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The Spike Victoria University College Review 1944

Dear Scylla,

There isn't much murder, fire or passion at Victoria College in 1944; there wasn't much in 1939. Do you really believe there is much among V.U.C. students overseas? We neither of us know, but as far as I can gather there is murder and fire only in an uninterestingly literal sense. And passion? Sex is after all the most fruitful field for the passions, and while the sex life of the soldier is often violent it is also likely to be ephemeral and, from what one hears, rather dispassionate. The civilian still has his women. What else does he need?

Death? Here the soldier is at an obvious advantage. Two points should be remembered however. First, that many—perhaps the majority—of servicemen have not gone into action against the enemy. They have known only the dreariness of training and waiting. Secondly, killing and nearly getting killed one self stimulates people only for a while—after that it seems to depress them.

Many of our most lurid lights are on other shores—not, perhaps, completely eclipsed but scarcely burning more brightly. There is another reason for the less exciting tone of University publications and speeches. The avant-garde of thought at this College at the end of the thirties was almost entirely under some degree of Communist influence. And now the reversal of the Communist Party's policy has caused its influence to become respectable and therefore dull.

You say' There is maybe no flame and there is certainly no flame if we compare the little smouldering here with the conflagration in the distance.' That is' The flame of the candle before the church altar is no flame at all if we compare it with the flames of the municipal incinerator.'

Send me a short note to finish off this little game.

Charybdis