The Letters of Annabel Lee

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 37, 6 April 1928, Page 6

The Letters of Annabel Lee

My Dear Elisabeth: The ball given to the commander and officers of the sloop Cassiopee in the Allen Hall, at Dunedin, by the French Club and students of the University, was a brilliant function. Captain Auvergny came with his officers; and Mr. Sidey, accompanied by Mrs. Sidey, forgot that his long daylight has faded into night, and comported himself wisely and well as Chancellor of the University. Dr. Thompson (President of the French Club) and Mrs. Thompson acted as hosts, the latter striking an individual note in her blue gown and long fringed shawl; M. Paul Saldaigne (Vice-President) came with Madame Saldaigne; also the Mayor and Mrs. Taverner; Mr. Skinner, recently returned from scentific research abroad, and Mrs. Skinner, extremely striking in black with an unusual necklace of gold; and Dr. Marshall Macdonald and Mrs. Macdonald (who wore lovely crystal jewellery). Music was rendered of the most bebuiling, Miss Vickers being in charming voice, M. Saldaigne singing the songs of France with his own true art; and one hopes the visiting guests found it agreeable to listen to their delightful language so musically spoken and sung. Supper was sumptuous and set out with taste and tact in two rooms; all contributing to the suecess of this gay and gladsome party, at which the younger dancing men donned colourful paper hats of a variety most frolicsome, thereby greatly enhancing the fun of this festa of uneommon quality. Those who saw Sir J. M. Barrie’s "Quality Street" a decade ago will recall its old-world fragrance and wistful charm; and perchance will go to the De Luxe Theatre this week hoping to experience their "first, fine, careless rapture." And they will be disappointed. The picture play, charming enough in its way, fails to reproduce the subtlety, the gentle detachment, the leisured courtliness depicted with the inimitable art of the most beloved English playwrights. Proud little Phoebe, however, is still very sweet in her high-waisted géwn, her high coiffure and caressing curls delicious enough to cause one to view distrustfully the present slick vogue. The rest of the cast is adequate; and Mr. Conrad Nagel’s conception of Dr. Valentine Brown a very fine achievement. A graceful cavalier, and a winning one, he pays court to his Jane-Aus-

ten-ish lovely lady with decorous charm, and marches off to the Napoleonie wars with gallantry and dash. This actor has the art, most rare in the Picture world, of dignity and grace in movement and repose; this being in direct contrast to the incessant trip-tripping of the feminine star. Why scamper, it is pardonable to wonder, when to walk is so simple? This is a question, however, only to be elucidated by a chorus of Hollywood houris. The picture is delightfully produced, with its street of remembrances and quaint old house furnished with the stiff furniture, Victorian brackets and candelabra of a past century; the prevailing atmosphere heightened by the amorous ditties so tunefully warbled by Mr. Wood, and the saccharine selections on the mighty Wurlitzer, calculated to bring a tear to the eye of the sentimentalist, but entirely unworthy of that wonderful instrument. The play goes its pretty way like a chapter of diluted Cranford, and is calculated to charm large audiences. Very clever, very complete, very attractive; but it is not Barrie. On recent quest for certain adjuncts of importance, decorative and domestic, good luck conveyed me to a happy hunting-ground of electrical contrivances many, varied, and entirely irresistible to the heart of woman, be she bachelor contriving hasty and hetereogenous dinner of sorts upon a more or less adequate cooker, or modern chatelaine of a home that, with labour-saving devices, artistic architecture, and simple and beautiful appointments, approximates to an ideal that has long eluded the female of the New Zealand species. Intriguing ‘were compact contrivances of British manufacture, combining individual virtues of frizzling the breakfast bacon, browning the breakfast bread, and, when tipped up, capable of conversion into a radiator diffusing cheer and consolation in the chilly autumn evenings already upon us, and a luxury of ravishment to those who hitherto have shivered dsiconsolately in the fireless apartments of suburbia. In price quite moderate, a small Peter Pan was the cooker that reached my heart, and ere long it will glow in the small and Chelseaish flat where at present I find haven from a clamorous amd _ insistent world. Miss Kathleen Woodward, of humble origin and a pluck sublime, has

written the story of the life of Queen Mary of England, no less. And she has done it very well indeed. Mecting with courtesy unparalleled from the royal quarry and her immediate retinue, Miss Woodward tells us things we really want to hear about the dear and austere Lady who, on her gentle pedestal of perfection sets so lovely an example to her subjects of able, dignified, unselfish womanhood. A long list, that of the virtues of Queen Mary; we all know it by heart, -but, after glancing through Miss Woodward’s comprehensive pages, perhaps become more acutely conscious of fineness of character and breadth of tolerance revealing themselves in intimate regard for, and service towards, the people of her realm, in wise ordering of homes of beauty held in trust for the nation, and intimate, perfect companionship with husband and children. The childish years and girlhood of "Princess May" are described, the diffidence of this royal girl, her Jack of small, chattering, conversational inanities, and her lovable shyness; the great and selfless labours during the War years in striking contrast, while many pleasant small anecdotes are very human in friendly simplicity, as told by this chronicler, who is obviously that out-of-date litterateur, a hero-wor-shipping scribe. In this transgression, if it be a transgression, she is in company with the immortal; for, had it not been for Boswell, that inspired satellite and biographer, we should not have had the Johnsonian Life, the most famous of them all. This eulogy of Miss Woodward’s is of especial interest, coming, as it does, from one who abides in the opposite camp, a wage-earner, a toiler and a socialist, who has. read extensively, and observed the people and polities of her time, particularly as affecting women, with a wide-eyed intelligence. In her loving admiration for our English Queen, she is at one with the words of the poet Swinburne when he wrote of another royal Mary, beautiful and luckless and sad: No maid ‘who strays with steps unwary Through snares unseen; But one to live and die forMary the Queen! Your

ANNABEL

LEE