A TRIP TO AMERICA IN 1883
I well remember a chance remark of mine which led to my crossing the
ocean.
"Well, if I can get a cabin in your boat, we'll go too, but I'm afraid
it's too late now, at the eleventh hour."
That was said to Irving and Ellen Terry, who were preparing to leave on
their first visit to the States in 1883.
I had never given a trip to America a serious thought; a consultation at
Cook's office and subsequent trunk-packing usually meant a flight to the
sunny South or the glorious East; but a new country, and a civilised one
into the bargain, had failed to attract me. I had heard over and over
again that the Americans were a practical people, and that, to be sure,
meant inartistic, and I knew they could talk, build, and make
money-piles bigger than we can, and that again did not predispose me in
their favour. In fact I may say, without boasting, that I cherished
about as many prejudices as does the average Englishman when he seeks to
form his opinion regarding those unhappily not included in the magic
circle to which he belongs, and I felt that, if ever I visited my young
American cousins, it would be to give them the benefit of my superior
old-world experience.
I may say at once that I had not been in the country long, before I
found it desirable to climb down, discovering that it was quite as much
as I could do to keep my footing at all on one or the other of the
scaling ladders I had tried to ascend. But for all my ups and downs, one
thing is certain: it was a happy thought that led me to take my passage
to New York, and a specially happy one to cross with Irving and Ellen
Terry.
"I count myself in nothing else so happy
As in a soul remembering my good friends."
--_Richard II._
So wrote Irving in my album, dating the lines from the "Atlantic Ocean,
20th October 1883."
It was indeed a time of good and friendly relations we had on that
Atlantic, meeting at a sort of poet's corner of the captain's table at
dinner-time, and later again, when we could discuss the merits of the
nocturnal Welsh rarebit, or of the comforting nightcap. Those expressive
legs of his, with which we are all so familiar, were a constant source
of delight to me. In the smoking saloon he would know how to stretch
them till they gave you a sense of absolute rest; and when he got up,
you felt they must originally have been designed for sea-legs. When
sometimes I paced the deck by their side, I felt I could now really
boast of being in the same boat with my illustrious friend, and of more
than that: for once in a way, I was actually treading the same boards
with him.
I think he thoroughly enjoyed what was to him an unknown experience, a
ten days' rest; but I doubt whether he took it as a holiday; he had
books and papers to keep him company that looked suspiciously like
business, and when he reclined full length on his steamer-chair,
contemplating the rolling sea through his eye-glasses, he looked as if
he were meditating a revival of "The Tempest," and consulting with
Neptune and Æolus as to the best way of producing it.
As for Ellen Terry, she was _facile princeps_ on our floating city,
fascinating everybody, from captain and crew, _viâ_ first and second
class passengers, down to the emigrant's crowing baby. There had been a
grand gathering to see her and Irving off. Friends had come, laden with
parting gifts; golden-haired children were there, bringing baskets full
of flowers that should intertwine themselves with their dear Ellen's
existence, till others could be gathered to greet her on her arrival.
When the bell sounded, recalling the visitors to the tender that had
brought them, the process of leave-taking went through its acutest
stage; there were the cordial grips and moist eyes, the crisp, resonant
kisses, and the long, silent embraces. "Good-bye; take care of him, take
care of her, till I come back! Good-bye, again!"
Ay! some of us had taken return tickets, some had not. Which of us would
return?
We got sorted at last; all the good clothes on our side; the new suits,
ulsters, and dresses to be bodily introduced into the country that
produces the like only at ruinous prices. We all looked brand new, as
if we were equipped for our respective honeymoons. Soon we were passing
the last outstretched arm of land, that seemed to bid us one more
farewell; but the greeting only came from Cinderella, the Emerald Isle,
and we, I suppose being an English vessel, refused to hug the coast, and
made for the open sea, whence for some time we could see her knowingly
wink her revolving Cyclopean eye at us.
