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The REBEL

Published by the Student Government Association of East Carolina College. Created by the Pub-
lications Board of East Carolina College as a literary magazine to be edited by students and de-
signed for the publication of student material.

Faculty Advisor
Oviy W. PIERCE

STAFF

Editor
DAN WILLIAMS

Assistant to the Editor
JESSIE ELLINGTON MOORE

Art Editor

NELSON DUDLEY

Book Review Editor

SANDRA PORTER

Exchange Editor
CAROLISTA FLETCHER

Music Editor
BILL TUCKER

Business Manager
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Asst, Business Manager

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VOLUME 3 SERN 1960 NUMBER 3 3
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
EDITORIAL _. a mn t
REBEL YELL Ee ste Oa AAT 21
FEATURES
A State In Search of A Birthday by H. R. Paschal...» 11
An Interview With Paul Green—Part II... 8
Review of On A Lonesome Porch... "gE ae uate a
ESSAY
Steinback—An Essay by C. W. Warrick : Sor
FICTION
Glory and Freedom by Bill Lee fee aoe
Short Story (Contest Winner) by Elf Alexander. RemerLRty
POETRY
Poem by Dave Lane r Pa epAO ALY
Southern Night by Betty Sharpe Adcock... we RC ee
As Children Laugh by Betty Sharpe Adcock... 8
Portrait of a Swallow by Betty Sharpe Adcock..........»»_»_>>s 8
The Great Dismal Swamp by Dr. Meredith N. Posey_.........._.14
The Outer Banks by Nancy Lou Oberseider_....__»_-_>- 18
If by Wesley Jackson... SNS Pea MEPIS
Love’s Labor Lost by Allen G. Hoyt. ts pee eee Sie ee
ART
“The Front Porch” (Experimental) by Bob Harper__.. 2
“The Road Well Taken” (Etching) by Cheryl Stowe oe Oe
“Swamp Scene” (Etching) by Al Dunkle. 10
“Rack Em Up” (Etching) by Bob Butler. 2.0 a
“The Watcher” (Sculpture) by Don McAdams... 26
“Night Shift” (Etching) by Rose Marie Gornto_....._________. 80
REBEL REVIEW . a ee 27-33

Reviews by The Rev, Richard N. Ottaway, Dr. Sohh. Howell,
Dr. Francis Adams, Sandra Porter, Dr. Edgar
W. Hirshberg, Kathryn Johnson, Hugh Agee,
Thomas Jackson, Janice Hardison.

COVER by Nelson Dudley

NOTICE—Contributions to THE REBEL should be directed to P.O. Box 1420, E. C. C. Editorial and business offices are located
at 30912 Austin Building. Manuscripts and artwork submitted by mail should be accompanied by a self-addressed envelope
and return postage. The publishers assume no responsibility for the return of manuscripts or artwork.

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Interview With

P

Part II

Interviewer: Do you feel that certain themes
naturally lend themselves to adaption to the
movies?

Mr. Green: I think that the movies as a medium
of art, by that, I mean the camera with its film
inside of it is a very sensitive ear and eye instru-
ment and can do anything that the imagination
of man wants it to do. It’s a great medium, and
being such a universal medium, it can take any
theme. And no theme, insofar as I know, that
is subject matter, is better for the movies than
another. I mean movies as a medium, I’m speak-
ing of the camera now. The movies are first an
eye medium and the voice dialogue part should
always be a buttress and an accompaniment for
the eye medium. Now, the stage is an ear medium
mainly, and the eye stuff, on the stage, should be
an accompaniment for the ear. Now, some people
say, “I’d rather be blind than deaf.” But it is
certainly true, the stage, as such, is more for the
ear and the motion picture medium is more for
the eye, and you can have an extreme in either
one. An extreme, say in the theatre, would be
the work of Paul Claudel, who used to be the
French Ambassador to America. He wrote a great
many plays, religious plays. On the other hand,
an extreme illustration in the motion picture realm
would be the work of, a fellow you never saw,

SPRING, 1960

UL GREEN

Harry Langdon. But, you have seen Charlie Chap-
lin who can do a great lot of scenes with no words
spoken, simple pantomime. I have seen motion
pictures where there were no words spoken, no
caption; it was all done in dumb show with music.
That is an extreme! That is the par-excellence
kind of theme. I have seen many stage productions
where you stood practically still and declaimed,
and that is true of much Greek drama. So, under-
standing what the medium of the movies is, no
theme is better. Now, it happens that in America,
the medium fell into the hands of the cloak and
suit boys. I have consorted and fornicated with
a lot of them, in writing pictures for them, but
I’ve always been decent enough to fight them.
They find that it is easier to stir up passion,
youth and lust and all the rest of it by bedroom
scenes, sex, violence, and all that stuff and when
they run out of soap they can start a fight, and
it has gone on down into television. So, that I
read in The News and Observer, somebody down
in your region, a little boy the other day heard
somebody saying that his grandma was dead and
he said, “Who shot her?” So the American peo-
ple have been debauched and robbed of their birth-
right and all. I’ve written about thirty-five pic-
tures out in Hollywood, and I’ve always said my
say to these perverts, these guys who use this
great medium for one purpose only and that is
to make as much money as they can. They don’t
give a damn how badly they mess up the whole
American scene. A fellow told me sitting in a lit-
tle, cold room in Tokyo, the head of the youth
business in Japan, he said that after the treaty,
that of course, all our cloak and suit boys out of
Hollywood were right there with their lobbying

3
so that they could get their foot right in the door
and get it written in the peace treaty about
movies; so they just flooded Japan, I was over
there and saw the place and I saw all of South-
east Asia flooded with B pictures right out of
Hollywood, part of the peace treaty business. This
man told me that the juvenile problems in Japan
had just multiplied right after these Hollywood
B crime movies had flooded the country. And they
don’t care, and we are to blame because we sit by
and let them debauch. I go up here sometime to
a movie to see Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Wild
Strawberries, but I’ve got to sit there and watch
the previews of what is coming on and every time,
there is somebody gnawing on somebody’s lips or
got some gal down in the grass, or is shooting
somebody. By golly, the other day I saw a woman
in a preview pull out a pistol and shoot another
in the back. That’s what you see, and she falls
with a great bloody splash and that is what they
show in the previews, and it says, Coming Sun-
day, Coming Sunday. Oh, I could talk about this
for hours. I remember the last picture I did for
Sam Goldwyn, I argued with him, he tried to have
a scene there where a little fourteen year old girl,
by golly, he brought her out there; they had her
try out for actress and here came her mother
palpitating and hastling like an old sour uddered
cow, bringing her daughter; they got a 35 year
old Errol Flynn type of boy out on the lot to
teach this girl how to kiss, fourteen years old,
Joan Evans, maybe you’ve seen her. Well, the
New York Times sends a man out to interview
me and he asked me was I writing for Sam Gold-
wyn. I’d just had this quarrel with Sam. So he
said, “What do you think of Mr. Goldwyn—you’ve
worked for him before.” I told him I had tried
but couldn’t do it. He said, “What do you think
of him?” I said that Sam Goldwyn is one of the
low-downest men, one of the worst influences on
American life that I know of, and he’s like, and
I named them, Jack Warner, Harry Cohen, over
at Columbia and Louis B. Mayer. Well I feel so
bitter about that whole business because you see
what a medium can do, gosh, when it is a really
great! Now and then, they’ll turn out a good film
out of Hollywood but most of them trade on sex,
crime, violence, cheap success, easy death, easy
life, and easy ambition. Everybody knows it’s
hard—that living is a hard business—and to
write it should be hard. Until we got our young
people so infected, and yet our young people are
so hungry, like all of us, so hungry for beauty,
for great things. I’ll bet there is not a statue in
all of North Carolina of Beethoven, Mozart, Ber-

4

lioz, nor any of them. So we’ve got a long way to
go and the motion pictures could help us there,
but see what happened on the T.V. So, we’ve
gotten this machine here to turning and winking
its eye and I’m talking in this thing. Well, the
only good in that machine for this particular
moment is that if I can say anything worthwhile
that it can help it be heard. Now this is didactic-
ism that I’m practicing. Gosh, I remember one
of the first pictures I ever wrote, I wrote for
George Arliss, the great actor; he is dead now. I
had an opening scene in a Paris drawing room;
it was about Voltaire. I liked old Voltaire; he
worked for the poor. So, we fade in on this beau-

tiful drawing room—fans going, you know—and

a little fellow is going ta ta de dumddum—playing
a gavotte at the harpsicord. All these whispers
are going on and one fellow, later to become his
teacher, asks, “What do you think of this little
prodigy here?” Oh, but what’s his name?”
“Mozart, seven years old, you know.” Oh, they
come and they go, you know, and then his music
swells in again, beautiful, that’s the opening. Old
Darryl Zanuck, the head of Twentieth Century
Fox, he said, “Hell, people won’t be interested in
that. Let’s get to the play, let’s get to the play.”
I said, ‘Listen! That’s beautiful. This is Mozart

and this is the place to start our scandal, here in

the drawing room, but let’s first hear this beautiful
music, trickling through, trickling through.” ‘No,
no,” said Zanuck. And as old Harry Cohen said
once right in my face, “This is a racket.” He’s
dead now and there is no telling where he is
gone. This is a racket we are in—the motion pic-
ture business—to make money. All of us are. I
said, “Hell, I’m not. I think it is a great medium,
and I like to make money too, but let’s do some-
thing wonderful with it.” They gave me figures
again and again to prove the Americans won’t
support good things. And I tried a few good ones
with a kind of a left-handed guy named Will
Rogers. I wrote three pictures for Will, and we
tried to keep sex out, I mean, love all right, and
some time even after Will had finished them out
they would get put in a scene. Old Sol Wertzel, he
could hardly speak English, was making $5000.00
a week because he was a nephew of Louis B.
Mayer, he said, ‘“‘They want entertainment, you
know.”

Interviewer: Do you feel that Southern writing
is in danger of becoming sociological?

Mr. Green: We’re outside of North Carolina
now; we’ve got into region. I don’t know what

THE REBEL

you mean by sociological. I suppose you mean
having to do with some idiom or point of view
which might spell practical benefits and better-
ment of everyday living. Sociological, well, socio-
logical means society, doesn’t it? And society
means human beings, and human beings maybe
mean brotherhood or enemies. Of course, the
sociologists have really come forth with tremen-
dous visions. Here at Chapel Hill we have the
work of Howard Odom, Rupert Vance, Guy John-
son, and Harriet Herring, Katherine Joche, a lot
of wonderful sociologists here. Sociologists all
over the place, in fact, they’ve developed a langu-
age of their own. I don’t know just what they are
after, except just about what Khrushchev and
what Luther Hodges is after, more industry, more
health, more taxes, better roads, longer life, more
smiles, more general happiness. So, if writing is
in danger of becoming or working for that sort
of thing, what is wrong with it? If you mean
writing is in danger of becoming laden and loaded
with a message? To preach? Is that what you
mean?

Interviewer: No, I meant more of a didactic
tone to it.

Mr. Green: I think this fear of didacticism, that
is the word you just used, well what does didactic-
ism mean anyway? I guess it means coming from
the Latin word meaning to lead towards some
goal or across some place or to lead out. Educate
means to lead out, and I’m very much struck by
the fact, in my own feeling that you can not help
being didactic. You’ve got to teach something.
You’ve got to stand for something. But if the
thing you are writing has a thesis, and the thesis

swallows the characters, swallow the story, creates

its own atmosphere because it is a thesis, then
didactism, is overdone. But, if it is like some of
the great work of Paul Claudel, or some of the
things of Shakespeare, and nearly all of the things
of Aeschylus that we have and Sophocles, those
things are loaded with didacticism. They are load-
ed with some meaning and they have an attitude
about life and about wrong and about man’s
purpose on this earth. Now you get the modern
group and Bill Faulkner, and Tennessee Williams,
and Ernest Hemingway, and, well, you could
name a whole lot of them. The gal who wrote,
well, Katherine Anne Porter, a lot of her stuff,
and Robinson Jeffers, people who, there are many
of them, feel that if you simply depict a surge
of life and turmoil and a lot of passion and

SPRING, 1960

feeling, just simply put forth a whole spew of
human statement, then I agree with Schiller.
Schiller once said that they were accusing him
of copying Voltaire, and Voltaire was a didactic
writer. But he said, “I’m here to tell you that
any great work of art has a moral attitude.” By
that it does not mean that it is pure and prissy.
It takes its stand for something. Well, Eudora
Welty, some of the work of Ingmar Bergman, this
new Swedish, wonderful motion picture director.

