THE IMP.
JUNE,
1918,
EDITOR. E. E. STOPFORD.
YEAR REPRESENTATIVES ON COMMI1TEE. M. CHAPPELL J. M. PETERS',., A. G. YOUNGHUG1CS
Third Year Representative. Second Year Representative. First Year Representative.
TREASURER. Z. LANDO.
Cbe No. 1.
JUNE.
1918.
CONTENTS.
...
EDITORIAL ...
1
No MAN'S LAND
2 BLACK CATS ...
••• 8
RUINS (Verse) ...
... 12
THE SHRINE OF DREAMS (Verse) ...
4
PHYLLIDA (Verse)
ON THE LAND ...
7
... 13
JULIAN'S BOWER
5 MOLOCH WORSHIP
... 14
A PARABLE ...
6 CORRESPONDENCE COLUMN 16
EDITORIAL. The first attempt at carrying out a netv scheme is always a venture. Absence of precedent and the difficult of presenting all the varied aspects suggested by the idealistic scheme are two of the chief problems. These problems will be realised, but not solved, in the first number of THE IMP, because a representative magazine is the work of criticism and development. We hope, therefore, that the next issue will contain, in the correspondence column, suggestions and criticisms to form a basis upon which future development can proceed. Meanwhile, we hope that this, the first attempt, will justify the continuance of the scheme. The contents are of purely literary interest. This was thought possible because The Fritillary supplies collegiate news and prints hall notices. We were disappointed that no one ventured to attack the competition subject : " A Ghost Story " ; but the number of miscellaneous contributions sent in was encouraging. Their best feature was imaginative power and their worst feature was immaturity. However, imagination rather than literary precision makes an article interesting, so in several cases we have thought it worth while to prefer a vivid but imperfectly constructed contribution to one that was correct in style, but dull. The choice of a name presented some difficulty. Many suggestions were sent in from the college, but few of them were at
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the same time significant and suitable. Finally the " Imp "—a name which suggests the connection of this college with Lincoln through its patron saint—was elected. It has been .decided to present an illustrated copy of the magazine to the J.C.R., and for this purpose a prize of a free copy of THE IMP has been offered for the best design for a cover. Two entries have been received so far, and it is hoped that more will follow. A notice is to be put in the next number of the St. Hugh's Club Magazine telling old students of the existence of THE IMP, and inviting contributions from them, as it has been possible only to notify a few of those who have gone down more recently in time to send them the first number. Our thanks are due to Miss Jourdain for her interesting article on " No Man's Land."
NO MAN'S LAND. In the days before the war it was possible to buy a cheap ticket from Dover to Ostend, and then to wander about the little towns, Nieuport, Fumes, Dixmude and Ypres. Nothing more quietly stolid, more deeply peaceful, could be imagined than these little country places, rooted in soil that had again and again been the battlefield of Europe ; but at that time all the scars were healed, and it seemed incredible then that these towns would meet their death agony in a war far more terrible than any they had suffered in the past. The long " digue " stretched from Ostend south as far as Nieuport-Bains. It was a great promenade, miles long ; and from the village of 1VIiddelkerke, half way between the Ntwo towns, one could easily count thirty village churches and red-roofed villages when one looked inland. Scented bean-fields spread down to the sea, and in the hot summer blue veitches grew in patches there, and clouds of white butterflies hovered distractingly over them. At intervals, near the towns, formal gardens with bright thick grass and vivid flowers appeared, and further to the west the " digue " came to an end and the grey-white and uncertainly shaped sanddunes took its place. Toy trains and trams puffed along the coast, their small seats open to the air and sheltered by awnings from the sun. In the villages on the way you might see once a year on a feast day a " Kermesse," where a degenerate game of tilting at the
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ring was played by young farmers in high carts, standing up, with a long pole in their skilled hands to carry off, at full speed, some brass curtain-rings that were slung on a string across the road. One man, driving round and round monotonously for hours, managed once to get nine of these rings on his pole, and was easily first in the tournament. For this was indeed the modern version of a mediaeval tournament. The tradition had been uninterrupted from the Middle Ages to the present time. During the remaining days of the year the villages all relapsed into quiet. One of the towns, Fumes, bore clear traces of the Spanish occupation in the seventeenth century. Though the climate is much like that of England, a beautiful open columned cloister was built in the Grande Place, as if to give shelter from a fierce sun. Spanish builders were responsible for it ; and there was a Spanish tower and other memories of the Spanish occupation. Nieuport had also its Spanish memories. The old town was a mass of tall, dark brooding houses, formerly inhabited by rich citizens, and latterly let out to poor people who had not been able to keep in repair the beautiful wood panelling and the carved ceilings, and had turned the houses into tenements. For the life of Nieuport had flowed to Nieuport-Bains on the coast ; a modern seaside place with