Hanover Browsing

THE incomparable Benchley is no longer with us, alas, but his illustrator Gluyas Williams is, and he has collaborated with Corey Ford in a short and amusing booklet, How To Guess Your Age (Doubleday & Company, 1950). All of us beginning in our forties have experienced with humor, or with a kind of collegiate selfdeception, the experiences recorded in delicious picture and Vanity Fairish text in this little book ($1.00). This could be sent to friends who are middle-aged ("Cheer up, you're only old once"), or in fact to anyone -with one-tenth of one degree of risibility. This appeared first in Collier's, and ever since has been crying for a more permanent format. Here the reader will enjoy a few minutes of good fun, and even have flashbacks of poignant reminiscence. So long as we as a people can laugh gently at ourselves as Corey does here, America will remain a relatively safe place. I wish the Germans and the Russians had the same kind of humor. If they did we all could go out and dig in our garden with peace in our hearts.

The more than seven hundred pages of Sir Arthur Keith's An Autobiography (Watts, London, 1950) have proved most satisfactory reading. My knowledge of anthropology is nil, but I have nonetheless been fascinated by Sir Arthur's studies in anthropology and his theories of evolution. Fittingly enough he is ending his days in Downe, near Charles Darwin's "Down House," in Surrey. Sir Arthur, in his long life of 84 years, has won many deserved honors. There have been critics, too, who have disliked his connection with rationalism and his consequent unorthodox views. He has accepted the good and the bad, the sweet and the sour, with the equanimity of a man who has made his peace with the world, and who is thoroughly civilized, tolerant, and cultured in the best sense of that abused term. His comments on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Oliver Lodge particularly interested me. This is not a book for everyone, but its beauty lies in its revelation of a great personality with a shrewd knowledge of human nature. It will win the affection of most general readers and, certainly, almost all men of science.

For the summer I should like to point out certain books I think you all would enjoy if you have any leisure hours to read. This, I think, finishes my sixteenth year as Hanover Browser. God Save the United States of America.

Abinger Harvest, by E. M. Forster. Forty-eight delightful articles ranging from an essay on Joseph Conrad to a discussion of "The Mind of the Indian Native State," by the dean of living English novelists.

Unforgotten Years, by Logan Pearsall Smith. The autobiography of an American Quaker who spent most of his adult life in England. He is known for his Trivia, and for one of the most intelligent books on Shakespeare in recent years.

Over Bemerton's, by E. V. Lucas. This will have fascination for all lovers of Charles Lamb, books, England, and the spirit of good will among men.

Travels in Arabia Deserta, by Charles M. Doughty. This masterpiece transcends time and space, and will provide for the connoisseur a year's delight. As T. E. Lawrence called it a "Bible of its kind," it has become so for a small band of devotees of which I am proud to call myself one.

The Sea and the by H. M. Tomlinson. This travel book published in 1913 still holds up and will interest all lovers of good prose and any interested in the sea and the jungle (South America).

The Mirror of the Sea,, by Joseph Conrad. I have heard recently that English booksellers cannot sell Conrad anymore. They can and do to me. And this masterpiece of the sea is still my favorite.

The Forsyte Saga, by John Galsworthy. I must be old-fashioned and certainly am middle-aged, but I still like this book very much indeed, and think that most of you will too.

The Complete Tales of SherlockHolmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle. This, I feel sure, will strike many a responsive heart particularly if you love London and England as much as I do. Sherlock Holmes was born in 1854 and is still as vital as ever he was, which shows that Conan Doyle was a genius.

A pleasant summer to you all.

A YEAR with the Dartmouth Outing Club is one of activity in almost every phase of outdoor living, and the activity goes ahead whether there is mud, snowturning- to-sleet, or no snow at all. This year the Club also had a birthday, but it has never outgrown the original spirit that founder Fred Harris instilled forty-years ago.

