Part 4 (1/2)
CHAPTER VI.
HARLEY STREET, DEVONs.h.i.+RE, HAMMERSMITH, AND TWICKENHAM.
1800 TO 1820.
During the first ten years of this period we have very little intelligence respecting Turner's life. He moved from Hand Court, Maiden Lane, to 64, Harley Street, in 1799 or 1800, and it is not improbable that he bought the house, as No. 64 and the house next to it in Harley Street, and the house in Queen Anne Street, all belonged to him at the time of his death. There was communication between the three houses at the back, although the corner house fronting both streets did not belong to him. In 1801, 1802, 1803, and 1804, his address in the Royal Academy Catalogue is 75, Norton Street, Portland Road; but in 1804 it is again 64, Harley Street. In 1808[29] it is 64, Harley Street, and West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith; and this double address is given till 1811, when it is West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith, only. In and after 1812 it is always Queen Anne Street West, with the addition, from 1814 to 1826, of his house at Twickenham, called Solus Lodge in 1814, and Sandycombe Lodge from 1815 to 1826. It is remarkable that in the Catalogue of the British Inst.i.tution for 1814 his address is given as Harley Street, Cavendish Square, showing that he had not then given up his house in this street, and this is good evidence that it belonged to him.
The war which broke out with Bonaparte in 1803,[30] and was not finally closed till 1815, prevented him from pursuing his studies of Continental scenery, and he seems during this time to have devoted himself princ.i.p.ally to the composition of his great rival pictures, and the ”Liber Studiorum,” about which we have already written: he stayed occasionally with his friends, Mr. Fawkes at Farnley, where he studied the storm for _Hannibal Crossing the Alps_, and Lord Egremont at Petworth, where he painted _Apuleia and Apuleius_. Almost the only glimpse that we get of his house in Harley Street, though it is very doubtful to what period it belongs, was sent to Mr. Thornbury by Mr.
Rose of Jersey:--
”Two ladies, Mrs. R---- and Mrs. H---- once paid him a visit in Harley Street, an extremely rare (in fact, if not the only) occasion of such an occurrence, for it must be known he was not fond of parties prying, as he fancied, into the secrets of his _menage_. On sending in their names, after having ascertained that he was at home, they were politely requested to walk in, and were shown into a large sitting room without a fire. This was in the depth of winter; and lying about in various places were several cats without tails. In a short time our talented friend made his appearance, asking the ladies if they felt cold. The youngest replied in the negative; her companion, more curious, wished she had stated otherwise, as she hoped they might have been shown into his sanctum or studio. After a little conversation he offered them wine and biscuits, which they partook of for the novelty, such an event being almost unprecedented in his house. One of the ladies bestowing some notice upon the cats, he was induced to remark that he had seven, and that they came from the Isle of Man.”[31]
Whatever is the proper date of this story, it is to be feared that he had good reason for not wis.h.i.+ng persons to pry into the secrets of his _menage_. We ourselves have no wish to pry into those secrets; but the fact that Turner had for the greater part of his life a home of which he was ashamed, is sufficient to explain a great deal of his want of hospitality, his churlishness to visitors, and his confirmed habits of secrecy and seclusion.
There is no doubt that he habitually lived with a mistress. Hannah Danby, who entered his service, a girl of sixteen, in the year 1801, and was his housekeeper in Queen Anne Street at his death, is generally considered to have been one; and Sophia Caroline Booth, with whom he spent his last years in an obscure lodging in Chelsea, another. There are many who have lived more immoral lives, and have done more harm to others by their immorality; but he chose a kind of illegal connection which was particularly destructive to himself. He made his home the scene of his irregularities, and, by entering into ultimate relations with uneducated women, cut himself off from healthy social influences which would have given daily employment to his naturally warm heart, and prevented him from growing into a selfish, solitary man. Not to be able to enjoy habitually the society of pure educated women, not to be able to welcome your friend to your hearth, could not have been good for a man's character, or his art, or his intellect.
