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[Illustration: MY CARICATURE OF MR. GLADSTONE.]
THE
CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST
BY
HARRY FURNISS
_ILLUSTRATED_
VOLUME I
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.
1902.
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS
LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
[_All rights reserved._]
December, 1901.
PREFACE.
If, in these volumes, I have made some joke at a friend's expense, let
that friend take it in the spirit intended, and--I apologise beforehand.
In America apology in journalism is unknown. The exception is the
well-known story of the man whose death was published in the obituary
column. He rushed into the office of the paper and cried out to the
editor:
"Look here, sur, what do you mean by this? You have published two
columns and a half of my obituary, and here I am as large as life!"
The editor looked up and coolly said, "Sur, I am vury sorry, I reckon
there is a mistake some place, but it kean't be helped. You are killed
by the _Jersey Eagle_, you are to the world buried. We nevur correct
anything, and we nevur apologise in Amurrican papers."
"That won't do for me, sur. My wife's in tears; my friends are laughing
at me; my business will be ruined,--you _must_ apologise."
"No, si--ree, an Amurrican editor nevur apologises."
"Well, sur, I'll take the law on you right away. I'm off to my
attorney."
"Wait one minute, sur--just one minute. You are a re-nowned and popular
citizen: the _Jersey Eagle_ has killed you--for that I am vury, vury
sorry, and to show you my respect I will to-morrow find room for you--in
the births column."
Now do not let any editor imagine these pages are my professional
obituary,--my autobiography. If by mistake he does, then let him place
me immediately in their births column. I am in my forties, and there is
quite time for me to prepare and publish two more volumes of my
"Confessions" from my first to my second birth, and many other things,
before I am fifty.
[Illustration: Faithfully yours
Harry Furniss]
LONDON, 1901.
[The Author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Proprietors
and the Editor of _Punch_, the Proprietors of the _Magazine of Art_,
the _Graphic_, the _Illustrated London News_, _English Illustrated
Magazine_, _Cornhill Magazine_, _Harper's Magazine_, _Westminster
Gazette_, _St. James' Gazette_, the _British Weekly_ and the _Sporting
Times_ for their kindness in allowing him to reproduce extracts and
pictures in these volumes.]
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD--AND AFTER.
Introductory--Birth and Parentage--The Cause of my remaining a
Caricaturist--The Schoolboys' _Punch_--Infant Prodigies--As a
Student--I Start in Life--_Zozimus_--The Sullivan
Brothers--Pigott--The Forger--The Irish "Pathriot"--Wood
Engraving--Tom Taylor--The Wild West--Judy--Behind the
Scenes--Titiens--My First and Last Appearance in a Play--My Journey to
London--My Companion--A Coincidence _pp._ 1-29
CHAPTER II.
BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS.
I arrive in London--A Rogue and Vagabond--Two Ladies--Letters of
Introduction--Bohemia--A Distinguished Member--My Double--A Rara
Avis--The Duke of Broadacres--The Savages--A Souvenir--Portraits of
the Past--J. L. Toole--Art and Artists--Sir Spencer Wells--John
Pettie--Milton's Garden _pp._ 30-53
CHAPTER III.
MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST.
The Light Brigade--Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)--Slumming--The Boat
Race--Realism--A Phantasmagoria--Orlando and the Caitiff--Fancy Dress
Balls--Lewis Wingfield--Cinderella--A Model--All Night Sitting--An
Impromptu Easel--"Where there's a Will there's a Way"--The American
Sunday Papers--I am Deaf--The Grill--The World's
Fair--Exaggeration--Personally Conducted--The Charnel House--10,
Downing Street--I attend a Cabinet Council--An Illustration by Mr.
Labouchere--The Great Lincolnshire Trial--Praying without Prejudice
_pp._ 54-87
CHAPTER IV.
THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR--A SERIOUS CHAPTER.
Drawing--"Hieroglyphics"--Clerical Portraiture--A Commission from
General Booth--In Search of Truth--Sir Walter Besant--James Payn--Why
Theodore Hook was Melancholy--"Off with his Head"--Reformers'
Tree--Happy Thoughts--Christmas Story--Lewis Carroll--The Rev. Charles
Lutwidge Dodgson--Sir John Tenniel--The Challenge--Seven Years'
Labour--A Puzzle MS.--Dodgson on Dress--Carroll on Drawing--Sylvie and
Bruno--A Composite Picture--My Real Models--I am very Eccentric--My
"Romps"--A Letter from du Maurier--Caldecott--Tableaux--Fine
Feathers--Models--Fred Barnard--The Haystack--A Wicket Keeper--A Fair
Sitter--Neighbours--The Post Office Jumble--Puzzling the
Postmen--Writing Backwards--A Coincidence _pp._ 88-130
CHAPTER V.
A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL.
What is Caricature?--Interviewing--Catching
Caricatures--Pellegrini--The "Ha! Ha!"--Black and White _v._
Paint--How to make a Caricature--M.P.'s--My System--Mr. Labouchere's
Attitude--Do the Subjects Object?--Colour in Caricature--Caught!--A
Pocket Caricature--The Danger of the Shirt-cuff--The Danger of a
Marble Table--Quick Change--Advice to those about to Caricature
_pp._ 131--153
CHAPTER VI.
PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS.
Gladstone and Disraeli--A Contrast--An unauthenticated Incident--Lord
Beaconsfield's last Visit to the House of Commons--My Serious
Sketch--Historical--Mr. Gladstone--His Portraits--What he thought of
the Artists--Sir J. E. Millais--Frank Holl--The Despatch
Boxes--Impressions--Disraeli--Dan O'Connell--Procedure--American
Wit--Toys--Wine--Pressure--Sandwich Soiree--The G.O.M. dines with
"Toby, M.P."--Walking--Quivering--My Desk--An Interview--Political
Caricaturists--Signature in Sycamore--Scenes in the Commons--Joseph
Gillis Biggar--My Double--Scenes--Divisions--Puck--Sir R.
Temple--Charles Stewart Parnell--A Study--Quick Changes--His
Fall--Room 15--The last Time I saw him--Lord Randolph Churchill--His
Youth--His Height--His Fickleness--His Hair--His Health--His
Fall--Lord Iddesleigh--Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone--Bradlaugh--His
Youth--His Parents--His Tactics--His Fight--His Extinction--John
Bright--Jacob Bright--Sir Isaac Holden--Lord Derby--A Political
Prophecy--A Lucky Guess--My Confession in the _Times_--The Joke that
Failed--The Seer--Fair Play--I deny being a Conservative--I am
Encouraged--Chaff--Reprimanded--Misprinted--Misunderstood
_pp._ 154--214
CHAPTER VII.
"PUNCH."
