THE MESSENGER is publi s hed every month from October to Jme by the students of the University of Richmond. Contributions are welcomed from a!l member s of the stud e nt body and from the alumni. Mantl5cripts not found available for publication will be returned. Subscription rates are Two Dollars per year; sin g le copies Thirty-five Cents. All busin e ss communications should be addressed to the Business Managers. Entered as second-cla s s matter in the po s toffice at the University of Richmond.
Members Intercollegiate Press Association of 'flirginia
EDITORIALS
DT IS FALL. Autumnal breezes stir the needled evergreens and send wavelets scurrying across our Lake's broad expanse. The leaves have turned a red, a a greenish yellow, an orange A new MESSENGER arrives. Alas, no, the leaves have not turned. Will the leaves of the MESSENGERturn only in a fall? A fall from a position of literary respectability to the level of a commonplace, humdrum universal popularity.
Must we sacrifice originality, style, and craftsmanship for the tawdriness of appeal? Frankly, it seems so but we won't. It would place us much in the same position, we'd derive just about as much benefit as the hanged man who leads the world by a rope.
With this MESSENGER,we hand you the first number of Volume LVI. The size, the make-up, the general design is different from what we've ever had before. We are in no position to make promises or to commit ourselves, but we do say this: that unless more and better material is forthcoming we do not know exactly what ' course we shall pursue.
What, we ask, is the solution to the entire attitude toward THE MESSENGER? It isn't read. You don't write for it. You don't seem to care anything about it. Why have it at all? It isn ' t necessary now that it is no longer a medium in which
tribution to the MESSENGER. Among the number of students clogging up the campus, it is only natural to expect a certain amount of talent. It is not, however, in evidence. If it is present, it is a latent quality that needs the lubricating oil of tender and insistent encouragement and praise to assist its progress from a clearly embryonic stage.
A third of the MESSENGER'Sspace is allotted to Westhampton. Not only is it allotted-it is even willingly and gladly given, whenever there is enough material to fill one-third of the space. A number of Westhamptonites have voiced bewilderment and a hurt indignation at the preference showri to Richmond College contributions, but these very complainants leave it to some one else to uphold the glory and honor of the name of Westhampton.
It is necessary not only for the progress, but also for the survival of the MESSENGER,that the best material be used. Knowing t'i.is, each student should put forth his greatest effort to write something worthy at least of the consideration of the editors, who intend to publish the best reading matter, irrespective of the completed or incomplete quota of either student body.
On a college campus there should be much competition for a place among the acknowledged writers. Enough material should pass through the hands of the editors so that they might
TABLE of CONTENTS
the best of campus literature is published. Where is the campus literature of years past? Where is the accompanying honor that went with publication in the MESSENGER? Traditions . 5
We've now placed on the campus what we believe to be an attractive magazine attractive stationery for you to write on. Use it, read it, criticize it, but for someone's sake or other, maintain some attitude at least, either for or against.
-L. N. B.
It should be entirely superfluous to launch a plea for con-
Frontispiece, Interior Cannon Memorial Chapel 4
Cinders . These Talkies
My Moon Short Life Linc Faux Pas Typhoon. Book Reviews
John Archer Carter .
. John J. Scherer, III.
John R. Steele R. S. Addison
pick and choose or discard and scrap; however, they find it necessary to go about soliciting from this or that possible contributor. What little success they have is due, not to the readiness and promptness of the student, but to constant nagging and brave but pitiful attacks.
Many of us are standing on the college stratum with a high school range of vision. Many - of us lack impetus, while still others seldom give a thought to the needs and requirements of a college magazine. And yet we expect great things of the journal to which we give no support.
-D. J. G.
Traditions
By JOHN ARCHER CARTER
(EDITOR'SNoTE: The following is the text of a speech delivere4 by John Archer Carter and occasioned by the dedication of the Cannon M emonal Chapel on September 17, 1929.)
HEY look upon our school as a harmonious part of a community which busies itself not too blatantly with upholding ancient traditions and with making new ones. You may remember, you oldsters in the student body, that the charge was made a few years ago by one of my closest friends among you, that the University was short on traditions. Since then.I've been wondering if it is.
As a measuring rod I've considered the traditions of Richmond, the city. Short off, I asked, What are Richmond's traditions? And I immediately became confused. I thought of them as customs, and I recalled that Richmond always celebrates open house during the Christmas holidays; that Richmond parades on Monument Avenue and the Boulevard on Easter Sunday afternoons; that Richmond takes it vacation in August; that when you sit on your front porch, you'd better keep your coat on.
But, pshaw-these are not traditions exactly; these are but symbols of traditions. A tradition is a sort of widespread state of mind, passed from generation to generation. Then, with the eye on Richmond's history, what I asked, are some of the traditions of the old Capital of the Southern Confederacy?
You can answer as readily as I: Honor, for instance, when you think of Washington and Jackson and Lee; democracy and tolerance, when you remember Thomas J efferson; opportunity, when ' you visualize the rise of a rich industrial city from the charred ruins of '65; romance, when you see Edgar Poe in the bewitched garden and hear Jeb Stuart singing in the forest; and a fearlessness toward beauty which dates back to the first rose tree at the window of the first settler's cabin in the clearing.
My thoughts shifted to Westhampton, and sat down casually in one of your modernistically adorned, I have no doubt, canoes. Are those Richmond traditions here-honor and democracy and tolerance and opportunity and an intolerance of disillusionment and an adoration of beauty?
Onti by one then, and briefly: One day a Senior in a small Missouri high school heard a book agent talk about the honor system of the University of Virginia. It was a new idea to one who had taken his examinations under the eye of professional Houdinis. This boy and two
friends came east and found that the honor system was not Charlottesville's exclusive possession. Richmond College had it, and had had it for years. A few semesters later one of those three boys was associated with the first administration of student government on this campus. After a football game one night a coterie of enthusiasts threw brick bats, rocks, tin cans and probably their derbies at the electric lamps of the Virginia Railway and Power Company. Billy the Kid and his far-western roisterers were no more effective with their six guns. The cost was considerable. Who were responsible? The student government reminded the students that those who were guilty were honorable men. So far as anybody knows, every man who threw at a light, or thought he might have thrown at a light that glorious evening, paid his share of the damages. Honorable men! Do you know that I have never heard of foul play on the part of any member of any Richmond College athletic team? Do you know that the whole world knows that we scorn, with a very fine and fervid hatred, all forms of underhandedness in getting our athletic teams? That for the tradition of honor. And University of Richmond students and faculty from the beginning have been democratic. A snob on this campus withers like hollyhocks in August. Everybody is just as good as everybody else. It used td be true, and I am advised that it still is true, that when one student meets another student on the campus, he says: "How do you do?" The only aristocracy you aspire to is the aristocracy of constructive achievement. Patches hold equal honor with the red and gold insignia of social cl~bs. Fraternity houses are not private homes; they are merely additional places for vocal fiestas and occasionally for a little study. The fraternity I belonged to here boasted that more than half of its membership were working their way through college. Other fraternities could-and may I assure you that they did-boast of the same caliber of membership. We found our professors, well, "sociable" is the only word. They are today. You may talk with them as readily as you may talk with the world's most distinguished authors, scientists, explorers, preachers, and that's saying a lot. That for the tradition of. democracy. Tolerance, now. University of Richmond men and women respect the other man's opinion. It may happen, ( Continued on Page 24)
Cinders
By JOHN J. SCHERER, III
HE pain was indescribable in its intensity. For four days now it had continued without a single noticeable interruption. John was mentally and physically a wreck. The only sleep he had gotten during the last three days had been secured only after the severest doses of the most powerful drugs had been administered to him-a few hours of rest, no more. Just now he was waking from one of those artificial stupors.