The moon had risen majestically; it could not do otherwise with those
Lyceists on board. We had achieved something like order in our cabins,
and were reappearing above to have a look at one another. Ellen was
leaning over the bulwarks with one of those flowers in her hand, which
by any other name would smell as sweet. She was still gazing shorewards,
as if she would keep on saying Good-bye until to-morrow; a living
picture, long lines of beauty flowing from her shoulders to her feet,
such as natural grace will evolve even from the slender material of a
travelling dress.
But for all that, she must not be imagined as addicted to mooning or
posing; just the reverse, she was the most practical soul on board, ever
active and thoughtful. Before the first twenty-four hours had passed,
all those hothouse grapes the old friends had brought had found their
way to the new friends, the steerage passengers; so, too, what of shawls
and wraps she could lay her hands on. "I have hidden away one or two
warm things," said her maid, "or there would be nothing of the kind left
for her."
For a day or two we had very rough weather, and the attendance at poet's
corner was small; our first night in particular set many of us wishing
that Columbus had minded his own business and not gone out of his way to
discover a new continent. If a ship would only roll and pitch, an
average land-lubber might have a chance, but it has a nasty trick of
seceding from beneath you when you are lying on your back, and leaving
that back to follow as best it can. This particular hiatus was not new
to me, but such a multiplicity of noises as made that night hideous I
had never encountered before. The wiseacres said that a cargo of
pig-iron had been badly stowed in the ship's entrails, and was trying to
knock a hole in its side, and so it sounded. The drillings of the screw
I could recognise as it doggedly worked its way, occasionally writhing
in impotent rage as it was lifted out of the water; but all the other
squeaking, grating, bond-bursting sounds I could not analyse. As for my
cabin, it soon presented the appearance of a Pandemonium. There was no
provision for securing anything, so portmanteaux were colliding with one
another, and with various articles of furniture and crockery that had
put in an appearance; my dressing-case was sliding along the floor like
a schoolboy on the ice, and in fact every mortal thing was on the alert,
trying to find its ever-shifting centre of gravity. For all that I went
to sleep, to dream of alligators and lifebelts, and of the list of the
saved, amongst whom I could not find my name.
That chivalrous White Star Company had constructed a special state-room
on deck for their guest, the histrionic star, and had furnished it
comfortably, as I know full well, for when, after the demoralising
experiences of that night, I had crawled to the surface limp and
crushed, a ministering angel at once took me in hand, laid me out in
full state in that room of hers, propped me with cushions, tended me
with creature comforts, and finally willed me to sleep. When after some
hours I came out vivified and refreshed, I found her squatting on the
deck in true schoolgirl fashion, writing letters in her big handwriting.
Later on what on _terra firma_ I call my better half had also emerged
from below, and was organising a personally conducted five-o'clock tea,
made attractive by certain canisters in her private possession. Full
justice was done to the popular meal by the small but select circle of
friends come together on that occasion.
As we proceeded, many an incident occurred, partly connected with the
vagaries of the Atlantic, partly with the thousand and one social and
humanitarian interests awakened on board a floating city. They seemed
noteworthy then, but to-day, and to make a long voyage short, I will
only say that it's an ill wind that can't leave off blowing, and it's a
long water-course that has no landing-stage, and that consequently,
after a good deal of boisterous weather, the sea calmed down and we
arrived safely in New York harbour. On the morning when the pilot came
on board, we were most of us still in our berths; but Ellen was up and
on deck, and the first to shake hands with him, and greet him with a
hearty "Good-morning, Mr. Pilot!"
The first thing that happened to me on arriving in the free country,
was that I was most courteously but resolutely deprived of my liberty by
the interviewers. Hobnobbing as I was with Irving and Ellen Terry, they
had evidently taken me for somebody, and, under that mistaken
impression, at once proceeded to extract copy from me.
What a splendid institution that interviewing is! The stranger has from
the first a unique opportunity of showing himself just as he wishes to
appear. He can drape himself in dignity, or pose for the free and easy;
he can borrow good works from his friends and virtues from good books,
and throw in as much soft-soap and blarney as he thinks the natives can
stand. What I may have said I don't know; but I am quite sure I missed
my chance. I was much too innocent then, and probably told the truth.
