An Autobiography Part 8

CHAPTER XI

TO FLORENCE AND BACK

We started on our most delightful journey to Florence early in September of that year to a.s.sist at the Michael Angelo fetes as the guests of dear Mrs. Janet Ross and the Marchese della Stufa, who, with Mr. Ross, inhabited in the summer the delicious old villa of Castagnolo, at Lastra a Signa, six miles on the Pisan side of my beloved Florence. Of course, I give page after page in the Diary to our journey across Italy under the Alps and the Apennines. To the modern motorist it must all sound slow, though we did travel by rail! Above all the lovely things we saw on our way by the Turin-Bologna line, I think Parma, rising from the banks of a shallow river, glowing in sunshine and palpitating jewel-like shade, holds pride of place for noontide beauty. After Modena came the deeper loveliness of the afternoon, and then Bologna, mellowed by the rosy tints of early evening. Then the sunset and then the tender moon.

By moonlight we crossed the Apennines, and to the sound of the droning summer beetle--an extraordinarily penetrating sound, which I declared makes itself heard above the railway noises, we descended into the Garden of Italy, slowly, under powerful brakes. At ten we reached Florence, and in the crowd on the platform a tall, distinguished-looking man bowed to me. "Miss Thompson?" "Yes." It was the Marchese, and lo!

behind him, who should there be but my old master, Bellucci. What a warm welcome they gave us. Of course, our luggage had stuck at the _douane_ at Modane, and was telegraphed for. No help for it; we must do without it for a day or two. We got into the carriage which was awaiting us, and the Marchese into his little pony trap, and off we went flying for a mysterious, dream-like drive in misty moonlight, we in front and our host behind, jingle-jingling merrily with the pleasant monotony of his lion-maned little pony's canter. We could not believe the drive was a real one. It was too much joy to be at Florence--too good to be true.

But how tired we were!

At last we drove up to the great towered villa, an old-fashioned Florentine ancestral place, which has been the home of the Della Stufas for generations, and there, in the great doorway, stood Mrs. Ross, welcoming us most cordially to "Castagnolo." We pa.s.sed through frescoed rooms and pa.s.sages, dimly lighted with oil lamps of genuine old Tuscan patterns, and were delighted with our bedrooms--enormous, brick-paved and airy. There we made a show of tidying ourselves, and went down to a fruit-decked supper, though hardly able to sit up for sleep. How kind they were to us! We felt quite at home at once.

"_September 12th._--After Ma.s.s at the picturesque little chapel which, with the _vicario's_ dwelling, abuts on the _fattoria_ wing of the villa, we drove into Florence with Mrs. Ross and the Marchese, whom we find the typical Italian patrician of the high school. We were rigged out in Mrs. Ross's frocks, which didn't fit us at all. But what was to be done? Provoking girls! It was a dear, hot, dusty, dazzling old Florentine drive, bless it! and we were very pleased. Florence was _en fete_ and all _imbandierata_ and hung with the usual coloured draperies, and all joyous with church bells and military bands. The concert in honour of Michael Angelo (the fetes began to-day) was held in the Palazzo Vecchio, and very excellent music they gave us, the audience bursting out in applause before some of the best pieces were quite finished in that refreshingly spontaneous way Italians have. After the concert we loitered about the piazza looking at the ever-moving and chattering crowd in the deep, transparent shade and dazzling sunshine.

It was a glorious sight, with the white statues of the fountain rising into the sunlight against houses hung mostly with very beautiful yellow draperies. I stood at the top of the steps of the Loggia de' Lanzi, and, resting my book on the pedestal of one of the lions, I made a rough sketch of the scene, keeping the _Graphic_ engagement in view. I subsequently took another of the Michael Angelo procession pa.s.sing the Ponte alle Grazie on its way from Santa Croce to the new 'Piazzale Michel Angelo,' which they have made since we were here before, on the height of San Miniato. It was a pretty procession on account of the rich banners. A day full of charming sights and melodious sounds."

The great doings of the last day of the fetes were the illuminations in the moonlit evening. They were artistically done, and we had a feast of them, taking a long, slow drive to the piazzale by the new zigzag.

