Thomas Wolfe, page 547
With a terrible effort Cullenden raised his head. His face was chalk white and his eyes were terrible. They looked as if they had seen death.
However, he merely said in an unemotional voice: “Johnny,” then his voice broke. “Johnny, everything you think is true and even that doesn’t half express the whole truth. Do you know what I was about to do when you came up? Well, I was about to wound myself to save my face. Yes, I am everything you think and more. Good God!” His voice was high-pitched, hysterical.
But Johnny didn’t hear the last. He had fainted from shock and loss of blood. Cullenden roused himself, went to where his friend lay and examined the wound. A nasty flesh stab, he saw, that required immediate attention. He never hesitated, but lifted the wounded man up in his arms and started back towards his trench. He had not gone far when a bursting shell reminded him that this ground, no longer covered by the barrage, was open to enemy fire. To go on meant almost certain death. Cullenden knew further that the field would be peppered by the enemy machine guns. But he never faltered, although by now the steel jackets were whining around him.
Cullenden was not afraid now. He had gone beyond fear—despair was now the only state his mind could know. Far away he heard the sound of cheering in the trenches. He knew it was for him—that down there men were hoping, praying for his safety—that men were watching with bated breath. He swallowed the lump in his throat. If they only knew the truth—the truth! He stumbled upon a machine gun emplacement, then pushed onward. Just three yards more and he had made it! As he reached the parapet of the trench, a white hot pain seared his lungs. He collapsed with his load. He knew, then, that he had gotten “it.” Eager hands below dragged the two men into the trench.
Roger Cullenden slowly opened his eyes. A great red stain was slowly dying his shirt. He looked around at the little group that had formed about him. There was not one on whose face respect and admiration was not depicted. Thank God! They would never know the truth. What a fool—a cowardly fool—he had been! With a mighty effort he raised himself and looked at the sad faces around him. “Well, boys,” he smiled, “They got me—got me good. But”—almost inaudible—“I am going out a Cullenden—of—Virginia.” Slowly, flickeringly, his eyelids closed. Thirty seconds later he was dead.
[¬]
TO RUPERT BROOKE
[The University of North Carolina Magazine, May 1918]
I know of one whose name shall never die,—
Who has hurled forth his soul’s immensity
In one fire blazoned passage that will live
“As long as we have wit to read and praise to give,”
And by this burning sentence from his hand:
“There is a spot that is forever England.”
By just this thought, I say, he’s made a name so dear
That closer it shall grow each passing year
To English hearts; it was a blazing thought.
He had the spark,—he lived and loved and wrought
And poured in one short verse his whole heart’s treasure,
Then, daring all, dared give the “last full measure.”
When all which is has faded from men’s thought,—
When we’re forgotten,—our labors set at naught,—
When all to-day is gone,—then men will feel with joy
The written spirit of an English boy
Who died as he lived,—unpraised, unknown,
Unconscious of the mighty seed he’d sown.
When that is gone which men call everything,—
Our wretched aims,—the plots of marshal and of king,
His name will live. I would I could express
His beauty, truth and loveliness.
But I (and you) can only wonder when we read
The mighty love that’s written here; for this his people bleed.
An age may silent be but for one Voice
That speaks its mighty travail. O rejoice
That even one to every age can be
Who has the latent spark, the eye to see,
The kindling heart by deep emotion fired,
The will to write that by the mind inspired.
If all were gone which the immortals gave,
How wretched would we live,—how like the slave!
They’re sent to us at scattered times,—they speak Eternity,
We madly trample under foot the flower we never see,—
The flower that blooms amongst us, buds and blooms, and then
Bursts forth in glorious sweetness for all the race of men.
[¬]
THE DRAMMER
[The Magazine, April 1919]
I love to view the passing show
For that is where true art is,
And surely modern writers know
Just where our modern heart is.
Last night I looked upon a play
That fully won my favor;
A melodrama, by the way,
Of blood and thunder flavour.
And lest you think the program tame,
Meet: “Violet! the Prairie Rose!
The fairest lily-flower that grows!”
For this is all her program-name.
Then Desmond, deep-dyed vaudevillian,
The hero’s chieftest hater,
(Hero’s a rising aviator)
But Desmond drops him—this is killin’.
(Act I, Scene 1. Exit Hero on Stretcher)
For this is all her program-name.
Mary was on concealment bent
From Desmond bold who wooed her,
But everywhere that Mary went
The villian there pursued her.
In vain she scorned her suitor’s suit
He reaches out and nabs her
(Act I, Sc. 2)
And when with scorn she spurns the brute,
The scoundrel ups and stabs her.
