COSY CORNER CLUB.

Otago Witness, Issue 3400, 14 May 1919, Page 55

COSY CORNER CLUB.

MEMBERS' MEETING. The first meeting of the Cosy Corner Club this year finds us on the eve of celebrating' the signing of the Peace Treaty. The shadow of war has been lifted from the land, and our predominant feeling is one of profound thankfulness that our Empire and her Allies have emerged triumphantly from their long and deadly struggle in the cause of night and liberty. Our rejoicings at the happy termination of the war are, however, tinged with sadness, as we think of the " unreturning brave," and the many others who are. missing from their accustomed place. Among the latter is Yal, a valued member of the club, whose death is much regretted by all. Special reference is made to it by several members, and universal sympathy is expressed for Lex. A fair number of papers have been sent in for the opening meeting, and the subjects chosen are varied and interesting. I hope that next month we shall have a still larger_ gathering. I feel somewhat at a disadvantage in thrusting myself so suddenly and unexpectedly into your midst, but trust that we shall soon become batter acquainted, and that you will extend to me the same sympathy and support as you did to Elizabeth and to Emmeline (the founder of tho club). All the papers sent in this month have, of course, been addressed to Elizabeth, but I' would ask members in future to address all communications for the C.C.C. to ELEANOR. Dear Elizabeth, —I have put off collecting my ideas for a topic for the members' meeting till rather late, and now it occurs to me that our circle may be interested in some letters I have lately received from a French correspondent. I have been corresponding with her now for a good many years. Wo usually write in each other's language for practice. I will not alter the wording at all, as some Frenchisms and inaccuracies give piquancy, I think. My friend • has strong literary tastes, and has read many standard English authors. Since she married and went to reside in Paris she has regularly attended classes at the Sorbonne—for English literature. usually. Last (European) spring she and her husband left their Parisian house, as it was within range of the monster German guns, and for a time stayed with her mother at Orleans, her husband travelling to and from Paris to attend to his business. Later they took a house (or rooms) a little distance from Paris on the safe side, from which the first letter is dated. Now for some time they have been back in Paris. _ The husband of my correspondent's only sister has been all through the war ; but >is now happily restored to his family. 'They have five little girls. My correspondent's references in the first letter to British military qualities are not over-flattering, but elsewhere she has spoken very highly of the British—of their superiority in tenacity especially. ALPHA. Lcs Ormeaux. Fresnes, Seine, 6th September, 1918. My Dear Friend,—l hasten to answer your kind letter. Thank you very much for the nice poetries yoii sent me. Do I not troublo you. too much by sending you such a lot of exercises? I avail myself of the leisure time I have here in this boarding-house, and

