The Washburn times. [volume] (Washburn, Wis.) 1896-1976, 1903-02-05
CHOwFA'S LOVE NOTES
Siamese Princes Wooing OF
an american Actress.


Love Letters Recent Royal visitor
to the United States Is Said TIC
Have written to Miss 1TabeIIe Gill
man While He Was at College In
England.
The passionate press agent for Ma
belle Gilman has broken into that &C.
| tress' writing desk and stolen there
from a packet of letters, and the other
day he gave to the world the love let
tiers of the Prince of Siam, says the
| New York Tribune Miss Gilman who
is called TchernO Okaya by her Sia-
mese swain, was sorry-quite grieved,
in fact-that the letters had got out.
She could not understand how the
| press agent dared to take them with
out her permission.
| The prince, by the bye, has left the
country and is we'll on his way to
Siam. The wise heads may take this
fact for what it is worth.
The Prince of Siam first met Miss
Gilman in London, when she was there
with 1.-THE Belle of New York; and ga
dangerous rival Of Edna May in the af-
fectiOns of royalty" the phrase is
bubble from the lips Of her press AGENT.
Their friendship seems to have in
Spired the crown prince to pour forth
verse that if quantity counted should
have won for him the Newdigate prize
Letters from him to her in 1901 bear
the seal of Christ college, Oxford, and
| In all of them are inclosed verses.
sometimes two or three separate
| poems. On the backs of the photo
graphs he sent her he was more mod
crate, contenting himself with quoting
from the poems of other men. If the
letters themselves did not furnish proof
of the genuineness of the story, the
| fact that these quotations are from
Lovelace, Carew, S. T. Coleridge and
| Omar the Tentmaker would at once
put them beyond the invention of Miss
Gilman's press agent.
The first of the letters made public
| is dated from the Siamese legation,
London, in December, 1900, and begins
''My Dear Miss Gilman"
One year later, writing from Oxford,
he opens as follows:
| My 'Tcherno Okaya"-I hope you know
what this means by now, for you should
! have got the book 1 sent you the other
| day. But in case of accidents I had best
explain that ''Tcherno Okaya' is Russian
and, being translated. means Sparkling
| eyes" Who deserves the name better
than you?
This he signs "Biiou."
In this letter the verse begins 1t is
funny how Oxford affects people, as
Sue used to remark to Jude. The poem
inclosed is called THE Princes Rev
erie and consists of five quatrains
nodded on the Rubaiyat and prefaced
by the famous quatrain beginning All,
love. could you and l with him con-
| spire," which the prince misquotes,
though Mabelle probably didn't know
it. His problem seems TO be some
thing like that which faces the hero of
Alt Heidelberg" for he sings. after
three predatory anu ardent sta22as:
All, love if only thou We. BORN princess
Or else myself We're only sor1eth hing loss
Than that which an no7-of rank so
Oh, then We two might know such happi-
| ness!
The best hours Of my lie away have
flown
But am 50 thankful that have known
| The best and sweetest JOY upon this
| earth
And that once did cali thee. love. my
own.
nv
Writing from Washington in Oc,ober
of the present year lie again revercs to
verse for consolation the, shadow Of
coming parting cast across the paper.
The poem is Of four stanzas wherein
he goes Lovelace, who furnishes the
model ona better The poem closes as
| follows:
All. would go, were it not such
AS Lovelace sang of yore-
81 could not love thee, dear so much.
Loved l not honor more?"
| At the Bijou theater the other night
Miss Gilman said she might some day
| visit Siam, but, on the whole, she con-
sidered America good enough for her.
In reply to the question put to her by
an unabashed reporter whether or not
the prince proposed. she replied, What
would you have dOne?"
This seemed to admit of but one an
swer, and she was allowed to make
her entrance on the stage. where she
| could be heard singing, "Oh. listen to
/