great and luscious clusters in the autumn--you reach the studio. It is
a big, square room. Run your eyes round the walls, try to take in its
thousand and one quaint treasures. You can see humour in every one of
them--merriment oozes out of every single item. Stand before this almost
colossal statue of Venus. She of the almost faultless waist and
fashion-plate divine rests on a coal-box. Sit down on the sofa. It is
the stuffed lid of another receptacle for fuel. Golf is one of the
artist's hobbies, and he invariably plays with clergymen--excellent
thing for the character. We light our cigars from a capital little
match-stand modelled out of a golf-ball, and the next instant "Lika
Joko" is juggling with three or four balls. A clever juggler, forsooth.
And the battledore and shuttlecock? Excellent exercise. After a long
spell of work, the battledore is seized and the shuttlecock bounces up
to the glass roof. It went through the other day, hence play has been
postponed owing to the numerous engagements of the local glazier.
Fencing foils are in a corner; a quaint arrangement of helmets, masks,
and huge weapons _à la_ Waterloo suggests "scalping trophies." The china
is curious--there is even an empty ginger jar--picked up in country
places, of a rare and valuable old-fashioned type. He has the finest
collection of old tinsel pictures of the Richard III. and Dick Turpin
order in the kingdom, and values an old book full of tinsel patterns of
the most exquisite design and workmanship. Old glass pictures are
scattered about, "Lord Nelson's Funeral Car," and Joey Grimaldi grins at
you from the far corner of the room.
[Illustration: SCALPING TROPHIES.
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
All this and much more is characteristic of the humour of the famous
caricaturist. We look at "Lika Joko's" skits and laugh; we take a
delight in picking out from his ingenious pictorial mazes our own
particular politician or favourite actor; we roar at "Lika Joko's"
comicality, and only know him as a caricaturist. But there is another
side to this studio picture--Mr. Harry Furniss's pencil is such that it
can make you weep; so realistic, indeed, that when in his early days he
was sent to sketch scenes of distress and misery, they were so terribly
real and dramatic that the paper in question dared not publish them. No
artist appreciates a "situation" better than he. I looked through
portfolio after portfolio, drawer after drawer--full of character
studies and work of a serious character done in all parts of the world.
These have never been given to the public. Should they ever be
published, Mr. Harry Furniss will at once be voted as serious and
dramatic an artist as he is an eminently refined yet outrageously
humorous caricaturist. He is a great reader--he once collected first
editions. We begin to talk seriously, when he suddenly closes the
portfolio with a bang, shuts up once more his hidden and unknown
talents, and hastens to inform you that he is a member of the Thirteen
Club--Irving and he were elected together--and believes in helping other
people to salt, dining thirteen on the thirteenth, with thirteen
courses, etc. Always passes under ladders, and swears by peacocks'
feathers.
We stand before the great easel in the middle of the room--though not
much work is done there. He prefers to work standing at a desk. He draws
all his pictures very large; they are studies from life. It prevents the
work from getting cramped. The same model has stood for all his
principal people for the last ten years, and he has a wardrobe of
artistic "props" big enough to fit out every member of the House of
Commons. He is a perfect business man. His ledger is a model book. Every
one of his pictures is numbered. In this book spaces are ruled off
for--Subject, Publisher, When delivered, Published, Price, When paid,
When drawing returned, Price of original, and What came of it. Humour by
no means knocks system out of a man. Look at the score of pigeon-holes
round the studio. As we are talking together now his secretary is
"typing off" his illustrated weekly letter which finds a place in the
_St. James's Budget_, _New York World_, _Weekly Scotsman_, _Yorkshire
Weekly Post_, _Liverpool Weekly Post_, _Nottinghamshire Guardian_,
_South Wales Daily News_, _East Anglian Times_, and in Australia, India,
the Cape, etc. He writes children's books and illustrates them. His
impressions of America are in course of preparation. There is his weekly
_Punch_ work; he is dodging about all over the country giving his unique
"Humours of Parliament" entertainment, and he found time to make some
special sketches for this little article.
[Illustration: _From a Drawing by Mr. Furniss._]
We sat down. Tea was brought in--he believes in two big breakfast cups
every afternoon--and with "Bogie," the Irish deerhound--so called owing
to his very solemn-looking countenance--close by, Mr. Furniss went back
as far as he could possibly remember, to March 26th, 1854. That is the
date of his birthday.
