FRITILLARY APPEAL FUND NUMBER
T wo Shillings
November, 1926
Editor : R. 0. HAYNES
(St. Hugh's).
Treasurer: C. C. MCDONALD (St. Hugh's). Committee: DIANA SCOONES (Lady Margaret Hall).
S. M. NORTON (Somerville). DOREEN PRICE (St. Hilda's College). P. M. HALFORD (Oxford Home Students). MARGARET LANE (St. Hugh's College).
frittitarr Magazine of the Oxford Women's Colleges
NOVEMBER, 1926 CONTENTS Page
Editorial. . .. Competition Entries .. Miss Emily Penrose . The Law of Diminishing Returns The Revenant .. .. Legend The Playhouse .. As Others see us . . . .. The Cinema ..
1 2 2
3 3 4 5 7 8
Page
Sonnet Travel Notes . Dead Alison The Three Parts of Magic Earth The Laburnum Branch .. Crewe Train .. News from the Women's Colleges Loss
to to 13 13 16 16 18 19 21
Ebitoriat
F
OR the writing of any species of Editorial, from Uncle Dick's Letter to Mr. Chesterton in his Weekly, a really light hand with the topical pastry is needed. I had therefore been regarding the prospect with some fear, until I was reprieved by the decision that this was to be a Special Number in Aid of the Appeal Fund for the Women's Colleges. (How satisfying, in parenthesis, to have lived in a century where the continuous use of Capital Letters for ever gave weight to the written word and self respect to the Author, as did the beard to the face,) Reprieved, because one is not expected to write as lightly about Facts as about Topics : and thus this may be considered not as too heavy, but as too true, to be good. The facts are that an Appeal Fund has been created for the Women's Colleges, some of which are poor, others still in debt, and yet others in need of money for Scholarships, etc. ; and this paper is being sold at 2/-, instead of the normal price of 6d., in order to raise money. We have, to sweeten the pill of price, a special cover and various special ' features,' including a detached photograph of Miss Penrose, the distinguished Principal of Somerville, who retires this term, and an article about her ; the Senior Common Rooms, who were implored to write for this special number, responded in two notable instances ; we have also a naively intriguing glimpse of how we appear to Americans. And so we throw ourselves on your charity, mentioning that we are going to offer an opportunity for the relief of overburdened minds by opening a correspondence column.
2
FRITILLARY
Competition Entries There will be no award, because the entries were so poor. We can only trust that Oxford may purge those, on the one hand, who suffer from soul, and, on the other, those who are troubled by facetiousness. We think, however, that there may be a distant hope for M. J. Mackintosh, St. Hilda's College, whose entry was the least bad.
Miss Emitr Penrose At the end of this term Miss Penrose ceases to be Principal of Somerville College. Her resignation brings sorrow to Somerville, and keen regret not only to all who cherish the interests of the Women's Societies here but also to every son and daughter of Oxford who has witnessed something of her work in the University. Born in 1858 of an old Cornish family, she was fortunate in her parents and forefathers and in her upbringing. Her grandmother is still known to some of us under the nom de plume of Mrs. Markham in her famous History of England. Her father, Dr. Francis Cranmer Penrose, descended collaterally from Archbishop dranmer, was the `little Mary' of Mrs. Markham's book, but attained a fame of his own as architect and archaeologist. Under his influence his daughter's tastes took the natural direction which led her to Oxford in 1889, when she started at Somerville with no Latin and a little Modern Greek to read for Greats. In 1892 she took Schools and was placed in the First Class—the first woman to win this honour. No one sought honours less. But her invincible modesty could not hide her worth, and she was sought out at once for high positions. In 1893 she was made Principal of Bedford College, and five years later Principal of the Royal Holloway College, where she remained till Oxford claimed her in 1907. The twenty years of her headship of Somerville seem to fall into a clear perspective even now and to form a complete chapter in our history. When she came, the women had direct relation with the University only through the Delegacy of Local Examinations. In 1910 a new Delegacy ' for the supervision of Women Students ' was established, which recognised the five existing Societies and registered, though it did not matriculate women students. From this to the full incorporation of women as members of the University, admitted to its degrees, the distance seemed great, but the steps were in reality few. Lord Curzon, as Chancellor, had included in his Memorandum on University Reform in 1910 a conservative proposal for granting the degree to women ; this offered the titular degree but withheld all constitutional privileges. But after the war the case .was altered ; women had been admitted to the Parliamentary Suffrage ; and when the University of Oxford passed its statute in 1920 it gave full membership and withheld no essential privileges. Meantime the Women's Colleges had been slowly but vigorously developing. Their academic policy became more and more identified with the course for the degree, their standing was strengthened with the increasing strength of their tutorial staffs, and their independence and individuality expressed itself in the development of libraries, buildings and gardens. The Society of Oxford Home Students has been taken under the direct control of the University, and this year the seal has been set upon the integrity and good standing of the four Women's Colleges by their several incorporation under Royal Charters. In all this Miss Penrose has played a truly great part. Whether in relation with the University or in College affairs she
FRITILLARY
3
was always the wisest head amongst us, the most thorough worker, the most impartial judge, the most devoted friend of her College, and the most vigorous and conscientious public servant. Her distinguished ability in administration and finance has been recognised in her appointment to the Advisory Committee on University Grants, to the Royal Commission on University Education in Wales, and recently to the Royal Commission on Oxford and Cambridge. She is the only woman member of the Statutory Commission which is setting our house in order for us now. When the degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon her last June there was universal satisfaction that the first Oxford woman to receive this honour had earned it in full measure both in the field of learning- and of public service. Statesmanlike vision, a strict and impartial weighing of evidence, a complete absence of personal prejudice underlie her greatness as an administrator. But no one who has worked with .her or come into close touch with her in whatever way has failed to find out those personal qualities which in great measure she tries to hide : the large generosity, the unfailing thoughtfulness for people who suffer or want, the unselfish devotion to good causes. For a singularly modest person she has more accomplishments than can easily be concealed : some will remember her as a fearless mountain climber or a beautiful skater ; others as an artist in water colour, or in the more feminine art of embroidery ; all of us, I think, as a raconteur of the first water, for it is characteristic of her that she has not neglected this vital branch of the domestic fine arts What remains to be said ? Perhaps this finally, that for all her masculine powers and feminine accomplishments she has specialised in neither. Her great qualities are not masculine, nor feminine, but simply those that naturally belong to great persons.
