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

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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

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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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Killed in Action THIS is a story of the First World War as told to me by my Uncle Ezekiel who was a sergeant in the 60th Infantry. I shall tell the story as nearly as possible in Uncle Zeke’s own words. We landed in France in the morning, and that night in the Vosges Sector, the Boche pulled a surprise raid on us, but we weren’t nearly so surprised as the few prisoners we took were to discover the YANKS had arrived. I don’t believe I'll ever forget that first taste of warfare. “It was in the St. Mihiel drive that I first noticed that Private Swick wasn’t do-ing any fighting. I saw him giving first aid and carrying the wounded behind the lines and, while that wasn't his job, I knew we were short of men for first aid, so I let him alone. After six days of fight' ing and digging in new positions we were finally relieved, and when the roll was called, Swick was among the missing. I went around making inquiries, but no one knew anything about him. A couple of days later he came into camp while I was out drilling and was placed in the guard house. When I heard that he was back, I went to see him. “ ‘Where have you been?’ I barked. “ ‘Sarge,’ he said, 'I was bringing in the wounded and the ‘‘Doc’’ told me to stay around and assist at the first aid station. When they moved on, I hiked back to look for the company. And that’s the truth, Sarge’. “I believed him, so I went to Captain Allsworth, told him Swick’s story, and asked for his release. “The captain said, ‘Since he can't prove his story, I must hold him, but I’ll let him out in a few days.’ That night we received orders to leave for the front. We were loaded into trucks, and taken to the Argonne Forest to re' lieve the 3rd division, and Swick came with us. We moved on pretty quickly until we reached Cunel, a small village with a graveyard on the left and heavy woods and brush on the right. Many at' tempts had been made to take that town THE MIRROR and hill. Lieutenant Woodfill, named by General Pershing as the greatest hero of the war, lost nearly his whole company trying to take Cunel. Well, for four days we ‘holed in,’ being under heavy artillery fire all the time. At night, patrols were sent out to contact other troops around us. Swick was always willing to do anything; he seemed to have no fear, so I sent him out on patrols knowing he could be relied on to carry out orders. On October 14 we were ordered to take the town. We were to get an artillery barrage at 7:45 a.m. to cover our attack at 8:15. Something went wrong there, so our Lieutenant ordered us to attack with-out the barrage. The German artillery opened on us as soon as we started, and our men were mowed down all around us. The 7th Engineers were to take the grave-yard while we went on to the town, and it was here I noticed that Swick, while charging all right, didn’t use his rifle, though he had many chances to do so, as a German machine-gun nest was causing us a lot of trouble. As soon as we took the nest, I went to Swick, mad as ’blazes’. “ ‘Je-ru-sa-lem.’ I yelled, ’What do you think the army gave you that gun for? An ornament? Why didn’t you use it on those Jerries?’ ’Sarge’, he answered, ‘I can’t use this gun—I can’t kill a man’. I looked at him in amazement. “ ’By cripes,’ I said, ’you’ll use it before this day’s over or you'll be a dead man.’ “ 'I can’t kill a man, even to save myself. I just can't, Sarge,’ said the poor fellow almost crying. ‘It’s against my religion.' “Of course, I knew he was a religious ’guy’; he always carried his Bible in his pocket and read it every chance he got. But I had a good religion myself, and I had killed plenty, I guess. ‘If that's the way you feel it’s “okay’’ with me, buddie,’ I said, 'but if some of these other “guys” see you wasting that gun, it’s going to be just too bad.’ Eleven