The Yale literary magazine (Vol. LXXXIX, No. 3, December 1923)

(VOL. LXXXIX, NO. 3, DECEMBER 1923) ***

Vol. LXXXIX No. 3

THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE

CONDUCTED BY THE Students of Yale University

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DECEMBER, 1923

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THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE

Contents

DECEMBER, 1923

Leader WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR. 85

Dusk DAVID GILLIS CARTER 90

Viaticum, _XIV Century Italy_ C. G. POORE 91

Lament MORRIS TYLER 92

Roads WILLIAM TROY 93

Confession LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH 94

Euterpe LUCIUS BEEBE 95

The Great Buddha of Kwang Ki LAIRD GOLDSBOROUGH 96

Yzlita-Audrey R. P. CRENSHAW, JR. 102

_Portfolio_

Song F. D. ASHBURN 108

Moon Magic PHILIP J. D. VAN DYKE 108

Echo R. P. CRENSHAW, JR. 111

_Book Reviews_ 112

_Editor’s Table_ 117

The Yale Literary Magazine

VOL. LXXXIX DECEMBER, 1923 NO. 3

_EDITORS_

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

_BUSINESS MANAGERS_

GEORGE W. P. HEFFELFINGER WALTER CRAFTS

_Leader_

“_He who fills his lamp with water will not dispel the darkness, and he who tries to light a fire with rotten wood will fail._”—_Buddha._

“It is impossible,” remarks Agnes Repplier, “for an American to cherish any conviction, however harmless, without at once starting a League, or a Society, or an Association, to represent that conviction, and to persuade other Americans to embrace it at the cost of $10 a year.” She goes on to point out that we have a “League for Peace”, a “League to Keep the Peace”, and a “League to Abolish War”. You cannot escape: refuse the first, and you are enrolled in the second. If you are still young, there is a “League of Youth”, proposed by Sir James Barrie. If you are an inveterate pedestrian, there is a “League of Walkers”. However dismal our future may seem, there will always be the reward of membership in the Rotary Club; or we may become an enthusiastic Kiwanian; even a distinguished Klu Klux. Throughout the country people are being urged and urging others to “get together”. He who attempts to slip away is looked at askance—there is something wrong with him. Any desire to be alone, to do anything alone, is beyond comprehension. And to seek solitude for its own sake—the man is a heretic!

Three years ago a friend of mine began to commute to the city, an hour’s trip morning and night. None of “the crowd” knew him, and efforts to get acquainted proved futile. He was cordial but firm. And after refusing repeatedly to join them at bridge, he was left quite to himself. One evening as the train came into the station, some one tapped him on the shoulder. “Say, old man, you ought to learn the game. Nothing like it for killing these boresome hours.” My friend answered that he often played, but preferred to read on the train. Yet he rarely bought a paper. If his eyes were not fixed upon some “odd” book, they were peering out of the window—at the morning mists or the first lights of the dusk. Those hours of thought and solitude gave him a serenity, a clearness of vision, which nothing else could. There he knit together the many strands of unrelated effort into definite order. He could sit back and give each day’s work a place in the Total Work. While his fellow-travellers lived day and night in their particular cogs, he stood off and saw whither the wheel was rolling. It was not that their natural endowments were different from his, or that they might not have done likewise. They merely passed him by as “hopeless”. Their eyes were narrowly focused—upon thirteen cards.

That is bridge on the train. Add to it golf on Sundays, dinners at the country club, theatres, motor trips, downtown luncheons, the ever welcome of the latest fad, and you have the outward criteria of our national crowd complex. The great principle is to spend every moment with somebody else, doing something—even if that be listening to the Chicago weather reports over your neighbor’s radio. Oh, let us not have a spare moment to think! Let us never be alone!—by ourselves!—completely at the mercy of our own ingenuity. And solitude, the greatest of torments, must be avoided at any cost—from $10 a year upward.

