small boys had been invited to a strawberry feast in the rooms of one of
the dons, and seeing a group of Prefects in the court below, had been
unable to resist the temptation. First a rotten strawberry splashed on
the flint at the feet of the Prefects, and then a storm descended. This
was too much for Prefectorial dignity to bear. The good don's strawberry
feast ended in a general tunding. The Prefect of Hall described this to
me next day with quiet satisfaction; and, later, the don spoke of the
case as characteristic of the best effects of the Prefectorial system.
As host, he said, he had not been able to interfere; and except for
school-boy discipline, the culprits would have escaped. The wife of one
of the masters, however, said it was a brutal shame, and that if she had
her way with those Prefects, she would throw strawberries at them.
Such a system leaves little for the masters to do, yet a boy sometimes
carries his case to the higher court, though he does it at the risk of
great unpopularity. Some years ago two Seniors, having a grudge against
another boy, employed two Juniors, at ninepence a head, to give him a
beating. The Prefects very naturally objected to this method of doing
one's dirty work, and ordered all four to be tunded. One of the Senior
culprits lost courage when he found how hard it was going with his
companion, and appealed to the master on the plea that the ground-ash
was too large. The master declared that the ground-ashes were "proper
good ground-ashes," and proceeded to wear them out on him.
[Illustration: A DORMITORY.]
[Illustration: A STUDENT'S STUDY.]
[Illustration: "HORSE-BOXES" AND "WASHING-STOOLS."]
[Illustration: AT THE GATE OF CHAMBER COURT.]
[Illustration: CHAPEL AND PART OF DORMITORIES.]
The details of daily life at Winchester are not easy to understand. The
"college," as, in fact, each of the "houses," is divided into chambers
or "shops," as the boys call them. In each of these lives a community of
say a dozen boys, over which three Prefects preside. The sleeping-rooms
are locked up, except at night. In the study-room each boy has a desk,
which he calls his "horse-box." The Prefects have tables, placed in
commanding positions. These are called "washing-stools." In the college
there are seven chambers, occupying "Chamber Court," the main
quadrangle; and all about are ranged the domestic buildings belonging to
the college--the slaughter-house, the bake-house, the kitchen, and the
brew-house. In Chamber Court also are the rooms occupied by the masters
and their families, and the magnificent college dining-hall and chapel.
All these buildings stand to-day almost precisely as they were built
five hundred years ago--that is, a hundred years before Columbus
discovered America--with this difference, that the flint walls are so
stained by time that they reflect the sunshine in many subdued and
mellow shades.
There are, however, a few relics of dead customs. At one side of the
court you will find the remains of the ancient conduit. Here, on the
stone pavement and in the open air, five centuries of boys have taken
their morning baths, summer and winter. Bathing could not always,
however, be as regular as in these days when travelling Englishmen pack
their clothes in leather-covered bath-tubs instead of in a trunk. A
dozen years ago bath-rooms were fitted up within-doors, in rooms
formerly occupied by learned Fellows of the College. On a wall is the
painting of the "Trusty Servant," with its verses.
The old lavatory of the college was called "Moab," while the
shoe-blacking place was called "Edom." I wonder how many American
school-boys are as familiar as those old English boys must have been
with the Psalm that says "Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom will I cast out
my shoe." The ancient brew-house in outer court is still used, but when
I took luncheon in Hall with the Prefects they rather sniffed at the
beer made in it. Under King William, however, it inspired this song:
Now let us all, both great and small,
With voice both loud and clear,
Right merrily sing, Live Billy our King!
For 'bating the tax upon beer.
For I likes my drop of good beer;
For I likes my drop of good beer.
So whene'er I goes out I carries about
My little pint bottle of beer.
To my taste the beer was very good, and not too strong. Perhaps it is a
sign of the good sense of Wykehamists that they preferred water or
milk.
