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.
[Illustration: If]
If I am asked what is caricature, how can I define it? Ah, here it is
explained by some great authority--whom I cannot say, for I have it
under the heading of "Cuttings from Colney Hatch," undated, unnamed.
Kindly read it carefully:
[Illustration: THE STUDIO OF A CARICATURIST.]
"The word itself, 'caricature,' is related etymologically to our own
'cargo,' and means, in all Italian simplicity, a _loading_. So, then,
the finely analytical quality of the Italian intellect, disengaging the
ultimate (material) element out of all the (spiritual) elements of
pictorial distortion and travesty, called it simply a 'loading.' After
all, 'exageration' only substitutes the idea of mound, or _agger_ for
_carica_--the heaping up of a mound--for the common Italian word 'load'
or 'cartload.' One can easily understand how a cold, cynical, and hating
Neapolitan, pushed about by the police for a likeness much too like,
would shrug his shoulders, and say, possibly, the likeness was loaded.
But when we look at the character of the loading, there may be anything
there, from diabolical and malignant spite up to the simplest fun, to
say nothing of the almost impossibility of drawing the real truth, and
the almost necessary tendency to exaggerate one thing and diminish
another. But if the Italian mind, with a head to be chopped off by a
despot for a joke, discovered the colourless and impregnable word
'load,' the French _gamin_, on his own responsibility, hit upon the
identical word in French, namely, 'charge'--_une charge_ meaning both a
pictorial or verbal goak or caricature, and a load. When did the word
'caricature' first obtain in the Italian language, and how? When did the
word 'charge' acquire a similar meaning in France, and was it or not
suggested by the Italian word? But the thing caricature goes back to the
night of ages, and is in its origin connected with the subjective
risible faculty on the one side and the objective tendency to making
faces on the other. Curiously enough, the original German ideas of
caricature appear to have hinged precisely upon the distortion of the
countenance, since _Fratze_, the leading word for caricature, signifies
originally a grimace. Then we have _Posse_, buffoonery (Italian,
_pazzie_), which, without original reference to drawing, would exactly
express many of Mr. ----'s very exquisite drolleries, diving as they do
into the weirdest genius--conceptions of night and of day, of dawn and
of twilight--the mixture of the terrible, the grotesque, the gigantic,
the infinitely little, the animal, the beast, the ethereal, the divinely
loving, the diabolically cynical, the crawling, the high-bred, all in a
universal salmagundi and lobster nightmare, mixing up the loveliest
conceptions with croaking horrors, the eternal aurora with the
everlasting _nitschewo_ of the frozen, blinding steppe. Caricature! What
can we English call it?"
What indeed after this? Except in despair we adopt the child's
well-known definition--"First you think, and then you draw round the
think." I have been more than once asked to deliver a lecture explaining
the process. Of course such an idea is too absurd for serious
consideration. The comic writer cannot give anyone a recipe for making
jokes, nor can a comic actor show you how to grimace so as to make
others laugh in this serious country. We are not taught to look at the
comic side of things--any humorous element may grow, like Topsy,
unaided--nor is the power given to many to explain to others their
inventions. Bessemer, the inventor of the steel bearing his name, when
he first made his discovery was asked to read a paper explaining his
invention to a large meeting of experts. He had his carefully-prepared
notes in front of him, but they only embarrassed him. He struggled to
speak, but failed. Only the weight of the lumps of metal dangling in his
coattail pocket kept him from collapsing. Suddenly he dived his hand
into the pocket and produced a piece of steel, which he thumped on the
table. "Bother the paper! Here is my steel, and I'll tell you how I made
it!" So would it be with a caricaturist. After a struggle he would say,
"Bother words, words, words! Here is a pencil, and here is some paper.
I'll show you how I caricature."
Personally, I have no objection to being caricatured--I frequently make
caricatures of myself. Nor have I any objection to being interviewed--I
interview myself. What else are these pages but interviews? I confess I
fail to see any objection to a legitimate caricature or a legitimate
interview. On the contrary, I look upon interviewing by an experienced
and sympathetic writer as invaluable to a public man who is bringing out
something novel and of interest to the public at large. It certainly
seems to me judicious that he should give his preliminary ideas
regarding it to the public firsthand, instead of allowing them to leak
out in an unauthentic and disfigured form through the fervid
imaginations of irresponsible scribes, leading to much misconception.
[Illustration: CARICATURE OF ME BY MY DAUGHTER, AGE 15.]
