8TACK CLASS -SO'^C- BOOK H^-^P^-T^ ^4-2-4 THE LIBRARY 3| OF HAVERFORD COLLEGE THE GIFT OF 6 MO. (i,- 19 2.6- ACCESSION NO ^SiZ^ THE HAVERFORDIAN VOLUME 42 HAVEKFORD COLLEGE LIBRARY OP APR 2 1922 H^VERFORO COLLEi H.AVEft^ORD. PA THE HAVERFORDIAN MAY, 1922 Volume XLII Number 1 COLUMBUS set out to go to India, the land of Suburban pepper; instead he discov- ered America, the land of pep. He would never have Homes gotten anywhere if he hadn't made a start. I N YOU would like to have a bank account—why not "The most wonderful make the start? There's suburbs in the world" no telling what opportuni- ties it will open up. o o o ^f)t Mtvionmtlt Wm.H. Wilson & Co. Sc ^xmt Co, ARDMORE PHILADELPHIA NARBERTH BALA-CYNWYD BELLAK HARBAUGH'S PHARMACY THE DRUG STORE IN HAVERFORD PIANOS PLAYER PIANOS DDDD VICTOR RECORDS Soda Fountain now open PIANOS FOR RENT The Fountain with Original 1129 CHESTNUT ST. Sundaes Automobile Insurance Also all General Lines FIRE BURGLARY LIFE ACCIDENT AND HEALTH Personal atlenlion to the adjustment of losses S. DUFFIELD HOPKINS, JR. 416 Walnut Street Philadelphia When patronizing advertisers kindly mention The Haverfordian Q —w^ The Haverfordian EDITORS Dudley Pruitt, Editor-in-Chief Norman Eby Rutt John Frederick Reich Nelson Arold White Walter Ames Johnson BUSINESS MANAGER Charlton Bevan Strayer Circulation Manager Assistant Business Manager Frank Plumley Flint Forrest Chapman Haring The Haverfordian is published on the twentieth of each month preced- ing date of issue during college year. Its purpose is to foster the literary spirit among the undergraduates, and to provide an organ for the discussion of ques- tions relative to college life and policy. To these ends contributions are in- vited, and will be considered solely on their merits. Matter intended for in- sertion should reach the Editor not later than the twenty-fifth of the second month preceding the date of issue. Entered as second-class matter March 19, 1921, at the post office at Haverford, Pennsylvania, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in section 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized April 11, 1921. Vol. XLII HAVERFORD, PA., MAY, 1922 No. 1 CONTENTS Where the Ways Divide (An Essay) R. L. Molitor 2 Voyager (A Poem) N.E. Rutt 4 "Thou Art More Righteous Than I" (A Story) Dudley Pruitt 5 Two Poems T. L. Fansler, Jr. 10 Mrs. Gerould: Radical Conservative (An Essay) J. S. Carson 12 A Tale (A Poem) William Reitzel 16 The Streak of Red (A Story) N. A. White 17 Hope (A Poem) N.E. Rutt 20 Ins and Outs (A Familiar Essay) M. C. Morris, Jr. 21 Toil of Life (A Sonnet) Dudley Pruitt 23 A Dollar and Eighty-nine Cents (A Story) C. B. Acton 24 Alumni Notes 28 Where the Ways Divide "Thou wouldst be great; Art not without ambition, but without The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly, That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false And yet wouldst wrongly win." MACBETH'S dilemma is a common one. It comes in many shapes, indeed, and seldom is it clearly apprehended, but to every man comes the inevitable choice between conscience and ambition. What a strange world it is in which the authority of a god can be won only at the cost of godliness, and godliness only at the cost of authority! It is a world estranged from itself, a coward waking in the night, who, to end his ghostly fears, must put a bullet through his foot. So comes the choice between winning and playing fair. If conscience bids us pause to consider "What's success?", ambition subtly whispers "What is fair?" If success has worth, then whatever leads to it must have worth, too; but if success is worthless, what is the use of playing either fairly or unfairly? The resplendent Triumph makes the battle fair, and Peace is fair, for Rome, only when astride of Victory. But if success, as Macbeth could have seen, gets its worth only from the manner of winning, is not an honest failure worth more than a shoddy crown? An honest failure, besides, is harder by far to win. It rests no hope on accidents, and builds not on opponents' errors. It neither sighs for mir- acles, nor shuts its eyes to facts. It may be tragic; it cannot be contempt- ible, though a spoiled ambition would sometimes have it so. Indeed, while conscience must continually be enlightened, ambition must be firmly disciplined. It feeds so greedily on hope