4

Page Four

THE COLLEGE, NEWS'





Noted Critic Explains

Beginning of Career



Continued from Page One

letter of introduction to her husband.
She sent him to the Managing Edi-
tor, to whom she telephoned before
Mr. Woollcott chanced to have gotten
all the way out of the house, so that
he was enabled to, overhear what she
said: He is perfectly willing to clasp
her words to his bosom as an epi.
taph: “I don’t know whether this |
boy will ever be able to write, but |
he ought to make a good reporter, be-
cause he’s the damndest, nosiest per-
son I ever saw.” As it happened,
Mr. Woollcetté got his job on The
Times, on Which he worked for 19
years; for 13) of them he was a dra-
matic critic. Being a dramatic crit-
ic is a singular occupation. It was
his duty to go to a first night every
night, and just as the curtain start-
ed to fall, to leap to his feet, tram-
pling women and children, to rush to
his office with the speed of a glacier,
and there to leap at a waiting type-
writer, while near him croughed two
telegraph operators who wired his
criticism to the paper, paragraph by
paragraph. The result was that by
the time the third paragraph was
written, he had forgotten what he
had said in the first. He finally
broke down. Mr. Woollcott’s advice
to the innumerable young people who
have asked him how to get where
they want to go is that no young
person can tell what he will be inter-
ested in doing in 15 or 20 years. The
field of journalism which now inter-
ests him most is the radio, but he
could not have foreseen the radio
when he decided to be a dramatic
critic.

Mr. Woollvott described some of
the rewards and trials of journalism.
All reporters are neurotic because
they are hounded by the fear of ty-
pographical errors. The New Yorker
never has any because it is edited by
a maniac on the subject, capable of
such vile tempers that a whole office
is devoted to nothing but checking |
proof. From 18 to 20 pages are sent
to press every day, and each page
has to pass three individuals, anyone
of whom will be shot if any typo-
graphical errors are found on any of
those pages. But all of Mr.: Wooll-
cott’s work was done at midnight, so
thathe never had time to see the
paper until the second or third edi- |
tion; if there was an error, nothing
could be done about it then. Slips
of type usually produce words of per-
fect sartity, as is apparent in his ref-
erence to Miss Helen Hayes as wear-
ing a “punk” dress, or to Mr. Nathan
as a “bottle-scarred” veteran of the
war. Such errors are even worse on
the radio; when he spoke as_ the
“Town Crier,” he frequently referred
to himself as the “Crown Tieer.”

But one advantage of the radio
is that at least the speaker is invisi-
ble. Mr. Woollcott realized that. un-
til television .is perfected, no Shakes-
pearean part, even that of _the—lean
and hungry Cassius to Romeo, was
beyond him. He did play the balcony
scene from Romeo and Juliet with
Miss Helen Hayes, and only after
they had started the broadcast did
they realize that they had complete- |
ly. forgotten to get a nurse, so that |
for the first time, the parts of Romeo |
and of the nurse were played by the
same person.

The rewards of speaking over the
radio are incalculable. One evening
he broadcast the story of the Christ-
mas Eve on the front in 1914, when
the Germans were lined up opposite
.the English and Scotch along a
stretch of Flanders field, at a dis-
tance of about 60 yards. The story
was told Mr. Woollcott by a young
lieutenant, who had been present and
heard after the men had crawled into
their bunks, the sound of Silent Night
played on an accordion in the Ger-





man trenches; ~The whole front lis- >

tened. When the tune died down,
the silence was broken with Onward,
Christian Soldiers, played
Cockney mouth organ from the Al-|
lied trenches. Until about midnight |
the concert lasted; then the lieuten-
ant was aroused by a sentry, saying,
“Something funny has happened, Sir. |
We were patrolling the hedge when
someone said in English, ‘Why don’t
we have a party tomorrow? Here:
are some cigarettes.’” The next
morning all of No Man’s Land was
- full of troops, swapping breakfasts
and taking photographs of each







-high~black-hats~of-the- French may=+

| Lear:

| someone else was about to play the

in sl

other’s lieutenants. They held a mas-
querade in the silk parasols and the

ors, which they had swiped on their
way through French villages, and a
football game was arranged for the
next day. But by the next day, word
had gotten back to the brigadier-gen-
eral and orders came to fire at a cer-
tain time. The orders were carried
out and some young German soldiers
who were out talking peaceably along
the front were unfortunately mowed
j|down. That end | Ahe fraternizing
on the Western front, but the inter-
esting part of the story to Mr. Wooll-
cott was that the next day after
broadcasting it, he received a letter
from. a telegraph operator in New
Jersey, saying that he had turned on
his radio the night before, happened
to hear that broadcast, and was writ-
ing to Mr. Woollcott because he had
been the sentry who woke up the
lieutenant and told him = about the
message that Christmas Eve.

