FRITILLARY November,
9 5
1 2
Price 6d.
Editor. R. BAILEY
(Lady Margaret Hall).
Committee.
M.
OWEN
(Lady Margaret Hall).
K. M. CONSTABLE (Somerville College). R. HAYNES (St. Hugh's College). G. E. OLIVIER (St. Hilda's Hall). J. M. A. STOTT (Oxford Home Students).
Treasurer. A. FALK
(St. Hilda's Hall).
fritillary Magazine of the Oxford Women's Colleges
NOVEMBER, 1925 CONTENTS Page
Editorial .. Next Term's Competition Three Limericks October . • The Jewel Observation Woodcut .. A Nineteenth Century Prophet Oxford Poetry, 1925 .. The Playhouse .. Lammermoor Pastures Flames of Fire ..
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3 3 4 4 5 6 8 10 12 12
Page
The Passing .. .. .. Senior Common Rooms of the Womens' Colleges I. Lady Margaret Hall The Film Society .. Encounter .. .. Reviews .. .. .. .. News in Brief from the Womens' Colleges . Notices and Reports .. .. Scheme for Annual Subscriptions ..
I3 14 14 15 17
18 19 22
Ebitorf at
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RITILLARY has made a long-meditated leap and will in this, and it
is hoped in all future terms, appear twice. It is, we think, two years ago since the suggestion was first made that there should be two numbers in each term, and the time for making the experiment seems to have come. It can hardly be said that there are not enough happenings of every kind in eight various weeks to furnish us with observations, impressions, records, criticisms and imaginations enough for two Fritillaries. Our first number will in general appear at the end of the middle week of term, at a time when, it is thought, you may conveniently look back over the first half of the term to the Long Vacation, dimly discernible in the distance, and forward over the last half of the term to Christmas on the horizon. The second number will appear at the end of the last week of term but one, at the time when our single number has hitherto come out, that being a moment from which a good backward prospect of the whole term is possible. At the same moment that we decided to appear more often we decided to appear more cheaply. T'enpence, though it once came into a poem by a distinguished ex-Editor, is an inconvenient sum ; sixpence, which, come to that, has also had poems written about, and that before Fritillary was ever heard of, seemed to us a more appropriate sum. Before leaving our own financial affairs, we wish to call the attention of our feminine undergraduate readers to our annual subscription scheme,
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of which the details are given on a later page. This is an admirable scheme ; when at last you reach the fatal moment and are compelled to go down, you are enabled, by the payment of a trifling sum, to ensure the punctual consolement of your exiled unacademic years by the arrival, twice in each term, free, and even post-free, of Fritillary. It is to be observed that going down is so expensive, anyhow, that this slight additional outlay will hardly be noticed. From our own point of view, by obtaining a fair number of annual subscriptions we should establish our financial position in security and be freed for ever from sordid cares. But we believe that the scheme would be of advantage to both sides, and so commend it seriously to your attention. To turn from ourselves to Oxford and to a point which has not been dwelt on by our contributors, the chief characteristic of the term has hitherto been Rain. The Long Vacation, from this distance, appears to have been a long idling in the sun, in English fields, or on Italian hillsides among grapes and lizards, or in hot Italian streets. No doubt it really rained, and perhaps one even worked, but in comparison with Oxford in autumn it was dry and hot and idle. From all of which we return meekly to Oxford and find it forlornly muffled in a drizzling cloud and paved with glistening puddles, through which we ride in splashing haste on a bicycle groaning- and labduring with rust. By the time the next Fritillary comes out the contrast will have been forgotten, for the summer will have receded it into a remote and almost fabulous past. But it is the peculiar mark of the first half of the Michaelmas Term, so let us note it while it lasts. But twice in each term, rain or fine, Fritillary must come out. And for this it is necessary that a flood of contributions, devised with some regard to our requirements, should pour in upon us. ' The Editor, the Editor, I cannot think what he is for; He simply sits and lights his pipe With poems much more rich and ripe Than any of his own,' sings a contemporary poet. We wish to observe that with the poems rich and ripe which we at present receive we could not, even if we were so inclined, light even the cigarettes of the committee.
'next term's Competition This will be open to Freshers only. We offer a prize of a Book, of the value of 7/6, for the best Limerick of any kind. The Book will be chosen by the prize-winner. Entries must .be sent to the Editor on or before Thursday, November zgth.
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Ubree limerichs Fuit olim Virgo Margarita, Quae, triste et subfusce vetita, In scholas inivit, Nec rursus exivit, Quamquam saepe ab amicis petita. Fuit olim proctor ferocissimus, Canibus cum taurivis sae vissimus. In illa popina Appellata Cadena Virginibus puerisque instantissimus. Erat olim senex quidem cum barba, Qui dixit : Quam valde amabar ! Cum pulla ululae Non sine columbae Nidulatae sunt omnes in barba.' D. M. E.
