Chapter 14 No. 7 Shihu Hutong

At No. 7 Shihu Hutong, "there is an annual meeting during the New Year, a Lantern Festival during the Lantern Festival, a Guqin meeting, a painting and calligraphy meeting, and a reading meeting... There are comfortable sofas to lie on, delicious meals to eat, and quite a lot of books and newspapers to read."In this pleasant and self-entertaining atmosphere, members of the Crescent Club drank tea, drank alcohol, talked about politics, literature and art, and celebrities gathered for a while.Liang Qichao, Ding Wenjiang, Lin Changmin, Chen Yuan, Lin Yutang, Xu Shenru and Xu Zhimo's father and son, Wang Genglu Xiaoman and his wife, Yu Shangyuan, Ding Xilin, Ling Shuhua, etc. often come and go here. Lin Huiyin and his cousin Wang Mengyu and Zeng Yuer also often come to participate in various activities Arts and recreational activities.Xu Zhimo wrote a poem about the "new moon" life in this period——"Shihu Hutong No. 7":

Our small garden, sometimes rippling with infinite gentle, Our small garden, sometimes faintly dreams; The vastness after the rain and the dark green of the courtyard are woven into silently, The little frog sat alone in front of Can Lan's chest, listening to the humming, ……… Our little garden, sometimes immersed in joy among; ……… In the mid-1920s, Xu Zhimo took over the "Morning News Supplement".He opened up the column "Poems" in the supplement, which gathered a group of like-minded poets represented by Wen Yiduo and Zhu Xiang, advocating and creating new metrical poems.Their creations have improved the artistic quality of new vernacular poetry.

"Selected Poems of the New Moon" selected and edited by Chen Mengjia, a poet of the New Moon School, is a general review of the poets of the New Moon Society and their creative achievements.Among them, four poems by Lin Huiyin, "Laughing", "Listening to Music in the Late Night", "Love" and "Still" were selected into "Selected Poems of the New Moon". In April 1924, Beijing ushered in the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore was invited by Liang Qichao and Cai Yuanpei to visit China in the name of Beijing Lecture Society. It's like a big drama, before the start, the gongs and drums are already beating loudly; it's also like a symphony, the prelude is played, which lifts people's spirits.

In order to welcome Tagore, cultural people in Beijing made various preparations. Various newspapers in Beijing reported the news one after another, introducing Tagore to readers in detail. Tagore is an encyclopedic philosopher in India. He has written more than 50 collections of poems, 12 novels and novels, more than 100 short stories, more than 20 plays, and more than 1,500 paintings in his life. Paintings, composed hundreds of songs, and wrote a large number of papers.His lyrical poem won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.The University of Calcutta awarded him a doctorate, and the British government knighted him, but he rejected the title in protest against British colonialism.

In order to welcome Tagore's visit, the influential "Novel Monthly" published a special issue of "Tagore", which is divided into two volumes.The Literary Research Association has also published various collections of Tagore's poems. The Lecture Society entrusted Xu Zhimo to be responsible for the reception and accompanying of Tagore during his visit to China, and acted as an interpreter; Wang Tongzhao was responsible for recording and editing Tagore's speeches in various places. Members of the Crescent Club performed Tagore's poetic drama "Chitra" in English.

On April 23, the train on which Tagore was riding arrived at Qianmen Station in Beijing amidst the deafening sound of firecrackers.Liang Qichao, Cai Yuanpei, Hu Shi, Liang Shuming, Gu Hongming, Xiong Xiling, Jiang Menglin and others went to the station to greet them.