Mr. Woollcott believes that Eugene
Field was perhaps the greatest of all
newspaper men. He was a dramatic
critic in Denver City and was held in
awe by every actor. At one of Mrs.
Fiske’s first performances in Den-
ver City, he threw a bunch of vio-
lets at her feet when she came out to
take her bow, and pulled them back
on a string as she bent to pick them
up.. He practiced the cough with
which Modjeska punctuated the dy-
ing scene of Camille until he had it
to such perfection that every whoop
from the stage was answered by an
antiphonal response from the audi-
ence. But perhaps Mr. Field’s great-
est claim to fame was his criticism
of Preston Clark’s portrayal of King
“Last night, Mr. Preston
Clark played King Lear. All through
the five acts, he played the king as
though under an apprehension that

ace.”



Bryn Mawr Club Invites
Students to Holiday Tea



Continued from Page One

be chaperoned. Our rooms are delight-
ful for tea, or as a meeting. place
or resting spot between appointments,
or dressing room if you are going out



to dinner.

The Membership Committee, Mrs.
Louis Darmstadt (Ruth Rickaby,
1927), Chairman; Mrs. Frederick A.
Dewey (Elizabeth Braley, 1914),
Mrs. Frederick Conger (Elizabeth
Mallet, 1926), Mrs. Henry E, Stehli
(Grace Hays, 1927), Miss* Sarah
Fraser (1934), reminds you that if
you join the Club while you are in |
College, you escape the initiation fee
—and the undergraduate membership
is only five dollars a year.

We are looking forward to meeting
you on January 3 and we hope |
that you will use the Bryn Mawr]
Club during your vacations.

HELEN RIEGEL OLIVER,
(MRS. HOWARD T. OLIVER),
President, New York Bryn Mawr

Club.

PHILIP HARRISON STORE
BRYN MAWR, PA.

‘Gotham Gold Stripe
Silk Hosiery, $1.00

Best Quality Shoes 1
in Bryn Mawr

NEXT DOOR TO THE MOVIES











Pius 570

JEANNETT’S
BRYN MAWR FLOWER
SHOP, Inc.

Mrs. N. S. T. Grammer
823 Lancaster Avenue
BRYN MAWR, PA.

; mood.



Miss Millay Presents
_ Reading of Own Poems}



Continued from Page One

er” itself. The ballad is one of Miss
Millay’s finest pieces. The subject
is well-suited to her style. A tale told
by a young boy of his mother is mat-
ter asking tenderness, not passion;
calling for description, pictorial rath-
er than suggestive. Tenderness and
pictorial portrayal of a scene are two
qualities in which Miss Millay excels;
while deep passion she does not
choose to handle, and imaginative sug-
gestion she relies on little.

Perhaps nowhere does the clear,
precise quality of her description or

lthe sentiment concealed beneath an.

apparently innocent pictorial sketch
come out so well as in the closing
stanzas of The Harp Weaver: |
v
“There sat my mother ,
With the harp against her
shoulder,
Looking nineteen
And not a day older,
A smile about her lips,
And a light about her head,
And her hands in the harpstrings
Frozen dead.
And piled up beside her
And toppling to the skies,
Were the clothes of a king’s son
Just my size.”

In the “Ballad of the Harp Weav-
er,” Miss Millay is seeing and tell-
ing a story through the eyes and
lips of a child. The dwice is a fav-
orite one with her, and her handling
of the shades of feelings, of a young
girl particularly, are always thor-
oughly convincing. Single incidents
or thoughts she renders in complete
sincerity, pictorial or emotional. The
snatches, “From A Little Sphinx,”
are trifles, but trifles perfect of their
kind, because the momentary doubt
or gaiety; delight or secretiveness of
a child does not demand, in fact, of
itself forbids that reflective analysis
of mood, which wé cannot but feel
constitutes a definite lack in the more
ambitious emotidnal efforts of Miss
Millay’s serious lyrics and of her
sonnets.