But, of course, if you get out, and, as I say,
your thesis and didacticism swallow your charac-
ters and warp your story and you say, Yes, this
fellow is out to prove a point, then he is like a
scientist who already has a priori concept,
that he tries to prove by some experimental
method.

Interviewer: Do you feel that the South has
passed its so-called renaissance in writing?

Mr. Green: It is mainly a question of creating
climate and climate is a mysterious thing. You
know you can go sixty days and have a drought
and the crops all burn up and then you look at
the sky and it just won’t rain, it just won’t rain.
I stopped in Arizona some years ago to get some
gas at a filling station and I asked the man, did
it ever rain. He said, ‘Yea, it rains here.” Well,
said, “When did it rain last?” “Seven years ago
it rained,” he said. Then on a day the air will
feel different and it rains. Things got right. I
can remember when I came to the University,
many years ago, the only man in town that had
written a book was Archibald Henderson. Peo-
ple looked at him as he went by, and now just to-
night, there are 150 people in Chapel Hill ham-
mering typewriters, writing books. And that
might increase; it might go on; it might produce
some wonderful things, or it might fade away.
How could you say it has passed? But I’m sure
unless the young people get more and more in-
terested in it and support it and quit, and well
the old folks ought to quit it—quit this fiddling
with the neurotic navel of the materialistic body.
If we could in the South really catch fire and
could get a vision of what really could be done
in art, music, literature, true philosophy—that
is an art—true science—that is an art—and sculp-
ture, dancing, and painting. Might even discover
a new art! I don’t see why we might not. They
got one or two new ones, so they say. They say
that the camera, now, is a new art, that the
cameraman, working a camera, can select, can

(Continued on page 34)

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“The Road Well Taken”

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by CHERYL STOWE

COMMENT TO YOUNG WRITERS

Young writers in their search for material are
often prone to reach beyond the area of their un-
derstanding and ignore the life around them. Paul
Green, the dean of North Carolina writers, re-
marked that to write sincerely one must write
about what he knows and what he feels. It is only
natural that students have a better chance of
bringing life to people in the areas in which they
live rather than in those with which they are only
distantly familiar. Phillips Russell, noted North
Carolina biographer, in making an appeal to North
Carolina writers to consider the vast amount of
material around them, reminded his audience of
the author who achieved greatness in the world
of fiction through a small, obscure river town in
Mississippi. Today everyone is familiar with
Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Joseph Conrad, al-
though born in Poland, became one of England’s
greatest novelists and prose stylists. At the age
of forty, after spending twenty years in the Brit-
ish Merchant Marines, he published his first novel.
All the mystery and awe of the sea is contained
in his work. For his setting he reached no further
than the ships on which he sailed. Time and again
we see that established writers confine themselves
to the people and to that part of the world in which
they have lived or with which they have had some
close association. However, this is essentially no
limitation, for the setting and the characters are
only the means by which a real artist reveals his
sense of life. Students who aspire to write should
first remember that there are no secret formulas,
no shortcuts to success, that all the themes are
very old, and that any real newness is in the vision
of the writer. The perception and awareness

necessary for such vision are not achieved with a
sudden impulse to write; they evolve after years
of experience and practice. Just as the musician
must spend years in training so must the writer
serve his apprenticeship. Fiction, if it is to be
truly artistic, must be written with a sincere and
honest effort. Consequently, the end result of an
artist’s work is no more honest, and no less sin-
cere, than he has proved himself to be; his vision
must result from his experience and his ability to
recognize some significance in the world around
him. Students in looking for subject matter should
be aware of the stock responses which motion pic-
tures, television, and many publications use for
quick entertainment. The play on sex, violence,
and spectacle is an exploitation of audiences for
economic motives. Students when first beginning
to write will often employ these devices to add
excitement and to provoke a false interest in their
work. Writing of this sort has never endured for
any length of time. Joseph Conrad in the Preface
to The Nigger of The Narcissus, wrote that “A
work that aspires however humbly to the condi-
tion of art should carry its justification in every
line. And art itself may be defined as a single-
minded attempt to render the highest kind of
justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light
the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every
aspect.” Henry James, an equally famous author,
offers in his famous essay, The Art of Fiction,
this statement about the choice of subjects, ‘““The
moral consciousness of a child is as much a part
of life as the islands of the Spanish Main... .”

—DAN W.

ORD ORD ORD
Poem

by DAVE LANE

Flail, fleeting winter wind.

Suave us not with summer seemings.
Blow your bugled best,

Enshrine in rime each tangled tree.
Time will give say and take it,
Spring will force you on

And make it

Summer once again.

SPRING, 1960

Raa at ae Se eee eee

Poetry by
BETTY SHARPE ADCOCK

Southern Night

Figment of sun, tired of the old game
leapfrog over broad pine-sigh and higher
leaps across aerial cities,

gives up, bruising the low west

with purple sleep.

A genteel heat

moves mildly on powdered brows and retreats,
repulsed by the iced drink,

to change its nature in the black

back-woods dwellings.

Brooding into summer, heat

pulses out of earth like a crop of tempers

wild as weeds.

Black dogs outline darkness

wistful

crying against darkness,

and the songs,

full of rag-tay smells from kitchen windows,
color the air like deep grey circles

on torn shirts.

Pushing deeper into blackness the deep woods
shroud one trampled spot, keep well the secret
shred of cloth caught low on a branch,

circled with new leaves.

8

As Children Laugh

Once I took out an old doll

kept away long for the purpose of children.
Its stiff limbs touched of me,

smelt of keepsakes and my fantasy

before the dust.

My child played into the room,
forgot me and grew rapturous
with little girls.

Her fingers unaccustomed to
painted eyes and no rubber-feeling skin, -
the hair and shoes blacked on,

let go the thing, pushed it to the floor,

shattered the unreal smile,

the fixed arms curled hands

smashed.

My child
laughed and made a face,
mimic of the pursed doll-mouth,

chattering of how such old things
break.

CSO 3 3=—NO

Portratt of a Swallow

Crucified on the long shadows,

the shadows lengthening cool as stone
against the knees of a strange prayer,
day mourns itself with the voice of birds.
Who remembers the forsaking of earth

or why?

These are warm wings upsetting

the balance of air

upsetting

a sound out of houses.

Comes the low hot summer’s breathing
an indoor smother in a dawn-squall

with the birth-rags clinging to it,

echoes

of a long sleep leaping

into chairs and books, offices and day-bed.
Grand leaping! fit of bravery

in somersaults of courage against weeping.
And somewhere

small birds circle over grass,

outcry of feathers, arrows of noon,

and the shadows lengthening

under old trees.

THE REBEL

A NEW NOVEL by

OVID

ow WILLIAMS
PIERCE

author of THE PLANTATION

WILLIAMS
PIERCE

LONESOME
PORCH

DOUBLEDAY

Ovid Williams Pierce came to East Carolina
College in 1956. Since that time he has worked
diligently to promote an interest in writing and
to encourage those who show promise. He was
responsible for the beginning of The Rebel and
has served as advisor throughout its history. The
Editors of the magazine would like to pay tribute
to him for the assistance he has given us in class
as well as the magazine. In 1953 his first novel,
The Plantation was published and became a best
seller. His second novel, On A Lonesome Porch
will be published May 13; above is a reproduction
of the cover.

Mr. Pierce’s career has been a varied and in-
teresting one; other than teaching and writing
he manages his farm of 350 acres and four tenant
families. In his home on the Plantation he has
created a post-Civil War atmosphere, with rifles
hanging on the wall, a set of dueling pistols on
the mantle, plus many other relics of bygone days.
This close association with the past has had its
effect, and as Mr. Pierce says, “It would be ex-
tremely difficult to write of it as it would be of

SPRING, 1960

many sections of the South, without interpreting
it as the present margin of past time. I tried to
make The Plantation, in part, what my father’s
generation meant to me as I looked back at it as
a child.”

Mr. Pierce served in the army during World
War II and since then has taught at Tulane and
Southern Methodist Universities; when he moved
back to North Carolina to teach at East Carolina
College he made this statement, ‘““Though I’ve
been away since the war, I still feel that North
Carolina is home, at least when I try to write a
story, that is where my mind has to go.”’ Conse-
quently his writings have been about the land he
has known, and Ovid Pierce has conferred a dig-
nity upon the South that few southern writers
have recognized. His novels are not concerned
with moonlight and magnolias, the fall of any
great tradition, nor is he making a plea for a
persecuted South. Usually he presents the picture

‘of a changing time and a people adjusting to a

new way of life. The kindness and understanding

(Continued on page 33)

“Swamp Scene” (Etching) by AL DUNKLE

A State In Search Of A Birthday

Dr. HERBERT R. PASCHAL

One of the oldest cliches concerning North
Carolina is that it is a valley of humility between
two mountains of conceit. Through the years our
sister states to the North and South have un-
questionably tended to lord it over the Tar Heels.
One of the reasons for this may be that their
origins are well known and legitimate while those
of North Carolina are clouded and obscure. The
Old North State is aware of its age but exactly
when it was first established is veiled in a dark-
ness which has baffled North Carolina historians
earnestly seeking to solve this problem. While
Virginians have proudly held great celebrations
to mark the year 1607 when a resolute band of
settlers came ashore at Jamestown to launch the
fabulous history of the Old Dominion, North Caro-
Jinians have been forced to mumble something
about inordinate ancestor worship and challenge
Virginia to justify her position in the New South.

This lack of a birth date has led North Carolina
to search for substitutes. As a result, a gigantic
celebration of the abortive settlements on Roanoke
Island has been proposed for 1985, and an official
state commission is already hard at work to plan
a celebration of the three hundredth anniversary
of the granting of the Carolina Charter to the
eight Lords Proprietors in 1663. Yet deep in
every Tar Heel heart there is the numbing reali-
zation that these are but substitutes. Everyone
knows that the Raleigh colonies on Roanoke Island
failed and that North Carolina was permanently
settled before the Proprietors got their grant
from Charles II. The haunting question will not
down. When was North Carolina first permanent-
ly settled?

For many years North Carolina historians have
been able to agree on only one thing about the
date of North Carolina’s permanent settlement.
It took place, all agree, in the decade prior to the
granting of the Carolina Charter of 1663. Al-
though there were many attempts prior to the
1650’s to establish a colony in the region known
today as North Carolina, all of these failed. As
early as 1633 about forty persons sailed from
England on board a vessel appropriately named
the Mayflower for the shores of North Carolina,

SPRING, 1960

only to become stranded in Virginia. In 1640 the
Royal Council in Virginia authorized one hundred
debt free, single men to make a settlement in the
region to the south of that colony only to have the
whole scheme collapse. During the 1640’s Virginia
began the practice of granting large tracts of land
to persons desiring to settle to the southward
about the great sound which later became known
as Albemarle Sound. Yet settlements failed to
follow these grants, and the mid-century mark
was reached and passed with no settlement yet
made.

