The Fritillary, 28 November 1925 by Oxford Women's Colleges Hub

FRITILLARY November 2 81 I 925

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. STorr (Oxford Home Students).

Treasurer. A. FALK (St. Hilda's Hall).

fritillarr Magazine of the Oxford Women's Colleges

NOVEMBER 28, 1925 CONTENTS Page

Editorial .. Competitions Thieves .. How I Fell in Love like a Cockroach into a Basin .. ' Once a Girl I did not like' .. The Playhouse .. Islands .. Senior Common Rooms of the Womens' Colleges II. Somerville College Mussolini

Don Juan

2 2

Poetry and Criticism

3 4 5 7 8 9

.. .. My Lady's Laugh Correspondence : ' B.A. Oxon' .. .. .. Craving .. How to advertise the Honour â&#x20AC;˘ â&#x20AC;˘ Schools Chekov and Ibsen News from the Womens' Colleges Notices and Reports Annual Subscriptions Scheme Note to Contributors

Page 10 II 12 13 13

17 18 20 22 22

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HERE is less to be said about our own private affairs in this number. So far as can yet be judged, the experiment of doubling our appearances and nearly halving our price seems to have been successful, at any rate financially. We have proceeded with our Annual Subscription scheme, but cannot yet tell what results it may have. As to contributions, we were neither flooded nor yet stranded, with the results that here appear. A few remarks here on what we think Fritillary might be, and is not, may perhaps be relevant and harmless. It is usually, we think, too flimsy and too scrappy. It would be improved by a little strengthening and steadying ; which it might gain if it had something fairly bulky in its middle, an article or short story or short play or what not, which should be long without being tedious and of some importance without being heavy. In general we are all surely too much afraid of the obvious ; and are apt to be driven by this fear into a kind of disastrous timid preciousness ; a fatal carefulness and a reluctance to say plainly what we mean. It is, of course, difficult to avoid, since this preciousness lies like a smooth and decorative blight upon Oxford in general, or at any rate upon the younger part of it. But we believe it could be avoided, and for that purpose we make these few observations in praise of the obvious. Obviousness can, to be sure, be intolerably stupid. But that obviousness is not dangerous, since no one takes it for anything but stupidity. The real danger at the moment seems to be from the prevalence of a barrenly ingenious subtlety. Let us, then, be lighthearted and say carelessly and honestly what we think, without troubling too much over its obviousness or its oddity.

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And in order to practice what we preach we will now talk of the weather ; an important, interesting and falsely despised topic of conversation. In this matter the last half of the term has done better than the first ; after grey, drizzling weeks we have had brilliant icy nights and cold tempestuous days. A good exchange, for though rain can be ornamental, pale sunshine is a better ornament for Oxford. Into this background of weather the term telescopes itself up and the events disappear ; we rescue a few fragments. The 5th of November and a bonfire with its huge, clear flame soaring up to heaven ; Degree-giving and the crowds of proud and nervous young B.A.'s outside the Sheldonian, unaccustomedly magnificent in their furred hoods ; Fourths and Firsts put on a level at last, and all observed with kindly amusement by the greater Degrees, M.A.'s grave and splendid in their red and black, unknown and rather ludicrously gorgeous potentates whom one supposes to be D.Phils., Mus. Docs., or D.C.L. 's ; all enchanting and astonishing as a Gilbert and Sullivan opera come true, and all coldly disregarded by the Emperors, gazing in the opposite direction across the Broad. A new Public Orator ; new books in Blackwell's ; the Playhouse and the Cinema ; and in the background lectures and the curious ways of lecturers, and tea parties full of muffins and toast, and in general fire indoors and frost without. All this is now over and done with ; next week there will be carol singing and general festivity, and we shall have Christmas upon us before its time. So we bow to our readers and part from them until 1926 and next term, both invisible from this side of the gulf of the vacation.

Competitions No award has been made in the competition anonunced in our last number. We offer two prizes, each a book of the value of 7/6, to be chosen by the winner ; one for the best Epitaph on any person now alive and residing in Oxford ; one for the best Review of ' The Sailor's Return' by Richard Garnett. Entries must be written on one side of the paper only. The date by which they must reach the Editor is provisionally fixed at Feb. 4th, 1926.

thieves She has no money ; she is penniless : for the ballad-singers, the harp-players have stolen her heart. Now she lives only, when from dry silence limpid drops of music trickle down on her parched hearing.

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FRITILLARY.

When trumpets are calling at the wars ; and the minstrels come no she paces up and down in the tower more, thirsty for music. The running of rain in the darkness the wind and the notes of birds singing none of them quench it. She paces up and down in the tower thirsty for music. Sometimes when she sleeps she may drink it when notes of the wandering players stray suddenly into her dream and airs that are mellow with years. Then morning comes greyly in quiet ; she wakes : and the playing is vanished. She paces up and down in the tower thirsty for music. R. 0. H.