Two _Punch_ Editors--_Punch's_ Hump--My First _Punch_ Dinner--Charles
Keene--"Robert"--W. H. Bradbury--du Maurier--"Kiki"--A Trip to the
Place of his Birth--He Hates Me--A Practical Joke--du Maurier's
Strange Model--No Sportsman--Tea--Appollinaris--My First
Contribution--My Record--Parliament--Press Gallery Official--I Feel
Small--The "Black Beetle"--Professor Rogers--Sergeant-at-Arms'
Room--Styles of Work--Privileges--Dr. Percy--I Sit in the Table--The
Villain of Art--The New Cabinet--Criticism--_Punch's_ Historical
Cartoons--Darwen MacNeill--Scenes in the Lobby--A Technical
Assault--John Burns's "Invention"--John Burns's Promise--John Burns's
Insult--The Lay of Swift MacNeill--The Truth--Sir Frank
Lockwood--"Grand Cross"--Lockwood's Little Sketch--Lockwood's Little
Joke in the House--Lockwood's Little Joke at Dinner--Lewis Carroll and
_Punch_--Gladstone's Head--Sir William's
Portrait--Ciphers--Reversion--_Punch_ at Play--Three _Punch_ Men in a
Boat--Squaring up--Two Pins Club--Its One Joke--Its One Horse--Its
Mystery--Artistic Duties--Lord Russell--Furious Riding--Before the
Beak--Burnand and I in the Saddle--Caricaturing Pictures for
_Punch_--Art under Glass--Arthur Cecil--My Other Eye--The Ridicule
that Kills--Red Tape--_Punch_ in Prison--I make a Mess of
it--Waterproof--"I used your Soap two years ago"--Charles
Keene--Charles Barber--_Punch's_ Advice--_Punch's_ Wives
_pp._ 215--302
[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS'S (EGYPTIAN STYLE). _From "Punch."_]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
My Caricature of Mr. Gladstone _Frontispiece_
Initial "In." Writing my Confessions. A Visitor's Snapshot 1
My Mother 3
My Father 5
Harry Furniss, aged 10 6
A Caricature, made when a Boy (never published). Dublin Exhibition.
Portrait of Sir A. Guinness (now Lord Iveagh) in centre 11
An Early Illustration on Wood by Harry Furniss. Partly Engraved
by him. 16
Sketches in Galway 19
"Judy," the Galway Dwarf 23
Phelps, the first Actor I saw 24
Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Harry Furniss. From an Early Sketch 25
Caricature of Myself, drawn when I first arrived in London 30
Age 20 35
A successful "Make-Up" 36
Two Travellers 38
The Duke of "Broadacres" 40
Savage Club House Dinner. From a Sketch by Herbert Johnson 41
The Earl of Dunraven as a Savage 42
"Another Gap in Our Ranks" 43
"Jope" 43
H. J. Byron 44
A Presentation 45
Savage Club. My Design for the Menu, 25th Anniversary Dinner 47
"Savages" 50
Letter from Sir Spencer Wells 51
Distress in the Black Country 54
At the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race 55
As Special at the Balaclava Celebration 57
Distress in the North 59
Realism! 61
"The Caitiff" and Orlando 62
An Invitation 63
At a Fancy Dress Ball 65
Lewis Wingfield as a Street Nigger Home from the Derby 67
"The Liberal Candidate" 68
Sketches at the Liverpool Election: A Ward Meeting 69
My Easel. Drawing Mr. Gladstone at a Public Meeting 71
The American Sunday Papers 72
Major Handy 74
The World's Fair, Chicago. A "Special's" Visit 75
"On dashed the Horses in their wild Career" 77
Initial "A" 79
The Charnel-House. Chicago World's Fair 80
Initial "London" 83
The Bishop of Lincoln's Trial 85
Initial "If" 88
Majuba Hill 89
Canon Liddon. A Sketch from Life 92
Letter from Sir Walter Besant 94
The Late Sir Walter Besant 95
The "Jetty" 95
Illustration for "The Talk of the Town" 96
"That's just what I have done!" 98
Specimen of James Payn's Writing 99
The Typical Lovers in Illustrated Novels 100
Initial "T" 101
Instructions in a Letter from Lewis Carroll 103
Specimen of Lewis Carroll's Drawing and Writing 106
Original Sketch by Lewis Carroll of his Charming Hero and Heroine 107
Lewis Carroll's Note to me or a Pathetic Picture 108
Sylvie and Bruno. My Original Drawing for Lewis Carroll 110
I Go Mad! 111
From Lewis Carroll 112
"I do want a Wicket-keeper!" 113
Portion of Letter from Lawrence, age 9 114
Reduction from a Design for my "Romps" 115
Portion of a Letter from George du Maurier 117
A Transformation 119
"Yours always, Barnard" 119
Barnard and the Models 120
"I sit for 'Ands, Sir" 121
The Grand Old Hand and the Young 'Un 122
My Fighting Double 124
Specimen of Mr. Linley Sambourne's Envelopes to me 125
Cheque for 5-1/2d. passed through two Banks and paid. I signed it
_backwards_, and it was cancelled by Clerk _backwards_ 127
Sir Henry Irving writes his Name backwards 128
Sir Henry Irving's Attempt 128
Mr. J. L. Toole's first Attempt 128
Mr. J. L. Toole's second Attempt 128
Autograph: Harry Furniss 129
Initial "If" 131
The Studio of a Caricaturist 132
Caricature of me by my Daughter, age 15 134
A serious Portrait--from Life 135
Initial "H" 136
"Penguin" 139
Mr. Brown, Ordinary Attire. Court Dress 139
Two Portraits 140
A Caricature 140
_Not_ a Caricature 140
The Editor of _Punch_ sits for his Portrait 144
A Model unawares and the Result 145
Sketch on a Shirt-Cuff 146
"Mundella" 147
Mr. Labouchere 149
The M.P. Real and Ideal 150
The Photo. As he really is 151
"Dizzy" (Beaconsfield) and Gladstone 154
The Inner Lobby of the House of Commons 156
Explanation to Illustration on page 156 157
Lord Beaconsfield. A Sketch from Life 158
The last Visit of Lord Beaconsfield to the House 161
Mr. Gladstone. A Sketch from Life 163
Mr. Gladstone "under his Flow of Eloquence" 165
Mr. Gladstone. Conventional Portrait 167
Caricature of the Holl Portrait 169
Note of Mr. Gladstone made in the Press Gallery with the wrong
end of a Quill Pen 171
Invitation to a "Sandwich Soiree" 173
Mr. Gladstone sits on the Floor 174
The Fragment of _Punch_ Mr. Gladstone did not see 175
The Gladstone Matchbox 176
Mr. Gladstone's Collars 178
Parnell 179
To Room 15 182
Outside Room 15 183
Outside my Room 185
"The G.O.M." and "Randy" 185
Mr. Louis Jennings 186
Lord Randolph and Louis Jennings 188
Lord Randolph Churchill 189
Behind the Speaker's Chair 190
Initial "S" 191
Initial "H" 193
Bradlaugh Triumphant. _From "Punch"_ 194
Charles Bradlaugh 195
The Meet at St. Stephen's 197
Sir George Campbell 199
Heraldic Design illustrating Mr. Plunkett's (now Lord Rathmore)
Joke 201
Mr. Farmer Atkinson 202
I must Introduce you to Lucy. Here he is 203
Joseph Gillis Biggar 204
Initial "I" 206
The House of Commons from Toby's Private Box 208
The Government Bench--before Home Rule 211
Reduction of one of my Parliamentary Pages in _Punch_ 214
Initial "T" 215
Age 26, when I first worked for _Punch_ 216
My first Meeting with the Editor of _Punch_ 217
My first Invitation from _Punch_ 218
A Letter from Charles Keene, objecting to an Editor interviewing
him 219
"Robert" 220
George du Maurier 221
Suggestion by du Maurier for _Punch_ Cartoon 224
Du Maurier's Souvenir de Fontainebleau. _From "Punch_" 225
_Punch_ Staff returning from Paris 227
Japanese Style 229
"Birch--His Mark" 231
Chinese Style. From a Drawing on Wood 232
Familiar Faces 234
An Official in the Press Gallery 235
"He spies me" 236
"What are you?" 236
"Blowed if the Country wants you" 238
"I feel smaller!" 241
The Black Beetle 242
The Sergeant-at-Arms' Room 243
Capt. Gosset, late Sergeant-at-Arms 244
My "Childish" Style in _Punch_ 245
