“Margot” Writes More Memoirs

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1927, Page 9

“Margot” Writes More Memoirs

B- "■ HE Countess ot Oxford and Asquith h;>s a great reputation for cleverness and wit, and in her new volume of essays, My Sermons,” if she has not much of importance to say, she contrives to amuse and interest. Where she touches politics, however, she shows signs of prejudice. She is at her best in dealing with the social sin of carelessness: —■ I entertain in my little , coun tr.v house at Sutton Courtney what j a “good class” of guest, but I haxe often wondered why they .burn holes in the mantelpiece by forgotten .. v break my saucers feeding their do p b > a never turn tho electric light out- When thev Jo down to dinner or retire to bed. I sleep in a barn at tho bottom of a garden path facing the. house, and, waking up at three o’clock one morning, 1 observed a bright and flickering V*;} 1 '" “J the window of the bridge room. I jumped out of bed. . . Aly guests had turned out the electric light, but forgotten the candles, one of which had guttered on to the table, and ultimately fallen on to the cloth. The lire was easily extinguished. She insists that in telegrams names should be signed in full: — Margot is not a very common name, but after being told that my telegrams arrived signed “Maggie” and "Maggot, I never forget to add my surname. MR. LLOYD GEORGE, “MOVIE”' The name of Mr. Lloyd George is to Lady Oxford very much what a red rag is to a bull: — Tho general election of 191 S was an attempt, which partially succeeded, to assassinate all Liberals of importance. It was succeeded by the worst Government known to our Parliamentary history. Mr. Llovd George who was returned and kept in office by the Tories, went in for measures so antagonistic to Liberalism that he succeeded, after nearly killing the Conservative Party, in killing his own coalition. ... If the Liberal Party is ever to rise to a great future it must cleanse itself of crookedness and fear. It must return to the moral integrity which made it great. And it must run straight. It must not rush either to Labour or a Tory hoping to spot a winner. , There is another dig at Mr. Lloyd George in the essay on character: — Mr. Lloyd George loves a crowd more than himself or his friends. Enduring society, soliciting advertisement, he has chanced, changed, and challenged himself in the arena of fortune. He guesses without pause what the person he ’is talking to is thinking, but while they are stationary he is a. movie. In spite of an intelligence amounting to genius, he waylays himself. Lady Oxford gets very close to the truth in her estimate of Lord Curzon: — He set an example to the world of tireless industry, unswerving courage, and a life dedicated to the public service, but he overlooked the power of love. dismal’dancing. On fashion she has a great deal that is challenging to say:— The time will soon arrive when, as objects of attraction, skirts as short as kilts may be discarded. The fashion of the present day is what is called the "Eton crop,” and festooning the chest

LADY ASQUITH with large imitation pearls. Women with neither backs nor tops to their heads, and faces as large as hams, appear at the King’s drawing rooms with the nuque of their necks blue from shaving, and either the brains or the headgear have undergone a tremendous change in the feminine world, but I cannot buy a hat that will cover the top of my head. Dismal, too, in Lady Oxford’s opinion, is the modern ballroom: — Whereas in my early youth the valsing needed extreme activity, the dancing of to-day exacts a certain immobility, and is as well executed by the old as by the young. An eminent Frenchman, on being shown tho modern dancers, exclaimed: “.To n’ai jamais vu < lc figures tristes ct de derrieres gais. The French must be left untranslated, as it is a language -in which anything can be said.