An Autobiography Part 5

Peter's from the Pincian. The wind rather spoiled the first or silver one, but the next, the golden, was a grand sight, beginning with the cross at the top and running down in streams over the dome. As I looked, I heard a funny bit of Latin from an English tourist, who asked a priest '_Quis est illuminatio, olio o gas?_' '_Olio, olio_,' answered the priest good-naturedly."

And so our Papal Rome on May 2nd, 1870, retreated into my very appreciative memory, and we returned for a few days to Florence, and thence to Padua and Venice and Verona on our way to England through the Tyrol and Bavaria. What a downward slope in art it is from Italy into Germany! We girls felt a great irritation at the change, and were too recalcitrant to attend to the German sights properly.

But I filled the Diary with very searching notes of the wonderful things I saw in Venice, thanks to Veronese, t.i.tian, Tintoretto, Palma Vecchio and others, who filled me with all that an artist can desire in the way of colour. I was anxious to improve my weak point, and here was a lesson!

It is curious, however, to watch through the succeeding years how I was gradually inducted by circ.u.mstances into that line of painting which is so far removed from what inspired me just then. It was the Franco-German War and a return to the Isle of Wight that sent me back on the military road with ever diminishing digressions. Well, perhaps my father's fear, which I have already mentioned in my early 'teens, that I was joining in a "tremendous ruck" in taking the field would have been justified had I not taken up a line of painting almost non-exploited by English artists.

The statement of a French art critic when writing of one of my war pictures, "_L'Angleterre n'a guere qu'un peintre militaire, c'est une femme_," shows the position. I wish I could have another life here below to share the joys of those who paint what I studied in Italy, if only for the love of such work, though I am very certain I should be quite indistinguishable in _that_ "ruck."

CHAPTER VII

WAR. BATTLE PAINTINGS

Padua I greatly enjoyed--its academic quiet, its Shakespearean atmosphere; and still more did Shakespearean Verona enchant me. I had a good study of the modern French school at the Paris Salon, and on getting back to London rejoined the South Kensington schools till the end of the summer session. Then a studio and practice from the living model. In July we were all absorbed in the great Franco-German War, declared in the middle of that month. It seems so absurd to us to-day that we should have been pro-German in England. This little entry in the Diary shows how Bismarck's dishonest manuvres had hoodwinked the world. "France _will_ fight, so Prussia _must_, and all for nothing but jealousy--a pretty spectacle!" We all believed it was France that was the guilty party. I call to mind how some one came running upstairs to find me and, subsiding on the top step with _The Times_ in her hand, announced the surrender of MacMahon's army and the Emperor. I wrote "the Germans are pro-di-gious!" and I have lived to see them prostrate. Such is history.

I was asked, as the war developed, if I had been inspired by it, and this caused me to turn my attention pictorially that way. Once I began on that line I went at a gallop, in water-colour at first, and many a subject did I send to the "Dudley Gallery" and to Manchester, all the drawings selling quickly, but I never relaxed that serious practice in oil painting which was my solid foundation. I sent the poor "Magnificat"

to the Royal Academy in the spring of 1871. It was rejected, and returned to me with a large hole in it.

That summer, which we spent at well-loved Henley-on-Thames, was marred by the awful doings of the Commune in Paris. _The Times_ had a stereotyped heading for a long time: "The Destruction of Paris." What horrible suspense there was while we feared the destruction of the Louvre and Notre Dame. I see in the Diary: "_May 28th, 1871_.--Oh! that to-morrow's papers may bring a decided contradiction of the oft-repeated report that the great Louvre pictures are lost and that Notre Dame no longer stands intact. As yet all is confusion and dismay, and one clings, therefore, to the hope that little by little we may hear that some fragments, at least, may be spared to bereaved humanity and that all that beauty is not annihilated."

In August, 1871, we were off again. From London back to Ventnor! There I kept my hand in by painting in oils life-sized portraits of friends and relations and some Italian ecclesiastical subjects, such as young Franciscan monks, disciples of him who loved the birds, feeding their doves in a cloister; an old friar teaching schoolboys, _al fresco_, outside a church, as I had seen one doing in Rome. For this friar I commandeered our landlord as a model, for he had just the white beard and portly figure I required. Yet he was one of the most _furibond_ dissenters I ever met--a Congregationalist--but very obliging. Also a candlelight effect in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome; a large altar-piece for our little Church of St. Wilfrid, and so on, a mixture of the ecclesiastical and the military. The dances, theatricals, croquet parties, rides--all the old ways were linked up again at Ventnor, and I have a very bright memory of our second dwelling there and reunion with our old friends. In the spring of 1872 I sent one of the many Roman subjects I was painting to the Academy, a water-colour of a Papal Zouave saluting two bishops in a Roman street. It was rejected, but this time without a hole. This year was full of promise, and I very nearly reached the top of my long hill climb, for in it I began what proved to be my first Academy picture.