(End Act I)
And now we see a towering cliff
(Act II, Sc. 1)
Below a railway trestle,
In agony we wonder if
He’ll do it—And they wrestle.
(Act II, Sc. 2)
Behold below!—a speeding train
He sees—th’ plot is thick’ning,
She fights for life with might and main
But falls—the thud is sickening.
(End Act II)
Now lo! We see wild Yukon chaps
(Act III, Sc. 1)
And Mary—what’s her motive?
(A little tired and pale, perhaps,
From the weight of the locomotive.)
She’s safe!—no!—Desmond knows no pity,
He looks for Mary far and near;
He tracks her from the teeming city
Until he finds her hiding here.
(Act III, Sc. 2)
He looks and laughs with fiendish note;
We really could berate him;
And when he chokes her fair white throat
We certainly could hate him.
(Act III, Sc. 2, Still)
He chokes her till she gasps for breath,
He chokes her fair white throat, alas,
The rascal yet will be her death;
Why should things come to such a pass!
[forgotten stanzas from original publication:]
And then he pleads between her screams
(Act III, Sc. 3)
“Oh Mary, darling, hear me!
Oh Mary, idol of my dreams,
My precious—dost thou fear me?”
So runs the modern author’s theme
’Tis thus they love to treat it—
Avaunt! Ye Greeks that would demean
Its beauty—Can you beat it?
(No, you can’t)
And in this wise we’re bound to feel
We’d like to use the critic’s hammer
Upon his ignominious dome
Or send him to the Old Folk’s home,
When we are witnessing the real
Or reel—I love the drammer!
[¬]
AN APPRECIATION
by Thomas Clayton
[The Magazine, May 1919]
All Japs, he says, are poets then,
When blossoms bloom in old Japan;
Ah! this is common to all men
When blossoms bloom—since time began.
And he is far away from home
And crudely, rudely tries to write
Of something that he feels so deep
Of old Japan, where blossoms keep
Their vigil, blossoms far from sight
In old Japan across the foam.
Now would you wonder if I said
My eyes got bleary when I read
This little story of the Springtime
That comes so whitely to Japan,
The joyous, smiling, rustling spingtime
That brings fond mem’ries to the man?
[¬]
THE CREATIVE MOVEMENT IN WRITING
[The Tar Heel, June 14, 1919]
Men are doing much better writing on this campus than ever before in our university’s history. It is not the writer’s purpose to analyze this movement,—to find and state its causes.
The reason, we think, is fairly obvious. Ten, or even five years ago, the general criticism against college writers and their writing was not so much against its technique and style as against the content. The college men, as a rule, simply had nothing to write about.
But the college men of Carolina have passed through a great adventure and it is inconceivable that, after what they have seen and felt, they should still have nothing to write about. This is manifestly the reason for the new standard.
The literary work of the students on this campus this year has not been sporadic,—it has assume[d] well-defined proportions as a definite creative movement. Creative! That expresses it! Our men here are writing about that which they have experienced, and they are creating real stuff. The success of this new movement is more than gratifying.
Perhaps the most distinctive work that has been done in this line, is the work done under the auspices of the newly-formed Carolina Playmakers Association,—that most unique, but democratic organization which had its inception and is being directed by Prof. F. H. Koch, late of the University of North Dakota, where he directed a similar organization.
The purpose of the Playmakers Association is, briefly put, the production of original folk-dramas, dealing with the lives of Carolina folk. These plays are written by members of the new Dramatic Literature course, taught by Professor Koch; this course is part of the Playmakers Organization.
Let us consider the tremendous possibilities of this dramatic movement. These plays depend on the folk lore and life traditions of North Carolina. Upon its richness depends much of the success of this movement. There is, obviously, no part of the country more widely endowed with diversified character types or with varied folk traditions than our own North State. A drama that draws its production from such a source must be real stuff; it comes directly from the hearts and lives of the people. When we consider that the folk-drama has been one of the most important influences in humanizing the world; when we see the tremendous influence it had over Greek civilization, we may get some idea of the importance of this new movement.
Perhaps that explains the almost amazing success of Playmakers Association this year. Given its birth at a time when the normal activity of our college life was wholly deranged by the S. A. T. C., it has produced in two short semesters, five separate one-act productions, and is preparing to repeat two of these productions this Commencement week. It is not the writer’s purpose to comment upon the success of these plays. Suffice it to say that critical but favorable comments have appeared in two New York dailies, in the Baltimore Sun, which also carried cuts of the productions along with a feature article, and, finally, that a comment and cuts of all the plays produced will be printed in the next current issue of the American Review of Reviews. In addition, practically all the leading state journals carried editorial comment.
The Playmakers Association is already more than a mere campus organization; it is already an organization of the community and, it is hoped its influence will shortly be felt and recognized throughout our state, and beyond.
