THE CORADDI

Woman's College of The University of North Carolina

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A R C H

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Table of Contents

Page

Poem K. 3

Last Years at Sunnyside Mary E. Woodward 4

On Contemplating Suicide Mary Hli~abeth Davis 8

Betsy Katherine Boiiiti 9

Poem Patricia Willcox 1 1

Preacher's Wife Mary Elizabeth Davis 12

ExEMPLA Alumnarum CoLLEGii Betty Winspear 13

Sonnet Mary Louise Stone 1 ?

Appendectomy Edythe Latham 16

To Diana Mary Louise Stone 17

Margaret Ogilvy, Mother of Barrie Susan Gregory 18

Centenary K. B. 23

Chaos Mary Louise Stone 24

Book Review Mary Eliiaheth Keister 1^

Book Brevities Lyal Maie Reynolds 27

1 Become a Neurotic Mary Elizabeth Bitting 29

Fables By Susanne Ketchum 30

Vol. XXXVIII. No. 2

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THE CORADDI I

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Member of the North Carolina Collegiate Press Association J

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Volume 38

March, 1934

Number 2

Published by

Woman's College of the University of North Carolina

Subscription Rate Per Year $1.50

Anne Coogan, Editor-in-Chief Katherine Bonitz, Associate Editor

Assistant Editors

Susan Gregory Miriam Robinson Mary Moser

Mary Elizabeth Keister Susanne Ketchum

Contributing Editors

Mary Elizabeth Davis

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Edythe Latham |

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Louise Nash, Business Manager Katherine Baxter, Assista7tt

ROSABELLE HiNTON

(Maga

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THINK I never saw so quiet a curve on any hill, Or trees stand straight and tall in such a way. Of them I know how in its time, and surely. Day shall follow night, and night the day. Earth shall be heavy and dark with a slow rain, After the sun, just as the earth should be. Waters shall flow in — and out — and in, And this I know, though here is no moving sea.

Never so quiet a curve has lain on any hill. Never so straight and tall have grown the trees.

K.

Last Years at Sunnyside

By Mary E. Woodward

As the rickety old coach bounced along over the winding, rocky .road to Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving, between jolts, sighed with contentment. At last he was on his way home. He was tired of banquets and levees, of handshaking and autographing. He was an old man, and he desired to spend his last days peacefully.

As he neared Sunnyside, Irving, taking care to hold to his high beaver hat, stuck his head out the window and looked out across the valley. Sleepy Hollow was the same sleepy valley. "The slumber of the ages seemed to reign over it." The majestic Hudson still flowed between the hills and green meadows. Here and there were the same lov/ Dutch farmhouses, "surrounded by a little meadow, a cornfield, and an orchard of sprawling, gnarled apple trees." Over each door was a horseshoe to keep away witches, and nailed against the wall of each house was an old hat for the housekeeping wren. "Only the in- habitants had changed since the days when Irving and Henry Bree- vort had first visited the valley in their boyish rambles. Gone were the men in homespun garb, and the women in primitive short gowns and petticoats with faces half-hidden by Dutch sunbonnets." The antique Dutch fashions had given way to the newer fashions from New York.

The coach clattered and reeled on down the winding road past "the goblin-looking mill situated among rocks and waterfalls. The clanking wheels and rushing streams still made the same uncouth noises," and, no doubt, if Irving had hallooed, the same old negro that he had described in Woolfert's Roost would have stuck his flour- covered head out the window. Now Irving could see the portly weather cock and the gilded horse in full gallop on the gables of Sunnyside; and he probably could have heard the shouts of "welcome home" from his nieces and nephews waiting half way up the lane to meet him. Before the coach had stopped, every one at Sunnyside was greeting him "with kissing and laughing and crying." His brother Ebenezer and the children insisted on his taking a tour of his domain before he even had a chance to recover from the joltings of the trip.

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Accompanied by his nieces, his "prime minister, Robert", his "master of horses, Thomas", and "his keeper of poultry yard, William", the old man walked about the grounds of Sunnyside. Irving was as quaint a figure as his own Diedrich Knickerbocker as he tripped along with an elastic step, with low-quartered shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak — a short garment that hung from the shoulders like the cape of a coat. There was in his appearance a chirping, cheery, old-school air which was undeniably Dutch. Even his saddle horse was glad to see him, and "he laid his head on Irving's shoulder and would have nibbled his ear if permitted." Ginger, his little terrier, "who had increased her family by five during his absence, was almost crazy with delight."

From then on, Irving's life at Sunnyside was idyllic. For the first few weeks he busied himself with work about the quaint old cottage. An addition was built, trees were transplanted and cut down, the farm yard was improved, and the great overhanging elms in the front of the house were pruned so that a clear view could be had of the Tap- pan Zee and the hills on the other side of the Hudson. Many of Irving's improvements turned out to be unprofitable, however, and he told Ebenezer that "he was unwilling for the moment to build even a wren coop, for the slightest job seemed to swell into a toil- some and expensive operation." "A pretty country retreat," he re- flected, "is like a pretty wife — one is always throwing away money in decorating it."

The old man continued to write. One Sunday afternoon his pub- lisher, George Putnam, and his little son visited Sunnyside. Irving sat in his elbow chair before an old Dutch writing desk. "The notes for The Life of Washington were on the table, kept down by pebbles the old gentleman had secured from the garden walk. The study was on the first floor, and one or two of the French windows had been opened for air. A mischievous breeze fluttered in, displacing some of the stones and blowing the notes about the floor. As Mr. Putnam replaced the notes on the table, he said, 'Mr. Irving, this is not a suit- able table for the work of a historian. You must let me send you one of those new pigeon-holed desks in which your papers can be arranged properly, and perhaps you'll let me take the old table in exchange.' "

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Irving, still busy writing, gave a grunt of assent, and the follow- ing week he received the pigeon-holed desk.

