STAFF EDITOR__. Roy Martin BUSINESS MANAGER David Smith ASSISTANTS TO EDITOR J. Alfred Willis Junius D. Grimes III BOOK REVIEW EDITOR _Pat Farmer ASST. BOOK REVIEW EDITOR Denyse Draper EXCHANGE EDITOR Carolista Fletcher ASST. EXCHANGE EDITOR Sue Ellen Hunsucker ART STAPF. Al Dunkle Bob Schmitz Mike Miller Larry Blizard ADVERTISING MANAGER B. Tolson Willis, Jr. EY PIST: Sallie Carden FACULTY ADVISOR Ovid Williams Pierce NATIONAL ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES __- College Magazines Inc. 405 Lexington Ave. New York 17, New York Member Associated Collegiate Press EDITORIAL REBEL YELL ... FEATURE Interview With Jonathan Daniels_ FICTION Son of Silver by S. Pat Reynolds. Mamba ree Where Is Harry Stewart? by R. Elfreth ce. ESSAYS The Character of Jazz by Jan Wurst a William Faulkner and the South by Junius D. Grisiee! I Sir John Suckling by Sherry Maske POETRY The School Marm by Kay McLawhon The Sound by Jim Stingley, Jr. Chance by Sarah Hansen Sonnet I by Sarah Hansen Sea Lonely by Sarah Hansen Distance by Sanford Peele Seer by Sanford Peele Green Rhythm by Sanford Peele The Journey by Carl Yorks. News by Sue Ellen Hunsucker.. Spring by Denyse Draper. ART Jazz Series by Larry Blizard_. Ceramics by Bob Schmitz and Bob Butler REBEL REVIEW - Reviews by Tom Seating Daxtell Surat. an. Ellen Hunsucker, Pat Harvey, B. Tolson Willis, Jr., Denyse Draper, John Quinn, and Staff. COVER by Mike Miller and Bob Harper. THE REBEL is published by the Student Government As- sociation of East Carolina College. Created by the Publica- tions Board of East Carolina College as a literary magazine to be edited by students and designed for the publication of student material. NOTICE—Contributions to THE REBEL should be diréct- ed to P. O. Box 1420, E. C. C. Editorial and business offices are located at 30914 Austin Building. Manuscripts and art work 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 art work. ~~» 7 ( By age SS nN ¥ ns THE REBEL —dAssociated Press Interviewer: Define the role you think East Carolina College should play in the state educa- tional system. Mr. Daniels: It seems to me perfectly clear that the very growth of East Carolina is the best evidence that it has and must play a large place in the educational system of North Carolina with its location in eastern North Carolina. There is a demand for that school and it has grown and shown vitality. One of the things that worries me sometimes is that East Carolina has not yet decided exactly what it wants to be. Some years ago you decided, with wisdom I thought, to take the word “teachers” out of the name of East Caro- lina Teachers College. That meant that you were not merely going to be a normal school, but the college meant to be a school in which the liberal arts and a liberal education could be secured by the wide circle—a wide area—in eastern North Carolina and beyond. Now the question which arises is where do we go from here? Obviously East Carolina cannot grow and be what it should be if it is merely dominated by the school of edu- cation or by people who are merely interested in producing teachers. Frankly, I think more col- leges are stunted by over-emphasis on courses in WINTER, 1961 Interview With JONATHAN DANIELS teaching methodology than by any other thing. I think all scholars today realize that the least vital schools in all our colleges and universities are the schools of education. We have too much about the business of teaching people how to teach, rather than teaching them something to teach. But I don’t think that East Carolina should en- deavor to go forward to be a university. What I think we need in North Carolina, and I think East Carolina must play a very important part in this, are liberal arts colleges. By liberal arts colleges, I mean colleges in which, perhaps, the B. S. as well as the B. A. Degree should be given. And beyond them, a few (two at least, State College and the University) places where gradu- ate work and graduate degrees are given. I think that East Carolina has shown a vitality that has lifted it high above the normal school, and I think it would dissipate its energies if it tried to go on and be a university. Interviewer: What significant developments do you see in the South since you wrote A South- ener Discovers the South? Mr. Daniels: There’s a lot more paint. I see some dissipation of degrading poverty. But I see 3 a lot of people leaving the South. They are par- ticularly leaving the area around East Carolina College. That comes, of course, from the mechan- ization of our farms; it comes from the lack of jobs in the towns. I see much that is encouraging. We are cleaner, richer, better fed; but I think sometimes we are apt to mistake the apparent advance at home from an advance which is com- parable with the advances in the rest of the coun- try. That is to say, we go forward, but the areas with which we compare ourselves go forward too. I have a hope sometimes that we are getting away from the stereotype of a south that was always lamenting its poverty and, at the same time, al- ways singing of its magnolias. I think we’ve got to realize that if we advance at all, it must be in terms of a world advance, certainly a national advance. I think we have made great progress in the twenty years since I wrote A Southerner Discovers The South. But sometimes I think we kid ourselves, because if we look at the statistics the relative relationships don’t change as much as the picture we see out of the window. Interviewer: Do you regard North Carolina as one of the forward-looking states of the South? Mr. Daniels: Well, of course I do. It’s a strange thing about this state. Somebody once said that it was a state that had less to forget than the great plantation states. And so we weren’t caught so much in the ante-bellum stereotypes and pic- tures. We were a state of small farms. Yet the whole history of North Carolina before the Civil War was a story of stagnation. They called us the “Old Rip” among the states. Some people said that we stayed asleep while other states stir- red. There was just beginning to be an awakening in North Carolina when the Civil War came and thwarted it. Then there were long years of poverty, stagnation, a sort of a stubborn liking for old ways—no taxes, poor schools that lasted all the way up to the Aycock administration. There was an awakening then. I hope that there is an awakening now. But, you come from East Carolina College. I went to the University. I have had my doubts in recent years as to whether or not the University quite deserves, as not so long ago it did, to be called the “Capital of the Southern Mind.” I don’t find the books coming out of the University of North Carolina Press. I don’t see personalities like Odom, Greenlaw, and Graham. I find a certain routinism in the Uni- versity. I’m not sure that’s not true of all colleges 4 and this college generation. We made Communism so repulsive, and McCarthyism intimidated us so much that there doesn’t seem to be any radicalism for young people to turn to, any freshness of thought. So sometimes (I hope not at East Caro- lina) in some places where the young congregate, what used to be creative radicalism has turned into a sort of beatnik stagnation. So I think North Carolina is a forward-looking state. Once again, we used to say that we were a vale of humility between two mountains of conceit. Sometimes it seems to me that in recent years we have been a little more boastful about our intellectual prog- ress than was justified. We are a forward-looking state, but there is a long way forward for us to look. Interviewer: Do you feel that the resources of the eastern part of the state have remained untapped ? Mr. Daniels: I don’t feel that they have re- mained untapped. I think that we are too apt to think of Eastern Carolina as a sort of separate area different from other sections. If you go into the old agricultural regions of any state in the South, where mechanization is in progress, crop controls are in force, the change is different. We like to live easily in Eastern North Carolina. We like fishing; the June German brings young peo- ple hundreds of miles to dance; the Piedmont grows rich, and sometimes we stay happy with- out enough. There is a spirit there—of complac- ency, I think—and one of the most destructive forces is the fact that too many of the small towns have been too bitterly competitive. I know there was one industry that was about to come to East- ern North Carolina. They went to Rocky Mount, and were told all the disadvantages of Wilson. They went to Wilson and were told all the dis- advantages of Rocky Mount; so they decided to go to some other state. The resources of Eastern North Carolina, like the resources of every sec- tion, are the people. There are no finer people on earth than the people of Eastern North Caro- lina. But sometimes, they have been too content. There hasn’t been enough effervescence. We like the old ways, as all agrarian civilizations do. Now we are caught in the pinch. We can’t support the people on the land. We haven’t got the jobs in the towns. And I think Eastern North Carolina has got to develop its resources. You remember the story in Uncle Remus, when Old Uncle Remus was telling the little boy about the fox chasing THE REBEL the rabbit, and the rabbit climbed a tree. The little boy said, “Uh, oh, Uncle Remus. Rabbits don’t climb trees!’ and he said this rabbit was *bliged to climb. I think Eastern North Carolina is *bliged to climb and I have the hope that a part of the vitality that we’ve got to have in that area is going to come from such an institution as East Carolina. Interviewer: Do you see any signs that it will shortly make its contributions to the state? Mr. Daniels: Well, it’s always made contri- butions to the state. It is true that at this moment we don’t seem to be getting as much intellectual vitality, political vitality, from the East as from the Piedmont, and the Piedmont present from Raleigh to Charlotte. But you must remember that our heroes—they come, all of them—I sup- pose McKeever is right on the border, old man J. Y. Joyner—you go down a list—Jarvis, who I believe established East Carolina—have got to come again. Things move in cycles. I don’t think that the fact that our greatest men in the past are not equaled by North Carolinians now is the sign of any sort of decadence or slipping back in our people. Things move in cycles and I believe there will come from Eastern Carolina in its turn, and in its necessity, contributions to North Carolina which will both serve that section and serve the state. And in that relationship I would like to say this: we are not going to serve North Carolina by insisting that Eastern North Carolina continue to have a larger representation in our legislature than in proportion to its population. We’ve got to be willing for the state to grow as it grows, and if we try to put any curbs on the democracy of other people we’ll put them on ourselves as well. Interviewer: Do you feel that by its restraint North Carolina has set up a pattern for integra- tion. Mr. Daniels: Well, I think that North Caro- lina has had great good sense and great good luck. We adopted, as you remember, the Pearsall Plan overwhelmingly. I was against it, but it was adopted. Yet since it was adopted nobody has mentioned it; we haven’t used it. When some Indians tried to use it, why we pushed them away. The Pearsall Plan today is a complete dodo. There is nothing you can do with it. School assignment law, however, is a sound law if it is approached WINTER, 1961 with good will. Now, all of us recognize the diffi- culties and the dangers involved in this situation. But obviously, the law is there. We’re not forever going to be able to, well, shall we say, avoid it. There’s going to be more integration. I think that it can be accomplished if our people—our best people—dominate, without too much damage to our customs and our happiness. But I think, and this leads me to the next question, that we all have to realize the fact that we are not different from people elsewhere. We could have an explos- ion and we could possibly let the least intelligent whites and the most vociferous colored people lead us in the difficulty. But I hope and pray, and I believe, that this state will avoid any situation comparable to Little Rock or New Orleans. But your generation has got to take the lead in the intelligent solution of a problem which, by no means, is one in Eastern North Carolina. It is not a problem in North Carolina alone—or the South. We have to realize increasingly that we white people are the minority in the world, and that what we do in Pitt County is soon known and discussed and has its effect in Pakistan. We don’t live in Eastern North Carolina. Unfortunately, in our age, with the communications and the collis- ions, all of us have to realize that we live in the world. Interviewer: Do you feel that Kennedy’s elec- tion was indicative of lessening religious discrimi- nation? Mr. Daniels: I think that that’s a very com- plex question. I hope so. I do not, however, be- lieve that the people of North Carolina have changed their notions about the separation of church and state. I think there’s belief that Mr. Kennedy was candid and honest when he expressed his faith in separation of church and state. You boys are too young, however, to make a real comparison between the campaign of 1928 and the campaign of 1960, in each of which a Catholic was a candidate for presidency. In 1928 we not merely had Catholicism, we had a Catholic, who in his personality represented the differences be- tween a certain type of city man that seems strange to us. We’ve been taught for years that Tammany Hall to which he belonged was a danger to the country and the Democratic Party. And it’s difficult for people today to believe how great was the emotionalism that surrounded the issue of prohibition. The churches in 1928 were not merely concerned about the fact that Mr. Smith was a Catholic. The Methodists and other protes- tant churches were also much concerned about the fact that he was a Catholic who wished to abolish the Prohibition Amendment. So that campaign was very much more complex in terms of its emotions, its prejudices, country against city, Protestants against Catholics, than the one just passed. John Kennedy, after knowing another Harvard man named Roosevelt, didn’t seem a stranger to us as Al Smith and his brown derby did in 1928. Interviewer: Would you care to