In 1653 the Virginia Assembly granted Roger
Green, an Anglican minister in Virginia, and cer-
tain other inhabitants of that colony, ten thousand
acres of land on the western bank of the Chowan
River to be distributed to the first one hundred
settlers coming into that region. For his trouble
and expense in helping to found such a settlement,
Green was to receive a personal grant of one
thousand acres. The late R. D. W. Conner, one of
the two or three outstanding students of North
Carolina’s colonial past, came to the conclusion
that this grant was proof that by 1653 settlements
had been made in North Carolina. But recent re-
search has failed to disclose any evidence of such
a settlement, nor is there anything in Green’s
subsequent career to show a continuing interest
in the region to the south.

Adding to the difficulties of North Carolina
historians has been the loss of many of the records
of Virginia relating to this period. These records
were destroyed during the burning of Richmond
in the last days of the Confederacy. Especially
unfortunate was the destruction in the same fire
of the records of a number of the counties south
of the James River which had been accumulated
in Richmond during the war as a safeguard
against their destruction.

The best evidence, as to the first settlement
which remains, is that given by early settlers of
North Carolina, who in later years for one reason
or another sought to date this first settlement.

‘This evidence points to North Carolina having

been settled permanently in 1660 or 1661. None

of this evidence supports an earlier date. The

11

sworn testimony given by one of the earliest of
the settlers, Richard Sanderson of Currituck in
1711, was typical; he declared that he had lived
in North Carolina “ever since the year (i.e., 1661)
next after King Charles the second was Restor-
ed,” and that he, ‘‘well remembers... the Govern-
ment of North Carolina at the first settlement
thereof... .”’ In 1708 Robert Lawrence, whose
name appears on the first list of known settlers
in North Carolina, gave sworn testimony that in
1661 he had seated a plantation on the southwest
bank of the Chowan River three or four miles
above the mouth of the Roanoke River; he also
stated he had lived there for about seven years.
Much additional testimony by other early settlers,
all of it confirming 1660 or 1661 as the date of
the first settlement, can be cited. The oldest
recorded land grant in North Carolina, is given
great weight by many historians intent on estab-
lishing a birth date for the Old North State.
This deed is dated in March 1661, and records a
grant to George Durant of a tract of land lying
on a neck between the Perquimans and Little
Rivers from Kilcocanen, King of the Yeopim In-
dians. Since it is known that Durant settled on
this tract, many historians have sought to use
this date to mark the first permanent settlement
in the state.

Then in 1939 an article entitled, ““The Earliest
Permanent Settlement in Carolina: Nathaniel
Batts and the Comberford Map,” appeared in The
American Historical Review. This article, writ-
ten by Dr. William P. Cumming of Davidson Col-
lege, one of the nation’s leading authorities on the
history of maps, brought forward new informa-
tion and a new theory regarding the state’s first
permanent settlement. This theory was based
upon Dr. Cumming’s discovery in the New York
Public Library of a vellum manuscript map of the
north eastern portion of North Carolina drawn
by the English cartographer, Nicholas Comber-
ford, in 1657. Entitled ‘“‘The South Part of Vir-
ginia,”’ the map contained a small drawing of a
house located on the neck of land between the
Roanoke River and Salmon Creek at the head of
Albemarle Sound. The sketch of the house bore
the legend, ‘“‘Batts House.”

Checking further, Dr. Cumming discovered that
in 1656 the Virginia General Assembly had com-
missioned Captain Thomas Francis, Colonel
Thomas Dew, and theother gentleman planters
of that colony to make discoveries between Cape
Hatteras and Cape Fear. On June 11, 1657, ap-
proximately six months after the grant to Dew
and Francis, the Virginia Council granted Nathan-

12

iel Batte (Batts) certain unknown privileges “for
interest taken in the discovery of an inlet to the
southward.” These facts led Cumming to the con-
clusion that Nathaniel Batts had carried out the
explorations south of Virginia which Dew and
Francis had been commissioned to undertake and
that the Comberford map was based upon the
data obtained by Batts as a result of these explor-
ations.

More important, Cumming came to the con-
clusion that the sketch of Batts’ house on the
Comberford map represented a permanent settle-
ment containing a number of houses. Such a set-
tlement, he concluded, must certainly have been
in existence by 1657 when the Comberford map
was drawn, and had perhaps been founded several
years earlier. Cumming expressed the belief that
the reason only Batts’ house was shown on the
map was that he was “the leading man of that
region,” and hence his house alone had been used
to represent this settlement. Cumming supports
his contention that Batts was the leading figure
in his hypothetical community by citing several
references made to Batts by George Fox, the
founder of the Society of Friends or Quakers, who
visited the Albemarle Sound area in 1672. On one
occasion Fox referred to Batts, then living in the
Albemarle area, as one “who had been Governor
of Roan-oak” and on another occasion as ‘the
Old Governor.”

Documentary proof of actual settlements in the
region about the site of Batts’ house does not exist
for the period prior to 1660. Cumming, however,
feels that the settlement known to have been in
existence by 1660 or 1661 simply represents a
continuation of the settlement indicated by the
sketch of ‘Batts’ House” on the Comberford map
of 1657. Hence the Comberford map, he feels, of-
fers the key to the first permanent settlement of
North Carolina and the closest approach yet made
toward a solution of the problem of North Caro-
lina’s birthday.

Examined closely, however, Dr. Cumming’s
theory rests upon several bold assumptions un-
supported by any evidence. Perhaps the most im-
portant of these is that the sketch of Batts’ house
was used by Comberford as a symbol to designate
a larger settlement. Another assumption is that
the settlement which was unquestionably located
in the region about Batts’ house in 1660 or 1661
was there in 1657 or earlier. Still another assump-
tion is that Batts, who held considerable land in
Nansemond County, was ever interested in estab-
lishing a permanent settlement in the region south
of Virginia in the 1650’s. While Cumming’s theory

THE REBEL

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Artists conception of Batts’ House.

contains these and other unsupported assumptions,
it has received considerable support and acclaim.

Recent evidence uncovered by the writer strikes
sharply at the most important of these assump-
tions, that is, that the designation of Batts’ House
on the Comberford map is used to indicate a set-
tlement. There is an entry in the records of Nor-
folk County, Virginia (Book C, p. 180) dated
November 15, 1655, which describes a suit brought
against the estate of Colonel Francis Yeardley by
a carpenter, Robert Bodnam. Among other things,
Bodnam is suing the estate to obtain payment “‘for
going twice to the Southward and staying there
five months upon Coll. Yardley’s occasions” and
“ffor building of a house to the Southward for
Batts to live in and trade with the Indians wch
I did doe by Coll. Yardley’s Appointment ...”.

In these words lie the secret of Batts’ house on
the Comberford map. Batts’ house was an Indian
trading post and Comberford drew only one house
because there was only one. Furthermore, Batts
is shown to have been connected with Col. Francis
Yeardley of Princess Anne County, whose interest
in the fur trade in this region has long been
known.

SPRING, 1960

Col. Yeardley by his own account, first became
interested in the region to the southward of Vir-
ginia largely by chance. In September, 1653, a
young fur trader who had intended to go with a
fur trading party to Roanoke Island was left be-
hind. He then went to Colonel Yeardley, a sub-
stantial planter and a son of a former governor of
Virginia, and asked for provisions to help him go
in search of his party. Yeardley gave the fur
trader the needed supplies, who, then in the
company of four others, went by water through
Currituck Inlet to Roanoke Island. Here the small
band of fur traders found “the great commander
of those parts with his Indians hunting.” After
several days the Indian chief and some of his
great men agreed to accompany the fur traders
back to Virginia where they were entertained by
Yeardley. This marked the beginning of a close
friendship between Yeardley and these Indians.
Late in 1653 or early in 1654, Yeardley sent six
men, “one being a carpenter’, in a boat to the
southward to fulfill his promise to build the In-
dian King ‘“‘an English House.”’ At the same time
Yeardley’s party purchased “three great rivers
and also all such others as they should like of

13
southerly.” After this the Indians “totally left
the lands and rivers’”’ and moved to a new settle-
ment where Yeardley’s men “Built the great
commanéer a fair house’? which Yeardley prom-
ised to furnish with English utensils, and furni-
ture. While the house was being built, contact
was made with the emperor of the powerful Tus-
carora nation. After the house was completed the
Roanoke King and Tuscarora Emperor’s son re-
turned with Yeardley’s party to Virginia where
they arrived on May 1, 1654. The Roanoke King
brought his young son with him to be baptized
and left him at Yeardley’s house “‘to be red up a
Christian.”

In a letter written shortly after this event
Yeardley announced his intentions to undertake
another expedition to the south in July. Unfortu-
nately nothing further is known of this expedi-
tion. It is evident, however, that sometime be-
tween July, 1654, and Yeardley’s death in 1655
that the carpenter, Robert Brodnam, went south-
ward to erect the house for Batts to live in and
trade with the Indians.

When in 1657 Batts received the commendation
and reward of the Virginia Assembly for his dis-
coveries it was probably for the information con-
tained on the Comberford map. Without question,
one of the major features of this map is the infor-
mation given regarding an inlet which offers a
deep water route to the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers
and to Albemarle Sound and the rivers which
empty into it. The information which was in-
corpcrated into the Comberford map may have
come as the result of one of Batts’ fur trading
expeditions or from Yeardley’s expedition in
1654.

The undisputed appearance in 1660 or 1661 of
plantations at or near the site of the Yeardley-
Batts trading post cannot be offered as evidence
of continuous settlement of that spot. What it
most likely indicates is that the settlers of 1660
or 1661 agreed with Yeardley and Batts’ that
this was an important and strategic site. Its loca-
tion at the head of Albemarle Sound on the broad
peninsula formed by the Roanoke and Chowan
rivers made it as desirable and attractive for
plantations as it had been for an Indian trading
post five or six years before.

How Nathaniel Batts, the fur trader, acquired
the high sounding title of governor of Roanoke
cannot be explained on the basis of available evi-
dence. One conjecture might be that it was a half
derisive reference to the days when he alone in-
habited the shores of Albemarle Sound and was
governor in the same sense that Robinson Crusoe

14

was king of all that he surveyed. Certainly George
Fox’s characterization of him as a rude and des-
perate man is more apt for a seventeenth century
fur trader than a governor.

All of this of course leads back to the original
problem. If Nathaniel Batts did not come into the
region south of Virginia at the head of a hardy
band of pioneers, then who did? That question re-
mains today unanswered, defying all of the histor-
ians who have searched diligently through mount-
ains of musty records in an effort to resolve the
mystery. Slowly, however, pieces of the puzzle
are falling into place. Someday the last piece of
the puzzle will be found and the picture will be-
come clear.

C7 —~L)

Che Great Dismal Swamp

Why do you call me from the dark with your voice
low and insistent,

Your liquid voice, preluding what?

And why do I listen and yearn—

I who have other things to think of,

I who must be up and doing?

Yet I feel the pull of you, the emotional tug and
yank,

Drawing me to you there in the dark.

You with your club, why do you bludgeon my sense
with your rank smell

Penetrating every part of me

Until I too stink and unwillingly love your acrid
and rotten perfume?

With your hands me choking, why do you crush
the bright fresh air from my lungs,

Substituting your heavy and vaporous breath?

Am I a creature to your will?

Do I wriggle on my belly through the wet muck
under the long tangled roots?

Do I sit in the branches watching to kill, knowing
no world but the savage crawling dark?

The Great Dismal they call you,

You she-wolf mysterious, howling and haunting,

You beckoning damned she-devil wilderness,

Why do you call me, urging, with your evil,
libidinous arms reaching to hug me in quick-
sand

To the last gasp?

DR. MEREDITH N. POSEY

THE REBEL

Glory and Freedom

by WILLIAM LEE

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I could not help but see the tears in the General’s eyes.

The men lowered me to the frozen ground, the
ice making a cracking sound under the weight of
my body. I could feel the dampness of the ice
through the torn blanket they were using for a
stretcher.