The next Sunday Mr. Putnam visited Sunnyside expecting to be overwhelmed by thanks for the new desk. As he walked into the low study, he found the old gentleman in a temper quite unusual for his sweet nature.

"Putnam," he growled, "I have put my notes in those confounded pigeon-holes, and I can't find a note. The Life of Washington will never be finished, and it is all your fault."

"Why, Mr. Irving," he said, "you have not labeled the pigeon- holes; of course the notes ought not to be distributed without means of finding them. Now you take Haven out for a walk, and before you go, call the girls downstairs, and we will arrange the notes together."

One of Irving's chief pleasures was telling stories to the children. Often in the evenings, they would sit around the huge stone fireplace in the living room of the little low house. The light of the crackling fire would be the only illumination in the room, and, no doubt, the children could see in the dark corners of the room the same goblins and sprites of the old Dutch settlers. They must have loved to hear the story of the Flying Dutchman of Spiting Devil, who, because of his breaking the Sabbath, had been forced to row back and forth across the Tappan Zee for years and years. Irving said that he often had heard the sound of oars in the oarlocks, and had seen a boat loitering in the moonlight; and once or twice he had been tempted to see if a silver bullet would put an end to the Dutchman's unhappy cruisings.

Even in the house, the very house in which they were sitting, there was one room, overhanging the river, that was reputed to be haunted by the ghost of a young lady who "died of love and green apples." (No doubt the old gentleman's eyes twinkled as he watched the effect of his words.) "Quite often he had heard the twinkling of a guitar, and he was surprised that the young lady who slept in the room had not been disturbed." Whereupon all of the little grand- nieces must have looked frightened. Perhaps, though, they knew that their uncle was only making up the story, just as he had made up the ones about the headless horseman and the spirits of the dead British

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soldiers who prowled about on dark nights; and they went to bed and slept as soundly as usual.

In the summer, Irving liked to sit out under the old trees in his old Voltaire chair and look out across the Hudson. He especially en- joyed a day when there was a slight haze on the river, and all of the landscape had a dreamy effect. "Then the Tappan Zee was without a ripple, and the sloops with drooping sails slept on its glassy bosom. Columns of smoke, from burning brushwood, rose lazily from the fold of the hills on the other side of the river. The distant lowing of a cow or the crowing of a cock seemed to add to the drowsy quiet of the scene." As he sat there with his hands folded across his ample stomach, Irving, as old men are wont to, probably thought about the days of his youth — the Christmas morning, when he, still believing in Santa Claus, awoke to find his stocking had been filled with snow- balls by his older brothers — the times he slept on the bare boards of his room and ate salt pork, so that he would have no trouble being a sailor — his love for the sweet, soft-voiced Matilda Hoffman, whose miniature he still kept close by him on his bedside table — his trip abroad with Dr. Henry — his introduction to the French peasants as a Mameluke, who set cross-legged after the manner of his country — the peasant girl who threw Dr. Henry's wig into the Canal of Langue- doc when that gallant tried to make love to her — the concert on ship- board with Irving playing the flute, and the girls with their fingers over their ears, because the admiral's singing was most hideous — the carillon of Salzburg performing a waltz twice a day — Jean Paul, the German humorist, insisting on taking his poodle through the Dresden gallery — the first steamboat trip on the Seine, and the fear of being blown up^the parties and charades at the Fosters — Emily Foster's dark curls — his rambles around Abbottsford with Scott stumping along in brown pantaloons, greenish frock coat, white hat and stick, and mumbling to himself in gruff tones some bit of minstrelsy — little Queen Isabella of Spain in her white satin dress with its train of lilac silk and a wreath of diamonds in her hair — moonlight sails down the Hudson with the Hoffmans and the Breevorts.

Ah, his had been a good life — full of many things. It was good to sit out there under the trees and drowse and dream, taking care to grow old, and fat and jolly instead of "growing rusty, or fusty, or

crusty."

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On Contemplating Suicide

(To Sara Teasdale)

You, who before having gone this way, Guide my feet down the road of clay — Take my fear of the night away — The dark and the rain !

You, who have died for love before. Be there to meet me! Open the door! Eternal punishment cannot be more Than eternal pain.

Be there to comfort — taking my hand- Leading me down that strange, new land — Whispering — whispering — understand — And wipe out my fear!

Only the silence — only the pain- Wind and rain — and wind and rain — Never to pass this way again — Keep me from fear!

Mary Elizabeth Davis.

Betsy

By Katherine Bonitz

BETSY was in love. She felt the cold prickles go creeping up her back at the very thought. Her hands tingled, and her face be- came quite red. She buried her nose in the cool green leaves and peered down through the maze of vines. The sun was warm on her neck and little brown legs. The chickens beneath the grape arbor scratched the earth and clucked in a sleepy drawl. A fat Dominick strutted around the yard. Betsy emitted a loud "shoo." The silly thing jumped high in the air with a squawk and zig-zagged across the yard. Betsy giggled and turned over on her back.