The restless tossing about on the pillow caused his father to look up from the magazine he had been holding in his lap. His eyes had been on the story before him but he had not turned a page for almost an hour. He just could not get his mind away from the horror of the things. Sitting there in one corner of the hospital room he had failed to notice that the bright daylight had turned to the gray twilight of an early spring day. The father was thinking of his only son, the son there in the neat white bed, the little boy he had taught to hunt and fish, the youngster-grown-old he had taken to the ball park where he had explained to him each play. There lay the hope of the man's life.
How well he remembered that afternoon years ago when the boy, only thirteen then, had stood at the pitcher's mound and held his guns against the bombardment of singles and doubles and triples from the bats of much older boys. The same kid, still in knee pants, who had played football against lads of heavier weight and, in his position as safety man on the schoolboy team, had never funked a tackle or missed a punt. There he was, his life and joy, crippled by a lumbering freight train. One leg already gone and the other in a dangerous condition. He looked over at the restless figure on the bed and saw the white bandages about his head. He pictured in his brain the terrible gashes hidden by the sheets and thought once more of the mangled boy as he was brought to the hospital. He wondered for a moment what he had done that God should see fit to send such unjust deserts to burden him. Thel bandaged head moved again and its eyes sought out the figure in the corner. They both smiled at the same time.
"Hello, dad."
"Hello, John. How're they hitting?"
"Smooth as ice. How 'bout handin' me a cigarette?"
The father moved over to the little white table and handed the patient the package of cigarettes and a box of matches and went back to his chair.
"You know," said John, "I guess I'll be about the first guy that ever played on a tennis court with a wooden leg. Look pretty good in the papers, won't it? 'John Graham, University's great one legged racket wielder, keeps up the great pace he has been .' He turned his face to the wall and wrapping his hand about the bed post, squeezed with all his force.
"What's the matter, son? Got you again?"
There was none of that forced cheerfulness m the youngster's voice now, just downright despair: "If these damn' throbbings don't stop I'll go crazy." For the moment his spirit broke. "What the hell am I going through all this for anyhow? A lot of good a guy would be with one leg, even if he was in perfect condition. I'll get well and leave this stinking hospital and be a drag on all of you the rest of my life. It ain't worth it."
The throbbing became more intense and the boy's grip on the iron post followed suit. The older man had backed off in the corner and was nervously stabbing at his fingernails with a pocket knife. There wasn't a thing he could do for the poor kid. That was his idea of a cripple anyhow-one of ,those fellows selling pencils down on Broad Street. Maybe, though-if they handled it right -it wouldn't be so bad for John.
"I'd be a damn sight better off dead," the pain eased up for a moment, "wouldn't I?"
"No; no; I wouldn't say that. What about your writing?" It was hard work but the father was doing his best.
There was a prolonged silence. Each realized the futility of words. It was all too awful to smooth over with any easy tongue.
The boy, flat on his back and unable to move from the waist down, found it impossible not to think. If people only didn't have to think it would be a lot easier to buck up under the hard knocks. His thoughts returned to that last tennis match, barely a year back, when he had run and stroked and sweated for an entire afternoon to win a singles match and to help in the winning of a doubles. He smiled as much as his bandages would allow. He had been the No. 1 man-best on the team last year. The University had won that match and the papers had pre-
dieted that he would reach the heights in the tennis world. Great thing to see your own picture in the paper; makes your chest swell up. The smiled faded. That was the last time he'd ever get his picture in the sport sheet.
He thought of the accident. A sword had dropped down and cut him away from almost everything. Just as easily had the clumsy coal car snipped off his foot. Staring up at the ceiling he visualized the frightful scene. He saw the headlights shining on a dense wall of fog, felt that fog-thick and clammy--curling about the collar of his top coat. He saw the train, barely a few feet in front of them; was conscious of the driver's frantic tugging at the steering wheel. Futile tuggings. Then the crash!
In that moment between realization and near destruction his brain had brought back and reconsidered everything he could possibly have thought of in all the twenty years of his life-that time he had been scalded; the day he fell off the fence and what a brave little man they had said he had been; that big fish he had lost on the last trip with his father-everything in that moment. He lived again the painful wakefulness of those six hours on the floor of the ambulance, those six hours before they had reached the hospital. Six whole hours of thinking, knowing all the time that he couldn't possibly live until morning.
He smiled again. Funny he hadn't been thinking of God all that time. Instead he had been thinking of that fishing trip he and his father had planned for the following week. "Too bad," he had thought, "dead people can't fish." He had wondered whether there were tennis courts wherever it was you went when you died. Not over a half dozen thoughts at the most had entered his head in that entire period of six hours, and just before he had thought of everything in thirty seconds. Funny thing. He thought of the words his philosophy "prof" had used the very morning before he was hurt: "the human mind is far greater than anything it contemplates." Must be right.
The father was having his own thoughts, and they hurt. The kid had always been so proficient at his sports. The joy of combat had been his greatest pleasure, and he had ever fought with the fairness of the true sportsman. He blamed himself for having taught the boy how to use his legs, how to play these games. It would be so much easier for the kid now if he hadn't been brought up as he had. The man looked over at his son and knew what was going on in that youthful brain. He didn't blame the youngster; it was a tough road. Pity it couldn't have
happened to him-he was getting along now and wouldn't have lost as much of the joy of living and being whole as the boy would. And the worst of it was that the lad wasn't only his own flesh and blood-he was his best friend, too. Always they had talked and played and thought together, and the perfect understanding that had resulted was natural. A nod of the head or a pressure of the fingers was all that was necessary to convey feeling. If he could only do something.
"Say, dad," John caught his father's eye and held it, "when you go out I'd like to borrow your knife. I think I've still got some cinders in my fingernails." He smiled into the man's steady gaze until it dropped to the slender penknife in his hand. When the father looked up, he, too, wa~ smiling.
"Here you, are, kid," he handed him the knife, never moving the direction of the firm glance. Reaching out he grasped his son's hand and signaled complete understanding. "So long. Haven't eaten yet. Think I'll get a bowl of soup."
Turning towards the door he knew and realized that his son knew also.
Dawn was just breaking. For the third time that night the incessant paining seemed worse, if possible. Reaching under his pillow, John slipped out the little knife. With steady hand he opened the flimsy blade. Looking at the door through which his father had passed the evening before, his eyes sparkled just a little bit. God, the old man was great. Not many fathers would have done that, knowing all the time exactly what they were doing. "If people remember things wherever they go when they die, that's one thing I'll never forget. I'll always remember it most." He hoped no one had heard that. They'd think he was delirious.
Slowly he pushed the tiny knife point under his ether jacket, just over the heart that had beat so uncertainly that first day. This was by far the best way-he wouldn't be a bother forever. And then, that fearful throbbing was hurting.
He began to increase the pressure on the blunt end of the knife. There was no fear noticeable on his face; wistfulness, perhaps, and inquisitiveness. Well • For the third time that night the pain abruptly ceased and, marveling at this thrice-repeated miracle, John presently pushed the closed knife back under his pillow. Maybe they were saving him for something after all. God might be mixed up in it somewhere.
When the nurse came a few minutes later with the
PAGE EIGHT JB.·-
morphine, the patient was asleep. Wonderingly the white clad figure tip-toed out of the room.
It was scarcely eight o'clock when John's father softly pushed open the door of his son's room. Looking towards the bed the same smile he had formed the night before broadened into a wide grin. John heard the door and turned his head to his father.
"Hello, dad. How're they hittin' ?"
Reaching under the pillow he pulled out the little knife and handed it to his father. The man took it and caught his son's gaze in that miraculous communion of understanding.
"Did you get those cinders out?"
"Sure did, dad. It was some job, though." It was wonderful, the way they smiled at each other.
