STUDY AND STUDIO.
Mary.—1. For the London B.A. degree, three successive examinations are necessary; matriculation, the intermediate B.A., and the final B.A. It would take you three years, under favourable conditions, to pass them.—2. As to whether a girl, just eighteen, could prepare for these examinations at home, working four hours a day, much depends on the ability and the previous education of the student; but she would have to be an unusually clever girl to accomplish it. Coaching, if only by correspondence, is most desirable. Two questions are all we can answer at one time.
Roseville.—
"The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were dead,"
is the first verse of a song by Thomas Moore. You will find it in any collection of his poems.
Dovu (Fiji).—The author of Chronicles of the Schönberg-Cotta Family and The Diary of Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan, is Mrs. Rundle Charles.
Miss Adamson, formerly of Tunbridge Wells, desires to inform the readers of The Girl's Own Paper that her Amateur Literary Guild has ceased to exist. She recommends an excellent pseudonym club with a printed magazine: address, Miss Cornwall, 10, Princeton Mansions, Red Lion Square, London. We accept no responsibility whatever with regard to this, or any amateur society.
A. H. Richards.—In Christina Rossetti's poem "Uphill" the "inn" may be taken as meaning "death" or "the grave." The poem is a sombre allegorical description of life's journey and its inevitable close.
"Of labour you shall find the sum,"
we understand as signifying, "You shall have labour enough and to spare," a stern reply to the inquiry, "Shall I find comfort?" This fine poem is written in Miss Rossetti's austerest strain.
Zara Keith.—Your poems are above the average of those we receive for criticism. They are so good, that it would be worth your while to try to make them better. "Soar the skies" is an incorrect expression, and "boons" is an inadmissible verb. The close of "aspiration" is too abrupt. We like the poem "Communion" best. We see no reason why you should not, with careful study and practice, write what will find acceptance some day.