E be /Law of diminishing °Return Diminishing Return ! 0 law, whose power Bewilders those who study Pol. Econ. And those who speak thereon— What lecturer but knows it is thine act, And straight despairs, When in the School, which at the first was packed. For one long, dismal hour He lectures to the lines of empty chairs. J.I.
the lRevenant In the abandoned House of Dreams there was a stirring, high up in a darkened chamber, the sobbing of a fretful child. The house woke, and from the walls of her chamber, the wood and hangings, came an emanation, frailer than flesh, fainter than memory, yet enough to give form and feeling to the ghost upon the bed. She ceased to weep, and put back the hair from her forehead, listening for familiar yet forgotten sounds. The house held its breath, as its child rose like a mist-wreath and passed through the door and down the stairs, gathering old poignant emotions whose cause was gone. At the stairfoot she hesitated, still so fragile that a moment of oblivion would dissolve her. But the house remembered, and gave up from the boards and panels blood for her cold veins, depth for her shadowy eyes. She tried one door, and looked into the dark dining room, where nothing came back to her but the weight of an intolerably heavy silver spoon and the salt taste of tears. She opened .another, and,
4
FRITILLARY
with the mouldering smell of books and the wan light in an uncurtained window, memory was re-born. The shadows of hands she raised to shield her eyes from all the life that flooded back upon her, to the first bitterest tragedy of this very room, turned flesh. The light no longer glimmered through her. The house had given her back herself. Her hovering weary love settled on the image of the beloved, and desire returned from the desert places to un-trance her heart. She went out, feeling with her hands before her, on to the terrace, and listened among the stealthy noises of the river and the shiftings of the misty moonlight. Softly she called his name. There was no answer but the leaves falling and the damp in the wind. Still calling, and feeling before her, she left the terrace and went down into the garden. Her power was failing ; the wet tangled grass held back her feet and the rose bushes mazed her. They had loved her once, and still they were dimly sorry, but they could not help the growth of their stubborn clay. Now her voice was almost too light a burden even for the wind, but the moon put off its mists for a moment and sharpened the low mound and leafless almond tree where her lover sat by her grave. The house behind, staring from blank dead windows, saw her lean and quiver towards him, saw him raise his head, and their looks meet, and cling while the light dimmed. But before it brightened her ghost was gone. D.S.
tegenb You that are white with the pale sheen of starlight, A bank of wind-blown violets in May Is not more sweet than is the scent of you ! Cool to the touch you are, like river pools On still, warm nights. I have picked waterlilies Of white and gold, to twist into your hair. See, you must turn your head, that I may wind Them in—so—one just there, beneath each ear . . . . But your slim silver hands Are pressing on my lids ; I can no longer see Your vase-like body. Now your firm cool hands Are strong cold silver bars across my brow. Dear God ! What have you done with both my eyes? I only wanted eyes to look at you, To see the waterlilies in your hair ; To watch that little hollow of your throat Throb and lie still and throb again . . . . But now I may not see all this, since you Have left me blind—and yet I cannot weep ; For with my eyes to dull all other sense, How should I then have known the wondrousness Of your white violet fragrance, how perceive The smoothness and the coolness of the touch Of you—like star-bathed water, fathomless, Slipping and gliding through my fevered hands?
V.P.
CINEMA
THE OXFORD
CINEMA S"ER
MAGDALEN STREET, OXFORD.
Oxford's Manificent Picture Theatre. ALWAYS THE LATEST AND BEST FILMS. Doors open at 2. CONTINUOUS PERFORMANCE.
Full Orchestra of First class Musicians. -
Seats may be Booked in Advance, 'Phone 1067. Box Office Open from 10.30 a.m.
THE OXFORD CINEMA CAFE OPEN ALL DAY. J. Thornton & Son (F. S. THORNTON)
BOOKSELLERS AND BOOK BUYERS
Books for all University Examinations. Anthropological and GENERAL LITERATURE. FOREIGN PUBLICATIONS STOCKED AND IMPORTED. Catalogues issued and sent post free on receipt of address. ORDERS BY POST PROMPTLY EXECUTED.
LIBRARIES PURCHASED. Small parcels of Books bought for Cash or Exchanged. Valuations for Probate. Rare Books Sought.
11 BROAD STREET Telephone : Oxford 939.
ESTD. 1835.
OXFORD. Telegrams : Hornbook, Oxford.
Liberty Fabrics For Casements and Light Curtain ings. For Draperies and Heavy Curtains. For Loose Covers, etc. Delightful Cretonnes from i / i i per yard. Sole Agents for LIBERTY & CO., Regent Street, London.
The most interesting assortment of Novelties in Cushions, Electric Lamps and Shades, Pewter Ware, etc., on view in the Liberty Department.
William Baker & Co. l'ED,'
BROAD STREET CORNER
OXFORD.
FRITILLARY
5
the playhouse The programme at the Playhouse this term appears to be something of a crescendo. So far we have sat through Hedda Gabler,' borne ' The Bourgeois Gentleman ' with a rather better grace, and have quite honestly enjoyed ' The Devil's Disciple.' We have yet to go a progress through Coleman and Strindberg to Tchehov, finishing off with a new play, the name of which Mr. Jevon Brandon Thomas playfully refuses to divulge. With Hedda Gabler' one could not help feeling that the Oxford Players gave a good performance under difficulties—the difficulties being mainly Ibsen. I suppose it is almost impossible nowadays to be really moved by the beautiful Hedda Gabler 's predicament : a lady who is dying of longing to put her finger in the pie of somebody's immortal destiny, and, to that end, presents loaded revolvers to her friends at critical moments, with the breathed injunction to do it beautifully, can scarcely arouse our sincere sympathy. Any actress playing this =or part is faced by almost insuperable odds, but one has to admit that Miss Veronica Turleigh overcame them remarkably well. She has a versatile personality (who would have believed the change from Hedda to Dorimene) , a striking appearance, and she moves well. Her long swishes across the stage, abruptly arrested in petulant speech, were remarkably in keeping with the character. In comparison, the rest of the cast ;)? was insignificant. One cannot help feeling that Miss Virginia Isham always falls below the stan411) dard which one expects her to achieve, but of which she is incapable. She is ' very nice, but not quite . . . ' Mr. Byam Shaw, as Eilert Lovborg, was more than usually tiresome. I think most people went to ' The Bourgeois Gentleman ' in a rather aggrieved frame of mind. Many felt that it was up to their position, as conversant with the French tongue, to Object to Moliere in translation, and they said so in searching whispers from the one-and-eightpennies. Others were dubious of the possibilities of a ballet on so limited a stage, and their fears proved only too true. The blame, however, rests not so much cers themselves. with the stage as with the dan The impression they created was something between a fifth-rate musical comedy chorus, and an end-of-term display in a high school. Even the
6
FRITILLARY
actors looked vaguely uncomfortable whenever those six small girls occurred among them. Apart from this, however, the play was amusing : M. Jourdain himself was well done, if a little tedious towards the end, and Miss Veronica Turleigh's Dorimene was a triumph of variety. She had nothing to do but smile, glance •., , and curtsey, but she did all • ZI these with such liveliness and grace, and looked so beautiful well, that hers cannot be as well, 1/41t 4cN ' vo called anything but a very '. 114*kl finished performance. ) " )-■ .5 That good melodrama, %, ' The Devil's Disciple,' was capably handled, and as thrilling as it is meant to be. Except for the complete absence of mob effect in the last scene, and Mr. Ivan Agabeg's bad lapse in his last speech, by reason of which the curtain came down as an indecisive surprise instead of a climax, the whole play went without a hitch. Miss Veronica Turleigh looked almost as charming as usual, and Mr. O'Donovan gave a good performance as Richard Dudgeon, although it is a part suited to very few actors, and one could not help wishing for the flourish and speed of an Esme Percy. The triumph of the evening, however, belonged to Mr. Elliott Seabrooke, who had full scope for his powerful personality in General Burgoyne. In that typically Shavian scene in the council chamber (so like many of Shaw's scenes between two men, and mercilessly funny) Mr. Seabrooke and Mr. Malcolm between them gave quite the best performance of the evening. It is a pity that Mr. Seabrooke rarely has a part so perfectly suited to his personality, as it is a pity that Mr. A. Henderson Storie rarely has a part so suited to his appearance as that of Covielle, in ' The Bourgeois Gentleman ' ; he was a joy to look at—a Van Eyck come to life. If the success of the Oxford Players increases from now to the end of the programme in the same ratio as it has increased from the beginning, the fastidious playgoer will be perfectly satisfied by the end of the term.
