MRS ASQUITH.

Patea Mail, Volume XXXIV, 5 June 1911, Page 1

MRS ASQUITH.

It is not given to many of our women to be as sure of success and to attain it as surely as the wife of the Prime Minister has done. In the days of her young ladyhood Mrs. Asquith, says the World's Work, was one of the most romantic figures in England, if not in Europe. By the sheer force of personality, without the support of a great family name, she made herself a figure, was almost the embodiment of an ideal in that really powerful circle which still rules the British Empire. Stately Victorian dowagers, no doubt, disapproved of the wild pranks—many of them imaginary—laid at the door of 'Miss Margot Tennant; but hundreds of friends worshipped her, and no doubt, hundreds more, as strangers, followed her as a shining example of cleverness and audacious brilliancy. She was made the heroine of popular novels, more or less ' thinly disguised, and was undoubtedly the foundress and guiding light of a witty, worldly, yet serious, circle known as "The Souls.” Through these several years of triumph Miss Tennant romped in great good spirits, always to the front wherever matters of interest were happening, and seemingly determined to play a prominent part in the social history of her country. It is probably apocryphal that as a young man Lord Rosebery ever said that be was going to marry the greatest heiress in England, win the Derby, and be Prime Minister. It is, perhaps, equally untrue that Miss Tennant ever made the vow attributed to her Unit she was going to be the wife of a Prime Minister of England. If she did it shows a great deal of perspicuity to have picked a Prime Minister 14 years before his accession to the post.