United College Collegiate - Tric Tics Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Soft rays of Sun shone down through the trees, Bathing the Earth in gold, The Air was filled with the hum of bees, And the thousands of stories they told. Across the lake and through the trees, An alder grove could be seen, It was the home of the crowned king, And the graceful doe, his queen. There in that grove there lies a life, Heedless of the world’s long-lasting strife, He is a baby, a king to be, But he means even more than that to be. He is the gentleness of our world, As by his mother he lies curled, He is our past, our present and future Revealed to us in a living picture. To us he means but one more thing This awkward bundle soon to be king. His life is ours, unsteady, unsure, Ending only in bloodshed or war. He is God’s child like you or me, Tender and faithful, frightened and shy, We must remember as God’s Light beams down, This bundle of life is a jewel in his crown. —Gladys Finlay, 12-2. ODE TO A MATHEMATICIAN Those who do their Maths questions ahead Remove the tread from those who watched TV instead Because Miss Mills who gives us thrills Often shrills and gives us chills But those who get caught. Next time bring what they ought. —Anonymous.

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PACIFIC REFLECTIONS Who would not delight to be Where the mountains meet the sea? Blue clad mountains white with snow Mirrored in the depth below. Gently wafts the salt-sea air Ocean’s whispers to the ear Messages borne on the foam. By waves with many leagues to roam. Golden sunrise lights the scene Where Nature bides secure, serene, Balmy air and glowing skies Diffuse their joy and glad surprise. Sunset blazing o’er the waves, Flashes fire where’er it laves, And on each hill and valley glows With the soft color of the rose. Deep waters twindle at night As Myriad stars reflect their light The crescent moon sheds forth her beam And glides across a path of sheen. Earth and sky, mountain and strand, Reveal the wonders of God’s hand, And with all Nature offer praise To their Creator in glad days. Perardua. CHALLENGE There is a life friend That flows like a fountain; There’ll be great gladness All over the mountain; Accept the new life. There’ll be abundance; Look over there yonder; No need to worry, Not even to ponder, But come to the Mount. There’s a new land where You never grow older Take the one step friend Just be a bit bolder, Inherit the land. —Albert Stamler, 12-2. 38

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1st Prize JANE AUSTEN AND MR. HARDY Whenever, in the course of the school year, I have had occasion to discuss the Prose course with some of my fellow male students, I have, almost invariably received the following state¬ ment, preserved in the vernacular: “Oh yeah. Mike, like that Pride and Prejudice is the dull¬ est. About as interesting and exciting as the Bobbsey Twins. But that Return of the Native . . . you’ll like that. I mean, this Hardy is a bit morbid and all, but there’s lots of action, like people drowning, and lots of poetic descrip¬ tions and oh yeah . . .” (At this point the speaker would usually interrupt himself to give me a little nudge with an elbow or wink with an eye, and then continue) “there’s that Eustacia Vye.” After being subjected to speeches like this a number of times I realized that Hardy’s novel was much more popular with these people be¬ cause it had a certain degree of physical action and also a quality which one can describe as a sort of tousled, wild-eyed romanticism coupled with a depressing, but always poetically-express¬ ed morbidity. These qualities seemed to rest in the minds of my colleagues as some of the most desirable of literary virtues. It never seemed to enter their minds that anyone would disagree with them on this point, but — oh well, I might as well come out and say it — I’ll take Pride and Prejudice any day. Concerning the aspect of comedy someone is always talking about how amusing Hardy’s rus¬ tic bumpkins are, but I prefer Miss Austen’s ability to bring out the inherent absurdity of the action of pompous snobs and fools, with a revealing quote or a wry turn of phrase. In¬ deed, Hardy reveals his basic humourlessness in the fact that he uses for objects of humour only the ignorant heath people, and never any of the more educated characters. As a result, although some of Eustacia’s wild romantic activities reach such a point of melodrama that one almost expects her to bound up to Wildeve with a rose clenched firmly between her teeth and propel him into a wild tango right there on the heath, Hardy sets them down instead with an almost reverent grimness. When Hardy treats his main characters as above humour, and for comic re¬ lief marches on his heath characters with their a: ignorance that he equates with humour, he shows f: a narrow sense of humour, and possibly a lack P of sensitivity. d Both Miss Austen’s and Hardy’s main char- acters are motivated by romantic impulses but Miss Austen, possibly because she’s a woman, has her characters behave much more sensibly, 1 indeed, more realistically than Hardy’s. And | when Lydia and Wickham hurry off into the woods of immorality Miss Austen does not in¬ culcate philosophical overtones, such as Fate, 1 the malignant First Cause, etc., as Hardy does, but makes it quite clear that it happened be¬ cause Lydia was an empty-headed and eager young thing, and Wickham was a callous lout, j A similar incident in Hardy’s novel is put forth as a result of the action of some malignant Fate against a woman whom Hardy says is a sort of a Goddess, a woman who should have been i destined for better things, who deserved a Great 1 Love, a woman capable of greatness. Yet one finds it difficult to discern how Hardy reached this conclusion. She has none of the noble im¬ pulses that, put into action, produce exceptional people. Indeed, the shallowness of her mind is shown when, after Yeobright has harmed his sight in a desperate effort to please her, she weeps despairing tears. But not in compassion for Yeobright, but rather because this misfor¬ tune ruins her idealistic dream of going to Paris. The only exceptional qualities Eustacia Vye seems to possess are an almost hypnotic physical appearance and a complete inability to adjust to her circumstances. Maybe Hardy thinks this rates a place for Eustacia in the Pantheon but I somehow admire Jane Austen’s good sense much more. She reduces Wickham and Lydia, who are different from Wildeve and Eustacia not in kind, but only in intensity, to their pro¬ per dimensions as a pair of rather silly, pathetic people. In these areas of comedy and romance, which are, after all, two very important parts of novel-writing, Jane Austen’s eye ranges more steady and true than Thomas Hardy’s. —M. Kostelnuk, 12-3 40 S’S £