October I was writing when he peeped round the door, and he thought I couldn't see ; but I caught his reflection in the mirror. I think he had a squirrel's tail. Aren't you coming out?' he whispered, and then whisked away on his tiptoe run. When I saw him again he was playing with chestnuts in the garden. ' You know I have work to do,' I said. ' One must consider humanity. Besides, how is one to live?' I suppose you don't like nuts ? ' he said wistfully. He had absolutely no sense of proportion. It was getting dusk when he climbed up the creeper to my window. I saw his yellow fawn's eyes glimmering over the sill. Your work is dead, isn't it?' he whispered. ' Arid—your ideas won't run—you feel like a dried up fountain pen.' How did you know?' I asked, astonished. He'd never seemed to show any interest in my doings before. Then he was off again at one of his inconsequent tangents. There won't be any beech leaves left soon,' he mourned. This was abuse of privilege. I had once told him that I used to count the leaves that fell from the fiery tree in my garden, because they seemed like dying sparks ; and he never let me forget it. I threw a book at him, and he dropped like a spider on to the lawn outside. I heard him
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grieving for a long time among the michaelmas daisies, and my work went worse than ever. Later in the evening I felt tiny fingers clutching at my left thumb, and I knew he had come to make it up with me ; but I pretended not to notice, and presently he went away. The clock struck six. My work was going very badly. Somebody threw berries at the window pane. ' Oh, very well! ' I cried. Have it your own way. I can't get on without you.' There was a joyful scutter in the doorway. Small fingers clutched mine once more and we ran out together into the dark and the dancing boughs and the flying autumn leaves.
the 3ewet They brought the radiance from the violet wings Of exquisite moments, myriad-plumaged hours Of light and green-blue evening starred with thought, Dove-gray silences and emerald showers Of song ; and burnished ecstacies of gold, Crimson, amethyst and jade to mould A jewel of limpid fire. They brought the brazier Of moulden dreams ; entwined curved filigrees, Tortuous soul-threads, fretted bright, drawn fine By poignant fingers. Intricately now Each facet blazed with subtle artistries Of pain, a glory pendent on Life's brow, A flaming lamp in his eternal shrine.
Observation Among other curious customs of the English people there are three conventions peculiar to any community of English girls or women, in schools and universities. No one knows why these three conventions exist, nor where they come from, nor how they come to be ; nor if they are separat6 or connected by some subtle and occult lien. However, their existence is undoubted. They are : the staying up late convention ; the convention that it is rather deplorable and a little ridiculous to write verse other than limericks, or prose other than essays, together with the conviction that, though even their relegation, once written, to a decent privacy is bad enough, the display of them verges on the faintly indelicate ; and the convention that the rather expert athlete must always avow complete incompetence at games, the ardour of the declaration varying in inverse ratio to the speaker's skill. The manifestations of the first convention have, at one time or another, affected most young women, who are indeed divided into three classes : those who, even after the first year, stand out bravely for the idea that to
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eat sugar biscuits and to drink cocoa is a pleasanter occupation for the small hours of the morning than is that most delightful of all pastimes, sleep ; those who long to think likewise but, overpowered by slumber, slink stealthily away to the enjoyment of that pleasure at a comparatively early hour (from ten to eleven the listener may hear their shamefast secret steps passing by) ; and those, the shameless minority, who go openly to bed when they will. The second of these conventions is painfully poignant to those who have ever tried to collect contributions to any magazine. The third convention is brought home with astonishing vigour to the unfortunate who really does play games rather ill, for she can never hope to prepare anyone for the fact ; as she avows her lack of skill a curious gleam is seen in the hearer's eye. ' Don't worry ; we're all hopeless ! ' is the inevitable and deceitful response. Alas ! worry is out of the question ; the woman is reconciled, with a calm despair, to that ultimate method of proof which is demonstration under reproachful eyes. ' Hopeless ! ' is the atmosphere, flavoured with reprobation. What more, however, could have been done? Is there, one speculates, some subtle secret lien between these dominant three? Do they, perhaps, spring from some Ideal of Young English Womanhood ? Hardy, reticent Modesty is perhaps their keynote. Unsleeping, yet full of cold baths and athletic instances ; hearty, Anglo Saxon, yet full of the ' nice' shrinking delicacies beloved of Mr. Kipling ; and full of so high an athletic standard that their own efforts, though they may have earned innumerable recognitions, seem as nought beside the Ideal. Is there this connexion, or do the Dominant Three drift separately down the stream of life, influent differently, influent strongly, but influent alone. Who shall say?
R. 0.H.
oobc u t A street where houses huddle close. A dark spire blots the sky morose Next the upstart moon, all bare and bold, Round as a melon, ripe, and gold. A cart came rattling down the street With lanterns red and indiscreet, Dispelling a fancy that I stood Carved with these shapes in coloured wood. M. E . B.
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Li 'nineteenth Century Prophet [We are glad to publish the following results of the researches of a German professor, who wishes to remain anonymous.] Seven points to be noted in the poem called ' The Bridge of Sighs' (I) The Bridge is the Parks Bridge, with its so eminently suited for suicide curve. (2) The subject of the poem is a woman undergraduate. (3) The opening lines, One more unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly unfortunate, Gone to her death,' refer to the entry of the heroine into the Examination Schools. (4) The words ' Mad from life's history ' refer to the course of study she had pursued. (5) The lines Sisterly, brotherly, Fatherly, motherly, Feelings had changed,' refer to a gradual estrangement between the heroine and her tutor. (6) The lines ' She stood with amazement, Houseless by night,' are an allusion to a custom in accordance with which the colleges bar their gates against their students at night. (7) In the lines ' Picture it, think of it, Dissolute Don,' we have restored the true reading and displaced the ill-supported though almost universally adopted conjecture, ' man.'
A nervous young cyclist of Dunstable Completely inverted a constable. He said, ' Even at Whitstable I wasn't a bit stable, And here I'm decidedly unstable ! ' CH. EDGE.
