1925
God, when at last I come to die I pray that beauty be gone. How could I leave her in the shy Cool silentness of dawn?
Ah, it would be a bitter thing To take that earthen cup When frail-sweet chalices of spring Were being lifted up.
And buds were breaking over me, And winds were in my face. No! God, grant my Gethsemane May be a barren place.
No. 5
J. MARK LUTZ
Rain stamped on the roof.
Within the room a lamp leered at the hairy blackness, throwing light upon an open Bible on the table. Before the table sat a man. Against the wall the shadow of the man hulked; a shadow the owner of which was an accordion-like creature that seemed to grow larger and smaller as he breathed; a discouraged, worn out accordion whose music was all wheezes, and from which the better harmonies were gone.
"Born to Mary and Tom Brown" was written on the fly-leaf of the Bible at which the man stared fixedly. As he read his wife's writing ( each letter a patient martyr awaiting his doom) he thought of the eight names written beneath, each name marking a downward step in poverty.
"There will soon be another," muttered the man. "A ninth name, and even worse luck for this little one. I have no money, and there's no chance for a job."
Within the next room he heard the old woman who had been called in to assist the new arrival. Even now the ancient helper creaked her way in and out of the rooms, her broken broomstick of a figure seeming to protest with each movement.
"Go now," she said to the man in a voice like rasped glass. Without another word she creaked her way out again as the man prepared to leave.
He went into the drunken night; a night given to sudden screams of wind and vomitings of rain from the belly of blackness. He walked what seemed miles, passing shop after shop where he asked for work, with always the same result.
"It ain't right to bring another kid into this world when I can't feed those already here," he mused. "I'd take any kind of workbut they just can't seem to need me." The walker braced his broken accordion body against the onslaught of wind which beat the rain like scattered silver against the friendly lamp posts.
He wondered if he was the first to question Providence; whether anyone else in his position had doubted God. This last thought frightened him. His fear, and the night, drove him home after what seemed leaden hours.
It was only when he reached home that his tear was somewhat abated, for the old woman met him at the door.
"All over - a boy ," rasped the old woman as he entered. "The ninth one ," she added, her words coming like splitting boards.
From the next room he heard the regular breathing of his wife, a weary breathing ... like the beating of exhausted pigeon's wings against the glass.
"If the child had been born dead-if it died now," he thought. "The n inth one was only born to suffer like the rest." It was futile to struggle like this. The ninth one was but another hungry mouth, another care, more sorrow, trouble and burdens.
"If only the child had died - was dead," he repeated. "There really should be no harm in stilling the sufferings of another. If conditions were better it would be different, but the child would only suffer --"
The man entered his wife's room. Her tired pigeon-winged breathing caught his attention, but only for an instant. He went to the bedside and stared down at the ninth child, the unwanted one, lying by his mother's side. No parental joy came to him, only a dull resentment against everything. With a flying birdlike motion he covered the child's face with the blanket, held it there a short time, then returned to the next room.
In the open Bible he wrote in the ninth space: "Died at birth."
Within the next room his wife stirred through the night.
"The child is dead!" cried the wife.
a cry shivered
Without moving the man replied, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." He closed the Book and looked immediately at his accordion-like shadow.
Rain stamped on the roof. In the hairy darkness the woman continued to cry.
C. W. WILSON
Joseph Hergesheimer's most significant works in the field of the novel are "Java Head" and "Balisand," the latter his most recent book. They are, firstly, significant for their artistic honesty, their dignity of conception, and their perfection of workman ship; and secondly, they are significant for their portrayal of life in two of the most historically interesting and colorful eras since the formation of the United States. "Balisand" treats of life on the plantations of Virginia shortly after the Revolution during the terms of the first three presidents, while "Java Head" runs its course in old Salem, of witch-craft fame, when the old-fashioned, full-bottomed wooden ships were putting up a game but a losing fight against the fleeter clipper-ships.
Life in Gloucester County, Virginia, about 1785 was far different in all its aspects from that in the quaint old "witch-craft" town of Salem, Massachusetts, during the presidency of Polle At first it may seem absurd to point out the obvious differences in the lives of town and country folk, especially when about sixty-five years separate the scenes. It is not, however, exactly this phase of contrast which I wish to show, but rather a contrast of family life exhibited by people of Cavalier ancestors, as were those of Richard Bale of Balisand, and those of Puritan descent illustrated by the Ammidons of Salem. Of course the progress of civilization, and commerce, and politics in particular, had a great deal of influence in the development of custom, etiquette, and general outlook on life of these two roots of the American population. But I hold that it is the inherent differences bred into the two -may I say species?-by their ancestry in the motherland, England, which accounts, in the main, for their contrasting lives. One needs only railroad fare to see a contrast still between Virginia and Massachusetts.
Virginia was the land of aristocracy ( we still point to the aristocracy of the South), the land of the comfortable, easy-going, carefree planter, who need not worry about making money -he let others make it for him. The Old Bay State was the haven of craftsmen, of shipwrights , and men of commerce. And it is upon these two types that the books " Bal isand" and "Java Head" are built.
Can you imagine a scene more tranquil, more peaceful, more restful than that which the opening lines of "Balisand'' convey to us? Bale is going up the Ware River to a party at Todd Hundred at which the announcement of the engagement of Gawin Todd and Lavinia Roderick will be given out.
"The four negroes rowing his canoe sang, in low concerted voice to the rhythm of the oars, an Anabaptist hymn. God's children lost in the land of Egypt! The sound was muted, scarcely above a breath. The servants, he reflected, were singing well, rowing smoothly.
"They were turning to the right, toward the mouth of the Ware River; soon Todd Hundred, where he was bound would be clear; but now the sun blazing on the water made the far shore practically invisible. The scents of the gardens on the river, of heliotrop e and roses and Cape jasmine, floated out in the still heat. Richard Bale, shifting the cushion behind him, thanked God that it was hot. "
This seems to me to be the picture of all plantation life, that is, the life of the planter and his family. Take it easy! Life was to be lived in peace and joy. There were overseers to make sure that the plantation was run profitably, bringing in sufficient sums to be spent for drink ( not raw corn either, nor only a pint or two at a time!), racing bets, gay parties and gambling. Planters could not stoop to manual labor; nay, not even to calculating expenses. Theirs was the life in the tavern wine-room, the dance, the hunt, or the easy chair. The only business a successful Virginia aristocrat could possibly be associated with was politics -Congress and the Assembly.
Contrast with this the active life of the sailormen of Salem. Jeremy Ammidon, a more or less retired master, eighty-five years old, was still energetic, interested in his ships and his counting house. Business was the life of Salem. No liquor parties, racing nor politics here. The only racing indulged in was the race around the Horn to China for more cargoes.
Jeremy was always up at six, breakfast at seven, in his office nearly all day, and a quiet evening at home chatting and discussing with the family. A man of eighty-five in Massachusetts working all day, and Bale, thirty years old, lounging away his life in Virginia! Jeremy Ammidon even died in his counting house, while Richard's life ended in that costly sport, duelling.
Yet, these two types produced hearty and healthy offspring which inhabit our land today, and we can still see the difference-the
energetic, lively Yankee, and the rather behind-the-times "First Family" stock.
The life of the children is also an interesting picture. Little Laurel Ammidon, out of bed at seven in the morning; playing with her grandfather Jeremy; familiar with the jargon of sailors and the intracacies of ships; fully aware of the life about her in garden, street, and home. A merry little elf, alive to all the questions of the day, wanting to "step out" to dances; eager to know when her Uncle Gerrit will bring his ship in, the value of the cargo, etc. It was a varied and interesting life she led.
On viewing such a child, who would prefer to be nursed and brought up by a negro "mammy," and, in general, lead a life which was merely a reduced and somewhat expurgated image of the life of Richard Bale? Activity is the spice of life! As you may have guessed, I am a Northerner, and prefer vital, business-like, "going" life.
Politics change, of course, with changing generations. The era of Polk was entirely different from the era of Washington. It had new problems, and new crises arose. Washington's problem was to set up a stable government. Polk had only to keep it going and to perfect some details.
Another interesting contrast: The attitude of the Virginians to the president and that of the people of Salem. Washington was a native of Virginia. Virginians had fought by his side; they had suffered with him; they had died for him. Not to detract from the glory of Massachusetts in the Revolution, I wish merely to point out the differences in attitude. Washington, to the men who had fought with him, to the people of Virginia, was a comrade and brother. He was a man loved, cherished, and worshiped. The feeling one gets from the exposition of the character of Richard Bale is that he could approach Washington as "Mr. Washington," or he might even go so far as "George." A Puritan say that? No indeed. He must say, "Mr. President," on all occasions; dignified, almost to humbleness.
Salem prepared a great Fourth of July celebration for Polk on his visit there. Polk only "gave a perfunctory attention to the salutes or short address of the mayor" and hurried on. Yes, no doubt Mr. President's train was late and he was delayed in his business. But Washington, with all the patience of his Virginia
VS. CAVALIER
blood, would not have allowed a delayed train to spoil a day planned for, and looked forward to, for months by any of his beloved countrymen.
How Bale and most Virginians loved Washington! They never allowed his name to be spoken of in their presence with the slightest di srespect. It was not the United States which claimed their love so much; it was Washington, the symbol of unity, brotherhood, and equality . They were Federalists because Washington was a Federalist. It was the man himself, above all, who held their loyalty to the federation of States. They were as loyal to him and to his memory a s the Orientals are to their ancestors. It was worship.
Politics in general, however, does not enter into "Java Head" as it does into "Balisand." It is not an integral part of the book. It wa s commerce which was the exciting force of the former, while the Virginians argued about politics. The hardy sea-faring men of Salem had a weighty problem on their hands with the introduction of the clipper-ship. Would increased speed offset the slight decrease in net t onnage of the ship? Would a greater number of cargoes handled with greater speed bring in more dollars than heavy loads at slower speed? It was the dollars that these bronzed international business men were fretting over.