bow a fell in love like a Cockroach into a Vaein

Amore cecidi tamquam blatta in pelvim. Those who offered the ' History

of Roman Poetry ' as their special subject in Honour Mods. probably dismissed the above fragment,' if they read it at all, as a gross and thoroughly Roman simile. My quarrel with the epigram, however, is not that it is coarse or unromantic, but that it is untrue. It sums up in six words all the lies that have ever been told about falling in love. Being neither a psychologist, nor yet a Pythagorean,, I have not the faintest conception of the feelings of the cockroach when he splashes inadvertently into a basin. Some things, however, are clear to a mere external observer. His method of falling in, for instance, seems to be precisely that of any other cockroach ; and his behaviour, once he is in, is suggestive of extreme helplessness and misery. Alas, one cannot hel p feeling that it is quite immaterial to him into what basin, if any, he falls. In saying this I am not suggesting that one dispassionately decides with whom one falls in love. Providence has been kinder than to burden mortals with such a responsibility. Yet surely we display a little more taste and intelligence in such matters than does the cockroach in falling into a basin. Imagine him deliberately, unmoved and unswerving in his flight, passing by white pudding-basins, pink sugar-basins, blue flowerbasins, to sink rapturously,, at last, into the depths of a golden bowl. And imagine the interested onlooker nodding wisely, and murmuring, I told you so. I saw it coming ! ' And yet this false analogy persists nearly two thousand years after the Roman mime-writer unfortunately invented it. It is still the general impression that the person in love has no critical faculty ; and if, when kind friends and relatives point out the virtues and attractions of Tom, Dick and Harry, she replies with excellent discrimination that, unfortunately for them Charles exists as a criterionâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;imagine the cockroach thus appraising his basin 1â&#x20AC;&#x201D;the friends and relatives pitingly shrug their shoulders. Moreover, a cockroach has as little originality as discrimination. I have not watched numerous cockroaches behave in the way described, but I imagine that there would be no subtle difference between their methods of striking the basin, which might reveal innate' differences of temperament.

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Yet, what could be more varied than the way people fall in love? Quickly, reluctantly ; deliberately, unconsciously ; blatantly, discreetly ; you can have all the variations from the transparent and Romantic to the Classical and restrained ; from Jane who drops her handkerchief on purpose, to Ann who has hers picked up and responds with a Thank-you ' uttered in the voice one reserves for the parlourmaid who hands round the vegetables. And there is also Jane Ann who combines the two extremes. None of which applies to a cockroach . . . The whole idea of comparing someone in love with the foolish, floundering, helpless cockroach, may be traced to the fallacy contained in the word cecidi.' It has always seemed to me that of all the misnomers in our English language, the phrase to fall in love is the worst. Can it be that we have allowed ourselves to be led by a Roman would-be comedian? ' Fall,' indeed ! As if that for which we were born, that for which we wait tiptoe with expectation, were an accidental lapse, as foolish and as: undesirable as the cockroach's drop from the ceiling No ! If we must indulge in picturesque analogies drawn from Natural History, let us at least find some more suitable. I should: suggest, for example, How I took to Love like a Duckling to Water.' I leave it to those who offered Verse Composition for the examination above referred to, to turn this: into a suitable Saturnian.

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FRITILLARY.

the Playhouse The Oxford Players go on from strength to strength. In the course of the term the Playhouse has grown fuller, the prompter's voice, even on first nights, has been less frequent, and the standard of production and acting has steadily risen. There is only one exception, and that is the performance of Ghosts.' It seems as though the Oxford Players could not act simply enough for Ibsen. They have too much manner. This was especially the weakness of Mrs. Alving, who is really the keystone of the play. It falls to pieces without her ; and in z this case it did. Miss Black Roberts .// did her best. She manufactured emotion in every tone and gesture ; but her acting was shrill, angular, and disquieting, and she used up her emotion so that her greatest moments did not stand out distinctly. Pastor Manders was another disappointment. Mr. Alan Napier was evidently not sure how to interpret the past ; he wavered between an overgrown child and a pious old fraud, and was usually rather revolting. This was not necessary ; the tragic impression of the past lies simply in the pitiful inadequacy of the Pastor's values. The others were good. But they could do little by themselves. Mr. Byam Shaw became more convincing as the play went on, and in the last act the finer shades of his madness and his fear of it were sensitively conveyed. Miss Evans' Regina had just the right touch of vulgarity, and Mr. Goolden was excellent as Jacob Engstrand, the slimy, cringing humbug. But the general atmosphere of the performance was all wrong. Everyone acted with difficulty, under a sense of strain, fumbling after Ibsen's meaning and only occasionally catching it. The end of the first Act was a missed opportunity, and the end of the last, admirable though Oswold was, was a tor060 ment. The grim, stark beauty of the play and the full tragedy of the theme—' Nobody can be held responsible '—did not emerge. We saw only a tangle of confused and jagged emotions, and a heavy, meaningless gloom. The next week brought a triple bill, which was for once its own justification. The impression left by the three performances was not patchy ; one thought of The Twelve-Pound Look ' as

a culain•raiser, and ' The Anniversaxy ' as a very necessary

curtain-

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dropper, while the play of the evening was Strindberg's ' Creditors.' This is the biggest thing that the Oxford Players have done this term, and it was also a high-water mark of individual achievement. Miss Roberts as Tekla, the beautiful vampire-woman ; Mr. Shaw as Adolf, the nervous, exquisitely sensitive artist who has spent himself in body and mind in his half-hysterical, self-deceiving love for her ; and Mr. Napier as Gustav, the finely intellectual dissecter of souls, who shows Adolf with merciless thoroughness the truth about Tekla and himself—all three acted more surely and significantly than ever before. Gustav, the divorced husband, is the point of rest in the play, the detached, ironical commentator ; and Mr. Napier's quiet, careful rendering of the part was ideal. The play is almost entirely talk— searching, tormenting talk showing the subtle interactions of these three characters. Dramatically it must be very nearly a perfect play, and the caste lived up to every moment of it. The feeling was sometimes so concentrated as to be hardly bearable ; but Strindberg has his finger on an immense problem—the effect of a taking woman on a giving man. For the rest of the programme, ' The Twelve-Pound Look,' when we riage of Lucretia,' was an engaging had forgiven it for not being ' The Mar trifle ; and the mirthful muddle of ' The Anniversary,' vigorously played by a strong caste, was a good ending to the evening. And after Ibsen, and Strindberg, ' Dear Brutus,' which might be taken as a whimsical comment on the problems both of ' Ghosts ' and of ' Creditors.' It was played with an all-round enjoyment that made one think of the Players as a large and pleasant family. It was the surest and happiest first-night performance that they have given us this season. No individual piece of acting stands out, because it was all so interdependent ; but it is impossible to resist a catalogue of the best parts. There was Mr. Goolden as Lob, with his spindly legs and mischievous chuckle ; Miss Isham again _ excelling at gentle, quiet acting in the part of Mrs. Coade; and Mr. Napier at his pleasantest as Mr. Coade, the amiable idler. Lady Caroline Laney (Miss Evans) was an exquisite piece of fun ; and the two characters