Looking down the trail, I could see nothing but
battered soldiers, dressed like tramps, marching
and carrying their heavy muskets. Other wound-
ed men were being placed on the ground, out of
the way of those able to move under their own
power.

I watched as the men passed struggling for
every step, their feet dragging as if each move
was to be the last. They wore rags wrapped
around their feet for shoes and blankets for uni-
forms. It was easy to see that they were starving,
and I wondered how they could keep moving.

Thousands of men passed and not one looked
like a soldier. With troops like this, what kind of
chance would we have of winning a war? Why
bother to fight? Why not give up now?

SPRING, 1960

My anger caused me to forget my wounds and
as I tried to move the burning pain in my stomach
caused me to double into a ball. I could feel the
blood flowing over my skin, saturating my muddy
trousers.

“God, I’m on fire, let me die, let me die! Don’t
let me suffer so long just to die later. Somebody
kill me, shoot me now!”

Suddenly my head rang from the impact of a
sharp blow, and I realized that Joe had slapped me.
As I looked up, I saw Sergeant Locke and the
Doc kneeling at my side, to hold me still. ‘“‘Doc,
I’m on fire, my guts are burning up.”’ Then I felt
numb and passed out.

I opened my eyes slowly to see some of the men
scattered about the area. Small groups. were
huddled around the fires wrapped in their blankets.

In the distance I could hear axes slapping
against tree trunks and then a thud as the tree
slapped the face of the earth. The men were

singing as they worked. “What the hell, are they
crazy? How can they be so cheerful?”

I rolled over and there sat Joe Hudson, who
lived near me back home. Joe was sitting by the
fire trying to fight the cold without even a blanket
around him. He looked up and seeing that I was
awake came over to fix the blanket he had given
me earlier.

My stomach was still burning and my wool
trousers, which had been soaked in blood, were
frozen stiff.

Looking at Joe brought back memories of our
childhood—the joys and pleasures of boys riding
horses in the pasture, going to town weekends, and
sititng around listening to the “old timers” tell
of their adventurous lives while settling the area.

I remember how Uncle Thad used to sit close
to the pot-belly stove in the general store and tell
stories that captured the attention of every man
and boy present. Many times I had wished I
could live such an exciting life.

Joe and I used to talk about becoming heroes
some day, but we would end our dreams by
laughing, thinking that nothing exciting would
happen to us. Then the war came, offering us a
chance to lead an adventurous life, just like Uncle
Thad’s.

As Joe moved back to his log seat, the crushing
of ice beneath his feet caused me to forget the
wonderful days of our youth. I looked at him and
wondered if either of us would ever get home
again. Funny, but I had never pictured Joe look-
ing that way—unshaven, dirty, smelly. His few
clothes were ragged and hardly covered his body,
yet he kept smiling as he looked at me.

“Feeling better, Ben?” Joe asked.

“A little,” I replied. “How do you feel, Joe?”

Another tree fell and the men continued to
sing as they stripped it down with their axes.

“What are they so happy about?” I heard my-
self asking Joe. “We’ve lost the war and our
lives. We are all going to die here. How in the
hell can they sing?”

Joe never got a chance to answer, but instead a
much heavier voice rang out: “We haven’t lost yet
and we are not going to lose, either.”

Doc Harvey leaned over me and raised the dirty
blankets to look at the raw hole in my stomach.
He removed the dirty bandages and wiped the
wound with a damp cloth that created a sting. I
saw him tearing a dirty shirt to use as a bandage.
Joe helped Doc cover me again.

“Doc, why are we staying here so long?”

The tired and beaten man walked over to the
fire and knelt before he answered my question.

16

“Son, we are going to stay here for the winter
and wait for more supplies and men to come. The
men are building log huts which will give some
protection against the weather.”

Looking about the camp, I could see these struc-
tures rising from the ground. The log huts didn’t
look any larger than fourteen by sixteen feet.
Some of the men were stacking the logs while
others were packing the holes with mud.

“Some hospital, huh, Doc?” The Doe did not
reply, but just stared into the fire.

The pain in my stomach began again and I
could not help but scream. Doc Harvey rushed to
my side and tried to hold me still.

“Doc, I can’t live like this much longer!”

“Easy, boy, you’ll make it.”

“Where to, Doc, Heaven or Hell? ?”

The pain eased and I became more relaxed.
Doc and Joe released me and sat back down near
the fire. I could see Doc Harvey looking at the
men that lay stretched on the frozen ground. He
looked at some leaning against trees, most of
whom wore soiled bandages to cover some wound-
ed part of their body. The pity in his eyes almost
made me forget that I, too, was one of those in-
jured men.

The screaming of one man caused me to shud-
der and then I heard the man crying like a star-
ving baby. “What the hell?” I asked. Staring
at the fire, Doc calmly told me that the boy’s
right leg had just been amputated. The thought
of the scene made me sick.

I looked back around toward the fire and the
Doe was re-wrapping blood-stained rags around
Joe’s feet. The red still showed through the dirt
even though Joe had walked for miles helping an-
other soldier.

Darkness was falling about us and the wind
played tricks in the shadows of the trees as it blew
the limbs about and snow drifted toward the cold
earth.

Some of the wounded were being moved into
the small log huts and they néeded Doc’s help, so
he went to them. I saw as many as twelve men
being put into one little hut.

“Why, Joe? Why are we here? Why doesn’t
that so-called leader of ours do something for us?
He doesn’t care what happens to us at all. The
only thing he cares about is himself. I bet he is
in his tent, all wrapped up nice and warm with
plenty of meat on his table, not giving a damn
about his men. Why do we have to suffer for that
son — — —?”

“Hold it, soldier!”

I looked up and the Commanding Officer was

THE REBEL

approaching. “The general is doing all he can.”’

“Just tell me, Sir, what is he doing while his
men are freezing and starving to death?”

“Soldier, tell me, just why did you join the
army ?”

“T don’t know, but...”

“T’ll tell you, sir,” Joe answered. “Ben and me,
we joined this army to become heroes so we could
go back and tell people about our experiences and
be idols of our hometown.”

More soldiers moved about us as Joe continued
to explain our purpose in coming to war. Joe
kept talking and I watched the expressions of the
men as he spoke. I could hear men swearing as
they whispered while Joe talked. Several times
I saw men make motions as if they were about to
attack him. “Why?” I thought. ‘‘Weren’t they
all here to be heroes? Why, for what other reason
could they have come?”

One of the men came forward and he would
have jumped Joe if the officer had not stopped
him. “Let him talk,” said the Commander.

The pain began to gnaw in my belly again. I
could feel myself clutching my blankets and grit-
ting my teeth to hold back the yell which seemed
to start from the pain in my stomach. Slowly, it
eased and I began to hear Joe speaking again.
This time his voice sounded different and the
words were words that I had never heard Joe use
before. “What the hell was he talking about,
glory and freedom or something?” The blasted
hole in my gut once again ht so badly that I
passed out.

I was awakened by loud shouts and yells, and
I saw Joe on the shoulders of a couple of the
men and many others were around him. I tried
to raise up but the officer held me tightly so I
could not move.

““EHasy, son, everything is O.K.”

“Sure it is,” I said, thinking of the hole in my
stomach.

“Your friend told me your name and all about
you. Joe is some speaker. He built up the morale
of the men higher than it has been for a long
time. I know how you must feel, but you will see
things more clearly when all this mess is over.”

As he walked away, I wondered what I would
see more clearly. Things looked pretty clear to
me now. We were a defeated army, starving,
freezing, and in hiding for the winter hoping that
those stiff shirts back home would think enough
of us to send us aid and supplies. Why couldn’t
we get help? Wasn’t our great General one of
them? With these thoughts and with the snow
falling in my face, I tried to sleep.

SPRING, 1960

This time his voice sounded different.

I was awakened early the next morning by the
stirring of the men, falling trees, loud singing.
There had been some talk about desertion, but
only a few had deserted. I heard one soldier say
that there was not even a horse left to butcher for
meat and that we had only twenty-five barrels of
flour. A private, who was the General’s messen-
ger, said the General had written to the Pennsyl-
vania Legislature and told them of our condition.
They wrote back complaining because we had
stopped for rest. When the General had read the
reply, he let out a cursing that could be heard
all around.

As I listened to the talk of the soldiers, I won-
dered if perhaps our General did care. Many of
the men spoke about him as if he were a god.
The General did this, the General did that, was
all I could hear. Some of the men began to laugh
and joke, and occasionally I could hear Joe’s voice
ring out above the others. I wondered what Joe
had been talking about last night when he men-
tioned glory and freedom.

The voice of a nearby soldier sounded out:
“Good morning, brother soldiers. How are you?”

“All wet, thankie, hope you are too.”

I could hear some talking of going home, and
laughing merrily. Then two shadows stopped
near my head—one belonged to Joe; the other,

17

to my surprise, belonged to the General. Joe knelt
beside me and told me that I had company. The
General’s eyes were misty as he looked at me and
the others about the fire. While the General was
looking at his men, I looked closely at him and
noticed that he was not all bundled up and warm,
but that he was cold, too. His hands and lips
were split from the freezing weather, just like
the rest of us. He looked as tired and weary as
my friend, Joe, who had been nursing me and
doing his full share of camp duties as well.

When the general dismissed himself, all the
ugly thoughts which I had had of him had left
my mind. Yes, he does care for his men. He is
one of us, suffering perhaps more than any of
the rest of us by seeing the conditions of his men
and his camp. As I remembered the conversation,
I realized that he was also worried because of the
attitude of those back home. He had told me
that it was partly for them that we were fighting,
and not only for them, but for their children and
grandchildren. He, too, had mentioned the same
words that Joe had used, glory and freedom, but

he had added many more words, such as peace and
plenty for ourselves and the community, the ad-
miration of the world, the love of our country,
and the gratitude of posterity.

I was beginning to feel better and I had for-
gotten about my wound, the cold, the ice, and
other problems. I kept watching the general walk
about from one group of men to another, know-
ing all the time that he was making them feel
better, just as he had done for me. My attitude
about the war was different. As I saw it now,
every man in this war was a hero; every man that
was to return home would return with honor,
which, if not written on paper, would be written
in his heart and in the hearts of the men that
fought beside him.

I looked up into Joe’s face and I saw that he,
too, had seen the same picture that I had seen as
this great man strolled about the camp. Joe cov-
ered me as I felt the pain once again, but I was
able to close my eyes and go into a sound and
peaceful sleep, knowing that General Washington
would lead us to glory and freedom.

CROCROCR’O

Che Outer Banks

Atop a dune I stood one day
By the sparkling, gem-like sea,
And the wind that swirled about my feet,

Whispered and sang to me.

It sang of brilliant sunlit days,

Of gulls in a turquoise sky,

It sang of a hurricane’s mighty strength
When the waves are racing high.

It whispered to me of the wrecks that lay

On this treacherous stretch of shore,

Of the oats that bend, and the shifting sands
And the sailing ships of yore.

It sang of pirates and buried gold
It sang and the time flew by,

And as I started my homeward way
It whispered a soft goodbye.

NANCY LOU OBERSEIDER

18

THE REBEL

STEINBECK— An Essay

by C. W. WARRICK

John Steinbeck’s war on religion has become a
catch phrase in American literature. Steinbeck
uses his characters not to wage a battle against
traditional American religions but to emphasize
the vitality of American life in its religious terms.

The preacher in The Grapes of Wrath appears
to have lost his religion. Preaching at the funeral
of the once lecherous and mean Grampa Joad, Jim
Casy says that the old man “lived a life an’ jus’
died out of it.” It didn’t matter whether he was
good or bad; the fact that he was once alive was
all that mattered. His reasoning was, “All that
lives is holy.”’ He asks why they should pray for
a fellow that is already dead? He had done his
part on earth and there was only one thing left
for him to do—and “there’s on’y one way to do
it.” Rather than pray for the dead, he reasons
that if he were to pray it should be for the living,
who have a job to do with a thousand ways of
doing it and not knowing which to take.

