Trafalgar School - Echoes Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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if he read my thoughts, quickly vanished, leaving however a delicately perfumed handkerchief on the chair. I picked it up, and musing over it, I was glad he was gone, because I felt his charm ' ing conversation would have been spoiled if I had continued to examine the carefree dissipated face. Although delightful, I knew him to be weak, effeminate in comparison with some of the great, strong men that have lived, that are living, and that will live. ' It is charming, your idea of meeting people belonging to the past. What a pretty story it will make to repeat. I started, and looked up at the speaker. There was no mistaking him. Those humorous kindly twinkling eyes, that strong firm mouth and chm, that skin so wrinkled with a thousand obstacles met and overcome, could only belong to the plain rugged face of Abraham Lincoln. How characteristic of him to see every little incident in life as a pleasant, humorous story to be told to the next person whom he finds depressed or in difficulty! ' Tlease, ' ' I said, tell me something about your life. He leaned forward and rested his chin in his hand. ' ' No, he said smiling, but I will tell you of incidents in other people ' s lives, and he immediately began to tell me dozens of little stories, touching them up with his own kindly humour. I was faintly conscious, while he was speaking, that I should be thinking of the wonder ' ful things he had done for the United States — for the world. But it was the charming conversa ' tional powers of the man that held one enthralled. It was his weatherbeaten lined face that meant more to me than his great victory. It was the remembrance of his kindness and leniency towards his inferiors that moved me more than his amazing intellect and astounding memory. I should like to have listened all evening to him, but, as in the case of Barrie and Charles II, that pleasure was denied me. In a flash he was gone, and I heard something fall to the ground. It was a plain worn button, probably but poorly sewed on, and I picked it up with a feeling of awe and tenderness. As my eye wandered dreamily from the object in my hands I saw Lamb, poor crippled stutter- ing Lamb, gating earnestly at the fire. What pictures there are to be found in a fire, if you only know how to look for them, he said, quite as if we had been carrying on a conversation for some time. He then proceeded to tell me of the odd quaint people he saw in the flames. He got quite eager and excited over some of them, until finally he said sorrowfully: But, see, all my pretty dreams are fading, the fire is dying out, and they will turn to dust. How like life! Oh, no! I said quickly, I will fling more wood on and you will be able to see more than ever. There! These flames are brighter even than the ones before. That is life, too! he said thoughtfully; and, to my horror, seemed to fade into the roaring flames. I looked around to see if, like the others, he had left anything behind. There was a small exquisitely painted picture, torn at the edges and evidently both old and valuable, by the foot of his chair. I picked it up, and handled it tenderly. I ga ed at the homely button, and at the picture, wondering whom fate would send as my next visitor. Benjamin Disraeli, greatest of politicians, most accomplished of flatterers, most charming of conversationalists, had deigned to appear in my fairy chair. He was smiling at me and his clear eyes seemed to be reading the very depth of my soul. I found myself vaguely hoping he would not talk about the Suez Canal. But when he commenced to speak, I knew at once that I could listen to him, were he to talk on any subject. His ugly face lit up in a way which made it strangely attractive. I knew that his mind never wandered from what he was saying, that while he was with me he would try only to please and entertain me. Yet I knew also that were I to leave the room for a moment, his active fertile brain would be at work on some weighty problem. I was greatly disappointed when he left a piece of paper with short memoranda jotted down on it at odd moments lying forgotten on the floor. I snatched it up, frightened lest a spark should light on it from the fire and burn up in a few seconds what was so precious to me. Then I became frightened that no more would come, and for some time I gained steadily at the chair, as if to conjure one from the depth of its cushions, by the very force of my staring. Then suddenly I was laughing. It was as if I were gadng into a looking glass. David Garrick was sitting opposite me and mimicing me with a gravity of imitation so perfect that I was soon [29]

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Persons I Should Like to Have Met A STORMY night, a howling wind that rent the trees and whistled and shrieked through the yjL window cracks; a cosy room, a comfortable chair, a blading, roaring, crackling fire, a good book, my own company and an evening with nothing to do, combined to make what should have been a quiet, happy time. But my humour was not for such an evening. I told myself quite frankly that I was restless, dissatisfied with my book, and longing for someone to chat with. Were there not a do en friends I could ask to share my pleasant room with me, and satisfy my craving for company? No. There were none who could possibly suit the state of mind which had pos- sessed me that evening. Now, if only Oh! how fascinating it is to pretend! I put a chair opposite me. ' 1 am going to invite, I told myself