On Ellen the interviewers must have doted from the first; she was so
charmingly impulsive, so spontaneous and overflowing with copy. I dare
say she gave them points about Art and the Drama, from Sophocles _viâ_
Shakespeare down to the last thing out; but I only remember the
delightful insight into her personal habits and tastes she let them have
when she chose to take the world into her confidence.
"What do I drink?" she said on one occasion. "Very little wine, I am so
nervous. The doctor restricts me to milk, but restrictions and doctors
combined will never come between me and my tea. I must have tea--tea or
death--three times a day, and, as Johnson said about Mrs. Woffington and
her tea, 'It is strong, and red as blood.' I take English tea, which I
buy by the caddy, and wherever I am, there are my caddy and my
dog--Fussy and caddy. Without them 'Othello's occupation's gone.'"
At the custom-house I gave the customary tip, for I had been
confidentially informed that no official on the landing-stage, calling
himself a gentleman, would misinterpret my courtesy, or allow himself to
be unfairly influenced by it. I had fully expected that, by some
ingenious mechanical device, my luggage would be landed simultaneously
with myself, and placed on certain square yards of the American
Continent set apart for our temporary use. I had imagined the
custom-house a many-storied edifice in keeping with the high tariff it
enforced. Instead, however, of any such expectations being realised, I
found myself in a large open shed, from which I could watch the luggage
as it was being ejected in a most primitive way from our ship, with a
good riddance shove from above, and a "look out" shout from below.
An army of porters made a rush for it, and began strewing it all over
the place, getting everybody's belongings thoroughly mixed, and
generally acting as if they were shuffling a pack of cards before
commencing a new game.
The new game took the shape of a free fight, which was waged with
varying fortunes for two or three hours. By dint of displaying much
energy in the attainment of my own ends, to the detriment of everybody
else's, I succeeded in regrouping the greater part of my effects; not
without sorrow can I look back, however, to that field-day, and the sad
losses I sustained, the latter conclusively proving to me that within
the carefully guarded precincts of the custom-house no thieves are
admitted except on business.
The process of clearing and of being cleared out once terminated, I
drove to the "Brevoort," that most respectable of hotels, founded, I
believe, by a party that came over in the _Mayflower_, a house second
only in antiquity to some "Noah's Ark Hotel" in Philadelphia. I went
there because the last, not least, of the Henrys had selected it for his
headquarters. As soon as the rescued trunks reached me I unpacked my
writing materials, and, following illustrious examples, at once sat down
to write a book about America, and the manners and customs of its
inhabitants. But, unlike the illustrious ones, I thought better of it,
and got up again. The fact that I have now once more taken up the pen,
evidently with the same purpose, somewhat recalls Jean Paul Richter's
story of the tippler, who, for once resisting temptation, passes the
door of the public-house, and then, proud of his achievement, turns back
that he may reward himself for so much self-denial. So, too, do I appear
to be tardily, but none the less surely, succumbing to temptation; and
the parallel goes even further, for, as the tippler in all probability
did not rest satisfied with one glass, so I feel a morbid craving to
write as many volumes on America, as there are kinds of drinks at the
bar of a big New York hotel. If such volumes, full of pleasant memories,
are destined never to appear, it will only be because publishers are,
perhaps providentially, placed as protecting buffers between the public
and the author. A few chapters may, however, possibly be allowed to
pass, so I let them take their chance.
"Dis moi qui tu hantes, et je te dirai qui tu es," says the French
proverb, which, freely translated, might be made to say: "Tell me whom
you knew in America, and I will tell you what you thought of the
country." Well, I think I knew just the right people, and from that you
can gather what my impressions were. I certainly started fair, equipped
as I was with a batch of letters of introduction. These, according to
American usage, I posted to their addresses, and then sat in state at a
given time, waiting for the friends of my friends to come and make
friends with me. One letter, however, I carefully kept, and only showed
to those who I thought would appreciate it. It was that best and kindest
of men, Robert Browning, who had given it me, and to this day, when I
read it, it seems more like music than like epistolary prose to me. It
ran thus:--
"19 WARWICK CRESCENT, W.,
_11th August 1884_.
"To whomsoever it may concern.