"I am always taken for an Irishman," said Mr. Furniss. "Nothing of the
kind. My father was a Yorkshireman. He was in Ireland with my mother,
and I believe I arrived at an unexpected moment. Possibly my artistic
inclinations came through my mother. Her father was Æneas Mackenzie, a
well-known literary man of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and proprietor of several
newspapers. He founded the Newcastle School of Politics, and Mr. Joseph
Cowen--as a boy--got his first tuition in politics from sitting at the
knee of my grandfather. A bust of him is in the Mechanics'
Institute--which he founded."
[Illustration: "AT WORK."
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
Little Harry was brought up in Wexford. He remembers being held up in
his nurse's arms to see the _Great Eastern_ pass on its first voyage,
whilst an incident associated with the marriage of the Prince of Wales
is vividly impressed upon his mind. He was struck on the top of his hat
by a "fizzing devil" made out of moist powder, which burnt a hole
through it. He says that he would rather have this recollection on his
mind now, than the "fizzer" on his head at the time. The young artist in
embryo was a rare young pugilist at school. He was forced to use his
fists, as friction was strong between the Irish and English lads at the
school he went to. But he did well in athletic sports, and was never
beaten in a hundred yards race. He firmly believes that this early
athletic training is responsible for the rapid way in which he does
everything to-day--be it walking or talking, eating or working, all is
done on the hundred yards principle--to get there first.
He was a spoilt boy--first of all because he was sent to a girls'
school, but mainly from a very significant incident which happened at
the Wesleyan College School in Dublin--a collegiate establishment from
which pupils (not necessarily Wesleyans, for Mr. Furniss is not of that
sect) passed to Trinity College--where he obtained all his education. He
was not a studious lad. He found the editing, writing, illustrating,
publishing, and entire bringing-out of a small journal he founded far
more agreeable to his taste than Latin verbs and algebraical problems.
[Illustration: STUDY OF AN IRISHMAN.]
"I was in knickerbockers at the time," he said, "and introduced to the
schoolboy public--_The Schoolboy's Punch_. It sounds strangely prophetic
as I think of it now. The entire make-up of it was _à la Punch_, and it
had its cartoon every week. At that time the Davenport Cabinet Trick was
all the rage, and the very first cartoon I drew was founded on that.
Here is the picture: myself--as a schoolboy--being tied up with ropes
depictive of Greek, Latin, Euclid, and other cutting and disagreeable
items. I am placed in the cabinet--the school. The head-master, whom I
flattered very much in the drawing, opens another cabinet and out steps
the young student covered with glory and scholastic honours thick upon
him! From that moment my school-master spoiled me. I left school and
started work. I got a pound for my first drawing. A. M. Sullivan started
a paper in Ireland on very similar lines to _Punch_. There was a wave in
Ireland of better class journalism at this time which had never existed
before or since. I slipped in. For some years I drew on wood and
engraved my own work. I was given to understand that all black and white
men engraved their own efforts, so I offered myself as an apprentice to
an engraver.
"He said: 'Don't come as an apprentice. If you will undertake to look
after my office, I'll teach you the art of engraving.'"
It meant a hard struggle for young Furniss. He was loaded down with
clerical work, but in his own little room, when the day's labours were
done, he would sit up till two and three in the morning. There was no
quenching his earnestness. Work then with him was a real desire. It is
so to-day. To rest is obnoxious to him.
He worked away. The feeling in Ireland against Englishmen at that time
was very strong. Tom Taylor, then the editor of _Punch_, saw some of his
sketches in Dublin, and advised him to go to the West of Ireland to make
studies of character. He was in Galway, and he had persuaded a number of
Irishmen who were breaking stones to pause in their work and let him
sketch them. They consented. The overseer came up.
"What d'yer mane," he cried, "allowing this hathen Saxon to draw yer?"
"I've never been out of Ireland in my life," said the artist; but the
overseer had seized him, and but for the intervention of the men, whom
he had paid liberally for the "sitting," he would have thrown him into
the river.
Then a great trouble came. His father was stricken with blindness. The
young man came to London, and with something more than the proverbial
half-crown in his pocket. He was nineteen years of age when he hurried
out of Euston Station one morning and stood for a moment thinking--for
he did not know a soul in the Metropolis. But he soon found an
opportunity.