One might also class fagging, with which all readers of _Tom Brown_ are
familiar, with the dead and dying customs. It is limited to a few simple
offices. A Senior still sends small boys on errands, and sometimes makes
him cook and wash bottles at private feasts in chambers. Every evening,
too, when the post comes in, the porter of the college brings it to
Chambers Court, and at a signal the junior of each chamber to get what
belongs to his fellows. In olden times, in order to accustom the fags to
handling hot dishes, the Seniors would sometimes score their hands with
glowing fagots. This provided them with "tin gloves." A more amusing bit
of barbarity was the "toe fittee," pronounced _tofy-tie_. This consisted
in tying a string about a boy's great toe while he lay asleep. Then the
string was violently pulled, and the boy was drawn out of his bed to his
tormentor's side. Sometimes two or three would be brought from different
parts of a chamber to the same point. In America I have often known a
boy to tie a string about his own toe, and hang it out of the window so
that a friend might wake him up to go out fishing; but that is a
different thing.
For pure ingenuity the so-called "scheme" bears the palm. It was always
the duty of a certain luckless Junior to wake the Prefect at an early
hour every morning, and if he overslept he was of course tunded.
Noticing that the night candle always burned to a certain point at this
hour, some nameless fag invented the plan of hanging a hat-box over his
head by a string, and connecting the string with this point of the
candle by a rude fuse. He thus made sure that the hat-box would fall on
his head at the required hour. Under this sword of Damocles he could, of
course, sleep in peace without fear of flogging.
The terrible stories of flogging and fagging, however, really belong to
the past. Unless I am very much mistaken, life at Winchester, in spite
of an occasional tunding, is much pleasanter and better regulated than
in most of our schools. The fact that the Prefects enforce most of the
discipline makes it possible for the masters to get very near to the
hearts of their pupils; and, above all, the English boys are fortunate
in the fact that the wives and daughters of the Masters live with them
in the same quadrangle. To speak of Winchester without telling about the
wife of the second Head Master, and how fond of her big boys and little
boys, good boys and bad boys are, would be to leave the part of Hamlet
out of the play. Many are the gawky boys whom she has put at ease among
people, and many the bad boys whom she has set right. One of the
pleasantest things I saw at Winchester was a lot of Oxford men who had
come back to her during vacation just to hear her call them Smith,
Brown, and Robinson.
The stamp of men Winchester produces is as distinct from all others as a
St. Paul's man is different from one from Exeter. The ideal toward which
the school is working was well expressed by one of the Head Masters. "I
consider that those boys who issue from the top of the school--_i.e._,
those upon whom the highest influences of the school have been brought
to bear--are boys who ... carry into life a stamp, not of a very showy
kind, but distinguished by a self-reliance, a modesty, a practical good
sense, and strong religious feeling--that religious feeling being of a
very moderate traditional and sober kind which, in my judgment, is
beyond all price."
HOW TO USE A PIANO.
BY W. J. HENDERSON.
"As we journey through life, let us live by the way," is a very old
saying to which many interpretations have been given. To me its
pleasantest significance is that we should try to make life a constant
delight. There is nothing better for this purpose than kindly
intercourse with friends, but as we grow older we find that a circle of
agreeable acquaintances cannot be maintained simply on a conversational
basis. We must offer our friends inducements to come and see us; in
other words, we must entertain in some form. Most boys and many girls
are alarmed by the word "entertain." The girls are less afraid of it
than the boys, because they have an inborn desire and a natural talent
for social pleasures. But they are often puzzled as to the best means of
arranging entertainments. Everything seems so difficult for a girl to
undertake without a great deal of assistance from her mother, and
frequently that assistance robs her of all feeling of personal
proprietorship in the entertainment.
"It was called my party," she says, "but really mamma did everything."
Now I wish to offer a suggestion or two to girls about a form of
entertainment which is easily arranged. There are very few homes in this
civilized land which do not contain pianos, and there are very few girls
who cannot play a little. Even if you cannot play difficult music you
can give a musical, and make it a really artistic and enjoyable
entertainment. In the first place, then, let us talk about the piano.
