Bryn Mawr College - Bryn Mawr Yearbook (Bryn Mawr, PA)

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24 THE BOOK OF THE CLASS OF NINETEEN-ELEVEN It would be hard to place these singers satisfactorily because they could excel in so many parts. I know Rosie would have made a bully Parsifal; but I ' m not quite so sure about Alice for Kundry. However, she might do the part with real feeling, and thrill the house as she came crashing down the wild cadences of Wagner ' s magic maniac. But alas these things, which I picture before the ardent members of the most noble class ever graduated from Bryn Mawr, are only the fleeting visions conjured by a doting classmate who sees what might have been from out the that which is not. Nothing can be done, for the time for working such wonders is past. These with others of that vast crop of frosted blossoms fell withered beneath the bitter blast of ingratitude blowing from off the iceberg of our class-spirit. For goodness sake, don ' t sing so loud in the Lantern Song, your flatting puts everyone off the key, were the biting words which cut deep at the roots of some truly musical emotions when the desire to sing was opening the lips of some Freshmen as the Spring sap opens the petals of the crocuses in the cloister — (a good old classical illusion). It may thus be stated that it was with the fervour of the early Christian martyrs that the various music committees worked, sorting and re-sorting the sheep from the goats. In spite of the most scrupulous care in selection there were some sad mistakes and many a student who was thought sufficiently white and fleecy of voice to be admitted to the flock of the chosen few, developed most alarming traits which soon put her into the category of the refractory members or black sheep, and from there it was but a short step to the limbo of the goats. In fact, in spite of the game of weighing in the balance, which F. Wyman and B. Taylor started in music-room G, there were found to be a shocking number of those found entirely wanting in every musical requirement. Some couldn ' t carry a tune wrapped up in a basket and others were discovered to have no sense of rhythm and could keep the jolliest waltz time to the most solemn march ever written. Having mentioned the committee in terms of semi-disparagement — at least, as regarded their inhumane treatment of the goats, — I feel called upon to give some idea of the results of their efforts and also of the patience of the mutes. Dawn hours and wet feet was the lot of the average singer — to that add a petrified smile, which had to be maintained at all costs, and you get the fate of the musical directors. They, of course, had to be examples of cheerfulness and early rising. About seven-thirty, — it should have been quarter past, — a chastened and saddened multitude went beneath the Arch and proceeded to the library. In this procession worried mutes walked by the sides of singers and busily tried to remember just which foot came on just which syllable when

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THE BOOK OF THE CLASS OF NINETEEN-ELEVEN J59t£ 19U ' 0 fttngtns ttGSl ( - SOME of those people, who lucked that subtle something called class-spirit, a thing which covers all faults and extoll all virtues, — have been heard to say that 1911 was not a singing class. Now that is manifestly untrue and most wretchedly unfair, for even, one sang, whether she could keep a tunc or not. l ' . |x« ially those who could not. This fading for tin- heroic seemed to urge them on to the most daring attempts to rush the height! of melody quite unaided by those arbitrary little steps which the over exact have seen tit to include in the octave and call a scale. No more deadly blow could be dealt a classmate than to request her not to sing on all occasions. Of course we grant that there wen- some saints like Moby and Lrila who would consent to smother their musical MPOtJOM fof the so-called good of the class: but this was only on occasions such as when Pallas Athene had to be lex! out to be decently murdered, the corpse bring DfOptrfj interred in the cloister. With then the murder might have approached the indecent. During this ope r a t ion they were quite far bidden to utter ■ sound, and as result of this stern prohibition spent many a wet morning in a snug l»d bemoaning the bitter fate which decreed that discretion was the letter part of valour, and their slumlwr more valuable to the community than their long. Oh! this nipping the bud of rising genius is one of the m-eessarily hard things of college life. Who knows but that many of our now muted song-birds might have become Pattff? I don ' t mean chicken a la Miller,— but real prima donnas, (taring the hearts and clouding the virion of tl n- tranced audience, with never I sound to CSUM the spine to quiver or the flesh to creep as it used to do in those early days of their mnrieal careers when the shattered committee cast them from the music room with cries for mercy. Oh, who knows but what our Alice or our Rorie might now have been climbing the steep Wagnerian slopes, balancing easily on the highest peaks (not shrieks, lest you misquote me) and holding the throbbing a tt en t ion of the vast opera house with the liquid notes of the Rhine Maidens.

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THE BOOK OF THE CLASS OF NINETEEN-ELEVEN 25 they stepped out of the cloister door, for it made a vast difference. Often the rhythmic beat- ing of the tin pan by the fountain and the shuffle and sway of the line overcame their sense of obedience and caution and they would burst into song, only to be suddenly hushed by the person behind. On the whole, Lantern Night went off well and the class was very graceful in its acceptance of compliments on the singing. No one said a word about that galley ser- vice in the moist morning when we staggered and tottered into the cloister before breakfast trying to achieve that most difficult of feats, to keep our breath and our balance going down steps. In looking back you realise that those were grand days. Our feeling for freedom per- mitted us to sing any song any way, not caring who wrote it either, how, when, or why. Each singer felt at liberty to put forth her own interpretation and often there were as many render- ings as there were girls to rend them, but on the whole the effect was fair and anyone with a sufficiently wide range of musical knowledge could come somewhere within ten composers of the song we were singing. For let it be known that our choice was exceedingly varied, extending from Wagner to Weber and Field. Now I have spoken only of those dear lost voices, and they were lost, through no fault of their own. Let us turn for one brief moment to the people who really did the musical work and rode hard on the outlaws and uncertain members. It was Norvelle Browne who for two years gave us a clear firm starting note and had voice and faith enough to keep many people on the key and some people somewhere near the tune. Among these latter ones were a few staunch adherents, who knew a good thing when they saw it, noticeably Leila, who would get near enough the air occasionally to strike a fine alto. Most of this happened Freshman and early Sophomore year and was in the golden age of our singing life, when it never dawned on the class that it was not a body collected solely for the purpose of regaling the campus with song. Then no one was discouraged and everyone sang. About the middle of Sophomore year was introduced a regular system of Black Hand, which kept many of our most lusty members under a sort of vocal cloud from which they could but occasionally burst forth and could shine only when out in such company either where it was thought that they could do no damage, or where kind friends could not get at them to remonstrate more forcibly than by savage glances. By the end of Sophomore year the reign of terror was having an excellent and most salutary effect on the fractious ones, and the busy pens, pencils, and brains of Betty, Delano, Mary Frank Case, Amy, P. Rice, and many others were putting out enough songs to keep the class busy on the athletic field,