But I do object to the incapable, be he an interviewer wielding the
pencil or the pen. To illustrate my meaning I shall take the latter
first. The pen in this case did his work in true professional style. He
came to interview me, and by doing so to "boom" me for a journal which
was about to make a feature of my contributions to its pages. He brought
with him a new note-book of remarkable size; an artist with a portfolio,
pencils, and other artistic necessities; and a photographer! The
interviewer shall describe the scene in his own words.
[Illustration: A SERIOUS PORTRAIT--FROM LIFE.]
The interviewer remarked that the readers of the ----"would be very
interested in knowing exactly how the thing (interviewing) was done. How
did the ideas come? How did they take shape? And what was the method of
work? Neither at these nor at any other questions did Mr. Furniss wince.
It must not be forgotten that when he was in America last year he was
interviewed, on an average, once a day; and a man who has passed through
such an experience as that is unlikely to recoil before any ordinary
ordeal; although Mr. Furniss was bound to admit that a combination of
interviewer, artist, and photographer had never before got him into his
grip. The situation would have had its ludicrous side for anybody who
had chanced to peep through the skylight. The spectacle of five men (for
the presence of the indefatigable secretary was an indispensable part of
the proceedings) all solemnly drinking tea, while a deer-hound kept a
wistful eye on the sugar-basin, was unusual, and perhaps a little
grotesque--to all save the participants. Seated at his easel in the
characteristic position represented in our sketch, Mr. Furniss would now
and again ask permission to move his arm towards his cup of tea, and
would then bend back to the make-belief work at which he was posing."
There is a picture of interviewing! Everything so prepared, so studied,
so well described to impress the subscribers of the enterprising
journal. The photographer with a wide angle lens took in all that was in
my studio--to "make-believe," as the camera invariably does, that the
apartment was six times larger than it really is. But the artist, who
_should_ idealise if the photographer could not, who so sadly interfered
with my enjoying my tea, who was sent to make the most of me to raise
the enthusiasm of the readers and to increase the subscriptions,
succeeded in doing with his pencil what no interviewer has done with his
pen,--he made me wince! Here is a reduction of the serious portrait
published.
I have sat down time after time to answer young correspondents'
questions about the "system" to adopt for the production of caricature.
I invariably end by drawing imaginary caricatures of my correspondent
and fail to reply. When interviewed on the subject of caricature, I
discourse on the history of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and the
technique in the work of Burne-Jones, Rossetti, and Holman Hunt, and
caricature is therefore driven from our minds.
However, the difficulty was solved in a very unexpected manner. One day,
whilst smoking my cigar after lunch, I overheard an interview in my
studio, which I here reproduce.
A Pencil of mine was working away merrily shortly after the opening of
the Session, when suddenly my favourite Pen flew off the writing-table,
where it had been enjoying a quiet forty winks, and alighted on the
easel.
[Illustration]
"How very awkward you are!" cried the Pencil. "See, you have knocked
against and so agitated me that I have actually given Sir William an
extra chin."
"One more or less does not matter, does it?" rejoined the Pen. "I
apologise, and trust you will make allowances for me, as I am only an
artist's Pen, don't you know, and naturally rather uncouth, I fear."
"Pray take a seat upon the indiarubber, and let me know to what I am
indebted for the honour of this visit."
"Well," continued the Pen, "I have flown over here to remind you of your
promise to confess to me some of the secrets of caricature."
"Ah, yes," replied the Pencil, "I remember now. I have really been so
busy sketching Members of Parliament at St. Stephen's, that I had almost
forgotten my promise."
"A poor Pen is out of place in an artist's studio, except to minister to
the requirements of the autograph hunter. Well, you need not be jealous.
My literary flight is not intended to be a very high one after all. Now
you know more about the secrets of the studio than I do; so tell me, is
it the custom of H. F. to have a regular sitting for a caricature, after
the fashion of the portrait painters?"
"Oh, you are too delightfully innocent altogether," laughed the Pencil,
rubbing its leaden head rapidly on a piece of paper, to sharpen its
point. "A regular sitting! What do _you_ think? No, sir, no,
emphatically never. Such an operation would be fatal to the delicate
constitution of a caricature, and the result would not be worth the
paper upon which it is drawn. It is only in ordinary portraiture that a
sitting is required, and upon that point I have a theory."