Elsewhere, Steinbeck’s characters hesitate
about prayer. The scientist in The Snake says
that he can’t pray to anything, while ex-preacher
Casy says, “I don’t know . . . who to pray to.”
On the other hand, the ignorant and superstitious
people of whom Steinbeck is writing in The Long
Valley and The Pearl simply pray because it is a
part of an accepted pattern inherited from unin-
formed and superstitious ancestors.

Although he was a deeply religious man, Juan
Chicoy, the bus driver in The Wayward Bus, had
his own religious belief, exhibited in the presence
of the metal statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe
carried on the dash of his vehicle. Juan’s prayer
was usually a silent hope to obtain the Virgin’s
approval for his actions. To him, the Guadalupana
knew everything that had happened and was go-
ing to happen, In all of his memory this Lady had
been constantly with him. In her he found some-
body in whom to confide his secrets, to confess his
guilts. However, since she was omniscient, Juan
realized that he was merely telling her as a matter
of form. Steinbeck explains that her relationship
to Juan as his connection with eternity “had little
to do as connected with the church and dogma,

SPRING, 1960

and much to do with religion as memory and
feeling.”

Steinbeck’s treatment of Catholicism is inter-
esting. The Church in The Pearl is depicted as a
symbol of despotism and an “unscrupulous milk-
ing of the poor.”’ When the fisherman, Kino, found
a large pearl, everyone began scheming to take it
away from him. The schemers included the vil-
lage priest. Before his fortunate accident, Kino
had not cared much for the Church. His poverty
had never let him. The Church had refused his
marriage and the baptism of his child. However,
after he found the pearl, a smiling priest was
standing at the door of his little shack for the
first time in his life.

A different type of detestation of the Church
is shown in In Dubious Battle. Jim Nolan’s father
abhorred religion and wouldn’t allow his wife to
attend Church. At times during the week, how-
ever, she would slip into the church for a prayer.
In spite of her devotion, or because of her hus-
band’s detestations, she turned away from the
Church, refused the priest’s final visit.

There is the simpler, more humble Catholic
worship by the paisano’s of Tortilla Flat. Stein-
beck renders no abhorrence for the formal re-
ligion. His characters display a superstitious awe
for the Church. When a candle bought for Saint
Francis sets fire to one of Danny’s houses, as the
boys are sleeping off a drunken spree, they figure
that the blaze is punishment for their sins. Later
in the story, the Pirate had promised to purchase
for the church a candlestick for the altar of Saint
Francis, if that saint would help one of his five
mangy dogs overcome its sickness. The promise
seemed to work, for the dog overcame its illness;
after the Pirate had given the gold candlestick to
the priest, the dogs saw a vision of the patron
Saint. This was the reward for fulfilling the
promise.

Steinbeck’s disapproval of Protestantism is ex-
pressed with equal feeling. The best example of

this is Casy, the preacher in The Grapes of Wrath,

giving up his work. Once “Reverend Jim Casy was
a Burning Busher” shouting the name of Jesus ,

19

to glory who had irrigation ditches “‘so squirmin’
full of repented sinners half of ’em like to drownd-
ed.” But Jim gave up the work. He explained
that he was “Just Jim Casy now. Ain’t got the
call no more. Got a lot of sinful idears—but they
seem kind of sensible.”

Other cases of complete disregard for religion
are to be found in Steinbeck’s works. Crooks, the
crippled Negro stable hand in Of Mice and Men,
expresses this when talking with Lennie about
people in constant search for land. He says that
land is just like heaven. Everyone wants some
land but they never get it. ‘““Nobody never gets to
heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their
head.” Jim Nolan joins the Communist Party in
revolt against the system which had ruined his
whole family. When excited by his enthusiasm for
the fruit pickers’ strike, Jim is told by a friend
that he has something in his eyes, “something re-
ligious.”” To this, Jim retorts, “Well, it isn’t re-
ligious. I’ve got no use for religion.’’ Later, be-
fore his death in the strike, Jim admits, “I don’t
believe in religion.’’ Pat Humbert in The Pastures
of Heaven sought to separate himself from the
yoke of the past, which had kept him from enjoy-
ing life. He picked up the old family Bible, and
threw it into the yard where the elements render-
ed it useless.

On sin and sinning, Steinbeck is equally expres-
sive. Jim Casy’s transition from an evangelical
minister to a small-town philosopher is partly re-
sponsible to his acquisition of a “lot of sinful
idears.” Jim thinks that many of these ideas may

(C70)
(£0)
ewe

not be sinful at all. He says, ““Maybe it’s just the
way folks is. Maybe we been whippin’ the hell
out of ourselves for nothin’.”

Another character’s view of sin is that of the
red-haired Eva in Cannery Row. Once, when Wil-
liam the former watchman, told her that he was
going to kill himself, she told him that that was
a “dirty, lousy, stinking sin.”’ The reason for this
denunciation had nothing to do with any religious
or moral codes. If he killed himself, the place
would be pinched just when she “‘got enough kick
to take a trip... .’’ Her condemnation of this ac-
tion was to no avail, for moments later William
slipped an ice pick into his heart.

From these examples one might conclude that
Steinbeck is conducting a revolt against the tra-
ditional American religions. However, these cases
are not all-conclusive, for in everyday life one
comes face-to-face with irreverence, cynicism, and
disbelief.

So, if the paisanos of Tortilla Flat and the char-
acters in The Pearl, worship superstitiously, is it
not in line with the worship of numberless people
today? In spite of all the actions of Jim Casy in
The Grapes of Wrath, Ma Joad’s advice to Uncle
John about his sins was for him to tell them to
God and not to go burdening other people with
them.

Even if Jim Casy did revolt against the religious
beliefs of our society, was not the birth of Chris-
tianity—and the other religions of the world—a
revolt against the religious beliefs of the societies
that existed in those times?

(C—O)
CRO
(C—O)

THOUGHTS ON THE BYRON SEPARATION CONTROVERSY

Tut, tut, sweet Annabella,

Some say you do protest too much;
While others of your gender do

A great injustice claim—

And both may well be true.

Yet had the bard been half the man
That many claim he was,

You would have been the first to say,
When George had gone his way,

“A good man’s hard to find.”

20

WESLEY JACKSON

THE REBEL

THE Reece VECt

The progress of the publications on the East
Carolina College campus in the past two decades
has been remarkable. The Teco Echo, (now The
Eust Carolinian) was a publication of merit dur-
ing the war years and even back into the time of
the depression. The Rebel, is the third magazine
to be printed on campus; at one time it was en-
titled The Cavalier, and later developed into a
more familiar publication entitled Pieces of Eight.
Then for a few years literary magazines were un-
known. However, in 1958 The Rebel was initiated
to fill the gap left by the older publications. The
present Rebel, The Buccaneer, and The East Caro-
linian, have evolved from a long line of publi-
cations, and they have a creditable heritage to
uphold. Of these three publications, The Rebel
has been the only one called on to justify its exist-
ence, but this is so with many college literary
magazines. The purpose of a publication such as
The Rebel is to provide a creative outlet for stu-
dents, and creativity of this sort is synonymous
with education.

There are plans for four issues of The Rebel for
the school year 1960-61; the fourth issue will be a
collection of short stories compiled from students
in other North Carolina colleges in addition to
the contributions from the campus. North Caro-
lina writers will be invited to the campus and this
particular issue will be the subject of their discus-
sion. This will give members of the student body
an opportunity to meet some of our more promi-
nent writers as well as to hear them speak on the
subject of writing in North Carolina.

This past year The Rebel has presented in each
issue an interview with a North Carolina writer.
The Editors plan to continue this policy: with a dif-
ferent interview for each issue.

Poetry for this issue is especially noteworthy ;
the selection of poems will show an emphasis on
North Carolina themes. The short story, Glory
and Freedom by Bill Lee was his first attempt at
writing; on the basis of his success with this story
the Fditors predict a promising future for Mr.
Lee.

The art work for this issue is predominately
etchings, with two photographs, one woodcut, and
one charcoal drawing. One photograph is of a
piece of sculpture by Don McAdams who recently
won an award for a painting entered in an art
show in Columbia, S. C. Currently he is working
on a twenty foot tal! outdoor sculpture to be placed
behind Rawl Building on campus. It is an ab-
stract derived from organic form and concerned
mainly with negative space, form change, and
weight distribution.

Elfreth Alexander was recently announced as
the winner of the writing contest. In the winning
story, The Spring That Broke Tom, Jake, and Me,
Elfreth shows exceptional ability in her character-
ization. The story is one to challenge all student
writers. Denyse Draper and Talmage Williamson
also received recognition from the judges for their
work. For the next year’s contest the Editors are
planning to award three prizes; one for the best
poem, the best short story and the best essay.
The judges this year were Dr. Poindexter, Dr.
Hirschberg, and Dr. Rowe.

CRD CRO CRO CRO

LOVE’S LABOR LOST

by ALLEN G. HOYT

“Write not of love when in that state.”
My critic said to me.

“But wait until a later date

When heart and mind are free.

The pen speaks not the truth so pure
When guided by the hand

Of one whose heart is all too sure

That love it can command.”

Those words so wise I did not heed—
Those words that seem’d so dire—
And still whene’er I felt the need,

I wrote of heart’s desire

And to my critic I did say:

“Be damn’d, Hirshberg! I’ll have my way!”

SPRING, 1960

And thus resolv’d I took my pen—

To write of love so fair—

To put in verse my every yen—

My heart I had to bare.

And from my pen the verse did pour;
The rimes came thick and fast.

This verse by which I set great store,

I felt would ever last.

Then came the day when love was gone—
I put my pen aside.

And when I read what I had done,

My verse I had to hide.

And to my critic, add I might:

“Alas, Hirshberg! You were so right!”

21

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“Rack Em Up” (Etching) by BoB BUTLER

SHORT STORY

(Contest Winner)

by ELF ALEXANDER

I want you to listen real close while I tell you
this because, you see, nobody else knows; that is,
nobody but Tom, Jake, and me, because we were
the ones who did it. I just have to get it off my
chest; so, please listen, and don’t judge Tom and
Jake and me too harshly.

It all started last spring. We would sit in that
little old one-room schoolhouse and stare out
at those blades of grass pushing themselves might-
ily through the naked earth, and we could almost
see a big bass jiggling at the end of our fishing
poles or feel the cool water of the river close over
our hot bodies as we dived deep.

Miss Stokes, our teacher, seemed to have caught
the spring fever, too; for she would run her fingers
through her graying hair more often and was
getting so she would let us out five minutes early.
People around here always joke about Miss Stokes’
graying hair. They say that it started turning
gray one month to the day after she began teach-
ing at the Colbridge School; that was three years
ago—1921.

What struck me funny, though, was the chalky
look she had about her. I think if I saw her in
Kalamazoo and didn’t know her from a hill of
beans, I’d know she worked around chalk. I can’t
figure out why—it must be her complexion.

I guess Miss Stokes did have a pretty tough
time of it, but then so did we. She’d scream and
hoiler—she had a terrible temper and voice—and
we'd look real meek and sorry so she would shut
up and then we’d turn loose a green snake or a
frog that we’d caught at recess. We had plenty
of tricks up our sleeves.