Michael Angelo was remembered at every turn, and the places he fortified were especially marked out by lovely lights, all more or less soft and glowing. Not a vile gas jet to be seen anywhere. The city was not illuminated, nor was anything, with few exceptions, save the lines of the great man's fortifications. The old white banner of Florence, with the _Giglio_, floated above the tricolour on the heights which Michael Angelo defended in person. The effect, especially on the church of San Miniato, of golden lamps making all the surfaces aglow, as if the walls were transparent, and of the green-blue moonlight above, was a thing as lovely as can be seen on this earth. It was a thoroughly Italian festival. We were charmed with the people; no pushing in the crowds, which enjoyed themselves very much. They made way for us when they saw we were foreigners.

We stayed at Castagnolo nearly all through the vintage, pressed from one week to another to linger, though I made many attempts to go on account of beginning my "Balaclava." The fascination of Castagnolo was intense, and we had certainly a happy experience. I sketched hard every day in the garden, the vineyards, and the old courtyard where the most picturesque vintage incidents occurred, with the white oxen, the wine pressing, and the bare-legged, merry _contadini_, all in an atmosphere scented with the fermenting grapes. Everything in the _Cortile_ was dyed with the wine in the making. I loved to lean over the great vats and inhale that wholesome effluence, listening to the low sea-like murmur of the fermentation. On the days when we helped to pick the grapes on the hillside (and "helping ourselves" at the same time) we had _collazione_ there, a little picnic, with the indispensable guitar and post-prandial cigarette. Every one made the most of this blessed time, as such moments should be made the most of when they are given us, I think. Young Italians often dined at the villa, and the evenings were spent in singing _stornelli_ and _rispetti_ until midnight to the guitar, every one of these young fellows having a nice voice. They were merry, pleasant creatures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ONE OF THE BALAKLAVA SIX-HUNDRED.]

Nothing but the stern necessity of returning to work could have kept me from seeing the vintage out. We left most regretfully on October 4th, taking Genoa and our dear step-sister on the way. Even as it was our lingering in Italy made me too late, as things turned out, for the Academy!

October 19th has this entry: "Began my 'Balaclava' cartoon to-day.

Marked all the positions of the men and horses. My trip to Italy and the glorious and happy and healthy life I have led there, and the utter change of scene and occupation, have done me priceless good, and at last I feel like going at this picture _con amore_. I was in hopes this happy result would be obtained." "Balaclava" was painted for Mr. Whitehead, of Manchester. I had owed him a picture from the time I exhibited "Missing." It was to be the same size, and for the same price as that work, and I was in honour bound to fulfil my contract! So I again brought forward the "Dawn of Sedan," although my prices were now so enlarged that 80 had become quite out of proportion, even for a simple subject like that. However, after long parleys, and on account of Mr.

Whitehead's repudiation of the Sedan subject, it was agreed that "Balaclava" should be his, at the new scale altogether. The Fine Art Society (late d.i.c.kenson & Co.) gave Mr. Whitehead 3,000 for the copyright, and engaged the great Stacpoole, as before, to execute the engraving.

I was very sorry that the picture was not ready for Sending-in Day at the Academy. No doubt the fuss that was made about it, and my having begun a month too late, put me off; but, be that as it may, I was a good deal disturbed towards the end, and had to exhibit "Balaclava" at the private gallery of the purchasers of the copyright in Bond Street.

This gave me more time to finish. I had my own Private View on April 20th, 1876: "The picture is disappointing to me. In vain I call to mind all the things that judges of art have said about this being the best thing I have yet painted. Can one _never_ be happy when the work is done? This day was only for our friends and was no test. Still, there was what may be called a sensation. Virginia Gabriel, the composer, was led out of the room by her husband in tears! One officer who had been through the charge told a friend he would never have come if he had known how like the real thing it was. Curiously enough, another said that after the stress of Inkermann a soldier had come up to his horse and leant his face against it exactly as I have the man doing to the left of my picture.

"_April 22nd._--An enormous number of people at the Society's Private View and some of the morning papers blossoming out in the most beautiful notices, ever so long, and I getting a little rea.s.sured." A day later: "Went to lunch at Mrs. Mitch.e.l.l's, who invited me at the Private View, next door to Lady Raglan's, her great friend. Two distinguished officers were there to meet me, and we had a pleasant chat." And this is all I say! One of the two was Major W. F. Butler, author of "The Great Lone Land."