who are nearest to real life—the Deatths were excellently played by Mr. —

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Gielgud and Miss Roberts. Then there were the newcomers ; Miss Joyce Barnes, fresh from ` Gruach,' putting all her powers of graceful movement and modulation into the part of Mabel Purdie; Miss Alison Leggatt, whose metallic voice and jerky manner, though annoying in themselves, were well suited to Joanna Trout; and finally—Miss Gemma Fagan. She was the most refreshing of all. I do not know how nearly her age corresponds to that of Margaret; but if she is really a little girl, her perfect assurance of voice and manner are remarkable, and if she is grown up, she is marvellously fresh and spontaneous in a child part. This has been a great term for the Playhouse. It has a number of fine actors and actresses, some flexible, like Mr. Napier and Miss Evans, and some, like Miss Isham and Mr. Smith, who are always delightfully the same. And its new stability has made it one of our institutions, instead of a venture which might at any moment become a lost cause. ' Ghosts ' was indeed not a success, but no performance of a great play can ever be called a complete failure. And ` Creditors ' was an almost terrifying success. While ` Dear Brutus '—but you have still time to go and see that for yourself. K.

aslanbs A friend of mine who lives in London once said that she had longed intensely and in vain to live on an island. We mocked her for this, but she was right. You would never call the New York business man an islander ; yet if the Londoner is one—so is he. It is the purest pedantry to treat Great Britain as an island, in reality it is a smallish continent. No piece of land completely surrounded by water is worthy of the name of island, unless when you walk upon it you can truly see the water all round you, framing your isolation. This is to be romantic and mysterious, and certainly a little irrevocable, as all islands are. There are islets, of course. These are pretty and small and multifold, but they have little mystery ; moreover the water about them is the fresh water of lakes and great rivers, not the deep buoyant blue water of the sea. Flowery isles there are, such as Calypso's Isle, or that isle where the apple-tree grew and the daughters of Hesperus went singing in the evening. Golden isles, such as the isles of the blessed, poets have seen sometimes in sunset waters. Green isles too : Ireland is one of these, and so is that lake-isle which held a hive, and nine bean-rows and a poet. But of true islands there are those that you are shipwrecked on and those that you stay on—you could never live on an islan.d ; unless there was something as incalculable and transitory about your dwelling there as there is about the visits of sea-birds, your island would become cosy and domestic —simply a parcel of mainland that had floated out a little way. Islands that you are shipwrecked upon must have palms and cocoanuts and fine silvery sand of minute coral fragments that runs through your fingers like water and never cakes between your toes like the sugary brown sand at the seaside in August. There should be a lagoon with a coral reef out beyond where the breakers thunder. Almost always it is high summer—but sometimes a wind comes sweeping over with darkness and rain, flinging the surf of the breakers inland and thrashing the feathery palm leaves high overhead. The islands that you stay on depend on your fortunes. The lucky islander eschews the cheerful prosperity of the fruit-laden Channel Islands or the hackneyed archaism of Man. I long at times for the sunshine and sweet wine of Madeira, the Scilly Isles I dread. In my Vision,of them it is always ,

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dark and always a little terrible, for these are the peaks of the lost land of Lyonesse. I have looked down on green Rathlinn from Fair Head in North Ireland. The people in Bally Castle will tell you that it is an island of robbers who prey on each other and so keep up a communal prosperity. Far on the skyline I saw the enchanting shapes of the Southern Hebrides. The Hebrides are islands of dream—almost isles ; it would be profane to tread them were it not that Skye is among them, and Samuel Johnson visited it unscathed. Lundy Island I know : it is almost the perfect island—' not too bright and good '—yet remote and lonely as all islands should be, with great cliffs rising up from the water, and wild rocky places where sea-birds nest in spring and where the swallows gather before making flight for Africa. Yet I doubt if Lundy be not too big. When all is said and done, just as it is the meek who shall inherit the earth, so it is the young and retiring island which is the true delectable dwelling place ; perhaps the most magical of all is the one you build yourself out of sand and watch with fearful joy for the moment when the first waves curl right round and transform your ordinary sand-castle into the fulfilled dream of the perfect island.