"I have received such extraordinary kindness from Americans, and
number so many of them among my friends, that it would seem
invidious if I selected those whom I ventured to believe would
oblige me were it possible. I shall therefore say, in the simplest
of words, that should my dear friend, the Painter Moscheles, meet
with any individual whose sympathy I have been privileged to
obtain, whatever favour and assistance may be rendered to him, or
his charming wife, will constitute one more claim to the gratitude
of
ROBERT BROWNING."
One of my first visitors was Dr. Fordyce Barker, the eminent physician,
and more particularly the idol of the fair sex, which owes him so large
a debt of gratitude. He ignored the given time above mentioned, and,
calling at some unearthly hour before I was fairly presentable, he was
away again before I could find my boots.
"What have you come to America for?" was his first shot. The question
coming suddenly upon me, I found no better answer to it than, "Well,
just to have a look round--wanted to see the latest thing out in the way
of civilisation."
"But you are a portrait-painter, I understand?"
"Yes, I am."
"Then you have come here to paint portraits?"
"Well--certainly," I hummed and hawed--"in case the opportunity should
present itself--and if I should find that"--but he cut me short (beating
about the bush is not popular in the States).
"How much do you charge?" he asked bluntly, and without the least regard
for the sensitive nature of a British artist, so I had to make a plunge
and tell him; so much for head-size and so much for a three-quarter
canvas.
"All right," he said, and was off.
Later on I painted him, and he was ever a good friend to me.
It took me some time to get accustomed to the outspoken ways of the
American. With us the artist is a privileged being, unlike any other
producer or vendor, but there everybody takes it for granted that he is
quite ready to accept dollars in exchange for his work. The waiter in
the café, the artist who shampooed me, or the clerk in the hotel, wanted
to know my charges, and it once or twice happened that they turned their
knowledge to good account.
"Now, sir," said a clerk in the Hôtel Richelieu, Chicago, where I was
staying, to a wealthy senator, also a guest at the hotel--"now, sir,
this is Mr. Felix Moscheles, the celebrated English artist, and I guess
you had better have your portrait and your wife's portrait painted,
whilst he is here to fix them up." That introduction led to commissions
as acceptable from the artistic point of view as they were remunerative,
and to the most cordial relations between client and artist.
But I am drifting away from New York, where I want to remain for a
while. I had not been there many hours before I went for a ramble on
Broadway (the American walks _on_ the street, not _in_ it, as we do). I
always loved to explore the busy, bustling thoroughfares of a big city;
it is there you can feel the throbbing feverish pulse of an active
community; in the Park or on the Corso you only get that languid
fashionable-doctor sort of pulse, which takes its airing in a landau or
a victoria, a correct and well-regulated pulse that knows its duty to
itself and to the society it is privileged to beat in.
With such predilection for high-pressure and a rattling pace, I soon
found myself making friends with the Broadway. I always had a weakness,
too, for shops, and there were miles of them; stores they call them, and
every mortal thing is stored behind their immense panes of plate-glass,
or in those outposts of business, the show-cases, that go dodging about
the footpath, and look as if they were on their way to some
international exhibition. Anything and everything man can desire to
smooth the thorny path from the cradle to cremation, he will find in the
Broadway.
Talking of the thorny path, I was much struck by the liberty, not to say
licence, accorded to the paving stones, each of which acted quite
independently of his neighbour. The noise, as the vehicles ploughed
their way along the road, and as it was echoed by the massive stone
buildings, was really appalling. Infernal, I should say, but that
adjective is too good in this case, for the Inferno was at least paved
with good intentions, whereas that road meant mischief and strife, and
revelled in the purity of its own cussedness.
I could not help speculating as to what dear old mother Regent Street
would think of it all; how she would be shocked at the way in which that
transatlantic upstart hands up his goods from the basement, and pushes
them just under your nose, or piles them up sky-high and block deep,
before he consents to put a roof on them. Father Oxford Street, too,
would be scandalised, and so would his time-honoured brother-streets,
that fancy themselves arteries, as they wind their crooked way from the
fashionable brick piles of the west to the golden-calf temples of the
east. They do their best, suffering as they are from chronic congestion,
and I have loved them since the days of my boyhood. No, I certainly mean
no disrespect to the British lion and his partner the unicorn, nor to
the griffin at Temple Bar, nor to the bulls and bears farther on, nor to
the turtles and plovers' eggs at the Mansion House; least of all to the
bank-notes opposite, good company as they always are.
