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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/29425-8.txt b/29425-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5708dd --- /dev/null +++ b/29425-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9674 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 +(of 2), by Harry Furniss + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) + +Author: Harry Furniss + +Release Date: July 16, 2009 [EBook #29425] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: MY CARICATURE OF MR. GLADSTONE.] + + + THE + + CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST + + BY + + HARRY FURNISS + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + + VOLUME I + +[Illustration] + + +NEW YORK AND LONDON: + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. + +1902. + + + + +BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS + +LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. + +[_All rights reserved._] + +December, 1901. + + + + + PREFACE. + + +If, in these volumes, I have made some joke at a friend's expense, let +that friend take it in the spirit intended, and--I apologise beforehand. + +In America apology in journalism is unknown. The exception is the +well-known story of the man whose death was published in the obituary +column. He rushed into the office of the paper and cried out to the +editor: + +"Look here, sur, what do you mean by this? You have published two +columns and a half of my obituary, and here I am as large as life!" + +The editor looked up and coolly said, "Sur, I am vury sorry, I reckon +there is a mistake some place, but it kean't be helped. You are killed +by the _Jersey Eagle_, you are to the world buried. We nevur correct +anything, and we nevur apologise in Amurrican papers." + +"That won't do for me, sur. My wife's in tears; my friends are laughing +at me; my business will be ruined,--you _must_ apologise." + +"No, si--ree, an Amurrican editor nevur apologises." + +"Well, sur, I'll take the law on you right away. I'm off to my +attorney." + +"Wait one minute, sur--just one minute. You are a re-nowned and popular +citizen: the _Jersey Eagle_ has killed you--for that I am vury, vury +sorry, and to show you my respect I will to-morrow find room for you--in +the births column." + +Now do not let any editor imagine these pages are my professional +obituary,--my autobiography. If by mistake he does, then let him place +me immediately in their births column. I am in my forties, and there is +quite time for me to prepare and publish two more volumes of my +"Confessions" from my first to my second birth, and many other things, +before I am fifty. + +[Illustration: Faithfully yours + Harry Furniss] + +LONDON, 1901. + + [The Author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Proprietors + and the Editor of _Punch_, the Proprietors of the _Magazine of Art_, + the _Graphic_, the _Illustrated London News_, _English Illustrated + Magazine_, _Cornhill Magazine_, _Harper's Magazine_, _Westminster + Gazette_, _St. James' Gazette_, the _British Weekly_ and the _Sporting + Times_ for their kindness in allowing him to reproduce extracts and + pictures in these volumes.] + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + + CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD--AND AFTER. + + Introductory--Birth and Parentage--The Cause of my remaining a + Caricaturist--The Schoolboys' _Punch_--Infant Prodigies--As a + Student--I Start in Life--_Zozimus_--The Sullivan + Brothers--Pigott--The Forger--The Irish "Pathriot"--Wood + Engraving--Tom Taylor--The Wild West--Judy--Behind the + Scenes--Titiens--My First and Last Appearance in a Play--My Journey to + London--My Companion--A Coincidence _pp._ 1-29 + + + CHAPTER II. + + BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS. + + I arrive in London--A Rogue and Vagabond--Two Ladies--Letters of + Introduction--Bohemia--A Distinguished Member--My Double--A Rara + Avis--The Duke of Broadacres--The Savages--A Souvenir--Portraits of + the Past--J. L. Toole--Art and Artists--Sir Spencer Wells--John + Pettie--Milton's Garden _pp._ 30-53 + + + CHAPTER III. + + MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST. + + The Light Brigade--Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)--Slumming--The Boat + Race--Realism--A Phantasmagoria--Orlando and the Caitiff--Fancy Dress + Balls--Lewis Wingfield--Cinderella--A Model--All Night Sitting--An + Impromptu Easel--"Where there's a Will there's a Way"--The American + Sunday Papers--I am Deaf--The Grill--The World's + Fair--Exaggeration--Personally Conducted--The Charnel House--10, + Downing Street--I attend a Cabinet Council--An Illustration by Mr. + Labouchere--The Great Lincolnshire Trial--Praying without Prejudice + _pp._ 54-87 + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR--A SERIOUS CHAPTER. + + Drawing--"Hieroglyphics"--Clerical Portraiture--A Commission from + General Booth--In Search of Truth--Sir Walter Besant--James Payn--Why + Theodore Hook was Melancholy--"Off with his Head"--Reformers' + Tree--Happy Thoughts--Christmas Story--Lewis Carroll--The Rev. Charles + Lutwidge Dodgson--Sir John Tenniel--The Challenge--Seven Years' + Labour--A Puzzle MS.--Dodgson on Dress--Carroll on Drawing--Sylvie and + Bruno--A Composite Picture--My Real Models--I am very Eccentric--My + "Romps"--A Letter from du Maurier--Caldecott--Tableaux--Fine + Feathers--Models--Fred Barnard--The Haystack--A Wicket Keeper--A Fair + Sitter--Neighbours--The Post Office Jumble--Puzzling the + Postmen--Writing Backwards--A Coincidence _pp._ 88-130 + + + CHAPTER V. + + A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL. + + What is Caricature?--Interviewing--Catching + Caricatures--Pellegrini--The "Ha! Ha!"--Black and White _v._ + Paint--How to make a Caricature--M.P.'s--My System--Mr. Labouchere's + Attitude--Do the Subjects Object?--Colour in Caricature--Caught!--A + Pocket Caricature--The Danger of the Shirt-cuff--The Danger of a + Marble Table--Quick Change--Advice to those about to Caricature + _pp._ 131--153 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS. + + Gladstone and Disraeli--A Contrast--An unauthenticated Incident--Lord + Beaconsfield's last Visit to the House of Commons--My Serious + Sketch--Historical--Mr. Gladstone--His Portraits--What he thought of + the Artists--Sir J. E. Millais--Frank Holl--The Despatch + Boxes--Impressions--Disraeli--Dan O'Connell--Procedure--American + Wit--Toys--Wine--Pressure--Sandwich Soirée--The G.O.M. dines with + "Toby, M.P."--Walking--Quivering--My Desk--An Interview--Political + Caricaturists--Signature in Sycamore--Scenes in the Commons--Joseph + Gillis Biggar--My Double--Scenes--Divisions--Puck--Sir R. + Temple--Charles Stewart Parnell--A Study--Quick Changes--His + Fall--Room 15--The last Time I saw him--Lord Randolph Churchill--His + Youth--His Height--His Fickleness--His Hair--His Health--His + Fall--Lord Iddesleigh--Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone--Bradlaugh--His + Youth--His Parents--His Tactics--His Fight--His Extinction--John + Bright--Jacob Bright--Sir Isaac Holden--Lord Derby--A Political + Prophecy--A Lucky Guess--My Confession in the _Times_--The Joke that + Failed--The Seer--Fair Play--I deny being a Conservative--I am + Encouraged--Chaff--Reprimanded--Misprinted--Misunderstood + _pp._ 154--214 + + + CHAPTER VII. + + "PUNCH." + + Two _Punch_ Editors--_Punch's_ Hump--My First _Punch_ Dinner--Charles + Keene--"Robert"--W. H. Bradbury--du Maurier--"Kiki"--A Trip to the + Place of his Birth--He Hates Me--A Practical Joke--du Maurier's + Strange Model--No Sportsman--Tea--Appollinaris--My First + Contribution--My Record--Parliament--Press Gallery Official--I Feel + Small--The "Black Beetle"--Professor Rogers--Sergeant-at-Arms' + Room--Styles of Work--Privileges--Dr. Percy--I Sit in the Table--The + Villain of Art--The New Cabinet--Criticism--_Punch's_ Historical + Cartoons--Darwen MacNeill--Scenes in the Lobby--A Technical + Assault--John Burns's "Invention"--John Burns's Promise--John Burns's + Insult--The Lay of Swift MacNeill--The Truth--Sir Frank + Lockwood--"Grand Cross"--Lockwood's Little Sketch--Lockwood's Little + Joke in the House--Lockwood's Little Joke at Dinner--Lewis Carroll and + _Punch_--Gladstone's Head--Sir William's + Portrait--Ciphers--Reversion--_Punch_ at Play--Three _Punch_ Men in a + Boat--Squaring up--Two Pins Club--Its One Joke--Its One Horse--Its + Mystery--Artistic Duties--Lord Russell--Furious Riding--Before the + Beak--Burnand and I in the Saddle--Caricaturing Pictures for + _Punch_--Art under Glass--Arthur Cecil--My Other Eye--The Ridicule + that Kills--Red Tape--_Punch_ in Prison--I make a Mess of + it--Waterproof--"I used your Soap two years ago"--Charles + Keene--Charles Barber--_Punch's_ Advice--_Punch's_ Wives + _pp._ 215--302 + +[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS'S (EGYPTIAN STYLE). _From "Punch."_] + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + + PAGE + My Caricature of Mr. Gladstone _Frontispiece_ + + Initial "In." Writing my Confessions. A Visitor's Snapshot 1 + + My Mother 3 + + My Father 5 + + Harry Furniss, aged 10 6 + + A Caricature, made when a Boy (never published). Dublin Exhibition. + Portrait of Sir A. Guinness (now Lord Iveagh) in centre 11 + + An Early Illustration on Wood by Harry Furniss. Partly Engraved + by him. 16 + + Sketches in Galway 19 + + "Judy," the Galway Dwarf 23 + + Phelps, the first Actor I saw 24 + + Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Harry Furniss. From an Early Sketch 25 + + Caricature of Myself, drawn when I first arrived in London 30 + + Age 20 35 + + A successful "Make-Up" 36 + + Two Travellers 38 + + The Duke of "Broadacres" 40 + + Savage Club House Dinner. From a Sketch by Herbert Johnson 41 + + The Earl of Dunraven as a Savage 42 + + "Another Gap in Our Ranks" 43 + + "Jope" 43 + + H. J. Byron 44 + + A Presentation 45 + + Savage Club. My Design for the Menu, 25th Anniversary Dinner 47 + + "Savages" 50 + + Letter from Sir Spencer Wells 51 + + Distress in the Black Country 54 + + At the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race 55 + + As Special at the Balaclava Celebration 57 + + Distress in the North 59 + + Realism! 61 + + "The Caitiff" and Orlando 62 + + An Invitation 63 + + At a Fancy Dress Ball 65 + + Lewis Wingfield as a Street Nigger Home from the Derby 67 + + "The Liberal Candidate" 68 + + Sketches at the Liverpool Election: A Ward Meeting 69 + + My Easel. Drawing Mr. Gladstone at a Public Meeting 71 + + The American Sunday Papers 72 + + Major Handy 74 + + The World's Fair, Chicago. A "Special's" Visit 75 + + "On dashed the Horses in their wild Career" 77 + + Initial "A" 79 + + The Charnel-House. Chicago World's Fair 80 + + Initial "London" 83 + + The Bishop of Lincoln's Trial 85 + + Initial "If" 88 + + Majuba Hill 89 + + Canon Liddon. A Sketch from Life 92 + + Letter from Sir Walter Besant 94 + + The Late Sir Walter Besant 95 + + The "Jetty" 95 + + Illustration for "The Talk of the Town" 96 + + "That's just what I have done!" 98 + + Specimen of James Payn's Writing 99 + + The Typical Lovers in Illustrated Novels 100 + + Initial "T" 101 + + Instructions in a Letter from Lewis Carroll 103 + + Specimen of Lewis Carroll's Drawing and Writing 106 + + Original Sketch by Lewis Carroll of his Charming Hero and Heroine 107 + + Lewis Carroll's Note to me or a Pathetic Picture 108 + + Sylvie and Bruno. My Original Drawing for Lewis Carroll 110 + + I Go Mad! 111 + + From Lewis Carroll 112 + + "I do want a Wicket-keeper!" 113 + + Portion of Letter from Lawrence, age 9 114 + + Reduction from a Design for my "Romps" 115 + + Portion of a Letter from George du Maurier 117 + + A Transformation 119 + + "Yours always, Barnard" 119 + + Barnard and the Models 120 + + "I sit for 'Ands, Sir" 121 + + The Grand Old Hand and the Young 'Un 122 + + My Fighting Double 124 + + Specimen of Mr. Linley Sambourne's Envelopes to me 125 + + Cheque for 5-1/2d. passed through two Banks and paid. I signed it + _backwards_, and it was cancelled by Clerk _backwards_ 127 + + Sir Henry Irving writes his Name backwards 128 + + Sir Henry Irving's Attempt 128 + + Mr. J. L. Toole's first Attempt 128 + + Mr. J. L. Toole's second Attempt 128 + + Autograph: Harry Furniss 129 + + Initial "If" 131 + + The Studio of a Caricaturist 132 + + Caricature of me by my Daughter, age 15 134 + + A serious Portrait--from Life 135 + + Initial "H" 136 + + "Penguin" 139 + + Mr. Brown, Ordinary Attire. Court Dress 139 + + Two Portraits 140 + + A Caricature 140 + + _Not_ a Caricature 140 + + The Editor of _Punch_ sits for his Portrait 144 + + A Model unawares and the Result 145 + + Sketch on a Shirt-Cuff 146 + + "Mundella" 147 + + Mr. Labouchere 149 + + The M.P. Real and Ideal 150 + + The Photo. As he really is 151 + + "Dizzy" (Beaconsfield) and Gladstone 154 + + The Inner Lobby of the House of Commons 156 + + Explanation to Illustration on page 156 157 + + Lord Beaconsfield. A Sketch from Life 158 + + The last Visit of Lord Beaconsfield to the House 161 + + Mr. Gladstone. A Sketch from Life 163 + + Mr. Gladstone "under his Flow of Eloquence" 165 + + Mr. Gladstone. Conventional Portrait 167 + + Caricature of the Holl Portrait 169 + + Note of Mr. Gladstone made in the Press Gallery with the wrong + end of a Quill Pen 171 + + Invitation to a "Sandwich Soirée" 173 + + Mr. Gladstone sits on the Floor 174 + + The Fragment of _Punch_ Mr. Gladstone did not see 175 + + The Gladstone Matchbox 176 + + Mr. Gladstone's Collars 178 + + Parnell 179 + + To Room 15 182 + + Outside Room 15 183 + + Outside my Room 185 + + "The G.O.M." and "Randy" 185 + + Mr. Louis Jennings 186 + + Lord Randolph and Louis Jennings 188 + + Lord Randolph Churchill 189 + + Behind the Speaker's Chair 190 + + Initial "S" 191 + + Initial "H" 193 + + Bradlaugh Triumphant. _From "Punch"_ 194 + + Charles Bradlaugh 195 + + The Meet at St. Stephen's 197 + + Sir George Campbell 199 + + Heraldic Design illustrating Mr. Plunkett's (now Lord Rathmore) + Joke 201 + + Mr. Farmer Atkinson 202 + + I must Introduce you to Lucy. Here he is 203 + + Joseph Gillis Biggar 204 + + Initial "I" 206 + + The House of Commons from Toby's Private Box 208 + + The Government Bench--before Home Rule 211 + + Reduction of one of my Parliamentary Pages in _Punch_ 214 + + Initial "T" 215 + + Age 26, when I first worked for _Punch_ 216 + + My first Meeting with the Editor of _Punch_ 217 + + My first Invitation from _Punch_ 218 + + A Letter from Charles Keene, objecting to an Editor interviewing + him 219 + + "Robert" 220 + + George du Maurier 221 + + Suggestion by du Maurier for _Punch_ Cartoon 224 + + Du Maurier's Souvenir de Fontainebleau. _From "Punch_" 225 + + _Punch_ Staff returning from Paris 227 + + Japanese Style 229 + + "Birch--His Mark" 231 + + Chinese Style. From a Drawing on Wood 232 + + Familiar Faces 234 + + An Official in the Press Gallery 235 + + "He spies me" 236 + + "What are you?" 236 + + "Blowed if the Country wants you" 238 + + "I feel smaller!" 241 + + The Black Beetle 242 + + The Sergeant-at-Arms' Room 243 + + Capt. Gosset, late Sergeant-at-Arms 244 + + My "Childish" Style in _Punch_ 245 + + A simple Document 246 + + I Sketch the House 247 + + Dr. Percy. "The House Up" 250 + + Mr. Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. Mr. Goschen 251 + + Mr. Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. "All Harcourts" 252 + + The New Cabinet 255 + + Reduction of Page in _Punch_, showing that my Caricatures were--in + this case--published too large 258 + + Reduction from the Original Drawing, showing that I gave + Instructions for the Caricature to be "reduced as usual" 259 + + What really happened 261 + + Dr. Tanner 262 + + Assault on me in the House. What the Press described 263 + + John Burns 265 + + Note from Sir Frank Lockwood, after reading the Bogus Account of + the "Assault" 266 + + Letter supposed to come from Lord Cross. (Lockwood's Joke) 267 + + Sir F. Lockwood 269 + + Lewis Carroll's Suggestion, and my sketch of it in _Punch_ 270 + + Nature's Puzzle Portrait 271 + + Initial "W" 272 + + "Three Oarsmen under a Tree" 273 + + Lord Russell's Acceptance to dine with me 275 + + "It's your Turn next" 277 + + Letter from Sir Frank Lockwood 277 + + Mr. Linley Sambourne 278 + + Portrait of me as a Member of the Two Pins Club, by Linley + Sambourne 279 + + The late Lord Russell, the President of the Two Pins Club 280 + + "Furious Riding." Sketch by F. C. Gould 282 + + My Portrait, by F. C. Burnand 285 + + Mr. Punch "doing" the Picture Shows 286 + + The Picture Shows. Design from _Punch_ 288 + + "The World-Renowned and Talented Barnardo Family" 289 + + The Great Baccarat Case. My Sketch in Pencil made in Court, and + Congratulatory Note from the Editor of _Punch_ 291 + + Letter from Professor Herkomer 293 + + A Prisoner 294 + + "Good Advertisement." Original Idea as sent to me 297 + + Ditto. My Drawing of it in _Punch_ 297 + + "English Waterproof Ink" 299 + + I sit for John Brown 300 + + A Crib by an American Advertiser 301 + + Finis 302 + + + + + CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + +CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD--AND AFTER. + + Introductory--Birth and Parentage--The Cause of my remaining a + Caricaturist--The Schoolboys' _Punch_--Infant Prodigies--As a Student--I + Start in Life--_Zozimus_--The Sullivan Brothers--Pigott--The Forger--The + Irish "Pathriot"--Wood Engraving--Tom Taylor--The Wild + West--Judy--Behind the Scenes--Titiens--My First and Last Appearance in + a Play--My Journey to London--My Companion--A Coincidence. + +[Illustration] + + +In offering the following pages to the public, I should like it to be +known that no interviewer has extracted them from me by the thumbscrew +of a morning call, nor have they been wheedled out of me by the caresses +of those iron-maidens of literature, the publishers. For the most part +they have been penned in odd half-hours as I sat in my easy-chair in the +solitude of my studio, surrounded by the aroma of the post-prandial +cigarette. + +I would also at the outset warn those who may purchase this work in the +expectation of finding therein the revelations of a caricaturist's +Chamber of Horrors, that they will be disappointed. Some day I may be +tempted to bring forth my skeletons from the seclusion of their +cupboards and strip my mummies, taking certain familiar figures and +faces to pieces and exposing not only the jewels with which they were +packed away, but all those spicy secrets too which are so relished by +scandal-loving readers. + +At present, however, I am in an altogether lighter and more genial vein. +My confessions up to date are of a purely personal character, and like a +literary Liliputian I am placing myself in the hand of that colossal +Gulliver the Public. + +I may, it is true, in the course of my remarks be led to retaliate to +some extent upon those who have had the hardihood to assert that all +caricaturists ought, in the interest of historical accuracy, to be +shipped on board an unseaworthy craft and left