large white hotels, striped bathing boxes and a multitude of tiny useless shops. Dixmude, farther inland, was less changed. Its crooked and narrow streets were awkward places on cattle-market days ; its irregular Church and the jumbled buildings of the convent kept their air of provincial aloofness. It was one of the few Belgian towns in which there was no place for the tourist, who was certainly there an exile in a land where everyone had his private work and affairs and strangers were negligible quantities. No one even wanted to sell anything in the shops, but preferred to keep things for home consumption. But the great centre of the whole district was Ypres, perhaps by virtue of its glorious past. For it represented the ancient woollen industry of that part of Flanders by its magnificent Cloth Hall, decorated with statues of the Counts and Countesses of Flanders. All the former great industrial prosperity had departed from Ypres ; the people who lived there were quiet folk who had retired into private life with small incomes and limited occupations. To most of the windows in the streets were fixed the little mirrors that enabled the ladies at their sewing inside to know exactly what was passing in the road without indiscreetly putting their heads out or even leaving their arm-chairs,
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Outside Ypres were the grassy slopes that marked the seventeenth century fortifications, and some poor houses backing the town looked out there. In the evening one could see girls sitting at all the doors to catch the last gleams of sunlight for their work, the making of pillow lace, on which they spent a ten-hours' day. The plain outside Ypres was even then used for the manoeuvres of the small Belgian army, brilliant in its uniforms and accoutrements, but, as people then thought, an army meant more for appearance than for solid work. But 1914 came and the heroic defence of the Belgians and the Allies back to the line made by this very group of towns. Ypres is now a mere ruin ; Dixmude cruelly racked and destroyed ; Fumes riddled with shells and the meeting place under fire of the troops of three nations ; Nieuport opened its sluices to hold the enemy back, and turned its wide fields into marsh and mud. Everywhere in this nameless strip of country lies the mark of a cruel devastation, met in the spirit of noble sacrifice for the great cause of political and moral liberty. E. F.
JOURDAIN.
THE SHRINE OF DREAMS
I wandered by the holy shrine of dreams, Upon the pavements of sweet poesy ; But through the silence that was watching there, A voice came calling me. The lights were dim upon the shrine of dreams, And soft smoke curled through all the misty air ; And yet they were not purely shadow forms That wandered with me there. So near to earth is this old shrine of dreams, For all its songs and incense be so sweet, That none can wander there but he shall hear, The sound of human feet. A. GWYNNE YOUNGHUGHES.
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JULIAN'S BOWER. suppose, then, that Julian Bower is aLcorruption of GLWYN grove—and that the name is significant of Druidical history . . . and of the most solemn rites. " And when the reader ascends that hill . . . let him remember the chequered thoughts, things and men which have visited Julian Bower since the altar of the Druids stood in the gloom of superstition."—NOTITIAE LUDAE. A blue, still mist hung over the land ; ash and beech stood motionless ; every living thing was lost in unconsciousness, dipped again in the shallows which are but bordering pools of the Sea of Infinite Peace. A breath trembles through the air ; every creature stirs slightly, and dreams slowly disappear. A piercing, quivering cry shatters the silence, and a full, thrilling solo bursts out. Every bird is now wide awake, and one by one adds the might of his voice and overwhelming joy to the great chorus which rises from the waking land. Golden red light streams from the East, covering away the pale azure, and arousing great living joy. Through the woods at the foot of the hill wild and exultant cries re-echo ; and men, hunters strong and fair, women and children free and joyous, all aflame with the fresh fire and glory of the Sun-God, pour from the wood, followa tall, white-robed priest crowned with mistletoe—the weird, godlike plant for which the great oak-tree himself is but a throne. A young bull in the fullest strength of his life is led to the hill-top which overlooks the broad marsh-lands sloping down to the sea, and is fastened to the flat boulder before which the priest stands with silver runic knife raised to the sun's light which glitters round it. Then a great paean is raised, that shall catch the foot of the god as he rushes past quickening and enlightening the whole world ; and the red blood of the young beast is shed, as we give back to the mighty god our most precious possession, with the beauty and strength of the god's own life ; and fire kindled by his own breath accepts and takes into himself the gift. The people, now full of joy and peace, bend to the ground, and the tall, white priest, with arms stretched over them, tells them of the god's pleasure and promise of protection. He moves back into the wood ; soon the people rise, and, talking to one another in a quick, guttural tongue, and laughing, they, too, with the dancing children, disappear among the trees, leaving the high temple unguarded save by the winds which rush round it by day "I
BARAH-a sacred
"
and night, and the rain which purifies it. CONSTANCE L. SOWBY.