Economic progre ss in the Old Dominion was practically nil from the Revolution until the Civil War. The money was earned by slaves (personal property) for the owners to spend. In Salem the money spent was earned by sun-burned and wave-tossed white men with hard muscles and good digestions.
Clipper-ships introduced a great problem, and the "old-line" sailors fought them bitterly. They opposed anything which would put their beloved full-bottomed ships into the discard. In the South loyalty was to the nation and to its leaders; in the North loyalty was to commerce and to business. But, in the North, in contrast to the South, tradition was overcome by progress; faster ships brought gold from California and silks from China, while in Virginia the traditions of comfort and ease continued to hold sway.
Of course, the question is debatable as to whether making dollars or running a good government to maintain the value of the dollar is more important to the life of the citizens. Undoubtedly both have their place and each must be carried on, but it is not for me
to discuss the question. I am only pointing out which part of the population was doing which.
Richard Bale's life was one filled with worship of the beautiful; the predominant interest of the Ammidons was utility. To Bale beauty was his life; !if e was beautiful. His life of comfort and ease was characteristic of most Virginians of the period, so, syllogistically, a care-free life led to greater appreciation of the beautiful on the part of the Virginians.
The most beautiful thing in life to Richard was woman. He had not had a chance before he reached thirty to fall in love, or, indeed, to have much interest in women at all except as his housekeeper, so that, when Lavinia was introduced to him, he "flopped hard," as modern slang has it. After their first meeting Lavinia, and the thought of her, represented to him everything beautiful in womanhood. "The beauty of Lavinia was personal, inseparable, unthinkable, away from her; it ,lay in her every gesture , all the intonations of her voice, in the suspense of her pauses; and then her sheer young grace was matchless, the rare perfection of life for once in an equal loveliness of - of body."
He pictured her always as "A lilybud, a pink, a ros e," or again as "Sweet lavender, with a scent which lasted for so long after it was dead."
All his life, after he met her, Richard's heart loved Lavinia; almost his last thought was of her. She represented to him spiritual and celestial beauty. He could never rid himself entirely of her influence. If he could have married her he believed his life would have been one beautiful, joyous succession of years. But he could never quite forget her, and his love for the beautiful killed him.
Not only did he love the beauty of woman, but also of hounds, of horses, grace in dancing, and the beautiful character of Washington. He idolized Beauty, and worshiped at her shrine daily.
To the Ammidons, on the other hand, beauty was vain and of no worth unless accompanied by utility. Everything was conceived in terms of use. Homes were beautiful, but they acquired their beauty by being useful. Women were beautiful, but they were made use of as wives and mothers. Even in their beloved ships beauty could not overbalance speed, tonnage, and sea-worthiness. This was never discussed much when talking of the merits of the two types of ships, but was just felt.
The old-fashioned ships, with their full bottoms and extensive rigging, were much more picturesque riding the waves than were the clippers with their narrow, V-shaped hulls cutting the water.
Jeremy Ammidon disliked very much the inroads progress had made: "It's that damned Griffiths again and his cursed jackknife hull!"
But he was very soon enlightened upon matters of the day. "It's useless to point out to you the beneficial changes in sea carrying," he was told by his son, "for you are certain to deny their good and drag out the past. So i am simply forced to tell you that after careful consideration we have decided to line the firm with the events of the day and hold our place in the growing pressure of competition."
And further: "The profits of the California trade will be enormous and depend entirely on speed."
Speed was the deciding factor; clipper-ships were introduced. This is the keynote of the life of the Ammidons. Profits were their goal, and beauty and picturesqueness, or rather the lack of these qualities, could not be allowed to impede the inflow of wealth. Cavalier vs. Puritan, then, is beauty vs. utility.
I hope now, that I have made clear several points of difference in Cavalier and Puritan life. I have tried to present and picture the contrast in their home life, their political views, their economic views, their predominant interest in Ii£e, and their general outlook on life.
I believe these differences to be due primarily to the characteristics bred into them by their ancestors; to a lesser extent to the social and financial positions of their ancestors in the mother country; and to a slight degree to the climate of the regions in which their homes were. I believe also that these class characteristics will prevail and be noticeable many generations hence.
(Awarded first prize in recent Sigma Upsilon Short Story Contest)
Each year at Christmas "Paris of South America" puts out its pseudopodia and flows around the little suburb known as Mar del Plato.
Ordinarily a place of squalor and crime, set close to the extreme end of the harbor of Buenos Aires and practically deserted except during the racing season, the Mar del Plato offers little enough inducement to the peace-loving, quietly disposed Argentine citizen. But at Christmas, with its fiestas and celebrations, the drum of the hoof beats and the thrill of the finish, to say nothing of the chance to win many easy "pesos" if one is lucky, draws the populace of the city to the great race track that is the one outstanding attraction of the Mar del Plato.
The races of the eve of Christmas were over, and the "Viva El Senador" that greeted the winner rolled back of and above the huge grandstand.
Benito Gomez could not have been mistaken -it rang in his ears again, "Bravo El Senador," and the reverberation warmed his heart. Benito lighted a cigarette he had picked up behind the grandstand, shrugged and smiled. It was just as well to hear as to see the races, and the three pesos admission to the gate were better spent in betting. Why, it wasn't so bad to be chased out of the stables by a pig of a head-groom when one could come around to the front and bet like a senor -and win. Three pesos at six to one wasn't much, but it was enough. Dios, but he was hungry.
"Oh, Madre Maria, have compassion on me--" the voice was dull and spiritless as though uttered unconsciously. Kneeling at a niche in the wall from which a stained and chipped and disreputable looking Virgin looked up, a woman was at her prayers. Mechanically her lips formed their supplication, "Oh Madre Maria, have compassion on me." There was a stir on the ragged bed in a corner of the mud-floored room and the voice dropped to a whisper, the face taking life as the woman raised her gaunt, starved body, distorted with child, and turned toward the sound.
"Jesu Salvador, if Benito might come to his little one. She suffers for bread, and I have none. He does not know, does not think of
i
anything other than the accursed horses and the lottery. He loses ever, nor cares if we will die." She rocked back and forth in agony, pitying the infant that lay sleeping. "His child that he cares not for, and I who--"she looked down at herself and stopped.
The child shuddered and awoke with a whimper. No sooner than its eyes were open the mother dropped on her knees and took the great disproportionate head to her breast. "Don't cry muchachita, this is the eve of the little Jesu and the Father sends goods. We must make prayers to the Great Mother, little one, then we shall have bread."
There was hope in the voice of the woman, for the idea of Christmas seemed suddenly to dawn upon her.
In all of Mar del Plato the hut that Benito Comez called home was a little less homelike than the others that stood with their bare shoulders to the road leading into the Avenida de Mayo, looking askance and defiant at anyone who might be so inquisitive as to wonder who lived there - and why they did. If such an arrangement could be called a line, when there was every indication that houses and huts had been dumped there and allowed to arrange themselves, the line continued about an eighth of a mile along the beach with an average depth of two or three streets, broken at convenient locations by an occasional "cambio," "lotteria," or bar where good whiskey was advertised and bad whiskey sold.
It was not far from one of these lotteries and bar-rooms that Benito Gomez had selected his home, a one-room hut just a tiny bit dirtier and little more foul than the average run of the dwellings among the all-the-year-round denizens of Mar del Plato, and to this home he had planned to go as he left the race track. But he did not reckon with the fact that he would pass a "hop-house" and a bar on the way, and the money he had won made the brown hand perspire as it held to the little wad of paper it enclosed.
The three pesos had not only won him three times the amount of his total capital, but it had given him back his self-respect; selfrespect that working at odd jobs, taking kicks and cuffs from anybody and everybody for the sake of a few miserable centavos, had taken away. He would cease to be the goat. Yes, he would - by the Blood of Christ he would. He would make a vow at the Cathedral to bind it.
He could now go around and show the groom who had booted him out of a job six days before that he wasn't dependent on him
or anyone else living as long as the races lasted - and what did he care when they were over. That was "manana" and a long way off. He straightened up.
Benito had chosen his life and was living it. A few minutes before he had stopped, rapped on a door, had been answered, admitted, and come out with a certain consciousness of power and virility that made his step firmer and his demand for a drink a little louder when he reached the bar-room nearest home. The tables were placed outside on the walk to take care of the heavy Christmas trade, and, too, it was cooler so. Benito sat down and began to think. The familiarity of the place brought back remembrance of his prolonged absence. Six days away and no one had noticed it. He felt hurtwhy, carramba ! he could leave forever and no one would ever mention it or know that he was gone. Should he leave just to show them? Should he? Not now. His winning streak had come.
A mounted policeman rode past. Benito laughed. Why should he worry about anything now that his luck had turned. Yes, he had bought his tickets for the Christmas lottery just after he had left the race track, but he couldn't remember where he had put them. He had the winning numbers and somehow he would get his money. The night was warm - he would go home. He rose unsteadily from his table and slipped away.
"Oh, Madre Dolorosa," the voice rose impassioned, "have intercession for a woman. Have mercy and compassion on one who is to bear a child. Oh Mother of Christ, have--" she raised her head as he entered. The prayer ceased. She arose from her knees weakly.
"Benito, have you no love for me who cannot leave to earn my own bread or that of your child? The pains are on me and I have had no food for days."
"I won the races, Julita; EI Senador, The Dreamer." The man swayed.
"But I must have food now - Oh, Benito, I have prayed for you to come."
He stared stupidly.
"Now I must sleep."
"But I starve if you do not get me food." She shook him with feeble strength. "Give me money and I will go."
"I have no more, it is gone," and he raised his arms in gesture of proof.
"Then," with sudden desperation, "I will go and beg. But, Benito, remember that perhaps I cannot return. Do you not know?"
But he had sunk on the floor.