the Senior Common 'Rooms of the IClomen's Colleges

I. SOMERVpihE COLLEGE,

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MussoIfni Muss°Lnit. By Margherita G. Sarfatti. At the end of her book Signora Sarfatti disarms her critic by auticipating the criticism he has been preparing all along. Mine is essentially a woman's book,' she writes, and his irritation vanishes. Her patriotism and her political leanings do not veil her femininity—they take colour from it ; and her book is less a history than an outpouring of womanish admiration. It is early yet for sane writing about Mussolini, certainly, and least of all can it be expected of Signora Sarfatti, who is not only a woman brought up in the Southern tradition of ' la Donna,' but a friend who has been with Mussolini from the earliest stirring days of the Popolo d'Italia ' through war and socialist peace to the present triumph of Fascism. A ' detached judgment would be impossible. And it is less her admiration that palls—less even her novelist's insistence on the physical qualities of her hero—than her habit of preposterous generalisation from insignificant events, forever pointing the adulatory moral. So the book lacks proportion, though Mussolini himself thinks otherwise. This book pleases me,' he writes, because it presents me with a sense of proportion as to time, space and events, and without extravagance.' Without extravagance ! Here indeed is the ancient Roman' his biographer loves to trace in him, acquiescing unembarrassed in a follower's praise. The sense of proportion seems especially lacking in events. A little action, a long generalisation, is Signora Sarfatti's method ; the book traces graphically enough the development of Mussolini's ideas, but its histcrical sequence is otherwise poor. The links in the chain are often slight, sometimes missing ; and one has now and then an unpleasant sense that something is withheld, suppressed even—as though Signora Sarfatti were on the point of making a confidence and lacks courage to go on. The chapters on the War are amongst the best in the book ; the patriot and the sentimentalist have full and, for once, legitimate play. But afterwards, describing the rise of Fascism, the writer is altogether inadequate. She fails to give a convincing impression of the hopeless chaos to which Socialism and post-war muddling' brought Italy, the memory of which is still the Fascist defence of Mussolini, the buttress of his power. Without doubt he has restored dignity to Italy, given Italians a new conception of duty, brought peace and order -- however relative and precarious — but Signora Sarfatti is content to say so, to declare what Fascism stands for,' what Mussolini stands for ; she says little of what either has achieved. Setting aside the inadequacy of the translation, which gives a faintly ludicrous turn to many passages, the book is not likely to make Fascist converts in England. Signora Sarfatti is undismayed by the filosofia della forza ' ; Fascist outrages are to her a few good cudgellings,' and Mussolini Italy's heaven-sent Deliverer for whom popular liberty were not too great a price. She touches lightly on the press law ; the electoral law she leaves aside ; Parliament means no more to her than to Mussolini. And this is natural, for she is Italian. His Italianita ' brought Mussolini to power, and his rule only seems intolerable to us because we are not Italian. The only aspect of it that need have a more than academic or friendly interest for us is its militant nationalism, which has no use for the fantasques, impuissants ' at Geneva. But, as to that, Locarno may have done much. C. B. L.

THE LIFE OF BENITO

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IDon 3uan DON JuAN. By James Elroy Flecker.

An essentially unfinished work such as Flecker's Don Juan very often presents more that is of interest than the complete, well-rounded creation of an established author ; it shows the poet still in the making, the good and the bad still side by side, without the smooth disguise of technique to' soften the contrasts. The poem is only half-polished, the poet only halfdeveloped : this is too obvious a field for fault-finding. The play leaves an impression of violent irregularity, of fevered thought alternating with ecstasies of poetry ; and this chiefly because the dramatically and poetically sound is tangled up in the author's weaknesses and lack of experience. The task is to recognise the good rather than to reject the bad. Perhaps the most striking quality, reappearing constantly out ,of the spasmodic realism, is a passionate feeling for beauty, and a sense of its contrast with everyday life. Don Juan is a lover—not of women, but of beauty ; he catches it lightly wherever he finds it, draws its essence out of it, and throws its husk away with superb heedlessness. His world and his laws are his own ; he is ' a spirit and happy, dwelling in a land where beauty and • reason are no longer at strife.' And the play follows the effect of his glorious but impossible standards brought into bearing on the everyday world. His heart is light enough to keep beyond the reach of pain— it is the others who• break, at contact with a spirit incapable of love—at first ; but in the end the prophet of Reason and Beauty is bound to be the loser : He must obey the forces of history ; but that is not all he can do : he can obey them bravely.' Flecker strikes false notes often enough, but the dramatic power and purpose are there ; and a curious impressionistic characterisation which puts Tisbea's question about Don Juan in two such different forms as this within the space of a few lines. To Owen. Jones `Who's he to make you curse, mis-shapen devil?' ' Don't know ; talks English well, but comes from Seville.' Then Don. Juan awakes to find her bending over him : ' Are you the night, black eyes with stars of gold? ' And Tisbea : ' Are you the dawn, so white and young and cold? ' It is part of "thee weakness of the play that its attractions can be taken out and appreciated separately ; as, one extraordinary Welsh bard who makes a very good valet ; one Prime Minister who recites splendid verse about England in the act of falling backwards into the river.; a fascinating fairy-tale, and a walking statue. The drama as a whole is an astounding collection of symbols, each action and thought is the representation of a wide purpose brought down to the smallest and most significant form ; but the thoughts jostle each other with awkward elbows ; they cannot link hands into a chain, for, like embarrassed people, they seem to feel the lack of a proper introduction. The play has not artistic composure, but it has poetry which gives it dignity on its own account, as well as historical value for the sake of its author. M. B.

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IDoetrie anb Criticism POETRY AND CRITICISM.

Edith Sitwell. (The Hogarth Press ; 2/6.)

To the world which takes heed of such things, there is no event more interesting- than the proclamation and defence of a new theory of poetry. Such a new theory is held and defended by those whom Miss Sitwell calls the modernist poets ; and it is important that it should be considered by the general body of readers of poetry who hold the ordinary view which these poets wish to displace. Miss Sitwell observes that every hundred years or so it becomes necessary for a change to take place in the body of poetry, otherwise the health and the force which should invigorate it fade.' Such a change, which she says does not destroy the old but creates the new,' is evidently in process in English poetry at the present time. And it may be, as she says, analogous to the change which took place at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Though we may doubt, in passing, whether the modernist poets have as good a right to complain of their critics as had the poets of that day, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, to whom she compares them. But it is at any rate true that when a new gospel of poetry is first preached it is usually unheeded by the public and mocked at by the critics. This is, as Miss Sitwell insists with so much vehemence, the common fate of innovating poets. But if this is so, the modernists should surely wait quietly for the whirligig of time to bring in his revenges, without being unduly disturbed or angered by the ephemeral clamour of critics. What is important for the body of readers of poetry is not this ancient quarrel but the present cause of its renewal. It is necessary that they should understand the nature of this new theory of poetry that is so much bandied about between the poets and the critics ; and it is as a means to this understanding that Miss Sitwell's essay is valuable. But she tells us less than we should like to know. She says that modernist poetry is bringing a new and heightened consciousness to life' ; the modernist poet's brain is becoming a central sense, interpreting and controlling the other five senses. When the speech of one sense is insufficient to convey his entire meaning, he uses the language of another.' And in this way she explains and justifies the use of phrases such as creaking light,' wooden stalactites of rain,' and ' flowers that 'gin of cluck.' And this use of the language of one sense to express what that sense does not perceive is not, after all, when we consider it, an innovation that need startle us. If we may speak of the harmony of a soundless picture, or of the brilliance of invisible music, surely we may speak of the creaking of noiseless light. The really startling innovation of the modernist poets is their habit of forming patterns with words.' Miss Sitwell speaks of this briefly and almost incidentally, as if it were no more important than the use of free verse or of the new scale of sense values.' But the difference is, of course, prodigious. These other changes are evolutionary, and comparable, as she says, to the changes made by the early nineteenth century poets. But this change is revolutionary ; it is a complete reversal of the fundamental beliefs about the nature of poetry that have been held by the whole body of the predecessors of the modernist poets whose works are known to us. So that we have at least a right to be startled.

