On the whole, in spite of “Annie Laurie’s” burdensome velvets, in spite of Mojave’s sulphur blasts and blistering sands, it had been—or, but for her mother’s illness, might have been—a happy as well as a profitable two years. Mimi and Hester Prynne had been worth while. “Wind” had been an artistic triumph.
Miss Moir, very close to Lillian during all this period, has left a series of impressions and incidents not directly connected with her work:
I remember the first time I saw her at the Ambassador Hotel, New York, she struck me as a person of perfect poise and great charm of manner in which there was something almost childishly appealing. In many ways she is a paradox. She gives the impression of helplessness when she is really the most resourceful person I know. You think sometimes that she is weak and easily led, and then you suddenly come up against an inflexible will and an iron determination to do what she has set her mind on doing.
Then another picture comes into my mind as I often saw her at parties, sitting uncomfortably in the quietest corner she could find, talking generally to some elderly person until the time came to go home, where she always went as soon as possible.
Her hands are expressive of her whole personality, delicately modelled, yet with a look of latent strength and capability about them. She uses them beautifully.
She has no fidgety movements. She is one of the few women I know who have learned the art of perfect stillness.
She loves fortune tellers, though she doesn’t take them seriously and generally forgets what they have told her, five minutes after leaving them.
Our entire life in California on looking back, seems to have its centre in the room where poor Mrs. Gish sat, patient and speechless, looking forward to the moment when Lillian would get back from the studio. On her Birthday morning her room was so crowded with presents it looked like a giftshop. She was delighted with everything, and seemed to take a turn for the better from that day. Until then she had seemed to be losing interest in life—slipping away from us. Having once aroused her from this lethargy Lillian’s whole endeavor was spent on keeping her mother amused. She was constantly coming home with some lovely thing for her—a pretty bed-jacket, a taffeta quilt for her bed, an exquisite set of china for her breakfast tray.