Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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Evening When it is evening in the mountains, and the sun Goes sHpping down behind the hills and everything Is hushed and stilled in reverence, the hreese Timidly blows taint clouds across the sky. Which do not dare approach the sun in all Its tiery splendour; until lust a misty rim Is left, and even that soon disappears. The soft mauve shadows come creeping Adown the pine-clad hills. As Night comes on his velvet feet and clasps Day in tender arms — O then, scornful Mortal, Do not say that thou hast never felt The Love of God ! Aubrey Leach, Form Upper Vi. Wax Figures L ' XDIES and gentlemen, we are now about to enter Madame Tussauds. The bus drew up yWith a lerk tlinging me onto the floor. I was not allowed to remain there long, but was hustled on by the jostling sightseers. I had been in London for two weeks — fourteen days of hectic rushing about sightseeing. You are now going to see wax figures made so perfectly that I defy any of you to know them apart from living people, cried the loud-voiced guide. Bosh, thought I. As if I wouldn ' t know a silly wax figure when I saw one. On the way up the marble steps I stopped and asked a policeman if he could tell me the correct time. I asked him three times, my voice rising each time. Su ddenly I stopped and ctared at him. He was a wax figure ' I went on my way a wiser person. We entered a large room. On either side stood figures, beautifully gowned and very life-like. I passed Queen Elizabeth, Guy Fawkes, Mary Queen of Scots, Shakespeare, and many more notable people . Of course there was King George V, Queen Mary, and dear little Princess Elizabeth sitting on a cushion holding the Duchess of York ' s skirt. I wandered around admiring and exclaiming, weary of the pushing and noisy crowd, and spying a door, I opened it and descended down a flight of cold stone stairs. I arrived in a large dark hall which was called the Chamber of Horrors. A cold chill ran down my back. I walked on farther, shuddering as I saw figures of murderers and instruments of torture. In an alcove I spied a big four-poster bed. A faint blue light on a table standing by the bed illuminated the faces of the two sleepers. They were both young boys, one a little older than the other. They had long golden hair and looked very beautiful as they lay there holding each other ' s hand. I was very tired so I sat down on a chair to wait for my friends. Suddenly a wicked looking man with a long black beard crept in, and before my startled gaze I saw him reach the bed and smother the boys; for they were no others than the ill-fated Princes in the Tower. The sound of feet and voices made me turn round. I seemed to be in a market square, and in the centre stood a guillotine. A crowd of peasants and lords were gathered around, pushing, laughing and talking. A hush descended on them. A man in scarlet velvet and lace with long curly hair was led up to the block. He was calm and composed, though his face was white and drawn. At a command he laid his head on the block. I shut my eyes. I heard the fall of the axe and the piercing scream of a woman. Judy, wake up, you sleepy head. We have been looking everywhere for you. You are a nice person to take sightseeing. Would you like to see the scene where Sir Maxwell was beheaded? We have just enough time if you hurry, said my sister, shaking me. No, thank you. I think I have seen quite enough for one day! I replied emphatically, and I meant It! ' Dorothy Brooks, Form IIIa.