I expect that I shall not be able to write so often when I am back homo. We are to return to Paris next October for the whole winter. I hope that the Huns will bo driven far enough for not being able to shell Paris with their big Berthas. The Allies are working wonders, and one does not know which are the most worthy of admiration. Up to this day Englishmen were not up to the mark (I don't mean all Britishers, and especially Australians and New Zealanders, who are superior to the English), but now English soldiers are fairly good, especially for attacks. The Americans are very numerous 'in France now, and they are full of enthusiasm. They prove to be very good fighters. It seems that i Spain wants to enter into the war, now that I the Allies are successful. She wants to have a share in the booty of Germany. Is it not a shame to join us so lately? Only self-interest prompts her to do sol _ War will last still all the winter very likely, and living is more and more expensive. Charwomen charge 80 centimes [eightpence] the hour, and they are very scarce. Meat and vegetables are very dear. It is t&b season of French beans, and still they ax\ sold 1 franc 50 centimes the pound. A cabbage is paid 2 francs, a new-laid egg 50 centimes, and so forth. What a high price we shall have to pay next winter! Potatoes are very scarce also, on account of the summer, which was too dry. Clothing is very dear, too; the stuffs are not as strong and lasting as before, in spite of their high price. By instance, stockings are not strong at all. Can you find strong ones in New Zealand, and at what price? Lately* I bought ordinary pair of black cotton stockings which I paid 5 francs 40 centimes a pair; they were pierced after having worn them for two days. I hope that during October I shall be able to attend courses at the Sorborine and Societes Savantes; but I must go to Tours and Orleans before with my husband. Mother has bought my cousin E. C.'s house [a relative lately deceased], and she wants- m© to help her for the removal. She always suffers, and she grows thinner and thinner. I am rather troubled about her poor health, and I hope that I shall succeed in deciding her to consult a good and special doctor. My little nieces are very well, except one of them, who is not strong a-t all, and wants a good air and sun baths. ' It would have been very good for her t|o go to seaside, and stay in a kind of boarding-house for convalescent children, like her little cousin—what we call Une Maison de Sante, and which is different from a hospital. Is there a special word in English? I am now reading " Marcella," by Mrs Humphrey Ward. I am ending "In Memoriam." Hoping to hear from you soon, I remain, —Yours very sincerely, S. G. F. Paris, 9th February, 1919. My Good Friend, —I think that all your letters reached me safely. I am now answering the last one, written on the 22nd of November, and the preceding one. Excuse my having postponed such a long time. 1 am always very glad to receive your letters and deeply 'interested in them; but you cannot imagine how swiftly time goes on. I am rather busy in my household. My charwoman, being l not ' very clever, I cannot leave her alone, and it prevents me from making my own work' and correspondence. Laundry becomes more and more expensive. We wash all the linen in our small apartments, save the sheets, which would be too much encumbrance. It is a great deal of trouble, especially to dry dt .in a house, which is scarcely heated enough. We only g*t 8 degrees [about 46 degrees Fahrenheit] in our bedroom with a wood fire, and our winter has been very severe for these three weeks. We have to save coal as much as possible; it is so very scarce. Then I go nearly every day to the Sorbonne courses, and my days are quickly spent. M. «Clemenceau is in great esteem in Fiance, except among the Socialists, who would like to have the power in his place. He did his duty, and was a great Statesman and a great Frenchman. I hope that he wiill keep the power a long time still, for we need an energetic man at our head. It may be that he was christened in the Catholic Church when he was' a child, but he never goes to church, and before the war he was at one time a true AntiClerical. Now he Liberal. I am sure that Marshal Foch and General Petain are true and good Catholics. Now living is more and more expensive, and naturally workmen and all kinds of employees want higher wages. I hope that it will not last long;_ for it is very hard on some people, especially for those who are old andl live on a very small income. Besides, it makes conflict between rich people and labouring people. Is ever a true peace In the world, I wonder? There is always some fresh subject of trouble in store. Weill let us hope that we shall have a. good peace with the outside enemy, and restore the 'internal security and prosperity of everyone. Influenza has much decreased here, and I hope it is the same in your country. Excuse this letter, made in a hurry. I shall write you much longer next summer, or during the Easter holidays (I hope so!). Our cousin prisoner is home quite sound and safe—much better than we expected. He has not suffered too much of his captivity.— Yours very sincerely, S. G. F. The letters from your French friend are very interesting, Alpha, and it was a happy thought to send them in for our first meeting this year. They give the vivid, personal touch that is conveyed so much more forcibly in private letters than in what is written expressly for publication. We can all sympathise with the writer in the troubles she is experiencing in regard to expensive stockings that will get " pierced" (I think that is a delightful way of putting it) in two days, dear meat and vegetables, the scarcity of coal, and the difficulty of procuring charwomen, for are we not confronted with the same problems ? Certainly the remarks in the first letter about English soldiers are not very flattering, but dt is consoling to know that elsewhere your friend has spoken very highly of them.