At first, Miss Stokes would whale the tar out
of us with an old beech limb she kept special for
that purpose; but, by and by, as Tom, Jake, and ]
kept on failing our grades and kept on growing,

SPRING, 1960

she got more and more hesitant about whaling us
—especially after the day Jake started running
from her as if he were frightened to death and
Miss Stokes gave chase. Jake ran just fast
enough; that is, he ran kinda slow so she would
think she could catch him. He ran around and
around the room, turning over chairs and knock-
ing books in the floor. The whole class was scream-
ing at the top of their lungs in pleasure at the
change of scene. When Jake ran by Tom and me,
he winked, and we knew he had something up
his sleeve. We never knew what Jake was going
to do; he was absolutely reckless! Well, just be-
fore Jake got to the pot-bellied stove, he fell some-
how; and, Miss Stokes, not expecting such, tripped
over him and well nigh busted her jaw open on
that stove. There was a big board of trustees
meeting about it, but what it all really amounted
to was her being scared of us three. Anyway, she
never tried to whale us with that old beech limb
again.

Well, this spring we wanted something new.
Spring was busting out all over the place, and we
had been kept in the stall long enough—our blood
was running hot. So, you see, Caleb really had it
coming to him when he first stuck his foot in that
schoolhouse.

I remember he came in one morning, right out
of nowhere, and in a voice loud enough to be
heard slam out in the schoolyard, announced his
name as Caleb Hasermann. Miss Stokes was im-
pressed—we could see that; and we were im-
pressed, too—but in a different way. He was too
darned cocky. We watched him all that day. His
cheeks were ruddy, his hair a kinky black, and he

‘was bandy legged, just like a bulldog. In fact,

that’s what he reminded us of, a cocky little bull-
dog. He was a terrible show off, and pretty soon, .

23

we had to keep our hands in our pockets to prevent
them from grabbing his kinky head and banging
it on his desk.

That afternoon, we followed him. He started
out toward Mr. Perkins’ farm, and we figured
he must be the new tenant’s son. We waited until
he got in the woods on that little cart path, and
then we chunked a pebble at him. We knew it
must have hurt him, because it hit him right
square in the back of the head; but he turned to
us with a lopsided grin on his face and just stood
waiting for us. We took our time getting to him,
trying to look as mean as possible; but Caleb
didn’t flinch. As we walked up, Tom asked, ‘‘Ain’t
you got no feelings? I just hit that noggin of
yours with a rock.”

“T felt it,” Caleb grinned. That grin did it. We
moved closer and began circling him, the way
dogs do when they fight. Caleb didn’t look scared
one bit, and I guess that’s why we didn’t jump
him right off. It got so quiet I heard a fish splash
down in the river; and from the corner of my
eye, I saw a redbird fly out of the pine by the side
of the path. Suddenly, Jake let go with a right,
and Caleb went sprawling. Tom and me, we
backed off and watched. We three were tough.
We could beat any boy our age, or so we thought.
It wasn’t long, however, until we saw that Jake
had met his match. Caleb was smaller, but he
was quicker. His little bandy legs moved as if
they were coil springs; and his black, beady eyes
darted about like a fox’s. They fought and fought.
A dark red egg appeared over Caleb’s left eye, and
Jake’s mouth began to look puffy. Finally, Jake
broke off; and Caleb, panting mightily, told us
as cocky as you please that he’d fight Jake tomor-
row if he wanted to. Jake nodded, and brushing
the pine straw and dirt from his clothes, he mo-
tioned for us to follow him. We sauntered off
down the cart path toward the river. We didn’t
say anything to each other—we didn’t need to;
we had known each other long enough to be able
to share our thoughts. Some noisy crows flew
overhead, and Tom made as if he had a gun and
was shooting them. Way off, I heard a rooster
crow. I felt so good. As we walked, our shoulders
would bump; and I was so happy I shouted, “‘Let’s
race to the river!” We took off, Jake halfheartedly
dragging behind. I took the middle of the cart
path, where the grass was high. I could feel it
flattening beneath my feet as I sped over the
ground. I was flying. The trees with their tiny
spring buds of leaves waved at me as I went past,
and the wind breezed in my shirt. When I reached
the shore, I pounded my chest in a victory yell.

24

Tom came thudding down the bank, almost knock-

ing me over, and Jake loped behind him.

“‘Ain’t that your old man’s dog over there?”
Jake asked, nodding toward the bank a little down-
stream.

“Yeah,” I said. I whistled to the flop-eared
dog. It tucked its tail between its legs and moved
off a bit.

“How come it don’t come?” Tom asked.

“Old Sary, she don’t like me none,” I replied.

Tom walked to the water and sloshed his finger
around in it. “Wow! This stuff’s cold!”

I stuck my finger in it. “It ain’t so cold,” I said,
splashing about with my hand vigorously.

“Hey, watch it! You’re getting me wet!” shout-
ed Tom. Jake was watching us, sitting on a log
near the bank.

“Betcha won’t go wading in it!” he dared.

“Oh yeah?” I hollered, and began unlacing my
shoes. Then, I noticed Old Sary siding up. She
didn’t think I was paying her no mind. Quickly,
I grabbed her up and threw her in. I didn’t throw
her out very far because she was so heavy, but it
wet her good. She yelped and came scrambling
out of the water in a frenzy. Tom, Jake, and me,
we laughed and laughed and laughed. Old Sary,
she ran off down the beach a bit. She had the
craziest run. It seemed as if all her legs belonged
to a different dog and refused to get together. I
think they must have been all different lengths.
She was a crazy dog. Good for nothing. I don’t
know why Papa liked her; she couldn’t smell a
rabbit if it was tied around her neck, and her
coat looked as if she had the mange.

The next morning, we rushed to school with
more get-up-and-go than we had had in a long time
—we could hardly wait to tangle with Caleb. That
day, we threw spit balls at him, giggled when he
read, and passed a note around saying he was a
big sissy.

The rest of the spring was like that. We’d tossle
with Caleb every day. Once, we even broke our
code, and all three of us jumped him at once, try-
ing to make him promise not to read or spell in
school the next day. He wouldn’t promise; and
the next day, he read and spelled better than
usual.

The weeks passed, and Caleb got more and more
under our skins. We couldn’t help but admire him
a little, though, but we never mentioned it to one
another. We learned he had lied to his parents
about us, and never spoke to our Pa’s about us—
and he had had plenty of opportunity to. He was
fighting what we called a one-man’s war, and we
couldn’t help but respect him for it; yet, we

THE REBEL

couldn’t stop now. It seemed that no matter what
we did, he wouldn’t get a bit meeker. His eyes
often filled with tears, but they weren’t humble
tears—just mean, angry tears. His cocky way
fired Tom, Jake, and me just like liquor; and we
decided to break him just like old man Judson
broke those wild horses he caught up-country.

Finally, we did a terrible thing. You see, we
couldn’t help it—he had made us. We had noticed
a little mongrel around Caleb’s place. It was a
black and white fice with a funny crook in its
tail. One afternoon, we saw it down by the river.
Pretty soon, we had it on the raft and sent it
spinning down toward the rapids. When Caleb
came down the bank a little later, we told him
what we had done. He took off for the rapids,
as if he were on fire, and we took out behind
him. When we got to the rapids, we saw Caleb
dancing around on the bank, and the dog and
raft spinning and bobbing in the center of the
boiling water. The fice was whining and howl-
ing, crouching and cowering as the raft spun
and tipped. Its crooked, thin tail went up and
down like a pump handle. Suddenly, the raft
shot under. The fice’s head stayed up for a few
seconds, and then it was gone.

Caleb came charging at us like a bull. We had
never seen him so. We grabbed him and held him
down. He kept screaming, ‘‘Are you satisfied now?
Are you satisfied now?”

Abruptly, he changed; we felt his body go lax
beneath our hands. We saw his lips stretch gro-
tesquely over his teeth until they were white. The
color left his face, and tears squeezed out of his
eyes. We let him go, and backed off a little. He
tried to rise, but flopped back down, rolled over
on his stomach, and began pounding the ground.
His shoulders were heaving violently, and slowly,
sobs that began in his stomach came tearing out
of him. Dimly, I heard the water roaring past
my feet and a yellowhammer squawking some-
where. I started down the bank toward home. In-
voluntarily, I began to run. Faster, faster, faster.
The sand sank beneath my feet as if it were
trying to trip me or pull me down, and the water
swept into my shoes as the bank leveled off into
the beach. Gradually, I slowed to a walk. Every-
time I put my right foot down the water would
squash in my shoe. I sat on a log and began un-
lacing my shoe. I had it half off when I somehow

slipped and my stockinged foot darted into the
damp, clammy sand. I don’t know why I started
crying. I just did. My shoulders heaved so violent-
ly I could hardly stay on the log. I didn’t make
any sound, though. My face twisted and contorted
until it ached. I heard something crunching in
the sand, and uncovering my face, saw. Old Sary.
I whistled to her halfheartedly, but she just stood
there, her ears flopping her hair full of cockle-
burs and mud; then, I was off again. I couldn’t
stop the pain that welled up in my stomach and
came seeping up to twist my throat and face with
steel fingers.

In a little while, I felt a wet nose on my hand
and I fastened my fingers in a hunk of Sary’s hair.
I moved my fingers slowly over her back, straight-
ening her matted hair and pulling out the cockle-
burs. I felt her body quiver with pleasure. She
turned and licked my hand. Slowly, the pain left
my stomach, and limply I continued to stroke Sary,
ever so gently. She whined in ecstasy and began
going in a circle under my hand, her tail wagging
a mile a minute. “You like me, Sary? Do you
really like me?’’ She trembled violently, and licked
at my chin. I stroked her side. ‘Say, old girl,
you’ve put on some weight. Have you finally
managed to get you a rabbit or two?” All the hurt
was gone now, and my voice was full of baby talk.
I tickled her, and she lay down in the sand and
rolled over, presenting her vulnerable, white
stomach to me. I grabbed one of her thrashing
paws. “Say, have you gone and got in trouble
again this year? Don’t you remember what hap-
pened to your pups last year?” Sary rolled back
over and tilted an ear at me to be scratched.
“Don’t you remember, Sary? Papa gave them all
away, every single one. Don’t you remember,
Sary? He gave them all away.’”’ Sary whimpered
contentedly and licked my wrist. ‘Say, old girl,”
I whispered, leaning closer, “you’re not much of
a dog, you know, Sary; and, I was thinking .. .
well, you ain’t got much dog sense—you can’t
smell a rabbit under your nose; and you sure
ain’t much to look at; but, you know, Sary, you
got right much human sense, I think; and, well
I was thinking . . . since you run so sorry and
hunt so sorry, and seeing as you already got a
black and white coat, do you ’pose you could man-
age to have a cocky black and white pup with a
crazy crook in his tail?”

SPRING, 1960

25

“The Watcher” (Sculpture) by DoN McADAMS

THE REBEL REVIEW

Religion In America

Protestant Catholic Jew, Will Herberg. Garden City:
Doubleday Anchor, 1960. $1.25

Of the many books dealing with religion which
are available to the casual reader, Protestant,
Catholic, Jew by Will Herberg is among the more
contributive. He is looking at the present religious
scene in America and attempting to understand
it by applying sociological data. The outstanding
trait of mid-twentieth century religion in America
which prompts Herberg to write is the rise in
religious activity accompanied by the rise in secu-
lar interests. For instance, according to one sur-
vey, 80% of the adults asked, said that they be-
lieved the Bible to be the “revealed word of God.”
Yet 53% of these same people could not even
name one of the first four books of the New Testa-
ment. He states his thesis as “that both the re-
ligiousness and the secularism of the American
people derive from very much the same sources,
and that both become more intelligible when seen
against the background of certain deep-going
sociological processes that have transformed the
face of American life in the course of the past
generation.”

The determining facts of our religious situa-
tion today, which is admittedly peculiar to us in
America, is found in the unique heritage of the
population of our country. Of the 160,000,000
Americans living today, all are either immigrants
or descendants of recent immigrants. Our coun-
try is not intrinsically religious, part of this at-
tempt at self-identification has been the affiliation
with a religious institution, either Protestant,
Catholic, or Jew.