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Miss Sitwell takes as an example of this making of abstract patterns a quotation from ' The Portrait of Constance Fletcher,' by Miss Stein. In this the writer ' breaks down the predestined groups of words, their sleepy family habits ; then she rebrightens them, examines their texture, and builds them into new and vital shapes.' The old distinction between the methods of poetry and of the other arts is thus abolished ; for, like painting and music, modernist poetry, if we understand Miss Sitwell rightly, uses material which in itself is not significant and forms it into a significant pattern.. It breaks up the sentence, that ' sleepy family habit,' into separate words which have as much and as little meaning as separate notes of music or separate lines and colours. With these the modernist poet builds a significant pattern, significant in the way that a symphony or a picture is significant. To show how insignificant or unintelligible such writing is, if we demand from it the significance of literature in the pre-modernist sense, we may quote a little of Miss Stein's prose : ' That was not what was tenderly. This was the price of the health that was strange when there was the disappearance that had not any origin.' Such a way of writing is too unfamiliar as yet, except to the chosen few, to be fairly judged. The only kind of analogy to it is perhaps the primitive meaningless jingles of very early poetry, which had rhyme but no reason. And perhaps there may be another in some poems of Blake, and among modern poets, of De la Mare and Housman and others, which the ordinary reader finds beautiful and impressive and yet unintelligible in the ordinary sense ; so that he would say they certainly mean something, while he cannot tell precisely what it is. But it is noticeable that both these are approximations of the art of poetry to the art of music ; the modernist therefore, in his approximation of poetry to painting, must, whether he finds the thought inspiriting or dismaying, adventure through wholly undiscovered country.

(11)y Lab 's laugh Have you heard My Lady's laugh ? Oh, 'tis wondrously sweet, And kindly, And gentle, And just like the music One hears in the twilight Of birds twittering softly, And calling, And loving. Methinks 'tis of fairies And pixies, And wood-fays, And all airy beings that Flit in the twilight, Each humming a quaint song, And dancing, And playing.

•

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FRITILLARY.

Correspondence To the Editor of the Fritillary. MADAM,

Many of your readers, I am sure, will be taking up secretarial work when they ' go down.' I should like to give you an idea of the training offered by the Central Employment Bureau for Women, at 54 Russell Square, The training is not a commercial one. Special care is taken to provide a year's Diplomas Course for graduates, if they can give longer than six months to their specialised training. Naturally, it is a vast change from reading for Honours, but after the first plunge into routine work the course it really interesting, and eminently practical. It includes typewriting by the touch system. There are many different typewriters, so the students have a chance to learn the eccentricities of the various kinds with which they may meet in both private posts and offices. They also type the letters sent from the Bureau, and all who are now in their posts consider this experience invaluable. Shorthand, which occupies the greater part of the time, is very thoroughly and carefully taught, with much individual attention. When the theory has been mastered and, students pass on to ' speed,' it becomes really exciting. They do not have dull and imaginary business letters to take down, but articles from the newspapers and political speeches. Card-indexing, hling, prĂŠcis and letter writing are also taught, and a course of instruction is given in book-keeping. If they wish, students may learn French and French shorthand, and those who incline to journalism can gain experience in the Publishing Department of Women's Employment, a paper published by the Central Employment Bureau and Students' Careers Association, Incorporated. Lectures are given on subjects outside the course, but helpful to various branches of secretarial work. The students run their own committees, which is useful to many who may have had no experience of this kind. Students are always helped to their posts through the Appointments Department, when they have trained. Many interesting jobs are found for them, while special attention is paid to their qualifications and degrees. This account will probably help some who have ' Schools' ahead of them and have soon to make arrangements for the future. Any who come to the Bureau are certain to find other graduates already hard at work. Yours, etc.,

B.A. Oxon.'

Craving There is at last a new form of vice, a new indulgence, a new luxury. One had long ago grown tired of the dregs of the eccentricities which belonged properly to the 'nineties, when men talked of ' coloured sins,' to be sipped and savoured as delicately, as critically, as precious liqueurs of amethyst and topaz and jade. Coloured sins, if they ever existedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and there is an antiquarian form of pleasure in speculating as to which colours appertained to which sins ; whether murder was crimson, for instance, or gambling gilded ; whether drug-taking was violet, or the sin of accidia greyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;had given place to coloured jumpers : the epoch of the decorative epigram had degenerated into that of the baroque trouser.

FRITILLARY.