Dear Elizabeth, —Another year has come and gone, and once more -we meet at the C&ay Corner Club. What joy the year has brought to many by bringing- their loved ones safe home fiffm the front! But alas! all do not share in that joy. To these I would like to pass- on some of the comfort to be* had from the message, " Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." It seems to me that there has been more trouble, apart from the war, than usual. On every hand one hears of sickness and trouble of one sort or another. A few months ago whilst reading in " The Garland," in the "Witness, I came across this message: "Press on I Press on! There's Light beyond!" How encouraging was this message to me. The next day thi3 verse, which I had committed to memory some time previously, came back to me: " 2ress on! Press on! 0 pilgrim, Wf jocing in the Lord, 1 m zving in His promise, Ssnd trusting in Hje word."

Well, dear Elizabeth, I must now close. I thought that I must make time to pass on to the comrades the messages which had helped mo most during the past year. To those in trouble I would say, " Press on! Press on! There's Light beyond." "The past is still in God's keeping; The future His mercy shall clear." W'ith best wishes to all comrades and for tlis success of the club, not, of course, forgetting yourself. FAITH. Thank you, Faith, for passing on the messages that have helped you. As you say, there is trouble all around us at present, and much need for comfort and help. "Press onl" is an inspiring motto, and one that we should all do well to adopt. Dear Elizabeth, —The session of 1919 opens almost on the centenary of Queen Victoria, and perhaps a short sketch of those times may not bo amiss. One hundred years ago the chief means of communication was the stage coach. Very few people travelled beyond the limits of their own native village. The first railway had not been built, the steamboat was not j r et an accomplished fact, telegraphy was not heard of, and the telephone was a thing of the future. It was an easier matter to find an illiterate person than an educated one. The methods employed by the doctors were of the rough-and-ready sort; epidemics were not uncommon, and the means of coping with them were practically nil. Very few newspapers were to be obtained, and those that were cost 6d per copy, and had no illustrations; while the camera was yet to come. Months, and in some cases years, elapsed before a letter could be answered from one part of the globe to the other. Folk made their own world, and their thoughts were filled with the everyday events of their neighbours. The ordinary conveniences of the poorest person of to-day were unprocurable by the richest in those times; and yet, with the exception of that of Queen Elizabeth, no other reign ever produced so remarkable or so famous a lot of men. Great among its politicians are the names of Peel, Lord Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone. The first strongly supported the principle of one-man-one-vote —a movement that affects the entire rule of a country. Lord Palmerston and Disraeli were for building and extending the Empire. Gladstone will " always be spoken of in connection with Home Hule. Among the social workers of the age the names of Lord Shaftesbury and General Booth may be mentioned. In , the literary world the names of Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, the Bronte sisters, Charles and Henry Kingsley, Lord Lytton, Blackmore, George Macdonald, R. L. Stevenson, Robert and E. B. Browning, Lord Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, Swinburne, and Lewes and William Morris are outstanding. The great historians Carlyle and Froude also belong to this period. Science produced Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, Huxley and Lord Kelvin in the natural world. In the world of medicine Robert Simpson was the first to use chloroform. In the war that has just closed we benefited by the great lessons taught by the noble band of women under the leadership of the brave Florence Nightingale, one of the Victorian heroines. To Lex we extend our sincere sympathy, and will miss Vai from her usual place. To all others we hope to see full and regular attenadnces, and to Elizabeth a very pleasant time. "ELSIE.

I must congratulate you, Elsie, on your choice of a subject. I found your paper very interesting, and the possibilities it opens up in the way of subjects for future discussion are almost endless. We might very easily spend a .whole session studying the Victorian era, and then touch only the fringe of it. It is wonderful to think that after plodding steadily along for hundreds of years the world should have taken such a sudden leap forward as it did in the last century. No the " good old days" had certain advantages over ours, but no one who has studied the social life and conditions of England when Queen Victoria was born can be anything but profoundly thankful that we live in more enlightened days.

