Louise S McGehee School - Spectator Yearbook (New Orleans, LA)

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Forty THE SPECTATOR Now, don't tell me you're going to eat crackers 'cause I'm not going to believe you. Well, why on earth wouldn't I eat them? What else do you think they're for if you're not meant to eat them? To pull, of course. I don't mind if you're stupid enough to eat them but I'm certainly not going to, replied the amazed Anne. . I think you're plain cuck-coo not to eat them, but that doesn't worry me as I'm going to eat them all the same. By this time they had reached the kitchen and lane produced the cokes and so-called crackers and started eating them. Anne asked, May I have a few, please? A few whats? asked lane. Biscuits, please. What do you want now? Just a few biscuits, please, but if you don't want me to have any, that's all right, replied the amazed Anne, wondering why her cousin could have as many as she wanted while she couldn't have any. I don't see why you can have them and I can't, she went on. Are you by any chance talking of these crackers? If you call those biscuits you are eating crackers, that's what I want, if you please. lane handed her a few in answer to her begging. Thank you, said Anne, it really is rather awkward that English and American have the same words that mean different things, isn't it? Yes, but it sure will be swell when we can both understand each other, replied her American cousin. Io Rogers '45 .11-1? Stop! When I behold the step of this fast age Increase in strength and speed with each new stride, And every new invention turn the page To faster wheels on which the World may ride, When I behold Man, thought possessed of power, A slave to petty minutes, hours, and days, And greedy steel in myriad forms devour This precious time, and in a hundred ways Crush down the slow and easy pace, soon' gone Since wheels, and rails, and buttons make time go Eternally faster, faster, faster on, I hesitate a while, and then I know This whirling earth will soon leave Man behind, A ' ' ' ' . , victim to the power of his mind Anne Iohnston 43.

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THE SPECTATOR Thirty-nine English and American It was Anne's first day in America cmd she and her cousin lane, were upstairs talking. Anne was English, and had always lived in England until -:1 few weeks before when her parents had sent her to her Aunt's for a while, to escape the war. The two girls weren't talking about anything in particular, but now and again the differences between the two countries would arise. Let's go down to the living room for a while, said Iane after a while. To where? asked Anne mystified. To the living room, responded lane. But what and where is the living room? asked Anne, even more mystified than before. Don't tell me you don't know what a living room is? Im sorry, but I'm afraid l don't know what you mean. Well, I suppose the only thing to do is to take you down there. Come on. As they went down the stairs silently each one wondered what was the matter with the other. Anne wished that lane would stop using such queer words, while lane couldn't understand why Anne was so stupid not to know what even a living room was. When they reached the bottom of the steps Anne wandered into a near-by room and exclaimed. What a large drawing-room you have. My large what? asked lane amazed. Your drawing-room. What are you talking about? asked lane, getting annoyed. This is your drawing-room, isn't it? asked Anne, rather worried. You mean this room? Why no, it's our living room. Oh, then this is the room you were talking about upstairs. Sure it is, was the reply. Oh, now l see, said Anne catching on. You call a drawing-room, a living room. How queer! They settled down for a while to play cards and all was peaceful until lane piped up that she was hungry. Come on, she said, let's go get something to eat. How about a coke and some crackers? What are cokes and what on earth do you want crackers for? Cokes are a sort of drink, explained Iane. But what do you want crackers for now? To eat, of course, silly. 11 n ll I: 1: n 1:

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THE SPECTATOR Forty-one The Metallic Quality of the Mind The science of words which we call poetry has ever led the al- chemists of our emotions in a zealous search for a nugget of the rarest quality which, in beauty, far surpasses the green, translucent emerald, being opaque and golden, bedded in infinite strata of understanding and suggestion. Thus the human mind, like the pathway to celestial residence was early found to be thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. Likewise, it was soon discovered that the mind was a cauldron which when heated mingled marvelous elements suitable for rich embossing. By a process similar to metallurgy, those alchemists learned to separate the substance which permitted grace from the more mineral matter of existence. Since the mind may therefore be considered thus composed of precious metals, I have often wondered why we are not more armor-plated than we are, and how it is our silver sensibilities react. I believe the effects of music in its many tongued expressions most clearly show what may be wrought of our emotions, what bronze statuary may be cast from our thoughts. First and foremost among the music intended to mould is the music of Mozart. How can the mind, unless it contains metal whatsoever, fail to become malleable? Aldous Huxley describes the thin foils of delight which the G Minor Quintel produced in him by saying, Minuetto-all civilization was implied in that delicious word, the delicate pretty thing, or, How pure the passion, how unaffected, clear, and without clot or protension the unhappiness of that slow movement which followed-pure and unsullied. And then the malleable emotions are molted. I think it interesting that in connection with metals, chemists speak of solid solu- tions, for that term expresses precisely what Mozart would create in us, a molten feeling, lest the bliss become powdery and shapeless, since, without form, no sensation can be communicated or sustained. The uanal- loyed spirit swells with the vibrations of trumpeting. The trumpets also are of metal, clarioned sweetness and light. All the luster of assurance makes its silent answer. The metals of the mind have been annealed. In contrast to these effects, the surfaces of hearing can be tarnished with the sulfurous disappointment in much of romantic music. Also, the many-keyed metals of the mind clash. l have often heard sound assume this leaden weight in Tschaikowsky's clanging codas. Furthermore, in music today, the blast furnace principle seems to have become popular. The mind is required to react violently, not so much for the sake of action, I think, as for the sake of violence. The music of the atonalists seems bent on toughening what the romanticists unadvisedly made ductile. Thus, if the sound-box of the brain were made of any substance less