A simple Document 246
I Sketch the House 247
Dr. Percy. "The House Up" 250
Mr. Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. Mr. Goschen 251
Mr. Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. "All Harcourts" 252
The New Cabinet 255
Reduction of Page in _Punch_, showing that my Caricatures were--in
this case--published too large 258
Reduction from the Original Drawing, showing that I gave
Instructions for the Caricature to be "reduced as usual" 259
What really happened 261
Dr. Tanner 262
Assault on me in the House. What the Press described 263
John Burns 265
Note from Sir Frank Lockwood, after reading the Bogus Account of
the "Assault" 266
Letter supposed to come from Lord Cross. (Lockwood's Joke) 267
Sir F. Lockwood 269
Lewis Carroll's Suggestion, and my sketch of it in _Punch_ 270
Nature's Puzzle Portrait 271
Initial "W" 272
"Three Oarsmen under a Tree" 273
Lord Russell's Acceptance to dine with me 275
"It's your Turn next" 277
Letter from Sir Frank Lockwood 277
Mr. Linley Sambourne 278
Portrait of me as a Member of the Two Pins Club, by Linley
Sambourne 279
The late Lord Russell, the President of the Two Pins Club 280
"Furious Riding." Sketch by F. C. Gould 282
My Portrait, by F. C. Burnand 285
Mr. Punch "doing" the Picture Shows 286
The Picture Shows. Design from _Punch_ 288
"The World-Renowned and Talented Barnardo Family" 289
The Great Baccarat Case. My Sketch in Pencil made in Court, and
Congratulatory Note from the Editor of _Punch_ 291
Letter from Professor Herkomer 293
A Prisoner 294
"Good Advertisement." Original Idea as sent to me 297
Ditto. My Drawing of it in _Punch_ 297
"English Waterproof Ink" 299
I sit for John Brown 300
A Crib by an American Advertiser 301
Finis 302
CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST.
CHAPTER I.
CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD--AND AFTER.
Introductory--Birth and Parentage--The Cause of my remaining a
Caricaturist--The Schoolboys' _Punch_--Infant Prodigies--As a Student--I
Start in Life--_Zozimus_--The Sullivan Brothers--Pigott--The Forger--The
Irish "Pathriot"--Wood Engraving--Tom Taylor--The Wild
West--Judy--Behind the Scenes--Titiens--My First and Last Appearance in
a Play--My Journey to London--My Companion--A Coincidence.
[Illustration]
In offering the following pages to the public, I should like it to be
known that no interviewer has extracted them from me by the thumbscrew
of a morning call, nor have they been wheedled out of me by the caresses
of those iron-maidens of literature, the publishers. For the most part
they have been penned in odd half-hours as I sat in my easy-chair in the
solitude of my studio, surrounded by the aroma of the post-prandial
cigarette.
I would also at the outset warn those who may purchase this work in the
expectation of finding therein the revelations of a caricaturist's
Chamber of Horrors, that they will be disappointed. Some day I may be
tempted to bring forth my skeletons from the seclusion of their
cupboards and strip my mummies, taking certain familiar figures and
faces to pieces and exposing not only the jewels with which they were
packed away, but all those spicy secrets too which are so relished by
scandal-loving readers.
At present, however, I am in an altogether lighter and more genial vein.
My confessions up to date are of a purely personal character, and like a
literary Liliputian I am placing myself in the hand of that colossal
Gulliver the Public.
I may, it is true, in the course of my remarks be led to retaliate to
some extent upon those who have had the hardihood to assert that all
caricaturists ought, in the interest of historical accuracy, to be
shipped on board an unseaworthy craft and left in the middle of the
Channel, for the crime of handing down to posterity distorted images of
those now in the land of the living. This I feel bound to do in
self-defence, as well as in the cause of truth, for to judge by the
biographical sketches of myself which continually appear and reach me
through the medium of a press-cutting agency, caricaturists as
distorters of features are not so proficient as authors as distorters of
facts.
I think it best therefore to begin by giving as briefly as possible an
authentic outline of my early career.
For the benefit of anyone who may not feel particularly interested in
such details, I should mention that the narration of this plain
unvarnished tale extends from this line to page 29.
I was born in Ireland, in the town of Wexford, on March 26th, 1854. I do
not, however, claim, to be an Irishman. My father was a typical
Englishman, hailing from Yorkshire, and not in his appearance only, but
in his tastes and sympathies, he was an unmistakable John Bull. By
profession he was a civil engineer, and he migrated to Ireland some
years before I was born, having been invited to throw some light upon
that "benighted counthry" by designing and superintending the erection
of gas works in various towns and cities.
My mother was Scotch. My great-great-grandfather was a captain in the
Pretender's army at Culloden, and had a son, Angus, who settled in
Aberdeen. When AEneas MacKenzie, my grandfather, was born, his family
moved south and settled in Newcastle-on-Tyne. A local biographer writes
of him: "A man who by dint of perseverance and self-denial acquired more
learning than ninety-nine in a hundred ever got at a university--an
accomplished and most trustworthy writer. The real founder of the
Newcastle Mechanics' Institute, and the leader of the group of
Philosophical Radicals who made not a little stir in the North of
England at the beginning of the last century." He was not only a
benevolent, active member of society and an ardent politician (Joseph
Cowen received his earliest impressions from him--and never forgot his
indebtedness), but the able historian of Northumberland, Durham, and of
Newcastle itself, a town in which he spent his life and his energies. If
I possess any hereditary aptitude for journalism, it is to him I owe it;
whilst to my mother, who at a time when miniature painting was
fashionable, cultivated the natural artistic taste with much success, I
am directly indebted for such artistic faculties as are innate in me.
[Illustration]
My family moved from Wexford to Dublin when I was ten. It is pleasant to
know they left a good impression. In Miss Mary Banim's account of
Ireland I find the following reference to these aliens in Wexford, which
I must allow my egotism to transcribe: "Many are the kindly memories
that remain in Wexford of this warm-hearted, gifted family, who are said
not only to be endowed with rare talents, but, better still, with those
qualities that endear people to those they meet in daily intercourse."
The flattering adjectives with which the remarks about myself are
sandwiched prevent my modest nature from quoting any more. However, as
one does not remember much of that period of their life before they
reach their teens I need not apologise for quoting from the same work
this reference to me at that age:
"One who was his playmate--he is still a young man--describes Mr.
