Bluets - January 1938

[Cover of "Bluets," January 1938], University Archives, D. H. Ramsey Library, UNCA.

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BLUETS

A Literary Magazine Dedicated

                                                       to the

                                                                                                                                                     
                Expression of Progressive Undergraduate Opinion

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'Twill not be long before they hear

The bull-bat on the hill, And in the valley through the dusk

The pastoral whippoorwill
 A few more friendly suns will call

The BLUETS through the loam, And star the lanes with buttercups.

Away down home.

—john charles McNEILL

BILTMORE   COLLEGE

asheville, north carolina January, 1938

BLUETS

Published by the Students of Biltmore College

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vol. XI                                                                                    january, 1938                                                                         Number 1
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THE STAFF

BUSINESS MANAGERS                                                                              ASSOCIATE EDITORS
     RAY CRANE                                                                                                      LUCILE TANDY
     IDA ROSEN                                                                                                        GRADY REAGAN, JR.  
                                                                         CO-EDITORS                              ANDREW SUTTON
TYPISTS                                                        WILMA DYKEMAN
     EILEEN SMITH                                                    AND                                    ART EDITOR
     ROBERT CAMPBELL                                  GEORGE SMITH                               BILL HENDRIX

FACULTY ADVISER                                                                                     CIRCULATION EDITORS
     MISS VIRGINIA BRYAN                                                                                       LUCY CARLAND
                                                                                                                                CHRISTINE PONDER
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Editorial Comment

"WHERE THE BLUE BEGINS"

There was once a story written about a little dog who travelled all over the world seeking the place where the blue be­gan. When he could not find the magical spot, he returned home, and there in his own basement amid blue smoke he found what he had been seeking so diligently.

People are like that little dog. They are seeking the line where the blue of happi­ness begins. Each person has his own idea and formula for finding it. He arms him­self with courage and strength, girds him­self with knowledge, and all his life fights a battle to find happiness. What he does not realize is that happiness is not some­thing we find; it is something we create. We do not accidentally stumble upon it as we would some tangible treasure house. It is a realization, a sudden conception, that Life is good, and we are fitted into its pattern.

Around us today we see people increas­ing their bank rolls, striving for knowl-edge, grasping for fame and success. These, they believe, will bring them happiness and peace. But the really happiest people that we know probably aren't wealthy. Or fa­mous. Or even exceptionally well educated. They have drawn on a source within them­selves and found a self-sufficient well of peace. Perhaps these other material things can, and have, brought happiness to many, but within themselves they are cold, fragile, dependencies. When a person builds a happiness dependent on money, it may leave him; on fame it may desert him; on friends, they may forsake him. But when a person has found within himself the ap­preciation of beauty, the depth of emotion, the contentment of solitude, he has drawn upon a source that cannot fail him. When he knows that the little things are the great things, when he realizes that the truly abundant Life is something we cre­ate instead of something we find, he is on the road to happiness.

He may find Where the Blue Begins.

When we want a thing very much we put forth courageous and often prodigious efforts to get it; the Revolutionary War, in which our ancestors gave their lives that we might have freedom is a very good example. Also when we have a thing for a long time—a wife for instance—we cease to value it and relax our guard over it. This is our attitude toward freedom now.

Daily our freedom is being encroached upon by many agencies. Crime has long been an offender on this score. The ten­dency toward centralized government and collectivism is also beginning to take its toll of freedom. The faint menace of for­eign invasion is slowly growing and may someday rob us entirely of our liberty. Yet another menace is the abuse of lib­erty by the press with its vulgarity, sen­sationalism, and utter disregard of the right of public people to have private lives. Intoleration has always crimped our free­dom and must be watched closely.

With all these vicious enemies ever ready to take away our liberty while we slumber, it seems advisable, to say the least, that we be watchful. A price must be paid for all good things, and constant vigilance is the only exchange we can make for freedom. It does not taste so sweet to us, who have had it a long time, but its ab­sence would gall us all the more.
   We must guard liberty with eternal vigilance and watch out for gradual in­ternal encroachment especially, because that is not only the most insidious, but also the most likely to overtake us.

A PSALM OF LIFE

Trust   no   Future,   howe'er  pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act—act in the living Present!
Heart  within,  and   God  o'erhead!