CL., *Ie'
M.L.
FRITILLARY
7
is ethers see us . . . [Extracts from an article written in a German paper by one of the Americans who came for the summer school in July.]
Oxford is a stately English town of moderate size, in the county of the same name, on the river Isis or Cherwell, known as the Thames in its lower course. Thanks to its almost seven-hundred-year-old University and to the distinguished men who have worked and studied there, Oxford enjoys, and long has enjoyed, a reputation as one of the intellectual centres of Great Britain. The town is exceedingly rich in venerable buildings, especially churches, the picturesque architecture of which reflects the art of centuries long past and can therefore lay claim to particular esteem even in England, superabundantly blessed with architectural monuments. For some decades it has been becoming the custom among the most cultured nations not merely to exchange scholarships of distinction one with another, but also to arrange exchange visits from whole groups of school children or students during vacations. A step in this direction was taken this term, when the University of Oxford offered to provide a vacation course of about a fortnight, and finishing towards the end of July, for several hundred American women graduates of institutions of higher education. The Americans met everywhere with great kindness and a great desire to please, and they sought in vain for the proverbially cold and forbidding Briton. The members of the Summer School were given lodging in the numerous colleges where the regular women students live. The education of women is not yet so fully developed in England as in the United States. Apparently the way is only being tentatively opened to it. No doubt this explains why rather strict rules are prescribed for the women inhabitants of the colleges and why a most careful watch is kept over their welfare. The college that received our travellers was a modern building at the end of a narrow street bordered by hedge-enclosed gardens. In front of the house were great flower-beds and behind it was a terrace with a wide lawn, tennis courts, flowers, trees and shrubbery, the whole being surrounded by a high boundary wall with a gate and porter's lodge. There were no class-rooms in this college, but only living-rooms fitted up with really practical simplicity, besides dining hall, library and chapel. Religious worship was held for fifteen minutes each morning in the chapel before breakfast. There was no compulsory attendance. But the short stay in the pleasant room, where one could hear the cheerful song of the birds outside, exercised an attraction that no one withstood. The first lecture was given on the evening of the day of arrival, a Saturday, on the subject of ' Oxford and Architecture '—two things, as one here most readily perceives, that are intimately connected. Maintenance in the college left nothing to be desired. Great care was taken that the foreign students should not merely devote themselves to study and the observation of house rules ; efforts were made rather to offer them pleasant entertainment in all sorts of ways. Naturally a visit was paid to the near-by Stratford-on-Avon, Shakespeare's birth-place. Rain, it is true, largely spoilt the sight-seeing programme, but the enjoyment of a Shakespeare performance in the theatre there did much to lessen this disappointment. All kinds of sociable entertainments helped the Americans to become acquainted with a number of interesting personalities, of which there is no
8
FRITILLARY
lack in a place like Oxford. Lady Astor, also, who has achieved such fame as a woman Member of Parliament, took care to invite the members of the Summer School from, across the Atlantic to a party one Thursday afternoon at her home near Henley-on-Thames. It is a magnificent estate with a mansion reminiscent of the ornate splendour of Versailles. It was originally built for a Duke of Buckingham, and has twice been burnt down and rebuilt. The mansion has wonderful gardens, in which stands a little chapel, like a Greek temple, with an interior all of mosaic and gold. In a little hollow, quite surrounded by ivy-clad trees, there is a modest cemetery in which soldiers of the last war lie, among them two Americans. They died in the mansion, which was at that time used as a hospital. The mansion, the interior of which was visited, is splendidly furnished. Lady Astor, who was to start the next day on a visit to the United States, showed great friendliness towards her guests and entertained them splendidly. Twice, on arrival and before departure, all kinds of pastries and similar things and beautiful ice cream were handed round. The Bodleian Library in Oxford is a collection of books which provided the visiting Americans with an abundance of interest. Worthy of remark is the careful English spoken by grown-up people, as also by children, in Oxford, and which provoked the desire to preserve it on gramophone records. A boating excursion on the Cherwell, undertaken in a flat craft like a rowing boat which is propelled by poking with a long pole, gave an opportunity of becoming acquainted with water sports in Oxford. One can get very nicely wet without falling into the water in trying one's hand at the poling. These craft are called punt' boats.
the Cinema England and America may compete for the honours of futility in this term's Super programmes, but the one German production has no rival for excellence both in acting and construction. Vaudeville is rare in its dramatic situations, rare in the manner of meeting them. Emil Jannings turns from the grotesque to the sublime with an amazing and impressive versatility ; his acting is as subtle as it is powerful, and his small scenes as finished as any. Lya de Putti's peculiar beauty perfectly realises the kitten's sensuality of Berta Marie, and the other characters are completely adequate. Three weeks and a dozen films have not obscured the impressions of some scenes. Whether to guard us from the serious mind or the exacting disposition, the next week brought forth Reginald Denny in ' What Happened to Jones? ' and Richard Barthelmess as Bilge ' Smith in ' Shore Leave.' Of these the first is good farce, with an excellent supply of cubicled toilet saloons (this the most important feature), a fluffy heroine and a pleasant, indefatigable hero. Otis Harlan makes good use of a face and figure that might be unfortunate, and the whole film suffers mainly from excessive length. This was accentuated at the Super by the rest of the programme. One laughed with some vigour at an unusually good comedy, which gained by some adequate acting and the quite amusing vagaries of a cardboard sun and moon ; one laughed if one could at Shore Leave,' and one was expected to laugh again for some hundred minutes at ' What Happened to Jones ? ' If indeed one must follow Mr. Masefield and ' laugh . . . . till the lilt of the music ends,' at least a few tears should be allowed earlier in the evening, and though there may have been some as a result of
FASHIONS OF QUIET DISTINCTIVENESS ARE ALWAYS ON SHOW AT BADCOCKS
A
charming frock carried out in silk taffeta is shown here, with lustre motis and velvet ribbon at waist. In peach shade, etc. Inexpensively priced at
69/ 1 1
BADCOCKS
LTD. 13, 14, 15 QUEEN STREET OXFORD.
LII1111111111111111111111111111111 111111111111111111111111111111111 1111111111111111111111111 11111 111111111 11111111 11111 111111111111t'
L Gyell. llistaD OXFORD.
SMALL SIZE MODES The Latest
Autumn Modes reproduced in Small Sizes. Ready to wear without alterations.
SMALL SIZES DEPARTMENT, First Floor (Adjoining Gown Department).
Dance Frocks A large collection of attractive little Evening Frocks in Georgette, Taffeta and Lace, in wonderful colourings. Price from
63
/-
XMAS BAZAAR OPENS SATURDAY, NOV. 20.
The Present you wish to give will be found amongst our extensive variety.
In Soft Taffeta Vandyked with Silver Tissue, very full skirt, uncrushable in flame blue, nile green etc, Price
5
Gns.
