St Matthews High School - Samascript Yearbook (Conshohocken, PA)

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Candlelight OF ALL light, candlelight is the most charming to me. The lambent flame sways back and forth forming flickering shadows in the enshrouding darkness. Peace, tranquillity, and contentment are woven into the shimmering web that surrounds it. Dreams hover on the edge of the mellow glow and carry us back along the paths of memory to the dust-covered doors of yesterday and forward to the silver portals of tomorrow. The soft radiance of the candle adds beauty and romance to pictures of fact and fancy. Candlelight has been the setting for unforgettable scenes in literature. Portia, in “The Merchant of Venice” sees the welcoming light burning in her hall. “How far that little candle throws its beams; “So shines a good deed in a naughty world. she exclaims. Always I visualize the stray beams glistening on her golden hair and lighting up her lovely face. How different is the scene in “Macbeth.” The castle is ghostly as a tomb, when, in the dead of night, Lady Macbeth walks in her sleep, carrying a lighted candle that she kept ever at her bedside. The flickering flame playing upon her pale countenance betrays the agony of remorse that torments her seared soul. The romance and mystery in the Master of Ballantrae are enhanced by the weird candlelighted duel fought by the brothers James and Henry Durrisdeer. In the eerie light they faced each other on the snow-covered ground. All the earth was black save where “the flames went up as steady as in a chamber in the midst of the frosted trees.” In that strange encounter the Master” fell wounded and Henry and Mackellar return to the house “leaving the candles on the frosty ground and the body lying in their light under the trees.” In life, no less than in fiction, candlelight lends mystery and beauty to many a scene. In the silence of the sanctuary, the lovely waxen tapers, emblems of sacrificial love, consume themselves amid the frag- THE MIRROR ranee of fragile flowers and wafted incense. How often in the faint flow of a candle is vigil kept by a sick-bed! How often the candle lights the way for souls to the great beyond! Around the still forms of the departed, these silent sentinels stand, and their amber rays fall lovingly and tenderly in parting benediction on the quiet features of the dead. Candles somehow soften grief for— “What seem to us but sad funeral tapers. May be heaven's distant lamps.” Mystery and romance blend with portraits of life and literature as the curling tongues of flame dance in the bordering darkness. I love to spend my leisure moments recapturing the charm and witchery of childhood's happy hours, recalling tender memories of yesterday, and dreaming of golden days of tomorrow, in the magic glow of candlelight. Margaret Anne Kehoe '42 Nine

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nursing to get some college work. The student who has college work will be called first. In the future I think nursing will require a college degree.” When Miss O’Halloran leaves her office in the State Capitol Building at Harrisburg she returns to the charming home in Overbrook which she shares with her dead brother's three children to whom she has been father and mother for years. Her gracious manner and sense of humor have contributed in no small way to her success in this role. Her house is a real home with an air of informality and hospitality about it, and is alive with the laughter and activities of the young. She is a splendid housekeeper and bakes very good cakes. Though she loves gardening, her hobby is art needlework. The state nurses’ becoming blue silk uniform which she designed is a tribute to her good taste and interest in all details relating to her work. On the mantel piece, in her comfortable living room, is a picture or herself in her robes of doctor of law. She has the distinction of being the only woman on whom La Salle College has conferred this degree. Alice O'Halloran is a woman without “the small jealousies of command”; one who would never ask of a subordinate what she herself would not do. She has the discovering eye, the ready hand, the inspirational force of the born leader. Her life has been “rich with human significance.” To broken, diseased bodies she has seen health restored through her untiring efforts. For herself she asks nothing but the opportunity for service. Her accurate mind, strong will, and generous heart make her the sort of person to whom the suffering and the poor can turn in their hour of need. Her gift for organization and administration, her unselfish devotion to duty, and her comprehensive humanitarian interests place her in the foremost rank of the great army of her profession. Margaret Mary Kelly '42 Margaret Anne Kehoe '42 1 he Perfect Crime THE farm house kitchen was in darkness, when Bob Morris entered. He hesitated a moment to get his bearings. The old stove was in the corner to his right; the table, in the center of the room, directly before him. The other objects were hidden in the shadows, but he tried to remember the position of each of them as he had last seen it. As he stood behind the door he recalled his father’s warning about bad beginnings, but tonight Bob was desperate. He had spent hours plotting, until he was sure that his plans were perfect. Mother would be sewing in the living room. Dad would go upstairs in search of the evening paper which Bob had purposely left in his father's room earlier in the evening. The boy waited in silence; minutes seemed like hours. He began to feel nervous, but it was too late to retreat now. He prayed that nothing would go wrong. One slip and all his scheming would be useless. The clock was ticking the seconds away with an unusually loud and rhythmic count as if trying to warn Mr. and Mrs. Morris of what their son was about to do. Suddenly footsteps came in Bob’s direction. Was Dad coming to the kitchen? The lad hardly breathed. His knees, knocking together, kept time with the clock on the wall. The footsteps turned towards the stairs. Yes, Dad was going for his paper. It was time for Bob to put his strategy to the test. Slowly he crossed the room until he reached the stove; carefully he ran his hand along the shelf. Without warning a box of matches tumbled to the floor. The young thief froze with fright. Then his mother called quietly, “Bob, the cookies are in the cabinet, not on the stove.” But Bob had lost his appetite. John E. Crawford, '43 THE MIRROR Eight