Two or three days before your musical is to take place you should have
the instrument tuned, for you cannot make music agreeable to your guests
if the piano is out of tune. And here let me offer a few suggestions
about keeping it in tune. The most important requirement is equality of
temperature. Therefore your piano should not stand where the heat of a
grate or a steam radiator will affect one end of it more than the other,
nor should it be so situated that a draught from a leaky window will
blow on one end. It ought to be placed so that it will be affected only
by the general temperature of the room, and that ought not to have an
extreme range. If you hear loud cracks coming from your piano at times,
as if something had snapped, lookout; the chances are that the
sounding-board is warping, or something equally undesirable is
happening, and it is probably due to the influence of temperature. If
you wish to keep a piano in the very best order, do not pile books or
music or any other heavy objects on its lid.
When preparing for your musical, bear these suggestions in mind. You
will in all likelihood be obliged to move your piano out of its
customary position, for nine times out of ten that is one which would
make you sit with your back squarely to your audience. You should not do
this; but when you move the instrument, do not put it where it will be
injured. In giving a musical, bear in mind that the player is to be the
centre on which all eyes are focussed. If the piano is a grand, place it
so that its right side will be toward the audience, but running a little
obliquely, so that the keyboard will be visible, or partly so, to those
on the right side of the room. The position of a square or an upright
should be similar, but you may with advantage turn an upright so that
the keyboard is more in view. If the room is very large, you may raise
the lid of a grand half-way. Do not raise it all the way just because
you have seen concert performers do so. That is necessary only in a
large public hall. If your drawing-room is small, do not raise the lid
at all.
Now you must have light for your music. The prettiest way is to set a
tall standing-lamp a little to your left and a little behind you. Never
place it on your right, because that would be between you and the
audience. If you have not a standing-lamp, a pedestal or a table with an
ordinary lamp will do quite as well. Do not set a light on the piano. It
does not look well, in the first place, and in the second it is likely
to rattle. It will add much to the effect of the picture if you surround
the base of your lamp with roses and smilax, and it is also pretty to
have some smilax twined around the scroll-work of the music-stand. In
arranging the seats for your guests, you will naturally have to be
guided by consideration of the number you expect. I should advise you
not to have too many, for that would make it look too much like a public
performance. In placing the seats, try to avoid all appearance of
stiffness, yet endeavor to arrange them so that as many as possible of
your guests will be in front of the piano--by which I mean facing its
right side. But whatever you do, do not set chairs in rows as if it were
a public hall. It looks badly, and it prevents freedom of movement among
your friends between the selections.
And this leads me to another important suggestion. Whatever your
programme may be, it should be short, and it should have at least one
intermission. Two would be better. In those intermissions you should
encourage conversation, and try to induce your guests to move about and
change their seats. You might have lemonade served in one intermission.
Let the boys pass it around. That starts both movement and conversation.
I suppose I need hardly suggest that, if the words of your friends are
too complimentary to your playing, you can lead them to comment on the
beauty of the music. But I do believe that the girls will forgive me if
I say "dress plainly." A musician should never do anything to attract
attention to his person at the expense of his art. Wear a simple gown,
and avoid all mannerisms or affectations in playing.
But now I hear some girl saying, "I can't play well enough to give a
musical." That depends on what you regard as good playing. If you think
it means performing difficult and showy pieces, you are mistaken. That
kind of playing may astonish your friends, but it will not give them
such genuine pleasure as the performance of a few comparatively easy
compositions of real beauty in a sympathetic manner. Here the majority
of girls will meet with their greatest difficulty, for I am sorry to say
that many music-teachers ignore the easy pieces of the great masters,
and give their pupils as studies the cheap rubbish which litters the
counters of the average music-store. It is a mistake to suppose that the
immortals among composers never wrote anything easy. There are
compositions by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, and others which can
be performed by players of very moderate ability, and there are easy and
attractive compositions by less ambitious composers, even such as Johann
Strauss, which have much more merit than the brilliant runs and
arpeggios of Sidney Smith, H. A. Wollenhaupt, and that class.
There are several ways in which you can make a programme so as to give
it a special interest beyond that of the music alone, and I should
advise you to adopt some one of these plans. If you are not a brilliant
player, all the more reason for adding interesting features to your
entertainment. If you are an accomplished performer, your musical will
still gain in artistic dignity by an intelligent arrangement of the
programme. Of course there is one thing always to be borne in mind: you
must compose your list of selections so that there will be constant
variety. Do not, for instance, put three or four slow and plaintive
pieces one after the other. As a rule, too, it is well to avoid a
succession of compositions in the same form, such as sonatas, nocturnes,
or valses. Eminent artists make mistakes in these matters. One of the
most distinguished conductors in this country once gave an orchestral
concert consisting of nine overtures. The effect was very bad indeed,
for in spite of the fact that they were all by different composers, they
were not sufficiently dissimilar in form to produce variety.
