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

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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

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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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Forty-two THE SPECTATOR durable than metal, it would long ago have cracked. As it is, we can hear many sounds, and still be able to listen to music. Hence, I am bound to conclude that the alchemists who sought the golden capacity of the mind discovered the metallic nature of man's spirit, realizing that an otherwise mineral existence could be mined by the brain. And that those metals, plastic and durable, would often be fash- ioned nobly, and in no case so nobly as by the sculping effects of sound- Waves' O 'Clabaugh '42 The War Through the Eyes of a Four Year Old lohn is necessarily very aware of the war, for he constanly hears it blasphemed, lauded, and discussed among the family and over the radio. After a recent broadcast in which the Bed Army was often mentioned, Iohn organized his thoughts and approached me with a dissertation on the war. He knew that the fighting was going on in Europe and had de- cided that was where all the bad people were. If it weren't for the bad people, he said, there would be no war. I know not whom he classifies as bad people. Probably he doesn't either. At any rate, Iohn decided that there would be no war if only the bad people could be put into jail. However, he realized that there were neither enough policemen to lock up the great numbers of bad people nor enough jails. He said they would probably hide under houses where policemen couldn't find them. Therefore, he concluded that the Red Army must fight until all the bad people were killed. This last statement brought to my mind Iohn's morbid but hilarious view of death. His mother remarked that Iohn is growing up in an age in which the value of a human life is growing to mean less and less. As concerns Iohn, this is true. He hears a report over the radio that so many thousand men were killed. Killed? Does that mean that they are dead, Mother? asked Iohn. He thought it very funny that people should be dead and buried in the ground. On the other hand it must be admitted that Iohn has never had a close acquaintance with death. He has not experienced the loss of any member of his family or anyone very close to him. However, his con- stant concern with death and his hardened viewpoint of it, caused un- doubtedly by the war, are bound to influence him later. Coupled with Iohn's view of death is his brutal View of the enemy. He told me that he hated Hitler. This sentiment was probably provoked by his grandmother's remarks about that wicked man, Hitler. Iohn said 'that Hitler ought to be kicked in the pants, to be put into a pot on the