Central High School - Mirror Yearbook (Birmingham, AL)

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know ami must leave the mystery for someone else to solve. But I do know that my fate will he the same. 1 must die. but 1 do not regret it. Death will he a relief, a sweet sleep and rest from-this awful life of mine. 1 shall (lie with a smile and go to my God like a man. What 1 have sown that have 1 reaped. I’ll die like 1 have lived and no one can say that I did not die game. I'll say farewell to the world through this, my last expression and as we used to sav I'll cash my checks and go home to the only home I ever had.” That was all. —Robert Goodall, ’12.

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friends, especially Mary. It was a peculiar thing but her fate did not worry me. I had almost forgotten her. and would have already done so. but for tlu lingering thought of her phantom-like appearance on the night of the storm. I knew she would come again but it only interested me. I did not fear her. either dead or alive. I glanced out at the port where all was bright and animated. Then that light, which I knew must precede Mary's coming, began to appear. Slowly Mary came from the dull light and stood forth in strong relief. She beckoned me to follow. I followed her across the deck, but she pointed to the shore. I hesitated. Site urged me on. 1 turned and fled to the shelter of the saloon, but she came to me and begged with such piteous eyes that my will was broken. I told the captain I had changed my mind and would go ashore. “That was only the beginning. She has never let me rest since that time. I have followed her for more than five years. That night at Aden, I discovered that the yacht sent out only one C. Q. I), and was never heard from again. She must have sunk1 the day I left her. I returned to the Pacific, still led on l»v that ghost-like vision of Mary, and for two years searched for the unknown island. I found many strange things, hut never a trace of Mary. I rescued one man. who claimed to have been alone on an island for twelve years. Xo ship had come for him. Would any come for Mary? Still I kept searching but in vain. I wandered over the whole world in answer to her beckon, but I could find no trace of her or of the ill-fated yacht. I circled the globe and came back to Aden. That night I walked along the wharf. The Regina of the P. ( . was in harbor. Mary came to me and called on me to board the ship. I was accustomed to do as my phantom told me. so I hoarded her. We left the harbor in great spirits, but the captain told me in private, that he thought he and his ship had left harbor for the last time. I can not tell you what happened, but there was a storm. 'The captain let me come on the bridge. Mary came to us agaim Her face had changed now. Instead of that cold smile, there was a frown. Her face had a triumphant look that frightened me. She spoke and seemed to tell me tint 1 had seen her for tlu last time. 1 understood. My life of misery and failure was about to cud. I smiled lightly for 1 had no fear, and if it did come—well, would you blame me? I returned to the saloon. The passengers were making merry in spite of the elements. I stood on a table—I know not why and I told them that we had loosed our cables and were drifting home, that they had their tickets for eternity. They thought me insane—but they soon knew the truth. Even as I spoke, there came a crash and an awful grinding, grating noise. The ship staggered, broke ami settled. I knew she was doomed. I rushed on deck and, leaping overboard, managed to reach shore. I crawled up the beach and dropped in exhaustion. When I recovered tlu sun wa dropping in the west. 1 staggered to mv feet ami limped along tlu beach. There was something vaguely familiar about the outline of tlu coast. 1 thought of Mary. Then it rushed to my mind that this was tlu island where I left Mary. I hastened along the shore. Reaching the cove I stopped, for there lay a huge skeleton. I could not tell what the skeleton had been for I had never seen anything resembling it. Across from this skeleton was a smaller one. I crossed and examined it. It was Mary! I knew the ring on that finger only too well. 1 wish I could say that 1 swooned in horror. Hut I did not. There was no sudden rush of sorrow. I had lost mv last vestige of hit inanity. 1 was a beast. The only thought that entered my mind was of curiosity as to how she died. How did she happen to die alone with this huge skeleton? Perhaps she died of fright, perhaps of hunger. I do not n

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The Pathos of Burns’ Life I he must pathetic life is that of the man who, while conscious af a message for the world, is so hedged about by limitations and hindered by a morally weak constitution, that the struggle with these consumes the time and strength that should be used in performing his mission. Such was Burns life. Mis youth was spent in a continual struggle against poverty which left no time for the preparation so essential for any successful work. C ontrast Burns life of toil and penury, in the most prosaic age of literature, when his native language was a dialect, with Milton's long, leisurely years of study at college and at Horton, when English literature was at its height and Shakespeare’s influence warm with life. s for leisure, a term we have come to think of as synonymous with a poet's life, only the little time Burns could snatch from the long work hours of the plough boy were his. Records of Burns, sitting at the table absorbed in a book with his supper before him untouched, show how much keener was his hunger for knowledge than bodily hunger even after toil. J o the ill-starred Bums was given the power of making man’s life more venerable, but that if wisely guiding his own was not given.” W ithin the same breast where the poetic spirit chafed because of the undelivered message, and where there was a sympathy so universal as to include the inanimate. there lived moral weaknesses, cravings of the appetite, and indecision. beckoning to destruction. The deciding vote in the crisis • »f a weak mans life is often cast by environment. Had there been one strong friend, in the heroic sense of the term, to whom Burns might have unbosomed himself all might have been different with him and how the affectionate heart of Burns cried out for such a friend! But in the real struggle of life a man must tight his way alone and in darkness. The poetic spirit of Burns with its attendant virtues was arrayed against the desire for worldly enjoyment of a finer or coarser grain and indecision. the battleground of these being the big. weak, sympathetic heart °f Burns. Environment, those revels at ale houses, his only resort, quarrels with superior officers, were all antagonistic to the higher side of Burns’ nature and at war with it. yet Burns in desperation and indecision kept on trying to reconcile the two with the inevitable result of regret, misery and loss of enjoyment in either. Just then a glimpse of aristocratic life—a glimpse too short for the glamour to fade and the cleared vision to sec aright—dissatisfied and made him rebel against Fate. Never did he learn to adapt himself to surroundings, and in his fever of disappointment, an outcast from the society he delighted in. with a sense of failure to deliver his message and rebellion against Fate, he sought relief in forgetfulness, in induced sleep until at last he passed “into that still country where the heaviest laden wayfarer at length lays down his load.” —Mittic M. Burge. ’t2. 15