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Vol. I No.2
March 1975
The St. John's Review
CONTENTS
Interview with Robert Goldwin
by Chris Hoving •••••••••••••••••••.••••.•••• 1
Play Review--The Alchemist
by John Rees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The Head and Heart of Science Fiction
by Robert L. Spaeth •••••••••...•.•.•••••••• 16
Still Life
by Dennis Johnson •.•••••••••••••••.• _. •••••• 26
"The Appealing of the Passion is Tenderer
in Prayer Apart"
by Richard Davenport ••••.•••.•••••.••.••••• 27
Price of Liberation--a review of The Vagabond
by Elizabeth Gold ••••••••••• •••••••••• ••••• 41
Orpheus
by Arlene Roemer ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 45
Simplicia's Triumph
by Edward Sparrow •••••••••••••••••••••••••• 46
Annapolis Md.
�Production Staff•
Helen Aikman, Derek Cross, · Sue Ferron,
Gene Heller, Chris Hoving, Sheri Osborne,
Mary Rogers, Stephanie Slowinski, Susie
Tischler
Joan Silver--Managing Editor
Special Thanks to Rob Godfrey
and Cathy Craig
�(·
~ --- ~
INTERVIEW
The St. John's Review interviewed Dr.
Robert A. Goldwin at the White House in
December 1974. Dr. Goldwin is a graduate of St. John's and was dean of the
Annapolis campus from 1969 to 1973. The
author of a book on John Locke, he once
directed pub lic affairs conferences for
the University of Chicago.
In 1973 he
left St. John's to serve as an aid to
Donal.i Rumsfeld, then ambassador to NATO 1
and when Rumsfeld became White House
chief of staff, he periuaded Goldwin to
join him. Dr. Goldwin's job as special .
assistant to the President is similar to
the one he did at Chicago in that he
arrang es meetings between members of the
academic and political communities.
On his office wall Dr. Goldwin had
photographs of those seminars at the
University, and he commented that the
idea had been to invite future leaders.
In a 1961 meeting a few of the partici_
.pants shown were a Charles Percy, Edmund
Muskie, ThurgOod Marshall, and, Gerald
Ford.
"I think we did rather well,"
Goldwin said.
Dr. Goldwin plans to return to Annapolis some day to give a lecture. At
present, he has only a title, which isa
"Report from the Cave."
--Chris Hoving
�SJR: As someone who's been in the a- adec
mic and is now in the political world,
covld you compare the Melian dialogue to
the Watergate ~orality?
Goldwin:
(Laughter) That's reallv reaching. As well as I remember the Melian
dialogue, so-called, there is 5ome discussion at the beginning about whether
things of importance between state~
can be discussed publicly. The tendency
to secretiveness is a very difficult political and diplomatic consideration. There
definitely are some things that can be
conducted ~or the national good, the public good, only if matters are kept quiet
and are not debated publicly while they're
being considered. That has always been
true, and is a special difficulty for
democratic societies. It is one of the
things Alexis deToqueville, for instance,
commented on when he spoke of the coming
difficulties in the conduct of foreign
policy for a democracy.
In the Watergate
matter, of course, the problem was that
things were kept secret not for the public good, obviously, but to protect the
ca~ers and reputations of individuals.
There's always that temptation as long
as there is the general unspecified, not
a preference, but a kind of justification
in general for keeping things secret in
the conduct of foreign affairs. But the
possibility of abuse is severe.
SJR: Fine. It is true that what brought
about Nixon's downfall was the existence
of tapes, because all that they wished to
keep secret became public; but that avoids
the question of morality. The Melian
dialogue says that justice and ~orality
�r
f
are simply irrelevant.
Is it correct
then that the only problem is keeping the
truth secret? Perhaps your experiences
with NATO would he helpful here.
It may
be that the answers seem to be simpler
to those in the academic world because we
do not have the experience.
Goldwin: The justification for some element of secrecy in diplomatic and political matters is justice; that is, in order
to bring about J cia iJ l
a1 j& z ti a 9
a
·' 5
desirable objectives by just means
sometimes requires secrecy. Secrecy and
injustice often go together but the justification for secrecy, from time to time,
not as a constant practice, is a just
means to a just objective. For instance,
when you're told so•ethin~ in confidence,
hy someone who's life might be at stake-someone on the other side--told somethin~
in confidence which holds out some promise
of reachin~ a just compromise, it's very
important to adhere to the pledge of confidence.
Revealing it is a betrayal and
may give one some immediate temporary
advantage, but what's wrong with it is
the injustice of it.
I have never seen
that there was a conflict between being
practical and hein~ moral.
It seemed to
me that morality and practicality are two
things that go together. When people
sometimes tell you, "Well sure that's the
right thing to do but we have to be practical," I conclude not only is that an
immoral man, but that he's an impracti c a l
man. Now that doesn't mean that doing
the ri~ht thin g is always easy, but doing
the practical thin~ isn't easy either,
most of the time, and the biggest c o nflict
comes in short-term advantage and in so l id
3
�4:
achievement. And very many people show
their impracticality by reaching for a
temporary, short-term advantage and sacrificing long-term accomplishment.
SJR: Would that long-term accomplishment
come about through a trust between people?
Or to put it another way, if it was pos-.
sible to always keep the immorality hidden,
would there be a problem then?
Goldwin: We're mixing up a lot of things
and I suppose that's unavoidable. For
instance, there's a hig difference in
international dealin~s and in domestic
politics and perhaps the flaw in the original question is comparin~ the negotiations of two sovereign entities of verv
unequal power, too easilv to a domestic
political situation like Watergate.
But
there is something in common and that is
the importance of trust. Short-term advantages are very often sought by a betrayal of trust, when you say you'll do
one thing and you do another. Now for
the long-term, that's the most damaging
thing a man can do, because the people
he has to continue dealing with will not
trust him thereafter, and once you're
not trusted, vou're at a very ?reat disadvantage in political activity in trying to accomplish things.
In international
relations sometimes you get away with it
because there is that element of force.
But not being trusted is a very severe
disadvantage in all important human enterprises.
SJR:
The second question is also somewhat academic--
�5
Goldwin:
We ought to start some ~ind
of campaign to avoid using the word
"academic" to mean "having nothing to
do with important matters." When people
say, "It's just an academic question,"
that means it's just something insignificant.
SJR:
Yes, or it means, "moot." However, we did not mean anything disparagin~, but were using it as Newsweek does
in their article on you. They say you
cancelled your plans to return to "academe" in order to take your present position.
Goldwin: What they knew was that I had
resigned from NATO and that I had accepted
an appointment at the University of Pennsylvania which was to start sometime late
in October. The pre~ident of the University of Pennsylvania very ~raciously released me from that committment so that
I could accept this appointment when it
was offered. But you were going to ask
something else.
SJR:
If John Locke were sitting in that
chair, what would he say about today's
government? Specifically, the rise of
executive power about which we hear so
much today.
�6
Goldwin:
First of all, the great power
of the executive would be of no surprise
to John Locke.
If you read very carefully what he says about the executive
&r~~gative, it's almost unlimited.
The
only limit on it, as I understand Locke,
would be the countervailing forces of
majority resistance to what the executive
might try to do, and that will happen only
when the majority are convinced that what
the executive is doing is dangerous to
their liberties and their lives.
If it's
manifest that what he's doing is for the
public good, even if it's contrary to the
law, according to Locke it will be accepted.
Sometimes, he argues, such actions are
_
the duty of the executive.
So although
he speaks of the legislative power as the
supreme power, Locke wculct not he surprised at the growth of ~xecutive power
in this country. There might be other
things he would be concerned about. For
instance, the great effort at re~ulation
of enterprise in this country would surprise him in one respect and not in another.
Surprise isn't the right word,
he might not be surprised at any of these
develop~ments, once he saw the train of
them. But he would be critical of some
of the regulation of ent~rprise.
Now it
wouldn't be on the grounds that property
is sacred, as conservatives argue. Locke
would never say anything like that. The
purpose of government, he says very clearly, is the regulation of property. What
he would be critical of would not be the
fact of regulation but some of the practices and some of the thinking behind it.
Locke's fundamental a.rgument I think, is
this: the inclination of some men to in-
�7
crease; for instance, increase the yield
on the same number of acres, is a great
force that has to be liberated and encouraged. We would now call it productivity.
He would argue that everybody is better
off when productivity is encouraged and
the regulation of property should be for
that goal. The way to do it is to encourage the acquisitiveness and inclination to productivity of certain people
who have that inclination very strongly
within them. We use regulation largely
to curb the acquisitiveness of certain
overly acquisitive persons and groups.
And that is what Locke would be critical
of. His argument would be:everyone is
better off when the society as a whole
is most productive, and therefore the
regulation of property should have as its
goal the encouragement of productivity.
Now of course there are all sorts of new
elements in people's thinking having to
do with the danger of productivity using
up our resources.
I wonder whether those
views will survive the new economic conditions that are peginning to be apparent
not only for this country but througho;Jt
the world.
SJR:
Newsweek reports that your next
meeting* will be on the economy.
Is this
correct?
Goldwin: No,
SJR:
that is not quite correct.
What will your next meeting he on?
Goldwin:
You mean meeting with the !resident and some outside invited guests?
Well~
let me explain a few things: anytime
�8
the fresident meets with people, it's his
decision, at his choice of subject and
the location and time that he chooses.
Some of these reports in magazines and
newspapers make it seem that I make those
decisions and choose subjects and, in
effect, set up a schedule of topics and
times for the ~resident and that's inaccurate. What I do make is recommendations
in response to questions put to me, and
my recommendations are based on some grasp
of what the !resident's schedule is, what
topics will be uppermost in his mind, what
tasks have to be performed, what deadlines
he faces, and I try to make suggestions
for meetings that will fit in most helDfully with what the Eresident is doing.
Now the next meeting•\-Jill not be a dinner,
but will be lunch on a Saturday. The
topic is still not firm, but it will b~
directed toward the project uppermost in
the !resident's mind at the ti~e.
As
everyone knows. the President will neliver
a State of the Union message late in
January to the new Congress, so that
will be very much in his mind and I
would guess--although it's not definite
at the moment--that he will want to have
a general discussion of the state of
things in the nation; that is, a good
analysis of what the situation is politically, economically, socially, and
some talk ahout what our best directions
would be.
It probably would be helpful
if I explained what I aim for in making
my suggestions to the ~resident regarding
the kinds of people who are invited.
I
*This meeting was held in January. Ed.
�9
have two main thoughts in mind, and this
goes to show how academic people might
he useful to people who have heavy public
responsibilities and also a judgement
ahout the ways in which they are not often
useful.
