Various

“ We still remember a great deal about Yale.
But there is a wistfulness about even specific memories that hardly expresses our attitude. For we take with us something we are glad to have. The Comic Spirit has quietly insinuated its existence into our point of view. Undoubtedly we have found cherished mansions set on fire and destroyed, but in general we have discovered the delights of roast pig amidst their ruins. You will find the Senior more capable of laughing at the serious than the Freshman. He sees the humor abroad, and is more sensitive to the divine comedy. ”

“ About two years after the father-vest-second-button age, which would land me in the father-vest-third-and-a-half-button stage, I fell to wondering about buttons in a scientific way. Buttons were awkward. The world, I knew, had been going on for hundreds of centuries and men had discovered no more graceful fashion of fastening their clothes together than by these round discs, dangling ridiculously from clothes and yet anchored there with an amount of pains out of all proportion to the achievement. ”

“ As a violinist flees in dark moments to expression through his violin, a painter through his pictures, and a writer through his pen, so might you have seen a child poring over his little button-house, poking in a finger once in a while to stir the occupants to life, entirely absorbed. ”

“ There is indeed some doubt as to whether these modern appliances, together with the modern world which they purport to make happy, are not altogether out of place on this earth. In striving to be great, perhaps we mortals have obscured our immortality. At any rate, Mr. Harrow thought so, as he hurled his corpulent shape from the bed, crashed into the small table upon which the offensive instrument rested, swore, and put the receiver to his ear. ”

“ In these enlightened days when the past is a memory only and life but the illusion of our daily experience, it is rather startling to have a “grown-up person” talk to us of fairies, and magic spells, and the beauty of an apple orchard. Such things are all very well in the nursery, but really, now that we have grown wise enough to put away childish things—. So let this be a warning to all who by chance might read the first page of “Martin Pippin”, for he who once exposes himself to the magic spell of this fairy tale may well find himself an object for mockery by his scornful companions. ”

“ I regard you openly as a woman with whom I am in love. And I ask you, humbly, to become my wife.”
If Betty was laughing she did not show it. “Oh, Christy!” she exclaimed. “I—I hadn’t thought. I don’t know. It is such a step.”
“Why, dearest? How would it change you so very much?”
“Change? That’s just it. I’m afraid it wouldn’t change me at all. I would still love dances and parties and music and Harry Fisher (here Mr. Conrad started) and Charles Saunders (here he jumped perceptibly) , and cabarets. These things you can’t give me, dear. I should have to be such a dutiful wife.” ”

“ Now Betty was no more anxious to fall seriously in love with Charles than she was with Mr. Conrad. While the latter was somewhat uninteresting and unromantic, the former acquitted himself of those faults only at the expense of poverty and an unpretentious position on a Boston newspaper. Mr. Conrad could offer her everything that money could buy; Charles could only bring her those sacrifices which love often demands. She was no [195] more willing to save her pennies for Charles than she was to forfeit her freedom to the middle age of Conrad. ”

“ Comedy particularizes, whereas tragedy deals in the general. When one laughs one is beginning to see things in detail. In Freshman year one contents oneself with the infinite, but in Senior year one becomes concerned with the finite. The Freshman poet will write about Death and Eternity, the Senior about life. After all the latter is merely more sincere.
For Yale does not influence one to become a golden mean, or to idealize a mens sana in corpore sano. It has a more brilliant bit of philosophy than that. ”

“ In this manner I became artistic—such mammoth results do transpire from buttons. Whether this be the cause, or whether the grey years are dulling with their sepulchral dust the gloss of my golden hair, I know not. But I am now largely unconscious of buttons. They are only miserable little nuisances flying off and rolling across the floor at the most inconvenient moments. They are intensely realistic. How in truth could anyone, save a fool, suck romance from their marrow? ”

“ But it is for this very reason that it can hold us with the spell of its sincerity and the intensity of its philosophy. The world of the world has been inspired by visionaries, and there is a place for a vision to-day. ”