Furniss as very small of stature, full of animation and merriment,
constantly amusing himself and his friends with clever[!] reproductions
of each humorous character or scene that met his eye in the
ever-fruitful gallery of living art--gay, grotesque, pathetic, even
beautiful--that the streets and outlets of such a town as Wexford
present to a quick eye and a ready pencil."
I can appreciate the fact that at that early age I had an eye for the
"pathetic, and even beautiful," but, alas! I have been misunderstood
from the day of my birth. I used to sit and study the heavens before I
could walk, and my nurse, a wise and shrewd woman, predicted that I
should become a great astronomer; but instead of the works of Herschel
being put into my hands, I was satiated with the vilest comic toy books,
and deluged with the frivolous nursery literature now happily a thing of
the past. At odd times my old leaning towards serious reflection and
ambition for high art come over me, but there is a fatality which dogs
my footsteps and always at the critical moment ruins my hopes.
It is indeed strange how slight an incident may alter the whole course
of one's life, as will be seen from the following instance, which I
insert here although it took place some years after the period to which
I am now alluding.
The scene was Antwerp, to which I was paying my first visit, and where I
was, like all artists, very much impressed and delighted with the
cathedral of the quaint old place. The afternoon was merging into
evening as I entered the sacred building, and the broad amber rays of
the setting sun glowed amid the stately pillars and deepened the shadowy
glamour of the solemn aisles. As I gazed on the scene of grandeur I felt
profoundly moved by the picturesque effect, and the following morning
discovered me hard at work upon a most elaborate study of the beautiful
carved figures upon the confessional boxes. I had just laid out my
palette preparatory to painting that picture which would of course make
my name and fortune, when a hoarse and terribly British guffaw at my
elbow startled me, and turning round I encountered some acquaintances to
whom the scene seemed to afford considerable amusement. One of them was
good enough to remark that to have come all the way to Antwerp to find a
caricaturist painting the confessional boxes in the cathedral was
certainly the funniest thing he had ever heard of, and thereupon
insisted upon dragging me off to dine with him, a proposition to which I
immediately assented, feeling far more foolish than I could possibly
have looked. I may add that as the sun that evening dipped beneath the
western horizon, so vanished the visions of high art by which I had been
inspired, and thus it is that Michael Angelo Vandyck Correggio Raphael
Furniss lies buried in Antwerp Cathedral. Strangely enough I came across
the following paragraph some years afterwards: "The guides of Antwerp
Cathedral point out a grotesque in the wood carving of the choir which
resembles almost exactly the head of Mr. Gladstone, as depicted by Harry
Furniss."
[Illustration: MY FATHER.]
My earliest recollections are altogether too modern to be of much
interest. Crimean heroes were veterans when they, as guests at my
father's table, fought their battles o'er again. The _Great Eastern_
steamship was quite an old white elephant of the sea when I, held up in
my nurse's arms, saw Brunel's blunder pass Greenore Point. I was hardly
eligible for "Etons" when our present King was married. When first taken
to church I was most interested, as standing on tiptoe on the seat in
our square family pew, and peering into the next pew, I saw a young
governess, at that moment the most talked-of woman in Great Britain, the
niece of the notorious poisoner Palmer. She had just returned from the
condemned cell, having made that scoundrel confess his crime, and there
was more pleasure in the sight than in listening to the good old Rector
Elgee who had christened me, or in seeing his famous daughter the
poetess "Speranza," otherwise known as Lady Wilde.
In the newspaper shop windows--always an attraction to me--the coloured
portrait of Garibaldi was fly-blown, the pictures of the great fight
between Sayers and Heenan were illustrations of ancient history, and in
the year I was born _Punch_ published his twenty-sixth volume.
[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS, AGED 10.]
Leaving Wexford before the railway there was opened, my parents removed
to the metropolis of Ireland, and I went to school in Dublin at the age
of twelve. It was at the Wesleyan Connexional School, now known as the
Wesleyan College, St. Stephen's Green, that I struggled through my first
pages of Caesar and stumbled over the "pons asinorum," and here I must
mention that although the Wesleyan College bears the name of the great
religious reformer, a considerable number of the boys who studied
there--myself included--were in no way connected with the Wesleyan body.
I merely say this because I have seen it stated more than once that I am
a Wesleyan, and as this little sketch professes to be an authentic
account of myself, I wish it to be correct, however trivial my remarks
may seem to the general reader. It is in the same spirit that I have
disclaimed the honour of being an Irishman.
Once upon a time, when I was a very little boy, I remember being very
much impressed by a heading in my copybook which ran: "He who can learn
to write, can learn to draw." Now this was putting the cart before the
horse, so far as my experience had gone, for I could most certainly draw
before I could write, and had not only become an editor long before I
was fit to be a contributor, but was also a publisher before I had even
seen a printing press. In fact, I was but a little urchin in
knickerbockers when I brought out a periodical--in MS. it is true--of
which the ambitious title was "The Schoolboys' _Punch._" The ingenuous
simplicity with which I am universally credited by all who know me now
had not then, I fancy, obtained complete possession of me. I must have
been artful, designing, diplomatic, almost Machiavellian; for anxious to
curry favour with the head master of my school, I resolved to use the
columns of "The Schoolboys' _Punch_" not so much in the interest of the
schoolboy world as to attract the head master's favourable notice to the
editor.
Accordingly, the first cartoon I drew for the paper was specially
designed with this purpose in view, and I need scarcely say it was
highly complimentary to the head master. He was represented in a
Poole-made suit of perfectly-fitting evening dress, and the trousers, I
remember, were particularly free from the slightest wrinkle, and must
have been extremely uncomfortable to the wearer. This tailorish
impossibility was matched by the tiny patent boots which encased the
great man's small and exquisitely moulded feet. I furnished him with a
pair of dollish light eyes, with long eyelashes carefully drawn in, and
as a masterstroke threw in the most taper-shaped waist.
The subject of the picture, I flattered myself, was selected with no
little cleverness and originality. A celebrated conjuror who had
recently exposed the frauds of the Davenport Brothers was at the moment
creating a sensation in the town where the school was situated, and from
that incident I determined to draw my inspiration. The magnitude of the
design and the importance of the occasion seemed to demand a
double-paged cartoon. On one side I depicted a hopelessly scared little
schoolboy, not unlike myself at the time, tightly corded in a cabinet,
which represented the school, with trailing Latin roots, heavy Greek
exercises, and chains of figures. The door, supposed to be closed on
this distressing but necessary situation, is observed in the opposite
cartoon to be majestically thrown open by the beaming and consciously
successful head master, in order to allow a young college student, the
pink of scholastic perfection, to step out, loaded with learning and
academical honours.
"Great events from little causes spring!"--great, at least, to me. So
well was my juvenile effort received, that it is not too much to say it
decided my future career. Had my subtle flattery taken the shape of a
written panegyric upon the head master in lieu of a cartoon, it is
possible that I might, had I met with equal success, have devoted myself
to journalism and literature; but from that day forward I clung to the
pencil, and in a few years was regularly contributing "cartoons" to
public journals, and practising the profession I have ever since
pursued.