"My first work was on _London Society_, for Florence Marryat," he said;
"then for the _Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News_. The _Illustrated
London News_ employed me. I did such things as the Boat Race, Eton and
Harrow cricket match, and similar subjects--all from a humorous point of
view. I have had as many as three full pages in one number. Then came
that terrible distress in the mining districts. I was married that year.
I was sent away to "do" the Black Country, and well remember eating the
first Christmas dinner of my married life alone in a Sheffield hotel.
[Illustration: MR. FURNISS ON "RHODA."
_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
"Those sketches were never published. They were too terribly real. The
people dying in rooms with scarcely a stick of furniture, the children
opening the cupboards and showing them bare, appealed to me, and my
pencil refused to depict anything else. It was the same kind of thing
that was afterwards made notorious by Sims and Barnard in "How the Poor
Live." I came back and was selected to do some electioneering work for
the same paper. This necessitated the putting off of a little dinner
party to some friends, and I wired one of the invited to that effect.
When I was starting, imagine my surprise to meet a _Graphic_ artist on
the platform, and to hear that my friend had unwisely given away the
contents of my telegram! However, we chummed up. He stayed with
friends--I at an hotel. I sat up all that night working after attending
the meetings. At four o'clock I heard a knock at the door. A journalist.
I was just about to put into my picture the large figures. I made him
very much at home, and told him I would give him any information I knew
as to the previous night's proceedings if he would act as my model. He
did. We worked on till breakfast time, and we sat down together. I sent
off my page--it was in a week before the _Graphic_! It was a good
return. I had started on the Tuesday, got home on the Thursday, and
never had my boots off the whole time! I'd rather keep my boots on for a
week than disappoint an editor."
_Punch!_
I asked Mr. Furniss if Tom Taylor helped him to any considerable extent.
Oh! dear, no. Tom Taylor wrote a terrible fist, spattered the page all
over with ink, and invariably replied on the back of the letter sent
him. At least, it was so in Mr. Furniss's case. He would send sketches
to _Punch_; they were acknowledged as "unsuitable." They invariably
turned up a week or so later--the idea re-drawn by a member of the
staff! He began to despair. But that first cartoon in the schoolboy's
periodical was always before him.
"When Mr. Burnand became editor," continued Mr. Furniss, "I was working
on the _Illustrated London News_. He saw one of the sketches and asked
me to call--the result was that I have worked for them ever since. I
started at very small things; my first was a small drawing of Temple
Bar. Then, when Parliament opened, Mr. H. W. Lucy commenced
_Toby_--by-the-bye, Lucy and I both joined the _Punch_ table, the weekly
dinner, together--and I worked with him. I have special permission at
the House; as a matter of fact, I have the sanction of the Lord Great
Chamberlain to sketch anywhere in the precincts of Westminster. My right
there is an individual one."
"But supposing, Mr. Furniss," I said, "they put a stop to you and your
pencil entering?"
"I'd go into Parliament!" came the ready reply. And, indeed, he has been
approached on this subject by constituencies two or three times.
We spoke of some of the eminent statesmen and others Mr. Furniss has
caricatured. Mr. John Morley is the most difficult. He is not what an
artist would call a black and white man. You must suggest the familiar
red tie in your picture and then you have "caught" him.
[Illustration: THE FURNISS FAMILY. _From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]
"I have seen Mr. Morley look a boy, a young man, and an old man--and all
in an hour," said Mr. Furniss. "Mr. Asquith is difficult, too. But I
don't think I have ever missed him, as there's a Penley look about his
face and a decided low comedian's mouth that help you immensely. Sir
Richard Temple is the easiest. Many members have some characteristic
action which assists you materially. For instance, Mr. Joseph Arch
always wipes his hands down his coat before shaking hands with you,
whilst Mr. Goschen delights to play with his eye-glass when speaking.
Lord Randolph Churchill likes to indulge in a little acrobatic exercise
and balance himself on one foot, whilst Mr. Balfour hangs on
persistently to the lapel of his coat when talking. All these little
things help to 'mark' the man for the caricaturist. I invented
Gladstone's collar and made Churchill small. Not because he is small,
but because I think it is the caricaturist's art not so much to give an
absolutely correct likeness, but rather to convey the character and
value of the man through the lines you draw. Gladstone! A wonderful man
for the caricaturist, and one of the finest. I have sat and watched the
rose in his coat droop and fade, his hair become dishevelled with
excitement, and his tie get round to the back of his neck."
