Webster University - Lauretanum Yearbook (Webster Groves, MO)

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CURRENT LITERATURE A House of Cards ttA Thing To D0,,i by Elizabeth Stanley, in The F 0mm for Sep- tember. As an encouragement to young writers, Mrs. Stanleyls first story de- serves careful study. The author rounds i out her circle. No new material is introduced. The theme is clear cut. Very carefully the effect of dis- appointment upon two characters is portrayed,and in turn, this effect is traced to its cause. Janet is her fatheris little girl in more ways than one. She loves Rosalie, serene and dimpled, but Rosa- lieis lack of respons to Janetls warm affection maddens h . Deliberately and gravely, Janet procures a hammer and smashes Rosaliels buttbn nose. Her re- morse and bewilder ent are quick and pitiful. After all Rosalie may have loved her in her doll heart. Her nurse- maid's exasperation as she picks up the doll's pieces and wrenches off Rosalie's blond wig-to save against a needy day e-are too much for the sensitive child. Fever follows. Janetis father before her had set up an idol to be lovedehis charming and beautiful wife. When all his ardor and affection could n it break the surface of her flawless man er, could win no spir- itual response to his craving for compan- ionship and sincerity, he too, had pulled down his house of cards. Politely but definitely, he had set out for a long trip to Africa. Arriving home at the crisis of his young daughters illness, Janetls father finds in her a small replica of himself-s the same sensitive spirit, the same crav- ing for response. With the knowledge and understanding which is granted him, he plans for Janetls future all that he has missed in his own life. The Ramparts 0f Carcassonne The ancient walled city of Carcas- sonne, in the southwestern corner of France, celebrated, this summer, its two thousandth anniversary. Travelers came from the encls of the earth to see this unique town, which already was a place of some importance when Caesar came to Gaul. The fame of Carcassonne has been spread through the poem of that name, written by Gustave Nadaud and trans- lated into English by John Thompson. With its ramparts, its citadels, its spires, its magnificent cathedral, Carcassonne is a perfect example of the ancient fortified town, and it came to be regarded as a sort of Utopia. The speaker in the poem is a peasant, bent with age, who had hoped all his life to visit the town. His wife and son, he says, had traveled iteven to Narbonneii, his grandchild had seen Perpignan, uand I-have not seen Carcassonne . Essaying the coveted pil- grimage at last, he dies when half way there. The Hair of the Dog That B it H im The Woman in His Life? by Rudyard Kipling in McCallis Magazine for September. The war-where he spent long months underground at Messineseincessant hard work, no sleep, no play, at last demand a reckoning from John Mardcn. Overnight lS outraged nerves pay for the hor r of those days and nights at Messines. It dawns upon him that he is going mad. Doctors prescribe a rest. Rest? He does not know the meaning of the word. He stays away from the HWorks . One incarnate fear pursues himethe shape of a small dog, pressed against the skirting-board of his room'- an inky fat horror with a pink tongue. uIt began as a spreading blur, which morning after morning became more dehnite. It was borne in upon John Marden that if it crawlfa out to the center of the room, the universe wail? crash down upon him. He wonde till he sweated, dried and broke out again. What would happen then-Ji Desperate cases require desperate remedies, and Shingle, former buddy, now valet and watchful nurse, takes a hand. it ,Air of the dog that bit iimll, he decided must be the cure and so Dinah, jet lack Aberdeen of the dwafT type, ag seven months, with pedigree, takes her place in John Mardenls apart- ment. Holding fast to his last bit of sanity, John Marden speaks to the inky fat horror that makes its way from the corner of his room that night. it1th a pup, right enough, said John. Grad- : wggembhsfoiwywwe ually, the real dog supplants the vision- ary and Dinah stays, the mistress of Johnis heart. Through a clever ruse of Shinglels, the household moves to the country that Dinah may convalesce from distemper. There, John Mardenls cure takes place. For to rescue Dinah from