The messenger slams the door, springs to horse and gallops away into the night-manuscript for the next issue. Darkness settles. The green lamp glows earnestly. The Red Knight snaps at his aides-de-camp: "Don't you think we ought to? I think we ought to. General Wood won't like it if we don't." "Don't what? Ought to what?" says the Pawn dreamily. The Red Knight stares into space. He wakes with a start. "Organize as a unit. Yes. In case of war the LIT. board ought to go as a unit." Again he stares into space thinking about those things of which every Yale man thinks. "I don't see why we should do that," offers the Rook timidly. The King and Queen blink through their glasses and titter. "Well then, since we are all agreed," glares the Red Knight, “muster in the heelers." They came in pale droves out of the night. They have a far away look as of poets who have just composed the Great War Poem. As fast as they come they are made officers. A wan individual drifts about, for some reason demanding a shantung shenzi. He is put in charge of heavy artillery. "Right wheel-buckets of blood-left face-and a passage to Hell." It is not clear whether General B***t is giving orders or dashing off lines to Jesse James. He holds a murderous bowie-knife in his teeth and his features wear a placid smile. In the corner stands the Red Knight, legs wide, you fancy how, wondering what he is going to do with his assembled volunteers. If some one would only give him a subject he has no doubt that he can speak on it. He thinks he ought to introduce Yale democracy, poetry by children and the policy of the LIT. He will end with a vivid word painting of the LIT. board charging as one man down a battlescarred slope above the Marne, following their gallant chairman................ * The King in Yellow adjusts his crown on one side of his head and departs tittering. The Queen fades out of a window. "This affair doesn't seem to be going very well," sighs the Red Knight vaguely. "No union with the college." "No sympathy with the undergraduates." The heelers drift out again into the night. "But we must do our share," says the Red Knight, tearing his hair, an innovation of his own. Some one turns the light out. Some one else is heard singing: "The LIT. since 1821 Did nothing much for anyone, THE PAWN. YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE. VOL. LXXXII MAY, 1917 EDITORS FOR THE CLASS OF 1918. PHILIP JEROME QUINN BARRY WILLIAM DOUGLAS No. 8 WILMARTH SHELDON LEWIS PIERSON UNDERWOOD. BUSINESS MANAGERS. HAROLD KONDOLF JOHN VAN PELT SYSTEMATIZED ENTHUSIASM. INCE the beginning of the nation, one of the most typical of SINCE all American traits has been enthusiasm. This intangible characteristic has been condescendingly ridiculed by Englishmen, endured rather phlegmatically by Germans, and looked upon with sympathy and understanding by the French people only, who to a greater extent are addicted to it. This intensity is, and probably will be for a long time, the most positive of American emotions. With all its joyousness and keenness of spirit, one can hardly wish that it should ever become extinct or even abated in its vigor. However attractive and national the spirit of enthusiasm may be, it is like a very perishable plant. It generally needs the fostering warmth of a greenhouse to keep it alive and thriving. There is no greater disillusionment in the world than to find an incipient zeal fast passing into neglect and apathy from which there is very little chance of revival. Our national fervor must needs be prodded, bolstered up, and kept strong and lively by incessant strivings of the press of the country. It seems entirely wrong that this should ever be necessary and it might surely be somewhat averted if the individual would use his own stock of enthusiasm in a more thoughtful way. Systematizing ardor is a very paradoxical avocation, but I believe it to be quite possible. There is no doubt in my mind that the precious store of enthusiasm of many people is really wantonly wasted. Torchlight processions deplete it more than one at first imagines. Inspiring as such a sight may be, the excitement of it should have an effect entirely opposite from that which it usually has. A man does not use his patriotism sagely who cheers long and wildly at a mass meeting and as a result offers to help secure army or navy volunteers. One may remark that such a man is doing his time-worn "bit" for his country, but does it not seem absurdly infinitesimal? I do not think that a man, unless he is totally carried away by his patriotism, should, on the spur of the moment, enlist in a branch of government service which is unfitted for him and which really has no use for any but the capable and thoroughly efficient. There is enough perception in college men as a rule to make no mistake in this way, but men outside of university ranks are apt to leap before they look. Even with this rather complimentary statement, it is only too true that college men many times show less understanding and thought than those who have not been trained to think clearly. It is most certainly the case in regard to the R. O. T. C. at Yale. There are numbers of men who have entered this branch of training merely because friends have joined, and who would be ridiculously unfit for any real commanding, even under capable head officers. Men, on the other hand, who join the R. O. T. C. to avoid being drafted as privates are in many cases making a grievous mistake. Some of them, I feel sure, would make not only poor officers but rather wretched privates. This way of doing things, I think, is the result of enthusiasm wrongly used. It is this very wrong use of our national devotion which causes the apathy from which one is totally unable to free oneself. The long delay of organization uses up our resources of this precious quality relentlessly. The thought that we have been at war for weeks and apparently have done nothing but advance billions of dollars, is apt to kill all patriotic feeling in many who will never appreciate the workings of an enormous governmental machine. When a declaration of war is made, one usually expects to hear at once of great battles, to see the whole country moving, rising to arms in a single magnificent idealistic throng. All one's enthusiasm flies away with the ideal and leaves one bereft of the quality for which days of seeming procrastination most cry out. The prosaic, unimpassioned fact has to be faced and one regrets most deeply that one cannot resurrect even a ghost of enthusiasm for encouragement in the struggle. The ways are innumerable in which intense interest may be entirely lost or may deteriorate into annoying discontent. If the enthusiasm which ushers in the great task before the nation and before each patriotic individual therein, can be conserved and dealt out sensibly and with thought it will seem to last even longer, while the individual will be a much more contented and useful sort of citizen. "WHO DARES NOT PUT IT TO THE TOUCH-" None followed broken hopes nor causes vain Nor ventured Hell for Heaven. Vague, half-lies Did for crossed swords and faith and thrilling cries Up windy hills. O, God grant once again Life may rock, eagle-winged, above the plain On perilous pathways in the cloudy skies, Nor weave its web secure, with spider-eyes, Swing with all wind, nor shrink from storm and rain. Better to consecrate a broken lance Shattering heart and brain in some wild cause Than never try the cliffs where eagles pause Pierson Underwood. |