St Johnsbury Academy - Lamp Yearbook (St Johnsbury, VT)

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8 THE ACADEMY STUDENT order, had prepared the meals for the family, and had mended their clothes; until one day, irritated by a girl apprentice, she was seized with a violent fit of insanity. After seriously wounding her father, she stabbed her mother to death. Thus Lamb found himself burdened by a shattered father and a crazed sister. In order that Mary might be kept from institutions, he made himself personally responsible for her conduct, giving up marriage with a girl whom he deeply loved. The remainder of his life was devoted to his sister. Yet no man could be more friendly, more fond of practical jokes, or more delightful in wit and humor. Children the world over still read his Tales of Shakespeare, and Shakespearean scholars still value his criticisms and interpretations. He wrote essays that are loved by readers everywhere. This man struggled through his misfortunes and succeeded in “writing in the dark.” During the first years of writing Sir Walter Scott, the author of Ivan-hoe and The Lady of the Lake, was happy and successful. He received large amounts of money for his works and was able to live the life of a medieval lord. In rapid succession wealth, fame, and honors were heaped upon him, until at last he was made a baronet. From these heights he suddenly fell into misfortune. Due to poor management on the part of his colleagues his publishing house failed, leaving a huge debt. Scott, determined to repay his creditors although not personally liable, set to work writing continually. After two years he had paid back one-third of the loss; but the cost was the ruin of his health. In spite of the warning of friends he kept on ; rheumatism set in ; later he was stricken by paralysis; then his wife died; but still he struggled on. In the end the debt was paid, but not until after his life was given up in the effort. Today Sir Walter Scott is remembered not only as a writer of historical novels, poems, and essays, but also as one of the greatest heroes of all time. No braver story is recorded in the history of literature than that of Robert Louis Stevenson. His life was one of continual struggle against constant pain and physical weakness. As a child he could never enter into strenuous exercise; as a youth he could not continue his study of engineering and law. Had it not been for the tender care of his nurse, Alison Cunningham, he probably would not have lived to write at all. For years Stevenson wandered from place to place seeking a climate suitable to his condition. Finally he settled on one of the Samoan Islands, where he spent his last years among the natives. Such a spirit as Stevenson’s is to be greatly envied. It was his ambition to be joyful in spite of his burdens and most of all to make others happy. Mr. Henry Clay Ide of St. Johnsbury found Stevenson “a man of brilliant conversational powers, full of reminiscences, anecdotes and repartee — ever ready to excite or to be excited over the immediate events that were occuring about us day by day.” Like the ancient heroes Aeneas and Ulysses, he was struck by adverse fates. He was an exile and a wanderer; yet like them he joyed in the struggle. He was considered a kind of saviour by the natives of Samoa. He taught them the arts of living; he told them stories; he showed

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THE ACADEMY STUDENT hinges. Far from being slaves of machines, we are through them masters of those giants of the lower world, called now by the unromantic names of Coal and Oil. There are practically no barriers to individual thinking; anyone can freely express his ideas on practically any subject under the sun. Modern medicine has freed us from many of the scourges that used to take such toll of life. The means for the spread of knowledge, for its preservation and transmission, the facilities for universal education and inspiration, the time for leisure, and the opportunity for unrestricted thought, all these have been vastly extended by modern science, and are capable of being extended much further. Bit by bit we are learning the truth, and the truth shall make us free. —Margaret Beattie SALUTATORY ESSAY Writing in the Dark i “Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. “It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishment the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.” These courageous verses were written by one who was ending an ordeal of twenty months in a hospital and who had lost a foot from a kind of tuberculosis. The man was William Ernest Henley. Like many others of our greatest literary men he was forced to “write in the dark;” his great loss covered him with a cloud “black as the Pit from pole to pole.” Others, too, have overcome this great barrier of darkness, others who have suffered not only from physical handicaps, but also from great sorrow; who have lost those dear to them; who have known few friends and little enjoyment; who have faced heartbreaking deprivations. As long as the English language is spoken, the essays of Charles Lamb will be read and his lovable character remembered. A lonely child, he was placed in a charity school until he was fifteen; then desirous of entering college, he was barred because of an impediment in his speech. Instead he entered an accountant’s office, and there spent thirty-three monotonous years of drudgery bending over a dingy desk. Thomas Carlyle said of him, “A more pitiful, ricketty, gasping, staggering Tom Fool I don’t know.” At twenty-two there had come a blow which changed his entire life. The Lambs were desperately poor. It was Charles’s sister, Mary, who had helped to keep the home together. Working day in and day out she had kept the house in

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THE ACADEMY STUDENT 9 them by bis example how to make the most of life. The Samoans called him “Tusitala”, “The teller of tales’’. When he died, they sadly carried his body to Mt. Vaea cutting a road through the thick jungle as they went. They named this “The Road of the Loving Heart.’’ At the end of this path he lies today, and as an epitaph is one of his brave verses: “Under the wide and starry sky. Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live, and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: ‘Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from the sea. And the hunter home from the hill’ ”. Stevenson’s philosophy of life is wholly summed up in this quotation from one of his essays, Aes Triplex: “Whether we regard life as a lane leading to a dead wall — a mere bag’s end, as the French say — or whether we think of it as a vestibule or gymnasium, where we wait our turn and prepare our faculties for some more noble destiny; whether we thunder in a pulpit, or pule in little atheistic poetry-books about its vanity and brevity; whether we look justly for years of health and vigour, or are about to mount into a bathchair as a step towards the hearse; in each and all of these views and situations there is but one conclusion possible: that a man should stop his ears against paralyzing terror, and run the race that is set before him with a single mind.” Such examples as these of success in the face of handicaps, of joy m spite of inward sorrow enlighten our outlook into the future. hether our gift is for writing immortal verse or whether our talents are for the humblest service, we can live useful lives; can be a source of joy to others and can be worthy of pride in ourselves. We can even “write in the dark. John S. Noyes May 19, 1937 CLASS SONG St. f. A., we leave behind us Four short years with you. Memories will fondly linger Now that they are through; Praises to our Alma Mater Let us ever bring, To the school that we have loved We all shall sing. Who can tell what lies before us? Time alone will show Whether on to fame or fortune We, now Seniors, go; But where e’er our paths may lead us Let us ever pay Tribute to our happy days At St. J. A. Tune: On, Wisconsin Words—Elizabeth Richmond