Page 8 - To Dragma May 1934

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Whitby 106

I By SISTER ANTONINE

The College of St. Catherine

T H E SPIRIT OK PEACE has been, among t
other subtle influences in a goodly heri-
•tagc the "strong and dominant angel" in Hie COURTESY, M A I N E Al.l"M>
•writing of Mary Ellen Chase ( F ) . T o no
•Environment, once she has been a part of it, one side by a door opening into the gleaming
•has ^'ie ever been wholly unresponsive and freshness of a bath, on another by a set of
•certainly not inarticulate in giving voice to its wide double doors opening out—for gala oc-
Kniquc charms. The memory of her beloved casions, when there is an overflow of company
•jock-strewn coast of Maine "with all its ac- —into a spacious reception room. But these
Icideiits, its habits, its breath, its name," has, occasions—even for a writer of renown—are
•naturally enough, permeated and even fash- rare, and the doors are usually closed in favor
lioncd, through the very genius of place, the of the security and delightful intimacy and op-
l^est of her writings. Minnesota, too, linked portunity, so dear to an author, of "a room
of one's own."
as is much of the Middle West by ties of
•ancestry and allegiance to the State of Maine, Perhaps one of the loveliest things about the
[has had both its fashioning power over and room is that its windows look out on such
Ijts due meed of praise from the distinguished pleasant vistas. One—a single east window-
Krriter. It is characteristic of her that she overlooks the busier thoroughfares of campus
[could not have spent her years here, susceptible life. Three others, facing south, admit a view
of the tall Chapel tower and the quiet cloisters,
as she would be to the rich fertile beauty of seen through a multiplicity of wide-spreading
[the Mississippi valley, the academic walks of maples, delicate birches, evergreens, chestnuts,
Bhe University of Minnesota campus, and, at and tall cottonwoods—and of the terraces
p later day, the high lawns of The College leading from the chapel steps down the hill to
the little lake and beyond, the lake to the
of St. Catherine, without feeling that here, broad rolling lawns that are lost in the thick-
Jtoo, her "lines had fallen in pleasant places" ness of trees at the west edge of the campus.
K-without having been both responsive and It must have been from one of these windows
wrateful to that imtravelled spirit "lurking in that Miss Chase, seated at her desk, looked
line by-ways and ruling over the towers, inde- out, reminiscent and intent, while she gave
ptructible and indescribable unity." form in Kitchen and Cloisters to thoughts
f And yet the "spirit of place" is perhaps but born one rainy summer afternoon in the sanc-
Fa name for the accumulated and abiding power tuary- of the cloister walk. Still another win-
of personality—disembodied but nevertheless dow, facing west, looks down on the English
peal and somehow very tangible. A place, like
la person, has both its give and its take. Whence
i t has happened that at The College of St.
[Catherine—the St. Hilda's of Tlie Golden Asse
Essays—Miss Chase's f a v o r i t e haunts have
[taken on some of the power of her very domi-
nant self. Most especially is this tfUe of the
Boom occupied by Miss Chase during her too
Bew summers and too occasional mid-winter
Risks at St. Catherine's. The room is, or was,
thist an ordinary room with quite an ordinary
[history, if, indeed, a room once lived in can
fever be said to be ordinary. Once an art
itudio and converted at a later day, because
rof its easy accessibility to all parts of the cam-
mus as well as of its seclusion from the vortex
Eof campus activity, into a guest room, it has
now lost all its former significance and has
|>ecome simply "Miss Chase's room." Other
foeople have lived in it, it is true—some before
&nd many since Miss Chase first inhabited it—
&nd have sensed perhaps its abiding spirit,
[Without, however, being aware of the hidden
Sources of its power.

L The room occupies the south end of the
Southeast wing of Whitby Hall. To the un-
Initiate it goes prosaically enough by the name
pf 106. Its flat yellow walls are broken on

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