An odd state of affairs! Hardly possible in a cloister devoted to learning and education. Its very nature should make it immune to such a disease. Yet the symptoms of this widespread malady are quite evident within our four walls. We are fortunate to have escaped the fraternity system of most colleges. One is pre-eminently a member of Yale, and not such-and-such a club or society. But the herd spirit is no less strong on that account. From the beginning of Freshman year we are conscious of it: we turn up our coat collars, buy a pipe—and are off in the right direction. Slowly and in various degrees we are moulded to definite standards. We come to dress as punctiliously as our allowances make possible; to act as casual and reserved as our youthful exuberance will permit. The few hours we have for reading are wisely devoted to _Vanity Fair_. Our conversation is as circumspect: some subjects are not to be talked of, some adjectives not to be used if one is to escape the censure of aestheticism. And beneath these outward criteria we find the primary cause—a fundamental uniformity of thought. Left to ourselves we would certainly not think in the same channels; but thrown into a crowd we think as the crowd does. We blandly accept those opinions which are oftenest and loudest shouted in our ears, repeat them as our own, and go merrily off to find a “fourth” for bridge. Thus, we are propagating ideas which are not our own, which are second-hand. The voice, which was once ours, has become an echo. To speak specifically, are we sure that unlimited cuts would be a good thing? By nature opposed to paternalism, we thoughtlessly advocate any measure which would seem to lessen its power—our only assurance of this end being that “everybody says so”. Therefore, if unlimited cuts are generally acclaimed, we join our cry with the rest. The final result is that “most of us have only the courage of our conventions”. What a courage is that! Splendid for a sham battle, but hardly sufficient to withstand the first rumble of real cannon. And as for convictions, they are never the product of “crowd” thought. Lamps which are filled with water, fires built of damp wood, give neither light nor heat.

That is the reflection among us of a national crowd complex. Its grave danger, already hinted at, has been pointed out by Carlyle: if we live in crowds we are going to think in crowds—which is not to think at all. When that stage is reached, a stage where our ambitions and ideals are no longer our own, we cease as individuals to live. We become automatons, robots, beings rather below the par of an intelligent animal. Better a man with a will and energy turned to wrong uses than such Donothingness, such flotsam, such weight upon progress. The man who sinks into the crowd has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. He has lost his particular spark of individuality—that unnameable fibre which differentiates him from all others. What else has he to call his own? That lost, and all is lost. Thus, Agnes Repplier ironically concludes: “All these Leagues, Societies, Associations, and Guilds relieve man from the burden of individualism. Therefore does he pay their dues.” What dues they are? A Birthright for pottage!

Truly, the disease is a dangerous one, in many cases mortal. Its cure, in proportion, is difficult. And once cured, constant vigilance must be taken that it be not recontracted. The powers of nature are ever in league against bodily decay. It is our responsibility to fight and guard with like precision against mental inertia. There will be no help in any attempt to abolish the superficial conformity of dress, conversation, or interests. These things in themselves are trivial. They are the natural consequents of “crowd” thinking. That is where we must strike, and with all the power we can. Once cut away from us, its exterior betrayals will vanish as well.

The obstacles are many. It is so easy to drift! A ready agreement, a quiet acceptance of the latest tenets not only relieve us from the burden of thinking, but can make us no enemies—neither a troubled conscience nor scornful companions. That is why the herd mind is “essentially and inevitably a timid mind”. The gaps are filled up with bridge, the movies, plans for the next week-end. Little unorthodox doubtings, hesitances, questions, are suppressed. They would only cause trouble. Things are quite all right as they are!

Another obstacle is the over-organized life of the campus. Its rights and wrongs, goods and bads are ever being debated. In the meanwhile, there is little time for any of us to think. We are too busy putting out daily papers, producing plays, establishing world’s swimming records. There is no spare hour in the morning and another at night to sit back and reckon where the past day has brought us. And if there is such time, it has already been pledged to the card-table. Thus, solitude and intelligent reading—both excellent cures—are out of reach to the majority. Those who are privileged to enjoy both have always done so. They are quite immune from our disease.

There is one course left, requiring no end of patience and care. But its cure is certain. Moreover, it is within reach of us all—the busy and the idle, the radical and the conservative. We can make ourselves consciously challenge all ideas, opinions, theories which are foisted upon us—by others, or by our own sluggish minds. We must convince ourselves in every case that they are right or wrong, and once convinced, act fearlessly. Here is no place for timidity. We shall now vote as we choose, defying the dictates of the crowd. Ideas thoroughly analyzed and considered may wield tremendous power. They have not the hollow sound of an echo. Theirs is the true ring of the voice. All the Leagues for Peace in the world are a waste of time unless each member has implicit belief in the worth and need of peace. Progressive changes in college administration will never be promoted by jabbering repetition of “current opinion”. They will come only when a majority of us have quietly and firmly convinced ourselves that such changes are right and necessary. Then you have solidarity, which is uniformity of convictions and not conventions. Further, you have accomplishment and progress. The old lamp is cleansed of its water, and now at last pierces the darkness. Some dry wood is thrown upon the smouldering fire, and the flames rise high above the countryside.

WALTER EDWARDS HOUGHTON, JR.

_Dusk_

I raise my face to evening’s veil Beneath whose folds the trees grow pale, And as its darkening shred-skeins crown The yellow fields, they turn to brown, While now a black brook bubbles down, Star-touched, across the fading trail.

It is the hour when spirits steal Along the path, and I can feel The strange close-shouldering of those Who dwell among the dim hedgerows, Whispering things nobody knows, And making every fancy real.

