Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Havergal College Magazine The fourth and last period represents the calm after the storm. Here we have an Arcadia, in which walk Miranda, Perdita and Imogen. This is the atmosphere of idylls and dreams, the bright fancies of youth are there, and though the frolic and sparkle of the earlier heroines are absent, yet the happy smile is left ; and in place of the violence and turmoil of the women of the second and third periods, Shakespeare gives us a picture of peace and serenity as befits the close of day, the end of life, when ships glide out of tumul- tuous surges into ports and happy havens. Khan um. THE LIBRARY Since the last number of the magazine was printed, great changes have come to pass, but none more welcome than the one affecting our library. No longer does the bookcase stand in a dark corner of the corridor, but has all for its own the large room on the ground floor known formerly as the K. G. Although new books have from time to time been added, several of the new shelves necessarily are still empty. Two of our old girls, Gwen Inman and Edna Henderson, no doubt moved by that dumb appeal, have pre- sented us with a volume in memory of their stay in the college. This seems a very practical way of showing that appreciation of the school life that :ill our outgoing boarders feel, and I heartily thank Gwen and Edna for the thought. Already the idea has been well received, and many books have been promised by girls who are leaving. I should also like to thank the two girls, Maisie Longbottom and Dorothy Allonby, whose cheerful help in indexing and distributing the books has been of the greatest value possible throughout the year. The Librarian. SUMMER IS COMING The winter will soon be over, The sun will commence to shine. The lawn will be white with clover, ' Twill soon be summer time. Beautiful spring is coming, And the flowers fyegin to bloom ; The bees will start their humming, And summer will be here soon. Green are the leaves coming out, They are budding far and near; Pansies turning their heads about, Saying, Summer will soon be here. M. S. Aikins, Form IV. Upper. 36

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Havergal College Magazine ed advocates at court. Yet her subsequent submissive womanly surrender to Bassanio contradicts certain modern ideas of the wo- man ' s suffrage faction, and repudiates the idea that Portia was a mannish woman. In the troublous times depicted in the chronicle plays, we get a group of unhappy storm-tossed women. Shakespeare makes them subservient to the will of man, and accentuates their woes by a cer- tain hardness of treatment. She is a woman, therefore may be won, is the cynical cry. The repulsive hunchback, Richard of Gloster, slayer of her former husband, demands and receives the hand of Lady Anne over the corpse of her dead husband ' s father. Was ever woman in like manner woo ' d? Constance ' s mother- ly heart is broken. Here I and sorrow sit! she cries, and casts herself on the ground with, Here is my throne. Alas! I am a woman, friendless, hopeless! is the pathetic cry of Queen Kath- arine. But amid these sorrowful heroines comes one bright sun- ray, in the person of Lady Percy, merry, tender and spirited, the best vindication of the charge against Shakespeare that at this period his women characters are all dolorous ones. In the third period the poet ' s horizon is so large that he por- trays every type of feminine character, and whereas in the Chronicle plays, comparatively speaking, there are few women characters, in the higher comedies we get the stage full of them. Shake- speare shows a great advance on the women of the first period ; in many cases, as with Julia and Hero, he takes the same theme, and we can compare how much broader and firmer is his touch. Here are girlish, captivating Rosalind, full of sentiment, but laughing at sentimentality; forlorn Viola, indiscreet Desdemona, dignified Olivia, naive Katharine of France, and winsome Beatrice. If one may digress, Shakespeare in creating the shrew, Kathar- ine, has the same opinion as the old Turkish seer, whose cantank- erous wife one day drowned herself in a fit of temper. The old man went down to the river-bank and started up-stream looking for her body. But, Effendim, remonstrated his followers, who thought his mind was unhinged with the shock, surely by all the laws of Nature thy wife will float down-stream! Not so, said the sage, continuing his way, she was a woman; therefore will she go contrary. Then we come to the luckless women : Ophelia, the victim of circumstance ; Cordelia, sweet, but obstinate, and lacking in tact ; and lastly, the women of whom it might be said: Let it not be believed for womanhood — Regan, Goneril and, later, Lady Mac- beth. In this group we have the tide of po etry, rhythm, music, mer- riment, pathos, melancholy, hope, misanthropy, which we have traced from a little stream, risen to a mighty flood. We see woman in her many phases, good women, wicked women, heroines, angels, monsters, all true to life, and whose counterparts we may find in history or in the world of today. 35

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Havergal College Magazine FROM CAPE TOWN TO PRETORIA AFTER THE WAR We left beautiful Cape Town, with its interesting mountain, its shining bay, its wonderful masses of flowers, on a clear spring- evening, to go up-country, where but a few months before had been the terrible fighting. We had engaged a compartment in the train, and each of us had the necessary permits to travel through the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal. As we knew it would be risky to rely on the station-served meals, we had a large hamper containing food for the journey. There was no bed-linen in the sleeping berths, so we slept par- tially clothed, and used blankets for greater warmth. The electric lights were in use for the evening of departure, but after that oil-lamps took their places, and very poor light they gave. One was fixed in the ceiling of our compartment, and oc- casionally it was almost extinguished and we poor creatures ate our evening meal in semi-darkness. The night passed quickly, and the morning sun showed us the characteristics of the country through which we were journeying — brown veldt, brown kopjes, and farm-houses dotted here and there in the midst of large tracts of land, on which stately ostriches could be frequently discerned. We remarked many refuge camps where numbers of women and children had been stationed during the war-time, for the sake of safety and comfort. The barb-wire fences had bully-beef tins fastened to them, so that if one of the enemy accidentally touched the wire the tins would rattle, and so the watchers were alarmed. Then again, blockhouses were a feature of the country — pen li- ed on the kopjes within easy distance of one another, communica- tion was kept, and a good view of the surrounding country was obtained. These blockhouses had been built during the time of the guerilla warfare, and were occupied by a non-commissioned officer with a few men. Many severe fights took place at the block- houses. White mounds were dotted over the veldt, each marking a place where a hero lay sleeping. Monuments were raised at a later date, and the graves are cared for, whilst on Decoration Day flow- ers and wreaths are laid on them by kind hands. The resting place of brave General Wauchope was pointed out to us, and we thought of his hard-fought battle at Magersfontein. We greatly appreciated having our hamper with us, as the meals to be had at the stations were far from palatable. A friend who accompanied us on our journey had taken no food with her, preferring to eat her meals at the stopping-places. It was either a wild rush or a dawdle at each place, and she frequently waited for dinner until eleven o ' clock at night. Of course we took pity on 37