THE IMP A PARABLE. It came to pass in the fullness of time there was a war, and the men of the land marched in battle array in their thousands, and their tens of thousands. Sometimes they prevailed in battle, and sometimes they were overthrown. Now the war was long, therefore the inhabitants of the land grew weary, and they murmured against their governors and capflans, and the officers of their army. Such was the nature of the people that they who murmured most loudly were those who lived in security on the fat of the land. The inhabitants of the cities which the enemy had spoiled, and whose fields were utterly wasted, murmured not, save to themselves, but in the wisdom of their hearts they prepared the soil for seed, and laid up victuals for the provision of the war. But those who dwelt in security lifted up their voices in a tumultuous and everlasting murmur ; for they were proud of heart, and the discomfort of war pleased them not. Now there was a certain city, built in the midst of the land, among fertile fields and flowing rivers. Here the people lived in great ease, for the enemy could not penetrate to them. Nevertheless they praised not their fortune, but set themselves to discover matters whereupon they might grumble. This city was famed throughout the world for its learning, and there resorted thither many young virgins, that they might profit from the wisdom of the ancients of the land, and iii their turn instruct the ignorant, of which there were many. The rulers, in their foresight, understood that it was necessary that learning should be spread through the land, therefore they deemed the work well and prudently done. Now the damsels applied themselves diligently and grew daily in wisdom and knowledge. But the inhabitants of the city were rebellious ; they liked not the young maids, and they liked not their godly attire, for many of their own women decked themselves out in men's apparel, thinking thereby to display their zeal for their country, and they murmured and unceasingly cried unto each other : " This work is not well done ; it is not of national importance." In these days there was no other word in their mouths, and they thought of no other thing than work " of national importance," of which they themselves did none. They met together in the corners of the streets, in the highways and in the hedges ; they shook their heads and said : " This work is not of national importance." They desired above all things to drive these young maidens, who were without guile or blemish, from the city. Thereupon they called an assembly ; the old men
THE IMP and the old women ran together, they came to the Assembly, they shut fast the door and they held a council : " Let us send unto the rulers of the land, that they may remove these virgins from amongst us." So they sent to those men, who already knew not what to do for the multitude of their daily tasks, and poured out all their lamentations, and tormented them with grievous cries, accusing the damsels of many sins. They then returned to their dwelling-places, and in contentment awaited the result of their labours. But the rulers were wise in their generation, and knew the murmurers that they were of evil omen. Therefore they would not hearken to the busybodies. Moreover, they were highly displeased with the inhabitants of that city and rebuked them. For, they said, " Ye fools, these young damsels are accomplishing work of national importance ; their presence is necessary to the future of the nation. Be ye silent and cease to distress our ears with your importunate wailings." Therefore these murmurers returned discomforted, gnashing their teeth, for they could now do no more than cast evil glances at the maidens. And the young maidens went on their way rejoicing. ANONYMOUS.
PHYLLIDA Oh ! Phyllida, oh ! Phyllida, Come and see the night grow grey : Come to me at early dawn, Let us kiss and then away. Oh ! Phyllida, oh ! Phyllida, Bring no gawds or trinkets rare, Nothing save your own sweet self, Take no thought what gown you'll wear. Oh I Phyllida, oh ! Phyllida, Seek me at the postern gate : Oh I my heart will break with love, Whilst I think of you and wait. A.
PARK..
