BOOKS AND TRAVEL
Of work in volume form my husband left comparatively little, and all
the books of his earlier years were on Art. His criticisms on the
various exhibitions of Old Masters at Burlington House, chiefly written
at that time for the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the _Art Journal_, were
useful to him in a volume on _The Drawings of the Old Masters_ in the
British Museum, upon which subject he was a careful and enthusiastic
student; and at a somewhat later period--when he and Mr. C. E. Hallé
organized the famous exhibitions of those drawings at the Grosvenor
Gallery--a recognised connoisseur.
It is interesting to note that much of the matter written in those
early years upon a subject on which he was always a master was echoed
involuntarily in my husband’s swan-song upon the same subject,
i.e. _The Ideals of Painting_, posthumously published in 1917; for
although he naturally acquired a deeper knowledge of individual
pictures as the years went on, bringing him opportunities of visiting
the great collections of Europe, he very rarely changed his opinion
of the characteristics of each painter; and his loving appreciation of
the subtlest qualities in his favourites was such that I remember a
gifted connoisseur saying to him once respecting a fellow art critic:
“So-and-so could tell you whether a picture was authentic or
not with his back to it, provided he had got its pedigree at his
fingers ends; but you don’t depend on books; you know the man
and his method and study the painter in the light of them, and if your
verdict is sometimes at variance with the alleged pedigree, by Jove,
you’re generally right.”
So thoroughly had he steeped himself in the subject that when we went
on our belated honeymoon to the towns of Northern Italy, he always
knew exactly where every picture was that he wanted to see, and many
is the argument that I had in those less enlightened days with Italian
officials as to the existence of some particular work of Art which
they little knew was under their care, and many lovely things we found
in private places which, perhaps even now, are missed by the ordinary
tourist.
I recollect the weary trip he made from Milan that he might study
the wonderful Luini frescoes at Saronno. Now the little town is on a
railway, but in those days it was only reached in a horse-omnibus,
slowly jogging, as only the poor starved Italian horses of that day
_could_ jog, across the sun-baked Lombard plains. The beautiful lunar
frescoes, some of them in sepia, in the sacristy of the Church of San
Maurizio Maggiore at Milan, were among the things which we should
never have seen if he had not made me insist on the sacristan opening
that closed door that he might examine for himself. And a really funny
incident occurred at Mantova--a town lying off the regular route, but
so picturesque, with its lovely Palazzo del Të raised on arcades built
into the marshes--that it is strange it should not be oftener visited
by the tourist.
We lodged in a vast but dirty old Inn, waited on by a girl whose beauty
compensated, in _Joe’s_ eyes only, for slipshod methods; nothing but my
knowledge of the tongue would have procured us even the comfort of a
huge warming-pan with which I endeavoured to dry the damp sheets. After
a sleepless night and a tiring morning in the Castle looking at the
Mantegna portraits of grim Gonzagas and stooping to enter the “dwarf’s
apartments,” whence slits of windows peer upon the eerie marshland,
I was in no mood for an altercation. Yet an altercation was the only
means by which I finally succeeded in inducing the morose custodian of
a dark church in the town to do Joe’s will: he had come to Mantova to
see examples of Mantegna for some work that he was doing and he was not
going away without having unearthed this specially interesting one. He
led the way himself to the side-chapel where he believed the painting
to be, but lo! a hideous modern daub hung over the little altar and
his face fell. Then he had an inspiration: in spite of the man’s
remonstrances he went up the steps and peered behind the gaudy painting.
“Tell him I’ll pay him to help me get this thing
down,” he said: “I believe what I want is at the back of
it.”
Then my altercation began.
We were mad English, and one couldn’t behave in a Church as if it
were a shop.
But “mad English” or not we were also “rich
English” (in the custodian’s eyes), and a very little
English gold won the day: we saw the picture we wanted.
These were only a few instances of the “tonic of a young man’s
conceit and obstinacy”--to use Joe’s own chaff of himself--in that
never-to-be-forgotten journey through the highways and by-ways of
Northern Italy. Everything was grist that came to his mill in this as
in each separate field of his activities; but Florence was the real
goal of all his desires, and this first visit to it, close on the study
which had made him long to see for himself the Masters whom he loved
and the fairest of towns which was their home, had a glamour which
was never quite reached in later visits. I can see again the poor
_Trattorìa della Luna_ where we lodged and the handsome waiter whom we,
in the wild enthusiasm of the hour, persuaded to follow us to England.
That he ever arrived at all was the marvel. He might well have spent
the journey-money given him on pastimes suggested by his reproach to
me in London afterwards as to engaging a cook who remembered the birth
of Christ: that he arrived weeping in a November fog and bitterly
resenting having been left to come “by sea when we had come by land,”
was not wonderful. Joe was patient with him for my sake and many a
funny tale did he forge out of the Italian’s vagaries.
But when this unkempt Adonis had demoralized our maid, smashed our
pretty wedding gifts in fits of gloom, during which he would shake his
fist at the fog and say: “Goo’ nigh’,” and finally taunted us with not
providing sufficient wine at a humble entertainment to excuse one of
the guests for having left his hat behind, we felt it best he should
return to his native land--though not before he had inadvertently half
poisoned us with dried mushrooms sent by his relatives.
