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PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
_AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY_
1834-1858
_AND A MEMOIR BY HIS WIFE_
1858-1894
"Intellectual living is not so much an accomplishment as a state or
condition of the mind in which it seeks earnestly for the highest and
purest truth.... If we often blunder and fail for want of perfect wisdom
and clear light, have we not the inward assurance that our aspiration
has not been all in vain, that it has brought us a little nearer to the
Supreme Intellect whose effulgence draws us while it dazzles?"--_The
Intellectual Life_.
PREFACE.
About twelve years ago my husband told me that he had begun to write an
Autobiography intended for publication, but not during his lifetime. He
worked upon it at intervals, as his literary engagements permitted, but
I found after his sudden death that he had only been able to carry it as
far as his twenty-fourth year. Such a fragment seemed too brief for
separate publication, and I earnestly desired to supplement it by a
Memoir, and thus to give to those who knew and loved his books a more
complete understanding of his character and career. But though I longed
for this satisfaction and solace, the task seemed beyond my power,
especially as it involved the difficulty of writing in a foreign
language. Considering, however, that the Autobiography was carried, as
it happened, up to the date of our marriage, and that I could therefore
relate all the subsequent life from intimate knowledge, as no one else
could, I was encouraged by many of Mr. Hamerton's admirers to make the
attempt, and with the great and untiring help of his best friend, Mr.
Seeley, I have been enabled to complete the Memoir--such as it is.
I offer my sincere thanks to Mr. Sidney Colvin and to his co-executor
for having allowed the insertion of Mr. R. L. Stevenson's letters; to
Mr. Barrett Browning for those of his father; to Sir George and Lady
Reid, Mr. Watts, Mr. Peter Graham, and Mr. Burlingame for their own.
I also beg Mr. A. H. Palmer to accept the expression of my gratitude for
his kind permission to use as a frontispiece to this book the fine
photograph taken by him.
E. HAMERTON.
_September_, 1896.
CONTENTS.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
CHAPTER I.
My reasons for writing an Autobiography.--That a man knows the history
of his own life better than a biographer can know it.--Frankness and
reserve.--The contemplation of death.
CHAPTER II.
1834.
My birthplace.--My father and mother.--Circumstances of their
marriage.--Their short married life.--Birth of their child.--Death of
my mother.--Her character and habits.--My father as a widower.--Dulness
of his life.--Its degradation.
CHAPTER III
1835-1841.
My childhood is passed at Barnley with my aunts.--My grandfather and
grandmother.--Estrangement between Gilbert Hamerton and his brother of
Hellifield Peel.--Death of Gilbert Hamerton.--His taste for the French
language.--His travels in Portugal, and the conduct of a steward during
his absence.--His three sons.--Aristocratic tendencies of his
daughters.--Beginning of my education.--Visits to my father.
CHAPTER IV.
1842.
A tour in Wales in 1842.--Extracts from my Journal of this tour.--My
inborn love for beautiful materials.--Stay at Rhyl.--Anglesea and
Caernarvon.--Reasons for specially remembering this tour.
CHAPTER V.
1843-1844.
A painful chapter to write.--My father calls me home.--What kind of a
house it was.--Paternal education and discipline.--My life at that time
one of dulness varied by dread.
CHAPTER VI.
1844.
My extreme loneliness.--Thoughts of flight.--My father's last illness
and death.--Circumstances of my last interview with him.--His funeral.
CHAPTER VII.
1845.
Dislike to Shaw in consequence of the dreadful life I lead there with my
father.--My guardian.--Her plan for my education.--Doncaster
School.--Mr. Cape and his usher.--The usher's intolerance of
Dissenters.--My feeling for architecture and music.--The
drawing-master.--My guardian insists on my learning French.--Our French
master, Sig. Testa.--A painful incident.--I begin to learn the
violin.--Dancing.--My aversion to cricket.--Early readings.--Love of
Scott.--My first library.--Classical studies.
CHAPTER VIII.
1845.
Early attempts in English verse.--Advantages of life at Doncaster.--A
school incident.--Fagging.--Story of a dog.--Robbery.--My school-fellow
Henry Alexander.--His remarkable influence.--Other school-fellows.
