Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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THE HAVEN Parody on “The Raven” Once upon an endless Monday, As I pondered on the Sunday, With its pleasures and its sweetness that had lately gone before. As I sat in dreams abounding Came a din, acute resounding, As of some one softly pounding, pounding on the class-room floor, Only this, and nothing more. “What,” thought I, “сап be this thund'ring That disturbs and leaves me wond'ring? And I fell in deep reflection, thinking of the day before, Sensing not, amid my dreaming, | That the sound so full of meaning | Had developed from a knocking, till the sound a meaning bore, Only this—and nothing more. Then from out the dreamy distance Came a voice with stern insistence, And I strove in mad endeavour to dispel it from. my ears; Till at last, in recognition, I deduced that worn rendition, “Do the seventh proposition! and my eyes filled up with tears Mid the laughter of my peers. How my sleep I did deplore, Only this, and nothing more. Then real consciousness came faster, And I saw it was the Master Who was calling me for Euclid; and in truth I was so stupid. Through the hazy light before me I beheld him charging toward me And I cried ‘‘Dormivi Pater, while my troubled brain grew hotter; Then I moved my weary feet, Towards the entrance (as was meet) | And I saw that he was “sore,” | Only this and nothing more.

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 23 views, because she had, in her more recent novels, shown sane sympathy even with Catholic principles. But two years later she returned to her darling error of Modernism. I drew attention to this deplorable relapse in an article, “Ignorance of the Learned, which appeared in the Canadian Messenger of the Sacred Heart for January, 1911 (misprinted 1910). The article says: —When Mrs. Humphry Ward visited Canada two years ago, some of the Protestant ministers who lionized her excused themselves for kotowing to an infidel by alleging that of late she seemed to be endorsing Christian views. Their optimism will receive a sad shock if they read the “foreword” to her new novel and the first instalment thereof in the December McClure’s. She there gives promise of reviving and intensifying Robert Elsmere. Her strong point with her semi- educated readers outside of the Catholic Church is—as was so cleverly pointed out some six years ago by the author of When It Was Dark—not real knowledge but only the ‘‘atmosphere of knowledge. Atmos- phere is, indeed, what she aims at and skilfully produces. That, however, facts do not correspond to her elaborate statements, which really create that atmosphere out of airy nothings, is amusingly exemplified when, at the beginning of this new novel, she ranks Renan, the refined sensualist, among the saints. But for Catholics there is in the very first chapter of The Case of Richard Meynell a still more startling proof of ignorance without the redeeming feature of a deep-laid plan to make it plausible. Mrs. Humphry Ward, describing the multifarious contents of her hero’s mail, says there were “three or four French letters, shown by the cross preceding the signatures to be the letters of priests. Mark the self-com- placency with which this exceptionally learned woman informs the non-Catholic world that priests always put a cross before their signatures. Many simple-minded Pro- testant admirers of hers would say of this to them hitherto unknown circumstance: What a curious little gem of fact that is, quite characteristic of Mrs. Humphry Ward, who lavishly scatters pearls of valuable knowledge in her stories! And if any one doubted the fact their answer would be: “Surely, she ought to know. Was not her father, Thomas Arnold, joint author of the first Roman Catholic Dictionary that was ever published in English? Did he not die a Roman Catholic? And are not many of Mary A. Ward's friends Roman Catholics? Altogether true. And yet priests never put a cross before their signatures. Only bishops do so, and even they not always in private letters. This mistake is just as bad as if a Catholic, confounding parsons with b ishops of the Church of England, were to say that all Anglican rectors signed, not their family name, but the title of their parish church, for instance, “John Christ, “James Trinity. How easily Mrs. Hum- phry Ward could have avoided the humilia- tion of so sillp a blunder. All that was needed was a saving sense of doubt as to her own infallibility and a consequent dis- creet inquiry of some Catholic friend. It really looks as if she did not care so much for facts as for general impressions created by a manufactured atmosphere. And in this she shows her knowledge of human nature when shorn of the true faith. Vague general impressions, an atmosphere surcharged with doubt, ahundred “‘perhapses”’ leading illogically to a triumphant ‘‘there- fore, and the trick is successful with the innumerable victims of religious error. I sent this article to Mrs. Humphry Ward’s address, and when her serial novel, The Case of Richard Meynell, appeared a few months latter in book form, I noticed that the phrase which I had criticized was changed. Instead of “‘three or four letters, shown by the cross preceding the signatures to be the letters of priests there was “опе letter, shown by the cross preceding the sig- nature to be the letter of a bishop. She had learnt her lesson; but she thought she might risk one bishop, although, as a matter of fact, no Catholic bishop ever adopted Modernism. А handful of unbalanced and left-handedly learned Catholic priests apos- tatized. That was all. Pius X's bull killed Modernism. LEWIS DRUMMOND, S.J.

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 25 Then, with glance of lofty sidler, He remarked I was an idler, And that idlers must be punished, шараш al they sin no more. Down the corridor I pounded While the very walls resounded Till at last, in grief unbounded, I had reached the Prefect’s door, Bowed, disheartened to the core, Only this—yet something more. Then, the pleasant meeting ended, I returned, with palms extended, To the cloak-room’s hallowed precincts, hidden by the shielding door, Bent in deep, avowed contrition, I assumed a pained position. To my chum s’ request “How many? I responded “Merely four,” Only this, and nothing more. —A. McGOVERN, '24 Arras Viewed from various angles HAMBERS’S Concise Gazetteer of the World (1895).—Arras, the capital of the French department of Pas-de-Calais, on the navigable Scarpe, 120 miles N. of Paris, A fortress of the first rank, it has a cathedral (1755-1833) and a beautiful Gothic hótel-de- ville (1510), whose belfry, 246 feet high, was rebuilt in 1835. There are manufacturers subsequently of Artois. It did not finally become French till 1640. Robespierre was anative. Pop. (1891) 25,701. ж жож Carlyle's French Revolution, book V, chap. 3, “Destruction,” January, 1794.— Representative Lebon, at Arras, dashes his of lace, hosiery, beet-sugar, etc.; and its tapestry was formerly so famous that in England the name arras was given to all such hangings. Arras was the capital of the Celtic Atrebates (whence the name), and sword into the blood flowing from the Guillotine; exclaims, “Ноу I like it! Mothers, they say, by his orders, have to stand by while the Guillotine devours their children: a band of music is stationed near,