childishly, anyone out of the past or present, who would really make a pleasant companion. I sat down and ga ed fixedly at the empty chair, endeavoring to remember no names, merely giving myself up whole-heartedly to my game. ' If, said a soft, musical, half-plaintive voice, yo insist upon staring at the second button of my waistcoat, instead of carrying on a sensible, interesting conversation, why do you want me here at all? I looked eagerly at the occupant of the chair, empty but a few minutes before, and the man pleased me. He was slight, dark and rather sad-looking. His eyes were large and a deep, deep brown; around his thin, rather sensitive mouth there were little lines of whimsical, playful humour. There was almost a pathetic boyishness in the way he looked at me. I liked him immediately. It was Barrie indeed! Strangely enough he seemed to represent all that was sweet and plaintive, pathetic and humourous, whimsical and sad, in his books. He was a Peter Pan, a Lob, a any character in any of his stories. ' 1 admit conversing with you would be far more interesting, I confessed, going back and picking up the threads of his remark. ' ' But, remember, I shall never see you again. But will you ever talk with me again? he asked, not unnaturally. Yes, I said, now that I have seen you, every character that you have ever created will be you speaking to me, in their words. He smiled, and I liked him more than ever. You read my books then? he said musingly. What do you think of my attitude towards life? I waited for some time before I replied. There is something so airy and fantastical in his books that I found it hard to apply them to life. I do not understand what it is, I admitted at last. No, he said, I expect you don ' t. You think that Mary Rose and Peter Pan are fairy tales, stories that one reads but never believes. That is not what I meant when I wrote them. Don ' t you understand? It was Mary Rose ' s spirit that disappeared, it was her love and interest that went to Fairyland, but on the stage I had to make Mary go, or the audience would not under- stand. Peter Pan is the spirit and imagination of all the children who have ever played in Ken- sington Gardens. I don ' t believe in interpreting life. What we at last discover about it may be quite wrong. I treat it as something mysterious, incomprehensible, lovely beyond human under- standing and most real when it is least able to be fathomed. I was trying to make out what he meant, when I realized he was leaving, not fading, but growing smaller and smaller. Read and you will understand, I heard. The remark was so soft that I scarcely heard it. He was gone, but on the chair lay a copy of Dear Brutus. I picked it up. I looked up quickly from the pages when I heard a musical, charming laugh. There, sitting before me, was the much abused Charles II. Charming, O so charming, did he appear! His costume was beautiful, his curls perfect, his face refined and attractive. He talked to me for a few minutes in beautiful English, with a pleasing voice, brightening his sentences with witty remarks and graceful gestures of a white aristocratic hand. I said little, but I was intensely in- terested and greatly amused. But he was too real. The lines around his eyes and mouth, which VanDyck does not give in his charming pictures, were just beginning to impress me, when he, as [28]

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helpless with laughing at him. In quick succession Richard III, Julius Caesar, Macbeth and many humorous figures were walking up and down my room. Finally, with a last perfect imitation of Dr. Johnson in the act of fondling his absurd orange peels, he vanished as completely as the others. Glancing on the floor I saw a mask, and with a smile at the singularity of fate I picked it up. Then I heard the most mirthful, happy, good-humoured laughter that has ever filled my room. I looked up into the brown, sparkling eyes of Charles Dickens. How wonderful was his face as I ga ed into it! It seemed to me to represent the spirit of Christmas. The room seemed to glow with happy contentment, goodwill and kindliness. As he spoke to me I realised that his voice had a hundred intonations, each change a gentle humouring of someone else ' s faults. Each gesture of his hand, each glance of his bright eyes, forgave someone who had been unkind to him. He was a genial, mirthful, kindly Mr. Pickwick. As he talked I noticed that every little jest he made was meant kindly, that everything in life was to him, amusing or beautiful. Nothing coarse or bitter seemed to have ever come in contact with him. He was gone and I was alone. I was seized with the desire to see no one else. Nobody could make so perfect an ending to a delightful evening as Dickens. The room still seemed to have retained some of his good humour, and I thought that if I moved the last bit of his laughter would bubble from a corner and echo faintly around me. But I wanted no one to disturb that captured little piece of mirth and good fellowship, for it was what Dickens had left to me as a remembrance of him. Were it to disappear the last and only souvenir of the evening would have gone, for I realised, with a start, that the others had completely vanished. Beatrice Howell, Form Upper VI. Hark, Hark, the Clock (With apologies to Sha espeare) Hark, hark, the clock on the staircase rings And Phoebe ' gins arise, Into her icy bath she springs And shivering hard she sighs, Then blinking does she fast begin To ope her sleepy eyes: With everything that chilly is, Oh, hurry and arise, Arise, arise. Hazel Ahern, Form Upper VI. [30]