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eTforb Poetry, 1925 The editors of this year's collection lament with mingled pathos and eccentricity that unity seldom arises from mere geographical contiguity : since they have derided the idle paradox that a common habitat implies a common outlook bootless it were gratuitously to re-embark' (to quote the chiselled phrase of Mr. Monkhouse and Mr. Plumb) upon a lament of the inorganic effect of the volume. Such an impression is, after all, only to be expected ; moreover, it mars only the first reading, when we are also oppressed by a sense of extreme and puzzling complexity. The labour of reading so many poems, where each single is as brilliantly difficult as the one before it, makes one thankful for the clarity of Miss Benson's short song Lover to Beloved,' or Mr. Ketton-Gremer's quiet Epitaph of the Formal Poet.' This epitaph is one of the most satisfying poems in the whole book. On a second reading the vivid kaleidoscope focuses a little, and one is left with a feeling of urgent individual clamour and, sometimes, of real imaginative power among much ingenious fancy. There is a tendency among our young men, especially to be noticed in the verse of Mr. Robert Scott, Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Day-Lewis, to mourn their lost youth—to declare exquisitely and passionately that Nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower.' Correspondingly, Oxford poets are immensely interested in Death. Chang takes the Road to Eternity,' by Mr. Sutherland, is an eerie poem ; but for real horror it cannot compete with the charnel-mould of Mr. KettonGremer's Life in Death.' Miss Gryll's sonnet on the subject of dear and illusive immortality has moving lines ; but on the whole its wistfulness is a little tenuous. An ingenious critic has said that Mr. Plumb's fine poem, Brasenose ilderment, Quad,' gives the keynote of the whole gamut of puzzled bew wrath and, sometimes, joy, which sounds again and again in the verses of this book. It is the problem of the spirit which might find peace in eternity, but not in a life with Time's winged chariot hurrying near' It is too leaden, the thought Of Time's slow mastery : It numbs the veins, that, fraught With wisdom though we be, Time bears us past our port, Out to a tickless sea, And all our empery Must shiver into naught.' Space and Time beat out their insistent demand, and the imagination, in terror, finds out places of horror, to be drawn thence, in the beautiful and quiet close, by the healing loveliness of the moon. Changing delight goes deep, And shallow's the Sea of Death. 0 flowers, no more we weep That Time seals with his breath
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Your fulfilled buds. 0 leap, Ye hearts, this sky beneath, That beauty carrieth To morning, whilst ye sleep ! ' This confused distress before the inconsequences and incompatibilities of life is echoed by Mr. Cameron, Mr. Graham Grtene and Mr. BrainHartnell. Mr. Day-Lewis, however, has distilled his distress into a fine picture of a subtle and evenescent moment of feeling This autumn of the mood Lives not beyond the rustle Of its own leaves falling. And soon, where lilies stood, Brittle stalks in the wood Shiver, like spectres at cock-calling.' Mr. Ronald Scott's poem to H.N.R.' is admirable ; the author's restrained manner yet reveals true emotion. Mr. Schroeder's poem, My Love and I,' is interesting. The idea that too great intellectuality in love means the vanishing of some secret fineness is imaginatively treated, and there are some passages of great beauty. Indeed we overwearied of intellectuality : the reflection that not from the intellect alone can great poems arise is borne in on us by the spectacle of Mr. Acton. It is not in the intriguing epithet or the fevered chasing of images that poetic beauty hides herself. Imaginative observation is never lacking ; but what is needed in this poetry is some creative imagination capable of transforming the play of intellect. Sometimes this poetic imagination is heard, like the note of a bird in the lull of a storm, as in the exquisite Night Flowers' of Mr. Ferguson or in the poetry of Mr. Macleod. His ' Elegy on a Bank Clerk' is a little too much afraid of sentimentality for strength, but his other two poems are admirable. Hugin's Song' is built up almost entirely on sound, yet it has an enchanting quality not entirely dependent upon this cunning sound-weaving. ' Two-fold her grace is : Over the silent hills she smiles And in forgotten places . . Squirrels seek their leafy hold Where the lonely women weep. Low goes the bee : Slow bends the tree. Where the reindeer, chased of old, The rabbit chases.' This quality is to be found again in Maud Answered ' It is I who have come to bury you, bury you Deeper, ever so little deeper.' If anything out of all the poetry in Oxford is to prevail against our common enemy, Time, it will need to possess some of the secret enchantment of these poemg.
