Newspapers / The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.) / Dec. 5, 1923, edition 1 / Page 5
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THE LITERARY PAGE ON CHRISTMAS And Some Other Things There are carols ringing through the frosty air. In the country the fields lie gray and silent against the black of the pines. There is a hush ed murmur from the brook in its efforts to creep along under its bur den of ice, and the winter birches blend with the gray haze of the December sky. In the city the shop windows generously shed a warm glow into the street while it is yet afternoon, and invite dreamers to loiter and gaze inside while their companions move on briskly to es cape the cold. There is a hush, a period of quiet preparation before the final festivities of the year be gin. There is a brightness in the eye and an almost imperceptible flush and smile on everyone's face that give evidence of the Christmas spirit within. In the middle of the night, one is awakened by the cocks crowing ever the countryside, and filled with a desire to wander into the night. There is a peaceful ray in the Christ mas moonlight shed over a quite world that makes of night's mys teries a silverv realm of allurement and peace. On such a night did the angel host awaken the shepherds with their glad carols of peace and good will to men, heralding the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem, the earth ly embodiment of divine love. To all of us Christmas means in some sense a celebration of the birth of Christ. To some of us the ob servance of Christmas Eve is a spe cial service appropriate to the cele bration of the Holy Birth and sacred to the custom of many years; to others it may be a meeting for worship called on Christmas Eve. But to all of us the whole season of Christmas has a special meaning and creates a feeling we hold from the first of December to the New Year. This feeling has been termed Christmas Spirit and finds partial expression in the giving of gifts and the gathering with one's loved ones around the fireside. But like all good feelings it cannot find com plete expression, and still remains to be felt until the laast symbol of Christmas has passed. Thus we find in our first and much appreciated contribution this week no Pantheistic repudiation of our historical record of the Incarnation, hut the expression of a religion too great, too inclusive, to be held with in the bounds of organization. The cathedral of the universe is limit less, the Christmas Spirit is bigger than our expression of it, God as a sum total is divine. But when we try to strike a total our conception is inadequate, and we may forget to worship; hence let us take all the. things of Christmas as wr find them remembering tlint appreciation is the larger part of worship. In the same spirit, then, we look at our contribution for this issue: to take them as we find them. It is becoming our custom to print each week some nice or destructive things about the current magazines. We liked the Century for December, the writer of the review liked it, there fore we like the review. "0 Henry esque" is a corker. The writer's (Continued on next page) Send Contributions to Edward M. Holder MY SANCTUARY By L. C. Farris I need not worship only in a church, ith cloister dim and solemn organ chant; Mv sanctuary is the universe. I seek God in his own great Every where ; I find him in the gold of evening | sky, And sunlit richness of a summer day. j I find him in the play of happy youth, And in the look of friend and of j hand, In touch with man out in the busy mart. I need not worship only in a church, With cloister rim and solemn organ chant; My sanctuary is the universe. —From Southern Literary Magazine QUAKER QUIPS GUILFORD! What architectural strides are being made In thy name! Those plate glass windows of the Cannon building Looking like a train of cars at night! That chimney on the late-moved Davis cottage Unrivalled by the obelisks of Tut! Thy builders strive to make thy sturdy spirit Felt in the brick and stone and mortar. * * * Recent conclusion by the biology j department is that the zebra is only a sport model mule. # Among all the advice that comes to us we found recently an admoni tion to read Sir John Suckling. We j did. and in response to the "Why j so Pale and Wan?" submit the fol lowing as our own personal answer: If we write about what has hap pened it's sure to have been forgot ten by the time the paper is out. If we write about things that are expected to happen they never do. And if we write along general folks say we need local color and , news. And just as sure as our muse sprouts an inspiration on the collesrc bell the whole darned tower will j burn down before next week! * # * We will not usually admit that any one else can express our thoughts, hence the very limited amount of material in our