This was the best place she had ever found. It was dangerous, for she had to climb up the shaky fence, crawl onto the top of the arbor, and then walk carefully over the springy net-work of vines (which felt just like the mattress on her bed) ; or she might fall through a hole where the leaves were not so thick. But once on top, she was Tarzan in the jungle, or even the little prince with his tree- house. When she thought of the prince she thought of Mister Louis. He looked like a prince with his light yellow hair and nice blue eyes. He was her prince, and she was the lovely princess. Some day she was going to marry him, and they would live in a tree-house and pull food up in a basket tied to a rope. It was wonderful to think of always living with Mister Louis, hearing his big laugh and watching his eyes crinkle up at the corners. She shivered with delight.

Her mother's voice came out to her from the back porch.

"Betsy, lunch is ready."

Betsy sighed as she stood upright and walked across the arbor to the edge. She caught hold of the frame and swung over to the fence; it creaked and shook as she slid down its side. Through the gate she went and toward the house.

"Wash your hands, dear. Goodness, you look a sight ! Where have you been?" Mother regarded her with a frown.

"Oh, out playing," Betsy replied, vaguely, as she turned on the faucet and squeezed the soap through her hands.

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"Well, I wish you were clean. Louis Farrell is having lunch with us, and he doesn't like dirty little girls."

"Mister Louis?" Betsy's face crimsoned, and she hung her head. "I won't eat then."

"Don't be silly, Betsy. Come on in. " Mother dragged her from the kitchen to the dining room.

Sister and Mister Louis came in from the living room. Sister was laughing at something funny he had said, and the little dimple at the corner of her mouth deepened as she smiled. Betsy ducked behind the table and slid into her seat.

"Hullo, Betsy, how's tricks?" Mister Louis leaned over and pulled her ear.

"Ouch," said Betsy, and she wiggled in her chair.

There was a great deal of talk at lunch — Mother and Sister and Mister Louis. Betsy, with her eyes on her plate and her heart thump- ing in her throat, ate a few mouthfuls of potato and left her straw- berry ice cream to melt. She begged to be excused.

Alice was playing in the yard next door. Betsy sauntered over.

"Le's play dolls," she suggested.

"Awright," Alice agreed. "What's your's name? Mine is Gene- vieve."

"Mine is Mister Louis," Betsy announced stoutly.

"That's a funny name for a doll, but 1 guess it'll do."

They sat down on the grass and began to dress their children, speaking to them in motherly tones and then crying shrilly for the dolls. The cries were ended by the administration of a spanking to both Genevieve and Mister Louis, and the drama progressed.

The summer afternoon was near an end when Sister came out on the porch followed by Mister Louis. She called to Betsy. Betsy hopped up from her play and ran over the grass to the steps. Sister's eyes were all shiny, and Mister Louis was squeezing her hand.

"Betsy," said Sister, and her voice almost sang, "would you like Mister Louis for a brother?"

"Brother?" Betsy frowned. "Why, how could he be my brother?"

Mister Louis and Sister looked at each other and laughed. Then Mister Louis took Betsy's hand and said in a serious voice, "Betsy, your sister has just promised to be Mrs. Farrell."

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Betsy stared at the two. She opened her mouth and the words came slowly, "You mean — you mean m-married?"

"Exactly," said Mister Louis, and he turned to Sister. "Exactly right." They moved down the steps and toward the street, arm in arm.

Betsy stood on the top step and gazed at them with incredulous eyes. Married! The word sounded in her ears like the tolling of a big bell. She sank down on the step, a forlorn little figure in a dirty, pink apron, and squeezed her eyes tightly. Two tears slid down her smudged cheeks, leaving clean, white streaks as they trickled toward her chin and formed two wet spots on the pink apron.

If you would be happy

Never dream.

Vision is but a current

In a stagnant stream.

And if you would not know

The loathsomeness of your pool

Never try to see beyond

Its shores.

Patricia Willcox.

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Preacher's Wife

The cold gray sidewalk leading from

The parsonage and back, Is covered now with stiff black leaves

That blow and stir and crack.

And winter sends a wringing hand

To cut and gouge and bore — To hack and tear the ivy vines

Upon the church next door.

My husband, blind to atmosphere,

And blind to wind and sound, Shuts himself up in his room

And writes his sermons down.

He does not even hear the snow

Upon his window-pane. Poor blind fool, what can he know.

Of God and wind and rain?

Mary Elizabeth Davis.

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Exempla Alumnarum Collegii

By Betty Winspear

MUCH has been said about college types, but much remains to be said. We have been in college for six or seven months now, and are in fine fettle for blowing oft' steam about some of our favorite gripes among the types. In fact we might just as well have called this opus "college gripes" to begin with.

Where to start? Who pains us most? Why? Is the tendency in- herent or acquired? Are we actively or passively griped? Maybe we are old and choleric, but the truth is that everyone gripes us at times, so we'll just have to go down the list and start with the most ofi^ensive.

The Grand Award goes to the Girl Who Was The Leading Lady In The Play. Alphonse Capone may have been the national Public Enemy Number One, but this girl takes first place on the cam.pus. She walks from classroom to classroom and to the post office as though she were crossing a stage; and when she speaks it is in the throaty accents of Lynn Fontanne. Her "a's" grow broader each day, but no one has ever told her that all the "a's" in the English language are not broad, and her little lapses are really humorous. She reminds us of the girl whose favorite number, some years back, was "Lawf, Clown, Laff."

The Girl Who Never Cracks A Book is another arch pain-in-the- neck. Everyone knows her. If she has been known to flunk courses now and then she doesn't bother us quite so much; but just let her get on the Honor Roll, and we are through with her forever. That is positive proof that she studies in secret, and that her indifference to studies is just a pose. Her first cousin. The Girl Who Just Threw A Lot Of Bull, ought also to be led out and executed. We thought we had her when an objective test came around, but she got around that nicely by claiming to have guessed at every answer — just said eenie- meenie-minie-moe for the elimination and multiple choice, and flipped a coin for the true and false. (And got an "A.") So much for the intellectual side of it.

