Annotations of Annabel

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 11, 9 November 1928, Page 13

Annotations of Annabel

DEAREST: | "To be or Not to be" is in the | air and the offing, tension is omni- — present, and anyone remotely con--nected with a candidate for parlia-_ mentary honours wears a wistful, — worried, give-us-this-day-our-daily- | bread expression. In some quarters | « forced camaraderie prevails, in others an excess of vituperation. RS. R-, Irish, charming, and until last week an ardent if theoretic Socialist, surrounded by her accustomed satellites, went one night to the meeting of a Reform candidate; where to her sorrow and amaze some aggressive representatives of Labour found their feelings so worked upon that they were unable to stand when the National Anthem was sung, making coarse sounds with their feet to indicate, one surmises, contempt for the effete superstition of loyalty to the Throne. RS. R-, who is emotional and articulate, made pungent and pe-sonal comments, and all desire to be Comrade Margaret evaporated like the snows of yesteryear; her taste being immaculate in other things besides dress, and her ethical code more concerned with the | manners than the morals of her creatures. O that, by an odd and misguided demonstration of the Will to Assert Itself, the Labour Party lost a nice little, tight little wedge of votes; as Mrs. R- possesses in fullest measure her country’s persuasive gift of the gab, and into whatsoever of Kedar’s tents she strays, there her coterie will follow her, and_ this election, at any rate, it will not be into the Communistic camp. A RECENT writer exploits an interesting angle of the many facets of the sociological spectacle. By means of a magical drug, the personality of a lovely mondaine is transferred by turn to each one of a long list of those she has injured in the course of her selfish, superficial existence. Successively she finds her self a birdlet whose feathers were plucked for her adornment; the husband she has wronged; the chorus

eirl whose lover she filched; a small, happy rambler in the forest whose — jolly life was cruelly cut short to > help clothe her in the rarest of furs; — none of their sensations, physical or spiritual, paltry or poignant, being © spared her. [NTERESTING and salutary, in some quiet hour of midnight, when the motor-hoot is_ silent and the tramears clank no more, to emulate the action of that Oriental magic, and in imagination enter the lives of those who have been affected by our pleasures and pursuits. Not a Nietschean pastime, and by no means adapted to exalt the ego; but an illuminating spiritual exercise for us all, mes amis. N Mr. Arncld Bennett’s latest contribution to the drama, he has resuscitated the plot of Goethe’s ereat story with a moral, and gives us an up-to-date Faust, with Sir Gerald du Maurier, jin inimitable fashion, playing the part of Lothario Rejuvenescent. By an operation on the glands, rendered possible by modern scientific research, an _ elderly scholar, high honour heaped upon him failing to. reconcile him to ennui occasioned by decay of physical forces, is docked of half his eighty years, emerging delightful and de- bonair at the admirable age-for a man!-of forty years. Revelling in rediscovery of that ‘‘first, fine, careless rapture,’"? so mourned in retrospect, he takes unto himself the fiancee of a nice young man, and for a few months all goes merrier than marriage bell. Alack, when to Sweet and Twenty is revealed the hoax perpetrated by science and seventy, her new-old lover is discarded, and, artificially attained vouth slipping off with even more amazing rapidity than that’ to ‘which we are accustomed, poor old Faustus, as he was in the beginning is left lamenting. ° A FASCINATING topic, and one "™ that holds strong appeal to the many who fain would have another toss of fate’s dice that are always loaded; a few more of the flown and golden years; another chance in this world instead of the next. Strangely enough, most people never have quite enough of an imperfect lifeThat, like a dome of many-coloured elass, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until death tramples it to fragments. ° Your

ANNABEL

LEE