in the middle of the +Channel, for the crime of handing down to posterity distorted images of +those now in the land of the living. This I feel bound to do in +self-defence, as well as in the cause of truth, for to judge by the +biographical sketches of myself which continually appear and reach me +through the medium of a press-cutting agency, caricaturists as +distorters of features are not so proficient as authors as distorters of +facts. + +I think it best therefore to begin by giving as briefly as possible an +authentic outline of my early career. + +For the benefit of anyone who may not feel particularly interested in +such details, I should mention that the narration of this plain +unvarnished tale extends from this line to page 29. + +I was born in Ireland, in the town of Wexford, on March 26th, 1854. I do +not, however, claim, to be an Irishman. My father was a typical +Englishman, hailing from Yorkshire, and not in his appearance only, but +in his tastes and sympathies, he was an unmistakable John Bull. By +profession he was a civil engineer, and he migrated to Ireland some +years before I was born, having been invited to throw some light upon +that "benighted counthry" by designing and superintending the erection +of gas works in various towns and cities. + +My mother was Scotch. My great-great-grandfather was a captain in the +Pretender's army at Culloden, and had a son, Angus, who settled in +Aberdeen. When Æneas MacKenzie, my grandfather, was born, his family +moved south and settled in Newcastle-on-Tyne. A local biographer writes +of him: "A man who by dint of perseverance and self-denial acquired more +learning than ninety-nine in a hundred ever got at a university--an +accomplished and most trustworthy writer. The real founder of the +Newcastle Mechanics' Institute, and the leader of the group of +Philosophical Radicals who made not a little stir in the North of +England at the beginning of the last century." He was not only a +benevolent, active member of society and an ardent politician (Joseph +Cowen received his earliest impressions from him--and never forgot his +indebtedness), but the able historian of Northumberland, Durham, and of +Newcastle itself, a town in which he spent his life and his energies. If +I possess any hereditary aptitude for journalism, it is to him I owe it; +whilst to my mother, who at a time when miniature painting was +fashionable, cultivated the natural artistic taste with much success, I +am directly indebted for such artistic faculties as are innate in me. + +[Illustration] + +My family moved from Wexford to Dublin when I was ten. It is pleasant to +know they left a good impression. In Miss Mary Banim's account of +Ireland I find the following reference to these aliens in Wexford, which +I must allow my egotism to transcribe: "Many are the kindly memories +that remain in Wexford of this warm-hearted, gifted family, who are said +not only to be endowed with rare talents, but, better still, with those +qualities that endear people to those they meet in daily intercourse." +The flattering adjectives with which the remarks about myself are +sandwiched prevent my modest nature from quoting any more. However, as +one does not remember much of that period of their life before they +reach their teens I need not apologise for quoting from the same work +this reference to me at that age: + +"One who was his playmate--he is still a young man--describes Mr. +Furniss as very small of stature, full of animation and merriment, +constantly amusing himself and his friends with clever[!] reproductions +of each humorous character or scene that met his eye in the +ever-fruitful gallery of living art--gay, grotesque, pathetic, even +beautiful--that the streets and outlets of such a town as Wexford +present to a quick eye and a ready pencil." + +I can appreciate the fact that at that early age I had an eye for the +"pathetic, and even beautiful," but, alas! I have been misunderstood +from the day of my birth. I used to sit and study the heavens before I +could walk, and my nurse, a wise and shrewd woman, predicted that I +should become a great astronomer; but instead of the works of Herschel +being put into my hands, I was satiated with the vilest comic toy books, +and deluged with the frivolous nursery literature now happily a thing of +the past. At odd times my old leaning towards serious reflection and +ambition for high art come over me, but there is a fatality which dogs +my footsteps and always at the critical moment ruins my hopes. + +It is indeed strange how slight an incident may alter the whole course +of one's life, as will be seen from the following instance, which I +insert here although it took place some years after the period to which +I am now alluding. + +The scene was Antwerp, to which I was paying my first visit, and where I +was, like all artists, very much impressed and delighted with the +cathedral of the quaint old place. The afternoon was merging into +evening as I entered the sacred building, and the broad amber rays of +the setting sun glowed amid the stately pillars and deepened the shadowy +glamour of the solemn aisles. As I gazed on the scene of grandeur I felt +profoundly moved by the picturesque effect, and the following morning +discovered me hard at work upon a most elaborate study of the beautiful +carved figures upon the confessional boxes. I had just laid out my +palette preparatory to painting that picture which would of course make +my name and fortune, when a hoarse and terribly British guffaw at my +elbow startled me, and turning round I encountered some acquaintances to +whom the scene seemed to afford considerable amusement. One of them was +good enough to remark that to have come all the way to Antwerp to find a +caricaturist painting the confessional boxes in the cathedral was +certainly the funniest thing he had ever heard of, and thereupon +insisted upon dragging me off to dine with him, a proposition to which I +immediately assented, feeling far more foolish than I could possibly +have looked. I may add that as the sun that evening dipped beneath the +western horizon, so vanished the visions of high art by which I had been +inspired, and thus it is that Michael Angelo Vandyck Correggio Raphael +Furniss lies buried in Antwerp Cathedral. Strangely enough I came across +the following paragraph some years afterwards: "The guides of Antwerp +Cathedral point out a grotesque in the wood carving of the choir which +resembles almost exactly the head of Mr. Gladstone, as depicted by Harry +Furniss." + +[Illustration: MY FATHER.] + +My earliest recollections are altogether too modern to be of much +interest. Crimean heroes were veterans when they, as guests at my +father's table, fought their battles o'er again. The _Great Eastern_ +steamship was quite an old white elephant of the sea when I, held up in +my nurse's arms, saw Brunel's blunder pass Greenore Point. I was hardly +eligible for "Etons" when our present King was married. When first taken +to church I was most interested, as standing on tiptoe on the seat in +our square family pew, and peering into the next pew, I saw a young +governess, at that moment the most talked-of woman in Great Britain, the +niece of the notorious poisoner Palmer. She had just returned from the +condemned cell, having made that scoundrel confess his crime, and there +was more pleasure in the sight than in listening to the good old Rector +Elgee who had christened me, or in seeing his famous daughter the +poetess "Speranza," otherwise known as Lady Wilde. + +In the newspaper shop windows--always an attraction to me--the coloured +portrait of Garibaldi was fly-blown, the pictures of the great fight +between Sayers and Heenan were illustrations of ancient history, and in +the year I was born _Punch_ published his twenty-sixth volume. + +[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS, AGED 10.] + +Leaving Wexford before the railway there was opened, my parents removed +to the metropolis of Ireland, and I went to school in Dublin at the age +of twelve. It was at the Wesleyan Connexional School, now known as the +Wesleyan College, St. Stephen's Green, that I struggled through my first +pages of Cæsar and stumbled over the "pons asinorum," and here I must +mention that although the Wesleyan College bears the name of the great +religious reformer, a considerable number of the boys who studied +there--myself included--were in no way connected with the Wesleyan body. +I merely say this because I have seen it stated more than once that I am +a Wesleyan, and as this little sketch professes to be an authentic +account of myself, I wish it to be correct, however trivial my remarks +may seem to the general reader. It is in the same spirit that I have +disclaimed the honour of being an Irishman. + +Once upon a time, when I was a very little boy, I remember being very +much impressed by a heading in my copybook which ran: "He who can learn +to write, can learn to draw." Now this was putting the cart before the +horse, so far as my experience had gone, for I could most certainly draw +before I could write, and had not only become an editor long before I +was fit to be a contributor, but was also a publisher before I had even +seen a printing press. In fact, I was but a little urchin in +knickerbockers when I brought out a periodical--in MS. it is true--of +which the ambitious title was "The Schoolboys' _Punch._" The ingenuous +simplicity with which I am universally credited by all who know me now +had not then, I fancy, obtained complete possession of me. I must have +been artful, designing, diplomatic, almost Machiavellian; for anxious to +curry favour with the head master of my school, I resolved to use the +columns of "The Schoolboys' _Punch_" not so much in the interest of the +schoolboy world as to attract the head master's favourable notice to the +editor. + +Accordingly, the first cartoon I drew for the paper was specially +designed with this purpose in view, and I need scarcely say it was +highly complimentary to the head master. He was represented in a +Poole-made suit of perfectly-fitting evening dress, and the trousers, I +remember, were particularly free from the slightest wrinkle, and must +have been extremely uncomfortable to the wearer. This tailorish +impossibility was matched by the tiny patent boots which encased the +great man's small and exquisitely moulded feet. I furnished him with a +pair of dollish light eyes, with long eyelashes carefully drawn in, and +as a masterstroke threw in the most taper-shaped waist. + +The subject of the picture, I flattered myself, was selected with no +little cleverness and originality. A celebrated conjuror who had +recently exposed the frauds of the Davenport Brothers was at the moment +creating a sensation in the town where the school was situated, and from +that incident I determined to draw my inspiration. The magnitude of the +design and the importance of the occasion seemed to demand a +double-paged cartoon. On one side I depicted a hopelessly scared little +schoolboy, not unlike myself at the time, tightly corded in a cabinet, +which represented the school, with trailing Latin roots, heavy Greek +exercises, and chains of figures. The door, supposed to be closed on +this distressing but necessary situation, is observed in the opposite +cartoon to be majestically thrown open by the beaming and consciously +successful head master, in order to allow a young college student, the +pink of scholastic perfection, to step out, loaded with learning and +academical honours. + +"Great events from little causes spring!"--great, at least, to me. So +well was my juvenile effort received, that it is not too much to say it +decided my future career. Had my subtle flattery taken the shape of a +written panegyric upon the head master in lieu of a cartoon, it is +possible that I might, had I met with equal success, have devoted myself +to journalism and literature; but from that day forward I clung to the +pencil, and in a few years was regularly contributing "cartoons" to +public journals, and practising the profession I have ever since +pursued. + +Drawing, in fact, seemed to come to me naturally and intuitively. This +was well for me, for small indeed was the instruction I received. I +recollect that a German governess, who professed, among other things, to +teach drawing, undertook to cultivate my genius; but I derived little +benefit from her unique system, as it consisted in placing over the +paper the drawing to be copied, and pricking the leading points with a +pin, after which, the copy being removed, the lines were drawn from one +point to another. The copies were of course soon perforated beyond +recognition, and, although I warmly protested against this sacrilege of +art, she explained that it was by that system that Albert Dürer had been +taught. This, of course, accounts for our having infant prodigies in +art, as well as music and the drama. The rapidity with which Master +Hoffmann was followed by infantile Lizsts and little Otto Hegner as soon +as it became apparent that there was a demand for such phenomena, seems +to indicate that in music at all events supply will follow demand as a +matter of course, and if the infant artist can only be "crammed" in +daubing on canvas as youthful musicians are in playing on the piano, +then perhaps a new sensation is in store for the artistic world, and we +shall see babies executing replicas of the old masters, and the Infant +Slapdash painter painting the portraits of Society beauties. As a +welcome relief to Chopin's Nocturne in D flat, played by Baby Hegner at +St. James's Hall, we shall step across to Bond Street and behold "Le +Petit Américain" dashing off his "Nocturne" on canvas. I sometimes +wonder if I might have been made such an infant art prodigy, but when I +was a lad public taste was not in its second childhood in matters of art +patronage, nor was the forcing of children practised in the same manner +as it is nowadays. + +Naturally enough I did not altogether escape the thraldom of the +drawing-master, and as years went on I made a really serious effort to +study at an art school under the Kensington system, which I must confess +I believe to be positively prejudicial to a young artist possessing +imagination and originality. The late Lord Beaconsfield made one of his +characters in "Lothair" declare that "critics are those who have failed +in literature and art." Whether this is true as to the art critics, or +that the dramatic critic is generally a disappointed playwright, it must +in truth be said that drawing-masters are nearly always those who have +failed in art. I can remember one gentleman who was the especial terror +of my youth. I can see him now going his rounds along the chilly +corridor, where, perhaps, one had been placed to draw something "from +the flat." After years and years of practice at this rubbish, he would +halt beside you, look at your work in a perfunctory manner, and with a +dexterity which appalled you until you reflected that he had been doing +the same thing exactly, and nothing else, for perhaps a decade, he would +draw in a section of a leaf, and if, as in my case, you happened to have +a pretty sister attending the ladies' class in the school, he would add +leaf to leaf until your whole paper was covered with his mechanical +handiwork, in order to have a little extra conversation with you, +although, I need scarcely add, it was not exclusively confined to the +subject of art. + +This sort of thing was called "instruction in freehand drawing," and had +to be endured and persisted in for months and months. Freehand! Shade of +Apelles! What is there free in squinting and measuring, and feebly +touching in and fiercely rubbing out a collection of straggling +mechanical pencil lines on a piece of paper pinned on to a hard board, +which after a few weeks becomes nothing but a confused jumble of +fingermarks? + +Had I an Art School I would treat my students according to their +individual requirements, just as a doctor treats his patients. I am led +here to repeat what I have already observed in one of my lectures, that +for the young the pill of knowledge should be silver-coated, and that +while they are being instructed they should also be amused. In other +words, interest your pupils, do not depress them. Giotto did not begin +by rigidly elaborating a drawing of the crook of his shepherd's staff +for weeks together; his drawings upon the sand and upon the flat stones +which he found on the hillsides are said to have been of the picturesque +sheep he tended, and all the interesting and fascinating objects that +met his eye. Then, when his hand had gained practice, he was able to +draw that perfect circle which he sent to the Pope as a proof of his +command of hand. But the truth is that we begin at the wrong end, and +try to make our boys draw a perfect circle before they are in love with +drawing at all. For my part, I had to endure some weeks of weary +struggling with a cone and ball and other chilly objects, the effect of +which was to fill my mind with an overwhelming sense of the dreariness +of art education under the Kensington system. A short time, therefore, +sufficed to disgust me with the Art School, and I preferred to stay at +home caricaturing my relatives, educating myself, and practising alone +the rudiments of my art. + +[Illustration: A CARICATURE, MADE WHEN A BOY (NEVER PUBLISHED). DUBLIN +EXHIBITION. PORTRAIT OF SIR A. GUINNESS (NOW LORD IVEAGH) IN CENTRE.] + +Early in my teens, however, I was invited to join the Life School of the +Hibernian Academy, as there happened to be a paucity of students at that +institution, and in order to secure the Government grant it was +necessary to bring them up to the required number. But here also there +was no idea of proper teaching. Some fossilised member of the Academy +would stand about roasting his toes over the stove. A recollection of a +fair specimen of the body still haunts me. He used to roll round the +easels, and you became conscious of his approaching presence by an +aroma of onions. I believe he was a landscape painter, and saw no more +beauty in the female form divine than in a haystack. It was his custom +to take up a huge piece of charcoal and come down upon one of your +delicately drawn pencil lines of a figure with a terrible stroke about +an inch wide. + +"There, me boy," he would exclaim, "that's what it wants," and walk on, +leaving you in doubt upon which side of the line you had drawn he +intended his alteration to come. + +I soon decided to have my own models and study for myself, and this +practice I have maintained to the present day. I really don't know what +Mrs. Grundy would have said if she had known that at this early age I +was drawing Venuses from the life, instead of tinting the illustrations +to "Robinson Crusoe" or "Gulliver's Travels" in my playroom at home. + +Few imagine that a caricaturist requires models to draw from. Although I +will not further digress at this point, I may perhaps be pardoned if I +return later on in this book to the explanation of my _modus +operandi_--a subject which, if I may judge from the number of letters I +receive about it, is likely to prove of interest to a large number of my +readers. + +It was when I was still quite a boy that my first great chance came. +Being in Dublin, I was asked one day by my friend the late Mr. A. M. +Sullivan to make some illustrations for a paper called _Zozimus_, of +which he was the editor and founder. As a matter of fact, _Zozimus_ was +the Irish _Punch_. Mr. Sullivan, who was a Nationalist, and a man of +exceptional energy and ability, began life as an artist. He came to +Dublin, I was told, as a very young man, and began to paint; but the +sails of his ships were pronounced to be far too yellow, the seas on +which the vessels floated were derided as being far too green, while the +skies above them were scoffed at as being far too blue. In these adverse +circumstances, then, the artist soon drifted into journalism, and, +inducing his brothers to join him in his new venture, thenceforth took +up the pen and abandoned the brush. Each member of the family became a +well-known figure in Parliamentary life. Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet of +the Irish Party, is still a well-known figure in the world of politics; +but my friend Mr. A. M. Sullivan, who died some years ago, belonged +rather to the more moderate _régime_ which prevailed in the Irish Party +during the leadership of Mr. Butt. + +At the time when I first made his acquaintance he was the editor and +moving spirit of the _Nation_. It was a curious office, and I can recall +many whom I first met there who have since come more or less prominently +to the front in public life. There was Mr. Sexton, whom my friend "Toby" +has since christened "Windbag Sexton" in his Parliamentary reports. Mr. +Sexton then presided over the scissors and paste department of the +journals owned by Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and, unlike the posing orator he +afterwards became, was at that early stage of his career of a very +modest and retiring disposition. Mr. Leamy also, I think, was connected +with the staff, while Mr. Dennis Sullivan superintended the sale of the +papers in the publishing department. + +But the central figure in the office was unquestionably the editor and +proprietor, Mr. A. M. Sullivan. His personality was of itself +remarkable. Possessed of wonderful energy and nerve, he was a confirmed +teetotaller, and his prominent eyes, beaming with intelligence, seemed +almost to be starting from his head as, intent upon some project, he +darted about the office, ever and anon checking his erratic movements to +give further directions to his subordinates, when he had a funny habit +of placing his hand on his mouth and blowing his moustache through his +fingers, much to the amusement of his listeners, and to my astonishment, +as I stood modestly in a corner of the editorial sanctum observing with +awe the great Mr. Sexton, who, amid the distractions of scissors and +paste, would drawl out a sentence or two in a voice strongly resembling +the sarcastic tones of Mr. Labouchere. + +In another part of the office sat Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet +aforesaid, who, like his brother, is a genial and kindly man at heart, +although possessing the volcanic temperament characteristic of his +family. There he sat--a poet with a large family--his hair dishevelled, +his trousers worked by excitement halfway up his calves, emitting +various stertorous sounds after the manner of his brother, as he +savagely tore open the recently-arrived English newspapers. Such was the +interior of the office of the _Nation_, the representative organ of the +most advanced type of the National Press of Ireland. + +But _Zozimus_, the paper to which I was then contributing, had nothing +in common with the rest of the publications issuing from that office. It +was of a purely social character, and was a praiseworthy attempt to do +something of a more artistic nature than the coarsely-conceived and +coarsely-executed National cartoons which were the only specimens of +illustrative art produced in Ireland. Fortunately for me, there was an +effort made in Dublin just then to produce a better class of +publications, and the result was that I began to get fairly busy, +although it was merely a wave of artistic energy, which did not last +long, but soon subsided into that dead level of mediocrity which does +not appear likely to be again disturbed. + +I was now in my seventeenth year, and, intent on making as much hay as +possible the while the sun shone, I accepted every kind of work that was +offered me; and a strange medley it was. Religious books, medical works, +scientific treatises, scholastic primers and story books afforded in +turn illustrative material for my pencil. One week I was engaged upon +designs for the most advanced Catholic and Jesuitical manuals, and the +next upon similar work for a Protestant prayer-book. At one moment it +seemed as if I were destined to achieve fame as an artist of the +ambulance corps and the dissecting-room. One of my earliest +dreams--which I attribute to the fact that my eldest brother, with whom +I had much in common, was a doctor--had been to adopt the medical +profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for +caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical +student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital +lecture-room with pictorial _jeux d'esprit_ of a livelier cast than +those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses of the +learned Mr. Sawbones. + +I remember that about this period a leading surgeon was anxious that I +should devote myself to the pursuit of this anything but pleasant form +of art, and seriously proposed that I should draw and paint for him some +of his surgical cases. I accepted his offer without hesitation, and, +burning to distinguish myself as an anatomical expert with the brush, I +gave instruction to our family butcher to send me, as a model to study +from, a kidney, which was to be the acme of goriness and as repulsive in +appearance as possible. Of this piece of uncooked meat I made a quite +pre-Raphaelite study in water-colours, but so realistic was the result +that the effect it had upon me was the very antithesis to what I +anticipated, disgusting me to such an extent that I not only declined to +pursue further anatomical illustration, but for years afterwards was +quite unable to touch a kidney, although I believe that had I selected a +calf's head or a sucking-pig for my maiden effort in this direction, I +might by now have blossomed into a Rembrandt or a Landseer. + +[Illustration: AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION ON WOOD BY HARRY FURNISS. PARTLY +ENGRAVED BY HIM.] + +Amongst other incidents which occurred during this period of my life was +one which it now almost makes me shudder to think of. I was commissioned +by no less a personage than the late Mr. Pigott, of Parnell Commission +notoriety, to illustrate for him a story of the broadest Irish humour. +Little did I think when I entered his office in Abbey Street, Dublin, +and had an interview with the genial and pleasant-looking little man +with the eye-glass, that he would one day play so prominent a _rôle_ in +the Parliamentary drama, or that the weak little arm he extended to me +was destined years afterwards to be the instrument of a tragedy. I can +truly say, at all events, my recollection as a boy of sixteen of the +great _Times_ forger is by no means unfavourable, and he dwells in my +memory as one of the most pleasant and genial of men. I ought, perhaps, +to say that in feeling I was anything but a Nationalist, because in +Ireland, generally speaking, you must be either black or white. But like +a lawyer who takes his brief from every source, I never studied who my +clients were when they required my juvenile services. + +Although I was not of Irish parentage and did not lean towards +Nationalism in politics, it was necessary to sympathise now and then +with the down-trodden race. For instance, I remember that one evening a +respectable-looking mechanic called at my fathers house and requested to +see me. His manner was strange and mysterious, and as he wanted to see +me alone, I took him into an anteroom, where, with my hand on the door +handle and the other within easy distance of the bell, I asked the +excitable-looking stranger the nature of his business. Pulling from his +pocket a roll of one-pound Irish bank-notes, he thrust them into my +hand, and besought me at the same time not to refuse the request he was +about to make. An idea flashed through my mind that perhaps he had seen +me coming out of the offices of the National Press, and had jumped to +the conclusion that I could therefore be bought over to perpetrate some +terrible political crime. I even imagined that in the roll of notes I +should find the knife with which the fell deed had to be done. Seeing +that I shrank from him, he seized hold of my arm, and, in a most +pitiable voice, said: + +"Don't, young sorr, refuse me what I am about to ask you. I'm only a +working man, but here are all my savings, which you may take if you will +just dhraw me a picter to be placed at the top of a complete set of +photographs of our Irish leaders. I want Britannia at the head of the +group, a bastely dhrunken old hag, wid her fut on the throat of the +beautiful Erin, who is to be bound hand and fut wid chains, and being +baten and starved. Thin I want prisons at the sides, showing the grand +sons of Ould Oireland dying in their cells by torture, whilst a fine +Oirish liberator wid dhrawn sword is just on the point of killing +Britannia outright, and so saving his disthressful country." + +About this time someone had been good enough to inform me that all black +and white artists are in the habit of engraving their own work, and, +religiously believing this, I duly provided myself with some engraving +tools, bought some boxwood, a jeweller's eye-glass, and a sand bag, +without which no engraver's table can be said to be complete. + +Then, setting to work to practise the difficult art, I struggled on as +best I could, until one fine day a professional engraver enlightened me +upon the matter. I need scarcely say he went into fits of laughter when +I told him that every artist was expected to be a Bewick, and he pointed +out to me that not only do artists as a rule know very little about +engraving, but in addition they have often only a limited knowledge of +how to draw for engravers. + +However, thinking I should better understand the difficulties of drawing +for publishers if I first mastered the technical art of reproduction, +with the assistance of the engraver aforesaid I rapidly acquired +sufficient dexterity with the tools to engrave my own drawings, and this +I continued to do until I left Dublin, at the age of nineteen. Since +then I have never utilised one of my gravers, except to pick a lock or +open a box of sardines. Nor is this to be wondered at, considering that +one can make a drawing in an hour which takes a week to engrave, and +that an engraver may take five guineas for his share of the work whilst +an artist may get fifty. There is very little doubt, therefore, as to +the reason why artists who can draw refrain from engraving their own +work. + +[Illustration: SKETCHES IN GALWAY. +_Republished by permission of the proprietors of the "Illustrated London +News."_] + +In the studio of the engraver to whom I have above referred there hung a +huge map of London, and as I used to pore over it I took many an +imaginary walk down Fleet Street, many a canter in the Row, and many a +voyage to Greenwich on a penny steamboat, before I bade adieu to "dear +dirty Dublin" in the year 1873, and, as many have done before me, +arrived in the "little village" in search of fame and wealth. + +Just prior to my leaving Ireland for the land of my parents I met no +less an editor than Tom Taylor, who was then the presiding genius of the +_Punch_ table, and he gave me every encouragement to hasten my +migration. He, however, had just returned from the wilds of Connemara, +and before setting my face in the direction of Holyhead he strongly +advised me also to pay a visit to the trackless wastes of the Western +country, for the purpose of committing to paper the lineaments of the +natives indigenous to the soil. This I did a week or so before quitting +the land of my birth, and the sketches I made upon that occasion formed +part of my stock-in-trade when I arrived in London. + +After making the accompanying page of studies, I strolled along the bank +of the river; and while sketching some men breaking stones an incident +happened which first aroused me to the fact that the lot of the +sketching artist is not always a happy one. A fiend in human shape--an +overbearing overseer--came up at the moment, and roundly abused the +poor labourers for taking the "base Saxon's" coin. Inciting them to +believe that I was a special informer from London, he laughed on my +declaring that I was merely a novice, and informed me that I ought to be +"dhrounded." He was about to suit the action to the word and pitch me +into the salmon-stuffed river when he was stopped by the mediation of my +models, and I escaped from the grip of the agitator. In due course I +found myself in the Claddagh, a village of mud huts, which formed the +frontispiece by John Leech to "A Little Tour in Ireland" by "An +Oxonian," "a village of miserable cabins, the walls of mud and stone, +and for the most part windowless, the floors damp and dirty, and the +roofs a mass of rotten straw and weeds." Pigs and fowls mixed up with +boats and fish refuse. Women old, dried and ugly; girls young, dark, of +Spanish type, scantily dressed in bright-coloured short garments, all +tattered and torn; and children grotesque beyond description. I sketch +three members of one family clothed (!) in the three articles of attire +discarded by their father--one claimed the coat, another the trousers, +whilst the third had only a waistcoat. No doubt Leech had seen the same +sixteen years before, when he was there; and if "the Oxonian," who +survives him--Canon Hole, of Rochester--were to make another little tour +in Ireland, he would find the Claddagh still a spot to give an +Englishman "a new sensation." All I can say is, that having escaped a +"dhrouning" in the river when in Galway in 1873, I have visited many +countries and seen much filth and misery, but I have seen nothing +approaching the sad squalor of the wild West of Ireland. + +The majority of those I sketched were hardly human. Tom Taylor was +right--"I would find such characters there not to be found in all the +world over," and I haven't. The people got on my overstrung youthful +nerves. I left the country the moment I had sufficient material for my +sketches. I had shaken off the unpleasant feeling of being murdered in +the river. I had survived living a week or two in the worst inns in the +world. I had risked typhoid and every other disease fostered by the +insanitary surroundings--for I had to hide myself in narrow turnings and +obnoxious corners so as to sketch unseen, as the religion of the natives +opposed any attempt to have themselves "dhrawn," believing that the +destruction of their "pictur'" would be fatal to their souls! I had +sketched the famous house in Deadman's Lane--and listened as I sketched +it, in the falling shades of night, to the old, old story of +Fitz-Stephen the Warden, who had lived there, and had in virtue of his +office to assist at the hanging of his own son. And, when in the dark I +was strolling back to my hotel, my reflections were suddenly interrupted +by something powerful seizing me in a grip of iron round my leg. I was +held as in a vice, and could hardly move, by what--a huge dog--a wolf? +No, something heavier; something more hideous; something clothed! As I +dragged it under a lamp I saw revealed a huge head, covered by a black +skull cap--a man's head--a dwarf, muttering in Irish something I could +not understand--except one word, "Judy! Judy! Judy!" It was a woman of +extraordinary strength thus clasped on to me. I dragged her to the hotel +door, where I engaged an interpreter in the shape of the "boots," and +made a bargain with "Judy" to release me on my giving her one shilling, +and to sit to me for this sketch for half-a-crown. I have still a lively +recollection of the vice-like grip. + +[Illustration: "JUDY," THE GALWAY DWARF.] + +My friend who had introduced me to the editor of _Punch_ was a prominent +city official, and entertainer in chief of all men of talent from +London, and was also, like Tom Taylor, an author and dramatist; and when +I was a boy I illustrated one of his first stories. He also introduced +me behind the scenes at the old Theatre Royal. I recollect my boyish +delight when one day I was on the stage during the rehearsal of the +Italian opera. Shall I ever forget that treat? It was much greater in my +eyes than the real performance later on. If my memory serves, "Don +Giovanni" was the opera. One of the principals was suddenly taken ill, +and this rehearsal was called for the benefit of the understudy. He was +a dumpy, puffy little Italian, and played the heavy father. Madame +Titiens was--well--the heavy daughter. In the first scene she has to +throw herself upon her prostrate father. This is the incident I saw +rehearsed: the little fat father lay on the dusty stage, with one eye on +the O.P. side. As soon as the massive form of Titiens bore down upon him +he rolled over and over out of the way. This pantomime highly amused all +of us, the ever-jovial Titiens in particular, and she again and again +rushed laughingly in, but with the same result. + +The first actor I ever saw perform was Phelps, in "The Man of the +World." If anything could disillusionise a youth regarding the romance +of the theatre, that play surely would. Be it to my credit that my +first impression was admiration for a fine--if dull--performance. From +that day I have been a constant theatre-goer. If I am to believe the +following anecdote, published in a Dublin paper a few years ago, I "did +the theatre in style," and had an early taste which I did not possess +for making jokes. + +"The jarvey drove Harry Furniss, when a boy, down to the old Theatre +Royal, Dublin. On the way there Jehu enquired of the budding artist +whether it was true that the roof was provided with a tank whence every +part of the building could be deluged, shower-bath fashion, if +necessary. 'Yes,' replied Raphael junior; 'and, you see, I always bring +an umbrella in case of fire.'" + +[Illustration: PHELPS, THE FIRST ACTOR I SAW.] + +I may confess that I have only once appeared in theatricals, and that +was in high comedy as a member of the Dublin Amateur Theatrical Society. +The play was "She Stoops to Conquer," and I took the part +of--think!