"Oh, never mind your theories now, old fellow," rejoined the Pen, as it
took a sip of ink and prepared to chronicle the reply. "What I want to
chat to you about at present is how to catch a caricature."
The Pencil pricked up his ears, and with a knowing wink, said:
"Ah, I see! You want to know secrets. Well, I will tell you 'how it's
done.' The great point about a caricature is that it must be caught
unawares. A man when he thinks he is unobserved struts about gaily, just
for all the world like a hedgehog. All his peculiarities are then as
evident as your cousins the quills upon the back of the fretful
porcupine. But the moment the man or woman who is about to be
caricatured observes H. F. take me in hand, I always notice that he
shrivels up and collapses as quickly as one of the insectivora surprised
at his feast. But wait a moment: now you ask me, I do recollect one
unfortunate man who, despite H. F.'s protest, insisted upon coming here
once to sit for a caricature. He looked the picture of misery, and sat
in the chair there, just as if he were at a dentist's. H. F. made a most
flattering portrait. Indeed, so much too handsome was it that I could
hardly follow the workings of his fingers, I was laughing so."
"'Oh, what a relief!' cried the sitter, when H. F. showed him the
drawing. 'You have certainly made a pretty guy of me, but, thank heaven,
I am not thin-skinned.'
"'Only thick-headed,' muttered H. F. _sotto voce_ to me as he continued
to chat with the sitter.
"No sooner had he left the studio than the 'study' was in the fire, and
the caricature which afterwards came from the Furniss was drawn entirely
from memory.
"The artist is in more evil case when he has absolutely no chance
whatever of making the slightest memorandum, for he must trust to memory
alone," remarked the Pencil.
"Yet Pellegrini boasted that he always trusted to memory," said the Pen.
"I know he did," replied the Pencil, "and more than once chaffed H. F.
for bringing me out. H. F., I know, has the greatest admiration for most
of Pellegrini's work, but thinks that 'Ape' certainly had the failing
common to all Italian caricaturists of being cruel rather than funny. I
may mention too, here, an incident for the truth of which H. F. can
vouch, and which illustrates another weakness of the inhabitants of the
Sunny South. When the poor fellow was ill a friend of his one day set to
work to put his room in order, and in moving a screen was surprised to
find behind it a number of soiled shirts. He began to count them over
with a view to sending them to the laundry, when Pellegrini starting up
exclaimed, 'You fellow! you leave my shirts there, or I am a ruined man.
Don't you see they are my "shtock in drade"?' And sure enough upon the
huge familiar linen cuffs were numerous notes in pencil--sketches, in
fact, from life for coming caricatures. Now, when H. F. intends to trust
entirely to memory, I often find that he makes a note in writing after
this fashion: 'Like So-and-so, with a difference,'--and the difference
is noted. Or 'Think of an animal, a bird, or a fish, and to that add
So-and-so, and subtract So-and-so,' and this results in a portrait. For
instance, if he saw a man like this, I should not be surprised by his
writing a single word as 'Penguin' for his guidance, and so on."
[Illustration: "PENGUIN."]
"The old caricaturists, I suppose, had a decided advantage over the
moderns in having artistic costumes to depict?" asked the Pen.
"Of course," replied the Pencil. "Even up to the time of Seymour the
tailor made the man, and was, therefore, largely responsible for the
caricature. You have only to see Mr. Brown in the ordinary attire of
to-day and also in Court dress to appreciate this, and sympathise with
me."
[Illustration: MR. BROWN, ORDINARY ATTIRE.]
[Illustration: COURT DRESS.]
"Now here is another point," continued the Pen, "upon which you can
throw some light, old fellow. I have often seen letters on the
writing-table from people asking H. F. for his recipe for the making of
caricatures. I invariably scribble the same reply, 'Find out the chief
points and exaggerate them.' Not satisfied with this, some have asked
him to explain his _modus operandi_." "I recollect an instance," replied
the Pencil. "It was in the studio here. An interviewer called, and asked
H. F. to explain the art of caricature. So he took down a volume of
portraits from the book-shelves, and opened it at this one. You see it
is the head of a man who should be universally respected by us of the
grey goose fraternity. 'Well, you see there is not much to caricature,'
said H. F.; 'it is simply the portrait of a kindly, intellectual-looking
man, the late Chief Librarian of the British Museum, I remember well,"
continued the Pencil, brightening up, "H. F. took me in hand, and
telling me to knock over the forehead, keep in the eyes, pull the nose,
and wipe off the chin, produced a caricature 'on the spot.'"