*    *

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow prob­ably doesn't mind our borrowing the title and a couple of verses of his famous poem to serve as a theme and example for this editorial to the youth of today, be­cause he wrote it for youth and made it immortal.

"A Psalm of Life." What is Life? We don't know, but we do know that it is a big handful of miraculous power dealt to each player as he enters the game—to be used for good or evil, or just uselessly wasted. Power is valueless, even dangerous, unless it is controlled and put to work with a plan. So,' drawing our conclusions from these two facts, every living person should have a plan, a motto, "A Psalm of Life."

Longfellow's poem is an excellent motto, especially suited to us because it is "what the heart of the young man said to the psalmist." Let the hearts of our young men and women speak in the spirit of that young man and we will have fewer wrecks, more successes, and a better civilization on earth.

If you don't like this motto, you can find thousands of others; they are all free. We are still young. Most of our days are yet before us. Everything depends on the plan we adopt and live by. Now is the time! Make your choice wisely, stick to it, and . . .

Let ms, then, be up  and doing, With a heart for any fate;
Still   achieving,   still   pursuing, Learn to labor, and to wait.

Oh, I’ve Missed You!

james B. keith, jr.

Somewhere out on the mountainside, a dog howled, and on the roof of the little cabin a loose shingle wailed like a lost banshee in answer. Tonight the wind was coming up the valley to play on the harp of the pines and slip its cold fingers into the room through the cracks in the log walls that he had forgotten to fill during the warmer months of summer. This night would be cold, one of those clear, cold nights when the moon forgets to hide behind the deep blanket of fog in the valley, but comes out to make the world a pale, ghostly dream. The trees sang when the wind kissed them and threw long, weird shadows over the land as though to hide the dead clothes they had lost and to cover up their nakedness in shame.

"Is that  all,  sir?"

At the sound of the voice, the old man turned half into the room and frowned.

"Eh!" he rasped, then seeing the slightly bent form of Hong Woo, the Chinese boy he had veritably pulled out of the gutter during a street brawl in the university city of Changsha and made his most trusted servant more than twenty years ago, his handsome aged face broke into a smile. "Oh, yes, Hong, that will be all tonight. Just be near if I want you."

"Yes, sir." Hong bowed lower and slipped out as noiselessly as he had come.

"Blazes, the way that boy has picked up English," he mused and leaned heavily on the cane he carried. It was a queer sort of cane, one that Hong had given him shortly after he had been shot in one of the bandit raids that frequented China during those days after the great war with Japan. A slender rod of bamboo, headed with a little gold Chinese god squatting in prayer, the cane had helped keep him on his feet for all the years since that eventful day.

"China will miss you, Roy," Mac had told him, and he had slapped Mac lovingly on the side of his rugged face and said,

"I'll miss China, Mac, and those heathen devils who tried so hard to get me."

Then he had come here to this little part of heaven and never gone back to the land that had for a time made him forget.

The fire needed another log, and the oil lamps were beginning to flicker out. Hong was getting too careless about filling the blasted lamps. There were not many either. Just enough to give the room an eery sort of look, eery but comforting when the night came, and the cheery log fire fought back at the cold fingers of the wind. He might as well let the lamps go out. He could put on another log himself. No use to bother Hong again.

He managed to make the hobble over to the big chair by the fire. Even after eighteen years, the old wound still pained occasionally, and tonight it was doing its best to kill him. Easing down into the soft folds of the chair he reached for his pipe and tobacco, filled the pipe, and stretched out comfortably. Then he started up. He had forgotten to put a log on the fire. Oh, well, let it go; it looked more cheery flick­ering that way.

The night grew black outside. The last lamp sputtered and went out. Only the fire glowed in the hearth, spurting up little flames that shot streaks of light through the gloom in the room. The little god on the cane bowed reverently in prayer as though afraid to break the still, quiet calm. Old Roy Townsend's pipe dropped from his lips, his head fell forward onto his chest, and the pipe slipped and fell softly into a fold of his jacket.