With a look of supplication at the unseeing Madonna, Julita picked up her sleeping child and went out into the clear, warm night -the Christmas Eve that all Buenos Aires was celebrating.
Mar del Plato was celebrating, too, and as a suburb of the city was under police surveillance. Tall, dark-skinned men in spiked helmets rode on horses through the backwash of side streets where vice was prevalent but not uncontrolled.
At the corner where Benito had paid his last visit and left his check unpaid, the proprietor stood waiting for a policeman to pass. Not that three drinks of whiskey meant much to him, and on Christmas Eve, too, but the thing had happened before and such should not be tolerated. Shortly an officer came by and the matter was explained. Calling another man to direct him, the policeman preceded the bar-keeper along the tortuous little street that led past the house behind the wall.
"Caballo Blanco" had done its work, and Benito slept like a man without a conscience. The door hung ajar and the drunken man stirred fitfully as the trio entered the room. In no mood for delay the officer kicked the sleeping form. Like a flash it responded. Suddenly awakened, surprised in his own house, and laid hands on, for what and by whom he knew not, Benito whipped out his knifeand toppled as a bullet from the heavy service revolver of the Argentine police sheered through his heart.
"You don't get your money now," was the jest of the bluecoat, and the proprietor looked slightly sick at the sight of the crumpled body.
"I'll notify the department and they'll send out a cart tomorrowdon't guess he's got enough to be buried decently."
"I hate to think--" began the saloon-keeper.
"Don't do it; it's the business -we keep 'em straight or--" He patted the holster so recently vacated as they walked back to see that nothing was amiss in the streets of Mar de! Plato.
* * * * *
Out of the dim dusk of semi-consciousness Julita slowly forced herself back to the little hut behind the wall. The baby she had
managed to keep with her, but weakness from hunger and pain had prevented the progress of more than a few yards from the house before she had fainted. Dreams, products of her wishes, danced before her eyes -she was going back to Benito and he would meet her at the door with warm food and with kisses. It would be Christmas and they would repeat their rosaries together before the blessed Madonna, and the little one would laugh and they would laugh with it. Then, when the time came, Benito would be a father again and he would work as other men did, and not play the lottery and lose the money that he did earn -money that they needed. She was going back to Benito now, and that was enough , all she wanted -even if he didn't think of her when she needed him most, he was still her Benito.
Staggering in with the last of her strength , she fell and lay on the floor beside him, not seeing or knowing that anyone other than she had been there.
Christmas morning 1s m South America a day in mid-summer, and this was a typical Argentine Christmas. Gnawing hunger awoke Julita, and she looked about her before awakening Benito. Christmas morning. Since she had left her home on the Pampas to go with her lover to the city where he would make his fortune, she had never spent a Christmas as she had wanted to. Benito didn't seem to consider the Saint's Day as being different from other days, except that a special lottery was run off on that day, and the races were always at brightest color then. But to her it was different, a day for thinking things over and being thankful to the Madonna, and for making wishes. If Benito would wake sober she might have her wish for this Christmas. But she couldn't wait until he awoke. She was pitifully hungry -surely he could find something to eat for her, and for the child. She touched his hand timidly-and snatched it back as though it had touched death. It had. She looked-wideeyed, incredulous, in horror, and her consciousness slipped away. But no rest like his could come to her. The responsibility for the child that had not slept continually, brought her from her swoon. Christmas day-a day of hell-almost done, when a knock on the door was followed immediately by a tall black-haired police officer and a man in civilian clothes.
"What, Senors? What are you doing here to add to the sorrows of a poor woman?"
"This?" the doctor leaned over the corpse. "Dead, of course!"
"Take it away." Two men stepped inside. 21
"Oh, give him to me," Julita's voice broke. "Don't carry him away or I will die, too."
"You may expect the swine to groan like this, doctor. But you'll get used to it; not pay them any more attention than I do." The policeman had noticed an expression of pity across the doctor's face.
"Let's look through the pockets and see if there is anything valuable about him. She looks like she needs all she can get - a knife with some greasy papers around the handle, the knife he tried to get me with last night."
"Let's get out of this hole if we're through," said the doctor.
"We're through here, but the government has plenty of like Christmas cleaning to do, I have no doubt."
* * * * *
That night she was still kneeling in front of the Madonna where she had remained since Benito's body had been taken away. She held the knife they had given her, held it clasped between her hands as she raised them in the last prayer to the Mary who did not heed. Numb, unknowing and uncomprehending, her life was slipping away. A sobbing moan from the child she had forgotten revived her. Another moan, and baby teeth were gnawing at the rags that covered it.
Desperate now, still unconsciously holding the knife she wandered out to find the food she no longer wanted, thinking only of the child. Somehow she felt that she was going to follow Benito. Blindly she kept on into the street of the saloon and cambio.
A crowd was comparing tickets on the Christmas lottery just posted. Caught in the crowd, unnoticed, and with her strength exhausted, Julita slid to the ground beside the wall, and with a brave effort that tried to be a "Mary, Mother Mary," she died.
A little later one of the wolves that prowl by night, and most frequently in the outskirts of holiday crowds, stumbled on her body. The knife between her hands was easy to pick up whether she had other valuables or not. She certainly didn't give the appearance of wealth, and business had been unusually good, so the pickpocket did not search the dead woman's person. Under the light from the cambio window the thief stopped to look at the knife. The hilt was wrapped with paper, paper that had stamps and seals on it, paper
with numbers stamped on it. Lottery tickets? Yes, of course. Well - everybody carried lottery tickets in Buenos Aires, but not everybody won the lottery. Suppose - his eye scanned the numbers on the list posted within the window, then a swift glance down to those on the tickets in his hand. Was it? It was.
"Forty thousand pesos from the hand of a dead woman. Miguel Navarro, you were not born to1 be hanged. I will go and drink to the health of the Saviour."
Down in the Mar del Plato, in a dark house, a stained and chipped and disreputable looking Virgin listened unmoved as a dry rattle from a heap of rags in a corner told of the mercy of God.
LOUISE WILKINSON
(Translated from the French of Paul Verlaine)
The sky is there above the eaves So blue, so calm; One rustling bough above the eaves Sways its palm.
The bell-tower rising through the leaves Sweetly rings ; A bird deep-hidden in the leaves Sadly sings.
0 God, the pulse of life is here, Simple and still; The peaceful, murmuring town I hear, Over the hill.
What have you done, you weeping there, Tell me the truth; What have you done, you weeping there, With your lost youth?
MARIANNE MARSH
(Awarded second prize in recent Sigma Upsilon Short Story Contest)
The poet was old, and today as he sat at his accustomed place in the workshop, a realization of his age bore down upon him with compelling force.
The room was a strange kind of private sanctuary. Booksmore than five thousand of them -found a place on the curiously carved shelves, and turning now to this volume, now to that, the poet handled their yellowed pages with nothing less than tenderness. Glancing about the room, he looked thoughtfully and long at his possessions -they were precious things and priceless ; books richly bound, pictured faces in their delicate frames, exquisite vases and bronzes of rare old beauty. In the center of his beloved desk stood a slender flower urn containing two perfect red roses. His glance fell last upon the little carved compartments filled with the fruits both good and bad, of his art; verse in which naturalness, warmth, poignant emotion , gentle melancholy, pessimistic gloom, exquisite beauty, charming fancy, and touching pathos, all had their echo.
It was quiet, inexpressibly quiet, and an indescribable softness, intangible and volatile as the perfume of the roses on the desk, laid hold of the poet. Vagrant breezes gently ruffled the curtains at the window, revealing the velvet of a meadow beyond. Yielding himself for a moment to the spell of retrospect, the scene about him took on an unreal aspect, and there stood out from the tapestry of his years a vision of startling beauty.
The vision took shape in the form of a woman, slender and lovely in a gown of crimson and black, a combination of color which set off perfectly her exotic loveliness. Her thick, jet-black hair was fastened low on her neck which appeared strangely white in contrast. Long black lashes fringed her deep blue eyes, and brushed cheeks that were pale with the whiteness of alabaster.
The place was a high-walled garden, its sides caressed by clinging vines and overhung with trees, through whose tops the waning rays of sunlight filtered in great drops of gold, turning the whole interior into a haze of saffron and yellow and gold. This . and Yvette, exquisite in the refulgent light. She arose from the marble garden bench whereon she sat, and as she moved, there was about her an unconscious air of beauty and grace.
"Antoine." Her voice was low, and when she spoke, a slight accent gave it additional charm.
"Antoine." This time there was no mistaking the voice. It was Yvette's, clear and low and wonderfully sweet; Yvette's, warm and vibrant and tender.
"Today, my Antoine; tomorrow, my husband!" The flash of sweetness that had found a place on Yvette's face was as quickly replaced by an expression of ineffable sadness and vaguest brooding. She glanced apprehensively about her. The great iron gate that separated the Maynard gardens from the adjacent D-- monastery had swung open and was standing half ajar. The monastery grounds, carefully guarded by forbidding gray-hued walls, were deserted. A hush of melancholy brooded over the entire place, and the stillness of the empty cloisters was broken only by the hum of droning insects, or by the muffled tread of feet at regular intervals, as the monks went on their way to prayers. Yvette's spirits dampened at the thought of these hooded beings whose pleasure lay only in solemnity and melancholy, savouring of mysery and death and remote other worlds. There was a weird solemnity in their black garbs that fascinated her with an occult but certain power. Suddenly a scarlet scorpion, attracted by the genial glow of the sun, darted across the walk in front of the half-open gate, and as suddenly there appeared in the aperture a monk of the D-- brotherhood. His face was not unknown to Yvette; she had been drawn to notice him one day as she walked alone on the avenue facing the Maynard estate. There was that in his eyes now, which recalled afresh the fleeting terror she had felt that day at sight of the burning misery of his gaze. Silent and still he stood, his face expressionless, his deep-set eyes on Yvette's as she sat with Antoine on the marble garden bench. For just a moment he stood thus, and then as silently disappeared. Yvette shivered, drawing the silken shawl about her shoulders more closely, and her hand trembled as she reached to catch it up. Reaching out, she clasped her lover's hand tightly.