The London season went by full of society doings. Our mother had long been "At Home" on Wednesdays, and much good music was heard at "The Boltons," South Kensington. Ruskin came to see us there. He and our mother were often of the same way of thinking on many subjects, and I remember seeing him gently clapping his hands at many points she made.

He was displeased with me on one occasion when, on his asking me which of the Italian masters I had especially studied, I named Andrea del Sarto. "Come into the corner and let me scold you," were his disconcerting words. Why? Of course, I was crestfallen, but, all the same, I wondered what could be the matter with Andrea's "Cenacolo" at San Salvi, or his frescoes at the SS. Annunziata, or his "Madonna with St. Francis and St. John," in the Tribune of the Uffizi. The figure of the St. John is, to me, one of the most adorable things in art. That gentle, manly face; that dignified pose; the exquisite modelling of the hand, and the harmonious colours of the drapery--what _could_ be the matter with such work? I remember, at one of the artistic London "At Homes," Frith, R.A., coming up to me with a long face to say, if I did not send to the Academy, I should lose my chance of election. But I think the difficulties of electing a woman were great, and much discussion must have been the consequence amongst the R.A.'s. However, as it turned out, in 1879 I lost my election by _two_ votes only! Since then I think the door has been closed, and wisely. I returned to the studio on May 18th, for I could not lay down the brush for any amount of society doings. Besides, I soon had to make preparations for "Inkermann."

"_Sat.u.r.day, June 10th._--Saw Genl. Darby-Griffith, to get information about Inkermann. I returned just in time to dress for the delightful Lord Mayor's Banquet to the Representatives of Art at the Mansion House, a place of delightful recollections for me. Neither this year's nor last year's banquet quite came up to the one of 'The Roll Call' year in point of numbers and excitement, but it was most delightful and interesting to be in that great gathering of artists and hear oneself gracefully alluded to in The Lord Mayor's speech and others. Marcus Stone sat on my left, and we had really a thoroughly good conversation all through dinner such as I have seldom embarked on, and I found, when I tried it, that I could talk pretty well. He is a fine fellow, and simple-minded and genuine. My _vis-a-vis_ was Alma Tadema, with his remarkable-looking wife, like a lady out of one of his own pictures; and many well-known heads wagged all around me. After dinner and the speeches, Du Maurier, of _Punch_, suggested to the Lord Mayor that we should get up a quadrille, which was instantly done, and the friskier spirits amongst us had a nice dance. Du Maurier was my partner; and on my left I had John Tenniel, so that I may be said to have been supported by Punch both at the beginning and end of dinner, this being Du Maurier's simple and obvious joke, _vide_ the post-turtle indulgence peculiar to civic banquets. After a waltz we laggards at last took our departure in the best spirits."

I remember that in June we went to a most memorable High Ma.s.s, to wit, the first to be celebrated in the Old Saxon Church of St. Etheldreda since the days of the Reformation. This church was the second place of Christian worship erected in London, if not in England, in the old Saxon times. We were much impressed as the Gregorian Ma.s.s sounded once more in the grey-stoned crypt. The upper church was not to be ready for years.

Those old grey stones woke up that morning which had so long been smothered in the London clay.

Here follow too many descriptions in the Diary of dances, dinners and other functions. They are superfluous. There were, however, some _Tableaux Vivants_ at an interesting house--Mrs. Bishop's, a very intellectual woman, much appreciated in society in general, and Catholic society in particular--which may be recorded in this very personal narrative, for I had a funny hand in a single-figure tableau which showed the dazed 11th Hussar who figures in the foreground of my "Balaclava." The man who stood for him in the tableau had been my model for the picture, but to this day I feel the irritation caused me by that man. In the picture I have him with his busby pushed back, as it certainly would and should have been, off his heated brow. But, while I was posing him for the tableau, every time I looked away he rammed it down at the becoming "smart" angle. I got quite cross, and insisted on the necessary push back. The wretch pretended to obey, but, just before the curtain rose, rammed the busby down again, and utterly destroyed the meaning of that figure! We didn't want a representation of Mr. So-and-so in the becoming uniform of a hussar, but my battered trooper. The thing fell very flat. But tableaux, to my mind, are a mistake, in many ways.

