Dora Montefiore Justice 1910

A Word about Poetry


Source: Justice, Our Women’s Circle, p. 5, March 19, 1910;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford.


William Morris must have been experiencing such a first week of March as we have just been enjoying when he wrote:-

“Slayer of winter, art thou here again?
O, welcome, thou that bringest the summer nigh!
The bitter wind makes not the victory vain,
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky!'’

All Socialist women should read Thomas Hardy’s new volume of poems, “Time’s Laughing-Stocks.” In it he reveals in some exquisite ballads and lyrics the soul of the West Country peasant woman. Some of the ballads are distinguished by a pagan beauty and simplicity which is almost Greek; and in others the rhythm and recurring cadences are so haunting that as one reads one feels on one’s check the tang of the wind from off the long slopes of the downs, and feels all the fatalism of the peasant soul. “The Sunday Morning Tragedy” tells the old, old story of the village girl deceived by her lover, whose repentance and attempt to atone come too late. Whilst Hardy’s word-painting of country-side merrymaking is at its best when he tells how “We Christmas-carolled up the Vale, and down the Vale, and round the Vale.” Unless the unco guid people who want to make other folk good and themselves happy have censored this last volume of Thomas Hardy’s at the libraries, those who cannot afford to buy “Time’s Laughing-Stocks” should ask for it at their public library, and see that they get it.

The Fifth Annual Report

The fifth annual meeting of the Women’s Educational Committee was held at 231, Liverpool Road, Islington, on Saturday, March 12. Delegates from most of the Circles, from the Executive, and from the London Organisation Committee were present, and Mrs. Hyndman was in the chair. The Chairman opened the proceedings by giving an excellent and practical address to the delegates present on the work that had been done, and that might be done, by the Women’s Educational Committee and the Circles. She pointed out that the privileged classes always took care that the schools their children attended should be of the very best, both for physical and intellectual training; and she urged on the comrades present the necessity of getting such control over their schools that they would be in a position to insist on having the very best physical and intellectual training for their children. Various resolutions were then discussed and disposed of, and decisions were arrived at for increasing the efficiency of the work done by the Women’s Educational Committee, the report of which is given below.

D.B.M.