Part One - The First 100 Years

THE FIRST 100 YEARS

FOREWORD

In presenting this volume I cannot do better than quote a very apposite passage from R. L. Stevenson’s “In Retrospect”. “When we are looking at a landscape we think ourselves pleased, but it is only when it comes back upon us by the fire o’ nights that we can disentangle the main charm from the thick of particulars. It is just so with what is lately past. It is too much loaded with detail to be distinct; and the canvas too large for the eye to encompass. “But this is no more the case when our recollections have been strained long enough through the hour-glass of time; when they have been the burthen of so much thought, the charm and comfort of so many a vigil. All that is worthless has been sieved and sifted out of them. Nothing remains but the brightest lights and the darkest shadows.” Such has been the experience in writing these memoirs of the Lodge. Innumerable details were contained in the old records. Memories of various incidents kept rising to the mind, mental pictures of past and present brethren thronged into view, until all these details threatened to overcrowd the work, and the most onerous part of the task was in selecting which details to omit and which to include. I have tried to leave out those things which would tend to turn the book into a list of tabulated facts; such items as lists of candidates, degrees worked, accounts of installations and banquets. ladies’ nights, children’s parties and so forth, and have attempted to separate the remaining more interesting news items under a few main headings, thus doing away with the chronological

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sequence of events. This plan I sincerely hope has produced a much more readable and entertaining document. The task has been an enjoyable one despite the hard work, and now, as Sir Edward Fitzgerald says in the “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”, “the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on”. The task is done; and I trust it will prove of value to all who prize their connection with De Shurland Lodge, and that it may help to lighten the work of any future lodge historian.

WBro. T. S. Watkins PPGStdB.

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