The Letters of Annabel Lee

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 16, 4 November 1927, Page 6

The Letters of Annabel Lee

My Dear Elitsabeth,Grey the sky and cauld the blast on the morning of Labour Day, that most popular holiday, coming as it does cmid everydayness of this workday world, at just the right moment for a spell. .Some donned their plaidics, however, and fared forth; many to Trentham, where it blew half a gale, which almost spoiled the fun of the fair; others to the country where, in spite of storm and stress, blossoming fruit trees flaunted bravely and lilies bloomcd by the wayside. At a passing station, pink and purple and sweet in the wet wind, tossed and beckoned a garden of dear old-fashioned stocks, surely an inspiration on the part of some sower of seed, for this gay garden is a joy to the eye and refreshment to the spirié of bored travellers in dull trains, passing by on their little journeys. As the day grew up a little, the sun, which had coyly lurked in seclusion, allowed small secret glimpses of light to frisk over the hills; the sea began to shimwer, gambolling lambkins and fat, fat sheep cotted the fields, the wind-blown trees recovered tranquillity, and gradually the landscape took on the curly, comfortable look of a Birkett Foster drawing. Two boys near me fell on and off the seat, and banged the door after the manne. of boys, however attractive, and these were of that variety; one of the fairness that turns to carroty gold in a high light, with the freckles that hold the heart of susceptible females, the other with the black and waving hair, and the blue eyes of Ireland. Me they would have none of, rejecting my wumaidenly overtures; being engrossed with a stolid driver who paraded his puffing engine up and down outside in the leisurely New Zealand manner. Leaving them to this manly interest, I bundled off the train at a peaceful place on the line, which is just far enough from town to be out of the usual track of the crowd, and where, or so it seems to me, the sea ~beyond the grey sands and the lupins stretches out to the wide horizon more enticingly than elsewhere. Stsette’s very sophisticated week-end cottage is very attractive, set as it is in a garden of pinks and poppies, hey crackling wood-fire a joyful sight and sound, and her many clever labour-saving tricks making the absence of the hired help quite negligible. Her spoilt and friendly Pomeranian, a host in himsclf, barked vociferous welcome, and for lunch we had one of those savouries for which Sussette is famous, cooked on an eléctric stove, which is the most fascinaitng thing in the way of cooking apparatus I have seen. Suzette welcomed me in @ silken, scanty royal blue frock, with @ suggestion of the ubiquitous iunper style, straight behind and pouched bes fore, with dodgy pleat or so in the skirt in front. Coming home, over Plin-

merton, there was a@ wonderful sunset. The sky, of a@ crystalline clearness and the shade familiarly known as duck-egg blue, was a background for a huge and Stationary bank of golden cloud, like some awesome messenger from a Land Beyond, with fluttering, flaming satellites. A brave sight, clutching at the heartstrings; but the good old holidaymakers rustled their. twopenny-half penny newspapers, shut their silly windows, turned up their coat collars, with never a look or a "Guid save us!" for the miracle of the heavens. Vegetables all, and perhaps because of it life is the simpler for them! Do you remember Heine, at the end of his brilliant and hectic life, writing from his mattress grave? "It is so inuch better to be a vegetable, and walk in the old welltrimmed path, than to be one of those fellows to whom all the roses nod and all the stars wink!" JVhat do you think? There is one glory of the moon, one glory of the sun, and another of plain, plodding Iiuwman endeavour and achievement, the "old proud pageant of ian." Of this latter was the show in the Town Hall organisci by the New Zealand- made Preference League. Fain would I have led to it, driven, pushed, if need be, by the scruff of their necks, all those who beelitlte, patronise, or fall foul of New Zealand, my country, the boosted land of the bunnies and the breeses. Frocks there were and furs, matches and millinery, hosiery and highsteppers. I pondered the gleam and glitter of the smile of various maidens, wondering ‘twas the shine of youth, which is like no other shine, or whether the vaunted Pepsodent has everything to do with itt Anyhow, to be on the safe side, I ‘bought quite a lot of this toothy preparation, so that I may smile and smile, even though I feel like a villain, A graceful nymph in a clever and provocatiz: dance extolled the virtue of the Gloria gramophone, and incidentally the amasing sinuosity of the dancer herself. Blithe girls trod the stage, walked the plank, like trained and mannered manequins, showing off the latest creations for any occasion, from a party at Government House to a nighty-night, in which one could drop off to sleep with «@ beautiful feeling that one is looking one’s best. Quite a definite lead was given as to coming fashions in the springtime, which also is the ring-time; and looking at New Zealand-made garments on New Zealand-made girls, one thinks again of the Tennysonian silky-sweet couplet--In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove, In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Very intriguing’ were the frocks and furbelows, and fain would I have achieved a suit, sober in hue with a thin white line, excellent in weave and cut and finish, an exhibit of the Wellington

Woollen Company, and well worn by a dashing denizen of society. The leisurely long-agu was resuscitated in the fashions of a day that is dead, one English rose of a girl being particularly shy and adorable in a _ lace-trimmed, billowy blue gown. These amateur saleswomen included several of the Most Youthful Set, who slipped and glided through their allotted parts with the nonchalant air and extreme aloofness of the species whose jobs for the moment they jumped. Do you remark, by the way, how popular a name is Marjorie? And pretty, too, but not so pretty as the girls who bear it. Where are the gentle Janes, the bonny Kates, the Nessies, and the Jessies of vyesteryear? By her name ye shall date her, so choose cannily for your blue-eyed teins, and study Rossectti’s lovely little listCecily, Gertrude, Magdalen, Margaret and Rosalys, which wl never go out of fashion. Clever, graceful, finished is the maiden of 1927; whatsoever her small and capable hand findeth to do, that she does efficiently. She toes the line successfully, whether it be posturing and publicity, or that harder row to hoe, the solid daily grind of "doing out the duty." Yes, to use a Dickens gay, Todyers can do tt when it comes to the pinch, and New Zealand will not fail., Speaking of Dickens, Clement May's entertainment in the Concert Chamber was @ delightful one. There are those who still love the tales of the great story-teller, and to these the impersonations were a sheer delight. Mr. May is to be congratulated upon the fidelity and artistic completeness of his reproductions of the Barnard drawings; a true disciple o, the novelist, his make-up alone was worth going far to see, and his acting entirely satisfying. Sydney Curton lu |? before us, haggard, reckIss, infinitely moving in love and renunciation; Uriah Heep, with his ugly face and wmisercbhle body, treacherous mongrel that he was; Micawber, the giod-humoured, the debonair, swaggered across the stage, optimist to the bone. For the rest, a contralto vocalist sang artisticalaly; Myr. Norman Aitken was effective in a duologue, and Mr. Whittle, as ever, an incomparable accontpanist. But, above all, was it a Dickens hour, carrying us back to the days when enthusiasm yet survived, and we lay under greenwood tree with a book, kicking, our heels in ecstasy as we toiled with Copperfield, fell for the fascinating Steerforth, starved with Jo, and thrilled to that immortal journey to the scaffold. Long and many lie the years between since Dickens was the vogue; but to many the spell still holds, and they are grateful to Mr. Clement May for thus strengthening the silken strands of re-

metpbrathce; Y QUr

ANNABEL

LEE