Part of this identification is to say that one be-
lieves. For instance, according to one survey 97%
said that they believed in God, 75% said they be-
longed to a church (while church records show
only about 55% of the population on its rolls)
and 73% said they believed in an afterlife with
God and Judge. Yet a majority of Americans who
testified that they regarded religion as something

SPRING, 1960

very important answered that their religious be-
liefs have no real effect on their ideas or conduct
in the areas of politics and business. Since survey
like the above mentioned are not confined to one
religious group, but include the population as a
whole, it seems that there is a common religion in
America—known as the American Way of Life.
The American Way of Life is, at bottom, a spirit-
ual structure, a structure of ideas and ideals, of
aspirations and values, of beliefs and standards:
it synthesizes all that commends itself to the
American as the right, the good, and the true in
actual life.

The American Way of Life sees America as a
new order of things. It is individualistic, dynamic,
pragmatic. It is idealistic. Because Americans
are idealistic, they tend to confuse espousing an
ideal with fullfilling it and are always tempted to
regard themselves as just as good as the ideals
they entertain. Religion is central to the American
Way of Life (and any expression of religion with-
in the tri-faith enterprise of religion is accept-
able). The reciprocal action of the American Way
of Life is shaping and reshaping the historic
faiths of Christianity and Judaism in America.
American religion is basically non-theological and
non-liturgical; it is activistic and occupied with
the things of the world to a degree that has be-
come a byword among European Churchmen. It
is not important what we believe or how this be-
lief is expressed in worship; it is only important
what we do. Any expression of the three major
faiths of America is acceptable to the American
(Eisenhower once said “Our government makes
no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt re-
ligious faith—and I don’t care what it a),
American religion is, crudely, a faith in faith.

How did the religious scene evolve into its
present situation? The author deals with this
according to the three major faiths from which
comes the title of the work. The Protestants were
the first to arrive and set the stage for all re-

‘ligious thinking that has taken place up to now.

The decisive characteristic of American Protest-
antism is its individualism, which is natural for .

27

a religion which has been primarily a frontier
religion across the nation as the nation moved
from the Eastern shores westward.

The Catholic Church’s situation is entirely dif-
ferent in that it has never been a pioneering move-
ment looking for religious freedom. It was from
the first a movement of people looking for a nation.
This brought about a fusing of the religious and
nationalistic efforts. Since the first people to
come, thought in terms of religion as being the
mark of the American, the Catholic immigrants
kept their religious heritage. Even the Catholic
religion has taken on some of the marks of the
American Way of Life. For instance, Catholics
have been criticized by their brethren in Europe
for being too intent on the active virtues at the
expense of humility, charity, and obedience. Also,
American Catholics think of themselves as one of
the three religions of America—an unheard of
situation in Catholicism.

Judaism in America has also undergone a trans-
formation in the process of its being transplanted
from Europe. The Jews have been the last re-
ligious group to come to America. The German
Jews came mainly in the mid-nineteenth century
and the Russian Jew about the turn of the century.
From the first they too have attempted to adjust
to their new national situation, for they were
not religiously motivated to come to America.
Judaism in America today does not have the fervor
for the movement to Israel that has been one of
the main hopes of nationless Judaism since the
first century AD. The Passover has been rewrit-
ten and contains little of the redemptive features
assigned to it by the multitude of generations of
Jews that have lived by it.

As each of these last two groups came to Amer-
ica they seemed to conform with a law (Hansen’s
Law) with respect to their attitude towards their
origins. The first generation to come would be
obviously foreign and keep their foreign traits.
Being truly foreign is part of America, too. But
the second generation has always tended to be in-
secure in this role and attempted to cut itself off
from their fathers’ background. Then, strangely
enough, the third generation will reinstitute that
from his ethnic background which will make him
an American—his religion. ‘‘What the son wishes
to forget, the grandson wishes to remember’.

The three religions have been accepted by all
to be the ideal way of being religious. This gives
rise to the inter-faith movement in America which
is peculiar to us. With the sociological factors at
work in America’s movement towards religion,
it is understandable to the author that the rise

28

of religion and the rise of secularism are concur-
rent in our life. At mid-twentieth century we
stand in the midst of the majority of the third
generation immigrants who are trying to work
out their attitude towards this thing they wish to
remember, their attitude towards other peoples’
religion, and the content of each. That is to say,
Americans are seeking identity with America
through their religion.

Herberg has set forth a very interesting thesis
and has provided most informative and well docu-
mented support of it. Whether he is right or
wrong, the book is valuable in provoking us to
understand why we are so religious according to
the nose count on the Sabbath. The reader will
surely benefit from realizing that our attitude
towards religion is not entirely based on a religi-
ously defined motive.

There are two points where I would like to
amend Herberg, both of which he does not refute
nor deny as much as he overlooks. One is that
the situation in America today is not unique in
spite of the fact that it has evolved in a peculiarly
unique way. Christ said, “I came that they might
have life, and have it abundantly”. This is the

’ major purpose and essential being of religion—

to give life where death is residing in any form.
If the people coming to this country needed to be
part of the Church because they were foreign, this
is another way of saying that their foreigness
was a form of death to them. By the Church’s
accepting them in spite of their secular overtones,
it has successfully given life where death was.
Beginning with Constantine and Edict of Milan
in 313, through Gregory the Great in 590, down
to and including the movement ignited by Luther
in 1519, the orthodox movement of Christianity
has been to give life. Its major turning points
have been where death threatened to engulf the
people. This same thing has happened in the
development of the common religion in America.
(From a personal point of view, I cannot help but
say that traditional Christianity can best counter-
act the death of the world without being hopeless-
ly contaminated.)

The second point is that Herberg does not prop-
erly account for the fact that clergymen are now
better able to communicate this life-bearing faith.
Religion in the last thirty years has profoundly
moved to accept all of God’s revelation to man-
kind including that supplied and gleaned by the
unordained and untrained in standard terms of
Christianity. I mean that knowledge that the
church gains from other fields of study, such as
Herberg’s work in sociology. The theologian bet-

THE REBEL

ter understands the creature that he is attempting
to communicate with and is better able to recog-
nize the presence of death and replace it with
God’s redemptive life.

The very fact that Herberg (now a professional
religionist) would write such a readable and en-
lighting book and the fact that I (also a profes-
sional religionist) would read it with a sympathic
eye shows that one can accept his thinking as
valuable and not expect the worst from the fourth
generation of us immigrants.

THE REV. RICHARD N. OTTAWAY
Episcopal College Chaplain

Autobiographical Fiction

THE AFRICAN, William Conton. Boston: Little,
Brown, 1960. $4.00

Since 1940, we have been aware of the im-
portance of understanding other nations. With
the more recent emergence of independent nations
in Africa, we have become aware of the need to
become acquainted with that area. The African,
by the headmaster of a high school in Ghana, is
useful documentary evidence on African national-
ism and the related and equally explosive problem
of racial discrimination.

Since William Conton, not Alan Paton, wrote
this book, its value as a literary piece is seriously
limited. The author was born in West Africa and
educated there and in England before he entered
the teaching profession. Kisimi Kamara, the cen-
tral character of the book, who tells his own story,
has the same background, but he goes on to found
a political party and become prime minister of
his newly independent country before slipping
into the Union of South Africa to take part in
the racial struggle there. Considering the author’s
close kinship to the protagonist, it is remarkable
that the latter’s story is so improbable. This may
be due to the author’s failure to anchor the events
in this story by relating them to real events and
specific times. It may be due to his formal use
of English. Kisimi’s M.A. is in English; the au-
thor’s degree is otherwise unrevealed.) It may
as well be due to the fact that there is a lack of
understanding between Mr. Conton and this re-
viewer which Mr. Conton is striving to remedy.
This latter reason, along with my obligation to
write this review, helped me to resist the occasion-
al temptation to put this book away before I
finished it.

Dr. JOHN HOWELL

SPRING, 1960

Twain and His Precursors

Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor, Kenneth S.
Lynn. Boston: Little and Company. 1960. $5.00

Professor Lynn, Chairman of the American
Civilization program at Harvard, has, in Mark
Twain and Southwestern Humor, done what stu-
dents of American literature have long known
needed doing: he has traced in detail the influence
of the Southwestern yarnspinners on the art of
Mark Twain. Joseph G. Baldwin, William Byrd,
Joseph B. Cobb, Davy Crockett, G. W. Harris,
Johnson J. Hooper, Richard Malcolm Johnson,
Henry Clay Lewis, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet,
Thomas Bangs Thorpe are all assayed as contribu-
tors, and Mark Twain, as the culmination, is fresh-
ly and wisely examined.

In addition, Dr. Lynn’s work makes two other
significant points. One is that these earlier and
less gifted writers, contrary to what is often as-
sumed, were, however crude their finished prod-
uct, deliberate and_ self-conscious craftsmen.
The otherds that the major orientation of Twain’s
precursors was the Whig Party, which they fol-
lowed from its poised confidence to its disillusion-
ed and bitter confusion and disintegration.

Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor, at once
scholarly and readable, illuminates Twain’s pre-
decessors without dimming the brillance of Twain
himself.

Dr. FRANCIS ADAMS

Responsibility of Love

An American Romance, Hans Koningsberger. New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. $3.50

Hans Koningsberger has written a perceptive
novel regarding the modern American marriage,
which in turn mirrors other aspects of modern
life. Phillip and Ann are extremely attractive and
extremely intelligent young adults. And they have
such dreams; they fall in love and marry quickly.
Their marriage shall be different from that of
those around them. Each is what the other wants,
and they need no other people. In short, each has
found the fulfillment of his life-long dream. Then
the crucial questions, which form the theme of
the book, arise. How can one survive the fulfill-
ment of one’s dreams? What is the emptiness

-which accompanies fulfillment? Why do we not

reconcile ourselves to the fact that ripeness is all
and that it is enough? This is expressed in Phil-
lip’s thoughts while going to pick up Ann at the

29

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railroad station after she has been away for sever-
al days:

“Maybe this is life at its happiest, to be alone
and free and not lonely because the end of
your aloneness is in sight.”

The Author’s opinion seems to be that idea-
people and word-people are more susceptible to
this pitfall than others, if for no other reason
than that their thinking is more analytical. At
any rate, his only answer to the problem seems
to be a reiteration of the immense responsibility
of the lover and the loved. To love casually is not
enough. Love is a fragile seedling which cannot
stand buffeting. It must be carefully nurtured if
it is to survive. But even this may not be enough.

This book is composed of very short, loosely
held together chapters. Its effect is achieved not
by detail but by impressionistic imagery.

An American Romance is the book for readers
who like to grapple with ideas while reading a
novel.

SANDRA PORTER

“Life Really Is Worth Living”’

Living In The Present, John Wain. New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons. 1960. $1.45

This novel begins with the somewhat discon-
certing resolve of its hero to end it as soon as
possible. On a piece of paper headed REASONS
FOR THE SUICIDE OF ME, EDGAR BANKS,
he convinces the reader that his only way out of
the miserable hash he has made of his life is to
destroy it. As a special favor to mankind, he
decides to take with him to eternity the one person
whom he considers to be the most repulsive and
least useful member of the human race. Without
much trouble, though not without a few moments
of indecision since there are so many candidates,
he picks a horror named Rollo Phillipson-Smith,
who effectively represents the sum total of all of
the qualities of the species that are most expend-
able. The bulk of the book consists of his abortive
attempts to commit this double murder of himself
and Rollo.