First, the government is filled
with people who are extremely knowledgeable and, in my opinion, really expert in
the things they are asked to study and do.
MY collea~ues at the US mission to NATO,
for instance, compared very favorably to
any faculty I have ever served with.
They were reaLly well-educated, thoughtful, hard-working people. Because they
must be really expert in the things they're
asked to work on and advise on, they become specialists and it's very ~ard for
them to see--in fact it's wrong to ask
them many times--to see the connections
of the things they are working on with
other things of great importance that
other people are special~s in.
Hence,
there is an opportunity, in fact a need,
for people who see the connections and
make the links.
They have to understand
what specialists and experts tell them
about one part of our policy and another
part of our policy, but they also have to
have some distance from that specialized
expert understanding So that they can see
the connections and see policy itself overall.
At the US mission to NATO my responsibility was to try to advise the am~assador by looking at problems from the
viewpoint of the ambassador; that is, overall policy.
Here in the White House what's
needed is people who can help the !resident view proble~s from the presidential
viewpoin~.
Naw most of the peoEle who
have to study problems for t~e Eresident
�10
and be really expert in them cannot be
expected to view the problems in that
overall presidential perspective.
So
that's one of the things we look for.
The second main point is this:
Academic people generally aren't the best
ones to present some eight-point cr
ten-paint or fift~en point program for
dealing with a problem.
That requires
not only a knowledge, but an experience
with the workings of the government in
all its perplexity, not only within the
executive branch, but in the relatinns
of the executive branch to the legislative and also the relations of the federal government to state and local governments.
There are some academic people
who work out the details of things, but
the ones who have that overall presidenti.al view are not the best ones to aak
for a detailed program, say for urban
renewal or improving transportations systems. What they are good at is giving
an analysis of the problem.
The best
moments are when they say, "What• s wrong
is; we aren't putting the question the
best way.
As I see it, this," and then
they give an analysis, "is what our problem is.
And this is the question we
should be asking."
Now once t:hat' s done,
if it's persusive, if it seems really to
have hit the mark. then the government
has lots of excellent people who begin to
pursue that question and build a legislative program . that is a reponse to that
question.
You may have seen reports that
one of the people in the last dinner seminar with the ~resident was Prof~ James Q.
Wilson of Harvard Who has just completed
a boo~, not yet in print, on crime.
There's
been a lot of attention paid to ~s analy-
�,,
sis and it's being looked into very carefully.
He has taken up the analyses of
other people and has shown that there ·:
really isn't sufficient support in studies
and in data for some of the analyses and
formulations of others which have been the
basis · of major effor-ts to control crime;
for example, i t was thought for some time
that heroin addiction and street crime had
a direct correlation. So that if you can
reduce heroin addiction you would reduce
street crime.
In recent years 1 ~ere reduction was measurable and heroin had been
hi~h, when the reduction was accomplished,
street crime either stayed the same or
went up. What Wilson has done is show
that the analyses of many other people
have not been borne out by the facts.
He
then proposes that we look seriously at
one severe weakness in law e~forcement:
that a very small proportion·- of convicted
felons actually are sent to prison. New
he's not talking about some crackdown on
the streets where you have to incr ease the
number of arres~ He's not talk ing about
any change in police practice. He ~ ~ not
urging, as part of this argumen t , tha t
there be more prosecutions or that jud ge s
and juries be more severe and convic t a
higher proportion of people.
All o f t h a t
he puts aside.
There may be argume nt~ f. or
more or less, but he's not talking a b o u t
that.
He picks up with the law enf orce ment procedure just at the point wher e
there has been a conviction, the jury ha s
convicted, and now the judge has go t t o
~entence; and s4...t<l·S'!·ic• .r'M~It t.Ae.l.o11ow1JJ..!!: for example, in New YorY Cit y , vt.ry ~
of all those convicted of robbery a re
sent to prison, • ~mttttJt"tJ•t '1ltL»t-bet
do., 't "$e.t:ve a dey a £t-Ie~· l,e l711"
�12
.
CCJ11_-•t•.J,
If you put 100% of the
convicted robbers in prison, not for very
long sentences, two years--within two years
you would cut the rate OT robberies in
New York City~~y. He doesn't fi&ure
the deterrent effect on other people w"u'c.h
would result from swift and sure punishment, puni•hment being simply deprivation
of liberty for two years. He's rtot figuring
that in, he's figuring in only the fact
that the people who would otherwise be
eommitting the crime are in jail. Now
that's a persuasive argument and I've
over-simplified it. There's a lot of
argument and information in his book which
is coming out, but my main point is thiss
His argument really works like the search
in a St. John's seminar for the best question. Why are so few convicted criminals
sent to prison after conviction in this
country? By the way, New York City is
not some freak--it's a common thing throughcut the qountry.
In California; there
are. areas where the rate "'iMta y_ • •· -~, lawtat. Why are so few convicted criminals
sent to _prison? T*'e answR Maj k1 there is
a notion in this country that prisons exiit for the sake of rehabilitation of
criminals, but prisons do a very -bad job
of it. We don't know how to rehabilitate
criminals. Correctional institutions
don't correct. They've a very poor record
for it. Therefore, judges and others are
reluctant to send the prisoners to these
institutions that don't work well.
But,
·f at -qc asJc1 , "Is that really the fundamental, the primary purpose of a prison?"
and•e raise the question, in effect,
what is a prison for? One plausible, common sense answer tnat most ordinary citi-
�zens would give is: "The purpose of the
prison is to keep the criminals in some
safe place so that they don't rob my home
or threaten my person with violence."
Now if you once raise the question what
is a prison for and begin to entertain
the answer; "A prison is for the purpose
of separating the criminals from the rest
of society," then you can say, prisons
can do that very well. And therefore,
this man who has been convicted should be
sent to prison.
SJR: You emphasized that the President
makes the decisions on subject matter,
place, time, etc.; but do you select the
participants and, if so, how?
Goldwin:
No, I don't select them.
I make
recommendations.
The !resident selects
them. What goes to him is a description
of the proposed gathering, a description
of the proposed topic, a list of people
from outside the government who might be
invited, a list of people from vi thin the
government who might be invited, and then
two more lists of alternates.
After the
!resident has seen the proposal and has
discussed it with others, it comes back
greatly changed and r•m told what the
!resident ~ould like.
One thing I would
like to emphasize, and it h&s not come
out clearly in any of the other interviews
I've had--I don't think of myself as the
one who maintains liason with the academic
community, because, first of all, the ~es
ident has lots of contact with people in
the academic community, a vast number of
economists in and out of the ~overnmertt
speak to him and work with him all ~he
time--for one example.
But my main
13
�14
objection to this notion of the academic
community is that people in academic life
don't really form a community, except in
certain uninteresting ways. When all the
faculty ·of some university speak as one,
it's on some subject like working conditions or salary levels.
In other words,
not much different from trade unions, from
professional societies of every sort, and
that's not what I have to look out for.
If I am supposed to help in same sort of
liason, it's with individuals from the
academit community, not with the community as a whole.
All I've been charged to
d0 is look out for interesting people who
are knowledgeable, who have spent a lot
of time studying and analyzing and Who
~ight have some constructive things to
say to the people in the White House, to
me, to others, and perhaps even to the
President. And that's what I do.
The Alchemist
by Ben Jonson
review by John Rees
One by one they came a nd they paid.
A nobleman, a holy man, a mercha nt, a
clerk ••• all seeking the same universal
good, Unfortunately, they alJ sought to
spe 11 •• good'' with an ''1 '" (as gold) and
they all "got took! " "As good as any
drawn from a mine! " says Subtle to Pastor
Wholesome (Tribulation Wholesome, that
is, whose 'holy mission' has led him to
accept the profane, namely Subtle, in
order to strengthen the church). And
�we don't begrudge the alchemist these
subtle claims, for even if the good doctpr
cannot strictly turn base metals into
gold, he at least seems capable of turning
all kinds of men into fools, and a fool'b
gold is as good as anybody's
Ben Jonson's play is full of twists
and turns, as serious conniving winds
its way through intricate complications.
The action hardly stops for a minute,
and the actors themselves reveal tremendous diversity of role and of a ttitude.
But when attempting to look at the play
as a whole, it is hard to look at it as
more than the sum of a ll these mischievous
machinations. Its "me~ningu do e s not
seem to rear up large r than the simple
experience of witnessing a performance.
If there is a me a ning to the play, it is
that "you can't get some thing for nothing,"
but Jonson seems to treat this notion
more as a unifying theme than as a
"meaning •; more a s a backdrop against
which he projects hi s scurrilous she nanigans than as the main product of hi s
art. For Jonson, a play should s e r ve a s
light entertainment; something to distract
one from the cares of day to day living .
A value judgeme nt at this point would
be meaningless, but if this reviewer i s
right, and Jonson's overall purpos e wa s
•• light entertainme nt,'' he might not have
needed to have written such a long play ;
a shorter one would not only ha ve s uffi ce d,
it might have been more effective.
As far as our particul a r production
is concerned, it is praise enough to say
continued page 58
- - - -- -- - -- - - --··----- - - --
15
�16
The Head ard
~rt
of Science Fiction
by Robert L. Spaeth
Science fiction is an authentic,
prosperous, ever-growing, alwaysfascinating twentieth-century literary cult. It is international, ·but
as American as jazz music; repellant to
most readers, but as absorbing as a good
dirty book to its fans. It is pop culture, instant Camp, far out--and it was
all these things before the terms were
invented. To its devotees, it isn't
science fiction at all• it is "s.f."
Science fiction is a vast and rapidly
axpanding collection of novels, novellas,
novelettes, short stories, magazines,
antholog ies, histories, and criticism-all preoccupied with the imag i native use
of modern science in fiction, including
the past, present, and mainly the future
of modern science and technology. Almost
all of the titles in the collection were
written within the past thirt y yeattB; a
few classics dot the years more than a
century into the past.
Science fiction is not the literature
of the fantastic, and it has almost no
connection with utopian writing .
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is not s.f.;
neither is Hilton's Shangri-La. S.f. is
sui generis, and what a genus!
If science fiction were not a c ult,
with leaders and followers, teachers and
learners, fans and fanatics, Ursula K.
LeGuin could not have beg un her prizewinning novel, The Left Hand of Darkness,
with these wordsa
�17
From the Archives of Hain. Transcript of Ansible Document 0101101-934-2-Gethen• To the Stabile on Ollulz Report from Genly Ai, First Mobile on Gethen/
Winter, Hainish Cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1490-97.