"And what do the wives of our estimable M.P.'s think of all this?" I
hinted.
"Oh! I get most abusive letters from both sides. Wives of members write
and ask me not to caricature their husbands. One lady wrote to me the
other day, and said if I would persist in caricaturing her husband,
would I put him in a more fashionable coat? Now, this particular member
is noted for the old-fashioned cut of the coats he wears. Another asked
me to make the sharer of her joys and sorrows better looking; whilst
only last week a lady--the wife of a particularly well-known
M.P.--addressed a most plaintive letter to me, saying that since some of
the younger members of her family had contrived to see my pictures they
had become quite rude to their papa!
"Why, members often _ask_ me to caricature them. One member was very
kindly disposed to me, and suggested that I should keep my eye on him. I
did. Yet he cut me dead when he saw his picture! It's so discouraging,
don't you know, when you are so anxious to oblige."
I asked Mr. Furniss if he thought there was anything suggestive of
cruelty in caricature.
"Not in this country," he replied; "in Spain, Italy, and France--yes.
Caricaturists there score off their cruelty. Listen to this. One night I
was in the House. Mr. Gladstone rose to speak. He held his left hand up
and referred to it as 'This old Parliamentary hand.' I noticed a
fact--which men who had sat in that House for years had never seen. On
that left hand Mr. Gladstone has only three fingers! Think of it--think
of what your caricaturist with an inclination towards cruelty might have
made of that fact, coupled with those significant words! I ask you
again--think of it!"
He spoke in thorough earnestness. He told me that he looked forward to
the time when he should consign to the rag-basket the famous Gladstone
collar and cease to play with Goschen's eye-glass. He is striving to
accomplish something more--he would do it now, but it isn't marketable.
Mr. Furniss is a sensible man. He caricatures to live; and, if the
laughs follow, well, so much the better.
The afternoon passed rapidly, and the studio became darker and darker.
Venus on the coal-box looked quite ghostly, and a lay figure in the far
corner was not calculated to comfort the nervously-inclined when amongst
the "props" of an artist's studio. "Buzzy" merrily rushed in and
announced dinner, and "Bogie" jumped up and barked his raptures at the
word. "Bogie" knew it meant scraps. Mrs. Furniss and the children met us
at the dining-room door. The youngsters' faces were as solemn as the
Court of Queen's Bench. Little Lawrence looked up at me very demurely,
the others waiting anxiously.
"Please could you tell us what a spiral staircase is?" he asked.
A dead silence.
"Oh!" I answered, anxious to show a superior knowledge of these
peculiarly constructed "ups and downs," "It's--it's--it's one of those
twirley-whirley"--here I illustrated my meaning by twirling my finger
round and round.
A shout of laughter went up.
If the reader will try this little joke on a score of people, by the
time the twentieth is arrived at he will then discover why the happiest
quartette of youngsters in the immediate vicinity of Primrose Hill
laughed so gaily.
Then we all went in to dinner. How well the shirt-cuff story went down
with the soup.
"Pellegrini," said the artist, "used to remark somewhat sarcastically to
his brother artists: 'Ah, you fellows are always making sketches. I
carry all mine here--here in my brain!' Pellegrini wore very big cuffs.
He made his sketches on them. Until this came out we thought his linen
always dirty!"
[Illustration: BALLYHOOLY, M.P., GETS EXCITED.]
Then Burnand came on with the beef. The two fellow-workers on
_Punch_--Mr. Burnand and Mr. Furniss--run pretty level in their ideas. A
happy thought is often suggested to both of them through reading the
same paragraph in a newspaper, and they cross in the post. We spoke of
_Punch's_ Grand Old Man--John Tenniel--of clever E. J. Milliken, whose
really wonderful work is yet but little known. Mr. Milliken wrote
"Childe Chappie"--and is "'Arry." Of Linley Sambourne, whom Mr. Furniss
once saw walking down Bond Street, and had the strange intuition that he
was the artist, connecting his work, and walk, and bearing together. He
had never seen or spoken to him before. Charles Keene's name was
mentioned. It was always the hardest matter to get Keene to make a
speech. He far preferred the famous stump of a pipe to spouting. Mr.