"John, do you think you'll need the knife any more?"
"Guess not, dad, I'll make these pretty nurses keep my fingers manicured."
"Good idea." He looke~ at the pearl handled toy in his hand and looked at the boy again. "Haven't had any breakfast yet. Guess I'll get a cup of coffee."
"O. K., dad. I'll see you later."
The father, walking down the hall, was happier than he had ever been, but, strangely, he wasn't smiling any more. ·
Etude Dans Gethsemene
For M. M.
Here the garden is a little over-run.
These crumbling statues vaguely bridging afternoons, Precipitating this quiet fountain of dust, Offer loneliness. The rose-trees have fallen into decay. Here these memoried ruins lift rumination A bit beyond our personal recollections Of one another, here among these objects. Our hands among the flowers, We have looked there at Galilee, And the hills.
But now the lakes are full o-f balconades, The pools torn, the fugitive N arcissi
Hiding among the fauns. You have confessed, Delicately, that to you the dusk and rain Are infinitely preferable to my afternoons. And then you laugh, through the lifted edifice of your fingers, Coolly, in the classic mode.
Ha! I have you here,
Among these urns, who gather dusk and rain Into the bright garden.
Thin impostor! You are an afternoon in veils.
These "Talkies"
By JOHN R. STEELE
T has ever been that a few wanted to cry down the inevitable advance of Progress, if we want to call it that; these have generally been looked upon as narrow-minded bigoted idiots who were afraid to let the beams of a Great Truth shine through a chink in the wall of blackened ignorance. But if these "talkies" are, aside from being a scientific triumph, trail blazers on the way to a more profound appreciation of dramatic art; if they are even a first stepping-stone toward a great nation-wide culture then we will permanently have to forego the old-time pleasure of quietly sleeping through a poor screen performance.
There has been art on the screen. The motion picture has taken that one phase of drama, which really is almost a lost art on our stage today, pantomime, and magnified it so greatly that even minute expressions of the player are shown in sharp relief. It takes a very fine actor indeed to so perfect his stage technique that it will stand the microscopic examination of a "close-up." The actors on the stage do not have quite as close scrutiny. They, of course, are called upon to have other attributes equally as exacting perhaps, since there can be but just so many optical illusions employed in the staging of legitimate drama.
We realize, of course, that the talking motion picture is in its very earliest swaddling clothes. But we cannot be blind to the fact of what has been, for the most part, in the past and what necessarily must be the policy of the motion picture producer in the future. Naturally the lines at the box office are their main objective. That is all right. Unfortunately our modern legitimate drama has swung far in the same; direction. But, we must contend, there are some good plays which because of their very substance can appeal only to the culturally minded. They pay well, but nothing like so well as Abie's Irish Rose. These better plays are put into more or less semiexclusive theatres and attended by those for whom the play was written. This, in some small part, pleases those seekers for the esthetic.
However, on the other hand, can we possibly imagine a motion picture producer making a picture for greatly less than two pe; centum of our population? Of course not; their picture has to go from city to city; it has to be
shown from the projection room of the Paramount Theatre in New York and from the rear of the town social hall in Kent, Connecticut. It must have universal appeal, not only to all people of the same type in different cities, but to all people from coast to coast.
We have been hoaxed by the producers into going to see "talkies" by the same name as famous stage successes. And what do we find? The dialogue has been so handled and emotion coated that there is not room for connotationit is obvious-it is not artistic-it is inane-it appeals to everyone, a heart throbbing romance, a classic, an epic, a pure and simple piece of showmanship to make shop girls sniffle and factory hands to pull out their bandanas. Certainly these people, who enjoy these things, must have full advantage of going to see them quite as often as they like, but not at the expense of complete strangulation of the artistic and esthetic drama.
That is what's taking place, however. The price that the movie people are willing to pay for theatres is so running up the price of rentals that the legitimate producers cannot afford to put on the little artistic pieces of the past. And the movies, so completely unchallenged in their own field of amusement, are turning their vile trash onto the stage. Double hooks on the fishing lines! It! sounds like the death knell of legitimate drama in America, but it isn't. Drama has existed throughout the centuries and will continue to exist, despite eclipses. It can never die.
The silent picture, sometimes with its elaborate settings, sometimes with its excellent acting, little depending on the story told in the sub-titles, was in instances a fair substitute for the stage play. But the "talkies" with their obviously fake scenery, and poor fakes at that, their poorly written dialogue, which is not perhaps the writer's fault, but the instructions of the producer, can in no manner take the place of the spoken drama. It all comes down to this reason-the silent pictures gave one that which was impossible on the stage, large throngs, monstrous settings, and obtained other illusions impossible to the theatre; it also magnified pantomime which is likewise impossible to the stage in any degree. While the "talkies" are trying to directly substitute for the legitimate play and failing miserably, due primarily to the desire for universal appeal, which must, as has already been shown, be unbearable for the really intelligent theatre-goer.
There may come a time when there will be independent producers powerful enough to produce "talkies" which
will be of the artistic and cultural type. But even then, we prognosticate, those people who wanted that sort of thing will not be satisfied with the synchronization of sight and sound, but will want the real drama. Even at that, the "talkies" will then give people in the out of the way places a chance to hear real actors as well as see them. This is an indisputable advantage of the talking picture. But obviously these small independent producers making this type of picture could not afford to pay the salaries that many of the stars would demand.
The "talkies," then, in our opinion should be relegated to the recording of historical events, a few words from famous people, scenes actually taken from good plays to be kept for students, and regular talking motion pictures for the masses who like them. But they should be so regulated, by God knows what, so as not to strangle artistic legitimate drama.
There are finally two points of view to be considered. First, in the dramatic centers, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and others, and secondly, in places removed from those centers.
In the centers, the legitimate drama is rapidly going down the hill, but people there and those from outside who have the means to get there, will always have a chance to see at least a few good plays. Revivals, if need be.
But those away from these centers, who have not the wherewithal to go there, are left stranded high and dry without theatre. Amateur dramatics, however good, will always be experimental, so that is eliminated, and road shows are becoming poorer and poorer, due to the competition of the motion picture. And whereas before, the silent picture, at times, was a substitute for the drama, the "talkies" are a constant bane to those theatre fanciers who are now attending them. There should be more silent pictures, on the same scale that they were formerly produced, but there probably won't be-they're too expensive to produce. The "talkies" have cut the cost of production nearly in half, but you don't see box office prices being cut, do you?
No, we don't like the "talkies." We prefer the silent picture much more as a substitute for the spoken drama. Yes, we long for the old quiet movies-if you picked a bad one you could drop off to sleep without being awakened by metallic dramatic voices shouting epithets. And we even feel a pang for that person sitting back of us who used to read the sub-titles out loud-he occasionally missed one and sometimes there wasn't one behind. But now • the producers are actually hiring people, and not only one, but many, to say them all, and say them much louder than the fellow who sat back of us.
Au Jardin
"Eleve tes fleurs, Crelayle
Lift up thy flowers, Crelaile, Kiss thy precise bouquet ; Since through no conceivable device
Can thy haughty lips be lured near mine, Crelaile. Breathe the riot of tangled odors
Hung about thy flowers, soon ruins of flowers; sigh. Sigh at the thought of thy flowers in ruins, Who will sigh at naught else. Press roses to thy breast; Among thy little ecstasies I beg thee include this.
I faint with pleasure. I gathered those 1 Crelaile, , , ,
My Moon
I'm sitting in the corner of the moon ...
In the little crescent corner,
As it arches high above,
Shaping in its brightness
A sparkling, golden throne, Or maybe not a throne at all; Perhaps it's just a rock-
A glistening rock, grown green with age, Deserted in a, field.
And in its field it beckoned me, And so
I'm sitting in the corner of the moon.