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BLACK CATS. Little varmints ! that's what I calls 'em. Black in their outside, black in their inside, says I. Some folks say that they are lucky, but I am no holder with that superstition myself. Why it was a black cat itself—but there, if I am not telling you the middle of the story before the beginning. Come nearer the fire, Mrs. Baggs ; I'll tell you all about it from the beginning. The last of his family, they called my master—as fine an upstanding man as you ever saw. But proud as you make 'em, and never a glance at a woman, however young and well set up. " Mary," he says to me many and many a time, " I shall ask no woman to share my humble circumstances." Humble they were, but I say any woman might have been pleased to share them with that smile of his and the look in his eyes and the fineness and blood of him. Well, well, " Be it never so humble there's no place like home," as the poet says (I was always a great one at quotations). and with his shooting and fishing he was happy enough. If it had not been for the cat. It slunk in one morning as I was cleaning the stove. I heard Bridget, the colleen, exclaim, " The crathure ! " and out of the tail of my eye I saw her pick it up and fondle it. I sent her about her business sharp, and told her that we did not want strays about the place. It was an uncanny creature, that cat ; it came and sat down by me as I was op my knees and stared out of its owl-eyes. I fairly sweated. And when I picked it up to thrust it out, you should have heard the creature swear, not spitting or growling, but swearing ; the language of all the devils it had at its command. I was that busy with the house-cleaning that I forgot all about it until my master came to me before supper, holding it up by the scruff of its neck. " Where did this little devil come from ? " he said, scowling at me for all the world as if I had had a hand in the matter. " 'Tis a stray, sir," I said. " Take it away," he said cross-like. " It was sitting in my cupboard grinning at me like an evil spirit. How did it get in ? " I told Bridget the colleen about it that night. She turned contrariwise, and argued that black cats had always brought good luck, leastways in " ould Oirland." I gave her a sharp telling off, and told her a story about a friend of my aunt who saw a black cat and then fell down dead, and she a woman with a sound constitution. She got that angry that she burst out something about the
THE IMP picture of a lady which she had seen my master kissing, and the cat having leaped on his shoulder and put him in a towering rage. " What were you spying about upstairs ? " I said suspiciously. Suddenly she shrieked and said she saw eyes, " green, green as the devil's own." I can tell you I was not surprised when it turned out to be the cat again. It came stepping out of the shadows, and began going round the kitchen, leaping up on the chairs and peering at the furniture. It was small, like a kitten, but its eyes had an evil soul looking out of them. They gave me the creeps. Then, as if to make matters worse, that fool Bridget began moaning and rocking herself about, and saying there were spirits abroad, for it was All Hallow-'en. I would liever have touched a live coal than that cat, but I chivied it out of the door, and went upstairs to give my master his candle. There he was, sitting in front of the fire and staring into the coal. He looked that grim, I made bold to ask him if aught ailed him. But he never answered me. " Mary," he said, and he stared at the window as if he were sleep-walking, " it will be a rough night to-night." " As mild as you would have it," I answered him ; " never a breath of wind, sir." " No," he said, "but the billows are roaring down by the shore." I told him no. " If the tide is heavy, it will come up to the old sea-wall," he went on, " up to where I used to meet her." I pricked up my ears at that, for I had never heard of a her before. I told you he never cast an eye on a woman. But I thought to cheer him up, so I went to the window and flung it open, for we could see if the sea was calm or stormy from that side, and then something leaped into the room. We looked at each other, mazedlike, as the cat—a miserable day we ever saw it—began to wander round, smelling at the furniture as it had done in the kitchen. Suddenly it sprang on my master and raced up his back like lightning. It seems a queer thing to say, but it looked to me as if it were whispering in his ear. Whatever happened he stook like stone for a moment, and then tore it furiously from his neck and strangled it. It lay on the floor, and even when it was dead, the hate and spite in its eyes made you shudder. I think for a good minute my master and I stared at each other, and then he gave a groan like a lost soul, and said, " Her evil spirit, her familiar ! Woman, why did she send it to me ? " and went out of the room as one with the ague.
