has given me, if I bare my heart and tell the naked truth, greater
pleasure than any other painter, was Orchardson; the fact that his
work is so dramatic being, I suppose, the reason. His two phases of
the _Mariage de Convenance_ were gems. I don't know whether Act I
surpassed Act II, or if the verdict was the other way. The glorious
_Queen of the Swords_, _The Challenge_, _Hard Hit_, _The Young Duke_,
_Napoleon in the Bellerophon_, _The First Cloud_, with their
exquisite colourings, the secret of which never seems to have been
divulged; and still one other, so delicate in conception, so perfect
in its pathos, _Her Mother's Voice_. What a story! How simply told!
Edwin Abbey was also a painter who appealed strongly to me; again,
because he was dramatic. His _Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the
Lady Anne_, I always looked upon with admiration. The splendour of
its colouring is lost to me, for I see it now only _en gravure_. Nor
can his _Hamlet_ and _King Lear_ be forgotten, while his decorative
work was magnificent and will preserve his fame. He had great charm
as host and guest.
I travel back to the far-off days when W. P. Frith, an old friend,
was the popular Academician {85} of his time; his pictures of the
_Derby Day_ and _Ramsgate Sands_ having to be "railed in" at the
Annual Exhibition, which was then held in the National Gallery, to
protect them from the crowd.
Frith, I remember, was struck with the beauty of our production of
the _School for Scandal_, which he highly praised. In its acting and
historical accuracy he said it was like the last edition of a grand
book, the handsomest and the best. He fell in love with the minuet,
and said it took him back to the days of his great-grandmother. The
minuet, which was introduced at Lady Sneerwell's "rout," was the
brilliant idea of my wife: it was danced by two couples in a crowded
room of guests. I have since seen it danced by a crowd to an
otherwise empty stage.
I look back with interest to pleasant times spent in the company of
Hubert Herkomer, that "jack-of-all-trades and master of many." His
versatility was bewildering. Tools of every kind and shape seemed to
be playthings in his hands; he grasped them with firmness and used
them with skill; painting, engraving, etching, and all sorts of metal
work alike came easily to him; he played the piano and the zither,
composed and wrote, and was, in a way, a pioneer of film work. His
shoals {86} of portraits were amazing, and his fame might rest
enduringly upon his painting of _The Last Muster_.
Briton Rivière was for many years our friend. We met first in the
Engadine. He was, in my opinion, a great artist, and has crowded my
memory with his works. I think often of those speaking dogs in _The
Vacant Chair_, _Sympathy_ and _Charity_, as I do of _Circe_ with the
amorous pigs, and the majestic _Daniel_ facing the lions in their den.
I have always understood that Rivière was within an ace of being
elected President when Millais died.
In early Bohemian days, Henry Stacey Marks, long before he had
blossomed into a Royal Academician, was an amusing and pleasant
friend. Years afterwards I bought, at Christie's, the attractive
panels of the _Seven Ages of Man_ which he had painted for Birket
Foster. They were well-beloved companions until a changed life came
to me; they now adorn the walls of the Green Room Club.
[Sidenote: Val and Marcus]
Another R.A. and old friend was Val Prinsep, whose burly form looms
from distant days, which his name recalls. It is easy to believe
that he was the original "Taffy" in George du Maurier's _Trilby_. I
have a remembrance of him in the sketch he made for his painting {87}
_The Minuet_, which was inspired by our introduction of the dance
into _The School for Scandal_, again in its turn reproduced in our
act-drop at the Haymarket Theatre. On his return to England after
painting the Great Durbar, when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress
of India, he gave my wife a handsome native bracelet, which, as a
souvenir of her, I passed on a little while ago to Marie Löhr, who
married Val's son, Anthony.
"Val" left many dear friends behind him, with happy recollections of
his worth.
Recently another friend of long standing, Marcus Stone, left us. He
once told me an interesting incident of his childhood, a link with
the past, when he was kissed by a very old and well-known man named
Pickersgill, the engraver, who begged him, impressively, always to
remember that he had been kissed by a man who once was kissed by Dr.
Johnson. It is odd to remember, in these days of petrol, that
Johnson said there were few keener pleasures in life than being
whirled along in a post-chaise, in the company of a pretty lady, at
the average speed of ten miles an hour.