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Candlelight “Ah, Candlelight! The illumination of the gods; the lovely flickering flame that breathes romance and poetry. How inspiring is the brave little candle that fights the powerful darkness and sacrifices its own life to give light to the world.” How often I have read all this quixotic rhapsodizing and “how tired I am of it all.” Candlelight is the most exasperating kind of illumination in the world. It brightens a small arc in its immediate vicinity and leaves the remainder of the room in semi-gloom. Weird silhouettes reel and quiver on the walls and ceiling as the delicate flame flickers; and strange monstrosities play hide and seek on the floor in the shadows. The lustrous light of the candle in the window, celebrated as a beacon for many a weary traveller, is the cause of countless fires, too, for when some playful little breeze blows the fragile curtains over the delicate flame, reality comes to the fore and romance goes up in a quick blaze. Pictures of old English domiciles with beautiful candelabra a yard long set on polished mahogany tables are very artistic and alluring, but, when Sis tries the same setting in our humble abode, the result is quite trying on the nerves. I like the table well lighted so that I can tell the difference between a carrot and a frankfurter before I bite into the article. It is most disconcerting to have to peer for long moments trying to locate the bones of a Spanish mackerel and attempting to extricate said bones from the fish in a nonchalant manner. There is something furtive and unreliable about candles. Go near them and the tiny flame leaps up and burns your chin, or the grease trickles over the edge and leaves a tallow trail on your best skirt. If you try to read, the light dances tanta-lizingly, and you practically ruin your eyesight trying to discern the print. I suppose I am just an unromantic soul. I like iight and plenty of it. Candles and candlesticks are ornamental; they have their good points, but they have no place in the stern realities of life. My private opinion publicly expressed is that the candle is a menace, a fire hazard, and a general promoter of evil. Away with the brave little candle, its charm and romance. Give me the bold electric light, which at the touch of a finger, routs the gloom from every nook and corner. Helen Fineran '42 The Silent Watch THE blue-black sky formed an even background for a million twinkling stars. Their beauty was enhanced by the fullness of the nocturnal silence. Almost all the people of the valley were sleeping peacefully under heaven's glistening canopy. Here and there, however, a lighted window sent forth its feeble glow in a vain attempt to rival the floodlight brilliance of a full moon, while trees and shrubs stood out in somber relief against the black of the neighboring hills. Amid' this loveliness the village dreamed away. Suddenly, the slumbering populace began to stir a little. The stars flickered uneasily as though they wished to voice the feeling of the disturbed villagers, and the moon became tense. The stillness was broken by the roaring of airplane motors that pierced the clear atmosphere. The speed at which they were traveling forced them to fade out of the picture almost as quickly as they entered it, for they were needed elsewhere to aid our fighting forces, hence they could not tarry. With silence again the master, the town regained its composure. The stars resumed their quiet vigil, and the moon smiled again. The townsfolk, however, were now a little uneasy. Slumber was no longer so deep as before because the people realized that this was not the time to sleep too soundly. Danger and uncertainty lay ahead, and they must be ready to meet it. Louis A. Moore, ’42 THE MIRROR Ten