Read Ebook: The Yale Literary Magazine (Vol. LXXXVIII No. 8 May 1923) by Various

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MAY, 1923

Leader LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH 245

The Acolyte HERBERT W. HARTMAN, JR. 249

Chopin ARTHUR MILLIKEN 250

The Bells of Antwerp MORRIS TYLER 251

Rhapsody ARTHUR MILLIKEN 253

Offering D. G. CARTER 254

Gabrielle Bartholow LEWIS P. CURTIS 255

A Little Learning LAIRD GOLDSBOROUGH 268

Notabilia: On the Francis Bergen Medal MAXWELL E. FOSTER 273

The Yale Literary Magazine

WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR. LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH MORRIS TYLER DAVID GILLIS CARTER NORMAN REGINALD JAFFRAY

GEORGE W. P. HEFFELFINGER WALTER CRAFTS

It has been usual, in the past, for Editors of THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE to express themselves as strongly opposed to something, when engaged in writing a leader. Two recent leaders have varied this procedure to the extent of declaring the opposition of their authors to opposition, but the principle of being opposed to something remains. At the present moment, it occurs to us that it might be interesting to suppose correct a few of the pessimistic opinions held by that rather noisy group whom we shall call The Troubled Spirits. On the basis of these suppositions, we shall then try to show that, bad as things are, there still remain a few bright spots lurking in unsuspected corners of the very evils whose existence we are admitting, for the sake of argument.

A convenient starting point may perhaps be found in the Compulsory Sunday Chapel question. It can be urged that the two services now provided prevent anyone from claiming that he is forced to listen to propaganda in the form of a sermon, on Sunday. But The Troubled Spirits, whose positions we are now admitting, regard the matter differently. If we are correctly informed, they consider it a fact, however unpleasant, that the average Yale student feels a very real, if unofficial, compulsion to attend whichever Sunday service is held at a later hour than the other. The Troubled Spirits defy the University to hold the short service at eleven o'clock, and the long one at ten--believing that their position would be more than vindicated by the lack of attendance at the earlier service. In short, so far as The Troubled Spirits are concerned, Sunday service is at eleven o'clock, and contains a sermon varying in length from twenty minutes to half an hour.

But after allowing all that, and allowing, too, that the visiting clergymen are attempting to foist opinions of their own upon the undergraduate body, there is still something to be said. In the first place, we imagine that The Troubled Spirits, on leaving college, will perform their undoubted duty of attacking Christianity with every resource in their power. Hence, were we in their place, we should ask nothing better than to have all the foremost of our enemies brought before us, at great expense, and exposed in such a manner that we could most easily detect the flaws in their armor, which we were later to pierce.

Secondly, there will be certain of The Troubled Spirits whose ardor will evaporate on leaving college, and who will allow the public opinion of their friends and relatives to force them to church again every Sunday. To these we should like to say that observations upon the sermons of more than one pitifully underpaid clergyman have convinced us, from The Troubled Spirits' point of view, that in this respect "the worst is yet to come". However stupid and unthinking The Troubled Spirits may find the highly cultured, and in many cases highly paid, gentlemen who speak at Yale, they will find the less highly paid, and not infrequently less cultured, type of man to whom they are destined, infinitely more stupid, and perhaps positively unpalatable. The flowers of rhetoric, when blended skillfully into a delicately fragrant and perfumed discourse, are, indeed, far more expensive than a bouquet of orchids--few of us will ever be able to afford them again. And so, after a lapse of years, I can imagine an old and embittered Troubled Spirit attempting a Drydonian paraphrase to this effect:--

Battell to some faint meaning made pretense, Elsewhere, they never deviate into sense.

That, of course, would happen to very few Troubled Spirits, but it is not impossible.

Having attempted to prove, let us hope with some slight measure of success, that even the most troubled of The Troubled Spirits may find some crumb of consolation in present-day Sunday Chapel conditions, let us pass on to another example. Perhaps, by way of trivial digression, it might be interesting to speak of the feeling among The Troubled Spirits that Osborn Hall should be summarily destroyed as a relic of a past and barbarous age. Here, though we might admit the contentions of The Troubled Spirits as before, we think it more serviceable merely to recommend that The Troubled Spirits go and look at Osborn Hall. If our own spirits were troubled, we can imagine nothing more soothing than to look at Osborn Hall for the first time. Around the front of the main entrance runs a band of stonework carved with animals and foliage exactly resembling the woodcuts in The Troubled Spirits' favorite magazines. One of the beavers, in particular, is gnawing away at a capitalistic grapevine with a communistic fury only to be called prophetic. Again, we have never seen anything more "advanced" than the exquisite mosaiced representation of a steamboat complete with paddle-wheels, which adorns the under surface of one of the arches. It is exactly the same thing as the "Painting Of A Train of Gear Wheels" sold recently in Paris as the latest example of Da Da. It seems, then, that this matter might very well rest by allowing The Troubled Spirits to admire Osborn Hall as a sample of the latest phase in unrepressed art, while the rest of us respect it as an example of what our grandfathers were fond of, and of what our grandsons will treat with veneration. But to return to things less trivial--