Dear Elizabeth, —The brightness of our gathering will be dimmed when we look around and miss dear, kind Val from her accustomed place; hxd the blessed assurances of things that are not seen but eternal will come' to us from the singers whose message is divine. I do not doubt that the passion-ately-wept deaths of young men are provided for and that the deaths of young women and the deaths of little children are provided for. Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the purport of all Life, is not well provided for? I do not think Life provides for all and for Time and Space, but I believe Heavenly Death provides for all. " Joy, shipmate, joy, Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry. Our life is closed, our life begins; The long, long anchorage we leave; The ship is clear at last—she leaps I She swiftly courses from the shore. Joy, shipmate, joy!" —Walt Whitman.

" The best is yet to be The last of life, for which the first was

made: Our times are in His hand Who saith, ' A whole I planned; Youth shows but half; trust God, see all,

nor be afraid.' All that is at all, Lasts ever, past recall; Earth changes, but thy soul and God

stand sure. Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same. Prognostics told Man's near approach; so in man's self arise August anticipations, symbols, types Of a dim splendour ever on before In that eternal circle life pursues." —Robert Browning. The memories of our dear ones gone before become more sacred with the lapse of time. Wo aspire to become as they. Wo are lifted from the pettinesses of this mortal life, and realise that the things that are seen are temporal. Man, who has been climbing the upward path to Love for well over a million years, will surely reach the goal that Nature designs, and triumph throughout all time. God is Love, and " there can never be one lost good." Greetings to Elizabeth and all comrades, and best wishes for a pleasant winter for the C.C.C. from OSCAR. Thank you, too, Oscar, for the inspiring messages you have given us from the poets. In these days when so many are groping in darkness it is good to read the sturdy and vigorous lines of Walt Whitman, and note with what absolute lack of dread he looked forward to death; while the splendid optimism of Browning's poetry will continue to inspire in the future, •as it has bx the past, courage and hope in world-weary hearts. Dear Elizabeth, —I am not bringing to our meeting to-day a book, but merely a chapter

