Volume I Part 14 (2/2)
DEAR LAURENCE,
I hope your business is settled by this time. I have seen praise of your picture in the Athenaeum, which quoted also the Chronicle's good opinion.
I am very glad of all this and I hope you will now set to work, and paint away with ease and confidence, forgetting that there is such a hue as bottle-green {166} in the universe (it was tastefully omitted from the rainbow, you see); and, in spite of what Moore says, paint English people in English atmospheres. Your Coningham was rather orange, wasn't he? But he was very good, I thought. Dress your ladies in cheerful dresses, not quite so vulgar as Chalon's. . . . I heard from my sister that you had finished Wilkinson to the perfect content of all: I had charged her particularly not to allow Mrs. W. to intercede for any smirk or alteration whatever.
My Venetian pictures look very grand on my walls, which previously had been papered with a still green (not bottled) on purpose to receive them.
On my table is a long necked bottle with three flowers just now in it . . .
a tuft of rhododendron, a tuft of scarlet geranium, and a tuft of white gilli-flower. Do you see these in your mind's eye? I wish you could come down here and refresh your sodden eyes with pure daylight, budding oak trees, and all the changes of sky and cloud. To live to make sonnets about these things, and doat upon them, is worse c.o.c.kneyism than rejoicing in the sound of Bow Bells for ever so long: but here one has them whether one will or no: and they are better than Lady Morgan and --- at a rout in Harley Street. Maclise is a handsome and fine fellow, I think: and Landseer is very good natured. I long for my old Alfred portrait here sometimes: but you had better keep it for the present. W.
Browne and Spedding are with me, good representatives one of the Vita Contemplativa, the other of the Vita Attiva. Spedding, if you tell him this, will not allow that he has not the elements of Action in him: nor has he not: nor has not the other those of contemplation: but each inclines a different way notwithstanding. I wish you and Spedding could come down here: though there is little to see, and to eat. When you write you must put _Woodbridge_ after Boulge. This letter of yours went to Bury St. Edmunds, for want of that. I hear Alfred Tennyson is in very good looks: mind and paint him _quickly_ when he comes to town; looking full at you.
_To Bernard Barton_.
19 CHARLOTTE ST., RATHBONE PLACE.
[1844.]
DEAR BARTON,
I got here but yesterday, from Bedford, where I left W. Browne in train to be married to a rich woman. When I heard that they could not have less than five hundred a year, I gave up all further interest in the matter: for I could not wish a reasonable couple more. W. B. may be spoilt if he grows rich: that is the only thing could spoil him. This time ten years I first went to ride and fish with him about the river Ouse--he was then 18--quick to love and quick to fight--full of confidence, generosity, and the glorious spirit of Youth. . . . I shall go to Church and hope he mayn't be defiled with the filthy pitch. Oh! if we could be brought to open our eyes. I repent in ashes for reviling the Daddy who wrote that Sonnet against d.a.m.ned Riches.
I heard a man preach at Bedford in a way that shook my soul. He described the crucifixion in a way that put the scene before his people--no fine words, and metaphors: but first one nail struck into one hand, and then into another, and one through both feet--the cross lifted up with G.o.d in man's image distended upon it. And the sneers of the priests below--'Look at that fellow there--look at him--he talked of saving others, etc.' And then the sun veiled his face in Blood, etc. I certainly have heard oratory now--of the Lord Chatham kind, only Matthews has more faith in Christ than Pitt in his majority. I was almost as much taken aback as the poor folks all about me who sobbed: and I hate this beastly London more and more. It stinks all through of churchyards and fish shops. As to pictures--well, never mind them. Farewell!
In the chapel opposite this house preaches Robert Montgomery!
19 CHARLOTTE ST., RATHBONE PLACE.
[13 _June_ 1844.]
Oh, Barton man! but I am grilled here. Oh for to sit upon the banks of the dear old Deben, with the worthy collier sloop going forth into the wide world as the sun sinks! I went all over Westminster Abbey yesterday with a party of country folks, to see the tombs. I did this to vindicate my way of life. Then we had a smoke with Carlyle and he very gloomy about the look of affairs, as usual. I am as tired this morning as if I'd walked fifty miles. Morton, fresh from Italy, agrees that London is not fit to live in. I can't write, nor can you read perhaps. So farewell. Early next week (unless I go round by Bedford) I expect to see good Woodbridge.
_To S. Laurence_.
BOULGE, _July_ 4/44.
DEAR LAURENCE,
I have but lately returned from Holbrook, where I saw your last portrait of Wilkinson. It is very capital, and gives my sister and all her neighbours great satisfaction. Jane indeed can talk of nothing else. I will say this however, with my usual ignorance and presumption, that I think the last day's sitting made it a little heavier than when I left it unfinished. Was it that the final glazing was somewhat too thick? I only mention this as a very slight defect, which I should not have observed had I not seen its penultimate state, and were I not a crotchetty stickler for lightness and ease. But I hope and trust you will now do all your future sketches in oil in the same way in which this is done: the long brush, the wholesome distance between canvas, painter, and sitter, and the few sittings. For myself, I have always been sure of this: but I can a.s.sert it to you with more confidence now, seeing that every one else seems to agree with me, if I may judge by the general approval of this specimen of the long brush. Besides, such a method must shorten your labour, preserve the freshness of your eye and spirit, and also ensure the similitude of the sitter to himself by the very speediness of the operation.
Mills was very much delighted at W.'s portrait. What will you say of me when I tell you that I did not encourage him to have his wife painted by you, as he seemed to purpose! You will pray heaven to deliver you from your friends. But notwithstanding this, I am sure this last portrait will bring you sitters from this part of the country. Perhaps you will not find it easy to forgive me this. I must tell you that Mrs. Mills, who sets up to be no judge of pictures, but who never is wrong about anything, instantly pitched on your portrait of Coningham as the best in the Exhibition, without seeing who it was by: and when she referred to the Catalogue, called out to her husband 'Why this is by E. F. G.'s friend Mr. Laurence.'
July 18. You see that all up to this was written a fortnight ago. I did not finish, for I did not know where to direct. And now I shall finish this portrait of my mind, you see, in a different aspect perhaps to that with which I set out. On looking over what I wrote however, I stick to all I said about the painting: as to Mrs. Mills, whose case seems to require some extenuation on my part, I fancied she was one of those persons' faces you would not take to: and so not succeed in. It is rather a pretty face, without meaning, it seems to me: and yet she has meaning in her. Mills has already had one portrait of her, which discontents all, and therefore it was I would not advise any painter who did not understand the art of _Millinery_ well: for if the face does not wholly content, there is the dress to fall back on. I fancy Chalon would do the business.
I hear you have been doing some brother or brother in law of Mrs.
Lumsden. Mind what I have told you. I may not be a good judge of painting, but I can judge of what people in general like. . . .
_To John Allen_.
(About July 16, 1844 J. A.)
<script>