comment about the alleged machine-controlled politics in the state? Mr. Daniels: I don’t think there is any such thing as a machine in North Carolina. Undoubted- ly there are little county cliques; there.are class groups; there are conservatives versus liberals. But I don’t believe that any man within the last decade has made any progress at creating any- thing that would compare, for instance, with the Simmons Machine which existed thirty years ago. Undoubtedly courthouse rings, conservative and liberal organizations, try to exert pressure and often do. But I don’t see how anybody could think that there was a machine control when in the last primary we had four candidates for Governor, no one of whom could exert crushing power or cer- tainty of election. We are a good “scrapping” people in North Carolina, and we’re not going to let any single machine or power dominate us. What we’ve got to have is vitality in the people, thoughtfulness; and the one thing we don’t need in Eastern North Carolina, or anywhere else in this state, is docility. And the one thing that I think that we need most in boys like you at East Carolina and other colleges, and in the young men growing up around them, is the determination that docility is not going to be the mark of your gener- ation. Let’s get going. Don’t be afraid of ideas. And to go back to the beginning, the one thing that can be most important at East Carolina is that it be a center of ideas, and welcome for ideas, in the region it serves. I like to see North Caro- lina when it’s stirred up. When it’s sitting on its seat and just looking over the end of the fishing pole, we’re in a bad way. When people are de- bating and discussing and disagreeing, North Car- olina is in a healthy state. I wish East Carolina, I wish Eastern North Carolina plenty of contro- versy. Keep them stirred up, because when peo- ple are stirred up they’re alive ; when they sit down and stop talking and stop doing, they’re dead. THE REBEL A Word Said... - Under the direction of President Leo Jenkins and a committee of local people, plans are being discussed which are directed towards making this college the cultural center of Eastern North Caro- lina. This is a natural action. With its position of influence in this section of the state, East Caro- lina should be recognized as a focal point of cul- tural activity. However, the principal obstacle to this move will be the school itself. Is East Carolina ready to accept such a distinction as this? Are we ready to take in hand the responsibility it embraces? At the present time, these questions draw a negative answer. We are not prepared. Once again the attitude of a great percentage of stu- dents and faculty here can be described as apa- thetic. Steps must be taken to alleviate this situa- tion, else the plans underway will be useless. Perhaps the first step to remedy this situation is through a process of conditioning. By this we mean, conditioning which will lead to the emer- gence of an atmosphere which will accept the re- sponsibilities involved with being the cultural center of this section. How can this atmosphere be evolved? It is the feeling of several connected with this move that the first step would be to begin a movement here on this campus which would bring about an awareness of the past—the heritage of Eastern North Carolina. We share this feeling. Eastern North Carolina has a great heritage. The beginnings were with the Roanoke Island settlement, 1584-1587. Then in 16638, Charles II granted to the eight Lords Proprietors the Caro- lina Charter. It is to these men, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon; George Monck, Duke of Albe- marle; William Lord Craven; John Lord Berkely ; Anthony Ashley Cooper, Ear] of Shaftesbury; Sir George Carteret; Sir William Berkely; and Sir John Colleton that we owe our beginnings. In addition to these individuals, North Carolina, and specifically the Eastern section, has produced WINTER, 1961 many notable figures. For example, James Iredell, Nathaniel Macon, Willie Jones, and in our own century Charles B. Aycock, the great “education governor,” came from Eastern Carolina environ- ments. There are other aspects of our heritage from which we could draw. Perhaps with some of these elements forming the basis, a program could be inaugurated here, recognizing our past, and sub- sequently an atmosphere capable of accepting the responsibility of being this section’s cultural center could be created. To clarify the preceding statement, this pro- gram could possibly take in the establishment of a Hall of History which could house documents and relics of our past. Also, perhaps statues and other memorials could be erected honoring the individuals who have been prominent in our his- tory. But this entire movement is not solely our re- sponsibility. Although the college will be expected to play the dominant role, it is also the respon- sibility of the people of Eastern North Carolina. This area could take the initiative set forth by the leaders of this plan by aiding in the establish- ment of these symbols of the past. For example, the counties which are named for people such as Iredell, Jones, and the Lords Proprietors could honor their namesakes by means of some type of memorial to be placed here at the college. Event- ually, we believe, this action would result in an enlarged sense of history and a deepened per- spective of our past and heritage. The significance of this entire movement is enormous. It is one of the most important awak- enings which could take place in the life of this college. Too, it is a rightful move, for East Caro- lina College deserves to be the center of Eastern North Carolina, not only culturally, but also in- tellectually. The potentialities which lie in this college are innumerable. —MARTIN The Rebel Yelk In addition to the regular work involved with the publication of the Winter Issue of The Rebel, one of the principal projects during the winter quarter has been the writing contest. This year’s contest, to date, can be considered as very successful. This is evident in view of the number of manuscripts which have been submit- ted since the first notice of the contest was circu- lated. The current contest was scheduled on February 25th, the final day of the Winter quarter. How- ever, one development has caused the editors to extend the deadline date until April 1, 1961. The change is due to the donation by Sigma Sigma Sigma Sorority of $25 to be used for awards. This brings the total prizes offered to $30. This action by Sigma Sigma Sigma is a signifi- cant mark for both The Rebel and the sorority. For the magazine it is a sign of support offered by the student body members, and for the sorority is displays a mature sense of values which are vital to the growth of this college. To the women of Sigma Sigma Sigma, the editors extend their gratitude for the support they have shown for the magazine and for its purposes. In this issue many strides forward have been made. It has been the objective of the staff to present to the student body a magazine which re- flects growth from issue to issue. This growth to which we refer embraces the size of the magazine (number of pages), and the number of fiction, non-fiction, and feature articles contained. Growth also refers to the quality of the material used. In all of these instances, we believe that the maga- zine has progressed with this issue. In this issue there have been many changes made in design. This is due primarily to the efforts of the new art staff composed of Mike Miller, Larry Blizard, Al Dunkle, and Bob Schmitz. These four from the art department have assembled the art work for this issue and have played prominent roles in the task of design- ing. The editors extend their commendation for a job well done. Also in the realm of art, the staff owes thanks to Bob Harper who furnished the cover photo- graph. The surrounding design for the cover was done by Mike Miller. The feature article for this issue is an inter- view with Jonathan Daniels. Mr. Daniels, North Carolina author, is prominent in many facets of the life of the state, and is perhaps best known as editor of the Raleigh News and Observer. Other works appearing in this issue include essays written by June Grimes from Washington, N. C., and Sherry Maske, from Rockingham. The other non-fiction contribution is an essay on Jazz by Jan Wurst. In the field of fiction, S. Pat Reynolds, a grad- uate assistant in the English Department, and Elfreth Alexander, graduate student and last year’s contest winner, present “Son of Silver” and “Where is Harry Stewart?” as short story contributions. The poetry section for this issue contains selec- tions by Sarah Hansen, Sanford Peele, Carl Yorks, Jim Stingley, Jr., Sue Ellen Hunsucker, and Kay McLawhon. Book reviews for this issue wehe done by Tom Jackson, Darrell Hurst, Sue Ellen Hunsucker, B. Tolson Willis, Jr., Pat Farmer, Denyse Draper, John Quinn, and Pat Harvey. Harry Golden, busily completing his new book, Carl Sandburg, and also preparing for his trip to Israel to cover the Eichmann trial for Life, was unable to complete the second installment of the Fall Issue’s interview. Thus, it will not appear. THE REBEL SON OF SILVER By S. PAT REYNOLDS The street urchins’ moved-back and forth to and from the grocery store on the corner, going with empty Pepsi bottles and nickels clinking against the glass and*coming back drinking. ‘They walked or rode bicyclés. “They walked with their heads up,: looking around; or with, their heads down searching the dusty sidewalks for treasure. Or they rode their bicycles with great curves, in and around the parked/ cars, sometimes running up on the sidewalks ‘where. they left corduroy prints in-the dust. And they yelled at ¢ach other, stopping to examine’ themselves-together. or.they waved to their images on the other side of the street. “Hey you, Mickey, I got a knife. My daddy give me a knife.” The red-headed oné sat on his front steps, and Mickey crossed thé street over to him. Mickey didn’t believe the other boy, and he held his Pepsi-high, swilling-it-in and smacking his lips loudly in his doubt. The red head,..to.convince Mi¢key, said, “Did you know my daddy give me a pocket knife?” “Naw. Where’s that knife?” Mickey asked, holding his Pepsi by the bottleneck. “Tn the house on the mantel piece. We could play mumbly-peg.”’ Red head looked at Mickey’s Pepsi. It was nearly half gone and the brown foam floated sweetly on top. “You ain’t got no knife.” Mickey caught him in the wide brown eye and then raised the bottle to his lips again. “T have, too. My daddy give it to me. He found it on the street. Me and Sammy’s going to play. mumbly-peg.” “Can I play?” Still a little doubtful, Mickey WINTER, 1961 was almost-finished with his Pepsi. “Naw.” “Get the knife and let me play. “You want the rest.of this Pepsi?” Frances liked to watch thems She often sat on her front porch and watched them. They had something that.she didn’t. have, and she couldn’t quite call it by name. They had the street diplom- acy of giving. and taking away with one fine sweep. They seemed freer than herself and not free but-bound-by laws she did not know. In-her own days her running had-been stopped at.the-six foot fence that walled the backyard which Papa had put up “to keep her in and the trash out” is*what he said. She had felt little of what. was going on outside that fence; but-that little she felt shyly and intensely, peeping through the slits in the fence and feeling the ridges of the wood in her fingertips. Still, there had \been a few things that the fence didn’t keep out, things.that came back swiftly to her as she watched Mickey and Red- head in their barter“across the street. These things were those that she had-done-holding onto Mama’s hand. But they were good, not adventur- ous good but there they were, waiting to wink at you-when you remembered them. She-had-entered a new place, although she had entered it every-Saturday morning; but it was fresh each time, and as she-walked with Mama through the aisles of the city market,-stepping over the puddles-of water that stood on the cement floors, she could see the colored lady with her head tied-up in a blue scarf, shelling beans and throwing the hulls on-a-piece of newspaper at her feet. She 9 went there with Mama and held onto Mama’s dress because once she had not held on, and some- how had moved away to look at the zinnias in tin cans and then had come back and taken hold of a dress and looked up, but when the lady looked down, it wasn’t even Mama. Oh, she had been scared then, and there had been something in her throat she could not swallow, but she had held onto the lady’s dress, looking up with the lady looking down, until Mama called her from across the aisle where she had been buying coun- try butter. Then she had run to Mama, embar- rassed because she could feel the lady still look- ing at her. The smells and sounds in the city market were tingling and serious. She had never smelled them or heard them anywhere else. They were new and wonderful and always different, taking her unaware because it seemed that she never ex- pected them, even when she walked through the arched door and saw the colored lady who always sat in the entrance of the old stucco building. She knew her by face just as she could recognize the city market when she passed it—but they never spoke to her nor did she speak to them. She just passed them every Saturday morning. Live, caged chickens squawked and complained about their cages, and once she touched one through the wicker cages and it pecked her finger. She pulled her hand out quickly before Mama could see her, before Mama could shake her head, the silent signal that she was doing wrong. Dom- inick, White Leghorn, Rhode Island Red, they all watched her with beady eyes, blinking every now and then, while Mama picked and made choices, and she felt sorrow for them secretly and worried about them and wondered how they felt about be- ing eaten. And she felt ashamed that she would eat the one Mama was buying. Smoked meat curtained the stalls, and a man, a country man who had blood on his apron, looked over the counter at her and teased her with ice chips in his long, hairy hand. But she would back behind Mama so he couldn’t reach her. He drip- ped liver, thumped great chunks of red meat; he cut off pork chops for Mama, just right so she would buy them, and he must have been very strong because he could hold a big ham up high; he could: hold it with one hand and point with the other. And Mama chose, carefully, and she took her time, and then she crammed the brown bags down into her shopping bag and went on over to the vegetables. Frances remembered that the city market was wide and somehow ripe with the people who sold 10 there and with the people who bought there. They intermingled, yet remained distinct and separate and would go their own ways. Calm and dignity in overalls and print dresses waited before her, behind the stalls, and she stood before them look- ing. They did not hawk their goods and were ready to show them when the buyers came, and they would not press the buyers to select. A country girl with an apron around her waist, with pigtails and barefoot, would return Frances’ stare, and Frances secretly wanted to be the country girl; then Mama sedately exchanged her money for fresh grown peas, and the factions would part, but the country girl would remain for almost the whole week with Frances. Saturday morning be- came afternoon, and on their way from up town she and Mama would pass the city market again, but then it would be silent and empty and a bean would be left lying, a few dried vegetables, a sucked-out grape hull. And the wall of a fence could not keep this out, and she could take it with her and the back steps would become her market and she could see the buyers who came for her chinaberry beans. But once she found a way outside the six foot fence that kept the trash out. But then she had not realized that the little boy who lived in back of her was trash, that his daddy was a drunk who painted houses when he was sober, that his mother had big fights with his daddy. And when his mother’s eye had been sore, looking like Frances’ knee when she had fallen down the steps, she was sure that his mother’s eye hurt and want- ed to ask her about it until she heard Mama telling Papa that the Blands had been fighting again and that old Jim Bland had hit his wife in the eye. When Mama told Papa that, Frances couldn’t hear anything that made her believe that Mama was sorry about Mrs. Bland’s eye and maybe it was wrong for Frances to be sorry and maybe she shouldn’t want to play with Jimmy Bland. But it would be good to play with Jimmy if Papa ever left the gate unlocked. Jimmy had a wonderful horse fixed up on his banister and a string tied on it and a pillow to sit on it and her picture book horses weren’t like that and not as good because you couldn’t ride them, only play like you rode them, and that wasn’t good when Jimmy whose daddy hit his mother’s eye had a real horse or almost a real horse and Mama why can’t I play with Jimmy and ride his horse? Because you can’t and that ends it and you know your Mama won’t change her mind because she never did no matter how long you sat and pouted and how much paper you chewed up pretending you were THE REBEL a goat. Anyway, you were too ashamed to cry because Papa always pointed at you and said, look what a fix her face is in. And you looked in the mirror one day and there it was red and splotched up and screwed up like on Halloween when you wore a mask and jumped at Papa from behind the door. But you still wanted to play with Jimmy and ride his horse and you knew you would if you ever got the chance and maybe Papa was at work and Mama sitting on the front porch crocheting. And then the day came that you stood on the apple crate and tip-toed until you reached the latch and the gate swung wide open, and there you stood on the apple crate, scared but a good feeling scared, because there was the alley right there and just a few steps away Jimmy sat on his horse and rode all the way to Texas and back. Jimmy watched you but did not say anything. And you walked up his steps without even looking at Jimmy but you knew he had stop- ped riding and was back from Texas and was looking at you straight and waiting. Then you walked up to the horse. Couldn’t you almost feel him shaking beneath Jimmy? You moved your hand down slowly feeling the horse’s neck and it was soft and warm to you. Jimmy got down off his horse and all he said was “He won’t hurt you. He’s real tame. He’s the son of Silver.” The Son of Silver. You wondered if you would ride the Son of Silver. The name just came right out of your mouth as if you had been saying it for- ever, the Son of Silver. The riding was wonder- ful, and the Son of Silver was tame but he carried you far away and did not bump you. And you knew you were moving because you closed your eyes and the alley was gone and the ground under you moved and the trees around you whiz- zed by like riding on a Sunday afternoon with Papa driving. But then the Son of Silver brought you back. He must have brought you back be- cause something jerked and there was Mama pulling you off the horse and taking you back into the yard and closing the gate and switching your legs until they burned like fire. And maybe you cried but not loud because Jimmy was watch- ing you, and not because the stinging hurt, al- though it did hurt you because the Son of Silver brought you back. And then you hated the Son of Silver and you hated Jimmy and before Mama dragged you in the house you screamed at Jimmy who still watched, standing beside the Son of Silver. You yelled at Jimmy, “Your daddy hit your mama in the eye and I hate you and I hate the Son of Silver.”’ Next day the latch was on the outside of the gate and only Mama and Papa could open it. Che School Marm The school marm kneads my bisquit dough brain Confines me to a pan of conventional shape Pops me into preheated oven to bake Where sweating shriveling i burn on the rack Lump-crusting flanking charcoaling to black. Freedom regained i emerge from the dungeon Unleavened unyeasted cooked through and through. Devoid of all thought complacently tame Safely i rest in the marm’s hall of fame. Unfit for man’s bread the world is my claim And i like the school marm win the world’s praise With navy blue gabardine slick-seated cliches. WINTER, 1961 —Kay McCLAWHON - 1t A Sail Ul 4 , , , ° Ue me. i E | oy) Wy sl / Ay WT it . Wf \ © 4 vil! , {| i 7 ' Fill / 1 il f y Ve 2 , %y Al it EE ay’ Hh My \\ : iH THE REBEL Jazz, they say, came up out of the cotton fields, out of the sweat-drenched soul of man himself—man the individual, who said about life what he himself had to say. It made its way to Chicago, New York and other places and ended up finally in smoke-filled bars on shabby, half-lighted back streets. It exists there today, for all to see, as but one more symbol of a decaying institution: the individuality of man. —tLarry Blizard WINTER, 1961 Y ae 13 Music THE CHARACTER OF JAZZ By JAN WURST Jazz is America’s one true art form. From its humble beginning among the Negro slaves in the South, jazz has risen to its present place as America’s one original contribution to music, and has taken its rightful place as a great part of our American culture. Many people, however, still do not accept jazz simply because they do not understand it. If one knew a little about the characteristics and origin of jazz, he might understand it, and thus be able to enjoy it. Woody Woodward, in his book Jazz Americana, gives this excellent definition of jazz: “JAZZ (jas) n. a native American music, a popu- lar art form, begun by the negro, originally in- fluenced by African and Caribbean rhythms and popular musics available to the negro around the turn of the century. A product of the instantan- eous rather than the premeditated, characterized from the beginning to the present by three basic elements: improvisation, a unique time concep- tion, and a range of sounds distinguished by their individuality.” The very earliest jazz musicians were mostly Negroes who could not read music. It was neces- sary, therefore, for them to improvise as they played. Improvisation, then, is the ability to make up tunes or to add variations on a given melody without previous arrangement. Usually a chordal sequence is made up in advance to give the music some form, but this is merely a guide for the soloing artist and does not limit his free- dom to express himself completely. Occasionally, two or more musicians may improvise at the same time, producing counterpoint, in which the second and third melody lines complement the first. 14 Improvisation is probably the most important characteristic of jazz because it makes every per- formance unique. No matter how many times the same group of musicians perform the same song, each rendition will be entirely different from the other. The time concept in jazz is more unusual than in that of other music. There is always a constant, driving four beat rhythm, which is usually played by the string bass and drums. Normally, accents would fall on the first and third beats of every measure, while the second and fourth would be relatively weak. In jazz, however, the musicians play unexpected accents with great freedom on any beat in an irregular manner. The piano and guitar further syncopate the rhythm by adding chordal effects on the off beats. The soloist then adds his rhythm and may either play slightly be- fore the beat, on the beat, or slightly behind it. All of these rhythms together produce a rhythm- ical counterpoint which is a direct result of the Afro-American influence. The sounds of jazz are another very unusual feature. Almost any sound that a musician can make on his instrument is acceptable in jazz. It may be a dark, strident sound, or it may be a light pure tone with no vibrato. Each sound reflects something of the personality of the individual performer. Jazz was born in New Orleans nearly one hun- dred years ago. The Negro slaves took the cur- rent popular hymns and added to them the rhythms of their African tribal chants. These became the Negro spirituals that we know and love today. THE REBEL W. C. Handy, a famous Negro composer, is largely responsible for the popularity of the “blues,” which is based on the work songs and “sinful” songs as they were called. The blues are characterized by the flatted third and seventh degrees of the diatonic scale, which give it the mournful sound. The blues reflected the melancholy of the Negro and his lamentable fate. Early in the 1930’s some fine artists, Benny Goodman and Count Basie, for example, started a new movement called “Swing”. This style has a comparatively strict form but still has plenty of free rhythm. This was the era of the big band in which the full band played rhyth- mic and melodic patterns simultaneously or al- ternated between the brass and saxophone sec- tions with an occasional inprovised solo. It was at this time that the guitar really came into its own and replaced the banjo. “Sweet swing” was similar to “hot swing” except that it was mainly for dancing. It was a compromise between real jazz and the kind of music that was acceptable by “society”. Among the many bands who played this sweet swing were the Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey bands. In the early ’40’s came a new bouncy type of jazz called “Boogie Woogie,” which has a distinc- tive, choppy dotted eighth and sixteenth note rhythm in the left hand bass line of the piano. With the coming of World War II, the big bands were forced to disband for various reasons, and the small combo of three to five men became pop- ular. After the war was over, the teenagers needed something with a real beat so that they could dance to it. “Bebop” was born. It had a good, steady beat just right for dancing. Bebop was one of the first forms in which the drums broke away from the strict rhythmic patterns and start- ed on its own syncopated phrases while only the bass and guitar continued with the basic four beat pattern. Charles Parker and Dizzy Gillespie were the two men who did the most toward estab- lishing bebop. Meanwhile, on the West Coast another move- ment started which became known as the “cool” or progressive jazz. This type of jazz, while still using the basic beat, is more subdued and relax- ing, and appeals more to the intellect rather than the feet. The musicians were striving for a dif- ferent sound and the use of many new instru- ments heretofore unheard of in jazz became popu- lar—among them the flute, oboe, baritone sax and mellophone. What the future holds for jazz only time will tell. But surely it will increase in quantity and quality, in styles and concepts as it continues to be explored. As Woody Woodward says, “For the first time in the history of jazz, it is being accepted for what it is—a medium of emotional and intel- lectual communication; America’s native art form. Jazz is being listened to, finally—unfettered by fads and dance crazes. This is the Jazz Age!” Che Sound The sun rises over the sound revealing marshwater and boats moving to the sea. Rays cover wiregrass and earth full of holes sand-fiddlers and fleas blends rainbows in the salt-spray WINTER, 1961 turns grass brownish green. Skeletons of men, boats, crabs bleach deathly white. Water and boats return the sun goes down it is night. —JIM STINGLEY, JR. 15 Poetry by Chance The cat, known as a sly and secretive animal Has a rival here. A minute spider, Tiny, but fat with intensely bent legs. Secretively he darts and dances From twig to twig intently spinning his intricate web. Such a forlorn and unlikely place To weave a web—Beside the sea With only sand and sea shrubs for his foundation. Yet on and on quickly, quietly Back and forth spinning silver threads Fragile enough to catch sea spray. Fragile, yes, but subtly so This is no web to catch sea spray It is strong enough to withstand the night wind. For after the tide of night Dead fish float in and are left drying near the web And then come flies. 