“Exiled” and “The Buck in _ the
Snow,” from the volumes, SECOND
APRIL an THE BUCK IN THE SNow,
represent Miss Millay in serious
“Exiled” brings out the poet’s
love for the tangible things of the
seashore—the “green piles growing
Under the windy wooden piers,” the
“bobbing barrels,” and the “black
sticks that fence the weirs’”—and the
| happy emotion that springs from re-
creating the well-known picture in
her mind’s eye. “The Buck in the
Snow” achieves a clear and beautiful-
ly drawn pictorial effect; the con-
scious subjection of the thought on
death to the beauty of the scene de-

FANSLOW

Distinctive Sportswear
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ARDMORE















GREEN HILL FARMS

City Line and Lancaster Ave.
Overbrook-Philadelphia

A reminder that we would like. to
take care of your parents and
friends, whenever they come to
visit you.

L. E. METCALF,
Manager.























ing: it is a



You'll have time to see only the
best plays in New York during the
Christmas holidays:

So of course you’re planning to visit

MEN IN WHITE

it’s the only modern drama that’s
a striking success: it is now in its
fourth month: it is one of two plays
to have received the four-star rat-
serious contender for the
Pulitzer Detnas not to see it is to
‘miss the most stirring theatrical
experience of this amazing season.
BROADHURST THEATRE—+4th street west of Broadway

Eves. 8:45 p. m.—Seats 50c to $2.50 (plus tax). Mats. Wed. & Sat. 2:40 50c to $2







sos

| scribed well illustrates Miss Millay’s

conviction that beauty in a bia? ‘al-
ways comes before thought.

'“Portrait By A Neighbor” was the
piece chosen by Miss Millay to be
read from the volume, Figs From
Thistles. The effect of the poem herg
consists in a series of. cleverly con-
structed little pictures, which afford
by way of illustration a certain unity:
of thought.

Miss Millay read two new poems,
“Sappho Crosses the Dark River Into
Hades” and “Apostrophe to Man,”
which are to be published next year.
The one is a skillfull handling of a
tender passion; the other is inter-
esting because it was written,
reflecting that the world is ready to
go to war again.” It’is not a serious
poetic effort.

Miss Millay concluded her reading
by «presenting Two Slatterns. and a
King, which she designates’ “a moral
interlude.” The poetry, she pointed
out, is informal doggerel, but the
moral of the poem is a serious -one.





LUNCHEON, TEA, DINNER
Open Sundays |
Chatter-On Tea House

918 Old Lancaster Road
Telephone: Bryn Mawr 1185









BRYN MAWR

“on |

The play is typical of much of her
lighter work. Through a rather tri-

sented, an old, old moral is brought
out,—the great theme of Chance. Her
skill lies in the simplicity with which
the case is put, and the effortless di-
rectness with which she drives home
her point. She endeavors always to
reduce emotion from the complex to
the simple, making up by sincdetity
for what shé may thus lose in depth.



At Chicago University the dean of
students is sending a questionnaire
to obtain accurate information re-
garding their financial condition.





CECELIA’S YARN
SHOP
Seville Arcade

_BRYN MAWR = PA.







RICHARD STOCKTON

GIFTS
BOOKS
PRINTS





COLLEGE INN

TEA ROOM

Luncheon 40c - 50c - 75c

Dinnet 85c - $1.25

Meals a la carte and table d’hote
Daily and Sunday 8.30 A. M. to 7.30 P. M.

Afternoon Teas

BRIDGE, DINNER PARTIES AND TEAS MAY BE ARRANGED
MEALS SERVED ON THE TERRACE WHEN WEATHER’ PERMITS
THE PUBLIC IS INVITED

Telephone: Bryn Mawr 386









Miss Sarah Davis, Manager









3



SS

¢

ov \

An

“aie CENTS

Isn°t

Much?

Most college allowances go only so far. But

even at that you can
once a week.

It isn’t much —35

probably spare 35 cents

cents—hardly the price

of a movie or shampoo. Yet for 35 cents, if

you know the ropes,

~ as 100 miles.

you can telephone as far

That probably means you can telephone

home! Can 35 cents buy more pleasure than

that? You can pick up a budget of family

news... talk over your problems . . . share

your interests. There’s nothing like a “voice

visit” with the folks back home to brighten

: your whole week—and theirs.

eo ®
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TO TAKE ADVANTAGE

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person.

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sure to make a Station to Station call.

That_means, ask the Operator for your:
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If you’ve fixed a date in advance, the family
will be sure to be there.

35 cents at night will pay for a 3-minute

to Station call to anywhere within

100 miles. °

fling incident, lightly and wittily pre- —



¢