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Zbe PletOotwe The Oxford Players have returned to us, full of high hopes for the future. Mr. J. Fagan, on Saturday night, announced that the Carnegie Trust had promised a substantial grant to the Playhouse, so long as Oxford showed that it really wanted such a theatre. He made his speech after the curtain had fallen on ' The Circle,' and in conclusion he referred to it as an exceedingly polished performance of one of the best of modern comedies.' The first part of his claim, at any rate, was amply justified. It was a finished and well co-ordinated performance, and it is therefore hard to single out the brilliance of individual players. Mr. Alan Napier as Clive, the perfect ironist, telling ' the truth that sets people's nerves on edge' Miss Gwendolen Evans as the romantic illusioned ;Elizabeth; and Mr. Byam Shaw as Teddy ,Luton, the enthusiast who just escapes being commonplace—these three stood out especially in the first part of the play. That conversation between Elizabeth and Teddy was a triumph of restrained and varied acting ; their pathetic efforts to keep emotion out were finely conveyed, and Miss Evans' silent acting was excellent. Later our attention is focussed on Lord Porteous and Lady Kitty, who had run away from Clive thirty-five years before, and are invited back by the sentimental Elizabeth. Mr. R. S. Smith played the former part with his usual rich vulgarity, and Miss Rita Ricardo was excellent in the difficult part of Lady Kitty. Her vulgarity was not crude, but merely shop-soiled ; it conveyed the fact that she had once been something better, and almost made her change of front in the last act convincing. But now we are singling out the whole caste as brilliant individuals. The exception was the colourless Mrs. Shenstone, whom Miss Black Roberts played as if she knew she was a dramatic superfluity, as indeed she was. Mr. Val Gielgud, too, was not quite at home in the difficult part of Arnold, whose mother ran away when he was a child and whose wife is about to run away when he is— still a child. The first two acts are perfectly constructed, full of ' situations ' and bright, pithy dialogue ; and the caste lived up to every opportunity. It's very funny, I think,' said the lady behind me in the second interval. ' But do you think, dear that Elizabeth is going to be quite nice?, It seems to me that whatever she does will be wrong.' That was evidently Mr. --Somerset Maughan's difficulty. It did indeed seem that whether Elizabeth
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was frightened into staying with Arnold, or whether she ran away with all her illusions intact, that there was matter for a magic sequel to the comedy. The issues are complicated by Lady Kitty's sudden sincerity and Arnold's schematic generosity ; and for a moment it all looks like a ,tame, married ending, with the wistful Teddy left stranded in the Malay States. On his honest facing of the future the situation turns; Elizabeth flies with him, with open eyes, and the curtain falls on the ironic laughter of the Comic Spirit. The last act showed both the strength and the weakness of Mr. Maughan ; he made his characters say the dramatically necessary rather than the natural thing, and the result was a good deal of over-thoughtful dialogue. But the ending, with its absence of tedious unravelling explanations, was a masterpiece. ' The Circle' was succeeded by ' Misalliance,' and this was not a polished performance, because it is anything but a polished play. It is an irrational, excited, garrulous, impossible play. The first act blew away in talk that was matter for a Preface ; Mr. Napier, as Johnny Parleton, rather excusably forgot much of his share in it. But in the latter part of the evening the prompter's voice was stilled and the play became more spirited. It might have been a very fine performance if the caste had been as sure of their parts as they (.." were suited to them. The part of Parrleton, the big business man who combined k.... money-making and ideals, might have ., been written for Mr. Smith. Miss Isham ii 11) \I) f gave a quiet, neutral rendering of Mrs. Tarleton, which was in the best of taste ; Mr. Shaw managed the incredible Bentley rather well, and was pretty convincing even in tears. (There was a good deal of masculine weeping in this play, and it laid a considerable strain upon actors and audience. But that is Shaw's fault.) But the honours and the laughter of the even1 ing fell to Mr. William Pringle, who ! I. played with evident zest and delight the man who hides in the Turkish Bath, and breathes forth the fire and smoke of Socialism. He had only one lapse ; once, _..... when a cascade of laughter from the .., ...... ..........-tit> audience nearly drowned one of his simplest and most humorous remarks, his own face gave way. But somehow one liked him all the better for that. If Mr. Pringle is as richly funny again as he was in ' Misalliance,' and if the general standard of ease and sureness in the acting is as high as in ' The Circle,' the future stability of the Playhouse .should be assured. We wish Mr. Fagan and the Players whole weeks of Saturday nights.
is-d,'----_
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K.
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lammermoor Pastures They say the gods are wont to walk the hills— And yet I never met upon my way Divinest Cynthia stooping to her love, Or fierce Apollo thundering- up the day ; These crests lie all too low for such as they. And though I fared alone in gathering storm On uplands lovely as they were austere, I never saw the terribly Lordly Ones ; There was no sign of greater magic near Than the wild circling curlew, crying drear. Yet I believe one Presence walks these hills, Having more cause than gods or shadow-folk ; His step is humble as the earth he treads ; His staff is cut from steeps of virgin oak, And on his shoulder lies a shepherd's cloak. I found the briars flaming deepest rose Where he had torn his brow in passing by ; I smelt the thyme and clover-incense sweet, Crushed by his weary, home-returning feet ; I heard a star sing in the evening sky For joy that it was hallowed once to guide To that far place where Heaven did lowly lie Shepherds of Palestine at Christmastide.
flames of fire A home is the circle round a hearth whereon we and another have kindled fire. Without it we are as outcast as Cain ; within, we are as much at home as the Trinity are at home in space. When we rub two sticks, or clash flints, or strike matches, and the flame is born, God is visible among us ; we have made our home and God's temple. We may worship the flame itself and singe our beards like the satyrs, or fable of Prometheus, or see the Holy Ghost descending with tongues of fire, or be merely dumbly grateful for warmth and light, but something and somehow our heart worships at the flame. If the groves were God's first temples, his first altar was a hearthstone, and the flames, as God Himself, devoured the sacrifice. Flame is his fittest image. It is neither stone nor flesh, but likest spirit. As a crocus flower from the mould, so it springs up and aspires to heaven ; the
FRITILLARY. flower fades, but the flame vanishes, and the thoughts of the wisest brain on earth avail nothing to tell what is become of it. A flower may be picked or pressed, and its body prisoned though its spirit escape, but no one shall lay hands on a flame-flower, or say that the ash was ever its raiment. In flame alone is absolute virginity. Flowers are wooed by the bees, rocks melted in the volcano, a snow-flake vanishes, and a glacier is so much dirty water ; but flame alone is incorruptible, untouched by shadow of impurity, and yearns ever straight upward to the wholeness and singlenes§ of God. Flame alone of all that we see is perfectly beautiful, being untouched by development or delay ; and it has the strangeness of perfect beauty upon it. Though we dare to make it our servant, biding it creep into iron dungeons and up wires, and unto yet stranger prisons in the heart of machinery, yet it is aweful as only unclothed spirit may be through the wall of our shuddering flesh. Cursed, it is as ruthless as the forces of nature ; hallowed, as tender as Mary Mother of God. It is the true house-bond, keeping the homes of all the world. The gipsy, the drab, the exile, the emperor, the man—its dancing light leads them all back to their childhood, when in the world they were most truly exiles, and in its radiant circle most truly at home—back beyond conscious memory to the new Jerusalem where they were at home with God.