“ In reality this is a buttonhole of many buttons. At the age when one is just too old to be spanked the aperture first becomes fully a buttonhole—it accommodates a youth with provision for his innumerable colored, enamelled buttons emblazoned with advertisements of charity drives, political campaigns, circus days, wholesale houses, and the like. The only visible regret on these occasions is that there is but one of its kind. In necessity invention presses even normal ones into service. ”

“ How broadly the influence of the button world is felt you have had as yet, dear reader, but little indication. In matters great as the height and age of a child and in the relations which, physically, at any rate, he may bear to his father, buttons are most subtle indicators. ”

“ In a desperate, fevered condition of mind clothes pins, railroad spikes, patent clasps, a series of bands like a Michelin man’s, box fasteners, padlocks, rings, thongs, strings, and lobster claws whirled by as a giddy panorama of substitutes, leaving me at last faint and content necessarily with the extant order of things, yet peaked at the impotency of my inventive genius. ”

“ With romantic evasion of the point and still with a certain exactitude I answered, “Well, I come up as far as the second button on father’s vest.”
Some day I hope to write An Historie on the Romance of Buttonholes. Buttonholes, however, are such unbodied beings and taken on the whole without their buttons, are such lonely objects that I fear lest the ambitious author should, in entertaining a morbid affinity for the Universal Desolate, fall a prey to his own affections and die of an heavenly grief. ”

“ Meanwhile the chess players had been discussing very personal matters between moves. Conrad had suggested to Mr. Harrow, who knew his heart, that it was high time for a proposal of marriage to the young lady in the adjoining room. “Especially,” he said, “since she seemed to have her head turned by the attentions of this young man Charles what-do-you-call-him.”
“Saunders,” said Mr. Harrow.
“Yes, Saunders. He hasn’t a cent in the world, has he?”
“No,” said Mr. Harrow, “but you mustn’t be alarmed at that. If you had brought up a daughter, you wouldn’t be alarmed at that. Your move.” ”

“ Napoleon is criticized very severely, but with unprejudiced insight into his character. The last chapters—those on the Great War and the New World—sum up all that has gone before. Mr. Van Loon turns from his backward glance into the ages and looks with all his optimistic philosophy to the greater drama that is still to be enacted. In all you feel the man’s sympathetic touch; he believes in mankind—in its past and in its future.
W. E. H., JR.
Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard. ”

“ Charles would merely have called them unbeautiful. But it is a well-known fact that the loss of a very delicate and tender beauty, which we have coveted, leads us to madness, in a vain attempt to beautify anything which happens to be at hand. Thus it happened that Charles had been drunk twice since leaving Betty’s house (for that young lady had been too proud to relent) , and had spent his evenings at his friend Peter’s establishment, called the Green Wagon, in company with Peter himself and a couple of not-too-respectable girls. ”

“ As if he had received written instructions, he announced his arrival as usual by telephone, had tea with her the following afternoon, and said that “he had thought the situation over with extreme care, and had come to the conclusion that, in spite of his more advanced age, he was perfectly capable of supplying Betty with that life of gayety, music, and dancing which she so loved: in proof of which he desired her to accompany him to Greenwich Village that very night.” ”

“ During a revolution against an autocratic world state two centuries hence a number of revolutionary leaders are brought together in a prison, where they devote the night before their death to a discussion of their ideals for the union of world politics with the spiritual Will. Each one takes a different stand as to the methods to be employed, one supporting socialism, another nationalism, a third individualism, and it is in the arguments over governmental forms that some of the finest logic comes out. ”

“ Betty, having achieved that victory, sat back and opened a large album, which she presently spread out across her knees, and his, and leaned very close to him in order to point to the pictures of principal interest.
After many oh’s and ah’s, Charles noticed a distinguished individual and said: “There’s another man, I suppose, who could make a woman happy.”
“Why, yes,” said Betty, “that’s Uncle Alfred. But he’s the romantic type—like you. He hasn’t got a cent of money because he spends it as fast as he gets it. ”