16 SARAH HANSEN Sonnet 7 Through Autumn’s mist serenely did you come Holding, it seemed, her beauty in your eyes. Her calmness dwelt with you as if her home Were there among the wind, your gentle sighs. And like the gentle murmur of a stream You spoke, and then a portion of her heart Came unto me, a golden sunlit gleam That filled my soul and warmed the deepest part. So calm, serene, yet stately as a Queen, I watched you pass, in beauty’s splendid robe Against a backdrop—Autumn’s painted screen And in my heart you found a life’s abode. So there you live, yet never will you know I feel you breathe when leaves of Autumn blow. THE REBEL pe Nee 2 ache Bie Pg a: ed. 2. ORV ae - 2 2. pee? 5% os + ys be MRED gig PERS oe Si Sea Lonely This ache I feel is my sea ache It comes to me often, this longing for the sea; Today it came when I saw a thousand trees on a distant mountain Blowing in the wind with a blue mist over all. I thought of the sea and I ached. Yesterday it came when I lay on a rock. It was a large, flat, gray rock With the sun shining on it and the water running around it. I closed my eyes and what I heard was the song of the sea. And I thought of the sea once more and ached. One day it came when I walked down a lonely path. It was raining—a mountain kind of rain, misty and caressing. I tasted salt on my face and what I felt was not a tear, but the kiss of the sea. ‘ And I thought of the sea once more and ached. The ache comes often; I cannot stop it. In my fingertips, my arms, my legs, and heart I feel the ache. It is there and has become a part of me Because the sea is a part of me, and is away The ache has come into the place of the sea. WINTER, 1961 POEMS Distance Within the light your single presence draws down refracted dust as bright creation through the blazing leaves a red rib plays upon. How might the touch dissolve beneath the wonder of a gaze that webs the distance with thunder. A bell of longing can draw one from the stream where nightly bobbed a shrivelled moon, an ancient walnut next the eye. 18 by SANFORD PEE Seer The years of dry grass have reached the sea, burning. I am no fisherman nor carpenter of dreams to tread on green unsinking, nor build a crucifix of sand. It is the slim meridian unsolid, the equinox of is between the shafts There is no wise dispenser of bread, nor end written on the sea, but only Cassandra the tool of gods serenely plaiting her hair before Agamemnon’s red doors. She smiles an absent smile for the elders who tread the burnt plain, expectant. LE of seem. THE REBEL Green Rhythm We began with spring, and chartered our Autumn Love with the rampant growth of green. We were old with bright memories of yellow afternoons shot through with bare perception of twigs. Ours was a green rhythm, growing in the hazy aftermath of solitude. And the days wound themselves about our simple source, drawing the fine blunt threads of early loom into a grace singularity. A red gull, the devotee of foam, winged inland from her island source to announce with savage wing her sea-locked admiration of all green. And from a brilliant vision that once possessed a tree she spoke of green eternal heaving with the quest for foam. That green delineation of our form has not withstood the measure of the sun nor has it survived as epitaph for mourning. But it, thwarted by a season sure, it has endured in subtle folds of green the promised harmony of Eternal Spring. WINTER, 1961 19 ART DEPT PHOTOGRAPHED BY JIM KIRKLAND Torso constructed of thrown shapes with black gloss glaze. (27” high) Schmitz THE REBEL Stoneware pot with freely poured earth color- ed matt glazes allowing clay body to show through. (6” high) Butler Stoneware bottle with wax-resist and sgraffito slip decoration showing through a matt glaze. (15” high) Schmitz WINTER, 1961 21 Vase with charistic throwing rings producing a strong rhythm on the surface beneath green glaze. (13” high) Schmitz Stoney matt glaze over assembled thrown shapes. (11” high) Schmitz 22 THE REBEL Multiple ashtray and wing jug slip decorated with pale blue matt glaze. (6” high) Schmitz = Slip decorated vase with gloss glaze. (10” high) Butler WINTER, 1961 23 William Faulkner and The South By Junius D. GRIMEs III The novelist sometimes comes closer to discover- ing and transmitting the essence of historical truth than does the professional historian. “Faulk- ner,” said the muse, “look in thy heart and write,” and Faulkner wrote. He gave us “a picture of the South .. . tossed at us apparently haphazard, yet more complete because more stimulating to our imagination, than in many volumes of detailed family chronicles.” He has captured on paper the traditionalism of the old planter aristocracy and the turbulent reality of their downfall in the more recent generations. He has successfully painted for us the portrait of the southern patriarchal family and has pitted their increasing inadequacy vividly against the ruthless cunning of the rising poor whites. Under his pen we see the decay of the traditional South. We watch this disintegra- tion take radically different forms in the families of Sartoris, McCaslin, and Compson. Additionally we see their downfall speeded by the driving thirst for power of the Bundrens and MacCallums and Snopeses. Here is the battle between southern traditionalism and contemporary naturalism and exploitation. But in Faulkner’s portrayal of these families he does not succumb to all the old romantic south- ern legends. He does not transplant an aristo- cracy en masse from England. His aristocracy, the Sartorises and Compsons and McCaslins, is such by virtue of hard work and qualities of physical energy and dogged determination. The ancestors of this group came to the South when 24 it was still virtually a frontier; immigrants, in- dentured servants, they were all of common origin. As W. J. Cash says, “From the foundations care- fully built up by his father and grandfather, [a ‘Sartoris, a McCaslin, a Compson’] . . . began to tower decisively above the ruck of farmers, pyra- mided his holdings in land and slaves, squeezed out his smaller neighbors and relegated them to the remote Shenandoah, abandoned his story-and-a- half house for his new ‘hall,’ sent his sons to William and Mary and afterward to the English universities. . . . These sons brought back the manners of the Georges and more developed and subtle notions of class. And the sons of these in turn began to think of themselves as true aristo- crats and to be accepted as such by those about them—to set themselves consciously to the elabo- ration and propagation of a tradition.” The aris- tocratic families in Faulkner have passed this point where they wrested the land from the wild- erness. But Faulkner implies this background of common origins and the rise of the planters in Sartoris when he says that old Colonel Sar- toris could watch from his veranda-the two trains a day that ran over the railroad he had built, seeing them “emerge from the hills and cross the valley into the hills, with a noisy simulation of speed.” The Sartoris legend dominates the book, even though its founder has been dead for years. Of Colonel John Sartoris, he says, “freed as he was of time and flesh he was a far more palpable presence than...” many of his living descendants. THE REBEL Here was one of the southerners who had laid such stress on the inviolability of personal whim, full of “chip-on-the-shoulder swagger” and puerile brag, and generally ready to “knock hell” out of anyone who dared to cross him. Faulkner de- scribes him as such a man. In Sartoris, old man Falls, an aged contemporary of the Colonel, re- lates the incident concerning the Colonel and two carpet-baggers who brought negroes to vote. The Colonel just sat calmly in the door of the polling house and looked. The two men quailed and ran to their boarding house and the Colonel said, “All right, niggers, you wanted to vote, vote!” The ne- groes scattered. Then the Colonel picked up his derringer and walked with dignity down the street to the boarding house and up the stairs and shot the two yankees. He came out and apologized to the landlady and said he hoped she would have the mess cleaned up and send him the bill. This is the description of a man of violence, but this violence was not unnecessary brutality. It was a product of the period, fixed by social example. For such men this action was the only really correct and decent relief for wounded honor. Further, what would today appear as useless risk of life was part of the established tradition of the time. Even in the vices of men like John Sartoris, there was brilliance and magnificence. One observer, Judge Baldwin, says of such a man, “Attachment to his friends was a passion. It was part of the loyalty to the honorable and the chival- ric... . He never deserted a friend. .. . Starting to fight a duel, he laid down his hand at poker, to resume it with a smile when he returned, and went on the field laughing with his friends, as to a picnic.” Thus in the opening pages of Sartoris, Aunt Jenny, a last remnant of that brilliant gener- ation, relates the story of her husband Bayard Sartoris. He was a captain under Jeb Stuart and on a foraging party behind enemy lines, he heard a captured major say, “‘At least General Stuart did not capture our anchovies. Perhaps he will send Lee for them in person.” “ ‘Anchovies,’ repeated Bayard Sartoris, who galloped nearby, and he whirled his horse. Stuart shouted at him but Sartoris lifted his reckless stubbon hand and flashed on; and as the General would have turned to follow, a yankee picket fired his piece from the roadside . . . and behind them, in the direction of the invisible knoll a volley crashed. A third officer spurred up and caught Stuart’s bridle. “ Sir, sir!’ he exclaimed. ‘What would you do?’ WINTER, 1961 “Stuart held his mount rearing . . . and the noise to the right swelled nearer. ‘Let go, Alan,’ Stuart said, ‘he is my friend.’ “‘Think of Lee, for God’s sake, General!’ the aide implored. ‘Forward!’ he shouted to the troop, spurring his own horse and dragging the General onward.... “*And so,’ Aunt Jenny finished .. . ‘Bayard rode back after those anchovies, with all Pope’s army shooting at him. He rode... right up the knoll and jumped his horse over the breakfast table and rode it into the wrecked commissary tent and a cook who was hidden under the mess stuck his arm out and shot Bayard in the back with a der- ringer’.” Further, the first Colonel John Sartoris had been conscious of a deep sense of moral obligation to his less fortunate neighbors. He must set them examples of conduct too impecable to be question- ed; he must advise them correctly and guide them away from trouble; there is no place in his ethnic ideology for bland mistreatment of any man, white or black. He must act according to tradition and honor, but these traditions as yet are not inflex- ible. In short he must be a patriarch. At any rate the poorer classes did not look upon him with hatred or even envy. They saw in him the father image, and so old man Falls could say to the Colonel’s grandson when he returned a pipe given him by the Colonel many years before, “I reckon I’ve kept it as long as Cunnel aimed for me to. A po’ house ain’t no fitten place for anything of his’n, Bayard. And I’m gwine on ninety-fo year old.” In John Sartoris the reader sees gentility and a figure of respect. This is also evident in the fragile figure of Aunt Jenny Sartoris, and to some degree in old Bayard Sartoris, the banker of a later generation. But the majority of the charac- ters in Faulkner are the sons and grandsons of these soldiers and builders. They have lost, to a large degree, that knowledge of common back- ground with the lower class southern whites. They have developed a striking self-consciousness and have grown more complex. Their’s was not the burden of weary hours in the field that their an- cestors had known. These sons and grandsons have gone to the best schools in the country and have grown scornful of the common man. They are haughty, with the pride of possession and birth completely over-riding that gentility and kindliness that had for so long perpetuated their system. As Cash suggests, even at the peak of 25 their power, the southern aristocrats could not endow their subconscious with the calm certainty bred of the artistocratic experience. Within their inmost confines they carried nearly always the uneasy sensation of inadequacy for their role. The result, especially in the later, less vital gener- ations, was a marring of the true loveliness of the aristocratic manner, a too heavy condescension, the too obvious desire to impress with their rank and value. And if this was inoffensive or at least ignored at home in the presence of neighbors, it appeared overbearing and brutal away from home. Especially was this characteristic evident in the presence of anyone suspected of doubting or not being sufficiently impressed by these claims. Thus the younger generations of Sartorises and Comp- sons have reached that inevitable point in the de- generation of their class, where upon contact with outsiders, or non-sympathetic, even antagonistic neighbors, the sense of inadequacy is all consum- ing. Their responses to this modern situation are varied. What Faulkner represents as reckless self- destruction in the Sartorises is a slower but more extreme and tragic disentegration in the Comp- sons. When Jason Compson turns from clan loyal- ty to class awareness and false pride in The Sound and the Fury, he repudiates not merely his inheritance, but a way of life. Of all this young generation only in The Bear, when Isaac Mc- Caslin decides to forego his heritage and expiate the evils of the past, is there any intimation of any resolve. But if these later generations of the aristocracy were degenerating from the inside, they also were being pushed by an outside force. This ex- terior force was the ruthless and amoral drive to power of the poor whites. This group is intro- duced in Sartoris. They were members of a “seemingly inexhaustible family which for the last ten years had been moving to town in driblets from a small village known as Frenchman’s Bend. Flem, the first Snopes, had appeared unheralded one day behind the counter of a small restaurant. .. . With this foothold and like Abraham of old, he brought his blood and legal kin household by household, individual by individual, into town and established them where they could gain money. Three years ago, to old Bayard’s profane astonish- ment and unconcealed annoyance, he became vice president of the Sartoris bank. . . .” These Snopeses were, as much as the planter, a product of the soil and even more of their era. With the incipience of the Civil War they had 26 come into their own. They had, with cunning, hoggery, callousness, brutal unscrupulousness and downright scoundrelism, waged their own private war upon both sides, turning everything to their own profit. Among its members this family could list idiots, thieves, murderers and numerous other types of unsavory characters. Faulkner has been accused of sensationalism in their treatment, but this is not altogether fair. While he does indulge in quite vivid descriptions concerning the more degenerate members of the tribe, he does so for a purpose. For example, his picture of the idiot, Icky Mope Snopes, in The