fast-growing collection.' 26
And when Moreton Frewen, one of her earliest admirers, who was soon to marry the sister of Jennie Jerome (wife of Lord Randolph Churchill and mother of Winston Churchill) arrived in New York, he was immediately quizzed on his friendship with Lillie by a reporter on the New York
Post
.
Would he call himself an intimate friend?
'Unfortunately, no,' replied Frewen.
Would he have wanted to become her good friend?
'I believe she is otherwise occupied,' was his circumspect answer to that one.
Was Mrs Langtry as beautiful as was claimed?
'Yes, I suppose she is.'
Had there been just a hint of hesitation in that reply?
'Not really,' said Frewen. 'She is lovely, but I've found her a bit dull, since she's always surrounded by people. A lily, to bloom as it should, must be planted in its bed.' 27
This was hardly guaranteed to turn the swelling tide of gossip.
Foreshadowing, in a way, the turn her career would ultimately take was Lillie's friendship with someone still far removed from these royal and aristocratic circles: the young Oscar Wilde.
They met towards the end of 1879, after Wilde had come down from Oxford and had moved into the 'untidy and romantic house' 28 just off the Strand belonging to Lillie's artist friend, Frank Miles. Here, in a fittingly fashionable setting – white panelled walls, blue and white china, peacock feathers and sunflowers – Wilde entertained what he described as 'beautiful people' to tea. The most beautiful, in his opinion, was Lillie Langtry.
'The three women I most admired,' wrote Wilde a year before hisdeath, 'are Queen Victoria, Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry. I would have married any one of them with pleasure. The first had great dignity, the second a lovely voice, the third a perfect figure.' 29
Whether any one of the three women would have married him with an equal degree of pleasure is another matter.
Lillie's opinion of Wilde, at this early stage of his career, is rather less flattering. She professes herself 'astounded' at his strange appearance: she describes him as 'grotesque'. His face was too large, his skin too pale, his hair too long, his lips too coarse, his teeth too discoloured, his nails too dirty and his clothes too
outré
. But she had to admit that he had a certain fascination. She found his voice alluring and his enthusiasm infectious. In those days, she says, he was truly ingenuous: 'his mannerisms and eccentricities were then but the natural outcome of a young fellow bubbling over with temperament, and were not at all assumed. ' 30
For Wilde, Lillie's chief attraction was her notoriety. He might pay elaborate homage to her arresting appearance and her sharp mind, but it was her position as
maîtresse en titre
of the Prince of Wales that attracted him more. Determined to hitch his wagon to this dazzling star, Wilde announced himself in love with her. There was nothing like an unrequited love affair with a celebrity to win a budding poet some public attention.
A poem which he had originally written in praise of a youth was slightly altered to fit her ('A fair slim boy' was easily metamorphosed into 'A lily-girl') and an even more fulsome tribute, entitled 'A New Helen', was published in Edmund Yates's magazine,
The World
. 'To Helen, formerly of Troy, now of London', ran Wilde's florid inscription on the white vellum-bound copy which he presented to Lillie.
On his way to visit her, he would stroll along Piccadilly holding in his hand, for all to see, a single lily. He even, so she tells us, once fell asleep, like a devoted dog, on the doorstep of her Norfolk Street house. On another occasion, after the two of them had had a tiff, Wilde, on suddenly spotting her in a box at the theatre, had to be led out of the house in tears.
Lillie, of course, was too shrewd to be taken in by all these flowery gestures. Just as shamelessly as Wilde used her to draw attention to himself, she used him in her continuing quest to improve her mind.
And when Moreton Frewen, one of her earliest admirers, who was soon to marry the sister of Jennie Jerome (wife of Lord Randolph Churchill and mother of Winston Churchill) arrived in New York, he was immediately quizzed on his friendship with Lillie by a reporter on the New York
Post
.
Would he call himself an intimate friend?
'Unfortunately, no,' replied Frewen.
Would he have wanted to become her good friend?
'I believe she is otherwise occupied,' was his circumspect answer to that one.
Was Mrs Langtry as beautiful as was claimed?
'Yes, I suppose she is.'
Had there been just a hint of hesitation in that reply?
'Not really,' said Frewen. 'She is lovely, but I've found her a bit dull, since she's always surrounded by people. A lily, to bloom as it should, must be planted in its bed.' 27
This was hardly guaranteed to turn the swelling tide of gossip.
Foreshadowing, in a way, the turn her career would ultimately take was Lillie's friendship with someone still far removed from these royal and aristocratic circles: the young Oscar Wilde.
They met towards the end of 1879, after Wilde had come down from Oxford and had moved into the 'untidy and romantic house' 28 just off the Strand belonging to Lillie's artist friend, Frank Miles. Here, in a fittingly fashionable setting – white panelled walls, blue and white china, peacock feathers and sunflowers – Wilde entertained what he described as 'beautiful people' to tea. The most beautiful, in his opinion, was Lillie Langtry.
'The three women I most admired,' wrote Wilde a year before hisdeath, 'are Queen Victoria, Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry. I would have married any one of them with pleasure. The first had great dignity, the second a lovely voice, the third a perfect figure.' 29
Whether any one of the three women would have married him with an equal degree of pleasure is another matter.
Lillie's opinion of Wilde, at this early stage of his career, is rather less flattering. She professes herself 'astounded' at his strange appearance: she describes him as 'grotesque'. His face was too large, his skin too pale, his hair too long, his lips too coarse, his teeth too discoloured, his nails too dirty and his clothes too
outré
. But she had to admit that he had a certain fascination. She found his voice alluring and his enthusiasm infectious. In those days, she says, he was truly ingenuous: 'his mannerisms and eccentricities were then but the natural outcome of a young fellow bubbling over with temperament, and were not at all assumed. ' 30
For Wilde, Lillie's chief attraction was her notoriety. He might pay elaborate homage to her arresting appearance and her sharp mind, but it was her position as
maîtresse en titre
of the Prince of Wales that attracted him more. Determined to hitch his wagon to this dazzling star, Wilde announced himself in love with her. There was nothing like an unrequited love affair with a celebrity to win a budding poet some public attention.
A poem which he had originally written in praise of a youth was slightly altered to fit her ('A fair slim boy' was easily metamorphosed into 'A lily-girl') and an even more fulsome tribute, entitled 'A New Helen', was published in Edmund Yates's magazine,
The World
. 'To Helen, formerly of Troy, now of London', ran Wilde's florid inscription on the white vellum-bound copy which he presented to Lillie.
On his way to visit her, he would stroll along Piccadilly holding in his hand, for all to see, a single lily. He even, so she tells us, once fell asleep, like a devoted dog, on the doorstep of her Norfolk Street house. On another occasion, after the two of them had had a tiff, Wilde, on suddenly spotting her in a box at the theatre, had to be led out of the house in tears.
Lillie, of course, was too shrewd to be taken in by all these flowery gestures. Just as shamelessly as Wilde used her to draw attention to himself, she used him in her continuing quest to improve her mind.
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