5 - 12 MAGDALEN STREET, OXFORD -7.-111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111h11111111111111111111111 â– :i
FRITILLARY
9
' Shore Leave,' apparently they were not intended by caste or producers. A nautical atmosphere is always difficult to manage, and Richard Barthelmess' rolling gait hardly overcame the difficulty. Dorothy Mackail (Connie Martin) has a pretty face, but misuses it in a pathetic manner, and ' Bilge ' Smith's precarious cap accentuates the vacancy of his countenance. ' The Sea Beast' is a remarkable film. One imagines that it must have been arranged and produced by two entirely different groups of people. The parts dealing with the sea are excellent. Even the captious rise to the occasion, and the whole atmosphere of the whaler is admirably conveyed. The photography is equally good, and the epic quality of Moby Dick is given some place, if not its right prominence. One feels that something more might have been done about the sea-chanties, though not on the screen. But unhappily every scene is not aboard ship. The tropic moon, with its gift of shining in unexpected directions, seems to have intoxicated others beside Ahab and Esther, and the producers have denied even good cardboard for the garden. One could literally see the edges. Of the ending, too, it is better not to speak, nor of the spirit walking on the waters ; but some fine acting from John Barrymore and the exquisite beauty of Dolores Costello do something to save the situation, and ' The Sea Beast' remains a film of distinction. The acting in ' Lady Windermere's Fan' is the most notable thing in an excellent film. There is nothing to impede it. The photography is unusually good, and there are many small and happy effects which remind one how pleasant a film it is. Ronald Colman is at his best as Lord Darlington„ and certainly stands a close-up better than any man on the films. Irene Rich is much better than usual and May McAvoy rises well to her more difficult occasions. The husband is adequate, and the eligible bachelor, Lord Augustus, a perpetual delight. The captions are only fair, straining to connect the film with Wilde. Otherwise little attempt is made, or should be made, to do so. The film deserves to rely on its own very attractive individuality. It is depressing to mention a film among these unique in two ways—it is British and it is never amusing. Even ' Shore Leave' can stand the comparison in plot, though the photography of ' The Sea Urchin' is definitely good. For the rest, Betty Balfour is no worse than her wont, but the film is really built up round her peculiarities, which are her faults. The film becomes worse with the passing of time, and the eccentricities of the plot culminate in a providential little boat which carries the hero and heroine away from a small cargo vessel typifying vice. One can but hope that the second half of this term may bring something to give the lie to this mute comment on British scenic drama.
I0
FRITILLARY
%outlet There is a sweetness in mortality Rounding the light and darkness for all time, There is a peace, a granted prayer of pity In sure cessation from the timeless clime Of earth's swift turbulence, which must rush onward, Uncertain of all else but speed and sorrow ; Dragging the little lovelinesses downward Into chaotic nothingness of morrow. Only this thing remember, gather closely An evening cloud, a touch of lips, a tear Nor ever pass these by or hold them loosely, Lest you should meet th'unvisioned sleep with fear : Finding death's immortality in life Too deep for dreaming and too late for strife. V.P.
travel 'dotes [Written from day to day on the deck of S.S. , cruising in the Norwegian Fijords.] I think it must be impossible to understand mountains until you have been friends with some of them for a long time. To do that you must live with them and learn to understand all their moods, which change, not so much with the season, as with the day and the hour. You must have looked up at them so often that, for all their terrific grandeur, their high shapes have become intimate. You must have seen the afternoon shadow creep up their forested slopes and the evening light colour the weird peak, while the water, lying like a solid in the windless track, turns from silver to glass, from glass to lead and from lead to jet. But we are passing, passing always, on a coil of sea between these monstrous mountain walls, which change only in that some are mossed with trees and others bare to their core of rock, in that some are dry and others shimmering with waterfalls. We know they speak, but we cannot understand what they say any more than we can understand the fair-haired peasants on the jetties where we land. At length we are so oppressed by this interminable review, by this endless rank of stark and inscrutable giants, that we look down with relief at the books upon our knees, or turn to the face of the stranger on the next deck chair, or even, for greater security, creep down into our cabins. We anchored at the head of a fijord this evening, and I got away by the first boat, and climbed until the crag shouldered out of sight the other passengers, the steamer, the fijord itself—and I was lost. There grew in my heart dread, like a child's, of the steamer sailing away and leaving me alone in this outlandish place. My one comfort was that the long northern twilight would not fail and leave me in the dark. Then the twilight came and I learned why this is a land of trolls, and why men on its lonely farms go melancholy mad and take to drink. Far better black darkness than this unsteady twilight, in which all the trees turn to witches, the grey rocks lean together taking counsel together against you, and, unless you keep your eye upon it, the very moss begins to crawl about the stones.
FRITILLARY
ii
Stumbling through the fissures of the boulders, slipping on lichens, and tripping on larch-roots, somehow, anyhow, I made my way, with all the trolls of Norway keeping step beside me down the slope. I was taken up a mountain to-day. When we looked down behind us —not a pleasant sensation—we could see our road like a tangle of ribbon unwound from a cord and caught on the edge of the precipice. Reaching what we had though was the summit, we found we were only between the knees of the mountain ; his great body rose above us, and a glacier lay like a white cloth upon his head. Up and up we went, until birch and hazel gave way to mountain ash, and ash to the spear-headed northern pine, and up again until we had passed the line of trees and had reached one of those high-lifted places of the world where men seldom go. It was all grey rock here and crashing streams of snow-water, swilling anyhow, or poured down vertical places between rises of spray-blackened rock, or collected into streams in whose race were cushions of bright moss spiked with cottonheaded reeds. The rocks, the springing water and the tiny mountain flowers, which you must stoop to see, were rejoicing in the short summer which bared them to the sky and air, before the long winter began again to pile foot after foot of snow upon them. On the saddle of the mountain was the watershed, where the glacial waters pause a moment, as if trembling with hesitation before they divide ; and well may they hesitate, so different a fate hangs upon their choice. If they turn west they will go leaping down the terraces of the mountain to the green fijord eight thousand feet below ; if they turn east they will go journeying for three or four hundred miles through gorge,. forest and plain, turning mills, floating logs, washing villages, until at last they glide between the wharves and under the keels of a port and meet the sea-water of another coast. In this lonely, icy place is a lake of the deepest and clearest colour, green or blue as you please. Of all lakes in the world there cannot be one colder or purer than this, cupped in a granite crater, fed with new melted snow, never wholly free from ice, and often covered in a cloud. No boat was ever launched upon it, no fish swim in it, and few human hands have been dipped into the clear little waves that tap against the rock at its edge. It has no shallows : it falls sheer away like a well to a depth that has not been measured ; no weeds can live in its icy water to fringe its rim and leave torn strips to spot its surface. Its purity and beauty are hardly like anything that belongs to this world ; its coldness, loneliness and depth are the qualities of death. The mist has just come down upon us, not only hiding but hushing everything except the sirens of the ships bleating to each other through the milky silence. The anchor runs out, and we lie in a sea smoothed to grey silk, while twenty yards away, embracing us on all sides, is a wreath, beautiful with the faintest tints of the rainbow but dangerous as death. Birds with sunlight on their wings shoot suddenly out of it and vanish into it again. The ship throws enormous shadows of herself upon the mist, which move, though she is motionless. The mist is like a dream made visible and tangible, and the ship is wrapped in it away from the world ; but she will not let us enjoy our dream, but cries out against the loneliness and silence, for she knows what it means. Then, suddenly, we see that the heads of the hills are peering at us above the wreath, and in a moment the solid world comes to life again, sketching itself in while the mist becomes
12
FRITILLARY
tenuous, tears apart, and is no more than cloudy scarves drifting away from us on the water and vanishing as they drift, light and lovely in their disappearance, as if heedless of the peril they had made.
