SPRING ISSUE 1961 Vol.XL No. 2 THE ALEMBIC P u b lish e d Q u a r te r ly by THE STUDENTS OF PROVIDENCE COLLEGE P ro v id en c e, R. I. The ALEMBIC is published bi-monthly by the students of Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island. Entered as second-class matter at the Post Office, Providence, Rhode Island, December 18, 1920, under Act of March 3, 1879. Subscription $2.00 the year. “ Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for in Section 1103. Act of October 3, 1917; authorized April 9, 1932.” Printed at the Oxford Press, Providence, Rhode Island. THE STAFF EDITOR-IN-CHIEF G. Brian S ulliv a n ....................................................Letters ’61 EDITORIAL STAFF Essay Editor C harles Caley ............... ..................................................Letters ’61 Fiction Editor Brian M ullaney ......... ..................................................Letters ’61 Poetry Editor R ichard L eidig ........... ................................................. Letters ’62 A R T E D IT O R D avid C a ley .................. ................................................. Letters ’61 BUSINESS MANAGER St e p h e n O eh m se n .......... ................................................. Letters ’62 Assistant M ic h a e l S u lliv a n ........ ........................................................Letters ’64 FACULTY MODERATOR R ev eren d R o bert L in u s W a l k e r , O. P. ALEMBIC CONTENTS Vol. XL March, 1961 No. 2 Page Letter from the Holy Father................. ................................... ..... 5 Cover Design.........................................................David Caley, ’61 The End of the Day.............................................. David Grace, ’64 6 Euripides as a Skeptic of Greek Polytheism Maurice H. Bosse, ’64 9 Sunday Thoughts....................................................... D. Barrett, ’61 10 Meaning of Spring.............................................Mike Sullivan, ’64 12 A Brief History of the Fate of Newtonian Certitude Brian A. Mullaney, ’61 13 Memo...................................................................T. F. Maguire, ’61 17 The Stream.......................................................T. F. Maguire, ’61 18 Christus and the Hero Image........................Thomas Crawley, ’62 19 Jimmie.........................................................Brian A. Mullaney, ’61 23 Spring Weekend.........................................................D. Barrett, ’61 24 Repose.................................................................... Thomas Eck, '64 25 South...................................................................... Thomas Eck, ’64 25 Waiting............................................................... T. F. Maguire, ’61 26 Heaven and Hell ..........................................Martin Schwartz, ’63 27 Reflections on an Elegiac Theme................. Richard Leidig, ’62 30 A Day Like All Days............................... Brian A. Mullaney, ’61 31 Reprobus...........................................................William Larson, ’63 34 The Wish.....................................................Alfred Maccarone, ’63 35 Shots from the Past. ......................................................The Editor 36 Vatican City, December 13, 1960 SEG RETERIA Dl STATO DI SUA SANTITA No. 4-9792 Dear Reverend Father, The Holy Father Pope John XXIII has graciously directed me to acknowledge receipt of the copy of "The Alembic", "Quadragesimal Anniversary Issue", which you forwarded for His acceptance some time ago. His Holiness bids me say that the dedication and presentation of this volume brought Him much consolation and comfort, because He sees therein a touching evidence of filial loyalty and devotion. He wishes me to give expression to His warm appreciation and gratitude, and, praying that Our Divine Lord may ever assist and bless the meritorious educational work of Providence College, He bestows upon you and upon the Faculty and Students, His fatherly Apostolic Blessing. With sentiments of high esteem and religious devotion, I remain, Yours sincerely in Christ Reverend Robert L. Walker, O.P., Moderator, "The Alembic" Providence College, PROVIDENCE, 8, R.I. 5 The End of the Day D avid G ra c e ’64 E lay prostrate on his back. He saw only the brilliant sun against a spotless, blue sky. He had lost all sense H of time and motion. The only reality was sun and sky. He became aware that he was completely paralyzed ex- cept for the occasional blinking of his eyes. It was impos- sible for him to do anything else. He was too weak, too near death to resist. He craved to hear the sound of life near him, around him, anywhere. To hear the sound of any living thing became his pitiful dying obsession. But the only thing he heard was the soft rustle of the wind as it skirted atop the tall grass surrounding him. It seemed to be moaning a lament of despair. This was the only thing he was aware of, nothing else. He thought, “How do I come to be here in this field? He remembered, “My family, my friends, people.” Where