Page 9 - To Dragma May 1934

6 To DRAG«1
garden, hemmed in with its line of stately
young poplars, and beyond it, over the rolling
meadows, to the river and the wooded west
banks of the Mississippi. Certain it is that this
window has its associations, too, for it recalls
not only the hours spent by Miss Chase in
waging warfare against the cutworms and re-
calcitrant foxgloves in the deep recesses of
the garden, but also the hours in which the
awareness of the eternal geometrizing of God
became so acute and took such beautiful shape
in her essay, Mystical Mathematics.
Within, the room has, from an artistic point
of view, no special claim to distinction other
than its simplicity. Its color is prevailingly
blue—the varied and sHTfting blue, Miss Chase
might say, of "the blue wings of birds." Other
than that, it has no unity of design. It has
indeed an air of friendly casualness, as if it
had concurred quite accidentally, acquiring
thereby an effect of genial good fellowship
and glad little surprises, as when friends—
old and new—just drop in. Its rugs are of a
warm blue with sociable patterns of deep reds
and browns and yellows. Its pictures are old
favorites and new: a copy of a fresco, depict-
ing a medieval hunting scene in motley colors;
several eighteenth century French prints; an
etching of a nameless English village lane; a
plaque of a Giotto St. Francis of Assisi, a trip-
tych of Franciscan saints with St. Clare as its
center; a Luini Madonna; some modern etch-
ings of English cathedrals, in colors; a Delia
Robbia Madonna and Qiild; a still-life study
of flowers and fruits in vivid colors—here in-
deed is infinite variety! Behind a lacquered
screen, whose panels are gay with apple-blos-
soms and blue-jays and rea-breasts is the nar-
row bed with its cool blue coverlet and dainty
puffs of blue organdy pillows. The table be-
side the bed has, for utility, a blue-shaded
lamp and, for sheer joy in the having, an an-
cient pewter candlestick and snuffer and a
Majolica water jug. I think it was in this cor-
ner and in the opposite one, where there is a
very comfortable day bed, that some of Miss
Chase's most pleasurable and most fruitful
hours were spent. For here, after the close
of a busy day—and even the day of an author
who is, ostensibly, resting, can be very busy—
there was time for the companionship of hooks
and sometimes even for long relaxing chats
over the root beer and ice cream, furnished on
hot summer nights by the genie of the nearby
Frigidaire. It is a part of Miss Chase's philos-
ophy that root beer and ice cream, "milk and
bread, meat and spice-cake," are "objects of
poetic and spiritual significance surely could
we but break through the veil of our familiar-
ity with them, fit symbols of life, 'gratia plena' to give form and color to her fine enthusiasms
indeed." What wonder then that her joy in
the mystic beauty of The Cloud of Unknow-
ing, in the reading of Dante and the deepening
conviction of his profound and sublime genius,
in the first meeting with the writings of Baron
von Hugel—all intellectual and spiritual dis-
coveries made in the lateness of after-convent
hours—should have given way at times to the
more mundane and homely pleasures attendant
upon convent kitchens and cloisters!
MA
There is something, too, of the "goodly
heritage" of the past, and something of the R
old world, in this very ordinary room. Sev-
eral prim straight-back chairs of an earlier ^
day give in atmosphere and charm what a few I
overstuffed chairs—in blue and of distinctly •
twentieth century character—make up in com- B
fort. A long mirror in a quaint dark blue I
frame etched in sombre rust-red and the an- I
cient chest of drawers beneath it, come, so r
tradition says, from one of those "substantial I
homes of wood and brick, homes with wide- |»
mouthed chimneys, broad roofs, and beautiful |
doorways," back in New England. Another
mirror in a mahogany frame and an equally
ancient chest of drawers are said to have come
from the home of one of our earliest New
England poets. On a what-not, standing near
the doorway, there is a miniature Winged Vic-
tory, a Bible, a worn Reflections for Religiousi
and a number of the other incongruous ar-
ticles that it is fitting a true what-not should
have.
I do not know what Miss Chase likes best
in this room. But I suspect a predilection for
a carved wooden crucifix, a small replica—
hand-wrought by one of the Sisters at St
Catherine's—with rugged steps and prie-dietl
and all, of those picturesque crosses she must
have seen so often along the wayside in the
countries of Catholic Europe. Or perhaps her
choice would be the desk, of all things the
most personal and the most intimately one's
own. For Miss Chase it must be the symbol
of hours of energy and accomplishment. For
here was read and was written the daily sheaf
of letters; here was done the tedious work of
"proofing" The Golden Asse; here were writ-
ten many of the fragile pages of The Silver
Shell; and here also—or somewhere in this
room—were released the first thoughts of The
Goodly Heritage. The desk would have an-
other source of attraction, too, for Miss Chase,
who loves all "ancient and beautiful" things;
for it is both antique and strikingly graceful
in its lines, having exquisitely carved legs, and
housing, in its inmost recesses, whole rows of
secret drawers and mysterious closet-like com-
partments—the kind of a desk in which one
who delights in the harmony of order could
catalogue all the avenues of her mind and
still find room for more.
I suppose the room should not rightly be
called an ordinary room with an ordinary des-
tiny. Might it not be that the aspiration and
released energy of personalities have left their
mark on it?—first, of youthful art students,
struggling to subject their vagrant fancies to
the discipline of line and form and harmony
of color; then of an artist in books, seeking
for the amenities of life, and to the more
subtle influences of the spirit that moves in
her? Miss Chase, in her gracious way, has
been eloquent in expressing her love for this
room and what it has done for her. And yet
those of us who know her best, know that
there are other reasons why Whitby 106 has
become and will continue to be "Miss Chases
room."