As this is written, the Senior class have voted that the most important thing needed by Yale is football victories, and we are, for once, in accord with The Troubled Spirits in thinking that our gridiron defeats are dreadful things. They may not go so far as to admit, with The Troubled Spirits, that football at Yale has become not the most manly but the most sentimental of sports, yet they do attach great weight to the matter. The Troubled Spirits, I understand, go much further, and assert that year after year the University is expected to have confidence, trust, or perhaps blind faith in the team. They would have us believe that Yale has been taught to accept defeat with a pious resignation that savors of slave morality. And then they point to other fields of endeavor. Is the student given a long cheer by his parents before going into an examination, and assured that it won't matter anyhow if he fails? Does the greatest of generals receive the same amount of encouragement from his people no matter if his success be large or small? The Troubled Spirits have put these questions to many of us, and, without waiting for reply, answered them almost vulgarly in the negative. They remark that it is fundamentally self-evident that one must spur one's charger, not feed him lumps of sugar, before going into battle. And therefore they would attempt to excite the student body to such a pitch that to be a member of a team defeated by Harvard would not be an wholly enviable post.

But, even supposing there was a word of truth in these extreme views, it seems to us that, while The Senior Class, The Troubled Spirits, and ourselves are agreed in desiring a football victory as soon as possible, we may as well take pleasure in a certain aspect of these defeats which is very desirable in a quiet way. It has always been held that football victories help to stimulate enrollment, and it is universally admitted that the enrollment of the University is far too large as it is. Likewise, victorious Harvard is swamped with "race problems" and what not, which do not trouble us. We are permitted to jog along without attacks from "degraded races, who are trying to cast off the yoke of oppression with the key of learning", and want a look through our keyhole. That, at least, is a consoling thought. May it bring a little peace to The Troubled Spirits.

LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH.

Shall we then consecrate those things we know, Clinging to patterns with complacent ease,-- Or, tired with feigning meekness on our knees, Rise up in might and confidently go, Leaving the rest to kneel? The candles glow Whether or not we speak our litanies. Yet wiser men say hope cannot appease The lasting voice that chants, "God wills it so!"

Rather I think our fitful prayers ascend To Him who lights the candles of our Love, Knowing we seek in Him our human best: Thus does the worth of God in man defend Our emulation, make us walk above Man's world with Him while kneeling with the rest.

HERBERT W. HARTMAN, JR.

Ethereal and pale, pure melody, Was Shelley's song, while Keats could never sing Without more warmth and depth of coloring: But Chopin soars unshackled, truly free, For music is a higher poetry, Not bound by clumsy words, so it may wing Its way through groves celestial or cling To the warm couch of wine and revelry.

I hear the sea wind crooning; far below The cold stars shiver on the ocean floor. What nation is that rising 'gainst the foe In revolution fierce? What antique lore Do those bells toll? Whence comes this overflow Of tones so sweet that we can bear no more?

ARTHUR MILLIKEN.

...

"We are the keepers of secrets, sighed to us out of the darkness; Guardians of clandestine loves that will burn past all human remembrance, Told by our tongues that rejoice in the undying ardor of telling. Ancient conspiracy ran to our doors, we appointing the hour, Passed through the arras and knelt for the gesture that spelt absolution, Forgetting that we spied the drama to curse and proclaim at our pleasure. We are the tyrants that reigned in the city of mantle and doublet And hose; when the gem-crusted baldric that sheltered the dagger was slung 'Cross a heart that beat steadfast and calm with a faith most eternally constant. Each of us carols an air that was born of a vision-mad organist, Preaches the infinite word that God whispered to man when his uplifted Eyes caught a flash of eternity granted as part of the covenant. Joyful our voices and kind to the heart that is sad with contrition, Bringing a hope in the good that is past with the quieter ages, Soothing humanity's fears with our message that tells of a future. Harsh and unmeaning and cruel is our song to the souls that are stiff With a pride that turns faith in the mind to a stone in the heart of the thinker, Blinded by twilight within, which shuts out all sunshine and laughter. Ever unchanging our call, to the winds, the clouds and the rainbow, Rings forth in song at the moments that God as His sentinels ordered; Now we are one with the jet-wing?d night and the cloud-mantled sunrise."

...

MORRIS TYLER.

Moon-lit sea coast, wild rose blowing, Smack of salt, and gray gull's cry: Night that is wild with the exultation Of the bellowing breath from a cool, clear sky:

Green waves swinging down the moon-path Pause and lean and break and roar, Making full majestic music, As they pound the sounding shore.

Oh, to forget! half-mad with moon-light, And toss with the cold waves where they go, Cedar green and molten silver, Tireless tumult of ebb and flow, Rapturous, wild, eternal rhythm, To and fro.

ARTHUR MILLIKEN.

I will go into the city of tired eyes, And tell my thoughts to each pedestrian, And on its towers, beneath its leaden skies, Inscribe a little message for all men. And few shall read its modest letters there, And none of them shall ever understand, Yet all I will perform, nor greatly care, For I may not be long within the land.