Hamlet, is carried to the extreme; but his treatment is at least partially sympathetic and arouses a certain pathos. He illustrates the complete ruthlessness and lack of any ethical conscience in the Snopeses when they turn the boy’s weakness into a sideshow for per- sonal profit. Of course all of Faulkner’s poor whites are not of such calibre. In Sartoris, the family visited by young Bayard upon his grandfather’s death is aptly described by Cash. A certain softening of the backwoods heritage takes place and the members of this group “took on, under their slouch a sort of unkempt politeness and ease of port, which rendered them definitely superior, in respect of manners, to their peers in the rest of the country.” Here is a poor family that, even so, had a “kindly courtesy, an easy quietness, and level-headed pride” that is identifiable at times with the best manners of the old aristocracy. But for the most part this is not the case. The majority of Faulkner’s poor whites are true de- scendants of Ab Snopes. Ab had a compulsion. He not only felt spite and envy for the planters, he was consumed by hatred for them. For some inexplicable reason he had an extraordinarily vivid sense of being brutally and intolerably wronged. Possibly this was because he lived at a time when the old frontier individualism was dying out and the social structure was becoming fairly rigid. If there had ever been any opportunity he had not availed himself of it; but in the story Barnburning he, as the patriarch of the clan, breaks the way for the family invasion by threatening to burn the barn of any landowner who opposes him. Thus in The Hamlet his son Flem is hired as a clerk in a store in Frenchman’s Bend in the hope that he will keep his father from burning the storekeeper’s barn. From hence he eventually takes over the entire village, and from there he goes to the town of Jefferson and vitiates the THE REBEL surrounding country-side like the “flow from a poisoned stream.” These were the people into whose all-engulfing lust for power the Sartorises and Compsons and McCaslins were drawn. To thoroughly understand why these families fell victim to the Snopeses it is first necessary to understand the complete repugnance of the plant- ers (after the class had attained true develop- ment) to anything that hinted at deception or chicanery. And these elements were the life blood of the Snopes’s rise to power. The planter aris- tocrary had already been described as members of “a dying class who cling to their self-loving myths of the past, glorifying themselves with the gaudy legends of their ancestors until the sound of their own names becomes to them like ‘silver pennons downrushing at sunset’.” The old tradi- tionalism had solidified until it emboidied princi- ples which almost precluded any action in the world of the Snopeses. Here is the essence of what O’Donnel calls the conflict between traditionism and the anti-traditional modern world in which it is immersed. The Sartorises must act tradition- ally, or with an “ethically responsible will,” but the Snopeses acknowledge absolutely no ethical responsibility. Thus the quandary. The whole body of Faulkner’s work presents, in various social conditions, an elaborate series of moral contrasts that comprise the responses to modern life illustrating the various moral courses open to the South. For example Quentin Compson in The Sound and the Fury is the only identi- fiable figure from the Sartoris world. But his re- action has been to “formalize” or lose the ac- curate sense of the tradition and substitute a romanticized version. He ultimately realizes that he is totally ineffectual in the Snopes world and with this realization of his failure he kills him- self. Jason Compson, Quentin’s brother, survives and holds his own against the Snopeses, but only by becoming a sort of glorified Snopes himself; and Faulkner’s image of Jason is by far the most unpleasant and degrading one of any of his char- acters. Faulkner obviously has no use for the Snopeses, but he has even less use for the apostate traditionalist. Also in The Sound and the Fury Candace Compson feels her sense of quality has been vio- lated by a Snopes and hence stems her conflict. She is faced with either the outrage of some quality for which Aunt Jenny DuPre Sartoris “stands as a symbol as in Sanctuary (or Sar- toris), or the acceptance of a role which means WINTER, 1961 a subjective sense of exclusion from her world.” Aunt Jenny is the shining example of old southern womanhood—“her delicate features and white hair, her heroic past, including her dance with Jeb Stuart and the times she dominated carpet- baggers and confederate skulkers by her com- manding presence.” And when her niece-in-law confesses in a later story that she has been black- mailed by a Snopes, Aunt Jenny dies in her chair. This was the final indignity to the Sartoris stand- ard, destroying her will to live. For a good contrast between the Sartoris ideal and the Snopes reality there is Horace Benbow as he appears in Sanctuary. He must make the Sartoris values prevail in the Snopes world. The opening scene presents the contrast between the traditional and the naturalistic, exploitive atti- tudes by placing them in juxtaposition. Benbow is afraid of Popeye, the killer and sadist from the Snopes clan, who has him at gunpoint near a small spring. But even under these circumstances when Benbow hears a Carolina wren sing he trys to recall its local name. He says to Popeye, “And of course you don’t know the name of it. I don’t suppose you’d know a bird at all without it was singing in a cage in a hotel lounge, or cost four dollars on a plate.” Popeye has no feeling for nature, but on the other hand he is a definite part of nature. While Benbow may have some aesthe- tic appreciation that Popeye does not feel, he is still on the outside looking in. Popeye is, in the story, the incarnation of those bestial qualities that exploit nature, but at the same time are an intricate part of it. Because it is his world Popeye eventually conquers, and Benbow, for all his ap- preciation, becomes merely another ineffectual anachronism. This is William Faulkner. He presents on one side the people who represent or accept the Sar- toris standards—the DeSpains, the Sutpens, the Compsons, the Benbows, the Griersons, the planta- tion aristocrats and civil war heroes. On the other side are the Snopeses, Ab Snopes, the barn burner ; Montgomery Ward Snopes, the draft dodger; Mink Snopes, the murderer in the Hamlet. Here are clowns, pimps, blackmailers, perverts, sadists, idiots, and so on, operating through “that technic- ally unassailable opportunism which passes among country folks—and city folks too—for honest shrewdness.” And all of these become as palpable under the genius-guided pen-of William Faulkner as the ghost of Colonel John in the opening scene of Sartoris. s 27 WHERE IS HARRY STEWART? By R. ELFRETH ALEXANDER It was a nightmare come true. Incredibly, I can still remember every fantastic detail. It was a warm evening in August, 1943. The birds, hundreds: of martins, it seemed, were dipping and swirling about the yard, creating dark streaks against the lavender and pink sky. The cedars were lacy and the pear trees thick and green and heavy with their fruit. Frogs croaked mourn- fully, uncannily rhythmic. The waves of the Albe- marle Sound lapped the shore quietly, and tall, matchstick-like pines swayed gently. The Scarlet Letter lay open and unread in my lap, and I would have been asleep but for the hard, uncomfortable wooden corners of the chair continually prodding me back into consciousness. The slow, stealthy movement at the end of the porch touched off an alarm in my brain. It went off slowly and cautiously, and I recall fixing my eyes on the pear tree before turning my head sharp and quick. My heart shut off my breath, and my eyes flew open wider and fixed themselves unblinkingly on four figures at the end of the porch. There were a swarthy blonde, stocky, with thick muscular forearms extending from the odd, colorful shirts, which hung loose about their waists. I sensed a strangeness about them, and, paralyzed, I gazed somehow at once into three pairs of pale, blue, opaque eyes. The fourth person, who had been obscured by the porch railing, was bending now and sliding his feet cautiously on the porch. He was light, too, and dressed in a 28 white T-shirt and khaki trousers such as the ma- rines wore at the base nearby. All the figures began moving, and I saw them as if they were reflections in water and moving in liquid, melting motions. The figures came along the porch on their bellies, under the window, and to my chair. One of the men held a carbine or gun of some sort, and as the shirts fell away from the bodies of the other two, I saw leather gun holsters. I sat in a state of lethargy, my whole body as uncontrolled as if a streak of electricity had flown through it, dismembering nerves, and leaving them twanging like a popped elastic band. Then, the serviceman crouched by my chair. Instinctively, I drew away from him, and tried to raise my body. Fright had left me helpless, and as I sat, dumb and uncompre- hending, my eyes staring hypnotically into his, he motioned with his head toward the house, and asked, “‘Is anyone home?” The question went into my brain and stayed. I was unable to form an answer. “Is there any- one inside?” he asked again, and the urgency, the demand in his voice made me say, sounding strange and hollow, “There is no one here but me.” I saw and felt the relief in the men and the marine, and as they rose to their feet, I could see in their faces also their satisfaction of my youth, of my femininity. They never doubted for a moment that I had not told the truth, and no longer bothered to shield themselves from anyone inside the house, but THE REBEL peered cautiously toward the field and the dirt road that ran a mile to the highway, obscured by tall corn. “Germans,” the marine’s voice thudded, and the word pounded into me like molten fire, deaden- ing and burning, spreading in engulfing waves, digging scorching hollows of terror and pain. “We need a motor for our boat,” the tallest one with the carbine said in a soft, steel-core, British- accented voice, his whole confident manner in- congruent with the situation. “Get them a motor, honey, and we’ll be all right,” the marine said. His voice was taut, but controlled, and the pronouns “them” and “we” told me that he was not a willing member of this alien group—that he was a compatriot. I rose and led the way off the porch to the shed. I flung open the door and stepped back, in- dicating with my hand to the Germans that the motor was inside. “You,” waved the English-speaking German to the marine, “get it.” The marine bent his head and went inside. I leaned against the door, holding it open. The Germans and I stared at each other, and I could see in their faces that they were laughing at me, laughing at my fear, at my youth. In their eyes, I could see myself. A bony girl looking much WINTER, 1961 younger than nineteen, her straight blonde hair straggling down from where it was pinned care- lessly on top of her head, her bare feet and legs showing from under the skirt a hard summer tan, and one of my college “P. E.” shirts tied in a huge knot at my waist—everything to indicate that I was country bumkin, harmless, with eyes too big and too frightened and too transparently blue to hide a significant thought. The marine came out with the motor. Without a word, he turned toward the path leading toward the sound. I hesitated by the shed door, until a German motioned with his head that I was to follow. Like a cornered animal, I skidded with no thought of direction between the two Germans. One’s arm shot out and caught me around the shoulders, striking my neck and cutting off my breath. He sent me with an indulgent shove after the marine as easily as if I were a child. Tears sprang in my eyes and my ears roared with anger and fear while they investigated in their strange guttural language the fuel in the motor. Even then, I can recall beginning the puzzle. There were two pieces at that time—my being alone, and the motor being filled with gas. As we walked beneath the velvet pines, I felt the absurdity of it all. The familiar redbirds dart- ed above, their lilting “‘you, too, you, too” echoing 29 in my ears. The putt-putt of a distant John Deere tractor faded out as we half fell and stumbled down the bank to the sound shore. The marine flung the motor on the skiff, and a motion of the head from the English-speaking German sent me scurrying in, rushing to be near the marine. In my haste, I cracked my shin on one of the seats, and fell awkwardly. In no time, the marine started the motor with a roar, tilting the small boat sharply so that all our heads were thrown back with a snap, and the German officer, sitting on the bow, was almost thrown in the bottom of the boat. I glanced at the marine’s face and saw a mass of fury. Then, a barking from shore made us all turn our faces desperately. The Germans snatched their pistols from the holsters and the one in the bow swiveled around, cocking his carbine. On the bank, running pre- cariously near the edge, raced one lone dog—Turk. His bark was full of indignation for not being taken along. From out in the water, I could see his furiously wagging tail, the tail that was sup- posed to have been clipped, for he was half pedi- greed boxer; but we never had the heart to take him to the veterinarian. Where had he been? Had he been chasing a rabbit? Treeing a squirrel? If he had been home, he would have warned me of someone’s approach, and perhaps this whole nightmare would not have come about. Aunt Sally’s fiancé had returned from the war last week with a wounded leg, and Mother and Father had gone there to spend a few days. My brothers and sisters were visiting an uncle in Norfolk, Virginia; and I, with no one to see me go, except one stac- catic dog, was speeding down the Albemarle Sound with one unknown serviceman, three of our coun- try’s enemies, and the United States Marine Base blinking its lights securely about two and a half miles across the Sound. The two Germans faced me and the marine, kept their holsters undone and the pistols par- tially out. However, their eyes kept straying out in the sound and toward the shore with the ill- concealed curiosity of children. The officer kept glancing in our direction. Finally, he gave us no further attention, leaving us to his