Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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18 SOMANHIS EVENTS HERBERT SWANSON “Hub” “His pencil is striking, restless, and grand; ’ His manners are gentle, com- plying and bland.” EDWARD TAYLOR white: “If all the year were playing holidays, To sport would be as tedious as to work.” HENRY TILDEN “Heinie”’ | am a bold and restless char- acter. LOUIS VANDERLROOK “Louisa” “I don’t like your angels, I love women.” MARGARET VANDERBROOK “Peggy” “Look out upon the stars my love, And shame them with thine ” eyes. GILBERT WRtGHT “Gil” “A champion cased in adamant.” MILDRED WRIGHT “Shorty” “To be short is no disgrace Only inconvenient.” STEPHEN WILLIAMS “Farmer” “He reads much, he is a great observer, And he looks quite thru the deeds of men.” ww Ss aw 7 Me 7 Tom: “What time is it?” Dick: “Somewhere between 2:30 and five o’clock.” Tom: “Thanks, I’m five minutes fast.”—Ex.

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SOMANHIS EVENTS CHARLES O’DOWD “Dowdy” “Woman lost Mark Anthony the world.” GLADYS PACKARD ‘A hand to pity, and a heart to bless.” GEORGE PROCTOR “Proc” “Energetic as can be, Athlete and musician he.” KENNETH RINGROSE “Ringie” “An unextinguished laughter shakes the skies.” MABEL ROBB “The blushing beauties of a modest maid.” SHERWOOD ROBB “Sher” “Lefty” “Much mirth and no madness, All good and no badness.” MILDRED SARGENT “I have often regrettcd my speech, but never my silence.” MARGARET SHERIDAN “Peggy” “I’m diffident, modest and shy.” FRANCIS STRICKLAND “Strick” “One man in his time plays many parts.” BEULAH STUDLEY “She’s an angel in a frock, With a fascinating cock To her nose.”

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SOMANHIS. EVENTS 19 CLASS GIFT’ Editor's Note: —The Class of Nineteen Twenty has presented S, M. H, S. with a picture entitled ‘“The Gold- en Stairs’? by Sir Edward Burne-Jones in memory of Ruth Harris Nineteen Twenty, It has been hung just outside the senior rooms on the South Stairway. The following article is an interpretation of the picture by Henry Turner Bailey. ' THE GOLDEN STAIRS. By Sir Edward Burne-Jones. I fell in love with the Golden Stairs at first sight, and in photograph, where nothing appeared golden but the silence of those graceful maidens. For months the print hung in my study where I could see it every time I looked up. I was told that the picture was designed in 1872, actually begun in 1876, and finished in 1880. Eight years of brooding! Thrice was it named, —The King’s Wedding ,Music on the Stairs; The Golden Stairs. After all what matters life—history or name? The thing is beautiful. Isn’t that sul- ficient excuse for being? But I could not resist its invitation. The picture challenged me perpetually to disover a meaning in those orderly arrange- ments of line and austerities of composition, Burne-Jones, bred in the at- mosphere of learning and religion, dedicated to the church, a poet in thought and a symbolist by nature, could not have spent eight years on a meaningless design! It must carry a message of some sort from his heart to mine. I searched every square inch of its surface. I found a procession without beginning and without end, coming from above, descending, careless of per- spective, a narrow unguarded stairway of marble, and disappearing within a darkened room. In the upper part of the picture doves are making love to one another in the sunshine, two swallows have found a home for them- selves beneath the eaves, and roses bloom on the wall. In the lower part a laurel stands by an open door. At first the maidens look forward, at last they all look backward. Some are pensive, somé are anxious, some dream, some are sad; only one is joyous, and her joy swims upon the top of fear. Some are crowned with flowers, some wear mourning, sprays of cypress have fallen on the stairs. Many have musical instruments—perhaps all—but only two or three are playing and these with the spirit far away. One maiden listens to sounds from the darkened room, two maidens talk together pleas- antly, three whisper to one another, fearfully. All look alike, and yet are different; each seems free, but is held fast in the severe lines of the design. The curve of the stairs is completed by the edges of the robes. This curve is echoed by another, which binds the upper maidens to those below, and then, to make assurance doubly sure, a third great curve binds these two to- gether. Not a feature is out of place; every spot and line, every fold and surface helps define the harmony of pattern, The King’s Wedding? then a most solemn one! Music on the Stairs? then most inadequate music! The Golden Stairs? One cannot think of stairs while the mysterious procession is descending! No; the picture has a deeper meaning. It is a symbol of some- thing vast and rich. What is its message? One red-letter day on an express train in Montana I heard Dr. William T. Harris interpret Emerson’s Days: “Daughters of time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file.