Hostess and Mimic -- Lady Astor An Interesting Personality

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6631, 9 June 1928, Page 5 (Supplement)

Hostess and Mimic -- Lady Astor An Interesting Personality

There is one subject of 'which the American papers never tire, that is Lady Aster, England may be a decadent country, and America the only land whose history is of use to a ‘‘hundred per cent American,” but for all that they are always turning the Press spotlight on Lady Aster, and shouting to the universe that she is one of their countrywomen. The other women, who have made, and are making, political history in great Britain, like Lady Aberdeen, Lady Bhondda, the Duchess of Athol,-Margaret Bondfield, and Mrs. Winteringham, get none of this stagelight. They are merely English, quietly doing their duty as they see it, and not interested in the spotlight, ■Still, Lady Astor is admired and respected by women the world over for the fight she has put up in their cause and many of the descriptions of her personality in a recent issue of the “New York Times” are interesting:—

Lady Astor is a born actress, or perhaps, it is better to say she is an excellent mimic. In her lighter moments she can imitate- any one and keep a roomful -of people laughing, states the paper. With her slender figure it might be 'supposed that imitating a fiat German would be hopelessly beyond her. Not so. You can almost see her expand into the dimensions tcquired, while her voice is that of a Teuton speaking broken English. Lady Astor is a paradox. She is a leader of the new woman movement, and she is

a reactionary when it comes to many of the changes that woman’s emergence have fostered. No bobbed or shingled hair for her. She is unacquainted with face lotions and lipsticks. A bachelor girl—one of the type who would decry marriage and the rearing of children—would be anathema to her. When a member of Parliament excuses Lis bachelorhood by making .the pretty speech that in his youth' he was not so fortunate as to know Lady Astor, she shouted, “shame!” at him and gave him to understand that it was a man’s business to many and raise a family. She is, at onee, conventional and unconventional. In many ways she is the most modem of women. In others she is very old-fashioned.

Of the Present. In the large rooms of her house, where hang pictures by Eomney and Turner, and the more recent ones by Sargent and Do Laszlo, she seems a part of what many think is a prettier age. Her own portrait by Sargent is charming and dignified, yet not more so than is the original to-day. She is so distinctly of the present out of the past and looking into the future that it is difficult to appraise her in terms of a woman of to-day. The elements are so mixed in Nancy Astor that she is • a distinct type—a typo not to be found elsewhere. She seems not to care' a rap what people

say of her. Those that know her and love her find her sympathetic with all the world, and especially that part of the world that needs help to lighten its burdens and raise its standards.

During a recent debate in the House of Commoiis there was a brief but sharp passage at arms between the first woman member of that venerable body and an overwrought male member. Said the irate male to Lady Astor: “Go back to the United States where you belong.” And across the narrow aisle of the Chamber came the answer, with a strong Southern intonation: “I do not represent the United States in this House, I represent Plymouth.” For nearly ten years Lady Astor has sat for Plymouth, and to the House she has brought some of the spirit of her native country and of the State of Virginia. As she remarked, she represents Plymouth, and Plymouth is apparently satisfied. Although the British political parties have had many ups and downs in the past decade, Lady Aster has ,not once been seriously challenged since she was first elected in 1919. Lady Aster’s adopted country has no stauncher patriot or harder worker. And it is fair to say that the country of her birth has never sent an emissary to another land who has done more lasting good for the friendship of two peoples than has this Virginia woman.