the Pasinci Fall, leaves, fall, Drift in a whirling throng : Each solitary, yet each borne along By the same wind, the force that forces all. Fly, leaves, fast, Linger not on the way ; For you have had your green, your golden day, And now must fade, since naught may lovely last. Rest, leaves, rest, Turn to the dust again. Joy comes not to the dead, as comes not pain, But dreamless sleep at the tired heart's behest.
E.M.
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be %enfor Common 'Booms of the Women's Colleges
1. LADY MARGARET HALL.
be jfilm Zocietr (BY OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.)
The small and self-conscious public whose diet is caviare resort for their plays to the Stage Society or the Three Hundred Club, and now a corresponding Film Society has been founded to provide them with films. A faith that the cinema might, after all, prove to be the medium of an art has found until now only the rarest encouragement in London ; but this society, which exists mainly to show experimental work, brings matter for fresh hope. At the first performance last Sunday the main item in the programme was a German film called ' Waxworks,' produced by Dr. Lein. The story of the film is incoherent and trivial, but the conventionalised and decorative settings were admirable, the acting good and the production finished and complete. The film is full of memorable pictures. The sinister old showman of the Waxworks creeps about his booth with the broken arm of
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Haroun al Raschid in his hand ; the tall, lean figures of Ivan the Terrible and his magician descend step by step to the dungeon against the wall of a dark passage ; the hundred domes of the Caliph's palace shine in the romantic moonlight of Bagdad. The Film Society has besides revived a brief episode in the life of Broncho Billy, which was of some historical interest, since it was set in pre-prohibition America, and an early Chaplin film, an excellent example of pure knock-about, with here and there a sudden hint of the delicious subtlety to which he has since developed his art ; but the most interesting part of the performance was the ' Absolute Films ' with which it opened. These are studies in pattern produced during the last four years by Mr. Walter Ruttman, whom the programme describes as an engraver and lithographer of Muni ch. His films, pleasing though they were, are valuable mainly as an experiment, for they seemed to leave unexplored a thousand possibilities of design with moving forms, and their own ventures seemed, as it were, timid and hesitating. It was curious that these Absolute Films, instead of being the most abstract, were the most directly emotional in their effect of the whole performance. Here, it seems, rather than in pure colour, is to be found the pictorial analogue of music. These films each do something which only the cinema can do. If the film is to be of importance it must find a province for itself ; it must do more than provide illustrations for novels that would be better without them, or display panoramas of scenery which would be pleasanter in a postcard-album ; and amongst these four films there is nothing which could be better done in words, in painting or upon the stage : the galloping horses of the posse from which Broncho Bill escapes, the gesture of despair with which Charlie Chaplin abandons a tough sausage, the loveliness of Dr. Lein's designs, and, most of all, the antics of Mr. Ruttman's black rectangles and dancing lines, each have a virtue which is peculiar to the film ; and since these are but experiments and hints of future development, there is reason to hope that the cinema may with justice be counted among the arts. The novel was developed by serious artists, and sank gradually to the level of the best seller ; but the fact that the development of the cinema appears to be in the opposite direction may be merely because the habit of reading spread only gradually through the population at large, while the habit of going to the cinema spread only gradually amongst those who profess and call themselves intellectual. In London, at least, it will spread the more quickly since the formation of the Film Society, which may for this reason prove to be a matter of some importance. The Society has arranged to give a performance every month until next May, and its programme concludes with the alluring promise of a complete version of the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Encounter The thing sticks in my head It was so incongruous : a little sentimental comedy and then a bit of reality hitting one in the face with such unconscionable suddenness and force. I am still startled and bewildered by the disproportionate weight of the blow ; it made the thing so end-heavy, so to speak. This is an absurd amount of word-spinning over it, of course. It would ordinarily be dismissed as just one of those queer little coincidences that life throws up in one's way from time to time. This is all that happened.