[Illustration]
"I suppose sometimes you find caricatures ready-made, Mr. Pencil?"
continued the Pen.
[Illustration: A CARICATURE.]
[Illustration: _NOT_ A CARICATURE.]
"Of course we do," replied the Pencil. "Nature will have her joke
sometimes, nor can we blame her, for it is only by reason of contrast
that we admire the beautiful. _A propos_ of this, my dear Pen, I may
tell you that in county Wexford, in Ireland, there is a certain very
beautiful estate, round which runs a carefully-built wall. At a
particular point the regularity ceases, and the wall runs on,
constructed in every conceivable style, and contrary to all the canons
of masonry. There is a legend that the owner of the estate, tired of the
monotonous appearance of the wall, ordered that a certain space should
be left in it which should be filled up with a barrier as irregular in
construction as possible. This was done, and that portion of the wall is
called the 'Ha-ha!' because so funny does it look that everyone who
passes is observed to laugh. Now is it not much the same in Nature? A
world full of Venuses and Adonises would soon pall. So now and then we
find a human 'Ha-ha!' interspersed among them. In that case, I say, the
caricaturist's work is already done. He has simply to copy Nature. Yet
there are some who actually find fault with H. F. for doing that very
thing, saying that his pencil (that's me) is 'unkind,' 'cruel,' 'gross,'
and so on. There are many M.P.'s whom he habitually draws without the
slightest exaggeration, notwithstanding which, Mr. Pen, there are
members of your calling who do not scruple to inform the world that in
drawing the Parliamentary 'Ha-ha!' as he is, H. F. is libelling him.
There is one M.P. in particular---- No, I shall not give his name or
show his portrait. I believe him to be very clever, very interesting,
undeniably a great man, and extremely vain of his personal appearance.
But he is built contrary to all the laws of Nature, and if H. F. draws
him as he is, he is accused of libelling him. If he improves him, no one
knows him. Oh, Mr. Pen, you may take it from me that the lot of the
caricaturist is not a happy one."
"For the matter of that," put in the Pen, "neither is the painter's. You
know Gay's lines:
"So very like, a painter drew,
That every eye the picture knew,
He hit complexion, feature, air,
So just, the life itself was there.
He gave each muscle all its strength,
The mouth, the chin, the nose's length,
His honest pencil touched with truth,
And marked the date of age and youth.
He lost his friends, his practice failed,--
Truth should not always be revealed."
But Gay did not live in the days of Sargent!"
"We are getting on nicely," said the Pen. "Now answer a question which
is often put to me--viz., why caricaturists eschew paint?"
"Because," replied the Pencil, "people often seem to forget that in the
present day, when events follow each other in quick succession, a
subject becomes stale almost before the traditional nine days' interest
in it has expired--that paint is no longer the medium by which a
caricaturist can possibly express his thoughts. Of course, I am not
referring to mere tinting, such as that in which the old caricaturists
had their drawings reproduced, but to colouring in oils, after the
manner of the great satirist Hogarth. Some may remember H. F.'s
caricature in _Punch_ of the late Serjeant-at-Arms, Captain Gosset, as a
black-beetle. Now, had he painted a full-length portrait of him, and
sent it elaborately framed to the Royal Academy, it would not only have
taken him very much longer to execute, but the Captain would not have
looked a whit more like a black-beetle than he did in black and white in
the pages of _Punch_.
"It must be remembered, also, that in caricature everything depends upon
contrast. For instance, in a Parliamentary sketch he can easily make Sir
William Harcourt inflate himself to such an extent that he occupies a
good third of the picture, but were he to paint a portrait of him of
similar proportions it would be necessary to take the roof off
Burlington House and bring over the Eiffel Tower to which to hang the
enormous frame that would be requisite. Moreover, there would be an
additional disadvantage, for it would be impossible to take in the whole
figure at once, and it would be necessary to mount the first platform at
least to obtain a peep at even the lowest of the series of chins which
distinguishes the descendant of kings. However, it is just on the cards
that some day he may open a Parliamentary Portrait Gallery, and then I
can promise that Sir William will have justice done to him at last.
Sixteen yards of 'Historicus' would assuredly be enough to draw the
town. But, in point of fact, it would be just as reasonable to ask an
actor why he is not an opera singer as well, or to ask an opera singer
why he does not dispense with the music and play in legitimate tragedy,
as to enquire of a modern caricaturist why he does not work in colours."