Well, badly as Mario behaved subsequently in Great Russell Street he
was one of the features of our happy Florence holiday and directed our
steps towards many out-of-the-way places which Joe thirsted to explore
in search of Art treasures unknown to guide-books.
My husband’s knowledge culled from many old books was of great
value to him, and with his bump of locality, joined to my knowledge of
the speech of the people, we penetrated into many lovely corners and
met with as many amusing adventures.
Strange food did we eat too on that weird trip, for here, as elsewhere,
Joe insisted on exploring.
“Tell him I’m a judge of the _cuisine_,” he would
say, “and only want the best.” And--with an instinct that
the rewarding tip would not be wanting--as it never was--cooks hastened
to concoct the spiciest of their national dishes for his criticism.
The publication of Joe’s first book was quickly followed by an
illustrated volume on the Abbey Church of St. Albans from articles
written for the _Art Journal_; plenty of study on architecture and
on monkish lore was done for this in the Reading Room of the British
Museum. Later in life Joe used to say that, after the period of
ravenous and enthusiastic boyhood, he might never have opened a serious
book again--so much more enthralling to him was the daily intercourse
for work or play with living men and women--had it not been for the
necessity of boiling the pot; and that all that he read for a special
purpose stuck to him as no desultory reading did and became stored in
his mind for use and pleasure for the rest of his life.
I can see myself how true this was in respect of the whole range of
Arthurian legend, on which subject he became an authority; he devoured
everything in English and French that he could find when he was writing
his plays of _King Arthur_ and _Tristram_, and never forgot any of it.
The _Abbey of St. Albans_ was too special a subject to make a popular
book, and the first volume of Joe’s work which attracted
attention was _Essays on Art_, gathered together in 1879.
I remember that, just as among his published work in verse he held
that his _Tristram and Iseult_ was his best, so he considered the
Essay--practically on Keats, who held, I think, the highest place with
him among the nineteenth century poets but entitled _The Artistic
Spirit in Modern English Poetry_, he judged to be among his most
satisfactory prose; with the exception of the _Essay on Macbeth_,
written as a pamphlet at the time of Henry Irving’s production of
the play, and now re-published under the title of _Sex in Tragedy_ in
his book _Coasting Bohemia_.
A letter which he wrote me later from France, when he was studying the
provincial museums there for a series of articles in the _Manchester
Guardian_, bears out pleasantly the criticism in the article on _Corot
and Millet_ in _Essays on Art_.
LIMOGES,
_August 1882_.
“ ... The landscape of the Loire somewhat disappointed me,
although the towns are full of interest. Very fruitful the country
seems to be, overflowing with corn and vine but far stretching and
unvaried with a vague sense of melancholy in it that is almost
oppressive. It is impossible to catch even a passing view of such
country as lies between Orléans and Nantes without turning in thought
from the landscape to the people who dwell in it; and the picture that
is left in the mind of the daily life of these peasants who labour
all day in fields that have no break or limit save where patches of
corn alternate with spaces of vine, is strangely touching and sad.
It wanted a France such as France is on the borders of the Loire to
produce the solemn and austere sentiment of Millet, and I hardly think
one understands the stern reality of his work until one has passed
through miles and miles of this fruitful and uneventful land.
The later passages of to-day’s journey were a delightful change
in the character of the scenery; a narrower river (The Vienne) but
more sympathetic, with happy-looking green pastures and hilly banks.
This place stands high and the air is delightfully fresh. It has an
industrial museum which is important in connection with my work.
I visited Chambord also Chenonceau. They are both much restored and
inferior in interest to Blois, which is a most delightful place in
every way.”
In respect of Blois he writes as follows in another letter: “This
town is more picturesque than any French town I have yet seen; most of
it, or the older part of it at any rate, is high up on a hill, and the
steps that mount up between the different streets are very beautifully
contrived.
Tell Phil I should like him to read the parts of his French history
connected with Blois, particularly about Henri III. and the Duke of
Guise, and I will tell him about the wonderful castle when I get
back.”
I remember he brought home some excellent photographs of that castle
and the lovely outer staircase of the tower.
Another letter written during this French journey brings in a more
humorous note: “Toulouse is a real city of the south, its market
place covered with big red umbrellas reminding one of Verona, and the
old hotel having a pleasant shady courtyard with pots of oleanders....
It is difficult to give you much news. I was thinking this morning
how funny it was how little I had spoken English since I left home,
once with the manager of a travelling English panorama at Limoges
and yesterday at Montauban where I met a Frenchman who insisted upon
speaking my native tongue to me. He declared that he knew English
‘au fond,’ but his mastery of the tongue was not complete.
‘Good voyage, have distraction,’ were his parting words to
me.”