What proved of great importance to me, this year of 1872, was my introduction, if I may put it so, to the British Army! I then saw the British soldier as I never had had the opportunity of seeing him before.

My father took me to see something of the autumn manuvres near Southampton. Subjects for water-colour drawings appeared in abundance to my delighted observation. One of the generals who was to be an umpire at these manuvres, Sir F. C., had become greatly interested in me, as a mutual friend had described my battle scenes to him, and said he would speak about me to Sir Charles Staveley, one of the commanders in the impending "war," so that I might have facilities for seeing the interesting movements. He hoped that, if I saw the manuvres, I would "give the British soldiers a turn," which I did with alacrity. I sent some of the sketches to Manchester and to my old friend the "Dudley."

One of them, "Soldiers Watering Horses," found a purchaser in a Mr.

Galloway, of Manchester, who asked through an agent if I would paint him an oil picture. I said "Yes," and in time painted him "The Roll Call."

Meanwhile, in the spring of 1873, I sent my first really large war picture in oils to the Academy. It was accepted, but "skyed," well noticed in the Press and, to my great delight, sold. The subject was, of course, from the war which was still uppermost in our thoughts: a wounded French colonel (for whom my father sat), riding a spent horse, and a young subaltern of Cuira.s.siers, walking alongside (studied from a young Irish officer friend), "missing" after one of the French defeats, making their way over a forlorn landscape. The Cameron Highlanders were quartered at Parkhurst, near Ventnor, about this time, and I was able to make a good many sketches of these splendid troops, so essentially pictorial. I have ever since then liked to make Highlanders subjects for my brush.

In this same year of 1873 my sister and I, now both belonging to the old faith, whither our mother had preceded us, joined the first pilgrimage to leave the sh.o.r.es of England since the Reformation. I had arranged with the _Graphic_ to make pen-and-ink sketches of the pilgrimage, which was arousing an extraordinary amount of public interest. Our goal was the primitive little town of Paray-le-Monial, deep in the heart of France, where Margaret Mary Alacoque received our Lord's message. I cannot convey to my readers who are not "of us" the fresh and exultant impressions we received on that visit. There was a mixture of religious and national patriotism in our minds which produced feelings of the purest happiness. The steamer that took us English pilgrims from Newhaven to Dieppe on September 2nd flew the standard of the Sacred Heart at the main and the Union Jack at the peak, seeming thus to symbolise the whole character of the enterprise. Those _Graphic_ sketches proved a very great burden to me. Nowadays one of the pilgrims would have done all by "snapshots." I tried to sketch as I walked in the processions at Paray and to sing the hymn at the same time. There was hardly a moment's rest for us, except for a few intervals of sleep. The long ceremonies and prescribed devotions, the processions, the stirring hymns and the journey there and back, all crowded into a week from start to finish, called for all one's strength. But how joyfully given!

I can never forget the hearty, well-mannered welcome the French gave us, lay and clerical. The place itself was lovely and the weather kind. It is good to have had such an experience as this in our weary world. The Bishop of Salford, the future Cardinal Vaughan, led us, and our clergy mustered in great force. The dear French people never showed so well as during their welcome of us. It suited their courteous and hospitable natures. Most of our hosts were peasants and owners of little picturesque shops in this jewel of a little town. We two were billeted at a shoemaker's. The urbanity of the French clergy in receiving our own may be imagined. I love to think back on the truly beautiful sights and sounds of Paray, with the dominant note of the church bells vibrating over all. They gave us a graceful send-off, pleased to have the a.s.surance of our approval of our reception. Many compliments on our _solide piete_, with regrets as to their own "_legerete_," and so forth.

