United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

Text from Pages 1 - 54 of the 1943 volume:

EATON ' S Wide Choice For Spring In THREE-PIECE SUITS READY-TO-WEAR OR MADE-TO-MEASURE Styleful suits whose cloths were woven on English looms. Others made from rich Canadian fabrics. In both groups, tailor¬ ing that meets EATON’S exacting speci¬ fications. Sizes 35 to 44. Three-Piece Suit (Coat, Vest and Trousers). $ 28- 50 Men’s Clothing T. EATON Main Floor A Complete Textbook Service ... All books used in the University or Affiliated Colleges are regu¬ larly kept in stock at the Book Department. Orders for special books are given speedy attention. The Book Department is not a private enterprise; it is owned and operated directly by the University. Prices are always the lowest it is possible to make them. University of Manitoba BOOK DEPARTMENT Broadway Bldg., Osborne St. Arts Bldg., Fort Garry V : PUBLICATION OF UNITED COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATES WINNIPEG, MANITOBA APRIL, 1943 Vol. XVI—No. 2 Subscription and advertising rates on application. STAFF . . . Honorary Editor: DR. A. R. M. LOWER Editor-in-Chiej and Business Manager: JOHN H. HOWES Associate Editors: MARGARET ANNE BAR AGAR, ROBERT McLEAN Managing Editor and Associate Business Manager: VICTOR C. GRUNEAU Contributing Editors: HARVEY DRYDEN, IRVIN PETSNICK Circulation Manager: DAVID ROSS Illustrator: ANN PHELPS Alumni Editor: DEAN A. D. LONGMAN Class Representatives: First Year—BOB GRIEVE Second Year—FREDA GUSSIN, RON RIDDELL Third Year—VERNON McKELVIE Fourth Year—JEAN MURRAY Collegiate—DAVID MILNER, MARY McFARLANE, GLEN FRASER, BARRY KINSMAN Theology: HOWARD GIBSON CONTENTS . . . WITH THE EDITOR STORT STORY: FAIRY STORY .MORTEN PARKER. ARTICLES: FAREWELL ADDRESS .DR. D. C. MASTERS . ASIA, CONTINENT WITH A PAST . . . AND FUTURE ... PETER GORDON WHITE . VALEDICTORY . . . 1943 .JOHN H. HOWES . A TRIBUTE .A. E. WALLACE MAURER THE UNITED-MACALESTER CONFERENCE: A COMMENTARY .PETER GORDON WHITE ... SPECIAL SECTION ON AMERICAN WRITERS: ,... ELIOT AND FROST AS THINKERS ..ROBERT McLEAN . THOMAS WOLFE—A SONNET SEQUENCE .HAROLD KARR . (With introduction by the Author) LEWIS AND JAMES—A CRITICAL SURVEY KAY ROWLETTE ..._. THE TECHNIQUE OF FROST AND ELIOT .IRENE HODGSON . POETRY: A DIRGE .DAVID McKEE. DEPARTMENTS: REVIEWS . CURRENT AFFAIRS ALUMNI NOTES .. UNITED-MACALESTER LAYOUT COVER . IRVIN PETSNICK. HARVEY DRYDEN . DEAN A. D. LONGMAN DAVID ROSS. ANN PHELPS. Page 3 4 7 8 12 33 41 17 18 21 26 29 11 16 46 48 SWSI % CAP ORAL If, by your sergeant, your wife or your dearie, You’re sent to the doghouse to grieve for your sin, Don’t prove you belong there by growling and whining! ... And THAT ' S where a Sweet Cap fits in! 2 Editorial Notes: E WERE going to write a stirring editorial for this issue, as stirring, that is, as we could make it, but that was some time ago. We were going to write perhaps of the nebulous second front; now we do not believe in the feasibility of such a plan and would instead subscribe to a wholesale transporting of Cana¬ dian, British and American troops to the Rus¬ sian western front. It was in our mind to raise our voice boldly against a certain American Senator (Smith, we think his name is) who twenty-five years ago added his cracked trumpet to the cacaphony emitted by the anti- Wilson cabal, and who recently, being ap¬ proached on the question of an allied council said brilliantly, ‘it’s all that international busi¬ ness again.’ Now we resign ourself to periodic pronouncements of that sort. In fact we have resigned ourself to many things. Humans be¬ ing so imperfect, we have begun to revel in their imperfections. We thought of placing our pen to paper and adding our faint protest or commendation for the dynamic warping of the public conscience. Warping, that is, to particular views. But we have decided against it. Perhaps “Vox” itself should speak. It might be called an entity, a subtle, living thing pos¬ sessing a tone and mood of its own. It might, perhaps, as a journal with a tradition—a jour¬ nal, moreover, breathing a liberal atmosphere not found elsewhere in Canada,—it might very well become an inviolable instrument for the expression of the liberal spirit. Editors might become reverent guardians who colored but never changed either the instrument or the spirit. The magazine might become greater than the editor; it might rule him by the aura of its own tradition. Someday perhaps. Today “Vox” lives through its editors who alter and shape its policy year by year. It is not an altogether undesirable state of affairs. Thus, the voice of “Vox” has actually become the editor’s voice. Elsewhere in this issue we are heard sufficiently to make any additional advocacy inexcusable. We thus set aside our stirring editorial and instead propose a ramb¬ ling chat. H ARVEY DRYDEN, our current affairs mentor, informs us that “Vox” made its debut in the House of Commons a short time ago. Rev. Stanley Knowles, M.P. for Winnipeg North Centre and a graduate of the college, apparently came across a copy of our December issue and finding a certain article to his intere st therein, displayed it to his confreres in the House. We can picture it feverishly passed from hand to hand while the destiny of a nation hangs in the balance. We can picture it, but we’ll never convince ourself. F OR the first time in three years “Vox” ap¬ pears without the prolific handiwork of Steve Otto. Steve’s uncanny skill in any med¬ ium, more especially with the linocut, made him one of the indispensables of the “Vox” staff. Well, not quite indispensable. A glance through our pages this issue will demonstrate how capably Ann Phelps has taken over his work. We welcome Ann to the staff. And we hope that the mellow Gordon Head sunshine has not affected Steve’s vigorous prairie art. W E THINK that the pictures of the famed United-Macalester Conference of 1942 and Mr. White’s commentary will prove interest¬ ing to our American friends. (We say ‘Mr. White’ because he was our Senior Stick. Re¬ spect.) The Conference could hardly have proven more of a success, achieving as it did its purpose of creating the basis for wider view¬ points and more solidly founded understand¬ ing between the American and Canadian groups. Credit is due members of the Faculties of both colleges as well as student organizers for their fruitful efforts this year. Of the worth of the Conference there can be no doubt. One of the men attending it has already become premier of this province. Of course, we don’t expect that to happen very often. Manitoba premiers are too permanent. 4 ND with the thought that what this country needs is more people telling us what this country needs we bow out. 3 J T WAS December and a cold night—the kind of night for a fireplace, low, mellowed lights, a few friends and the easy luxury of deep, leathered chairs. I knew it would be a night of reminiscence and good talk and had prepared for it by placing an extra supply of logs near the fireplace and mixing the drinks to a smooth finish. Fairy MORTEM), That was the setting then, five of us in all— old comrades of our crackling and spirited college days—gathered in a comfortable, in¬ timate arc around the fire. The men, hands in pockets and slouching deep in their chairs, were stretched out long across the carpet. The women, fingering cigarettes, were curled up cozily in their places. It had been a long time since the five of us had been together. We had finished with initial pleasantries. Each of us, in the retelling, had condensed a year of living into five or six minutes of con¬ versational time. We had mentioned current topics, deplored the outcome of the recent civic elections, touched upon the casual events of our day-to-day life. Easy, gentle conversation, preliminary to the deeper pleasures of talk about younger days. Inevitably we eased into the theme. Tales about professors and students and the char¬ acters we knew; little, insignificant details, which made one wonder at memory, came out. Warm anecdotes about college drama nights, about dances, about all night crammings for English exams. Melancholy rememberings of the idealism of our youth. It was a close, a real and a personal world we were in that night, soft and cherished, like all gone and half for¬ gotten things. We talked, it seemed, without care or notice of time, for hours. It was while we were recalling and musing about those great, abandoned principles with which each of us had at one time been fired, that we really became aware for the first time that night, of one another; and each of us sud¬ denly became aware of himself. David Hal- land: Visions of furious brown hair, and hand thumping out the rights of the common man to a just share in the world’s goods. The giant voice of Everyman. The great liberator return¬ ed to save the world from a different type of slavery. There he sat, cool, deliberate, im¬ maculate leg over immaculate leg, crossed in luxury. Vice-president of Apex Steel. “Heart Illustrated of Steel” on the banners of the striking workers. There was his wife Lois, cohort of his youth¬ ful battles. Mother of three boys. Undisputed head of the better Winnipeg women. My wife, Janet, and I, both glowing vision¬ aries of a brave, new world—what had hap¬ pened to us? We had settled into comfort with the years. We were listed with the well-to-do. Socially prominent, good citizens, and the edi¬ torial pages of the local dailies would speak well of us at our death. Nothing more. And there was Robert Victor. At college he had found his life in the delicate pages of familiar and obscure poetry. He was the one among us who used to say that he not only saw humanity but felt it. He had made his com¬ promise with life, perhaps not as fully and as successfully as the others, but the compromise had nevertheless been made. He was the man¬ ager of the Winnipeg branch of Manner Ad¬ vertising Agency. But he was the only one of us who had never given up his resentment, had never quite accepted, was never quite resigned to his place in the scheme of things. He had a look about him which comes from a long, inner smoldering—a look of defiance not yet con¬ quered. We always used to say, back in those days, that Robert had the saddest eyes in the whole world. David was the first to articulate the apology that we all felt had somehow become necessary. “It’s all very well to talk about ‘idealism’ and ‘values,’ ” he punctuated the words with a slight scorn, “but the hard and real fact of it is that this happens to be a pretty practical world.” His voice rose a little and lingered on this last phrase, as though he were speaking in meditation. “And while we may want to go around dreaming and living on clouds, we soon enough find out that if we want to get any¬ where, we have to start doing. It’s unfortunate, K 5 ENbARKER b ' Ann Phelps I admit, that in order to do and to act we have to forget our dreams. But none of us, and you’ll have to gree with this, would have accom¬ plished anything if he hadn’t come down to the world as it is, to the way of life as it exists. It seems that about all a man can do is to hold his own, let alone try to drag humanity along on his shoulders.” li “That’s very true, Dave, and very sad,” Robert returned. We always liked listening to Robert Victor talk. He had a way of putting things. “But I think the great pity of it all is that in order to get any place in this world we have to sacrifice, almost wholly, all the fine and worthy principles of which this world seems to he so very much in need. It’s a con¬ tradiction. But that contradiction comes only when we think of success and accomplishment in terms of ourselves alone. If we were to think and act in the interests of all people, we would never lose those principles—in fact, they would become necessary touchstones, the only motivating forces of our lives. And we lose our sense of appreciation. Appreciation of little things, of just the delicate way that Lois is holding her cigarette just now. We forget, in our mad rush through space and time, to even stop to enjoy ordinary, simple bits of loveliness. Just look at her—now don’t move your hand, Lois,—look at that cigarette and how beauti¬ fully she’s holding it. And watch that thin smoke gracing its way upward. Lovely! How many of us ever stop to notice such things. Very few. We haven’t the time, I guess. We lose our appreciation for that sort of thing be¬ cause we stop cultivating it. I don’t know the Bible very well, but isn’t there something, somewhere about being born again? That’s the way it is when we enter this world of practi¬ cal. We are born again, only this time it’s a far sorrier birth.” Janet interrupted. “Look, Bob, in spite of everything high and fine and all the good ends towards which we might want to strive, in¬ tellectually, I mean, it seems that we soon be¬ come checked by a little incident in that very humanism you’re speaking of. We become checked by human nature. People want to get ahead personally. They want to express them¬ selves. They’s afraid that unless they have some solid references of accomplishment such as a bank account, a good home, a substantial way of living, their lives will have been wasted. It’s man’s apology to himself and his sacrifices to fear. And much as we may dislike it, or say that we dislike it, there it is.” “Bob,” Lois began, “I think what you’ve been saying, when you bring it down to people, people we know, it becomes just so much talk. After all, men just don’t live by principles. People aren’t satisfied with living the good life and going around just appreciating and en¬ joying the little, and, I admit, lovely things in life. Can you, offhand, think of any man who was content to go about wrapped in a cello- phanic idealism, simply for the sake of his ideals and the quaint pleasures of enjoying other people and other things. Now don’t throw Christ up in our faces. I mean some little man, unheard of, unknown. Bring it right down to earth. Well, can you?” Her voice was almost a challenge. Robert paused and thought a moment. “Yes,” he mused, “yes, I can. And if you have the patience and a little time, I think I’d like to tell you about him. He was one of the few men I knew who went about, obscurely, sifting humanity for its little gems.” “When we were very young,” Robert be¬ gan, “our family had a summer cottage on a little island in Lake Ontario. A fair-sized town had grown up there over a period of years, composed, in the main, of city people who liked to idle away the green months in the quiet contentment of just such a community. By 1910, when I was seven years old and my sister Marilyn only five, there must have been about a hundred homes on the island with about four hundred people spending July and August there. The island itself was beautiful, and for children it was Paradise. Tall pines every- where and little paths through the woods that would suddenly break into lush clearings filled with the greenest grass and sparkling with wild flowers. With each summer we could hardly wait to go back to Meland, as the island was called, to search out again the little re¬ membrances of shining pebbles and strange, exotic twistings of wood that are so important and lovely in the lives of little children and that we had hidden away secretly; and each year we would take inventory and notice the relaxed signs of a raging winter’s toll. That same year an hotel had been built and the previous year the summer visitors had con¬ tributed towards the construction of a little theatre, to which small circuits of vaudeville performers would come to entertain the com¬ munity. It was an evening in August that year, and I remember the circumstances as clearly as if it had all happened only yesterday. We had finished our dinner and Dad was sitting on the verandah smoking and reading his magazine. Mother was clearing the table and Aunt Helen, my father’s sister who was visiting with us at the time, was in the kitchen washing the dishes. It couldn’t have been later than 6.30 o’clock, and while Marilyn and I were gener¬ ally expected in bed early, we still had almost two hours to ourselves. Children, it seems, are the really great searchers in this world, and we were of these. It was our greatest joy in those days to explore new paths, little turns. I think, when there were no new paths left for us on the island, we used to invent them, or find them where a foot had rested only once. That afternoon, on the southern shore of the island, we had noticed a little road on which we had never been. We had immediately resolved that, dinner over, it would be explored. The spirit of the old French explorers reborn, I suppose. Earlier in the summer, as was the tradition, almost a rite with us every year, we had scurried about in search of substantial walking sticks, and we went on no expedition without them. Taking them up then, this summer even¬ ing, we hurried eagerly to the shore front so that we might start all the earlier on our ex¬ ploration; for to children every new road is a new adventure and entered upon with all the excitement and expectation of the old, peering sailors in search of new lands. The sun was leaning westward when we started along the path. Everything was gold and green and warm, and we were flushed, I suppose, with an unexplainable awareness of the controlled pulsing of the earth and its fruits. It was a lone and lovely path. The trees stood tall on either si de and you could look straight up and see the sheer blueness of the sky. Here and there we stopped to pick up little things and I stuffed them into my pockets. Nevertheless, we must have been walking rather quickly because we were soon deep in the forest and the path had taken several turns. It was with the sudden rounding of one of these turns that we saw, directly ahead of us and walking slowly on, a tall, thin man. He was dressed in a black suit with a short cape flung round his shoulders. He walked with a slight forward stoop, as though he felt he were too tall. He must have heard us coming because he turned around and faced us. Our first impulse was to run for home as quickly as possible; he was such a strange look¬ ing man for children to be meeting in the mid¬ dle of a forest. His dark clothes and particu¬ larly the black cape he wore were so completely foreign to a warm setting of evening in the summertime. And then again, although in our hearts we knew that we were bold adventurers, still, it was getting a little darker out. However, even as we hesitated, our little legs ready to run at the slightest movement of even a leaf, he raised his hand in a friendly gesture and smiled at us. I remember to this day what a wonderful smile he had. It was kindness and you could never mistake it for politeness or any other such trained expres¬ sion. Somehow with it, all sense of fear left us and since he seemed to be waiting for us to approach, we walked, with a very slight cau¬ tion, towards him. I remember examining him well, as chil¬ dren do, when we got nearer to him. He was, as I have said, very tall and very thin. His face was long and in his cheeks were two deep fur¬ rows—from smiling, I like to think. When we were almost at his side he said: “And where are you two little children go¬ ing all by yourselves?” “We’re exploring, I guess,” Marilyn hesi¬ tated. (Continued on page 36) 6 TT IS my task to deliver the farewell address to the class of ’43. I have a special affection for the class of ’43 because we both started our academic careers at United College at the same time. The first lecture which I ever delivered in the College was given to the class of ’43. In spite of that our relations have always been happy. I have always enjoyed the class parties given by the class of ’43. One which occurred in October of last year will be one of the happiest mem¬ ories of my career at United College. It is customary for student speakers at this dinner each year to pay tribute to the faculty. At the best they speak of our wisdom and beneficent influence upon our students. At the unsettle the most conscientious of students and make concentration upon study of any kind impossible. Yet in this difficult situation the class of ’43 have shown a very remarkable steadiness and devotion to work. I wish to pay to them a very special compliment on account of it. It is customary in these farewell addresses to give some words of advice about the future. I approach this part of my task very humbly. I know no more about the future than you do yourselves. As a historian I would natur¬ ally direct your attention to the past in order to throw light upon the future. Do not be alarmed. I do not intend to take you back to the Holy Roman Empire or to the French Farewell Address Delivered at the annual Grads Farewell, February 16, 1943, at the Royal Alexandra Hotel DR. D. C. MASTERS Honorary President, Class ’43 worst they say we are harmless, but nice. To¬ night we have come off very well. But I should like to return the compliment by paying a tribute to the class of ’43. Students may profit by contact with the faculty. It is sometimes forgotten that the faculty also profit from the relationship with their students. It is a pleasure to be treated with that politeness and respect which the students of United College invari¬ ably accord to their instructors. It is always a pleasure, moreover, for the teacher to explore a field which he knows well with minds which are coming fresh to the subject. Sometimes, of course, the minds are so fresh as to know nothing whatever about the subject. But it gives one a real satisfaction to share the joy of discovery with the student who is interested and prepared to work. Occasionally also the student provides the teacher with an idea or line of approach which has not previously oc¬ curred to him. I should like to comment upon one parti¬ cular quality which has been shown by our student body in general and by the class of ’43 in particular. We live in difficult times. No one can foretell his or her immediate future. The prospect of what