Page 72 - 1929 Hartridge

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The Alice Rosamund Pardee Prize
The Alice Rosamund Pardee Prize, awarded each year for excellence in Senior English, was won in 1928 by Cornelia Mclntire, whose essay follows:
LIGHT
God first made light. The first thing that greets, each baby as it enters this new world, is light, and every new experience brings a kind of mental light into the sleeping corners of our brains.
Once, I thought the world was made up of a shady city street, to live on every winter, and a low, windswept island for the summer. At the far end of the city world was that romantic place, do'Zi.'iitozcn., and everything beyond the boun­ daries of the grey, blue sea was Spain. Then, one summer, my family took me u\])
to Maine, and I discovered the enchanted presence of a thousand cities, and of countless shady streets, and of islands farther ofif than Spain. Slowly, one dark
corner of my brain was lighted, and a vision of the whole huge world a\]:>peared.
(>nce, I hated girls, proclaimed myself a fierce tomboy, and dashed all my sister’s dolls to pieces. Then, one hot, exciting afternoon as we were playing hide- and-seek, some boy smiled at me and let me run in free. At first my pride was wounded, and I thought, “He knows that I run faster; that's the reason," hut I
found that his fleet feet could leave mine far behind, and mv auger died in mv amazement. Gradually, as I ran in safely time after time, 1 grew conscious of a pleasing sense of power. The next day, when my brother told me that, since no girls were admitted, I could never join their club unless I kissed my elbow and turned into a boy, 1 refused to try. Another corner of mv brain was lighted, and
1 knew a surer hold upon my brother’s friends.
Once, the stars were lamps that God lit every night, the thunder was 11is voice raised in anger, and the lightning was the Hashing of Mis eye. Then 1 studied science, and a thousand unknown worlds were oi)ened to me.
( )nce, birth and death were only names. And then 1 had a sister born, and a favorite uncle die. h'or tbe first time I realized that life was not an accident. 1 was, suddenly, most gloriously alive, the gay grass was alive, every s(|uirrel had
a separate life of his own—and at the end of every life was death.
If, as we move on. light steals into far corners of our brains, what seems more natural than that death should he the final, all-revealing light, which frightens us onlv because it is so blinding?
Faye Sei'ciity