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The social menaces are many. One of the worst is the Girl Who Has Two Dates, and doesn't know what she's going to do. Does she share them? She does not. The Girl Who Gets A Letter Every Day and A Special On Sunday is another source of deep chagrin. She is even more offensive when she reads the juicy portions of the letters aloud. We thought we would die laughing one day, however, because she read along merrily, all the time holding the letter upside down.

The Girl Who Thinks It's Cute To Be Rude is a bore, but we almost slip into that class ourselves when we encounter the Girl Who Went to Prep School, or her first cousin, the Transfer. Comparisons are most odious when the subjects compared are dear old Miss Yif- nif s and the current Alma Mater. We silence this type by recounting some of our experiences at St. Agnes's Training School for Delin- quents. Of course, we just say "St. Agnes's" in a casual sort of way, and make it seem like something really big. If lights had to be out at ten at Miss Yifnif's, we had to go to bed right after dinner at St, Agnes's; if the food was superb at Miss Y's, we had chicken every night and had to use finger bowls at St. A's, Not only that, but there were often crushed rose leaves in the finger bowl.

But the list becomes tedious. We could go on forever, but we won't. Just let us say, in closing, that if we aren't getting another thing out of college, we are learning three things: (1) It takes all kinds of people to make a world. (2) Colleges are fairly cosmopolitan. (3) There are some people you just can't squelch.

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Sonnet

When I heard the muses' voices blend

In Tristan's poignant love song to Isolde;

When on my ear the psalms that Homer penned

Do sound their trumpet blast with chords as bold

As Trojan warriors flashing martial blades;

When Shelley's lilting verse is sung to me

To fragile strains of lyric serenades,

Until my senses stirred to ecstasy

Do quiver as the morning's dew-drenched rose —

Then could I wish that 1 might spin my dreams

In words or notes, in verse or song as those

Great bards. My notes would flow as brimming streams,

And o'er the woods I'd spill my melodies,

More free than Pan did trill his rhapsodies.

Mary Louise Stone.

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Appendectomy

By Edythe Latham

TIME and skill are sometimes coupled so closely that it is difficult to distinguish the one from the other. A major operation em- bodies such a combination.

There is the swift, sure preparation of the patient in the room — the injection of the first hypodermic of morphine and atropine to relax and calm him — the complete sterilization of the line of infec- tion. This is an appendectomy; hence, the pelvic and groin regions are sterilized with green soap, sterile water, and alcohol; and painted with seven per cent iodine solution. A sterile towel is fastened across the abdomen with strips of adhesive.

Two nurses trolley the sick one down the long passage marked "Operating Room — No Admittance." It is ironic, for one is about to enter who has no wish to do so.

Inside, two surgeons rinse their hands for the last time in strange, antiseptic solution, and draw over their fingers gloves of tested, tissue- thin rubber. They are clothed in white, sterile gowns fastened high at the throat. Over their faces are sterile masks met at the ears by tight linen caps. Only their eyes are exposed. One doctor is to operate — the other to assist.

The patient is admitted, and three nurses lift him from the cart to the table. A giant lamp with reflecting mirrors is swung down over the table, and a screen placed before the patient's eyes. The light rays focus their white brilliance over the operative field. The table of boiled instruments is rolled to the right of the surgeon. A gowned and gloved nurse stands beside him to supply at the proper time during the operation the specific instrument, hot sponges, and needles threaded with catgut. The assisting doctor, with the aid of the nurse, removes the towel from the patient's abdomen, applies a weak iodine solution again, and pulls a sterile lap-sheet over him. It has taken three minutes; they are ready to begin.

The surgeon injects a syringe of novocaine into the first layer of skin, makes his line of incision, deadens the second layer, opens it, injects the last, and with a razor-like scalpel lays it open. Retractors

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placed on either side of the incision pull it open. He parts the muscles with a longer, thinner knife, and lays the fat and tissues out to the sides. Quickly the large intestine is pulled up and the caecum, to which the appendix is attached, is exposed. The assistant snaps two clamps on the appendix — one at the base and one at the middle. The attending nurse hands the surgeon a ring-sponge (a square of gauze with a ring attached to it) to swab blood from the wound. These sponges are counted three times before they are used and three times again after the operation. Human life is precious. An electric cautery is attached, and the red-hot double wire at the end burns off the ap- pendix between the two clamps. The raw stump is folded under and sewed up with linen.

The surgeon examines the incision for any internal bleeding. The final sponge count is made, and he injects a little more novocaine. The peritonium is closed with a curved needle threaded with plain cat-gut, the fascia closed with chromic cat-gut, and the epidermis is sutured with a long, straight pointed needle threaded with dermal.

The patient is uncovered and wrapped in blankets to prevent chilling, the screen removed, the lamp swung back; and the operation is over.

It has taken twelve minutes.

To Diana

Your soul is a spinning wheel

Weaving silver threads —

A cobweb for the moon.

And for the night

A garment misty white,

A landscape tinsel-framed.

But winds of dawn

Can pluck away your mask.

Your magic's gone,

Nothing left save dust — grey dust.

Oh, the frayed, fragile film of Beauty's veil !