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I had been to the play, and afterwards I walked back with David to the Marble Arch. He was staying somewhere near there. Everything was exactly as it had been a hundred times before : the old ordinary excitement of the London streets by night, the sense of living intensely, of being sharply aware of each moment as it went by, of being full of an odd nocturnal energy. We parted at Marble Arch. I happened to look back after David, I remember, and found he was looking back at me. Then I waited for the 'bus at the top of Park Lane. The empty street looked, as streets always do at night, like a stage set for a play that one always missed, that would begin as soon as you were round the corner. But that night I suppose I came in for it. I was in a state of vast and shallow contentment ; for the moment I felt as if .I were living in the middle of a sentimental melodrama, and that nothing could be better or more securely satisfactory. Above my head the trees leaned out of the Park, shining as white in the lamplight as if it had been moonlight in a country lane. Just then a 'bus came swinging heavily up the other side of the road and stopped. A girl was sitting alone on the top. The lamplight fell on her face when the 'bus stopped. I held my breath for a moment. She was astonishingly, delightfully, romantically pretty. She sat quite still, with a curious grace of attitude, looking straight before her. Her prettiness, I suppose because of the lamplight and the distance, seemed almost uncannily perfect. Then she moved, and I nearly looked away for fear she should spoil it. But she only drew her coat closer round her, with the. most charming gesture in the world. It was utterly satisfactory. I could have shouted for joy, and fell instantly and luxuriously in love. It was so exactly right, so perfectly well-fitted to my mood •' the one thing for which I had unconsciously been waiting had marvellously come. Then the 'bus went on, and her face passed out of the lamplight. This swift transience, too, seemed to me exquisitely right ; it added the necessary touch of the lightest pathos. I gave up waiting for my 'bus and walked home, drunk with gratitude to Fortune, the tune of ' I did but see her passing by ' running in my head. You will say that I was easily satisfied, easily made drunken with nothing whatever but a little moonshine, or rather lamplight, a moment's gazing, and so an end. Had I no desire for anything more actual, more solid ? Might I not have swung myself up on the 'bus and tried what nearer acquaintance might do? I can only answer that this airy diet was then to my mind, and that it was then my mood to desire no more than I had. What I wanted was not actuality, solid and palpable pleasures, but moonshine, sentiment, romance, pretence, unreality ; all of which is satisfactory enough if you take it for no more than it is. But the next day I saw that she was dead. There was a paragraph somewhere in the evening paper about a girl found dead of heart disease on the top of a 30 'bus. I read it listlessly through, and then caught my breath and saw it must be she. And now I cannot forget it. What did it mean ? Those few moments of the airiest sentimental romance and that piece of stark reality—what was the meaning of their conjunction ? Every time that I go past the place the remembrance of it startles and arrests me, troubling me, making those few apparently insignificant moments live again in my mind with a bewildering. intensity. The end seems to point back to the beginning with
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an utterly startling gesture, as if it would show me some significance there that I cannot find, forcing me to a weary and baffled search. Of course I shall forget it all soon ; but for the time it disturbs and perplexes me, like an urgent message in an unknown language.
'Reviews By Jean Fayard. Translated by Louis Golding. (Jarrold ; 7/6.) This is not a sensible book. It is all about a young Frenchman who comes up to Oxford with his head full of Bandelaire, and studies his emotions in some detail and talks in a shoddy, epigrammatic vein. He lives a curious life, getting up after lunch and spending his day in stuffing people with his epigrams. Not unnaturally, Oxford eludes him. His one real friend is Margaret, who is quite incredible. She is a post-graduate, living in rooms and writing a phantom thesis ; she wears a flannel petticoat, and suffers from Desires. The best part of the book is Beheme, who comes up in the hero's second year, and is instructed by him in the Code of Good Form at Oxford. This includes many quaint details, such as the words an aesthete should use—' au revoir, wonderful mauve pyjamas, chez moi ' ; and the advice to love all the world excepting an individual taken by chance whom you call "loathsome person " every time his name is mentioned.' Of course all this is based on the fallacy that Oxford is divided into aesthetes and athletes, whereas really it is divided into some four thousand individuals. There is something rather pleasant about any Oxford novel, if it is only the simple pleasure of meeting familiar names and places. All Souls was old and learned, like a don playing tennis . . That is an indication of the general method. Everything is described from the outside, and the satire is clever in its way ; but only those who understand Oxford should be allowed to laugh at it. OXFORD AND MARGARET.
BUILDING THE BUILDERS. (S.C.M. ; price 6d.) This is the report of the year's work of the Student Christian Movement in the universities and colleges of Great Britain and Ireland. It awakes one somewhat rudely to the discovery that Oxford, or even Cambridge, is not, as we like to imagine, the hub of the academic universe. We find that eighty per cent. of the student population of the British Isles is in civic universities—that one-third of it is in London alone. The S.C.M., with its programme of social service, Bible, Apologetic and International Study, conferences, camps, etc., seems to be everywhere, as the highest common factor of this wide and varied field. Further, the report deals with the British Student Movement as an integrant in the World Student Christian Federation, a fellowship of the Student Movements of thirtyseven different nations. We read that two more have joined the Federation this year—Hungary and the Philippine Islands. The outstanding event of the year was clearly the Manchester Conference in January, on international and missionary questions, at which 1,5oo delegates, representing thirty-seven nations, were present. With regard to the S.C.M. in Oxford, the report mentions two events which have specially marked the year's work—the Social Study Conference last Easter and the affiliation of the O.U.B.U., which has now become a department of the S.C.M. under the name of the Devotional Union. The
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latter is apparently one of the first events of its kind and may have farreaching results in other universities. We also note that D. M. Ramsbotham, who went down from S.H.H. last term, is now a travelling secretary of the Movement. The main impression which the report leaves is of the wide-spread activity, the universality of the Movement. This is hardly to be realised by those whose conception of it is limited to the ' potted little Christian Union in X College." But the report shows that to judge it by this alone is not really to give it a fair trial. There is much in the year's work which is open to criticism. Yet to read it opens one's eyes in many ways both to the greatness of the S.C.M.'s task and the extent of its influence. D. M. E.
