TALK TO PENWOMEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1064, 30 August 1930, Page 20

TALK TO PENWOMEN

PLEASANT AFTERNOON MEETING A very pleasant afternoon was spent on Fridav in the rooms of the New Zealand League of Penwomen, when Miss Lora Miller gave a very interesting talk on “French Women and Their Influence on Literature.”

One famous Frenchwoman was Madame Ramboiulfet, who had the distinction of starting , the first salon in her house in Paris. Here she gathered ail the famous men of the time, literary and political, and she set a standard of refinement in action and speech that bye and bye became fixed. Plays were written according to regular rules, otherwise they had no lame. Our Shakespeare, with his originality, was considered coarse and not up to literary standard. This aristocratic absolutism lasted till the French Revolution, when standards all fell to the ground along with the French Monarchy.

! Another famous Frenchwoman was • Madame de S£vingn£e, whose letters are j still much admired. Others were Mme. I de Stael, and in the nineteenth cenj tury, Madame Georges Sandes. She I was a novelist of great repute. She I wrote of rural life and gave to the | world a wonderful picture of life in l France.

It is noteworthy how women have made their influence felt in Freifh literature. The woman characters ar«f always the most interesting. They say the charm of Frenchwomen is their unexpectedness, so perhaps that explains why they make sucii admirable heroines.

Mrs. Macky occupied the chair, in the absence of the president. Mrs. Cluett. She thanked Miss Miller in a few graceful words, and presented her with a bouquet of violets. Another notable visitor at the league was Miss Lora West, one of the foremost women in Bn gland. It is interesting to meet one who has been in tlie thick of things political, as well as literary.