She never got a chance to attend school. "I loved the book _Black Beauty_, and everybody would read it to me on the train or waiting for the train. Well, I finally had it read to me so much, I knew it by heart. And that's how I learned to read. When we were travelling around, mother would always take her history book. When we were in historical places, she'd take us to where history happened." At the height of her silent film career, Lillian received 15,000 fan letters a week, many from overseas. "Silent films are the universal language that the Bible predicted would bring about the millennium. ... When Mr. Griffith made his first talking picture in 1921, he said, 'This is committing suicide. My pictures play to the world. Five percent of them speak English. Why should I lose 95 percent of my audience?' "One of the things I'm trying to do now is to bring back silent films and beautiful music. I'm doing it with my film _La Boheme_, which was made in 1926. I've done it in the opera house in Chicago with an organist, and at Town Hall here. Harold Schonberg of the _New York Times_ gave it the most ecstatic review." Her credits include an honorary Oscar award, dozens of major stage roles, and a movie that she co-wrote and directed. But Miss Gish, with characteristic modesty, prefers to talk about her friends and family. Bitterness and complaint are alien to her nature, although life has not always been easy. She never married, and her mother, to whom she was highly devoted, spent the last 25 years of her life as an invalid. "But she was never unhappy," testifies Lillian. "She was always the first to laugh, and the gayest." Following her mother's death in 1948, the apartment was given to Dokey, her nurse, who died the following year. Then Lillian and Dorothy Gish shared the apartment until Dorothy's death in 1968. Although Lillian now lives alone, she has no opportunity to be lonely. Besides work, travel, and reading -- her favorite activities -- she has 13 godchildren. One thing that helps keep her young, says Miss Gish, is her intense curiosity. "I was born with it, thank heavens. I feel sorry for people who say they're bored. How in the world can anyone be bored in the world today? How can fiction complete with what's going on?" A few of her films, have been lost forever, since no original prints exist in good condition. Most, however, are still shown around the globe, which explains why her autobiography is available in such languages as Burmese and East Malaysian. The Museum of Modern Art on West 53rd Street has one of the country's finest collections of vintage Gish films. One of her upcoming projects is a movie based on a story by the Danish writer Isak Dinesen, scheduled to begin shooting in Europe this winter. Another is a television pilot to be shot in California for Julius Evans.