from. one. To all who read critically—responsive to the living- touch of the born writer who can make an episode, a scene, a dialogue stand out with the vivid reality that stamps it for ever upon the mind—there is a rare pleasure in meeting this great gift. That is all the explanation. I need give as my reason for placing before you this fine chapter, " The Great Cold," from E. Hough's American story " The Girl at the Halfway House." It is a etory of the West, of the great plains, and the men and women who went out, and planted their little shacks there to sub-due it. It is a life where the mighty elements of Nature stand upon one hand and man upon the other; to work harmoniously together when so decreed or meet in death-grips, and man sometimes wins—and sometimes loses. The greatness of this chapter lies in its striking realism as it places before us the coming of thia unexampled, unexpected, overwhelming cold—the Christmas storm that swept out of existence hundreds of little, new-made homes, all woefully unprepared for 'its onslaught. Wo understand at once that it is fact we are reading of, not fiction, though the love story of the book runs through it; but the first five or six pages are descriptive only, and aa such they stand very high. Had space, allowed me I would not have Bhorn them of a word, for only to the chosen few is it permitted to grasp each.ominous detail and have the power to set it in like manner before others, its strength lying in the very quietness of the narration. In the opening sentence, '' The land lay trusting and defenceless under a cynical sky, which waa unthreatening but mocking," we at once read the first premonition of approaching disaster. Then in a few words we see th« small, rough houses, separated sometimes by miles of open prairie; the vast grey surface of the old buffalo and. cattle range, now dotted with fences and low stacks of hay and straw; "each building, squat or tall, small or less small, none the less a home. Most of them contained families . . . little children, sometimes babes, tender, needful of warmth and care. For these stood guardian the gaunt coal chutes of the town, with the demands of a population of twentyfivo hundred, to say nothing of the settlera round about, a hundred tons for a thousand families, scattered, dwelling out along breaks and coulees and on worn hillsides, and at the end 1 of long, faint, wandering trails, which the first whirl of snow would softly and cruelly wipe away. Yet there was no snow. There had been none the winte? before. The trappers and skin-hunters said that the winter wa3 rarely severe. . . . It was a mild country, a gentle, tender country. In this laughing sky who could see any cynicism? The wind was cold, and the wild fowl flew clamouring .south from the sheeted pools, but the great, hares did not change their colour . . . and the prairie-dogs barked joyously. No harm, could come to anyone. The women ana children were safe. Besides, was there not coal at the town? . . . xTo tree showed for scores of miiles . . . yet the little houses were low and warm, and ca-ch had its makeshift for fuel, and in each the husband ate and the wife sewed and the babes wept and prattled as they have in 'generations past; and none looked on the sky to call it treacherous. One morning the sun rose with a swift bound] into a cloudless field. The air was mild, dead, absolutely silent and motionless. The wires along the railway alone sang loudly, as though in warning—a warning unfounded and without apparent cause. Yet the sighing in the short grasses was gone. In the still air the smokes of the town rose directly upnight; and answering to them faint, thin spires rose here and there far out over the prairies, all straight, unswerving, ominous, terrible. There was a great hush, a calm, a pause upon all things. The sky was blue and cloudless, but at last it could not conceal the mockery it boro upon its face, so that when men looked at it and listened 1 to the singing of the wirea they stopped, and without conscious plan hurried on, silent, to the nearest company. Somewhere, high up in the air, unheralded, invisible, there were passing some thin, inarticulate sounds, far above the tops of the tallest smoke spires. . . . Every free horse on the range came into the coulees that morning, and those which were fenced in ran up and down excitedly. In a thousand homes there was content with this new land, so wild at one time, but now so quickly tamed, so gentle, so thoroughly subdued. The sun came on valiantly, stripped bare, knowing what was to be. StilL, louder rose the requiem of the wire. The sky smiled on. There was no token to strike with alarm these human beings. . . . But the wire was seeking to betray the secret of the sky, which was resolved to carry war to sweep these beings from the old range that once was tenantless. To the north there appeared a long, black cloud, hanging low as the trail of some far-off locomotive, new upon the land. Even the old hunters might have called it but the loom of the line of the distant sandhills upon the stream. But all at once the cloud- sprang up, unfurling; tattered battle-flags, and hurrying to meet the sun upon the zenith battleground. Then the old hunters and trappers saw what was betokened. . . . The agent at the depot called sharply to the cub to shut the door. Then he arose and looked out, and hurried to his sender to wire east along the road for coal, trainloads of coal—all the coal that could be hurried on. . . . He had ones trapped for a living along these same hill 3 and plains. He knew what was the meaning of the cloud and the tall pointed spires of smoke and the hurrying naked sun. The cloud swept up and onward, and all persons closed their doors ... In half an hour they noted a grey mist drive across the sky. There was a faint wavering and spreading and deflection at the top of the tallest spire of smoke. Somewhere, high above, there; passed a swarm, of vast humming bees. ■ . . . In mid-sky met the sun and the cloud, and the sun was vanquished', and all the world went grey. Then, with a shriek and a whirl of a raw and r'cy air which dropped, dropped . down, colder and colder and still more cold, all the world went white. This snow came not down from the sky, but slantwise across the land, parallel with the earth, coming from the coldest nether hell hidden in the mysterious north. Over it the air spirits. All the elements were over-r>;dden by a voice which said l , ' I shall have back my own!' The winds found a new sport in driving icy powder through the cracks of the loose board shanty upon the stripped back of the mother huddling her sobbing children against the empty, 'impotent stoves—■ perhaps wrapping her young in the worn and whitened robe of the buffalo taken years a~o. For it was only the buffalo, though now departed, which held the frontier of America in this unprepared season—the Christmas of the Great Cold. The robes saved many of the children, and now and then a mother also." So are wo told how the storm came. Later we read: "For the most of us, when we experience cold, the remedy is to turn at valve* to press a knob, to ask forthwith for' fuel. But if fuel be twenty rnile3 away, in