Thur-r-ump, thur-r-ump, bang,' goes the music, and the couples step, slide and whirl, for to-night there is a fancy dress dance, and there was champagne at dinner. The ship is just drawing away from its anchorage. At the edge of the fijord a few houses, wooden, and painted spotless white, are blazing with yellow lights which stripe the water. But soon the austere settlement has slipped away to the side. There is a sudden shout from the dancers and a rush to the rail of the ship. A dark mass is passing—a couple of fishing vessels lashed together with a covey of row boats about them. They bear past us in silence, floating by on the wind and tide, the men grouped in the bows neither moving nor speaking, all their faces turned to the steamer. The silly people on deck are all calling to them, screaming facetious remarks and waving ; now they are throwing streamers, which fall short of the passing vessels. The Norwegians make no sign in answer ; still standing- motionless, they glide past—two races, two worlds, confronting each other. The riot on board grows louder : there is a rout of fancy dresses, comic, bizarre, gaudy ; caps of coloured paper are on every head. Some, withdrawn from the blaze of coloured lanterns, stand in couples, the women drooping a little as if from tiredness, fingering their dresses, the men staring at them and talking in low voices. Along the deck a number of men and a few women are crowding round the bar, and there are jokes and sudden bursts of laughter. Here is a little community within the iron planks of a ship, moving swiftly, brilliant with lights, full of men and women at the old human games of dancing, drinking and love-making. Through what is this riot moving? One has only to step to the rail and look up from under the awning to see. Houses and boats are forgotten now. The span of water on which we move is calm ; the mountains, above whose submarine valleys we are moving, have climbed up half the sky. There are the soaring needles of a witches' peak ; there the horned rhinoceros-head of a famous monster, with a glacier on his shoulders ; and higher, the northern twilight, unlit as yet by any star. Then, slowly, between two pale summits of snow, a great planet burns into sight ; the solemnity and the remoteness of its beauty brings a sanctity for which the whole scene seemed to be waiting. ' Immense elemental things,' I thought, whose weight and distance crush the imagination ; millions of tons of primary rock ; fathoms of icy water, part of the indivisible ocean ; star a million miles from the earth, have you no pity for the vulgar little pleasure-steamer that spins with its coloured lights and thin music through your immense boundaries ? Why should these little creatures heed you ? What help have you for them ? You would only humiliate them with your grandeur, disquiet them with your purity, bewilder them with your beauty because it is a beauty no man can possess or understand.' Two dancers go up to the rail now, and after looking a moment turn away ; it is impossible to hear what they say, but their movements speak clearly. Turn your back •upon them,' whispers the woman. Come back to the ship and the dance, for the ship is safety and smallness and comfort. Turn back quickly, for we mean to be happy, you and I, and there is no happiness for those who make friends with the sea, the mountains and the night sky.'
FRITILLARY I found another lake to-day, one held in a long, deep crack between two ranges. Nourished by a blue glacier, its waters are jade green, not clear, but milky with the turmoil of their descent. I climbed on to a jutting rock and stayed an hour, for this was a place of which a lasting memory must be made. Above me, on each side, were the forested steeps going up to the snow-line, the calm water below, and, just beside me, leaning out of the sparkling granite, a little mountain ash. From its upper branch hung a cluster of berries which the sun had lacquered its brightest orange-red, while in the shadow hung a lower cluster, still pale yellow, and all stencilled against the cloudy jade water. The wind stirred little leaves of light in the lake, and wild raspberries and harebells were growing wherein the silver stone at the edge had caught a little soil. Yellow and red ashberries, with their leaves, hung out against a lake of green snow-water—a coloured picture worth sailing a thousand miles north to get. M.F.P.
E)eab ltison When I was buried, Anne stood by, And grief her slender body shook ; She dropped her face between her hands To hide her sad bewildered look. And in a hushed and quiet house She lay and waited for the morrow Night after night, with brimming eyes— The newest votary of sorrow. It drove me earthward from the dead— That pitiful and silent weeping. A young ghost to a young child I came when all the world was sleeping. .
Anne wept no more, being full of fear (A child loves not a phantom friend). I stole away into the night, And of our love there came the end : I am to her a frightening dream ; She is the thing that hurt me most— False to the youthful love we swore, For fear of my small timid ghost. A.C.
the three Parts of Magic AND THEIR MANIFESTATION TO-DAY. The wise woman is as old as the world : she was Lilith and Eve, and before them the Three Mothers of the Earth : she was powerful in Old Greece, she still flourishes on the plateaux of Peru : I have met her in Scotland, and her brother in the Outer Isles, and was at first sorry that she seemed to be dead in our own less romantic civilisation. It was a pity, I thought, that scepticism should have outfaced woman's innate magic genius, and having myself known the promptings of that hereditary instinct, I sought for the modern manifestation. This year I found it. Three
14
FRITILLARY
books have recently been published--` The Green Lacquer Pavilion,' The Venetian-Glass Nephew,' and ' Lolly Willowes ' : they are all three a frank indulgence of the necromantic craving, and, in this year of Our Lord, they offer no excuse. One thing is at once noticeable about their authorship— they are written by women. James the Sixth of Scotland and F irst of England was a connoisseur in the arts of Necromancy and Witchcraft, although it seems that he knew little of the third part of magic ; indeed, does not mention it. ' There are,' he says, principallie two sortes, wherevnto all the partes of that vnhappie arte are redacted ; whereof the one is called Magic or Necromancie, the other Sorcerie or Witchcraft.' He does not take into account the wide effects of Accidental Magic, which I hold to be the third though lesser part of a three-fold mystery. This great scholar having made what we may be forgiven for calling a mistake in his division of the parts of Magic, we can comfort ourselves with the assurance that he is unreliable in the reason that he gives for the predominance of women in the occult arts : ' The reason is easie, for as that sexe is frailer than man is, so is it easier to be intrapped in these grosse snares of the Deuill, as was ouer well proued to be trve, by the Serpents deceiuing of Eua at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with that sexe sensine.' Be that how it may, we cannot deny that woman is generally the medium and inheritor of magic, and as such these three authors have acquitted themselves well. Helen Beauclerk's book, ' The Green Lacquer Pavilion,' is of that quality of which fairy-tales are made, and yet it is no fairy-tale in the modern connotation, for it is written in all proper seriousness, worthy of the dignity of Accidental Magic. The writing itself is of a closely-knit texture, infinitely exact and careful, with an Augustan precision of phrase and carefully-turned flattery of the reader. Soothed into self-respect by a honied dedication to ourselves, in the person of the Gentle Reader, savouring the delicate compliment to our Discernment, Wit and Understanding, we pass through the gilded doors of the Green Lacquer Pavilion into a country of fulfilment. As is usually the case with Accidental Magic, the persons concerned are for a time granted their heart's desires, or at least embarked upon an adventure where their darling talents have a longed-for opportunity. There are two love-idylls in the book, and these, it seems, have had even more care lavished on them than the other adventures. Lady Taveridge, wife of the upright and stupid Sir John, passes through a poignantly wistful interlude with Safir, a glorified incarnation of a love of her early youth. I think I shall not forget the perfumed unreality of their story, or the day when she fell asleep in the garden of her lover's house. ' She slept, and dreamed that the odour of walnut leaves was changed into a cloud of petals that hung suspended on the darkness and then fell softly one by one. The touch of them waked her, and she turned to find Safir kneeling by the couch, his hands filled with blossoms of lilac and jasmine that he had stripped from off their branches and now poured down upon her face and hair. . . . He did not kiss her, but when his load of flowers was all spent leaned nearer and caressed her face with gentle, almost timid fingers. And presently he laid his cheek against her neck and they stayed so, silently and without moving, for a long while.' This book satisfies in us the craving after the unreal and the unexpected, the longing for what is lovely and unattainable, and which we can only reach through the medium of that Magic which even yet we understand not at all, and so name Accidental. Of the more tangible type of magic, necromancie, the second branch of the whole art, requires the closest study and the widest occult learning.