subordinates. It was through this that the marine and I worked out a system whereby we could carry on a con- versation. By turning his head as if to look be- hind us, he could speak almost in my ear, my flying hair hiding the movement of his lips. “They picked me up about a mile from the Marine Base where I was fishing,’ he said. 30 “They’ve got a sub down around Norfolk, and a boat farther down the sound waiting to take them to the sub.” The Germans were looking at him suspiciously, and I was unable to answer. A few minutes later, I managed to say, “But whatever do they want up here?” “The Marine Base,” he replied. ‘“They’re a re- connaissance detail sent to the Marine Base.” The marine, in a spurt of anger, opened the small horsepower motor until it sounded as if it were going to fly apart. The officer gestured to- ward him menacingly, and he turned it down. It was a foolish action, because now the Germans watched us closely, and it was some time before we could talk again. I thought, “So that’s why they’re dressed as they are—fishermen,” and I saw the significance of the reed fishing poles carelessly thrown in the bottom of the boat. “But what happened to their motor?” I said against the buffeting wind as I turned my head. “Never had one,” the marine answered. Chuck- ling ironically, he added, “They underestimated the distance from the sound to the base. Now, in order for them to make it back to the boat in time to catch the sub, they’ve got to move pretty damn fast.” We had to stop talking then, and the fear was beginning to leave me enough presence of mind to think. So, they hadn’t accomplished the mis- sion—that explained why the officer was so agi- tated, so nervous, so preoccupied. Or did it? Was it merely that he was afraid of being in an enemy country, of not catching the sub out? Then, by the stiffness in his bull-like neck, the calm voice with underlying steel strength, I knew he was the universal type who knew little fear, who would not fail; and, with a start, I realized he hadn’t—he had the marine. Couldn’t the marine tell them more about the base then they could have ever found out for themselves? Was kid- napping their original intent? And, in a new light, I turned to look at the marine, wondering if he knew; by the wary intelligence in his eyes, the hard, determined, scared white about his mouth, I saw that he did. I was overcome then with a chill. The air had cooled; the spray of the water had dampened my clothes. Yet, whether it was cold or an onslaught of nervousness, I could not tell. I began to trem- ble so I could barely stay on the seat. The marine THE REBEL looked toward me anxiously. I gritted my teeth in an effort to keep them from chattering loudly. With a gesture similar to humble obeisance the German on the left pulled a blanket of some sort from under the nook in the bow and, smiling, passed it to me. The marine helped me arrange the blanket over my shoulders while both Ger- mans smiled tolerantly. Against all reason, I found myself thinking that back home they were probably nice German boys. So, we rode on; and I saw that part three of the puzzle had fallen into place—the marine him- self. Suddenly, I found myself wondering just where I fitted in. I added weight to the boat, thus slowing it down. I gave the marine an ally ... and horror spread over me again. Why had they brought me along? I searched their faces anxious- ly for the answer. Some fishing boats were coming towards us, and the officer motioned frantically for the marine to go in to shore. We eased in quickly, hiding among the trees there. A wild, white bird with long legs and a huge wingspread flew up unex- pectedly and all of us jumped. It became too quiet for us to talk, the boat al- most idling as we moved carefully among the logs, weeds, trees and stumps along the swamp—the shore had disappeared long ago, and only a tangle of vines and a mass of trees hung with heavy grey moss were there to see us. The German at the bow was still furtively look- ing at his watch, and I could almost see him mak- ing calculations. He and the other two began to talk excitedly, urgently. Soon, he motioned for us to head back out into open water. The marine turned his head and said against my flying hair, “I’m going to crash into a fishing stake in a minute. Dive deep and quick so the motor or the boat won’t strike you.” The Germans were looking at us suspiciously. “Tl tell you when,” the marine turned and his words blew around my head like the wind, buffet- ing and confusing. The fishing stakes sped by the boat. I held my body tense, ready to jump. The marine, sensing my tautness, laid a careless hand over my knee. Its pressure told me, “not yet.” As the fishing stakes sped by, I held my muscles tense, prepared to jump when the pressure of his hand relaxed. He caught my eye and motioned to a stake about two hundred feet ahead. The purring motor echoed through the swamp. I held WINTER, 1961 my body tense until I trembled from the effort. I must have been visibly poised to jump, for the marine carelessly moved so that his shoulder forced me to relax my pose. Would I be able to dive? I had dived before—off an anchored boat, off a diving board, off a bank. Would I be able to dive deep enough and fast enough to avoid being hit by the boat or the motor? What did the marine intend to do anyway? How would he dodge three Germans? Probably the guns would be lost in the dark, sandy bottom. Would I spoil everything by not being able to get away? The stake was drawing nearer. I refused to allow myself to look at the rushing water any more, because the more I looked, the more uncertain I became that I could dive overboard. In an effort at self-control, I fastened my eyes on the hand with the steady, confident pressure on my knee. It was a broad, bony hand. The nails were square; and all the fingers seemed to have an unusual crook. Suddenly, the hand lifted, spread, with all the fingers apart, like a maestro commanding a great swell, and my body struck water. I could feel the boat turn from under me as in a last violent spurt it swung up against the stake. Painfully, my fingers were bent backward as they unexpectedly struck bottom. I struggled to my feet and found the water to reach to my chin. The stake was undoubtedly a broken-off one, disallusioning as to the depth. The water should have been at least fifteen feet deep here. The Germans were splashing about, all thrown clear of the boat. They were between me and shore. I widened the distance between us by heading out until my feet left bottom. I saw no sign of the marine. Had he been hurt? Killed? The Germans were evidently as bewildered as I. The marine’s body appeared up near shore, where he had swum under water. “Stop!” the officer cried. I tucked my chin down and propelled myself under, letting my breath out in small bubbles, and, to keep my feet under, pushed them in the sand. Desperately, I swept over the sand with my hands and dug with my feet. I thought my lungs would burst, but I knew that I must reach shore, too. I heard a shot, and then another, and felt the water along my back part with a zing. I was forced to come up for air. I had swallowed water and lost all co-ordination. I heard the Germans rushing towards me, and blind with water, I stumbled ahead. I had swum almost to shore, and the stumps and seaweed were.thick. I fell and 31 a knobby cypress knee pounded into my chest. I heard myself cry out as I struggled for breath in a last terrified plunge toward the shore. A sharp hand clamped itself on my shoulder and I sank in the water, writhing, to rid myself of it. Others grabbed me, and before a pain wiped it- self over my face, leaving my lips bleeding, I heard myself screaming. The German officer talked and gestured excited- ly toward shore while the other two held me. Everything got quiet, and the frogs and insects hummed monctonously. The Germans were listen- ing intently for a sound from the marine. So swift I didn’t even see his hand, the officer slap- ped me a horrible blow across the face. It hurt so much I couldn’t scream, but sucked in my breath and was unable to breathe out. He called to shore, his voice bouncing off the trees. His hard fists pounded into my body and face so fast the pain seemed continuous. “Don’t!” a voice called from shore, and through the haze of my pain-blinded, tear-filled eyes, I saw the white of the marine’s shirt. Part four of the puzzle fell into place. There had been no fishing net to entangle the Germans; nor enough water to keep them preoccupied with staying up or to enable me to swim well to safety. Also, I knew now why I had been brought along. It was quite evident that the Germans didn’t see me as an ally to the American, but rather as a hostage for them. With a completely sinking sensation, I realized they were right. The German officer was consulting his watch often now as we clawed our way through the murky swamp. He set a pace meant to meet a deadline. I was barefooted, my clothes wet, and so uncomfortable and hurting I lagged behind, falling over cypress knees that jutted up in the dark. Sometimes I fell over things that weren’t even there. The muck often enveloped me as far as my knees. The mosquitoes were vicious, and bit through the clothing. After about three miles’ walk, the officer stop- ped to confer with the other two. I slipped to the base of a tree on high ground, completely fatigued. The marine knelt beside me. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice full of con- cern. I nodded, too pained and too weary to speak. It was way into night now, and I could only see the white of his shirt as he knelt before me and the lightness of his hair when the moon struck it. 32, “T’m sorry about back there,” he said, popping a twig impatiently. “Are you sure you're all right ?” I recall I hated myself right then. I knew I had ruined his chance for escape—and mine, too. The mosquitoes hummed continuously. I could not talk. My throat tightened ... “I’m sorry.” “Forget it,’ he said brusquely. He kept on popping twigs. Reluctantly, he added, “The of- ficer told me if they don’t make the boat... I hope to God they do.” I surprised myself by saying, “Don’t worry.” As we rose to our feet, I saw his eyes. They were hurt, naked in animal fear; and yet I could tell that whatever happened, it would be done courageously, with integrity. I wondered doubt- fully if I looked the same way. It did not seem strange to me then that we should find a fishing skiff in excellent condition, with a motor; yet, I remember slipping another piece of the puzzle into place—part five. We crossed the sound and under the highway bridge. I wondered if the marine knew that he would be taken with them. When he got too close to a barge from the pulp mill at Plymouth, they threatened me with a gun. I realized escape probably would not have been too hard for him had I not been along. In a desperate lurch, I tried to jump overboard—the barge would see me; but the German beside me roughly snatched my free- dom away. On the eastern side of the bridge was a beach resort. The music carried out to us over the water. A little farther down the beach, we edged into a small cove. There, waiting for them, was a small yacht such as is used in deep sea fishing. They paid no attention to me, but motioned for the marine to climb aboard—then I had been right. “You'll not take him!” I screamed. I stood up, rocking the boat dangerously. The men on board—they were foreign, too— became very silent. The officer laughed. It was a hard and bitter, triumphant and sarcastic laugh. I turned and glanced at the marine. He was at gunpoint. The officer reached and jerked me by wrist so that my head flew back and I struck the sore place on my shin. Without thinking, I flung up my right arm and struck him with my open hand as hard as I could in the face. I heard the marine shout, “Dive! Dive!” Before I dived, though, I gave the officer a THE REBEL shove with both hands that sent him crashing upon the bow of the boat and the anchor there. The water was plenty deep, clear of stumps, and I dived clean and swift. My right hand was numb from striking the officer, but I kept my fingers together and my strokes were strong. Shots were echoing around me. I swam until I reached the weedy, stumpy shore; then, I lumbered to my feet and began stumbling to shore. They were trying to get the motor in the skiff started, and I could well tell the marine was not helping them. When I reached solid ground, no one was follow- ing me, but I kept on running. I ran until I reached the beach resort. I could see couples dancing there. I cried and tried to run faster. I saw a car near the driveway, slip- ped into it and tried through my blurred eyes to find the ignition. It had no keys. I crawled across the seat and out the other door into a pickup truck. It started immediately, although to this day, I do not know what I did. I started in re- verse and backed into something. The gatekeeper turned and looked strangely at me, waiting for me to stop and survey the damage. When I didn’t, he stepped out in front of the truck. I had gotten it into forward gear by then, and crushed the accelerator to the floor. His face looked as if someone had thrown a lemon pie into it when he jumped back and I sped by. About three miles down the highway, I turned up the road leading to the marine base. The guard at the gate thought I was drunk and playfully block- ed my getting out of the truck. Hysterically, I begged him to let me through. Finally, he phoned for an M. P. to come get me and take me to an officer. About fifteen minutes later, he came. No one believed me. “A German sub at Nor- folk?” they laughed. “Germans on the Albemarle Sound?” All of them stared at me from around a shiny desk, not daring to believe. I screamed at them. I implored them in the softest of whis- pers, begging them to believe, to rescue the ma- rine. ‘“What’s his name?” they wanted to know. I couldn’t tell them. They laughingly told me that many marines were on leave—that they had no way of checking immediately who was actually missing or on leave. “Tt’s not important who he is,” I cried. I asked to take them to the spot where the yacht was and where the skiff was probably still moored. I pointed out my bruised face. At last they made a call to Norfolk to check carefully for a sub there- abouts, but the call had no force behind it. It was given lightly. Finally, they called out a search for the yacht. I stood there crying, knowing that part six, the