Radio is Changing Us [antikvár]

INTRODUCTORY (1) prospero and aeriel It seems strangely appropriate that the entrance hall of Broadcasting House is presided over by Eric Gill's figures of Prospero and Ariel. I like to think of Prosper© as that benevolent and occasionally prosy despot, the controlling body of the B.B.C., the " master of a full poor cell," a trifle self-righteously telling us again and again of his lofty motives. " I thus neglecting worldly ends, all dedicated to closeness and the bettering of my mind." He keeps on reminding Ariel of the dire plight from which he has rescued him, and grows a little peevish at the reiterated demands of the Spirit of the Ether for a new lease of freedom as meed of service. Miranda, of course, is the fair symbol of the high-souled broadcasting instrument, fashioned and directed by Prospero, still a little lost in wonderment at the brave new world and the goodly creatures in it. *rhen, Caliban is surely the crude personification of the malicious brutish section of the public, the vilest of ingrates, pitied by Prospero, who took pains to make him speak and know the time punctually, and got little thanks for his uplifting pains. Miranda speaks these words in childlike bewilderment; " Miranda. You have often Begun to tell me what I am ; but stopp'd, And left me to a bootless inquisition ; Concluding, ' Stay, not yet.' " The Tempest, I. 2. (An obvious allusion to those sterile committees of inquiry.)