SOME WOMEN NOVELISTS.

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 140, 9 March 1929, Page 18

SOME WOMEN NOVELISTS.

THE RISING GENERATION

Under the heading “Parnassus in Academe’’ a writer in “ Time and Tide” gives the following account of some of the younger women writers who were f.‘students at Oxford. Oxford, they say, "produces motor-cars, Lord Chancellors, ■; loose, trousers, church movements and 'novelists —the latter male and female after their, kind. Oxford has scattered 'since the war, quite without intention, *"<- shower of literary talent over England, ’ and When I read in 1928 that Naomi '■Mitchison has achieved in on year a h.'book of short stories, a volume of plays, a biography and a baby; that the play ‘of the “Constant Nymph” has been revived, and that Sylvia Thompson has written a novel dealing with AngloAmerican marriages, I remember. I remember, for instance, dark narrow depths of Oriel Street leading past Skimmery Hall, where during the war years Somerville students were exiled. Down the -street, carrying’ a pile of books, a kettle and a bicycle pump, comes a woman student in a dark green coat and a rather limp Liberty scarf. Her hat is well on the .back of her head, revealing an oddly shaped face, with an intelligent nose and quietly observant eyes. She is •an unobstrusive sort of person. Apart from two or three friends, she speaks to few people, but now and then at a college debate, or. during a dinnertime discussion, she suddenly opens her mouth and makes about three remarks, Mt witty, so disconcerting and so shrewd that college pricks up its ears and wonders whether perhaps there is more, in this girl than meets the eye. Rather ..a, brain, at history. I expect shell go down and write a text book, said mour,-- and she did. But after the text book she wrote “The Ladies of Lyndon, and then “The Constant Nymph and “Red Sky at Morning” and Come with Me” For there was certainly more in Margaret Kennedy than met the casual

: '"Not' much older than she in years but considerably, older was a wild, - shy, brilliant, queer Home Student , who ■' went'up.' straight from a co-educational ’ school at Oxford when she was only ? about-sixteen. At the school it was .'..rumoured -that she had once written a play, rather a good play. According to' 'the school custom it was performed, and > the ladies of North Oxford took their families to see a nice childrens entertainment. And halfway, through a certain warden’s wife rose majestically, summoned her two daughters (in their twenties), and left the room that their young minds might not be polluted by the. frank,., gay picture of a former age, when manners differed a trifle from those of-North Oxford. But the author of the-play, with her deep voice, her tomboy, sense of fun and her candid interest in-biology, had no notion of offence, Bhe irad discovered the raptures and ardours of’a lost civilisation. She was wri ting verse—fresh, strong and vivid—on The Awakening of the .Bacchae.

"We felt .the bull’s breath burning on our brows, t , ■ The branching god-mark that will leave ’. -• us never, . . . v Strong in the wisdom-that touch enWe were asleep, but now are awake ’i'.'for .ever.”

She knew Greece and Rome in their days of greatness as though she had trodden the thymy slopes beyond Athens and fled from the advancing legions. bhe was' a joy. a torment, a curiosity to her tutors. Suddenly she married, and Ox ; ford feared that it had lost in, Naomi Haldane, one of its most promising historians. But what Oxford lost the Eng-

lish-spcaking world has regained; and, in “The Conquered,” “When the Bough Breaks,” “Cloud Cuckod Land,” and “Black Sparta,” we can share that touch of a spirit “now awake for ever.” For Naomi Mitchison has not stopped writing yet. . I remember in 1929 that we awaited with more than usual excitement the volume of Oxford Poetry edited by “V.M.8.,” “C.H.8.K.,” and “A.P.,” for it contained verses by Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves, Roy Campbell, Louis Golding, and others of that notable generation of post-war poets. But that year one of the editors was -a woman, chosen because of her very considerable reputation in the university. Back from missing in France and Malta, with a published volume of poems already to her credit, a Somerville exhibitioner, and winner of a history prize, which scandalised, amused, and intrigued the university by her trenchant and satirical feminine polemic in the “Oxford Outlook” (edited by Beverley Nichols) and in the “Oxford Chronicle,” she was known to students and dons throughout Oxford. And I remembur at a Somerville dance a small darkhaired girl in a flame-coloured, dress, far more sophisticated and bien soignee than most of her contemporaries, walking with her partner across the floor. “Who is that—that really feminine person?” asked the young man at my side. “Oh, that’s Vera Brittain.” What; That? That little thing—the fiersg feminist? Great Heavenl”

