The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-07-05

Her Ixnprompru Call Lord Salisbury and
How She Repaid His Courtesy.
Ouida and Jimmy Whistler have
caused the Londoners to feel over
whelming spasms of fear at the near
approach Of literary persons Perhaps
this accounts in some measure for the
great celebrity enjoyed by literary peo-
PIE IN the big English metropolis.
What Mr.. Whistler writes and says al
ways attracts more attention than the
things he paints, while the stories Of
the manner in which Ouida has snub-
bed, insul1ed and berated the people
who have tried to be civil to her are in
Vulnerable. The last time she was in
London she was wandering along st.
James place, when a big yellow house
up a side street caught her eye. She
walked up and looked at it thoughtfully.
She was a queer figure of a small,
shrunlEen woman of advanced years,
with a scanned and wrinkled face, old
fashioned ringlets hanging in front Of
her ears, an odd little bonnet cooked
asl1ew on her head, hoopskirts and old
fashioned congress CATERS
She leaned forward on her big UNI
breIla and gazed at the house for long
while Finally she beclzoned a police
man to her and asked him who lived
there. The policeman touched his cap
and remarked that it was the town
house of the prime minister. Thereupon
Ouida walked up to the door, rang the
bell and told the aunky who opened the
door to announce to Lady Salisbury that
she was there. The dunky looked her
over carefully and sent a second foot
man up stairs with the message, while
he kept mis- eye upon the odd looking
visitor
Lady Salisbury, like most English
women, had adored Ouida in her school
days, and she carno down stairs and set
about the work of making the novelist
welcome She was cut short in her
speech, however, by a terse inquiry from
her visitor concerning the prime minis
ter
IT should be greatly obliged if you
will bring him down, and l Will look at
him. have never seen him, and as I
am going away from London shortly I
shall probably never have another Cd
portunity Of seeing him unless you bring
him in now
She seemed to regard the Marquis of
Salisbury as q sort Of prize pig to be ex-
hibited, and she talked about him in
such a curious fashion that Lady Sails
bury went back TO her study and brought
IN that exalted parsonage. Ouida look
6Q at nm through nGT SpocTacleS WIN
the same air Of examining a prize ex-
hibit that was suggested in her talk and
finally ended by expressing her approval
of the premier.
She was invited to come and dine in
an informal way two nights later, and
the prime minister, who had been enor-
mously tickled by the interview, invit-
ed a number of lofty personages to his
house that night The dinner hour
came, but no Ouida. The guests sat
down and talked about the novelist, but
not word was heard from her, and it
was not discovered until the following
day that she had read a speech of ths
Marquis Of Salisbury on the morning of
the day of the dinner, and it had dis
pleased her so much that she had decid-
ed to have nothing to do with the Sails
burys thereafter.
At the present time Ouida is in a
pitiable condition. Her house and all
her personal property in Italy have been
sold to pay her debts, and she is almost
destitute of money. Her eccentricities
have become more and more pronounc-
ed, and it IS said that the people who
are brought into contact with her find
it almost inpossibl to retain their com
posure under the sharp and biting COM
ments which she makes upon them. -
London Letter.