Mary Louise Stone. -»4 17}^»-

Margaret Ogilvy, Mother of Barrie

By Susan Gregory

THE "instinct of mothering" has been called a Scotch trait, but it is doubtful if ever there was even a Scotch mother who made of it a thing so perfect as did Margaret Ogilvy. Had the author, Barrie, not spoken of his father as "one who proved a most loving as he was always a well-loved husband," we might have lost sight of the fact that he had a father, so completely are we entranced by the mother. Her children's christening robe reveals more eloquently her life than does any other one thing, because, as her son says, "it was the one of her children that always remained a baby." Indeed, we can almost believe that it was a child, so many infant bodies had it adorned at the font. Barrie speaks of it almost reverently, "Hundreds of other children were christened in it also, such robes being then a rare possession, and the lending of ours among my mother's glories. It was carried carefully from house to house, as if it were itself a child; my mother made much of it, smoothed it out, petted it, smiled to it before putting it into the arms of those to whom it was being lent; . . . and however the child might behave, . . . the christening robe of long experience helped them through."

When David, her second son, died at the age of fourteen, grief so overwhelmed Mrs. Barrie that she lay ill for months, and she never regained her strength entirely; but when she did begin to convalesce, the first request she made was to see the christening robe. She lay with it beside her, gazing long at it and then turning her eyes from it to the dark wall.

One conjures a pathetic picture of six-year-old James, as he watched his beloved mother's reaction. He must have longed to em- brace her and to kiss away her tears, but he dared only peep in at her door time and time again and then crouch miserably on the stairs, while his small body shook with sobs. Then he was told by his older sister that possibly he could console his mother if he went to her and reminded her that she still had a son left. One can imagine him rushing eagerly into her room, full of confidence that his speech would make her well. But no sooner could he have crossed the thres- hold than the confidence forsook him, and he became again just a small boy, frightened at the quiet and the dark. Suddenly, out of the

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stillness came a strange voice, unnaturally listless, one without the gladness he had always heard in it. "Is that you?" it asked.

There was no answer, and when the question was repeated, the child, with tear-stained face, thinking that she was speaking to the dead boy, cried pitifully, "No, it's no him, it's just me." The pathos and the heartache behind those words surely penetrated, with all their significance, to that mother's own heart, for she uttered a cry and held out her arms in the dark.

Then did the child set about earnestly to take his brother's place. He must have been, as he says, "an odd little figure," for he kept on the look-out for things that made other people laugh, and then he ran into the dark room and reenacted them. He would climb on the bed, stand with his feet against the wall, and cry excitedly, "Are you laughing, mother?" If she did laugh suddenly, he would scream to his sister to come and see, but by that time "the soft face was wet again." He even kept a record on a piece of paper of his mother's laughs, and when he had five marks, he showed it to her. Says Barrie, "Not only did she laugh then, but again when I put the laugh down, so that though it was really one laugh with a tear in the middle, I counted it as two."

Not merely was Margaret Ogilvy a loving mother; she was an ambitious one. Frequently did she say that she "would like fine" to be the mother of some great man or other; never was it a wish to be his wife. That is possibly why she did not resent her son's suddenly calling her from the tea-table one day to whisper in her ear two of Cowley's lines, which he had just heard:

"What can I do to be forever known And make the age to come my own?" One can almost see the blush of pride which must have come to her face, and the sparkle to her eye.

Immediately she set out to help James become a writer, but she had all of the mother-qualms and fears for her son in the midst of London's temptations and dangers. The son describes her ideas of the city, "Ah, the iron seats in that park of horrible repute, and that bare room at the top of many flights of stairs! . . . London . . . was to her a monster that licked up country youths as they stepped from the train; there were the garrets in which they sat abject, and

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the park seats where they passed the night." It is not hard to picture her, wide-eyed and shuddering, sitting in her knitted shawl and spot- less "mutch," reading by a sputtering lamp hair-raising tales about aspiring young authors in London.

When her son became famous, Margaret Ogilvy found herself forced to make several adjustments. One was concerning money — she could not become accustomed to having money to spare. She prob- ably pinched herself often to see if it were true that the royalties were so enormous, but even then I imagine that she thriftily set aside goodly portions for rainy days. Barrie declares that before she ever read one of his published articles, she always counted the number of lines to discover the price that it would bring. He also says that she tied a ribbon around the envelops which contained his first checks.

When James, now a grown man, was about to join a club, an invitation to which was considered quite an honor, several such scenes as the following evidently took place: "But the difficulty is in becom- ing a member. They are very particular about whom they elect, and I daresay I shall not get in."

"Well, I'm but a poor crittur (not being a member of a club), but I think I can make your mind easy on that head. You'll get in, I'se uphaud, — and your thirty pounds will get in, too. . . . what maddens me is that every penny of it should go to those bare-faced scoundrels. . . . Them that have the club. ... If the place belongs to the members, why do they have to pay thirty pounds?"

"To keep it going."

"They dinna have to pay for their dinners, then?"

"Oh, yes, they have to pay extra for dinner. . . . Five or six shillings."

"Is that all? . . . I wonder they dinna raise the price!"

After inquiring as to whether there would be an allowance for illness, for accidents, for New Year, she asked, "Is there any mortal thing you get free out of that club?"

"There was not one mortal thing."

"And thirty pounds is what you pay for this?"

"If the committee elected me."

"How many are in the committee?"

"About a dozen, I thought."

"A dozen ! Ay, ay, that makes two pounds apiece."