lies ahead might very easily Revolution. I simply wish to speak about the four-year period which you are about to con¬ clude. By suggesting some of the principles upon which our College stands I may perhaps indicate some guides for action in the future. First, we stand for a liberal attitude towards education. A great deal has been said about liberalism this evening, political liberalism in particular. Liberalism, as we interpret it in the field of education, promises a dispassionate consideration of all the available evidence in relation to a given problem. It promises fur¬ ther the adoption of whatever conclusions the evidence suggests to be sound. We supplement the principle of liberalism in education with a second one equally im¬ portant to our academic way of life. It is a belief in the value of what, for lack of a trite expression, I term mental discipline. By the regular and systematic performance of tasks— essays, class assignments, examinations—the student develops an ability to organize his knowledge and to make critical use of it. The difference between the university man and the non-university man is not that the former has necessarily a greater supply of acquired know- (Continued on page 45) 7 ASIA, Continent with a Past... and a Future PETER GORDON WHITE Illustrated By Ann Phalps OTRETCHING from the frozen plains of the Arctic Circle to the tropical forests of the Malay Peninsula, and from Europe and Africa to within 36 miles of North America, lies Asia, almost one-third of the dry-land mass of the entire globe. We have a fair idea of distances here in North America; we can compare them all in multiples of the mileage from Winnipeg to St. Paul. We even have some idea of the extent of Europe as measured in bomber-time from London to Berlin or Cologne or Essen. But with Asia it is different; we don’t have much point of reference. There is a little literary device that authors turn to in over¬ coming such a dilemma, it goes something like this: if all the mountains in Asia were placed on top of one another (this is a purely imagin¬ ary example) they would more than equal the height of the Empire State building multiplied by the number of letters in the New Deal alphabet, or, if all the dust of Calcutta was gathered up and placed in boxes 6 feet long by 17% inches wide placed end to end . . Calcutta would be a much cleaner place than it is. All right then; to gain some idea of the size of the great Asiatic Continent, consider that we could put all of Europe and Africa on it and still have two million square miles to spare. If you have any idea of how much two million square miles is you can see what I mean. If two million is beyond your comprehension, you make take both North and South America, put them on Asia, and have only 500,000 miles left over. Now you know the size of Asia. But the Orient not only gives us extremes in area, it sets other records too. Within its bounds is the highest point on the globe: Mount Everest, on the borders of Nepal and Tibet, rises 29,000 ft. above the sea (that’s some three hundred United Colleges piled on top of one another). Asia contains the lowest point in the world: the Dead Sea lies in the deepest hollow of the earth, 1,300 ft. below sea level, in south¬ ern Palestine. Asia presents the most desolate scenes of scorching desolation in the Gobi Desert, and contrasts that arid spot with the wettest region in the world: the lands of the monsoons in India. It contains the hottest and the coldest places in the world (excluding Winnipeg). More than half the population of the whole world is there. The cradle of the human race, of all religion, wisdom, and civil¬ ization is there. Shangri-la, well known to the Japanese as the base of the famous American Flying Fortresses, is there. Vast, scarcely- tapped resources, all the past, and perhaps the future, of civilization is there. The Place and the People Because of our very profound ignorance of even the physical aspects of the Far East it would be possible, and no doubt valuable, to continue with further factual and somewhat sensational information on this section of the globe. However, as students of history, we must see the people of any land we study, for it is the people, not the places, that make his¬ tory. And yet, the inter-relation of the peoples and their environment is so great that it is impossible to study the one without the other, and so in our consideration of population the geographical determinents will be carried along in the thread of the discussion. In Asia there are some 900,000,000 more people than there are in all the rest of the world, even including the 5 o’clock crowd on the Winnipeg street-cars. Two-thirds of them (i.e., the Asiatics) are yellow people, and al¬ most all the rest are white, with a scattering of black people in India, and a brown race in the Malay Peninsula which has no well-defined relation to the others. 8 Upon our first look at the map it seems strange that Asia should support so large a population. Most of the continent consists of places where people can only hunt or graze sheep or reindeer. Even in China, which con¬ tains more people than any other country in the world, there are vast tracts of waste coun¬ try. Most of Mongolia consists of the already referred to Gobi Desert, the most desolate re¬ gion in the world. It is so little known that story writers feel safe in making it the scene of amazing adventures along the route of the camel trains that brave the stinging sand and dust storms to trade between China and Siberia. The sands are now covering the countries about the Gobi. In the Lob Nor (“Nor” means lake) sand has choked up a whole inland sea until it is now merely a series of mashy lakes in which the once great river Tarim loses itself. Dunes as high as hills are threatening the river, and explorers have found in the region known as the Takla Makan desert, ruins of great old cities buried in the sand. On and on, right across the great continent, sweep the desert sands, creeping down to that ancient seat of civilization, Persia. Whole cities have been doomed as the sand, over the course of the centuries, has advanced upon them. The once-great river systems are now a network of watercourses running nowhere, no longer making fertile a land that once blos¬ somed like the rose. Even the Tigris-Euphrates valley is not the fertile land it once was. To the desert regions must be added the other low population areas: the great cold stretches of the Siberian forest; the hot jungles of the Ganges valley in India; and the dense tropical forests of the Malay Peninsula. What, then, is the secret of the vast popu¬ lation of Asia when so large a part of the land is desert, grassland, forests, and mountain peaks? For the answer we must look to the great river valleys of China and India. In the one are found half of all the people of Asia, 25 million more than Europe, and in the other as many people as are in North Amer ica, South America, and Africa combined. The Yangtze in China is the most densely populated river valley in the world. The river is navigable for 2,000 miles and along its banks are little farms hardly bigger than a pocket handkerchief. Here for thousands of years people have grown crops and kept their soil fresh by the use of river mud and fertilizers. People live even on the river itself, in little boats called sampans, whose matting roofs are the shape of half a barrel. In the valley of the Amur to the north there is a smaller population, but people fairly swarm along the fertile banks of the Hwang River. Before the Christian era, China began the building of what is practically a fourth great river: the Grand Canal, 850 miles long. Fol¬ lowing this and countless smaller canals are more of the tiny close-packed farms and flooded rice fields, where mulberry groves are planted for the silkworm, and crops are grown between the rows of trees, for not an inch of soil must be wasted. In India, too, there are swarming river val¬ leys, particularly the Ganges, and the fertile valley between the Ganges and the Brama- putra. The Indus valley is less productive owing to the Indian desert just west of it, but the fertile soil is now being reclaimed by irriga¬ tion. In all, India has a population three times as great as that of the United States. The three chief rivers of Siberia, the Ob, the Yenisei, and the Lena, of course do not sup¬ port such great populations. They are broad and deep enough to be navigable and the soil is fertile, but they are frozen too much of the year. The great rivers of western Asia, the Tigris and the Euphrates, water a valley which was of the greatest productiveness 5,000 years ago, but today is little developed. Other countries where a great many people live are those which are blessed by rain-laden ocean winds breaking against mountains. Thus the Empire of Japan, which for all its hundreds 9 of islands, has an inhabitable area little larger than Manitoba, yet contains more than six times as many people as the whole of Canada. The Centuries Asia has been called the cradle of the human race, and some scientists have pointed to de¬ finite regions such as the Caucasus or Asia Minor as the first abode of civilized man, the place from which he migrated to Europe and southern Asia carrying his primitive culture with him. However this may be, Asia can show re¬ mains of the oldest known civilization in the world except Egypt. At Troy in Asia Minor, the peninsula lying between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, the heroes of Homer were fighting 3,000 years or more ago, and archaeolo¬ gists have found on the same site cities still older than the one they fought for. In Caucasia, the broad isthmus between the Black Sea and the Caspian, lay Colchis, the rich and fertile land whither Greek legend says that Jason went in search of the Golden Fleece. Scientists tell us that here the stone-fruit trees such as the peach, the apricot, and cherry first de¬ veloped from the same wild ancestor. Here, too, are the ruins of the great old cities of Armenia, and here rises the snow-capped peak of Mount Ararat, nearly 17,000 feet high, where the Bible tells us Noah’s ark struck land after that excessively moist season commonly re¬ ferred to as the flood. Palestine along the Mediterranean coast of the Arabian peninsula is the scene of Bible story and of the development of the ancient Hebrew civilization. Persia as a political power dates back to 559 B.C. when Cyrus made his sweeping conquest. And oldest of all civiliza¬ tions in the world, except Egypt, is that of Mesopotamia in the Tigris-Euphrates valley, where there were great cities as early as 3,000 B.C., followed by the empires of Babylonia and Assyria. In the two other fertile flood plains besides Mesopotamia—where people could cultivate the arts of peace protected by ocean, desert, and mountain barriers—there were early civiliza¬ tions, though as yet the historians have not ben able to prove quite how old. In China there are definite records as far back as 1100 B.C. In India the princes rode on elephants and lived in splendid palaces at the time of Alex¬ ander’s campaign to the Indus in the 4th cen¬ tury B.C. For thousands of years, however, the civil¬ ization of Asia stood still. The Indians of Alex¬ ander’s time were skilled in all the arts they ever possessed down to the time of the British occupation. The Chinese preceded Europe in the invention of printing, paper making, porcelain, guns, gunpowder, fine weaving and perhaps the compass. But having found a good way of writing, governing, making cloth, and tilling the soil 3,000 years ago, they simply stopped seeking for new methods. The Arabs, sweeping over the feeble rem¬ nants of Greek and Roman civilization in the early Christian. centuries, absorbed and de¬ veloped the learning they fell heir to. Through¬ out the Middle Ages they led the world in agri¬ culture, building, weaving, metal working, and mathematical science. But their culture has remained at the same stage ever since, while the West has been forging ahead, as witness the fact that today most of Asia is politically in the hands of Europe. Russia has put her stamp on the new countries of Siberia and the old countries of Central Asia and Transcaucasia, more than one-third of the area of the continent. Britain has occupied India and scattered points such as Aden, in Arabia, so that at the begin¬ ning of the World War I, she already con¬ trolled one-ninth of Asia. In Arabia and Persia, too, European forces are at work, and the new 10 governments of these lands are now freed from Turkish rule. China has been riddled with foreign influence. Japan, the one Asiatic na¬ tion which remained absolutely independent, has done so at the price of accepting western methods in all the arts of peace and war. Asia has been the cradle not only of civil¬ ization itself, but of all the great religions. Out of Mesopotamia came the germs that developed into the three systems that now hold the whole western world. The first was Hebraism, which developed very early in Palestine. From Hebraism sprang the other two, first, Christian¬ ity, and, in 622 A.D., Mohammedanism. The latter from small beginnings at Mecca and Medina in the Arabian desert became the most war-like proselytizing religion of the world. In the Middle Ages it extended even to Spain. Today it numbers 175,000,000 followers in Asia and Africa alone. From the Aryan group in Asia as well as from the Semitic have come great religions. The Persians developed Zoroastrianism, based upon the principle of the conflict between good and evil; and the Hindus originated Brahman¬ ism and its outgrowth Buddhism, which be¬ tween them now numbers perhaps 250,000,000 people in Asia. From the yellow man, too, has sprung a great system, that which Confucius originated in the 5th century B.C. and which has been the religion of most of the Chinese ever since. The Western Invasion After Vasco de Gama discovered the ocean route around Africa to India in 1497-98, the bulk of the trade-traffic was carried by sailing vessels rather than by overland caravans. With¬ in 50 years the Portuguese navigators had pushed still farther, to China and Japan, and had established a line of trading posts which amounted to a coastal empire. In the first years of the 17th century Holland, England, and France had also their commercial companies in the far East. Just before the middle of the 18th century there began a 50 years’ duel between England and France for the supremacy of southern Asia, England at length coming out victorious. In the meantime Russia had started across Siberia in 1580 and within 80 years had obtained this largest slice of Asia to the Pacific Ocean and the Amur River, unopposed by the rest of Europe and weakly questioned by the Turk. In the 18th and 19th centuries American clipper ships from Salem, Boston, and Provid¬ ence did a flourishing trade in tea, coffee, ivory, spices, and fine fabrics, and it was an American, Commodore Perry, who opened the doors of Japan in 1854, after they had been closed to the western world for a century and a half. The war between China and Japan in 1894-95 resulted in the cession of Formosa, or Taiwan as the Japanese call it, and Pescadores to Japan, and the Russo-Japanese War resulted in the cession of the southern half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan in 1905, while Korea was annexed to the island empire in 1910. The Philippines were transferred to the United States at the close of the Spanish-American War in 1898. In the last decade of the 19th century various attempts were made to shorten the distance between Europe and Asia. The Suez Canal was dug, connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea so that ships could go through to the Indian Ocean without rounding Africa. Russia built railroads across Siberia and Cen¬ tral Asia, and Germany was busy with a pro¬ ject more momentous still, a railway from Ber¬ lin to Bagdad—and perhaps beyond. However, despite this long familiarity with the products of Asia, and this history of active commercial relations, the country and the peo¬ ple have remained unknown to us almost down to our own day. Mission aries going to India and China found people who had been doing things the same way for so many thousands of years that it was almost impossible to teach them any other way. Nor could the bustling West understand the viewpoint of people whose minds seemed to work to set grooves. (Continued on page 42) 11 Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: HAVE the very great honor tonight of de¬ livering the valedictory of the class you are toasting at this banquet, the class of 1943. It is more than an honor, it is a supreme privilege to speak for this particular class. Those of you who know the class of ’43 will agree that with¬ out doubt it is a paragon of all graduating classes. The more discerning of you will have realized before this that in this small group of men and women is caught up every possible virtue, every imaginable attribute, and every conceivable merit. United College has never seen before, nor will she see again such a model of perfection, such a consummate master¬ piece as she sees exemplified in this class of 1943. Now that we are all friends . . . Actually the class of ’43 is not an unusual class. We have our brilliant people, they who carry away the scholarships, who continually amaze—and embarrass—the rest of us with their keen and steady learning. I do not believe that we have any fanatics, either religious or political. We have duly sent our quota of men to worship at the shrine of The Manitoban. Members among us have won the usual awards and prizes. Some of us are minutely sensitive to crisis and defeat. Some among us are phil¬ osophers—members of that doughty clan who instead of crying over spilt milk would prob¬ ably console themselves with the thought that it was four-fifths water in any case. We are not an unusual class. No one of us has done anything great—no one of us has done anything particularly ridiculous—except at stunt night—on which occasions we took first prize. As was once said of another class, we have given the college several good laughs . . . one or two of which sit at the head table to¬ night. However, there is no hesitancy in describ¬ ing one accomplishment of the class of ’43 as unusual—that accomplishment was tq produce from our ranks a lady stick so completely charming, and a man who has mErcle so excep¬ tional a senior stick. Superficially, that is our class. Its com¬ ponents are a diverse lot, and I feel that at the present moment many of them are uneasy. They do not know what I am going to say about them. They do not wish to be included in any generalization of class opinion for they would feel misrepresented and they would feel embarrassed. Thus, while I am here this evening speaking to you for the one purpose of interpreting the class of ’43 for everyone here, for the college as a whole, indeed, for the whole of our society —for presumably our society has not only a stake but an interest in us—while I must inter¬ pret the class of ’43 for the members of that class of ’43, while this is my task, I think it will VALEDICT The Valedictory Address delivered by John H. Howes at the annual become evident that valedictories are actually personal things and that any attempt to assess individual opinion and consolidate it into mass opinion is impossible in a college class. I do not claim to speak for the entire class as such. It would be interesting to examine the trends in valedictories during the last quarter century. If allowances were made for com¬ pletely personal idiosyncrasy, these ' documents would form a pattern of thought of the young men and women of the times. It would be even more interesting to note the gradual shift in that pattern of thought from a light-hearted and even light-headed optimism in the twenties through a period of confusion, blurred outlines and bewilderment in the early thirties, de¬ veloping into a dead disillusionment as the decade ended. And now we see that the whole process has apparently culminated during the last few years in a hard core of cynicism. We have all felt it. We have all at some time or an¬ other felt the despair of a defeated idealism— when that fervent idealism of youth is crumpled by circumstance. But how much more power¬ ful is the result of such a process when the forces of pircumstance that defeat the natural buoyancy are world-wide convulsions—the great economic collapse and now this great war. It has been said almost too often to bear repetition that we are another lost generation, born in the aftermath of 1918, adolescent in the aftermath of 1929, and now adult in the midst of a fierce revolutionary war. A few of 12 us have been too occupied with this conception. We have been too ready to seize upon it as an excuse for mental inertia. The majority, how¬ ever, have not. We do not in the least feel sorry for ourselves. We do not, under any conditions wish this explanation of our position to become an apology. It is true that these con¬ ditions have molded us, as the great dynamics of history have always profoundly influenced the youth of the world. Our modes of thinking ORY...I943 Grads’ Farewell, February 16, 1943, at the Royal Alexandra Hotel. have to a great extent been conditioned by these calamities and more particularly by the breakdown of values that accompanied them. We have cited these overwhelming in¬ fluences as factors that must be considered in any objective evaluation of our generation. But we have demanded that they must not be con¬ sidered as an excuse or an apology, but only as an explanation. Our attempts to explain our position are not successful. Criticism of our generation has not lessened. If anything the-war has intensified it. The men and women of this generation, especially those of the Universities and more especially those training in the liberal arts are under censure. It is said that they are de¬ structively minded, that their outlook is based upon the narrowest cynicism, that they believe in nothing and are therefore floundering aim¬ lessly without guide-post or guide-star, that they are selfish and defeatist, that no positive force sweeps them toward clearly-defined goals. What basis have the critics for statements such as these? The only possible answer to this is an analysis of ourselves. We must find the causes of our attitude, an attitude that has been interpreted so widely and variously as one of cynicism and non-belief. One of the prime contributors to our posi¬ tion is our inheritance of what has been var¬ iously called the “dissolution of faith” or “the breakdown of authority.” During the last cen¬ tury and this one industrialism has transformed the material world almost beyond measure. Distance has been whittled. Commercialism accompanied industrialism and together they produced urbanization. The great metropolitan areas, around which our economies are centred, arose. This was the beginning. The old physi¬ cal order c ollapsed and the new framework brought with it disorder and dislocation of old ways of life. Brutal war was followed by even more brutal war. Men could see little but chaos and confusion in their new civilization. It became increasingly difficult for them to reconcile the confusion of daily living with the idea of an abiding and omnipotent power flow¬ ing through all things. They no longer pos¬ sessed the sure and certain conviction that a supreme authority governed the universe, or if they retained the conviction, their conception of the supreme authority as a “literal” King, Father, Judge and Lawgiver, became unten¬ able. Men could no longer convince themselves that the supernatural had a place in the actual structure of the universe. With these pillars removed, their edifice of faith was shaken. Church authority broke down. It was complete¬ ly alienated from business and politics. Even in the family its power waned as the modern urban family developed. In art the religious sanction disappeared and “art for art’s sake” became the slogan. The men and women of the new generation have had the results of this trend of dissolution thrust upon them. When they inherit the new economic life, religion becomes not the central force to which all their activities are related but instead one aspect of an increasingly varied world of experience. For them the authoritar¬ ian beliefs of their fathers are unsatisfactory. They do not wish to break with these beliefs— indeed, they often passionately desire to cling to them—but the very conditions of their life dictate that they must break. The position for the individual is not a happy one. He feels the void. He feels the in¬ security of his position, for he must somehow resolve for himself new religious conceptions. The majestic ideal of service to an all-powerful Ruler of the Universe is no longer enough. It is within himself or within his fellowmen that he must find the answers he is seeking. Until that time he has few points to guide him and in some ways must indeed appear to be flound¬ ering. But it is no situation upon which to assess blame. 