Below me is that busy world
I've wondered so about, Where people weep and work and fret
For something hard to find.
It's something they know nothing of And yet they love to dream Of finding it, somehow, somewhere In that noisy world of theirs.
And so they madly search for JoyBut roguishly it hides from them
Because they look too low.
Above me is a misty veil
That's made of heaven's lace; It is woven by the fragile hands
Of those who fly about Far up in this universe
Just here above my head.
They're lovely little fairy folk
These weavers of the laceThey' re playing now above my head
And now and then they light upon The crescent of my moon.
I tell them that I want to touch
The lacy fiber they have hung
Suspended from above;
But they will never let me feel
Its flimsy softness with my hand. I reach above me and they laugh
Because they know
The shortness of my arm
Will never reach their misty web
And yet It seems so near.
Around me is the multitude
Of friendly stars who talk to me.
They like to peeP; beneath us, too, And watch the people in that world
Who think they live
And do not live at all.
And after just a carefree peep
They quickly glance far up above
Where hangs the misty veil
And laugh at their reflections in I ts iridescent glow.
Then dancing playfully 'round the moon
They wink at me,
Because they know I think the moon is mine, The veil is mineAnd they are mine.
For all of which I offer in return
That world they do not want.
But still they let me stay; They let me keep my veil, my starsAnd yes-
The golden crescent corner of the moon.
Short Life Line
R. S. ADDISON
AY multi-colored Japanese lanterns tinkled merrily in the slight summer breeze. A high pitched zephyr-like murmur, carefree, pulsated, flowed and ebbed to the ears of Jim Hayney.
Jim was young, twenty, and good looking. His spotless white flannels and blue doublebreasted coat fitted well to his lithe athletic figure. He was standing directly under a tall oak whose leafy stateliness was in sharp relief against a moonlit sky. Not far away could be seen the strings of dancing lanterns, girls in white, behind booths decorated in red and yellow crepe paper, selling small cardboard plates of ice cream.
Jim wasn't lonely. He was enjoying himself; he loved youth; he liked to watch youth at play. He had slipped away from the company of his friends to stand off by himself and look at the picture framed in Japanese lanterns. Down a gravel walk high with hedges, he saw self-confident, glamorous youths leading giggly, eye-adoring girls, coquetting under a charm-lending moon.
Someone tugged at his sleeve and Jim looked down from his six feet to see a girl in gypsy costume looking at him with upturned face. The iridescent glow of the lanterns shone upon her. Jim could see her coal black hair glimmering. He wasn't quite sure of the color of her eyes, but he thought they were brown. She was pretty; he could tell that.
"Let me tell your fortune, won't you?"
"Sure. What's your name?"
"Mary."
"Mine's Jim. I'm glad to meet you • Mary. Well, where do we go?"
And Mary pointed to a small blue and white striped tent. Jim took her by the arm; her head just reached his shoulder. He · led the way to the tent to which she had pointed. They entered; it was very dark inside.
"Can you read palms in the dark?" Jim asked.
Mary answered by switching on a small flashlight she had tucked in the sash to her costume. She became quite professional as she took hold of Jim's palm. Jim was amused; a smile played about the corner of his lips. Mary was quite serious and business-like.
"You have a very easy-going, carefree disposition. Now clench your hand real tight, that's right. You are
very generous and unselfish and you will have four children. Oh, you are going to be very, very rich and you are going to marry. You will not have much sickness, and you are going to live oh, let me see," and she bent her head closer to his palm, "Where's your lifeline?"
Jim there night." was thoroughly enjoying himself. "I guess it's but maybe I haven't been living before to-
"You haven't any life-line," said Mary indignantly. She really appeared angry and hurt.
Jim laughed, "Look again." '
Mary scrutinized his hand very closely indeed this time. She finally sat up straight with the air of a physician who has just completed the diagnosis of a difficult case. "Well you have one • but it's short, very short."
"Now, isn't that just too bad?" answered Jim, "and I just met you tonight. Oh well, what's the difference? Maybe you are mistaken."
"I'm not," but Mary was nevertheless pleased at Jim's little speech.
"Let's make the best of it," said Jim lightly, "I've never believed much in this palm-reading stuff anyway." And Mary didn't seem to mind at all, but left the tent with her arm tucked under Jim's and leaning close to him, very close.
They left the dancing Japanese lanterns behind them and walked down the winding, high-hedged, gravel path towards the swimming pool. They paused just as they reached the pool and both looked up instinctively to the diving boards, where a dark silhouette posed gracefully on the tip end. Their eyes followed the body in its swan dive flight; they heard the splash of water-they looked at each ot'her and instinctively pressed closer together.
When Jim turned over next morning with that first unrest of awakening, the sunlight was brilliantly streaming in through the open window. Although it was early, the day gave promise of being a blazing one. Jim opened his eyes, yawned slightly, threw his arms back over his head, stretched, sat up straight in bed and looked at the clock on his bureau. It was eight o'clock. He tossed back on his pillow, kicked off the single sheet that covered him, and tried to go back to sleep. What was the use? He couldn't rest; he propped up his pillows, took a book
from a nearby table and began to read. The book was McKenzie's Extraordinary Women.
An hour dragged past until nine o'clock. Jim jumped out of bed to the telephone and hurriedly ran through the directory until he found Mary's number. The operator was interminably slow. Finally, a sleepy voice answered at the other end of the line.
"Hello, is that you Mary?" said Jim impetuously.
"Who is that, Jim?"
"Yeah. I've been waiting ever so long to call you. How about a little frolic at the beach? We can drive down in no time."
"Oh, that would be lovely."
"Can you be ready within an hour?" Jim asked.
"Sure."
"All right, I'll be by for you."
It was exactly fifty-five minutes later when Jim's Chrysler roadster pulled up in front of Mary's house. Jim leapt from the car, took the four steps to the front porch with a single bound, and rang the doorbell viol~ntly. Mary answered the door herself. She was already dressed in a white pleated skirt, a white sweater, and a little felt hat which curved half-moonishly at the sides. "C'mon, Mary," said Jim, "let's go."
Mary turned to call good-bye to someone in the house, then shut the door, and the pair dashed madly down the steps and front walk. As they reached the car, Jim caught her under the arms and lightly swished her over the closed door and into the seat. Mary was highly delighted at Jim's youthful boisterousness and enthusiasm. She smiled ecstatically as he jumped in beside her, took off the brake, started the motor, threw in the gear, and with a twist of the wheel turned the car out from the curbing.
They whisked along the road. Neither spoke. They were both too happy. The wind blew furiously through the open windshield and sent Mary's hair into little wisps. Jim had a hard time keeping his eyes open to watch the road ahead. It was cool driving at this high speed, but the sun shone mercilessly overhead. Finally Jim turned his car into the driveway of a small summer cottage, and came to a stop under a tree to one side of the porch.
"Well, we can get something to eat here, then put on our bathing suits and go down on the beach. How about it?" asked Jim.
"Oh, let's go down on the beach now. I'm not hungry. We can eat when we come back."
"You're the boss. It's all right with me."
Fifteen minutes later the two were walking hand m
hand down the wooden walkway to the shore. They soon felt the hot sand under their feet and the scorching heat of the sun upon their backs. Huge breakers were crashing upon the shore. Mountains of water toppling and rolling in foam over the beach, then receding and leaving the sand smooth, cool, and wet. Jim and Mary walked right on in; the water covered their ankles. It was cold. Mary turned to run back. Jim caught her tightly by the hand and ran out towards the breakers with all his might. Mary was protesting while yet shouting with laughter. A breaker was almost upon them, both dived and came up on the other side sputtering. They were excellent swimmers. With steady overhand strokes and sturdy flutter kicks, they faced the tide and swam out. Out they went, a hundred yards.