The Pencil, after the delivery of this discourse, rolled over to the
barber-knife, who trimmed him up.
"There are some people," continued the Pen, "who object to be sketched
in any shape or form. I recollect an editor once challenging H. F. to
get a sketch of an interesting man who had defied photographers and
artists alike, and absolutely refused to have his portrait taken. You
will find a paragraph about this in press-cutting book, marked 'Pritt.'
Just read it when I'm being attended to."
"Mr. Pritt, Leeds, is reckoned chief of the Yorkshire anglers. 'A
striking peculiarity with him,' a Yorkshire correspondent says, 'is that
he never will sit for his likeness. Mr. Harry Furniss, however, the
well-known artist of _Punch_, during his recent visit to Leeds, on the
occasion of the meeting of the British Association, managed to 'take'
Mr. Pritt; and the portrait, drawn in characteristic style, appears in
the _Yorkshire Weekly_ under the heading 'Caught at Last'."
"Yes, that's it. H. F. was invited to dine by this curious and clever
individual.
"'Delighted to see you, Mr. Furniss; but _one_ thing I must ask you to
understand _at once_--I'm not going to be sketched.'
"'I assure you,' he said, 'I shall not sketch you unless you are well
aware I am drawing you, and, in fact, willingly give me assistance.'
"'That's very good of you. Now I am happy. I have made up my mind I
shall never allow my face to be drawn or photographed, and once I make
up my mind nothing in the world will move me.'
"'Indeed!' he replied. 'But, pardon me, you have not always had that
antipathy. I am looking at a photograph of you hanging on the wall
there, taken when you were a baby.'
"'Oh, ah! Do you detect that? No one knows it to be me. Of course, I was
not accountable for my actions at that age.'
"'Ah, how you have altered! Dear me! why, your nose is not that shape
now. Here it is Roman; you have a sort of----'
"'Have a--what, eh?'
"'Have you a pencil?' (Taking me out.) 'This will do. Now, your nose is
like that.'
"'Is it? But my mouth is the same, isn't it?'
"'Not quite--I will show you.'
"'Of course, my chin isn't as round?'
"'Oh, no! It's more like this. And you have less hair--see here.'
"'Dear me! Of course, one can see who this is. This astonishes me.'
"Someone else coming in at that moment, he quickly pocketed the sketch
and me, and, much to his host's chagrin, it was duly published as a
portrait of the gentleman from a 'special sitting'--'Caught at Last.'
[Illustration: THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_ SITS FOR HIS PORTRAIT.]
"This reminds me, by the way, of a portrait which H. F. once drew of the
author of 'Happy Thoughts' as a frontispiece to a new edition of that
humorous book of books. Our guv'nor's first effort at this portrait was
distinctly a failure, and no wonder, for the moment I was produced the
editor of _Punch_ turned his back upon us, and, with the greatest
vigour, commenced writing at his table. Not being so intimate then with
Mr. Burnand as we subsequently became, both I and the guv'nor thought
him peculiar. But after a considerable time the editorial chair was
wheeled round, and with a smile its genial occupant said calmly, 'Well,
let me see the result.'
"'The result is _nil_ at present,' replied H. F., 'for I have not yet
caught a glimpse of your face.'
"Mr. Burnand looked surprised. 'Dear me!' he said; 'I thought you were
making a study of me at work, you know.'
"'All I could see was the back of your head in silhouette. There
now--sit just as you are, please. That's exactly the pose and expression
which I want to catch. Thanks!' cried the guv'nor, as he rapidly set to
work, when suddenly all cheerfulness vanished from Mr. Burnand's
countenance, as with a horrified look he pointed to the table by my
side, where lay the sketching materials.
"'What's that?' he cried, dismayed.
"'Oh, a lump of bread, useful in touching up high lights,' said H. F.
"'You don't say so! The sight of it quite upset me. I really thought you
had brought your supper with you, and intended to work from me all
night. I shall never recover my natural expression this evening, so
please call again.' And as H. F. closed his sketch-book, the following
brief colloquy took place:
"The editor of 'Happy Thoughts': 'Caught anything?'
"H. F.: 'No.'
"The editor: 'Good evening!'
"And the door closed.
[Illustration]
"Frequently a subject has posed for H. F. without being aware of the
fact that he was making a sketch. For instance, in his happy hunting
ground--Parliament--Brown, M.P., say, comes up to him in the Lobby: 'Ha!