flews in nrief from the 'omen's Colleges Miss Moberly, Principal of St. Hilda's Hall, has returned after two terms' absence. Miss Darbishire, tutor in English at Somerville, has gone to America for two terms, and her place has been taken by Miss Everitt. Miss Seaton, Miss Goulding, Miss Buckhurst and Miss Procter have joined the S.C.R. of St. Hugh's. The new buildings of St. Hilda's were formally opened on October 31st by the Chancellor, Lord Cave ; the ceremony was presided over by Mr: Pickard Cambridge, Chairman of the Council, and attended by the Vice-Chancellor, the Bishop of Carlisle and other dignitaries. The new buildings of Lady Margaret Hall have progressed considerably during the vacation, and will, it is hoped, be finished some time during next term. We have great pleasure in here offering our hearty and respectful congratulations to last year's editor of Fritillary, Miss R. A. Crook, of Somerville, on her first in the English Schools. St. Hilda's Hall Dramatic Society is to perform a play, whose name may not yet be divulged, in the seventh week of term. ' The Knight of the Burning Pestle' will be performed by the Home Students' Dramatic Society during this term. The Second Year's Play at St. Hugh's will be performed on St. Hugh's Day, November 17th. The First Year's Play at Lady Margaret Hall will be performed on the last Saturday of this term. At an All Hallow' e'en party at Lady Margaret Hall ' A Night at an Inn,' by Lord Dunsany, was performed by the inhabitants of T'oynbee Building. The Literary Society of St. Hughs intends to read ' Epitaphs.' The Debating Societies of Ruskin College and Lady Margaret Hall intend to discuss a motion condemning the action of the Government in the late coal crisis.
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The Archaeological Society of Somerville will make an excursion to Fairford. We record with regret the decease of the Somerville College Literary Society. The forty-seven freshers of St. Hilda's Hall have performed a play representing Oxford Life in the Stone Age. The fifty freshers of Lady Margaret Hall have given a concert. The freshers of St. Hugh's are engaged in weeding the terrace. The athletic activities of the colleges have been, and will be, as follows : Hockey.
Oct. 17—Practice Match between O.H.S. and Scarlet Runners. Won by the Scarlet Runners, 9—I. Oct. 22—Practice Match between O.H.S. and Headington. Won by Headington, 3-4. The Captain of the L.M.H. Hockey Club asks us to insert the following : The freshers as a whole are above the average, but there are no outstanding players. The First XI is promising but suffers from lack of practice. The position of right-half is proving very difficult to fill, as it seems impossible to make people realise the necessity of keeping out and marking the opposing wing. Lacrosse.
Oct. 23—Match between Somerville and O.H.S. Won by Somerville, Io—I. Oct. 28—Match between St. Hugh's First XI and O.H.S. Won by O.H.S. Oct. 3o—Match between L.M.H. and St. Hugh's. Nov. 6—Match between N. Worcester Lacrosse Club and O.H.S. Swimming and boating are both flourishing at St. Hugh's. A new sculler, called the Buzzer, has been presented to the Home Students' Boat Club by Miss Symmington.
'notices anb 'Reports O. U. W. D. S. President—J. ADAM SMITH (S. C.). Secretary—D. TREVOR MCNEILL (S.H.C.). Treasurer—M. ALLEN (O.H.S.).
The first meeting of the Society was held on October 21st at Lady Margaret Hall, when the motion ' That athleticism is overdone in the schools of this country' was lost by fourteen votes to twenty-eight. The standard of speaking was considerably higher than for some time past. This was a very encouraging sign. In Private Business the possibility of developing the O.U.W.D.S. into an inter-collegiate club with rooms in the city was discussed, and an executive committee was appointed to investigate the question. Two such inter-collegiate clubs have been started in turn, and have proved unsuccessful. Yet there is a strong desire for such a club, and it is hoped that by joining it up with the existing O.U.W.D.S. it might flourish where the others have not.
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LEAGUE OF NATIONS UNION. The programme of lectures and meetings drawn up for the Oxford Branch of the League of Nations Union this term is an exceptionally good one. Already there have been two most interesting lectures, one on ' The Sixth Assembly' by the Rt. Hon. Sir Willouehby Dickinson, and one on ' China' by Professor Soothill. Professor Gilbert Murray's much-appreciated annual lecture is to be on November 4th, the subject this time being ' The Security Pact.' People always feel that to go to one of Professor Murray's lectures on the League clears up months' accumulation of muddles about international affairs, and after it one starts fair again with a clearer insight into the situation. A novelty this term is the New League Film, to be shown at 8.3o p.m. on November 11th at the Oxford Cinema. Three lectures on International Law by Professor Brierly complete the programme. The Bishop of Kensington is to give the address at the great United Service in the Sheldonian on November x5th. The University Branch of the L.N.U. has been put on a new basis, and the revised constitution was passed by the Council on October 21st. The most important clause so far as the colleges are concerned is that allowing autonomous sub-branches to be formed in the colleges. A Study Group has been formed to consider ' The Security Pact and its Legal and Political Aspects.' Meetings will be held on Fridays in Barnett House at 5.3o p.m. Professor Brierley and Professor McElroy are coming to discuss the legal and political aspects respectively. This Study Group affords an excellent opportunity of ' getting down to the problems' and ought to be most interesting. Altogether the outlook for the term is a very inspiring one. M. L. SIDEBOTTOM. I. C. M. S. SeCretary—IHERMA FEIDLER (St. Hugh's). President--JEAN HAMILTON (S.C.).