Two other women contributed to the Oxford Poetry of that year. Both were Somervillians. One was thought much of as a poet by her college, a gentle, dreamy, delicate creature, with fair fluffy hair that would not keep tidy, and a reputation for brilliant and fastidious scholarship that won prizes but could not win alphas in examinations. She forgot lectures, roamed mildly between the Bodleian with a fourth in history., But this year, when she published “Phillida,” an exquisite study of the seventeenth century —gay with polished wit and musical phrases, concrete and authentic and vividly imagined, those few who had read the uncommon promise of her frugal essays said, “I told you so. We knew that Hilda Reid could write.”

Nobody knew that the third contributor could write. Her tutors frequently regretted that she could neither write nor spell. She had a certain reputation, but it was wholly unconnected with literature, and her contribution of eight lines to Oxford Poetry was thought rather a joke. But she belonged to all three political parties, was at different times president of two debating and two dramatic societies, played La X for her college so unsuccessfully that her performance became a cherished tradition, acted with immense energy rather than talent wrote columns of resourceful doggerel for the going-down plays, went down in the middle of her course to become a WAAG forewoman in France, and ended by losing an entirely unforeseen first in history on her viva. When two years afterwards she published her first novel about Yorkshire farming life, her contemporaries said: “Well, Winifred Holtby always said that she meant to write, but I had always thought that she would teach; go in for politics; act; do historical research ; become an almoner, etc.,” according to whatever passing enthusiasm happened to be possessing her the last time she was encountered. Ear more definite was the reputation of a dark, rather beautiful, and unusual history exhibitioner, who came up to Somerville in 1920. the daughter of an old student, who, like Vera Brittain, had

THE RUBBER CARPET. In France the cheapest houses have well-laid floors, either in parquet or in narrow, well-fitting strips of wood, upon which rugs or small carpets can be laid without any danger of spoiling them. The frugal French housekeeper sees no reason at all why the landlord should compel her, in addition to his rent, to waste vast sums on linoleum with which to dissimulate the roughness and atrocious carpentering of his floors. In Germany floors are also well laid in long, narrow pieces. That they are often painted a rather hideous shade of orange and that this, according to German custom, has to be renewed, does not detract from the good workmanship of the floors. In America floors equally receive attention, and neither splinters, cracks, nor knotholes are permitted. On the contrary, rugs and carpets can here also be laid straight on to the floors without the preliminaries of linoleum, brown paper, linings, whatnot. It seems to be only in England that floors are permitted to be full of splinters, full of cracks, and utterly unsightly. And, since the builders seem in this respect to play into the hands of the linoleum-makers and expense has to be considered, the rubber carpet offers claims to consideration. It has manifold advantages. It is comfortable to walk on, and it deadens sound both for the inmates of the flat and also for those underneath it. It is being made in good colours and in simple designs, which have escaped the “floral” tendency. It can be used with the fewest possible rugs, and it is both warm and easy to clean. Rubber carpets are being increasingly used in big establishments, warehouses, and so forth, where floors are not equal to those of the private house. Thus it would be admirably suited for the average English floor as it is tolerated today.

already one published book to her credit —a novel of school life, “The Rough Crossing.” She made a real stir by her clothes, her blue shoes (then a novelty), her audacious wit, and her habit of coming in to breakfast when everyone else was leaving. Rumour said: “Either she will come to a bad end, or she will do very well, indeed.” She published a second novel, “The Lady in Green Gloves,” and still rumour was not certain. Then she published, “The Hounds of Spring,” and suddenly everyone knew that Sylvia Thompson had done very well, indeed. She had written a real bestseller —immensely and immediately successful on both sides of the Atlantic. It spoke of Youth, it depicted post-war Europe, it had a strong sense of situation, and vivid narrative power. It might not be great literature, but it was a great success. And I remember once hearing a young man of aesthetic appearance observe that a university education invariably ruined all women's imagination. I cannot remember if at that moment I answered, “rubbish.”

Miss K. Leonard has left the staff of the Wairarapa High School at Masterton to take up an appointment at the Avonside Girls’ High School at Christchurch. Before leaving she was the recipient of a dispatch cqse from the staff and a fountain pen from the girls.