I see you are up to mischief--taking someone off.'
"H. F. gives a knowing look, and points to Jones.
"'Ha! ha! I see. I'll talk to him. Ha! ha! and I'll look out for the
caricature. Don't be too hard on poor Jones!'
"'Thanks, awfully,' replies H. F. He makes a rapid sketch, nods to Brown
as much as to say, 'That'll do,' smiles, and walks off. He has of course
never troubled about Jones at all; it's Brown he has been sketching all
the time.
"It is utterly absurd to imagine you can escape from the caricaturist.
"H. F. trained himself to make sketches with his hand in his pocket, and
worked away with me and his book--or rather cards, which he had
specially for the purpose--whilst looking straight into the face of his
victim. He manages in this way to sketch people sitting opposite to him
in the train, and sometimes when talking to them all the time.
"You know that without special permission from the Lord High Great
Chamberlain no stranger is allowed to pass the door of the English House
of Lords, even when it is empty; but when the precious Peers are
sitting, the difficulty of making a sketch is too great for description.
You are not allowed to sit down, speak, smile, sneeze, or sketch. H. F.
once produced me in the House of Lords. Had he drawn a sword instead of
a pencil he could not have created greater consternation. Explanation
was useless. The officials knew that he was only for 'takkin' notes' for
_Punch_, but the vision of a pencil produced an effect upon them the
same as if they had caught sight of an infernal machine. But necessity
is the mother of invention. It was then he hit upon the plan I have just
told you about. He draws in his pocket. Keeping the card against his
leg, he sketches quite easily. A pocket Hercules is an oft enough
heard-of individual--so why not a pocket artist?
[Illustration: SKETCH ON A SHIRT-CUFF.]
"Previous to this he used to make a rapid note on his shirt-cuff; but
that is a dangerous practice. Wives might resent the face if it were too
pretty, and your washerwoman might recognise a Member of Parliament as
her intimate friend. The incident which cured him of using his
shirt-cuff for sketching happened at a large dinner, where he was
introduced to the wife of a well-known public man, who soon showed she
was not altogether pleased by the introduction, and truly at the moment
he had forgotten that he had made a sketch of the lady on his
shirt-cuff, which he did not take sufficient care to conceal.
[Illustration]
"I recollect once on the terrace of the House of Commons he was
sketching a lady of foreign extraction, the wife of a gentleman
well-known to the Irish Party, with a profile something like this. I
made the sketch, unfortunately, on the marble tea-table. When H. F.'s
friends were leaving, he found he could not rub this off the table, and
what embarrassed him more was the fact that some Irish Members were
bearing down to take possession of the table as soon as we left. I had a
rapid vision of our guv'nor floating in the Thames, being hurled over by
the infuriated Members from the Emerald Isle; so I quickly transformed
the lady into something resembling a popular Member of Parliament at the
time, and, as we were leaving, I overheard an Irish Member say, 'Bedad!
and Furniss has been dhrawin' that owld beauty, Mundella!'
[Illustration: "MUNDELLA."]
"Have you anything new?" asked the Pen. "May I look? I know that St.
Stephen's is your happy hunting ground."
"Ah, yes," responded the Pencil, "I know it well. But I can tell you it
is not altogether a bed of roses. When we come across Members who have
taken liberties with their personal appearance during the recess, H. F.
and I resent it, I can tell you."
"Naturally," observed the Pen in a voice of the utmost sympathy, "for it
means more work."
"Of course," continued the Pencil. "Now I have always held that model M.
P.'s have no right to alter. They are the property of the political
caricaturist, and what on earth is to become of him if the bearded men
begin to shave and the smooth-faced to disguise themselves in
'mutton-chops' or 'Dundrearys'? Yet they _will_ do it. We may draw them
in their new guise, but the public won't have them at any price. They
want their old favourites, and if they miss a well-known 'Imperial,' a
moustache, a pair of dyed whiskers, or other such hall-mark in the
picture, or on the other hand find a set of familiar chins concealed
beneath an incipient Newgate fringe, a nose and chin which have been
accustomed to meet for many a long year suddenly divided by the
intrusion of a bristly moustache, or a delightfully asinine expression
lost under the influence of a pair of bushy side-whiskers, recognition
becomes impossible and the caricature falls flat. The fact is, my friend
Pen, it is not only their features, but their characteristic attitudes
which we make familiar, and their political differences cause the
artistic effect. To me it is marvellous to note how differently artists
draw the same head. Expression of course varies, but the construction of
the head must always remain the same. Yet I have seen no less a head
than that of Mr. Gladstone so altered in appearance in the work of
different artists that I have been forcibly reminded of the old story of
St. Peter's skull. A tourist travelling in Italy was shown a cranium at
Rome which he was assured was the veritable relic. In Florence he was
shown another, and somewhere else he was shown a third. Upon his
remonstrating the guide observed, 'It is quite right, sir: the skull you
saw at Rome was that of St. Peter when he was a boy; that at Florence
was his when he was a young man, and this was his skull when he died.'