The I.C.M.S., entering into its second term of existence, has received a new lease of life through the kindness of Mrs. Deneke, who has most generously lent her music-room in Norham Gardens for the use of the Society. Here meetings are held every Tuesday nigfit, at which, alternately, orchestral and choral works are practised. The Society has had further good fortune in securing the help of Miss Denne Parker, who has promised, on November roth, to give a lecture (with illustrations) on Debussy.' This will not be exclusively for the members of the Society, but will be open to all those interested. As the activities of the Society have been so far mainly experimental, there is little to report, but it is hoped that the events of this term will prove to be of greater interest.
0. U. W. H. C. Captain—M. SMYLIE (S.C.). Secretary—E. SHARP (S.C.). Let us confess at once that we are sadly weakened after the loss of six of the most brilliant members of last year's team. However, Mrs. Cavalier was by no means in despair after her coaching. There are a number of
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promising players, but the choice of a team is complicated by the fact that they remain, for the most part, just promising, without ever becoming first-class. The first year is as a whole disappointing. D. Pullin (S.C.) is a keen and useful player, and B. Kilroy (S.H.H.) makes a good c9ntreforward. When J. Darling is able to play again the team will be chiefly in need of a right-half and some good forwards on the left. May I take this opportunity of informing those who were not present at the meeting of captains and secretaries that the absence of a treasurer on the committee is the result not of neglect but of deliberate intention. All the remaining members of last year's team (with the exception of V. Russell, of S.H.C., who was unable to hold office) were Somervillians. It was considered highly undesirable that all these officers should be chosen from the same college. The election of a treasurer was therefore postponed until a general idea of the team for the coming year could be gathered, with a view to the possible selection of a treasurer who was not a member of Somerville. Finally, I should like to thank the college captains for the courtesy and help they have already shown in promoting the interests of the team as a whole. Old Blues : V. Russell (S.H.C.), J. Darling (S.C.), M. Smylie (S.C.), E. Sharp (S.C.), J. Hardy (S.C.). M. SMYLIE.
0.W.U.S.C. President—E. STOCK (S. H. H.). Secretary—X. GARVIN (S. C.). Treasurer—J. CULLEN (S. H. H.). The team last year was finally arranged as follows : Hundred Yards. —J. Cullen (S. H. H. ). Fifty Yards.—Y. Cann (S.C.). Style.—K. Garvin (S.C.), breast and back ; J. Carlebach (O.H.S.) and E. Stock (S.H.H.), crawl. Relay.-4J. Cullen, M. U. Sharpe (S.C.), E. Stock, J. Carlebach, Y. Cann. Reserves : Dunn (0.H.S.), Neville Rolfe (S.H.C.). Diving.—E. Bonner (S.H.C.), K. Garvin, E. Stock. Reserve : A. Stock. Polo.—Cr. Russell, (r) L. Bonner, (2) E. Stock, (3) Dunn, (4) M. U. Sharpe, (5) Y. Cann, (6) J. Carlebach. The match against Cambridge took place at the Bath Club in London. Cambridge won every event. The inter-collegiate cup was won by Somerville (diving, style, relay) against St. Hugh's (short distance and three second places) and St. Hilda's (long distance and one second place). Four, matches took place after term in London, against the Croydon and the Hammersmith Ladies (both of June 29th), against the Mermaids (June 3oth), and against the Beckenham Ladies (July 1st). The last two included polo. All events were lost except the diving against the Croydon Ladies. The Club is sorry to lose Miss Cann, its last years president, who had also been invaluable as a member of the team throughout her Oxford career ; Miss Carlebach, who was the sole representative of the Oxford Home Students, and Miss Bonner ; Miss Knapp (S.C.) has just been chosen for United.
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Although no freshers have as yet passed the United tests in speed, style or diving, they are sufficiently numerous and keen to give us good hope for the future of the Club. The Merton Street Baths are reserved for United practices from 3-4 every Saturday, when Mr. Parnell coaches in diving, style and polo. O. U. W. L. C. Captain—M. THOMAS. Secretary—R. SHAW. Treasurer—N. OSBORNE. We are very pleased to welcome many freshers this term, who seem very promising and keen, especially M. Gedge of L.M.H., E. Oldfield of Somerville College, I. Munro (Home Student), M. Phelips of St. Hugh's, and K. Smith of St. Hilda's, from all of whom we hope to see great things. We are lucky in still having a number of old Blues left, especially on the attack. We are very distressed that at present N. Debes, from Somerville, is laid up with a bad knee and will probably not be able to play for us against Middlesex next week ; but we hope to have her playing again in a fortnight. At present our ground is in an appalling state, having been left to hay all the summer, but we have got the groundsman to do his best for it and hope it will soon improve. We have not very many fixtures this term, but we are pretty full up next term. This term's fixtures are : Nov. 7th, Middlesex ; Nov. 14th, Second XII v. Headington, First XII v. U.L.A.U. ; Nov. 21st, Second XII v. Berkshire ; Nov. 28th, Surrey.
annual subscriptions %cbenie
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It is proposed that a scheme should be started by which those who have gone down from the Women's Colleges should, by the payment of an annual subscription, become entitled to receive two copies of Fritillary each term post free. We think it likely that a good proportion of those who go down each summer would be willing• to keep up their connection with Oxford in this way, at any rate for a few years. We propose to issue a circular to send to a certain number of those who went down last term, and in future to approach all those who go down in each Trinity Term. If we could in this way secure a number of annual subscribers we should extend our circulation and secure our financial position. The subscription would be 4/-, payable in October each year. We invite correspondence from our readers on the scheme, and on the expedience and possibility, of extending our circulation in any other way.
We acknowledge with thanks The Girton Review and Paulina. Holywell Press, Oxford.