-^ 20 }^"-

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Moult tells us that "Old Mrs. Barrie's declining years appear to have been mainly spent in resisting with all her stubborn humorsome heart the unwelcome belief of the outer world that there were other authors of merit as well as her son." Indeed, one of the most amusing and mother-like characteristics of Margaret Ogilvy was her pretended hatred of Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a contemporary and a very dear friend of James, and the two kept up quite a correspondence, but the mother insisted on being prejudiced toward him. "If you could know what was his unpardonable crime," writes Barrie, "it was this: He wrote better books than mine." One can imagine Margaret Ogilvy stubbornly determined to exclude anything which might make her son less perfect in her sight. So she shunned Stevenson as she would a snake. Barrie, taking an almost malicious pleasure in tempt- ing her, would put Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae where she couldn't help but see it. It would be on her table in the morning, but "she would frown, and carrying it downstairs, as if she had it in the tongs, replace it on the book-shelf." He would lay it in a cover made for one of Carlyle's books; she would take off the cover contemptu- ously. He even resorted to hiding her glasses in it, putting it on her clothes-basket, or against her tea-cup. And as even saints have suc- cumbed to temptation, so, finally, did she.

She persisted, however, in reading the book covertly, never frankly admitting it, and managing always to beat about the bush if accused of the oifense. Barrie says that he peeped through the keyhole and saw her reading The Master of Ballantrae, but that when he burst in on her, she had hidden the book under her apron, and had her eyes turned on the outdoors. Then the following conversation took place:

"You have been sitting very quietly, mother."

"I always sit quietly. I never do anything; I'm just a finished stocking."

"Have you been reading?"

"Do I ever read at this time of day?"

"What is that in your lap?"

"Just my apron."

"Is that a book beneath the apron?"

"It might be a book."

"Let me see."

"Go away with you to your work."

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"But I lifted the apron. 'Why, it's The Master of Ballantrae!' I exclaimed, shocked."

"'So it is!' said my mother, equally surprised. But I looked sternly at her, and perhaps she blushed."

Barrie relates another amusing incident, one which shows the deep sense of loyalty his mother had for him, and which also confirms the feeling of guilt with which she read Stevenson. She had come down to sit near him one day while he wrote, and every now and then he would see her eye stray to the shelf on which sat The Master of Ballantrae. Not only did she slip the book under her shawl, but "furthermore, she left the room guiltily, muttering something about redding up the drawers." But, as was to be expected, "conscience must have been nibbling at" her, "for in less than five minutes she was back, carrying her accomplice openly, and she thrust him with posi- tive viciousness into the place." After such an admission, it was not hard for the son to persuade the mother "to read the enticing thing just to convince herself of its inferiority." At last, conquering her pride, she read other of Stevenson's books, and although she was quick to say that stories were better without "one-legged scoundrels," and that she would much rather read her own son's books, she was found holding Treasure Island quite close to the fire because she couldn't stop long enough to light the gas.

When it came time for Margaret Ogilvy to die, she did it as she had always done everything else — as a mother. "Her desire for that which she could not name came back to her, and at last they saw that what she wanted was the old christening robe. It was brought to her, and she unfolded it with trembling, exultant hands, and when she had made sure that it was still of virgin fairness her old arms went round it adoringly, and upon her face there was the ineffable mysterious glow of motherhood." She thought of her children, and began say- ing their names aloud, in the order of their birth. Only one did she omit — that was the name of the third child, her favorite, Jane Ann, who, by curious stroke of Fate, had preceded her mother in Death. Finally, Margaret did call Jane Ann's name, and repeated it again and again and yet again, and the last thing she did was pray.

Barrie paid her due tribute when he "said that any good work he ever did he owed to his mother." One can well believe it; one can also believe that Margaret Ogilvy was born to be a mother.

-«< 22 ^=-

Centenary

NINETEEN thirty-four is the one hundredth anniversary of two friends, interesting figures in the field of English literature — Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Charles Lamb. Their friendship, one of the brightest spots in literary history, needs explanation, for it is strange that men so antithetical in personality should remain sympa- thetic and understanding in their relations over a period of some fifty years.

They both entered Christ's Hospital at the same time, although Coleridge was older than Lamb, and were school fellows together for seven years. Lamb had to leave school and begin work because of the poverty of his family, and so the companionship with Coleridge was for a while interrupted. Coleridge continued his studies at Cam- bridge while Lamb attended to his clerk's duties in the India House. Their paths diverged greatly. Coleridge married later, and settled at Keswick, near Wordsworth, in the Lake Country. The friend- ship was continued, however, by a close correspondence; and on his visits to London, Coleridge was often present at the Wednesday evening open house at Charles and Mary Lamb's, partaking of the cold beef and porter set upon the sideboard and fascinating the group with his brilliant conversation.

One writer, speaking of their friendship, said, "The gentle-hearted Charles Lamb was the only friend at once human and freakish enough to love Coleridge all his days." Certainly it was not hard to admire the strange Coleridge. He attracted with his fantastic mind and di- verting speech, but it was necessary to love him to overlook his weak character and morbid disposition. Self-pity and absorption in his own reactions proved his down fall. The generous, unselfish Lamb, who devoted his whole life to his unfortunate sister, was the epitomy of kindliness and sympathy, for he had never known any other way of living.

Their very writings are as unlike as the two poles — Coleridge, with his mystic chant of foreign seas, strange beasts, enchantresses, and Lamb, murmuring of head colds, old china, and poor relations.

The death of Coleridge in July, 1834, was Lamb's death blow.

-4 23 ^'~

The CoRADDi

There were two people for whom he wished to live, his sister, Mary, and Coleridge. He followed his friend the next December.

It is not only the friendship of these two personalities that we commemorate after one hundred years. It is the distinctive qualities of writing found in the literature of each that make us pause and praise. Lamb's charming flow of quaintness has been said to contain "a rich vein of pure gold." He has given us the informal essay with all its grace and wit, as the personification of his lovable self. Cole- ridge, rarest of spirits, with his unusual memory, almost mechanical in its retentiveness, and his astounding imagination, stamped his few writings with his own mysterious soul.

