THE HANDSOMEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 1257, 26 February 1881, Page 2

THE HANDSOMEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

The wife of William Morris, the poet, can give points to Mrs. Langtry and the rest of the professional beauties, if a correspondent of the Inter-Ocean is to be trusted :—" She is a mysterious, Egyptian-looking woman, with great ' sad eyes, and Oriental complexion, burning aoarlet lips, and the eipres- , Bion of ineffable remoteness and vagueness that one in imagination gives te the sphynz. The young lady's face was : just one of the inexpressively melan- i choly ones that the pre-Raphaelites ' adore — just the type of young women coming down the ' golden stairs' in Burne Jones' picture at the Grosvenor Qallery this year— and Morris married : her. Not long ago this lady wore at an i evening party a rohe of the sheeniest, filmiest white mn&liu, fine enough to be i drawn through a ring. Tlie petticoat i

under it must have been the aame, for the folds of the robe clung to her body as if cut by the finest chisel. At the waist this thin robe was confined by a long supple chain in the form of a serpent, which, after writhing ait>und her body, dropped its jewelled head by her left side, where its diamond eyes glittered and burned like fire. Egyptian bracelets and necklace adorned her arms and neck, and an Egyptian masque gathered and held the fold of the robe at the throat. Her blaok hair was one thick mass of short curls, and lay close down to her eyes, crept in and out by another golden serpent with jewelled scales and burning eyes. One would have suid she was a Cleopatra, who had turned h»r asps into gold and jewels, and come to life to dazzle a barbarian world."