final part of the puzzle that spelled safety for the Germans, had fallen into place. A week later, I was called to the base and told that a marine officer by the name of Harry Stew- art had gone AWOL, and that he fit my descrip- tion. No German sub had been found in or around Norfolk or on the Atlantic Coast. With my eyes, I blamed them. What about Harry Stewart? Where is Harry Stewart? Che Journey Words Upon the Wind Confessor of life, hide in death. Contorted, twisted by the worldly winds— A man so lost unable to grasp A simple word, a syllable of trust. There is no man whose mind controls All that life and man has willed. An innovation of his choice, Chosen perhaps to meet tomorrow. WINTER, 1961 Judgment passed, to answer once His futile plea, his humbled faith. Only again can he fulfill The citadel of remembrance. A payment for life cannot be asked. One life’s worth is not another. Confessor of life, you’ve paid your price. Eternal mercy and all it gives Restores to you your heart and pride— An element of hope That someone kind might speak his name. At last in time, the menace of the past Goes down to death, Prelude to a novel birth. —CARL YORKS SIR JOHN SUCKLING An Essay By SHERRY MASKE Sir John Suckling had a beard that turned up naturally and an easy impudence that not only won the hearts of the court ladies of the seven- teenth century but is equally irresistible to female hearts of the twentieth century, which have de- veloped an immunity, composed of two parts boredom to one part over-exposure, to the sugary- sweet love lyrics of other centuries. Sir John’s life, like his poetry, was gay and irresponsible. After graduating from Cambridge he toured the continent. Back in England he lived the life “with an abandonment” expected of Charles’ courtiers. Roberta Brinkley tells us that he was the “darling of the court,” having ‘wealth, wit, and a bachelor state to establish his popu- larity.” He was a great gamester, both for bowling and for cards; and his popularity apparently didn’t extends into all areas, for, says Douglas Bush, “no shop-keeper would trust him for 6d.” Not content to wager his money on cards and bowling, Sir John is said to have invented cribbage. Politically, Suckling sided with the king rather than with the Puritans; apparently the king’s cause was one of the few things he took seriously. For his part in trying to rescue Strafford from the tower in 1641, he was forced to flee to France, where, it is said, he committed suicide. Other accounts say that he was killed by a vengeful servant. (There is no account of the nature of the servant’s grudge against the gallant Sir John; possibly the poor servant did not possess a beard that turned up naturally and, constant associa- tion with one so blessed by nature being a con- tinual reminder of his own inadequacies, he finally 34 chose this drastic means of relieving his torment. Or, more prosaically, the servant may have dis- approved of his master’s politics.) This is, in brief, an account of Sir John Suck- ling’s life; he was born in 1609 and died (by what- ever means) in 1642, at the age of thirty-four. The details of his life gain great significance when viewed in conjunction with the environment in which he lived and wrote. Sir John’s immediate environment was that of the court, which Herbert J. C. Grierson de- scribed as “the Court, the corrupt, ambitious, in- triguing, dissolute but picturesque and dazzling court.” Grierson speaks of the young courtiers as spending their days in “dressing, mistressing and compliment.” Louis B. Salomon, commenting on the moral tone of the court, wrote: “The im- morality ... if not greater than that of any other period, was at least more open . . . cynicism became a mark of ‘fine-gentlemanship’.” Suckling lived in a literary environment which was in a state of change. Until this time, love poets had written of honor and chivalry, idolizing the objects of their love, extolling their perfect- ions, but expecting nothing in return. By the middle of the seventeenth century, according to Salomao, poets were not only striking out for freedom from amorous servi- tude, but refusing to take love seriously at all. The revolt against traditional love in poetry never reached a greater peak either in degree or in numerical strength than it did while this mood was at its height . . . love, THE REBEL metaphorically speaking, was a creature to be patted on the head like a child, so long as it amused, and to be hustled off as soon as it became troublesome. This attitude is the prevalent one in the poems of Suckling. This was the environment in which Sir John Suckling lived; the immoral, cynical, gay life of the court and the changing attitude toward love poetry are each reflected in the poetry he wrote. He was also influenced by the two most important poets of his day, John Donne and Ben Jonson. Suckling is classed as one of the Cavalier poets ; these poets, we are told, “caught from Ben Jonson the love of sharp outline and the easy expression characteristic of the Cavalier lyric.” And Grier- son wrote that Donne instilled in them “the pure doctrine of the need of passion for a lover and a poet.” Suckling reflects the metaphysical strain of Donne in this sense, although Douglas Bush says that it is “chiefly the cynical strain of the young Donne that Suckling carries on.” The in- fluence of both Donne and Jonson is reflected in this poem of Suckling’s: Out upon it! I have loved Three whole days together; And am like to love three more, If it prove fair weather. Time shall moult away his wings Ere he shall discover In the whole wide world again Such a constant lover. (“Out upon it! I have loved”) Grierson adds that, of all the Cavalier poets, “the gayest of the group is Sir John Suckling.” Although it is generally agreed that no one of the Cavalier poets approaches the greatness of either Donne or Jonson, their poetry has certain qualities (most evident, I believe, in Suckling) which recommend it. Grierson comments that the poetry of the Cavaliers displays a “neutral” style which is equally appropriate to prose and verse, and is entirely that of an English gentleman of the best type. This style is exemplified in what is probably Suckling’s best-known poem, “Why So Pale and Wan:” Why so pale and wan, fond lover? Prithee, why so pale? Will, when looking well can’t move her, Looking ill prevail? Prithee, why so pale? WINTER, 1961 Why so dull and mute, young sinner, Prithee, why so mute? Will, when speaking well can’t win her, Saying nothing do’t? Prithee, why so mute? Quit, quit, for shame, this will not move, This cannot take her. If of herself she will not love, Nothing can make her. The devil take her! Very little has been written about Suckling’s poetry ; occasional references are made to him in material concerning more important figures. These references, however, often reflect some facet of either the poet’s personality or his poetry or both. Salomon speaks of Suckling’s “insolent aloof- ness,” and of “that fresh, simple vigor, that artis- tic sincerity, that characterize .. . Suckling... . even in... expressions of nonchalant disdain.” Suckling, according to Salomon, treats love as a feast, except that he threatens to “rudely call for the last course ’fore the rest. Having swallowed, as it were, his dessert, he immediately casts his eye about for another banquet.” In the poet’s own words: And O, when once that course is passed, How short a time the feast doth last! Men rise away, and scarce say grace, Or civilly once thank the face That did invite, but seek another place. (“I Prithee Spare Me, Gentle Boy.’’) Sona Raiziss speaks of “Suckling’s light irony.” C. V. Wedgewood comments briefly on “Sir John Suckling, who always had a refreshing vein of common sense.” Dryden said that he expressed better than any other poet the conversation of a gentleman; poetry was to him only an avocation. In “A Session of the Poets,” in which the poets of his day are appealing to Apollo for the crown of poet laureate, he wrote of himself: He loved not the muses so well as his sport, And prized black eyes, or a lucky hit At bowls above all the trophies of wit: Dryden summed up the gallant Sir John in these words: For us he typifies, more than any other of the Cavalier poets, the cloak-over-the-shoulder pose which they liked to affect. He is the gayest, wittiest, and most superficial of them all. 35 News They are telling it In the streets. No one will say the Name. They are people without Faces, having only voices. They speak of the ground And the cool nights, I am afraid. No one will say the Name. Perhaps it is someone That I used to know. So long I have been away. A figure without a face Speaks loudly. I shudder as I hear That piercing voice. Someone is sobbing softly. Someone is dead. The name they call is mine. —SUE ELLEN HUNSUCKER Spring It was spring. And there was this kitten. (Pansies clustered around steps looking up with rainbow-colored grins. Spring wearing a skin-tight dress of downy green with apple blossom and new grass smells for perfume... And there was this kitten.) He sat blinking the house-darkness away And his eyes caught and held the brightness of morning sunlight, Then Fluffed black powderpuff hair out around a plump body And ate a bug. (a caterpillar hunched itself up on a pansy in front of him, became the victim of his bug-lust.) And there was this kitten... The noise of the air rifle blended instantly With ordinary sounds of nature— with the angry bee arguments and repeated bird calls. Its bullet made no noise entering the softness That was the kitten’s breast and heart. The dead kitten lay like a small black period on the lawn. The food-smell of the blood trickling from his breast Attracted a large fly Whose green body Caught and Held the brightness of morning sunlight as it began to eat. —DENYSE DRAPER 36 THE REBEL THE REBEL REVIEW What is a book and what is its purpose? Why should an individual read? These are two ques- tions that plague not only the publishing world, but the conscientious readers who endeavor to penetrate the land of the printed word. For our purposes, let us define a book as a written or printed narrative or record by an in- dividual who has seen or who has conceived a situation which he wishes to relate to the read- ing public. He takes the situation, studies it, lets the idea impregnate his mind until finally the idea becomes so powerful that he records it in written language. The author may have several or just one pur- pose for his book. He may wish to convey to the reader an awareness of a situation, or perhaps, wish to present his ideas concerning a specific subject. But whatever his purpose, one must read creatively to grasp the author’s intent. This leads to another question—why should an individual use time and energy reading? The reason should be, as we see it, TO GROW, TO LEARN, and TO REAP THE HARVEST OF THE MIND! How dull and boring this world would be without books. How could we ever be able to visit foreign lands and observe cultural difference? How could we be able to grasp a better under- standing of our world and of our time? How can we learn of the advances in science? How could we compare our ideas with those of modern, bril- liant thinkers? In books we find all the human emotions and more. We find treasured moments WINTER, 1961 of serenity, self-analysis, and simple pleasure which causes us to be aware of our place in the earth’s time cycle. In the last several years masterful books have been written which are destined to be placed in the literary hall of fame. How many of the fol- lowing list have you read? EXODUS—Leon Uris ADVISE AND CONSENT—Allen Drury HAWAII—James Michener THE LOVELY AMBITION—Mary Ellen Chase SERMONS AND SODA-WATER—John O’Hara DECISION AT DELPHI—Helen Mac Innes THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH —William L. Shirer THE ORGANIZATION MAN— William H. Whyte THE WASTE MAKERS—Vance Packard TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD—Harper Lee THOMAS WOLFE: A BIOGRAPHY—Elizabeth Nowell ACT I—Moss Hart ONLY IN AMERICA—Harry Golden THE DARKNESS AND THE DAWN—Thomas B. Costain THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE—Morris L. West GRANT MOVES SOUTH—Bruce Catton THE LONELY CROWD—David Reisman THE LEOPARD—Guiseppe Di Lampedusa 37 | | “Her Majesty, Queen of England...” Decision at Trafalgar—Dudley Pope. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1960. $5.95. A little over 150 years ago Napoleon Bonaparte, trying to build his empire, was doing a pretty good job. In the spring of 1805 England watched, fear- ing invasion, as barges assembled at the channel ports on the other side. There was only one chance for England to stop the little French Em- peror. This chance was Horatio Nelson and the English Navy. In this book Dudley Pope has given an excellent and valid account of the decisive naval battle that won for England not just the war, but undisputed supremacy on the seas for over a hundred years as well. For those who know the ways of the wind and the sea, Decision at Trafalgar is an adventure in sailing; to historians it is a documented record- ing of the past, and to the rest of us it is a roar- ing story, vivid in description, intricate in detail, fascinating to read. Supplementing the fine technical and descrip- tive writing are 16 pages of photographs, 18 bat- tle diagrams and 20 line drawings. These illustra- tions add quite a bit to the book and are especially helpful to a landlubber who needs help under- standing the technical language of a sailor. The book is a vivid and striding re-creation of the conditions in the navies of France, England, and Spain. It allows the reader to stand beside Nelson and feel the roll of the deck and the tingle of battle excitement. The technical details, his- toric background, description, and documentation make it a notable book well worth reading. Tom JACKSON ““Confederate Raiders’”’ The Bold Cavaliers—Dee Alexander Brown. J. B. Lippin- cott Company. ($3.75) Dee Alexander Brown in his captivating prose has written another stirring novel on the Civil War. The Bold Cavaliers follows the story of Morgan’s Second Kentucky Cavalry in its struggle to aid the southern cause from the time of the battle of Shiloh until the fall of the Confederacy. 