were they? Something terrible had happened, he knew. What it was escaped him. He brooded silently. The last thing he could recall was hearing of some new international development, an announcement that some grave error had been committed by the nations in- volved and suddenly, this. His body became more rigid. The atomic war had finally and inevitably come. He remembered the destruction and death, and then the si- lence. He had been protected from death by some unknown force. Could it be that God wanted someone to remember the last days of a dying earth. His thoughts went on. He remembered walking through a motionless city and seeing and hearing nothing, nothing but the absolute 6 The End of the Day silence of death. And now, in this final resting place, know- ing his time was near, he became acutely and painfully aware of the sun and sky. They became the important things now and were all that mattered. In his approaching death he had a sudden crystalized view of life. Too late . too late . The paradox sent a surge of lucidity to his mind. He shifted as he feigned to grasp the idea clearly. He prayed for death to wait until he put words to his new found truth. “Anything in the world is good and the goodness dif- fuses itself—wait death—!” Struggling . he screamed it out. The unexpected truth in his soul made him repeat it. He screamed out the living truth to the dead world around him—so painfully, so earnestly. He wanted the last mind to affirm the TRU TH . He shouted it out to the darkness around him and fell back exhausted. Calmly now he thought, “For the first time in my life, I realize the natural things of the earth are the only ones that matter. Everything else is extra, trivial, worthless, and vague.” He knew his actual purpose in remaining alive, and when his time to die came he could do so peacefully. He suddenly noticed that the brilliant sun was gone. It was covered by black clouds and rain began to fall. Only the sun was not really hidden. It had set a long time ago. It was not really raining either; the man was crying silently. Now, in the blackness of night, lying amid the swaying grass, the wanderer, the last man on earth, found his way home, to God. 7 Euripides as a Skeptic of Greek Polytheism M a u r ic e H. B osse ’64 URIPIDES, the great tragedian of Greek antiquity, can be easily acclaimed the greatest of the skeptic E writers. His comparison to other writers is very well expressed in the “Palatine Anthology” : "Seek not to tread where trod Euripides, Poet; his path is hard for men to take. Easy it seems: but he that tries its ease, Shall find it rough with many a thorn and stake. Scratch not Medea’s finger, or thy name Shall die unwept, unsung. Touch not his fame.” Adding to his genius was the time in which he lived. He was born on the day of the battle at Salamis which marked the beginning of Athenian greatness, and he died just before the imperial city fell. Every segment of his life- time offered myriads of first class subject matter to which he did justice. He always remained aloof from public life, lurking notv in his library in Athens; now in his study, a sea-cave on the isle of Salamis. Consequently, he was labelled an eccentric and unsociable hermit. But this quiet, secluded type of life most likely enhanced his perception of the state of affairs because it freed him from conventionality. He was able to see the people of Athens as they actually were, because he was not a part of them. In his plays he criticised the puerile notions of the Greeks. The orthodox religion disgusted him. The in- exorable fact, veiled so long by the glamor of beautiful legend, was evident: if the gods behaved as the stories 9 The Alembic said, they were fiend and fool in one. Thereupon, he dragged the gods into light in play after play. He as- sailed the Olympians from the very altar of Dionysus with the legends that were at one time made for their glory. In “Hecuba” or the “Trojan Women” his descrip- tion is entirely undue to the revered, mythological deity: “Then too of filthy, whining ghost, Lapt in some foul sheet of leather pilch, Comes screaming like a pig half-stickt And cries ‘Vindicta—Revenge, revenge!!’ ” Sometimes he used a reductio ad absurdum, actual- ly making the deity of those times look foolish and ungod- like. Examples of this method are Apollo of the “Electra” who drives children to matricide for the sake of a fatuous revenge; the Apollo of the “ Ion” who first seduces a girl and then deserts her; the Aphrodite of the “Hippolytus” blast- ing in a childish pique three human lives; and the sinister powers of the “Trojan Women” indifferently ordaining the misery of mortals nobler than themselves. Another way he undermines the gods is by making them symbols of the wild forces of nature. For instance, the Artemis of the “Hippolytus” symbolizes the eternal virginity of Nature; and the Dionysus of the “Bacchants” symbolizes the pitiless onrush of the forces of life. On the contrary, some of his characters give cus- tomary expression to all the orthodox beliefs.