K. B.

Chaos

Once lithe and strong

I stood upon a crest.

And flaunted songs to earth

And stars, with youthful zest;

Then drew a circle with my hand.

Enclosing earth, and sky, and man

To give them of my best.

Now cowed I kneel

And paw the earth;

With fumbling hands of beggar-lust

I strive to fill

This womb with but a grain of dust.

If from the earth all life must come.

Perhaps my soul can find new birth.

Mary Louise Stone.

•»^ 24 ^'-

Book Review

Eva Le Gallienne, At 33. New York, Longmans, Green and Co., 1934.

The distinguished actress, Eva Le Gallienne, has achieved signal success in that most difficult of feats — the writing of an autobi- ography. She has been able to look at her life as though it were something apart from herself, and has given us, in consequence, a valuable and thoroughly enjoyable piece of writing, singularly lack- ing in the egotism of conceit one might expect from a woman who has crowded into thirty-three years more successful achievement than any woman of the theatre of our generation. Hers is a book which deserves an important place in American letters today because of the deft and charming characterizations which it contains and because she has filled it with enthralling accounts of some of the productions that have made theatrical history. The latter portion of the book contains the story of the Civic Repertory Theatre and of how it grew out of Miss Le Gallienne's desire for a theatre of her own where she could produce the world's great plays and offer repertory at a price within the range of everyone.

There is not a dull passage in all the book's two hundred and fifty pages, and yet it is not a work of great literary art. Its chief charm will always lie in its sensitive sketches of the personalities of the author's day — immortals not alone of the stage but of the other arts as well — and in the remarkable insight with which each one has been executed. Hers has been a life of singularly rich and satisfying outer experiences. (Of the inner experiences of her life she tells us nothing, but the reader does not necessarily conclude that they have been few, or lacking in force and beauty.) It is a source of continuing joy and satisfaction to her that she has had the privilege of witnessing the acting of the great Bernhardt, and of the immortal Eleanora Duse, the dancing of Isadora Duncan, and that in her work she has met such other outstanding artists as Clemence Dane, Alia Nazimova, and Ethel Barrymore. Her characterizations of some of these per- sonages are particularly notable — "the divine Sarah" attaining heights of "tender poetry, romantic glamour, or neurotic, passionate fanaticism" in her acting; Duse with "her gallant, unconquerable

-^ 25 ]¥'-

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spirit, her infectious gaiety, the many-faceted richness of her dynamic personahty, the actress who brought the art of the theatre on a level with the greatest sculpture, painting, music, and poetry — "; Isadora Duncan who "gave to the dance the quality Duse gave to acting: a sort of cosmic understanding of all life, transmuted into sheer beauty."

At one point in her story she writes of how a young girl of twenty once said to her — and is it not, incidentally, the wail of many a wide- awake but wistful college student? — "I was born ten years too late! I've missed everything! I've never seen Bernhardt, Pavlova, Nijinsky, and the Diaghileff Ballet, Rejane, Irving, Isadora Duncan, Duse. I've missed them all!"

And the lovely and talented Eva Le Gallienne, probably thinking of the opportunities and successes of her eventful life, and no doubt, of the promise it contains for future happiness, answered, "Yes, it is a poor age we live in now. Not for all the world would I change places with you. No, not even to be twenty again!"

Mary Elizabeth Keister.

-^ 26 \>

Book Brevities

Janet Beith, No Second Spring. New York, Frederick A. Stokes

Company, 1933.

Janet Beith's first novel and the winner of the International Prize Competition in 1933. It is the story of the brief happiness brought to the lonely wife of a minister by a nomadic artist, with the central theme being the conflict between her love for him and her duty to her children.

Julia Peterkin and Doris Ulman, Roll, Jordan, Roll. New York,

Ballau, 1933.

Julia Peterkin's first non-fiction book, but, more than anything she has written, it depicts the South Carolina negro of today. Seventy full-page photographs by Doris Ulman help to make this a true con- tribution to our knowledge of the negro.

Margaret Ayer Barnes, Within This Present. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1933.

The author of Years of Grace brings us another novel of Chicago life. The plot moves from the last quarter of the nineteenth century through Roosevelt's inaugural address, vividly showing the effects of war, scandal, and financial collapse on a typically staid Chicago family.

Dorothy Massingham, The Lake. Garden City, New York, Coun- try Life Press, 1933.

This ironic drama of Miss Massingham, a tragic story of a girl's attempt to escape from the dominance of possessions and passions into a glorified love, has been chosen by Katherine Hepburn for her return to the stage.

Edwin Walter Kemmerer, Kemmerer on Money. Chicago, John

C. Winston Company, 1934.

Just published. An analysis in simple language of the principles of our present monetary problems and of a plan for stabilization by Kemmerer, the expert who reorganized the monetary systems of twelve countries.

-'4i 27 ]>'-

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Shui Hu Chuan, (Translator, Pearl Buck), All Men are Brothers. New York, John Day Company, 1933.

A great panorama of twelfth century China, bringing to us in a powerful novel the life of that country in the Middle Ages. The splendor, color, and variety of the pageant of characters is shown by the touch of "common things and little people," all of which brings forth the artistry of the author and the ability of the translator.

Louis Bromfield, The Farm. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1933.

A family chronicle that traces the family through four genera- tions, bringing to us never-to-be forgotten characters. It is, in Brom- field's own words, "the story of a way of living that has Fargely gone out of fashion," and in his opinion, a story of a life that is a Utopia compared with the present industrial age. Some of the force of the book is due to the fact that it is autobiographical.