"What is it, sweet?" Antoine had watched in surprise the singular action of the monk, and he resented it, for it was the evident cause of the perturbance that showed itself in the pallor on Yvette's face.
The shawl fell loose from her shoulders and she laughed unsteadily.
"Oh, I'm foolish and too easily frightened, that's all. Maman tells me often that I'm much too big a child to marry. But then I shall grow up with you for my husband."
Antoine shook his head ; his voice was gentle but positive.
"No, Yvette. I think it is that which makes you so wonderfulthe child and the woman in you. Ah, little one, life will be sweetwith you!"
"How I love the way you say that, Antoine," Yvette spoke softly. ''It gives me strength for anything, -even for death, I think, if it should come to me." Her eyes were half closed, and she spoke dreamily as if she saw beyond the pale of earthly things. "Then you could be a truly great poet, for they say that in order to be really great, one has to have sorrow to inspire him."
"Child, how you torment me! Are you wanting me to say that without you, there would be no poetry at all in my soul? For you know well that it is so." Antoine's expression of momentary pain at such thoughts changed suddenly and he laughed. "Ah, I know, my little Yvette has been reading Musset's 'Nuit de Mai.' 'Rien ne nous rend si grands qu ' une grande douleur. Les plus desesperes sont les chants les plus beaux.' But how you frightened me, little one!"
They were merry again and the incident of the monk was now completely forgotten. The last rays of sunset were lengthening into shadows of night, and in the favoring twilight Yvette was singularly appealing. The cool of the garden steeped in the fragrance of roses was pleasurable, and it was hard to leave. Soon, however, there would be no more leave-takings. Wonderful thought! Antoine arose to go.
"Tonight then?"
"Tonight!"
He was gone and with him all the light-heartedness that had been Yvette's. A mental return of the afternoon's one unpleasant incident brought with it all her former revulsion of feeling. The same strange fear re-entered her soul and she longed for the reassuring presence of Antoine.
"Oh! why must I be so foolish?" she cried vehemently, struggling to control the tumult of her disturbed thoughts. And then a low, startled cry escaped her lips. Against the opening in the wall, a figure in black was silhouetted for one brief moment. An arm reached forth, illumined against the shadowy background, and as it was witl1d-i:a:fY.Q., it slowly drew the heavy gate shut. Yvette listened tensely for the dull sound of rttrf~~ feet, for a time that to her seemed ;nt.ble, but the,e~ <J!\-.----uly a heavy silence
that weighed on her ·very soul and grew ever more intolerable as she waited. Impelled by some strange force, Yvette ran quickly from the garden, grown suddenly cold, into the friendlier warmth of the house. * * * * * *
Again the place was a high-walled garden, purple now with shadows of night, and overhung with trees through whose tops the moon that night looked down in full-orbed splendor, bathing the whole interior in its light, and revealing at the further end a tiny, silver-flung lake, potent in charm. This . and Yvette, hauntingly lovely in the witchery of the moonlight.
Antoine knelt before Yvette, kissing her fingers almost reverently.
"I salute my queen," he said.
Yvette flushed. "Rise, sir, and you may kiss -my lips!"
The happiness that lighted her face changed. She sighed faintly, and there was an accompanying slight movement of her hands in her lap that called attention to their small slender whiteness. There was that in her eyes which bespoke of fear.
"Love me , heart's dearest, ah! love me, my own."
With all his clumsy tenderness, Antoine gathered the lovely form close.
"Love you, mon tresor? Ah, ma bien aimee, with my Ii£e !"
And so they played at love.
None saw a black robed figure crouched low against the wall, shielded by shadows of overhanging trees; none dreamed to what ends despair would drive that same figure on tomorrow.
The scene changed; it was morning and Yvette's wedding day. But no glorious sun was there to woo the buds of the garden into festive blossoming. And through the tops of trees the sun's o'erclouded rays cast only pale gray reflections, turning the whole interior into an appropriate setting for the tragedy that had come to the Maynard gardens. This and Yvette, strangely still on the marble garden bench. The same Yvette; the same young form, slender and lifeless; the same fair face, whiter far than alabaster; the same loved eyes, closed forever ; Yvette, pierced through the heart, and the earth about her dyed a deep crimson ! God ! her wedding day! Strange fantasy!
"Rien ne nous rend si grands qu'une grande douleur. Les plus desesperes sont les chants les plus beau:r."
"And out of your sorrow, shall you be great." Antoine seemed to hear her voice like a benediction.
And then to the dullness of the grief laden atmosphere, there was added the mournful solemnity of the monastery bells as they tolled the death of one Guillaume de Lorin, found dead by his own hand beside the great iron gate that separated the Maynard gardens from the monastery.
"Antoine."
The poet stirred where he sat. The voice was all tenderness now. "My own."
A half smile parted his lips.
"Sleep well!"
It was quiet, inexpressibly quiet, and an indescribable softness, intangible and volatile as the perfume of roses, laid hold of the poet. Vagrant breezes gently ruffled the curtains at the window, revealing the velvet of a meadow beyond.
"Antoine."
The poet slept.
Like a scintillating bonfire
Are the minds of thoughtful menGlowing, gleaming, flaring brightly, Then subsiding, quiet again. Flying bits of glistening charcoal, Upward float the precious sparks; Thus man's ideas, likewise upward, Seek to cast aside the dark. Funny little struggling sparklets Thinking that as you aspire You will tell the very angels Of the pictures in the fire.
am a little dogwood tree bow wow many strange sights 1 s ee bow wow red birds in my branches nest weary ones beneath me rest all the world goes on in zest but i stand quite alone bow wow
lovers meet beneath my boughs woof woof murmur sweetly lying vows woof woof old men dream of long-gone days robins sing their summer lays all the world is in a craze but i stand quite alone woof woof a dog's life i lead woof woof
By ONE OF THEM
In order to avoid all confusion, let me admit at once that I am the Yankee in question. Yes, I admit it openly, and almost brazenly. It would be useless for me to deny it, and in my case I am really quite proud of the fact, strange and incomprehensible as that may seem to all true Virginians. My mother's people were from New England, and my father's from New York and Pennsylvania. Yes, I am purely a Yankee with not a single drop of good old Southern blood in my veins. A horrible con£ession, is it not?
I had often heard of Southern chivalry and courtesy, of Southern hospitality, and of the soft, musical voices of the Southern women and girls. No one ever gives the North credit for possessing these excellent qualities. No, indeed, the North is said to be full of men and women intently rushing after the dollar, distinctly efficient and commercial, but without the time or desire for those more cultured attributes found so abundantly in the Southland. Moreover, they are said to speak with a harsh, unpleasant nasal twang. And the younger generation have the reputation of being very slangy. I confess to the latter charge, and was often forced during my first month here to translate my remarks in order that my friends might understand. But either I have corrupted them, or else they have purified me, for I no longer have to translate for their benefit.
Knowing all these perfections of the South I decided to go to college there, although Southern colleges have none too high a scholastic reputation in the North. After long and diligent search, however ( for we Northerners are an energetic lot, you know), I discovered Westhampton.
It took no time at all for me to fall in love with Westhampton It was a true case of love at first sight; in spite of the rain, and the many strange faces. I soon became convinced that the South had earned its reputation for courtesy, chivalry, and hospitality. Yes, the Virginians are indeed "true blue." But in some respects I was greatly disappointed. For I have found only one girl who says "cyar," "cyart" and "gyarden," and very few who really drawl. I was laughed at to some extent for pronouncing my "r's," but that I didn't mind in the least, for I was having quite a bit of fun of my own in smiling "up my sleeve" at the way they dropped or slurred theirs. Thus it was only fair that they should be amused at me.
I have had several amusing experiences since coming here to college. One girl, after talking with me for a while, discovered suddenly that I was a Yankee.
"Why, you're real nice for a Northerner!" was her rather naive exclamation.
Another remarked casually that she did so love "the Northern accent" of whose existence I had been fully unaware until that moment. Do I really have an "accent!"
Once the joke was at my expense, for when one of my friends remarked that she intended going "over to the library this evening," I immediately exclaimed, "Why, can we go to the library at night?"
And I must con£ess that I still yet get puzzled occasionally at the use of "evening" applied to that portion of the day to which I have always been accustomed to refer to as "afternoon."
But in spite of the reputations of these two sections of our country, the North and the South, I have come _ to the conclusion that they are very, very much the same. I have not found the Southerners so extremely easy-going or inefficient. Nor have I discovered that the voices of Southern girls are any so£ter or more musical than those of my Northern friends. And really, if the truth were known, the Yankees have quite as good manners as the far-famed Southerners.
Music of birds at play; Flowers that charm the way; Moonlight that falls and jewels the lea; Peace of silent hills ; Murmur of silver rillsThe friendship of thee.
HUGH s. MEAD
Everything was made ready the night before and when the animals were brought around at seven o'clock in the morning they were quickly loaded with saddlebags and blanket rolls and we were off . A long trip in the sierra requires careful planning. Provision must be made for every emergency. Blankets must be taken to insure comfortable nights spent in the open under snowy peaks. A food supply on the road is of uncertain quantity and quality, and it is desirable to have some in the saddlebags. As food which is not canned should be uncooked a few cooking utensils should be included. Two or three bottles of good water should be slipped in and a small kettle to boil more when needed. Then it is wise to have a first aid outfit. Accidents are possible and even probable on the steep, stony, slippery trails. The "vibora" which the natives fear as the Indian fears the cobra is said to infest the mountains of the lower valleys. There are swarms of mosquitoes and other annoying insects. The native Indians who never change their clothes are covered with lice, and it is easy to pick up a few. These lice multiply very rapidly and about the only way to get rid of them is with a cake of strong carbolic soap and a swim in the river. All articles to be taken along must be selected with the thought of economy of space constantly in mind, as it is surprising how quickly saddlebags become full.
