July 1963 School Magazine

Brisbane Girls,' Grammar School Magazine

July, 1963

Brisbane Girl!~' Gramm~r School Magazine

July, 1963

A TIME TO FEAR

RELATIVITY AND THE REST Albert Einstein. In what role of men was he, who could so serenely dislocate_ the fundamental beliefs of science and, with such a stimulatingly incomprehensible scroll of mathem- atics, so revolutionize this planet? What brain first had the courage to think such intangible thoughts ? Albert Einstein collapsed the ~stdblished standards of man. If a metre, ·given a velocity, is no longer a true metre, might not the very foundations of life's habits be erroneous? Might not right be wrong? Does anything exist but in one's own fallacious mind ? Is anything real ? The wonder of reality is delightfully exemplified in this Chinese story: 'Chuang Tzu imagined in a dream that he was a butteP.fly, and when he woke up he said he did not know whether he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming it was Chuang Tzu.' Communication with friends who cannot share a dream, will not find an answer to this dilemna. Words and speech become but the fickle electrons of belief; vacillating around, yet never reaching the pitted and complex nucleus of emotion which will not convert its energy to sound or form. . -Was Einstein perplexed by the implications of his theory of relativity ? He must have understood the sorrowful isolation of the individual long before he cast his terrific theories at the scientific mind. This perplexity was his inspiration to dis- coveries in science. In his own words: 'The individual feels the nothingness of human desire and aims and the sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.' Even in his dedicated search for the 'single significant whole' Einstein does not neglect the shackles of relativity : 'What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labour in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics.' I hope that Einstein might pardon me, if I now set him up as a schoolgirl's ideal. If mankind had but one portion or his personality, his humility, his depth of understanding and his gentle tenacity, what need then for triumphant pomp that reeks of blood? -CHRISTINA ME1'CALFE, VIB. 40

Maria stood at the black window and stared out into the rainy night, pressing her hot forehead against the cool pane. She could feel tears of frustration and anxiety burning behind her eyes as the r:ain came down in an end1ess stream, spattering against the window in short gusts. Behind her in the room she could hear the great tearing gasps breaking the silence as ArabeUa tried to breathe. Maria's breathing was almost keeping time with the terrifying sound and she felt that if Arabella's asthma didn't get better soon, she, Maria, would go mad. Yet she could not let the child see her fear and helplessness, so she whispered another prayer and tried the telephone twice, only to be greeted with the now familiar dead silence. It was hopeless. Obviously a tree had fallen across the wires in· the storm, and so she cound not reach her father, several miles away, visiting her mother in the hospital. Arabella was three. Maria held her now, wrapped in a blanket, upright, so she could at least breathe a little. The child was sobbing with fear, so that although Maria tried to sooth her, the terrible gasps tore unmercifully through Arabella, breaking the complete silence of the house, surrounded by miles of bush. Maria was in an agony of fear. She had done all that she could, but these attacks were so sudden. Arabella had seemed perfectly well when their father had left. Maria unpinned p: small trinket from her dress and held it carefully in the hollow of her hand, showing it to the child. "Look sweetheart. Come on now, don't cry, and I'll sing you a song. In her hand she held a tiny gold case, barely an inch square and shaped like a book with a clasp. On the front, raised a little, and under a glass cover, was the picture of a woman, lightly tinted. It was very small but Maria still felt that the woman's eyes were kind and her mouth was sweet. She unclipped the little clasp, and, as it opened, tinkling notes fell clearly and sweetly into the air. The child listened, and, as the tune stopped, the ticking of the watch within the case became evident. Here was the source which Maria could draw upon: to choke back her fears - a distinctly unusual one. Maria had her grandmother's courage, too. This was unusual, because she could not really remember her grand- mother. She did not associate her shadowy memories of an 41