Nor could Arthur C. Clarke have begun
his novel, 2001: A Space Odyssey, with
this sentence• "The drought had lasted
now for ten million years, and the reign
of the terrible lizards had long since
ended." Yet these are not hack writers
or kook novels, but the work of two of
the best and best-known of contemporary
science fiction writers.
Mrs. LeGuin, the daughter of the
well-known anthropologist A.L. Kroeber,
is often concerned with the sociil
psychology of imaginary societiest the
hermaphrodites who, in Left Hand of Dark~· populate Gethen, the 84th planet
known to be inhabited, are indicative
of her concerns.
Clarke's 2001 is unusual in that it
is based on a film of the same title,
produced by Clarke himself and Stanley
Kubrick. Films have not been the mainstay of science fiction by a long shot,
but the fact that Clarke himself ~s
half responsible for 11 2001 11 was a boost
for both the movies and s.f. Clarte has
an edge on most s.f. writers since he
writes what the fans call "science
fact" as well as science fiction.
2001 has all the conventional trappingsa a shuttle service to the moon
in twenty-five hours, a man-like computer named HAL (fiDr Heuristically
programmed ALgorithmic computer), deep-
�18
space astronauts in hibernation, a f ully
mysterious "ebon slab," hyperspace,
transdimensional ducts. Clarke is g ood
enough to combine such paraphernalia into
a novel with a theme as vast as human
evolution and the existence of intelli•
gence in the universe. 2001 reads
smoothly and quickly, keeps the reader
in mild suspense, plunges him i nto unfathomable mystery. One doesn't long
remember Mission Commander David Bowman or Astronaut Frank Poole; the real
protagonists of s.f. are theories,
possibilities, impossibilities, and the
sense of wonder.
The popular success of 2001 has been
shared by few other science fiction books.
In 1969, The Andromeda Strain, by science
fiction standards a medlocre and predictable novel by Michael Crichton, enjoyed
immense popularity. Crichton tried
again in 1972 with an improved effort,
The Terminal Man. Fifteen years ago
Walter Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz
was widely read and widely acclaimed and
deserved both. But these novels are not
hard-core s.f. Closer to the vital center and also popular, largely with highschool idealists, for similar reasons as
those behind the popularity of The Fountainhead, is Stranger in 4 Strange Land,
by one of the most prolific scribblers in
the field, Robert A. Heinlein. Thirteen
years after publication this impressive
novel continues to sell and to fascinate.
Best-selling science fiction is but a
tiny tip of a huge iceberg. Below the
surface, out of sight of the New York
�19
Times Book Review and the best seller
lists, are found the •fforts of the luminaries of recent American s.f.,
authors such as Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke,
de Camp, Farmer, Heinlein, Kornbluth,
Pohl, Stapledon, Silverberg, Van Vogt,
and others. Even deeper below the surface are the great classics such as
"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,"
by Edgar Allen Poe (c. 1844) J From the
Earth to the Moon (1865), by Jules
Verne; "The T1.me Machine" (1895), by
H.G. Wells. And also an endless supply
of junk. (But then, as someone once
said, ninety per cent of any form of
literature is junk.)
Poe, Verne, Wells, Aldous Huxley in
Brave New World (1932), and George Orwell in 1~84 (1949·) give badly-needed
respectab1.lity to science fiction. But
with the possible exception of Wells,
on• suspects that the real s.f. essence
isn't .there. They are too concerned
with society or politics or horror, and
perhaps they are just too good. For t he
genuine article, the world had to wait
until about 1940. As C.S. Lewis, himself a fringe science fiction writer,
said in his 1966 essay, "On Science
Fiction" a
I had read fantastic fiction of
all sorts ever since I could
read, including, of course, the
particular kind which Wells practiced in his Time Machine ••••
Then, some fifteen or twenty
years ago, I became aware of a
bulge in the production of such
stories •••• perhaps five or six
years ago, the bulge (wasJ still
continuing and even increasing ..••
�20
In one short generation, admittedly the
most explosive generation ever, a literary
form and a literary cult became defined-defined by thousands of new books and ·
stories. By 1959, it was becoming intellectualized, and one could hear Heinlein
lecturing on the subject at the University of Chicago, giving a deadly serious
definition of the genre he helped to
create a
.•• that sort (of fiction] in which
the author shows awareness of the
nature and importance of the human
activity known as the scientific
method, shows equal awareness .: of
the great body of human knowledge
already collected through that
activity, and takes into account
in his stories the effects and
possible future effects on human
beings of scientific method and
fact.
In 1966, c.s. Lewis, in the essay
quoted above, went so far in this direction as to divide science fiction
into five "subspecies," one called
"eschatological." If there is a trend
here, it might parallel that unfortunate
decline in the appreciation of jazz
music, now as much stu~ied as enjoyed.
The scienc~ fiction fan would probably
deny the e x istence of such a downward
trend, and he ought t c know. But who is
the archtype of the science fiction fan?
This may be the best question to investigate. This writer, aware Of the dangers
of generalization, sees him as follows:
He is a bright and lonely high-school
senior in a small isolated town in the
�American mi~west, a reader since he was
taught how, having passed quickly through
fairy t a les and sports stories, havir g
I i~gered a I ittle too long on comic books
then abruptly giving them up at age thirteen.
It is he who gives science fiction its
large audience and its g reat spirit, he who
pays tre r o ya It i es of the I a borers. in the
vineyard, re who makes a· mockery of theories
and de f initions of science fiction.
Does th i ~ ycur~g man care whether We I I' s
"The Lard Ironclo.ds• (1903) predicted
armored warfare? whether Verne's T~enty
Thous~r~ Leagues Under the Sea ( 1869 )
anticipat e d submari n es? whether Hugo
Gerrosback c o ir.ed the wor·d "television"
(and made an awful r::ur) in Ralph 124C41+
( 1911 )? w~: ether .,slow g lass 11 or "psi
power .. wi II beco r~1 e rea I it i es or rerna i r·
fantasies? He do es not. He reads books
t h a t h e c a r' n o t p u t oo wn , t h a t r e a c h h i s
fear of tte stran g e and unknown, that
stimulate his growing i~agination, take
him far away from Iowa, into space, into
the f~ture, int o exotic worlds that are
alI Eomehow present to his own mind.
This omni~ c rous reader has studied science in high school, knows that the sun
is a tre~endous hydrogen bomb, knows that
Einstein sho~ed that time can slow down,
knows wl'"lat computers can do, knows that I i f e
is being created in test tubes. He has
heard of lasers, DNA, fly-bys, mesons, gravitons. For him, science fiction turns
all o! ' this · into ' adventure, mak@s it more
human, more interesting, makes it his. The
publishing industry goes one better, and
rr.a k e s i t a I I a v a i I a b I e.
Oh, yes, it is available. The young man
need only walk tc the drug store. There
he will find magazines--Analog, Galaxy,
�22
.
Stories, Fantasy and Science Fiction, If, Fantastic Stories--all published
mont h ly-or bimonthlv. alI costinq sixty
or seventy-five cents, alI measuring about
five by seven inches.
In those magazines,
and in other I ess we I I known 11 fanz i nes•
(fan magazines) which he must get in the
mai I, he f i nds the latest stories, book
revi ews , irate lett e rs, "science faci:.,"
edit orials, and now a day s even a I ittle sex-is i n his dog-eared copy of an old Galax~-118 e e i r1 her a c ros s the room, an g I e d away
g
from him, her smooth back bare, the I ittle
g lobe of on e brea st visible ••• •--happening ·
in th e 23 rd ce ntury. There he also finds
numer ous paperbacks, seventy-five cents,
ninety- f iv e ce nts, one-twenty-five, ~ossibly
a Hu go or Nebul a ~ward winner, some of the
greats repri n t~d, many written just last
year.
(The H~ g o awards are named after
Hugo Gernsback and g iven by the yearly
World Science Fiction Confer~nce, the Nebula
awards by the Science Fiction Writers of
Ameri ca .)
Dow n tr e s treet in the pLtbl ic I ibrary
he finds the f i c tion shelves heavy with
hi s favo rite s : t he o ldies (W e l•s, Verne)
th a t h e hasn't g ot a round to, tr.e great
anthol cg ie s ( ed itor s : Groff Conklin,
J u d i t h M r r i I I , Damon ~ i g h t , Ben Bova)
e
that he knows so wei I, the curiosities
(Science Fiction for Peo le . Who Hate
Sc1ence Fiction , and hundreds of just plain
goo th1ngs.
At the I ibrary he recognizes some
familiar faces--fan s of detective
stories (nuns and older people), of gothic
r om a n c e s ( I a d i e .s ) • I n I a t e r y e a r s h e w i I I
fee I simi I a-r I y simpatico with movie buffs,
even with addicts of ••porn," but he wi II
be, while at Harvard or in the u.s. Army,
~mazin~
�I
i
,
..
confused and disgusted by the incessant
readers of the comics he dropped at thirteen.
The film, "2001 ,"finally came to this
young man's town a few years ago. He
saw it but felt uneasy: his imagination
was not used to having ready-made pictures
presented to it, despite the corny iII ustrations in the s.f. magazines. He recently
saw ~Fahrenheit 451" on TV, but he is too
young to remember the other s.f. movies
such as "The 21st Century" in tl:e thirties,
and •• Des t i nat i on M c n '' and "The I n vas i on
o
of t h e Bo d y S n a t c h e r s '' i n t h e f i f t i e s •
But he won't give up and is waiting for the
film version of "The Terninal Man," not
knowinq of the bad revfews.
Sometimes he feels I ike talking with
others I ike hirrself, since he wi II not get
to the national s.f. convention (Discon II,
Washington D.C., August 29-September 2,
1974), much less to· the World Science Fiction
Convention. He has to be satisfied now
with a membership in the Science Fiction
Book Club, Garden City, New York.
Next year ·in coli ege he wi II find kindr e d s p i r i t s ;
b.Y t h e n h e wi I I
d eve I op a
sl ightlyembarrassed feeling. Then he wi II
learn how different science and s.f. re a lly
are, he wi I I discover to his horror that
much of the politics in s.f. is much too
right-wing for his taste, he wi I I learn to
abhor scientology and wish it had no conne c tion with s.f., he wi II grow ashamed of himrself for the thousands of hours he has spen t
on · what he now wi II ~a II "esc.ape I i ter-ature,.-hours spent escaping from Iowa, to which he
never intends to returr. He learns now that
there are high standards in I iterature, that
most of what he has enjoyed doesn't measure
up. How could he have enjoyed sentences
�1
such as ~Three humans came back to earth
from the fungoid world of Nacre, bringing
with them eight mantas--eight intelligent
alien beings" or got excited by such sentences as, "She was silvery metal, thixotropic, anistropic, tamed by the science
of her people to flow and move I ike flesh"?