Keeping in mind, then, the necessity of variety, you can arrange your
programme chronologically--that is, beginning with a very early writer
and coming down to the most recent. Secondly, you can arrange it by
schools, taking some pieces from the polyphonic, some from the classic,
and some from the romantic. Thirdly, you may arrange it according to
nations, giving examples of German, Russian, French, Italian, English,
and American. Fourthly, you may make it representative of one nation;
and fifthly, representative of one composer. The last-named way is not
advisable for any except accomplished performers, because you will find
it practically impossible to make up even a short list of good pieces by
one composer and have them all easy. A programme representative of one
nation may also be chronological, and if you intend to give more than
one musical--say a series of three--this will probably be the most
attractive way. But undoubtedly the neatest way for a single recital
would be the arrangement according to nations, for you will have no
trouble at all in finding a single composition from each country that is
pretty and easy to play. In making out the programme, be careful to give
the full title and, if possible, opus number of the composition, and I
think it always adds to the interest of a programme for young people to
put in the dates of the births and deaths of the composers. If you will
permit me, I will now submit a sample programme on the plan of
representation of nations just to show you how attractive it looks:
GERMAN.
1. Sonata No. 33 E-flat (composed when
eleven years old) _Beethoven_ (1770-1827).
RUSSIAN.
2. Melody in F _Rubinstein_ (1829-1894).
POLISH.
3. "Chant du Voyage" _Paderewski_ (1860----).
FRENCH.
4. "Funeral March of a Marionette" _Gounod_ (1818-1893).
ITALIAN.
5. Gavotte (from violin sonata in F) _Corelli_ (1653-1713).
ENGLISH.
6. Nocturne in E-flat _J. Field_ (1782-1837).
AMERICAN.
7. "Wood Idyl," from Opus 19 _MacDowell_ (1861----).
I wish to submit for your consideration one more programme, representing
the great schools of music, simply to show you that such a list can be
made of pieces well within the powers of an amateur of ordinary
technical ability.
POLYPHONIC SCHOOL (1500-1750).
1. Canzona in seto tono _Girolamo Frescobaldi_ (1588-1645).
2. Prelude No 1 from the
"Well-tempered Clavichord" _J. S. Bach_ (1685-1750).
CLASSIC SCHOOL (1750-1827).
3. Andante and Finale from
Sonata No. 1 _W. A. Mozart_ (1756-1791).
4. Sonata No. 37 _L. van Beethoven_ (1770-1827).
ROMANTIC SCHOOL (1821 to the present).
5. Slow Waltz (from
"Album Leaves") _R. Schumann_ (1810-1856).
6. "Marche Hongroise" _Franz Schubert_ (1797-1828).
The compositions embraced in this programme are well within the power of
an amateur of moderate ability.
If, however, you can play more difficult music, your choice will be
extended. Nevertheless, I adhere to my first assertion that it is not at
all troublesome to make up a programme of compositions which may be
classed as easy. And here let me give you some final advice. Select for
a musical at which you are to be the performer music somewhat easier
than that which you are accustomed to study under your teacher. The
reason for doing this is so plain that it is hardly necessary to mention
it. If you are unaccustomed to formal piano-playing before an audience,
you will undoubtedly be nervous. Now if you go to the piano knowing that
the music before you is going to tax your utmost powers, you will be
still more nervous, and the probabilities are that you will not only not
play the music effectively, but that you will play it badly and make
many technical slips. The more you make, the more nervous you will
become, till it would not be surprising if you should break down
altogether. On the other hand, if you are conscious that the music is
well within your powers--that you have technical facility enough and to
spare--you will not be harassed by fears of making blunders, but will
lose all your nervousness as soon as you begin to play and to realize
how easy your work is. Thus instead of being constantly on the watch for
fear of making mistakes, you will be able to devote your entire
attention to giving every phrase the right expression. If you have
carefully studied the musical beauties of each composition, you will no
doubt surprise yourself as well as your friends by the intelligence and
sentiment of your playing. Bear in mind the fact that such great artists
as Paderewski frequently charm and move an audience more by the amount
of color and expression which they throw into easy compositions like
Chopin's E-flat nocturne, while in their more brilliant playing, as in
one of Liszt's Hungarian rhapsodies, they gain applause rather as the
result of amazement at their conquest of technical difficulties than as
the demonstration of sincere delight in the music itself. And now I
shall leave the rest to the girls. I am sure that among the readers of
this paper there must be hundreds and hundreds of girls who can play the
piano well enough to get up such musicals as I have suggested.