Stone owed much to his early, almost boyish, friendship with Dickens,
who engaged him to illustrate the book he was then writing, thereby
made him known to eminent men, {88} and altogether helped his career
greatly. He was a good talker, and he read more books in a week than
I do in a year: he also had what are called good looks and a
distinguished bearing. Was it not written of him:
"Marcus Apollo Belvedere Stone,
Stands there erect, in all his glory shone."
[Sidenote: Sculpture]
In the hope that I have not been tiresome, I will close my
remembrances of Academicians with the names of two sculptors: one,
whom we knew with some intimacy, was Edgar Boehm. He chanced to be
our guest on the evening when his baronetcy was "in his pocket," to
be announced to his large circle of friends on the following morning.
There was a beautiful work of his on the staircase landing of the
house Millais built for himself in Kensington. His fame rests
chiefly, I suppose, on the statue of Carlyle, near to his Chelsea
home; on the tomb of Dean Stanley; and the statue of Wellington at
Hyde Park Corner, which replaced the old one, now at Aldershot, that
I was taken as a child to see when it was erected--an earlier
remembrance than that I retain of the Iron Duke's funeral.
I always remember an evening as Boehm's guest, when a lady whom I had
taken down to {89} dinner, in answer to an opinion I timidly
expressed that it was just possible she might be on the verge of
"spoiling" her two boys, who chanced to be at Eton with my son,
turned upon me with the amazing question: "Do you think I can ever
sufficiently apologise to them for my share in bringing them into
this world?"
[Sidenote: Boehm and Onslow Ford]
Boehm's end was distressing. He was a great Court favourite, and one
afternoon, in his studio, told his man that he expected a visit from
the Princess Louise, and that Her Royal Highness, with her lady, was
to be conducted to the studio at once. When taken there, on the door
being opened, they found Boehm, who had sunk upon the floor from a
sudden heart attack, unconscious and just breathing; he passed away
in a few minutes.
Onslow Ford, another friend of ours, was as well known for his
personal charm as for the refinement of his work. He was beloved by
his brother Academicians, the features of several of whom he has
immortalised in marble, and by a large circle of friends. One of his
best achievements is the seated figure of Henry Irving, now in the
Guildhall Picture Gallery; while the Christopher Marlowe memorial at
Canterbury, the Shelley memorial in University College, Oxford, and
the great {90} statue of Gordon, mounted on a camel, at Chatham, will
make his fame secure.
Another sculptor whose friendship we enjoyed was the late Count
Gleichen, who regarded his art as far more than a recreation; and his
statue of King Alfred at Wantage is the work of no mere amateur. We
found it an interesting experience to sit to him for the two portrait
busts which are now in the Garrick Club. The sittings in his studio
at St. James's Palace were often enlivened by visits from well-known
people of many kinds, which I hope did not detract from the merit of
the sculptor's work.
I dare not try the patience of my readers by attempting at any length
to write of that rebellious, capricious, tempestuous, and captivating
genius "Jimmy" Whistler.
After welcoming him as our amusing and interesting guest, my wife and
I were bidden to one of his historic luncheons at the White House,
which then stood quite alone in Chelsea by the river. We had
excellent company and ate buckwheat cakes, cooked by himself.
His despotic value of himself was exalted and could not be excelled:
nothing shook it. The rapier and the bludgeon were alike his weapons
of either attack or defence.
I believe his portrait of Irving as King {91} Philip has varied in
different markets from bids of a few pounds to some thousands.
[Sidenote: "Punch"]
Sir John Tenniel was an old friend and guest. His remarkable
connection with _Punch_ extended over fifty years. During this
marvellous record he contributed between two and three thousand
cartoons to its pages. The most famous of this vast collection was,
perhaps, _Dropping the Pilot_, which showed Bismarck leaving the Ship
of State, while his new chief, who was to wreck Europe, looked
superciliously down on him.
I was present at a banquet given in his honour upon his retirement.
The company gathered was exceptional and was presided over by Mr.
Balfour, as he then was. When Tenniel rose to return his thanks, the
demonstration was too much for the old man; he was unable to speak,
and resumed his seat in tears. As the chairman said at once, no
expression of thanks could have been more eloquent.