So adolescent; so long ago.
This young man growing older rapidly
now restricts his reading of s.f. to periods
of depressfon, periods when his need to
escape is clear and distinct.
In order to
defEl.nd himself, he reads Huxley, then Poe,
even Wei Is and Verne, He learns to be
slightly discriminating in his taste, even
within science fiction. AI I tris he keeps
rather quiet, being used to I one I i ness anyway.
He f inds at one point that he no longer
gets the o I d fee I i ng from what he is
reading, that he is not escaping at alI, not
even enjoying. He concludes, reluct2ntly,
that what he I i ked a I I a I ong was the junk-the andrei ds, the fungoi ds, the naol i, the
orgs, videophones, galactic wars, earthshire, the colonization of the planet Arcor.
So he becomes a card-carrying member cf t~e
club, aware of the world above but fascinated
by the world of s. f ., renewing his subscription to Analog but scoffing at its editorials,
an s .f. expert at co II ege parties, countering
Humphrey Bogart with · J .G. Ba I I ard, often
sneaking off for TV reruns of "Star Trek,''
but occasionally being alone in his room
devouring two, three new s~f. novels in one
lon g nigh t . Much later he wi I I discover
other electrical engineers with much the
' same adolescence--and feel much ~ore
secure about himself.
�25
given birth to better
examples of cults, but among I iterary
cui ts of the breadth and sha II owness
of science fictior, there can be few other
contenders for the top prize. Moreover,
current facts indicate t~at there may
be building a new wave comparable to that
of the l~te f ifties. Hardly anyone predicts a demise for s.f., for unlike detective stor ' es, gothic romances, and
westerns, s.f. is open-ended, as openended as science and the human imagin a tion
themselves.
-St. C loud, Mi0nc 00 t a
June, 1974
Americ~
'.
1
I
l.
''
'
j.
)
'
~ ay
hEV€
·-·--- -
-
�StilJ L:i.fe
26
My temper won the first round,
And I'd be angry yet
If hating you could make a difference;
But I've grown too old to hate you,
And I 'w. too young to forget
How wrong I was when I call P.d you a "-'Ot:Jar1.
A stone gets trampled under foot
And never needs to cry,
And no one in his right mir.d ever loves one.
If I'd known you were a st at ue
I'd have look ed and walked on by,
Or maybe praised the artist who hac made you.
You cannot take the credit,
N0 r need you take the blame,
For being such a life-like imitatjon.
It does not serve my purpose
To try to mak e you cry from shame;
Be si des, t he blue steeJ. of your eyPs might
tarnish.
If jt were in my power
I would m
elt your ice shelJ
And warm the deathly coldness of your heart.
Then surel y those who follo,ved
Wouldn't fall the wa y I fell
Into the trap of loving d ead perfection.
There's nothing left for me to do,
And I won't begin to try
To do again what's bound to destroy me.
I've won my right to live now,
And I'm not afr aid to die
Knowing that I never will possess you.
by Dennis Johnson
�.. ·r
l
)
j
li
27
l
'
':The Appealing of the Passian.
_ Tenderer in Prayer Apart ' '
is
1
Stanza 27, line 6, The Wreck of the
Deutschland--Gerard Manley Hopkins
I
!
1
I
!
They that go down to the se.a in ships,
that do business in great waters;
These see the works of the LORD,
and hi s wonders in the deep.
For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy
wind,
which l1fte ~ h up the v1aves thereof.
They mount up to the hea ven, they go dmvr.
agai n to the d epths:
thej r so11l is mel t ed because of troub lE.
They reel to and fro, and sta gge r like a
drur.ken man,
a nd are at their wit's end.
Tt·.en thE~Y cry unto the LORD in their troubJ.t! ,
and he bringeth th em out of their distr esses
He maket h the storm a calm,
so that the waves thereof a re still.
Tten are the y glad because the y be quiet;
so he hringeth them unto the ir d es ired have n
Psalm 107: 23-30~
King James' Bible.
The Chr iEt ian lo ok s at God' s creation
and believes it to be sup ported by Goc' s
Word.; thE found at; ion of d i v:i .r~ e re a son up holds the world of things and events. Tte
poet is chee red by the beauty and wonder
he sees shining forth from God's cre a tion,
but he is soon confronted by the hard hor. ror of tb E-: VTorld, God's stern majest y . He
must look faithfully for the divine r e ason which sup norts all of the works of
each of God 1 s days. For Gera rd M
anley
�28
Hopkins, a Christian poet, the horrible
waste of a shipwreck, the wintr y demise
of the Deutschland, is transformed into
an event charged with divine significance.
The stormy airs are born ar,ain into the
air which harb ored Eas ter, the balmy air
of Spring. To begic here is to begin at
the core of "The Wreck of the De-c.tschland •11
To be gin he r e i s to listen to the poet's
inquisition of h:i.s heart, the mott.er of
his b ej~g . It is to list en ve ~y caref1~ly
in ord e r to underst ~n d how thA poet is able
to accept and be cheered by the terror of
one of God's shipwrHcks.
In the mid s t of h i s p o e try , i n thE~ m:i.c st.
of hi s maki ng, thE-; poGi. st.op;:. · i r·. wonch~:r·
and perhaps in cha gr tn . He h;=t ~; b e en describing a most horri. ble scenP: .q sh~ p
carrying two hundrE-· d pt~oplE-! r 11n s.ground
on a s a ndb a r and wrec ked o~ a frightfulJy
da rk a nd cold mid.-wiL tE-!r' ~ ~ i E; h t. Thc-;re
is litt le hop e for r e scue . TtA pnPt ca~ .
only begjn to describ F"~ th ~~ h e~ Jr.J.F~ ssn P ss
in panic which ens~ ea there on th e sh i p.
His react icn i s emc.i_; ional. AJ.J . t h~ s b-!rror has brought him to t t-: nr~; ; b=:·trs wh~ ch ·
a r e inappr upr:i c: te.
18
Ah, tou.ch0d in . o1..:r bovrE-:::· nf bo ne
Y
Are ymJ 1 turn f~d for .qr. f'-XC: lJ . ~;l t- E-'
sma rt,
you !
Ha VP.
hPl'f::
m :~.l: r: vJord s b :-" E!A.h
q_Ll
al C.D8
f:r· c-r~ rrtP
,
Do you l--motrJH' of hr! i t:g jr · mP ,
h eetrt.
0 unteach a bly af1 e r e vil, but uttering
tru th ,
Why t e ars! is it? t ea r~; such a melting,
a mad riga l start!
1
1
j
y
I
�revel .g nd ri.ver of
N(; vr~J·- e l d (-"ring
YCllth'
Wta t car it be, - th i ~: glee? tlw go0d you
havt-: the re of yol~r own?
of the poe t to the gr jzzl y
trappiLgs of t h e sh i rwr e ck a r H r emi.n isce nt
of the important emotional e:A1Jeriences of
the poet dGscrib ed in the first p a rt of
the poem . Those first tcn stanza s comprj sP 8. s ize ~1b] f' chunk of th e p oem. Tte :/
cornrjr tE~ invocation, prs.ise, a nd exhortab on to p rod,_lce a n ac c oun t of the poet's
conve r si.nn to th E~ Christi a n life and his
und e r ~. tand:1 r.g of wha t it must grow to be.
God i s d c~ scrjbed there as a hunter of
sort s ; one who b ea ts duv.Jn ma n's h P.art into
submi!:;ston and i n so drJ~.rg is then most
m rciful • .,Though the hunt is horrible the
e
results of it a r e sweet. God finally e stab J.ishes his rightful place as ma ster in
the hea rt: of man.
Th i~ re ~c t i . cn
2
I did say yes
0 E.t lightening and lashed rod;
Thou he a rd s t me. truer tha n tongue
confe ss
Thy t e rror, 0 Christ, 0 God;
Thou knowest the walls, altar and hour
and night:
The swoon of a heart that the swe ep and
the hurl of thee trod
Hard down Wlth a horror of helght:
And the midriff astrain with l eaning of,
laced with fire of stress. ·
In stanza 18, the poet's recognition
that- -his description of the shipwreck has
taken a melting .start is a new "swoon of a ,
heart." Hopkins realizes that his he a rt
has thwarted God from his rightful pl ace
29
�30
there. The poet 1 s her-n·t h:1~·: bt-~0.n to1;~hed
and turned by the intense ernoti or; pr0ff!nt
in his descrlption of thE-~ ~::hjf\1/I'C':ck: word:·;
are made to break fror.· thE~ pont ,qnd hE~
must stop ir the middlP of h·i~ wrjting.
The ·poet hn.s SlJCC1-iml:f'~d to the rP~i.ct·J c.n
whieh any ff~8l:ing pr!r!:":on with ljm:t(~d
faithless sight wc1•Jd haVF! conr• to; he crj~'~s
tears of sorrov.r n.nd cesp~lir. His tE!~·.J.I·s ;:?.rn
an improper react.j on to thP r:ru~h, thf'~ horror, which js impJicj.t ir the descrjrtion
of the v.rreck. He must. r"prove r~irnseJf. Hi~~
reproval coMes to bE~ courled vT~th the re~l
iza tton that God 1 s fin[Yer is pre sent fnr
the poet; it has touched his heart. It
is through God that the poet was given the
grace to realize thj ~: error anc1 to go on
and continue the poem. Il js ~lso throU[h
God 1 s grace that the p CJ(~ t 1 s hc2, rt, though
"unteachably after evil" i ~; abJ e to utteT'
the truth of the sea-wreck. ThA i nc~ident
de scri bE~d earlier ir. tbe pof~n' and the poet 1 s
realization in stanza 18 are bott::. experiences of cor:.version j r: v.rhich thE~ ~or:t hns
been awakE~ned. God plays an irr-portant, ~"'
even inspirE_tjo.r...a1 part in eaeh' experience.
The poet has been awakened to tte gap inherent between God and man.
There is a significant connection for
the poet between his experiences of God's
mastery and the nun's concrete and emphatic final experience of God's mastery
which he is describing. Part of those
tears of the poet's, discovered in stanza
18, seem to be a response to the valorous faith and present-mi~dedness of the
central figure of the shipwreck, the tall
nun, as she is described in the last two
li~es of the seventeenth stanza&
Till a lionness arose breasting
the babble,
�31
A prophetess towered in the tumult,
a virginal tongue told.
1
The 'tall nun rises as if part of a vision amidst the pandemonium and horror
of the sea's storm. There is confusion
all around. Some passerigers were forced
to take refuge in the ship's shrouds and
riggings.
