The Avesta, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer, 1942 Page: 30
36 p. : ill. ; 30 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Foibles---
Stars
O NCE every so often someone
says something that is worth
saying. Hidden away in an old
issue of Kaleidograph is a little poem
called "Failure," by Walter R. Ad-
ams, a bit of verse that has two dis-
tinctly different effects upon me. At
times I become sorely depressed when
I read it; other times I become dis-
tinctly envious. Two little verses of
four lines each, this is a poem I wish
I had written:
I am the apple that did not ripen,
I am the rose that did not bloom.
I am the ship that lost its bearing
And missed its port in the windy
gloom.
I am the lark that, mad for soaring,
Struggled with wings too lame to fly,
I am the nameless star that faltered
Before it burned a hole through the
sky.
Take the condition you are in
after a hard night of boning over
the who-ness of what for a final that
is to reveal the profundity you have
acquired during four and one-half
months of intense application. Your
notes, taken verbatim from class lec-
30tures, reveal that the questions will
undoubtedly be as follows: 1. De-
scribe in detail the procedure fol-
lowed when who chased what around
where. 2. Make an exhaustive resu-
me, bringing in all aspects discussed
in class and found in your outside
readings, of the degrees of no-ness
in yes and of the flatness in flat.
3. Answer the following question
fully (at least two pages), giving
opinions of noted authorities on the
subject: Why is rubber? 4. Basing
your answer on psychological, phys-
iological, and sociological founda-
tions, give your opinion of what the
Almighty stood on while He was
making heaven.
This is a time when "Failure" is
exceedingly depressing, and stays hid-
den away in a drawer. The only
trouble is that I know it from mem-
ory, and it becomes my foremost
thought on such occasions.
On the other hand, after racing
at high pitch down the educational
road, groping for a solution to the
everlasting problem of how to get
the most done in less than no time,
and how to become a success doing
what you want to do most and to
make a comfortable living at the
same time without reaching the stage
of wishing Aunt Sophie would die-
you may read "Failure" and decide
the title is a misnomer. Picture to
yourself an easy chair, a lot of good,
borrowed books, a quiet mind (may-
be moronic, but anyway quiet) and
the delightful lethargy that comes
from not being afflicted with the
itch someone called "ambition," and
you have beauty. To be a slightly
green apple, a thwarted bud, a sink-ing ship, a worn-out bird, a pale
star-and not to know it, or to
know it and not care-can be an
envious state at times.
All in all, I think I would prob-
ably be in better shape twenty-five
years from now if I didn't ripen,
bloom, sail too far, fly too high, or
burn too many holes in things. If I
don't, though, I imagine that twen-
ty-five years from now I won't enjoy
reading "Failure."
Ruffles
F there is one thing I can't abide,
it's ruffles. I don't mean pink ruf-
fles that peep out when a girl
takes something off a high shelf or
white organdy on a pique dress at a
football game. "Ruffles" are those
cunningly mapped out stratagems
that have swooped down on our
modern feminine world, leaving the
nonconformer branded as an intro-
vertly inhibited dud. Any decent, so-
cial-law abiding female just simply
isn't a dud.
I'm a dud. Give me any plausible
excuse, or one not plausible if need
s1
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North Texas State Teachers College. The Avesta, Volume 21, Number 2, Summer, 1942, periodical, Summer 1942; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2105649/m1/32/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.