Steele High School - Annual Yearbook (Dayton, OH)

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THE ANNUAL Page fifteen color which spoils the loveliness of all the rest by its mere presence, so the gardener takes it out and throws it away then the rest of the flowers fon'n an harmonious and complete whole. But perhaps the flower which wrought such trouble was a lovely thing in itself, only position made it a source of annoyance. So with the other Princess. Probably she had tresses of real princess gold that hung to her feet and shirnmered and waved in the sun. Her rank, too, was just as high as that of the fortunate Princess and her cheeks had just such a royal rose-flush. When she walked along all lower beings became insignificant, as the daisies seemed black against the fair white feet of Nicoletef' She, too, would have passed a restless night had she been forced to sleep on a pea hidden under seven mattresses, she would have scaled mountains of glass and have gone as a ragged beggar for the sake of her dear Prince. She would have become even a scullery-maid--but she never had the chance. And so she is merely one of the sad, patient race of those forgotten. Her lucky sister Princess could perform great feats of love and bring her Prince back to her-not so the other Princess. For her bolder sister aroused such excitement by her deeds of loving prowess that the other Princess was left behind-forgotten and alone. Well--there are many other Princesses in the world. There is many a Princess who has scaled the hill of glass and fled across the blazing pit, there is many another Princess who could get only half way up, and who lay there with bleeding feet and aching heart and clenched, inefficient hands, listening to acclamations that hailed the successful Princess. Remember, though, that perhaps the fairy godmother had helped the one, while the other had no godmother to lend her beautiful gowns done up in walnut shells and lovely, invisible caps: she had only her own efforts, her own weak hands-poor other Princess. Perhaps with only a little help she might have won a Prince, too, but as it was she could only say, with a quiet sigh of renunciation, The Prince passed by, with never a look at me,- . . . . And I wait-alone. Besides, who wants a Princess whom her lover has scorned? She will be looked at with contempt and disregard by the world, and this often influ- ences a Prince. Her proud heart may be almost broken, but she would never tell, if she has the heart of a real Princess within her. Literature is full of other Princesses-Tess of the D'Urbevilles, the Painted Lady, the Woman of Shamlagh, the Maid of Astolat, Ariadne, Pom- pilia. Sometimes they are other queens, but each is another Princess at heart, though the wor1d's cold thumb and finger fail to plumb it. In the case of Tess, it is true there was no other Princess to take her place-only the cold ethics of an upright man to whom the hard, ignorant eyes of the world meant more than the eyes of the woman who loved him. It is true, also, that for five glorious days Tess lived as a real Princess with

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Page fourteen THE ANNUAL THE OTHER PRINCESS By KATHERINE K UNZ O the day arrived when the Prince was to marry the lady whom his father had chosen for him, though his heart was sad for his own dear Princess. But, suddenly, a brief moment before the marriage, his Princess, who had gone over a mountain of glass and braved a sea of flame for his sake, found him again. And he rejoiced, and showed her to his father, the King, who gave them his blessing. And so they were married, and lived happily ever after. So many--almost all, in fact-of the old fairy stories end in this same way. The Princess always finds the lover for whom she has undergone a world of agony and pain. It is the proper ending of every well-regulated fairy tale, it is the conventional ending that we have come to expect. But, remember-there was another Princess-she who nearly married the Prince and whom his father had chosen-for her no lover is produced, no wedding festivities are hers. She fades out of the story, and the Prince and his Princess live happy ever after-as they ought to, of course. But what of the other Princess--some one tell me that! Since childhood I have always felt a grudge against Grimm, Anderson, and all the other writers of marvelous fairy lore, because the other Princess was always left in the end with no visible or even prospective lover. On the delineation of the fortunate Princess all their energies seem to have been ex- hausted-and the poor little other Princess is simply left alone. How would you like it if you were just on the point of marrying a Prince-a thing which your royal parents had urged on you since you were very young-how would you like it if some strange Princess came and claimed your Prince as her own? How could you help it that before you knew the Prince he had fallen in love with some one else-some one who had lost him in some magic way, and who had worn herself out trying to find him again-would you be expected to know about that? And then if you were thrust into the outer dark and saw your erstwhile Prince and his bride right in the dazzle of the innermost circle of happiness, then how would you feel?. Yet every Prince, you know, must get his Princess-it is the fairy law, no matter what luck- less unfortunates must suffer because of it, the law endures, and there is no amendment possible. You forgot her completely, did you not-that other Princess? And you thought that, when the book told you they lived happy ever after, that everything had gone well and that you might close the book with a satisfied feeling? But sometimes in a cluster of flowers there is one of the wrong

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Page sixteen THE ANNUAL a transformed Prince at her side-one who had found his ethics dust and who strove to make reparation. It is the last of life which one will think of when the roving days are past, and Tess's last days were full of the glory of life-abundant, satisfying, soul-iilled days. Little Pompilia-what a sad little other other Princess she must have been during her dreary years of marriage, pent up, powerless, miserable, so suddenly forced into a grown-up that she scarcely had any intermediate step between the ignorance of babyhood and the knowingness of womanhood. But she surely knew that she was another Princess-not because of a faith- lessness of man, but because of her faithfulness to a real ideal. In heaven we have the real true and sure, she says bravely. Tell him that I am all in flowers from head to foot. In her case the irresistible cry of the Princess heart, Oh, lover of my lifel. My soldier-saint! was answered not by flesh, but in spirit. Then there is the sad tale that seems so much more than a mere love story-the tragic fate of Phaedra, who built a temple to Aphrodite that she might, through the great queen's power, win for herself the man she loved. Oh, Aphrodite of the sea, For love have pity on me l she prayed, but the inexorable goddess turned a deaf ear on her plaint, and her life comes down through the ages only as a name, a story, and a tomb. Her name remains a symbol of the Thwarted spirit, vexed and teased By yearnings that cannot be eased, The soul that chafes upon the mesh Of tenuous yet galling flesh. Bliss Carman's conclusion to his delicate rendition of Phaedias' story is an echo of the universal pain: CC Ah, fair Greek woman, if there bloom Some flower of knowledge in the gloom, Receive the piteous, loving sigh Of one more luckless passer-by. Peace, peace, wild heart! Unsatisfied Since thy dear beauty found a bed Has every mortal lived and died, In sea-girt Hellas long ago, For ever with the dreaming dead, Immortal for thy mortal woe! There are so many other Princesses! Of what use to repeat them-you know them yourself. Of course there are many kinds of other Princesses and there are many varities of Princes. Sometimes he is an ideal that has been followed until almost within reach-and then some ruder, bolder hand suddenly app,-e-