I often mention my pleasure in meeting Lord and Lady Denbigh, for they were people after my own heart. Lady Denbigh was one of those women one always looks at with a smile; she was so _simpatica_ and true and unworldly.

July 18th is noted as "a memorable day for Alice, for she and I spent the afternoon at _Tennyson's_! I say 'for Alice' because, as regards myself, the event was not so delightful as a day at Aldershot. Tennyson has indeed managed to shut himself off from the haunts of men, for, arrived at Haslemere, a primitive little village, we had a six-mile drive up, up, over a wild moor and through three gates leading to narrow, rutty lanes before we dipped down to the big Gothic, lonely house overlooking a vast plain, with Leith Hill in the distance.

Tennyson had invited us through Aubrey de Vere, the poet, and very apprehensive we were, and nervous, as we neared the abode of a man reported to be such a bear to strangers. We first saw Mrs. Tennyson, a gentle, invalid lady lying on her back on a sofa. After some time the poet sent down word to ask us to come up to his sanctum, where he received us with a rather hard stare, his clay pipe and long, black, straggling hair being quite what I expected. He got up with a little difficulty, and when we had sat down--he, we two and his most deferential son--he asked which was the painter and which was the poet.

After our answer, which struck me as funny, as though we ought to have said, with a bob, 'Please, sir, I'm the painter,' and 'Please, sir, I'm the poet,' he made a few commonplace remarks about my pictures in a most sepulchral ba.s.s voice. But he and Alice, in whom he was more interested, naturally, did most of the talking; there was not much of that, though, for he evidently prefers to answer a remark by a long look, and perhaps a slightly sneering smile, and then an averted head. All this is not awe-inspiring, and looks rather put on. We ceased to be frightened.

"There is no grandeur about Tennyson, no melancholy abstraction; and, if I had made a demi-G.o.d of him, his personality would have much disappointed me. Some of his poetry is so truly great that his manner seems below it. The pauses in the conversation were long and frequent, and he did not always seem to take in the meaning of a remark, so that I was relieved when, after a good deal of staring and smiling at Alice in a way rather trying to the patience, he acceded to her request and read us 'The Pa.s.sing of Arthur.' He was so long in finding the place, when his son at last found him a copy of the book which suited him, and the tone he read in so deep and monotonous, that I was much bored and longed for the hour of our departure. He was vexed with Alice for choosing that poem, which he seemed to think less of than of his later works, and he took the poor child to task in a few words meant to be caustic, though they made us smile. But the ice was melting. He seemed amused at us and we gratefully began to laugh at some quaint phrases he levelled at us.

Then he dropped the awe-inspiring tone, and took us all over the grounds and gave us each a rose. He pitched into us for our dresses which were too fashionable and tight to please him. He pinned Alice against a pillar of the entrance to the house on our re-entry from the garden to watch my back as I walked on with his son, pointing the _walking-stick_ of scorn at my skirt, the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of which particularly roused his ire.

Altogether I felt a great relief when we said goodbye to our curious host with whom it was so difficult to carry on conversation, and to know whether he liked us or not. Away, over the windy, twilight heath behind the little ponies--away, away!"

At the beginning of August I began my studies for "The Return from Inkermann." The foreground I got at Worthing; and I had another visit to Aldershot and many further conversations with Inkermann survivors--officers of distinction. I am bound to say that these often contradicted each other, and the rough sketches I made after each interview had to be re-arranged over and over again. I read Dr.

Russell's account (_The Times_ correspondent) and sometimes I returned to my own conception, finding it on the whole the most likely to be true.

I laugh even now at the recollection of two elderly _sabreurs_, one of them a General in the Indian Army, who had a hot discussion in my studio, _a propos_ of my "Balaclava," about the best use of the sabre.

The Indian, who was for slashing, twirled his umbrella so briskly, to ill.u.s.trate his own theory, that I feared for the picture which stood close by his sword arm. The opposition umbrella ill.u.s.trated "the point"

theory.

Having finally clearly fixed the whole composition of "Inkermann," in sepia on tinted paper the size of the future picture I closed the studio on August 25th and turned my face once more to Italy.