Jim turned, and yelled, "I'll beat you in."
"Try and do it," shouted Mary, who quickly wheeled around.
They swam furiously. Both were aided greatly by the swell of the tide. Now they were on the crest of the wave, then in the trough. It was strenuous swimming; the sea was rough ; it was only for expert swimmers. Mary forged ahead ; she was in shallow water; she was on her feet and with water splashing about her, she dashed for the beach, where she threw herself and lay breathing hard when Jim came up panting. They lay face down on the hot sand for some time without speaking.
Finally Jim said, "Well, you certainly took me over that time."
"Nope. Just knew how to play the waves a little better than you did. No glory."
"Well anyway you beat me, that's enough," Jim laughed. "Hungry?"
"No."
They were close together. Mary's finger was tracing meandering lines in the sand, while Jim's big toe was rapidly digging a furrow.
"I'm worried," said Mary.
"What's the matter?"
"Your life-line is so short."
Jim laughed out loud, "You don't mean to tell me you believe in those things, do you?"
"Uh huh," Mary answered.
"Forget it," said Jim, "and let's take a walk down the beach."
"All right." And the two walked languidly along down the shore's edge where a faint ripple of water would sometimes trickle around their feet.
"Mary," said Jim, "it seems as though I've known you all my life."
"I've known you, too, Jim," answered Mary, hardly daring to allow herself to look up.
They finally came to a place where a pier jutted out into the water. On the end of it was a springboard and other diving boards of various heights. Mary and Jim walked out to watch a crowd of young men and women performing many sorts of dives. There were back-flips, jack-knives, one-and-a-halfs, soaring swans, barrel rolls and so on. Expert diving is a graceful thing; it is precise, the timing is perfect, and it gives one witnessing it a certain inexplicable feeling of rhythmic pleasure.
A youth of about the same age as Jim, dressed in white knickers and a white open shirt, seemed to be fully enjoying the exhibition of diving skill. Jim recognized him, "Hello, Bill, old man, why aren't you in the water?"
"Oh, hello, ·Jim. I can't swim a stroke. Like to watch the diving though," he answered.
Jim introduced Mary to the young fellow and the three stood together chatting for a while and making diverse comments on this dive and that. Bill was an amiable person, a good sort i not particularly athletic, but a great
friend and admirer of Jim's. He was a great talker, and kept up a continuous line of chatter. "Fine day, isn't it? Like to come down here; always run into someone I know. Nice place, don't you think?"
This kept up quite a while until at last everyone had left the diving pier except these three. Bill was one of those persons who once caught hold of acquaintances wouldn't leave them, no matter whether they wanted him to or not.
"Think I'll try a few myself," said Jim.
"Go to it, old man," said Bill, "I'll keep the little lady\ company."
"Don't you think the water's pretty rough, Jim?" said Mary.
"Well, everyone else took a chance, why not I?"
He went out on the low spring board, bounced up and down several times, leapt, while in mid-air touched his toes with his hands, straightened out and slipped throughout the surface of the water noiselessly.
Mary clapped her hands and Bill said, "Spiffy jack( Continued on Page 23)
The Sea
I love the tang of salty air, The filagree of coarse brown nets, The star-fish, shells, in dark rock pools, The glowing hues of sea sunsets!
I love to watch the swooning gulls, With white spread wings, drop on the sea To drink its shimmering greenness upThen drift on to Infinity.
I love the old, gray, wind-lashed moors, The purring sea curled 'round their feet; The small snug cottages huddled close, Like vagrant herds of frightened sheep.
I love thin toast, and clotted-cream, And Dresden cups with China tea; The spumy spray, crashing black rocks, The misty downs sloping to sea!
-M. L. Dinwiddie.
Faux Pas
By ]OI-IN P. BATKINS
0NSIEUR HENRI VAUQUER rolled up to the curb in front of one of the largest modiste shoppes in Paris and cut off the motor of his Fontaine straight eight. His wife had promised to meet him there at one o'clock. He glanced at his watch-ten minutes after one. He was early. A stream of women was pouring in and out of the huge store, but his wife was nowhere in sight. It was not probable that she would put in an appearance any time soon, for she was shopping. Shopping! Mon Dieu, how he hated that word! It was like a threatening storm cloud with a deluge of bills following in its wake.
Fifteen minutes after one! Well, if he must wait he would at least make himself comfortable. He reached in his pocket for his cigarette case, opened it and took out one which he carefully fitted in an amber holder. After several unsuccessful attempts to make his "never fail" lighter produce the semblance of a light he gave it up and struck a match. At that moment his attention was attracted to a beautiful woman standing on the opposite side of the boulevard. Who was she? He had seen her somewhern before. He frowned at his lack of memory. Suddenly his frown vanished. He smiled. Certainly he knew her. She was the premier danseuse of the big musical comedy hit, French Dolls. Her husband was a hunchback and as repulsive as she was enchanting. What an ill-matched pair! Why had she-the burning match asserted itself. He muttered something under his breath, shaking his hand all the while.
"Star gazing again, Henri?"
The words startled him, made his ears ring. His face flushed crimson. It was Madame Vauquer's voice.
"Now I understand why you enjoyed seeing French Dolls three times last week."
Monsieur bit his lip.
"Why do you say 'three times?' You know I--"
"Yes, I know," interrupted Madame, who had seated herself in the car with her arms full of bundles. "Mademoiselle Musset saw you at the theater Monday night. Madame Boneclailj said that you were there Wednesday, for you and her husband had a little chat between the acts. Madame Daudet told me that you were at the Friday performance-the night you had that very impor-
tant conference-and sat on the very first row in the orchestra."
Vauquer said nothing, but started the car forward with a lurch that sent several of his wife's packages sliding to the floor, and further irritated her by pretending to be thoroughly unaware of her angry glare.
At lunch she was all smiles, however, her shopping trip being the chief topic of conversation, in fact the only topic. Her husband listened to her ravings with a bored expression clouding his countenance.
"I bought a beautiful set of bracelets," she finally said. "Wait just a minute. I'll unwrap them and show them to you."
She dashed off to her room and returned with a small square box. Removing the top she set it on the table in front of Monsieur.
"There is not another set like them in Paris," she boasted.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because the clerk said so. He said they were so high grade that very few could afford to buy them and--"
"The price? How much were they?" he asked anxiously, interrupting her.
"And therefore they carry only a few sets in stock, all of which have been sold except this one," she continued.
"How much did you pay for them?" he questioned again impatiently.
"That's your job."
"I mean, what did they cost?"
"Oh, the price? They cost only nine hundred francs."
"Mon Dieu! Only nine hundred francs! What do you think I am, the Bank of France?"
"But, Henri--"
"Only nine hundred francs! What a woman!"
"Henri, I must--"
"Oui, you must-you must take them back-send them back at once!"
"I will not. If you want them to go back, take them yourself !"
Choking with rage, she left the room. A few minutes later Vauquer finished his lunch, slipped the set of bracelets in his pocket, and left the apartment. He went to his club. Had anyone called there for him? No? Strange -Madame had certainly received his gift by this time. He hung around impatiently for 11 while, but there was
no phone call for Monsieur Vauquer. He would attend the matinee and perhaps by that time there would be a message for him. He returned immediately after the show. Still no word from Madame. Suppose her husband-no, that was absurd. There was no name on the card to incriminate him if her husband did find it-she alone knew the secret of reading the cards.
He had dinner at the club, played cards for a while in hopes that he might hear from Madame, and after several dull games in which he exasperated the other players by his diffidence to what was being played, decided to quit and go home. Outside the rain was coming down with great gusto. He hailed a cab and after a short and speedy ride over the slippery streets reached his destination. He had to dash for the main doorway of the apartment to keep from being drenched in the downpour. Outside the door of his suite he fumbled in his pocket for the key. Absent-minded, he had left it in his other suit. What was that? He heard a man's voice.
