Notre Dame Scholastic, Vol. 52, No. 10

ama jcbolastic DISCEQUASISEMPER-VICTVRVS- VIVE- QUASI- CRASMORITVRV5 VOL. IJI. NOTRB DAME, INDIANA, DECEMBER 21, 1918. No. ID. suddenly from your sleep. Your brain has taken Stars, a sudden twitcb. "Oh!" you exclaim, ".the Christmas story—it is beginning to hatmt me THOMAS J. HANIFlN, '19. like a restless spirit out of Hades I" During the course of. the day, whether your lips be A CHRISTMAS star of silver bright moving in response to a perplexing question Shed lustre on the lonely earth. that the professor of history has put to you, or And brought us day from out the night your thoughts be concentrated upon some ,To mark the Infant Saviour's birth. economic paradox, your mind is far, far away, A service star of golden glare searching for the plot for the Christmas story. Is on a mother's mournful breast. At recreation periods (the Lord knows how short, For .killed in action "over there," they are!) you take a walk with yourself. Her son is -with his Saviour blest; Surely, the proper mood will come once you have eschewed all distractions. You follow The present Christmas brings new stars an unfrequented path-way. All around you, ' To give more glory, joy, and peace. tranquillity.holds court. You wish again, and And like the Babe on manger bars again that you were rid of this task of the They mark a vict'ry, war's surcease. Christmas story, and could enjoy your walk. Then a sense of duty masters your truant Writing the Christmas Story. disposition and you are brought back to your nusiance. "Of course," you openly confess, "my story BY FRANCIS T. BUTLER, '19. will be novel. It may touch upon some undis covered vein of humor or may turn out to be a ^HEN in the dreamy November days high romance. Love, the dashing, cavalier you are assigned the task of writing quality, lays upon my pen a pressing claim for a Christmas story, more likely than delicate interpretation. In fact, I am strongly not you say to yourself, "My dear urged to probe deep into the human heart for fellow, Christmas is a long way off. Besides, that pathos which has never yet yielded itself a short-story must have a prevailing mood, fuhy to literary art." Thus, your thought- a distinctive air about it, particularly a Christ process now active, you saunter homeward. mas short-story. Don't be in such a hxary. You stride jauntily along, anticipating the easi Wait a little. Let me study the Christmas ness witli which the actual writing wiE be done. spirit as.it manifests itself in the shopping-days You have cultivated the "proper" mood; at of mid-December; let me catch sometiing of any rate, you make beheve you have. And the proper mood; above all, give me time to though there is not forming in your mind any gaze into the faces of men and- women, and to nucleus of,a practical plot; you cajole yourself readt therein- perhaps a new and strange story into repeating: "It will come. It will come." that has hitherto escaped the" litterateurs, and You take.up your pen, dip it into the ink then let me teU it at leisure to an expectant well determinedly, and observe with perfect public." composure the blue, evenly-ruled lines of your Thus soliloquizing, you indulge day after day English tablet. At this critical moment, the your natural, tendency to procrastination, until chances are a hundred to one in your favor that, finally, some mid-December morning you awake •you wiU recall with considerable relish the story 146 Isfie Notre Same êhoiascic of a 3-oung lad)' who wrote to B3Ton that if alembic of 3'"0ur art, Avith bright plumage and she could not have a specimen of his hand fine garments. You hesitate, half-assenting to writing death would shortly overtake her. In. their entreaties, half-spurning the advances the3'- fancj'- you picture the "eternal feminine" are making to turn 3'-our "mind, from writing desperately grasping for the last shred of }'our a "different" stor)'^. In the end, however, 3'-ou mortal belongings. Obviousty this phantas)^ stick to 3'-our high resolution. But out of is not unwelcome; but for the mcmeiit 3'-ou curiosit3'-3'-ou ask 3''ourself candidl3'-: "Couldn't are completel3^ unnerved. You had scarcel3'" there be Ciiiistmas stories without snow ôn the begun to realize the momentous consequences ground, frost on window-panes, hunger in which your stor3'' might involve. newsbo3's' stomachs? Couldn't Christmas be Then when 3ôu have satisfied 3'-ourself that Christmas without sleigh-bells jingling, chimes perhaps 3''0ur. Christmas stor^'- ma3'^ not excite sweetl3'' ringing, wandering