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I was mortal offended at being called woman, but put it down to distress of mind. I went downstairs to call Bridget, the colleen, to take the cat away and bury it. But she was not there. Presently she came in with a scared face and said the air was full of voices and lights. I had no time to answer, for there came a sudden gust of wind which slammed the door and put out the candle. When we lighted it again the wind was moaning round the house like a human creature in pain, and the rain was falling with great, heavy drops. I had been so intent on that cat that I had never noticed there was a storm getting up. Anyway, we never went near the cat. The girl was almost in hysterics, and I had had as much as I could stand. So I sent her to bed and locked the door of the library, where it lay. It must have been about one o'clock when I woke and found master bending over me. He was fully dressed, and looked that queer. He told me in a low voice to get up and dress, and when I got over my scare I obeyed him The storm was making so much noise that you could hardly hear yourself speak, and I was always afeared of lightning. Master had come back, and was telling me to put on a warm cloak and to hasten. I stumbled down the dark steps, and my heart went pit-a-pat, I can tell you. We went outside, and the wind fairly drove us about. The rain had stopped, but the thunder and lightning were everywhere. I clung to his arm and shrieked at him : " Where are we going ? " I could not hear what he answered, but I think he said : " To hell ! " We went on, I with my head in a whirl, he with the face of one going to his doom. The rain splashed into my boots, and the winds lifted my skirts, so that it was hardly decent ; not that there was anyone there to see. We turned down a lane and a horror seized me. " Where are we going ? Where are we going ? " I shouted in his ear, but his answer was tossed aside by the wind. But when we got to a gate I stopped. " Not in there " I said, " not in there, where the corpses be. Oh, sir, what are you doing ? " " Fool," he said with a laugh, " she met me there while living ; is it not fitting that she shall meet me there when dead ? Is it not well that our marriage should be celebrated on this night when all the spirits of evil are abroad and the only ones who shall hear our vows are the dead and you, old woman, my faithful retainer ? " Then I thought he was mad, but I could not leave him, so I followed him in at the gate and we trod over the mounds and the
THE IMP flat grave-stones, and I tell you I saw a ghost sitting on every one, and the waves were roaring down below at the wall which separates the churchyard from the shore. Then he stopped and spoke to me. " Hark," he said, " here she stood with her breast against mine and her lips upon my lips, and she swore to be as steadfast as the stars above. Alive or dead,' she said, ' alive or dead, if you lose me I shall come back to you, here by the wall which heard our vows. But you will never lose me because I am yours.' Lost and gone ! What words were hers ! She broke her vows to me with a scornful laugh, a careless glance, and I have come here to keep my last tryst, for her evil spirit told me she would come. But she is false, false, false ; she will never come," and he groaned wildly and tossed his arms about. I can tell you I hated that cat even more than before. But I was that frightened with my master pacing to and fro and the graves and the sea moaning away and getting louder every minute. My poor master ! The way he talked about some one coming to him alive or dead. I clutched his arm and said : " This is no place for you, sir, with your delicate throat and me with my rheumatics." But he only said, The tide is rising." It certainly was, and my heart leaped to my throat. Had he brought me here to drown both him and me ? And the sea grew louder and louder, running along and dashing against the bottom of the wall, and I heard my master saying, " Alive or dead, she will come, alive or dead." Then I could stand it no longer. I fell down on my knees and tried to pray, and as I opened my eyes for one minute, I heard a roar, and over the wall there swept a wave, and out of the wave there rose a face, white, deadly white, as the moon shone out. I heard my master give a cry that echoed to the heavens : " Winnie, found at last," and he fell on her and her dark hair was washed over his face and the water swelled over them both. No, I can't tell you what happened after that. I know I found myself at the parson's house, with the family all round, but I did not rightly know what had happened, and went off into another faint straight away. ,
Yes, Mrs. Baggs, that was the end of my poor master and our happy home. They found him in the morning by the churchyard wall, clasping a dead woman in his arms. Some said there had been a great ship wrecked near the place, and the woman was one of the drowned passengers.
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The doctor said that he had noticed my master being a bit unlike himself for some time, and put it down to a love affair. Others said that he had lost his heart to a girl up at Salmon's farm, a young American lady with money, who had turned him down, and she it was who had been drowned. But I know nothing about that. All I know is that they were buried together in the same grave, and the parson said he did not like the look of things. He said poor master must have been downright crazy. But what I always say, says I, how did he know how to go out at the right time to that churchyard ? How did he know she was coming to him ? No, I puts it all down to the black cat, and one last word I give you, Mrs. Baggs : " Black cats are that unlucky." C. MORICE.