Drawing, in fact, seemed to come to me naturally and intuitively. This
was well for me, for small indeed was the instruction I received. I
recollect that a German governess, who professed, among other things, to
teach drawing, undertook to cultivate my genius; but I derived little
benefit from her unique system, as it consisted in placing over the
paper the drawing to be copied, and pricking the leading points with a
pin, after which, the copy being removed, the lines were drawn from one
point to another. The copies were of course soon perforated beyond
recognition, and, although I warmly protested against this sacrilege of
art, she explained that it was by that system that Albert Duerer had been
taught. This, of course, accounts for our having infant prodigies in
art, as well as music and the drama. The rapidity with which Master
Hoffmann was followed by infantile Lizsts and little Otto Hegner as soon
as it became apparent that there was a demand for such phenomena, seems
to indicate that in music at all events supply will follow demand as a
matter of course, and if the infant artist can only be "crammed" in
daubing on canvas as youthful musicians are in playing on the piano,
then perhaps a new sensation is in store for the artistic world, and we
shall see babies executing replicas of the old masters, and the Infant
Slapdash painter painting the portraits of Society beauties. As a
welcome relief to Chopin's Nocturne in D flat, played by Baby Hegner at
St. James's Hall, we shall step across to Bond Street and behold "Le
Petit Americain" dashing off his "Nocturne" on canvas. I sometimes
wonder if I might have been made such an infant art prodigy, but when I
was a lad public taste was not in its second childhood in matters of art
patronage, nor was the forcing of children practised in the same manner
as it is nowadays.
Naturally enough I did not altogether escape the thraldom of the
drawing-master, and as years went on I made a really serious effort to
study at an art school under the Kensington system, which I must confess
I believe to be positively prejudicial to a young artist possessing
imagination and originality. The late Lord Beaconsfield made one of his
characters in "Lothair" declare that "critics are those who have failed
in literature and art." Whether this is true as to the art critics, or
that the dramatic critic is generally a disappointed playwright, it must
in truth be said that drawing-masters are nearly always those who have
failed in art. I can remember one gentleman who was the especial terror
of my youth. I can see him now going his rounds along the chilly
corridor, where, perhaps, one had been placed to draw something "from
the flat." After years and years of practice at this rubbish, he would
halt beside you, look at your work in a perfunctory manner, and with a
dexterity which appalled you until you reflected that he had been doing
the same thing exactly, and nothing else, for perhaps a decade, he would
draw in a section of a leaf, and if, as in my case, you happened to have
a pretty sister attending the ladies' class in the school, he would add
leaf to leaf until your whole paper was covered with his mechanical
handiwork, in order to have a little extra conversation with you,
although, I need scarcely add, it was not exclusively confined to the
subject of art.
This sort of thing was called "instruction in freehand drawing," and had
to be endured and persisted in for months and months. Freehand! Shade of
Apelles! What is there free in squinting and measuring, and feebly
touching in and fiercely rubbing out a collection of straggling
mechanical pencil lines on a piece of paper pinned on to a hard board,
which after a few weeks becomes nothing but a confused jumble of
fingermarks?
Had I an Art School I would treat my students according to their
individual requirements, just as a doctor treats his patients. I am led
here to repeat what I have already observed in one of my lectures, that
for the young the pill of knowledge should be silver-coated, and that
while they are being instructed they should also be amused. In other
words, interest your pupils, do not depress them. Giotto did not begin
by rigidly elaborating a drawing of the crook of his shepherd's staff
for weeks together; his drawings upon the sand and upon the flat stones
which he found on the hillsides are said to have been of the picturesque
sheep he tended, and all the interesting and fascinating objects that
met his eye. Then, when his hand had gained practice, he was able to
draw that perfect circle which he sent to the Pope as a proof of his
command of hand. But the truth is that we begin at the wrong end, and
try to make our boys draw a perfect circle before they are in love with
drawing at all. For my part, I had to endure some weeks of weary
struggling with a cone and ball and other chilly objects, the effect of
which was to fill my mind with an overwhelming sense of the dreariness
of art education under the Kensington system. A short time, therefore,
sufficed to disgust me with the Art School, and I preferred to stay at
home caricaturing my relatives, educating myself, and practising alone
the rudiments of my art.
[Illustration: A CARICATURE, MADE WHEN A BOY (NEVER PUBLISHED). DUBLIN
EXHIBITION. PORTRAIT OF SIR A. GUINNESS (NOW LORD IVEAGH) IN CENTRE.]
Early in my teens, however, I was invited to join the Life School of the
Hibernian Academy, as there happened to be a paucity of students at that
institution, and in order to secure the Government grant it was
necessary to bring them up to the required number. But here also there
was no idea of proper teaching. Some fossilised member of the Academy
would stand about roasting his toes over the stove. A recollection of a
fair specimen of the body still haunts me. He used to roll round the
easels, and you became conscious of his approaching presence by an
aroma of onions. I believe he was a landscape painter, and saw no more
beauty in the female form divine than in a haystack. It was his custom
to take up a huge piece of charcoal and come down upon one of your
delicately drawn pencil lines of a figure with a terrible stroke about
an inch wide.
"There, me boy," he would exclaim, "that's what it wants," and walk on,
leaving you in doubt upon which side of the line you had drawn he
intended his alteration to come.
I soon decided to have my own models and study for myself, and this
practice I have maintained to the present day. I really don't know what
Mrs. Grundy would have said if she had known that at this early age I
was drawing Venuses from the life, instead of tinting the illustrations
to "Robinson Crusoe" or "Gulliver's Travels" in my playroom at home.
Few imagine that a caricaturist requires models to draw from. Although I
will not further digress at this point, I may perhaps be pardoned if I
return later on in this book to the explanation of my _modus
operandi_--a subject which, if I may judge from the number of letters I
receive about it, is likely to prove of interest to a large number of my
readers.
It was when I was still quite a boy that my first great chance came.
Being in Dublin, I was asked one day by my friend the late Mr. A. M.
Sullivan to make some illustrations for a paper called _Zozimus_, of
which he was the editor and founder. As a matter of fact, _Zozimus_ was
the Irish _Punch_. Mr. Sullivan, who was a Nationalist, and a man of
exceptional energy and ability, began life as an artist. He came to
Dublin, I was told, as a very young man, and began to paint; but the
sails of his ships were pronounced to be far too yellow, the seas on
which the vessels floated were derided as being far too green, while the
skies above them were scoffed at as being far too blue. In these adverse
circumstances, then, the artist soon drifted into journalism, and,
inducing his brothers to join him in his new venture, thenceforth took
up the pen and abandoned the brush. Each member of the family became a
well-known figure in Parliamentary life. Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet of
the Irish Party, is still a well-known figure in the world of politics;
but my friend Mr. A. M. Sullivan, who died some years ago, belonged
rather to the more moderate _regime_ which prevailed in the Irish Party
during the leadership of Mr. Butt.
At the time when I first made his acquaintance he was the editor and
moving spirit of the _Nation_. It was a curious office, and I can recall
many whom I first met there who have since come more or less prominently
to the front in public life. There was Mr. Sexton, whom my friend "Toby"
has since christened "Windbag Sexton" in his Parliamentary reports. Mr.