The experiences Edgar has in chasing Rollo
around Europe make up a series of extremely
funny incidents. Wain is a master at presenting
the ironically comic aspects of society in vivid,
devastating strokes. His descriptions of train
travel, life in Alpine resort hotels, and the ameni-
ties of pseudo-sophisticated drinking parties are
perfect little vignettes of life in the twentieth

SPRING, 1960

century. Edgar’s resolve to “live in the present”
cancels out all his obligations to conventional
morality—or at least he thinks it does—and so he
acts exactly as he wants to act. Gradually he
loses the sense of urgency that has started him on
his projected journey into hell. The more time he
takes to look at life—“living in the present” al-
lows him the leisure to relax and stop planning
for the future—the more poignantly the realiza-
tion comes home to him that life really is worth
living after all, if you just give it half a chance.

Originally one of England’s “angry young
men,” John Wain has shown in this novel that
his anger has waned considerably. In the end
he begins to sound almost like Charles Dickens
crooning of love and life in his best sentimental
style. Like Scrooge in “The Christmas Carol,”
Edgar is transformed into eager benevolence
incarnate. You almost stop hating Rollo Phillip-
son-Smith, but not quite. But you do start loving
everybody else, including Edgar’s new girl. He
steals her from his best friend—who, you learn,
actually has been trying to find a graceful way to
get rid of her, so no harm is done. It is she who
rescues Edgar from the doldrums and convinces
him to Start Over. Your only regret when you
turn over the last page is that he never succeeds
in killing Rollo. Despite this defect, Living In
The Present is well worth reading for the laughs
alone—and for the insight it will give you into
your own foolishness and vanity.

EDGAR W. HIRSHBERG

Executive Episode

The Lincoln Lords, Cameron Hawley. Boston: Little,
Brown and Company, 1960. $5

In this novel, Cameron Hawley has once again
delved into the lives of big corporation executives
and produced a best seller equal to his two prev-
ious novels Executive Suite and Cash McCall.

As the story opens, Lincoln Lord has been out
of a job for eight’ months and he and his wife
Maggie have moved from their Tower suite to a
single room in the Waldorf-Astoria where she
struggles to cook over a can of Sterno on the
windowsill. However, Lord still has dinner daily
at the elite Greenbank Club though his tabs are
piling up.

Finally, Lord shamefully lists his name with
an employment agency, but even they seem to
have no luck in finding him a job. Mr. Lord can- |
not, without endangering his future, take any

job less significant than a corporation presidency.
His trouble is that executives are hesitant about
hiring him because he is a job jumper. He has
headed four corporations within the past ten
years at about $50,000 a year. Is he a phony
who rides the wave of prosperity, but quickly
jumps off and shifts jobs when his company runs
into trouble? Or does he merely see a new future
and advancement in each new job? Even at the
end of the novel the reader can formulate no true
analysis of Lord. Maggie Lord, the true and
ever faithful wife thinks she is the only one in
the world (including Lord himself) who under-
stands her complex husband.

Their small savings have almost dwindled away
and Lord has almost lost all hope when finally
a rich executive calls to arrange an interview.
The Lords rent a Waldorf Towers suite for the
day, move a few belongings up to make the place
look lived-in and fool their guest about their pres-
ent economic situation. He offers Lord the presi-
dency of a small canning company in a small
town and thinks Mr. Lord is doing him a favor
by accepting.

After living in hotels for years, the Lords all
move to Goodhaven where Lord heads the Coastal
Foods Company. Soon, trouble developes; the
owner of the cannery causes a ruckus by wanting
the working staff re-arranged and at the same
time it looks as if the firm’s baby food has started
an epidemic. Will Lord run or will he stay and
see the company through this dual calamity? To
make the problem more complex, at this time
Lord is offered the presidency of his beloved alma
mater Chesapeake College.

This novel offers the reader not only an insight
into the intricate workings of large corporations,
but also gives a glimpse of the personal lives of
executives. Although the mainline of the novel
deals with Lord at work, there is a faint outline
of after hours romance which helps keep the novel
alive for those who tire of the office locale.

KATHRYN JOHNSON

A Humanizing Process

Literary Biography, Leon Edel. Doubleday Anchor:
$.95

The writing of biographies has undergone some
interesting developments since the days when
James Boswell labored over the life of Samuel
Johnson. In fact, Leon Edel declares that “modern
biography is as modern as the novel,” and after

)e
o2

reading Dr. Edel’s Literary Biography I feel in-
clined to agree. In his book, Dr. Edel traces the
evolution of modern biography, with the powerful
inroads of criticism and psychoanalysis receiving
especial attention. It is a book that should be of
interest to anyone who is interested in writing,
for the biographer as Dr. Edel sees him must be
a person capable of seeing not only the surface
accomplishments of his subject but also the intri-
cate patterns of behavior that produced them;
and are these not the aims of the poet and the
novelist in their search for ultimate truths?
There are three types of biographies, Dr. Edel
points out. One is the usual documentary type
wherein the subject dominates the scene (Bos-
well’s Life of Johnson is an example). A second
type is the portrait biography that does not delve
into the life behind the scene, but confines itself
to the outward characteristics of the subject. The
third is what we have in our age and what Dr.
Edel calls the ‘‘narrative-pictorial or novelistic”
biography. It is this type of biography that finds
the biographer analyzing and commenting rather
than merely presenting a host of facts that have
been laboriously shuffled together as one would

’ shuffle a deck of cards.

Dr. Edel deals with the problem of subjectivity
in modern biography in a manner that demands
attention, for he is well aware of the nature of
these problems, having encountered them in the
writing of his Henry James: The Untried Years.
He is currently at work on a further biographical
study of James. Literary Biography in itself could
well become a casebook for modern biography.

HUGH AGEE

Bridging The Gap

False Coin, Harvey Swados. Boston: Little, Brown
and Co., Ltd., 1960. $4.00

This novel, told through the eyes and actions
of its main character, Ben Warder, is the story
of an effort to “bridge the gap between the arts
and masses” and of the conflicts of a motly assort-
ment of characters in their efforts to do this.

Ben Warder is a recording engineer who has
accumulated one apartment, one child, and one
divorce in his fifty years of existence. Being a
bit restless and with no responsibility, he joins
the efforts of this mass production of culture
group in what they label ‘‘Pilot Project.”’

Mest of the action centers around Harmony

THE REBEL

Farm, a nine thousand acre estate belonging to
Horace Harmon, a self appointed guardian of
the arts.

The roster of characters include Monk Malony,
a temperamental Irish writer ; Rex Rector,a Negro
homosexual who was ugly inside and out, in spite
of his composing ability ; Eddie and Joyce Bedlam,
who took politics too seriously ; Fredrick Peterson,
director of the project and a prophet of its suc-
cess, who is somewhat of a sociologist; Victor
Vollbauch, another sociologist who worships sta-
tistics. In addition to these, there are art-sup-
porters, tycoons and a sprinkling of characters
who can only be classified as wealthy. The whole
crew seems to use art as a blanket to protect them
from the outside world and give the impression
of psuedo-appreciators.

The book is written in a loose style that tends
to be boring. In addition the reader is never sure
just what the characters are searching for. The
average reader will wonder how the story ends,
but not enough to finish it unless he’s only trying
to kill time.

THOMAS JACKSON

Morality Play For Moderns

In The Absence of Magic, Ernest Pawel. New York:
The Macmillan Co. 1960. $3.75

The usual words used to describe adult novels
— convincing, shocking, intense, stimulating —
are inadequate when they are applied to Ernst
Pawel’s In The Absence of Magic. It is convincing
in that there are Burts and Peters, and it is shock-
ing in that someone must be destroyed in the
conflict between them. It is intense in presenting
and resolving this conflict, and it is stimulating
because it is masterfully written. But these obser-
vations reveal nothing significant. For In The
Absence of Magic is more than another fine novel.
It is a morality play in modern dress, frightening-
ly applicable to our age.

The conflict involves brilliant, charming, and
dangerously neurotic Burt and his former teacher
and friend, Peter Kersten, a one-time disciple of
Freud who has retired from the world to a re-
mote island off the middle Atlantic seaboard. Burt
must save himself from suicide, and though he
has betrayed Peter on three separate occasions,
he must do so yet again, this time by corrupting
the relationship between Peter and his adopted
refugee children. From the time of Burt’s ar-
rival to the island until his departure, the com-

SPRING, 1960

plex pattern of their interwoven pasts builds to
a crisis in which both men reap a bitter harvest
of guilt and remorse. Focal point of their battle
of wills is sixteen year old Dolores, who must
chocse between a life of ease with Burt and his
wife and her present existence on the island with
Peter and her twelve year old brother Mitya. Less
innocent and vulnerable than Burt has supposed,
she says simply, “I will not go with you to hurt
Peter.”

And when Burt, now a three time loser, is ready
to resort to violence, Peter observes calmly, “It
would be a damn sight easier for me to die than
for you te go on living.” Burt’s cure had been
short lived. He had now been “civilized and ana-
lyzed and altogether so fouled that instead of
howling all he could do was pant.”

If one is not interested in novels which involve
only a battle between strong personalities with
little hope of victory for either party, then the
strong appeal in this novel will be the generous
number of what might tritely be called ‘“well-
turned phrases.’”’ Mr. Pawel has said well some-
thing that is profoundly worth saying. And Jn
The Absence of Magic, finding no magic to cure
sick souls, satisfies the reader by saying majestic-
ally that man’s salvation lies within himself.

JANICE HARDISON

ON A
LONESOME PORCH

(Continued from page 9)

with which he treats the Negroes as well as whites
could come only from a man who has known and
felt the true southern traditions.

His latest novel is a work of art that will ap-
peal to every person who has felt time passing
too swiftly by. After the close of the Civil War,
Miss Ellen, plantation owner, returns home with
her widowed daughter-in-law and grandson. They
find their traditional way of life completely re-
moved. How these three generations react and
how they make their adjustments is written with
a dignity and insight that gives it universal signifi-
cance. As one reviewer has written, “On A Lone-
some Porch is an enthralling novel. In its imagi-

native recreation of a day that is gone, the vivid-

ness of description, its insight into character and
its powerful yet restrained emotion, the book
stands as the work of a master craftsman.”

Juterview With
PAUL GREEN

(Continued from page 5)

shade, can change, can emphasize; he can handle
material with all the freedom of a fellow working
with a brush. So, it all depends. But if more and
more comes to the point, that’s a bad word, I don’t
mean point, comes to where things of beauty and
by beauty I mean beauty, count more and more,
they count for something important. Two or three
days ago an old army buddy of mine visited me.
The last time I’d seen that fellow, I was digging
a ditch in Camp Green. I was a buck private;
he was a big sergeant, and I was slinging a pick
and I said, Sergeant, I think.” And he said,
“Damn your soul, you are not supposed to think!
You are a soldier.”” But he was here several days
ago, got him a new wife, no gray hair, and sixty-
something years old. He said, “I want you to tell
me about my boy. He quit the bulldozer, quit the
contracting business, and he is up here at Chapel
Hill sculpting—carving stuff—and he wants to
be an artist. I told him if he could make $3.50 an
hour—that was what I paid him when he drove
the bulldozer—then he might be an artist.” But
he says, “I reckon it’s all right, because he loves
it. And it’s all right, ain’t it, for a man to do
what he loves to do?”’ And there my school teach-
ing spirt came in. This didaticism. I said, ‘Yes,
if it’s worth doing. So, Al Capone, no doubt,
loved what he was doing, but it wasn’t worth do-
ing.” I remember talking to Sam Goldwyn once
in Hollywood, while I was working there. And
he said, “All I know about this story-telling is
that you want to get somebody that wants some-
thing, then you want him to have it, and you
watch the picture to see whether he can get it.
That is all I know about writing a story. Would
you agree to that?” I said, “No, I wouldn’t. I
would agree with part of it. Let’s have motion
picture art or stories about men and women who
want something and watch them try to get it
with obstacles in the way. But let’s be sure what
they want is worth having.” He said, “I’m not
interested in that.” He said, “You want movies
to teach school.” I said, “No, I want them to
quit debauching the American people with their
sex and crime and easy success and a complete
betrayal of the American ideals.”

34

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