Cuzco is enclosed on three sides by high hills . The trail to Machu Picchu is to the east and north over one of the highest. The ride through the hills in the early morning is delightful. It is cool at this altitude of 12,000 feet above the level of the sea and the warmth of the sun is never more appreciated. That the old Inca was a sun worshipper is not to be wondered at. No one can live in the Andean sierra without realizing the beneficent influence of the sun and having a reverence for it. As the horses ( one horse and three mule s ) slowly zigzag up and down the steep slopes beautiful vistas present themselves. Now on the right one gets a glimpse of snowy Ausangati reaching a height of more than 20,000 feet; now on the left the more lo£ty top of Salcantay glistens in the sunlight. Although these mountains are many miles distant, through the clear thin air of the early morning they seem very near.
The mountain home of a Quechua Indian is passed. The small thatched hut is made of mud and has no windows. Wood is very
scarce at this altitude, and even in the cities when a man builds a house he digs up a space of ground, waters it until it becomes semi-liquid, mixes in some grass or straw, and then, as it begins to get dry, molds it into adobes which are dried in the sun and used for the house. On the ground near the Indian's hut chuno is being made. The chuno is the frozen potato. After it is thoroughly frozen it is dried out until it contains no water. It is then said to be more nutritious and more easily digested than the ordinary potato. It is an important element in the chupe, the vegetable soup with which dwellers of the sierra begin practically every meal, except breakfast which invariably consists of "pan y cafe con leche" ( rolls and hot milk with a little coffee added). It is always cold in the dining room in the higher parts of the sierra region and much hot liquid food adds to one's comfort.
Much of the trail is up and down and is difficult and dangerous. The more difficult and dangerous the trail the more beautiful and inspiring becomes the scenery. For many miles there is a wonderful canyon. The peaks are so high that they are capped with snow and the mountains are covered with glaciers, although the trail below is shaded with palms and ferns and other tropical growth. In places the path is a mere shelf cut out of the side of a sheer precipice 2,000 feet above the rushing, roaring, foaming rapids of the Urubamba on its way to contribute its quota to the great Amazon . In such places as these it does not add to one's peace of mind to see far below whitened bones of ill-fated animals who have slipped or have been crowded over the side. One feels much safer on a sure-footed mule than on a horse. The horse must be guided, but the mule watches the road carefully and his judgment is better than that of his rider.
Sometimes the valley widens and the way is over level pampas. The road is flanked with fertile corn fields. The hills also are cultivated and the patches of different greens, yellow, and gold of ten reach the very top. There is no regularity in the shape of these patches of growing grain which gives to the hillside a crazy quilt effect. Some of the steeper hills were terraced in Inca days and the terraces are still being used.
The first night was spent at Urco, the missionary model farm. The Englishman in charge has managed the place very efficiently and furnishes an example of up-to-date methods of agriculture and stock raising for the whole valley. Besides the missionary's wife there is a trained nurse, a teacher, and three other English women belong-
mg to the mission. Evangelical work is done in the neighboring towns and on the place thirty or forty orphans are taken care of and given good academic as well as agricultural and other industrial training. The hospital on the farm cares for cases among the workmen and others on the farm and also at times receives cases from outside. While there are no facilities for surgical work of ten work of this kind has to be done. Just before our visit a successful amputation had been performed. The people at U rco are very hospitable, and the traveler who stops there has pleasant and interesting memories of his visit.
Leaving Urco after lunch the town of Urubamba was reached late in the afternoon, and it was decided to stay there for the night. There was a hotel in Urubamba, the only one in the entire valley. The hotel was an old Spanish home, and was a rather attractive looking place, the rooms opening on a veranda overlooking a patio with a well-kept flower garden. There was one room for guests. In the room were three beds, which did not bear a careful inspection. Fortunately we had our own blankets and we just wrapped up in them and left the beds all made up for the next travelers. This place, as is characteristic of houses even of the better class in the Peruvian highlands, had no toilet facilities. The next night at Ollantaytambo we were invited to stay at the house of the municipal teacher, who had one of the best houses in the town. We accepted the invitation, as even at an altitude of about 8,000 feet in this region it is too cold to sleep without shelter, especially as there is no wood available for a campfire. The house was a one-story house, and our room had a stone floor. One small mattress was available and the pads from under the saddles and a feather-lined sleeping bag helped make the stones soft.
Ollantaytambo was one of the strongholds of the Incas. On top of the crag which overlooks the present village was built a great fortress. This fortress is one of the finest examples of the stone work of a people which has never been equalled in stone cutting and fitting. The beautifully fashioned and massive stones, all that the hand of man has left of the walls of the palace which crowned the top of the hill , are so perfectly cut and fitted together that the joinings can hardly be seen with the naked eye. The walls which encircle the hill are made with equal precision. These stones are of the finest granite and are of different colors. One wonders how stone work so perfect was done. There is a theory that these ancient people possessed an art which has been lost whereby they softened
the surfaces of the stones to be fitted together. It is more probable that the exquisite work is the result of a patience and a precision m work which are lost to the modern artisan.
From Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu requires about two days. Nightfall of the first day found us at an inviting camping place. It was in the canyon, but the place was level, clean, and sandy and was only about a hundred feet above the river. There was also plenty of wood for the campfire. We made our camp in the shelter of the wall of the canyon which rose perpendicularly for several hundred feet. After a much relished supper we fixed the beds, spreading the saddle pads on the ground and putting blankets and sleeping bags over them. The night was cold, although we were not in a high altitude and we had to keep the campfire burning all night. The next morning we discovered a glacier around the corner. The leading horse we tied to a tree and the others were left loose. When we got the horses the next morning they all had ugly looking, bleeding wounds about their necks. They had been attacked by the big vampire bats which perch themselves on the back of the horses' necks and suck their blood.
By the side of the road at the foot of Machu Picchu there is a natural camping place. It is level and sandy and the overhanging wall of granite curves in at the base so as to afford protection against the weather, a great advantage, as it often rains at this point in the valley. Just across the road runs the river. The water is clear and refreshing. Here we established our headquarters for the ascent to the ridge of the mountain where are found the ruins of Machu Picchu, the place from which the Incas started out to found the great empire which came to extend over a large part of South America. Nature made the site of the ancient city practically impregnable. On all sides it is protected by steep precipices and the rapids of the U rubamba encompass it on three sides. Our climb was a most difficult one. In places we had to scale perpendicular granite walls. In other places we had to crawl through holes cut under jungle growth. On the ground we were ever watchful for the "viboras" about which we had heard such evil reports. Only one "vibora," however, was encountered and he seemed to be much more interested in getting away than in giving trouble.
After about three hours of really strenuous work we reached the top of the ridge and were among the ruins of the city. There is no place, except in Cuzco, where there are as extensive Inca ruins
and in Cuzco the Inca work has been mixed up to a large extent with later Spanish construction. In Machu Picchu the ruins have not been molested and one gets a certain insight into the life of this prehistoric people. There are the narrow streets and granite stairways, the groups of dwellings, the plaza with its temples, the intihuatana or sun altar, the terraces, the city walls. The temples and some of the dwellings rival in beauty of materials and perfection of execution the best Inca work of Cuzco and Ollantaytambo. An adequate description of the place would be a long story. Every structure is an interesting study. One feels amply repaid for all the effort to reach this almost inaccessible place.
(Based on a rondel attributed to Francois Villon)
WARREN A. MCNEILL
Know you a simple word called "Yes?" Then, one time, tell it me . Your lips make of it a caress; An harbinger of happinessSay it but once for me!
What pow'r is bound up in your "Yes"; What joy it holds for me! No balm remains in life unless You yield once to my earnestnessSay it but once for me !
Why should you fear to tell me , "Yes"; Why do you shrink from me? Oh, but this one time acquiesce In all your tender artlessnessSay it but once for me !
J. RoY SAUNDERS
Having come, by a somewhat tortuous route, to the end of my course in Richmond College, it is, perhaps, in order to attempt a review of the significance that this course hGlds; in my own eyes, at least. I am aware that it is customary to pay a "glowing tribute" to those who have fostered our intellectual growth; elaborating in a kind of fine frenzy on the perfections of Alma Mater. To write in this manner would but reflect the naive view, and such is not my intention.
The fact is, through several discussions with some of my friends, I have come to hold a clearer view of the assets with which Richmond College is endowed, realizing at the same time that in the minds of many Virginians, our college has certain drawbacks. And I propose to examine some of the objections set forth.
The idea with which these fair-minded friends of mine are possessed ( almost universally) is that our University, since it was founded and is largely supported by the Baptist denomination, is not therefore able to expound the ultimate truths of human life - whereever they may lead and to whatever conclusions.
This notion of the narrowness of denominational schools is easy to understand. One has only to consider the nation-wide agitation in religious bodies on "evolution," "fundamentalism," etc., which even now continues. And it can be said, I think, that we have suffered here innocently, because of the somewhat general policy of adhering strictly to religious creeds that has characterized parochial schools the world over.
For my part, I have observed rather meticulously the attitude of my professors toward the developments of modern thought, which, I believe, make an immense appeal to the young minds of this generation. And I may say that I have heard almost every topic of interest, regardless of its iconoclastic nature, presented, and its viewpoint defined, although no brief was held either for or against its adoption.
I have been asked: "But is it possible for your professors to make a stand for liberalism and freedom of thought?" And I like to quote the most beloved of my preceptors, who, when discussing the action of a certain institution in discharging a professor for his liberalism, said: "And that, gentlemen, is what makes of a college a pile of brick and mortar !"
