Four Quarters Volume 4 Article 1 Number 2 Four Quarters: January 1955 Vol. IV No. 2 1-15-1955 Four Quarters: January 1955 Vol. IV, No. 2 Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters Recommended Citation (1955) "Four Quarters: January 1955 Vol. IV, No. 2," Four Quarters: Vol. 4 : No. 2 , Article 1. Available at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/fourquarters/vol4/iss2/1 This Complete Issue is brought to you for free and open access by the University Publications at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Four Quarters by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. four Quarters In This Beginning • Page 1 A Story by Emilie Glen Europe From the Reformation ta the Revolution • Page 8 An Article by Christopher Dawson Chatzkel • Page 14 IS A Story by Charles Angoff O A Time to Die • Page 22 A Story by Daniel DePaola The Professor Steals the Show • Page 30 A Story by LeGarJe S. Doughty Poetry • Bronislarv Slawecki, Page 7; • Geoffrey Johnson, Page 21; • Stephen Morris, Page 28; • Raymond Roseliep, Back Cover January, 1955 vol. IV, no. 2 • fifty cents 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/fourquarters91unse Contrihutors i^HRlSTOPHER DAWSON, British sociologist-historiaH, continues his V^ study of European cultural forces. LeGARDE S. DOUGHTY, has con- tributed stories to Prairie Schooner, Arizona Quarterly, Decade, etc., and is honored in Martha Foley's most recent collection of The Best American Short Stones. EMILIE GLEN is widely published and has also beeA honored in Martha Foley's collections. CHARLES ANGOFF is a former editor of Ameri- can Mercury, besides being a prominent novelist. GEOFFREY JOHNSON, who lives in Dorset, England, has published verse in leading English, Ameri- can and Canadian periodicals. FATHER RAYMOND ROSELIEP, a frequent contributor to Spirit and America, is a member of the English Department of Loras College. STEPHEN MORRIS writes editorials for the Germantown Courier. BRONISLAW SLAWECKL graduated last June from LaSalle Col- lege, has appeared in four quarters a number of times. DANIEL DePAOLA is a new contributor. The block print (inside back cover) is by CARL MER- SCHEL, prominent Catholic ceramic artist and designer of the Catholic Chapel at the University of Chicago. Editor, E. Russell Naughton Associate Editor, John S. Penny Managing Editor, John F. McGlynn Business Manager, Brother G. Robert, F.S.C. Circulation Manager, John A. Glischard Editorial Associates: Max Guzikowski, Chairman AisTLN J. App, Bbothek E. Joseph, F.S.C, Daniel J. Rodden, Brotmer E. Patrick, F.S.C, Howard L. Hannum, Dennis J. McCarthy, Brother D. Matthew, F.S.C Circulation Secretary: Joseph I. Donohoe, Jr. Research: Tom Kimon Doulis Typographic Cover Design by Joseph Mintzer Manuscripts and other correspondence should be addressed to The Editor, FOUR QUARTERS, La Salle College, Philadelphia 41, Pa. Manuscripts should be typed double- spaced and should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Annual Sub- scription: Two Dollars. " In This Beginning • Emilie Glen HURDY-GURDY of a dress- Artist, the great man had called ing-room piano dizzied Ker her artist, and she was ready for this nearer to the concert grand night if he said so. "Anyone else " out there . "Mozart to a T, Cori- handling her, their concert man- anne, except for one phrase. ..." ager had told Mama, "slae'd be Her teacher folded down his height booked at ten years old, but wini a hke a collapsible cane, pearhng his Matheson pupil, a debut has got to tones even on this unstrung instru- be sure and mature." ment. Hall filhng out there, fiOing with "Oughtn't the child's mind to he people who had come to hear her on the Scarlatti? ' said Mama, still play, come through wet snow turn- woofing at the great man after all ing to rain, rushed here in 6/8 time these years. "That's what she's through street noise and subway " playing first, you know. roar, come from cfuiet apartments on Poor Mama, in silvered lace for high, from furnished rooms on clam- the debut from mantilla to hem. orous courts, come to hear her play Given a fe^v more inches and a in this beginning. voice, she'd have played the diva. Mama sat her down at the mirror, Hands ice, and a fire all through and took the pins out of her hair for her. She stretched out her fingers a steenth re-do. Mirrors in dressing to the radiator, the dozing kitten rooms round the world if her debut