A QUIET CORNER

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 56, 7 March 1930, Page 8

A QUIET CORNER

THE WHIRL OF NEW YORK.

ARTISTIC SANCTUARY

(From ''the Post's" Representative.) NEW YOBK, sth February. A little over a year ago, a charming New Zealander arrived in New, York and mentioned to a friend her dream of a quiet corner in this bustling city, where men and women could drop in for a brief informal talk on art and literature and exchange ideas over' a cup of tea or coffee before a pleasant fire. The lady, Miss Emily Francis, was not encouraged. To attract New Yorkers, she must offer jazz, a bizarre background, something spectacular. She persisted with her original plan. Now she is celebrating the first anniversary of v project that lias succeeded in- gathering literary and artistic lights around her and helping to cultivate the lost art of conversation. She occupies a floor of a stately old dwelling. , Half art gallery, half bookhouse, it did not need the hostess's quick brewing of tea to make it hospitable and homelike. "We are very informal and friendly," she told a "Sun" interviewer. "People come in to relax and have a quiet chat. Every Thursday evening, and often on othir evenings, we have special speakers—an artist, an author of a. recent book, or an explorer. But he or she is always sharing something with us in an informal sort of way. And then there is discussion and much spontaneous talk. Coffee is percolating nearby, the logs ( are piled on and people simply don't go home. I think they enjoy each other and each other's views. There seems a magic in this companionship that is conducive to thought and the loosening of tongues." New Yorkers arc not the i mad, pleasure-seeking, riotous-living community they would, like people to believe they are. It remained for a New Zealander to prove to them that their life of noise, bustle, and hurry is not their own choosing. Most of those who are thrust into a whirl of theatres, dances, and night clubs would often welcome a quiet evening. Especially is this so with those cut off from home life. "My courage grew to offer others a place o£ beauty in which the artistic and literary companionship, for which I had so longed myself, might be found by all who cared for it," says Miss J?rancis. There is no membership or club, for that would mean rules and dues that would destroy the whole idea of hospitality. The house is open at all times to those who care for art in any of its forms, to all who are seeking relief from the tension of life in the contemplation of beauty. Among the special contributors to the Thursday evenings, which will be continued throughout the winter, have been the Grand Duke Alexander ' of Russia, the Princess Der Ling, the Princess Jacques de Broglie, Dr. Herbert Spencer Dickey, Joseph Auslander, '.' .milton Ward, Hannah Cushman Howes., ' Scheduled for the near future are Bichard Halliburton, Anne Barnouw, Don Blanciing, Chard Powers Smith, the Countess di Castagnola, Faith Vilas, and others.