For many of these the wind
took them and threw them on the ship's
deck, crushing them. The others suffered
a death by drowning after being made helpless by ·the cold wintry air. The loud
winds combined with the undecipherable
cries and shouts of the terrified crowd
to produce an unholy roar.
But the nun
rises as a lioness would; she replaces
the the roar of the night and tolls out
commanding advice.
In doing so she lessens the horror of confusion.
The tall nun's insight there in the
storm comes from her knowledge of God
and from God himself. She, like the
poet, is touched by God's finger and
this inspired deed results. Her time at
the wreck is a time of coming close to
God; the gap between God and man lessened.
Her breast is so sweetly infused with
God's love that the difference between,
the distance between, God and the tall .
nun is greatly decreased. The nun's
counsel in the midst of all this wailing
nourishes the crowd. She is indeed
breasting the babble there. While rising
up to fend off this confusion, the nun
is at the same time giving spiritual suck
to the remaining passengers whose terror
would otherwise have only increased.
She breasts the babble and in so doing
feeds them the milk of God's Word, which
is full of grace and truth. The nun is
present at the wreck and reminds the
�32
-
.
.
crowd by her command1ng prescence that
God too is present even in the holocaust
of the storm. Part of the poet's amazement in stanza 18 is that just as the
tall nun provides spiritual nourishment
by her action in the storm, so too does
his heart utter truth, God's truth, in
his account of .the nun's deed, irregardless of his tears. The poet realizes
·that there is a similarity between the
inspiration he receives and the inspiration of the nun. While speaking the
truth and nourishing the reader with his
account of ~he nun's bravery, the sounds
of the words suggest that the poet is
receiving suck from his mother of being.
From his heart which is touched by God's
finger, the poet udders truth.
In her brave act of rising up out of
the storm, the inspired nun becomes a
new sort of Tower of Babel. ~efore she
appeared the language of the night was
scattered and senseless. The shouts and
screams were uncontrolled ~nd each went
in its own direction. The confusion was
complete. Her appearance dispelled part
of the panic. She united the previously
dispersed attention of the crowd and rivetted it on God by her one voice and .
one-mindedness. Thos e pride ful men, described jn Genesis, said in their one
voice that to make their tall tower with
it~ top in the heavens would be t o "make
a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth."
(Genesis lla 4). The tall tow e r of a nun
is certainly conc e rne d with the fear of
being s cattered abroad at this time, but
her r ea s on for rising up is not to make
a name for hers e lf, . but rather to proclaim, a s any bell in a tall church tower would, God's name and his pre scence
�33
midst of the storm. The nun's
bravery is a great cause of cheer for the
poet. In addition to bringing the attention of the people on board the fated
ship into focus, she also sets them thinking on their present relationship with
God. The urgency of t'he shipwreck and
the nun's fine example force those passengers of the Deutschland to consider
important questions which are too easily
put off. With the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit, the nun, by her deeds, proclaimed the tenability of the Christian
life for those on board. She was to help
those dying by bringing Christ's name to
·their last breath, perhaps. Her actions
· might change the lives of those passengers
who would survive the wreck, bringing
them to dedicate their spirits to the
Christian life.
The nun's inspiration is reminiscent
of the inspiration given to Christ's disciples on the day of Pentecost. The Virgin Mary can easily be imagined during the
descent of the Holy Spirit as we read of
this tall nun. Considering the Pentecost
as a part of the new creation which followed Christ's new birth at Easter, the
descent of the Holy Spirit can be seen as
undoing the damage done by those descendants of Noah, the builders of the tower of
Babel. On the day of Pentecost the Holy
Spirit filled the disciples of Christ and
they "began to speak in other tongues as
the spirit gave them utterance." (Acts 2a4)
Then it is as if the descendants of those
dispersed prideful tower builders are re.gathered, each to hear those blessed Galileans speaking in their respective languages, gifts of the Holy Spirit. Instead
of restorin~ one common language to all,
in~he
��of his poem. It is a comfort that the
nun is blinded by the salt water. It
shows the way in which the poet's inappropriate tears must flow in order to be
fitting. The poet's tears are faithless
emotional reaction to the wreck. As the
ntin's eyes are blinded by the sea water,
so must the poet's tears blind him to all
views but one view. That one thing to be
sought, to be seen, must be God's mercy
present in the terror of the wreck.
There seems to be no beauty or grace
in the destruction of lives -- especi ally
when death visits man in the dreadful
waste of a shipwreck. Lives are wasted
without reason, or so it would seem to a
person without the grace of special sight.
It is this special sight which the poet
must learn to accept and develop. Hopkins
comes to see the shipwreck charged with a
great significance. The circumstances of
the destruction come together and are soon
realized as an extension or reworking of
Christ's passion. The poet is better
able to understand why these five Franciscan nuns, God-fearing, God-loving Christians, are drowned and destroyed. As the
poem moves along, the apparition which the
nuns become is made both clearer and more
significant. The reason for the tall nun
being described as the first of the five
in the twentieth stanza becomes readily
apparent in stanzas 22 and 23. The poet
recognizes an important relationship between the reported image of the five nu..ns
holding hands together in a circle and the
five wo,..tnds of Christ crucified. Just as
the five . wounds of Christ are his "sake
and cipher," ~o do the five nuns gathered
together calling for Christ to come quic k
be·come a five lived and leaved f avour .:;:-, .
35
�.......
36
pride.
They are graced to partake in the
passion of Chrl•t. Together they become
a signal, a si&.n• a "cinquefoil token," a
memorial for Christ's suffering.
The nuns are being martyred by the hunter-God who is addressed as a martyr-master in stanza 21. Th~ir new role as a
"five-leaved favour'' sets them up to be a
five petalled rose, the flower of martyrs.
The·~s• togetherness as a rose seems
suited to the new air which the poet creates for the wreck -- the new air of the
poem. Out of the cold howling storm,
Jesus, the martyr-master, is said to see
sweet heaven astrew in showers of lilies,
The transformation which Jesus sees in
the storm is transmitted to the listener,
and all of a sudden, there is an air of
Spring in that mid-winter's night. This
is. fully fitting. These five daughters
of st. Francis of Assisi, each daughter
of one of his five stigmata, hls gift
:from Jesus, h.is gift to shate with Jesus,
are seen as baptized in this storm. The
winter air is warmed by the Holy Spirit
and they
Are sisterly sealed in wild waters,
To bathe in his fall-gold mercies,
to breathe in his all-fire g;:Lance s.
The new air of Spring is present to witness the nuns' new birth at their death
by drowning. The sacramentality of
their death is discovered along with the
Easter air and the poem is born over again,
too. Th~ eye of man cannot see th~ special nature of.the nuns' death. He must
take on the sight of the martyr-maeter
who sees Spring and Easter in winter. The
poet is learning to strengthen his newlyacquired sight; to be cheered by this
�37
strange celebration in the death of the
nuns. His descriptions bear witness to
his new insight.
This special sight even discovers a
beauty in the de Gth of these nuns. The
nature of the s a craments is seen to pervade
the whole incident. The nun~• death
described by the poet in stanza 28 is
reminiscent of stanza 7 with its striking juxtaposition of Christ's birth a nd
death:
7
It dates from day
Of his going in Galilee;
War~-laid grave of a womh-lif e grey;
Manger, maiden' s knee;
The dense and drive n Passion , and
frightful sweat;
Thence t he discharge of it , there its
s wellin g to b e ,
Th ough f e l t before , th ough in high
flood yet-What none would have known of it •••
Even Christ's pre-natal life is described as being destined to his horrible
passion. Paradoxically, Christ's passion
was called to a new birth three days after his death, on Easter. Christ's passion
is described as the birth of a baby would
be described and as the consummation of a
marriage would be described. The poet
asks what would anyone have known of this
passion. The sounds of the words also
ask what nun would have known of this suffering; what would a nun have known of the
consummation of a marriage, and the throes
of birth? After reading only the first
part of the poem the answer to these questions must be that there is no one person,
and especially no nun, who could participate
in this suffering, Yet, we read on and
�38
hear of the t a ll nun a nd her fo ur s isters
as they are drowned. They do pa rticip8t e
in Christ's suffering . Rap~i n a vi s 1on,
the poet describe s their doom:
28
But h ow s ha l l I ••• rr.ake me rc•om
ther e :
Re a ch me a ••• F a n c y , COT"l€:~ f c-1 ste r-Strike you the s i gh t o f it? l ook ~t it
loom t h e r e ,
Thi n g tha t s h E~ ••. t he r e the n ! the:
Ma s t e r,
I pse, t he only one , Christ , K~ nE , He nd :
He was to c u r e t he ex tr emit y Wht~ r e h F•
had c a s t he r;
Do , de a l , 1 o r d i t w j _1. b J t v :i r g a nd
dead ;
Le t him ri de , h e r p rjd e , in hj s t r iumph ,
d e spa tch a nd ~ave d one wi th h i s
do om trJ.e r e .
The nun•s death is ~ ~ e consummation of
her marriage to Chris t. She has come to
share inGrist•s pas sion, a nd inde e d, she
has come~o know the horror of it a s well
as the r~lease of ~t . Sh e is g a the red into
divine arms; brough·i to the rest of her
reward. The poet, - ~ ~ ft behind, left alive,
a nd not involved wi ·c, ~ ··. the phys ic a l a spects
of the shipwreck, breathes out a nd exclaims
a t the e nd of his gloom, "Ah, the re was a
heart ri ght," There .is g re a t reli ef in
these words; it is as ~ f part of the poet's
heart pronounced "unte ~ch ably a ft e r e vil"
in the eighteenth stanza .is cure d a nd
reborn after witnessing the valorous
death of the nun with the right heart.
With .the first pa rt of the poem there
is a great concern on behalf of the poet
for his heart. The heart, that part of
the body which governs the weather of the
spirit, is hunted and followed by God, the
"Orion of light." In stanza 3, the poet's
�,.
,,
trapped heart fled "dovewinged" and "carrier-witted" to the heart of the Host.
The move was one of necessity. He was
hemmed in by gaping hell behind him and
Christ's frowning face before him. As
told in stanzas 7 and 8, man's heart,
first being "hard at bay" is finally all
out with it. Hemmed in by God's truth,
man's heart ie forced to flush out its
evil regardless of any desire of the
heart's wishing. The poet's concern at
first in the poem is with his own heart.
When he recognizes a love and beauty in
another heart, that is, the•heart · righ~
of the tall nun, he is drawn to it. He is
drawn to the heart of the nun which would
prompt him to exclaim''
the breast
of the
Maiden could obe y so, be a be ll to,
rjng of it, and
Startle the poor sheep bact! is the
shipwreck then a ha rve st, does
tempest c a rr y the grain for thee?