Moreover, even these had begun to pall. The public eye was become used to the shadows of rose, of green, of mauve, or turquoise moving against that grey and exquisite background which is Oxford. There came a dreadful period of fear that in all the world there was no new sensation either to be produced or to be experienced. As to the former, one cannot say. As to the latter, as I have said, there is a new vice in Oxford, as powerful in its influence over its devotees as ever was opium, or hashish,or the bright lust for gaming. It is—the Woolworth craving. Day after day its victims, or its high priests, whichever is the best title for them, crowd in through the great glass doors, and, walking three times around it, marvel more every time at golden fish in crystal bowls, at chromatic socks, at hexagonal plates of deepest blue and scarlet-orange. at a thousand picture-books ; buying here and there, to content for a while their insatiate longing, mirrors, and notebooks, and saucepans, and gramophone records ; and then, falling once more into a drifting dream, pacing interminably along the lovely alleys, lost in a muse of wonder and delight, deep as the lethargy of the drug-taker. Long hours go by, and are lost and gone ; and still the solitary epicurean meanders through these corridors of vice. Perhaps some child, carrying the delicious roundness of a balloon—which, alas, none over eleven dare to buy—may point at him with infantile curiosity and innocent laughter ; maybe some shop girl may wrinkle her youthful brows in wonder at his leisurely pace, his interminable lingering ; but they do not guess, in their young innocence that he is the prey to a gnawing languor, a subtle and dreadful vice, insidious and unrelenting. Thus has come to Oxford that dread and delicious thing ; that dangerous and sweet delight ; that irremediable vice ; Woolvvorthitis. The sufferer, though perhaps he does not buy, for the things lose their magic, like elfin gold, when taken away from that atmosphere of fluid enchantment, cannot but spend his time in one eternal, ineluctable gazing at the heaped diversities of sixpennies.' There is a new luxury, a new indulgence, a new mode of vice.

'bow to abverttse the bottom %cbools To the Editor of the Fritillary. MADAM, I have long felt that more might be done to interest newcomers amongst us in the intellectual side of our activities. Many, indeed, are ignorant that such a side exists. I regard this as a lamentable state of affairs, and wish to put forward a suggestion. Might we not with advantage imitate the so admirable example of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and advertise, so to speak, the romance and colour to be found in the Honours Schools? Surely the hall of the Examination Schools, or the quadrangles of colleges, would gain in attraction by a display of this kind. I enclose a few sketches merely to suggest what might be done by more gifted hands than mine. Yours, etc., FORTIS EST VERITAS. North. Oxford. November ,8th, 1925.

FRITILLARY.

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' The Seagull ' and ' A Doll's House ' are both running at present in London, and both with every appearance of success. It is interesting to find them side by side and watch how taste has changed, for there can be little doubt that Chekov has succeeded to Ibsen's position as the dominant dramatist of the age. Chekov indeed makes no clamour, as Ibsenism did ; he has no vociferous disciple to proclaim his praise ; he arouses no controversy ; he is not, as Ibsen was, involved in questions of the day ; indeed he is often dismissed, as quite irrelevant to ourselves, with a murmured comment of Ah, these Russians,' and no one ever attempted to dispose of Ibsen with Ah, these Swedes ' ; but though his fame is less widespread, and his influence even now perhaps less great than that of Ibsen, there is no doubt that Chekov, above all others, is the dramatist who is most to our mind. For what cause have we forsaken Ibsen? There seems to be at present no general and violent reaction against him, such as follows the overvaluation of every artist ; his plays are still produced ; his superb technique receives unquestioned admiration still. Nor is it that the society with which he deals is out of date. The cause of feminism no longer needs such champions, it is true, and Norah's ' Damn it all' sounds somewhat tame to modern ears ; but there is humbug and self deception still, and intellectual honesty is a virtue that we prize. It is rather that the whole practice of dramatising etihcs has fallen out of favour, and an artist who has so palpable a message inspires us with distrust. Consider the third act of ' The Dolls' House.' Up till the last scene of the play Norah has been a person ; at every word we have known her better and liked her more. Suddenly, in an instant, she turns into an argument. At the moment of revelation, when for the first time she sees herself and her husband clearly, there was the opportunity for a very subtle piece of writing which would reveal exactly how the shock affects herâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;her outlook, her feelings, her speech ; but that is no concern of Ibsen's ; he is not interested in a psychological study ; he needs a clear voice to annunciate his argument, and, discarding the Norah he has so carefully shown us, he whisks into her place a woman who entirely agrees with him about married life. And when the door has slammed we begin to suspect that we have loved Norah on false pretences all along; that all the time she was not a human being, but the illustration of a point.. It is as though the play were built inward, from the plot to the characters ; the characters live, because Ibsen is a masterly dramatist, but their nature is determined by their story, and their story is determined by the facts about human nature which Ibsen found interesting. This is the opposite of Chekov's method. With him the story of a play is merely the result of portraying the characters ; the play is built from the inside outwards. This is most obvious in his earlier writings. ' The Cherry Orchard ' is as symmetrical, as balanced, as complete as any play of Ibsen's ; ' The Seagull ' is a somewhat lop-sided piece of work, yet its imperfections are of small importance because the characters in it are all perfectly portrayed, and in them lies its value. Chekov has an

unique gift of exquisitely subtle characterisation ; in no other plays to we

FRITILLARY.

know the characters with the minute intimacy of a novel. In a novel it is possible to describe conflicting states of mind, to describe unspoken thoughts and the emotions behind every spoken word - but in a play all must be revealed in a single speech ; yet, by some miracle, Chekov reveals as much as any novelist, and beside one of his scenes the conversations of Ibsen seem crude and unnatural. Chekov, moreover, has the complete impartiality of the true realist ; he does not direct us what to think of his people, but merely shows us what they are. In a play of Ibsen's we see his point of view about the situation, agree with it perhaps, and think that he is right ; but with Chekov there is no question of agreeing ; we see the situation from his point of view, and know that he is right simply by the evidence of our senses. And this, in our doubtful and questioning generation, is what we require ; not the statement of some problem, the exposition of some arguable theory, but an unquestionable sample of things as they appear to be ; and it is for this reason that The Cherry Orchard' and The Seagull' have left us with so little heart for seeing Ibsen.