America is a country of contradictions; that is a safe way of putting
it, as the same can be said of all countries. Wherever he goes, the
stranger sees with his own eyes, feels with his own heart, and above
all, judges according to the state of his own liver. One man practises
his bump of veneration on all he meets; another travels on the _nil
admirari_ principle. Golden threads traverse the road of either, and so
do rotten threads. The first man seizes the golden ones and is happy;
the second picks up the rotten ones and makes himself equally happy with
those. Both come home triumphantly to show their threads, and to say,
"Behold, that is what I found!" It must be difficult for the same hand
to pick up both sorts of thread, and to present them impartially,
weighing one set against the other and judging dispassionately. There
are some strong men who can do it, and there would be more of them, I
believe, if it were not for that liver. In my case, that organ may have
been in a satisfactory condition, and have prompted me to be sociable.
So I was rather disappointed when I found that there was more formality
in the great Republic than under the old Monarchy, and that if I wanted
to talk to somebody, I had to be introduced first.
Day after day I have sat with my wife in various hotels at some little
table laid for four, sharing it with some other Mr. and Mrs., without
exchanging a word. Elsewhere we should soon have been playing that
stimulating parlour-game of inter-social hide-and-seek, or we might for
the time being have formed a pleasant little _partie carrée_. Sometimes
my heart went out to my neighbours, I think in a true Christian spirit,
but I could have seen them starve, and yet not have dared to hand them
the mustard or pass them the butter. I knew they would have looked upon
me with suspicion; yet I flatter myself that, with a little discernment,
they could have seen that I was not a shady character, and that neither
I nor that most artless and guileless partner of mine was capable of
playing off the confidence trick on the clergyman opposite, or on the
charming elderly lady with the white hair and the two golden-locked
grandchildren.
We English are often reproached with our respect for caste. We emphasise
the difference of position in the social scale, whereas the
American--unless, to be sure, he be a Bostonian--takes every opportunity
to emphasise his indifference for such distinction. We think we know a
gentleman when we see him; he rather mistrusts his judgment, perhaps
because he has seen fewer generations of the species than we have; so he
sometimes mistakes a sheep for a wolf in disguise, and only recognises
his error when the sheep is formally introduced, and thus guaranteed as
the genuine article. Perhaps it is that, by dint of proclaiming that one
man is as good as another, the citizen of the Great Republic finds
himself arriving at the conclusion that one man is as bad as another,
and so it is for the stranger to show cause why he should be allowed to
pass the hotel mustard or butter.
All that, I must admit, applies, as far as I know, only to the few
cities I visited; I had much too good a time in each of them, painting
and lecturing, studying and learning, to go away in a hurry; so I cannot
speak of the boys on the ranches or the girls in California; nor can I
say whether the fifty or sixty odd millions of Americans to whom I was
not introduced would have taken kindly to me or I to them, had we met.
My first visit to the United States was not the mere excursion I had
expected it to be. I remained six months, mostly in New York. First I
made myself a temporary studio at the Park Avenue Hotel, but soon
finding that I wanted more easel and elbow-room, I took a flat and a
studio in "The Chelsea," furnished and decorated it _right-away_, and
settled down to a winter's work. When the spring came, I just locked my
door, told the clerk in the office to set the burglar alarm, and went
off to the other Chelsea, my home in London. So, for three years, I
divided my time pretty equally between the two countries.
I look back with pleasure to many an incident connected with the
portraits I painted in America. So, too, to my experiences on the
platform. Not only was I allowed to lecture, but I was even listened
to. To be sure, my lectures were only announced as "Studio-talks," and I
took care they should be very much varied according to my audiences. The
inexhaustible subject of Art had to be presented in one way when
addressing the students in Philadelphia or Chicago, in another when
speaking to the select circle of the Thursday Evening Club in New York.