His uninterrupted privacy possibly enabled him to produce more, and to develop his genius farther in one direction; but we could have well spared many of his pictures for a few works graced with a wider culture and a healthier sentiment. He could paint, and paint, perhaps, better for his isolation--
”The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration and the Poet's dream.”
But it would have been better for him, and, we think, for his art also, if he could have said:--
”Farewell, farewell, the heart that lives alone Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.”[32]
It was not from any scorn of the conventions of society that he disregarded them, for there is no trace of any feeling of this sort in his pictures or his reported conversations, and in his will he required that the ”Poor and Decayed Male Artists,” for whom he intended to found a charitable inst.i.tution (”Turner's Gift”), should be ”of _lawful issue_.” One reason why he never married may have been his shyness and consciousness of his want of address and personal attraction. Mr. Cyrus Redding, from whom we have one of the brightest and best glimpses of Turner as a man, says:--
”He was aware that he could not hope to gain credit in the world out of his profession. I believe that his own ordinary person was, in his clear-mindedness, somewhat considered in estimating his career in life. He was once at a party where there were several beautiful women. One of them struck him much with her charms and captivating appearance; and he said to a friend, in a moment of unguarded admiration, 'If she would marry me, I would give her a hundred thousand.'”
This, and the increasing absorption in his art of all of himself that could be so absorbed; his desire to economize both his time and his money; his innate hatred of interference with his liberty; his aversion from undertaking any obligation, the consequences of which he could not calculate--all tended to keep him from matrimony, and to make him content with the most unromantic amours.
That he in 1811 or thereabouts could be hospitable and a good companion away from home, is shown by Mr. Redding in his pleasant volume, from which we have just quoted. He met Turner on what appears to have been his first visit to the county to which his family belonged--Devons.h.i.+re.
He met him first, Mr. Redding thinks, at the house of Mr. Collier (the father of Sir Robert Collier), an eminent merchant of Plymouth, and accompanied him on many excursions. On one of these Turner actually gave a picnic ”in excellent taste” at a seat on the summit of the hill, overlooking the Sound and Cawsand Bay.
”Cold meats, sh.e.l.l fish, and good wines were provided on that delightful and unrivalled spot. Our host was agreeable, but terse, blunt, and almost epigrammatic at times. Never given to waste his words, nor remarkably choice in their arrangement, they were always in their right place, and admirably effective.”[33]
This last sentence sounds somewhat paradoxical, but for that reason is probably all the more accurately descriptive of Turner's art in words.
Further on, when defending the great painter, we get a portrait of him as a ”plain figure” with ”somewhat bandy legs,” and ”dingy complexion.”
On another excursion, Redding spent a night at a small country inn with Turner, about three miles from Tavistock, as the artist had a great desire to see the country round at sunrise. The rest of the party, Mr.
Collier and two friends, who had spent the day with them on the sh.o.r.es of the Tamar with a scanty supply of provisions, preferred to pa.s.s the night at Tavistock.
”Turner was content with bread and cheese and beer, tolerably good, for dinner and supper in one. I contrived to feast somewhat less simply on bacon and eggs, through an afterthought inspiration. In the little sanded room we conversed by the light of an attenuated candle, and some aid from the moon, until nearly midnight, when Turner laid his head upon the table, and was soon sound asleep. I placed two or three chairs in a line, and followed his example at full rec.u.mbency. In this way three or four hours' rest were (_sic_) obtained, and we were both fresh enough to go out, as soon as the sun was up, to explore the scenery in the neighbourhood, and get a humble breakfast, before our friends rejoined us from Tavistock. It was in that early morning Turner made a sketch of the picture (_Crossing the Brook_)to which I have alluded, and which he invited me to his gallery to see.”
Another of these excursions was to Burr or Borough Island, in Bigbury Bay, ”To eat hot lobsters fresh from the sea.”
”The morning was squally, and the sea rolled boisterously into the Sound. As we ran out, the sea continued to rise, and off Stake's point became stormy. Our Dutch boat rode bravely over the furrows, which in that low part of the Channel roll grandly in unbroken ridges from the Atlantic.”