I have no hesitancy in saying that I, for one, have no patience with the "stand-patters," nor with the superciliousness of the orthodox. I mean to say, that there are those who appear to think that their view of the universe, and of the order of things, is the only possible one. And those with whom they come in contact, stand or fall, in the estimation of these gentlemen, according to the degree of consideration that one gives to "ultimate truth" -as they interpret it. It never seems to occur to them that men will not be coerced in their thinking, and that they themselves are modern Don Quixotes charging windmills of reason to no effect. There is room in the world for the "saint" and the "sinner"; at least there has always been; and does not such an attitude drive men away from the very idea of God, rather than help them to an understanding of the moral values of religion?
Again, it is charged that we live in a provincial atmosphere from which the larger universities are free. And this brings me to the other side of the question, which is: should there be fostered in the modern college a spirit of religiousness? Extremists argue that since we do not absolutely know anything concerning the nature of God, or the purpose of the universe, it is useless and false to teach any but scientifically demonstrable facts. The debate here would be interminable if we should enter into it. I can only say that I have seen exponents, both of "reverent science" and of "science dogmatic." I find that here we have numerous instances of the former, and I have experienced instances of the latter elsewhere. Science, reverent of the secrets of nature, which lead one ultimately to the idea of God, is a more satisfying philosophy than the tenets of materialism; whereas, at the same time, we are no less efficient in the departments of science, while holding to a belief in God and the eventful triumph of the good -relatively, at least.
I believe a man is more likely to "go to seed" and ruin if there is not a kindly restraining voice on his actions while in college. "Let them alone" is the recognized policy of some universities. However, the high road to the coveted degree has, I think, more pitfalls and stumbling blocks than are absolutely necessary, under the aforesaid system.
It is a senior's privilege to give advice, but that, too, would be trite. Let me say, at any rate, that there is one most insidious phrase, as sweet as "honey-hearts" (so Homer puts it) to the soul of the young collegian. It usually runs thusly: "There is more to college life than is to be found in books." And yet, spite of the
destruction which follows in the wake of those that adopt this idea, there is a world of truth in it. One is not capable of putting the thought to use until one has first established one's self in the good graces of our "revered doctors." And there is where we make the mistake. It is necessary to temper our time with books as well as women, and the thousand and one activities that are open to us with their broadening influence. This has been said so of ten that I should be ashamed to repeat it were it not so true.
And thus to come eventually to the tribute that Richmond College commands of all that are her true sons. Within your Gothic walls, Oh mother, ever dear, I have learned a way of life. To my untutored mind, the values that are eternal have been made manifest. The beauty of literature, the possibilities of life, the ennobling power of ideals, the transcendent worth of religion, the glory of art and the grandeur of science, the sublimity of the human spirit; all these things I have felt, as the words of the wise have been spoken. I have been filled with the joys of friendship; I believe that they will endure. Beauty has been around me, I have reveled in it. Beauty of nature and climate, of women and poetry, of springtime and life!
I believe that these values will go with me through life, in spite of the fact that they often seem to be sloughed off in contact with the world. But one should be able to sum up his college career in a more or less definite philosophy. And surely one's philosophy of life ought to be "all that he is and thinks." So how can one lose it?
John R. Mott once characterized institutions of higher learning as "fountains of idealism," and so we like to think them. For, idealism, after all, is the "salt and flavor" of our days, despite the sordid struggles of a selfish world.
JOHN KEATS. By Amy Lowell. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 1925.
Bards of passion and of mirth are evoked in our age from what Elysium they know by the inevitable recurrence of their centenaries. Recent celebrations of the hundred years' repose of Shelley and Byron have brought new evaluations of their lives and poems, of which the end is not yet in sight. While Miss Mayne's enlarged biography of Byron is being re-read, and Nicolson's The Lost Journey has enabled us to understand more impartially the wan glory of his death, and his brilliant letters have been freshly edited, Andre Maurois has given a vivid scenario of Shelley's life -still a best seller, but quite unilluminating as to the value of his poetry. At the present time Professor Walter Peel, of the College of Wooster, is patiently working on a larger estimate. Sir Sidney Colvin had done so much biography in his extended Keats, published in 1917, that little more material was to be expected concerning the earliest dead of the three poets. Quite to the contrary, Miss Lowell has followed in seven years' time with a wealth of facts unimportant in detail, but so valuable in their entirety that she has justified herself in her more than twelve hundred pages and a bounteous appendix. This seven-year interval is only a fraction of the time she has devoted intensively to Keatsiana.
Miss Lowell is singularly equipped as a poet's critic. Inheriting with her family name the ripest culture of Boston and Cambridge, she has enriched her patrimony. Her special starting point in studying Keats was evidently not the essay of the older Lowell, poet and critic, too, which she never mentions, but her own insatiable interest in Keats material obtainable in America. Suddenly she found herself reckoned the most successful of American collectors, as she was certainly the most able and distinguished. She then decided that only in a full length biography could she share results with the world. Her patience, ardor, keenness, resourcefulness have won her the right to supplement, if not supplant, Sir Sidney's work. These gifts, admirable for scholarly purposes, she has fused with her own richest critical endowment, poetic insight. No other author in English literature has been so predominantly the absorption of a poet as a Keats has been of Amy Lowell. ( That she is a convincing poet only the most reluctant will deny today.) As a rule a particular poet has been the life study of some prose critic, and such writers
as James Russell Lowell, Arnold, Swinburne or Drinkwater, to mention only later examples, have given us brief er estimates. Miss Lowell has completed an exhaustive study. But she is not an experimenter. Her "Six French Poets" and the frequent public elucidations of her own art -unforgetably delightful -have already brought her international distinction as a critic.
Yet an extended biography, involving narrative technique, is nevertheless a venture even for one who writes vivid narrative poems. Miss Lowell thus explains her scheme: "I have followed a rather unusual method in dealing with the two aspects of his character, the personal and the poetic. I have given his life as a whole, bringing in the poems at intervals as they occurred to him. My object has been to make the reader feel as though he were living with Keats, subject to the same influences that surrounded him, moving in his circle, watching the advent of poems as from day to day they sprang into being. I have tried to bring back into existence the place, the time, and the society in which Keats moved." This method is not really unusual, but in this case highly successful. Few biographers have made a man in every sensation, thought, and act so intelligible as Keats must remain to any willing reader. To be sure, Miss Lowell has taken advantage of the brevity of her subject's life. A record of Tennyson or Browning on the same scale would swell into six to ten volumes the size of this fine, crimson bound pair, labelled "John Keats." Miss Lowell in the case of Tennyson would have found it difficult to leave the swarming rectory at Somersby. The Cambridge friendships would have detained her indefinitely from Tennyson's associations later with Queen Victoria. How much the gaiety of nations has suffered because she never touched this particular field, it is impossible for us to speculate even in passing. For not a detail would have escaped her. Of Keats' friends she omits nothing except in the case of the already well advertised Leigh Hunt and the artist, Haydon. The Keats circle did not include remarkable interesting men and women. At first the reader misses such compelling figures in the London of 1817 as Lamb, Hazlitt, Coleridge, and Byron, who had for Keats a rather shadowy existence. Gradually he so loses himself in admiration of the author's cleverness in tracking the movements of Clarke, Matthew, Reynolds, Bailey or Brown that he, too, wonders what coach will Brown take on his next journey or whether or not the Reynolds girls really extended that dinner invitation on Tuesday the fourteenth or the Wednesday following-. As he yields to the spell, he conjectures how many doc-
toral dissertations on Keats' chronology have been anticipated and thwarted by his indefatigable research. Miss Lowell's warm human interest lessens our strain in believing that all these details are significant. Certainly for students of Keats they are, and should be gratefully acknowledged as such. No Keats lover will regret this purified Boswellism of the twentieth century. It is highly important that Miss Lowell prefers this to the Strachey method which Nicolson . does not escape in her recent valuable study of Tennyson. Miss Lowell resists also the physiological and anatomical tendency in biography today. Naturally she has consulted physicians about all pathological data obtainable - she is the child of her age, but she has spared us all the diagnostics she could. The results of the autopsy she gives in a sentence. Her wholesome reverence for personality rather than pathology leaves us grateful.
In this intimate record several emphases of real importance emerge. The author has discovered that the sudden development of Keats' reading, after an unprecocious boyhood, came with the sting of loneliness caused by his mother's death. Keats ever afterward craved but lacked a woman to replace her. The charming Georgiana Wylie sustained him for a while, but all too soon, after her marriage with the poet's brother George, she left for Kentucky never to return. Little Fanny Keats was too young, too remote, secluded from her brothers by the unamiable guardian, Abbey. Keats' devotion in absence to this child whom he might have been pardoned for forgetting, is one of the most winsome traits in even his loyally affectionate nature. Mrs. Browne, mother of the immortal Fanny, he really loved, but how could he confide to her the maddening fear that he would never be well enough to marry and support her daughter? For Fanny herself Miss Lowell has a gallant defense. She finds her cultivated, brainy, sweet, strong, utterly devoid of the frivolity and heartlessness long ascribed to her. It is delightful to hear Miss Lowell accuse Colvin of injustice to Fanny because he is "hoodwinked by an unreasoning love for Keats." Miss Lowell herself has not escaped the same charge. But is it just? One must grant that at times she is undeniably maternal. "Poor boy !" occurs again and again in her delightfully conversational lapses. However, she does not condone weaknesses, but only proves themexcept his failings as a lover -lost in the total sum of independence, sanity, manliness and integrity. And much as she loves him, she doesn't daudle him. As a twentieth-century woman, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto, Miss Lowell believes it was
just as much Keats' duty to consider Fanny's happiness as hers to yearn for his; just as difficult for her to be patient as for him. It is hard to set aside the author's evidence that Keats was almost a perfect friend, but a selfish, imperfect lover. At no other point does the woman's keenly critical mind triumph so heroically over partiality for this very god of her idolatry.