1Revos in Brief from the Inomen's Colleges We regret that in mentioning the new members of the Senior Common Room of St. Hugh's the name of Miss Thorneycroft, the new Bursar, was inadvertently omitted. She is very warmly welcomed by St. Hugh's. The activities of college societies have been these Dramatic. St. Hilda's Hall Dramatic Society performed The Devil's Disciple' on Friday, November 27th. Joint readings of Caesar and Cleopatra' with St. Edmund's Hall, and of Prunella ' with Lincoln College, have been held by the Lady Margaret Hall Dramatic Society, which further proposes to read Pirandello's And that's the Truth' with St. Hugh's College. The second year of St. Hugh's are about to produce three short plays, The Poetasters of Ispahan ' by Clifford Bax ; A. P. Herbert's Double Demon' ; and a comedy calle d Thirty Minutes in a Street.' Somerville College Dramatic Society has read Henry IV.' Debating. St. Hugh's and New College Debating Societies have decided that speedy transport does not increase man's happiness ; and St. Hugh's and Ruskin intend to consider whether the spread of education means the spread of misery. At a joint debate between St. Hilda's Hall and Ruskin Debating Societies, on the motion That force is no remedy for modern social problems,' speeches were made both by Fascists and by Communists, who were observed to agree in opposing the motion. At Lady Margaret Hall the Beaufort Society has held a Fresher's Night,' and proposes to hold an Oratorical Display in the last week of term. Historical. The Principal of Corpus Christi College has lectured to the St. Hilda's History Club on Erasmus, and kindly invited them to inspect the books and manuscripts at his house which concern Erasmus. The History Society of St. Hugh's has looked at the antiquities of Exeter College.

FRITILLARY.

Literary. Harold Monro has promised to attend a meeting of the Poetry Club of St. Hilda's, at which he will read poems and discuss them. Miss Buckhurst has given great pleasure to the Literary Society of St. Hugh's by reading a paper to them, on Sagas. Musical. The Lady Margaret Hall Music Club will present some Nativity Tableaux, with carols, on the last Saturday of term. At St. Hugh's the Musical Society have enlivened Sunday evenings with songs and music. A sale of Italian linen has been held at Somerville in aid of the Endow. ment Fund ; it included some embroidery which was the work of Miss Penrose. We have received the following reports of the athletic activities of the colleges. HOCKEY. Lady Margaret Hall. The 1st XI has improved during the term, but does not yet combine well together. It will never be successful until the members are sufficiently keen to play more regularly in practices and matches. The same applies to the 2nd XI, which is very short of practice. Hockey results are :— 1st XI v. Scarlet Runners, lost 2-3. 1St XI v. Etceteras, lost 5-7. 1st XI v. Wycombe Staff, won 6--3. 'A' Team v. University College, Reading, lost 3-4. znd XI v. Etceteras, lost 2-4. St. Hugh's College. Though the results of matches this term have not, on the whole, been very cheering, the 1st and znd XI's are more promising than they appear to be on paper, partly owing to the fact that we have only once played a match with anything approaching a full team. Many of the freshers are good average players, and make up in steadiness what they lack in individual brilliance. We can only hope that combination will improve sufficiently so as to make less obvious the gaps left from last year. LACROSSE. Somerville College. The lacrosse team has had a very successful term as regards matches, having beaten St. George's, Harpenden, 9—o, Southern Ladies 2nd XII Ii—t, and drawn with Downe House, Newbury, 8-8. The last match was a very useful game in showing up the points which need practice, especially the necessity of the attacks as a whole to pass far enough out to the side or ahead and thereby avoid the defence. The freshers have provided several very useful players, B. Oldfield, J. Handley Seymour, D. Martin and K. Kenyon being the most promising. The defence, when it has played more together, should prove sound and solid, but at present the attacks rely far too much upon H. Reinold to do all the shooting, and this makes the games very one-sided. We have been unfortunate in not being able to have J. Darling in the team until last week, but her shooting proved invaluable against Downe House. In the 2nd XII Fowler has done very well in goal. Owing to illness, the 1st XII has had several substitutes at different times. The following have played : Goal, M. Moffatt ; Point, B. Oldfield • Cover-point, J. Handley Seymour ; 3rd man, I. Young ; _Right defence, M. Maclean • Left defence, S. Norman Butler;• Centre, J. Adam Smith, N. Debes ; 3rd 'home, J. Hardy,, D. Martin • 2nd home, J. Darling, K. Kenyon ; ist home, V. Colt ; Right attack, H. 'Reinuld ; Left attack, B. Patterson.

FRITILLARY.

St. Hugh's College. The Lacrosse Club makes up in keenness for what it lacks in talent. Practices have been regular, and the catching and passing have improved ; but the ball is still too much on the ground and everyone is far too slow. The 1st XII is feeling the loss of its colours ; the attack has at present little idea either of combination or of individual push ; the defence is interchanging better, but is too slow, and its intercepting is weak. The whole team must learn to think more quickly, and the attack must learn to catch. The znd XII is promising, and has, so far, won or drawn all its matches. The first year have contributed 14 players. There is plenty of good material among them, but, except for M. Phelips, no brilliance. Eight have got into the znd XII, but only two into the 1st XII. M. Phelips has won her 1st XII and I. Helps her 2nd XII colours. M. Hobhouse, K. Robertson and B. Morgan show promise. BOATING.

St. Hilda's Hall.

In spite of the fact that at the beginning of term

there was hardly any water in the river, and that during the remainder there has been considerably too much, boats have been going out regularly since the first week. There are some promising members of the second year who should get their captaincies this term, and among the first year, who have on the whole shown enthusiasm, there are already several half-captains. The four has been our regularly, and prospective members of the crew have been practising in the Tub Pair. SWIMMING.

