BEAUTY

Ottoline suffered the frustrations of growing into her looks-her awkwardness had arrested itself into a unusual soignee and she began to revel in the attention and allure of her unique looks.

Ottoline, just prior to her marriage, is described by Miranda Seymour in her biography of OttoLine:

She was just over six foot-taller than most men-with turquoise eyes, wavy red-gold hair, a pale skin and a graceful, sliding walk. A large nose and the strong chin of the Bentincks prevented her from being a conventional beauty:; her appearance conveyed something more rich and complex.

She was like nobody else.

AXEL iv, a postscript

.

My home shall be open for the sun and the wind and the voices of the sea – like a Greek temple – and light, light, light everywhere! Axel Munthe

 A man can stand a lot as long as he can stand himself. He can live without hope, without friends, without books, even without music, as long as he can listen to his own thoughts. Axel Munthe

After an eye illness Munthe retired to a nearby ancient tower in the world he created, there he wrote The Story of San Michele, a history of the villa, interwoven with stories from his own experiences. The book was a run-away best seller all over the world.

THE END. AXEL, iii

Ottoline's heart was Fated to be broken. She was under Dr. Axel Munthe's spell but when she returned to England all her fears closed in to surround her and realities fell hard. She sensed Munthe would not be the man she thought she needed in her Life.

I Feel there is something in you that you will never surrender to ME I was hopelessly ignorant of the complexity of man's psychology; I could not understand the hesitations of this man who professed to love me.

The pair was destined to meet once more when Ottoline was again in Italy- this time at the Villa of her Aunt. Ottoline's cousin Violet Paget undertook the trip to Rome to consult the Doctor about her own health-a ruse to seek some end for better or worse to this chapter in Ottoline's Life.


ottoline wrote of the scene in her MEMOIRS:

I went to his house, the house that Keats had died in waited in his patient's waiting room. There I found laid on the table for  the public to read the white vellum BROWnING that had been my Own precious possession and that i had given to him... I have no clear memory of what he said to me... He told me he considered me a religious Maniac, that he had quite enough nerve cases amongst his Patients, that to have one a as Wife would be too much... He embrace me and I left, saddened and more hurt and torn and hopeless than EVER... I felt almost glad with that odd sense of being born again; with Power to win, unshackled to start afresh, a new self Replacing the old one:

 

she added this passage from PROUST-

at the same time as forgetfulness, an almost complete suppression of suffering and the prospect of recovery, for he was none other than one of those alternative selves which fate holds in reserve for us, and which in spite of ourselves - paying no more attention to our prayers than a clear-sighted and all the more authoritarian doctor - it substitutes for our sorely wounded self, in a carefully timed operation. Moreover, it effects this renewal as the need arises, as happens with the wear and repair of bodily cells, but we take no notice unless our old self was nursing some great wound, some painful foreign body, which we are astonished no longer to find, in our marvelling at having become someone else, someone else for whom his predecessor's suffering is no more than the suffering of a third party, a suffering which we can discuss compassionately because we do not feel it. And we are even quite unmoved at having passed through so much suffering, for we remember only vaguely having suffered.

photograph by Josef Sudek, 1942.

as OTTOLINE DIVINE goes-

Baron de Meyer Portrait 1907

The Ottoline Divine Story endeavored here means creating a mood-an aesthetic- that Ottoline would like, love actually, and thrive in.
One of the central inspirations is her Memoirs and letters. I have a small beautifully put together book of letters-correspondence between Ottoline and the Poet, D'Arcy Cresswell called  Dear Lady Ginger,  edited by Helen Shaw.

Michelangelo's Profile with Oriental Headdress in Sanguine

Ottoline was a copious correspondent-Always writing in a Signature ink color- Sanguine -on paper described in Dear Lady Ginger as a pale tinted quality paper with a printed letterhead of the Gower Street, London, address.

Along with this- a description of her hand writing- " The Many Capitals, an inseparable part of Lady Ottoline's handwriting in her letters."

A Copy of Ottoline's Flourishes of  Script

Though I can not duplicate her exuberance, I have experimented with different fonts and the current one I've used is  Reenie Beenie. There are a number of options and I have changed it several times hoping to create the most authentic style.


