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| Ethel Smyth, by John Singer Sargent. |
In 1912, Thomas Beecham visited Smyth in Hollway, where she'd been imprisoned for breaking the windows of an MP who did not support women's suffrage. He walked in to witness a group of inmates singing her 1911 song "The March of the Women", "marching round [the courtyard] and singing lustily their war-chant while the composer, beaming approbation from an overlooking upper window, beat time in almost Bacchic frenzy with a toothbrush." (Beecham, Thomas (1958). "Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944)". The Musical Times 99 (1385): 363–365.)
I like her already. And her Bacchic toothbrush.
Her Wikipedia page says.... Composer, writer, and suffragist. All round interesting lady. Fell in love with both Emmeline Pankhurst, and Virginia Woolf. When encroaching deafness ended her music career, she turned to writing. I like the look on her face here, in Sargent's drawing - I didn't take a picture of the card but it's the same one that I've used here, available on Wikicommons. Is she expectant? Inspired? Determined, ready to face the future?
I sent this to a friend who's currently living up north and has been in my thoughts a lot recently. We don't see her enough. Ethel seems like the kind of lady that she'd like, or indeed would like to have a pint with, so it seemed appropriate to send Ms Smyth winging through the mail to say hi.
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