CHAPTER XII

AGAIN IN ITALY

My sister and I tarried at Genoa on our way to Castagnolo where we were to have again the joys of a Tuscan vintage. But between Genoa and Florence lay our well-loved Porto Fino and, having an invitation from our old friend Monty Brown, the English Consul and his young wife, to stay at their castello there, we spent a week at that Eden. We were alone for part of the time and thoroughly relished the situation, with only old Caterina, the cook, and the dog, "Bismarck," as company. Two Marianas in a moated grange, with a difference. "He" came not, and so allowed us to clasp to our hearts our chief delights--the sky, the sea, the olives and the joyous vines. In those early days many of the deep windows had no gla.s.s, and one night, when a staggering Mediterranean thunderstorm crashed down upon us, we really didn't like it and hid the knives under the table at dinner. Caterina was saying her Rosary very loud in the kitchen. As we went up the winding stairs to bed I carried the lamp, and was full of talk, when a gust of wind blew the lamp out, and Alice laughed at my complete silence, more eloquent than any words of alarm. We had every evening to expel curious specimens of the lizard tribe that had come in, and turn over our pillows, remembering the habits of the scorpion.

But that storm was the only one, and as to the sea, which three-parts enveloped our little Promontory, its blue utterly baffled my poor paints. But paint I did, on those little panels that we owe to Fortuny, so nicely fitting into the box he invented. There was a little cape, crowned with a shrine to Our Lady--"the Madonnetta" it was called--where I used to go daily to inhale the ozone off the sea which thundered down below amongst the brown "pudding-stone" rocks, at the base of a sheer precipice. The "sounding deep." Oh, the freshness, the health, the joy of that haunt of mine! Our walks were perilous sometimes, the paths which almost overhung the deep foaming sea being slippery with the sheddings of the pines. At the "nasty bits" we had to hold on by shrubs and twigs, and haul ourselves along by these always aromatic supports.

Admirable is the industry of the peasants all over Italy. Here on the extreme point of Porto Fino wherever there was a tiny "pocket" of clay, a cabbage or two or a vine with its black cl.u.s.ters of grapes toppling over the abyss found foot-hold. We came one day upon a pretty girl on the very verge of destruction, "holding on by her eyelids," gathering figs with a hooked stick, a demure p.u.s.s.y keeping her company by dozing calmly on a branch of the fig tree. The walls built to support these handfuls of clay on the face of the rock are a puzzle to me. Where did the men stand to build them? It makes me giddy to think of it.

Paragi, the lovely rival of Monty's robber stronghold, belonged to his brother, and a fairer thing I never saw than Fred's loggia with the slender white marble columns, between which one saw the coast trending away to La Spezzia. But "goodbye," Porto Fino! On our way to Castagnolo, at lovely Lastre a Signa, we paused at Pisa for a night.

"Pisa is a _bald Florence_, if I may say so; beautiful, but so empty and lifeless. There are houses there quite peculiar, however, to Pisa, most interesting for their local style. Very broad in effect are those flat blank surfaces without mouldings. The frescoes on them, alas! are now merely very beautiful blotches and stains of colour. We had ample time for a good survey of the Duomo, Baptistery, Camposanto and Leaning Tower, all vividly remembered from when I saw them as a little child.

But I get very tired by sight-seeing and don't enjoy it much. What I like is to sit by the hour in a place, sketching or meditating. Besides, I had been kept nearly all night awake at the Albergo Minerva by railway whistles, ducks, parrots, cats, dogs, c.o.c.ks and hens, so that I was only at half power and I slept most of the way to Signa.

"At the station a carriage fitted, for the heat, with cool-looking brown holland curtains was awaiting us on the chance of our coming, and we were soon greeted at dear Castagnolo by Mrs. Ross. Very good of her to show so much happy welcome seeing we had been expected the evening before, not to say for many days, and only our luggage had turned up!