Sexton then presided over the scissors and paste department of the
journals owned by Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and, unlike the posing orator he
afterwards became, was at that early stage of his career of a very
modest and retiring disposition. Mr. Leamy also, I think, was connected
with the staff, while Mr. Dennis Sullivan superintended the sale of the
papers in the publishing department.
But the central figure in the office was unquestionably the editor and
proprietor, Mr. A. M. Sullivan. His personality was of itself
remarkable. Possessed of wonderful energy and nerve, he was a confirmed
teetotaller, and his prominent eyes, beaming with intelligence, seemed
almost to be starting from his head as, intent upon some project, he
darted about the office, ever and anon checking his erratic movements to
give further directions to his subordinates, when he had a funny habit
of placing his hand on his mouth and blowing his moustache through his
fingers, much to the amusement of his listeners, and to my astonishment,
as I stood modestly in a corner of the editorial sanctum observing with
awe the great Mr. Sexton, who, amid the distractions of scissors and
paste, would drawl out a sentence or two in a voice strongly resembling
the sarcastic tones of Mr. Labouchere.
In another part of the office sat Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet
aforesaid, who, like his brother, is a genial and kindly man at heart,
although possessing the volcanic temperament characteristic of his
family. There he sat--a poet with a large family--his hair dishevelled,
his trousers worked by excitement halfway up his calves, emitting
various stertorous sounds after the manner of his brother, as he
savagely tore open the recently-arrived English newspapers. Such was the
interior of the office of the _Nation_, the representative organ of the
most advanced type of the National Press of Ireland.
But _Zozimus_, the paper to which I was then contributing, had nothing
in common with the rest of the publications issuing from that office. It
was of a purely social character, and was a praiseworthy attempt to do
something of a more artistic nature than the coarsely-conceived and
coarsely-executed National cartoons which were the only specimens of
illustrative art produced in Ireland. Fortunately for me, there was an
effort made in Dublin just then to produce a better class of
publications, and the result was that I began to get fairly busy,
although it was merely a wave of artistic energy, which did not last
long, but soon subsided into that dead level of mediocrity which does
not appear likely to be again disturbed.
I was now in my seventeenth year, and, intent on making as much hay as
possible the while the sun shone, I accepted every kind of work that was
offered me; and a strange medley it was. Religious books, medical works,
scientific treatises, scholastic primers and story books afforded in
turn illustrative material for my pencil. One week I was engaged upon
designs for the most advanced Catholic and Jesuitical manuals, and the
next upon similar work for a Protestant prayer-book. At one moment it
seemed as if I were destined to achieve fame as an artist of the
ambulance corps and the dissecting-room. One of my earliest
dreams--which I attribute to the fact that my eldest brother, with whom
I had much in common, was a doctor--had been to adopt the medical
profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for
caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical
student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital
lecture-room with pictorial _jeux d'esprit_ of a livelier cast than
those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses of the
learned Mr. Sawbones.
I remember that about this period a leading surgeon was anxious that I
should devote myself to the pursuit of this anything but pleasant form
of art, and seriously proposed that I should draw and paint for him some
of his surgical cases. I accepted his offer without hesitation, and,
burning to distinguish myself as an anatomical expert with the brush, I
gave instruction to our family butcher to send me, as a model to study
from, a kidney, which was to be the acme of goriness and as repulsive in
appearance as possible. Of this piece of uncooked meat I made a quite
pre-Raphaelite study in water-colours, but so realistic was the result
that the effect it had upon me was the very antithesis to what I
anticipated, disgusting me to such an extent that I not only declined to
pursue further anatomical illustration, but for years afterwards was
quite unable to touch a kidney, although I believe that had I selected a
calf's head or a sucking-pig for my maiden effort in this direction, I
might by now have blossomed into a Rembrandt or a Landseer.
[Illustration: AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION ON WOOD BY HARRY FURNISS. PARTLY
ENGRAVED BY HIM.]
Amongst other incidents which occurred during this period of my life was
one which it now almost makes me shudder to think of. I was commissioned
by no less a personage than the late Mr. Pigott, of Parnell Commission
notoriety, to illustrate for him a story of the broadest Irish humour.
Little did I think when I entered his office in Abbey Street, Dublin,
and had an interview with the genial and pleasant-looking little man
with the eye-glass, that he would one day play so prominent a _role_ in
the Parliamentary drama, or that the weak little arm he extended to me
was destined years afterwards to be the instrument of a tragedy. I can
truly say, at all events, my recollection as a boy of sixteen of the
great _Times_ forger is by no means unfavourable, and he dwells in my
memory as one of the most pleasant and genial of men. I ought, perhaps,
to say that in feeling I was anything but a Nationalist, because in
Ireland, generally speaking, you must be either black or white. But like
a lawyer who takes his brief from every source, I never studied who my
clients were when they required my juvenile services.
Although I was not of Irish parentage and did not lean towards
Nationalism in politics, it was necessary to sympathise now and then
with the down-trodden race. For instance, I remember that one evening a
respectable-looking mechanic called at my fathers house and requested to
see me. His manner was strange and mysterious, and as he wanted to see
me alone, I took him into an anteroom, where, with my hand on the door
handle and the other within easy distance of the bell, I asked the
excitable-looking stranger the nature of his business. Pulling from his
pocket a roll of one-pound Irish bank-notes, he thrust them into my
hand, and besought me at the same time not to refuse the request he was
about to make. An idea flashed through my mind that perhaps he had seen
me coming out of the offices of the National Press, and had jumped to
the conclusion that I could therefore be bought over to perpetrate some
terrible political crime. I even imagined that in the roll of notes I
should find the knife with which the fell deed had to be done. Seeing
that I shrank from him, he seized hold of my arm, and, in a most
pitiable voice, said:
"Don't, young sorr, refuse me what I am about to ask you. I'm only a
working man, but here are all my savings, which you may take if you will
just dhraw me a picter to be placed at the top of a complete set of
photographs of our Irish leaders. I want Britannia at the head of the
group, a bastely dhrunken old hag, wid her fut on the throat of the
beautiful Erin, who is to be bound hand and fut wid chains, and being
baten and starved. Thin I want prisons at the sides, showing the grand
sons of Ould Oireland dying in their cells by torture, whilst a fine
Oirish liberator wid dhrawn sword is just on the point of killing
Britannia outright, and so saving his disthressful country."
About this time someone had been good enough to inform me that all black
and white artists are in the habit of engraving their own work, and,
religiously believing this, I duly provided myself with some engraving
tools, bought some boxwood, a jeweller's eye-glass, and a sand bag,
without which no engraver's table can be said to be complete.
Then, setting to work to practise the difficult art, I struggled on as
best I could, until one fine day a professional engraver enlightened me
upon the matter. I need scarcely say he went into fits of laughter when
I told him that every artist was expected to be a Bewick, and he pointed
out to me that not only do artists as a rule know very little about
engraving, but in addition they have often only a limited knowledge of
how to draw for engravers.