--Story of a boat.--A swimming adventure.--Our walks and battles.
CHAPTER IX.
1846.
Early interest in theology.--Reports of sermons.--Quiet influence of Mr.
Cape.--Failure of Mr. Cape's health.--His death.
CHAPTER X.
1847-1849.
My education becomes less satisfactory.--My guardian's state of
health.--I pursue my studies at Burnley.--Dr. Butler.--He encourages me
to write English.--Extract from a prize poem.--Public discussions in
Burnley School.--A debate on Queen Elizabeth.
CHAPTER XI.
1850.
My elder uncle.--We go to live at Hollins.--Description of the place.
--My strong attachment to it.--My first experiment in art-criticism.
--The stream at Hollins.--My first catamaran.--Similarity of my life at
Hollins to my life in France thirty-six years later.
CHAPTER XII.
1850.
Interest in the Middle Ages.--Indifference to the Greeks and Romans.
--Love for Sir Walter Scott's writings.--Interest in heraldry and
illuminations.--Passion for hawking.--Old books in the school library at
Burnley.--Mr. Edward Alexander of Halifax.--Attempts in literary
composition.--Contributions to the "Historic Times."--"Rome in
1849."--"Observations on Heraldry."
CHAPTER XIII.
1850.
Political and religious opinions of my relations.--The Rev. James
Bardsley.--Protestant controversy with Rome.--German neology.--The
inspiration of the Scriptures.--Inquiry into foundation for the
doctrine.--I cease to be a Protestant.--An alternative presents
itself.--A provisional condition of prolonged inquiry.--Our medical
adviser.--His remarkable character.--His opinions.
CHAPTER XIV.
1851.
First visit to London in 1851.--My first impression of the place.--
Nostalgia of the country.--Westminster.--The Royal Academy.--Resolution
never to go to London again.--Reason why this resolution was afterwards
broken.
CHAPTER XV.
1851-1852.
The lore of reading a hindrance to classical studies.--Dr. Butler
becomes anxious about my success at Oxford.--An insuperable
obstacle.--My indifference to degrees.--Irksome hypocrisy.--I am nearly
sent to a tutor at Brighton.--I go to a tutor in Yorkshire.--His
disagreeable disposition.--Incident about riding.--Disastrous effect of
my tutor's intellectual influence upon me.--My private reading.--My
tutor's ignorance of modern authors.--His ignorance of the fine
arts.--His religious intolerance.--I declare my inability to sign the
Thirty-nine Articles.
CHAPTER XVI.
1852.
Choice of a profession.--Love of literature and art.--Decision to make
trial of both.--An equestrian tour.--Windermere.--Derwentwater.--I take
lessons from Mr. J. P. Pettitt.--Ulleswater.--My horse turf.--Greenock,
a discovery.--My unsettled cousin.--Glasgow.--Loch
Lomond.--Inverary.--Loch Awe.--Inishail.--Inmstrynich.--Oban.--A
sailing excursion.--Mull and Ulva.--Solitary reading.
CHAPTER XVII.
1853.
A journal.--Self-training.--Attempts in periodical literature.--The
time given to versification well spent.--Practical studies in art.--
Beginning of Mr. Ruskin's influence.--Difficulty in finding a master in
landscape-painting.--Establishment of the militia.--I accept a
commission.--Our first training.--Our colonel and our adjutant.--The
Grand Llama.--Paying off the men.
CHAPTER XVIII.
1853.
A project for studying in Paris.--Reading.--A healthy life.--
Quinsy.--My most intimate friend.
CHAPTER XIX.
1853.
London again.--Accurate habits in employment of time.--Studies with Mr.
Pettitt.--Some account of my new master.--His method of technical
teaching.--Simplicity of his philosophy of art.--Incidents of his
life.--Rapid progress under Pettitt's direction.
CHAPTER XX.
1653-1854.
Acquaintance with R. W. Mackay.--His learning and accomplishments.--His
principal pursuit.--His qualities as a writer.--Value of the artistic
element in literature.--C. R. Leslie, R. A.--Robinson, the
line-engraver.--The Constable family.--Mistaken admiration for minute
detail.--Projected journey to Egypt.--Mr. Ruskin.--Bonomi.--Samuel
Sharpe.--Tennyson.