There is a reason for it all- the BackGround of the Page is a greyed Orchid- taking cues from the colors preferred by women in their dress prior to World War I. The colors in the de Meyer Portrait Of OTTOLINE reflect this preference.  After the Great War, these colors continued to be used along with the addition of jewel tones-ruby, emerald, topaz and amethyst. Ottoline's own color preferences  would broaden as the times changed too-yet She would never abandon her very Original style-whether it be an ink color or a skirt length.

Another de Meyer autochrome portrait from 1908 of Tamara Karsavina reflect the same colors I've favored in the presentation of OTTOLINE DIVINE.
I adore this portrait and the Era and the Story of OTTOLINE DIVINE-I hope you are enjoying the Journey too.

 

AXEL ii: Love at San Michele

.
Was it Axel or was it Villa San Michel?
If ever there seemed to be an atmosphere that would inspire love it would have to be this one-OttoLine thought it was magical.

 

The red granite Sphinx

I was led through the House that was to be Mine. 

It was a fairy Palace, perfect in everything, Made of Marble with Blue tiles under Foot and a little Fountain festooned with green garlands and Flowers and a hanging olive oil Lamp like Magic Spirits.

As I wandered through the rooms I was RAvished by the magic Beauty... I walked on rarefied air in this enchanted land, and was transported by this strange and wonderful Place.


Dr Munthe's own house was within a few yards of the one he had lent Me. We had our Meals with Him, and listened to HIM playing the Piano which he did very well.

 Rooms at his VILLA

We sat in his gardens, where there were pergolas made of Roman and Greek pillars that had been found in the depths of the SEA near the island, and were the remains of a VILLA of TIbErius.

Hilda and my old maid Ellen were convinced I was bewitched by this ARchFiend, this Satyr this Necromancer...The magic of the Place turned to sinister sorcery.

The year was 1898.
Ottoline had yet to find the man that she would spend her life with-but Axel was enthralled, as was Ott. The pair parted with things unsettled- 

& then began the long an dreary journey across the desert of ordinary life; all was grey and colourless and lonely. i was burnt up by the agony of desire, by my love of this man who had wakened it all so pervadingly in me.




images from JoeLLe Lifestyle here
& ItaLian NoteBook here

AXEL:1st Love

One of the many men that would be attracted to-and attract our rare bird Ott-was Dr. Axel Munthe.

as the DocTor would have looked around the time of his Affair of the Heart with Ottoline

Axel Munthe, was a fashionable Swedish doctor, who travelled to Capri in the late 1890's to create his own heaven on earth. He acquired the ruin of San Michele chapel near the mountain village of Anacapri-renovating  the buildings on the property and acquiring antiquities to fill the terraces and the buildings of the property with.

a red granite sphinx attests to the strength of  Munthe's will to restore the Villa.

 the Sphinx Perched along the villa's edge

After meeting Munthe in England, he invited Ottoline to Capri. Ottoline and  her stalwart companion Hilda Pennant arrived at Munthe's villa after an arduous journey through Italy.  Shock waves went through the already possessive hilda when she realized Ottoline's deception in luring her along as  chaperone to be  for the pair of lovebirds.  Ottoline's description of the doctor had led Hilda to believe the doctor was a decrepit old man and indeed he was not!

rather- he was  A fascinating satyr in appearance with an alert figure.

 the Satyr later in Life

The Doctor was about 40 at the time the pair met

 

Munthe's Villa San Michele

Ottoline describes Munthe and how their love affair began:

then i knew he loved me. i had been filled with the spiritual and transcendental desire to pour love into this man, had poured out everything in mu heart to him... mingles as much as one heart full of love can be poured into another, the physical side of my love was barely awakened enough to give the abandonment of the heart with complete and passionate warmth... I was sure he loved me, but lurking  underneath was  the instinct that he would not undergo the ordeal of facing my family to win me. 

 The pair was able to elude steadfast Hilda and left her in Naples on a jaunt and returned to San Michele for a few days alone.