--_Mrs._ Hardcastle. I was only seventeen, and very small for +my age, so I owe any success I may have made to the costumier and +wig-maker. The Tony Lumpkin was so excellent that he adopted the stage +as his profession, and became a very popular comedian; and our Diggory +is now a judge--"and a good judge too"--in the High Court. + +It was on a bright, breezy morning late in July, 1873, I shook the dust +of "dear dirty Dublin" off my feet. With the exception of the Welsh +railways, the Irish are notoriously the slowest in the world, and on +that particular morning the mail train seemed to my impatient mind to +progress pig-ways. The engine was attached to the rear of the train and +faced the station, so that when it began to pull it was only the +"parvarsity in the baste" caused it to go in the opposite direction, +towards Kingstown, in an erratic, spasmodic, and uncertain fashion, so +that the eight miles journey seemed to me eighty. It was quite a tedious +journey to Salthill and Blackrock. At the latter station I saw for the +last time the porter famous for being the slave of habit. For years it +had been his duty to call out the name of the station, "Blackrock! +Blackrock! Blackrock!" In due course he was removed to Salthill station, +on the same line, and well do I remember how he puzzled many a Saxon +tourist by his calling out continually, "Blackrock--Salthill-I-mane! +Blackrock--Salthill-I-mane!" No doubt the traveller put this chronic +absent-mindedness down to "Irish humour." I must confess that I agree in +a great measure with the opinion of the late T. W. Robertson (author of +"Caste," "School," &c.), that the witticisms of Irish carmen and others +are the ingenious inventions of Charles Lever, Samuel Lover, William +Carleton, and other educated men. + +[Illustration: MRS. HARDCASTLE. MR. HARRY FURNISS, FROM AN EARLY +SKETCH.] + +Dickens failed to see Irish humour, or in fact to understand what was +meant by it. So when he was on tour with his readings a friend of mine, +who was his host, in the North, undertook to initiate him into the +mysteries of Irish wit. As a sample he gave Dickens the following: A +definition of nothing,--a footless stocking without a leg. This conveyed +nothing whatever to the mind of the greatest of English humourists; but +when my friend took him to a certain spot and showed him a wall built +round a vacant space, and explained to him that the native masons were +instructed to build a wall round an old ruined church to protect it, and +pulled down the church for the material to build the wall, he laughed +heartily, and acknowledged the Irish had a sense of humour after +all,--if not, a quaint absence of it. + +To me so-called Irish wit is a curious combination not wholly dependent +on humour, and frequently unconscious. There is a story that when Mr. +Beerbohm Tree arrived in Dublin he was received by a crowd of his +admirers, and jumping on to a car said to his jarvey, "Splendid +reception that, driver!" + +The jarvey thought a moment, and replied, "Maybe ye think so, but +begorrah, it ain't a patch on the small-pox scare!" Was that _meant_? + +The poor Saxon "towrist"--what he may suffer in the Emerald Isle! There +is a story on record of three Irishmen rushing away from the race +meeting at Punchestown to catch a train back to Dublin. At the moment a +train from a long distance pulled up at the station, and the three men +scrambled in. In the carriage was seated one other passenger. As soon as +they had regained their breath, one said: + +"Pat, have you got th' tickets?" + +"What tickets? I've got me loife; I thought I'd have lost that gettin' +in th' thrain. Have you got 'em, Moike?" + +"Oi, begorrah, I haven't." + +"Oh, we're all done for thin," said the third. "They'll charge us roight +from the other soide of Oireland." + +The old gentleman looked over his newspaper and said: + +"You are quite safe, gintlemen; wait till we get to the next station." + +They all three looked at each other. "Bedad, he's a directhor,--we're +done for now entoirely." + +But as soon as the train pulled up the little gentleman jumped out and +came back with three first-class tickets. Handing them to the astonished +strangers, he said, "Whist, I'll tell ye how I did it. I wint along the +thrain--'Tickets plaze, tickets plaze,' I called, and these belong to +three Saxon towrists in another carriage." + +On the morning I left Ireland to seek my fortune in London I had a +youthful notion that, once on the mainland of my parents' country, St. +Paul's and the smoke of London would be visible; but we had passed +through the Menai tunnel, grazed Conway Castle walls, and skirted miles +of the Welsh rock-bound coast, and yet no St. Paul's was visible to my +naked eye which was plastered against the window-pane of the carriage. +The other eye, clothed and in its right mind, inspected the carriage and +discovered that there were two other occupants--a lady and her maid. +These interesting passengers had recovered from the effects of the +Channel passage, and were eating their lunch. The lady politely offered +me some sandwiches. "No, thanks," I replied; "I shall lunch in London." +This reminds me of a story I heard when I was in America, of two young +English ladies arriving at New York. They immediately entered the +Northern Express at the West Central. About 7 o'clock in the evening +they arrived at Niagara--half an hour or so is given to the passengers +to alight and look at the wonderful Falls. The gentleman who told me the +story informed me that as the two ladies were getting back into the +carriage he asked them if they were going to dine at once. They, +ignorant of the vastness of the "gre--e--at country Amuraka," replied, +"Oh, no, thanks, we are going to dine with our friends when we arrive. +It can't be long now, we have been travelling so fast all the day!" + +"And may I ask, young ladies, where your friends live?" + +"We are going to an uncle who has been taken suddenly ill in San +Francisco." + +These young ladies would have had to wait certainly five days for their +dinner,--I only five hours. + +The strange lady and I conversed a great deal on various topics. By +degrees she discovered that I was a young artist, friendless, and on his +way to the great city to battle with fortune. I may have told her of my +history, of my youthful ambitions and my professional plans,--anyway she +told me of hers, and, while her maid was lazily slumbering, she +confessed to me her troubles. + +"My story," she said, "is a sad one. I am of good family, and I married +a well-known professional London man. He turned out to be a gambler, and +ran through my money, and I returned to my parents. I have left them +this morning again, and, like you, I am now on my way to London to +start in life, and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance +is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a +refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, I am also fortunate in +having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to +sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly been +a guest." + +I sympathised with her, and she continued, weeping, to relate to me +events of her unhappy married life until we arrived at Euston. I saw her +and her maid into a four-wheeler, and I saw their luggage on the top. +She gave me her card with her parents' address in London written on it, +and requested that I would write to her at that address, as she would +like to hear how I got on in London. I never saw her again. But I did +write home, and found there was such a lady, her family were well-known +society people in Ireland, and that her marriage had not been a happy +one. + +After three years in London I ran over to Ireland to see my parents. On +my return I seemed to miss the charming companion of my journey over the +same ground three years previously. Two uninteresting men were in the +carriage: a typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a +typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey was a long +one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to sleep, and after some +hours the other man and I exchanged a word. The fact is I thought I knew +his face,--I told him so. He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to +school together?" "No." He was at least ten years my senior. It happened +he had been to school with my half-brother (my father was married +twice,--I am the youngest son of his second family). We chatted freely +about each other's family and on various topics, including the sleeping +Teuton in the corner. I incidentally mentioned my last journey. The lady +interested him, so I told him of the way in which she confessed to me. I +waxed eloquent over her wrongs. He got still more excited as I described +her husband as she described him to me; and as the train rolled into +Euston, he said, "Well, you know who I am, I know who you are,--I'll +tell you one thing more: that woman's story is perfectly true--I'm her +husband!" + +That was one of the most extraordinary coincidences which ever happened +to me. Three years after meeting the wife, over the same journey, at the +same time of the year, I meet the husband; and I had never been the +journey in the meantime. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + +BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS. + + I arrive in London--A Rogue and Vagabond--Two Ladies--Letters of + Introduction--Bohemia--A Distinguished Member--My Double--A Rara + Avis--The Duke of Broadacres--The Savages--A Souvenir---Portraits + of the Past--J. L. Toole--Art and Artists--Sir Spencer Wells--John + Pettie--Milton's Garden. + + +I did not make my appearance in London with merely the proverbial +half-crown in my pocket, nor was I breathlessly expectant to find the +streets paved with gold. Thanks chiefly to my savings in Dublin, my +balance at my bankers' was sufficient to keep me for at least a year, +and as soon as the editors returned from their summer holidays I was +fortunate enough to procure commissions, which have been pouring in +pretty steadily ever since. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF MYSELF, DRAWN WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN +LONDON.] + +It was with a strange feeling that I found myself for the first time in +London, among four millions of people, with not one of whom I could +claim acquaintance, and I think it will not be out of place if I here +offer a hint which may possibly be of use to other young men who are +placed in similar circumstances. Upon first coming to the metropolis, +then, let them invariably act, in as much as it is possible, as if they +were Londoners old and seasoned. To stand gazing at St. Paul's with +mouth agape and eyes astare, or to enquire your way to the National +Gallery or Madame Tussaud's, is a sure means of finding yourself ere +long in the hands of the unscrupulous and designing. For my part, as I +took my first admiring peep at the masterpiece of Sir Christopher, I +whistled to myself with an air of nonchalance, and as I passed down +Fleet Street I made a point of nodding familiarly to the passers-by as +if I were already a frequent _habitué_ of the thoroughfare of letters. +Did I find myself accosted by any particularly ingenuous stranger asking +his way, I always promptly told him to go on as straight as ever he +could go--a piece of advice which, coming from one so young, I think was +highly proper and creditable, whatever may have proved its value in some +cases from a topographical point of view. On the other hand, the +following incident will serve to show the prudence of exercising due +caution in addressing strangers oneself. + +Upon the evening of my arrival in the big city I had dined at the London +Restaurant, which was situate at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet +Street, in the premises now occupied by Messrs. Partridge and Cooper +(the name of this firm must not be taken as an indication of the nature +of my repast), and, fired with the curiosity of youth, I mounted the +knifeboard of an omnibus bound for Hyde Park. Arrived at the famous +statue of Wellington astride the impossible horse which has since ambled +off to the seclusion of Aldershot, and which at once recalled to my mind +the inimitable drawings of that infamous quadruped by John Leech, an +artist who had done as much to familiarise me with London scenes and +characters with his pencil as had Dickens with the pen, I happened to +ask a sturdy artisan who was sitting beside me whether this was Hyde +Park Corner. + +"'Ide Park!" he muttered. "'Oo are you a-tryin' ter git at? 'Ide Park! +None o' yer 'anky panky with me, my covey!" + +I forthwith slipped off that 'bus, not a little nettled that the first +person to whom I had spoken in London should have taken me for a rogue +and a vagabond. + +I had been fortunate enough to secure quarters which had been +recommended to me in a comfortable boarding-house in one of the +old-fashioned Inns in Holborn--Thavies' Inn--in which, I was informed, +whether accurately or not I do not pretend to know, the Knight Templars +of old had once resided. There were no Knight Templars there when I +arrived, but in their stead I found some highly-proper and +non-belligerent clerics with their wives and families, and other +visitors from the country, who seemed very satisfied with the +comfortable provision that was made for them. But, best of all, I found +a hostess who soon became one of the kindest and best of friends I ever +had, and although I at once engaged a studio in the neighbouring +artistic quarter of Newman Street, I continued for some time to live in +Thavies' Inn in the enjoyment of the pleasant society and many +advantages of her pleasant home. + +Not the least of these to me was the perfect gallery of characters who +were continually coming and going, and the many and various studies I +made of the different visitors to that boarding-house long supplied me +with ample material for my sketch-book. + +I should be ungallant indeed were I to omit to add that not only was it +a lady who first made me feel at home amid the bustle and turmoil of +Modern Babylon, but that it was also a lady who primarily welcomed me as +a contributor to the Press and gave me my first work in London. +Curiously enough, both of these ladies possessed points of resemblance, +not only in person, but in manner and goodness of heart. It was Miss +Florence Marryat, then editress of _London Society_, who gave me my +first commission, and I am more anxious to record the fact because I am +aware that many a youthful journalist besides myself owed his first +introduction to the public to the sympathy and enterprise of this +accomplished lady. Perhaps I have less to grumble at personally than +most others concerning the treatment which, as a young man, I +experienced at the hands of editors; but I must say that the majority of +such potentates with whom I then came in contact lamentably lacked that +readiness to welcome new-comers which Miss Florence Marryat notably, and +possibly too readily, evinced. Here I may offer a hint to +beginners--that on coming to London letters of introduction are of +little or no value. One such letter I possessed, and it led me into +more trouble, and was the means of my losing more time, than I should +ever have received recompense for, even if it had obtained me the work +which it was intended to bring me. + +In the first place, these letters often get into the hands of others +than the particular individuals to whom they are addressed. In my case +the letter had been inadvertently directed to the literary editor +instead of to the art editor of one of the largest publishing firms, and +that gentleman--I refer to the literary editor--was good enough to +supply me with a quantity of work. I executed the commission, but, lo +and behold! when I sent the work in, the monster Red Tape intervened in +the person of the art editor, who became scarlet with rage because he +had not been invoked instead of his colleague, and promptly repudiated +the entire contract. Thereupon the literary editor wrote to me saying +that unless I withdrew my contributions he would be personally out of +pocket; and it may not be uninteresting to record that some day, when I +strip this amongst my other mummies, it will be found that he +subsequently became a wearer of lawn sleeves. Thus, whilst the two +editors quarrelled between themselves, I was left out in the cold, and +became a considerable loser over the transaction. + +_A propos_ of letters of introduction, I am reminded of a brother +artist, who, although a caricaturist, was entirely devoid of guile, and, +in addition, was as absent-minded as the popularly-accepted type of +ardent scientist or professor of ultra-abstruse subject. Well, this +curious species of satirist was setting forth on travels in foreign +climes, and in order to lighten in some measure the vicissitudes +inseparable from peripatetic wandering, he was provided with a letter of +introduction to a certain British consul. The writer of this letter +enclosed it in one to my friend, in which he said that he would find the +consul a most arrant snob, and a bumptious, arrogant humbug as well--in +fact, a cad to the backbone; but that he (my friend) was not to mind +this, for, as he could claim acquaintanceship with several dukes and +duchesses, all he had to do was to trot out their names for the +edification of the consul, who would then render him every attention, +and thus compensate him to some extent for having to come into contact +with such an insufferable vulgarian. On the return of the guileless +satirist to England the writer of the letter of introduction inquired +how he had fared with the consul, and great was his surprise to hear him +drawl out, in his habitual lethargic manner: + +"Well, my dear fellow, he did not receive me very warmly, and he did not +ask me to dinner. In fact, he struck me as being rather cool." + +"Well, you do surprise me!" rejoined his friend. "He's a horrible cad, +as I told you in my letter, but he's awfully hospitable, and I really +can't understand what you tell me. You gave him my letter of +introduction?" + +"Well, I thought so," said my friend; "but, do you know, on my journey +home I discovered it in my pocket-book, so I must have handed him +instead your note to me about him!" + +Of course, in the remarks which I have been making I have not been +alluding to letters of merely social introduction, which are of an +entirely different nature. Such letters are generally handed to the +individual to whom they are addressed at more propitious moments, when +he is not either hard at work, as the case may be, in his editorial +chair, or overburdened with anxiety as to the fluctuations of the Bank +rate. + +Be that as it may, I cannot refrain from citing here the case of another +brother artist, who was particular in the extreme as regarded the +neatness of his apparel and his personal appearance in general; in fact, +he laboured, rightly or wrongly, under the impression that the