columns borrowed from the exchanges. But the troubles of editors with indifferent printers : and exacting subscribers are so com mon to all of the newspaper pro i fession, (including our egotistic selves) that it has found apt ex pression many times already. The following we accept whole-hearted ly as the way we feel about it: The College paper is a great inven tion, The school gels all the fame; The printer gets all the money, And the staff gets all the blame. * * * Wells' latest novel recently ap peared under the title "Men Like Dogs." Some truth but no poetry in this. (Continued on next page) THE GUILFORDIAN | MAGAZINE SHELF CENTURY A vast store of varied and thought provoking literary material greets the reader's eye when he takes up the December Century. First on the bill of intellectual fare is a sympathetic analysis of the purposes and activities of Mahama Ghandi, the great Indian apostle of non-violence and home rule for India. Turning at random through the magazine one finds a suggested solution of the negro problem in the South in "A Shortage of Scape goats," a discussion of the values, implications, and limitations of the widely discussed intelligence tests of today in "A Referendum of Psy chologists," and "The King of the World," which is an expostulation of the curious belief in a possibility of union of the Asiatics against the white race. That a new study of the life and work of Christ in essential to a proper understanding of him by society, is the claim of Alfred E. Zimmerman in "The Rediscovery of Jesus." The article is timely, coming at the Christmas season. In a lighter vein are Arnold Ben nett's" "The Box-Offiee Girl," and "The Big Show" by Courtney Riley | Cooper. The one is something to the effect that 'first, love endures'; while Mr. Cooper makes psychologists out of showmen in their appeal to uni versal human traits, and gives gra- i phic descriptions of circus days and the activities of the show. "The Man Who Kept a Diary" piques the reader's curiosity to the last paragraph,, where the clever hero is revealed in "O'Henryesque" style. Rather than tell you what it is about we will let you have a double portion of curiosity. "Was It a Dream?" "Did Her Romance Come True?" These are suggestive sub-titles for the unique and interesting; story, "Phantom Adventure." Floyd Dell continues to surprise us by his original and varied observations on present-dav life. This one combines psychology and romance. Tn the poetic realm there are con tributions from Hazel Hall, Basil Thompson, and Edwin Arlington Robinson. "Estranged" is an ex pression of renunciation of former life, following self-analysis, while the men have written "Rhyme of the Struck Lad," and "Haunted House." Woodcuts of ancient days, wood cuts by present-day artists, and draw ings of various degrees of excellence may be found throughout the num ber. Burton Emmet has a very in teresting account of "The Oldest Woodcut." the Buxheim St. Christo i pher. "Tittle Gems of Christmas Thought" is series of Christmas pictures parodizing the Chromos of the late nineteenth century. In the ■ same spirit are the old English carols centering around the Nativity of Christ, and beautifully illustrated In a reminiscent vein is "Hither and Yon," a vivid des -riptioii of the | personalities and expeiences of the Federal Industrial Relations Com i mission, by a former member of the commission. This department i (Continued on next page) Thanksgiving in Retrospect Impressions Received on the Annual Dormatory Revue The LIONS Give any giri who stayed at Guil ford on Thanksgiving day three guess es to recall what happened that morning at eleven o'clock, and I 11 wager she won't need the last two. All the other happenings of the day sink down into utter insignificance when compared with the eleven o'clock episode. It was what most of the girls confessed they had really stayed here all day for —what! You don't know yet what happened? Then let me hasten to explain. It was at eleven o'clock Thursday morning that the annual intrusion by the weaker, but undoubtedly fairer, sex upon the domicile of the less fortunate of the species had its occurrence. In other words, we, the girls, were allowed the rare privilege of visiting Cox Hall, which houses the most interesting and exas perating phases of college life—the boys. Although we had observed win dow-washing, rug-beating, scrubbing, general upheaval of furniture, and other astonishing and extraordinary activity being manifested in and outside of Cox Hall for a week, we were prepared for the worst. For hadn't we been told all our lives that men were the worst housekeep ers in existence, and that twas best not to have them around? Our worthy maiden aunts who made these heretofore logical statements had never seen Cox Hall Thanksgiving day. All this manual labor was not wasted on us, either, for girls