minstrels singing, and popular enthusiasm nor arouse popular sensi laughter in the air? Couldn't there be just as bilities to so high a pitch as B3'-ron's poems much rejoicing and merriment and good-cheer did, 3-0U clip the wings of that'errant thought without these old-fas.hioned things? And as you and lapse back to a contemplation of 3'-our pen ponder and reflect, 3^0'u will be convinced more and paper. Upon 3'-our desk 5'-ou" esp3'^ this and more to the conclusion that these old- aphorism mocking your efforts like a gargojde: fashioned things, sanctified by the centuries, "The art of writing consists largely in knowing contain the very essence of the Christmas spirit. what to leave in the ink-pot." You are momen- And 3'"0u accordingl3^ pen the opening words taril3'' non-plussed. But when 3'our more prudent of 3ôur story: "From the choir-loft of an old' self is consulted (and what one of us has not a cathedral come bo3'-ish voices singing the more prudent self?) 3''ou av6w that such sa3dngs Adeste FideUs." are intended for ambitious t3''ros or struggling amateurs, whereas 3''ou are general^ regarded Scenes and Episodes. (mostly b5'' 3''0urself) as a master of technique, a writer of prodigious anal3'tical powers. CHRISTMAS EVE. IN NO MAN'S LAND. But oh! the Christmas story! Surel3'' 3'-ou The moon patrols the winter night. In its had not forgotten it. To-morrow it will come, silver3'-light Jthe snow sparkles. Here and there due. You have never disappointed 3'-our English are footmarks—ma3^hap the last footprints teacher before. You must needs haste. There of the dead. On this side is a trencn, where upon- you ransack the lab3Tinthine chambers lie the foes; on that, another, where hudale of 3''0ur mem6r3' for an experience, an anecdote, my comrades. <• ' an observ'-ation, an3'liiing at all which may Uncovered is my shelter; unprotected am I in an3^ wa3'- serv'-e the purpose of the Christmas from the bare turf. ;T am" alone—alone" in the storj'-. But the plot—^that elusive will o' the loneliness of war. • . « wisp, that" m3'-sterious El Dorado which you Afar off I seem.to hear the earty Christmas must constanth' seek whenever a short-story bells ringing for Mass. ^But I have no Mass, is assigned—where is it? You make a brave no Cotrmunion—-no Communion' except that effort to bridle your vagabond imagination, to of the spirit.. ' , ^ ' collect 5-our scattered thoughts, in short, to Dimty do I see the. sprightly blaze on the regain that literarj'- possession of mind which hearth. .Faint are the familiar faces in its the Greeks so, ardently cultivated. You recall, cheery Light. Allare there save, one. perhaps ver3' vaguety, that 3'our Christmas story Alone am I in No. Man's Lahd-r-alone in the was to be. "different"—different not onty in- loneliness''^ of war.—-R. M. MURCH.. conception but also in form, and treatment from the usual run. Quite naturally you entertain a . / •= AT THE Xo.OM. religious abhorrence for conventional themes. She sits beside the lobrn from early morn Rather than^resprt to. them yôu would prefer . tiU late at night. ;Her.thoughts are ofVother that your story -be of .mediocre merit. and better days., A face is there upon the cloth. But, try as you !may to resist them, long It is the likeness: of a .biraye youth, her son, retinues of plots, thread-bare in their ancient dressed ip the? tiriia uiiiform of. an American liveries, loom up befoi;e.you, entreating you, soldier. • He is. kissmg - his poor old, nioth er; good as, dnly old plots caii, to clothe them by the bye befpreleavf ng!f or tbe&^ of France— Isfie Nocre 5ame Siehoiascb 147 never to return. The 3''oung man smiles through children are to play in delight. He has Hghted a mist of tears. How different, and yet how luna, his jack o' lantern, and. set it high among like he was when he lay a child upon her knees. the little fleecy floating clouds, the leaves.-of .^ Then visions of foreign lands and cruel suf the trees from which the Dream-time's great ' ferings unfold. Scenes of slaughter and blood light hangs, leaves that are wafted by . the shed are enacted before her. She now beholds breezes of the heavens and touched with silver \ a j'-outh stretched out dying in a pool of blood. by the soft light. Then with mysterious, torch He is dead, but he has fallen a tero. The blue he lights the can lies of the skies and puts them skies of France are looking down upon him, as burning through the branches of the heaven's his pure, white soul rises from the dull earth and.

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