While the rest of the membership was in the out-of-doors, the Executive Committee drafted a new Constitution and placed bets on how many years the thing would last. But although headquarters space was reshuffled, commercial enterprises such as the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge were trans- ferred to College administration, and the Top Brass is still in the process of reorganization, the theme of the Club was "busi- ness as usual" and "all events scheduled."

The Freshman Trip, held just before the opening of school in the fall, welcomed 155 freshmen to New Hampshire's woods and mountains. The Cabin and Trail Division followed up immediately with weekend trips to the 16 cabins maintained by C&T, to the mountains, to the College Grant, or along the Appalachian Trail. Weekly expeditions to Moose Mountain under the direction of Ross McKenney soon saw a cabin materializing from behind the haze of saws, axes, and sweat, and a lot more of the same will be required before the glassy-eyed moose head, now peering out of his crate in Robinson Hall, is victoriously mounted over the mantel. A crew worked on the new cabin during Thanksgiving vacation, while others stuffed Johnny Johnson "Rum and Molasses Fund" turkeys into their packs and struck out with rifles for the College Grant or with red flannels for Katahdin.

The skis, ready and waiting with their new base coats, were still propped up against dorm walls when the D.O.C. Christmas Party at the Moosilauke Ravine Lodge cleared the way for vacation. Even during January, the campus had a disgustingly greenish hue, but Walt Prager, who could be seen early some mornings atop Bartlett Tower with a spyglass in hand, somehow managed to mumbo-j umbo up enough snow to hold the Hanover Invitational Jump.

According to the worker-ticket records, over 500 students were responsible for bearing the brunt of the operation of the Dartmouth Winter Carnival. The Carnival Division awarded snowflake insignias to the leaders of the activities in which the Club participated, and a leaders' training program was adopted in order to acquaint interested students with the problems of all phases of Carnival. The fraternities and dormitories responded magnificently to the snow sculpture contest, especially since there was no snow on the ground until three days before the judging. The financial records show Carnival in the red despite operation within the limits of budgeted expenses, due in part to the loss of income from the slalom and from a slight drop in attendance at Outdoor Evening, a show which was the most outstanding (and backbreaking) Outdoor Evening production in Dartmouth's history.

By this time Winter Sports Division had stowed away its roller skates, completed its "Rec" program for freshmen and sophomores, and had accomplished the incredible by organizing the Carnival ski and skating meets on a last-minute, emergency basis. During the remainder of the season, the ski team went on to win first places at the Dartmouth and McGill Carnivals, the State of Maine Cross-Country and Jump, the Harvard Giant Slalom, the Drifters Team Slalom, and the "National Intercollegiate Ski Championships" in Colorado.

As winter reluctantly released Hanover from the grip, white-water canoeing trips and outings by the Sunday Morning Strolling Society gradually replaced the winter camping, mountaineering, and skiing. New stoves were packed into Great Bear and Holt's Ledge cabins, and another one was lugged up piece by piece to the Winter Cabin atop Moosilauke. Trail crews cleared away blowdown and repaired shelters, the cabins were filled every weekend, the fishermen lined up along the little brooks, and the D.M.C. conducted its rock-climbing class over on the Norwich cliffs. The last major event on the D.O.C. calendar was Woodsmen's Weekend, in which six-man teams from eight other colleges competed with Dartmouth in canoe- ing, axemanship, casting, sawing, and other woodscraft events—in a competition which is still more fun for the competitiors than it is for the spectators.

Many activities continued throughout the year, such as the weekly Smoke Talk program, the publication of the Club paper, the Trail Blazer, the problems of budgets and policies, and the meetings. And while all this was going on, Johnny Rand, Ross McKenney, and Walt Prager were going about their jobs with an ability known only to experts and with the ease of men who know how to live as well as how to answer a question, dress a deer, or use the right wax. These three, together with the trampers of the slalom course, the builders of cabins, the woodsmen freezing but singing in the back of an open truck, the slushers in the center-of-campus, and a few shovels and axes, were the core of a year with the D.O.C.

DAVE WHITE '5O

"DIAMOND D" is the log brand for all timber cut in the Dartmouth College Grant.