Somerville High School - Radiator Yearbook (Somerville, MA)

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THK SOMERVILLE HIGH SCHOOL. RADIATOR. 7 We ate our lunch on the banks of the “Bonnie Doon”and then returned to Ayr to see the “Auld Brig” which Burns quaintly describes in “Twa Brigs” and the Tam O’Shanter tavern which con- tains copies of the interesting statues of Souter Johnny and Tam O’Shanter. There is a swing and life about this poem which makes it a favorite with the Scotch people and one of our choicest memories is the fine declamation of its stirring lines by an old Scotchman, who stood on the very spot memorable in the story. A beautiful monument bearing tablets illustrative of the scenes of his best-loved poems stands in the main square of Ayr and at Alloway is another memorial erected by his admirers and friends. We crossed Scotland by the well- known route of the Scottish Lakes and the Trossachs. For this region no bet- ter guide-books can be had than Scott’s novels and poems. Loch Lomond, Loch Katrine, Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben Ledi—all are names which recall to our minds familiar scenes and incidents of our reading. On the shore of Loch Lomond Rob Roy’s prison is pointed out, on Loch Katrine the steamer sails past Fitz-James, “silver strand” with its “beach of pebbles bright as snow” and “Ellen’s Isle” with its “tangled screen;” while in the Trossachs one can easily picture the incidents of that famous hunt, so faithfully has Scott described these rugged hills in his “Lady of the Lake.” Stirling, the “Key to the Scottish Highlands,” is on the line of this route to Edinburgh. The castle is a grand pile of gray stone commanding a magni- ficent view of the surrounding country. On a clear day six battle-fields, famous in the struggle of the Scotch for their independence, are seen from its walls. A sightly and beautiful monument, erected to the memory of the national hero, William Wallace, stands at one end of the town on Abbey Crag. His name is associated with that of Robert Bruce in the most stirring events of Scottish history. Near the castle is the old parish church called Greyfriars, where the ill-starred Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned and later her son, James VI of Scotland, was baptised and crowned, John Knox preaching the coro- nation sermon. The darkest incidents of Queen Mary’s life transpired at Edinburgh in Holy- rooci Palace, where her unhappy mar- ried life with Darnley was spent. The Edinburgh of the past witnessed terrible scenes in the tumultuous period of John Knox’s day and the modern city has drawn itself away from the ancient Can- ongatc and Tolbooth, Holvrood and the Castle and has built itself anew on the other side of the valley which separates the ridges upon which Old and New Edinburgh are built. New Edinburgh is the “Modern Athens,” whose aim is to cultivate the arts of peace. The view of the city from the castle walls is particularly fine. Behind the city rises “Arthur’s Seat,” the guardian of the an- cient grandeur of Old Edinburgh. In front stretches Princes Street, one of the three main thoroughfares of the city and by some considered the finest street in Europe. Its chief beauty lies in its gardens, a succession of terraced parks, laid out with exquisite taste and forming the public pleasure-grounds of the peo- ple. Here Edinburgh has placed the monuments of those poets and other noble men whom she has delighted to honor. About 30 miles from Edinburgh is Abbotsford, a fine baronial estate so dear to the heart of the poet. Here Scott gathered the rich treasures of his library and all the curious relics which he. had a mania for collecting. The ceiling of his library is fashioned in its carving after some of the finest bits of sculpture in Melrose Abbey. This beautiful ruin the poet used to frequent and one stone is pointed out as his favorite seat, from which he contemplated with delight the grace and symmetry of the grand East window. This window inspired the finest passage in his “Lay of the Last Minstrel,” and ought to be seen by moonlight to understand the spirit of the poet. Scotland is an enchanted land under the magic power of the “Wizard of the North,” whose ready pen has woven legend and fact into charming history. Our route now turned toward London