RUINS
The roofless palace walls groW black and strange ; The grasses quiver by the empty door ; The slanting moonbeams slowly merge and change, Weaving dim shadows on the marble floor. There creeps with silent footsteps from the shade A shadow thin and grey as moonlit foam, Silently seeking some lost treasure, laid, God knows how long ago, within its home. Silently feeling where a wall once stood, Blindly attempting to unclose a door Of rusted bronze and long since rotted wood, Vanished with all the precious hidden store. It passes through the shadows of the court ; The breathless silence of the azure night Trembles to phantom footsteps, swift, distraught, Seeking the phantom of a past delight.
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ON THE LAND.
DEAR You wanted an account of our fortnight on the land," so here goes. We arrived--five inexperienced damsels and a forewoman—at a remote village on Salisbury Plain. Our Boss and his wife took us to our cottage, " A clean, white-washed cottage, with camp furniture was what we had beef led to expect. Our " country house,' as we learnt to call it, was certainly white-washed, but at first that was the only point about it. It consisted of a tiled kitchen, with a small roma off, and upstairs a sort of loft divided into two by a thin-hoard wall, with the paper hanging in strips. There were also two mouse-holes, into which we fell on every possible occasion. Our furniture consisted of two sacks stuffed with straw, and our suit cases. Downstairs we had a camp table, deck chairs, a Primus stove, and a varied assortment of kitchen utensils. It was really so unexpected that we couldn't take it all in at once, and all that night, in the many watches during which we lay awake and tried to imagine straw was really quite comfy, we could hear chuckles of amusement emanating from the corners. We stuck that cottage for exactly three nights, and discovered in the interval many inhabitants besides ourselves. Then we got busy, and found a most palatial room belonging to an old inn up the road. It was over a barn, but was most luxurious with the added delights of electric light and a huge mirror. A small boy cleaned out and lit a fire for us every evening, which made it much cheerier. We became quite experienced cooks, though such things as plums and cornflour sauce, buttered eggs, beans and carrots were the exceptions. The work was fairly strenuous, nine hours of it. Most of the time we were weeding a field of docks and dandelions. On the first day our main topic of conversation was the climate and soil of Australia, but we soon wearied of that, and when we were not discussing next week's menu we had a variety entertainment of music ball " patter " and songs. On rainy mornings we darned sacks in a barn, with enormous skewers. Another day we threshed a whole barley stack. The wind was against us, and as it was an exceptionally dusty stack, our eyes and throats were full of the fine chaff. Most of us forked up the sheaves on to the threshing machine, where two others were perched, to receive and cut the strings round the sheaves as fast as they came. It was jolly hard work, and we were grateful for breaks. The men complimented us on the way we worked, and said we had made an excellent job of it. They also condoled with
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us on the sad monotony of " they docks," and said they could never have stuck it so long. We had two other jobs—manuring a field and planting potatoes. By the time we returned to civilisation we'd almost forgotten what it felt like, but our time " on the land " was certainly an experience, and I was almost sorry when it was over. Yours,
MOLOCH WORSHIP. One late winter's afternoon I came out of a draper's shop that was entirely devoted to a display of flowered silk frocks. Somehow this had disturbed me vaguely. The feeling did not subside as I walked through the bleak, damp street towards the station. There was not enough light to see the printing on the hoardings, though it was not gloomy enough to hide the fact that they were all displaying the same gigantic advertisement. The peculiar behaviour of the passers-by at length impressed itself upon me. All the people seemed to smile at each other and point their finger upwards. They were a foreign-looking crowd. But I was too anxious to find out the time of departure the next day to trouble more about my surroundings at the moment. When I came out of the Inquiry Office, the cruel, searching brilliance of the arc-lamps lit up the scene, and beat down on the vivid green paint. I wondered why they were looking so particularly green. Then my eye fell on some yellow hoardings. Those hoardings again. Then I realised it was their yellow tint that was throwing up the paint by contrast. I read the first line :— "TO THE SONS OF LIGHT." I looked round at the crowd. They were all Jews. A mass of Jews seemed to have collected in the last minute or two. Their faces looked lividly white in the pale violet glare, and their eyes smouldered again. One tall Jew near had taken his hat off. All his race's evil propensities seemed typified in the savage, imperious lines of his face. The women were wearing flowered silk dresses. It was useless to move, I was wedged in,