We knew George du Maurier for many years: I wish it had been more
intimately. After his early days in Paris and his familiarity with
the Quartier Latin, his connection with _Punch_ began, ten years
later than Tenniel's. Soon afterwards he succeeded to Leach's
prominent position and earned his world-wide {92} fame, which was not
lessened by his novels, _Peter Ibbetson_ and _Trilby_.
I should have loved to hear him say at one of the weekly _Punch_
dinners, as the man who told me did: "Fellows will write to me as
_de_ Maurier; I wish they'd give the devil his du."
[Sidenote: Painting]
One of du Maurier's closest friends was that fascinating man Canon
Ainger, Master of the Temple, with whom I had only a slight
acquaintance. They met constantly, almost daily, in their beloved
Hampstead, and indeed haunted its Heath: du Maurier was at home in
Bohemia; Ainger had never stood upon its soil; while their widely
separated religious views never hurt their friendship. "A strange
world, my masters."
He loved the stage. Would he had lived to see the position of its
leader in England, to-day, achieved by his son Gerald!
"Sammy," as Linley Sambourne was affectionately called by his
intimates, will complete my trio of _Punch_ draughtsmen.
He was an amusing little creature, always very horsey in get up. I
have his gift of the first drawing from his pencil which appeared in
_Punch_, so long ago as 1867, when he was but twenty-two; it is a
droll little sketch of George Honey as Eccles, John Hare as Sam
Gerridge, {93} and myself as Captain Hawtree in _Caste_. He told me
that it was drawn from memory, after visits to the pit when
Robertson's comedy was at the height of its first success.
I recall an amusing incident which occurred at a fancy-dress ball,
largely attended by the artistic and "Bohemian" world. "Sammy"
appeared, admirably appointed and dressed, as a little fat Dutchman.
He was cheerily greeted by Gilbert, who ran against him with the
words: "One Dutch of Sambourne makes the whole world grin."
[Sidenote: Pellegrini]
I must write a few lines in memory of the prince of caricaturists,
Carlo Pellegrini. We knew him throughout his career and always
enjoyed his company. On one evening when he gave it to us, on being
announced, he kissed my wife's hand and uttered some compliment in
Italian; she immediately, in a spirit of fun, rapidly recited an old
and rather long "proverb" in his language, which she had learned by
heart, as a child--it being her sole acquaintance with Italian--the
little man's expression of amazement was a study.
She played the same trick, with still greater effect, on the stage of
the Scala Theatre at Milan which we went over with a party of
friends, when Arthur Cecil asked her to address an imaginary audience.
{94}
[Sidenote: Music]
I sat to Pellegrini once, when he began to paint portraits
seriously--the idea was soon abandoned.--With regard to mine he
wrote: "I have sent your _fac simile_ to the Grosvenor: I hope you
will be well hanged."
I saw the "Pelican"--as Pellegrini was called by his friends--in his
last illness at his rooms in Mortimer Street. Shortly before the
peaceful end he said pathetically to his faithful servant:
"Wil-li-am, put me on clean shirt--I die clean."
I hardly regarded my old friend Leslie Ward as a caricaturist; his
clever drawings were, to my mind, portraits--humorously, but gently,
exaggerated. They were mainly the result of sittings. Pellegrini's
work was produced from memory.
Leslie Ward was the son of distinguished painters; his sister
Beatrice shared their art, as I can testify by a valued possession, a
very charming drawing of my wife.
[Sidenote: Arthur Sullivan]
The brilliant composer and musician, Arthur Sullivan, was our
much-loved friend for thirty years. We first knew him about the time
he and W. S. Gilbert were made known to each other by Frederic Clay.
His great career began, like many others, very simply, for he was one
of the "Children of the Chapel Royal," as they are still called,
before his more serious {95} studies began at the Royal Academy of
Music and at Leipzig. He returned with his music to _The Tempest_,
to be followed by _The Light of the World_.
His wonderful partnership with Gilbert has given joy to every land.
It is said that the success of _H.M.S. Pinafore_ was so amazing in
America that 100,000 barrel-organs were specially constructed to play
nothing else.
I recall a happy gathering of friends at Pontresina. Sullivan was
one of them, and his old mother was with him: his devotion to her
revealed a beautiful side of his affectionate nature.
A different meeting was when my wife and I met him one morning in the
rooms at Monte Carlo. It was settled that we should have lunch
together at the Café de Paris, which they went away to order, leaving
me, unfortunately, at my own request, to join them in a few minutes.
