Various

“ But now, due partly to the inevitable disillusion of growth combined with absence, and partly to the perspective in which history and accumulated impressions had since made him see the city, Havana seemed to him too gaudy to be really beautiful, while the dead hand of decay that strikes all tropical countries seemed palpably hanging over the city. From this standpoint, the flaunted beauty of the Malecon, the riot of color over the whole far-flung city, appeared empty and artificial and pitiful. ”

“ The sun was setting as they spoke at length on the changes in Havana, on the passing of the old American colony and its replacement by one grossly new. Mrs. Poëy did not seem so unhappy as Mayo had expected to find her after her daughter’s departure. In fact, she looked very cheerful and carefree. How brave women were!
Then, as dusk quickly came, they sat in silence for a few moments. It was the sort of silence that can fall only between two friends of long standing. And into the silence stepped Yzlita-Audrey, swiftly. ”

“ Indeed, I myself have had to perform all those feats of explanation, in order to quiet Helen’s fears to the point of getting her to allow the Buddha to remain solidly ensconced in a little marble summer house, where he is admired and feared by all the children of the place. But as for me, well, on moonlight nights, I sometimes wander out to where the old bronze god sits quietly dreaming of the time when he was fearsomely adored. ”

“ Hardy’s characters are, I have said, essentially that of the thirteenth century chronicler. There is a certain rudeness and strength and withal a certain other-worldliness against which the slender flame of the passion of Tristram and Iseult burns with exceeding brilliancy. There is a certain subtlety in the painting of such emotions as the jealousy of the Queen Iseult and of Iseult the Whitehanded in such a line as the Queen Iseult’s—
“Love, others’ somewhile dainty,
Is my starved, all-day meal!” —which gives to these figures of legend an unsuspected glow of life. ”

“ We must convince ourselves in every case that they are right or wrong, and once convinced, act fearlessly. Here is no place for timidity. We shall now vote as we choose, defying the dictates of the crowd. Ideas thoroughly analyzed and considered may wield tremendous power. They have not the hollow sound of an echo. Theirs is the true ring of the voice. All the Leagues for Peace in the world are a waste of time unless each member has implicit belief in the worth and need of peace. Progressive changes in college administration will never be promoted by jabbering repetition of “current opinion”. ”

“ When that stage is reached, a stage where our ambitions and ideals are no longer our own, we cease as individuals to live. We become automatons, robots, beings rather below the par of an intelligent animal. Better a man with [88] a will and energy turned to wrong uses than such Donothingness, such flotsam, such weight upon progress. The man who sinks into the crowd has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. ”

“ Upon this background there move living characters. Hassan, a humble confectioner of Bagdad at the time of Haroun Al Raschid, is an ugly man with a poetic soul. He falls in love, and his love is not returned until the Caliph Haroun raises him to power. With loss of power, love leaves him again. Subtle touches of humor and innuendo abound in the play, and serve to outline its essential tragedy.
In the Oriental spirit which “Hassan” so well portrays, there is a gorgeousness of beauty which is too highly colored long to retain its first unfaded charm for a Westerner. ”

“ The Great Buddha of Kwang Ki I had not seen Helen Rochdale for almost a year. And indeed I cannot say that I ever wanted greatly to see her again. Not that seeing her wasn’t always to be a pleasure, but rejection by a girl whom one has loved almost since childhood means that one does not exactly seek her company afterwards. ”

“ They stood at the window in silence, and watched a moon almost full move slowly up the sky. Its wan radiance bathed the clusters of palms on the plain that spread behind the house at the horizon, and put uncertain silver fingers on the garden below them. Mayo turned to gaze at the girl beside him, and saw the moon’s caress on her hair.
“Yzlita-Audrey.” He lingered over the name. “This is like a dream come true.”
After a long moment, she answered musingly, “It’s almost too good to be true. I am so glad you’re here.—Tell me, did you ever really think I’d run off and marry an Italian count?” ”

“ Throughout the country people are being urged and urging others to “get together”. He who attempts to slip away is looked at [86] askance—there is something wrong with him. Any desire to be alone, to do anything alone, is beyond comprehension. And to seek solitude for its own sake—the man is a heretic!
Three years ago a friend of mine began to commute to the city, an hour’s trip morning and night. None of “the crowd” knew him, and efforts to get acquainted proved futile. ”

“ Cabell with a ready stamping-ground. Youth which has not yet lost its imagination, which is still hoping its disillusionments are bad dreams, slips into the spirit of the Cabellian fantasy with too ardent asperity, so that when Jurgen or Manuel awakens in the world of things as they are, youth suffers more than any old man may. None of us have ever had much sympathy with the church-league critics of the manners of Poictesme, since the very elements which aroused the righteousness of these people formed an essential and legitimate part of our dreams and our ideals. ”

“ The powers of nature are ever in league against bodily decay. It is our responsibility to fight and guard with like precision against mental inertia. There will be no help in any attempt to abolish the superficial conformity of dress, conversation, or interests. These things in themselves are trivial. They are the natural consequents of “crowd” thinking. ”

“ Oh, let us not have a spare moment to think! Let us never be alone!—by ourselves!—completely at the mercy of our own ingenuity. And solitude, the greatest of torments, must be avoided at any cost—from $10 a year upward. ”

“ It is one of the most magnificent roads in the island. Smooth as macadam can make it, the way yet gathers, from the over-arching rows of trees that line its entire course, a secluded vastness and solemnity. Of late years its quiet has been more and more invaded by the raucous klaxons and open cut-outs of a swelling stream of tourists. Whereas once great ox-carts lumbered slowly, picturesquely over it, the road is now the slave of the visitor and his forbidding chauffeur. One of the first things a child in the neighborhood learns to say is, “Gee me wan pen-nee!” ”

