“DAYS I KNEW"

Evening Star, Issue 19020, 15 August 1925, Page 15

“DAYS I KNEW"

THE JERSEY LILY'S BOOK

Lillie Langtry has written' a book, mainly about her beauty, published under the above heading. The amazing things that happened to her during her career as n beauty in English society seem almost incredible to-day. But Richard Le Callienne in a preface has called her the most beautiful woman in the world. “Something more than a woman. She belongs to such marvels as tho moon 1 and the sea.” She was mobbed by multitudes wherever she went. Whole towns turned out to soo her as she passed, kings put their palaces and yachts at tier disposal, and Oscar Wilde wont to sleep on her doorstep after writing ‘ The New Helen ’ to Tier, and Mr Langtry, “returning unusually late, put an end, to his poetic dreams by tripping over him.”

Wilde also wrote 'Lady Windermere’s Fan ’ for her, but the wayward Lillie indignantly refused to play it. “My dear Oscar,” she remonstrated, when ho brought the play to read to her, “ am I old enough to have a.,gi’own-up daughter of any description P Don’t open tho manuscript—don’t attempt to read it. Put it away for twenty years.” She went through all the gaieties of her first London season in one simple black evening frock, and might have carried it through a second if a friend, Mrs Cornwallis-West, had not borrowed it and danced it to rags. But she soon caught up with the extravagances of the times, and after a third season she and her husband were sold up for debt when, as she naively writes, “Mr Langtry found it convenient to go fishing.” He was never heard* of again. Millais, Watts, Whistler, Frank Miles, Burne-Jones, and Edward Poynter all painted her portrait. Queen Victoria, though n weary old woman, stood through to the end of a “ drawing room ” because “ it seems that she had a great desire to see ms, and had stayed on in order to satisfy herself as to my appearance.” Though never a great actress, Mrs Langtry’s stage career was brilliant and daring, and indomitable. The woman of whom George Smalley wrote, “ She passes Acts of Parliament for her private use,” and of whom Sarah Bernhardt said, “ With that chin she will succeed,” made numerous fortunes, and squandered them with a careless hand. Twenty years on tho turf won many thousands for her, and her best successes wore made with Australian horses, notably Merman, Maluma, and Aurina.