38 Coming from a political divided homeland, Ken- tucky, into a war which pitted brother against brother, these bold young men attained fame in the struggles which followed. They distinguished themselves by reaching farther into the North than any other Confederate fighting force. The so-called “alligator-horses” were planters, merchants, blacksmiths, horse breeders. Original- ly all were sons of the blue grass country; but as time passed and “the raiders” increased in size, the ranks were filled with troops from several surrounding states. The ‘Second Kentucky’ led by John Morgan en- gaged in the harassment of military supply, the destruction of arms and stores, various skirm- ishes and several full-scale battles. Morgan’s men inflicted losses on the northern forces which, per- haps, helped prolong the time the Confederate forces remained in the field of battle. “The Raid- ers” who were feared and respected by the North were loved and admired by the South. Both Morgan and many of his men were cap- tured and imprisoned during the war; however, most of them managed to return south and rejoin their beloved outfit and continue to fight. Following the death of the “Second’s” valiant leader, John Morgan, supplies, ammunition and good horses seemed slowly to trickle to a stop. The unit was soon dismounted and their last for- mation was met to escort President Davis and the Confederate Treasury further south. The legend of the Second Kentucky cavalry was drawn from letters, memoirs, and news ar- ticles which told the stories of the men who served under its pennon: John Morgan, Basil Duke, Tom Quirls, and James Ellsworth. Brown has skillfully created a story to present with great vividness and color those Bold Cavaliers as true fighting men of the Confederacy. DARRELL HURST “Nobility from Within” The Interpreter—March Cost. J. B. Lippincott Company. ($3.75) March Cost has once more brought to her read- ers an exciting novel of romance and suspense ealled The Interpreter. Olga Kalyazin, the heroine of the story, who was the wife of a Russian baron, becomes a de- THE REBEL partment store interpreter in Stockholm after fleeing from Russia during the Revolution of 1917. Under the assumed name of Madame Molsalsk, Olga puts her fluency in seven languages into practice in order to make her living as an inter- preter. While in Stockholm, she encounters Alexis Sar- ansk, her old lover, and learns that her husband, from whom she has been divorced for many years, is not dead. Her renewed love for her husband makes their ultimate meeting a time of tense excitement and suspense. The novel takes its reader from Stockholm to London where Olga accepts a position in a museum in which her own dowry is exhibited. Her efforts to hide her identity and her chance meetings with her past bring adventure to the plot of the story. This book is filled with lovely words and vivid descriptions, for Miss Cost weaves a truly pic- turesque atmosphere around her characters, especially in her descriptions of European cities. She says of Stockholm: “Stockholm lay tranced in a sun-struck aftermath. Any other city, after such a day, might have steamed or sweated, but, spaciously lapped by air and water, its building rose around her calm, sedate—civic or domestic monuments to native strength, only lightly graced by French influence.” Thrilling suspense mixed with a true protrayal of human nature are evidence of the author’s unique writing skills and make this adventure of chance called The Interpreter a story to remem- ber with pleasure. SUE ELLEN HUNSUCKER “An Exciting Two Hours” Pennies from Hell, David Alexander. J. B. Lippincott Company, 1960. Price: $3.95. Another mystery hits the newstand; probably just as poorly written as a thousand others. If any critic bothers to review it, his criitique would say that the author types better than he writes. But this form of literature is read by: the upper- class, middle-class, and lower-class; all of whom enjoy the short pleasures they bring. Pennies From Hell, is such a novel. David Alexander’s short novel is a fast-moving, WINTER, 1961 action-packed story. Perhaps his characters are not the boy-next-door type, but they do seem realistic. His two-syllable words may not be the best words of description, but they do serve their purpose. The story moves and this is the secret of his book, as well as any mystery. An outline of this novel of menace does not provide the necessary stimulus to rush out and buy it; but if one wishes to be entertained with- out exercising anything except the fingers in turn- ing pages, this is the book to choose. Joe Conners takes the leading role and, from the time he leaves prison until his disgusting sur- prise on the last page, the reader is with him— wondering whether his problems will deteriorate. They never do. Poor Joe stole $129,000 and like all juries in- terested in justice they decided prison was to be his home for a few years. Unfortunately, after eight years the man who lost this sum of money has not forgotten the incident, and throughout the major portion of the novel, his paid stooges hound Joe until he finally commits murder. Unlike many thieves, Joe is a family man and his young daugh- ter’s welfare is the reason for his thievery. But the apple of his eye turns against him and her ingratitude climaxes on ‘The End’ page where the reader decides children are a menace. The last page will surprise, disgust, and prob- ably make the reader mad. But after impatiently turning page after page, absorbing every incident, you can forget it within five minutes without any damage to the mind. PAT HARVEY ““Touchdown for the Irish’’ Knute Rockne’ Francis Wallace. pany. Price: $3.95. Doubleday and Com- Francis Wallace treats Knute Rockne with warmth and understanding in this biography of a great football coach. Wallace’s friendship with Rockne as a student at Notre Dame, and in later years, gives him a personalized insight into the coach and the man. Rockne is a sterling example of the American success story. A Norwegian immigrant in 1883, an outstanding end for Notre Dame in 1918, and 39 finally, the coach of “the fighting Irish” until his death in 1931—all this was Rockne and all of Rockne was this. The man, Rockne, is depicted as a stern dis- ciplinarian whose genius for innovations and un- derstanding of psychology aided him as Notre Dame’s head football coach. Once when he was asked, “What makes a man?’’ Coach Rockne re- plied, “Stay clean, stay strong.” Yet along with his sterness, Rockne had a sensitivity which is revealed in Wallace’s description of his corres- pondence with a crippled child during the trying days of 1928—his worst season. Rockne, brawn and brain, will always be remembered in the hearts of football fans as one of America’s greatest coaches. Mr. Wallace has written a well defined bio- graphy of a great man; however, his background as a newspaper correspondent often makes the story seem ‘pieced together’ from former news articles. B. TOLSON WILLIS, JR. “I Vant to be Alone .. .” Garbo—Fritiof Billquist. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. ($4.50) Where are the words to capture the intangible quality of Garbo? To each of us in our own way Garbo denotes the ideal, the mystery, and the sorrow of life. Friend and colleague of Garbo, Fritiof Billquist, has written a simple but eloquent biography of the famous motion picture star. From Sweden to Hollywood and then to the barrenness of Gar- bo’s present life, the reader is allowed to view Garbo with her talent, her virtues, and her faults. However, the reader is often puzzled by Bill- quist’s inadequate knowledge of his subject—at times he seems to peer deeply into her soul—but then it seems as if Billquist disappears within Garbo’s thoughts. The book is well worth reading for it gives a startling answer to Garbo’s talent and tells more about the legend of a mysterious woman in con- temporary society. FLIP 40 “Sir Arthur” A Biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—John Dickenson Carr. Doubleday and Company. It is probably safe to say that anyone who en- joys reading mystery stories today has at some time read most of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, and that many have enjoyed these adventures who do not usually like detective novels. Since his creation, Sherlock Holmes has become a minor national hero and a part of our vocabulary—yet, little is known about his British creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.’ This fact in mind, the famous mystery writer, John Dickenson Carr, has written an absorbing biography which snaps and sparkles with the indomitable personality of a man who was a doctor, an amateur detective, a popular novelist, and a spiritualist. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not particularly like his most popular creation, Holmes; it was only the repeated insistences of his publishers, laden with increased royalty checks, that persuad- ed the Doctor to continue the literary life of the detective. Doyle’s dislike for him was evi- dent when he casually wrote, “I think of slaying Holmes in the last and winding him up for good and all. He takes my mind from better things.” The “better things” mentioned were events of far-reaching importance, including becoming a front-line doctor in the Boer War, writing political pamphlets, and solving crimes in the best Sherlock Holmes manner. Doyle’s life included romances of a most elevated kind. He carried on a platonic relationship with a woman he passion- ately loved for nearly ten years, because he was married. His ailing wife held his “utmost affec- tion,” but not real love, and shortly after her death, he married the woman for whom he waited a decade. Through painstaking research and the ability of a master writer, Mr. Carr conveys the deep anguish and tribulations which the lack of a con- crete faith gives the Doctor’s life. One of the most interesting highlights of the biography is Doyle’s final and complete acceptance of spiritualism as the foundation of his religious beliefs in later life. It is through such episodes that the shadowy figure of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—the reluctant creator of Sherlock Holmes—gains life and sta- ture. DENYSE DRAPER THE REBEL . . . A Hero’s Head From Shakespeare to Existentialism, An original study of Goethe, Hege, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Filke, Freud, Jas- pers, Heidegger, Toynbee, by Walter Kaufmann. Anchor Books( Doubleday & Company. Inc. Garden City, N. Y. 1960. $1.45. Hamlet: Then you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favors? Guildenstern: Faith, her privates we. Hamlet: In the secret part of fortune? I, most true! She is a strumpet. What news? * * * I can only speak of the sections in this book, From Shakespeare to Existentialism, dealing with Shakespeare, Nietzsche and Rilke. Mr. Kaufman’s objective is to reidentify the real hero in literature—Aristotle’s great-souled man, Shakespeare’s tragic (unpathetic) hero, Nietzsche’s Ubermansch and his Rilkean counter- part. All of which (after Mr. Kaufmann’s thesis, with which I thoroughly agree) proves the world and literature don’t need the Christian saint, the ‘clawless’ hero (the lost generation product and its present day inheritors. Mr. Kaufmann points up the fact that it was in the great hero of Sophocles and Shakespeare, the non-christian hero, Oedipus, Antigone, Hamlet, Brutus, that the Greek principle of agape, self-sacrificing love, was contained; it was outside, beyond, the Chris- tian pale that honour lived—to wit, we don’t need T. S. Eliot today at all, nor Anglicanism either. (Incidentally, Mr. Kaufmann also gives some answers to T. S. Eliot’s complaints about Shake- speare, in particular to Eliot’s Seneca essay and that old objective correlative dodge.) When dealing with Nietzsche (apropo of the hero) Mr. Kaufmann is more sparse and less clear, certainly less inspiring. Of course, Nietzsche him- self—in Zarathustra—presents a too dismember- ed image of the hero. In any case, it is not through Kaufmann but through the source itself that the reader will understand (the Nietzschean hero). Mr. Kaufmann’s main service is that he puts the guts back into reading, and consequently back into life. Of course, it is we ourselves who must do the reading and the living. Mr. Kaufmann also instructs the writer that greatness is still possible in our age, fashionable though the Willy Lomans and the Anne Franks WINTER, 1961 may be, that the dishing up of weakness is not substantial literary food but merely sauce over putrefaction. Of necessity, the crowd must be dismissed, if the writer would not be a flea on Fortune’s crotch; love must be restored to its true integrity if the writer would not be a ped- dling Paris. JOHN QUINN ENTER NOW! REBEL Writing Contest lst Prize - - - - - - - $15.00 2nd Prize - ----+-- $10.00 3rd Prize - - - - - - - $ 5.00 Winning Entry To Be Published In Spring Issue SHR? STORIES, POETRYSESSAYS Prize Money Donated by Sigma Sigma Sigma 41 at ALWATS FIRSE. 3 UAL TY! GREENVILLE, N. C. TAFF OFFICE EQUIPMENT COMPANY REMINGTON STANDARD AND PORTABLE TYPEWRITERS COLLEGE SCHOOL SUPPLIES 214 E. Fifth Street Greenville, N. C. Music Arts COMPLETE MUSICAL LINE Hi-Fi - Instruments - Records Phone PL 8-2530 318 EVANS STREET GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA BELK-TYLER’S The shopping center for men and women of EAST CAROLINA COLLEGE “‘Save with Safety”’ at BBEK> F¥LER’S VILLAGER SPORTSWEAR fall op 222 EAST FIFTH STREET “BASS WEEJUN” LOAFERS (men and women) BROWN & BLACK Student Charge Accounts Invited OU | COCA-COLA BOTTLING COMPANY, GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA A 42 THE REBEL Be Sociable AOL Have A Pepsi Se SIN ; The Light Refreshment * 4 Riggs House | | 4.8. ELUNGTON & C0. Restaurant BOOKS, STATIONERY AND OFFICE SUPPLIES OPEN 24 HOURS 422 Evans Street Greenville, North Carolina 1201 Dickinson Avenue STEINBECK’S “Smart Clothes for College Men”’ STEINBECK’S AT FIVE POINTS Phone PL 2-7076 WINTER, 1961 43 Owen G. Dunn Co. “Anything For Any Office” PRINTERS, LEITHOGRAPHERS, RULERS AND BLANK BOOK MAKERS Phone ME 7-3197 New Bern, N. C. 44 THE REBEL DRIVERS WHO KNOW BYRON GO simep COLLEGE SUNOCO SERVICE LN <4 CORNER 5TH AND READE STREETS A. For Pick-Up and Delivery Call PL 2-9385 “Give away thy breath!” From My 36th Year, line 36 7 A.M. to % Hr. After Dorm Hours Each Night Discount To All College Faculty Students and Staff COMPLIMENTS OF Student Supply Stores “FIRST IN SERVICE” Your Center for: PAPERBACKS COLLEGE SUPPLIES STATIONERY SOFT GOODS GREETING CARDS Wright Building and South Dining Hall Ground Floor * F ig 2 ~* very fime you d cool shade, so a Salem gi 7 i pea spe or