Considerations that would be appropriate to put before a large gathering
of beautiful and gifted young ladies at one of their great colleges,
were not the same that would appeal to upwards of a thousand Negroes and
Indians, students at the famous Hampton Schools in Virginia. In each
case, however, I illustrated my lecture by painting a life-size head
from nature, my subject being mostly selected from the audience.
I cannot refrain from mentioning one instance of the warmth with which
my efforts were occasionally rewarded. "Thanks!" said one of the
gentlemen officially connected with the Hampton Schools, at the close of
my lecture, "a thousand thanks! You cannot realise what pleasure you
have given to those young men and women.--Understood it? I should think
so. Why, I can assure you, they have enjoyed it as much as if they had
been to a circus."
I have often wondered where I found the courage to undertake what I had
never attempted before, and whence came the capacity which saved me from
discomfiture. I can only imagine that I took my colour from my
surroundings, and that where everybody was going ahead, I could not lag
behind. I certainly never knew what I really was, till I had been to
America. The gentleman at the schools was right; it was clear to me: I
was a circus-horse, and America the man with the whip in the middle of
the arena. As he urged me on I could clear bars and barriers as never
before; the people all around, I knew, were keen judges of horseflesh,
and could not be hoodwinked. I must do my best. And then, when
sympathetic friends applauded, it was an easy matter to march boldly
along on two legs and to hold up my head with the best; my nostrils
dilated, and I felt as proud as a man. And when, to reward me, some of
the loveliest women of the great Republic patted me on the back and fed
me with sweets and kind words, I reciprocated with all my heart, and
felt as if I could once for all shake off the yoke of the slow-coaches
in the old countries, and start afresh on life's big race in the new
one.
* * * * *
I was, from the first, much struck by the cordiality with which a
stranger is received. Hospitality is a virtue inherited by the American
from his ancestors, a tradition handed down to him. It has not yet had
time to become blunted, as it has with us much visited Europeans. One
can quite fancy how delighted the first settlers must have been to
welcome friends from the old country and to get the latest news, to say
nothing of the latest fashions, from home. Now, to be sure, messages get
from house to house before they are cabled (as the clocks go); and as
for the fashions, it takes a fleet to convey them across the seas. Who
can tell how much horse-power is annually needed to convey the creations
of a Worth or a Virot to those I would call the loveliest women in the
world, were I not afraid of being misunderstood by other sets of
loveliest women nearer home. Anyway I do not hesitate to assert that the
best productions of the great Parisians become worthier of the fair sex
for which they are conceived, by being subjected to the chastening
influence of the American lady's taste, and to the subtle touches which
she knows how to add.
But however up-to-date the hyper-civilisation imported in dress-baskets
and handboxes may be, and however high the hothouse temperature under
which the New Englanders force the growths they receive from foreign
soil, their good old times are still within easy reach, and many an
ancient custom has survived, foremost amongst which, the practice of
hospitality.
One of the most practical forms in which it is dispensed is called a
Reception, and I most gratefully remember the pleasure and the
advantages derived from such gatherings. Introductions are there dealt
out wholesale to the individual in whose honour they are held. When a
stranger to Chicago, I had delivered a letter to a prominent citizen and
his wife from a mutual friend in New York. They knew everybody worth
knowing, and kindly offered to introduce me to their circle of friends.
On the evening appointed, I stood next to the hostess, and as one after
the other of the guests arrived, each was introduced to me by name. "Mr.
So-and-so," she said, "Mr. Felix Moscheles." Whereupon I had to shake
hands and say blandly, "Mr. So-and-so," whilst he had to repeat "Mr.
Felix Moscheles." If he had not caught my name, or had any doubt about
its pronunciation, he would make a stand and inquire: "_How_ was that?
How do you spell it?" and when once enlightened on those points they
would be fixed once for all in his mind. It was there he had the
advantage over me, for after a short interval I was sure to have
forgotten whether Mr. So-and-so's name spelt Homer D. V. Smith or Plato
V. D. Brown, and whether Homer and Plato were men at all, or ought to
have been connected in my mind with a Mrs. or a Miss.