When I did so, my face must have told the sad story of those few
minutes, as Arthur called out, cheerily: "Come along, B; this way to
the cemetery."
He had a peculiarly entrancing personality: he lived a happy but not
a long life, laden with honours.
When I had the sad privilege of being one of the pall-bearers at his
funeral I was as {96} impressed as I was pleased to see the blinds of
the Athenæum drawn as we passed on our way to St. Paul's Cathedral,
where, I have always understood, he was laid to rest by the wish of
Queen Victoria.
Music had to bear three heavy blows, dealt within a few days, when
Charles Stanford, with his keen sense of humour, Walter Parratt, with
his winning personality, and Frederick Bridge, with his ever-ready
stories of killing fish, left us. I knew them all, but Parratt was
never my guest. He had no London home. We met pleasantly sometimes
at the Athenæum, and my nearest link with him was that of having been
born in the same year. Bridge and I received our knighthoods
together. I have happy recollections of a stay at Harrogate when
Stanford was also there. Although he lived so many years in London,
he seemed to me to have left Dublin only recently; but what lingers
most firmly in my mind in regard to him, is the majestic march he
composed for Irving when Tennyson's play _Becket_ was produced at the
Lyceum. The last time I listened to its strains was at his own
funeral service in the Abbey.
[Sidenote: Frederic Clay]
The name of another old musical friend, Frederic Clay, must be
remembered, for it was in his company that I met Gounod. I {97}
dined with Clay when he lived with his father, who was the friend of
Lord Beaconsfield, and known as the finest whist-player in London. I
once saw the old gentleman in the cardroom of the Garrick, where he
distinguished himself by revoking.
Frederic Clay's career was checked by a long and distressing illness.
His fame will live in the remembrance of his melodies: "She wandered
down the Mountain Side," "The Sands of Dee," and, above all, by the
ever-enduring "I'll sing thee songs of Araby."
{98}
VI
LITERATURE
"Think of the achievements of a great writer--a great poet--their
works embrace the past, the present, and the future: their fame is
for ever growing through the gifts they have made to the dead: the
pleasure they have still the power to bestow upon the living: and the
delight of bequeathing their wealth to unknown ages while their
language lives."
[Sidenote: Browning]
The most prominent man of letters known to my wife and to me was
Robert Browning, who looked as unlike the conventional idea of a poet
as I resemble a sweep; his appearance seemed to me a better "make-up"
for a family physician or legal adviser.
Many years ago my wife and I were present at the wedding of an old
friend's daughter and afterwards at the reception. On entering the
drawing-room, which had heavy blinds and was rather sombre, my wife
mistook an elderly and bearded guest for the host, went behind him,
turned his head round, and, as she thought, kissed her
congratulations to the bride's father. The recipient of the mistaken
salute proved to be Browning, who avowed that {99} whenever and
wherever he met my wife he was to be treated in the same way. The
ceremony was afterwards always gone through, and more than once in
the open street.
When he first dined with us he was made happy in finding a bottle of
port by his hand, that he might help himself and not be offered other
wines. I remember a story he told us of Longfellow when he visited
England. The two poets were driving in a hansom, and a heavy shower
suddenly came on. Longfellow insisted upon thrusting his umbrella
through the trap in the roof of the cab that the driver might protect
himself from the rain, which he did.
At a dinner given at the old Star and Garter, Richmond, Browning met
my wife on the terrace with an impromptu, hurriedly scrawled on a
menu, which I may give imperfectly:
"Her advent was not hailed with shouts,
Nor banners, garlands, cymbals, drums;
The trees breathed gently sighs of love,
And whispered softly, 'Hush! she comes!'"
In the last letter my wife received from him he wrote: "I heartily
wish I had been privileged to begin feeling twenty years ago what I
feel now, and I shall make what amends are in my power, by feeling so
as long as I live."
{100}
I was in the Abbey on the cheerless, foggy, December day, when
Browning joined the "Poets" in their "Corner."
I had the honour of enjoying the friendship of that distinguished man
of letters, Monckton Milnes, afterwards Lord Houghton. He once told
me a story worth repeating. He was in search of a piece of
furniture. On entering a dealer's shop in Wardour Street, he caught
sight of the portrait of an admiral, apparently of the last century,
and of this he asked the price. "Ten pounds," was the answer. Lord
Houghton offered five; the dealer was obdurate. The article wanted
was sought for, found and bargained for. On going away Lord Houghton
returned to the price of the admiral's portrait. At last the dealer
said: "Well, my lord, and to your lordship only, seven pound ten";
but his customer would not go beyond his offer of a fiver, and there
was an end of the matter.