Furniss hurt Keene's feelings once with the happiest and kindest of
compliments. It was at a little dinner party, and Mr. Furniss linked
Keene's name with that of Robert Hunter--who did so much to provide open
spaces for the people. He referred to Keene as "the greatest provider of
open spaces!" Keene said he was never so grossly insulted--he never
forgave Mr. Furniss. He failed to see the truly charming inference to be
drawn from this remark.
[Illustration: "THE ASSASSINATED SCARECROW, SOR!"]
We went into the drawing-room, and together ran through the pages of a
huge volume. It contained the facsimiles of the pictures which comprised
one of Mr. Furniss's biggest hits--what was in reality an attack on the
Royal Academy. His "Artistic Joke"--a sub-title given to this exhibition
by the _Times_ in a long preliminary notice--created a sensation six
years ago. He attacked the Royal Academy in a good-natured way, because
he was not himself a member of that influential body. But there was a
more solid and serious reason. "I saw how cruel they were to younger
men," he said; "the long odds against a painter getting his work
exhibited, the indiscriminate selection of canvases."
This really great effort on the part of Mr. Furniss--this idea to
caricature the style of the eminent artists of the day--kept him at work
for more than two years. There were eighty-seven canvases in all. His
friends came and went, but they saw nothing of the huge canvases hidden
away in his studio. He worked at such a rate that he became nervous of
himself. He would go to bed at night. He would wake to find himself
cutting the style of an R.A. to pieces in his studio at early morn--in a
state of semi-somnambulism. He fired his "Artistic Joke" off, the shot
went home, and the effect was a startler for many people and in many
places. It advanced Mr. Furniss in the world of art in a way he never
expected, and did not a little for those he sought to benefit. One of
these "jokes"--and a very dramatic one--is reproduced in these pages.
The hour or two passed in the little drawing-room after dinner was
delightful. We had his unique platform entertainment. Mr. Furniss was
induced by the Birmingham and Midland Institute to appear on the
platform as a lecturer. This was followed by his lecturing for two
seasons all over the country, but finding that the Institutes made huge
profits out of his efforts, and that his anecdotes and mimicry were the
parts most relished, he abandoned the role of lecturer for that of
entertainer with "The Humours of Parliament." As soon as he had crushed
the idea that it was a lecture, people flocked to hear his anecdotes and
to watch his acting, the result of his first short tour resulting in a
clear profit of over £2,000.
[Illustration: DRAWING FROM "AN ARTISTIC JOKE."]
So it came about that young Frank closed his foreign stamp book, and
"Buzzy" settled down in a corner by her mother's side and looked the
little model she is. "Bogie" lay on the hearth-rug. Suddenly--we were
all in "The House." We heard the young member make his maiden speech; we
watched the mournful procession of the Speaker. Mr. Gladstone appeared
upon the scene--he walked the room, and in a merry sort of way played
with "Buzzy's" long curls--and took an intense interest in Frank's
collection of foreign stamps. "Bogie" was evidently inclined to break
out in a loud bark of presumable applause when the Irish member rose to
his legs--the member for Ballyhooly--who had a question to ask the Chief
Secretary for Ireland regarding an assassinated scarecrow! The reply did
not satisfy him, and the Ballyhooly M.P. poured forth such a torrent of
abuse upon the Chief Secretary's head that "Bogie's" bark came forth in
boisterous tones just as the Speaker called the Irish representative to
order!
"What a hissing there was at one of my entertainments at Leicester,"
said the humorist-caricaturist looking across at me with twinkling eyes.
"A terrible hissing! I showed Mr. Gladstone on the sheet. Immediately it
burst forth like a suddenly alarmed steam-engine. The audience rose in
indignation--they tried to outdo it with frantic applause, but in spite
of their lusty efforts it continued for several minutes.
"'Turn him out--turn him out!' they cried. But we couldn't find the
party who was acting so rudely.
"Imagine my feelings next morning when I saw in the papers leading
articles speaking in strong terms of this occurrence, which, one of
them stated in bold type--'was a disgrace to the people of Leicester.'"
"Bogie" rose from the hearth-rug, wagged his tail, and made his exit.
"Good night, Buz."
"Good night, Frank."
"And did they ever discover this very unseemly person?" I asked Mr.
Furniss when we were alone.
"Oh! I forgot to tell you," he said, "that it was the hissing of the
lime in my magic lantern!"