FRITILLARY Men, more than women, have left records of their discoveries, because they have no recourse to that more intimate chronicle of knowledge that is handed down verbally on the distaff side for generations. Galen and Paracelsus are names to conjure with ; they gathered together a vast knowledge which our latter-day minds so foolishly discredit : and their studies were not carried on, as James the First and Sixth would have us believe, under the aegis of the Devil. Paracelsus never misses an opportunity of impressing it upon us that his wonders are worked through a knowledge of the hidden powers of God, and have nought to do with the evils of witchcraft. He even carries his piety into the alchemical furnace : ' Seeing, then, that all art must be learned from the Trinity, that is, from. God the Father, God the Son, Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Ghost, three distinct persons, but one God, we will also divide this our alchymical work into three short treatises.' Elinor Wylie's conjuror in ' The Venetian-Glass Nephew' has the same scruples, for he follows the recipes of Paracelsus, and the. use of holy water and the presence of a cardinal in no way hinder his effects. Once one ceases to be irritated by the self-conscious preciosity that is noticeable at the beginning of the book, the story itself torments the mind with all the forbidden delights of Nigromancy. ' The aspergillum was formed of twigs of Vervain, periwinkle, sage, mint, and basil tied by a thread expertly abstracted from a virgin's distaff and provided with a handle of hazelwood from a tree which had not yet fruited.' Miss Wylie knows her Paracelsus ; she has fulfilled her wise-womanhood in a knowledge of the perfumes to burn on different days, the incantations to the spirits of earth, air, fire and water, the staff and the robe for each rite, and all the mysteries that are as colourful as her book. Witchcraft is the secret province of the lonely woman ; even in these days she may make her compact with the devil and, without resort to the abuses and obscenities that are age-old and part of its origin, may comfort herself with her new-found power and adventure, her communion with something forbidden, the blessed possession of a secret. ' That's why,' said Lolly Willowes, ' we become witches : to show our scorn of pretending life's a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It's not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that —but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and—what is it?—" blight the genial bed." Of course, given the power, one may go in for that sort of thing, either in self-defence or just out of playfulness. . . . And think, Satan, what a compliment you pay her, pursuing her soul, lying in wait for it, following it through all its windings, crafty and patient and secret. . . . Her soul— when no one else would give a look at her body even ! ' Some women might not have known, as Lolly did, that any such cornpast had been made, but Sylvia Townsend Warner knows all the rites, and makes her heroine also a reader of Glanvill. Thus it comes about that Lolly realises what was meant by her own cry of despair to the woods, and the pregnant, surging silence that followed it, the finding of the kitten in her locked room that night, her ominous presentiment and the drawing of blood from her hand. The heritage and ritual of witchcraft is here, unaltered through centuries, and no more dead to-day in the unconscious minds of women than any other primitive instinct. The process of initiation, if a little intellectualised so as not to offend a new-born vanity, is in effect the same as that repeated again and again in the witch-trials of Glanvill, and recounted in his Examination and Confession of Alice Duke, widow, of Wincaunton : ' And shortly after, the devil appeared to her in the shape of a man, promising that she should want nothing, and that if
FRITILLARY she cursed anything with A pox take it, she should have her purpose, in case she would give her soul to him, suffer him to suck her blood, keep his secrets, and be his instrument to do such mischief as he would set her about. All which, upon his second appearing to her, she yielded to, and the Devil having pricked the fourth finger of her right hand between the middle and upper joynt (where the mark is yet to be seen) gave her a pen with which she made a cross or mark with her Blood on Paper or Parchment, that the Devil offered her for the confirmation of the Agreement, which was done in the presence of Anne Bishop. And as soon as the examinant had signed it, the. Devil gave her sixpence, and went away with the Paper or Parchment.' MARGARET LANE.
Earth You hold me, Earth, so strongly and so well, My Mother, when I lie upon your breast, That I would seek for nothing, only rest Until I think I feel your bosom's swell. The wind, I think, is your caressing breath, And in the silence where all rumours blend Sometimes I hear you singing without end A very ancient song of life and death. In that society of worlds that we, Your children, do not know, you have your part, And your large intercourse we cannot guess. You talk as mothers do with child on knee—, The mind abroad, but the unconscious heart Still with the child that heedless hands caress.
'Reviews THE LABURNUM BRANCH. By Naomi Mitchison. (Jonathan Gape; 5/-.) Though this book is delightful enough as an isolated group of impressions, yet there is inevitable disappointment in comparing it with Mrs. Mitchison's other work : as verse it does not nearly reach the standard attained by her prose as prose, chiefly because her talents in the latter are her defects in the former. The comparison, moreover, is stressed by the fact of some of the most striking poems being those which approximate to her patterned prose, in rhythm, in content, or in both. Amongst the greatest pleasures of that prose is its admirable quality of continuity : its narrative vividness, lying in the presentation of a sequence of feelings linked up with one another : and this quality is the antithesis of that of the lyric poet, who isolates his sensations and tries to convey the feeling of each separately, as a precious stone he has picked up, sharply and exquisitely graven to be a whole in itself, with no blurring at one edge or another to form part of a chain. I wish Mrs. 'Mitchison would write an epic : she is one of the rare people who can sustain rhythm without becoming dull, and one feels that she has the epic rather than the lyrical mind. Moreover, to all lyrical poets who write in `free verse' an additional difficulty is given : for it is often more easy to convey the reality of a sensation with that sharpness which willy nilly bites the mind to perception if there is a formal grace of metre, a clear-cut rhyme scheme, a definite expectancy of sound. Except perhaps in Mr. Waley's translations from .
Oxford's Dress Distinction applies to all our items of Varsity wear for Ladies, and the recognised centre for correct effects in BLAZERS, CRESTS SWEATERS, JUMPERS, TIES, &c., is " The Shop in the Turl with the big Showroom."
A casual call receives a.welcome, and odd moments can always be interested by the display at-
WALTERS &
Co., Ltd.,
THE LEADING VARSITY OUTFITTERS,
8, 9 & io THE TURL, OXFORD. (High Street End--opposite Lincoln College).
OXFORD POETRY 1926. Edited by C. T. Plumb &W.H. Auden Ss. 6d. net. " I had rather than forty shillings I had my book of songs and sonnets The Merry Wives here."
¶ The new volume of the most amusing annual Anthology is now ready Buy at once. The 1925 volume ran out of print immediately. THE
The ' Isis' Art Needlework Depot. 28 Banbury Rd.
OXFORD OUTLOOK The only undergraduate paper devoted to literature. Price is. each number, or 7/6 yearly. ¶ THE NOVEMBER NUMBER
IS NOW READY and contributions for the next number should be sent in at once.
THE
TWELVE PRESENTS In two Colours
Great variety of Xmas Presents.
7s. 6d. net.
An old song of Christmas, Decorated by H E R R Y. 11 An enchanting gift.
