is not, and never shall be.

They rooted up the trees that cradled me, That shaded all those young midsummer daysThey took the love that filled a house with laughter

And left to it the hollowness of death. And strangers' eyes peer from familiar faces

That give me now my life, once bound to theirs, Without a hurt, to lead it as I will

Nor will I start with shock when that last forest Which yet is mine, is hawked through city streets And saved to wrap the market's rotting fish. They're building prefabs on my soul's horizons.

LAUREL TETHER, L.A., '64

TREES IN HEAVEN TOO

If I can sit with two tangerines, a peach, And several grapes,

On my three limbs of the tree;

A rough board rusty-nailed

To be my table,

A smooth board slanted

To be my bed;

A paperback book, and "L'Apollo du Bellac," Abundances of leaves to shred, Sky to climb towards, grass to consider, String for tying - if I want to tie -

An itch for scratching;

Seven cocktail toothpicks to stick in my teeth, And two cinnamon ones to suck;

A chunk of red crayon, only bark for canvas, Bark, and the back of my hand;

And

Five fingers on one hand

To count the five on the other.

PATRICIA RABBY, L.A.,

'64

COLLAGE FOR THREE CHILDREN

To my youngest son I bequeath one Pennsylvanian leaf fossil one empty bay rum bottle the large copper coin we called Noble American Penny dated 1830 with Liberty's bosom in near mint condition the feedback squeal of my hearing aid one tickle fight, one campfire past bedtime and one chocolate turkey hiding in the forest on Thanksgiving Day

To my daughter I give one cellophane-wrapped cinnamon ball one post office box adorned with brass eagle one pun, one geode, one lesson on the guitar an autumn nature walk hand in hand a climbing apple tree, all my rhyme words and a snapshot of a little girl with the photographer's shadow on the lawn

To my eldest son I leave one rock hammer, one buffalo hunt one pair of old army boots Orion's belt and jewelled scabbard when you are old enough to wear it one snow fort, one bowl of warm tapioca my car key and the folksong I sang for courage on hard mornings with a raw bite like whisky on tastebuds.

MARK REINSBERG, Staff Associate in the Transportation Center.

WHAT THAT GIRL SAID

His opulent intellect weighed Me down with fatted quotations Revered, culled from many ages. I sheared wool with invisible light, Let me say I emptied His mind out Until it was alone And he naked in night Shuddered at the thought of me As it had to be. He speaks to my name Even during snow flurries.

VAUGHN KOUMJIAN, JOUR., '53

Spring, 1964

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