But notwithstanding such imperfections of my memory, I had no difficulty
in retaining the names of many good friends I made in Chicago. Foremost
amongst these is Robert Morse.
I had got very busy in the studio I had taken in Chicago, where I was
spending the winter of 1887, when a very pleasantly-worded letter
reached me, inviting me to transfer my studio to Omaha, two days'
journey farther west. I could not accept the invitation, and so it was
arranged that at least one of my intending models should be brought to
me, to be dealt with according to the severe laws of the
portrait-painter's art. Robert Morse was four years of age, and had a
distinct objection to be thus dealt with, and out of that circumstance
arose a series of difficulties. But, oh, how beautiful he was! I see him
now as he was handed out of the carriage on his arrival at the Hôtel
Richelieu, his golden curls escaping from beneath his Phrygian cap of
liberty, and cascading over his shoulders. We were in the depth of
winter, and his sturdy little figure was warmly clad in the ample folds
of the toboggan costume--a sort of ulster made of a deep-toned red
flannel; collar and cuffs of the same material, but dark blue, and the
cap to match. His mother led him upstairs--or I should more correctly
say, speaking of this typical American child, was led upstairs by him.
After forty-eight hours' travelling, that lady stepped out of the train
much as if it were one of those boxes marked "Worth--Paris." She was a
lovely woman, as I soon learnt; lovely not only in outward appearance,
but in that moral and intellectual sense which the American language
connects with the word.
My stay in Chicago was limited, and I had written to say that I could
only undertake to paint one picture--that to be a head of the boy. When
we met, however, I at once felt I _must_ paint him full-length,
life-size, toboggan costume, cap, snowscape, and all; and as for the
mother, to be sure, as she wished it, we must find time for a
head-portrait of her too. There was that in her that seemed to call for
a picture from the artist's brush, and so I soon enthusiastically set to
work, painting on the two canvases alternately.
But it was not long ere troubles came thick and fast, growing out of
Robert's determination not to sit for his portrait if he could in any
way help it, and further, on no account to leave the studio when I was
painting his mother. I tried various subtle devices to make work
possible. With a piece of white chalk I designed a most scientific
frontier, separating his territory from mine, and that was capital fun
as long as I joined in the game and we repulsed one another's attacks,
but it fell flat as soon as I returned to the easel. I fed him from an
unlimited supply of "candy," and succeeded after a while in bringing
about indisposition of a marked character; but he speedily recovered,
his animal spirits rising with returning vitality. I sometimes flatter
myself that I possess a faculty of inducing docility in my sitters. More
especially in the treatment of children I pride myself on a series of
minor accomplishments, mainly connected with a free transcription of
Nature's noises, pleasant and unpleasant, such as the animal kingdom
furnishes to the observant ear. But such talents were of little avail.
That infinite source of assistance which I usually speak of as "a lady
attached to the establishment," also failed on this occasion. She who
accompanies me through life for better and for worse, and whose
blandishments European children have ever acknowledged to be
irresistible, could gain but momentary influence over this American
child. But--well, I could not help it--I loved that boy; I admired his
spirit. How should he, at his tender age, know that an artist is a
superior, privileged being, to be treated accordingly? At all hours of
the day Robert was delightfully bright, but his _'cuteness_ seemed
sharpened as bedtime approached. Not that he objected, as most children
do, to going to bed, but, however sleepy he was, his spirit of
resistance seemed somehow to revive when the moment came to recite his
simple prayer. On one occasion all went smoothly as long as he prayed
for his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, but when it came
to his uncles and aunts and to their numerous offspring, he made a
decided stand, putting it plainly to his mother, "I say, _m[=a]mma_, why
can't they pray for their own crowd?" Another time, there had been in
the course of the day a distinct difference of opinion between Robert
and his mother on the advisability of his going out sleighing. He gave
in with unwonted docility, but when the evening came and the fond mother
folded her hands and knelt by his bedside, he shook his head, and said,
"No, _m[=a]mma_; no sleigh--no prayers!"