know the difference between rooms which are merely lived in and those which are livable. The rooms at Cox Hall are more, capable of expansion than ours at Founders, and the boys had spared neither time nor thought to make them attractive. We found out one thing, which, although we had long suspected it, we had never been able to prove: Boys are more fond of pictures and pennants than are girls. Speaking of pennants reminds me of one boy —don't ask me who for I shan't mention any names— whose establishment was evidently intended for a pennant museum. We were solemn and awe-struck in our admiration, until some careless fresh man, in one of the numerous slips of the tongue freshmen affect, let go the information that the afore said boy is the official pennant agen' for the college. What happened to the indiscreet rat we dare not publish even if we knew, while as regards the overstuffed study—whether the bunting was skillfully placed to cover cracks in the walls, or hum; at random for decorative purposes. I suppose we shall never know. And the pictures! Portraits of play ful iittle nephews and nieces, who looked as if they were continually imposing on the virtue of patience, stood up on the chiffoniers and dressers beside the adoring coun tenances of numerous sweethearts, past, present, and in some cases even future. There were pic tures even in the closets. One bov proudly exhibited the stowaway sec tion of his room where pictures decorated the trunks and shelves. The prints on the walls included masterpieces of Rembrandt, Millet, and Corot; advertisements of last vears movies at Greensboro, and other interesting types. These, like (Continued on next page) THE LAMBS They tell me that Miss Purdie gave the boy's dormitory the "once over" on Thanksgiving and is now writing a confession probably entitl ed "Bearding the Lions in their Den" or "The Fascinating Brutes and How They Live." Frankly, we will say that the "once over" that Miss Pur die and her companions gave our rooms was nothing compared to the "once over" we gave them our selves. We gave them the "once over" some six or eight times: twice with the broom, twice with the dus ter, and countless times in spirit if not in execution. We house-clean ed. Oh! yes, and when a man be gins to clean his room at Guilford, look out, —but don't look in the closet or under the bed. Some one has said that the girls keep their rooms in spick and span order everyday, and when Thanks giving comes around they only plump up the sofas and straighten out the rugs. I wonder. Once when I was a retiring young fresh man and wore bangs and blushed easily and effectively, I visited the third floor of Founder's Hall. I saw what I saw, and what I saw was not what I saw on Thanksgiv ing. I fled in holy horror and righteous indignation. And now that years have passed I, with holy horror but without the righteous indigna tion, again visited the upper floors of the girls' dormitories and lo and behold!—but wait. — When the time came for the boys to visit the girls rooms we all rushed madly over, determined to batter down the doors and gain an entrance into the most remote recesses. But to our surprise, we found on ascend ing to the second floor, a reception committee composed of all the most stunning bobbed haired ladies on the hill, dressed in corsages and evening gowns and wearing the most charming of smiles, prepared to wel come us to "no man's land." To say the boys were astounded would be putting it mild. At least three fainted quite gracefully, with facial coloring to match. Passing down the receiving line we were directed to the various rooms and corridors. Some charming fair ones stood in (heir door ways and reited free verse and poetry, while others re clined on window seats and sang bewitching songs. Others display ed appetizing fruit obviously of Cannon origin. Who was it that said, the way to win a man is to feed the brute? Needdless to say, the boys succumbed. Answering the siren smiles of some of the ladies we entered their museums, which normally pass as bedrooms. It would take count less ages to enumerate the contents !of some of those rooms. It would I take a century to compile an ac curate list of the things hanging ; from one window curtain. Such i color combinations! Blue and red sofa pillows were piled three-deep on chairs; what a large number of college acquaintances these co-eds must have, judging by the number of | pennants strewed around the walls! i Candlesticks with unburned candles were placed most artistically to the fore with the, most pleasing little bonnets on top. Now I'm a man and naturally j translate things into masculine use. Therefore, T ask, where do the girls (Continued on page 3)
The Guilfordian (Greensboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Dec. 5, 1923, edition 1
5
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