As his literary critic she is unflinching, satisfying, too, in the last degree. One hesitates to anticipate any prospective reader's joy in a poet's interpretations of Keats' work. These comments, scattered chronologically, are often striking because Miss Lowell has been able to redate poems and in all cases to revisualize them for us. We live with Keats, in his changing moods, at Hampstead, Margate, the Isle of Wight, in Scotland, or in the Winchester which delighted him and gave him a setting for that exquisite fragment, "The Eve of St. Mark." Miss Lowell brushes aside the laborious studies among ceramics in the British Museum for the inspiration of the "Ode on a Grecian Urn." She is receptive toward new literary sources, especially those suggested by her Harvard friend, Professor John Livingston Lowes, but not always enthusiastic. She sees more deeply than Colvin into the essential nature of Keats' imagination in that she denies "Endymion" any allegorical significance. Wisely, too, I believe, she rejects his singular estimation of "Isabella" as the finest of the short narratives, but gives inexhaustible praise to "The Eve of St. Agnes" and "The Eve of St. Mark." Her bomb, to quote her term, is the belief that the "Vision of Hyperion," heretofore considered the reworking of the longer form, "Hyperion," was the starting point, to which he later returned. She is particularly illuminating in her new idea that in one great ecstatic month Keats' confident love of Fanny made possible the serene perfection of the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" ; a changed mood brought the enchanting heartache of "Ode to a Nightingale"; another, the "Ode on Indolence." She is masterly in dating the sonnets, spying out in those less familiar the combination of exquisite beauty and undeniable blemishes. Very rarely, I think, does her acumen desert her, except, perhaps in her unwillingness to feel any charm in "Bards of Passion and of Mirth." Possibly she over values Keats' letters. Brilliant, pathetic, humorous, poetic, and at times almost profound, they are too inchoate to be classed among the finest English letters. As inspired memoranda one cannot estimate them too highly.
Miss Lowell's brilliant, though uneven style, is never so fascinating as when she discloses what the writing of poetry involves.
She records the joy of successful creation as comparable only to the ecstasy of love. She says far more of the pain. Other poets have hinted at the mental and physical exhaustion creative effort costs. No one else has revealed so vividly its sheer agony as she herself feels it. She sheds new light on the dictum "Poeta nascitur, non fit." The poet must be born to his lot. He could not willingly doom himself to a life so torturing. The pains are threefold: the yearning to create; the throes of parturition; the anguish of dead yearnings. Such expressions from one of the most successful, most influential of modern poets are of double value. Realizing her estimation of a poet's struggles, one is glad that Keats fell to her as a biographer. Her sympathy for him is boundless. But it is based on her unshakable belief that he anticipated all that was best in modern poetry. Believing this she is scarcely just to other poets, notably Shelley, whom she finds by comparison lamentably unsatisfactory in that he "flung his immature half thinkings forth on every wind that blew." However unduly she exalts the opposite practice of her own school, which rejects "thinkings" in general, she is par excellence the critic for Keats. One cannot he lp regretting that they have known each other only in the spirit. If in his life time he had included her among his friends, her bounteous nature, her discerning sympathy, generosity, fearless and sustaining affection, would have rescued him from bodily anguish and thus saved him to make even richer one of the greatest of all contributions to English poetry.
-G. W. L.
BRANCH CABELL. By Carl Van Doren. McBride. New York. 1925.
At a time when Mr. Cabell becomes more and more firmly entrenched in the quota of our "accepted" contemporaries, this little critical volume comes with a certain inevitability. Since Guy Holt contributed a Bibliography, and Hugh Walpole scolded the Democracy for failure to appreciate its own Cabell, and the Jurgen suppression, with amusing ignominy, collapsed, the writer of some nineteen volumes has found himself drifting toward that doubtful category of writers whom readers praise rather than read. Or as Mr. Cabell himself has it: " I am become a relic vaguely associable with bicycles and hansom cabs and cigar-store Indians and cast-iron deer, and other cceval items of extinct Americana." There-
fore, we conclude that Mr. Van Doren has (besides, doubtless, somewhat obligating the title of his essay) done a singular service to those who are content to endorse rather than to read; for here those of our literati who somehow find Mr. Cabell "hard-going," can get a general impression about what "the author of Jurgen" has done in the matter of writing -surely nothing more -and shall be able to speak quite learnedly of Poictesme, although they will still be unable to pronounce it with any certainty of correctness.
Mr. Van Doren has, we conceive, given us nothing which cannot be gotten already from Mr. Cabell's published books except probably a very interesting and puzzling map (after Bulg) of Poictesme, and a literary judgment which places the author with Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville (whom, by the way, Mr. Cabell considers one of the world's ten worst writers) as the three great American romanticists. The map is of interest to anyone who considers Mr. Cabell more than a "current literary phenomenon"; the dictum sets us immediately into a sceptical mood ( such has been our academic training , alas!) and we begin to question the advisability of "placing" him at all. As yet Melville has not gotten into the text-books, and one is inclined to hope Cabell never will. According to Mr. Van Doren, where Hawthorne is solid and Melville robust, Cabell combines "wit and loveliness" in his romanticism and serves therein a complement of the trio. Also does the critic speak of Mr. Cabell's irony and interpidity of wit which are pointed out as saving their owner from sentimentalism. Moreover , the observation seems sound enough that while Hawthorne never escaped fully the Puritanism of his heritage, and Melville was forced to fling his magic kings into distant seas, Cabell has stayed quite impudently to smile wittily or ironically at his generation's and country's gods: not unlike the greatest of all modern ironists and one of the greatest stylists of all time, Anatole France.
And the thought recalls that like Ernest Boyd for the great Frenchman, Carl Van Doren has been a champion of Mr. Cabell for some years. It is not surprising now, when many critics are tying themselves quite shamelessly to "maitres," that this particular champion should add to the rapidly growing quantity of lengthyand almost learned-criticism of James Branch Cabell, a little volume filled with long quotations from the author's works, many synopses of novels and tales, facts about the genealogy, and such other matters as are certainly treated in Beyond Life and in Straws and Prayer Books, with here and there a bit of crticism. Doubtless
Mr. Van Doren did not intend to criticize, but to present to those too busy to· read books which are no longer a source of controversy, a short, factual, concise and commendatory essay.
One point in conclusion: in a volume with which one can find so little fault - or, for that matter, any great virtue - the following item brings a smile: "Mr. Cabell is not, however, at his most poetical in his verse." No: although the critic is kind in merely negating a superlative; no: Mr. Cabell is most emphatically not a poet of meter and verse form, as anyone will affirm who has been courageous enough to read From the Hidden Way! We doubt whether the Van Doren James Branch Cabell was needed. Certainly it brings nothing new. We acknowledge that maiden aunts may, with impunity, give it to neices and nephews without subverting the youngsters' morals, or fearing they will read it and be turned, through its stimulation, to those volumes of which it treats, there to find some eternal verities in high impassioned prose.
-A. B. CLARKE,
'23.
ATLAS OF ENGLISH LITERATURE. By Goode and Shannon. The Century Co. 1925.
An interesting addition has recently been made to that field of useful and helpful books which may be termed "backgrounds of literature." This book, in the form and under the title of An Atlas of English Literature, was compiled by Professors Clement Tyson Goode, of the University of Richmond, and Edgar Finley Shannon, of Washington and Lee University. It is a work which required patient and careful research and editing, and much credit is due the authors for their efforts in constructing the atlas. It should be of great benefit to both students and teachers of English literature, being primarily a reference book intended to be used in conjunction with other text-books, enabling one to visualize locality and period in order to get a clear idea of the environmental influences brought to bear on the works of an author.
In mechanical make-up the book consists of nine maps accompanied by lists of authors pertaining to them. Of the nine, five are taken up with as many periods in the development of English literature, beginning with Anglo-Saxon times in the fifth century, and concluding with the end of the nineteenth century. The maps
show the political divisions of England of the period and the relative importance of the cities, and are divided into numbered and lettered squares to facilitate finding the location of places. On the pages opposite these maps are the lists of authors, in alphabetical order, who were identified with the period. Each name is followed by the dates and places of birth, death, and burial, together with the names and location on the map of the places associated with his important literary works.
The other four maps are similar presentations of London, Scotland, Ireland and Italy in their relation to English literature. Italy has had a surprising influence on many English authors, and this is thrown into a concrete form by the map, which is readily grasped.
About one thousand authors and probably two thousand places are listed in the atlas and are thoroughly cross-indexed by two additional lists in the back of the book.
The handy quarto size common to most atlases is used, and 136 pages are included between its covers. It is a very convenient, unique, and ingenious edition which should find immediate favor in the classroom.
-C. \V. W.
OLD ENGLISH. By John Galsworthy. Scribners. New York. 1924.
Is there anything more pitiable than the failure of a great dramatist, unless it be the utter collapse of a mediocre one? The great one has his past to redeem him, but the Galsworthys of drama have really nothing. The play is ridicuously slight, nothing more than a short one-act play expanded into a slim evening run. The character, "Old English," dominates everything to the detriment of the drama; whenever it is given it will be at the behest of a star. Mr. Arliss' present production instances this. In lack of dramatic success, he overcasts any of the failures of the past with this, his most unenviable one.
-GEORGE R.
FREEDLEY.
WHO WOULD BE FREE. By Marian Spitzer. Boni and Liveright. New York. 1924.
The jacket blurbs concerning this novel were enough to sink a stauncher craft, but despite that fact Miss Spitzer manages to pre-
sent a fairly creditable piece of work. The book was supposed to be a diatribe against sex in the novel, but it merely emphasized the sexual deficiencies of the heroine. Eleanor, in her revolt against smug German Jewish society, is fundamental and the situations are quite the usual. Her character is well drawn, as is that of Ted, and the man she almost marries. Miss Spitzer knows her people and they impress you with their respective significance and lack of it. The novel is a real success despite the fact that Eleanor "does not give herself to the second man she meets," to quote the author.
