Shawnigan Lake School - Yearbook (Shawnigan Lake, British Columbia Canada)

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Shawnigan Lake School Magazine was now very fat, and his small beard had become a large one that covered his chin. His hair was slightly grey. His antique shop appeared to be a very ordinary one. He had on show the usual selection of tables and chairs in one showroom. In another, he had a good selection of old paintings, while the floor of the room was covered with tables holding a multitude of coloured vases and bowls. But it was in his third showroom that I was suddenly reminded of my purpose. There I saw what had been lacking so far in his shop. This last showroom was filled with swords, scimitars, rapiers and daggers of all sizes and descriptions. But I saw that each weapon was tended with the utmost care. I saw that this was the part of his shop that he really loved. The other two rooms were sideshows to his magnificent collection of arms. Suddenly I noted at the head of the room, in what might be called the place of honour, two crossed rapiers; but unlike the others they had no cards on them. When I questioned him, he told me that they were his own per- sonal weapons, and I suddenly realized that it must have been one of these that had killed my father. I asked permission to take one down, and as I stood there waving it slowly through the air, I thought that it would be poetic justice if I did not use the revolver in my pocket. Instead, I suddenly lunged ; and my nerve failed just as the rapier pierced his heart. As I looked at him, lying dead in his holy of holies, a feeling of horror possessed me, and I rushed frantically out of the shop. — W. McE. PAST OR FUTURE? We have read of destruction in Britain, of onslaughts in the desert and of strife in Greece, but of the fundamental causes of the turmoil we know but little. Yet those causes are simple. They all resolve themselves into the oft-fought battle of autocracy against democracy. At the end of the conflagration of 1914-18, Ave had hoped that democracy had fought through to a costly but lasting victory. Today, we know that thought was a mistake, but there remain many who believe that, at least, this victory has raised us yet another step in a stiff but con- tinuous climb on to the City of God. Can we doubt that the supremacy of man among animals comes from his use of reason? Or that this use can exist to a proper degree only in a state of freedom ? Yet, many have been the battles fought to preserve this freedom from destruction. The first of them [ 28 ]

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Shawnigan Lake School Magazine We skirted a large bergschrund (a crack in the ice which some- times has an overhanging upper lip) and then began the real work, for the snow was wet, and due to the heat of the day the steps did not hold at all. Gradually the slope steepened until the average incline was about 50 degrees. Fortunately, there Avere several out- crops of rock on the face which afforded easier climbing and gave Capt. Gibson a rest from kicking steps. We climbed steadily. Sud- denly we were met by a chilly blast of wind that told us the summit was near. Sure enough, in a few minutes the peak was ours! We formed a group and each member, pulling out his camera, took pictures of the rest. The view from the top was wonderful. The Selkirk range to the west could be clearly seen, as could the peaks far to the north. Unfortunately, the view to the east was blocked by high neighbour- ing peaks. The summit had much suoav on it, and as we could find no cairn in which to leave the record of our climb, Ave sat down in a small hollow to eat our lunch. Due to the dangerous condition of the face, Capt. Gibson de- cided that Ave should descend by the southwest ridge, which proved to be far more interesting. The ridge Avas quite narroAv and, as it Avas covered Avith considerable snow, the descent Avas made much more difficult. However, by using all the holds that we could find on rock, Ave reached the bottom of the Tidge in three hours. Here Ave unroped and began our Aveary trudge home over the soft snoAV, in which Ave often sank up to our knees. HoAvever, some three and a half hours later in the evening, a weary but happy group of mountaineers reached camp. We had tramped across the snoAV for sixteen miles and had climbed some 4,000 feet. —J. W. THE ANTIQUE SHOP It was on a dark Avinter night that I approached the shop of Henri Fountbleau. I Avas going to his shop with the intention of murdering him, because he had killed my father in a Bavarian Avood while they were fighting a duel. Fountbleau Avas then regarded as the finest fencer in the Avorld ; and I wished to revenge my father, avIio had been forced to fight a man who had given the impression that he had never fenced before. I entered the shop just before closing time, and pretended to be interested in antiques. Fountbleau shoAved me round himself, and I Avas able to study him more closely. He had changed much from the time Avhen he had been famous. I had often studied him from old neAvspaper pictures, and expected to see a medium-sized man, slightly built, and with a little black pointed beard. HoAvever, he [ 27 ]

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Shawnigan Lake School Magazine was Marathon, where a few Greeks stopped the hordes of a vast, slave-polluted Persian Empire. That battle was fought in the dawn of our European civilization and, fortunately, it was the Greeks who Avon. To Britons, who may consider themselves the descendants of freedom-loving Greeks, fell the honour of winning three later victories that kept Europe on the path beaten out for it by all the generations that had marched since Marathon. The victories against the autocracies of Philip II, Napoleon I and Wilhelm II ensured the safety of the English Common Law, England ' s first contribution to freedom, from the whim of a despot. That law had been hammered out according to their needs by the practice and usage of the entire English people, and these three victories, strengthened by the Glorious Revolution and by the Declaration of Independence, ensured that its alteration would follow the wish of all the people rather than that of a single man. Now Britain has entered into a new struggle against a newly barbarized Europe, a Europe won by enemies of reason and progress whose masters look forward no longer. She stands alone but for the strong right arm of her oldest child across the seas. They two alone look onwards t o a new, vital and enduring Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World. The freshly victorious Teutonic hordes sweep over the achieve- ments of slow, hard-fought progress like young children left without guidance. Guidance has, indeed, left them in despair: in the per- sons of Heinrich Bruening, Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann and a host of lesser leading men, it lives in the only two remaining towers of adult sanity. England and America had, since the last outburst of childish irresponsibility, filled almost ceaselessly with the exiles of a tor- tured world, but that flow has now widened into a torrent. From the homes of free men, the exiles join their hopes to those of their hosts that light may come again. The leaderless barbarians do but folloAV in the footsteps of long- dead sires, and it is not accident but rightful logic that has led them again to revive their tribal gods. Christ ' s way is the way of progress, and from progress they have averted their faces. It is we who believe that our path must lie where the world has marched for the thousand years since primitive invaders howled through the streets of a degenerate Rome. The modern Teutons have found a people far more advanced and far less apathetic than the rabble of Rome, one whose virtue bread and shows have not yet sapped. They have seen and they shall yet feel that Christianity and reason have built a different world, a world more honest, more brave and more free than hereto- fore. [ 29 ]