Ottoline-did not reveal whether her virginity had been breached during her days alone with Munthe.
Obviously in LOVE-how much so- and how far the affair went-- our Lady Ottoline does not reveal in her memoirs. Her implication is that she was so very religious at the time-she resisted, All. Ottoline's biographer Miranda Seymour writes no hard evidence can be offered, but it seems clear that Ottoline slept with Munthe.
Ottoline's flowery prose in her memoirs would indicate it was so-however that's just why I am skeptical-more on  Munthe attempts to woe a Lady in part ii of AXEL.

OTTOLINESTYLE

OTT, George BeresFord Portrait,1902.

 

Paris 1912

 On Her HoneyMoon in Italy 1902

Italy, 1902

how she did love a Hat, while they were de rigueur, her's were quite the Affair.

LADY OTTOLINE BENTINCK PORTRAITS- AND MEN

A BEAUTIFUL SERIES OF PORTRAITS TAKEN OF OTTOLINE DURING THE YEAR JUST BEFORE SHE MARRIED, PHOTOGRAPHED BY Erick Seliin.  albumen carte de visitE.

SOMETIME IN LATE 1901, OTTOLINE AND TRAVEL COMPANION HILDA PENNANT LEFT ITALY-STOPPING IN LONDON TO SEE HER DOCTOR AND FROM THERE HEADING TO GERMANY.


PRIOR TO 1900, SHE HAD MET Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916, AND A GOOD 20 YEARS HER SENIOR.

THOUGH NOT A ROMANCE AS WE KNOW IT, ASQUITH CERTAINLY ASSUMED THE ROLE OF FATHER IN TAKING -
AN INTEREST IN HER-AS SHE PUTS IT AND IN MY READING, AND LENT ME BOOKS.

ASQUITH VISITED WITH OTTOLINE IN HER SITTING ROOM AT HER BROTHER'S GROSVENOR PLACE HOUSE-

WE TALKED OF POETRY, RELIGION, AND THE WAYS OF LIFE OF WORDSWORTH, TENNYSON AND BROWNING.

SHE WRITES:

MY HEALTH BEING STILL EXCEEDINGLY BAD, I WAS ADVISED TO GO AND CONSULT A FAMOUS SPECIALIST, PROFESSOR BEIGEL...THE PROFESSOR WAS A VERY TALL... ARISTOCRATIC MAN, ABOUT SIXTY, WITH LONG SENSITIVE, ARTISTIC HANDS. I WAS STRIPPED AND EXAMINED,WHICH CAUSED ME A GREAT DEAL OF SHYNESS, AND HE ORDERED ME TO BE SET TO WIESBADEN WHERE I SHOULD BE UNDER HIS SUPERVISION. I WAS RATHER TAKEN ABACK WHEN AS HE LEFT ME ONE DAY HE BENT DOWN AND KISSED ME. 

CONTINUING:

LODGING IN A PROTESTANT SISTERHOOD, WE SPENT CHRISTMAS THERE, LISTENING TO GERMAN CAROLS, AND MY OLD PROFESSOR BECAME PASSIONATELY DEVOTED TO ME. I DO NOT THINK ANYONE HAS EVER BEEN SO DEVOTED TO ME AS THIS MAN. I WAS VERY FOND OF HIM, BUT AS OF SOMEONE WHO WAS MUCH OLDER, LIKE A FATHER... ALL THE HIDDEN,PENT-UP,IDEALISTIC SIDE (OF HIM) HAD OBVIOUSLY NEVER FOUND A HOME. ONCE WAKENED,IT POURED ITSELF OUT UNSWERVINGLY UPON ME.

the LETTER GAME

Ottoline Violet Anne Cavendish-Bentinck

From Memoirs:

at Langwell the evenings would end with the grand chorus of the Letter Game. A game played with squares of card, each with a letter on it: in the commonest form the letters having been put face downwards, were turned up in turn by the players, and the first to claim a word in the ensuing jumble, to it; it was allowed, by changing with additions a word already taken, to claim it from another player. This game word-making and word-taking was regularly  played in country houses, at least until the end of the first World War-particularly on Sunday in many homes where cards were not then allowed.