9 13 r This influence is integrated with the trend of modern life. We have broken the continuity of life by cutting ourselves off from the past. We have wrenched ourselves from the soil, from that way of life in which deep faith in eternal laws is an imperative. And we have placed ourselves in the great cities whose in¬ fluence has penetrated everywhere until whole countries have almost become immensely ex¬ tended urban areas. The new generation has not been able to escape this, nor have they sought to escape it. We were born in the very midst of it, in that impetuous optimism con¬ cerning materialism and during the “debacle of idealism.” And if we have accepted the new ways of life because we knew nothing else, we also accepted the consequences of that life be¬ cause we could do nothing else. In the thirties, which is not so long ago, we saw the results of that glorious ideal of un¬ restricted individualism. The skyrocket of shaky speculation crashed down about us, pull¬ ing down with it the pyramid on which the mechanism of our society was anchored. The pyramid crumpled from the top, melting away until the whole broad base was affected and the apologists could do nothing but remain silent. Then followed the grueling period of re¬ examination. While governments sought im¬ mediate remedies, the organization of society was painstakingly scrutinized. The economic collapse was world-wide. No one living in the age could dodge either its concrete pressures or its implications. Again our generation inherited the skepticism of the age in this sphere. If we were bom too late to have connection with the causes of the disin¬ tegration itself, we could at least observe its effects. If we did not look hopelessly for work, our elder brothers did. Thus, we became aware of our social and economic system by the insistency with which its collapse thrust itself upon our minds. We became aware of it at a time when it was ex¬ hibiting its shortcomings and, as we were cer¬ tain, proving its inadequacy. We saw that liberalism had become a facade behind which only the strong and privileged were free. We saw that a society without safe¬ guards was a ruthless society, not at all exist¬ ing for the betterment of all the people of that society. Above all we saw that an acquisitive norm of activity within society was fundament¬ ally incompatible with the democratic ideal. These were the conclusions we reached. We saw human needs hammered into any mold that conformed to the standards of the business man. We realized that the failures of the new industrialism as a provider of a humane and just social order were basic failures. In the long march towards war our eyes smarted at the sight of betrayal after betrayal of what were supposedly our ideals. We sought for an explanation, and found one. It was this: that the stabilized and established elements within our society have certain ends they must pursue if they are not to become unstable elements. If democratic institutions in any way obstruct the achievement of those ends their existence is hardly justified. We see evidence of this attitude in Canada today where parliament has been ignored in the growing ascendency of bureaucratic con¬ trol. And an offshoot of this attitude has re¬ cently struck close to us: the feeling against the liberal arts course that is current in many circles today. I have purposely avoided labels for they are unnecessary and confusing. Our story is a clear one. Our generation grew up in the midst of what might be called the decay of an age. We examined our society as objectively as possible and discovered certain anomalies and discrep¬ ancies. We have no magic formulas that we wish applied, formulas that would transform the world into a paradise immediately upon their acceptance. We have endeavored only to make an honest appraisal of the society in which we live. If we have been bitter in our verdict, it is because we were first aware of our society when it was in unfortunate circumstances. This is the background of the class in 1943. It is a background of destructive forces, of dis¬ solution, of breaking down. It is a negative background. It was and is our background not because we chose it but because we were born into it. It is a background that might well lead to the cynicism of Which we have so often been accused. But such is not our position. We are not disillusioned cynics without guide-post or guide-star. They who label us as such are mis¬ directed and mistaken. They mistake our real¬ ism for cynicism. They mistake our healthy skepticism for some innate will to destroy. (Continued on page 32) A DIRGE . . . By DAVID McKEE They pass down city streets Where ice and ashes wake Scratches; gaslight pokes at Glib face under glib hat. Faces in standstill days Who live in life’s subways But know not life—like clocks That tick but know not time. When green shoots shoulder the crude Dirt aside; and rude And out of breath the lamb Tears the tight womb, tears free — Even that will not interrupt The tick-tock of their living; They will not see it, or know Enough to stretch and grow. 15 REVIEWS . . . IRVIN PETSNICK The Good Society . . . Walter Lippmann First Edition: Published September, 1937, by Little, Brown and Com¬ pany. Obviously this book is not a cur¬ rent publication. However, the per¬ sistent problems with which it deals occupy such a prominent place in contemporary thought that Lipp- mann’s treatment of them is still stimulating and provocative in 1943. In the light of the realization of many destructive defects in our pres¬ ent system, and the ever increasing unrest that has resulted therefrom, Lippmann takes upon himself the gigantic task of attempting to reveal the answers to the defects, and postu¬ late to a degree, remedies for the future. He is acutely aware of the terrific and widespread reaction that has set in, which has resulted in the resigned acceptance by thousands of learned people, of some form of a collective society. Consequently, he must recognize the established posi¬ tion of this widespread movement, and give to it an unbiased, unpre¬ judiced, and disinterested analysis if he wishes to retain the objective approach for which he is so highly respected. In order to accomplish his task, Lippman divides his book into two main divisions. The first deals with the background, theory, and practical outworking of the movement which has been attempting an organized and planned social order. The second is a re-examination of the Liberal movement, its principles, defects, and consequent misunderstanding by fu¬ ture liberal men, resulting in its temporary collapse, placing it in a position of ridicule and scorn by recognized intellectuals of our pres¬ ent time. Having done this, Lipp¬ mann, sincerely aware of his own limitations, and only too ready to admit the inadequacy of his deter- minded answers, accepts the task of presenting some solution to this world-wide problem. This in outline is the purpose and plan of the book. One realizes immediately the hope¬ less task of even alluding to the important aspects of collectivism that Lippmann so minutely reveals, examines, and judges. Consequently, this will be but a bare outline of his work. He is not merely concerned with the problem of finding the necessary ideal men to run this plan¬ ned economy, but should they be found (and he is ready to admit that they may be found), would that en¬ sure the successful operation of so varied and widespread an economy with its diversified interests, and tre¬ mendous problem of allocating mil¬ lions of resources to literally mil¬ lions of variable needs. Lippmann agrees that the economy can be planned, but, if it is, then it shall be bellicose and poor, and, if it is not to be bellicose and poor, then it cannot be planned. One of the first important points that he makes is that progress comes by liberation, not by suppression or concentration. The very course of history itself proves that the strug- dle has been one of consistent eman¬ cipation from arbitrary power and centralized control. Our develop¬ ment by incorporated companies was not the inevitable outworking of the growth of techniques, machines, etc., but merely the result of established law. It has not been proven that progress, development, invention, go hand in hand with large scale in¬ dustry, but, on the contrary, that small scale industry is more con¬ ducive to elastic progress. The tre¬ mendous profits of large incorporated companies are not due necessarily to their immensity, but to the law which gives them special privileges, monopoly of raw materials, and gen¬ eral all-round advantages, which completely remove the one great fac¬ tor that should keep them in con¬ trol; namely, competition. Thus men fall into the trap of assuming that the state should take over these large incorporated companies, in¬ crease their size, and thus gain wealth, abundance, prosperity. Lipp¬ mann maintains that it is not simply by concentration that one gains pro¬ gress, but by liberation of ideas, techniques, experiment, etc. He goes on now to show not only that large scale industry leads to stagnation, stability , rigidity, and the inevitable maintenance of the “status quo,” but also the hopeless task of finding men equal to the problem of allocating scarce means to compet¬ ing ends. This is probably the most fundamental economic problem of any age. We may have the resources at our disposal; it may not even be too great a problem to determine the amount that will be available; but the task of allocating the same to thousands of complex needs, which in turn are governed by thousands of personal interests, subject to thousands of changes, has gone be¬ yond the possibility of even the mathematicians. The tremendous task that the collectivist faces is not simply to put the ideal people in the place of authority, but to find men who shall be not men, but super-men. It contains the illusion that the economy lends itself to full understanding, and one has only to place the right men in authority, and all be a Garden of Eden. In other words, it is a double complex problem; that of finding men of ideal character, not subject to all the degrading influences of human na¬ ture, and also of super-human abil¬ ity, who can plan a future which they are unable to imagine, and who can manage a civilization which they are unable to understand. In Book II Lippman examines the collectivist movement, and passes judgment upon it. All collectivists must finally arrive at their end—the totalitarian state. He examines the Fascist movement and uncovers its paradox. It must produce leaders out of an economy which is char¬ acterized by rigidity, militarism, and conformity to mass, a hopeless task unless you allow for a hereditary caste, which again creates the di¬ versity of interest that the Fascists have set out to abolish. Similarly, he passes condemnation on the com¬ munist movement. Lippmann main¬ tains that the communist regime is necessarily a war economy, retain¬ ing its growth and stability upon the basis of simple purposes, demands, and allocation of resources that war brings. In relation to this, Lippmann goes on to prove that war economy is conducive to collectivism by over¬ simplifying the problems of a peace economy. In wartime there is only one purpose, one job to do, one de¬ mand for resources, one planning body, and, any individual interest, desire, or purpose is submerged be¬ neath the one all-inclusive purpose at hand; namely, war. In wartime the planners are in control. They know what is needed, where re¬ sources must be allocated, and they (Continued on page 47) 16 SPECIAL SECTION ON AMERICAN WRITERS.... ELIOT AND FROST AT THINKERS.ROBERT McLEAN ROBERT FROST AND T. S. ELIOT . . . TECHNIQUES IRENE HODGSON THOMAS WOLFE ... A SONNET SEQUENCE.HAROLD KARR LEWIS AND JAMES .KAY ROWLETTE 17 Eliot and THIN ROBERT JjTROST as a teacher has expressed the opin¬ ion that just as important as a professor’s classroom instruction and his competence as a technician, is the man himself. He believes that on any campus there should be a man who by his achievements in fields outside the univer¬ sity can inspire the youth on the campus. His own teaching has been highly successful and has been based on a determination to make it “personal” in the best sense of the word. I mention this because I believe it is a clue to the nature of the man himself and to his “be¬ liefs” as they are discovered in his verse. He believes in the intangibles, in the strength and vigour that comes to a man through the weld¬ ing of men’s purposes and aspirations togethef in friendship and understanding. But as much as he believes this, he is not demonstrative either as a person or as an artist. He is quiet, unassuming, and competent. He has a pro¬ found and scientific reverence for the “fact”— the thing in itself. He is an acute and tireless observer of the ways of men and nature. Throughout his career as a poet he has re¬ mained true to his intention to write only of what he has detailed and honest knowledge. It is first-hand careful observation that he has put into verse. His poetry is a quiet and patient chronicle of what he has seen and heard in New England. It is observation stripped of accidental qualities; object and word are re¬ fined to an amazing concentration of effective¬ ness. It would be foolishness to suggest that there is nothing further to be found in Frost. It is true that when one first begins to read him he demands undivided attention and concentra¬ tion, but as one persists he quite literally blooms into one’s consciousness, melodically, rhythmically, and in intelligence. On the whole I have not found him as obscure as I was led to assume he would be. His “beliefs” are no more hidden than in the work of any highly conscious artist. His idiom is “personal” and individual. Usually it is not didactic, but not always. As one reads, the contours of his thought rise from the factual surface of his verse. From the very tone one is convinced that there are meanings and intuitions under the surface of the words. The style, the subject matter, the tone is the intensely personal one of a confession of conviction. The unity of the poet’s personality is evident. There is a sense of form. It is the mark and mystery of a con¬ summate artist that he says simply what he wants to say; and when he reaches the point when he cannot in so many words express the inner truth which burns in his consciousness, that he can somehow suggest it too, so that this final mystery is at once inexpicable and accepted. In the ‘form’ of the work, its sense of completeness, there is a final statement of faith that the writer could not reduce to factual ob¬ jective statement. Such a state is achieved in Shakespeare and Keats. It is present in the work of Robert Frost as well, and is the stamp and seal of his genius. Since I have stated that there are convic¬ tions and “beliefs” in the work of Frost it is a proper question to ask me what they are and where they are to be found. I shall list them first and reserve until later an evaluation of them. He is deeply concerned with the nature of man’s existence as a moral creature and the 18 Frost As KERS ' ' _I McLEAN conditions that are necessary to it. Those con¬ ditions he realizes involve choice and decision, and the understanding by men that they are, at least to a certain point, responsible for their decisions. (“The Road Not Taken.”) He is aware that there is a great area of uncertainty where we do not know, and that we are forced to lead a moral life in a great and awful ignor¬ ance. He feels that humanity is fighting against odds and that there is a need on the part of all men for human love and solidarity. He believes that pain and death are essential and inevitable to life, that the beauty we find and the sense of mystery are among our greatest consola¬ tions. (“In Hardwood Groves.”) He thinks that the essential conditions of men’s happiness are the same in any age. He is particularly concerned with the issue of human loneliness and the tragedy in the ignorance and misunderstanding that is the cause of much of human estrangement. “Storm Fear” is a beautiful and moving presentation of the need of humanity for com¬ munion and our sense of the forces that are pitted against us. He is not sentimental, how¬ ever. He is aware of the commitments we make as a human creature and the solemn and in¬ evitable demands of others upon us. Conse¬ quently he never has committed the sin of the artist who has run away from men and his obligations in search for natural beauty. (“Stopping By Woods.”) He is sensitive to the isolation of every man, but he is aware of the obstacles we put in the way of achieving our mutuality and companioship with one another. (“Mending Wall.”) He realizes that life is a matter of gain and loss, and shares in some measure at least Emerson’s idea of compensa¬ tion. For a gain that we make we lose some¬ thing. Life is a series of checks and counter¬ checks, and we play an everlasting game against odds. (“The Armful.”) He is not blind to the stupidities and the coarseness of much of human motivation, but he feels that there is a fundamental moral energy in life that makes man struggle for distant goals. (“On a Tree Fallen Across the Road.”) He is indifferent to creeds and dogma. His conviction is more of emotion than intellect. The sources of his own personal inspiration are in things and the simple peasant qualities of which he writes. He feels deeply and honestly, and that feeling, refined and purified into the precision and concentration of his New Eng¬ land vernacular, is the source of his verse. He has great limitations as a thinker; there are great (and crucial) areas of human experi¬ ence and perplexing social and moral ques¬ tions that find no echo in his verse. He is peasant-like and clings to the land. His answer to the problems of the contemporary man is in the way of a personal and artistic integrity we sense in his work—an honesty that in its sad¬ ness, accurate observation and ‘frugal but gal¬ lant hope’ convinces us of its worth. He has not given to this age any answers to its prob¬ lems in the terms in which it would ask its questions. It may be that he speaks too quietly for us. At any rate his voice is heard in the byways and quiet moments of our turmoil, and whether or not it voices the true answer to our needs we cannot know, because it is not addressed to answering our questions, but to singing its own quiet and beautiful lyrics. 