manner in +which a letter of introduction is received and acted upon by the person +to whom it is addressed depends upon the raiment and _tout ensemble_ of +the bearer. + +Well, it so happened that he once had a letter of introduction to a man +he particularly wished to know, but, of all places in the world, fate +had designed that he should have no choice but to deliver it in the +boring of the Channel Tunnel, where the dripping roof rendered it +necessary for all visitors to be encased from head to foot in the vilest +and most unbecoming tarpaulin overalls. It was in these circumstances, +then, that the introduction took place, and as nothing came of it, my +friend will now go to his grave in the firm belief that fine feathers +make fine birds in the eyes of all those who receive letters of +introduction. + +The first Bohemian Club I joined was located over Gaze's Tourist Offices +in the Strand. Nearly my first engagement in London was for a still +flourishing sixpenny weekly. Started in Wellington Street, close by, the +editorial offices were there certainly, but editor, proprietors, and +others were not. They were only to be found in "the Club," so through +necessity I became a member. The flowing bowl of that iniquitous +concoction, punch, was brewed for the staff early in the afternoon and +kept flowing till early the next morning. The "Club" never closed day or +night till the broker's man took possession and closed it for good. I, +being young and unknown, was surprised to find myself an object of +attraction whenever I was in the Club. There was something strange about +me, something mysterious. This was so marked that my brief visits to +find my editor were few and far between. I discovered afterwards that +the curiosity and attention paid me had nothing to do with my work, or +my personal appearance, or my natural shyness or youth. It was aroused +by the fact that I was known as "the member who had paid his +subscription!" + +[Illustration: AGE 20. [_From a photo. by W. & D. Downey._]] + +This fact being noised abroad. I found it an easy matter to get elected +to another and a better Bohemian Club, having beautiful premises on the +Adelphi Terrace--a Club which has since gone through many vicissitudes, +but I think still exists in a small way. At the time I mention it was +much what the Savage Club is now; in fact, was located in the same +Terrace. Its smoking concerts, too, were its great attractions, and on +one of these evenings I played a part worth reciting, if only to +illustrate how difficult it is for some minds to understand a joke. + +[Illustration: A SUCCESSFUL "MAKE-UP."] + +A well-known literary man called to see me. On a table in my studio lay +a "make-up" box--used by actors preparing their faces for the +footlights--a bald head with fringe of light hair, large fair moustache, +wig paste, a suit of clothes too large for me, and other trifles. My +visitor's curiosity was aroused. Taking up my "properties," he asked me +what they were for. I explained to him a huge joke had been arranged as +a surprise at the Club smoking concert to take place that very evening, +in which I was to play a part with a well-known and highly-popular +member--the funny man of the Club, and an eccentric-looking one to boot. +He had conceived the idea to make me up as a double of himself. We were +the same height, but otherwise we in no way resembled each other. He was +stout, I was thin; he prematurely bald, I enjoyed a superabundance of +auburn locks; but he had very marked characteristics, and wore very +remarkable clothes. He was also very clever at "making-up." The idea was +to test his talent in this direction, and deceive the whole of our +friends. It was arranged that he was to leave the piano after singing +half his song, and I--up to that moment concealed--was to come forward +and continue it. This I explained to my visitor, who expressed his +belief that the deception was impossible. He promised to keep the +secret, and that evening was early in the room and seated close to the +piano. My "double"--fortunately for me, an amateur--sang the first +verses of one of his well-known songs, but in the middle of it +complained of the heat of the room (one of those large rooms on the +first floor in Adelphi Terrace, famous for the Angelica Kaufmann +paintings on the ceiling), and opening the French window close to the +piano he went out on to the balcony. There I was, having walked along +the balcony from the next room. So successful was my "make-up" that in +passing through the supper-room to get on to the balcony some of the +members spoke to me under the impression I was the other member! The +hall-porter had handed me a letter intended for my "double." Of course I +imitated his walk, his mannerisms at the piano, and his voice, but I +made a poor attempt to sing. This was the joke. "What was the matter?" +"Never sang like that before," "Evidently thinks it is funny to be +completely out of tune," "Hullo, what is this?" as _my_ "double" walked +through the crowded room just as I finished, and shook hands with me! + +I would really have sung the song better, but my eye happened to catch +the puzzled stare of my friend the literary visitor in the front row. He +looked angry and annoyed, and before my "double" came up to me, my +friend, scowling at me, said, "Sir, I think it is infernal bad taste on +your part to imitate my friend Harry Furniss!" + +Who is it that says we English have no sense of humour? My "double" in +the preceding tale was my brother-in-law, who as a boy was the companion +of Mr. George Grossmith, and in fact once appeared as an amateur at +German Reed's, the old Gallery of Illustration, in a piece, with "Gee +Gee" as his double, entitled "Too much Alike." + +He was also an inveterate and clever _raconteur_, and of course +occasionally made a slip, as for instance, on a railway journey to +Brighton once, when he found himself alone with a stranger. The stranger +in conversation happened to ask my relative casually if he were fond of +travelling. "Travelling? I should rather think so" he replied airily, +and imagining he was impressing someone who was "something in the City," +he continued, "Yes, sir, I'm a pretty experienced traveller. Been mostly +round the world and all that kind of thing, you know, and had my share +of adventures, I can tell you!" After a bit he gained more confidence, +and launched into details, giving the stranger the benefit of his +experience. "Why, sir, you read in books that hunters of big game, such +as tigers, watch their eyes. Not a bit of it. What you have got to do +is to watch the _tail_, and that's the thing. It mesmerises the animal, +so to speak, and you have him at your mercy," and so forth, and so +forth. On arriving at the hotel he found his travelling companion had +just signed his name in the visitors' book. It was Richard Burton! My +brother-in-law hastened to apologise to Sir Richard for his absurd +tales. He had no idea, of course, to whom he was retailing his stiff +yarns. Burton laughed. "My dear sir, not a word, please. I was more +entertained than I can tell you. You really might have travelled--you +lie so well!" + +[Illustration: TWO TRAVELLERS.] + +One of the most eccentric men I ever met, and certainly one of the most +successful journalists--a _rara avis_, for he made a fortune in Fleet +Street, and retired to live in a castle in the country--was a man whose +name, although a very singular one, remains absolutely unknown even to +members of the Fourth Estate. He was a clever, hard-working journalist; +every line he wrote--and he was always writing--was printed and +well-paid for, but he never signed an article, whilst others, +journalists, specialists, poets, essayists--logrollers of high +degree--see their name often enough, are "celebrities," "men of the +time," fêted and written about, but eventually retire on the Civil List. +Eccentricity is the breath of their nostrils, their very existence +depends upon it, publicity is essential. My friend's eccentricity was +for his own pleasure. He lived in a frugal--some might think in a +miserly way--in two rooms in one of the Inns of Court. Perhaps I shall +be more correct if I say he _existed_ in one. A loaf of bread and half a +pint of milk was his daily fare. The room he slept in he worked in. The +other was empty, save for bundles of dusty old newspapers containing +articles from his ever active brain. "I keep this room," said he, "for +times when I am over-wrought. Then I shut myself up in it, and _roar_! +When by this process I have blown away my mental cobwebs, my brain +regains its pristine energy, and I go back to my study calm and +collected, having done no one any harm, and myself a lot of good." I +have dined at his Club with him in the most luxurious fashion, quite +regardless of expense. He was a capital host, but, like the magazines he +wrote for, he only appeared replete once a month. His Press work he +looked upon as mere bread and milk. His work was excellent, journalism +which editors term "safe," neither too brilliant nor too dull, certainly +having no trace whatever of eccentricity. + +I may here offer an opinion, and make a suggestion to young journalists, +and that is--safe, steady, dull mediocrity is what pays in the long run; +to attempt to be brilliant when not a genius is fatal. To have the +genius, brilliancy, pluck, and success means tremendous prosperity and +favour for a time, but the editors and the public tire of your +cleverness. You are too much in evidence. It is safer from a mere +business standpoint to be the steady, stupid tortoise than the brilliant +hare. The man or woman who writes a carefully thought-out essay is +flattered, and quoted, and talked about: for that article the writer may +possibly receive as many sovereigns as the writer of a newspaper article +receives shillings; but the shillings come every day, and the sovereigns +once a month. It is wiser in the long run to be satisfied with a loaf +and milk once a day than with a dinner at a Club every four weeks. + +If in the old days the Bohemian scribbler was not in Society, he could +at least imagine himself there. There was nothing to prevent his +speaking of a member of the aristocracy as "one of us" with far less +embarrassment and with as much truth as he could nowadays when he _is_ +invited--but still as the oil that never will mix with water. Except in +imagination--an imagination such as I recollect a well-known figure in +literary Bohemia had when I knew it well, a writer of stories for the +popular papers: Society stories, in which a Duke ran away with a +governess, or a Duchess eloped with an artist, each weekly instalment +winding up with a sensational event, so as to carry forward the interest +of the reader. This writer--quite excellent in his way--a thorough +Bohemian, knowing nothing about the Society he wrote about, had the +power of making himself, and sometimes fresh acquaintances, believe that +he played in real life a part in the story he was writing. He did not +refer to the experiences as related by him as incidents in his story, +but as actual events of the day. + +[Illustration: "THE DUKE OF BROADACRES."] + +"Brandy and soda? Thanks. My dear fellow, I feel a perfect wreck, shaken +to pieces. I had an experience to-day I shall never forget. I have just +arrived from Devonshire; ran down by a night train to look at a hunter +Lord Briarrose wanted to sell me. Bob--that is Briarrose--and I +travelled together. He is going to be married, you know; heiress; great +beauty--neighbour--rolling in wealth. I stopped at the Castle last +night, and before Bob was up I was on the thoroughbred and well over the +country, returning about eleven along the top of the cliffs. To my +horror, I saw a carriage and pair charging down a road which at one time +continued a long distance skirting the cliffs. Cliffs had fallen; road +cut off; unprotected; drop down cliff eight hundred feet on to pointed +rocks and deep sea. There was nothing between the runaway horses and the +cliff, except a storm-broken solitary tree with one branch curved over +the road. When the horses bolted, the groom fell off. There was only a +lady in the carriage, powerless to stop the frightened steeds dashing on +to death. As she approached I was electrified. Something told me she was +Bob's _fiancée_. A moment and I was charging the hunter under that tree. +Jumping up out of the saddle, I clasped the solitary branch with both +hands, and turning as an acrobat would on a trapeze, I hung by my legs, +hands downwards, calling to the lady to clasp them. The fiery steeds and +the oscillating carriage dashed under me--our hands met. With a +superhuman effort I raised the fainting fairy form out of the vehicle as +it passed like a whirlwind. The next moment horses and carriage were +being dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Under our united weight the +branch of the tree broke, and we fell unhurt on the moss-covered path. +When the eyes of the fair lady opened to gaze upon her deliverer, I +started as if shot. She sprang to her feet. 'Reginald!' she cried. 'Is +it you?' + +"She was my first love. We had not seen each other for years! Thanks. +I'll have some more brandy. Hot this time, with some sugar, please." + +The following week _The London Library_ appeared. I bought it, and read +"The Duke's Oak," all about Lord Briarrose and Lady Betty Buttercup and +the runaway horses. The tree with the one branch gave the title to the +story, and the Dashing Duke of Broadacres was the aristocratic +acrobat--my friend the author! + +[Illustration: FROM A SKETCH BY HERBERT JOHNSON.] + +The Savage Club is a remnant of Bohemian London. It was started at a +period when art, literature, and the drama were at their lowest ebb--in +the "good old days" when artists wore seedy velveteen coats, smoked +clays, and generally had their works of art exhibited in pawnbrokers' +windows; when journalists were paid at the same rate and received the +same treatment as office-boys; and when actors commanded as many +shillings a week as they do pounds at present. This typical trio now +exists only in the imagination of the lady novelist. When first the +little band of Savages met they smoked their calumets over a +public-house in the vicinity of Drury Lane, in a room with a sanded +floor; a chop and a pint of ale was their fare, and good-fellowship +atoned for lack of funds. The Brothers Brough, Andrew Halliday, Tom +Robertson, and other clever men were the original Savages, and the +latter in one of his charming pieces made capital out of an incident at +the Club. One member asks another for a few shillings. "Very sorry, old +chap, I haven't got it, but I'll ask Smith." Smith replies, "Not a cent +myself, but I'll ask Brown." Brown asks Robinson, and so on until a +Croesus is found with five shillings in his pocket, which he is only +too willing to lend. But this true Bohemianism is as dead as Queen Anne, +and the Savages now live merely on the traditions of the past. His +Majesty the King, when Prince of Wales, was a member of the Club, and an +Earl takes the chair and entertains my Lord Mayor with his flunkeys and +all. The Club is now as much advertised as the Imperial Institute, but +the true old flavour is no more. No doubt some excellent men and good +fellows are still in the Savage wigwam. Some Bohemians--a sprinkling of +those Micawbers, "waiting for something to turn up"--keep up its +reputation, but in reality it is only Savage now in name. + +[Illustration: THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN AS A SAVAGE.] + +I was not thirty when I ceased to be a member. I had been on the +committee, and had taken an active part in matters concerning it, until +it changed its character and lost its true Bohemian individuality, and +being a member of the Garrick Club, I found matured in it the element +the Savage endeavoured at that time to emulate. Although I am still in +my forties, few of those with whom I smoked the calumet of peace round +the camp fire at a great pow-wow in the wigwam of the excellent Savages, +alas! remain. + +The old Grecian Theatre in the City Road was the nursery of many members +of the theatrical profession, and authors too. Two well-known members +of the Savage Club, Merritt and Pettitt, were writers of the common +stuff necessary for the melodramas of the kind connected with their +names. Merritt would have made an equal fortune if exhibited as the +original fat boy in "Pickwick," or as a prize baby at a show. I suppose +my readers are aware that it is not necessary to be a baby in order to +be exhibited as one, for I recollect, in my Bohemian days, going down to +Woolwich Gardens when the famous William Holland was manager of them, +and accidentally strolling into a tent outside of which was a placard, +"The Largest Baby in the World! 