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Things I Love I love the Spring and Eastertide, When all the world is opening wide. The flowers bloom forth in bright array, And all the birds are happy and gay. I love to swim in the ocean blue, And gather shells of every hue. And bask in the morning Summer sun. And play on the beach and have lots of fun. I love the Autumn ' s russet shades, And the evening sun, as it gently fades. Leaves a crimson glow on the mountain peaks, And the tang of the air colours my cheeks. I love to ski on the mountain high. And skate on the glistening ice nearby. Or sit by the fire, glowing bright. On a cold and frosty Winter ' s night. Patricia Plant, Form IIIb. Flowers Said Crocus, My, this wind is cold, I wish I had not been so bold. Eager little Daffodil Came too soon and got a chill. Hyacinth, the pretty thing, Comes to us in early Spring; While Lady Tulip, stately dame, From across the ocean came. Lilac wears a purple plume. Scented with a sweet perfume; Geranium wears a scarlet gown. With trimmings shading into brown. Nasturtium grew so big and tall. It climbed up over the garden wall; But Peony, being a charming lady. Doesn ' t like a spot too shady. As all these flowers do differ so, I find it hard for me to know Which ones my garden ought to show, Therefore them all I try to grow. Meredith Thornton, Form IIIb. [28]

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An Old Girl at Oxford I SUPPOSE the name and tradition of Oxford, the oldest of the EngHsh universities, io familiar to you all. For seven hundred years fine men, leaders of their generations, have been trained there; and now the same great privilege of being a student in that wonderful old city has been extended to women. There are five colleges for women, to whom the university lectures are open, and who are governed, as are the men, by university regulations. What, then, does Oxford offer that is so eminently worth while? First, and perhaps most vital (for we must share the experience of Oxford to know its true meaning), is comradeship with the ablest youth of the English-speaking world. It is to Oxford that EngHsh families of cultured tradition send their sons and daughters. Scholarships from many of the public schools bring to her colleges young men and women from every walk of life. The Rhodes Trust is the passport for outstanding men from every university in the Empire, as well as The United States and Ger- many. Educated Indians and Chinese represent the East; and a recent grant enables men from the Argentine to go to Oxford. Thus Oxford has become the focal point of a wide international consciousness and an intellectual cosmopolitanism which makes for broad sympathy and under- standing. When a girl from Siam has the room next yours, and you discover she ' s as keen about Beethoven and maple sugar as you are; and when your greatest chum was born in India, and her parents are missionaries in Bombay, the world seems very small, and the problems and ideals of the other half of immense importance. Then there are the hobbies. Perhaps you think of Oxford as a place wholly academic, where only the earnest student finds satisfaction. But Oxford has not been called the home of lost causes and impossible loyalties for nothing. One cannot be in Oxford for many weeks without becoming aware of the immense aliveness in the air, the countless points of view, vital with the keen intensity of youth. This interest may be in ethics or in cricket, in first editions or religion or early English church music, in agriculture or international politics: but the spirit is one, and the whole-heartedness with which each particular line is followed is the same. Here is opportunity for exploration in numberless fields. Three years is hardly long enough to discover half that is going on — merely time in which to throw oneself into one or two enthusiasms apart from one ' s work. Work, too — or, as it is called in Oxford, Schools — is almost as absorbing as any other activity. There, where every second shop is a bookshop, whose every college has its venerable library, where some of the finest treasures of scholarship are stored, and where almost every Don and lecturer is engaged on a book or in research, the willing undergraduate is encouraged to drink deep from the very source of learning. Individual work rather than mass production is foc tered. An hour a week alone with one ' s tutor, in a study lined with books and beside a crackling fire, is an amazing incentive to the appreciation of what scholarship really means, and is enough to stimulate a good week ' s delving in preparation for the next coaching. Lectures play their part too, but rather a secondary one; for, not being compulsory, they are attended only if they are exceptionally fine, or if the lecturer is an authority in his subject. One of the great privileges of Oxford is being able thus to learn from an immediate source, instead of at second-hand or through text-books. Then again, Oxford is no monastery, no cloistered place of mediaeval memory, but a city within sixty miles of London; and though during Term no undergraduate is allowed to stray so far from his college gates, yet, in compensation, all the best from London comes to him. No prima donna ' s tour is complete without a visit to Oxford. All the newest comedies are played in Oxford after they leave the London stage. Literary folk stop for a day to address an undergraduate audience and to be presented with an honorary LL.D. Church dignitaries deliver their finest sermons in the University Church; and when a new volume of poetry is published, it first appears in Oxford, at the headquarters of the Clarendon Press. These are some of the external privileges which Oxford holds out to the youth who calls her his Alma Mater. But she has something yet greater to give — greater and more intangible, and of deep value. It may be due to the tranquility and beauty of her streets and gardens, to the sense of their age and their unruffled wisdom, to that daily companionship with the towers and [30]