[Vwoolf] Museum 2621

[Stuart N. Clarke]

“... the streets in the neighbourhood of the Museum were full of open coal-holes, down which sacks were showering; four-wheeled cabs were drawing up and depositing on the pavement corded boxes containing, presumably, the entire wardrobe of some Swiss or Italian family seeking fortune or refuge or some other desirable commodity which is to be found in the boarding-houses of Bloomsbury in the winter.”
(“A Room of One’s Own”, [Hogarth Press, 1929], ch. ii, p. 39)

DIALLING TONES

MUSeum.



When I dial M-U-S,

What I see is what you guess.



>From the BM clad in stone,

>From the Reading Room’s vast dome,

All through the busy welter,

Past the Swiss seeking shelter,

Past the sacks of gleaming coal

Pouring down a pavement hole,

To some shabby houses there—

52 Tavistock Square.

Lawyers’ clients come and go

On the Hogarth Press below

Mrs Woolf is pacing there

In the garden of the square,

A.m., p.m., as inclined,

Another novel in her mind.



What I see is what you guess,

When I dial M-U-S.



In the Jan-Jun 1931 vol. of “Punch”, there are sonnets (or perhaps they’re just 14-line poems) inspired by some of the former London dialling codes -- AVEnue, FAIrfield, FRObisher, GULliver, HILlside, PRImrose, RIVerside – and illustrated by Ernest Shepard.  I find that the poems were written by “Jan Struther”:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/struther/sycamore/sycamore.html



Stuart




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