6d." I was not expected,--and the "Baby" +was walking about in his baby-clothes, with little pink bows on his +shoulders, smoking a horrible black clay pipe. He was the dwarf +policeman in Holland's pantomime in the winter-time! + +[Illustration: "ANOTHER GAP IN OUR RANKS."] + +Merritt would have made a capital prize baby. He was tall, very stout, +and possessed of a perfectly hairless, baby's face and a squeaky little +voice. I shall never forget a prize remark this transpontine author made +in the Savage Club, when an editor rushed in and said, "Have you heard +the news? Carlyle is dead!" Merritt rose, and putting his hand on his +chest, squeaked out, "Another gap in our ranks!" + +[Illustration: "JOPE."] + +A peculiar figure in Bohemia in those old days was "J." Pope, known as +"Jope," brother of the late celebrated K.C. Jo was nearly as large as +his brother, the well-known legal luminary, and Paul Merritt rolled into +one, and wore his black wide-awake on the back of his pleasing, +intelligent head. I saw him one sultry autumn evening leaning against a +lamp-post in Chancery Lane to take breath. + +"Hullo, Pope, where are you going?" + +"My dear boy, let me lean on you a minute. I'm going up to the +Birkbeck--to lecture--to lecture on 'Air, and How We Breathe!'" + +As a contrast to the popular Doctor was a wit more popularly known, H. J. +Byron--as thin as the proverbial lamp-post. Of course the stories about +Byron would fill a volume, but there is one that is always worth +repeating, and that is his reply to a vulgar and obtrusive stranger who +met him at Plymouth, and said to him, "Mr. Byron, I've 'ad a walk _h_all +round the 'Oe." + +"Yes, old chap, and the next time you have a walk I advise you to walk +all round the H." + +[Illustration: H. J. BYRON.] + +In those merry gatherings I recall the familiar features of true +Bohemians, when Bohemianism was at its best--not the ornamental names of +those one finds mentioned in all reports of the famous gatherings, but +of the members who really used and made the Club. Few of the outside +public recollect, for instance, the name of Arthur Mathieson, who wrote +and sang that pathetic ballad, "The Little Hero"; who also was an actor +and writer of ability,--in fact, he was what is fatal to men of his +class--a veritable Crichton. Being in appearance not unlike Sir Henry +Irving, he was engaged by our leading actor to play his double in "The +Corsican Brothers," and made up so like his chief that no one could +possibly tell the difference between the two. One evening during the run +of the piece an old Irishwoman who was duster of the theatre, and with +whom the genial double of Sir Henry often had a friendly word, +approached as she thought the familiar M., and in a rather frivolous +mood innocently tickled the actor under the chin with her dusting-broom. + +"My good woman, what do you mean?" + +The poor Irishwoman dropped on her knees, clasped her hands and said, +"The Saints protect me! it's the Masther himself--I'm kilt entoirely." + +The "Masther," however, probably enjoyed the humour of it. Sir Henry, +like his dear old friend Mr. J. L. Toole, has found a relief in +occasional harmless fun. Toole, however, was irrepressible. + +[Illustration: A PRESENTATION.] + +I was one day walking with him in Leeds (when he was appearing in the +evening on the stage, and I on the platform). A street hawker proffered +the comedian a metal pencil-case for the sum of a halfpenny. Toole made +this valuable purchase. As soon as I left the platform that night, I +found a note for me, inviting me to the theatre directly after the +performance. Toole came back on to the stage, and making me an elaborate +and complimentary speech, referring to me as "a brother artist in +another sphere," etc., etc., presented me with the pencil! I made an +appropriate reply, and we went to supper. + +The following paragraph from the pen of Mr. Toole appeared in the Press +the next day in London as well as the provinces: + +"Brother artists, even when working in different grooves, do not lack +appreciation of each other's work. After Mr. Harry Furniss's lecture in +Leeds the other night, he and Mr. Toole foregathered; and the popular +and genial actor presented the 'comedian of the pencil' with a very neat +and handsome pencil-case, just adapted for the jotting down, wherever +duty takes him, of those graphic sketches with which the caricaturist +amuses us week by week." + +I must confess I am sometimes guilty of mild practical jokes, but I am +always careful to select reciprocative and kindred spirits--with such a +spirit of practical joking as J. L. Toole, for instance. He and I have +had many a joke at each other's expense. It so happened that when he was +producing the great success, "The House Boat," he wintered at Hastings, +where I had a house for the season, and we saw a great deal of each +other. Toole was always what is called a bad study--that is, it was with +great difficulty and pain he learnt his parts. On this occasion the time +was drawing nearer and nearer for the production; he was getting more +and more nervous about his new part, and I received a visit from his +friend the late Edmund Routledge, asking me to protect "Johnny" from his +friends--in other words, to keep his whereabouts dark, as he had to +study. Toole had had one or two little practical jokes with me, which I +owed him for, so having to rush up to town, I had the following letter +written to him: + + "DEAR MR. TOOLE,--I suppose you recollect your old friends in Smoketown +when you performed one night at our Hall and did us the honour of +stopping at our house over Sunday. You then kindly asked us all to stop +with you when we went to London--a promise we have treasured ever since. +We called at Maida Vale yesterday, but finding you were at Hastings I +write now to say that we are on our way. Besides myself I am bringing +dear Aunt Jane you will remember--now unfortunately a confirmed +invalid--and my boy Tom who has got a bad leg, and Uncle William and his +three daughters, and my dear Sue, who, I am sorry to say, is still +suffering, but I think a week at Hastings will do us all a world of +good--particularly to have you to amuse us all the time. + + "Yours very truly," + +And a signature was attached which I could not myself read. + +The next day in London a hansom pulled up close to where I was walking, +and a friend of Toole's jumped out, and, seizing my hand, he said, "I +say, Furniss, you travel about a lot, lecturing and all that kind of +thing--do you know Smoketown?" + +[Illustration: SAVAGE CLUB. + MY DESIGN FOR THE MENU 25TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER. +_The Original Drawing was by request presented to His Royal Highness._] + +"Smoketown!" I said, "Smoketown!" (Truth to tell, at the moment I had +quite forgotten all about my letter to Toole; then it dawned upon me.) +"Oh, yes--well," I said; "I had one night there, and some frightful +friends of Toole's bored my life out. He had invited them, I believe, to +stop with him in London, and they--" + +"Just the people I want. What's their name?" + +"I forget that entirely." + +"Can you read this?" he said, producing my letter. + +"No," I said; "I can't read that signature." + +"Do you know where they are likely to put up in town?" + +"Not the slightest idea." + +"I've tried every hotel in London." + +"Temperance?" I asked. + +"No, not one. Happy thought!--of course that is where they'll be." + +"Try them all," I said, as I waved my hand. And off the cab rushed to +visit the various temperance hotels in London. + +The next day I returned to Hastings, and went straight to Mr. Toole's +hotel. Getting the hall porter into my confidence, he sent up a message +to Mr. Toole that a gentleman with a large family had arrived to see +him; and the porter and I made the noise of ten up the stairs, and +eventually the gentleman and family were announced at Toole's door. I +shall never forget poor Toole, standing in an attitude so familiar to +the British public, with his eye-glass in his hand and his eyes cast on +the ground--he was afraid to raise them. As soon as he did, however, his +other hand caught the first book that was handy, and it was flung at my +head. + +Bohemianism, when I arrived in London, was emigrating from the tavern of +sanded floors and clay pipes into Clubland. Artists, authors, actors, +and journalists were starting clubs of their own, simply to continue the +same pot-house life without restraint; in place of turning the +public-house into a club, they turned the club into a public-house. If +journalists in Grub Street were at their worst in those days, artists +were at their best. The great boom in trade which followed the +Franco-German War produced a wave of extraordinary prosperity, which +landed many a tramp struggling in troubled waters safely on the beach of +fortune. Working men in the North were drinking champagne; some of them +rose to be masters and millionaires. They tired of drinking champagne, +they could not play the pianos they had bought, or enjoy the mansions +they had built; but they could rival each other in covering their walls +with pictures, so the poorest "pot-boiler" found a ready sale. The most +indifferent daubs were sold as quickly as they could be framed. Artists +then built their mansions, drank champagne, and played on their grand +pianos. When I, still in my teens, first met these good fellows, I might +have been tempted, seeing what wretched work satisfied the +picture-dealer, to abandon black and white for colour; but already the +boom was over. Artists, like their patrons, had found out their mistake. +They had either to let or sell their costly houses, and have, with few +exceptions, little to show now for those wonderful days of prosperity in +the early seventies--which they still talk over in their clubs in +Bohemia. + +[Illustration] + +The few exceptions are the survival of the fittest. But the best of +artists have never seen such a boom in art as that I saw in my early +days in London. It cannot be denied that, from a fashionable point of +view, picture shows are going down. Artists have had to stand on one +side as popular Society favourites: the actors have taken their place. +One has only to visit the studios on "Show Sundays" to see what a +falling off there is. "Show Sunday" was, some years ago, one of the +events of the year. From Kensington to St. John's Wood, and up to +Hampstead, the studios of the mighty attracted hosts of fashionable +people to these annual gatherings. + +A familiar figure at these for many years was the genial Sir Spencer +Wells, the well-known surgeon. He lived monarch of all he surveyed at +Golder's Hill, Hampstead, and many a morning I met him when riding, and +we jogged into town together. He was a capital _raconteur_, a happy wit, +and told one incident I always recall to mind as I pass a house on the +top of Fitzjohn's Avenue, where a few years ago lived, painted and +"received" that Wilson Barrett of the brush, Edwin Long, R.A., a +hard-working, self-made artist who amassed a fortune by successfully +gauging the taste of the large middle-class English public in mixing +religion with voluptuous melodrama. On the annual "Show Sunday" no +studio was more popular than Long's. His subjects perhaps had something +to do with it. They were in keeping with the Sabbath. The work too was +as smooth and as highly finished as the most orthodox sermon. _Ars longa +est._ Yes, said some cynic, but art is not Long. But anyway Long's art +was commercially successful, and he was what is known as "a good +business man." + +[Illustration] + +As haberdashers in the days of crude advertising used to place men in +costume at the shop door--a fireman when they were selling off a damaged +salvage stock, or a sailor or, if a _very_ enterprising tradesman, a +diver, helmet and all, when selling off goods damaged from a wreck--so +did this Academician, when exhibiting Biblical subjects on "Show +Sunday," engage a Nubian model to stand at the door of his shop. This +man had also to announce the names of the guests, and when the small, +spectacled, simple man with the large smile gave his name, Sir Spencer +Wells, the model pulled himself up to his full height and in his best +English proudly and loudly announced to the crowd in the studio-- + +"The Prince of Wales!" + +The effect was magical: all fell in line, ladies curtseyed, men bowed, +when the Prince of Hampstead Heath entered. The artist looked as black +as his model, and the visitors laughed. + +At the other end of Fitzjohn's Avenue once lived that ever popular +Academician, the late Mr. John Pettie. Mr. Pettie was a vigorous +draughtsman and a beautiful colourist, and many of his portraits are +very fine. He seemed to revel in painting a red coat--an object to many +painters as maddening as it is to the infuriated bull. On one "Show +Sunday" before the sending-in day of the Royal Academy, at which he +exhibited, I recollect admiring a portrait of Mr. Lamb, the celebrated +golfer, in his red coat, when the original of the portrait came into the +studio. Not feeling very well, Mr. Pettie had to avoid the crowd of his +admirers seeing him. There were a few exceptions, of which I was one. I +had just left him when I saw Mr. Lamb before his picture. In this +portrait the "bulger" golf club--which Mr. Lamb, I believe, invented, to +the delight of the golfing world--is introduced. I ran back to Mr. +Pettie and told him that there was a stupid man in the studio wanting to +know why artists always draw golf clubs wrongly; that as a Scotchman he +must protest against such a club, which was out of shape, like a club +foot. "Tell him, mon, it's a bulger--Lamb's invention!" I returned. "He +wants to know who Mr. Lamb is, and what is a bulger?--perhaps it's a new +kind of hunting-crop and not a golf club at all?" In rushed Mr. Pettie, +like an enraged lion, to slay the ignorant visitor, but in reality to +shake hands with Mr. Lamb and explain my childish joke. + +Leaving Pettie, I called at a studio near Hampstead occupied by a very +clever Irish artist, who was very much depressed when I entered. Gazing +in bewilderment at his picture for the Academy, representing Milton with +his daughters in his garden at Chalfont St. Giles, he said-- + +"Furniss, I'm in an awful state entoirely over this picture. One of +those critic fellows has been in here, and he tells me this picture +won't do at all at all. I've painted in Milton's garden as I've seen it, +but the critic tells me that these are all modern flowers and weren't +known in the country in the poet's time. Now, what on earth am Oi to +do?" + +"Oh, don't bother about those critics," I said. "They know nothing. +Milton was blind, don't you know, so how could he tell whether the +flowers were correct or not?" + +"Begorrah, Furniss, you're right. Oi never thought of that. It's just +like those ignorant critic chaps to upset a fellow in this way." + + + + + CHAPTER III. + +MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST. + +[Illustration: DISTRESS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY. _Acting as Special Artist +for The Illustrated London News._] + + The Light Brigade--Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)--Slumming--The Boat + Race--Realism--A Phantasmagoria--Orlando and the Caitiff--Fancy Dress + Balls--Lewis Wingfield--Cinderella--A Model--All Night Sitting--An + Impromptu Easel--"Where there's a Will there's a Way"--The American + Sunday Papers--I am Deaf--The Grill--The World's + Fair--Exaggeration--Personally Conducted--The Charnel House--10, + Downing Street--I attend a Cabinet Council--An Illustration by Mr. + Labouchere--The Great Lincolnshire Trial--Praying without Prejudice. + +[Illustration: AT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE. (_Reduction of +Large Drawing._)] + + +Sir William Russell and I were called upon at a banquet in the City to +respond to the toast of the Press. Sir William made one of his +characteristic, graceful little speeches, reminiscential and modest. +When I rose I was for a moment also reminiscential--but not modest. "My +Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Masters of this Worshipful Company,--I +appreciate the appropriateness in coupling my name with that of Sir +William Russell, for both of us have made a noise in the world at the +same time--Dr. Russell with his first war letters to the _Times_, and I +in my cradle, for I came into this troubled world while others in arms +were making a noise in the Crimea." + +[Illustration: AS SPECIAL AT THE BALACLAVA CELEBRATION.] + +Naturally for this reason I have always taken an interest in the doings +of that time; so it was quite _con amore_ that I acted as "special" at +the first Balaclava Celebration Banquet (1875), twenty years after +"Billy" Russell's first war letters and my first birthday. + +The roll-call on the occasion was funny, seeing that it was that of the +"Light Brigade"--some were "light" and many were heavy--one I recollect +was about eighteen stone. The banquet was held in the Alexandra Palace, +Muswell Hill. The visitors, except the military--past or present--were +shamefully treated. We had to stand all the time behind the chairs and +wearily watch a scene not altogether elevating to lookers-on. We were +not allowed a chair to sit on, nor any refreshment of any kind--not even +if we paid for it; and I well recollect how hungry I was when I returned +to my studio after a tedious journey at 1 in the morning, having had +nothing to eat since 1 of the previous day. Such Red Tape was, I +suppose, to illustrate the disgraceful arrangements of the commissariat +in the Crimea! I was standing close to Miss Thompson (Lady Butler), who +had just become famous by her picture "The Roll Call." She was making +notes, and possibly intended painting a sequel to her celebrated +picture. She was exhausted and tired, and no doubt too disgusted by such +ungallant conduct on the part of the organisers of the banquet to touch +the subject. Had she painted this particular roll-call I fear many of +the figures would have had to be drawn out of the perpendicular. + +Twenty years before one of the heroes was, possibly, a better and a +wiser man, and tackled the "Rooshins" with greater dexterity than he +displayed on this occasion in managing a jelly. He had waiters to right +of him, waiters to left of him, and waiters behind him, but that jelly +defeated him, although he charged it with fork, spoon, and finally with +fingers. + +From a very early age it was naturally my ambition to be introduced to +Mr. Punch, but this was not to be just yet, and the first London paper +for which I drew regularly was the _Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic +News_, which was started soon after I arrived in London. I continued to +work for it until it was bought by the proprietor of the _Illustrated +London News_, when I became a large contributor to that leading +illustrated paper. + +Most of my work for the _Illustrated London News_ consisted of single +and double pages of character sketches, in which Eton and Harrow cricket +matches, Oxford and Cambridge boat races, tennis meetings, the Lawn at +Goodwood, and many other scenes of English life were treated +pictorially; but I also acted sometimes in the capacity of a special +correspondent, and this duty sometimes took me into places far from +pleasant. + +[Illustration: DISTRESS IN THE NORTH. _Page (reduction), "Illustrated +London News." Republished by permission of the proprietors._] + +On my twenty-fourth Christmas, the year after I was married, I recollect +having to start off upon such a mission to the North of England, where, +owing to strikes and labour disputes, most distressing scenes were +taking place. Throwing myself into the work, I thoroughly ferreted out +the distress which prevailed, pursuing my investigations into the very +garrets of the poor starving creatures whose privacy I thus disturbed at +the entreaty and under the escort of the district visitors and other +benevolent people, whilst the criminal classes also came in for a share +of my observation, which in this case was conducted under the sheltering +wing of a detective. + +I cannot, however, say that my energy met with its due reward, for such +was the realism with which I had treated the subject allotted to me +that the editor and proprietors of the _Illustrated London News_ were +reluctant to shock the susceptibilities of their readers by presenting +them with such scenes, and I had to substitute for them sketches of soup +kitchens, committee meetings and refuges. That the editorial decision +was not a sound one was amply proved a few years later, when during a +somewhat similar crisis Mr. G. R. Sims and the late Mr. Fred Barnard +published work of a similar breadth and boldness with signal effect. + +Visiting slums, seeing death from want and misery on all sides, is +certainly not the most pleasant way of spending the festive season. In +company with detectives, clergymen, or self-sacrificing district +visitors, you may swallow the pill with the silver on; but try it +single-handed, and it is a very different affair. I was taken for some +demon rent-collector