Soon afterwards, visiting a neighbour in Yorkshire, Lord Houghton
recognised the portrait of the admiral hanging in the dining-room,
and said: "Hallo! who's that? What have you got there? Something
new?" "Yes," replied the friend; "he was a well-known admiral in his
day--fought with Nelson--good bit of work too--recently bequeathed to
us-- {101} an ancestor of my wife's." "Ah, was he?" said Lord
Houghton. "Six weeks ago he was within two pound ten of becoming one
of mine!"
[Sidenote: Henry James]
Once, at a dinner party we gave, a scrupulously clean-shaven guest
was announced, whose name neither host nor hostess had caught. He
shook hands gaily with us both, and as he moved away to another
couple, whom he evidently knew, I gathered from the expression of my
wife's face that she, like myself, had no idea of his identity. A
bachelor friend who was next announced, after speaking familiarly
with the puzzling stranger, came back to me and said, happily in the
hearing of my wife: "Do you like Henry James's appearance better with
or without his beard?" The mystery was solved. That sort of
transformation seems hardly fair.
I beg to be forgiven if I quote a few words from Henry James, written
in _The Middle Years_: "How can I think of the 'run' of the more
successful of Mr. Robertson's comedies at the 'dear little old'
Prince of Wales's Theatre, by Tottenham Court Road, as anything less
than one of the wonders of our age?"
Some ten years ago, James became a British subject--many people, I
dare say, have thought him to have always been one--and in return
{102} England rightly bestowed upon him the Order of Merit.
Even at the end, when telling a friend of the pain he suffered in his
fatal illness, he was gay, and said of death, that he felt the
distinguished thing had come to him at last. Much the same thought
doubtless crossed the mind of Charles Frohman, the theatrical
manager, when he went down on board the _Lusitania_. He turned to
his companion with the words, borrowed from _Peter Pan_: "Now for the
great adventure." Courage is expressed in many wonderful ways.
I have mentioned my first meeting at the elder Boucicault's with
Charles Reade, author of _The Cloister and the Hearth_. As a man of
letters, his name is entitled to be enrolled among the giants of his
day. Friendship with him began at the Garrick Club, where I have
seen him at a whist table with Anthony Trollope and Charles Lever,
playing in the same rubber. It ripened rapidly when we produced
_Masks and Faces_, over which my wife and I had many a fight in
getting him to agree to some important changes we wished to make. We
won the day, and the old book was done with for all time. I will
quote from a superb description, written with the insight of a gifted
woman, Ellen Terry: "Dear, {103} kind, unjust, generous, cautious,
impulsive, passionate, gentle Charles Reade! who combined so many
qualities, far asunder as the poles. He was placid and turbulent,
yet always majestic. He was inexplicable and entirely lovable--a
stupid old dear, and as wise as Solomon! He seemed guileless, and
yet had moments of suspicion and craftiness worthy of the serpent."
[Sidenote: Wilkie Collins]
Wilkie Collins was another Victorian novelist of high repute, whose
books would give great pleasure to modern readers if they sampled
_The Woman in White_, _Armadale_, or _The Moonstone_, and left
themselves in debt to such creations as Count Fosco, Margaret
Vanstone, Mercy Merrick, and many more. We knew him well, and sided
with his view of the well-known unfortunate episode in the early
history of the Garrick Club which resulted in the expulsion of Edmund
Yates, through his youthful indiscretion in writing of Thackeray in a
way that so great a giant could have afforded to ignore.
At the most, he might have called for an apology--which was offered
but declined. "Wilkie" stood by Dickens in the defence of Yates, and
they resigned their membership together.
For years Collins was a confirmed opium {104} taker and a slave to
the drug. He once left the Engadine, in its primitive days, and
found himself, to his horror, without any. He and an intimate
friend, who happily spoke German like a native, were travelling
together: they represented themselves to be doctors and so obtained
from chemists at Coire, and afterwards at Basle, the maximum supply
the Swiss law allowed, and so reached Paris without the catastrophe
Collins described in alarming words.