"Then again, familiarity with the subject is only arrived at by
continually watching and sketching a Member. A few years ago I was lying
down in my berth in the sketch-book which was in H. F.'s pocket, when I
overheard a conversation between him and Mr. Labouchere upon
Parliamentary portraits."
"What did H. F. say about them?" asked the Pen. "He ought to know the
alphabet of Parliamentary portraiture at all events by this time."
"You're right," nodded the Pencil. "He's drawn a few thousand of them in
his time. What did H. F. say? Well, he told Labouchere that he always
created a type for each Member, and to that he adheres."
"'Yes,' said the Sage, late of Queen Anne's Gate, 'and when the original
turns up, those who derive their impression of a Member from your
sketches are disappointed if the two do not exactly tally.'"
"But surely our guv'nor does not sketch direct from life?" asked the
Pen, amazed.
"Of course he does," indignantly replied the Pencil. "He whips me out of
my bed at all times, but as he pointed out to the Member for Northampton
(see how Parliamentary I am getting), it would never do invariably to
sketch a man as you see him. 'For instance,' went on H. F. addressing
him, 'I made a sketch of you, Mr. Labouchere, in the corridor of the
House of Commons, kneeling on a seat, and had I never seen you before, I
should have no doubt used this as a characteristic instead of an
accidental attitude of yours.'
"Just fancy what you would have written, my dear Pen, if you had seen in
_Punch_ one of H. F.'s portraits of Lord Hartington with his hat upon
the back of his head instead of over his eyes, or Mr. Gladstone depicted
with a Shakespeare collar, or Mr. Cyril Flower without one, or Mr.
Arnold Morley smiling, or Mr. Balfour looking cross, or Mr. Broadhurst
in evening dress, or Mr. Chamberlain without an orchid in the
button-hole of his coat! Yet I venture to say the time has been when Mr.
Chamberlain may have had to rush down to the House orchidless, and when
Mr. Broadhurst may have worn evening dress. Stranger things than that
have happened, I can tell you. I have actually seen the irrepressible
smile vanish from the face of Mr. John Morley. But never--no, never,
will I believe that the ex-Chief Liberal Whip has ever looked jovial,
that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cyril Flower ever exchanged collars, or that
Lord Hartington ever wore his hat at the back of his head.
[Illustration: MR. LABOUCHERE.]
"On the other hand, my dear Pen, you know as well as I do that Lord
Randolph Churchill did not wear imitation G.O.M. collars, that Mr.
Herbert Gladstone is no longer in his teens, that Mr. Gladstone was not
always so wild-looking as H. F. usually represented him, and that
perhaps Sir William Harcourt is not simply an elephantine mass of
egotism."
"Then why did he draw them so?" enquired the Pen.
"Ah! that is the secret of the caricaturist," laughed the Pencil. "There
is something more in politicians, you know, than meets the eye, and the
caricaturist tries to record it. You're so captious, my dear Pen. It is
not given to everyone to see a portrait properly, however true it may
be. Some folks there are who are colour-blind. There are others who are
portrait-blind. Others again are blind to the humorous. An old M.P.
came up to H. F. one day in the Lobby of the House of Commons when a new
Parliament had assembled for the first time, and said to him, 'Well, you
have a rich harvest for your pencil (that was me). I never saw such odd
specimens of humanity assembled together before.'
[Illustration: THE M.P. REAL AND IDEAL.]
"'That may be so,' replied H. F., 'but mark my words, after a session or
two, my comic sketches of the Members--for which, by the way, the
specimens you are looking at are merely notes, and which you are now
good enough to call faithful portraits--will become so familiar to you
that they will cease to amuse you. And you may even come to pronounce
them gross libels. In other words, you will find that their frequent
repetition will rob them in your eyes of their comic character
altogether, just as in the case with the attendants at the Zoo, on whose
faces you will fail to detect the ghost of a smile at the most
outrageous pranks of the monkeys, although you shall see everyone else
in the place convulsed with laughter.'"