"It fits you perfectly, Madame. You look like a queen."
"Merci, Monsieur, you flatter me."
Vauquer rang the bell sharply. His wife opened the door.
"Henri dear!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms about his neck. "Henri, now I understand why you could not afford to let me have the bracelets. Why this coat must have cost at least--" 1
"Coat?" murmured Vauquer dazedly.
"Oui, mon ami," said his wife, backing away and exhibiting the beautiful fur coat which she wore.
Vauquer paled, but said nothing.
"You see, it was sent to Monsieur Poiret's house by mistake and--"
"Monsieur Poiret-Poiret ?"
"Oui, Monsieur"-it was Poiret himself, whom Henri Vauquer had not noticed, so absorbed was he in the coat
which his wife had on-"it was sent to my house, undoubtedly by mistake I am sure. Since my wife was away I thought it some purchase of hers and took the liberty to open it. On doing so I found the coat and this cardyour personal card, Monsieur."
He handed the card to Vauquer, who took it, but none too eagerly.
"Naturally, on such evidence, I knew the gift could be for none other than your wife, so I brought it over. You have excellent judgment, Monsieur, when it comes to picking a present for your wife. I wish I had the taste you have. By the way, Monsieur, this tip might be of value to you."
Poiret handed Henri Vauquer a plain white envelope and whispered in his ear, "Read this alone, Monsieur." He smiled as he said it.
"Well, I must be leaving. Good-night, Madame. You are indeed lucky to have such a husband."
"Good-night, Monsieur, and thanks again for your kindness," said Vauquer's wife, extending her hand.
"It was nothing, Madame."
He was gone! Vauquer breathed easier. Then he remembered the envelope in his hand. He started for the door.
"Why, Henri, where are you going?"
"Just around the corner for some cigarettes," he replied.
Down on the street he stopped beneath a light and took the contents from the white envelope. It had stopped raining. He unfolded the piece of paper and read: ,
DEAR MONSIEUR VAUQUER:
I had no idea that you were the one who had been sending my wife gifts. I did not understand the blank cards until I watched Marie read one. That was · a neat trick, writing your love messages in chemicals so that they appeared only when the card was heated. Even after I learned this I was at loss, for no name was signed to these love letters-and then you wrote on the back of your personal card-faux pas, Monsieur!
M. PoIRET.
Love Is Gone
Love, which came that little day Is gone. Gone the way of misplaced blame, A careless kiss-the fleeting shame
Of an old desire-
A half remembered wrong.
Love is goneGone in mute way of night, A half remembered dawn when the swift flight Of hungry birds stayed the gunning hand. Love is gone.
Typhoon
By M. L. SAUNDERS
HE black ball was up! Through the telescope I could barely discern the rugged outlines of the mainland, Hong Kong. This ball, on the top of the observatory tower, warned all in the ten-mile radius of an impending danger. We were in the path of no ordinary typhoon-a red ball would have been all that was necessary, but a terrific cyclonic typhoon, one of the most dreaded of nature's tempests. It was during such a typhoon that one questioned a God who could be so cruel.
The ocean was a shimmering veil of emeralds and amethysts concealing the gigantic upheavel far below where colossal swells were stirring, gathering momentum, and massive breakers were getting into position for the eminent battle. The sky, a velvet cushion set with jewels, was aglow with the splendor of a satin moon. There was no hint of a treacherous typhoon, only the gentle ~hispering of the waves on the cool, clean sands, and the subdued gurgle of the turbulent breakers as they crept over the rocks. The fresh breeze lazily wafted to me the crisp saltiness of the ocean, the sweetish odor of fresh fish, and the pleasing melody of Chinese voices.
In the blue darkness I saw the twin lights of a steamer, silently passing by in its race to port. The faint tinkle of the band echoed in my ears as the lights were swallowed up by the blackness of infinite space. The childish whimpering of the bell-buoys warned all that the rocks were eager underneath the ripples. There were many tiny fishing smacks far out at sea, judging from the many dots of light scattered sparkling across the horizon. Occasionally a junk, a halo of light, glistened in the midst of a colony of fishing boats, an anxious mother taking care of her children. Rarely the graceful four-masted schooner loomed out of nothingness to sail majestically across the level path of blue.
Some hours later, when my thoughts turned to sleep, a change was taking place. Now the waves were gaily falling over each other in a jolly game of tag, but there was a difference. It was forced like the merry wit of actors onj the stage, and was only a prelude to beguile us into carelessness. They were happily calling to each other in one last fling before the task. The bell-buoys cried out in reproach when some wave, more mischievous than the rest, would rudely break upon it and leave with a
mocking laugh. The lights of the boats were bobbing up and down, sometimes completely disappearing behind a swell as the sea grew merrier. The sky was a deep purple, ' the stars were dulled, and the moon was hidden by the gathering clouds. By the time I had closed up the house, barred the windows and doors, and made ready for bed, the sky was a black, velvet covering and the waves were rough in their play, singing a song of challenge to all to come and compete.
During the night the sea rose higher. The waves were roaring a warrior's chant as they pounded on the rocks. The wind was whistling menacingly as it gained in power.
The typhoon burst about five-thirty the next morning. A great gust of wind heralded its approach. The rain fell in tumultuous torrents, lessening only when the wind blew it across the island in demonical fury. The waves scurged the rocks cruelly and the foam rosei up above the island in a white sheet of mist. Their insistent clamor made sleep impossible; so I arose to watch the typhoon. A steel-gray blanket of rain surrounded the island, and in the distance, like a black, primeval monster, was the mainland with its searchlight sending forth a pale, yellow glimmer over the impetuous, tossing waves.
Just beyond the point could be seen a junk which had been caught by the typhoon. The men were frantically rowing, but the junk made little headway. Its brown, pitched sails had been torn by the lashing of the wind, its mast had fallen before the onslaught of the tempest; and at times it was completely hidden · behind an angry mountain of blue and white. It rose lumberingly, then fell with increasing velocity as the hold became laden with more water. Although the Chinese with backs gleaming were trying to pass the point into safety, the waves were too subtle. They would fall back with false alacrity, then, gathering momentum with every second, they would break over the boat with a smother of foam, washing the men about, disdainful of their lives.
Still the stolid, wooden junk breasted the waves with unyielding resolve. The angry waves might batter the sides of the vessel, swamp the hold, and wash away the riggings, but the stubbornness of the Chinese and the sturdiness of the boat defiled the typhoon.
Another obstacle was presented. The wind had changed and was forcing the junk out to sea. The revengeful waves rushed after to give it a final lashing. With unconceivable
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deliberateness an immense swell was commenced which gradually overtook the fleeing vessel. Nature was playing her final card. Unable to defeat man in straight battle she struck from behind. The swell rose until i~ towered over the helpless junk, stopped a moment in anticipation, then broke with triumphant violence. The boat staggered and slowly gave way. Nature was too confident, for she let her waters slide easily off and form another swell. Thus, given a small chance to recover, the junk wavered on its downward roll, halted, struggled , to regain its balance, and then slowly straightened out. Its upper deck had been torn off and its rudder had been bent into an unrecognizable shape. The passengers were less and they were clinging to the boat with desperate strength.
Not satisfied, the typhoon transferred its fury to the fleeing steamer. While the bell-buoys were shrieking their warning in vain, the steel ship was headed for the dangerous rocks. The waves, carrying the burden on their crest as easily as they would have a small sampan, neared the rocks with deadly swiftness. The storm had now been raging for three hours and the lull would soon have to come. There was a scant half mile between the ship and the reef when the lull finally came. The wind stopped raging and the waves quieted down until the spray no longer came across the island. The worst of the typhoon was over.