-G. R. F.
MARGARET HARLAN
I want in heaven, things to feel, To hear, to see, to know. My mind is thick to comprehend Man-made ideas of man's eternity, Emeshed in reams of abstract theory.
Sense duties in a well filled life Have left me faint to grasp Reincarnation and a host of doubts. The rush of dawn and peaceful spread of twilight, The warm sweet smell of cows at evenings milking, The downy softness of a chicken just shell dried; These are the truths my mind has compassed And my senses clarified.
I want hereafter, things to hear, to see with eyes, No incomprehensive thoughts On which to ponder and philosophize: Gates of pearl, a choir that sings, A harp, a halo, and a pair of angel's wings.
LESLIE L. JONES - - - - - - Editor-in-Chief
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THE MESSENGER is publishedevery monthfrom Novemberto June inclusiveby the studentsof TheUniversityof Richmond.Contributionsare welcomedfromall members of the studentbodyand fromthe alumni. Manuscriptsnot foundavailablefor publication willbe returned Subscriptionsrates are TwoDollarsper year; singlecopiesTwenty-Five Cents. All businesscommunicationsshouldbe addressedto the BusinessManagers. (Enteredas secondclassmatterin the postofficeat The Universityof Richmond.)
The Westhampton Editor feels rather brave in daring to compose an editorial after the opus published by her co-partner in our last issue; but knowing that this is her last chance, she has decided, at least, to give her farewell. THE MESSENGERthis year has had a stormy history, but we do hope that out of the chaos our readers have gained a little enjoyment. Next year, with its able editors ( one of whom has already taken position) we know that THE MESSENGER will not recognize itself, so resplendent will it be in its bright coat and extra-heavy paper. May THE MESSENGER and its editors flourish, and publish all opuses of our campus geniuses, and too, not be lacking in those "bogy" ones with which Editor Jones scares the public. Thus will its Golden Jubilee be indeed golden.
-W. H. S.
It has been somewhat the fashion, these recent days, to inspect our National Letters with the bilious eye of the psychiatrist. Poor Edgar Allan Poe was one of the latest. An entire volume has been devoted to this gentleman's alleged frailties: "Edgar A. Poe: A Psychopathic Study," by John W. Robertson, M. D. (Putnams). Joseph Collins (another M. D.) in a delightful review of this hefty tome, sums the matter up quite neatly: " . To call his infirmity 'dipsomania,' and his genius a 'neurosis' does not more securely enhance Poe in the hearts of his countrymen, or add to the luster of his name. So far as the writer knows, no one has ever denied that Edgar A. Poe had dipsomania. Why belabor this admission when he has been comfortably seated on Parnussus for half a century?"
Along this line we are always reminded of what Abraham Lincoln said when certain gentlemen complained to him that General Grant drank whiskey. Everyone knows his reply. And so with Poe. If his creations were, in any sense, the result of "dipsomania,'' surely the Letters of these United States would no whit suffer from a greater prevalence of this malady. Think, if you will, of the vast number of total abstainers who have respectably, comfortably, and complacently glided across this cosmic screen, and left marks less heavy than the shadow of a very thin moonbeam.
The other day we spent a pleasant half-hour at the Poe Shrine. It was April. The garden -the Enchanted Garden, it is calledhad just aroused itself. A fountain leaped in the sunlight ( fountains always leap in the sunlight), and the greenest of green grass enclosed narrow paths. Or, rather, the paths enclosed the green grass. All about were flowers. No end of spring flowers: jonquils, pansies, violets, hyacinths. And all about the garden walls, the brick walls which enframed the garden, clung great masses of heavy, dark-green ivy. It was, indeed, an Enchanted Garden.
Across the street stood a tobacco factory swishing belts, whirring pulleys, clattering machines the odor of licorice negroes making plug tobacco, chewing tobacco . Around the corner other men fashioned useful things from bars of steel clashing, clanging steel. On the street without the garden, dirty Slavic children played and screamed, while their parents, behind dusty store fronts sold old clothes to recent strange flavorings for the Melting Pot. Street cars clattered by, and heavy carts rumbled
over the uneven paving. Truly, an Enchanted Garden to thrive in so uncomely a spot. A curious person might discover much significance in such an arrangement : loveliness in so strange a setting. We do not know if this is an original thought or not, but it has just come to us that there is some slight analogy between this fresh and beautiful garden rising from a city's slums, and the ineffably sweet music which burst from the discords of a poor wracked soul.
Dipsomania? Neurosis? Name it what you will. As for us, and begging your leave, we would not swap "Annabelle Lee" or "Helen" for all the gospel hymns confected since the days of Martin Luther.
L. L. J.
The eighteenth amendment to the Constitution of these United States has doubtless produced results which are not altogether without benefit to the workingman. The number of deaths from hardening of the liver is steadily decreasing; victrolas may be found in more back parlors, and a greater quantity of mortgages are being plastered upon the red, and green, and purple tile roofs of new stucco bungalows. Madame Workingman wears more and better clothes , and does not so often receive, in the character of family punching bag, the proverbial Saturday night caresses of her illuminated spouse. The daily bread is more regular , more certain . The children attain to a closer intimacy with Eskimo Pie and the cinematograph. They attend high schools , business colleges, universities; and despise heartily the white-collarless profession of their male parent.
And he - this male parent - is he happier under the new regime? One is permitted to doubt it. But happiness, you will say, is not the chief end of men. The fact stands, however, that the greater portion of man's time and energy is consumed in the more or less vain pursuit of this elusive Pollyanna butterfly.
According to the late Mons. Charles Baudelaire the only sane method- in fact, the only feasible method-of achieving happiness in this so curiously constructed cosmos, is to remain at all times intoxicated. The exact nature of the intoxicant, says the gentleman, does not greatly matter -wine, women, poetry all serve admirably.
Personally, Mons. Baudelaire seemed to be in favor ( as they deftly put it in Iowa) of the whole tout ensemble.
At any rate the Frenchman's suggestions contains a certain measure of soundness, and, at the very least, is rather provocative of speculation. Applying these conditions to the life of the sweating proletariat what do we uncover? Just what are his chances of securing happiness? Let us inspect the various items separately. Poetry, for instance. Can you imagine our weary Helot, after a long day in the trenches with the Consolidated Sewer Construction Company, or after a dozen hours of vigorous white-winging up and down the burning asphalt, or after toting a ton or two of bricks up endless miles of rickety ladders, can you imagine, I say, this sick and weary gentleman refreshing himself with copious draughts from the lyrical wine-cellars of Doctor Palgrave, or arousing his tattered vaso-motor system with a huge dose from, say, Book II of "The Faerie Queen?" Honest, now, can you? You cannot.
And should he choose ( as once he did choose) -we turn now to the liquid aspects of happiness -to seek solace in the depths of a tall, slender glass, what does he discover? Either must he content himself with the sugary, legal confections of the soda bazaars, or else must he run the dangers of a violent and extremely discomforting death by applying to a nearby member of the new bootlegging aristocracy.
There now remains to him ( still following Mons. Baudelaire) but one resource -women. Financial considerations, together with an inherent lack of enterprise, prevent him from casting amorous glances beyond the limits of his own rooftree. And here, at his own hearth, after the day's slavery, what does he find? He finds a care-worn, harried person -the stout companion of many a marital combat. Clad in a loose, shapeless garment she hovers warmly over a smoky stove whence rises the odor of fried onions and calf's liver. Is our proletaire entranced by this vision? Does he become dizzy with delight and proffer gallant speeches to the estimable hausfrau? He does not. He sits down and dully wonders what it's all about.
In the old day, now, things were ordered differently. Before crossing his own threshold the worthy man would have somewhat blunted his aesthetic tastes, would have extracted some of the gall from Life's bitter cup, by a homeward-bound visit to his club. The initiation fee was only one small nickel, and with this was included all the privileges of the house -a dozen varieties of cheese; pig's feet; long, green pickles; ham; pretzels; and numberless other salty
THE MESSENGER
delights. This for his inner man. To caress his soul, to soothe his hunger for the beautiful, there were mahogany panels; tall, shining mirrors; highly-polished cuspidors; and upon the walls, strange, exotic pamtmgs. Underfoot could be felt the soft, musical crunch of sanitary sawdust.
But the brave old days - as they say -are gone. Now he must seek comfort, liquid relief from Fate's sharp lash , up curious, darksome alleys, and in those small curious rooms back of barber shops. At ruinous prices he now purchases vari-colored concoctions of fusel oil, thereby grievously assaulting the mucus membrane of his gastronomic laboratory, and hastening frightfully the ossification of his long-suffering kidneys.
There were times - so we are told-when the world once sang, "Everybody Works but Father." All that was long ago -even long ago. A new deal now graces the board, and someone has handed father a thin pair of very small deuces.
-L. L. J.
In the Seventh Volume of the Platitudes of Lao Ch'eng it is written: "The benevolent radiance of a fully-distended sky-lantern is admitted.ly of matchless potency in three not unrelated matters: the tides of the seas; the cardiac irritability of youthful, female virginity; and the never-ending confection of unnumbered melodious strophes. "
As to the effect of Cynthia upon the waters of our rivers and bays, no sane person will argue. As to its influence over the tempo of maidenly pulses there may be more or less controversy, both pro and con. In the way of poetry, however, the whole business is definitely settled. That is, in so far as t~e editors are concerned. Herewith the evidence: The most recent full moon to grace these parts of the Commonwealth appeared on April 8th. On April 9th, between daybreak and twilight, no less than four poems were laid upon the editorial table four poetic opuses by new tamers of Pegasus. Four may not seem an impressive figure, but, from the standpoint of MESSENGER contributions, it is little less than a windfall. Let no man contest the validity of Lao Ch'eng's conclusion.
-L.
L. J.