Part 10 (1/2)
The Fine Art Society bought the Afghan subject of which they published a very faithful engraving, and it is now at the Tate Gallery It is a comfort to me to know that nearly all n or in public galleries, and not changing hands a private collectors
I spent e, in Kent, taking a rose bower of a cottage there, my parents with me There we heard in the papers the dreadful news of the Prince Imperial's death Then followed a hasty line fronation from Natal, at the sacrifice of ”the last of the Napoleons” When he returned at long last fron, the poor E and most painful interview she asked for all details, her tears flowing all the ti all her sorrow loose in paroxysed the funeral and embarkation at Durban The pall was covered with artificial violets which he had asked the nuns there to h pressure, and he subsequently described to e_ as it wound down the hill to the port off Durban, in the afternoon sunshi+ne
At little Edenbridge I was busy rey horses I could find, as I had already begun e of the Scots Greys at Waterloo at e I called ”Scotland for Ever,” and I owe the subject to an impulse I received that season from the Private View at the Grosvenor Gallery, now extinct The Grosvenor was the home of the ”aesthetes” of the period, whose sometimes unwholesome productions preceded those of ourthose rooms, and to such a point of exasperation was I i the honest air of Bond Street, took a hansom to my studio There I pinned a 7-foot sheet of brown paper on an old canvas and, with a piece of charcoal and a piece of white chalk, flung the charge of ”The Greys”
upon it Dr Pollard, who still looked in during my husband's absences as he used to do in my maiden days to see that all ithfroain the painting of this charge, and one day the Keeper of the Queen's Privy Purse, Sir Henry Ponsonby, called at the studio to ask me if I would paint a picture for Her Majesty, the subject to be taken froladly welco a sloorker, I saw that ”Scotland for Ever!” must be put aside if the Queen's picture was to be ready for the next Acade over the defence of ”Rorke's Drift” in Zululand as though it had been a second Waterloo My friends (not ainst my principles to paint a conflict In the ”Greys” the enemy was not shown, here our rips with the foe No, I put that subject aside and proposed one that I felt and saw in my mind's eyeof the dead Prince I of his body from the scene of his heroic death on the lances of the 17th Lancers Her Majesty sent an planning that e to say the Queen thought it better not to paint the subject What was to be done? The Crihanistan? But I was compelled by clamour to choose the popular Rorke's Drift; so, characteristically, when I yielded I threw all iht saved Natal, came home, some of the principal heroes were first summoned to Windsor and then sent on to et down to Portsmouth, where the 24th were quartered, I undertook topicture there Nothing that the officers of that regilected They even had a representation of the fight acted by the men who took part in it, dressed in the uniforht Of course, the result was that I reproduced the event as nearly to the life as possible, but from the soldier's point of view--I may say the _private's_ point of view--not mine, as the principal witnesses were from the ranks To be as true to facts as possible I purposely withdrew reat difficulty I had to grapple as the fact that the whole ht froht transforms colours in an extraordinary hich you hardly realise till you have to reproduce the thing in paint
The Zulus were a great difficulty I had them in the composition in dark masses, rather sed up in the shade, but for one salient figure grasping a soldier's bayonet to twist it off the rifle, as was done by ot me a sort of Zulu ascaht toof e but the whites of his eyes and his teeth
I hope I ain!