prowling about, and was peered at through broken +windows and doors, and received with language warm enough to thaw the +icicles. The sketches I made during the weeks I spent in the haunts of +want and misery would have made a startling volume, but time and money +were thrown away, and only the perfunctory pictures were published. The +public have no idea, or seldom think, of the great trouble and expense +incurred in faithfully depicting everyday scenes. Still, it is not +possible for a "special" even to see everything, or to be in two places +simultaneously; and consequently, in ordinary pictorial representations, +dummy figures are frequently looked upon as true portraits. One boat +race, for example, is very much like another. Some years ago I executed +a panoramic series of sketches of the University Race from start to +finish, and as they were urgently wanted, the drawings had to be sent in +the same day. Early in the morning, before the break of fast, I found +myself at Putney, rowing up to Mortlake, taking notes of the different +points on the way--local colour through a fog. Getting home before the +Londoners started for the scene, I was at work, and the drawings--minus +the boats--were sent in shortly after the news of the race. The figures +were imaginary and unimportant, but one correspondent wrote to point out +the exact spot where he stood, and complained of my leaving out the +black band on his white hat, and placing him too near a pretty girl, +adding that his wife, who had not been present, had recognised his +portrait. + +Yes, I must confess, one has often to draw upon the imagination even in +serious "realism," Some years ago I went with a colleague of the pen to +illustrate and describe the dreadful scenes which were said to take +place in St. James's Park, where the poor people were seen to sleep all +night on the seats. We arrived about 2 A.M. It was a beautiful moonlight +night, but though we walked up and down for hours not a soul came in +sight. My companion said, "It's a bad business; we cannot do anything +with this." I replied, "We must not go away without something to show; +now if you will lie down I will make a sketch of you, and then I will +lie down and you can describe me." + +[Illustration: REALISM!] + +One of the most "uncanny" experiences I ever had as a "special" I find +graphically described by the late Hon. Lewis Wingfield, who accompanied +me on the strange mission. + +[Illustration: "THE CAITIFF" AND ORLANDO.] + +"Winter without. Snow. A sea of billows drifting across the sky, +glittering, frosted--a symphony in metals--silver, aluminium, +lead--rendered buoyant for the nonce, ethereal--as though the world were +really gone Christmas mad, and, having a sudden attack of topsy-turvydom +in its inside, had taken to showering its treasures about the firmament, +instead of keeping them snugly put away in mines below ground. A sheet +of snow, and bitter white rain driving still. A huge building looming +black, its many eyes staring into the dark--lidless, bilious, vacant. +This is a hospital. Or is it a factory, disguised with a veneer of the +Puginesque? Or an æsthetic barrack? Or an artistic workhouse? Visible +yet, under falling snow which has not had time to cover them, are +flower-beds, shrub-plots, meandering walks. Too genteel and ambitious +for the most æsthetic of workhouses or advanced of hospitals, we +wonder what the building is; and our wonder is not decreased by seeing a +postern opened in a huge black wall, from which a handful of +conspirators creep silently. We rub our eyes. Are we dreaming? Is this, +or is it not, the age of scientific marvels, levelling of castes, +rampant communism, murder, agrarian outrage, sudden massacre?--the _olla +podrida_ which we are pleased to denominate enlightenment? That first +black figure is James the Second. Heavens! The Jacobites live yet, and +will join, doubtless, with the Fenians and Mr. Bradlaugh, and a _posse +comitatus_ of iconoclasts, to upset the reign of order, and add a thorn +to the chaplet of our hard-run Premier. James the Second. Not a doubt of +it. There he is--periwig, black velvet, and bugles. Where, oh where, is +the Great Seal, with which he played ducks and drakes in the Thames? Yet +no. This is no Jacobite plot, for His Majesty is followed by no troop of +partisans on tiptoe in hose and doublet. He is not seeking to win his +own again. A woodman trudges behind--we recognise him, for his name's +"Orlando"--(Wingfield himself, in a beautiful costume, which he had made +two years previously when playing the part of Orlando in a production of +"As You Like It" in Manchester, the Calvert Memorial performance; Miss +Helen Faucit (Lady Martin), Rosalind; Herman Merivale, Touchstone; Tom +Taylor, Adam; and other well-known celebrities assisting). Then he +describes me: "A muffled creature of sinister aspect. Short, +auburn-locked, extinguished by a portentous hat, tripping and stumbling +over a cloak, or robe, in whose dragging folds he conceals his identity +as well as his power of volition, a weird and gruesome phantom. +What--oh what--is this hovering ghost? He must be just defunct, for the +purgatorial garments fit him not, he stumbles at every step, and when he +trips an underdress is unveiled that's like a City waiter's. What is +he--the arch conspirator--doing himself? He starts, tries to conceal a +book, but we snatch it from him. Sketches! lots of sketches! +caricatures, low and vulgar portraits of ourselves! 'What are you?' we +scream, 'and why this orgy? Speak, caitiff, or for ever hold your +peace!' + +[Illustration] + +"Perceiving that we are in earnest and not to be trifled with, and glare +with forbidding mien, the caitiff speaks in trembling accents. 'If you +please,' he says, 'I'm the artist from the great illustrated journal; +I'm drawing pictures of the lunatics. My disguise is beyond my own +control, and trips me up, but I'm told it's becoming.' 'Lunatics!' we +echo. + +"'Yes,' the caitiff murmurs. 'This is the annual fancy dress ball at +Brookwood Asylum. You and I and the doctors and attendants are the only +sane people in the place. By-and-by the country gentry will be admitted, +and then the tangle will be hopeless, for even in everyday life it's +impossible to know who's mad and who isn't. How much more here?' + +"We left the trembling caitiff to his secret sketching, and the +despondency produced by his appearance. He was sane, was he? Then in him +were we revenged on human nature, for sure never was mortal more +oppressed by his gear and his surroundings." + +The fact is that my editor, in sending his "young man," omitted to say +that the invitation was crossed with "fancy dress only," so I arrived in +ordinary war-paint. The Doctor was horrified. "This will never do. My +patients will resent it. You _must_ be in fancy dress." All my host +could find was a seedy red curtain and an old cocked hat (had it been a +nightcap I should have been complete as Caudle). I wrapped this martial +cloak around me, and soon found myself in the most extraordinary scene, +so graphically described by Wingfield. He was not alone in his scorn +for me. The "Duke of York" had a great contempt for my appearance, but +when introduced to him as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, he +unbent, waved his bauble, and commanded me to be seated. The visitors +eyed me suspiciously all the evening, and on my entering the +supper-room, accompanied by the Doctor, they were seized with the idea +that I must be a very dangerous case, and readily made room--in fact, +made off. One of the poor patients was an artist, and showed me his +sketch-book, the work of many, many months--a number of drawings in +colour, stuck one on top of the other, resembling an elongated +concertina, so that only the corners of the pages could be seen. The +patients wore costumes designed and made by themselves, in marked +contrast to their stylish keepers. Among the guests the county families +were well represented, and garrison officers from a neighbouring depôt +formed a motley group which a looker-on, viewing the scene as in a +kaleidoscope, would laugh at. One turn, and the next moment some +incident might occur which an imaginative brain could easily work into a +romance too touching to relate. + +For some years I had quite a run of fancy dress balls, a craze at that +time, acting as special artist for various periodicals, the _Illustrated +London News_ in particular. The ball above recorded was unique, but +there is very little variety in such gatherings, where variety is the +one thing aimed at, thus showing the limit of our English artistic +invention. The ingredients of a ball of three hundred, say, would be as +follows,--Thirty Marie Stuarts, ten Marguerites, twenty-eight Fausts, +fifty Flower Girls, nine Portias, three Clowns, sixteen Matadores, +thirty Sailors, twenty-five Ophelias, twenty-five Desdemonas, the +remainder uniforms and nondescripts. Of course any popular figure, +picture or play of the moment will be represented. When the relief of +Mafeking took place, the number of Baden-Powells, tall, short, young, +old, thin and stout, in the various fancy balls and bazaars appearing +will be, as newspaper leader-writers say, "a fact fresh in the mind of +the reader." Some years ago a portrait of the "missing Gainsborough," a +picture of the Duchess of Devonshire, which mysteriously vanished from +Agnew's gallery in Bond Street, was represented in dozens at the fancy +balls of the period, and the Gilbert-Sullivan opera "Patience," supplied +many a costume. My brother "special" on this occasion--Lewis +Wingfield--was a Crichton of eccentricity. The son of an Irish peer, an +officer in the Guards, he dressed as a ballet-girl and danced on the +stage; was a journalist and wrote for Charles Dickens when that great +novelist edited _Household Words_. Wingfield never did anything by +halves, so in writing a series of articles for Dickens on the casual +wards of London he personated a street photographer (having delicate +hands he could not pretend to be a labourer), and wrote his experiences +of the dreadful state of affairs existing in those days under the rule +of Bumbledom. The last he sought relief at was situated close to Golden +Square. Here he was very harshly treated, and when he left he rapidly +changed into his usual clothes, drove up to the establishment as one of +the life patrons (all his family had for years supported the charity), +and had the satisfaction of dismissing the overbearing overseer, to the +wretch's chagrin. Wingfield related this incident with great glee. + +[Illustration: AT A FANCY DRESS BALL.] + +Anxious to find out the amount niggers made on the Derby Day, he decided +to go as a burnt-cork nigger himself; but it is impossible to do this +unless you are of that ilk, for like the business of the beggars and +street performers, everything is properly organised; there is a proper +system and superintendent to arrange matters. After some difficulty he +managed to get introduced as the genuine article, and at 4 in the +morning had to stand with the other Ethiopian minstrels at "Poverty +Junction," between Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Station, while lots were +drawn for positions on the course. As luck would have it, Wingfield drew +a pitch opposite the Grand Stand, where at least he would be among his +own acquaintances. All the niggers had to walk to Epsom, unless it +happened some friendly carter could be induced to offer a seat. Had +four-in-hands come along Wingfield might have been saved a walk, but +costers were to him unknown. By lunch-time he was heartily sick of his +new life. However, he was determined to carry it through. In the +evening, after his long, hot day's work, he found he had to wait for the +policeman's train. After the half-million people had returned to London, +he was allowed to crawl into a carriage, and being thoroughly tired he +fell asleep in a corner of the compartment. But the police wanted some +entertainment, and waking him up, said: + +"Now then, darky, tune up! we can pay you as well as the toffs; let's +have a song!" They had a concert all the way, Wingfield singing the +solos. The hat was sent round and a collection made, and to the bitter +end Wingfield had to bang away at his banjo and squeak with what little +voice he had left. This nearly finished him. Arriving at Victoria, he +hailed a hansom. One driver after another eyed him scornfully and passed +on. He then for the first time realised that it is not a customary thing +for an itinerant nigger to drive about London in hansoms, even on Derby +Day. So he dragged himself wearily along the streets until he happened +to meet an intimate friend. To him he explained matters, and his friend +called a hansom for him and paid the driver as well before he would take +up his dusky fare. He thought the fact of his driving a street nigger a +great joke, and made merry over his passenger as he passed the other +drivers. But he was very much astonished when he drove up in front of +quite an imposing dwelling and saw the door opened by a footman as the +nigger toiled up the steps. + +[Illustration: LEWIS WINGFIELD AS A STREET NIGGER HOME FROM THE DERBY.] + +As an artist Wingfield was ambitious. Finding, as he told me, that he +could never be a great artist, he preferred not to be one at all. On his +walls were large classic paintings, not likely ever to find their way to +the walls of anyone else. But he tried his hand at popular art as well. +A scene in a circus, for instance, was one subject. A pretty little +child was engaged to sit in his studio, but as that day he was going to +Hengler's Circus to paint the background he, to the delight of the +child, took her with him. The little girl played about in the ring, and +was noticed by Mr. Hengler, who asked her if she would like to be +dressed up and play in the same ring at night. This led to the child +becoming a professional. She enchanted everyone as Cinderella. Her name +was Connie Gilchrist. I fell in love with her myself when I was in my +teens and first saw her as Cinderella. Afterwards when I came to London +I was as ignorant as a Lord Chief Justice as to who Connie Gilchrist +was; but I recollect a model sitting to me recommending my writing to +her younger sister for some figures she thought her sister would suit. +The day was fixed, but by the morning's post I received a letter from +the young lady to say that Mr. Hollingshead, of the Gaiety Theatre, had +sent for her, and she could not sit to me. She was Connie Gilchrist, and +I believe this was the last engagement she had accepted as a +professional model. + +Telegram from the editor of the _Illustrated London News_:--"Election, +Liverpool, see to it at once." So I did. On arriving in the evening, I +rushed off to a "ward meeting," To my surprise the artist of a rival +paper sat down beside me. He did not frighten me away, but candidly +confessed that he had seen a private telegram of mine saying I was +starting, and his editor packed him off by the same train. Ha! I must be +equal to him! I sat up all night and drew a page on wood, ready for +engraving, and sent it off by the first train in the morning. It was in +the press before my rival's rough notes left Liverpool. One would hardly +think, to see candles stuck in my boots, that the hotel was the Old +Adelphi. I trust the "special" of the future will find the electric +light, or a better supply of bedroom candlesticks. All day again +sketching, and all night hard at work, burning the midnight oil (I was +nearly writing boots). A slice of luck kept me awake in the early +morning. A knock at my door, and to my surprise a friend walked in who +had come down by a night train for a "daily" and seeing my name in the +visitors' book had looked me up, thinking I could give him some "tips." +"All right," I said; "a bargain: you sit for me and I'll talk. Here, +stand like this"--the Liberal candidate. "Capital! Now round like +this"--the Conservative. "Drawn from life! And after another day of this +kind of thing, I reached home without having had an hour's sleep. Oh! a +"special's" life is not a happy one. + +[Illustration: AN ALL-NIGHT SITTING.] + +Great political excitement, there is no doubt, turns men's heads. Once I +recollect finding a most dignified provincial politician in this state, +and necessity compelled me to turn him into a sketching-stool. Mr. +Gladstone was speaking at Bingley Hall, Birmingham, and although close +to him on the platform, I could not, being only five feet two, see over +the heads of others when all stood to cheer. I mentioned this fact to my +neighbour. "Oh, you must not miss this scene!" he said, and quickly, +without ceremony, he had me on his back, his bald head serving as an +easel. It has struck me since that had this old gentleman, a big man in +his native town, and still bigger in his own estimation, seen himself as +others saw him at that moment, the probability is that he would not +have felt anything like so kindly to me as I did to him. + +[Illustration: SKETCHES AT THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION: A WARD MEETING.