steam hke the pipes at home, mak- went right. ing her not here, not there, not any- In the diamond fluorescence. where, spun around in space with- Mama's glasses, Mathie's, caught out knowing where she'd be when her in their crossbeams; they rayed the spinning stopped. out at her every waking minute, "No'— no. child," said Mathie, his tingled inside her hds at night. voice rough-neat as a glass-beaded "Dampness takes the life out of screen, "that radiator heat isn't good your hair, Corianne,' Mama was " for your hands. saying in her hard sauce voice. Mama rubbed them between hers. "Why did we have to have a wet "Ice, why they're ice. Debuts should snow on this night of nights? " All be in the spring hke I said. I the while brushing the slimsy brown wanted to see Corianne presented to stuff out of the white violet light. the pubhc while she was still six- Mama was wishing it \vould flea teen-— hop with red glints. "You couldn't "We know all about that, Mrs. object to a vegetable rinse, could Kalak. You'd rather exploit her as you?" she'd clamored at Mathie a prodigy than present her as a when he even thought nature's flame ' serious artist. a bit overdone, and puffing her own Four Quarters hennaed hair over balding spots, tips like tiny beating wings. Mama, ' had persisted, "It washes right out. Mathie, they were beaming their Mama spread the brushed b^o^vn glasses like deadly rays. You're to a cape about her shoulders. both making me so nervous I can't "LooI<, Mr. Matheson," she said in stand it—I just can't stand it" . her plushiest tones, "isn't this better own voice jerked out like a sound than pihng it on the poor child's strip under quick thumbnail. >?" head? That hair will twine about "VVhere is your po ise, Cc the hearts of the critics." Its just temperament,' Mama "Then of what value, their criti- t\vaddled. "Doesn't the child have cism? She is not a child to be ex- a right to nerves on her debut ploited with hiked skirts and trainng night?" hair. Her unobtrusive black velvet "Nerves perhaps, but not hyster- " is jeune jille enough." ics. With her hair bundled up, the "Leave me^-please leave me'—" way Mama used to get it off her "We'll leave, but only because neck on perspiry practice afternoons, it's time. A concert artist must al- her features seemed poorly phrased, ways have a moment of quiet before the dimple in her chin, an over- going on.' accented passing note. "Oh no, I didn't mean—please "Mrs. Kalak, what are you don't leave me—please don't. Walk ' doing?" . Mama palming that jar with me to the stage^- of iridescent eyeshadow^ as if her "No more of this. You're making eyes weren't big enough with debut. an unholy sho\v of yourself. If I ' . "Not eyeshadow on that child? don't leave, how can I be down in "You said yourself she's a young front vt^here you can see me when lady tonight. Her little face needs you come on? Think harpsichord touches to show^ up across the foot- throughout the Scarlatti— strings not lights." percussion. "They're not footlights. This is "Be sure to rub talcum powder on " no vaudeville stage . his voice your fingers or they might squeak was pulling thin . "It's her hands, along the keys," Mama said with a Mrs. Kalak, the emphasis is on her hug before the two receded from her, hands." their steps at odds down the cor- Hands they all but kept in a jewel ridor. box, hands only for the keys—no Scarlatti, she must think Scar- tennis racket, no oars, not so much latti. Her hands sweated cold; her as the lifting of a window. Any- throat felt charred. She poured a one would think they were delicate glass of water that went down like as white violets instead of her one rocks; no amount of it could quench strength — better cushioned than her thirst. Mathie's tapers, a bigger reach. All "Time, Miss Kalak," the attend- her growth gone to hands, the rest ant called into her, easy throated. of her slurred over. Powered hands; In his irregular step along the hall yet that unreadiness in her finger- without wanting to be, she lost off In This Beginning his beat at tKe entrance. Coming fingers, the grand, the stage, the hall out on tKe oil-smooth stage, she —piano tones—and she couldn't get hfted her head against the weight outside the atom whirl to hear how of piled-up hair, the audience in she was playing except too fast, way blue mist as if the talcum she'd too fast. dusted on her hands had clouded Applause—applause lifting her on out to them.