Part 6 (1/2)
Horsley, RA, is such a genial, hearty sort of man He says he shouldn't wonder if my name was mentioned in the Royal speeches at the dinner Lady Soale's sister, anted to know if there was any possibility ofthe picture be taken, at the close of the exhibition, to her poor sister to see Miss Nightingale, you know, is now bedridden Now I must stop More to-ood friend Dr Pollard, who lived close tohouse, waylaid arden calledthe _Observer_ over his head On crossing over I learnt of the speeches of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Ca before, in whichwords were uttered aboutday of the Royal Acaderenadiers I fear that fully half of that crowd have been sent there by the royal speeches on Saturday Iand found myself famous Great fun at the Acade in the fulfilment of their prophecies in the old days Overwhelratulations on all sides; and as to the papers, it is inificent critiques, from _The Times_ doards
”_Wednesday, May 6th_--The Queen had aze at, at Buckinghaain Went with Papa to the brilliant Goldsmiths' Ball, where I danced I was a bit of a lion there, or shall I say lioness? Sir Williauson was introduced to hter and drank to my further success at the supper Sir F
Chapman also was presented, and expressed his astonishment at the accuracy of theof the Goldsht up to ' their ball with ravers are already at ht, but my dear counsellor and friend, Seyet still er Lady West new faces, when she heard of reat wish to seethere the present earl and countess, an old Waterloo lord, and Henry Weigall and his wife, Lady Rose The dear old lady was so sweet She was the Duke of Wellington's favourite niece, and his Grace's portraits deck the walls ofof the Florence of the old pre-Austrian days, where she lived sixteen years, butwith the earl and the Waterloo lord, ere lan's staff in the Crimea
”_May 11th_--Received cheque for the 'San Pietro in Vincoli' and 'Children of St Francis' My popularity has _levered_ those two poor little pictures off Messrs dickinson & Co have bought ood deal in the Diary concerning the trouble with Mr
Galloho”The Roll Call”
to the Queen, ished to have it He felt he was bound to let it go to his Sovereign, but only on condition that I should paint hiiven for the one he was ceding, and that the Queen should sign with her own hand six of the artist's proofs when the engraving of her picture caie of the French Cuirassiers at Quatre Bras, but as that picture would necessitate far more work than ”The Roll Call,” I could not paint it for that little 126--so very puny now! So Ihad _in petto_, ”The Dawn of Sedan,” French Cuirassiers watching by their horses in the historic fog of that fatefulstory short, he finally consented to have ”Quatre Bras” athis All this talk went on for a long tis, I rey horses for ”Sedan” The General Orey _percherons_ for this purpose I also made life-size oil studies of hands for ”Quatre Bras,” where hands were to be very strong points, gripping ”Brown Besses” So I took time by the forelock for either subject I was very fortunate in having the help of wise business heads to grapple with the business part of my work, for I have not been favoured that way myself
There is no mention in the Diary of the police of the Academy, had to be posted, poor hot man, inthe picture and to ask the people to ”move on” That policeman was there instead of the brass bar which, as a child, I had pleasedin front of one of my works, _a la_ Frith's ”Derby Day” The RA's told me the bar created so much jealousy, when used, that it had been decided never to use it again But I think a live policeman quite as much calculated to produce the undesirable result I learnt later that his services were quite as necessary for the protection of two lovely little pictures of Leighton's, past which the people _scraped_ to get at les to eers! Horsley told , with a lantern, to see if the two gehton had any feelings of dislike towards ”that girl” She who in her 'teens records her prostrations of worshi+p before his earlier works, ere he became so coldly classical
It is a curious condition of the ratitude for the appreciation of one's work by those who know, and the uncoerated popularity with the crowd The exaggeration is unavoidable, and, no doubt, passes, but the fact that counts is the power of touching the people's heart, an ”organ” which re fashi+ons in art I reu the heart He laughed at me, and didn't believe in it at all
”_Tuesday, May 12th_--Mr Charles Manning and his wife have been so very nice toMrs M bore me off to be presented to His Grace of West interview What a face!
all spirit and no flesh After that, to the School of Art Needlework to meet Lady Marion Alford and other Catholic ladies I ordered there a pretty screen for th offirst to the Desanges, where I lunched There they toldat four o'clock to see the Ashanti picture Desanges is just finishi+ng They begged me to come back a little before then, so as to be ready to be presented when the ly, and found the place croith people who had come to see the picture As soon as HRH was announced, all the people were sent below to the drawing-room and kept under hatches until Royalty should take its departure; but I alone was to remain in the back studio, to be handy
All this wasthrust forward But, as it turned out, there was no thrusting forward on this occasion, and all was very nice and natural The Prince soon ca 'Here she is' in answer to a question His first re he had hoped to be its possessor, etc, etc, and he asked ot the correct details for the unifor quite a little chat He spoke very frankly, and has a raphers began bothering The idea of nant to me Nowadays one is snapshotted whether one likes it or not, but it wasn't so bad in those days; one's own consent was asked, at any rate I refused However, it had to corandfather simply walked into the shop of the first people that had asked ent Street, and caled there that the result was as I expected--a rather harassed and coerced young woraph was the onealong a street in Chelsea, was astonished to see her rueful niece on a costerst some bananas!
