“MORE MEMORIES.’’

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18874, 18 February 1933, Page 13 (Supplement)

“MORE MEMORIES.’’

GREAT HOUBE3. AND FAMOUS PEOPLE. IN EDWARDIAN DAYS. By the 'Countess of Oxford and Asquith). (Continued from last Saturday.) In the London Seasons of my time everyone wanted to meet their friends, and I do not think that “night clubs,” “cocktails,” and the “bottle and pyjama” parties of to-day are a happy exchange for the entertainments given in my youth to meet cultured and interesting people. Lack of money, you will be told, Is the reason for this; but the men and women most worth meeting can always be entertained at small cost, and it is not among the rich that they have ever forgathered. It is a classical complaint that the age that Is past was superior to the one we live in, and no one can doubt that motoring, broadcasting, aeroplaning, science, surgery and machinery have made this a remarkable age; but when history comes to be written, the present reign is one of standardised medioority compared with those of Queen Victoria and King Edward. The nineteenth century produced great poets, great doctors, great divines, great actors, great beauties, great politicians, writers, scientists, and men of authority. There is today no Simpson, Lister, or .Tenner: no Queen Alexandra, Duchess of Leinster, or Lady Dudley; no Darwin, 'Kelvin, Tennyson, or Browning, no Bright, Disraeli, Salisbury, Chamberlain, Gladstone, Magee, or .yquilh: and though Lord Hugh Cecil, Buckmasler and Lord Grey of Fallodon are orators of rare and high distinction, they do not speak often 'enough on public platforms to be well known to the ordinary man In the street. There are many good actors; but we have not got. a Henry Ir\ing, Ellen Terry, or Beerbohm Tree, and It is the despair of playwrights to find any first-rate young tragedienne in the actress of the day. There are no outstanding British .figures like Fred Archer the Jockey, Arthur Roberts the comedian, Kate Vaughan the dancer, Tom Flrr the huntsman, Worth the dressmaker, or ■Grace the cricketer. This is the more surprising, as there is more propaganda, more money given in prizes, and more Press headlines to make men famous to-day than there were in my youth. * • • • Women and Clothes. Thackeray says that- “any woman without an actual hump can marry any man she likes”; but whether this be true or not, It is certain that women of thirty-five to-day possess as much physical attraction for men as those of twenty-five in my girlhood. Women are not only younger for their age, but have long given up wearing clothes considered suitable to their years. I remember belnpr told when ordering drosses in Paris for myself and my stepdaughter (Lady Violet Bon-ham-Carter) that ttie model I chose was not suitable to my age. The vcndcuso said: ".lo regrette do le dire a Madame; mats If rant abdlqucr le rose.”

Nothing Is more conspicuous today than the fashion in clothes worn hv elderly women, and with the disappearance of heavy crape, ample skirts, and widow’s caps, my sex has preserved a youthful appearance. In other respects female fashions were as capricious in my youth as they will always he; hut in our family we did not know enough ladles In high society to he influenced hv ihem. I am always amused when I go to fashionable tableaux annually undertaken for charitable purposes purporting to represent the dresses worn in the ’eighties. 'I can truthfully say that the costumes exhibited hear no resemblance in those that any of us wore in London or the country; and I regret that ! have not kept specimens of the fashions In the clothes that were worn from the lime 1 came out in London society lo the fashions of |lie present day. urn* family may have been considered advanced, hut we wore tweed knickerbockers under siiorl skirls, no hats, and were 100 fond of games, riding and Nip moors, to wear the (railing hails, and befrilled petticoats that arc smiled at in Hie London Tableaux. At Worth's. Amone my father's many tastes lie liked clolhes, and always noticed what people wore. He was well and appropriately dressed himself, and critical of Hie appearance of other people. Much against her inclination, my mother had hep dresses made by Worth, and there was no money that nay father did not love to spend upon

valuable lace for her beautiful caps, I remember her taking some rare and wide Valenciennes lace to Paris hoping that Worth would use It on one of her evening dresses; but Worth said he would never dream of using ‘laoe of the kind for anything but sheets.

Did Worth —who had started life as a shop-walker in Swan and Edgar's—was the greatest genius In devising clothes that ever lived. He told me that upon his first visit to France, the dresses were so hideous that he determined to open a shop in Paris to oonvert the Faubourg frumps and improve the French fashions; and In a very short time every woman of distinction ordered her dresses from him. 1

When ' knew him he strutted about Is a flowered waistcoat, purple velvet Jacket, and black beret —scolding, smiling, and draping various chairs with wonderful brocades; and all nis clients and assistants adored him.

At the time that I was engaged to be married, my mother took me to tParis, and Monsieur Worth made me several beautiful dresses. Knowing that I was devoted to dancing, lie devised a rainbow-coloured gauze gown reaching to the floor which he insisted upon giving to me. It was of immense width, but of such sott material that the gauze clung closely to my figure. He superintended every fitting, and when the dress was finished I asked that all the women who had worked upon it should come downstairs and said that 1 would dance to them. Fitting-Room Dance. I was a pupil of Kate Vaughan's and Lettly Lind's—who both told me I might have been a professional ballet girl—but it Is always a little difficult to dance without music. When M. Worth returned to the 'fitting-room accompanied by the smiling sempstresses, he held his hands behind his back. Inspired by my beautiful dress and feeling In high spirits; I danced as I had never danced before, and was so busy manipulating the yards of stuff In my ample skirts that I noticed nobody. But when I sat down breathless and excited, I looked round and saw that the room was full of people, and Worth flung an enormous bouquet of artificial roses at my feet.

Our nurses and governesses were never tired of telling us that it was wrong to think of personal appearance. But from the earliest age all intelligent children like “dressing up," and everyone in the house combines to help them in the process. This is not prompted by any confidence in their personal appearance, or what nurses call “showing off”; It is a laudable desire to impersonate some one more striking than themselves, and lies at the root of all ambition. In my experience I have seen children proud of their achievements In learning, prowess in games, and boastful of their possessions, but I never met children who were vain of their appearance.

The Queen of Spain said to me one day last year, when I was sitting next to her at a musical party, that she was convinced from the way she had observed how long elderly foreign. women kept their lovers that looks were merely a good introduction. I replied that personally I valued appearance, and would like to have b£en beautiful, as I was certain I could have made a good Job of it. I thought it a mistake for nurses and governesses to say that beauty Is but skin deep. There is a great deal of truth in what the Queen of Spain said; but it is more applicable to foreigners than to English women. Beauty may only he skin deep, but the skin is what you first see, and 1 think it is a sign of stupidity not' to care for clothes.