The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-07-31
BEHIND THE SCENES.

The Queen Has Softened Toward Lady
 Millais, and Received the Beautiful | Wife of the Great Artist.
 There is world of meaning in the brief announcement contained in the court circular of July ?, to the effect that Lady Millais had arrived at W,nd- sor Castle and had had the honor of being presented to the Queen by her Royal Highness the Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne For the court circular is revised each day by tine queen personally before being issued to the press, and the intimation thus con- veyed is equivalent to a declaration from Her Majesty ex-cathedra that the social ban hitherto in force against the wife of the president of the Royal Academy is at an end.
 Thirty years ago Lady Millais, a wo- man of rare beauty, whose features are reproduced in many of Sir Johns most celebrated pictures, notably in the Re- lease of the Prisoner and in the "Iu- guenot's Farewell" was the wife of John Ruskin, Millais at the time being pupil in his studio. An attachment sprung up between young Millais and Mrs. RuslSin. With that unselfshness which has been one of the greatest characteristics of his entire career, John Ruskin declared that he had no intention of standing in the way of what he was convinced was his wife's happiness. Accordingly, following the chivalrous example set by Sir John Compton, formerly minister at Wash ington, and afterwards ambassador at Madrid, in the case of his wife, nee Vic toria Balfe, who died as Duchess of Frias, he permitted his wife to bring against him in the court at Edfnbor- ough suit that he let go by default and which was of such a nature that it enabled Mrs. Ruskin to contract mat rimoniaI alliance few months after wards with John Millais under her maiden name of Euphemia Grey. It may be added that John Ruskin re- nained the good friend of Mir. and Mrs. Millais just in the same way that Hans von Bulow remained the best friend of his ex-wife and of her second husband, the great composer. Richard Wagner. Indeed, the finest portrait ever painted by John Millais is that which he did of his benefactor, John Ruskin, years af- ter Mrs. .Ruskin had been transformed into Mrs. Millais.
 Society, however, was less tolerant. and until now the doors of very large section of the London great
 world remained tightly closed against Lady Millais, her husband having meanwhile been advanced to the rank of haronet, by way of Q national re- cognition of his marvellous talent. And the attitude of society was to g great extend indorsed by the court, which las hitherto set it's face sternly against graduates of the divorce court, no mat ter whether they are the injured party or not, and particularly against cases such as that of Lady Millais. The lat ter has, however, for some years past. had a firm friend in Princess Louise, 1 the fourth daughter of the queen, and
 who brides herself far more on her | skill as an artist, both with the chisel and with the brush, than on being a i royal princess. As soon, therefore, as 1 the princess found that Lord Salisbury
 had been led by important political I considerations to induce the queen to permit the presentation at drawing
 room of Lady Pirbright, the divorced
 
 wifeI of a MT. Barnett, she at once
 tackled her royal mother and pointed
 out to her how graceful a thing it would be to accord a similar holor .o
 Lady Millais. The queen has very soft heart, and 1t was to this that P.in-
 cess Louise appealed, arguing the pleasure and cancellation which such an l act of royal graciousness would afford l to the dying president of the Royal Academy. Of course it was out of ihe question for Lady Millais to attend a l drawing room at a moment when her l husband is in the last stages of that l frightful malady known as cancer of 1 the larynx, to which the queens favor l ite son-in-law, Emperor Frederick ef | Germany, succumbed, so Her Majesty conferred upon Lady Millais the very
 rare and unusual honor of a private presentation at Windsor Castle, dis l tinction so great that 1t may go far to | assuage the many sights which have i been undergone during the pest thirty years iby Lady Millais, New Orleans l Picayune,