The Letters of Annabel Lee

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 45, 25 May 1928, Page 6

The Letters of Annabel Lee

Rg Y dear Elisabeth-Maude Royden -a beautiful name sounding like a royal title-has made unprecedented mental and spiritual appeal to the people of New Zealand. To men, be it said, as well as to the sex that is valiantly climbing the ladder of progress, and in many fields of achievement fiourishes the feminine flag. Who knows but that soon some small, determined hand may have a finger in the political brew? Listening to Miss Royden’s stirring sentences regarding British politics, and the fine, balanced, able women who nobly have won their spurs therein, my prophetic eye envisaged the portals of our own Parliament swinging open in welcome to the first adventurous female to sit in state amid the Weary Willics of the House. "If a woman were to advocate some political move," said Napoleon, with inherent lack of gallantry, "that would seem to me sufficient reason for tak‘ing the opposite course." And again, with engaging bluntness, "The man who lets himself be ruled by a woman is a fool." Sheer perversity on the part of the great Emperor! And for our reassurance we have twentiethcentury Barrie the Kind telling us ‘pleasant home truths, which indeed Every Woman Knows already, or, if she doesn’t, she is past praying for. With all our merits and demerits, however, we have been laggards in the political field; though at this long last we are picking our candidate, for I suggest as a slogan: Lady, be Good! If you should, would or could, How you’d adorn The Cause of reform! You’d vote without bias And squash Ananias; Whose many small lies | You’d quite pulverise!

When Labour with fuss Becomes obstreperous, With micn so decorous You’d step on the chorus... Yy OMEN in Parliament, and Young Men in Love! The first ¢Ienrs the atmosphere, so it would seem; the latter, as expounded by the most modern novelist of them all, poisons it. In his latest novel Mr. Michael Arlen writes with his wonted captivating grace of style, and the portraits of newspaper magnate, political giant, unscrupulous man of affairs, are limned with penetrating skill and insight. But dear, dear! how weary we grow of those lovely ladies, so forthcoming and sensuous and sad, with slender, supple, insistent legs, and tiny feet, just strong enough to balance the slipping, sliding amoureuses. Witty and effective enough in small doses, the slightness of plot becomes obvious and tiresome, and the practice of love-making as a fine art productive of ennui-on paper, at any rate! FTER an_ initial hasty rush through Leon Feuchtwanger’s "Ugly Dachess," the brilliantly gifted Jewish author of which is the literary darling of London coteries of the most exclusive, I returned to that great and gruesome romance, carefully reading through its pages of genius and horror. A masterly presentment of dim and distant days in European annals; pageant of heroic deeds, battle, murder and sudden death. Not much of "whatsoever things are good, whatsoever things are lovely," except perhaps in the vounger years of the Duchess Mareairete, whose terrific personality towers over all. Ugly, tragically unable to draw to her those she loved, of a consuming intelligence, a planner of great good to her

ing at last into inertia, unbelievable grossness and despair. Not cheery reading, this coarse and brilliant chronicle; and one is left with the dreary conviction that to those colossal fighters and their beautecous light-o’-loves, in the end ’twas all but vanity of vanities. : IKE individuals, towns have their distinguishing quality. To Dunedin goes the palm for hospitality of a success unrivalled. Charming indeed was a recent party given to Mr. and Mrs. Fraser Gange by Mrs. R. Hudson, in that artistic home which exhales a spirit of generous kindness from the doorstep. Miss Amy Evans enchanted by the simplicity of her charm; and Mrs. Hudson’s singing of a setting of some verses of Walter de la Mare proved particularly enthralling to Mr. Fraser Gange, who listened to her lovely, flexible voice as though lost in some faery-world of Mr. de la Mare’s imagining. people; but unloved, maltreated, | | T the Otago Women’s Club a cordial gathering assembled to meet Miss Maude Royden; so large was it indeed that it appeared a forest of females, so dense that it was impossible to see the wood for the trees. Clad in black, with a decorative longpetalled flower and necklace of ivory from which was pendant some gleaming jewel, and carrying blossoms of gorgeous hue, Miss Royden spoke in interesting fashion. It was pleasant hearing, from such a source, that New Zealand women, path-finders and pioneers in certain directions, though apathetic in others, have been studied and acclaimed in relation to child welfare in our English Homeland, the approval of which is the Mecca of our aspiration, Your

ANNABEL

LEE