“MARGOT” IN EXCELSIS

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11251, 1 July 1922, Page 12

“MARGOT” IN EXCELSIS

Mrs Asquith, immediately on her return from the United States, contributed to the “Evening Standard” (London) her experiences in America. In these reminiscences, as in her notorious autobiography, she is an audacious self-flatterer. Occasionally she stops throwing bouquets at herself in order to throw one at her married daughter, Princess Bibeseo, whose husband is a member of the staff of the Roumanian Legation at Washington. “The reception rooms, concert hall and ballroom were filled with fashion and beauty,” writes Mrs Asquith concerning a ball given by Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt at New York. “I gazed about to see whom I knew. My eye fell upon my daughter Elizabeth, and I thought her black velvet Aubrey Beardsley dress was among the prettiest in the room.”

Mrs Asquith next caught sight of Mr Balfour, “looking young and happy.” “In spite of the admiring throng by whom he was surrounded,' she continues, “I skirmished through them, and, taking him by the arm, engaged him in conversation. Being incapable of flattery, I told him with what extraordinary ability he had represented Great Britain at the Washington Conference, how glad we all were that he had been selected, and how enchanted I was to see him. With the dazzling charm that never deserts him, he asked me searching questions as to how my lectures were progressing, and implored me not to overtire myself. I answered that 1 was always tired, but said with truth that neither he nor I would ever grow old. I know something about youth, a?* we Tennants are a race apart—not because we are specially clever, learned, famous, or amusing, but because we have no age. I hare been told by gipsies, palmists, phrenologists, and others of the kind many senseless and incompatible things, but upon two matters they were all agreed—they said that I would always be young enough to make love and inspire it, and that I waa of a kind and generous disposition. In these ways I resemble my father. Sleepless, irritable, impatient, and interested, he could skip and dance at the age of rixty better than most young men in their 'teens; and his last beautiful daughter was born when he was eighty.”