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6 Till-: SOM ERVI LIJC HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR. mark the course of Cromwell's terrible vengeance upon Ireland in 1650 We’ll be after Cromwell with our shillalahs in the next world,’’ said our Irish boatmen, and though he meant it for a bit of pleasantry, he unconsciously voiced the long-cherished ill-will of his people. In Wales we found afar different atti- tude toward the English government from that which her sister country feels. The conquest of Edward I in 1282 is acknowledged to be the best thing that could have happened to the Welsh peo- ple associating them as it did with the active progress and good government of England. Nowhere are there more loyal subjects of Her Majesty, the Queen. At Caernarvon is the castle originally built by Edward I as a menace to the Welsh people, but now regarded by them as a precious relic of the past. It is a stately, massive structure, cover- ing an area of three acres, with high walls crowned by 13 towers. The best known is the Eagle Tower, in one room of which Prince Edward, afterwards Edward II, is said to have been born. Erom Queen Eleanor’s gate on the east- ern side the young prince was shown to the Welsh people on their refusal to ac- cept an English King and with the thought that he was a native of their soil and that, at least in his cradle, he spoke as good Welsh as any of their children” they swore their loyalty to the first Prince of Wales. The tourist is remarkably at home in Wales, where every want is answered in good Queen's English and where the thrift and neatness which characterize the people are a constant comfort. We had bv this time grown accustomed to the small stone cottage with white- washed exterior, often ivy-covered, which forms the common home of the Irish and Welsh peasant. They were always picturesque, but when exquisite neatness added a further charm they be- came most attractive. After a delightful coaching experience through the wild scenery of the Snow- don mountains we crossed into England and felt that we were indeed in the home of our fathers. The English Lake re- gion is alive with memories of Words- worth, Coleridge and Southey. Dove Cottage at Grasmere is a veritable nest, hidden among trees, vines and climbing roses. In the quaint, old-fashioned study, with a broad open fire-place, Words- worth thought and wrote during the first eight years of his married life. Back of the house is an ideal garden planned by Wordsworth himself. Here in an arbor of the poet’s own construc- tion, he and Coleridge sat by the hour enjoying the lovely view of Grasmere and distant Loughrigg. Just beyond Nab Cottage, Coleridge’s home, on the road to Grasmere is the trysting stone” on the shore of Rydal Water, where the two poets in their frequent walks used to meet. Keswick, like Grasmere, is hallowed by association with Southey, whose home, Greta Hall, is located here and tc whom a beautiful memorial has been erected in the Crosthwaite church. Not far from Keswick are the “Falls of Lodore,” which Southey so charmingly describes. The scenery of this lake region is beautiful in its serenity. Mountains and lakes combine in an- harmonious picture, which has an inde finable charm. In the presence of scenes like these one can easily picture the calm and unruffled current of the lives which these Lake Poets” led. It is essentially the land of the poet in its dreamy content and repose. Our next pilgrimage was to Ayr in the “Land of Burns.” It was a clear, bright morning when we started to walk to Alloway, and we had hardly thought of the distance when the haunted Kirtk’’ of Tam O’Shanter fame ap- peared. One ought to feel his blood chill under the witches’ magic to fully appreciate Alloway Kirk and the “Auld Brig” over the Doon, where Tam O’Shanter’s Grey mare Meg lost her tail” in the struggle at the keystane.” It was impossible to mistake the home of Burns, for a line of bicycles in front of the house marked the deep interest which all tourists feel in the beloved Scotch poet. It is a simple, thatched- roofed cottage and contained in the poet’s day only two rooms, the kitchen and the “spencc” or sitting-room. Here are gathered many relics of that simple home life, which Burns has described so well in the Cottar’s Saturday Night.”

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8 THK SOMKRYILLK HIGH SCHOOL RADIATOR. by way of the cathedral towns and the Shakespeare country. Time and space forbid any description of these fine old cathedrals of Durham, York and Lin- coln. Kach is a study in itself of archi- tecture and history. We were espec- ially interested in Durham because of the tradition that St. Cuthbcrt so hated women that the (Lady Chapel) was placed in the west instead of the east end of the cathedral. Whether this be true or not, the chapel is certainly at the opposite end from its usual position, and a cross of dark marble in the pavement of the nave marks the point beyond which no woman could go. No such re- strictions are laid upon the woman of the 19th century, however. She is privileged to wander where she will and perhaps takes an unseemly delight in approaching as near as possible to the feretory of St. Cuthbert’s bones. There is much to see in and about Stratford. Shakespeare’s home, with its fine museum of Shakespearean relics; The Red Horse Hotel, in the sitting- room of which Washington Irving wrote his paper on Stratford-on-Avon, and where the chair he sat in and the poker with which he meditatively poked the fire are still shown as “Geoffrey Cray- on’s Throne and Sceptre”; the Harvard house, where the ancestors of John Harvard lived; the grammar school which the poet attended; the cottage of Anne Hathaway at Shottery, where the settle on which Shakespeare sat as a young lover is shown; and last, but most interesting of all the Church of the Holy Trinity, where one reads the record in the parish register of the poet’s baptism and funeral, and in the chancel sees the slab bearing the well- known inscription which marks his grave. As Washington Irving says, “His idea pervades the place; the whole pile seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings no longer checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in per- fect confidence; other traces of him may be false or dubious, but here is palpable evidence and absolute certainty.” It is a wonder to the visitor at Stratford that the identity of the poet could ever be questioned, and certainly to the lover of his works no other name could be endured in association with them. And so our course led on to London, the goal toward which these weeks of travel had been tending. London beg- gars all description. We had known the London of Dickens and the London of history, but the real London sur- passed all our conceptions. Seen from the top of a ’bus, the most plebeian but most enjoyable method of viewing it, the streets presented an ever-shifting scene of absorbing interest. The British Museum, The Tower, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Sq., Windsor Castle and the Parliament Houses—these are only a few of the countless interesting places which one ought to see. An ac- count of it would fill volumes and it were well that this paper ended here before such a vain attempt could be made. With the good-bye to London ended a summer trip which had meant the realization of a long-cherished hope and a source of inspiration and happiness that can never be forgotten. May the same good fortune fall to others who have like hopes and anticipations. Quite a Compliment, but Deserved. In spite of the inclement weather Saturday morning, Nov. 27, a chorus of 125 members of the 1C. II. S. was present and sang in the opening exer- cised of the convention held by the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association in Boston. The chorus was assisted by Miss I 'ranees Wilson and Mr. Henry K. Fitts, both of F. H. S., 97. It is amusing and at the same time annoying that the idea should have been some- what prevalent that there were paid singers or other than our own talent in our chorus. Probably because we did so well the audience thought that we hired the services of some professional singers. Mr. Arthur Hadley, who has been studying abroad, favored the audi- ence with two ’cello selections which, to judge from the applause, were fully appreciated. Mr. Joshua H. Davis, former superin- tendent of schools, was warmly welcomed by teachers and pupils during his recent visit to the Latin High School.