However, thinking I should better understand the difficulties of drawing
for publishers if I first mastered the technical art of reproduction,
with the assistance of the engraver aforesaid I rapidly acquired
sufficient dexterity with the tools to engrave my own drawings, and this
I continued to do until I left Dublin, at the age of nineteen. Since
then I have never utilised one of my gravers, except to pick a lock or
open a box of sardines. Nor is this to be wondered at, considering that
one can make a drawing in an hour which takes a week to engrave, and
that an engraver may take five guineas for his share of the work whilst
an artist may get fifty. There is very little doubt, therefore, as to
the reason why artists who can draw refrain from engraving their own
work.
[Illustration: SKETCHES IN GALWAY.
_Republished by permission of the proprietors of the "Illustrated London
News."_]
In the studio of the engraver to whom I have above referred there hung a
huge map of London, and as I used to pore over it I took many an
imaginary walk down Fleet Street, many a canter in the Row, and many a
voyage to Greenwich on a penny steamboat, before I bade adieu to "dear
dirty Dublin" in the year 1873, and, as many have done before me,
arrived in the "little village" in search of fame and wealth.
Just prior to my leaving Ireland for the land of my parents I met no
less an editor than Tom Taylor, who was then the presiding genius of the
_Punch_ table, and he gave me every encouragement to hasten my
migration. He, however, had just returned from the wilds of Connemara,
and before setting my face in the direction of Holyhead he strongly
advised me also to pay a visit to the trackless wastes of the Western
country, for the purpose of committing to paper the lineaments of the
natives indigenous to the soil. This I did a week or so before quitting
the land of my birth, and the sketches I made upon that occasion formed
part of my stock-in-trade when I arrived in London.
After making the accompanying page of studies, I strolled along the bank
of the river; and while sketching some men breaking stones an incident
happened which first aroused me to the fact that the lot of the
sketching artist is not always a happy one. A fiend in human shape--an
overbearing overseer--came up at the moment, and roundly abused the
poor labourers for taking the "base Saxon's" coin. Inciting them to
believe that I was a special informer from London, he laughed on my
declaring that I was merely a novice, and informed me that I ought to be
"dhrounded." He was about to suit the action to the word and pitch me
into the salmon-stuffed river when he was stopped by the mediation of my
models, and I escaped from the grip of the agitator. In due course I
found myself in the Claddagh, a village of mud huts, which formed the
frontispiece by John Leech to "A Little Tour in Ireland" by "An
Oxonian," "a village of miserable cabins, the walls of mud and stone,
and for the most part windowless, the floors damp and dirty, and the
roofs a mass of rotten straw and weeds." Pigs and fowls mixed up with
boats and fish refuse. Women old, dried and ugly; girls young, dark, of
Spanish type, scantily dressed in bright-coloured short garments, all
tattered and torn; and children grotesque beyond description. I sketch
three members of one family clothed (!) in the three articles of attire
discarded by their father--one claimed the coat, another the trousers,
whilst the third had only a waistcoat. No doubt Leech had seen the same
sixteen years before, when he was there; and if "the Oxonian," who
survives him--Canon Hole, of Rochester--were to make another little tour
in Ireland, he would find the Claddagh still a spot to give an
Englishman "a new sensation." All I can say is, that having escaped a
"dhrouning" in the river when in Galway in 1873, I have visited many
countries and seen much filth and misery, but I have seen nothing
approaching the sad squalor of the wild West of Ireland.
The majority of those I sketched were hardly human. Tom Taylor was
right--"I would find such characters there not to be found in all the
world over," and I haven't. The people got on my overstrung youthful
nerves. I left the country the moment I had sufficient material for my
sketches. I had shaken off the unpleasant feeling of being murdered in
the river. I had survived living a week or two in the worst inns in the
world. I had risked typhoid and every other disease fostered by the
insanitary surroundings--for I had to hide myself in narrow turnings and
obnoxious corners so as to sketch unseen, as the religion of the natives
opposed any attempt to have themselves "dhrawn," believing that the
destruction of their "pictur'" would be fatal to their souls! I had
sketched the famous house in Deadman's Lane--and listened as I sketched
it, in the falling shades of night, to the old, old story of
Fitz-Stephen the Warden, who had lived there, and had in virtue of his
office to assist at the hanging of his own son. And, when in the dark I
was strolling back to my hotel, my reflections were suddenly interrupted
by something powerful seizing me in a grip of iron round my leg. I was
held as in a vice, and could hardly move, by what--a huge dog--a wolf?
No, something heavier; something more hideous; something clothed! As I
dragged it under a lamp I saw revealed a huge head, covered by a black
skull cap--a man's head--a dwarf, muttering in Irish something I could
not understand--except one word, "Judy! Judy! Judy!" It was a woman of
extraordinary strength thus clasped on to me. I dragged her to the hotel
door, where I engaged an interpreter in the shape of the "boots," and
made a bargain with "Judy" to release me on my giving her one shilling,
and to sit to me for this sketch for half-a-crown. I have still a lively
recollection of the vice-like grip.
[Illustration: "JUDY," THE GALWAY DWARF.]
My friend who had introduced me to the editor of _Punch_ was a prominent
city official, and entertainer in chief of all men of talent from
London, and was also, like Tom Taylor, an author and dramatist; and when
I was a boy I illustrated one of his first stories. He also introduced
me behind the scenes at the old Theatre Royal. I recollect my boyish
delight when one day I was on the stage during the rehearsal of the
Italian opera. Shall I ever forget that treat? It was much greater in my
eyes than the real performance later on. If my memory serves, "Don
Giovanni" was the opera. One of the principals was suddenly taken ill,
and this rehearsal was called for the benefit of the understudy. He was
a dumpy, puffy little Italian, and played the heavy father. Madame
Titiens was--well--the heavy daughter. In the first scene she has to
throw herself upon her prostrate father. This is the incident I saw
rehearsed: the little fat father lay on the dusty stage, with one eye on
the O.P. side. As soon as the massive form of Titiens bore down upon him
he rolled over and over out of the way. This pantomime highly amused all
of us, the ever-jovial Titiens in particular, and she again and again
rushed laughingly in, but with the same result.
The first actor I ever saw perform was Phelps, in "The Man of the
World." If anything could disillusionise a youth regarding the romance
of the theatre, that play surely would. Be it to my credit that my
first impression was admiration for a fine--if dull--performance. From
that day I have been a constant theatre-goer. If I am to believe the
following anecdote, published in a Dublin paper a few years ago, I "did
the theatre in style," and had an early taste which I did not possess
for making jokes.
"The jarvey drove Harry Furniss, when a boy, down to the old Theatre
Royal, Dublin. On the way there Jehu enquired of the budding artist
whether it was true that the roof was provided with a tank whence every
part of the building could be deluged, shower-bath fashion, if
necessary. 'Yes,' replied Raphael junior; 'and, you see, I always bring
an umbrella in case of fire.'"
[Illustration: PHELPS, THE FIRST ACTOR I SAW.]
I may confess that I have only once appeared in theatricals, and that
was in high comedy as a member of the Dublin Amateur Theatrical Society.
The play was "She Stoops to Conquer," and I took the part
of--think!--_Mrs._ Hardcastle. I was only seventeen, and very small for
my age, so I owe any success I may have made to the costumier and
wig-maker. The Tony Lumpkin was so excellent that he adopted the stage
as his profession, and became a very popular comedian; and our Diggory
is now a judge--"and a good judge too"--in the High Court.
