University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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Papini, really, could the Roman soldier have described Christ, as he pressed forward to strike Him in the face. Doubtless it was a scoffer who, amid the unexpressive crowd, found and exclaimed that ultimate word on Calvary ' s ultimate wretchedness: Vermis non homo — He is a worm and not a man. He could not have heard the answer from the Cross: Behold, how I have loved you. Papini was a scoffer against the Cross, before he joined that Church which is of the Cross. It is curious to see him — among the crusaders, and pointed the other way now — but still scoffing. He has changed sides, but not weapons, and he uses the sword Intolerance to cleave his enemies. This is a doubtful way of getting rid of the enemies, for — to change the figure — Intolerance is frantic and the enemy is calm, Intol- erance is impulsive and the enemy has taken thought. It is doubtful, too, if Papini ' s attitude encourage reliance. The suggestion — however ill-founded — is of one not yet proven and sure. Why hasten thy speech ? And do you not trust that truth will surely be heard at the end, even to the last syllable? What we have said, be it remembered, is what the art of letters may have to say about a work whose object, after all, is not artistic, but apos- tolic. Like St. Paul, the book has travelled far and done good. If it has not escaped a share of Paul ' s buffetings, in the form of criticisms, it can yet turn them to its own profit. Art chastens to save, and though it even chasten here, does not presume, but has a place and an authority over the prophet even as over the poet. Was it not the use of words that the Paraclete inspired the apostles? The apostle preaches, and preach- ing is an art. Then, if art detain the apostle, who would pass on to his great business, it is yet not for her own selfish vindication, but in order that she may minister to him, to make his good better — find words for him, lest truth itself be unheard. —Albert J. Steiss, ' 26. 24

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One, whom the book vexes into metaphor, voices the capital objec- tion to Papini. Having discovered Jove in a thatched hut, is he not in- fernally concerned about the thatched hut? And the criticism sug- gests a further: Papini does not rise above the level of the thatched hut; his deity is not divine — the strong hand is not there, that hand which strowed forth the worlds in their sowing; nor the beauty, so dreadfully absurd in mean surroundings, harking back so poignantly to the heav- enly courts. And the objection is not light; to have expressed a thatched hut may be an excellent success for the artist; but the hut was there yesterday; tomorrow, we doubt not, it will be there — meanwhile, the heavenly visitant, a moment stopping, has gone. The first chapter, on the stable at Bethlehem, is a case directly in point. Papini has the knack of making vivid discoveries about what he describes, simply by being perfectly accurate; as when, having fol- lowed the scythed grass from the hillside and sun into the manger, he is able to see the animals take it slowly with their great black lips . And he makes the place intensely realistic — this earthly pig-sty, where no dec- orations or perfumes can hide the odor of filth . They say the chapter is more striking in the Italian, which enforces ugliness with the spiteful sibilant. No doubt it is very strong. Still, Papini might have spared us the ugly things, having a good example for the omission. It is only St. Luke, of the four evangelists, who mentions the circumstance of the stable at all, and then he mentions it quietly, in one sentence: And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. Economy is here, not of the lips merely, but also of the eyes them- selves, unwasteful even of a glance; graciously austere beside the prod- igality of Papini in passing the same way. Papini is an example of what may be done with a hint: the stable posited, he produces a description which, if excellent, is nevertheless clearly gratuitous; St. Luke, indeed, gave us the stable — one might almost say it had not been dirty until Papini gave us that also. But nay! second thought is sure Papini gave us nothing: describe a stable, forsooth — insist upon the nose of Cyrano! Now Papini may fairly be said to have drawn such an opinion down upon his own head, but we misgive but we must look in another quarter to justify the virulence we use in putting the opinion forward. The truth is, Papini had never offended us with writing of thatched huts, had not several critics praised him for so feckless an achievement. — As if the apprehending of externals had ever been hard ; or as if praise were not good enough to be earned! — Certainly we should expect in Papini a concern reaching beyond mere externals, since, with the externals of Christ, were not the Jews, after all, excellently acquainted? And it is written that Christ wept over Jerusalem, to whom it was given to see the Son of Man in her streets — and to spit upon Him. And better than 23

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3% JlSaicIjer bg ti t £ m Lone is my heart as I scan the sea; Hear it roar like a beast of prey! When its savagery dies it is weird and low, And it speaks in an awesome way Of its hate---in a menacing way. Fiercely it leaps on the rock-ribbed shore, It is bursting with lust for wrong. Yet my fear grows less when it ceases to roar--- There is pity, then, in its song, In the wild, wild strain of its song. When the moon comes down in the arms of night, O ' er the myriads whom life has fled, To dance in glee on the waves, its light Mocks the ships and their frightful dead, All the sunken ships with their dead. Long years have passed, yet day after day I watch on the cliffs by the sea. O savage winds, O ye waves, I pray, Bring him back once again to me, Oh, restore my beloved to me. — Richard Hassler, ' 28 25