[Illustration: THE PYROTECHNIC DISPLAY FROM THE FLOATS.]
THE MARINE DEMONSTRATION IN NEW YORK HARBOR.
The city of New York has one of the finest harbors in the world, and it
invariably invokes a burst of admiration from the observer when he first
sails up through its land-locked entrance, passing the low-lying hills
of Staten Island on his left and Long Island on his right; then past
Governors Island, with its old fort, and the Statue of Liberty, to
approach the densely populated Manhattan Island with its innumerable
tall buildings that testify to the admirable skill of the city's
architects and engineers. The forest of masts that fringe the water's
edge, the saucy puffing tugs towing huge vessels, steamboats,
flat-boats, barges, etc., here and there, and the stately steamships
gliding along, make a very impressive picture.
On the night of October 24 some two hundred of these vessels assisted in
a marine demonstration that took place in the harbor, turning its waters
into a fairy scene that will ever remain in the memory of those that
witnessed it. The men identified with the shipping interests of the
country determined to show their enthusiastic support in the late
campaign for sound money, and to do so, adopted the idea of having a
monster marine parade. Every steam-craft that could be spared was
pressed into service, and on the night of the parade threaded its way up
the Hudson River as far as Grant's Tomb--where the procession
started--and fell into line. Along the river front the piers were
brilliantly lighted up and decorated, and thousands of people gathered
to view the unique spectacle. With a roar of steam-whistles, amidst the
soaring of sky-rockets, and fireworks of every description, the boom of
cannon, and the hoarse cheering of the crowds lining the river's banks,
the parade started, proceeding down the stream in stately procession, a
thing of unusual beauty. Each vessel vied with the others in
illuminating its masts, smoke-stacks, and decks with countless electric
lights and colored lamps. A steady stream of fire trailed from some,
while others set off fireworks. Powerful search-lights from the tall
buildings of the cities threw their strong beams on the fleet. Music
sounded faintly through the blasts of steam-whistles, and the river and
harbor resolved itself into a field of colored fire. The huge office
buildings were brilliantly lighted, and from the windows people watched
the scene.
Arriving off the Battery, the vessels gathered around some floats
anchored there, and completely blocked the harbor as a crowd might a
street. Suddenly these floats became fringed with beautiful colored
fire, and a busy little tug industriously hustled around to various
smaller floats stationed here and there, and lighted a compound on them
that produced a high-leaping flame. Sky-rockets soared from the larger
floats in an incessant stream, bursting high overhead in showers of
exquisitely colored sparks, and streams of bombs shot skyward only to
explode in a downpour of fire. Some flew up to burst and whirl around,
producing an effect of a huge umbrella of sparks.
For an hour the sky rained a stream of gorgeous colored fire in which
even the powerful glare of the search-lights was lost. The bombs
exploded overhead like the rattle of musketry, and through it all the
steam-whistles kept up a steady roar that must have made the farmers far
out in the rural districts uneasy in their sleep. Loudly as the crowds
packed on the decks of the gathered vessels yelled their enthusiasm,
their shouts were completely lost in the screech of whistles. Then came
the prettiest spectacle of the pyrotechnic display. Without any warning,
hundreds of feet overhead, suspended in mid-air between the Battery and
Governors Island, Old Glory floated, a huge flag of red, white, and blue
fire.
H. E.
SAWDUST WILL TELL.
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.