a sea of shifting ice and bitter cold; if it be Bomewliere where no man. may reach it alive —what then?" The wolves'had new feed that winter, and for years remembered it. It is not only on the field of battle that men are called on to die wiith courage. GABRIELLE. Certainly the chapter you have given us, Gabrielle, from " The Girl at the Halfway House' is a very powerful and realistic piece of descriptive writing. It depicts Nature in a mood that as happily unknown to us in our more equable climate. Thank you for bringing the book under our notice. Judging from your description of it and' the extraot you have given, it should be worth reading, and one is always glad to hear of a good novel. Dear Elizabeth, —I think I can find nothing more appropriate to send as 1 my contribution to the opening meeting of our club than verses that I know and love well—Jean. Ingelow's beaaitiful poem "Regret,"—for,

though this- year we meet with the hope of last year's first, gathering fulfilled, peace cannot banish the sense of loss that, in more or less degree, will ever linger with the men and women of this generation while life lasts. Not the great outer world of war alone has brought our losses; the safe shelter of home, too, has held the dark shadow of sickness and death, and in these years of tumult there are few indteed who do not know the loss of lesser matters that at one time were to us necessities and made the joy and interest; of our lives. "Regret," I feel sure, will appeal to all who know the pain and longing of "the might have been." Over % our club to-day there is this shadow of loss, for Val, good and sincere comrade, valued and interested member, comes no more to our cosy corner. Her name stands now with that of Boy Friend of the club's early years—the first club member to "cross the bar." His work, like hers, was always looked for by all and met with much appreciation, and when we lost him we felt, as we feel

