All together a pretty humdrum chapter, but I never promised you excitement. But for those of you who read Mary Eagle's Journal, there is a bit about her in this.

And if anybody really wants a full synopsis, I put on at the start of chapter 15.

 January 1902

After the boys had gone back to their respective school and university, May and Muriel continued to correspond with them on a regular basis, but now Muriel only wrote to Harold and May only wrote to John. They didn’t share their letters with each other quite as they had before, possibly reading out bits, but not letting the other read the entire contents.

Muriel wrote to Harold:

“Dear Harold,

I know that you are dedicating your life to finding tin, and I am sure that is a worthwhile occupation, but it occurs to me, that I really know very little about what tin is used for. Perhaps you your next letter you could enlighten me.
Here is my quotation for you.
The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.
Do you know who said that?  Perhaps I should write a book about tin and tin mining so that I could learn about it properly.

Love,

Muriel

Harold’s reply in just over a week went like this:

Dear Muriel

I think what you quoted came from Disraeli. Am I right?

You asked about the uses for tin. There are so many it is hard to list them all, but the main one is to use as a coating for iron to keep it from rusting. That is called galvanising. There are two forms of tin but the one that has most use is called white tin, and it is formed by heating gray tin above 55.76º. It will turn back to gray tin if its temperature falls below that level, so small amounts of antimony or bismouth are added to white tin to keep it from doing that.

Tin cans are the most familiar example of galvanising. The can is made from steel and then a thin layer of tin is applied inside and out to keep it from rusting. Tin is also used in the Pilkington process of making glass. Molten glass is poured onto a pool of molten tin. The glass floats on the surface of the tin and cools forming solid glass with flat parallel surfaces – as you need when you make window glass. Tin combined with copper makes bronze, and with lead it makes pewter and solder.
I hope you don’t find that too boring, but you did ask. I am always pleased to have a suggestion as to what to write in a letter, as it sometimes is hard to think of things to say.

My quotation for you is, I have made this letter longer because I have not had time to make it shorter. Who said that?

Love,

Harold”

The late winter and early spring was a rather dull time for Muriel, so she decided she would follow up Mr. Tree’s suggestion regarding her grandmother Martha Trew’s poetry, and try sending it to various magazines. She had copied out each poem in a fair hand to give to Mr. Tree, so she needn’t do that again. She just had to decide which to send to whom.

To make her list of publications that might suit, she visited the local bookstores, and the library, and also spoke with the literature tutors at Victoria Institute. Her short list was as follows:

The British Women’s Club Health and Beauty Magazine. She sent them the poems called Human Frailty and The World is but a Fleeting Show.

Everyday Housekeeping was sent - Forget me Not and Happiness.

The Young Woman – a hard one to send to, as all the poems were rather old fashioned, but she ended up sending My God  which was the poem about the woman who kept taking God’s name in vain.

MacMillan Magazine – She thought the poem about the Queen might suit them best.

And then there were two magazines which were due to start later this year, but they apparently would already be considering material to put in it. She thought she would send a poem to each of them – The Hibbert Journal with Sonnet on Madame Malibian and The Women’s Magazine with Guildford Castle with the illustration her grandmother had done to go with it.

Harper’s Bazaar was an American Magazine, mostly fashion but perhaps worth trying. On the Daintiest could do for them.

So matching the likely audience for the magazine with the content of each poem, she sent them off, and then settled back to await the result.

“May 10th, 1902

Dear Muriel,

I know it will be your birthday soon. I hope you have a very wonderful day.
We had a very good time at the Trethisick Festival. I had hoped you might come, but there is always next year. I missed having you here. Lots of the men had their girls and I felt rather left out, since I would have been proud to show you off as my girlfriend.

The weather here has been very good, and I am really enjoying the extra mildness after the sharp winds we often had in Worcestershire.

Here is my quotation for this letter. I know you are an artist so I hope you won’t be offended:

Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic.

Love from Harold

June 1st

Dear Harold,

I didn’t know your quote, but I have got a book from the library on quotations but I couldn’t find it in that either. You will have to tell me.

My art work is progessing – although it isn’t the conventional art of paint on paper. I have made some very ornate tables in my woodworking class and carved them with patterns. I can’t wait for you to come home so I can show you.

I am still pursuing the idea of having great-grandmother’s poetry published and have sent each of the poems that our little group read to different magazines. I hope that at least one of them will find success. But I haven’t heard anything yet.
Will you have time off in the summer? I expect your term will be finished by the end of June, but I don’t really know. Perhaps your terms are longer than other colleges. John of course will be home soon as Oxford terms are only 8 weeks. May can hardly wait to see him again. I am wondering if he will ask her to marry him. They do seem very close.

It is hard to think of things to write about. Perhaps you could ask me questions too. I could rant and rave about the local gossip, but somehow I don’t think that would interest you. I hope to be seeing you soon.

My quote for this letter is:
Let each man exercise the art he knows.

Love,

Muriel

John and Harold came home, and May and Muriel spent many exciting times with them, cementing their friendship, but no rings were exchanged that summer.

Muriel got letters back from three of the magazines. Two said that they were sorry but the material was not suitable for their publication. One said they had already chosen their material for the near future. Not only were the poems rejected but Muriel felt like she herself had been rejected, even though she hadn’t written them.
Muriel became more depressed as each letter arrived. She had so much hoped to share her grandmother’s work with the world. But at least she had tried. She had done her best.

The only other thing of consequence that happened in that year was that Mary Walker, Charlotte’s mother, died suddenly of apoplexy. It was a great shock to the family, but Mr. Walker kept up his rule about the girls who had left home not coming back, even to the extent of barring them from their mother’s funeral. Charlotte thought he was starting to “lose it” himself and found him more and more difficult to cope with.