"_Vive l'Angleterre!_" "_Vive la France!_" "_Adieu!_"

CHAPTER VIII

"THE ROLL CALL"

I had quite a large number of commissions for military water-colours to get through on my return home, and an oil of French artillery on the march to paint, in my little gla.s.s studio under St. Boniface Down. But after my not inconsiderable success with "Missing" at the Academy, I became more and more convinced that a London studio _must_ be my destiny for the coming winter. Of course, my father demurred. He couldn't bear to part with me. Still, it must be done, and to London I went, with his sad consent. I had long been turning "The Roll Call" in my mind. My father shook his head; the Crimea was "forgotten." My mother rather shivered at the idea of the snow. It was no use; they saw I was bent on that subject. My dear mother and our devoted family doctor in London (Dr. Pollard[4]), who would do anything in his power to help me, between them got me the studio, No. 76, Fulham Road, where I painted the picture which brought me such utterly unexpected celebrity.

Mr. Burchett, still headmaster at South Kensington, was delighted to see me with all the necessary facilities for carrying out my work, and he sent me the best models in London, nearly all ex-soldiers. One in particular, who had been in the Crimea, was invaluable. He stood for the sergeant who calls the roll. I engaged my models for five hours each day, but often asked them to give me an extra half-hour. Towards the end, as always happens, I had to put on pressure, and had them for six hours. My preliminary expeditions for the old uniforms of the Crimean epoch were directed by my kind Dr. Pollard, who rooted about Chelsea back streets to find what I required among the Jews. One, Mr. Abrahams, found me a good customer. I say in my Diary:

"Dr. Pollard and I had a delightful time at Mr. Abrahams' dingy little p.a.w.nshop in a hideous Chelsea slum, and, indeed, I enjoyed it _far_ more than I should have enjoyed the same length of time at a West End milliner's. I got nearly all the old accoutrements I had so much longed for, and in the evening my Jew turned up at Dr. Pollard's after a long tramp in the city for more accoutrements, helmets, coatees, haversacks, etc., and I sallied forth with the 'Ole Clo!' in the rain to my boarding house under our mutual umbrella, and he under his great bag as well. We chatted about the trade '_chemin faisant_.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRIMEAN IDEAS.]

I called Sat.u.r.day, December 13th, 1873, a "red-letter day," for I then began my picture at the London studio. Having made a little water-colour sketch previously, very carefully, of every att.i.tude of the figures, I had none of those alterations to make in the course of my work which waste so much time. Each figure was drawn in first without the great coat, my models posing in a tight "sh.e.l.l jacket," so as to get the figure well drawn first. How easily then could the thick, less shapely great coat be painted on the well-secured foundation. No matter how its heavy folds, the cross-belts, haversacks, water-bottles, and everything else broke the lines, they were there, safe and sound, underneath. An artist remarked, "What an absurdly easy picture!" Yes, no doubt it was, but it was all the more so owing to the care taken at the beginning. This may be useful to young painters, though, really, it seems to me just now that sound drawing is at a discount. It will come by its own again. Some people might say I was too anxious to be correct in minor military details, but I feared making the least mistake in these technical matters, and gave myself some unnecessary trouble. For instance, on one of my last days at the picture I became anxious as to the correct letters that should appear stamped on the Guards'

haversacks. I sought professional advice. Dr. Pollard sent me the beery old Crimean pensioner who used to stand at the Museum gate wearing a gold-laced hat, to answer my urgent inquiry as to this matter. Up comes the puffing old gentleman, redolent of rum. I, full of expectation, ask him the question: "What should the letters be?" "B. O.!" he roars out--"Board of Ordnance!" Then, after a congested stare, he calls out, correcting himself, "W. D.--War Deportment!" "Oh!" I say, faintly, "War Department; thank you." Then he mixes up the two together and roars, "W.

O.!" And that was all I got. He mopped his rubicund face and, to my relief, stumped away down my stairs. Another Crimean hero came to tell me whether I was right in having put a grenade on the pouches. "Well, miss, the natural _hinference_ would be that it _was_ a grenade, but it was something like my 'and." Desperation! I got the thing "like his hand" just in time to put it in before "The Roll Call" left--a bra.s.s badge lent me by the War Office--and obliterated the much more effective grenade.

On March 29th and 30th, 1874, came my first "Studio Sunday" and Monday, and on the Tuesday the poor old "Roll Call" was sent in. I watched the men take it down my narrow stairs and said "_Au revoir_," for I was disappointed with it, and apprehensive of its rejection and speedy return. So it always is with artists. We never feel we have fulfilled our hopes.

The two show days were very tiring. Somehow the studio, after church time on the Sunday, was crowded. Good Dr. Pollard hired a "b.u.t.tons" for me, to open the door, and busied himself with the people, and enjoyed it. So did I, though so tired. It was "the thing" in those days to make the round of the studios on the eve of "sending-in day."