R. C. Jones
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Nature had played herself out. The wind was apologetic as it whirled around the house and blew the mists away from the island. The swells were calmly rising and falling like the rippling of grain on a mountain side during a windy day. The junk was painfully limping around the point, and the steamer was hurriedly leaving the rocks behind.
It would be three or four days before the sea grew really calm, but there would be no more wind, only rain. Nature's outburst of temper was over.
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BOOK REVIEWS
Monks Are Monks: A Diagnostic Scherzo. By George Jean Nathan. Alfred Knopf, 1929.
Every now and then it is Mr. Nathan's expected familiar habit to issue in book form a collection, a bit tinted and shaped up, of his articles for the past year or so in his two American Mercury columns, the Theatre and Clinical Notes. It is the fellow's justifiable protest against oblivion: he is aware, somehow, that if he leaves the mass of his writing in back magazine files there is very small probability anyone will ever hunt it up. Like all columnists, he finds his writing, after six months or so, unaccountably archaic; reperusal of it, I daresay, quite unpredictedly fails to brighten the eye. But it is unfair, certainly, to let so much fine writing slip into the tomb of a steel filing cabinet; and so, periodically, we have Mr. Nathan's cortege of the dead, ghosts of fervors once quick under the monthly press, of turns of phrase and sly obscenities and neat perorations once apt and vigorous.
One may logically infer from Monks Are Monks that Mr. Nathan, exhibiting perspicacity rare in an author, surmised finally there was something wrong. Anyone who read Nathan's books was rather likely to be a reader of his columns; and it was unreasonable to assume that even an enthusiast wanted two copies of everything. So Mr. Nathan set out to do something about it.
And we have Monks Are Monks. Undeniably, the old Mercury articles are here : I recognized them on page after page-but it is a pleasure to observe their virtuosic use, their disconcertingly skillful adaptations. This book, I think, is rather for the Nathan reader familiar with the columns than otherwise. The point is, Monks Are Monks is what might leniently be called a novel. And the speeches put into the characters' mouths are - the old Mercury articles. The plot, episodic though with a cresendo effect, is characteristic of Na than: Lorinda Hope, the heroine, holds the book together by her determination to get seduced by a literary man and her possession of gin. She is twenty-five and damned tired of virtue.
She attaches first to Gilbert Hemingham, the novelist, as her devirginator; but moments of erotic stress arouse him only to rostrum disquisitions of increasing length and irrelevancy - the old Mercury articles. He is put by. Morton and Norton, the critics , enter next to drink Lorinda's gin and corrugate her aural tympanum; but this is not the membrane the poor girl is interested in, and all efforts to shift their activity to more tangible vibratory
phenomena fail. In rotation they take the floor and distort the night interminably with social, esthetic, biological, and moral observations. Lorinda usually rounds out the evening in a dead faint.
So from literary man to literary man Lorinda turns hopefully, always to discover that the consummate ass is interested only in his own exibitionistic verbal antics, to the point almost of impotence. Naturally, now and then it appears Lorinda has this one or that advancing with a promising and very physical assay on her structural integrity; but the vicarious two-page paean appears to save the book for another hundred pages, anyway. Then Lorinda's final retention of her virginity through an amusing deficit on the part of the veteran war correspondent she has lured into her Parisian apartments finishes both the book and Lorinda, who vaguely enters a convent.
Perhaps, I believe, Mr. Na than through excess economic practice has just missed writing the especial sort of literary satire he alone was fitted for. I cannot but think the book would have been immeasurably better if the speeches given Mencken and O'Neill and the rest had been composed in a style more nearly their own. Of course, much now rescued would have been doomed forever to the filing cabinet; but the book would have made up for that. There is one misattributed quotation, I think: on Page 171, a rather gaudy eulogy of Huysmans quoted as Huneker's, when it is really Ben Hecht's. The whole paragraph can be found in Harry Hansen's chapter on Ben in Midwest Portraits. -B. A. M.
All Quiet on the Western Front. By Erich Maria Remarque. Little, Brown & Co., 1929. Translated from the German by A. W. Wheen. 291 pages.
Class of 1902. By Ernst Glaeser. The Viking Press, 1929. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. 397 pages.
In the flood of novels of the war that are coming to us from Germany we are at a loss what to read. No sooner have we started The Case of Sergeant Grischa than someone says, "By all means, don't miss Ludwig Renn's War." And we have read fifty pages of War when the startling information comes that if we want to see the war as it really was, we must get the newest bestseller, All Quiet on the Western Front. Then we must
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get the homeland conditions of 1914-1917 Germany, so Class of 1902 is handed to us. And new ones seem to arrive weekly. • . .
The two books, All Quiet on the Western Front and Class of 1902, are striking in their sharp difference of outlook toward the war. Little of the sanguine horror and booming, crashin g sound of Remarque's book is found in Class of 1902. Here we have pre-war Germany as it appeared to the sensitive, questioning mind of a twelveyear-old boy. Mysteries, overwhelming in number, are pushing their fingers into this growing brain, and the little head aches sometimes from the unfeeling, brutal pressure. Why do people hate each other? Who are the Capitalists? How did they get to own all the money they have? What is it that grown-up people laugh about and wink at all the time? Why can't they tell children something about it? Why do countries make war on each other? Is war glorious? The eternal questioning frets for answers that are, many of them, long in forthcoming. We see labor-capitalist conditions in Germany; sex incidents are here ( enough to put the book in the best-seller class in a week or two) ; famine-stricken Germany in 1917 is laid before us, and we discover that we in America suffered none when we were merely deprived of white sugar and flour; German war-philosophy of the times is written in; we hear the Germans of 1914 singing of the glories of war, and the Germans of 1917 cursing their Prussian leaders and their kaiser-all this panorama is painted irl a style clear, pointed. Class of 1902 is a finely written book, and never does it lag a page in interest.
FLOYD AVE. at ROBINSON ST.
All Quiet on the Western Front pictures the German soldier in the training camps, on the firing front, at home on leave, in the hospitals, in the mud and muck of frontline trenches. There is no hiding of the bloody, the horrible, from us. Realism in its starkest nakedness faces us with pictures of running men whose heads are shot off as they run; of screaming horses with bellies torn wide open; of nude men, blown out of their clothes by the terrific explosions of ground-mines; of dead bodies lying rotting in the sun on the battlefield-war in all its kinds of horror. To heighten the effect of rapid action the book uses throughout the present tense, and to a large degree the realistic method of picture painting by means of highly descriptive words and phrases followed by dashes, exclamation marks, and series of dots. The descriptions are marked by a brilliance unsurpassed in contemporary writing. There is a beauty of expression and feeling which makes for tragedy rather than mere pathos and sentimentality. No hate towards the enemy do we find shown by the German soldiers; they kill because they have been ordered
to kill, they murder to save themselves from being murdered. Theirs is not fighting for the joy of seeing blood flow, it is mere obeisance to the higher powers of the state. The soldiers speak bitterly of the uselessness, the futility of war handled by kaisers and emperors to bring suffering, famine and death among peaceful nations of people. There is told also with a note of magnificent bitterness the position of the men who were just entering manhood when the war began. They shall return some of them when the war is over. But there will be no place for them. The jobs that the old men left will be given back to them. Boys who have grown up during the war will have taken the rest; and the men who entered the war as boys and have come out of it prematurely aged will be pushed aside and forgotten. They are heroes no longer, but excess baggage; people dq not want them. It is in much this tone that this, one of the finest war novels of our age, closes. An expression of a resignment to' fate, a sad reverie then death and the book is done.
-H. G. K.
They Stooped to Folly. By Ellen Glasgow.