CHAPTER XXI.
1854.
A Visit to Rogers.--His Home.--Geniality in poets.--Talfourd.--Sir
Walter Scott.--Leslie's picture, "The Rape of the Lock."--George
Leslie.--Robert Leslie.--His nautical instincts.--Watkiss
Lloyd.--Landseer.--Harding.--Richard Doyle.
CHAPTER XXII.
1854.
Miss Marian Evans.--John Chapman, the publisher.--My friend William
Shaw.--His brother Richard.--Mead, the tragedian.--Mrs. Rowan and her
daughter.--A vexatious incident.--I suffer from nostalgia for the
country.
CHAPTER XXIII.
1854.
Some of my relations emigrate to New Zealand.--Difficulties of a poor
gentleman.--My uncle's reasons for emigration.--His departure.--Family
separations.--Our love for Hollins.
CHAPTER XXIV.
1854.
Resignation of commission in the militia.--Work from nature.--Spenser,
the poet.--Hurstwood.--Loch Awe revisited.--A customer.--I determine to
learn French well.--A tour in Wales.--Swimming.--Coolness on account of
my religious beliefs.--My guardian.--Evil effects of religions
bigotry.--Refuge in work.--My drawing-master.--Our excursion in Craven.
CHAPTER XXV.
1855.
Publication of "The Isles of Loch Awe and other Poems."--Their
sale.--Advice to poetic aspirants.--Mistake in illustrating my book of
verse.--Its subsequent history.--Want of art in the book.--Too much
reality.--Abandonment of verse. A critic in "Fraser."--Visit to Paris
in 1855.--Captain Turnbull.--Ball at the Hôtel de Ville.--Louis Napoleon
and Victor Emmanuel.
CHAPTER XXVI.
1855.
Thackeray's family in Paris.--Madame Mohl.--Her husband's encouraging
theory about learning languages.--Mr. Scholey.--His friend, William
Wyld.--An Indian in Europe.--An Italian adventuress.--Important meeting
with an American.--Its consequences.--I go to a French hotel.--People
at the _table d'hote_.--M. Victor Ouvrard.--His claim on the
Emperor.--M. Gindriez.--His family.--His eldest daughter.
CHAPTER XXVII.
1856.
Specialities in painting.--Wyld's practice.--Projected voyage on the
Loire.--Birth of the Prince Imperial.--Scepticism about his inheritance
of the crown.--The Imperial family.--I return home.--Value of the French
language to me.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1856.
My first encampment in Lancashire.--Value of encamping as a part of
educational discipline.--Happy days in camp.--The natural and the
artificial in landscape.--Sir James Kay Shuttleworth's Exhibition
project.--I decline to take an active part in it.--His energetic and
laborious disposition.--Charlotte Brontë.--General Scarlett.
CHAPTER XXIX.
I visit the homes of my forefathers at Hamerton, Wigglesworth, and
Hellifield Peel.--Attainder and execution of Sir Stephen Hamerton.
--Return of Hellifield Peel to the family.--Sir Richard.--The Hamertons
distinguished only for marrying heiresses.--Another visit to the Peel,
when I see my father's cousin.--Nearness of Hellifield Peel and Hollins.
CHAPTER XXX.
1857.
Expedition to the Highlands in 1857.--Kindness of the Marquis of
Breadalbane and others.--Camp life, its strong and peculiar
attraction.--My servant.--Young Helliwell.--Scant supplies in the
camp.--Nature of the camp.--Necessity for wooden floors in a bad
climate.--Double-hulled boats.--Practice of landscape-
painting.--Changes of effect.--Influences that governed my way of study
in those days.--Attractive character of the Scottish Highlands.--Their
scenery not well adapted for beginners.--My intense love of it.
CHAPTER XXXI.
1857-1858.
Small immediate results of the expedition to the Highlands.--Unsuitable
system of work.--Loss of time.--I rent the house and island of
Innistrynich.--My dread of marriage and the reasons for
it.--Notwithstanding this I make an offer and am refused.--Two young
ladies of my acquaintance.--Idea of a foreign marriage.--Its
inconveniences.--Decision to ask for the hand of Mdlle. Gindriez.--I go
to Paris and am accepted.--Elective affinities.