19 T. S. Eliot violates the temperament of our age by violating the contemporary distrust of ultimates phrased as anything but questionings. He has cried out for standards and criteria in an age that rejects the possibility of standards, and much of the abuse and resentment that has gathered about him can be traced to this. He is, as artist and as a man, acutely aware of the desolation of the human spirit without faith and sanctions, and in his analysis of the modern mentality and soul’s rest, and in his own intellectual activity he has accepted the warning of Waldo Frank: “In times of basic cultural transition the criticism that does not start out from metaphysics and a true under¬ standing of religious experience is idle, irrele¬ vant, and anti-social.” The last charge that could possibly be made against Eliot is a want of seriousness or a failure to understand men’s predicament. Whether or not one subscribes to his conclusions one cannot deny the honesty of his search and the depth of his concern. He is convinced of man’s need for sanctions and for himself he has found them in a return to tradition and the authority of tradition. It is an antiquarian short-cut to faith. Eliot has con¬ vinced himself that one must bow to the ex¬ perience of the past and learn to accept what the past can teach us. It is this characteristic that has led certain exasperated contemporaries to exclaim that “T. S. Eliot was born middle aged and has not been growing any younger.” Eliot would (and has) turned the argument in another way, and has written that the darkest ignorance of the modern man is his pride and attempted self-sufficiency—in a sense his demo¬ cratic faith—and has said “the greatest, the most difficult of the Christian virtues (is) the virtue of humility.” It is this kind of thinking that has led Eliot to the point where he has announced that he is “a classicist in literature, a Catholic in religion, and a cavalier in poli¬ tics.” Those who admired him as an analyst of post-war frustration and damn him as a re¬ actionary, and those who praise him since his entry into the aristocratic fold are equally guilty of doing him an injustice. The present position of Mr. Eliot is inherent in the search he set himself and the premises on which he based that search. As early as 1921 he wrote in connection with the English metaphyicals (of whom he is a direct descendent): “That firm grasp of human experience is their distinguish¬ ing mark as a group. This wisdom, cynical perhaps but untired, leads toward and is only completed by the religious comprehension.” It is unfair to assume that Mr. Eliot made a sud¬ den breach of faith with truth in his entry into the high Anglican church. It is unfair to sug¬ gest that he rests easily in the faith he has ac¬ cepted there. One cannot but realize that a profound and moving honesty and a tense search for faith motivate Eliot. Frost is apparently capable of resting in a humanism that is without a comprehensive metaphysic. But T. S. Eliot cannot be so easily satisfied and the boundaries of his search for sanctions have been immeasurably broader than those of Frost. One has been content with an emotional conviction. The other has sought a coherence between what he feels and what he believes. His very nature is intensely analytic and intellectual and he demands a con¬ sistency between thought and emotion. No one who has not travelled the hard road he has set for himself can lightly condemn him as a traitor to a cause of undisciplined emotional¬ ism, without revealing his own limitations. For Eliot has accepted the “iron fact that art issued from religion and is forever allied thereto and must in sober truth become more and more religious as religion itself loses its hold upon the minds of men.” Whether or not one in¬ cludes in this, allegiance to the Catholic church may be a matter of dispute, but I do not think it can honestly be argued that Eliot has “escaped” into the church easily and happily. The meaning of his poems and the phil¬ osophy of composition behind them is briefly this. Civilization and meaning are disintegrated and despair and disillusion stalk the waste land. By a “learned and calculated chaos” in method Eliot sought to parallel and describe the chaos and futility of contemporary existence where man in frustration and loneliness cannot feel or think. His verse is extremely intellectual and analytic. He is typically modern in the manner in which he has turned his sensitive¬ ness to account in an intellectual process. His technique is subtle and brilliant though for the most part I have failed to cope with him be¬ cause of an incapacity to deal with his highly literary associations as he searches for a blend¬ ing of the individual talent with the stream of (Continued on page 34) Thomas Wolfe ... A Sonnet Sequence By HAROLD KARR INTRODUCTORY NOTE r j HOMAS WOLFE’S novels are greeted by appreciative and discriminating readers everywhere as the most moving and overwhelming documents of the modern mind. “Look Homeward, Angel,” his first and possibly greatest statement, sets the mood of the theme to follow with a brief introductory monograph. It begins with “. . . a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces. . . .” This symbolism, which vibrates subtly, yet strongly and ceaselessly be¬ neath the voluptuous reality of the story and gave a terrible intensity to its meaning, is maintained to the end of the book. More than that; it is maintained throughout his writings even to the end of the last novel published before his untimely death, “The Web and the Rock.” No other novelist has that same sense of the crisis of life today, or feels with equal sensibility and immediacy the problem of reality and metaphysics with which the modern soul must cope for the sake of its integrity. “A stone, a leaf, an unfound door . . .” of the philosopher’s stone to solve the great WHY of eternity—why this earth? why are we here? why this hunger? this sensitivity to pain? to what end? of the leaf that trembles with winded life and dies earthward posing the unsolved riddle of the spark of existence—what is the secret of the leaf that it grows? how? from where? whence? of the quicknesses that rupture the dust to dust duration of organic life? of the duration of the soul’s life? of the unfound door and the lost lane-end into heaven for which we hunger and wander aimlessly seeking ... of the transcendentals of happiness and reality and truth which we find not, but know by implications and intimations and because they must be. ' - Wolfe’s novels should be experienced and integrated slowly and repeatedly before they can be fully comprehended. They are laden with manificent gustos and sensuous acceptances of life which do not degenerate to ttie fljkfortunate pornographies of the majority of modern novelists who attempt realism to the full. They are enraptured with prose-poetries of style, sometimes with the momentous elevation and simplicity of the book of Job ' , sometimes with the fluid verbosity of Henry James at his very best, but usually with the powerful dynamics of the blinding speed and overwhelming pressure of the dynamo of life that Stephen Spender found in his white-heat moments. They are enobled by the terrible sincerity of the soul as it struggles and gropes through the ever¬ lasting complexities of living toward the mysteries of the stone, the leaf, and the unfound door. 1900-1938 Time will list Thomas Wolfe among the truly great. He wrote of his search. But he wrote of our search too. 21 SONNET SEQUENCE: I Consider livings and the way they fled, O masterpiece of God, to ’hind or ’fore: When will your tears return the tears of yore, Or veil today the tears that lie ahead? . . . Have you not faltered from the drowsy dead? . . . Or burst your breast to find the unfound door, The door, the stone, the leaf that lurks no more? . . . Sunken and lost in Time’s deep river-bed. . . . Where flames the fire that webs the universe? O lost one from the distant flood of time. . . . Was Blake a breast . . . was Blake a sense of rhyme . . . Was Christ or Pan the meaning of the verse? . . . Seek further; seek the thorn, the threshold crossed . . . O brother lone and grieved, O brother lost. . . . II Out of this dream, O lost impatient one, Out of this web of life, the sunken well, The stranger Time, the faintly tolling bell Ever begun and ever past and done . . . I rescue thee ... to run where once has run Thyself ... a child . . . what are the flowers that fell? . . . What are those long far years? . . . Ah who can tell Or bring again lost things? lost stars? lost sun? . . . What of the child that cried? his crib and toys? What of this stranger child? . . . O taken; slain . . . By whom? by what? . . . O nevermore again Those years, those loves, those vagrant vanished joys . . . O lone grieved angel lost . . .the turning lane Is lost . . . and ah, the songbird dead in brain . . . 22 Ill Ah nevermore, O angel hungering, The child that ran with thee . . . never the child, Nor laughs, nor loves, nor senses leaping wild . . . Only the unfound door, the distant wing Of Time brushing away the leaf, the spring, The web of life . . . O grieving one that smiled At stubborn stars, where were thy love’s defiled? . . . And where was stilled the lost dream’s murmuring? . . . Where gone the stone, the hand, the friended eye? . . . Const thou return the spreaded dust, the bud? . Restore those lost tomorrows that the flood Has webbed? . . . whither? . . . where broke the stars, the sky, O child! O brother lost! O bleb of blood! . . . Oh, lost—the springing leaf . . . the stars that stud . . . IV Who of us has seen the bud return? Has read his brother’s heart? has tread the dust Feeling the lives that quickened it? . . . O thrust That moment deep in mind . . . O break and burn That moment, lonely one . . . how soon they learn To read the winds, to reach for stars, to lust, To love the grave . . . the scythe is red with rust That bled their lives . . . none find the door, discern The lane that turns, the leaf, the waiting hand . . . Out of the whirlwind words have taken shape, Their meaning hid . . . lost too . . . O could we ’scape This tarn of mysteries, and understand. And don as Joseph ere he was defiled A many-colored coat, O lost bewildered child . . . 23 •WWWMPC f iriBmvoen mo ms j utooen ®� onP minn£s TB lv HOP, QRnno fon 5 togrw Wfcorfl P i nninpem n trh KK A $ A ■ + ■ ■ • ' . 4 , rA- - 25 STuoenT Bt ntrusTRUT Bu� uo� n r c . of mtnn, •toinniPca f mBmroen f mtRiS 4 At of rne it not ■Asm— cl_ mi twesoTR SRRrw fOK 1 nosru WKorfi ' urtscensi mnp of the trip U)E Hflutnq Fun here { U.S.n. FR1EI1D RESTFUL EXPeCTHncY. oesi hEJ By AAAA . A A AAA A AAA A A AAA 7 r x ? Gerre Pp r r of p?y ?? ?£ ?lfstf P sP rtY £ 0 7E A l 0X S PFWreD 0 7 Fbo ? ' P tPe’R.. piERsnnt ves f T flWRrMSTRRTlon r c , of m rtn, nntsoTB III THE tiBRHRV,rK)T Stopyrns ' u isconsin OF THE TRIP umcHgoti the ?iCTcj ?es lost sTff zs 7 e Otfes. TooM. LEWIS AND JAMES A Critical Survey of ‘The Ambassadors’ and ‘Babbitt’ KAY ROWLETTE HHHE GERM of James’s idea in writing “The Ambassadors” is to be found in chapter xi of this book. Strether acknowledges to “Little Bilham” that he has made the mistake of not living, and advises his young friend to “live all he can”: “Don’t forget that you’re young— blessedly young; be glad of it, on the contrary, and live up to it. Live all you can, it’s a mis¬ take not to. It doesn’t so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that, what have you had? This place and these impressions—mild as you may find them to wind a man up so, all my impressions of Chad and of people I’ve seen at his place,—well, have had their abundant message for me, have just dropped that into my mind. I see it now. I haven’t done so enough before—and now I’m old; too old at any rate for what I see. Oh, I do see, at least; and more than you’d believe or I can express. It’s too late. And it’s as if the train had fairly waited at the station for me without my hav¬ ing had the gumption to know it was there. Now I hear its faint, receding whistle miles and miles down the line. What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that.” It is the life of the intelligence that Strether here has in mind. As the critic Beach points out, “He has done the best he could for himself in Woollett. He has attached himself to the woman of highest intelligence and most im¬ posing character in the place. He has published a magazine with a green cover. But he has not enjoyed there the intellectual amenities for which he has himself such an unusual aptitude. He has never found intelligence tempered with imagination, intelligence made sociable.” The process of the story is one of vision rather than action. It is a process of enlighten¬ ment. What we are really occupied with is the discovery of Paris, or, more strictly speaking, the relation Strether bears to that order of civilization. The subject proper is the matter of free intellectual exploration in general, of the open mind in contrast to the mind closed and swaddled in prejudice and narrow views. We have the contrast of two civilizations—the Puritanic and the hedonistic, the provincial and the cosmopolitan, the American and the Euro¬ pean. “Strether’s discovery of the open mind is his discovery of Europe.” All this contrast has to be discovered through Strether himself; and he perceives it by means of three sets of characters revolving about him. Madame de Vionnet represents the pure European strain; Chad and Maria Gastrey the transformed American type, and Waymarsh and Sarah Pocock, not to mention the invisible but omni¬ present Mrs. Newsome, the unchangeable, im¬ movable American species. “The Ambassadors” attains unity and sim¬ plicity by focusing on “the intellectual adven¬ ture of one man in the exploration of one sim¬ ple human situation.” This method, however, confines James strictly to Lambert Strether; he forfeits the valuable privilege of exploring the mental processes of other characters. They reveal themselves to us only as they reveal themselves to Strether. We are not even al- lowd to concentrate for a moment on the love affair between Chad Newsome and Madame de Vionnet, which James makes merely incidental to the emancipation of Strether from the limit¬ ing prejudices of Woollett. Appreciative readers of Henry James are rather scarce. The common protest made against him is that he is so vague, so rambling, so complicated, that we get lost trying to fol¬ low him, and even if we do push on intrepidly to the end we find that there really is no de¬ finite conclusion. To many, James’s work is nothing but a heaping up of trivialities. Yet, to quote Brownell, “life, considered as artistic material, is to James himself so serious and so significant that nothing it contains seems trivial to him. ... If he eschews the foreign, he revels in the pertinent. As an artist he has a pro¬ found respect for his material, and all details 26 of it seem equally significant to him. His work is accordingly the quintessence of real¬ ism.” James’s conscious purpose in writing has been “the achievement of a more and more intimate and exquisite correspondence with life in his art.” His realism does not perhaps leave a very vivid impression of reality. We are not for the most part familiar with the society which he paints. The people we know lead lives more emotional and less divested of social and professional limitations. As Beach observes, “The people we know do not so con¬ sistently as the characters of James make a conscious art of life. They apply art to this or that detail or relation; but they cannot, or they will not take the trouble to make their whole life a work of considered beauty. The people of James are mostly rich or in some way raised above the necessity of earning their bread. Their relationships are greatly simplified to make them still more free. They are often free from the ordinary scruples of the man in the street, free from the New England conscience in its cruder aspects. Being very clever, they are free from the intellectual limitations under which plain people labor. They are preter- naturally free, living in a moral vacuum, as it were. Moreover, the elements of fife are sim¬ plified to an extreme degree, everything in any way irrelevant being shut out from all con¬ sideration. Under this head come social and religious movements and struggles. It is per¬ haps just the irrelevant matters—as they would be for James—that create more than anything else in the ordinary novel the illusion of every¬ day life. So that it seems a rarefied and trans¬ cendental atmosphere into which James lifts us, an atmosphere in which there is nothing to impede the free action of spirits.” It must be understood that Paris does not provide a background for James’s characters. They are Paris—with the exception, of course, of Waymarsh and Sarah Pocock, who remain relentlessly American and “joyless.” In the very first chapter we learn that Strether is aware of how little Waymarsh will fit in with the European atmosphere. And as I have said, the story of “The Ambassadors” is the process of the acclimatization of Lambert Strether. But to get back to James’s realism; whether or not he creates in us the impression of reality, his attitude is uncompromisingly realistic. He carries Arnold’s theory of “disinterested curi¬ osity” to th e farthest possible degree. He is interested only in plain, unvarnished facts, and he refuses (as he says himself) to apply even “a single coat of rose-color.” Writing of Daudet, James says: “It is the real—the trans¬ muted real—that he gives us best; the fruit of a process that adds to observations what a kiss adds to a greeting. The joy, the excitement of recognition, are keen, even when the object recognized is dismal.” Does James succeed in rousing this joy of recognition in his readers? Some people find that he does; and their pleasure in his character¬ ization is much greater than that experienced by readers who have never met characters such as Strether or Maria Gastrey, or who at least have never noticed them. Wholly imag¬ inative characters often seem to us much more real than James’s careful, painstaking repro¬ ductions of reality. We would know Becky Sharp if we met her again, while we might meet Maria Gastrey a dozen times and see her only as one of a crowd. James does no high-lighting. So anxious is he to preserve his attitude of disinterested curiosity as the only properly artistic attitude that at times it is forced upon our notice as much as an aggressive and in¬ trusive personal element could be. “In James’s later work,” says Brownell, “what we get, what we see, what impresses us, is not the point of view, it is his own disinterested curiosity. It counts as part, as a main part, of the spectacle he provides for us. We see him busily getting out of the way, visibly withdrawing behind the screen of his story, illustrating his theory by palpably withholding from us the expected, the needful, exposition and explanation, making of his work, in fine, a kind of elaborate and com¬ plicated factification between us and his per¬ sonality.” What James dreads most of all, he says himself, is“the terrible fluidity of self¬ revelation.” So, although Beach is tempted to identify Strether with James himself, on ac¬ count of “his maturity and independence, his sympathetic and discriminating quality of mind, his patience and the unfailing satisfaction he takes in the interpretation of his subject,” the complicated structural difficulties James has taken such pleasure in putting before us leave us uncertain as to whether or not Lambert 27 Strether is a projection of the personality of Henry James. Furthermore, James does not make the people of whom he writes his own by present¬ ing them and coloring them from his particular point of view. They may exist in life, but they do not fire the imagination as does a Becky Sharp or a Tess Durbeyfield. There is not enough of their creator in them to constitute them a particular society. Brownell claims that James’s characters, taken together, form the least successful ele¬ ment of his fiction. This is partly because the author himself seems less interested in their personalities than in the situation in which he places them. They are not very vividly char¬ acterized, and are not completely presented as human beings. In fact, James gives a wide berth to “the province of the heart” and con¬ fines himself to a purely intellectual interest in his characters. And “a picture of human life without reference to the passions . . . cannot but be limited and defective.” Our acquaint¬ ance with his characters is of necessity partial and superficial. Some readers will share James’s delight in watching a purely intel¬ lectual process, but the majority are more read¬ ily interested through their sympathies. It is long before we learn definitely that Chad and Madame de Vi onnet are really in love; the phrase “a virtuous attachment” may mean any¬ thing or nothing. Jeanne de Vionnet is mar- mied in most summary fashion to a man of whom we have never even heard. Little Bil- ham promises to try to care for Mamie Pocock because Strether wishes it, and, in his own words, he “would do anything in the world for Strether.” At the end we are left uncertain as to whether or not Strether is in love with Maria Gastrey or she with him. All these things are merely incidental to the unfolding of the theme James wishes to convey. The personal struggle which supplies the dramatic element takes place too exclusively within the mind of Strether, so the inherent drama largely fails to get itself realized. The story, or rather the development of the theme, moves very slowly indeed. It is a pro¬ cess of slow enlightenment. James will never give us any more information than he feels we can quite digest at one time, and so he keeps our curiosity continually aroused. Long pas¬ sages of dialogue must be waded through for a kernel of new knowledge, which often is not conveyed in words at all, but in a gesture or the abrupt breaking off of a sentence. In “The Art of Fiction,” James says, “It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look out at you in a certain way.” Consequently there is much in James’ dialogue that escapes us, and we are left with the im¬ pression that it is colorless and featureless. Certainly he takes no pains to make his char¬ acters witty or spectacular. “When they play their trump card,” says Beach, “it