Minutes 29 November 1904
Item
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Title
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Minutes 29 November 1904
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Description
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[Page 1] November 29.
For good & sufficient reasons, needless to enumerate, the meeting due on Nov. 25th, was omitted for the present. On the Tuesday following, Mrs. Harrison & Miss May Williams having the same book in their respected clubs, joined forces & gave to the united clubs a delightful meeting. Very few members of either were absent, several guests added pleasure to the occasion & the ladies filled cozily Mrs. Harrison’s bright parlor. The double roll call was long, as were the dual minutes, and the items of interest too numerous to mention, save one – a belated autograph letter from Chas. Wagner which Miss Holt had received, expressing appreciation of the club’s interest in him & his book. The meeting then passed into the hands of our hostess. The book claiming our attention was
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[Page 2] “The Queen’s Quair,” a story of Mary, Queen of Scots. A happy introduction to this period of history was Miss Holts song, recalling the days when “Knighthood was in Flower”; & when Miss Mary Query read from a musty volume the quaintly worded vows which the Knights must assume we felt decidedly atuned to the Age of Romance! We listened with keen interest while Mrs. Harrison discusses the gifted young Englishman Maurice Hewlett & his books dwelling especially on The Queen’s Quair. In the virility & originality of his style he suggests both Kipling and Conrad. But while these have found the material for their stories ready to hand in India or Africa & the South Sea Islands, Hewlett’s task has been a more different one, in seeking to revivify a period centuries gone! Queen’s Quair is not
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[Page 3] his best effort. “The Forest Lovers,” called from its exquisite workmanship, a Tapestry Novel, take precedence, perhaps also “Richard Yea and Nay.” His style is one of peculiar charm for its simplicity. Some one has said his vocabulary is almost composed of monosyllables. In preparing for this book, Hewlett has saturated himself with the history of Mary Stuart’s time and especially has he studied with absorbed attention the life & character of the Queen herself. His graphic description of her appearance, in the opening pages the book is often quoted. The story is a dark one - not so black we are told, as the picture painted by histories of the period, and Hewlett handles it delicately, but it is forbidding still. His selection of his subject recalls to a revered old lady, who, vexed over the injudicious marriage of a young minister, once exclaimed in our hearing
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[Page 4] “I do think Presbytery should appoint a committee to help the young preachers select suitable wives.” We would like to see Hewlett’s talents focused on a “suitable” subject. Miss May Williams read a carefully prepared paper on the sister queens - Mary & Elizabeth. In the criticism of the books it was a pleasure to note how many were commendatory - almost all. After delightful refreshments & informal chat we scattered. Mrs. Harrison had added another to her already enviable record as entertainer of the club.
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Subject
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Women-North Carolina-Davidson-Societies and clubs.
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Books and reading.
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Women-Societies and clubs.
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North Carolina-Davidson.
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Creator
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BookLovers Club
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Publisher
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Davidson College
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Date
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29 November 1904
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Rights
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For permission to reproduce image, contact archives@davidson.edu
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Language
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eng
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Type
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Text
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Identifier
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bl-037
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Coverage
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1904
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4049696