The wakened eyes of moonlit dew At times evoke your glance, and you; Your bosom forms the hill’s incline, Your tresses are the trailing vine: The dark has sometimes made you mine— A vision formed by tears, looked-through.

DAVID GILLIS CARTER.

_Viaticum_

_XIV Century Italy_

I

The bed is rich with gilt and jet, The silken sheets are edged with lace. Death watches on the coverlet A withered face.

II

The courtiers chant their false lament, Professing each his sorrow here; A ghostly priest gives sacrament. The end is near.

III

The droning voices whisper low; And listless threads of incense rise. Tall pontificial candles glow; A noble dies.

IV

_Ora pro nobis!_ He is gone. Beside the face austere and cold, Then gloat the knaves who watched till dawn To share his gold.

V

Why posture sorrow now, or cry; The soul that goes comes not again. But ere the day breaks, more shall die, By brothers slain.

VI

Now bursts the long pent bloody hate That by one taking, Death gave seed. He shall have more ... see, he will wait! For Death sowed greed.

C. G. POORE.

_Lament_

Is silence sweet that you should rest so long In hateful slumber, far from dance and song? Does early love that found the rosy day Once slow in coming, seek no more the grey Cool shadows pendant o’er the summer moon, (That perfect moment that is fled too soon) Tinging thine image with mysterious grace That centers soul and body in the face As in an emerald pool?

It is not thus that I would have you live A miser, when such treasure you might give My heart in words. Your parent thoughts would tell Of love and laughter that have cast the spell I would not break for all the organ peals Of grey cathedrals, nor to lose the seals That bind the mystery of Circe’s lips, Whispering toll of countless foundered ships Whose pilots played the fool.

MORRIS TYLER.

_Roads_

I’ll turn down the forest path, The narrow road and dark; You may race on the clean clear plain With sun and wind and lark.

I’ll go down the forest ways, Stumbling with pain and fears; I’ll search out her shadowy heart, Though I see her face through tears.

You may go where the sky is bright, But mine is the rain and hail; Mine is the dark and the unseen bird, Tangled wood and twisted trail.

WILLIAM TROY.

_Confession_

Each thought the other had nor sipped nor flung The burning sense-wine tingling through each vein. And so we sat and heard old ballads sung With such child things throughout a night of rain; Until a somehow smoldering poem rang Through all my flesh. Sublimely without fear Somehow that smoldering song I wildly sang! And poured my wintry wine dregs full and clear.

It seemed a lighted radiance sought her face, Till we were friends no more but strangely one; And silently we left that sacred place To muse how deep two secret rivers run.

LAIRD SHIELDS GOLDSBOROUGH.

_Euterpe_

Long, long ago we met, Sweet Mother of Hellenic song, Where argent hues and violet Make hills articulate against the sun! Full-lipped we met in the profound embrace Of things immortal Under the portal, Wisteria crowned, of happy days. And then I stood alone and deified, Nor could I comprehend, When you had swept Out of my ways and vanished, and I cried —Ah, come again!—You answered not, And after a little space I wept.

But I have seen you since When the dawn Creeps jasmine-scented on Etrurian hills Before the many-petaled day has blown Into the world and died; And in cities of the mightier West At day’s decline Have heard you in the boulevards, At dusk, when street lamps shine On watcher’s faces. O fairest of the Graces, Here also is your home. They matter not, the cycles in their fashion, And you shall ever sing, the while you roam, Of life and hope and immemorial passion.

LUCIUS BEEBE.

_The Great Buddha of Kwang Ki_

I had not seen Helen Rochdale for almost a year. And indeed I cannot say that I ever wanted greatly to see her again. Not that seeing her wasn’t always to be a pleasure, but rejection by a girl whom one has loved almost since childhood means that one does not exactly seek her company afterwards. “You are such a wise, dear old thing—even if you’re only twenty-three,” her letter had begun, illogically enough, “that I want you to come over from your old Paris and tell me whether something I’ve gotten on the track of is a bargain or not. Now do be sweet about it. You know you love to talk about ‘patina’ and such things to father. And really he respects your advice tremendously. Can’t see why. I never did.” The letter wound on for several pages more. No other girl could have been at once so unaffectedly cordial and so blandly disarming—I almost imagined that our love affair was beginning, instead of buried a year or more. I mean she had written me in just the tone we used to use long before there was any thought of love between us, at least on her side. For I cannot remember when I was not more or less in love with Helen. Still, perhaps her request was not so remarkable. I was young, but I had been brought up in the very center of the art world. My father had been a collector by profession and a sculptor of sorts, as he used to say, by accident. Then, at the time I was growing up, his business had waxed profitable, so that we lived rather well, and the house of “Richards of London”, as our firm was called, possessed a certain indefinable halo of distinction that raised it quite out of the common rut of “art salesrooms”.