that when the time for work arrives it can only go to sleep. If we spare the rod, all am- bition's mighty energy is turned into fat for themorrow that never comes. Our vision then is distorted by its hope-fed dreams. We see through a glass darkly, and our fond indulgence proudly struts under the tin halo of soft self-sacrifice. Ambition dressed up in the robes of righteous- ness sneers at conscience as a worldling. So it was the Pharisees pre- ferred their unfair moral spoils to that success for Israel which Jesus could have given. "Verily, they have their reward." So it is the "Ideal- ist" often prefers an ineffectual loftiness to an actual gain at the loss of his spirituality, and snatching at nobility of character wins but a vain aloofness. So it is that men of all times barter their souls for a barren formula or an empty name held by the foolish to be the highest good. So also do the medieval-minded abandon their talents in the world Where The Ways Divide 3 of here-and-now to line up for free tickets to an eternal loafing ground. The man that snatches at power thereby to do more good seems nobler, indeed, than he who clings to a narrow goodness for the sake of a false superiority. But the principle is the same. For God is not de- pendent on position; he can work as well in one place as another, in the slave as in the monarch. His kingship cost Macbeth all his power of standing for what he held the best. Jesus, we must believe, faced much the same temptation. He felt his powers and knew the common hopes. He scarcely needed any Weird Sisters to tell him he should be king. He had the stuff of heroes in him and his insight into the hearts of men gave him the wisdom a successful leader needs. Surely he would have far greater influence for good as a popular hero than as a mere eccentric preacher. But we know the result of his decision; his ringing call neither to battle nor to monastery but to a life devoted to the greatest worths. Too vitally religious and too profoundly practical for his narrow age, the worths he sought seemed to have no chance to grow or live. All the external authority he could give them was as small as the amount of actual matter which a tree gives its seed to start with. His death was of no consequence in the eyes of more than a handful of his contempo- raries; yet his decision broughthim tothat. He firmly believed, however, that the other course would realize even less of permanent worth; and the best men of the ages have, for the most part, agreed. Since his time men have often prayed that he might live anew in them. We are too hopeful and too greedy. We strain at the intrinsically impossible and let the possible remain undone. Like Barbarossa and Otto HI of Germany we pursue a phantom greatness while the real thing quietly slips away. Dazzled by a name or drugged by false hopes, we fail to see that conscience and ambition cannot be separated. Ambition not for self but for the highest value known is not only nobler, but it is the only kind that will work. After all, it is alike impossible to will highly without willing holily and to will holily without willing highly. But the great mass of self-satisfied and the unscrupulously ambitious care not at all how they will. R. L. Molitor, '22. Voyager I am shipping for an island somewhere almost out of reach, {Wind and rain about me and the sea-gulls close at hand) Where the broken sea churns booming down a hundred miles of beach, Bursting blue and purple on a glare of yellow sand. It's a long way, a long way. And bitter cold the rain. Spattering an open sea beneath an empty sky; With neither moon nor stars by night, nor moon nor sun by day, And not a sign or signal plain To steer the vessel by. I am shipping for an island shut behind a shining shore, {Wind and rain and midnight and the hoarse sea close at hand) Where the jungle tangled lowlands hush the coastal breakers' roar. And the verdant hills roll upward through a sunny, silent land. It's a long way, a long way. But happy is my heart. Watching storm and spume and spray beneath an empty sky; I heed no lack of moon by night, nor lack of light by day For I've no compass, I've no chart To sail the vessel by. I am shipping for an island that I never hope to see, {Wind and rain forever, and forever close at hand) Still, the joy is in the searching, though I never reach the quay.