ISIS IDLINGS By GEOFFREY BRERETON
Ss. 6d. net. . nothing of " Singularly feeble . . any worth . . . We feel Oxford has been unworthily represented before the public. We feel hurt that Basil Blackwell and Geoffrey Brereton should do us snob an injustice." D.C. in The Oxford University Review. " Deft . his wit is terse and sudden . .
always clever, always dexterous . Blackwell's have printed it beautifully and it deserves a large Sale." The Cherwell.
¶ Ask for a copy of BA S I L
BLACKWELL'S AUTUMN
LIST it is worth possessing—and keeping, it can be obtained at either of the BLACKWELL BOOKSHOPS STREET.
,Art Needlework, Wools, Maderia Linens, and Lingeries.
in
BROAD
TYPEWRITING. Scientic (including Medical) Literary, Commercial, etc., carefully and promptly done.
Theses a Speciality. English, French and Spanish. Highly recommended. Also Rapid Shorthand, Duplicating and Translations. Address
Miss Florence Gardner, 8o Queen Alexandra Mansions, Hastings Street, London, W.C.I.
FRITILLARY
7
1
the Chinese, which have a flavour of the exotic in their lucidity, driving the mind through the unfamiliar to apprehend their separate delights, there is hardly any free verse,' from Ossian to Walt Whitman, which can give as swift and sure a crystallization of the passing moment of beauty as can be rendered by the more formal variety. A vague impression of loveliness, a handful of moving phrases, a feeling of luminous intimacy—yes : but very rarely the exquisite impersonal of the true lyric, whose remoteness is part of its beauty. All this, of course, is largely a question of individual capacity for being aroused to experience : and perhaps even of individual ways of regarding beauty. Mr. Davies and Mr. Housman, the most perfect modern writers in the older and more formal rhythms, perhaps feel a moment of loveliness not as a part of life, but as something incredibly exalted in ecstasy above it : in contradistinction to those who take beauty as an everyday thing. They eat their strawberries, so to speak, as each a revelation, rather than as a pleasant adjunct to existence ; and it may be for this reason that they write of beauty in a manner of delicate strictness and grace far removed from prose, where Mrs. Mitchison, and the free verse writers in general, use a more leisured and acceptant rhythm, receiving beauty as one among many rich and entertaining things normally part of living. It is according to the way one receives beauty, then, that one is more stirred by freedom and energetic irregular rhythm or by words wrought into a restraint of exquisiteness. For an example, here are four lines in the irregular rhythm : . . . ' When all I think is what you have breathed on my heart, And all I say, Although I am praised for it, Is your book read aloud' . . which suggests a great intensity of feeling and contains a lovely phrase : to be compared with either of these more formal and more compressed couplets on a like theme : So are you to my thoughts as food to life Or as sweet seasoned showers to the ground' . . . and But thou art all my art, and dost advance As high as learning my rude ignorance.' But it is an interminable discussion : and as there, is so little good verse in either variety it would be ungrateful to take exception to this book, which is on the whole so pleasant, and which does after all contain examples of both. Its worst points are the Poems about Places, which seem no more than blurred smudges of paint, and the semi-political verse, where the childlike quality of acceptance which is of value to most of her work can play no part. Among the best are the poems reminiscent of ' Cloud Cuckoo Land' and ' When the Bough Breaks,' where her decorative historical imagination is displayed. Some are in free verse, very pleasantly full of the narrative sense : and there is one notably good lyric in the restrained form, called ' The Road to Rome,' ending ' Our Milky Way lies broad and fair, But big strange stars we do not know Make patterns in this foreign air. Deep in the North, a silver flame, The Pole Star, pointing whence we came.' . . . It is a book full also of sudden illuminant phrases : the little car and the thick, the autumn weather, and the engine trying to make it rhyme
18
FRITILLARY
slow dark grows thin the hours on their owl-soft wings the empty orchard, hay and white nettles' . . . which quite unexpectedly restore to one experiences so vividly that one knows the very smell of them. And there are poems such as "The Widow' and Peace' and Prothalamion,' and this : There is some magic in words ; Heavy birds that cuddle Down on a chilled heart ; Into each pinched, empty part They murmur and huddle ' . . . which, besides partaking of the curious warmth and intimacy of its companions, proves that, though Mrs. Mitchison's verse may stand in relation to the perfect lyric as friendship to love, nevertheless friendship can be a really beautiful thing. R. 0. HAYNES. By Rose Macaulay. (Collins : 7/6 net.) Miss Macaulay's work falls into two divisions, with the War as a sharply-marked dividing line. The Lee Shore is a tragedy ; Told by an Idiot is a comedy of manners. But her latest novel, Crewe Train, combines the two types. Denham Dobie supplies the tragedy. She wanted a pleasant, selfish, open-air existence; left to herself, she liked nothing better than maps and wayside inns and Cornish cottages. But she also wanted Arnold ; and Arnold was a passenger in the Crewe train. So Denham, after trying and failing to combine Arnold and the life she liked, had to join him there. And so we leave her—after turning over the last page to make sure that there really isn't any more. The Crewe train supplies the comedy. We knew its passengers already —a restless, witty, cleverish crowd who live fast and furiously and withal conventionally. The train travels so fast that we have hardly time to observe them. There is Noel, dividing her time between London and Somerville ; she is a young lady of fastidious intellect, a little aloof from the crowd. There is Rome Garden, late of Told by an Idiot—she whose philosophy of life might be expressed in the words of another modern novelist, ' If everything bores you a little, nothing will bore you much.' ter ; a woman with a muddled There is Evelyn, a reincarnation of Lady Pot mind and an infinite capacity for well-meaning mischief-making. The rest are a crowd of authors, publishers, Catholics, and cheerful hedonists. It is through Denham, inarticulate as a savage, ingenuous as a child, that the author criticises them. And her criticism is, as always, witty to hardness. She exposes the follies of life with something of the enfant terrible, perpetually asking Why?' and something of the disillusioned sentimentalist. Evelyn is, with all due deference to Miss Macaulay's experience, frankly impossible. And in her hands the plot becomes, in its latter stages, crude and sensational. But Crewe Train is, on the surface, a very readable and entertaining book ; and below the surface it is a question without an answer, 0 Mr. Porter, whatever shall I do?' CREWE TRAIN.