Mr. Galloway's agent came, and, to my intense relief, told me the picture went far beyond his expectations. He had been nervous about it, as it was through him the owner had bought it, without ever seeing it.

On receiving the agent's report, Mr. Galloway sent me a cheque at once--126--being more than the hundred agreed to. The copyright was mine.

The days that followed felt quite strange. Not a dab with a brush, and my time my own. It was the end of Lent, and then Easter brought such church ceremonial as our poor little Ventnor St. Wilfrid's could not aspire to. A little more Diary:

"_Sat.u.r.day, April 11th._--A charming morning, for Dr. Pollard had a fine piece of news to tell me. First, Elmore, R.A., had burst out to him yesterday about my picture at the Academy, saying that all the Academicians are in quite a commotion about it, and Elmore wants to make my acquaintance very much. He told Dr. P. I might get 500 for 'The Roll Call'! I little expected to have such early and gratifying news of the picture which I sent in with such forebodings. After Dr. P. had delivered this broadside of Elmore's compliments he brought the following battery of heavy guns to bear upon me which compelled me to sink into a chair. It is a note from Herbert, R.A., in answer to a few lines which kind Father Bagshawe had volunteered to write to him, as a friend, to ask him, as one of the Selecting Committee, just simply to let me know, as soon as convenient, whether my picture was accepted or rejected. The note is as follows:

'DEAR MISS THOMPSON,--I have just received a note from Father Bagshawe of the Oratory in which he wished me to address a few lines to you on the subject of your picture in the R.A. To tell the truth I desired to do so a day or two since but did not for two reasons: the first being that as a custom the doings of the R.A.

are for a time kept secret; the second that I felt I was a stranger to you and you would hear what I wished to say from some friend--but Father Bagshawe's note, and the decision being over, I may tell you with what pleasure I greeted the picture and the painter of it when it came before us for judgment. It was simply this: I was so struck by the excellent work in it that I proposed we should lift our hats and give it and you, though, as I thought, unknown to me, a round of huzzahs, which was generally done. You now know my feeling with regard to your work, and may be sure that I shall do everything as one of the hangers that it shall be _perfectly seen_ on our walls.

I am tired and hurried, and ask you to excuse this very hasty note, but _accept my hearty congratulations_, and

Believe me to be, dear Miss Thompson,

Most faithfully yours,

J. R. HERBERT.'

I trotted off at once to show Father Bagshawe the note, and then left for home with my brilliant news."

While at home at Ventnor I received from many sources most extraordinary rumours of the stir the picture was making in London amongst those who were behind the scenes. How it was "the talk of the clubs" and spoken of as the "coming picture of the year," "the hit of the season," and all that kind of thing. Friends wrote to me to give me this pleasant news from different quarters. Ventnor society rejoiced most kindly. I went to London to what I call in the Diary "the scene of my possible triumphs,"

having taken rooms at a boarding house. I had better let the Diary speak:

"_'Varnishing Day,' Tuesday, April 28th._--My real feelings as, laden like last year, with palette, brushes and paint box, I ascended the great staircase, all alone, though meeting and being overtaken by hurrying men similarly equipped to myself, were not happy ones. Before reaching the top stairs I sighed to myself, 'After all your working extra hours through the winter, what has it been for? That you may have a cause of mortification in having an unsatisfactory picture on the Academy walls for people to stare at.' I tried to feel indifferent, but had not to make the effort for long, for I soon espied my dark battalion in Room _II. on the line_, with a knot of artists before it. Then began my ovation (!) (which, meaning a second-cla.s.s triumph, is _not_ quite the word). I never expected anything so perfectly satisfactory and so like the realisation of a castle in the air as the events of this day.

It would be impossible to say all that was said to me by the swells.