is not with a great smack down upon the table. They drop it rather out of their voluminous coat-sleeves and slip it on the green baize with discreet and apologetic gesture.” In the first place, James shows very little difference between his characters with regard to language and manner of speech. They all seem to be of approximately the same culture and intelligence. This makes it difficult to fol¬ low the process of thought through his dia¬ logues, which are typically very slow, with occasional bursts of rapid fire in the exchange of views. Between antagonists the dialogue unfolds like a game of chess in which each move must be studied with the most intense concentration. Between confederates the pro¬ cess is like the putting together of a picture- puzzle, each assisting the other by well-chosen words, gestures, inflections. James is fond of sprinkling his dialogue with expressions such as: “She wondered, seemed a little to doubt.” “She took it in then.” “She hesitated afresh, but she brought it out.” “She saw what he meant.” “He had sufficiently understood.” “They fronted each other, across the table, as if things unuttered were in the air.” Our knowledge of Chad, Madame de Vion¬ net, and even Maria Gastrey never goes very deep. Chad is measured only in terms of his improvement over the Chad of Woollett days. His manners are excellent—that is really all we see. Madame de Vionnet we accept as a woman with some peculiar individual charm which cannot be described to us save by the word “wonderful,” a word very much over¬ worked in the opinion of some readers, but it is strange what an impression James has been able to build up by its constant use. However, all the other characters are subordinate to (Continued on page 38) 28 The Techique of Robert Frost and T. S. Elio t IRENE HODGSON HPHE present generation of poets has been very concerned with the problem of cap¬ turing in their poetry the spirit of their own times and of finding a form and idiom suited to the expression of that spirit. It is this problem that F. R. Leavis had in mind when he wrote in “Modern Bearings”: “Poetry matters be¬ cause of the mind of poet who is more alive than other people, more alive in his own age.” It is this attitude which has produced a reaction against the Victorians and the traditional Georgians because of their withdrawal from contemporary issues and their conventionality of form and subject matter. T. S. Eliot, as a poet and a critic, has been a leading figure in this revolt. He has been in¬ tensely aware of the problems of his genera¬ tion ... of what appears to him the decadence, the chaos and the futility of modern life. Out of his mental struggle has come a new type of poetry, startlingly original in technique, about which has evolved a storm of controversy. Robert Frost has said of this technique: “I like to read Eliot because it is fun seeing the way he does things; but I am always glad it is his way and not mine.” The two poets have little in common. Frost seems scarcely aware of the problems, of life and of poetic expres¬ sion, with which Eliot grapples. The contrast between the two poets brings to mind Thomas Hardy’s well-known little poem, ‘In Time of “the Breaking of Nations.” ’ In relative terms, Eliot is concerned with ‘war’s annals’ and the ‘passing of Dynasties,’ while Frost writes of the simple and enduring things, ‘a man har¬ rowing clods,’ ‘thin smoke without flame from the heaps of couch-grass’ and ‘a maid and her wight.’ Frost has treated these themes with¬ out any ostentatious effort to be ‘modern,’ yet, in his own way, he is as modern as Eliot. He is in agreement with the modern tend¬ ency to accept any subject, form or diction as capable of poetic treatment. However, he has not carried this practice to an extreme. In fact much of his poetry, especially his earlier work, is extremely conventional. “Rose Pogonias,” a poem in his first volume, is a good example of this aspect of Frost’s style. The first stanza will suffice: A saturated meadow, Sun-shaped and jewel-small, A circle scarcely wider Than the trees around were tall; Where winds were quite excluded, Aid the air was stifling sweet With the breath of many flowers— A temple of the heat. Most of his best work, however, is in easy blank verse. He has said that there are two rival factors in a poem—the inflexion demanded by the verse pattern and that demanded by the sense and that neither should be completely subjected to the other. In other words, the rhythm should follow a pattern but there is no need to condone variations. There is noth¬ ing very radical about this theory. Poets have always made use of it, although seldom allow¬ ing themselves the freedom which Frost does. His diction in his dialogues is that of the New Englanders whom he describes. Dialect is not used and yet the flavour of the speech is there—the impression of dialect is conveyed. Frost has succeeded in doing what Words¬ worth aimed at—using the speech of the com¬ mon people as a medium of poetic expression. His words are fresh, vivid, precise, carefully chosen. His own definition of poetry—“words that have become deeds”—reflects his attempt to find words that are active. He sought what he called “unmade words,” and tried to give them beauty and poetic significance. To make his meaning clearer, he has said of the word ‘alien,’ that since Keats wrote: “She stood in tears amid the alien corn,” no poet has a right to use that word except in connection with Ellis Island. 26 Frost’s imagery is vivid and arresting but there is no attempt to achieve by it the sensa¬ tional effect of Eliot’s: “When the evening is spread out against the sky like a patient ether¬ ized upon a table.” Frost’s sense for beauty as it is revealed in his imagery, relieves the rather dull texture of his poetry. One of the finest examples of his imagery is in “The Death of the Hired Man.” There is little colour in his imagery, but a fine sense of light and shadow and of form. His description is objective. There may be another meaning lurking underneath it, but it is never permitted to intrude upon his clean-cut, bright pictures of nature and of men and women. This objectivity combined with accurate observation are the characteristics of Frost’s realism. His realism is the kind that comes from an intimacy with the objects and experiences described. Describing his realism, Frost explained: “There are two types of real¬ ist—the one who offers a good deal of dirt with his potato to show that it is a real one and the one who is satisfied with the potato brushed clean. I’m inclined to be the second kind. To me the thing that art does for life is to clean it, to strip it to form.” He has succeeded in making his poetry as bare and compressed as the speech of his New England farmers. There is very little orna¬ mentation or padding. An even, quiet tone is ma intained through¬ out Frost’s poetry. There is no surging of emo¬ tion, no lyrical outbursts. Weirick writes of the “gray competence” of his style. Even the poems tending toward melodrama, for instance “Two Witches,” there is a matter-of-fact tone and an even pace. As one of his critics has said, his poetry does not sing, but the even, quiet measure and the deep undertones have a charm of their own.” Vernon Loggins con¬ siders that “his music is as pure as a Scotch folk melody.” Ludwig Lewisohn has evaluated Frost’s standing as a modern poet in these words: “Frost’s revolt against convention in both sub¬ stance and form may be called the classical revolt for it is the recurrently necessary return from artifice to expression, from accepted false¬ hoods to veracity, from fashions to nature.” T. S. Eliot’s revolt against convention has been much more thorough. In many respects, however, he has accepted traditional poetic technique or at the most, taken liberties with it which are no more radical than those of Frost. Much of his poetry is in stanza form, with rhyme and regular metric. Look, for example, at the last few lines of “Sweeney Among the Nightingales.” The nightingales are singing near The Convent of the Sacred Heart, And sang within the bloody wood When Agamemnon cried aloud, And let their liquid siftings fall To stain the stiff dishonoured shroud. Even his more irregular poetry has a music, a rhythm and a texture not too strange to ears accustomed to traditional English poetry. Con¬ sider, for instance, the solemn beauty of “Journey of the Magi.” Eliot’s theories about rhythm and rhyme do not markedly differ from those of Frost. He advocates freedom of rhythm within a pattern and the use of rhyme, “for a sudden tightening- up, for a cumulative insistence, or for an abrupt change of mood.” His diction is not startlingly modern in the sense that Sandburg’s is. It is, however, inclined to be too intellectual and too technical—he uses, for instance, one word which occupies a Whole line—but it is precise and compressed and attains at times an easy and natural conversational tone. He is capable of producing “a lovely and secret melancholy music,” to borrow a critic’s phrase. Eliot’s use of figures of speech is rather more radical. He has sought to introduce, by their use, an element of surprise into his poetry, to dislocate us from conventional relationships. The familiar: “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons” and the passage, already quoted, about the ‘etherized patient,’ are typi¬ cal of Eliot’s technique. On the whole he has succeeded in his purpose. In my opinion this aspect of his style is one of the chief factors contributing to the freshness, vigour and fas¬ cination of his poetry. Commenting on the lines: “I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker. And I have seen the Eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And, in short, I was afraid.” Charles Williams is of the opinion that these ex¬ pressions enrich the mind, even when not fully understood. Up to this point there seems nothing very unusual in Eliot’s technique—only the efforts of a poet seeking, as others have, to express 30 himself in terms that are fresh and vivid, to free himself somewhat from the restrictions of the preceding period—but nothing to raise the violent criticism which his poetry has received. But let us examine an excerpt from “The Waste Land.” White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter. They wash their feet in soda water Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole! Twit, twit, twit, Jug, jug, jug, jug, jug, jug. So rudely forc’d. Tereu. At first reading people are inclined to exclaim with Charles Williams: “Are we then mad or is it poetry?” This obscurity is the result of Mr. Eliot’s allusiveness, his use of imagery and his lack of logical connection. It is these char¬ acteristics, then, which we must study to grasp the peculiar nature of his poetry. Eliot’s wealth of references and quotations is the result of a theory of poetic tradition. He believes that the mature poet should be “one who in his poetry retwines as many straying strands of tradition as possible.” These refer¬ ences, in his opinion, enrich poetry by their powers of suggestion and compression. For in¬ stance, Matthiessen claims that in the following passage, the references to Dante, Webster and Baudelaire “enable Eliot to condense in a single passage a completely focused expression of tragic horror.” Flowed up the hill and down King William street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson! “You who were with me in the ships at Mylae! “That corpse you planted last year in your garden, “Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? “Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed? “Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men, “Or with his nails he’l l dig it up again! “You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable, mon frere!” But if the allusions are not recognized, what then does the poetry convey? Even to one un¬ familiar with the Book of Ruth, the image of Ruth “standing in tears amid the alien corn,” has an emotional significance, but what signi¬ ficance has the picture of Rochefoucauld stand¬ ing at the end of the street of time? The diffi¬ culty is that Eliot’s method is completely in¬ tellectual. His theory then is based on the as¬ sumption that the references will be familiar to a well-read public. Is he justified in such an assumption? And even to the cultured few, the fifty annotated references and the quota¬ tions in five different languages in “The Waste Land” are apt to become rather annoying. Another theory affecting Eliot’s craftsman¬ ship is that of the “objective correlative.” He believes that a poet should not introduce per¬ sonal emotion into his work but should find “an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion, such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.” Eliot has used this theory most successfully in ‘Gerontion.’ He has achieved concrete and vivid imagery, but it lacks the objectivity, the clarity and usually the beauty of Frost’s imag¬ ery. Most of it has little significance unless the underlying purpose is understood. Conse¬ quently it faces the danger of all personal imagery, that of being meaningless and too frequently the only impression imparted to the reader is one of admiration for such ingenuity as: “the damp souls of housemaids, sprouting despondently at area gates.” An even more serious obstacle to the un¬ derstanding of Eliot’s poetry is its lack of logi¬ cal connection. The only unity it possesses is that of the underlying conception, and fre¬ quently only Mr. Eliot knows what that is. He believes that: “there is a logic of the imagina¬ tion as well as a logic of concepts” and it is the former of these which he employs. This method greatly increases the compression of his poetry but when it is added to the obscurity caused by the poet’s allusions and imagery, the result is apt to be confusion. This matter is connected with Eliot’s theories about the “sound” of poetry. He has stated that poetry may convey an impression before it is understood. This is true of much of his own poetry. However, there is a tend¬ ency, notably in “The Hollow Men,” to let his skill as a craftsman run away with him. 31 This is perhaps true of his poetry as a whole. He wished to write poetry “standing naked in its bare bones, poetry so transparent . . . that in reading it, we are intent on What the poem points out and not on the poetry.” Yet he has been so preoccupied with technique that his craftsmanship dominates his material. His poetry has the intellectual quality of that of the metaphysicals without their ‘redeeming pas¬ sion.’ Frost has been much more successful in fusing thought and technique. His poetry seems to achieve its effects by chance, so trans¬ parent is his method. This superiority of Frost seems to have been emphasized in every aspect of technical skill. But perhaps Eliot’s obscurity has caused his too hasty dismissal. In many places, admit¬ tedly, his poetry baffles and even annoys the reader and yet it seldom fails both to stimulate and fascinate him. Eliot’s dramatic sense, his concrete imagery, his vivid expression, his compression and his skilful use of what Mat- thiessen calls “auditory imagination” offer com¬ pensation for the extreme mental effort re¬ quired to penetrate his obscurity. His poetic problem has been more difficult to solve than that of Frost. In addition, it has been a problem of more general concern to the poets of his generation. It is possible that his med¬ ium has been as well suited to his subject as that of Frost and it is even possible, as Leavis predicts, that “Future English poetry is likely to bear the same kind of relationship to him as later Romantic poetry did to Wordsworth and Coleridge.” VALEDICT0RY...1943 -JOHN H. HOWES (Continued from page 14) The truth is that our background has given us a supreme disinclination to be mislead. We have almost a phobia of being deceived by external appearances, or by seemingly sincere and pious imposters. We are peculiarly in¬ disposed to be duped. We are particularly ad¬ verse to the beclouding of issues with emo¬ tional veils. We are realists, but positive real¬ ists. Our attitude is that if we are to lead fruitful lives the unfinished business of democracy must be finished. Its basis must be civil liberty and intellectual freedom at all times, not only for the few but also for the many. This will in¬ volve changes and new conceptions. We be¬ lieve that we must seek out those who would oppose those changes because of self-interest. If bureaucracy is necessary it must be subject to the steel will of the people and the energy must be exerted from the people up. The ulti¬ mate goal must be individual freedom. Many people have discussed the democratic ideal in such general terms without conceiving the hollowness of their words. They make the mistake of believing that conceptions of free¬ dom will somehow magically transform them¬ selves into smoothly working realities. We are convinced such is not the case. We are con¬ vinced that “total democracy” or what has been called “democracy with a dynamic” must be fought for and when won, zealously guarded. As our attitude in 1943 is not one of cyni¬ cism, then neither is it one of passive optimism. Today we assert a vigorous determination that everyone must be given a stake in our society. We have a tough-minded approach to the re¬ building and maintenance of that society. We believe that in any organization of men, rigor¬ ous vigilance on a wide scale must be kept for these ideals if they are not to become musty and meaningless, as they are becoming today. During the past four years the class of 1943 has been part of United College Society. We feel that it is a good society. It has not fur¬ nished us with a body of doctrine with which to face the world. That is not its function. What it has done is to give us the sense of wider horizons, a desire to judge with relation to the best, a disposition to be liberal in our attitude and tolerant in our actions. The faculty have indicated to us the way to a fuller view of life. They have shown us values by which we may achieve a deeper understanding of human existence. Many of us will shortly become absorbed into a life very much different from this United College society. Some among us will leave to¬ morrow morning for army training camps. For them, this is the last United College function of their four-year course. If United College exists by virtue of its ability to guide its proteges along rocky roads nearer truth, I know they will say, with the rest of the class of ’43, that the college has justified its existence many times over. 32 A TRIBUTE as best I can express it A. E. WALLACE MAURER Friday, June 9, 1939. Grade 12, Section III English: Novel—Room 208, 9:00-10:00. English: Poetry—Room 307, 10:10-11:00. 10:09 It was a magnificent June morning as I entered 307 for your last lecture. I had seen it coming for eight months. I knew that this was the Last: I had had my span with you, as others had had theirs, and as more would have theirs. I took the seat I had occupied since October, the one in front, just off from the lecture table. You came in at 10:11 and took your place behind the table and began your last class with us. The room never struck me as more lovely. The blue of the young summer sky and the green of the newly opened trees came in at the west, the warmth of the splendid sun from the south. 10:19 As I sat there, during that Hour of katharsis, hearing you, Everything swept into my frame. You rarely made pronouncements: you were much too busy living. You were Life. Wordsworth, and Browning, Napoleon, Lord Oxford and Asquish, ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Death Comes For The Archbishop’, Winston Churchill, Dickens, ‘Othello’, ‘The Bacchae’, the man manipulating the steam-shovel over at the Mall Hotel—you lived them all. You lived Life as it should be lived. . . . You lived Life as it should be lived. 10:30 One half-hour left. How unutterably precious can an half an hour be, when it is one’s last! When I did an essay, and there were five hundred things wrong with it, and you detected one sincere note (why, it might have been nothing more than a word, or a neatly written page) you pounced on it and tapped the well-springs of my being and stirred all my powers. O Sir! 10:40 You began to sum up Browning. 10:59 O Lord, just one more minute. 11:00 You wound up, rose, and left. A friend of mine stood beside me, waiting to go down to the locker room. Somehow or other I brushed him aside—I don’t know to this day what he thought. I made for the door And streaked through the hall Towards the library Down the side stairs and Out of the back door. With tears bursting from my face I ran and ran and ran Until I found myself slumped over A makeshift fence, watching them rivet the girders For the Mall Hotel. I had spent myself. I made my way back Up the alley. As I drew near to the college (the side entrance) The almost noon June sun And the lovely breeze Mercifully, and magnificently Warmed my face: And all within me Was calm and at peace. ELIOT AND FROST AS THINKERS (Continued from page 20) tradition. I cannot read him intelligently with¬ out a text expounding his allusions. He claims that “form is all significant and that words live by the amount of intelligence with which their outer and visible technique is wrought.” Per¬ manent poetry is always a presentation of thought and feeling ‘by a statement of events in human action or objects in the external world.’ It is not our feeling but the pattern which we make of our feelings that is the centre of value. The material of his poetry is the result of a highly selec tive art and its order inheres not logically but by the associations of his own mind. He himself has written that “it is the unity of a personality that gives an indissoluble unity to his variety of subject.” In his case that personality is a unique and subtle one in which emotion and intellect are somehow fused into one, or emotion dependent upon intellect in a way that is not common to men. Because of the obscurity and individualism of his verse it is probable that he is condemned to the same neglect as the meaphysicals. His predica¬ ment is like theirs; that of an acutely sensitive nature with a strong intellectual tendency, forced to find its own salvation in a period fol¬ lowing the collapse of a stirring and shallow faith. His fate is to search for certainty in an age that will not give him certainty. He is fascin¬ ated by emotions though he cannot feel them or trust them in the manner of the 19th cen¬ tury. He fears the excesses of an uncontrolled emotional life. Because of this uncertainty Eliot has turned to the past and sought in the manner of an antiquarian for sanction and authority. It is because of this that he has gone so far as to base a theory of creative art on the deliberate evocation of literary associations and emphasis on form. He has in art taken the authoritarian shortcut the world is taking in politics. Most people are of the opinion that sanc¬ tions will be found by looking to the future. But the issue is not decided, and those who easily dismiss the tendencies in Eliot’s work are committing a tactical error in under-esti¬ mating his integrity. His confession of faith was not a sudden rush into the arms of auth¬ ority. It is not an easy faith and Eliot does not rest easily in it. He is convinced that for the truly perceptive individual, life must be pain¬ ful. All art is an effort to metamorphize private failures and disappointments, to transmute per¬ sonal and private agonies into something rich and strange, something universal and imper¬ sonal. “The first requisite of spiritual life is a recognition of the double nature of things, the reality of good and evil, and until man accepts this fact and the inevitable final defeat in death he is bound to waver between a ground¬ less optimistic hopefulness and an equally chaotic powerless despair.” In moments of moral and spiritual struggle we are most alive. Eliot is happy to be called a realist, stripping life of its illusions either too high or too de¬ spairing, and to see it for what it is. Only thus is there ground for some kind of moral and spiritual achievement. He realizes that his view of life is a limitation, bred of his reaction against Victorian smugness, but it is in the cir¬ cumstances in which he finds himself, the truth of the situation. In another age he would not perhaps have been so prone to dark shadows. But he accepts the fact that he lives in this age, and true to his own artistic theory he will give in his work “the sense of his age.” Both Frost and Eliot are aware of the cru¬ cial issues that face modern man—his loneli¬ ness, his isolation, uncertainties, and despair, how he is caught in a web of doubt and frustra¬ tion (“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”), his inability to say or feel what he wants to feel, his fear of life (“Portrait of a Lady”), his failure to find beauty and order, the triviality of a daily existence without larger meanings (“The Boston Evening Transcript, Aunt Helen”), torn between his intelligence and the great, urgent demands of his spirit that he be¬ lieve in something. They both see that no easy faith is possible, that real loss and gain are pos¬ sible and inevitable in a real moral struggle with the outcome in the balance. They accept tragedy as an essential part of man’s lot. It is significant that Frost has refused to judge his age in the outspoken manner of Eliot; it is a clue to their convictions and personal char¬ acteristics. 34 Eliot is perhaps the most outspoken figure in this literary generation. It is not possible to determine at this point whether or not the road he has gone alone is in the direction humanity will go. It is not impossible that the vigour of his imaginative processes and the sincerity and depth of his sympathies have made clear to him earlier than to the rest of mankind the road of suffering and faith men must go. He is certainly a prophet of one answer to man’s problem. It is probable that he has un¬ derestimated the strength of the liberal and democratic faith in mankind and the possibility that it may find a compromise solution of what for him is its inescapable dilemma—its multi¬ tudinous subjectiveness and standardless in¬ dividualism. Lewisohn has written a fair and interesting ‘finale’ to Eliot. He says: “To a de¬ spair so deep that it shatters form and so the world there are two classical issues—suicide or the Catholic church. . . Eliot’s is not the last word but it is an old one. Men not ignoble have gone down before life before. But the creative imagination is at one with life and its pro- creative processes and withers both in the de¬ sert of despair and in the refuge of blank auth¬ ority.” Eliot is not happy in the Catholic church nor is he fully creative there. He is there because of an inability to find elsewhere a satisfactory synthesis of the demands of his intelligence and his emotions. It is a solution that was the most satisfactory to Eliot. I hesi¬ tate to suggest that it will satisfy all men, either those whose sensitiveness is less than Eliot’s or whose love of freedom greater. Frost has not attempted as much as Eliot and in his own field his achievement is secure. He is an artist in a more impersonal and time¬ less sense than Eliot. The lesson of the gods is that he who does not attempt too much is pru¬ dent and happy. Eliot has attempted all things in earth and sky. If he has failed his failure has its honesty and its own glory. He indicates more consciously than Frost that he has seen the imperative needs of man in this age. If he is less the artist he is the bolder intellect. Davidson S TUDIOS |J kill p Distinctive Portraiture Developing and Printing Enlarging and Copying Picture Framing 106 i OSBORNE ST., WINNIPEG Phone 44 133 Fur A Superior Haircut BOULEVARD BARBER SHOP FIRST CLASS BARBERS 477 Portage Avenue Phone 37 496 (Just West of the Mall Hotel) Cash in the bank fa can save you C fee worry when emergencies arise. Save regularly. THE ROYAL BANK OF CANADA 35 FAIRY STORY_MORTEN PARKER (Continued from page 6) “You must certainly be very brave little children to be exploring alone in a forest. What are your names?” We told him our names. “Well now, Marilyn and Robert, since you have some exploring to do and I have a little visit to make, why don’t we walk along to¬ gether? You see, some of my elf and fairy friends live in a little grove near here and I’m on my way to drop in on them for a while.” My mind skipped a thought at that point. Marilyn and I had decided some time ago that there were no such things as elves and fairies, although we weren’t altogether certain, and to meet a man who was actually their friend and was even now going to visit them was quite a start. “Perhaps you’d like to come along with me? I know my friends would be delighted to meet you. Children, you see, are their special friends. It seems that when people grow up they become far too busy to bother with fairies and in time they forget about them completely. And so the only companions they really have are young children and a few older ones, like myself.” He smiled again. “But I always like to be with them and I think they’re quite im¬ portant.” We walked along. “Tell me,” he said, “have you children ever seen these little peo¬ ple?” “No, I’m afraid we haven’t, sir,” Marilyn whispered. “You see, we’re quite busy ex¬ ploring and we haven’t thought about looking for them.” “Oh, you’ve got to look for them if you want to see them,” he said, “but we’re almost at the grove now and you’ll be seeing them soon. I’m sure they’ll be happy to have you with them for a while. They’re quite lonesome, you know.” By this time we were nearing what ap¬ peared to be the end of the path, and through the trees we could see a soft clearing. As we approached it and finally stood on its rim we saw that it was formed almost in the shape of a perfect circle, surrounded completely by firs and pines. The ground was blanketed by the greenest grass I think I have ever seen, and quilted together by a million flowers of all colors. Even as I think of it now, it was one of those sights that seem to rush and suddenly overwhelm the senses. Our companion took us each by the hand and we looked at the grove. “This is where they live,” he said, “and look, there’s a little fellow lying asleep on the tree just directly ahead of us. Look!” There was a light wind stirring and as we strained our eyes towards the tree, we were sure we saw a little movement there. Yes, we did see something there although we weren’t sure it was a fairy; but then, the light at this time wasn’t at its fullest and evening was slip¬ ping away. “You children should be able to see the fairies easily because the eyes of young people are so much keener. The fairies are very good and kind people and they let themselves be seen only by those who are good and kind and by those who dream a little. You will hear, when you grow older, that it’s not good to dream, but I always feel that with a little more dream¬ ing this might be a happier world for very many men. But so it is, and when peoplwe grow up, they somehow forget about kindness and they very rarely hear about goodness, except per¬ haps at Christmas time. You probably won’t understand all of what I am saying to you just now, but you will one day. I wonder why the heart follows the mind so closely in aging.” “Marilyn and I listened attentively although we didn’t follow very much of what he was saying; and at times we weren’t certain that he was talking to us, he seemed to be looking over our heads, perhaps at the fairies.” Robert smiled. “But soon he had noticed a legion of fairy girls winging in and out among the flowers, dancing on and stooping and kissing their purple and orange and yellow heads. He directed our eyes with his long, thin hand. “Do you see them? There! There! They love to play and dance and see how they stir the flowers. I think they’re teasing the little flowers for look how they bend their heads, trying to play with them.” And I swear I almost saw the fairies then, although, as our friend had said, one must come to love them before one can really see them. But Marilyn and I did try, and I think we just caught them as they disappeared into the deep¬ ening shadows of the trees. And now our friend raised his voice a little and said, with surprised pleasure in his voice: 36 “Why here comes a little fairy holding two of the loveliest red apples in his hands. He’s bringing them for you. He wants you to have them.” And even while we strained our little eyes wide to see the good fairy with the two apples, our friend held up his hands and there, suddenly, were two red apples. He held them down to us. “There are you,” he said, “an apple for you Marilyn and an apple for you, Robert. Wasn’t that thoughtful of the little fairy. You see, he’s very fond of you already.” We reached for the apples slowly, as though afraid that any display of avarice on our part might make the kind fairy take them away again. Having them, we bit into them slowly, unbelievably. They were marvellously good apples. By this time the sun had almost set and the entire lawn was covered by a thin, grey veil of mist. Our friend talked on, telling us that this was the night blanket of the fairies and how each day, just before sundown, they drew it over the entire grove. And then he directed our eyes to where all the elves and fairies were dancing on this finely-woven cloth; and about those little people whom we weren’t able to see, because we weren’t as yet trained to see them all, he spoke, describing in the simplest and most beautiful language, their little steps, their capricious twists, their sportings on the blanket of night. Then, suddenly, he had a thin, glittering stick in his hand. He explained that one of the fairies had lent it to him, although we weren’t sufficiently quick to notice the little fairy ap¬ proaching. But there the wand was in his hand, and, touching his cloak with it, a thin, blue spray of delicate, glistening orbs wafted up and up and exploded in a quiet shower of sudden gold in the night. “Do you see how magical this fairy wand is? It can do almost anything.” Saying this, he held it up to the branch of one of the pine trees nearby. And while he held it there, a pure, gentle stream of liquid silver arched down, silently, into the grass below. When he took the wand away, the stream dis¬ appeared. And then, speaking softly to us throughout, he made us see many wonderful sights. A series of filmy, shining stars appeared and danced quietly across the lawn, to vanish in a moment, “because the little fairies will want them to sleep on in the tree-tops.” We heard, very faintly, the sounds of distant music, al¬ though we couldn’t identify the direction from which it seemed to be coming. Marilyn and I held our breath, to hear more clearly the pure, melancholy strains. And soon other little gifts appeared in his hands ... a blue embroidered handkerchief which he gave to my sister and a new, shining jacknife for me. He held out two lush pears (which a little elf had brought for us) and when we refused them because we really weren’t hungry, he gave them back, al¬ though we couldn’t see the elf, it was getting so dark. He showed us many more wonderful sights and told us beautiful stories. But now it was night, and Marilyn and I had forgotten about time entirely, so completely fascinated were we by these strange happen¬ ings in the grove of the fairies. Our friend told us, when we mentioned it to him, that it must be almost nine o’clock and that even he had overstayed and would have to go back to town now. He returned the magic wand to the little fairy who had evidently been standing nearby, watching all this time, and he took us each by the hand. And standing there, in this strange and enchanting fairyland, we looked about and saw that all were sleeping well—some deep in the blanket on the lawns, others nestled high, on stars, in the tops of the black, scented pines. And so we turned homeward. When we came to the beginning of the path, our friend stopped and told us that he would have to leave us then, as he had to hurry into town and would be leaving the island that same night. We assured him that we would be able to get home without difficulty. “You won’t forget, some secret night, to visit our friends again, will you? I won’t be back again this year, so they may grow quite lonesome.” We told him that we would. He smiled and ran his hand gently over our hair. “And if you’re good and kind, and if you dream a little, you will always see beautiful things. Be care¬ ful on your way home, it’s quite dark. Sleep well, children.” He walked away towards town. Marilyn and I ran all the way home that ni ght. Neither of us spoke, but our minds were filled with strange and wonderful thoughts about fairies dancing and rosy red apples and distant music and little blue orbs exploding silently in a golden spray. And we thought about our tall comrade with the fine, gentle face, lean body and the curious short cape flung around his shoulders. When, through the trees, we saw the flickering of the light on the verandah of our cabin, we ran even faster. We wanted to get home and into our rooms and beds so that we could think about all this calmly and in uninterrupted silence. Aunt Helen came out onto the verandah as soon as she heard the sound of us clambering up the first few stairs leading to the cabin. She had been worrying about us. Mother and Dad had gone into town to see the vaudeville troupe perform. She was going to wait fifteen minutes more and then contact the constable, so that a searching party might be sent out after us. We kissed her as she gathered us up in her arms, (Continued on page 48) 37 LEWIS AND JAMES-KAY ROWLETTE (Continued from page 28) Strether; they are part of the atmosphere which surrounds him. “Possessed of a more vivid imagination,” says Edgar, “he has passed through the transformation stages more rapid¬ ly than Chad or Maria Gastrey, and has com¬ pressed the experiences of years into a few summer months. He returns to Woollett a sadder and a wiser man, with only dreams for his comfort, with no regrets for the striking of his name from the pale green covers of ‘The Woollett Review,’ nor greatly lamenting, per¬ haps, his loss of Mrs. Newsome’s esteem, her fortune, and her hand. What most perturbs him is that circumstances have robbed him of the fuller life for which he discovered in him¬ self such delated aptitudes, and also the haunt¬ ing fear, almost indeed the ironic certainty, that Chad, to whom that life lies open, will abjure it.” Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt” has no plot. It is a protest against the quality of civilization which Lewis considers the typical civilization throughout the whole of America. More parti¬ cularly, it is the significant evolution in the attitude of George F. Babbitt toward the social order to which he belongs. It is the problem of the standardization of existence, brought about by the mass production methods of America—“the mass production of motor cars, victrolas, motion pictures, syndicated news¬ papers and standardized fiction in the popular magazines, and the still more deadly mass pro¬ duction of standardized education and a stand¬ ardized measure of success.” [Elizabeth Drew.] Sinclair Lewis sees Main Street as determin¬ ing the whole society of the country. Every town in America has its Main Street, and has, too, its solid citizens who believe that the working classes must be kept in their place; that American democracy does not im¬ ply equality of wealth, but does imply “a whole¬ some sameness of thought, dress and vocabu¬ lary”; men who worship bigness in everything —“in mountains, in jewels, in muscles, wealth or words”; who glorify energy and listen ap¬ preciatively to a sermon on “The Pep of St. Paul,” who think of culture as an external asset, “the result of a correspondence course and a Five Foot Shelf of Books and a Sym¬ phony Orchestra in the city”; all, men and women together, as much alike “as if they had been stamped out by an educative biscuit- cutter.” Scene and characterization in “Babbitt” really amount to the same thing. This is be¬ cause the characters of whom Lewis writes are so completely a part of the society they have created. But he paints only a particular phase of society—the middle class. Lewis’s enemies, who, it has been pointed out, constitute perhaps seven-eighths of his readers, object strenuous¬ ly to “Babbitt” because they see in it a repre¬ sentation of American life which is by no means universal. The outsider is led to believe, and in many cases is only too willing to believe, that George F. Babbitt is the type of typical American society. This is a quote from the book itself: “Just as he was an Elk, a Booster, and a member of the Chamber of Commerce, just as the priests of the Presbyterian Church determined his every religious belief and the senators who controlled the Republican Party decided in little smoky rooms in Washington what he should think about disarmament, tariff and Germany, so did the large national adver¬ tis ers fix the surface of his life, fix what he believed to be his individuality. These standard advertised wares—toothpastes, socks, tires, cameras, instantaneous hot-water heaters— were his symbols and proofs of excellence; at first the signs, then the substitutes, for joy and passion and wisdom.” Whether or not you consider this typical of American life, or any particular phase of it, is up to yourselves to decide. At any rate, “Babbitt” gives us the complete and detailed characterization of one member of one com¬ munity in the great United States of America. George F. Babbitt is a solid citizen and loyal Booster of Zenith, a member of the Athletic Club, a husband and father with normal family problems, a dealer in real estate, a supporter of “the Standardized American Citizen” (this he defines as “fellows with hair on their chests and smiles in their eyes and adding-machines in th eir offices”); a comfortably well-to-do resi¬ dent of Floral Heights whose god is Modern Appliances and whose car “indicated social rank as precisely as the grades of the peerage determined the ranks of an English family.” Then, quite suddenly, this solid citizen, this irreproachable friend and neighbor, begins to do strange things. He becomes dissatisfied with 38 the social order of which he forms a part. His dissatisfaction is vague, undirected; but he is at least conscious that society is driving him relentlessly along a rut of his own making, and that he has not the least idea where it is driving him. He is filled with uncertain rebellion— against his stolid, uninteresting wife, his un¬ appreciative family, his dull neighbors. When Paul Reisling, the one person he really loves, is sent to jail his rebellion extends to society in general. He has occasional moments of in¬ sight: “He was conscious of life, and a little sad. With no Vergil Gunches before whom to set his face in resolute optimism, he beheld, and half admitted that he beheld, his way of life as incredibly mechanical. Mechanical busi¬ ness—a brisk selling of badly-built houses. Mechanical religion—a dry, hard church, shut off from the real life of the streets, inhumanly respectable as a top-hat. Mechanical golf, din¬ ner parties and bridge and conversation. Save with Paul Reisling, mechanical friendships,— back-slapping and jocular, never daring to essay the test of quietness.” It is to break his way out of this deadly atmosphere of respectability and boredom that he allows himself to be dragged into “The Bunch”—the “Bunch,” which pronounces itself “wise and beautiful and amusing; Bohemians and urbanites, accustomed to all the luxuries of Zenith: dance-halls, movie-theatres, and road-houses.” He forfeits the friendship of his old neighbors and fellow-Boosters by refusin g to denounce a group of strikers, characterized by the others as “a lot of hoodlums that are try¬ ing to take the bread and butter away from our families.” In one final burst of independence he turns down an invitation—a rather press¬ ing invitation—to join the Good Citizens’ League. But this is the end of his single-hand¬ ed rebellion. The pressure of the G.C.L., the Boosters, and “the gang of good fellows whose approval is the light of day to him” is too great; “he cannot pay the price of business and social ostracism.” He allows himself to be pushed back into his old rut. He is even glad to be back. But he is still haunted by visions of the Fairy Child, representing all that he has missed in life; and he can say to his son Ted, at the end of the book: “Practically, I’ve never done a single thing I’ve wanted to in my whole life! I don’t know’s I’ve accomplished anything ex¬ cept just get along. I figure out I’ve made about a quarter of an inch out of a possible hundred rods. Well, maybe you’ll carry things on fur¬ ther. I don’t know. But I do get a kind of sneaking pleasure out of the fact that you knew what you wanted to do and did it. Well, those folks in there will try to bully you, and tame you down. Tell ’em to go to the devil! I’ll back you. Take your factory job, if you want to. Don’t be scared of the family. No, nor all of Zenith. Nor of yourself, the way I’ve been. Go ahead, old man! The world is yours!” The other characters in the book are minor ones, very much subordinated to the portrait of Babbitt. He sees them all as good, solid and dull and uninteresting. . . With the exception of Paul Reisling, who is more sensitive, and Seneca Doane, who is more radical. Occa¬ sionally there are moments of self-revelation among this undistinguished lot which surprise him; he is shocked when his wife says: “Don’t you suppose I ever get tired of fussing? I get so bored with ordering three meals day, 365 days a year, and ruining my eyes over that horrid sewing-machine, and looking after your clothes and Rone’s and Ted’s and Tinka’s and everybody’s, and the laundry, and darning socks, and going down to the Piggly Wiggly to market, and bringing my basket home to save money on the cash-and-carry and—EVERY¬ THING!” He is astonished when Chum Frink confides to him, in a burst of intoxicated can¬ dor, the realization that he is a traitor to poetry and a failure in the literary world. He sees Paul’s wife, Zilla Reisling, as a scolding, sharp- tongued, suspicious old woman, and he is sur¬ prised and annoyed when his wife exhibits a clearer insight: “Poor Zilla, she’s so unhappy. She takes it out on Paul. She hasn’t a single thing to do, in that little flat. And she broods too much. And she used to be so pretty and gay, and she resents losing it.” Each one of these momentary glimpses con¬ tains the element of tragedy. And it is by thousands of quick brush-strokes such as these that Lewis develops his picture of American life—its never-ending hurry and hustle, its wealth, its devotion to the mechanical; in brief, its standardization. It is in the words of Seneca Doane, the radical lawyer, that this standard¬ ization is given its fairest representation: 39 “There’s no other country in the world that has such pleasant houses. And I don’t care if they are standardized. It’s a corking standard! . . . No, what I fight in Zenith is standardization of thought, and, of course, the traditions of competition. The real villains of the piece are the clean, kind, industrious Family Men who use every known brand of trickery and cruelty to insure the prosperity of their cubs. The worst thing about these fellows is that they’re so good and, in their work at least, so intelli¬ gent. You can’t hate them properly, and yet their standardized minds are the enemy.” Sinclair Lewis is commonly known as a realist, and it is true that he is realistic in his marvellous powers of observation and detailed description. He leaves nothing to the imagina¬ tion, and every word he writes is crisp, vigor¬ ous, satiric. There is no mystery about Bab¬ bitt. We see him asleep on his beloved sleeping- porch, at breakfast with his family, driving to work in the morning, having lunch at the Athletic Club, quarrelling with the children at dinner, shaving in his bath at night. But Lewis is actually only a selective realist. Eliza¬ beth Drew says of him: “His art remains es¬ sentially external: it is a mosaic of the actual, but of pieces of the actual which have been carefully chosen for a certain special purpose— to illustrate the pattern of the standardization of society, not the general rhythm of human¬ ity.” The difference between Lewis and Henry James is not so boundless as it appears on first sight. Both develop their themes by the amass¬ ing of vast quantities of details, and both write of the narrowness, dullness and prejudice of American life—Lewis directly, and James in¬ directly. Lambert Strether and George F. Bab¬ bitt reach the same conclusion; that they have Officers ' Kit Shop Military Tailoring Complete Line of Military Accessories 387V2 Portage Ave. Phone 22 451 missed something of life, both counsel younger men to “live all they can.” But James piles up his details indiscriminately; he does no high¬ lighting, for to him all details are significant and worthy of note. Lewis definitely selects those details which will fit the aspect of life he is attempting to portray. James’ characters develop psychologically and the action is all from within; Lewis’s characters are definitely created first and animated afterwards. They seem perhaps more alive than James’s char¬ acters, largely because Lewis has played up a certain type and James does no playing up at all. In “The Ambassadors” we are conscious of Paris as an atmosphere of which the char¬ acters are part and parcel. In “Babbitt,” Zenith crowds the characters, jostles them, hurries them, thrusts itself into the foreground, and eventually beats them into submission to its will. In “The Ambassadors” the characters are intriguingly “wonderful”; in “Babbitt” they are hum-drum and ordinary, with all romance completely shorn from them. “Babbitt” is the more vivid and compelling book; but actually both are concerned with a protest against the ignorance, narrow-mindedness and prejudice of American life. Whether or not this protest can still be made about American life in 1943 is for the individual to decide. W HEN advising others and when making your own will please re¬ member United College, its needs and its long service to the community. This advertisement paid for and donated by a graduate. GIBSON’S BOWLING AND BILLIARDS FOR LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THE SARATOGA . . . ACADEMY . . . BOWLADROME . . . RECREATION . . . MALL 40 The United-Macalister Conference of 1942 A Commentary . . . This Year’s Conference and Its Predecessor T HE Second Annual Conference on Cana- dian-American Relations took place last November. It was a big event, an exciting event, and (to a degree which varies with the individual student) it was an enriching and horizon-widening event. Certainly it is a fact that for more than a few of the students who were fortunate enough to make the trip to St. Paul the “Maconference” will be looked upon with memory’s eye as the highlight of their student activities for this year. However, now that we are a little removed in time from those fifty-six hours with our American prototypes, there is abroad a general feeling that some attempt should be made at appraisal of what is hoped to be a now annual event. This was the second United-Macalester get- together, and that fact carries certain implica¬ tions in itself. For one thing, the first Confer¬ ence was a success, and there was in the minds of some of us the mute question of how much that success could be attributed to novelty; would the student response be as enthusiastic this year? The number of applications gave an answer that was very definitely in the affirmative. There were other queries. The first conference was something new in the pro¬ gram of both Colleges, and the American dele¬ gates, along with their Canadian hosts, had their fingers crossed. They and us, at least in the opening sessions, were a little too careful in discussion,—the Usonians a little too much aware that they were guests, the Canucks, that they were hosts. It took a little while for both groups to discover that they were first and foremost keen students a nd opinionated ob¬ servers of world affairs. But even going through that “awkward” stage had its attractions—it was the eager shyness of new love which can be looked back on with fond amusement now that it has blossomed into a deeper under¬ standing. There was one factor in that first Confer¬ ence which did call for cautiousness from both parties: Canada was a nation in her third year of a second world war; the United States was still an affirmed, though not disinterested neu¬ tral. Before we were to meet against the names Pearl Harbour, Hong Kong, Wake Island, Singapore, and a myriad of new battle stations Peter Gordon White from the Pacific to the shores of Tripoli were to be indelibly imprinted on our minds. So our second conference was in no sense a revival of the first. Even though there were now in both Colleges a number of delegates who were renew ing old acquaintances as well as making new ones, there was a stimulating freshness about it all, with new approach, new topics, new attitudes, new meeting places, and, for most of the Canadian delegation, the added attraction of a new city. The Macites had pro- fitted from their experience up here, with the result that the mechanics of operating such a conference were mastered to a greater degree than was possible in what had been a new un¬ dertaking for all of us in the previous year. The discussion-groups were smaller and more numerous, engendering a more spontaneous spirit of round-table discussion. The pre¬ arranged plan whereby every student had a broad general knowledge of all topics, with some degree of specialization by chairmen and co-chairmen, overcame the dangerous tend¬ ency of delegates to contribute their specific piece of knowledge to the assembly and then relegate themselves to the role of silent mem¬ ber. The recording of the principal speeches and events was a typically American touch-— that extra something” in doing the affair up right! It can be safely said, then, that the 1942 Conference did represent a definite advance over that of 1941 in almost every respect. The Conference in Winnipeg had justified the faith and hopes of its instigators. The Conference in St. Paul was an ever greater success. fiujsijto JEWELLERS Opticians - Diamond Merchants 447 Portage Avenue : Winnipeg 830 Rosser Avenue : Brandon SHOP FOR YOUR GIFTS AT FELDSTED’S 41 ASIA, CONTINENT WITH A PAST...AND A FUTURE (Continued from page 11) But the enterprise of the modern world could not allow one-third of the la nd of the globe to remain closed to it indefinitely. The wealth of Asia in terms of natural resources and cheap labor (the average income in India is only $20 a year, and for China it may be even less) tempted the modern world to con¬ quest just as the gold and jewels tempted Alexander. Britain and Russia each had an excellent foothold, France and Holland smaller, but equally definite and profitable holdings, and Germany, arriving late on the scene, sought to supplement her strategic foothold in Shan¬ tung by means of the Bagdad railway and her influence through Turkey upon Asia Minor. The rivalries, at bottom commercial, for the unexploited Asiatic lands made them stakes for which a dangerous diplomatic game was con¬ stantly played. Fabled Land of the Lotus Blossom In the relations between East and West throughout the course of the centuries, it is difficult, within the restricted scope of this paper, to consider each of the racial-national groups individually. The general view of the West was that of the Mystic Orient, the fabled land of spices and jewels and untold wealth. It is hard for us to realize that the peoples of these lands did more than lounge in perfumed splen¬ dour, or write cute little sayings without verbs, or spend all their time bowing to a bulging Buddha. They had civilizations, great and vast civilizations, which they knew to be the highest in their known world, and which they were confident were greater by far than any that the great beyonds might have to offer. China is a typical example. At her greatest moment she had every rea¬ son to have a good opinion of herself. She was the centre of the world. She had all the toler¬ ance of a great and progressive civilization long before 1000 A.D., reaching out to adopt ideas from beyond her own borders, welcoming foreign merchants, missionaries, and mercen¬ aries. We have art relics from this Tang Dynasty which are not only Chinese but also Indian, Arabian, Grecian, Persian, and Japan¬ ese. Every religion was tolerated, as witness this ecumenical statement, the opening lines of an Edict of the Emperor T’ai Tsung, issued in the year A.D. 638: “The Way has no constant Name, nor the Sage a constant form. Accord¬ ing to environment religion is set forth quietly, providing salvation for all living.” No other ruler of the 7th century in any part of the world promulgated so wise, so fecund, so lofty a declaration. It is a testimony to the unques¬ tioned superiority of the Asiatic of that date. What had Europe to show? Some perverted puppets in a palace at Rome who would have made the Carpenter weep; stuffy Byzantium, half-barbarous Charlemagne, rude and rustic Alfred, and a comparatively beast-like exist¬ ence. So advanced was the Orient, that we might almost excuse a most understandable error: they came to believe that their excellence was static, that virtue resided in maintaining what had been achieved, that their searchings were over, that they had found everything, wanted nothing, could be taught nothing. On the other side of the world came the Renaissance, the Re-awakening, but China, ruled by Emperors who were lords of the earth and the chosen of Heaven, took no account of these things. This politico-ethical code of Confucianism and the Heavenly-chosen Emperor clashed vio¬ lently with another belief claiming to be a world religion: Christianity . .. especially when the adherents of this new faith, now no longer barbarians, came sailing into the East to de¬ mand trade concessions or blast the heathens off the face of the map. And so, during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries trade concessions were granted, while the official policy of the Orient was to keep as far removed as possible 42 from those disagreeable, disgusting and bar¬ barous persons, the Occidental merchants. The End of the Long Sleep At the close of the 19th century the inevit¬ able happened: some radical groups compre¬ hended the white man’s ways faster than others, and set about to beat him at his own game. The disturbers of Asia’s peace came not from the West alone; the time had come for Asia to be troubled by Asiatics. The time had come, also, for the Western people to become aware of what had really been happening in the Orient in the last century. The Orient, and traditional Western views of the Orient, had reached the transitional stage we are now ex¬ periencing. The Rev. Dr. Endicott, who bases his observations on first-hand information, made the issue very clear when he spoke in Winnipeg recently: We had our Renaissance, and the Asiatics are now having a Re-awaken¬ ing of their own. The whole East may still be in the throes of the conflict of the old and the new, but the West must realize that these are no longer the lands of the lesser breeds; these peoples have had revolutions of their own, and from now on they are going to demand equality and to refuse subjection and inferiority. We are shocked when the Germans claim to be the “herrenvolk,” the superior race, yet that is just exactly how all Western nations have consid¬ ered themselves in their relations with the East. These people have won the right to equality and respect; we have held the wrong opinion too long. The theories of the mission¬ aries, that Orientals were not little more than animals, useful animals, to be exploited, that they are nations of individuals worthy of our respect as fellow men, all this was dismissed as the mealy-mouthed mutterings of the too- idealistic. It would seem that nothing changes one’s mind quicker than a few well-placed bombs. We thought that these backward peo¬ ples had neither the brains to build the ships nor the ability to navigate them, to turn out the planes or to fly them. Pearl Harbour helped to correct our thinking and before this war is over a reformation of our whole attitude to this most ancient of the New Worlds will be forced upon us. One prime example of just how erroneous our attitude might possibly be is exemplified here in our own student body, where the pre¬ dominant view has been one in which the East will have bestowed upon it the blessings of our wonderful western democracy. Mr. Owen Lat- timore, political adviser to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek since 1941, points out that peace and social and political re-organization must come from —not to —the East. “We must be prepared in advance for the fact that, for hundreds of millions of people in Asia, the main focus, first, for the hope of national free¬ dom, and then for the growth of democracy, may be in closer association with the new democracy of China rather than with the older democracies of the Western nations.” We must realize too that such new democracies can be valid as democracies without being identical with our own. The Running Sore In all this great problem of East and West there is one phase which is currently on every¬ one’s lips, and has even been the cause of some quite forceful clash of opinions among our¬ selves, with a resultant display of profound wisdom and profound ignorance, the latter be¬ ing the more profound; I refer to the status of India, in Asia, and in a world order. As long ago as 1932 Norman Angell, in his book “The Unseen Assassins,” could see that, “the Indian leaders are taking a line which ex¬ cludes the possibility of the really wise course, which is the co-operation of Britain and India for the welfare of both. They reject that on behalf of virtually complete independence. Anything less they declared to be a reflection upon India, an implication that she is less able than Canada, or Australia, to become immedi¬ ately, and by her own efforts, an independent State. In any case, the leaders go on repeating, the right to independence is not something they will discuss, or accept as a gift from others. Again and again have Indian leaders, includ¬ ing Ghandi, declared that they will ‘not accept freedom as a gift’ but will ‘prove their right to it by suffering self-sacrifice.’ They desire to force it from, not to have it willingly granted by, a British government.” Well, we ourselves taught them all that, and they’re just catching up with it. It is Victorian Radicalism, the old “workers arise” routine, the “self-determination” propaganda they got from us when we invited them to join us in our war to make the world safe for democracy. But the tragedy of the thing is that India is 43 getting hold of these principles just as we are finding that they are quite inadequate for the modern world. Right now the democracies are entangled in a belated and violent effort to cor¬ rect the shortcomings of Nationalism and poli¬ tical independence carried to their logical con¬ clusions. And if we don’t overcome this—even if we do—if we cannot rise above narrow na¬ tionalism and self-determination, then all hope must be surrendered of ever making Europe, much less the world, a place of peace and economic and social security. The price we pay for civilization is the surrender of the right of each to be his own master. A great deal of the passionate oratory and hysterical writing about capitalistic exploita¬ tion is getting a bit boring, and those who use this as their reasoning for British withdrawal from India are resorting to rationalization in the lowest sense of that word. Capitalism can be, and is, quite as readily Indian as British. The Bombay cotton mills, which are owned by Indian capitalists, would still exploit the Indian worker with as much ruthlessness as ever were all British connections to cease tomorrow. There are many good reasons, moral and poli¬ tical, why India must eventually be free, but this over-worked capitalism theory is not one of them. British capitalism does not need the political tie, as witness the vast sums that have been sunk in countries like Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey, to say nothing of the United States. Fiscally, India is already independent; she imposes hostile tariffs on British textiles, cottons, irons, and steels. This hardly syn- cronizes with the theory that Britain holds India simply that she may bleed her economic¬ ally ... or are we to believe that this is is some deep-dyed plot of grasping capitalism, and that when British interests concerned protest vio¬ lently and agitate to get these duties repealed, it is nothing more than some elaborate piece of comedy to fool the poor, downtrodden, under¬ privileged proletariat? No, this is obviously not the answer to the problem of India. Then why, in the last anal¬ ysis, does India want independence, as she most certainly does? The attitude of the Indian leaders themselves is the key to the solution; they have asserted that t hey do not want in¬ dependence as a gift; they have argued and contradicted one another until their attitude appears to us to be unreasonable and childish. Actually, their conduct is the most readily un¬ derstandable of all human traits: they want their freedom as a right to which they are en¬ titled, a right of which they are worthy as human beings. The fault of the British and, indeed of almost all western races in dealing with the Asiatics, has been the attitude taken toward the natives. To be an Asiatic was to be an inferior. This may be, and I would hope that it is, a fault which belongs to the past more than the present, but the damage is done, and Britain is confronted now by a mood in India in which nothing that the British power can do can be right. The last attempts of Sir Stafford Cripps are evidence of that. National¬ ism and independence as inherent rights have been raised to the position of the supreme spiritual good. Freedom has became a worship above all reason, and we are confronted not with a question of economic or political good so much as a question of status, pride, dignity, and a revolt from the position of inferiority which the Indian as an individual, not India as a political unit, has been made to feel in his contact with the British element in India. No number of citations of the beneficial results of British rule in India will serve to overcome the argument put forth in this quotation from an Indian spokesman: “I am incapable of objectivity in judging the uses and demerits of the British connection. Surely much good has come out of it. But when I think of the British in India, I always see a drunken rough soldier who entered our house and whipped my aunt, or a customs official (probably a Eurasian) who hit my father for being in his wife’s way on the pavement. That such things can take place is enough for me to condemn a relation which has developed along many contradictory paths.” Facing up to the situation thrown up to us in that statement will be our first step toward a re-organization of the relations between East and West, and a real recognition of the Oriental Renaissance which is taking place. When the hallowed Magna Carta received King John’s signature in 1215, its words applied to not more than a handful of the upper stratas of English society . . . today we are engaged in a world war because we believe that those tenets, and others like them, apply to all the people of our own nation and beyond. The time has come for our horizons to be still further widened, for us to realize that our beliefs might still be valid even when applied to men whose skin differs in color from our own. 44 FAREWELL ADDRESS-D. C. MASTERS (Continued from page 7) ledge. The essential difference is that the uni¬ versity man is now likely to be able to utilize effectively what knowledge he has acquired. The conscientious performance of all the tasks which you found so dull and against which you protested so vigorously is likely to produce that ability. Our system of education is based, finally, on a belief in the Christian ethic as a guide to life. There are those who consider liberalism and Christianity as irreconcilable. To them I would suggest that it is not enough to discover truth if one’s discovery has no influence upon subsequent conduct. Matthew Arnold in “Cul¬ ture and Anarchy” described the two phases of our cultural heritage, which he termed Hel¬ lenic and Herbraic. The Hellenic is concerned with thought and contemplation, the Hebraic with conduct. We at United College stand not only for Hellenism but for Hebraism also. It is of little use to decide what the good life is un¬ less you attempt to live it. Christianity is likely to produce that strength of character which is essential to the living of the good life. Liberal¬ ism alone may only produce clever rascals. I have suggested some of the principles un¬ derlying our educational system because I feel that their continued observance will be of value to you in the future. No one can foretell what lies ahead of any of us. But, drawing upon my own short experience, I should like to sug¬ gest the value of clinging to the beliefs, tradi¬ tions and mental habits which one has already acquired. If you encounter times of doubt and uncertainty, cling to what you already have. I do not mean to suggest, however, that you should have closed minds, incapable of de¬ velopment. Always be prepared to adjust your thinking in the light of new evidence. But do not be the type of liberal or academic who sees all the approaches to a given problem and is incapable of drawing any conclusion. Make full use of the liberal approach which we have attempted to provide for you. But, having drawn your conclusion, have the courage and the character to act in accordance with it. If you do that you have my blessing and, I am sure, the blessing of United College. When did you last buy a War Stamp? Was it yesterday? Last week? Perhaps you don’t just remember when it was, but since that time the fight for free¬ dom has continued night and day. Great quantities of war materials are in use on battle fronts all over the world. It’s up to you to help keep those supplies moving. Buy and keep buying War Savings Stamps till victory is won. %uii$ori l£ a t (EomjMttQ. INCORPORATED 2 ? MAY 1670. 45 � � � With HARVEY DRYDEN The Beveridge Report HE Beveridge plan for a com¬ prehensive scheme of social se¬ curity has been widely heralded in the western democracies as one of the basic blueprints for a brave new world, possibly even a world “fit for heroes,” if one wanted to be rem¬ iniscent. So much has the plan caught the imagination on this side of the Atlantic that citizens feel their government to be neglecting its duties if it fails to produce some¬ thing similar. So what, exactly, does the plan represent in real social terms? In the first place the plan DOES NOT pretend to attack the main eco¬ nomic ills which have afflicted our society. As Sir William Beveridge himself has pointed out, the plan it¬ self rests on the assumption of a more efficient working of the econ¬ omy than has occurred in the past. He warns, for instance, that the scheme could not work if a scale of unemployment that existed in de¬ pression days prevailed. The Report does not claim to be able to prevent either unemploy¬ ment, overproduction or underpro¬ duction. The plan outlines a cure for a specific social evil but has noth¬ ing whatever to say about the broad economic malignancy that was at its height a decade ago. The Report outlines a social in¬ surance scheme to short-circuit many of the risks and uncertainties, in a word the viscissitudes of lower class life. It is a plan to abolish ex¬ treme physical want, suffering and death resulting from absolute pen¬ ury. It is a plan to provide just enough clothing, food, shelter, and medical care to ensure at least life. Nothing more. This may sound rather different from more enthusiastic descriptions of the Report but is rather nearer the truth. Sir William makes no bones about it. There are two key words in the Report. These are WANT and SUB¬ SISTENCE. The report proposes to eliminate want by guaranteeing sub¬ sistence, largely on an insurance basis. We get an insight as to what is meant when we realize that Bever¬ idge does not equate want with po¬ verty. Want, to him, is extreme po¬ verty. The Report does not propose to eliminate want, but only poverty. The subsistence guaranteed, like¬ wise, is not equated with a reason¬ able minimum standard of living. Subsistence, which the Report pro¬ poses to ensure, is the minimum of income and services that are re¬ quired to keep body and soul to¬ gether. It is a scheme to support at a minimum level the unfortunate cast-offs of an otherwise soul-less economic and social order. Thus the plan does not propose to abolish want. As Sir William can¬ didly states, the national income must be both increased and redis¬ tributed to do this and his report proposes only to do the latter to a minor degree. Put in the proper social perspec¬ tive and minus ballyhoo the Report shrinks from the proportions of a blueprint for a brave new world to that of a rather inadequate patch on the same old status quo. Unques¬ tionably the adoption (!) of the Re¬ port would constitute a marked so¬ cial advance, but one which carries its own commentary on our social past—and future. With all due respect to Sir Wil¬ liam Beveridge who has done his job competently, the plan is, inher¬ ently, a farce. In wartime we doubled our vaunted peacetime pro¬ duction figures. In the western de¬ mocracies, at least, we have demon¬ strated that we can produce enough for all. But we doubt our ability to produce for peace—therefore a Bev¬ eridge plan for the unfortunates. If the soldiers of the western de¬ mocracies are fighting for a post-war world, the greatest attraction of which is a Beveridge plan . . . then they may be dying to defeat Hitler but they are NOT winning a brave new world. That battle will still be far from won long after Hitler is defeated. —J.A.C.S. Bracken Remains on Sidelines John Bracken, the savior who is expected to lead the renovated Tory party out of its present imbecile state, still remains quietly on the sidelines at Ottawa. Outside of a couple of speeches and a “get-ac¬ quainted” tour through New Bruns¬ wick, he has done little to make the headlines. Mr. Bracken, it seems, has chosen this fate not through any fear that he may be de¬ feated in an attempt to secure elec¬ tion to parliament (for he has a safe bet in the Souris constituency should Col. Ross, the present member, re¬ sign) , but because he feels this course promises the best possible chance of success in the next fed¬ eral election. Mr. Bracken gains two distinct ad¬ vantages by following his present cot se. In the first place, as long as he can remain separate from the blunderings of the pitiful remnant of the Conservative party in the house of commons, the better it will be for him. The majority of the thirty- odd members of the Conservative party have long since lost touch with public opinion. Bracken’s influence may be credited with any good moves which these members exe¬ cute; on the other hand, any “bon¬ ers” which they pull are not likely to react to his discredit, as would be the case if he too sat in parlia¬ ment. People will assume that an end will come to this spectacle when 46 the new leader takes over personal command. At present there are no particular issues on which Bracken could chal¬ lenge the King administration were he to assume personal leadership of the Conservatives in the house. Canadians have a peculiar habit of expecting practical results to follow the election to office of a new mem¬ ber, and especially a new party leader. There is no certainty that Bracken could achieve those results. In fact, many observers believe a federal administration under John Bracken would direct the war effort in much the same manner as the King government has done, with perhaps a slightly better deal for the western farmer. By staying in the background, then, Bracken may increase his pros¬ pects for victory in a dominion-wide election. As a separate entity re¬ maining aloof from the folly of the Tory party, Mr. Bracken will reduce to a minimum the ill-effects of the obvious handicap assumed by him of being associated with such a party. It will be to his advantage while the party is in its present condition to prolong the period in which he is not regarded as a real Conservative. There seems every reason to be¬ lieve he can produce better results in the reformation of the old party from his present behind-the-scenes position than from a prominent spot in the public eye. When he does de¬ cide to carry the Conservative ban¬ ner in public, there will be fewer blemishes on his record. It may be that by this time issues will have arisen on which Bracken can effec¬ tively challenge Mr. King. REVIEWS . . . Irvin Petsnick (Continued from page 16) have the necessary power to carry out their plans. In peacetime they face the insurmountable obstacle of determining the demand of millions of people, allowing for change, and allocating resources without main¬ taining an authoritative arbitrary determined position. Lippmann cer¬ tainly delves beneath the surface of the problem when he attacks the collectivists on their assumed right¬ eous position of maintaining that a planned economy can alone give the people what they want, when they want it, and in the necessary quan¬ tities. Free demand with a planned economy is incompatible. You can¬ not possibly allow people to choose what they will buy, once the plan is made. You do not tell the planners what to plan, but the planners tell you what you must buy, simply be¬ cause they have allocated all re¬ sources to the making of goods in a certain measure, and, as such, they must be bought accordingly. Similar¬ ly you have absolute rigidity of labor. You cannot possibly have people changing their minds in the midst of a planned economy, as to where they will work. You have planned the economy, you need so many men for each job, and, if the plan is to be completed, then these men must stay at the job. Lippmann agrees that an economy may be planned, but he violently disagrees that it is compatible with free de¬ mand or choice as to vocation. Equally, gradual collectivism comes under fire from Lippmann. The granting of privileges, monopolies, necessitous bargaining, advantages, tariffs, incorporations, have all tend¬ ed to bring about a bitter internal struggle for control. Individual wealth has definitely increased, at the expense of a similar increase of social wealth. Authorities have like¬ wise increased, and, in spite of or¬ ganization, the situation has grown steadily worse. It is due, says Lipp¬ mann, to a strange illusion that people have, that somehow political power can create wealth, that tariffs and monopolies increase goods pro¬ duced, and that the number of auth¬ orities somehow can be increased to the point where they will exercise benevolent power for the common good. In the second part of his book Lippmann re-examines the Liberal movement. He is fully agreed that the Liberals went off the road, but that at least they were on the right road. The core of his argument seems to be that the defenders of the Liberal laissez-faire idea were bas¬ ing their position on a normative basis, and not on a realistic one. That is, that the economy as revealed and defended by these people was the one it should have been, but actually was not. They had the answer right in their grasp, but failed to realize it. Consequently, people looking at the economy realistically saw its apparent, glaring, obvious defects, and treated it accordingly. The division of labor is the bene¬ ficent outcome of the Industrial Re¬ volution, and the one underlying factor which has brought prosperity, wealth and higher standards of liv¬ ing to all. Lippmann would main¬ tain this element at all costs, and one would certainly agree with him. The market has been the determining element of supply and demand and must be, not only maintained, but drastically refined. The market it¬ self is not corrupt, or intrinsically evil, but the evading of the regula¬ tion of the market by monopoly, ad¬ vantages, etc., is the destructive force. Lippmann would direct all his ef¬ forts in the field of reform to the position of law, relative to the re¬ ciprocal rights and duties of men, incorporated companies, or all in¬ stitutions. He is fully aware that there is something drastically wrong with our society, which gives over¬ abundant luxuries to a privileged few, while thousands exist on the border line of starvation. He is too great a man to ignore the fact of the tremendous wealth which has been accumulated by the incorporated companies, but he realizes that it is due to established law which grants them multitudinous privileges, and not necessarily to their large scale aspect. He feels keenly for those who are not given a chance in life, but he definitely concludes that collect¬ ivism has no solution to this prob¬ lem. He holds contempt for those who gather in the fat of the land, not because of personal ability, or a special contribution to society, but because of a rich ancestry or un¬ earned, undeserving advantages. At the same time, he is not willing to sell out and give up all that the martyrs of past years have so bit¬ terly wrung from the hands of auth¬ oritarian despots. At least he wants to think deeply about it. He has his eyes open. He is not cynical about collectivism, but he has a deep ob¬ jective view of it which leads him to believe that its final outcome will result in a return to a form of so¬ ciety; poor, nasty, brutish, rigid, un¬ imaginative, destructive; ruled with an iron hand from the top. He wants a solution, but he feels that to ac¬ cept the collectivism solution would be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. His one great solution, and he admits that it is not by any means a final one, would be to in¬ stitute laws to not only give rights to people, but to demand duties from them. The incorporated company is not outside of the law, it is under the law. Why then should it be allowed to reap its abundant profits, and de¬ mand protection by the law without placing back into society something equal in return. The individual hold- 47 mg property is protected by the law, and, consequently, is held re¬ sponsible for that property. He can¬ not destroy it, he dare not render it useless; he owes a debt to society, and he must pay. By means of law Lippmann means to remove those barriers which have kept good men down, and kept men who lack ability up. Liberalism does not promise equality to all men in the sense of making them equal in riches, in¬ fluence, function, etc., but it does promise that, as the extrinsic in¬ equalities imposed by prerogative and privilege are reduced, that the intrinsic qualities will assert them¬ selves. Pay ability what ability is worth, give to hard and consistent effort its reward, honor those who are worthy of honor. This is the program of real liberalism. Finally, Lippmann plays his trump card. Man is intrinsically, inherent¬ ly, basically, more than any subor¬ dinate animal, and, as such, he must be treated accordingly. History tends to show that the struggle has been one of breaking the arbitrary will of certain select people. People are equal in status, must come under the same law, have no right to exercise an arbitrary will, should enjoy no special privileges, etc. A liberal, free, democratic, ideal so¬ ciety must recognize these tremen¬ dous facts. Lippmann is afraid that collectivism will finally ignore them, not simply because men are despotic, ruthless, selfish, but because in the establishment of their system it will be inevitable that they ignore these essential qualities. One feels that Lippmann’s book can only be fully appreciated if actu¬ ally read. Any review will be in¬ adequate. One certainly gathers a deep respect for this man who views his subject so objectively, and so disinterestedly. One does have a let-down feeling when reading his solution to the problem, especially after one has been raised to a posi¬ tion of deep respect by his critical examination of collectivism and lib¬ eralism. However, one would agree with him that any solution would be limited, and not final. Should it be given in a peanut shell, it would Obviously prove inadequate. One could perhaps criticize his position in several places as being rather vague, but that might only be re¬ vealing one’s own inadequacy to fully understand him. He does cover the entire field and he does it so well that he will probably remain as one of the great exponents of true liberalism, and the revealer of the inevitable road of all collectivism. ALUMNI NOTES Captain James P. Brown, B.A., ’32, Theo. ’31, Regimental Chaplain of the Camerons, on October 2nd, was awarded a Military Cross “for ex¬ emplary service at Dieppe.” Captain Brown, of Lyleton, Man., a member of the United College residence from 1926 to 1932, was a United Church minister at several points in Mani¬ toba prior to his enlistment with the R.C.A.M.C., in January, 1940. He transferred to the chaplaincy of the Camerons in May, 1941, but served at Dieppe, where he was wounded, as a medical sergeant. Norma R. Law, ’37, was elected president of the Young Women’s Musical Club at the annual meeting in June. Mrs. D. Birse (Berythe Ross, ’24) will again direct the club choir. Esther Hinds, ’26, on May 20, was re-election president of the Profes¬ sional and Business Women’s Club of Winnipeg. The two students who won first and second places in the Dominion¬ wide examination, held by the In¬ stitute of Chartered Accountants of Manitoba in conjunction with the Dominion Association of Chartered Accountants, were both members of the 1938 Arts graduating class of United College. The gold medal was won by Edwin C. Lamond of Win¬ nipeg, and the silver medal by John R. Barker, of Dauphin, Man. BIRTHS To Rev. George E. Taylor, ’38, and Mrs. Taylor (A. Lenore Scanes, ’37), on October 3, a daughter. To Charles Lorimer, ’38, and Mrs. Lorimer (Mary M. Pilkey, ’38), on August 28, in Winnipeg, a son. FAIRY STORY_MORTEN PARKER (Continued from page 37) and not knowing how to explain all that had happened, said that we had explored a little too far. Marilyn and I both had a glass of warm milk and some cookies and went directly to bed; but we lay there, eyes wide, and thinking for a long time. It was well after eleven o’clock when Dad and Mother returned and we hadn’t yet fallen asleep. We could overhear Aunt Helen and Mother talking. “The children were quite late in coming home, Elizabeth. They had explored too far, it seems,” Aunt Helen laughed softly. “I’ll speak to them in the morning about these night explorations they’ve been going on. They’re much too young to be wandering around heaven knows where at all hours of the day and night. I’ll have their father say a few words to them, too,” Mother replied anxiously. “Yes, well, perhaps you should. But then, dear, you know how little children are.” Aunt Helen changed the subject. “By the way, how was the show tonight?” “Oh, it was really quite fine,” we overheard Mother say. “There was an amazingly clever act of a man with two acrobatic dogs and there was a pleasing male quartet singing. Then there was a man and a young lady in a really exciting trapeze exhibition. And, oh yes, there was some third-rate magician who came late and wasn’t very good.” Mitchell - Copp Ltd. DIAMOND MERCHANTS JEWELLERS • OPTICIANS Portage at Hargrave Winnipeg, Man. 48 —