May 1941

Page 1

THE PETERITE Vol. XXXIV

MAY, 1941.

No. 297

EDITORIAL. We often feel, while turning over the pages of some famous author of prose or verse, a gentle wave of regret that the author has expressed his feelings, which we share, in exactly the words that we should have used ourselves, and which are now unfortunately forbidden to us, unless we wish to lay ourselves open to a charge of plagiarism. Thus when we sat down, took up our pen, and decided to make some profound remark about the swift passage of time, we find that the poet has once again forestalled us. " Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying," is precisely what we would have said, had not a Mr. Robert Herrick already done so a matter of some three hundred years ago. This consciousness of being forestalled and frustrated is by no means uncommon with us, being what we feel about the entire works of William Shakespeare. The only advantage which he and other authors have over us is that they were born earlier, and could say these things before we had time to do so. If we had been born many hundreds of years earlier, and Latin had been our native tongue, it would not have been left for Horace to lament " Eheu fugaces . . ." This accident of later birth is all that prevents us attaining eternal fame. All of which is sad, but entirely irrelevant. We merely set out to demonstrate the fact that time has slipped quickly by, and another Easter Term is gone. Though time has undoubtedly been a-flying, the weather has not been suitable for rose-bud gathering. (We have now become so closely acquainted with the weather in our capacity as editor that we are on nodding terms with every weather-vane, wind-gauge and barometer for miles around.) In fact, the weather until half-term was wintry to say the least (the very least!) of it. Suffice it to say that days of snow-drifts were succeeded by days of flood ; in fact the river was so swollen that the boaters assure us that they had to lift the boats up on to the river, instead of lowering them into it. But, knowing the boaters, we are

1


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
May 1941 by StPetersYork - Issuu