These good wishes were not entirely fulfilled. The day after his
arrival at Toulouse Joe had been overcome by the August heat and
mosquito bites, and had been obliged to take to his bed for a day
in the fine old inn, where he was admirably nursed by the motherly
landlady; and, as he sat in the cool courtyard next day he was vastly
amused by the discomfiture of a fat commercial traveller, awaiting
his _déjeuner_ with napkin tucked in ready under his chin, when a
one-legged old stork, who perambulated the garden, suddenly uttered
its raucous note: “Quel cri épouvantable!” exclaimed the
poor gentleman, and jumping up he overturned the small table on which a
succulent Southern dish now steamed ready for his consumption, and wept
afresh at the sight of gravy and red wine trickling together down the
coarse clean tablecloth!
I think merriment must have hampered Joe’s offers of assistance,
and his French was not then as fluent as he made it in after years.
Anyhow the commercial traveller appears to have been less genial than
was a gentleman in the train later on who thought to flatter him by
comparing him to the then Prince of Wales: “Les mêmes traits, la
même barbe, le même âge!” said he pleasantly, not thinking that
he was speaking to a man years younger than Edward VII.
But if there was a momentary annoyance it was immediately forgotten by
Joe in a lively, if halting, conversation on the merits of a trout
stream which the train was skirting--Joe vehemently describing how
different was our view regarding poachers with the net, and mentally
despising his fellow-traveller for upholding the equal merits of perch,
gudgeon and trout.
When they reached Lourdes the traveller again afforded Joe a fresh
cause for wonder--unfamiliar as he then was with what later he called
“the Frenchman’s unfailing desire to place himself in a
category.”
The station was crammed with pilgrims to the Holy Wells, and Joe,
innocent of this, asked for what event the crowd was gathered;
whereupon the Frenchman, turning his head contemptuously from the
window, said loftily: “_Monsieur, dans ma qualité d’Athée
je ne connais rien de tout cela!_”
Even in those early days he loved the French; their joy of living
appealed to him as it did in all the Latin races, and their wit--more
subtle and polished than the Italian’s child-like though not childish
high spirits--was akin to his own, and it was often wonderful how
swiftly he would “get the hang of it” even when sometimes he would
appeal to me for translation of a word; while their shrewd and clear
common-sense found an echo somewhere on another side of him, perhaps in
his Border ancestry.
Yet I have heard him say that, in his opinion, the deeper courtesy of
an unspoiled Italian--were he peasant or peer--came out of a further
and finer civilization.
These travelling conversations, even in a foreign tongue, were entirely
in keeping with Joe’s intensely human temperament. He had
none of the aloofness of the Britisher of that day; and I remember
his amusement at the talk of a party of English shop-keepers in a
second-class railway carriage on the Paris-Calais route.
“To see them working men forced to sit and smoke their pipe in the
street for a breath of fresh air on a summer evening fairly flummoxed
me,” said one. “Why the poorest of _us_ ’ave got a bit of a
backyard.”
Though he was the most reserved of men as regards deep, personal
matters, he found that sort of sentiment was utterly ridiculous to his
Irish sense of humour.
I recollect hearing Joe whimsically tell a friend once that he would
far sooner confide his most intimate concerns to a man in a train than
to his nearest and dearest; and then he would recall (or invent?) the
most humorous conversations which he had overheard or in which he had
taken part, chiefly on the physical ills of life during long journeys
in dark railway carriages. I don’t suppose he went these lengths
in French; probably his vocabulary was not equal to it.
He said he missed my help on that Loire journey although I think he
liked learning for himself too. I certainly, sitting in a tiny cottage
near Witley with my sister and the two children, missed my opportunity
and sighed to be with him, especially when his letter home contained a
passage like this:
“Marseilles is a city with something of romantic suggestion
about it. One feels that it is one of the Avenues of the East, one
of the places also that connects the old world with the new. It was
terribly hot, but the sea tempered the sun and the sea-bath in the
evening was a delicious revenge for the heat of the day. The view
over the Mediterranean at sunset is delightful, with an atmosphere
that seems to be stained with rose colour floating over a sea of real
aquamarine.”
I had to solace myself with taking Phil to sit for his portrait to
Edward Burne-Jones--delightful occasions when that most lovable of
great men would talk of my husband and of their kindred enthusiasms,
chaffing me gently as well for the “wicked travesties” of
classic myths with which I tried to keep quiet the “worst of
little sitters,” who would innocently ask why his standing pose
was called “sitting.”
And at last Joe came home, only about a week before our son Arthur was
born.
These travelling memories are a digression induced by their bearing
on my husband’s first published volumes. As to his subsequent
contributions to permanent literature I may mention his _Papers on
Art_--a sequel to the _Essays on Art_--published in 1885.
After that, until the last years of his life, his many vocations so
entirely filled every hour of the day--and often of the night--that he
had no leisure for any more such ventures, excepting the publication of
his verse-plays as they appeared on the stage.
And it was not until 1908 that he once more came before the
book-reading public. Then he wrote his two separate volumes of personal
recollections under the titles of _Eminent Victorians_ and _Coasting
Bohemia_; but these are of recent enough date to need no comment of
mine, for they are still before the world, as is also his posthumously
published volume, _The Ideals of Painting_.