of her, that his empty place must remain empty for all time. I want to link hia nam© with Val'a to-day in token of remembrance; for, though both to our little circle, they are our comrades still, since '"memory is possession." REGRET. 0 thai word! Regret! There have been nights and morns when we have sighed, ''Let us alone, Regret! Wo are content To throw thee all onr past, so thou wilt sleep For aye." But it is patient, and it wakes; It hath not learned to cry itself to sleep, But pla-ineth on the bed that it is hard. We did amiss when we did wish it gone And over: sorrows humanise our race; Tears are the showers that fertilise this world, And memory of things precious keepeth warm The heart that once did hold them. They are poor That liave lost nothing; they are poorer far Who, losing, have forgotten; they moat poor o'l all who lose and wish they might forget. For life is one, and in its warp and woof There runs a thread of gold! that glitters fair. And sometimes in the piattern shows most sweet Where there are sombre colours. It is true That we have wept. But O! this thread of We would not have it tarnish; let us turn Oft and look back upon the wondrous web, And when it shineth sometimes we shall know That memory is possession. I. When I remember something which I had, But which is gone, and I must do without, 1 sometimes wonder how I can be glad, Even in cowslip time when hedges sprout; It makes we sigh to think on it, —but yet My days will not be better days should I forget. 11. When I remember something promised me, But which I never had, nor can have now, Because the promiser we no more see In countries that accord with mortal vow; When I remember this, I mourn —but yet My happier days aire not the days when I forget. EVE. I am glad to "Bay, Eve, that the contributions from yourself and Gabrielle arrived in time for our opening meeting. Your sympathetic references to Val and Boy Friend will, I am sure, be eohoed by all the other members of the club, and Jean Ingelow's tender, haunting lines express, as only poetry can, the thoughts that are uppermost in the minds of those who have been bereaved. A TRENTHAM WHARE. Dear Elizabeth, —Sinoe the war is, we trust, over, it is irlteresting to think backwards over the various phases through which we passed during its progress, and humiliating, too, to- realise our lack of vision and steadiness at times. The greater part of the war period I passed in Trentham, and I think possibly my unknown- C.C.C. friends migihfc like to know what.life in the vicinity of a big camp is like. . When my husband! volunteered for active service he was,classed ''fit for home service only," and I journeyed to Trentham in 1916. Imagine what I felt like on arrival to discover that the only available accommodation was a single room in a house let out on the apartment principle to some half-dozen soldiers' wives, at 15s per week for a single room. Rooming it in Trentlxam was a salutary experience, with surprises at every turn. You pushed your boxes under the bed, placed the table, two' chairs, wash-hand stand, and the cupboard, in which you stored your whole commissariat department, all severely back against the wall, and then you had about three square feet upon which to standi, while you groaned at the sprawling red poppies on the wallpaper and wondered whether to laugh or cry, and decided to make a nice cup of tea instead. By the time you had filled the kettle at the pump, stepped over three soldiers' babies playing in the passage, and asked a soldier's lady in a pink crepe de chine blouse how to light the kerosene stove, you had settled down to things. The stove, shared with three or four other roomers, wa3 the source of much tribulation. When you had prepared your vegetables, etc., all in your one room, you ventured shyly forth and placed them upon the stove, only to find a few minutes afterwards that a draught had .blown the vaunted blue flame cooker out, or else that an aggressive person in a red wrapper had calmly pushed your pots aside, while she friedl steak and onions in your frying pan and with your kerosene. Xou retired discomfited, to sit jbn one of the rickety chairs and meditate upon what the quartermaster-sergeant would say to "an uncooked dinner, and congratulated yourself upon the blano mange' and stewed peaches prepared while the aggressive person slept. What between babies crying, the matrimonial differences of neighbours in the next room, and alarms and diversions of various kinds, rooming couldl not be considered monotonous; still, at the earliest opportunity you graduated to a whare. The Trentham whare was usually a shed of some description, provided with a stove that did nothing but smoke, and a few other home comforts, for the use of which you paid from 15s to 30s per week, according to the dispositon of the owner. A whare was considered rather a desirable residence, since you could at least enjoy its discomforts in dignified seclusion. With a few bits of cretonne, a rug, a cushion or two, and! some sprays of wattle stuck in a jam jar, it was wonderful what a home-like effect could be achieved. The spirit of the women was mostly quite beyond praise. The officer's lady and Bridget O'Grady cheerfully put up with anything in order to be near their men. The wives of the men in khaki, whom duty required to remain in the vicinity of the camps, were rather shamelessly exploited, and the shifts to which some of them were reduced were pitiful, and should have been foreseen and to some extent avoided. In this, as in many other tilings, we are all wise after the event. It was astonishing how quickly one became accustomed to the military routine; but, though the various details of camp life were increasingly n- _ teresting, the shadow of war and partings and unspeakable sadness brooded over the camp, and I did not go there oftener than was necessary. I used to think how splendid it would be to see the men growing fit and brown and sturdy and disciplined, if the end in view had been physical fitness and a training in good citizenship, but the wastage of war is horrible in anticipation and worse ,in realisation. I oould never look at the men's brown faces and splendid bodies without thinking of what war would do to them. When first I saw a reinforcement marching into Trentham from Featherston Camp_ I was divided between pride and tears—pride in the men themselves, brown-faced, cleareyed, youthful, sturdy, their laughinc faces set toward the great adventure, and tears