It seems only fair to say that the Playmakers Association promises to be one of our most distinctive campus organizations. Plans have been made and are even now being favorably considered whereby a student will be given a gold “N. C.” for excellent work done in dramatics, as he is now given the pin for making an intercollege debate. In any event, the Playmakers work is here to stay. Dramatics on an intensely organized scale have come to the Hill.
In other branches the work goes on. The class in English 21, which last quarter organized into a Peace Conference, and published their own Peace Treaty and Constitution of the League of Nations,—a document that received editorial comment of a favorable nature in the New York papers, the Nation, the New Republic, the Survey, and many others, have this past quarter devoted their efforts to the production of a novel dealing with the labor problem in a typical American community. Excellent work has been done in completing two books of this three-book novel. The course has a most unique plan mapped out for the next quarter; the writing will concern the development of our Carolina state.
Writing such as this has had as appreciable effect on the student literary publications; the magazine hastily organized after Christmas is declared to be equal, if not superior, to any that has ever been produced here. The movement is progressing; the encouraging fact is that greater things shall be done.
To you who read this, whether ye be Carolina students or prospects, let it have this significance: It may not be our lot, in our lives here at Carolina, to take part in the more spectacular activities of our college life, in athletics. But if we are not naturally endowed with athletic requirements, if we may not go out on the football field and cover ourselves with mud and glory,—remember: They also serve who only sit and write.
This movement is, I think, but one part of our University’s swift, new progress,—let us, all of us, attach ourselves to some activity and aid in that progress. “The old order changeth,”—we are being carried forward in the deep, strong currents of our university’s progress,—our new university which will add to the glory of the past the greater glory of the future.
Let us swim with the current.
—Thomas Wolfe.
[¬]
DEFERRED PAYMENT
[The Magazine, June 1919]
Persons of the Play
The Man . . . Jack
The Woman . . . Lucy, his wife
The Convict . . . Jack’s brother
Setting: A cabin interior. To left forefront a rude wooden table with red cloth. Thick tableware thereon. Walls garishly decorated with newspaper supplements, etc. Large stone hearth at right center. Tongs, pokers, iron kettle, and andirons. Spinning wheel. Rocker before fire. Two straight chairs at either end of table. Door at right rear. Window left rear. Exit to kitchen shed left center. Trundle bed left rear, with patchwork blanket. Lithograph over door inscribed with “God Bless Our Home!”
The Woman—worn, frail, perpetually frightened looking—is laying thick, ugly pewter stuff and iron tableware on the table. She looks toward the door furtively, and wipes hands on a dirty apron. The sound of heavy boots outside, and an impatient rattling of door knob; then a hammering on the door.
The Woman In frightened voice Who—who’s thar?
The Man Outside, in harsh voice Lemme in, Lucy.
The Woman Wearily Oh, hit’s you. All right.
She unlocks the door. Enter the man, bestial, unshaven, gorilla-like.
The Man Glowering What th’ hell’s this mean? A purty welcome—th’ door locked, eh? Whut fer?
The Woman I—I didn’t think y’d git back so soon. Y’ come earlier’n usual.
The Man Well, whut uv it? Is thet any reason for keepin’ th’ door locked?
The Woman I—I wus afeared. I git afeared somehow, lately, when hit gits dark. I—I didn’t know when ye’d git back—ye’re gone so much lately.
The Man Roughly That’s nothin’ t’ y’—so keep yer trap closed. I’m boss uv these diggins, an’ th’ sooner yer find hit out th’ better fer y’.
He scowls at her a minute, then grips her suddenly, brutally, by the wrist and draws her to him. She shrinks back frightened.
The Man Jeeringly My lovin’ wife! Glad t’ see me, ain’t ye?
The Woman Oh, y’ve been at hit agin!
The Man Mockingly Sure. Hit’s m’ right.
The Woman Timidly But—Jack—hit’s not right—hit’s agin th’ law!
The Man Thet so? Why? I use m’ own cawn an’ m’ own still, don’t I? I don’t sell none uv hit. Whut right’s th’ law t’ stop me? I ain’t ha’min’ no one, an’ if they come botherin’ me, by God—
He pauses ominously
The Woman No, y’ don’t ha’m nobody—I reckon . . . . . . . . but yerself . . . . . . . . an’—an’ me.
The Man In surprise An’ ye? Gittin’ all-fired high an’ mighty all uv a sudden. Whut y’ got t’ do with hit? I guess yer in need uv a little hoss medicine agin.
The Woman Jack—don’t—be keerful! Ye hurt me last time ye—ye got this way, an’ I couldn’t do m’ work fer a week.