FRITILLARY
19
'Hews from the Uf(omen's CoLieges Four lectures are being given at St. Hugh's in aid of the Appeal Fund for the. Women's Colleges. Miss Gwyer delivered the first at 8.3o on November 5th, her subject being ` A forgotten Educationalist,' Mrs. Trimmer. It was very much enjoyed and its delicate irony fully appreciated. The chair was taken by the. Rt. Reverend Bishop Shaw, D.D. The next, on Friday, the 12th, was on ` The North Sea Plaice Fishery in Peace and War,' by Professor W. Garstang, M.A., D.Sc. Chairman : Miss J. W. Kirkaldy. On Nov. 19th Miss Joan Evans, B.Litt., lectures on ` The History of Jewellery.' Chairman : Professor A. L. Myres. On Nov. 26th Miss M. F. Perham, M.A. lectures on ` British Somaliland.' Chairman : The Warden of New College. We regret to hear that Miss Burrows has undergone an operation. However, she is said to be making a successful recovery. The dances of the five women's colleges were held on November 6th. They seem to have been uniformly successful. The Home Students' Boat Club is having a dance on November 13th. The Dramatic Society of St. Hilda's College is to produce a play this term. The St. Hugh's Dramatic Society will present, at 2.3o and 8, on December 4th, three plays, Thersytes, ` The Deluge ' and ' St. George and the Dragon.' Programmes are being sold in aid of the Appeal Fund for the Women's Colleges. The Home Students' Dramatic Society is producing a comedy, a tragedy, and a melodrama in the seventh week of term. The Lady Margaret Hall Dramatic Society has had two play readings. The Debating Society of St. Hugh's has had a joint debate with St. John's on the subject ' That liberty is dead.' Other debates have been arranged with St. Edmund Hall and Ruskin. The Home Students' Debating Society has had a debate with St. Catherine's on the subject ' That moderate men have done more towards progress than fanatics.' The Debating Society of St. Hilda's has had three meetings, a Freshers' debate, an informal debate on the motion ` That the body is the mirror of the soul,' and a joint debate with St. Edmund Hall on the motion ` That women students should be abolished from the University of Oxford.' The Beaufort Society of Lady Margaret Hall decided that ` we are not witnessing the decline and fall of the British Empire.' It has arranged a joint debate with St. Edmund. Hall. The Lady Margaret Hall Music Club is to produce a concert at the end of term. The Home Students' Shakespeare Reading Club is, as usual, having three meetings this term. The ' Frightened Freshers Film Company' entertained St. Hilda's on October 3oth.
20
FRITILLARY
Lady Margaret Hall has been in difficulties, as Miss Walters, its VicePresident, has not come up this term, and there were constitutional difficulties as to filling her place. Finally, however, Miss Pettiward was elected, and the business of the J.C.R. Committee could go on. St. Hilda's First XI has had two hockey matches this term, with University College and St. Hilda's Old Students. Both were lost. The Home Students' First and Second XI's played Headington School on Oct. 3oth. The First XI lost ; the Second XI won. The First XI played Ranelagh Hockey Club, which resulted in a draw. St. Hugh's First XI had a match with Milham Ford, and the Second XI with the. Oxford Etceteras. Both matches were lost. Two others had to be scratched owing to bad weather. The Lady Margaret Hall Hockey Club has a fresher, Miss Robbins, playing for United. All matches, so far, have been scratched because of the weather. The United Rowing Club (President, L. Joris, St. Hidla's ; Secretary, B. Mott, St. Hugh's) is having a style competition in a gig-four with Reading University. St. Hilda's has produced an eight with blue, and silver oars. The Oxford Home Students played a lacrosse match against the Oxford High School, and won I8-2. Two others have been arranged. One member of the Club, Miss Hicks, is playing for United. St. Hugh's Net-ball Club first and second teams played St. Katherine's. Both matches were lost. The Home Students' Net-ball Club won a match against St. Michael's Convent on Nov. 4th. They are going to form a second team this term. At the time of going to press the Somerville news had not arrived. We should like correspondence on the subject of the proposed formation of a Women's Inter-Collegiate Dramatic Society, and the consequent policy of such an organisation. We are unable to publish long articles on this vexed question, but letters of ioo--25o words would be welcome.
On fencing The enthusiast in the cause of Fencing, like the enthusiast in anything else, finds that he or she is almost doomed to fall into a number of descriptive clichĂŠs and ' shop ' tags that are the infallible marks of the club bore. No initiate, male or female, particularly wants to hear that the exercise of fencing is conducive either to a good figure or to distinctive grace, as in fact this statement is little short of a gratuitous insult on his or her present state. It is nevertheless outstandingly true that good fencers are generally well proportioned, excellently moulded and of a fair grace.' In which later attribute women especially are most noticeable, their novices being the constant envy of the wretched male beginner, who always resembles a rather ungainly moth stretched out on a board with unyielding pins at every joint. Madame la Chevaliere d'Eon de Beaumont, who took part in the celebrated assault before the Prince M. de Saint George, once said that why women began with so great an advantage over men in fencing was that they had learned all the technique of parry and riposte in talking, long
DUCKER OXFORD.
_fine selection of Shoes at
LADIES SHOP, 2 THE TURL. Gentlemen's Shop, 6 The Turl
• Attract ive
. .•4
,,46:7
GOWNS
,
,
•
For every occasion. Webbers extensive stocks comprise a really charming collection of the newest styles in Gowns—suitable for Afternoon, Semi-evening and Evening Wear. A special feature is the exceptional value and keen prices.
1
if
, I
1
i
4
,
i
4 1
//
, A
', -
' .
MILLINERY "'
3,,-,.r':-,
.'
'''*--
Sys, ,
IC
CORRECT MODELS Designed and made by Experts on the premises. All Garments Altered t when necessary) FREE of charge.
No. 3237. Becoming Gowns in rich shades of Taffeta Silk French posies and ruching for a dainty 07 trimming. As illustrated
5/9
,
bboir,8 cow
c),c,..F-cmco
WEBBERS, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 HIGH ST., OXFORD Telegrams: Webbers, Oxford
Telephone : 1145 (2 lines), to Extensions.
FRITILLARY
21
before they ever touched a foil. And Madame de Maintenon avowed that her ascendancy over The Most Christian King was due to the fact that she could always touch him three times out of four with the pointed rapier. Undoubtedly women have greatly under-rated their equality with men in this respect, ever since Jael descended to such cowardly means as a tent-peg while her enemy slept. Nowadays the extra agility and verve displayed by women fencers such as those who reach Olympic Games standard—a by no means unattainable height—more than makes up for the usual weakness of wrist as compared to men. And, moreover, there is one thing especially in which women fencers achieve far greater beauty and grace than men, namely the courteous and formal salute. Few sports are more thrilling to watch if the rudiments of technique are mastered, few forms of exercise more fascinating and exacting in determination, though, not in time. Herein lies Fencing's most alluring charm, in a few lessons one achieves a degree of skill sufficient to make one hanker to go on working out each separate deviation, while one need but spend comparatively little time snatching an odd half-hour's exercise as opportunity arises. It is impossible to go into the intricacies of the right of attack and defence, of the meaning of many of the delightful and archaic details of terminology. Let those who are interested visit any important Salle in London during the vacation, like M. Grave's, and see for themselves ; or, better still, let them come to watch the Oxford University team in its matches, held most Wednesdays at 7 Gloucester Street. Fencing has so much been taken up by men and women after the war, though all need for ' that most antic sport' in any practical way has long since been restricted to film and fiction, that there must be some intrinsic value in all the things said in its favour. G.T.
toss I cannot keep joy nigh. Sweet moments sweep around me and are gone Like sharpest hail That stings so sweetly Yet melts all soft to lie, Does not prevail To leave one mark the cold wet cheek upon, But, melting, goes, is overpast completely. R.O.H.
11 olywell Press, Oxford
The
Grimbly Hughes "Blue & Gold" Box of
Superfine Chocolates :: In a Choice Variety of :: Shapes and Flavours, including MONTELIM ARTS.
M ARZIPANS.
CARAMELS.
CREAMS, etc.
There is nothing quite so good."
In Fancy Ribboned Boxes, containing :
lib. nett 3/- per box box 1/9 To be obtained at
GRIMBLY HUGHES & Co. Ltd. The Leading Food Distributors, 55, 56, 57 & 58 CORNMARKET ST.,
OXFORD. Telephones : Oxford 245. Extension 10.
LILIAN ROSE Day & Evening Gowns. Millinery.
Coats.
Costumes.
Blouses.
Jumpers.
Knitwear.
The Arcade, Cornmarket, OXFORD.