at the thought oi the battlefields to wiucn ihey were going. 1 wondered that the very stones of the road did not cry out against such a sacrifice of our best manhood, and yet 1 knew the sacrifice had) to be made. From my whare windows I still see men in khaki, whose business it is to gather up all the Defence equipment and prepare for trie housing of sick and. wounded men in their uniforms of hospital blue. Later, when Trentham has seitLed down to its work as an orthopaedic unit, I may be able to tall you something more about how the returning men are being healed in mind and body, and trained to work suitable to their physical abilities. At first the preparations for war going forward so busily in the camp, the shifts and discomforts of life in "rooms" and whares of sorts, and the mere physical configuration of the place itself, combined in producing a feeling of the greatest depression. Trentham Valley is about eight miles long, from Upper Hutt to the Silverstream Gorge, and about three miles wide at 'the widest point, and completely surrounded by range upon range of high hills. My eyes longed for the great eye-satisfying sweeps of the Southland plains, and my heart longed for the hills of home, for the lovely white peaks of the Takitimos, shining beyond the low, dark-wooded Longwcods; but life moves on, and "making the best of things" is good philosophy and" sound sense, i'here is a certain austere beauty even in the barest hills, but their bleak, cold sides always make me wonder why the beautiful native bush is so ruthlessly destroyed on land that can never produce anything half so beautiful or so valuable as the native foTest. If left alone it is wonderful how quickly waste lands re-cover themselves with a new growth of sturdy young trees, and many of the near hills are partially bush-clad again, particularly in all the dips and folds of the hillsides, which shelter and foster the new growth. Beyond Upper Hutt the upward sweep of the Rimutaka ranges begins, and beyond them tower the peaks of the Tararuas, snow-clad in winter; and whoever lifts their eyes to the hills knows how lovely the snowy peaks are under a rosy dawn sky or a sunset of crimson and gold. I never tire of watohing the changing lights and shadows, the drifting clouds, and the blue, blue skies, white clouds, and golden sunlight of these lovely autumn days. SHASTA. Your description! of lifie in Trentham, Shasta, both in rooms and in a whare, is most entertaining, and I shall look forward to hearing more about it on some future occasion. It is not hard to read between the lines and see what courage and grit, and, above all, what a sense of humour, ©ne must require to come through it all smiling, for it is just the little inconveniences and petty worries that you describe that spoil the temper and ruin the nerves of' a great many women. e ELEANOR. Second meeting, June 18. Papers to be in by June 7. Subject: PICTURES AND We* have had many discussions on books, and once a very interesting meeting with "music" for its subject, but so far we have not touched on the kindred art of painting. I will ask members, therefore, to describe any picture or pictures that specially appeals to them, or, if they prefer it, to tell us something of the life of any artist they may choose to write on. ygsg" Descriptions of balls, &c, must be endorsed by either the Witness correspondent for the district or by the secretary of the ball committee. The MS. of any correspondents who do not comply with this rule will be sent to the secretary for endorsement prior to appearing.—ELlZAßETH. To ensure publication in the forthcoming issue letters should reacli the Witness office if possible on' Saturday night, but on no account later than Monday night. WEDDING A.T WAIKOUAITI. On Easter Monday, at the Presbyterian Church', Waikouaiti, Miss Lottie Birtles. younger daughter of Mr and Mrs Jos. Birtles, Cherry Farm, and Mr Lancelot Kerr, younger eon of Mr and Mi's G. J. L. Kerr, were, married by the Rev. J. J. Cairney, when, despite the wet day, a very large congregation was present. As the bridte walked up the aisle with her father, the wedding hymn "O perfect love" was sung. After the ceremony the "Wedding March" was played by Mrs Kerr, mother of the bridegroom. The bride looked charming, gowned in ivory crepe de chine, with veil and orange blossoms and fillet of pearls. She carried a shower bouquet of cream and white flowers and asparagus fern. Her sister, Miss Jessie Birtles, was bridesmaid, and' wore a shellpink coloured frock of crepe de chine, block and pink bat, and also carried a shower bouquet of pale pink flowers and fern. The bouquets were the. artistic work of Miss J. Smith. The groom was accompanied by his brother, Lance-oorporal Wilfred Kerr. After the wedding breakfast the happy couple left by motor for the north, carrying with them the good wishes of their friends, expressed in showers of confetti and rice. The bride's going-away costume was of fawn cloth, with facings of darker shade, fawn hat, and a beautiful set of fitch furs. Mirs las. Birtles wore a black silk dress and black hat, Mrs G. J. L. Kerr black silk and purple hat. Both bride and bridegroom are members of the Presbyterian Church Choir, and were entertained at a social given by the choir and presented with a handsome case of afternoon teaspoons. They have received many handsome presents and valuable cheques.