The heart of thA nun can be imag i ned as
a beating bell in her bre a s t; b eati ng its
right deeds and b ea ting its right spirit.
A bell catching the at ten ti~Jn of those
hunted souls, passengers of the Deutsch land, and profoundly changing their view
of the reason behind the wreck. By her
loud cri.es of "Chri st cor.1e qutckly," by
gathering the cro s s to her b reast, the n1m
stands sair.ted, blessed to b e much more
than sinful flesh \vould u sually permj. t.
It is as if sh e is beating he r b re as t; the
peniten t sinner confessing her sins. But
there i s no dwelli.ng on the sins wh:Lch a re
brought to the t a ll nun's mind. She recognizes he r sins and nnashamedly asks Chr l. st
to c ome and gathAr her up. sne rAco gnizes
1
39
�40
Christ 1 s· divinity and her own mortality
and is not shaken by this recognition.
Out of the stormy waters of the sea, instead of crying out in faithless fear "We
are perishing," the tall nun calls for a
quick and happy death.
The poet goes on after Chrjst's coming
for the nun and explains that she has been
gathered up for the patience she demonstrated and for the pain she endured. He
pleads that the
·
Heart, go blRed at a bitterer
vein for the
Comfortless unconfessed of them-Whose heart is asked to bleed? We are reminded of Christ's death on the cross as
recorded in St. John 1 s gospel: "But one
of tbe soldiers pierced his side with a
spear, and at once there came out blood
and water." (John 19: 34). Here then
Jesus's heart comes to play with the heart
of the nun ana the heart of the poet. Jesus is the light of man's heart. His heart,
made of man's flesb tool is not unlike the
nun's heart of the poet s heart. TherE-~ is
a great sharing going on between tbe three.
So, there is a rea son for the slJffering
of the 'WI'eck of tbE::: Deutsc9l&nd. Fror:J a
peculiar outpouring of Goa s grace, five
Franciscan nuns were to ce gj ftPd "'rt tb the
gift of part of Chr1st 1 s suffering. In
taking on this gift and ir remajning faithful they were to startle thP survJvors or
the wreck to see the Christian life in a
new way and perhaps give those ~ho were
drowned the gra~e of a Chrjstian death.
There is another effect of the vrreck. The
poet was able to ~ontinue the "''ork tbat,
the tall nun started when she made the
stormy seas seem calm. It is with a lightened heart, a: heart full of faith, that
Gerard Manley Hopkins can dedicate his
poem
�To the
hap py me mor y of five Fra ncisc an Nuns
exil t-: s by the Falk Lai!JS
d:rcn,vn f~d b E~ t vreer: miC.nieht and morrdng of
Dec. 7th, 1875.
by Richard
Daven~ort
PRICE OF LIBERATION
The Vagabond
by Colette
trans. by Enid McLeod
Noonday Paperback $2.95
"Yes, this is the dangerous, lucid
ho;J.r, , , "
The Vagabond is a courageous book.
Colette took a plot teetering on melodrama, added her exquisite prose, her
perception, honesty and humor, and made
what could have been a very bad book a
very good one. In a certain way, that
mirrors the story of the heroineaRenee's
heart and brain and eye interpret and
~indicate what many would say is mediocre material.
Renee Nere is a JJ year old divorcee,
earning her living by dancing on the
stage. Her solitude, after her disastrous marriage with a high society philanderer, is a privilege, a pleasure, and
a terror. It is disturbed by a wealthy
bachelor, Maxime, who becomes her admirer,
then her lover. But their affair is
disrupted by her theatrical tour of the
�42
province s , a nd it is the n tha t she chooses
her work and h s r independ ~ nce over the
comfort of his love.
The woman who chooses the ple a sure s
and terrors of work a nd soli tude ove!' love
is no puritan. She uses a sf ~ nsual lang uag e, that lingers backstage, a t dogs,
f a ces, landscapes, kisses, roses. Colette
is able to make one see and touch with
wonder what one has glanced at a tbous a. r~d
times. S~e not only presents the sensual
world, but presents its metaphors. Renee's
senses are attached very strongly to her
intelli g ence, and she and her author discover a n earthly grace in a bunch of snowdrops or the crevasses of a human fg_ce,
or a frightening perception in the objects
of a common household.
It is Renee's dedication t o h e r intelligence and sensitivity that push her to
ffiake that most difficult of d e cisions,
that of choosing solitude for th e rest
of her life. Yet she understands love
so well:
love and compa nionship and the
pleasures of the flesh.
Pmong all the
thousands of kisses one finds in fiction,
her description is among the few worth
remembering:
" ••• For the lips which kiss me are
just the same as yesterday, gentle
cool and impersonal, and their ineffectiveness irritates me. But all
of a sudden they change, and now I
no longer recognise the kiss, which
quickens, insists, falters, then begins again with a rhythmical movement,
and finally stops as if waiting for a
response which does not come.
- -···-
····--·
·
--
�43
I move my head imperceptibly, because
of his moustache which brushes against
my nostrils with a scent of vanilla
and hon8yed tobacco. Oh! ••• suddenly
my mouth, in spite of itself, lets
itself be opened, opens of itself as
irresistibly as a ripe plum splits in
the sun. And once again there is born
that exBcting pain that spreads from
my lips, all down my flanks as far as
my knees, that swelling as of a wound
that wa nts to open once more and overflow--the voluptuous pleasure that I
had forgotten."
Maxime is kind, generous, and wants
to marry her. Why does she refuse him?
She gives one answer to him and in a certain way it is correct:
.... ,You will understand that I must
not belong to you or to a nyone, and
that in spite of a first marriage
a nd a second love, I have remained
a kind of 6ld maid, like some among
them who are so in love with Love
that no love appears to them beautiful e nough, and so the y refuse themselves without condescending to expla in; who repel E~ very se11timental
misalliance and return to sit for life
before a window, bent over their
needl e , in solita ry communion with
their incomparable vision. Like them,
I wanted everything; a lamentable mistake punished me ...
But to herself sh8 gives
truer answer:
11
Except for this sorrow,
become again what I was,
say free, horribly alone
the
h a rd~~~
have I not
tha t is to
and free?
�44
The momentary grace which touched me ·
now withdraws .itself from me, since I
refused to lose myself in it. Instead
of saying to ita "Take me!" I ask
ita "What are you giving me? Another
myself? Ttere is no other myself.
You're giving me a friend who is young,
ardent, jealous, and sincerely in love?
I knowa that is what is called a
master, and I no longer want one •••
A look of his can rouse me and I
cease to belong to myself if he puts
his mouth on mine? In that case he
is my enemy, he is the thief who
steals me from myself."
In her renunciation, Renee suffers,
but as Colette reminds the reader, suffering is not so terrible--a woman can
grow "supple" in the act of survival.
"It is only in pain th8t a woman is
capable of rising above mediocrity,"
Renee · says, a statement that pe rhaps
characterizes ~er1, too, her painter friend
Hamond, the publicly scorned artists of
the music hall. "You wanted to brighten
me with that commonplace dawn, for you
pitied me in my obscurity," she thinks
of Maxime. She accepts that obscurity,
and the worries about the rent,· her age,
her act; memories of her lover; extreme
fatigue; and the sight of an unknown
lovely village from a train window. To
be a "vagabond" presents its own l:::ondage,
and Renee shall never escape from the
past. In her victory, and Renee truly
considers it a victory, she gains nothing
more nor less than Renee.
--Elizabeth Gold
�45
b y Arl Pne Roe me r
ym.~ p1.!1y musj c for us tba t. we
ome ym.n· A.UC j 8 nce,
your r eeF..; } ver!::.
It is whfHl
b€~C
It 1 ~ whP. n yot.J lo v ~.· E11rydice thn t you
becomP thP qudi f n~P~
t b R r (-; C 8 i V E~ I' •
Ycu le;:3ve us for h f~r .
Eur,ydic E~ tP c cmc s ycmr hRro , but not ours.
Yc,u sE~t as jd c~ your mu ~:ic, our mus ic,
so that Y011 m:i rht h ~1V8
before you thE=~ b r!a1J t y, trw ve ~;sel
into which to pour .
We used t o be .r-onr ve ssfd s --you have
.q b n nd r::r:.ed us .
TbE~n srw lt.'R S tr.:.k r:~ n from you .
Yc,11 A.b ;:.1 ndor·ed us in ord er
to pur sue-~ her. Whf~ r , you doubt e d in ord e r
to know, to be certain, to
behcJld her in c e rt8.in ty, you lost her.
Then, Orphe us, you did not come back to u s.
You v.rent
to sol i tud e --to death in life,
and y ou san g ou t.
You sang for yourself becausE: you wished
not to die.
You sang, because you w:i.shed not to dle,
but you sang ·
of death.
We never had you again-you neve r came back to u s.
You reststed us, and brought us bitterness
and despair in song.
Your mustc--you sep a rated things.
�46
Simplicia's Triumph
Note on Junior laboratory, Examples and
Problems& Problem 1, (a)
The problem is to determine the maxi mum height attained by a ba ll thrown
vert ically upwards int o the air from a
height of 10 rreters above the ground
with an initial velocity of 20 mRters
per se cond. The most ge neral form of
the " distance - t ime equaticn," s = s 0
+ v 0 t + tgt2, is given , as we ll as a
value for " g " i n m/sec2 : the mean ings
of the words, " up ," and " down ," "ground"
and "air," and "ball" are also g tven,
but the volume, materia l, and welght of
the ball are not .
The problem can be solved , relatively
mindl ess l y , by fol l owing the hint and
solving the first derivative of the distance-time equation for "t" wh en "v"
o,
•
({ 0 = 20mps - t9. um sec 2 ,,v and then
u 1
1.e.,
using that va l ue of "t" in the distancetime equation itself to determine " s ."
But once we beg in to reflect seriously
about this procedure, we are led tn
making the following observations and
approaches to a deeper understanding of
it.
Observation 1. The d i stance -time
equation is g iven from the start. How
i s it given to us? It is presented as
the happy o ffs pring o f a chance but
passionate romance, which. was
the
romance of the imagination with the
possibility that the "acceleration;"
that is, the second derivative of a
~
function s(t) on the s-t plane,qd2s/dt2:
of a certain motion, is constant. The
name of the constant is given as ·~g."
=
�47
The details of the bold courtship of *'d2s/
dt2 = g•by the imagination, following its
successful flirtation with the more modest
"d2s/dt2 = o,"' are given on pp. 1-3 of the
text under discussion. In that place is
also to be found an account of the birth
and growth of the equation as the fruit
of this union.