death, he must relive the terror of Messines, crawl underground throurzh a shelving tunnel, spading, bit by bit, a passage largeT enough for himself. Every inch is a pit of terror. But he pushes through, grabs Dinah, and together they find them- selves free. ttOh. look here, Shingle, John sat up and stretched himself the next morn- ing, itls about time we went back to work again. Perhaps youlve noticed that I havenlt been quite fit lately? Well, Ilve got it oEf the books now. It's behind me. The Passing of Ellen Terry The creed of the great actress, which was found after her death, is indicative of her courage and the achievement of her long and happy life: No funeral gloom, my dears, when I am gone Corpsesgazings, tears, black raiment, grave- yard grimness. Think of me as withdrawn into the dimness, Yours still, you mine. Remember all the best of our past moments and forget the rest. And so to where I wait eomu gently on. Page Jules Verne With the safe arrival of John Henry Mears and his companion and pilot, C. B. D. Collyer, the record of twenty- eight days for a trip around the world gives way to one of 23 days, 15 hours and 21 minutes. This beats the moon, which takes 27 days and 8 hours for a similar performance, though it is only fair to add that in her race with man she hugs the outer edge of a track ap- proximately 239,000 miles wide. The handicap is a heavy one. Goon MORNING, AMERICA What poets besides Carl Sandburg have suffered a long apprenticeship be- fore recognition? What other American poets stand out as supporters of his particular tenets of poetry? Read Carl Sandburgls biography of Lincoln: The Prairie Years. Read his collection of poetry: Smoke and Steel. Give some fact of historic importance for each of the following: Leif Eric- son, Andrew Jackson, Robert E. Lee. In stanza six, what States are not mentioned? Do all States boast a favo- rite flower? Can you name them? Explain: boll weevil in the cotton; doodle bug in the oil fields; lame duck in Congress; Lakes-to-Gulf waterway; Boulder Darn. Note the irony in stanza eleven. What sayings of great men besides these menv tioned have become catch phrases? What are the prophecy and the warn- ing in stanza twenty? What stanzas in this poem show Carl Sandburgls scorn of poetic conventions? What stanzas appeal to you for their poetic value? Are you familiar with the poems of Walt Whitman? What similarity do you note between the two poets? Men- tion two or three of the Whitman poems by name that are comparable to this. In what way? Read Lowellls ltCommemoration Odel' and Moodyls An Ode in Time of Hesitation . In what ways does each reilect the time in which it was written? THE WOMAN IN HIS LIFE Compare the plot of this story by Kipling with Mrs. Stanleyls HA Thing To Doli. Which gives us living charr acters? Which shows finer writing? 3 a VFIELD, HAMLIN GARLAND, STEPHEN LEAHX K. STERLING A. LEONARD, DOROTHY CAI Editor-NIABEL A. Bussm'. , CURTIS H. PAGE. ELSIE SINGMASTER. iuapnis qoea UaAoo xooqaiou an; Eugpniaug 'Jaisauxas e 10;. pm: we 01 EUnLVHELI'I .Lusuuno J0 saldoo amu-muw 01 ms 'ssaJ Coxih. ng Editors-HENRY SEIDEL CANBY, !O W CHRISTOPHER MORLEY ELIAS LIEBERMAN, CURRENT 11' T $2341ng COLUMBUS, OHIO Organized Studies of Living Writers and Their Works New YORK CITY VOL. V WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 24-28, 1928 No. 2 tWith Supplementl Carl 5andhurgn-Tmirz'e Toet N ABSENCE of organized rhyme A and meter, a prominence of par- agraph verse, diction swinging from crashing tramp dialect to language of haunting delicacy, revelation of the beauty and the brutality of life, quick sensitiveness to impression, power to express new ideas, startling contrasts-- these are the characteristics which even the most casual reader may discern in Carl Sandburgls poetry. Since 1015 when his first book, Chicago Poemx. appearedi he has been alternately criti- cised and admired. A pioneer in method, thought, and expression, he is obliged to bear the protests of an older school. Even as Walt Whitmanls before him, whose tradition he has upheld. his poetry is condemned as coarse and brutal; his themes, as ugly and distorted. After all there is something on the side of the critics if you consider only the Carl Sandburg who says, uLaughing the stormy, husky, brawl- ing laughter of youth, haIf-naked, sweat- ing, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freights, Handler