CHAPTER XXXII.
1858.
Reception at home after engagement.--Preparations at Innistrynich.--I
arrive alone in Paris.--My marriage.--The religious ceremony.--An
uncomfortable wedding.--The sea from Dieppe.--London.--The Academy
Exhibition of 1858.--Impressions of a Frenchwoman.--The Turner
collection.--The town.--Loch Awe.--The element wanting to happiness.
MEMOIR.
CHAPTER I
1858.
My first sight of Loch Awe.--Arrival at Innistrynich.--Our domestic
life.--Difficulties about provisions.--A kitchen-garden.
CHAPTER II.
1858.
Money matters.--Difficulties about servants.--Expensiveness of our mode
of life.
CHAPTER III.
1858.
Painting from nature.--Project of an exhibition.--Photography.--Plan of
"A Painter's Camp."--Topographic art.--Charm of our life in the
Highlands.
CHAPTER IV.
1858.
English and French manners.--My husband's relatives.--First journey to
France after our marriage.--Friends in London.--Miss Susan Hamerton.
CHAPTER V.
1859.
Visits from friends and relatives.--A Frenchman in the Highlands.--
Project of buying the island of Innistrynich.
CHAPTER VI.
1859-1860.
Financial complications.--Summer visitors.--Boats and boating.--Visit
to Paris.--W. Wyld.--Project of a farm in France.--Partnership with M.
Gindriez.
CHAPTER VII.
1861-1863.
Effects of the Highland climate.--Farewell to Loch Awe.--Journey to the
south of France.--Death of Miss Mary Hamerton.--Settlement at
Sens.--Death of M. Gindriez.--Publication of "A Painter's Camp."
--Removal to Pré-Charmoy.
CHAPTER VIII.
1863-1868.
Canoeing on the Unknown River.--Visit of relatives.--Tour in
Switzerland.--Experiments in etching.--The "Saturday Review."--Journeys
to London.--Plan of "Etching and Etchers."--New friends in
London.--Etching exhibited at the Royal Academy.--Serious illness in
London.--George Eliot.--Professor Seeley.
CHAPTER IX.
1868.
Studies of animals.--A strange visitor.--Illness at Amiens.--Resignation
of post on the "Saturday Review."--Nervous seizure in railway
train.--Mrs. Craik.--Publication of "Etching and Etchers."
--Tennyson.--Growing reputation in America.
CHAPTER X.
1869-1870.
"Wenderholme."--The Mont Beuvray.--Botanical studies.--La
Tuilerie.--Commencement of "The Portfolio."--The Franco-Prussian War.
CHAPTER XI.
1870-1872.
Landscape-painting.--Letters of Mr. Peter Graham, R.A.--Incidents of the
war-time.--"The Intellectual Life."--"The Etcher's Handbook."
CHAPTER XII.
1873-1875.
Popularity of "The Intellectual Life."--Love of animals.--English
visitors.--Technical notes.--Sir S. Seymour Haden.--Attempts to resume
railway travelling.
CHAPTER XIII.
1876-1877.
"Round my House."--Journey to England after seven years' absence.--Visit
to Mr. Samuel Palmer.--Articles for the "Encyclopedia Britannica."
--Death of my sister.--Mr. Appleton.
CHAPTER XIV.
1878-1880.
"Marmorne."--Paris International Exhibition.--"Modern Frenchmen."
--Candidature for the Watson Gordon Chair of Fine Arts.--The Bishop of
Autun.--The "Life of Turner."
CHAPTER XV.
1880-1882.
Third edition of "Etching and Etchers."--Kew.--The "Graphic
Arts."--"Human Intercourse."
CHAPTER XVI.
1882-1884.
"Paris."--Miss Susan Hamerton's death.--Burnley revisited.--Hellifield
Peel.--"Landscape" planned.--Voyage to Marseilles.
CHAPTER XVII.
1884-1888.
"Landscape."--The Autobiography begun.--"Imagination in Landscape
Painting."--"The Saône."--"Portfolio Papers."