Observation 2. The problem is given
after the distance-time equation has been
modified by the conditions of the problem
and, as so modified, graphed. The modified equation which is graphed has this •
formaqs = 10m+ 20 mt/sec + (-4.9mt2jsec9
and is explained as followsa
"By using a negative sign for
the •acceleration of gravity• we
are simply stipulating that distance is to be measured upwards,
that distances from the surface of
the earth are to be taken as positive."
Nothing in the setting out of the modified equation has been said about the
meaning of the phrase "acceleration of
gravity." Nothing has been said about
·h • up aM down, the air and the ground,
and gravity, come to enter into relationship with the " + " and " - " signs of
pure quantity-relationships.
Observation J, The stipulation that
the distance "upwards'' has to be reflected
in the equation as "positive" and the "acceleration of gravity" prefixed with a
" - " sign shows that the manual understands
the motion of the ball to its maximum height
to be essentially the relating of a difference of the quantity "t" to a difference of the quant1ty "s;" and so that motion can be essentially grasped through
quantities defined along the co-ordinate
�48
axes of time (t) and distance (s). Motion
is understood as something that is essentially imaginable and intelligible and existent prior to and wholly apart from any
of its determining conditions. The dis~ance-time equation exists, in itselfl
quite independently of the heavens and the earth, the air and the ground, up and
down, the weight, material, and size of
the ball, and the change of its velocity
in feet or meters per second ot minute
with respect to time as it falls from a
height to the sutface of the earth.
In
its purity it is splendidly indifferent
to any of these thing s. Thus, for the
manual, there is no difference at all between~y = ax2 + bx + c~and 6s = kt2 + vbt
+ so·"'
It is true that the first lS on the
x-y plane and the other on the s-t plane.
But this makes no difference.
For a
function of two variables is a relation
that one varying quantity always has to
anothe r because of a rule, so that when
one of them is given, the other is given
also. And this is precisely what motion
in the distance-time equation is presented
as.
It too turns out to b e a relation
that one quantity, distance, has to another,
time, such that when one is gi ven, the
other is g iven also.
Observation 4. There fo re motion dis~
appe ars in the equaticn.
For just as it
is i ffiposs i b le in a function to go from
one point to the "next" point, b ecause
there is no next point, and so the baroq ue definitior. of continuity in a
function has to be constructed, used as
a test on every point of the functicn,
and sat isfied, b efore the function can
be called continuous, $0, it is impos-
�sible in the ir::at~ lna t:iou to distingu ish
between a " moving " pc int and an infinite
se ri e s cf different p o ints wh i ch det e rmine a n infinj t t?. s .:'. ries of distance-time
relations accordir.g t (' some rul r~ and sati sfying at every p~ int the f orma ] def i n iti on of cont i nul t y . There i s n (1 way at
alJ to d istingu ish between a pcint mov ing
accord i ng to the d istan.-;e -tirr.e equation
and a sc~t of or dered pairs of qua..nti t i es
"s " and "t" or: the s -t plane. Bu t since
ther e i s no difference d i s c e rni bl e be tween tht·m, th Pn tlu:;y are the same, a nd
"mo ti on " can :r1ean no more than those or d "' r e c pa j r s c1 va 1 u e s •
f
But then ther f~ must be someth i ng wrong
in the manua l' s analys i s of motjon . An
unde rstanding of mot i on based on equations
relating positions and times of i ndividua l
motionless points and without, j_ n addi t i on ,
up and down , heavy and light , and the
ground and the air, seems far removed i n d e e d fr o~ a genuine unders tanding of motiol! as that word is usually meant.
Furthermore , "here " and "there~" which
are presuppos~d l ri t!le notion of distance,
and "nJw" and "th.en," which are presu.p posed in the notion of time, are in no
way distint; uishat)le in our experience
from "on" and "under," up and down, and
"above" and "below." They come and go
together. And so if the manual should
insist on disting uishing the s-t plane
from the x-y plane on the basis of the
experience of distance and time, or on
some other basis, we must also allow that
that same experience, or other basis,
gives us also up and down, on and under,
and above and below as well as the
ground and the air. And this means that
volume and weight, and "effort" and "re-
�50
sistance" are given also. These things,
then, so far from being essentially foreign to the austere chastity of the distance-time equation, must be lurking in
it as its silent and intrinsic co-determinal, ts frt)m the beginning.
Obse rvation 5. The equation wor·ks.
Whj? There is both a place and a ner-:d
for a rr.ore direct :c·f·]z;tion being shown
bPtween it and the fact that it doRs
work.
There is a J..'lace for an under::;tandinv ·if mntion that is not rooted
esser1ti2illy in th·~ .irn<.:t.f~:inc-ition; that :Jhows
that the: " + " and " - " signs of the rnotisnless ~·:ymbols do n;Jt becomE" related to
experiet; tially mt=:afaJrt. ~d quanti ties after
the heavens and the r-·arth, scrubbed clean,
have b(c_, en introduced into the august pr,"sence of the symbols ~r the lordly equation, but that they have been so related
all alongt that reveals, by showing what
the symbols of the P-quation truly symbolize, what its true c>rigins are, what it
is really saying, and why it is true.
The P·qua tion must bf· shown to be suffusr-·d
with becoming before we get it. Or, better, becoming must be shown to be suffused with the equation prior to our imaginatior..
We will now proceed ~o such an understanding. The first account of the birth
of the distance-time equation, that it was
sired by human Imagin~tion out of Possibility, the fruit of the youthful indiscretion of an over-spirited mind playfully revelling in its own beauty, we will
dismiss as the work of modern mathematicophysical poets. No, we shall say, the
equation has other and far deeper source~,
and a much more noble, solid, and respectable set of parents. However, we will
�not approach these ultimate parents directly. Rather, we will make several
successive approaches to them, clarifyi~g our notions as we go along.
51
First Approach
The first app1·oach is throggh the relatively mindless solution of the problem.
Why does that solution work? It works
because to the initial distance from the
ground, "s 0 )' there is added another dis tance. Wha't is that other di s tance? It
is the d istance it takes for the ball to
go from 20mps to Omps. How is that dis tanc e determined? It i s determined by
finding the time it takes to go from 20mps
to Omps upwards and then, multiplying
that time by the initial velocity, " v 0 "
to get a distance "s "--and everybody
knows that"s = v • t : be ca use "v = s/t" by
df-:f initio.r~--adding that di.stanc e to an-other d ista.' 1ce. 'rhh-; otf1er distance is
fou~~~d. by multirlyincr, t~1at sa:r,e time " t ,"
squared, by "g/2"::-ancl everybody kn ow~
that "s • ;:;/2 • t .: :. ," b•.:cause " g == s ,lt<- "
by df!finjtion--and tn=n adding that 3Um
to the ini tial ii3tance. On ly that sum
sh ·J ;Jld really be a diffe r-ent;e becaus e
the force of g ravity i.3 pu l ·l i ng d own and
it is s':. ipi..llated that distance is to ':-Je
m·2·:U3 ;1rr:d £'rom the gr:>und up. In othe r wor ds ,
the solut ion is to d e termine two d i stances ,
"so" and "(v 0 t - m4. <)t2/sec2)," and then
add them to one another. So much for
that! Next probl Pm!
Ob ,j ec t ion to t.l'te First Appr oach
FIRST SPEAKER: Eut wait!
Tell me a gain
�r
52
what the quantity ''(v 0 t - m4.9t2/sec2)"
refers to. Did you say it was a distance arrived at by subtracting one distance from another? Or that it was a
distance arrived at by subtracting two
other things from one another which are
proportional to that one distance?
SECOND SPEAKERz I don't think I und erstand your second alternative. But then
I don't ne ed to because both "v0 t" and
"m4. 9 t 2/sec2 " individually yield distances,
and so that whole quantity which is their
d i ffe r ence must also be a d istance.
lSTz Do you know why your formula works?
ZNDz No.
Some guy f i gured o ut the most
general solution of the second order differential equation "d2s/dt2 = g ," but I
haven't the faintest id ea what that has
to do with the rise and fall of the bal l.
I j~.tst plugged in the values f or "t" and
solved the equation.
1STz Do you care why it works?
2ND: Of course I do, if your que st ion
"Wh y? " rnean9 anything . But I d on't
think i t does .
It ' s all a mat t er of how
you define things .
1ST: W ll, p e rhaps it i s and p e rhaps it
P
isn't. We 'll have to explore that .
But
y o u r~al l y do want to know why the equa t io n works , if therP is a why?
~HD:
YPs . Abso l ut e l y yes .
I never li ked
ju s t p l w~g i ng tn valu es t o these equations
I did n ' t unders tand. That ' s what s cares
me off fr om physics . So go ahead , if you
�kn'>W why .
jSX; Well, it' s rea lly all quit e cle ar
fro m Ga lil eo . What you are really tr y i ng
t o f i nd out i s t he d is tanc e comp osed of
three d istances: the i n itial d istance,
t he d i s tance the ba ll would t ravel upw
ards i n un i form mot ion if nothing hindered it, and the distance through which
it fal1~ from the tim e it leaves the
thr ow e r ' s hand until it r e aches it ~ maximum he i g h..~.
2ND: I have no id e a what you mean. How
does the ball 11 fall 11 from the time it
leaves the thrower's hand until it reaches
its maximum hei g ht? It goes up, not down,
that whole time!
1ST: W ll, it does and it doesn't.
e
It
goes up, but always more slowly. That
is because it bec omes su bj ect to the influenc e o f g ravity the minute it leaves
the thrower's hand and so begins t o g o
down. Look at it this waya if there
we r e no g ravity at work, the ball would
keep go ing up and up forever in uniform
motion, for there would be nothing to
stop it. And its distance would be proportional to its time of travel and its
initial velocity. That is to say, its
distance upwards would be expressed by
"v 0 t, 11 where 11 V 11 is 2 Omps and "t" is
wholly undetermined.
But gravity is at
work. As soon as it leaves the thrower's
hand, the ball becomes subject to its action, i.e., the ball is in a condition of
free fall.
But in a condition of free
fall, the velocity at any time is proportional to the time of travel. And therefore the ball, starting with no down-
�54
wa c d ~3 v f- J o c: i t y , w i 11 g r ~1d u a ll y a c q u 1 r P
sam ~ with the passagE of· tim~.
And at
s orne t i rn e , it rn us t have i.:t ~" rn u c h d u wnwa rds v ~ 1 o c i t y as i t ha ~; a l wa .v s had upwa.rds.
At that tim~._, "t," thr:" ball vvill
ha V!'' rPac h("d its maxim um h :• igh t.