When the picture was in its pale, shallow, early stage, the Queen, as deeply interested in its progress, wished to see it, and me So to Windsor I took it The Ponsonbys escortedits palest, meanest, and flattest, installed on an easel, with two lords bending over it--one of theh a dark side door Enter the Queen, left Prince Leopold, duchess of Argyll, Princess Beatrice and others grouped round the easel, centre The Queen came up to me and placed her plump little hand in ive Her Majesty the description of every figure She spoke very kindly in a very deep, guttural voice, and showed sonow and then as I spoke of the wounds, etc She toldat Netley Hospital after Ashanti, apparently near his end, and spoke arn She did not leave us until I had explained every figure, even the ed to show, in that scuffle, all the VC's and other conspicuous actors in the dra already been presented to her Majors Chard and Bronisable in the centre, for I had had them both for their portraits
The Academicians put ”The Defence of Rorke's Drift” in the Lecture Room of unhappy ”Quatre Bras” ave in the case of that picture Yes, there was a great crush before it, but I was not satisfied as to its effect in that poor light It is noith ”The Roll Call” at St James's Palace I learnt later how very, very pleased the Queen ith her co to show it to so, she showed so much appreciation that she took a pair of candlesticks and held theht the picture I like to see in my mind's eye that Reroup our Queen She wanted me to paint her two other subjects, but, somehow, that never came off
CHAPTER XV
OFFICIAL LIFE--THE EAST
In 1880 my husband was offered the post of Adjutant-General at Plymouth, and thither ent in time, with the pretty little infant Elizabeth Frances, who caone There three more of our children were born
I took up ”Scotland for Ever!” again, and in the bright light of our house on the Hoe, with never a brown fog to hinder rey army horses as models, I finished that work It was exhibited alone It is quite unnecessary to burden my readers with the reason of this I was very sorry, as I expected rather a bright effect with all those white and grey galloping _hippogriffes_ bounding out of the Academy walls There was a law suit in question, and there let the ht from me, and the picture I sold, later on, to a private purchaser, who has presented it to the city of Leeds By a happy chance I had a supply of very brilliant Spanish white (_blanco de plata_) for those horses, and though I have ever since used the finest _blanc d'argent_, made in Paris, I don't think the Spanish white has a rival Perhaps its maker took the secret with her to the Elysian Fields It was an oldof Seville
On May 11th of that year our beloved father died, co rites of the Church He had been received not long before the end
Life at ”pleasant Ply in its way, and the charm of the West Country found in , and conducive to lotus eating One seems to live in a mental Devonshi+re cream of pleasant days spent in excursions on land and water, trips up the many lovely rivers, or across the beautiful Sound to various picnic rendezvous on the coast There wasexcursions in summer, frequently to the wilds of Dartmoor Particularly pleasant were the receptions at Government House under the auspices of the Pakenhauished host and hostess, Sir Houston and Lady Stewart Over Dartmoor there spread the charm of the unbounded hospitality of the Mortie of theever to be fondly remembered No pleasanter house could offer one a welcome than ”Foxha was our principal pleasure I never spent more enjoyable days in the saddle elsewhere My husband and I had a riding tour through Cornwall--just the thing I liked ypt in 1882, for Tel-el-Kebir; twice to Canada, the second tireat Gordon Relief Expedition, that terrible tragedy,delays at home I illustrated the book he wrote[9] on that colossal enterprise, so wantonly turned into failure from quite feasible success
My next picture was on a smaller scale than its predecessors, and was exhibited at the Academy in 1882 The Boer War, with its terrible Majuba Hill disaster, had attracted all our sorrowful attention the year before to South Africa, and I chose the attack on Laing's Nek for my subject
The two Eton boys whom I shoes and Monck, went forward (Elwes to his death) with the cry of ”_Floreat Etona!_” and I gave the picture those words for its title
Yet another Lord Mayor's Banquet at the Mansion House, in honour of the Royal Acadeilded halls, this time by my husband's side He responded for the Arht little speech, cohly honoured couple,” I read in the Diary, ”and very glad that we came up We must have sat at that festive board over three hours The ood and, indeed, so was the fare The homely tone of civic hospitality is so characteristic, dressed as it is with gold and silverthat of Royalty itself! One of the waiters tried to pressin my ear the seductive words, '_Devilled_, ma'am' It was a fiery edition of the former recipe I resisted”
The departure of my husband with Lord Wolseley (then Sir Garnet) and Staff for Egypt on August 5th, 1882, to suppress poor old Arabi and his ”rebels” was the s, because of its dra One bears up well on a crowded railway platfor off to sea, as I did that ti and ”Auld Lang Syne,” one would sooner read of its pathos than suffer it in person
Soldiers' wives in war ti when news of a fight is expected of saying to theh that, but have had a second period of trial with two sons under fire in the World War
I gave a long period of e picture representing Wolseley and his Staff reaching the bridge across the canal at the close of the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, followed by his Staff, wherein figured my husband The latter had not been very enthusiastic about the subject To beat those poor _fellaheen_ soldiers was not a matter for exultation, he said; and he toldthrough brown paper”
He thought the theme unworthy, and hoped I would drop the idea But I wouldn't; and, seeing me bent on it, he did all he could to help aveto keep hihlanders to represent, and went in for theof the equip over a work Depend upon it, if you do not ”see” the thing vividly before you begin, but have to build it up as you go along, the picture will not be one of your best Nor was this one! It was exhibited in the Acaderaved