f,i4 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



believer in the idea that music can assist 

 the recovery of health, and he thinks it 

 not at all impossible that one day music 

 will be known as the great Healer, in 

 addition to the many other uses of the 

 Art. He is a staunch advocate of British 

 music, and through his efforts tne works 

 of many of our composers have been per- 

 formed in Italy. 



K^GTIME OR RINGTIME? 



The editor of the Vineyard, Maude 

 Egerton King, contributes to her maga- 

 zine an idea entitled " Ragtime and 

 Ringtime." She describes a visit to a 

 ragtime performance, which occupied 

 the greater part of an afternoon, and 

 contrasts it with a lecture, illustrated bv 

 sword, morris, and country dances, given 

 by Mr. Cecil Sharp and the dancers of 

 the Folk-Dance Society. 



The witticisms of the ragtime per- 

 formance, she says, played recurrently 

 round a subject least belonging in that 

 sterile world — the baby, while the danc- 

 ing was characterised by its cynical in- 

 version of all normal feeling for love, 

 beauty, or pleasure. Nor did leaving the 

 music hall mean immediate escape, for 

 the ragtime had the power to taint one's 

 outlook on everything. Everything 



seemed to be jerking, grovelling to the 

 discords and broken measure of ragtime. 

 How different Mr. Cecil Sharp's band 

 of young people ! Delightful as health 

 and pleasantness and living art could 

 make them, these dancers and their 

 dances are magical in their effects. 

 Where did these bringers-in of spring- 

 time and ringtime get their dances from ? 

 From the country, from the wholesome 

 life of open earth and sky, where the 

 best of them originated in pagan wor- 

 ship, passing into and through mediaeval 

 life, not without modification of time 

 and place in the ritual of its holy days, 

 answers the writer. Ragtime, on the 

 other hand, came from the pavement, and 

 is the ritual of a life that has ransacked, 

 not reverenced, the passions, and, find- 

 ing them all vanity, turned upon them 

 with mockery and denial. One need but 

 look round the audience of a ragtime 

 show to realise the truth of Blake's 

 words : " They become what they toe- 

 hold." To some sort of measure all life 

 must move, the writer concludes. It is 

 for such companies as the young May- 

 bringers to rout ragtime and whatever 

 other fashion runs counter to the cosmic 

 rhythm and the beating of the human 

 heart. 



MISTRESSES AND MAIDS. 



.\MAZONS IN .\RMS. 

 Mane Corelli writes in Naslis on 

 " The Why and Wherefore of the Revolt 

 of Women," and, apart from^ her severe 

 admonishment of Abraham for his lack 

 of chivalry to the sex, will find many 

 supporters of her amiable protest against 

 militancy. If Miss Corelli extended her 

 Biblical criticism it would indeed make 

 pretty reading, but w^e must be content 

 with the present instalment, which she 

 excuses with the explanation: — 



I have purposely gone over this episode of 

 ancient and sacred history to remind men 

 generally of the notable example set them by 

 the patriarch beloved of heaven, so that they 

 may realise how closely and persistently, in 

 small as well as in great things, they have 

 followed and vstill follow his "lead" with 

 regard to women. In the laws they have 

 laid down for the weaker sex, and in their 

 mode of applying those laws, they have 

 chiefly studied their own pleasure, suitable- 

 ness and convenience, even as Abraham 



studied his own pleasure, suitableness and 

 conveiiience. Abraham has repeated himself 

 and is still repeating himself with monotonous 

 sameness in various forms of tlie old story all 

 over the world to-day, and women are pr<^tty 

 equally divided into Sarais and Hagars. 



To the militants Miss Corelli is quite 

 motherly, in an austere kind of way :^ 



No, my dear sisters all ! — I cannot condone 

 the meanness of slinking about under cover 

 of the night and injuring the property of in- 

 nocent people, or damaging national treasures 

 of art, which are yours as much as any one 

 else's to guard and to cherish. Such actions 

 are like those of naughty children who smash 

 father's watch and break mother's china 

 simply because they cannot have their own 

 wilful way. Believe me or discredit me as 

 you will, there is no one that has the true 

 Cause of your "Rights" more at heart than 

 I- but I deprecate and deplore every rough 

 and evil deed which makes you resemble un- 

 civilised man at his worst. Violence is man's 

 prerogative; woman's province is to gain by 

 gentleness what he snatches by brute 

 strength. The " militant Suffragette " is un- 

 womanly; and therein lies her worse disgrace. 