It is lamentable that the author of Barren Ground has in They Stooped to Folly, a comedy of morals dedicated to James Branch Cabell "in acknowledgment of something about Eve, this book that commemorates the chivalry of men," given nothing more than a mediocre novel whose laurels rest somewhat shakily on portrait work. In the former book Ellen Glasgow bid fair to the title of the ranking American woman novelist; in the latter she has caused some of her followers to recall that idols may yet have feet of clay.
They Stooped to Folly deals with the lives of three women in three generations who stepped from the straight and narrow path. Yet it is not done in the historically chronological method some authors have adopted, but rather in the present with reminiscent conversations casting light on the past. I ts theme is the progression-or as some claim, the retrogression-of morals from one generation to another.
The oldest generation is represented by Aunt Agatha, who was crushed into submissive relegation to a back bedroom by a disastrous affair with a Southern gentleman who, unfortunately encumbered with a wife, was unable to make amends for his thoughtlessness. Aunt Agatha with her pale passions for ice cream sodas and questionable movies is really delightful and it is to be regretted
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that she is brought in only in a shadowy way now and then.
The girl of the next generation not only fails to be crushed by her misstep, but goes to Europe and becomes by virtue of her bold life: a teacup topic over there.
The World War robs the last of our three flagrant ladies of her fiancee by whom she bears a still-born infant. However, this brave young woman does not regret what her mother considers her disgrace, and continues to hold faith in her lover who remains in Europe after the war. Her mental attitude is developed along lines similar to that of David Oakley, of Barren Ground, until, after involved circumstances the fiancee returns wed to Aunt Agatha's grand-niece. At this point our third becomes embittered toward the world.
The whole book is united through the relationsblood and social-of Mr. and Mrs. Littlepage, Southern gentlefolk, who tie the book down to things material.
The background of Southern gentry is similar to that of The Romantic Comedians and in general flavor the book is similar to that. They Stooped to Folly will furnish entertaining reading for a while, and undoubtedly the moral thoughts are not to be lightly dismissed. Perhaps it is true that an author could produce but one book of the calibre of Barren Ground, and so we should not criticize Miss Glasgow too severely for her handling of the situation.
"When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that men betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy, What art can wash her guilt away?"
-L. S. B.
Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary
Seminary Hill, Texas
Organ of Virginia Baptists
Subscription Price $2.50. It stands in the old paths, but does not stand still it also walks therein. ONE HUNDRED AND TWO YEARS YOUNG.
With Dr. L. R. Scarborough, D. D., LL. D., President, is a great Theological Seminary composed of four schools-Theology, Sacred Music, Missionary Training and Religious Education-for men and women, and prepares students for all lines of kingdom work. It is a great plant with a scholarly faculty, wonderful spiritual atmosphere and a large opportunity for student self-support in churches and other lines of work.
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SHORT LIFE LINE
(Continued from Page , 14) knife, wasn't it?" Jim climbed up the ladder with his hair plastered back and his face shining.
"I'm going to try a swan," he announced and climbed up to the highest level. He stood poised for a few seconds on the end of the board, gave a slight spring with his knees and sailed through the air with arms wide and pushed back.
"Great," said Mary.
"That was a pippin'," added Bill. Jim took a long while coming to the surface. The two on the pier watched the water anxiously. They finally saw a head come up, the face was distorted; Jim waved a hand over his head. Bill rushed to the side of the diving tower on which hung a life-line. He took it off and threw; out thru the air it wheeled, the rope uncoiling as it went.
Mary was dazed; she scrambled a trifle unsteadily to her feet and unconsciously watched the life-line hurling through the air. She even saw the saver splash as it hit the water. She dove and even as she sped through the air, she heard Bill's voice, "The life-line's short!" It had not uncoiled all the way; it had caught on a board and was held fast.
Mary came to the surface and looked around, but Jim was not to be seen. She swam out and finally she caught sight of him just as he barely touched the surface probably for the last time. He went down, but she was after him quick as a flash.. She took a deep surface dive and came up with him held under the arms.
Bill had yelled for help and there were a half-dozen in the water to aid Mary, but she wouldn't let go. She dragged Jim back to the base of the ladder, where they quickly pulled him up; she herself fainted away for an instant, but soon recovered.
They worked hard over Jim in the little first-aid tent which had been erected on the beach. He had swallowed a lot of water. And when he regained consciousness a few hours later, he felt the bandages on his head. He had dived too deep. Mary and Bill stood by the little cot. Jim didn't see Mary at first; he saw Bill who had to talk even in a time like this. "I • I tried to throw you a life-line, but but it was too short. Mary pulled you out."
Jim turned his head slightly and saw Mary for the first time; she still had on her bathing suit. He smiled and Mary knelt down beside the cot. There were a few tears in her eyes.
Jim spoke faintly, "What do I care about a short lifeline," he said, "as long as I have you?"
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TRADITIONS
( Continued from Page 5) you know, to be the right one! Each of you 1s not too easily diverted from his convictions of course. But each, I trust, believes that to be a Christian is to be as nearly as possible, Christ-like. That's why our school has the confidence and the love of people other than those who belong to the splendid church which founded and has done most to develop this school. That's why you have a gymnasium which is a memorial to the Hebrew boy whom I loved as devotedly as any companion here I knew. That's why you have this chapel which reminded me this morning that "the road leads uphill all the way, yea, to the very end," and because of its lovliness and stateliness, persuaded me that the hill's worth climbing. That for the tradition of tolerance.
Opportunity? The opportunity of the new Virginia 1s reflected here. Here can men and women gain the training to meet the requirements of the new Virginia, the new Richmond. University of Richmond men not only accept opportunity, they make it. They have before them that striking example of the wartime president of this school who peddled milk to keep his family alive in the bitter sixties; and of the officials who re-established the
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college after the invasion. Assuredly it is true that when a boy comes here prepared for college and declares that he wants to go to college, a way is found for him to do it. Isn't it fine to know that that is true? And I pray, Mr. President, that some way may be found whereby our organization down town may be enabled to co-operate with you to the extent that men and women everywhere may know that the University of Richmond wants aggressive, conscientious, consecrated students, and that Richmond wants them and will fix it somehow so they may come. A great tradition, the tradition of opportunity.
And it is a tradition that men hold fast to their illusions. It is the custom of the student here, when crises come along and "black out" the gaudy trappings of the stage, to sit tight and wait until the lights come on again. You do not run from realities. You know that no Spider spins a web that can deceive realities as to your whereabouts. You cannot escape realities; and as you grow older you will not wish to. For you will wish to live fully, which is impossible without agonies. You here hold fast to your illusions, realizing with a quaint surprise, that bright and buoyant illusions are . . the truth! That for the tradition of illusions.
Finally, it is a tradition that University of Richmond men and women are unafraid of beauty and are unafraid of admitting it even as they admit a weakness for pork chops or a predilection for six-cylinder automobiles. There is a spirit abroad in the world which counsels a skepticism toward beauty. But we are not fearful of the University of Richmond's attitude toward this false counsel. You know that one may play the fiddle and still be indifferent toward pink tea; that one may play Hamlet without frightening the gophers; that there is no shame in watching the moon come up. Indeed, my friends, here on this campus, to elude beauty is a hopeless enterprise. You may hide your eyes and flee from it in the shadowy enchantment of Ryland Hall, but here it is, speaking to you from that expansive looking glass below us in the valley -a looking glass more bewitched than Lewis Carroll's. Beauty whistles from a tower and runs amok in the pines. And all that's left for you to do is to plunge headlong and jubilantly into it all and be forever blessed by that engulfment.
Do we then, have traditions at the University of Richmond? I would not exchange them for all the widely advertised caravan of customs which other institutions may cherish and be vain about. They are Richmond's traditions, and they are Richmond University's traditions, and do not forget, I charge you, that they are in your hands.