St. Hugh's College. Swimming has naturally to take a back seat during the winter terms ; but, in spite of difficulties of time and climate, the freshers have shown commendable zeal. M. Phelips and B. Mott are promising, and S. Hignett, who, though a second year, is a new-found treasure, has the makings of a fine diver.

llotices anb 'Reports 0. U. W. D. S. President—J. ADAM-SMITH (S.C.). Secretary—D. TREVOR MCNEIL (S. H. C.). Treasurer—M. H. Ac LAND ALLEN (O.H.S.). On Tuesday, November loth, a meeting was held at I Jowett Walk. The motion, ' That the Drama of the present day is essentially ephemeral,' produced some good speaking and much comment on the orthography of the Committee. This has resulted in the purchase of a dictionary for the benefit of the Secretary. On Wednesday, November i8•h, the Society had the great pleasure of welcoming the Hon. Mrs. Wilson Fox as its visitor. The debate was in Somerville College on the motion ' That in the opinion of this House the policy of the Government in regard to industrial affairs has failed.' The distinguished visitor, who is the Vice-Chairman of the Women's Unionist Association, spoke fourth. Her clever and cogent speech, supported by

those of several members, resulted in the defeat of the motion.

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FRITILLARY.

There was a refreshing keenness to speak on the part of the members present, and the general trend of the debate was high. The efforts to transform the. Society into an Inter-Collegiate Club are being continued. 0. U. W. H. C. Captain—M. SMYLIE (S. C.). Secretary—E. SHARP (S. C. ). Treasurer—V. RUSSELL (S. H. C.). The team has not been over successful in its matches this term. One or two changes have been made since the publication of the last report in Fritillary, notably on the weak left side. At this stage in the term it would be a little unkind blatantly to advertise for a new half and two new forwards. Prichard is, very naturally, not yet quite happy in her new place, though her play against Cheltenham was extremely promising and should be more so when she has learned to think as a half and not as a back. Stave, again, is not absolutely familiar with the tactics of a left inner ; her pace and shooting capabilities stand her in good stead, but she must rush more in the circle. Scott gives the unfortunate impression of not working as hard as she could. She can, however, centre hard and accurately—an invaluable asset in a left wing. The forwards on the right are good, and sometimes very good; Sharp and Hardy combine well together and Kilroy feeds them unselfishly, and almost too consistently, from the centre. Of the defence rather less need be said. On the right Cowde-Smith marks well and is an untiring worker, though her passing is occasionally unfortunate. The backs, for the most part, play a sound game, though Pullin is apt to fiddle about with the ball too long before clearing. Darling we are unreservedly glad to have in the team. again. Russell is sometimes very good and always deals more than adequately with long shots; but she should come out of goal less frequently. Frankly, the team cannot expect this year to rely upon the individual brilliance of certain of its outstanding members. It remains, then, to improve the combination of the forward line in particular and the general inter-play of the team as a whole. Also if every member of the team could settle down to the game within, instead of after, the first ten minutes, as so frequently happens, it would give them a very great advantage. Matches : O.U.W.H.C. v. Oxford Etceteras. Drawn, 3-3. O. U. W. H. C. v. East Gloucester. Won, 7-6. 0. U. W. H. C . v. Cheltenham College. Lost, 3-4. Team : *Russell (S. H. C.) ; Pullin (S.C.), *Darling (S.C.) ; Cowde-Smith (S. H. C.), *Smylie (S.C.), Prichard (O. H. S.) ; *Sharp (S.C.), *Hardy (S.C.), Kilroy (S.H.H.), Stave (S. H. C. ), Scott (S. H. C.). * Old Blue. O. U. W. L. C So far this term we have only had two ist XII matches. On November 7th we. played Middlesex, the result of which was 12-2 to us. We had a very good match on the whole and the game was more even than is indicated by the score. Saturday, November i4th, we had a xst XII match

FRITILLARY.

against U.L.A.U. which resulted in a win for us by 14 foals to 5. We also had a 2nd XII match against Headington School which we won by 12 goals to 2. There was to have been another 2nd XII match on Saturday, November 2 I st, against Berkshire, but unluckily it was scratched. On Saturday, November 28th, our ist XII plays Surrey, and this ought to be a very good match. It is most unfortunate that N. Debes is still unable to play for us, but we hope she will soon be fit again. So far the team has played a very good game ; our attacks, who are nearly all old Blues,, combine well and play with dash ; the defences are chiefly new, and play a very strong game, keeping well together and intercepting successfully. Ist XII : g. *R. Shaw, pt. E. Oldfield, c.pt. M. Gedge, 3rd m. Young, l.def. *G. Thompson, r.def. K. Smith, c. *M. Fisher, I. att. *N. Osborne, r.att. *H. Reinold, 3rd h. *M. . Elkington, znd h. *M. Thomas (capt.), 1st h. I. Munro., * Old. Blue.

O.U.W.S.C. President—E. STOCK (S. H. H.). Treasurer—J. CULLEN (S. H. H.). Secretary—K. GARVIN (S. C.). Though the term has been uneventul, the members of the O.U.W.S.C. have been far from inactive. Weekly practices have been held in the Merton Street Baths every Friday, from 2 till 3. The attendance at these practices has been much better than in winter terms of past years. It is hoped that the United team as well as the several College teams have profited by the valuable instruction given by the United coach, Mr. Parnell, in Australian crawl and in diving. The first real polo practice of the term will take place next Friday.

Annual Zubscription to 'ffritillarte A subscription of 2/-, paid to the Treasurer (Miss A. Falk, St. Hilda's Hall) on or before January 1st, 1926, entitles the holder to a copy of each Fritillary during the remainder of this academic year ; that is to say, to the four numbers which will appear during the next two terms. A subscription of 3/6 (not of 4/-, as erroneously announced in our last number) paid on October 1st in each year, entitles the subscriber to two copies of Fritillary in each term during that year.

'note to Contributors Any contributor wishing for the return of a MS. is asked to attach to it a note to that effect. MSS. cannot ordinarily be returned, and, unless accompanied by such a request, will be destroyed.

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