Gliding through the darkness of the cabin room, as though she were afraid to waken the house, a young girl, hardly out of her teens, slipped toward the chair by the fire. She was beautiful, not a harsh home beauty, but natural with a soft round face, a small slightly curved nose, and full lips. Her figure was taller than natural, but she was well-proportioned.

"Roy," the girl stopped in the middle of the room, almost afraid to go on. Then a young man arose from the chair and faced her.

"Marie! I thought you would never come." The young man resembled the older man who had gone to sleep in the chair a few hours ago, but was taller now that the cane was gone, his hair was brown and waved slightly, and his face was young and almost boyish.

Slowly they approached each other, and the young man drew her close to him and kissed her. The girl smiled as they broke, and the boy lifted his hand and touched a deep dimple that appeared in her cheek.

"It's still there," he smiled.

"It stayed there for you," she said, and kissed him again. "Oh, I've missed you, Roy."

"I've missed you, Baby. Twenty five years. God, I'm glad they're over."

TOO LATE
ida rosen
 

The stream of life welcomes;
It beckons us to  come.
Along its waters peacefully,
Eternally we'd float.

Now here, now there, we'd dock
At any shore we choose.
Why must we wait so long
When all could be gay?

Yet Fate is not so kind;
It will not let us drift.
But makes us wait and hope
Till all we want is lost.

Continue?
Hoyt acker

I mean, freshmen, why should we con­tinue to spend the greatest part of our conscious life and thoughts on books—on learning—for four more years? Psychol­ogists tell us that natural capacity is heredi­tary and that no amount of education can increase it. So, I ask, "Why Continue?"

Let us stop a moment and think. Just what is it we really want in life? Con­sciously or subconsciously we all desire happiness—the ultimate goal of mankind. We each have our separate recipe for hap­piness. Our problem, then, is obtaining the ingredients of the recipe. Under our pres­ent social system education is our "legal tender" for greater happiness.

We need not worry over our "natural capacity"—the fact that we have reached college proves our sufficiency in this re­spect. If we must worry, however, let us worry about our utilization of natural ability.

We might compare our capacity to a powerful automobile. It may be lubricated and have "winter" oil in the crankcase. Seemingly in perfect condition, but it won't go. There is no gasoline in the tank. Likewise we may be blessed with a large natural capacity, but "it won't go." There is no specialized knowledge in the "tank."  We have driven into a "filling station" and have asked the operators, the teachers, for a quantity of "gas."  We have a long way to go

OUT OF THE DARKNESS, WHAT?

                              By

                 CHRISTINE PONDER

Through the sinister blackness, amid the fury of the winds, two shadows, by some
fate inextricably bound, struggle for re­
lease.

Each laments, with moans and shrieks,
the life it might have had without the
other; each vows, with woeful curses, to
get that life it yet can have, each without
the other.

The strivings of the shadows at length
are stilled. The winds and the night are eternal.

I Go Native

Jo jones

I have just finished reading the most interesting article about a lady who has attained the ripe old age of one hundred and four. She has never been sick a day in her life, and what's more, she attributes her long life and good health to the fact that she has lived out-of-doors most of the time, has eaten nothing but raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, and milk, and worn just as little as the law allows. Now I have al­ways loved to have my name in the paper, and I think that I will live out-of-doors, and eat nuts, and raw vegetables, and milk, and fruit, and someday they will write a nice story about my longevity, or maybe it is longitudity; anyway it is something which old people have that other people don't. My boy friend, Clar­ence, told me it was bands which go around the earth from north to south, and sailors tell time or something by it, but since I didn't see any bands, or even a bass horn, going north and south when I was up in an airplane, and since I have never seen sailors telling time by old people, I am sure that Clarence must be a bit screwy.

Notwithstanding, I call Clarence and tell him not to come around to see me for a long time, because I am going out into the woods, and eat raw vegetables, and milk, and fruit, and nuts. Clarence mut­ters something about my not needing any nuts. I don't understand what he means, but I don't like the tone of his voice, so I hang up.

There are no woods near my house ex­cept a few trees in the park, but I decide that they will have to do. I put on my old slacks, my halter, and tennis shoes, and tell my mother that I will not be home tonight. I go to the corner grocery and buy a bottle of milk, some cashew nuts, a can of pineapple, and some green spinach. By this time it is getting dark, so I go out to the park. I start to eat my dinner, but the milk is soured, and the nuts are stale.