AftPr y o u find that t ir:It ', u~~·- -L t t')
cornputf' the upward .3 cJj:.:;tarJCi' aTd th.-·
rj,.;wnwar d :::; distance, ~~i .< rJtract tn· :)· \: ') t ;d
f'r ,)m thP first, add t!tr.:. :1 L f'f• cr ._, nc' t< •
the i fl i t i 3. ]_ d iS tan C f-> ' ::l Jl d ,'/ J '.< I \ ' '~ : ,. n t i. t_ •
Do you see how I ha'/' :--;h )Wn _v-:-;L~ wh y ttv-'
distance-time equati'H; 'N :J rl\.::>? Tl i'-' rr~aximlAifl distance, "s" will :·:-' '-qu::.Jl t :-; thee
initial distance, "s0" and t ru' di f'z\"'r ~ r,c··
between two distance0, thF" u p·.var·:l~3 distance travelled durin;r tht-' tlmt=~ "t" at
I
'
••
\,
l.~
"-~ '
t
20-ps r i • e • 1 "v 0 ....,. ( ., ..... " , n. [ .>~.IC' t:: "v" .1" ~ '? l_.t'• ·~ fi"ed as ••s/t,.) 1 and t. hP downwarc cl L·;L
r">•.J
tanee travelled during that saMe time
"t;'' i.e., 11 4.9mt2/sec2 .. ( becauso;.~ "g" L;
de fine.d as in tft/s ec2 anJ d i~:; tanc e in the
free fail si tWltion is p1·r>I·ortional to
the square of the time of f a J 1 . .
•
Objection to the
Se~C'nd_.~J212Fc ;~C?!i
'l1 hot.';::'. a 2,~1Jd ;nc.
You
mu.st be kidding. Yo~ must really take
2NDI Ha ha hal
Me for a foo1J
1ST: Why?
2ND: Why?
Do you mean to -:ell me that
in the same time, "t," th;:-, ba~J ~an go
'Joth upi'Vards a.Q9 dowm.,'ards a certain
distance? What d~ you take me for?
Maybe my first answer was mindless, and
maybe I don't know why the equation
works,
bu.t yo~r solution is a thousand
times worse than my ignorance.
For you
�55
pretend to tell me the truth, and you
wind up telling a bigger lie than I
ever dreamt of!
Third Approach
lSTr So that's it.
Know, t hen, my philosophical physician, that you are quite
rig ht in what you say. There is indeed
only one time and so only one distance,
an upwards distance. And so it is quite
improper, or at least not wholly true,
to say that Lhe distance from hand to
max i mum can be arrivE-d at by subtracting one dista nce from another.
Sin2 e you show y o urself worthy of
thaJ2 things, you. will now knov~ t h e true
reason for the distance-time eqt1ation.
The fact is that the upwards motion of
the ba ll is continually slowing do~n.
And this is because the force of the
e a rth 's g ravit y is produci~g continually incr e asing d.ownwards :i ist~1nces of the
ball at alJ instants of its travel upwards.
But it continually retains the
instantaneous upwards distances which
are produced by the force of the initial
throw upwards, the force of inertia.
And so -ch(;se ins ~antan eo us downwards dis tances are constantly and increasingly
coming int o conflict with the upwards
on~s, ca nce lling them, and so slowi ng
th e ball down; i.e., diminishing in every instant the di sta nce the ball g o e s
up in ~hat ins tant and so constant ly
c h::tng ing thr~ rate at w:rtich a g iven distance i s covered in a g iven t i me .
Now yo' 1 must know t : ta t to every l n stantaneous dista. 1ce "ds" traversed in
:
any ins tant " dt " tl!.ere corresponds by
�56
definition an "instantaneou.s ·velocity,"
"v·," which is the "velocity" of the bal2.
at that instant.
If one instantaneous
distance is greater than another, then
t.he in~:; tet.r: tane o •1s velocity of the first
is grea ~P.r than the instantaneotlS velocity o f t ~~ ~ s l l:: n <1 •
Now i n t h ?7 r; a:~ e o :
the ball, the total ~listan.-::e upwards will
be the St1J'1 Jf all those differences be~ween f_sreater ir1stantanE:O'J.S distant:es upwards and ledsc:r _i_nstantaneous distances
downwards, as they :>cc !Jr in alL the in-·
stants "dt" of the time "t" of upv;ards
travel.
Each instanta.n80i.:IS uvNat... dS diste:.nce
can be representt~d by "v • Jt," since
they are all th~~ sa 11e with une anot.he c
and, by definition, "v = ds/jt," so that
"ds = v • dt," And each instantar1eous
downwards distance can be represen-~ed by
"gt·· dt," since they arB all different
and the instantaneo~s distan::e "ds" covered in any instant "dt;" i.e., "ds/dt"
is always increasing at th~_; constant rate
"g" with the ps.ssase of time "t," becaw:H:
of the force ·Jf gravity. And SJ at any
iutant "dt" thA upwar·ds dist:t.ncE:~ "ds"
will be the d ifferene: e b(::: tv;::; en th•:: u.p·,ards "ds" duf.~ tt) thA focce :::;f i.rv~rtia
and the dowrwJar'ds "ds" d\J•.~ tu th~: force
of grav~t:v; i . .::~., 1'ds = fJ.s ( i) - ~ds (g).
r)
11
But
11
•
1
-tds ( l ) '
==-
vd i..
11
And " ).J;d~~ (g) •
"1'-d~-; -:: : 'v"d t - gi.d t"
= gt · • t. "
.i
'r tte r~ fo c _,
at an ·/ in::~taLt "at..."
Ii n w t h '2 wh ,.\ l f d is c;. :;_ n c e , " s , " up vV 2. ni s
·~. i. ~ J b ~
;: he.: ~->.m ~Jf tht?S2 ir1star" L-:ln.:;c;u.:=;
.J. l. .· t .t. n ,-:- t~ ~_:; '' d s " t r a v · l J e G d 1 12: · i r g a ll t h r:
'
:r'n.n °l. ,.1n
l. !' . '·', ·-Jr-t·c·.c~ "d· t-" ;) L~ ·tf'1,-· ti roo "t "
f rJr s l.-~r: h a s urn i~_; • -.,_ /,. and it::; extremi~ i, ~; .J.r ~ ~~ i {- n t f!_ t:·d : l,y' f' :1 i, t j_ ng t r1 em d. uc v e
'
an J l; (- 1 :wv t: lP 3 1 v r l L\ e t h L; : t ~' t ~I.=- 0
1.
)
... .
-.."")
•
v
.
.
.1 •.1...
·•'
I
.t
1
.
-
•""'f~.
--
._..
t.)
~;
II
�The refore we will say that it is the ..
case that "s = t~ vdt - gtdt."
I will solve th1~ for you
exhibit
be f ore your eyes once more the fair naked
form of th e distance-t:i_me equation. Far
'it~ vd.t = vt."
And ut~gtdt = ~gtG,II
The ~·fore, my friend, sinceW"t~ vdt gtdt = t~ vdt - t~ gtdt," and "s =
t~ vdt - gtdt," "s = vt- ~gt2,"
Now
jJst add the initial distance, "s 0 ," and
you g et the form for the maximum height
of the ball: "s = s 0 + v 0 t + (-%gt2),"
and
Objection to the Third Approach
2ND: Now I know that you must not only
take me for a fool b ut that you are one
yourself. And a lying sophistic and
credulous scoundrel to boo t! Sure, you
derive the distance-time equation by
integrating instantaneous distances over
time inst~ad of spinning it out of y o ur
imagination as the most general sulution
of the second order differential equation
ds/dt2 = g. And to that extent you have
Gucceeded in making falling bodies, and
,m i_fnrmlv movin.!! ones, your starting
point rather than your own fancy.
But
at what a price! You have summed up
distances that are no distances traversed in times that are no times, and
related them to "instantaneous velocities," "v," that are merely nominal
definitions of written symbols! . You
have subtracted one distance that is
no distance from anothEr distance that
is no distance and purported to arrive
at yet a third distance that is no distance, and a perpetually changing one at
that!
You have argued that "t~ vdt =
vt" and that "t"-0 gtdt = ~gt2" without
-·
..
-
··
-·- - - - - --
�the leas t justification. You have attributed all o f this to the "fo.cce of gravity" of the earth, which is "slowing
down" the ball by somehow reaching up to
grab it and p u ll it down. And you have
attributed to th2 oall a "force of iner:tia" by which the grabbing of the eartl}
to _pull the ball down is continually resisted and so is not effective until after the maximum height o f t :-1e balL is
reached.
No, my friP.nd, until ;you satisfy me
on all thes e points, I'll stick to my
simple-~inded substitutions.
Your mixture of sophistry, sy~bolic rr1anipulation,
and mystical "forces," is too m'tich for
me to take.
--Edward Sparrow
continued from page
15--
that it allowed its audience to view
Jonson's play pretty much as he intended
it. The casting seemed extremely natur~l
and the spirit of vaudevillian hanky/
panky very rarely broke, even for an .
instant. Besides Bob 'l'zudiker and tl1e
cast, special praise is due Lee Zlotoff
and assistants for a highly professi o nal
job of set d~sign and decoration.
i'R:ttr·· ·n·
�
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<em>The St. John's Review</em>
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<em>The St. John's Review</em><span> is published by the Office of the Dean, St. John's College. All manuscripts are subject to blind review. Address correspondence to </span><em>The St. John's Review</em><span>, St. John's College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401 or via e-mail at </span><a class="obfuscated_link" href="mailto:review@sjc.edu"><span class="obfuscated_link_text">review@sjc.edu</span></a><span>.</span><br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> exemplifies, encourages, and enhances the disciplined reflection that is nurtured by the St. John's Program. It does so both through the character most in common among its contributors — their familiarity with the Program and their respect for it — and through the style and content of their contributions. As it represents the St. John's Program, The St. John's Review espouses no philosophical, religious, or political doctrine beyond a dedication to liberal learning, and its readers may expect to find diversity of thought represented in its pages.<br /><br /><em>The St. John's Review</em> was first published in 1974. It merged with <em>The College </em>beginning with the July 1980 issue. From that date forward, the numbering of <em>The St. John's Review</em> continues that of <em>The College</em>. <br /><br />Click on <a title="The St. John's Review" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=13"><strong>Items in the The St. John's Review Collection</strong></a> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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58 pages
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The St. John's Review, March 1975
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Volume I, Number 2 of The St. John's Review. Published March 1975.
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St. John's College
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1975-03
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Silver, Joan
Hoving, Chris
Rees, John
Spaeth, Robert L.
Johnson, Dennis
Davenport, Richard
Gold, Elizabeth
Roemer, Arlene
Sparrow, Edward G.
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St. John's Review
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