INFLUENCE OF A CLEVER WOMAN.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 108, 8 May 1909, Page 10

INFLUENCE OF A CLEVER WOMAN.

A striking demonstration of the infra ence which it is possible for a clever woman to attain among the leaders of political policy in England is given in a bulky collection of the correspondence and reminiscences of Mme. Olga Novikoff, just published (writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne Age). The leaders of the women's movement in this country seem to have learned nothing from the personality and methods of the ingenious lady whom Beaconsfield called the "Member for Kussia," although several of them are nob inferior to her in culture, persistency, and enthusiasm. Tactlessness, both individual and coiporate, is the fatal deficiency which has so far maimed their engineering efforts, and may yet defeat their main purpose. Mr. AshrneadBartlett, one of the many English poll ticianb captivated by Mme. Novikoff, declared some time ago that she did more by her diplomacy and writings to strengthen Russia during the crisis of 1876-78 than if she had equipped an army corps of 100,000 men. For years she conducted a salon in her rooms at Claridge's Hotel, and in spite of her reputation for being "dangerous" politically, and "an intriguing Russian E P V " ( an apparently groundless charge), she contrived to attract, in addition to leading public men, Froude, Freeman. Carlyle, and other writers of the day. Letters now published for the first time show that Gladstone acquired a remarkable degree of trust in Mme. Novikoft's good sense and powers of reticence during crises in which any indiscreet disclosure on her part would have compromised him very seriously. An indication of the free style of their intercourse is seen in a written description of Lord Salisbury, which he gave her on one occasion. "I think it right at once," he wrote, "to give you my opinion of Lord Salisbury, who I know pretty well in private. He has little foreign or Eastern knowledge and little craft. He is rough of tongue in public debate, but a great gentleman in private society. He is very remarkably clever, of unsure judgment, but he is above everything that is mean; has no"Dis raelite prejudices, keeps a conscience, and has plenty of manhood and cha racter. In a word, .the appointment of Lord Salisbury to Constantinople is the best thing the Government has yet done in the Eastern question. He is a nia.i whose confidence is worth winnirrg." Mme. Novikoff wort confidence partU because she was loyal to her adopted country as well as to Russia. Mj. W. T. Stead, one of her oldest friends (and the compiler of her correspondence and reminiscences) bear? testimony to her usefulness to England. "II is," he sa t ys, "Mme. Novikoff's peculiar and unique claim to the grateful recognition c.^ the nations that she more consistent ly, more persistently, and more con spicuously than any otlier human being maintained in both countries the causo of the Anglo-Russian entente. And tha^ being the case, I am justified in claiming her right to be recognised "as the real heroine of a great international rapprochement, the most outstanding figure of influence among all those who contributed to replace enmity by cooperation, to make foes into friends."