Annotations of Annabel

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 25, 4 January 1929, Page 13

Annotations of Annabel

DEALEST,-Alack the day, the Boxing Day, when, in Capital City pent, rain swished around silk-clad ankles, and cauld blast roared unfeelingly as it played havoe with treasured, spoon-fed, small and weak box-plants unwittingly left overnight on baleony or window ledge. Grey mists swept the land, while over loneliness of wind-blown harbour a few gulls cleaved a solitary way. So that most of us stayed indoors, and beamed upon varied loot loved tokens, perchance, of happily @ generous season of goodwill. Best A osen kindnesses are those of unexpected quality; a few cut-class Georgian tumblers, it may be, given by an apparently austere non-particip-ant in revels of Bacchante, who with charming liberality of spirit and purse presents these flashing cups that cheer to the man or Woman Who Did, or doth, as a present-day Grant Allen might say. UCH to my taste is a present of parts, a stroke of imaginative comprehension that delights. Tribute I pay to open-mindedness of beautiful friend, whose white crown of immaculately waved hair makes fitting crown for seventy years, and the tenets of whose preachment and practice are those of the Victorian era. On Christmas morning this lovely lavender lady presented to your Annabel, whom darkly she doubts as being a devotee of the great god Nicotine, a de luxe and princely parcel of De Reszke cigarettes. A modern and delightful gift; and pleasant to find that tolerance and sympathy with other modes and manners are not the exclusive possession of a young and exclamatory generation. FOR the moment dull and triste are the streets, the shops have lost _ Christmas dash, the youth and beauty betaken themselves to primrose path of the country, long trail _of seashore, more or less idyllic calm of valley and high hill . in those lonely places Where the old plain men have rosy faces And the young fair maidens quiet eyes. A drift of tourists occasionally is be met on the Quay, viewing our ways and women, frivollings and faults. Sometimes ’twould seem as though visitors from overseas come to bury Caesar, not to praise him, so frequent and painful and free are their comments on this young land, which assuredly cannot and does not aspire to enter into competition with older civilisations. One such held forth in strident accents recently in

an art shop, whither through largesse of plutocratic relative I had gone to purchase long-coveted chain of jade. Our institutions, politics and commodities were held up to scorn with vivacity and audibility; the extreme chic of the gown worn somehow rendering bad manners more exasperating. Enviable was that frock of silken, supple black velvet, with its "polka dots" of rose and purple and golden gorse, ineffable the sideways droop of pleats, perfect the moulding of short and tightish bodice that subtly clung to a really admirable figure. All of a simplicity sublime, including hat of tagel straw with band and rose of subtly blended colour; and creating a wonder, as I left the shop, clad in that dull but kind fail-me-never, a coat and skirt, why the same idea had not occurred to ithe unfertile brain of your Annael, Now that there is leisure for books, wisely or unwisely chosen, as the case may be, by friends who dimly suspect one of highbrow tendencies, I commend "The Feet of the Young Men," an author who conceals his brilliant identity under non de plume of "The Janitor." These vignettes of literary and political personalities are right up to the minute, and worth much fine gold to the student of affairs. Deal gently with thy brither man, Still gentlier sister woman, is not exactly a slogan, and from Lady Astor to Oswald Mosley, M.P., male and female berates he them, all going to make extremely entertaining reading. Mr. Philip Guedella, who would appear to be one of the bright-. est "literary gents" in this flashing constellation, is depicted with an excess of clarity and lack of charity that are most diverting; while the comprehending and comprehensive notes on Miss Bondfield, Miss Lawrence, and the rest that come under the lash of criticism give added interest to an outspoken and vivacious chronicle. JN the closing days of a dying year we fall into retrospect and take cherishing thought of friends who are dear; those whose eyes’ still shed kindly light upon us, and those others between whom and ourselves yawns inexorable gulf of silence and fare‘well. We are told "Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the sea," and clinging to its prop of consolation, the wistful human heart till long last remembers . . . that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill. Your

ANNABEL

LEE