t0 the Nation-ii but there is also the poet who sings, ttA face I know is beautiful, with fire and gold of sky and sea and the peace of long warm rain. As well as rough force and tragic irony, there are sincerity and rapture, spontaneity and a store of rich experi- ences. It is a many-sided Sandburg- :i. grim realist of the stockyards, a dreamer among the stars Born in Galesburg, Illinois, on Jan- uary 6, 1878, his was a struggling boy- hood. He left school at thirteen to work on a milk wagon, and in the next six years he became, in rapid succession, a barber shop porter, a sceneshifter in a cheap theater. a truck handler in a CARL SANDBURG brickyard, an apprentice in a pottery, a dishwasher in various hotels, a harvest hand in the Kansas wheat fields. Desirous for adventure, Sandburg en- listed in the Sixth Illinois Volunteers when the Spanish-American War opened, and saw service in Porto Rico. At the end of the war he was mustered out, and with one hundred dollars in his pocket, he began to think about an edu- cation. He entered Lombard College, good Warning, Jmerica in his home town, working his way through by acting as gym janitor, tutor- ing, ringing the college bell-any and all small jobs. Being captain of the basket ball team and editor-in-chief of the monthly were two honors he enjoyed. After college, his training and tastes made him turn toward journalism. He longed to write and, by means of his writings, to better social conditions. Then again came a period of odd jobs: advertising.r manager for a department store. district organizer for the Demo- cratic party of Wisconsin. salesman, associate editor for a business magazine, editorial writer on the Chicago Daily News. Meanwhile he was writing poems which brought him little encouragement. In 1908, Mr. Sandburg married. Now with his wife and three daughters, Mar- garet, Janet, and Helga, he lives in a quaint, rambling old house that was once a farmhouse, in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago. NGood Morning, American is a poem which expresses this age and this coun- try. It is inspired history. It spans the centuries. It spans the continent. It is full of startling contrasts. It con- tains in one spontaneous, sustained outu burst all that is recognized as essentially characteristic of Carl Sandburg. The poem was written at the invita- tion of the Harvard Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa and read at Harvard on the 22d of June. Although so com- pletely different in tone and method, tiGood Morning, Americaii is considered by critics worthy to rank with Lowellls HCommemoration Ode and Moodyls HAn Ode in Time of Hesitation . tThis poem by CARL SANDBURG is from The Womanis Home Companion for Augusti IN THE evening there is a sunset sonata comes to the cities. There is a march of little armies to the dwindling of drums. The skyscrapers throw their tall lengths of walls into black bastions on the red west. ' The skyscrapers fasten their perpehdiculnr alphabets fur across the changing silver triangles of stars and streets. And who made 'vm? Who made the sky- scrapers I . Man made lem, the little two-legged Joker. i an. . Out of his head. out of his dreaming. scheming skypiece, Out of proud little diagrams that danced softly in his lieutleMuu made the sky scrapers. XVith his two hahds, with shovels, hammers, wheelbarrows, with engines, conveyors, signal whistles, with girders, molds, steel, concretee Climbing on scaffolds and falsework with blueprints, riding the beams and dangling in mid-air to call, Come on, boySe Man made the skyscrapers. II And so, Quite so, Facts are facts, nailed down, fastened to stay And facts are feathers, foam, flying phantoms. y Niagara is a fact or a little ehird cheeping in a fiight over the FallSe Chirping to itself: Vtht have we here? And how come 1' The stone humgs of old mountains Sag and lift in :1 line to the sky. The sunsets come with long shudowprims. The six-rylinder go-getters ask: What time is it'! Who were the Aztecs and the Zunis anyhow I What do I care about Cahokial Where do we go from here! What are the facts! III Facts stay fastened; facts are phantom. An old oue-lioi'seyplow is a fact. A new farm tractor is a fact. Facts stay fastened; facts Hy with bird wings. Blood and sweat are facts. and The commands of imagination. tlw looks back nnd ahead.