“ For it is just as foolish to think that the soul is without a body, as to think that the body is without a soul; or to fancy a man as completely aetherial, when it is perfectly obvious that he walks with feet of clay. ”

“ The dance ended. Charles took his partner to their table. He sat down, facing Betty. Suddenly Betty had an inspiration. She quite unexpectedly exclaimed, “Oh!” and waved her hand toward Charles, who, though surprised by this enthusiasm, responded with a laugh. He presently arose and walked over to their table, said hello to Conrad, and rallied Betty on the inconsistencies of Fortune, “Which,” he said, “will never allow the most secret conspiracies to pass unobserved by others.” Betty laughed and promised to take the next dance with him, “If Christy didn’t mind” ”

“ Seeing things in proportion is not materialism, any more than it is idealism. It is seeing with sincerity. Material things are not then idealized, and ideals are not made material. Each is treated in its own terms, the question of emphasis and relativity being left to the temperament. ”

“ Weaver. He was so overcome by the thought of writing in American slang that he forgot the essential elements of poetry. Moreover, if Mr. Weaver fails in his language, there is little other interest to be found in the book. His themes are as sentimental and inconsequential as ever.
But Padraic Colum is primarily a poet and only incidentally the exponent of a new form of expression. He does not take the speech of his people as spoken in the dull hours, but only when it is lifted to eloquence by the vision and poignancy of rare moments. ”

“ The book deals in twenty-one chapters with every important phase of art and life that came into the crowded hour of the last decade of the last century. To the present reviewer, at least, the most substantial and most unusual interpretations are those in the cases of Francis Thomson, Rudyard Kipling, and George Bernard Shaw. “Consciously or unconsciously,” the author says, “men were experimenting with life, and it would seem also as if [219] life were experimenting with men. It was a revolution precipitated by the Time Spirit. Francis Thomson represented the revolt against the world. ”

“ She squeezed his hand again, and asked him to light a cigarette for her.
“Dear Christy,” she said, “you have always been such a good friend to me.”
Soon after this the music started. They rose to dance, and Betty allowed his cheek to touch hers; for although she was not in the habit of doing this with everybody, she chose to make an exception to-night. She had her reasons to justify this. One was that she wanted to show Conrad how things were done; the other, she said, was that he was perfectly safe anyway. Whatever motive lay beneath this we will leave the reader to judge. ”

“ I have, of course, understood, my dear, that your youth and extreme beauty entitled you to—ah—your little fling in—ah—society. I have for this reason stood aside, and have offered not the slightest objection, either to your—ah—modernism, or to your—ah—gayety. ”

“ Yes. But I’ll tell you what, Christy. This modern generation can’t be forced to do a damn thing. Haven’t I argued with her? Haven’t I told her she’d end up in a scandal? ’Pon my word, Christy, you’d better get a hustle on—check.”
Thus the party broke up, somewhat after ten o’clock, much to the dissatisfaction of both lovers, and much to Betty’s enjoyment. She was not surprised when Conrad called up the next day and wished to have tea with her that afternoon—alone, if possible. [198] “Why, yes,” she said; “it would be delightful. But one can never tell who will drop in.” ”

“ It is A. E.’s belief that there is a spiritual law operating above all intellectual and physical laws in such a way that our affairs are linked with the vast purpose that the Creator has for His universe. This is not, however, a doctrine of fatalism, for A. E. believes we have control of our own destinies in proportion as we work in harmony with the Eternal—“I think it might be truer to say of men that they are God-animated rather than God-guided”. ”

“ For who can hope, except by dint of great practicing, to engineer in a controlled manner a whole row of buttons up one’s back when, in the hurry of getting up, a trying task is presented even by the side ones. ”

“ I may seem to have maligned the Freshman, and the Freshman of feeling will be hurt. But I am using the sobriquet as generic. It really applies to most of the outside world. Experience there is a hard task-master, and only the exception finds mirth under her schooling. The majority there remain Freshmen always, lacking the knowledge of the comic. At Yale there are few who remain so. ”