Fannina Halle, Women in Soviet Russia. New York, The Viking Press, 1933.

Traces woman's position in Russia from Czarist time to the post- revolutionary freedom. It shows her equality in social, political, economical, cultural, and biological fields. Profusely illustrated with "case-histories" of many representative Russian women.

RoARK Bradford, Kingdom Coming. New York, Harper and Bro- thers, 1933.

"Mental sufferings of a Louisiana plantation negro during the Civil War." The author of Old Man Adam and his Children, from which Green Pastures was taken, again brings us an inimitable picture of the negro.

Lyal Maie Reynolds.

-.,^1 28 }i^=-

I Become a Neurotic

By Mary Elizabeth Bitting

MY life was a happy one before. It was a fabric woven of blue picture hats, chocolate ice cream cones, and photographs of Norma Shearer. There had been but one great sorrow and few minor ones in my entire existence, previous to the date on which I entered Biology II. That great sorrow was Mathematics. The lesser ones were freckles and the astounding height to which a member of the feminine sex might really grow in this age. Truly, I was living an innocent in paradise. Now all is changed. Today I am a wan neurotic. There is a streak of gray just behind my left ear. It is all due to one of the lowliest creatures God put upon this earth. He is called a frog.

This particular frog, and I am sure there is no other like him, was green. He swam lazily and croaked so vociferously that his voice drowned completely those of all his companions. Furthermore, he was slimy, with ghastly rainbow spots scattered over his entire anat- omy. His eyes bulged, and my heart contracted. I twisted the slip- knot of white string nervously. Somehow, I had small faith in its strength. For some minutes I stared at it desperately. It looked so limp and pale, as limp, as pale as I. The laboratory assistant, exas- perated by my slowness, thrust her hand into the wired-in pond and brought forth the most energetic specimen of the lot. "Here!" she thrust him at me mercilessly. My heart gave one last tremendous thump and died within me. I do not know how the slip-knot found its way around those wildly kicking hind legs, but my return to con- sciousness is unforgetable because of the situation in which I found myself. Never again shall a frog, a slippery, slimy, croaking, rasping, staring, starting, frog make a fool of me! I held the string at arm's length. The unhappy animal, suspended in mid-air, executed a series of violent contortions, left the slip-knot far behind, and made a non-stop flight across the room, landing on the instructor's desk. I breathed my last.

It all comes back to me now, but 1 cannot, I cannot go on. One would not ask me to. When I am forced to think of it again — ^I must then go out to the cool sympathy of the forest. It is an unhappy choice, for I hear a familiar splash into a pond. An offspring, no doubt.

-^ 29 ]P-

Fables by Susanne Ketchum

A WISH COME TRUE

THERE was once a quiet little stream who, after gliding over even ground, came at last to a dam, where it rested as tranquil as a summer's day. An uneventful yet peaceful life she led — gliding daily between the over-hanging trees or bearing happy children lightly on her back. The wind, who sometimes descended to play with her, rippling her dress and swaying the trees that grew on her banks, told her that she was not as beautiful as other streams he knew.

There were streams, he told her, that, traveling through many lands, leapt over rocks and hurled themselves over cliffs — laughing all the while. And, as they traveled, they threw up a spray of tiny drops that shone with wondrous brightness in the sun.

"Oh," sighed the tiny stream, "1 wish that I might be as beautiful as they."

"You have only to break the dam — but you are weak — weak and ugly," taunted the wind. "1 shall go to play with the beautiful streams."

When the wind had gone, the little stream looked with despair at the dam and wished that some day she might be strong enough to break it. The rain and the snows heard her and poured into her such strength that she was soon strong enough to break the dam and rush madly into the land beyond. But here her path was rough. She kept bumping her head on the rocks so that her hair rose into the air and fell back again into a tangled mass upon her shoulders. Her whole body was bruised; but still she rushed on — moved by a force she could not control.

She longed to scream with anger and with pain, but so breathless was she that she could only murmur her protests.

The wind came often and raced with her saying, "How beautiful you are, and how strong!"

When the stream heard him, she longed to tell him that she ran because she could not stop, cried from pain and not from joy, and

-4 30 }>-

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that the lovely film that rose about her was only her tangled hair that rose when she bumped her head; but she could only murmur: "I wish someone would build a dam so that I might rest for just a little while."

TARNISHED BEAUTY

THE Stars looked at their sister, the comet, and sadly shook their heads. Nothing good would come of the way she was acting, they said. She refused to stay at home, but went sailing over the universe with such speed that her shining hair fell down and trailed behind her in the wind.

A thousand years passed. The stars looked at their sister, the comet, and sadly shook their heads. The comet, now, was old and wasted. The wind had clipped her trailing hair and tarnished the shining beauty of her silver eyes. In fact, so dull was she now that they couldn't even see her a thousand miles away.

•=^31}^"-

The CoRADDi

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1 9 3 4

Table of Contents

Page

Earthbound 3

Death I idyl he l.al/.uiiii 6

Three Saturdays Hdythc Laihaui 7

Satis Pulchritudinis Mary I:li~iibelh Davis 8

War is Hell Siisaiuie Ketcbiim 9

Forester 1 Iolt Leslie Ashburn 1 1

After-Song Adelaide Porter 16

Walt Whei'man Crossing Brooklyn I-erky . . . Pdytbe Latham 11

What We Think Editorial 24

Book Review Beth Norvell 16

I^EN Feathers 27

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VoLXXXVIIL No. 3

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