The Marchese, who had to go into Florence this morning for the day, had gone down to meet us last evening, and returned with the disconcerting announcement that, whereas we had arrived last year without our luggage, this year the luggage had arrived without us. '_I bauli sono giunti ma le bambine--Che!_'"

Here follows the record of the same delights as those of the year before. We had been long expected, and Mrs. Ross told me that the peaches had been kept back for us in a most tantalising way by the _padrone_, and that everything was threatening over-ripeness by our delay. The light-hearted life was in full force. There were great numbers of doves and pigeons at Castagnolo which shared in the general hilarity, swirling in the sunshine and swooping down on the grain scattered for them with little cries of pleasure. I don't know whether I should find a socialistic blight appearing here and there, if I returned to those haunts of my youth, over that patriarchal life, but it seemed to me that the relations between the _padrone_ and his splendid _contadini_ showed how suitable the system obtaining in Tuscany was then. The labourers were the _fanciulli_ (the children) of the master, and without the least approach to servility these men stood up to him in all the pride of their own station. But what deference they showed to him! Always the uncovered head and the respectful and dignified att.i.tude when spoken to or speaking. I mustn't forget the frank smile and the pleasant white teeth. It was a smiling life; every one caught the smiling habit. Oh, that we could keep it up through a London winter! And to a London winter we returned, for my friends in England were getting fidgety about "Inkermann." One more extract, however, from the Castagnolo Diary must find a place before the veil is drawn. The Marchese took us to Siena for two days.

"_September 29th._--We got up by candlelight at 5 a.m. and had a fresh drive in the phaeton to the station, whence we took train to the fascinating Etruscan city, whose very name is magic. The weather, as a matter of course, was splendid, and Siena dwells in my mind all tender brown-gold in a flood of sunshine. Small as the city is, and hard as we worked for those two days, we could only see a portion of its treasures.

The result of my observation in the churches and picture galleries shows me that the art there, as regards painting, is very inferior; and, indeed, after Florence, with its most exquisite examples of painting and drawing, these works of art are not taking. I suppose Florence has spoilt me. Here and there one picks out a plum, such as the 'Svenimento of St. Catherine' in San Domenico, by Sodoma, the only thing by him that I could look at with pleasure; also, of course, the famous Perugino in Sant' Agostino, which I beheld with delight, and a lovely gem of a Holy Family by Palma Vecchio in the Academy--such a jewel of Venetian colour.

"The frescoes, however, in the sacristy of the cathedral are things apart, and such as I have never seen anywhere else, for the very dry air of Siena has preserved them since Pinturicchio's time quite intact, and there one sees, as one can see nowhere else, ancient frescoes as they were when freshly painted. And very different they are from one's notions of old frescoes; certainly not so pleasing if looked at as bits of colour staining old walls in mellow broken tints, but intensely interesting and beautiful as pictures. Here one sees what frescoes were meant to be: deep in colour, exceedingly forcible, with positive illusion in linear and aerial perspective, the latter being most unexpected and surprising. One's usual notion of frescoes is that they must be flat and airless, and modern artists who go in for fresco decorative art paint accordingly, judging from the faded examples of what were once evidently such as one sees here--forcible pictures.

"Certainly these wall s.p.a.ces, looking like apertures through which one sees crowds of figures and gorgeous halls or airy landscapes, do not please the eye when looking at the room _as_ a room. One would prefer to feel the solidity of the walls; but taking each fresco and looking at it for its own sake only, one feels the keenest pleasure. They are magnificent pictures, full of individual character and realistic action, unsurpa.s.sable by any modern.

"I cannot attempt to put into words my impression of the cathedral itself. Certainly, I never felt the beauty of a church more. It being St. Michael's Day, we heard Ma.s.s in the midst of our wanderings, and we were much struck by the devotion of the people, the men especially--very unlike what we saw in Genoa. In the afternoon we had a glorious drive through a perfect pre-Raphaelite landscape to Belcaro, a fortress-villa about six miles outside Siena, every turn in the road giving us a new aspect of the golden-brown city behind us on its steep hill. Perhaps the most beautiful view of Siena is from near Belcaro, where you get the dark pine trees in the immediate foreground. The owner of the villa took us all over it, the Marchese gushing outrageously to him about the beauties of the dreadful frescoes on walls and ceilings, painted by the man himself. We had been warned, Alice and I, to express our admiration, but I regret to say we had our hearts so scooped out of us on seeing those things in the midst of such true loveliness that we couldn't say a thing, but only murmured. So the poor Marchese had to do triple-distilled gush to serve for three, and said everything was '_portentoso_.'

"In the evening we all three went out again and, in the bright moonlight, strolled about the streets, the piazza, and round the cathedral, which shone in the full light which fell upon it. The deep sky was throbbing with stars, and all the essence of an Italian September moonlight night was there. Oh, sweet, restful Siena dream!