CHAPTER XVIII.
1888-1890.
"Man in Art" begun.--Family events.--Mr. G. F. Watts.--Mr.
Bodley.--"French and English."
CHAPTER XIX.
1890-1891.
Decision to live near Paris.--Practice in painting and etching.--Search
for a house.--Clématis.
CHAPTER XX.
1891-1894.
Removal to Paris.--Interest in the Bois de Boulogne.--M. Vierge.--"Man
in Art."--Contributions to "Scribner's Magazine."--New form of "The
Portfolio."--Honorary degree.--Last Journey to London.--Society of
Illustrators.--Illness and death.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
1834--1858
CHAPTER I.
My reasons for writing an autobiography.--That a man knows the history
of his own life better than a biographer can know it.--Frankness and
reserve.--The contemplation of death.
My principal reasons for writing an autobiography are because I am the
only person in the world who knows enough about my history to give a
truthful account of it, and because I dread the possibility of falling
into the hands of some writer who might attempt a biography with
inadequate materials. I have already been selected as a subject by two
or three biographers with very friendly intentions, but their
friendliness did not always ensure accuracy. When the materials are not
supplied in abundance, a writer will eke them out with conjectural
expressions which he only intends as an amplification, yet which may
contain germs of error to be in their turn amplified by some other
writer, and made more extensively erroneous.
It has frequently been said that an autobiography must of necessity be
an untrue representation of its subject, as no man can judge himself
correctly. If it is intended to imply that somebody else, having a much
slighter acquaintance with the man whose life is to be narrated, would
produce a more truthful book, one may be permitted to doubt the validity
of the inference. Thousands of facts are known to a man himself with
reference to his career, and a multitude of determinant motives, which
are not known even to his most intimate friends, still less to the
stranger who so often undertakes the biography. The reader of an
autobiography has this additional advantage, that the writer must be
unconsciously revealing himself all along, merely by his way of telling
things.
With regard to the great question of frankness and reserve, I hold that
the reader has a fair claim to hear the truth, as a biography is not
avowedly a romance, but at the same time that it is right to maintain a
certain reserve. My rule shall be to say nothing that can hurt the
living, and the memory of the dead shall be dealt with as tenderly as
may be compatible with a truthful account of the influences that have
impelled me in one direction or another.
I have all the more kindly feelings towards the dead, that when these
pages appear I shall be one of themselves, and therefore unable to
defend my own memory as they are unable to defend theirs.
The notion of being a dead man is not entirely displeasing to me. If the
dead are defenceless, they have this compensating advantage, that nobody
can inflict upon them any sensible injury; and in beginning a book which
is not to see the light until I am lying comfortably in my grave, with
six feet of earth above me to deaden the noises of the upper world, I
feel quite a new kind of security, and write with a more complete
freedom from anxiety about the quality of the work than has been usual
at the beginning of other manuscripts.
Nevertheless, the clear and steady contemplation of death (I have been
looking the grim king in the face for the last hour) may produce a
paralyzing effect upon a man by making his life's work seem very small
to him. For, whatever we believe about a future state, it is evident
that the catastrophe of death must throw each of us instantaneously into
the past, from the point of view of the living, and they will see what
we have done in a very foreshortened aspect, so that except in a few
very rare cases it must look small to them, and ever smaller as time
rolls on, and they will probably not think much of it, or remember us
long on account of it. And in thinking of ourselves as dead we
instinctively adopt the survivor's point of view. Besides which, it is
reasonable to suppose that whatever fate may be in store for us, a
greater or less degree of posthumous reputation in two or three nations
on this planet can have little effect on our future satisfaction; for if
we go to heaven, the beatitude of the life there will be so incomparably
superior to the pleasures of earthly fame that we shall never think of
such vanity again; and if we go to the place of eternal tortures they
will leave us no time to console ourselves with pleasant memories of any
kind; and if death is simply the ending of all sensation, all thought,
memory, and consciousness, it will matter nothing to a handful of dust
what estimate of the name it once bore may happen to be current amongst
the living--
"Les grands Dieux savent seuls si l'âme est immortelle,
Mais le juste travaille à leur oeuvre éternelle."