"Rienzi" honourably hung in the large room, pendant to "Lorenzo and
Isabella," made a favourable impression, but was not sold until after
the closing of the Academy; and meantime, the landlord seized Hunt's
books, furniture, and sketches, and he was obliged to return to his
family. As soon as he could he paid the man, who thought he had been
"shamming poverty." At one time he was not able to post a letter because
he had not even a penny wherewith to buy the stamp; as he threw himself
back on a chair, he thrust his hand between the back and the seat, and
lo, it came in contact with half-a-crown! When he went to Lambeth to
paint the background of "Claudio and Isabella," the man who carried his
traps was so much better dressed that the porter was taken for the
artist. Still, he was in good heart, and he and Millais, eager to
improve the reputation already gained, were hard at work upon two large
works, "Christians escaping from Persecuting Druids" and "Christ in the
Carpenter's Shop," when all at once a derisive paragraph appeared in one
of the papers, betraying the significance of the three letters, P.R.B.,
and holding up the new school to ridicule. Munro the sculptor had wormed
the secret out of Rossetti, and, after promising not to tell, he had
passed it on to a journalist.
The storm of anger which followed was curiously out of proportion to
the cause. _The Germ_, a magazine started at Rossetti's instigation, to
be the organ of Pre-Raphaelites, would have failed, it may be, in any
case, for lack of funds; but jealousy, and that hatred of light which is
peculiar to old institutions, can alone account for the venomous
reception of the new pictures, when once the secret of the letters
became known. The Academy sprang to arms; the older artists, and their
pupils, waxed furious. They enlisted literature on their side. Dickens
joined in the hue and cry. With the honourable exception of _The
Spectator_, every single paper attacked the men who had dared to break
with tradition. Raphael had been insulted; Raphael was, it appeared, the
idol of all England.
Ruskin came, flashing, to the rescue a year later, with a letter to _The
Times_, in which he declared that since the days of Albert Duerer, there
had been nothing in art so earnest or so complete as the pictures of
Millais and Holman Hunt. They were not this year hung together; they
were placed in a less favourable light. The onslaughts of the press
were well sustained. "Valentine and Sylvia" (the subject taken from
Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona") had suffered, in part, from
Hunt's distress of mind and the want of means occasioned by the bad
conduct of a man whom he trusted; even after Ruskin's letter no one
ventured to buy. Nobody came to him for a portrait now. His father's
acquaintance in the city offered to bet L10 that any picture of his
would be sent back within a week. Anonymous insults poured in upon him.
A publisher, who had asked for illustrations of Longfellow, declined to
publish them. Debt was staring him in the face, and failure seemed
absolute.
At this crisis of fortune, when he had resolved that he must give up Art
and adopt some other line of life--preferably that of a settler in the
backwoods--Millais came forward. He had freed himself from personal
straits only a week or two earlier; now, with the warm concurrence of
his father and mother, he offered to share every penny he had with
his friend. His generous will to help overcame all resistance; the
money--repaid the following year--was advanced; and the two Brothers
went off to Surbiton together, to paint "Ophelia" and "The Hireling
Shepherd." "Valentine and Sylvia" had been retouched and sent to
Liverpool, where a prize of L50 was offered for the finest painting.
Never did the two gentlemen, even in their native Verona, provoke more
comment than followed their footsteps wherever they appeared in England.
Immediately, anonymous insults in letters and papers began again. Week
after week went by; there was not a word from the authorities. At last
it grew intolerable. The painter turned on his tormentors. He had never
seriously expected such distinction for a moment; but he determined to
write to the committee, and ask, by way of bitter satire, why the prize
had not been awarded to him. Happily, his designs, and a book in which
he was interested, kept him up too late to begin that night. Next
morning, as he sat at work not far from the house, he heard Millais'
voice, "Another letter from Liverpool"! "Valentine and Sylvia" had won
the prize; and they gave three cheers for the Council in chorus.
The happy days of comradeship at the old, ghost-haunted house called
Worcester Park Farm glided by all too fast. Millais became intent upon
"The Huguenot"; Hunt continued "The Hireling Shepherd" while the sun
shone; after dark he threw his strength into "The Light of the World."
Whenever the moon was full, although it was so cold that people skated
in the daytime, he would work out-of-doors from nine at night until five
the next morning. For the most part he enjoyed undisturbed solitude, but
now and then a friendly guardian of the public peace came to see what he
was about.
"Have you seen other artists painting landscape about here?" he
inquired.
"I can't exactly say as I have at this time o' night," said the
policeman.
His nocturnal studies continued to arouse interest even after the return
to London. As he was coming back to Chelsea on a 'bus one night the
driver entertained him with descriptions of the eccentric persons who
lived there, Carlyle among them, "and I've been told as how he gets his
living by teaching people to write." Then he went on confidentially,
"But I'll show you another queer cove if you're coming round the corner.
You see him well from the 'bus. He's a cove, in the first place, as has
a something standing all night at one winder, while he sits down at the
other, or stands, and seemingly is a-drawing of it. He doesn't go to bed
like other Christians, but stays long after the last 'bus has come in;
and, as the perlice tells us, when the clock strikes four, out goes the
gas, down comes the gemman, opens the street door, runs down Cheyne Walk
as hard as he can pelt, and when he gets to the end he turns and runs
back again, opens his door, goes in, and nobody sees no more of him."
Pre-Raphaelitism went steadily forward. "The Light of the World" was not
yet ready, but the wonderful Academy of 1852 contained "The Hireling
Shepherd," Millais' "Ophelia" and "The Huguenot," and Ford Madox Brown's
fine picture, painted after the same method, "Christ Washing Peter's
Feet." "The Strayed Sheep," a beautiful little landscape begun for a
gentleman who admired "The Hireling Shepherd," but did not wish for so
large a picture, was painted at Fairlight, soon afterwards. At the
Academy of 1853 "Claudio and Isabella" hung in the first room. In 1854
"The Light of the World" was finished, and sold to Mr. Combe of Oxford.
"The Awakened Conscience" went to the Academy the same year.
And now a plan that had been in the artist's mind ever since, as a
child, he listened to the words of the New Testament at school, found
sudden fulfilment. The cry of the East was in his ears; he would go
to the East, and paint a sacred picture there. As on so many other
occasions throughout his life, he met with violent opposition. He would
lose all that he had gained at such cost and have to begin over again on
his return; he would find nothing but overgrown weeds, no beauty that
was not tenfold more beautiful in England; he would get Syrian fever
and be an invalid for the rest of his days; he would die like Wilkie.
Rossetti said that local colour interfered with the poetry of design.
Ruskin said that he was giving up the real purpose of his life, which
was to train a new school of art. What Millais said does not appear.
What Millais did was to help in the packing, which had been left to the
last minute, so that there was no time for dinner, and to rush to the
buffet for any "likely food" that he could find and toss it into the
railway carriage after the train had begun to move.
Upon a parting gift from Rossetti were written these lines from "Philip
van Artevelde":
"There's that betwixt us been, which we remember
Till they forget themselves, till all's forgot,
Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed
From which no morrow's mischief knocks them up."