"But surely, Mr. Pencil," argued the Pen, "you lose friends by
caricaturing them?"
"Not those who are worthy of friendship," replied the Pencil, with a
solemn air. "And those who cannot take a joke are not worthy of it. H.
F. is not a portrait painter. It makes the lead turn in my case to
witness the snobbishness which exists nowadays among certain
thin-skinned artists and writers. The Society grub has eaten the heart
out of all true artistic ambitions. An honest satirist has no chance
nowadays. He must not draw what he sees, or write what he really thinks
about it. Pleasing wishy-washiness is idolised, whilst Hogarth is voted
coarse. Great Scott! How this age of cigarettes and lemon squash would
have stirred the pulse and nerved the brush of the greatest of English
caricaturists!"
[Illustration: THE PHOTO. AS HE REALLY IS.]
Then as the Pencil wiped away a tear of regret for the decadence of
English satirical art the Pen jotted down the following lines culled
from the old tomb-stone at Chiswick:
"If Genius fire thee Stranger stay,
If Nature touch thee, drop a tear.
If neither move thee, turn away,
For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here."
"When he has not seen a Member, and has no reference to go by, how does
he manage?"
"He does not find photography of much use. Sometimes, if he has to draw
a man for some special reason, and has not seen him, a photograph is, of
course, the only means possible; then he generally gets a letter
something like this:
"'Dear Sir,--I enclose you a photograph of myself, the only one I
possess. It belongs to my wife, and she has reluctantly lent it, and
trusts you will take every care of it and return it at once. It was
taken on our wedding trip. I may mention that I have less hair at the
top of my head and more on my face, and I may seem to some a trifle
older.'
"Well, here, you see, H. F. has to use his judgment.
"But to my surprise H. F. received a visit from the original of the
photograph shortly after his sketch was published, who came to inform
the guv'nor that no one could possibly recognise him in the sketch; and
when I saw him in the flesh I quite believed him. You can judge from the
sketch how useful the photograph was.
"The second appearance of the new and ambitious M.P. in the pages of
_Punch_ did not satisfy the legislator either. It was not his face he
took exception to, but his boots, like Mr. Goldfinch in 'A Pair of
Spectacles.' He lost faith in his bootmaker, squeezed his extremities
into patent leather shoes of the most approved and uncomfortable make,
and hobbled through the Lobbies doing penance at the shrine of
caricature. A caricature, you see, does not depend upon the face alone.
"One of H. F.'s earliest Parliamentary caricatures was a sketch of Mr.
Henry Broadhurst, the deservedly popular representative of the working
classes. He was Member for Stoke when the sketch was made. There is no
affectation about him. Neither the skin that covers his solid frame nor
that which encases his active feet is thin. His figure is one of the
best known and most characteristic in Parliament. Who is not familiar
with the round, determined little head, with the short cropped hair, the
square-cut beard, the shrewd expression, the genial smile, the short
jacket, the horsey trousers, the round hat, and the thick boots? The
figure often appeared in Mr. Punch's Parliamentary Portrait Gallery.
When our friend the late William Woodall introduced his fellow-candidate
to the electors of Stoke a voice cried out, 'We know 'im! we know 'im!
We've seen 'is boots in _Punch!_'
"No one can deny that the potters of Staffordshire are an artistic
public.
"The late chief proprietor of the leading paper had the largest feet
ever seen in the House of Commons, and a certain noble lord whose name
will ever be connected with Majuba carries off the palm for the largest
in the Upper House. The new Member for ---- will, in due course, owe his
Parliamentary fame to the extraordinary heels of his boots, if nothing
else, just as the late Lord Hardwicke's reputation was due to the
mysterious shine of his hat.
"But, judging from the illustrated papers, M.P.'s all wear spats, new
trousers every day (for they never have a crease), the most
beautifully-fitting coats, and white hats with black bands round them.
Why are they drawn so?" asked the Pen.
"Excuse the familiar vulgar rejoinder--Ask me another."
"I hear it said that you never caricature women."
"What rot! Have I not worked in illustrating the Members of the Houses
of Parliament for years, to say nothing of Judges and--their wives?"
"I mean young women."
"Oh, really I have no time to answer these questions; here are a bundle
of my unpublished caricatures; take them and be off."