“ No, one allows others to speculate as to why a table, supposedly more than strong enough to support the weight of even so considerable [101] a deity, should suddenly have crumbled at exactly the right moment, carrying the chandelier with it. Or perhaps one permits them to prove that it was only by coincidence that all who have ever insulted the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki have been punished for their temerity. ”

“ It is a beautiful tale of bubbling mirth overcoming every disaster, for there is the charm of the Hunter family—no matter how great the opposition may be, their infinite good-nature rises to the top and the day is saved. ”

“ Cabell has disclosed that his mind can be filthy as well as fantastic. His double meanings are here inexcusable both for their schoolboy crudity and for their quite obvious irrelevance to the general scheme of things; it is not a question of morals, but of taste. When certain passages remain inexplicable except as unadulterated smut, we cannot help smiling at the irony of the exalted title. What Mr. Cabell regard as his High Place is sometimes far too low to sustain his reputation. ”

“ Eduardo Carlos Poëy, Arroyo Apolo, Havana, Cuba”. But Henry Mayo was gazing at a line of writing above the engraving, where in a fine, dainty hand was “Yzlita-Audrey Poëy”. He considered it for a moment, with a feeling akin to awe, and then, just before the “Santiago” passed into the harbor, raised his eyes to the suggestion of hills and palms in the distance. Beyond those hills was “San Juan” de Poëy, where Yzlita-Audrey had once lived, and where Mrs. Poëy would presently give him word of her.
Inland from Havana runs the great white highway to Guïnes. ”

“ It is so easy to drift! A ready agreement, a quiet acceptance of the latest tenets not only relieve us from the burden of thinking, but can make us no enemies—neither a troubled conscience nor scornful companions. ”

“ For this is a story of the Great Buddha of Kwang Ki, with whom I became acquainted next morning. I call it the Great [98] Buddha of Kwang Ki because that was its official title, but it was of medium size, standing some four or four and a half feet high without the base, and hideously ugly—by which I mean that one must have lived among examples of Chinese art for many years to have understood its peculiar beauty. ”

“ Add to it golf on Sundays, dinners at the country club, theatres, motor trips, downtown luncheons, the ever welcome of the latest fad, and you have the outward criteria of our national crowd complex. The great principle is to spend every moment with somebody else, doing something—even if that be listening to the Chicago weather reports over your neighbor’s radio. ”

“ And especially when a very old and august god has troubled to bring you all the way from France, just to throw the only girl you have ever loved into your arms, it does not occur to you to search for the incredible series of coincidences that may have brought about that almost too perfect result. ”

“ Moreover, it is within reach of us all—the busy and the idle, the radical and the conservative. We can make ourselves consciously challenge all ideas, opinions, theories which are foisted upon us—by others, or by our own sluggish minds. ”

“ By nature opposed to paternalism, we thoughtlessly advocate any measure which would seem to lessen its power—our only assurance of this end being that “everybody says so”. Therefore, if unlimited cuts are generally acclaimed, we join our cry with the rest. ”

“ We are too busy putting out daily papers, producing plays, establishing world’s swimming records. There is no spare hour in the morning and another at night to sit back and reckon where the past day has brought us. ”

“ These details, with the exception of the heavenly fire, were corroborated by the other employees of the place, and the result was that not one of them could be persuaded to approach the angry god for fear its vengeance might not be exhausted. No outside truckman could be obtained until the evening of the present day. But I was assured that Buddha would be faithfully delivered before nightfall.
Returning to The Lawns, I endeavored to keep secret the cause of the Buddha’s non-appearance. But alas, Helen is a witch who will wring anything from my lips, which she suspects of being a secret. ”

“ We have tried to establish and manage our organization so that the college might use the shop as a friendly sort of club wherein might be found the right sort of book.
The shop has been successful—so much so that we do not think it a boast to say that you will find visiting it not only a pleasure but a kind of comfortable habit. ”

“ If you are still young, there is a “League of Youth”, proposed by Sir James Barrie. If you are an inveterate pedestrian, there is a “League of Walkers”. However dismal our future may seem, there will always be the reward of membership in the Rotary Club ”

“ He has lost his particular spark of individuality—that unnameable fibre which differentiates him from all others. What else has he to call his own? That lost, and all is lost. Thus, Agnes Repplier ironically concludes: “All these Leagues, Societies, Associations, and Guilds relieve man from the burden of individualism. ”

“ Hassan. By James Elroy Flecker. (Alfred A. Knopf.) James Elroy Flecker is dead. But from London comes word that “Hassan”, his latest and great work, is playing, [113] and has for months played, to packed houses. Flecker lived most of his life in the Orient, and has in this play indelibly caught its beauty, its poetry, and its cruelty.
The setting of “Hassan”, and the manner in which it is outlined through the characters, is the feature of a work whose merits are legion. ”

“ But before the old fellow could reach the statue his foot slipped, and he came down with the most terrible crash right on the projecting corner of an antique bronze table that was standing in the way. It knocked him out dreadfully, and he had to be carried to a chemist’s shop across the street, and then taken to the hospital without ever recovering consciousness. Poor Helen was dreadfully affected, and I wanted [99] her to abandon the whole thing and go back home. ”

“ From the beginning of Freshman year we are conscious of it: we turn up our coat collars, buy a pipe—and are off in the right direction. Slowly and in various degrees we are moulded to definite standards. ”