It was on a bright, breezy morning late in July, 1873, I shook the dust
of "dear dirty Dublin" off my feet. With the exception of the Welsh
railways, the Irish are notoriously the slowest in the world, and on
that particular morning the mail train seemed to my impatient mind to
progress pig-ways. The engine was attached to the rear of the train and
faced the station, so that when it began to pull it was only the
"parvarsity in the baste" caused it to go in the opposite direction,
towards Kingstown, in an erratic, spasmodic, and uncertain fashion, so
that the eight miles journey seemed to me eighty. It was quite a tedious
journey to Salthill and Blackrock. At the latter station I saw for the
last time the porter famous for being the slave of habit. For years it
had been his duty to call out the name of the station, "Blackrock!
Blackrock! Blackrock!" In due course he was removed to Salthill station,
on the same line, and well do I remember how he puzzled many a Saxon
tourist by his calling out continually, "Blackrock--Salthill-I-mane!
Blackrock--Salthill-I-mane!" No doubt the traveller put this chronic
absent-mindedness down to "Irish humour." I must confess that I agree in
a great measure with the opinion of the late T. W. Robertson (author of
"Caste," "School," &c.), that the witticisms of Irish carmen and others
are the ingenious inventions of Charles Lever, Samuel Lover, William
Carleton, and other educated men.
[Illustration: MRS. HARDCASTLE. MR. HARRY FURNISS, FROM AN EARLY
SKETCH.]
Dickens failed to see Irish humour, or in fact to understand what was
meant by it. So when he was on tour with his readings a friend of mine,
who was his host, in the North, undertook to initiate him into the
mysteries of Irish wit. As a sample he gave Dickens the following: A
definition of nothing,--a footless stocking without a leg. This conveyed
nothing whatever to the mind of the greatest of English humourists; but
when my friend took him to a certain spot and showed him a wall built
round a vacant space, and explained to him that the native masons were
instructed to build a wall round an old ruined church to protect it, and
pulled down the church for the material to build the wall, he laughed
heartily, and acknowledged the Irish had a sense of humour after
all,--if not, a quaint absence of it.
To me so-called Irish wit is a curious combination not wholly dependent
on humour, and frequently unconscious. There is a story that when Mr.
Beerbohm Tree arrived in Dublin he was received by a crowd of his
admirers, and jumping on to a car said to his jarvey, "Splendid
reception that, driver!"
The jarvey thought a moment, and replied, "Maybe ye think so, but
begorrah, it ain't a patch on the small-pox scare!" Was that _meant_?
The poor Saxon "towrist"--what he may suffer in the Emerald Isle! There
is a story on record of three Irishmen rushing away from the race
meeting at Punchestown to catch a train back to Dublin. At the moment a
train from a long distance pulled up at the station, and the three men
scrambled in. In the carriage was seated one other passenger. As soon as
they had regained their breath, one said:
"Pat, have you got th' tickets?"
"What tickets? I've got me loife; I thought I'd have lost that gettin'
in th' thrain. Have you got 'em, Moike?"
"Oi, begorrah, I haven't."
"Oh, we're all done for thin," said the third. "They'll charge us roight
from the other soide of Oireland."
The old gentleman looked over his newspaper and said:
"You are quite safe, gintlemen; wait till we get to the next station."
They all three looked at each other. "Bedad, he's a directhor,--we're
done for now entoirely."
But as soon as the train pulled up the little gentleman jumped out and
came back with three first-class tickets. Handing them to the astonished
strangers, he said, "Whist, I'll tell ye how I did it. I wint along the
thrain--'Tickets plaze, tickets plaze,' I called, and these belong to
three Saxon towrists in another carriage."
On the morning I left Ireland to seek my fortune in London I had a
youthful notion that, once on the mainland of my parents' country, St.
Paul's and the smoke of London would be visible; but we had passed
through the Menai tunnel, grazed Conway Castle walls, and skirted miles
of the Welsh rock-bound coast, and yet no St. Paul's was visible to my
naked eye which was plastered against the window-pane of the carriage.
The other eye, clothed and in its right mind, inspected the carriage and
discovered that there were two other occupants--a lady and her maid.
These interesting passengers had recovered from the effects of the
Channel passage, and were eating their lunch. The lady politely offered
me some sandwiches. "No, thanks," I replied; "I shall lunch in London."
This reminds me of a story I heard when I was in America, of two young
English ladies arriving at New York. They immediately entered the
Northern Express at the West Central. About 7 o'clock in the evening
they arrived at Niagara--half an hour or so is given to the passengers
to alight and look at the wonderful Falls. The gentleman who told me the
story informed me that as the two ladies were getting back into the
carriage he asked them if they were going to dine at once. They,
ignorant of the vastness of the "gre--e--at country Amuraka," replied,
"Oh, no, thanks, we are going to dine with our friends when we arrive.
It can't be long now, we have been travelling so fast all the day!"
"And may I ask, young ladies, where your friends live?"
"We are going to an uncle who has been taken suddenly ill in San
Francisco."
These young ladies would have had to wait certainly five days for their
dinner,--I only five hours.
The strange lady and I conversed a great deal on various topics. By
degrees she discovered that I was a young artist, friendless, and on his
way to the great city to battle with fortune. I may have told her of my
history, of my youthful ambitions and my professional plans,--anyway she
told me of hers, and, while her maid was lazily slumbering, she
confessed to me her troubles.
"My story," she said, "is a sad one. I am of good family, and I married
a well-known professional London man. He turned out to be a gambler, and
ran through my money, and I returned to my parents. I have left them
this morning again, and, like you, I am now on my way to London to
start in life, and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance
is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a
refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, I am also fortunate in
having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to
sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly been
a guest."
I sympathised with her, and she continued, weeping, to relate to me
events of her unhappy married life until we arrived at Euston. I saw her
and her maid into a four-wheeler, and I saw their luggage on the top.
She gave me her card with her parents' address in London written on it,
and requested that I would write to her at that address, as she would
like to hear how I got on in London. I never saw her again. But I did
write home, and found there was such a lady, her family were well-known
society people in Ireland, and that her marriage had not been a happy
one.
After three years in London I ran over to Ireland to see my parents. On
my return I seemed to miss the charming companion of my journey over the
same ground three years previously. Two uninteresting men were in the
carriage: a typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a
typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey was a long
one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to sleep, and after some
hours the other man and I exchanged a word. The fact is I thought I knew
his face,--I told him so. He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to
school together?" "No." He was at least ten years my senior. It happened
he had been to school with my half-brother (my father was married
twice,--I am the youngest son of his second family). We chatted freely
about each other's family and on various topics, including the sleeping
Teuton in the corner. I incidentally mentioned my last journey. The lady
interested him, so I told him of the way in which she confessed to me. I
waxed eloquent over her wrongs. He got still more excited as I described
her husband as she described him to me; and as the train rolled into
Euston, he said, "Well, you know who I am, I know who you are,--I'll
tell you one thing more: that woman's story is perfectly true--I'm her
husband!"
That was one of the most extraordinary coincidences which ever happened
to me. Three years after meeting the wife, over the same journey, at the
same time of the year, I meet the husband; and I had never been the
journey in the meantime.