I spent all the afternoon sitting to Emil Fuchs. He painted me last 15
years ago. Since then much water has flowed under the bridge. He did
me then in a big Gainsborough hat and a fashionable black dress. I had
just emerged from the school-room and my ambition was to look like a
widow. To-day he did me in my yellow working smock.
I have known him since I was twelve years old, in the days
when he worked in London and Edward VII was his patron.
Success leaves no imprint on Fuchs. He is one of those modest
ever-dissatisfied-with-himself, over-sensitive beings. He has never
grown the extra skin which is one’s armor in dealing with the world.
Fuchs is almost too sensitive, too deep feeling to be able to live at
all. All his thoughts are beautiful thoughts, and if the world is not
as beautiful as he demands it should be he feels almost suicidal with
depression. He is the most generous-souled, pure-visioned person I
have ever known. He likes very few people, and makes few friends, but
those he does make are more devoted to him than other people’s friends
are to them!
The picture began awfully well, I have great hopes and he was wildly
enthusiastic. It was one of the few occasions on which I have seen him
happy.