CHAPTER IX
ECHOES OF ”THE ROLL CALL”
On May 14th I lunched at Lady Raglan's Kinglake was there to meet me, and we talked Crimea I had read and re-read his ht overburdened with detail, giving one an i hours rather than minutes But I had learnt much that was of the utmost value from this very superabundance of detail Then on the next day I rose early, and was off by seven with the Horsleys to Aldershot at the invitation of Sir Hope Grant, of Indian celebrity, co, who travelled doith us
”Lady Grant received us at the house, where we found a nice breakfast, and where I got dried, being drenched by a torrential downpour Would that it had continued longer, if only to lay the hideous sand in the Long Valley, whichvery like a fiasco I tried to sketch, but my book was nearly blown out of my hand, my umbrella was turned inside out and my arms benumbed by the cold M, most luckily, was on the field, and Mrs Horsley and I were soon co to feel an we had to keep shi+fting our standpoint, and Mrs H and I had repeatedly to jump out of the hansom, as ere threatened by an upset every es of cavalry, which Sir Hope had on purpose for me, I could hardly see the the full of sand However, I ood hints I ought to have so , and hope to noith all those 'friends in court!' When the an Sir Hope sent to askbase, which I did, and saw, of course, beautifully I felt extraordinarily situated, standing there, half liking and half not liking the situation, with an enoreous officers curvetting and jingling behind , as I thought, just as splendidly as the others, I heard Sir Hope snap at them 'Very bad, very bad Don't, don't!' And I felt for the heard”
Three days later, at a char lunch at Lady Herbert's, I sley, Charles's brother--”The Earl and the Doctor” It was interesting to see the originals of the title they gave their book The next day people came to the Academy to find, in place of ”The Roll Call,” a placard--”This picture has been temporarily removed by command of Her Majesty” She had it taken to Windsor to look at before her departure for Scotland, and to show to the Czar, as on a visit
Calderon, the RA, who, toldso ht to present me with a diamond necklace And so forth, and so forth--all noted in the faithful Diary, wherein ard are safely tucked away Two days later I see: ”_May 20th_--The Woolwich revieas quite glorious I ith Lady Herbert, the Lane Foxes, Lord Denbigh and Capt Slade We posted there and back with two jolly greys and a postboy in a sky-blue jacket This was quite after h talked art and war all the way, interestingon arrival, next the Saluting Point, round which were grouped the ether, and of various nations The Czar Alexander II headed these, flanked by e The artillery etting up on the box, Lord Denbigh holdingI suppose people like spoiling _ to”
Then, two days later, I note that I dined at Lady Rose Weigall's, hbour at table the Archbishop of York, Dr Thomson, who took in the hostess He and I sees He confided to me that his private opinion was that the Irish Church should never have been disestablished In the course of further conversation I thought it better to let hiht the Neapolitans did not lish He stared, none too pleased!
The next night I et, Colonel Kingscote, and Henry Weigall, e was drawn out during dinner about Balaclava, and I listened to his loud cavalry soldier's talk with the keenest interest
He protested that ere e was a man I had tried to picture; he was ale His manner and speech were _soldatesque_, his expressions requiring at ti your presence” to the ladies, as a prefix ForBalaclava hero, and it was very late when I irl
At a dinner at Lady Georgiana Fullerton's hted Alice with his conversation The general company, however, see and, on the whole, silly controversy which was appearing in _The Ti the sequence of the horse's steps as he walks It began bybeen criticised by those who held to the old conventional idea How side horses to see for myself exactly how a horse puts his feet down in the walk! I had told o down on all fours the the sequence with their own hands and knees, which was sure to be correct instinctively At this same dinner Lady Lothian told rande da round her roohtful Since those days I have been vindicated by the snap-shot
I find es chiefly devoted to preparations for ”Quatre Bras” and the doing of several pen-and-ink reminiscences of what I had seen at Woolwich and Aldershot, and exhibited at the ”Dudley” Sonew One of those pen-and-inks was the ”Halt!”--those Scots Greys I only half saw through the dust store, very close to us Ga, and when I told him of this ”Halt!” which I had just sent to the ”Dudley,” he there and then wroteit When he went there to clai He was very angry, and threatened law against the ”Dudley” for what he called ”skiot a chance But the possessor was, like Mr Galloway, a _Maanchester hts” It was no use I had to
This introduces Mr Whitehead, for whoht