Millais, R.A., talked and talked, so did Calderon, R.A., and Val Prinsep, asking me questions as to where I studied, and praising this figure and that. Herbert, R.A., hung about me all day, and introduced me to his two sons. Du Maurier told me how highly Tom Taylor had spoken to him of the picture. Mr. S., our Roman friend, cleaned the picture for me beautifully, insisting on doing so lest I should spoil my new velveteen frock. At lunchtime I returned to the boarding house to fetch a sketch of a better Russian helmet I had done at Ventnor, to replace the bad one I had been obliged to put in the foreground from a Prussian one for want of a better. I sent a gleeful telegram home to say the picture was on the line. I could hardly do the little helmet alterations necessary, so crowded was I by congratulating and questioning artists and starers. I by no means disliked it all. Delightful is it to be an object of interest to so many people. I am sure I cannot have looked very glum that day. In the most distant rooms people steered towards me to felicitate me most cordially. 'Only send as _good_ a picture next year' was Millais' answer to my expressed hope that next year I should do better. This was after overhearing Mr. C. tell me I might be elected A.R.A. if I kept up to the mark next year. O'Neil, R.A., seemed rather to deprecate all the applause I had to-day and, shaking his head, warned me of the dangers of sudden popularity. I know all about _that_, I think.

"_Thursday, April 30th._--The Royalties' private view. The Prince of Wales wants 'The Roll Call.' It is not mine to let him have, and Galloway won't give it up.

"_Friday, May 1st._--The to-me-glorious private view of 1874. I insert here my letter to Papa about it:

'DEAREST ----, I feel as though I were undertaking a really difficult work in attempting to describe to you the events of this most memorable day. I don't suppose I ever can have another such day, because, however great my future successes may be, they can never partake of the character of this one. It is my first great success. As Tom Taylor told me to-day, I have suddenly burst into fame, and this _first time_ can never come again. It has a character peculiar to all _first things_ and to them alone. You know that "the _elite_ of London society" goes to the Private View.

Well, the greater part of the _elite_ have been presented to me this day, all with the same hearty words of congratulation on their lips and the same warm shake of the hand ready to follow the introductory bow. I was not at all disconcerted by all these bigwigs. The Duke of Westminster invited me to come and see the pictures at Grosvenor House, and the old d.u.c.h.ess of Beaufort was so delighted with "The Roll Call" that she asked me to tell her the history of each soldier, which I did, the knot of people which, by the bye, is always before the picture swelling into a little crowd to see me and, if possible, catch what I was saying. Galloway's tall figure was almost a fixture near the painting. That poor man, he was sadly distracted about this Prince of Wales affair, but the last I heard from him was that he _couldn't_ part with it.

Some one at the Academy offered him 1,000 for it, and T. Agnew told him he would give him anything he asked, but he refused those offers without a moment's hesitation. He has telegraphed to his wife at Manchester, as he says women can decide so much better than men on the spur of the moment. The Prince gives him till the dinner to-morrow to make up his mind. The d.u.c.h.ess of Beaufort introduced Lord Raglan's daughters to me, who were pleased with the interest I took in their father. Old Kinglake was also introduced, and we had a comparatively long talk in that huge a.s.sembly where you are perpetually interrupted in your conversation by fresh arrivals of friends or new introductions. Do you remember joking with me, when I was a child, about the exaggerations of popularity? How strange it felt to-day to be realizing, in actual experience, what you warned me of, in fun, when looking at my drawings. You need not be afraid that I shall forget. What I _do_ feel is great pleasure at having "arrived," at last. The great banker Bunbury has invited me and a friend to the ball at the Goldsmiths' Hall on Wednesday night. He is one of the wardens. Oh! if you could only come up in time to take me. Col. Lloyd Lindsay, of Alma fame, and his wife were wild to have "The Roll Call." She shyly told me she had cried before the picture. But, for enthusiasm, William Agnew beat them all. He came up to be introduced, and spoke in such expressions of admiration that his voice positively shook, and he said that, having missed purchasing this work, he would feel "proud and happy"

if I would paint him one, the time, subject and price, whatever it might be, being left entirely to me. Sir Richard Airey, the man who wrote the fatally misconstrued order on his holster and handed it to Nolan on the 25th October, 1854, was very cordial, and showed that he took a keen pleasure in the picture. I told him I valued a Crimean man's praise more than anybody else's, and I repeated the observation later to old Sir William Codrington under similar circ.u.mstances, and to other Crimean officers. One of them, whose father was killed at the a.s.sault on the Redan, pressed me very hard to consent to paint him two Crimean subjects, but I cannot promise anything more till I have worked out my already too numerous commissions, old ones, at the horrible old prices.

Sir Henry Thompson, a great surgeon, I understand, was very polite, and introduced his little daughter who paints. Lady Salisbury had a long chat with me and showed a great intelligence on art matters.

Many others were introduced, or I to them, but most of them exist as ghosts in my memory. I have forgotten some of their names and, as some only wrote their addresses on my catalogue, I don't know who is who. The others gave me their cards, so that is all right.