That leaves only the fruit and the vege­table. I try the spinach, and I am sure that I shall never have the same respect for bunnies, because they can't be very bright since they eat raw spinach. I have nothing with which to open the pineapple, so I break it on a rock, but the juice spills on the ground and dirt gets all over the pineapple. Nevertheless, I brush off the dirt and pop a slice in my mouth, but something starts wiggling and I expectorate a mama ant, a papa ant, and six little baby ants. I decide not to trust the rest of the pineapple.

By this time I am very tired and hungry. I tighten my belt and lie down on a park bench, but a big, brawny cop tells me to move on and punches me in the ribs with his William—Clarence says its a billy, but I think it was too big to be called by a nickname. I then have a bright idea. If Tarzan can sleep in a tree so can I. So I run and give a flying leap like Johnnie Weismuller does and try to catch the lower limb of a tree. But evidently my an­cestors lost their tails before his, because I miss the limb and land on my head, plowing up enough ground with my nose to plant a field of corn. Finally I get into the tree and find a nice fork to sleep in, but it seems that a big, hairy spider has had the same idea. Now I've never had any particular love for spiders, but if it's a case of spider-bite-me or me-bite-spider, the spider better watch out. So I mercilessly squash him and settle uncom­fortably to rest. Suddenly and uncere­moniously I am recalled from the arms of Morpheus, which is the way my English prof would say "I woke up". There is shouting; there is clamor; there is turmoil. Then suddenly somebody pops a net over me, and I am on the ground before I can say spontaneous combustion, which is what I get when Clarence kisses me. I unroll myself from the net and see a number of people crowded around me. Everybody

starts laughing. It seems they thought that I was the chimpanzee which had escaped from the zoo. Now I am usually a very good natured person, but even the best natures go sour in extremities. I see nothing amusing, and furthermore, I am not in the habit of being mistaken for chim­panzees or any other kind of pansies. I try to look haughty and make a disdainful exit, but I stumble on my shoe string, which has come untied, and fall on my already abused nose, which makes the common rabble behind me laugh even more.

YOUTH SPEAKS

ida rosen

I fear I would make a very poor spokes­man for youth. Indeed, it is my belief that too much has already been said of youth, its faults and short-comings. And words of praise are not deserved. Youth has nothing to say until it has proved it­self worthy of speech and the attention of the experienced and wiser leaders.

Youth of today wants a chance at life. That chance is waiting. We, ourselves, must have the initiative to leave the safety of the stream on which we are drifting and dare the rougher waters of an un­known ocean. It is unfair of us to sit back and shout to the world that all we went is a chance. We have the same chance that our fathers and forefathers had. Condi­tions have changed, but so has the entirety of the world. The essential things are the same.

In my opinion, the aim of youth should be to act. Let others do the speaking!

End

H. grady reagan, jr.

For weeks the drought had continued. Dust was everywhere, seeping through the smallest openings in buildings, choking the air. No records showed a previous heat wave of such intensity.

Cattle were dying all over the prairies. Trees withered and no green grass existed. Snow and ice melted from the mountain tops and replaced quiet streams with roaring, rushing torrents. An old pros­pector had come out of Labrador bearing tales of dissolving ice packs. Eskimos from Point Barrow, Alaska, lashed their dog teams into Nome and told the populace of disappearing floes, glaciers grinding away mountain sides faster than ever be­fore. Reports from the equatorial lands brought news of men and animals suffer­ing^ intolerable heat. The tundra of Siberia was tundra no more. The ice was melting and the ground, frozen for ages, was be­coming soft.

No one knew the reason for this, except, perhaps, three men in a domed observatory high in the Andes mountains. They had a theory—an inconceivable theory—but possibly true. These words they telegraphed to leading astronomers of the world:

BELIEVE CATACLYSMIC DIS­TURBANCE IN INTERIOR OF SUN IS RESULTING IN DISPERSION OF GASES CAUSING EVENTUAL EXPLOSION OF SUN STOP WIRE OPINION.

Answers were non-committal. It was all so inconceivable. For centuries men had wondered and prophesied how the world would end, and now that it