Picture Play Magazine (Jul - Dec 1929)

Gl an d After willing to be thrilled, but came away feeling In this story she reveals the causes of her exhiland least understood personalities ever identified movies. Ober Peak because she had worked for them herself. "Magenta is the most beneficent color — love and kindness. Periwinkle blue is the soul, the spirit ; mixed with mauve, it makes devotion. Putting in the scarlets and the orange means the flame of life. "Certain colors make bubbling talk ; others, peace. softness, gracious conversation. This room gives me peculiar pleasure. Especially at night when the lamps are lit." Madame Glyn pressed an electric button] I, too. had a peculiar kind of pleasure as the room was suddenly suffused in a soft, blue light. "I have delightful, intellectual parties here," she said. "Four or five to dine, when we discuss history, philosophy, science. We never speak of people. Horrid gossip to the detriment of individuals I never listen to !" Continuing the explanation of her color cult, she led me through a narrow. Oriental passage into her bedroom, in rose and green, which she stated represented life and happiness. It was almost like walking into a California garden. A riot of roses ran over the green furniture, which was hung with coral taffeta;. The walls were paneled in coral and rose. Dainty Chinese figures held up miniature umbrellas, shading lamps at the bedside and on the dressing tables. Just outside was swung a balcony, also painted olive green, where Madame Glyn sleeps with nothing over her head but the sky. The most fascinating feature of her nest is the "confessional balcony," where she tells it to the stars. This is built out from the living room entirely of glass, and overlooks the city, the mountains, and the distant sea. The filmy blue hangings at the side are the same color as the sky above. Low divans with cushions, soft rugs, teakwood smoking stands, Aladdinlike lamps in bronze, lend an air of almost supersensual comfort and beauty. "I rarely see any one in the evenings," said the woman who wrote "Three Weeks." "but spend them here, from six to ten o'clock, looking at the marvelous stars. Then I am perfectly happy. I am not in this world." The balcony was flooded with sunshine on the morning of my visit. As I entered the living room, with its jade walls, glazed woodwork in Pekin blue, chairs covered with green brocade, colorful cabinets and cushions, the effect was startlingly lovely. My involuntary exclamation delighted Madame Glyn. "The colors I have developed here," she said, "represent joy and gayety. The vivid green is for brilliant conversation. There is not a single angry color in the room — all are harmonious and happy. "So that I may have no foolish thoughts, I have set up an altar to the ten wise men. Look at them," she invited, leading me to a tall, bine-lacquered cabinet on the shelves of which were malachite figures. "There they are, surrounding the god of wisdom and life, with his two supporters, peace and success. And this is the goddess of gayety in her garden of amethyst and jade. Photo by Press Tirtures Madame Glyn's Chinese apartment suggests the colors of a rainbow softly veiled in mist. Some of the gods glowed electrically. But ther" was no incense burning. "I hate the female stuff." '. adame Glyn informed me. "But ah, smell this concentrated essence of Chinese roses!" I took a whiff and once more experienced that "peculiar pleasure." Finally we talked of the woman herself, sitting on a broad divan that might have been made for a queen. It was covered with blue brocade, banked with silk cushions running the color scale from magenta to ashes oi roses, heliotrope to mauve. "Wait," Madame Glyn requested before I was permitted to sink down in its luxurious depths, "the maid has got some false notes in my symphony! You can't be happy there." She flung all the cushions on the floor and with infinite care replaced them, each tone harmonizing. All this time I had keen looking for the famous tiger skin. There was none. Instead, tucked behind the pilContiuued on page 110]