D. G. CARTER.

Mr. Robinson has discovered that to take Nature as she is is not necessarily to say to the player that he may sit on the piano.

Yet this taking of Nature as she is, despite the fact that Mr. Robinson calls the theme a "good deal of a mix up", in no wise complicates the bare plot. Roman Bartholow, an ailing descendant of an old Maine family, is brought to know again the joy of life by acquaintance with a man that comes to visit him and forgets to go away. This Penn-Raven, though he works a cure for Bartholow, succeeds in doing the opposite for Roman's wife. He falls in love with her and, before the opening of the poem, has for some time possessed her adequately. Gabrielle is a peculiar character, but let it suffice here to say that the liaison with Penn-Raven is no answer to her problem. In Bartholow she married the wrong man, and the Raven she comes to find intolerable. She is one who has always suffered disappointments. It is no wonder, therefore, that, realizing she cannot fully enter into Bartholow's renascence as he would have her do, in an effort to save for him his new-found light she drowns herself. Thenceforward the solution is cruelly plain. Bartholow, unaware of Gabrielle's act and provoked by Penn-Raven, pays him to leave the house. Word is then brought that Gabrielle is drowned. That is in midsummer. It is fall when Bartholow himself leaves the house forever to go whither he will, cherishing the light of his regeneration the while he thinks of Gabrielle who couldn't follow his rebirth, not being reborn in his manner, and who threw herself away.

These men and this one woman are the persons around whom the whole power of Mr. Robinson's poetry abides. Yet there is one of whom I have not spoken, a fisherman who, though playing a minor part, frets his useful time upon the stage. He makes his appearance in the two opening cantos and again in the last two. Once in the final scene between Penn-Raven and Gabrielle he is referred to as one who knows more of their relation than even Bartholow. Thus his function is immediately evident. He is the chorus that gives its warning and advice. More than that, he is the mouthpiece to Mr. Robinson's own thoughts.

That spring when, out of a winter steeped in night, Bartholow was

reborn to breathe again Insatiably the morning of new life,

there came to him from across the river this prophet-fisherman, this hobo scholiast with his face "to frighten Hogarth" who was at once

Socratic, unforgettable, grotesque, Inscrutable, and alone.

He came to Bartholow dressed in "a checkered inflammation of myriad hues" and bearing as a peace-offering for his appearance a catch of trout for breakfast. Presumably he came to bring the fish and drink a glass, but incidentally he was curious to investigate this new birth of Roman's and to discover if it blinded his eyes so that he saw nothing further than acquaintance between Penn-Raven and his wife. Wherefore he sat with Roman and heard recounted the glory of being alive once more. But Umfraville was wise. He was in the eyes of the world "irremediably defeated" and for that reason had hid himself back in the woods where he

lived again the past In books, where there were none to laugh at him And where--to him, at least--a world was kind That is no more a world.

Hence from this distance he was able to understand the flood of human nature and capable of pronouncing judgment upon it. He was gifted, as he said, with an "ingenuous right of utterance" which gave him full license to speak his mind. He knew that Gabrielle's unfaithfulness must come to Roman's ears. He knew the tragedy that it would be to this proud, sensitive friend of his, and, knowing it, offered his aid if ever Roman's light should be obscured.

It is in brilliant contrast to this "unhappy turtle" that Penn-Raven appears, Penn-Raven, the bounder, archguest, corruptor and healer in one breath. He it is, with his solid face, thick lips and violet eyes, upon whom "one may not wholly look and live", for in Penn-Raven there is more of the devil than is safe to investigate. The devil only knows why he came to Bartholow, why he possessed those violet eyes withal, and, after he had met Gabrielle, why the devil he ever went away. He was large and muscular and imbued with a healthy-mindedness which could purge the soul of Roman. Not only was he able to change this man's outlook upon life, bringing him light where only darkness had lain, but he could worm his way to the heart of Gabrielle and make her his for as long as he chose. He loved her with all the force of his animal self, yet he could hint to her that she was insufficient to Bartholow's present needs. Callous Penn-Raven! He never understood Gabrielle, though he later called her "flower and weed together". In her he saw mostly the weed, the woman who had forsaken her husband and who might be expecting him to take her away. So he thought and so he said to her, not noticing the agony he caused. He did not know the woman he later called the flower who, though she had surrendered herself to his affections, yet saved for Roman a far transcending love. Thus to hint that she go with him was perhaps insulting her. At any rate it was a brutal intimation, a selfish one--and Penn-Raven was always brutal and always selfish. He could cry aloud of his tragedies and disillusions, the while the woman by his side was preparing herself to die. He could confront the husband with a nasty truth, looking upon him with those violet eyes, half triumphant and half sad. "Setting it rather sharply," he could say, "you married the wrong woman."

Poor Bartholow and proud! Stung with the malevolent implications with which Penn-Raven sought to gain Gabrielle, Bartholow once leaped upon him, feeling his "thick neck luxuriously yielding to his fingers", and in his absurd pride thought to throttle him. At that time he was experiencing more pain than ever he had through the long winter before. He as a proud idealist was waking up to the fact that to be bathed in a new light is not to be external to sorrow.

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