It was with some impatience that I expected the arrival of Mr. Morse,
for whenever Robert was particularly untractable during what, by
courtesy, was called the sitting, his mother would say, "Wait till his
father comes; he knows how to manage him." After a fortnight that father
came, and he and I at once struck up a friendship which promised to
last, and which ever since has kept its promise. He was a fine and
prepossessing specimen of the free-born American citizen. Six feet
something in height, strong and straight as they are reared under the
guiding brightness and the protecting shadow of the Stars and Stripes.
Under his eye I was to put the final touches to Robert's portrait. I
hopefully started work, but, alas! where was the paternal authority I
had relied upon to get a view of that hand that was dragging the
toboggan across the snow, and that foot on which rested the main action
of the figure? Robert _would_ perch on his father's shoulder, and thence
look down upon me and the world in general. Difficulties finally
reached a climax. I protested in the name of correct drawing and the
eternal laws of perspective, and, fairly roused by my pleading, the
father sternly motioned the son to follow him into the next room.... At
last, I thought, the "right of the strongest" will be vindicated, and
that child will be thrashed.
But if I expected howling and gnashing of teeth, I was to be
disappointed. Nothing broke the silence, until, after some time, the
door opened, and father and son reappeared. Robert took his place,
clutched the cord attached to the toboggan, and listened with rapt
attention to his father's words; these were spoken slowly and
impressively, giving me time to apply whatever faculty for correct
drawing I might possess. As he sought to spin out his words, so will I,
for obvious reasons, seek to curtail them, only adding that, to do them
justice, they should be read with the characteristic American
accentuation which seems to give importance to some words that we should
slide over.
"Sir," he began solemnly, "Robert wishes me to communicate to you what
has passed between us during our absence from this room. It did not take
me long to elicit from him the fact that he has no desire to see his
portrait finished. He has even assured me that, as far as he was
concerned, it need never have been painted at all. He further stated
that he at no time had formed a desire to visit Chicago, and that he
much preferred Omaha to that city. Also, he said--and, I think, with
some show of reason--that, having no playmates here, he would like to
return to those he has left behind, more especially to his brothers and
sisters. Now, sir, you are aware that I, on the other hand, wished him
to make it possible for you to finish that portrait, and I could see no
cause why I should recede from that position; so I politely but firmly
requested him to do as I desire. There are, no doubt, some boys who,
when thus thwarted and opposed, would not have hesitated to strike their
fathers, but Robert is not a boy of that description, he would at all
times respect his father's independence. Still, you see, we were at what
you might call loggerheads. We had gotten fixed like in a dark place
with no door behind us, the windows left out, and a stone wall in front.
Under these circumstances I cast about in my mind, and it occurred to me
we should do well to make straight for arbitration. Now Robert said he
did not know the precise meaning of the word arbitration, so I explained
to him that when two parties could not agree it was usual to call in a
third to decide which way things were to be settled. I wanted to
nominate you, sir, but Robert put in his opinion that you might not be
the right person for our purpose; he said that I myself should do
better, so, after giving the matter careful consideration, I decided
that Robert should come in and take friendly to that toboggan and that
cord, and that he should make himself generally portraitable; I further
decided that, as long as it lasted, I should sit here patiently and
wait; but that, as soon as you had finished, I might go and procure a
horse to have a ride on the road to Omaha, and that I should also hire
a pony, so that Robert might accompany me on that ride."
Robert listened intently. I painted ditto.
They say in Omaha, where the portrait hangs, that it is good. So, "All's
well that ends well."
Of that I am glad, and, as I recall the incident, I am once more lost in
admiration of the American child that, from its earliest days, is ever
ready to elicit the noblest qualities of patience and forbearance in the
parent it is training. And what a training, too, for the boy! Will not
Robert, who is now growing into manhood, be a staunch supporter of
International Arbitration, and help us, if need be, to rescue the
Anglo-American treaty from destruction, or, should that be achieved, to
uphold and to strengthen it?
* * * * *
But the mightiest advocate of International Arbitration, I found amongst
the friends I made in Albany. For him I must turn over a new page.
[Illustration]