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Again I looked at the poster, yellow and dominating. The next line ran :" LET THERE BE NO MURMURING." Was it fancy, or was the crowd really deathly still ? All their faces were turned towards the barriers. It was like waiting for the New Year to strike. The crush increased. The next line on the poster was composed of one word, and the word was" FORWARD." And slowly the crowd was moving forward. Frantically I tried to resist the onward sweep. The crowd moved on, on. A cracking, wrenching sound. The pea-green harriers had given way, and the congested mass was pouring through. " Just like sausage meat passing through a mincing machine," I thought lightheadedly. Then my eye fell on the bottom line of the yellow poster. " OUT OF THE DEEP HAVE I CALLED UNTO THEE ! OH ! MY PEOPLE ! HALLELUJAH ! " Suddenly the lights went out. From the darkness around, like the booming of a storm at sea on a winter's night, came a manythroated shout, simultaneous, triumphant, disdainful. Between each gust of yelling, there came the distant sound of tinkling glass and smothered uproar. " Hallelujah ! " The breaker of noise swirled over my head. I felt myself slipping down the slope of unconsciousness. I waited for the next shout out of the evil darkness. A blaze of golden fire leaped up from the railway carriages standing by the platform. Hot and devouring, it roared upwards to the roof, and there fastened itself in a trellis-work of flickering flame. Rockets soared screeching up into the air, an engine-boiler exploded, a faint smell of tulips floated across the smoking reek. Fire rained down from the roof in scorching flakes, fire surrounded us, fanning our cheeks in the scorching breath. A man separated himself from the crowd and flung his arms wide to the multitude, an expression of ecstatic devotion on his face. He mounted a flaming mass of wreckage, and threw himself into the holocaust. The crowd knelt down. As they were kneeling, the roof collapsed. A. H. PARK.
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THE IMP CORRESPONDENCE.
MADAM,-I should like to take the opportunity presented by your correspondence columns to remark upon the spirit of intolerant orthodoxy in which the average women student wallows. Oxford provides unrivalled opportunities of escape from the insular and conservative point of view which often characterises 'the middle and upper classes in their superficial judgments. Nevertheless the net result of the Higher Education is, in many cases, an accentuated form of " original snobbery " in place of the wider sympathies and the less dogmatic standard of values which might have been expected. Are women incapable of distinguishing the vital points of common tradition from the obsolete lumber which obscures the structure and impedes progress ? The imposing of various fetishes of purely conventional importance absorbs the attentions of individuals, who might be better employed, for instance, in indulging in the legitimate but non-existent taboo of unproductive expenditure. Four years of war and of heroic sacrifice do not deter many from prolonging the agony by ignoring the fact that rigid economy is a national necessity, and not merely a tendency to be regulated by the size of the income concerned. The indifference towards public affairs which prevails among many Oxford students in this time of national consciousness also calls for comment. A store of contemporary literature is not among the least of Oxford's treasures : the exigencies of war have caused her public men to be whirled into the vortex of affairs and thus establish a channel of information concerning the burning questions of the day. In, spite of the unique advantages for the observance of contemporary politics, lectures by experts upon current events and government proposals receive less collegiate Support than the supplementary social activities which lose their value when they swamp the functions of citizenship. College life in war time is only justified in as much as it produces individuals who, though temporarily unproductive, will eventually repay their drain upon the national resources with interest. The men behind the guns and the men in the factories evince more interest in national affairs, in spite of the disabilities attached to such occupation, than their countrywomen of the University who are in a privileged position of comparative safety. If the woman student does not strive by broadening her outlook to obtain a sounder judgment in all things and to contribute something besides academic knowledge she is a mere parasite—one of the various impediments to a happier and more equitable state of post war society—a despicable debtor, Yours truly, ,
CONSTITUTION OF THE COLLEGE MAGAZINE. I.—That the name of the magazine shall be
THE
IMP.
IL—That the officers of the Magazine shall be an Editor and Treasurer, elected by the J.C.R. and a representative from each year, elected by their own years. III.—Contributions shall be accepted or refused by the decision of the majority of the committee ; The Editor reserving the right of the casting vote. IV.—The Committee shall not be held responsible for any opinions expressed in the Magazine. V.—Nothing of intrinsic merit shall be excluded on account of views expressed therein. VI.—The anonymous character of contributions shall be respected when desired. V.—Contributions from the Senior and Junior Common Rooms, past and present, shall be accepted. VI—The Committee shall be empowered to invite contributions from anyone not a member of the College at their discretion.
WM. HUNT, 18,
Broad Street, Oxford.