--SEE +PAGE 138. + +_Reduction of Page Design. Brush Drawing on wood, made after election +meeting at night, and despatched to London by early morning train. See +the Confessions of a Special Artist._] + +Another instance of a special artist having to depend upon his wits was +when I found myself at a big central manufacturing town, sent down in a +hurry from London by the _Illustrated London News_ to illustrate a most +important election meeting--an election upon which the fate of the +Government of the day depended. When I arrived the mills had been +closed, crowds were in the streets, and it would have been a simple +matter to have got into Mafeking compared with getting into the hall in +which the meeting was at the time being held. + +[Illustration: MY EASEL. DRAWING MR. GLADSTONE AT A PUBLIC MEETING.] + +If there is one thing I dislike more than another it is a crowd, +particularly an electioneering crowd. Political fever is a bad malady, +even when one is impervious to it, if he has to fight his way through an +infected mob. Quickly slipping round to the principal hotel, and finding +there the carriages engaged for the celebrities of the meeting, I got +into one and was driven rapidly up to the hall, cheered by the mob, who +doubtless looked upon me as some active politician. Had I put my head +out of the window and promised them any absurdity, I believe they would +have chosen me their member on the spot. Arriving at the hall, I was +received by the tipstaffs, who, probably not catching my name +distinctly, thought as the hotel people had done, that I was sent down +in some official capacity, and politely ushered me to the platform, +where I was given a seat in the front row. + +Ah, you little know the difficulties of the poor artist in running his +subjects to earth. When in New York I was specially engaged by the _New +York Herald_ to contribute a series of studies of the leading public +men. These were to appear in the Sunday edition. + +Those Sunday papers! What gluttons for reading the Americans are! The +first Sabbath morning I was in the States I telephoned in an off-hand +sort of way from my bedroom for "some Sunday papers." I went on +dressing, and somehow forgot my order, but on leaving, or rather +attempting to leave, my room afterwards, I found to my astonishment the +doorway completely blocked with newspapers to the quantity of several +tons. I rang my bell vigorously. The attendant arrived, and seemed +considerably amused at my look of consternation. He explained to me that +these were five of the Sunday papers, and added apologetically that they +were all he could get at present. If I had stayed to read through that +pile I should be in the States now. + +[Illustration: THE AMERICAN SUNDAY PAPERS.] + +The first "subject" I was requested to caricature was the celebrated +sensational preacher, Dr. Parkhurst. When I arrived at his church it was +crowded to the doors, and I could not get near him. A churchwarden told +me to sit down where I was, but I put my hand to my ear and shook my +head, as much as to say "I do not hear you." Then one churchwarden said +to the other churchwarden, "This man is deaf, he doesn't hear; I was +telling him to sit down--" + +"Pardon me, but are you speaking?" I whispered. "I regret to say that I +am very deaf. I came specially from London to hear your great preacher, +and I should not like to return without gratifying this one desire I +have." + +"Say, is your wife here to-day?" asked one churchwarden of the other. + +"No, she is sick at home." + +"Could not you squeeze this funny little Britisher into your pew?" + +"Guess I could." + +So they beckoned to me to follow them, and I was ushered up the aisle +and sat under the Doctor. The result of that little manoeuvre was that +I did my work in peace, although sadly troubled to see his face in +consequence of the church being dark and the reading lamp hiding portion +of it. + +In America introductions are superfluous, so knowing Dr. Parkhurst came +over in the _Germanic_, the same ship that I travelled in some months +later, I walked boldly after the service into his room, shook him by the +hand, and mentioned in a familiar way the officers of the ship, the +storm, and other matters connected with his journey, and in that way had +the chance of ten minutes' chat and a closer observation of his facial +expression. + +It may happen, even when everything is carefully prepared to make the +visit of a special artist easy and comfortable, that work may be +difficult to accomplish. I must go to the United States for an +illustration of what I mean. + +Some years ago I met Max O'Rell at a London club, and was introduced by +him to a very English-looking gentleman with an American accent, who +immediately said: + +"Glad to meet you, Mr. Furniss. When you come over to the States we must +put you on the grill!" + +What did he mean? I looked at Max. Max turned pale, and seemed for a +moment to lose his self-possession, then hurriedly whispered in my ear: + +"Jolly good fellow--very witty--president of strange club in America +where they chaff their guests--see my last book!" + +I recollected reading about a club that goes in for roasting as well as +toasting its guests, and replied: + +"Strange!" I said. "I always thought the Americans were in advance of +the English; yet here in my country we do not put the Furniss on the +grill, but the grill on the furnace!" + +Max laughed and looked relieved, and said: + +"You'll do--they'll let you off easy. A Frenchman can't stand chaff, so +I sat down." + +He had stood the fire of the enemy upon the field of battle, but he +couldn't stand the fusillade of wit from the Americans at their dinner +table. + +The stranger was no other than Major Moses P. Handy, afterwards "Chief +of Department of Publicity and Promotion at the World's Columbian +Exposition, Chicago;" so when I found myself in the "Windy City" as an +unattached "special" from the Old World to the New "World's Fair," I +called at Rand-McNally Buildings, not to be put on the grill, but to be +put in possession of some facts concerning that great "Exposition." + +[Illustration: MAJOR HANDY.] + +Sometimes there is a great deal in a name. For instance, the late Major +Handy at once indicated the man--handy, always ready with tongue, hands +and legs. He handed me round the city, told me of its wonders, and sent +me off enraptured to the "Exposition." Here I was met by one of the +staff, and escorted all over the skeleton of what eventually proved to +be the most wonderful "Exposition," Exhibition, World's Fair, or +whatever you like to call it, that the New World had ever seen. + +The gentleman in possession who met me and acted as my guide was a +clean-cut featured, smooth-faced, typical American, "full of wise saws +and modern instances" and--tobacco juice. He had a merry wit, and his +running commentary would have been invaluable "copy" to America's pet +humourist, Bill Nye. + +I had a pencil in the pocket in one side of my coat, and a note-book in +the pocket in the other side, but the carriage in which I was driven +about rushed on so over the rough ground and "corduroy roads" and hills +and chasms, that I found it a matter of utter impossibility to get the +pencil and the book out together, and, therefore, the facts I give about +the "Exposition" may want verification, for my worthy guide kept firing +them into me with the rapidity of a Maxim or a Hotchkiss. + +[Illustration: THE WORLD'S FAIR, CHICAGO. A "SPECIAL'S" VISIT.] + +"Now here is the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Guess the +largest building ever erected--1,641,223 feet long, 17,894 feet high--" +Down goes the trap on one side, plunging into some excavation, like a +double-harnessed Roman chariot. However, we scrambled up again, but I +had lost the important figure of the width of the building. Now I don't +for a moment wish to imply that my guide was exaggerating, but this +rather reminds me of a story told of an American visiting England, and +his host there one day remarked to him: + +"My dear fellow, we are delighted with you here--in fact, you are quite +a favourite; but you will excuse me if I tell you that you possess one +failing pretty general with your countrymen--you do exaggerate so!" + +"Guess I kean't help it, but if you'll just kindly give me a kick under +the table when I'm going too far I'll pull up sharp!" + +With this agreement they went out to dinner that evening, and among +other topics the conversation turned upon conservatories. Captain de +Vere said that he had a conservatory 200 feet long, but that the Duke of +Orchid had one nearly 1,000 feet long. The American here struck in with: + +"I reckon, gentlemen, you're talking about conserva_tor_ies. Now there's +a friend of mine in Amurrca, a private gentleman, who has a +conserva_tor_y 5,000 feet long, 3,000 feet high, and" (kick)--"oh!--2 +feet wide!" + +But had I heard the figures representing the width of the building, I +don't suppose they would have been in the same absurd proportion as +this, for not all the shin-kicking in the world would have deterred my +entertaining and conversational conductor. + +"You must assemble together in your mind's eye all the mighty structures +already existing in the world to form any idea of the magnitude of this +_tre_menjious edifice before you. It is sixteen times as large as St. +Peter's Cathedral at Rome, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral +would nestle together in its ventilating shaft, and the whole of the +armies of Europe could sit down comfortably to dinner in the central +hall. The Tower of London would be lost under one of the staircases, and +fifty Cleopatra's Needles stuck one on top of the other would not +scratch the roof. The building cost fifty million six hundred and +eighty-four thousand two hundred dollars seventy-five cents, and----" On +dashed the horses in their wild career. + +Down we went, I thought into the bed of Lake Michigan, but in an instant +we were up again, my hat in one direction and my stick in another, and I +was well shaken before being taken to the next building. + +"Say, Mr. Furniss, the roads are not complete yet, but you mustn't mind +these little ups and downs. Guess these horses would pull through +anything--brought 'em right away from the fire-engine shed, considerable +fresh!" + +At this moment a train came puffing along laden with masses of ironwork +for the central building. The horses shied at the smoky monster, turned +a somersault (at least, so it seemed to me), and we nearly took a header +into the lake again; but the charioteer managed to turn them just in +time, and the fiery fire-engine steeds snorted past their iron brother, +eclipsing even his noise and steam. + +[Illustration: "ON DASHED THE HORSES IN THEIR WILD CAREER."] + +I now began to feel thoroughly happy, but I kept a watchful eye on those +gee-gees, and as we skipped over impromptu bridges, whizzed round the +corners of newly-made piles, and bumped over incomplete parapets, I +quite enjoyed myself; but somehow or other I couldn't quite manage to +catch all the marvellous details respecting the buildings we were +passing. I was qualifying myself for the Volunteer Fire Brigade. But our +steeds were reined in for a moment while my guide pointed out to me the +Dairy Building. + +"I reckon, sir," he said, "that dairy will be an eye-opener. It'll be +_soo_perb, and I guess it won't be long after the opening of the show +that they'll be turning out gold-edged butter!" + +Off we go again, over mounds and down dykes, jumping rocks and shooting +rapids, and I am certain that had our conveyance been a milk-cart, +butter, gold-edged or otherwise, would have been produced pretty soon. +We pull up with a jerk opposite the Agricultural Building. + +"The building is 5,000 by 8,000 feet, design bold and heroic. On each +corner and from the centre of the building are reared pavilions." + +"Indeed!" I said. "Are they reared by incubators, or upon some special +soil from the fertile tracts of the Far West?" + +My guide did not evidently deem my question worthy an answer, and +continued: + +"Surmounted by a mammoth glass dome 460 feet high, constructed on +purpose to accommodate the giant Pennsylvania pumpkin we're having +raised specially for the Exposition. That pumpkin will be hollowed out, +and 600 people will be able to sit down together at once in its +interior." + +"Now we'll go to the Transportation Building," said my indefatigable +conductor to the driver. + +"Bless me!" I thought; "is this a convict prison? Are we to have +visitors from Sing Sing, and am I to see some of my friends from +Portland and Dartmoor? Will there be a model of the Bastille, and a +contingent of escaped refugees from the mines of Siberia? Or is the +building an enormous concern for the transport of visitors to and from +the Exposition?" + +"Say, Mr. Furniss, this is the most original conception in the whole +Exposition. You'll see contrasted here every mode of transport, and a +complete train, with a display of locomotives never before attempted, +will be quite _stu_pendous! To quote the guidebook: 'There will be at +least 100 engines exhibited, and placed so as to face each other,' and +every day we will have a steam tournament. Guess it will be a case of +the survival of the fittest of the engines when they meet! Visitors fond +of railway accidents can be despatched with a completeness only to be +witnessed in the stock-yards of this great city!" + +This ghastly suggestion had the effect of making me feel more +comfortable than ever. + +We had been some hours driving through this wonderful skeleton city. +The last dying rays of the setting sun, sinking behind the sweeping +prairies of the far, far West, lit up the horizon with a blood-red glow, +and, as the shades of evening began to descend and envelop the embryo +Exposition, the driver turned the horses' heads whence we had +come--towards the sunset. + +The animals snorted, their nostrils inflated, their eyes glistened, and, +with tails erect, they tore off straight ahead at a tremendous rate. +They couldn't understand why they had been driven aimlessly about all +this time; but now they saw the glare, as they thought, of the fire--the +glare they had been accustomed to regard as the beacon to guide them to +their goal--a goal which had to be reached with lightning speed. + +[Illustration] + +It seemed as if we were flying through a beautiful place destroyed by +the ravages of fire, for in the dim evening light the outlined houses +gave one the impression that they formed a city dead, not a city +newly-born. + +Away to the Wild West of the Exposition we flew, and were eventually +pulled up outside of one of the larger and more complete buildings. My +faculties had been about all shaken out of me by this time, and I was so +bewildered by the chaos of figures in my brain--all that were left of +the volumes that had been poured into my ears--that I had to be all but +lifted out of the fire-engine trap by my good guide. He said, in an +undertone: + +"Now I'm going to show you something we keep a profound secret." + +Making a supreme effort, I dispersed temporarily the armies of figures +conflicting in my unfortunate head, and became once more a rational +being, so as to appreciate fully this visual tit-bit reserved to the +last. We entered the structure. What was it? A mortuary, a +dissecting-chamber, or a pantomime property-room? Numbers of ghost-like +beings with bared arms streaming with an opaque-white liquid appeared to +be engaged in some ghoulish machinations. Mutilated figures of gigantic +creatures lay strewn about in reckless confusion. It seemed as if +pigmies were butchering giants; and in the dim, weird light among these +uncanny surroundings my jumbled imagination whispered to me that, after +all, this stupendous Exhibition I had just rushed through could not +possibly be the work of the insignificant little men who swarmed all +over the colossal buildings in such ridiculously absurd proportion to +their pretended handiwork. + +[Illustration: THE CHARNEL-HOUSE, CHICAGO'S WORLD FAIR.] + +No, these giants had performed this herculean undertaking, and were now +being cut up--the reward of many who attempt such ambitious tasks. In +reality, though, this charnel-house was the sculptors' studio, in which +were modelled the gigantic figures which were to be placed on the +buildings and about the grounds. + +Now were I to design a model for a statue to be placed in the +Exposition, it would certainly be one of my excellent and entertaining +companion, who proved himself a model conductor, a model of an American +gentleman, and one who is justly proud, as all Americans must be, of +the greatness and thoroughness of the most splendid and most interesting +Exhibition ever recorded in the annals of their great country. + + * * * * * + +One day I slipped up to 10, Downing Street, to make a note of that very +ordinary, albeit mystical, abode of English Premiers and officials. The +eagle eye of the policeman was upon me, and he was soon at my side +subjecting me to minute examination. My explanation satisfied him that +the only lead I had about me was encased in wood for the purpose of +drawing, and that the substance in my hand was not dynamite, but +innocent indiarubber, for wiping out people and places only of my own +creation. "Ah, sir, there ain't much to see there, unless the 'all +porter's a-lookin' out of the winder. But you ought ter be 'ere in the +mornin' and see the Premier a-shavin' of 'imself, with a piece of old +lookin'-glass stuck up on the winder ter see 'imself in--just wot the +likes of us would do!" + +So I, as a "special," was allowed to make a sketch of the outside of the +famous No. 10. Not long afterwards I happened to be standing in the same +place with a number of journalists and a crowd of the public when a +political crisis drew all attention to the Cabinet, the members of which +were arriving at intervals, recognised and cheered by the curious. As +the door opened to allow one of the members of the Cabinet to enter, a +certain official noticed me standing on the opposite side of the street. +To my surprise he beckoned to me, and said, "I have been waiting to see +you, Mr. Furniss, for a long time. I have some sketches in the house +here I want you to see whenever you can honour me with a visit." + +"No time like the present moment," I said. + +Before the official realised that the present moment was a dangerous one +for the admittance of strangers I was taken into the house. While +examining the works of art in the official's private room a knock came +to the door, which necessitated his leaving me. The moment of the +"special" had arrived--now or never for a Cabinet Council! I was down +the passage, and in a few minutes stood in the presence of the Cabinet, +when Mr. Gladstone, the Premier, was addressing Lord Granville and the +others, who were seated, and just as the Duke of Devonshire (then Lord +Hartington) pushed by me into the room, I was seized by the alarmed +official. Of course I apologised for my stupidity in taking the wrong +turning, and I asked him about Mr. Gladstone's three mysterious hats in +the hall, which he informed me Mr. Gladstone always had by him,--three +hats symbolic of his oratorical peculiarity of using the well-known +phrase, "There are three courses open to us." + +I patted Lord Hartington's dog on the head, and had quietly taken my +departure before the official was called into the Cabinet and questioned +about the "spy" who had so mysteriously interrupted their proceedings. + +But what was perhaps a more daring and difficult feat than seeing a +Cabinet Council was to disturb the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate" in his +semi-official residence. It so happened some few years ago I was +commissioned by an illustrated paper to make a drawing of a peculiar +scene that took place in the House of Commons. It was Mr. Gladstone's +only appearance in the Strangers' smoking-room of the House, into which +he had been lured by the Member for Northampton to attend a performance +of a thought reader, which Mr. Labouchere had arranged perhaps to show +his serious interest in the business of the country connected with our +great Houses of Parliament. Not being present at this show, I had no +means of getting material, and, being in a hurry, I boldly drove up to +the house of the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate." And as I always treat +people as they treat others, I thought that a little of the Laboucherian +cheek (shall I substitute the word for confidence?) would not be out of +place in this instance. The servant took my card, and brought back the +message that Mr. Labouchere was not at home. As I was at that moment +actually acting the character of the "Sage," and remembering the +stories, true or untrue, which he so delights in telling himself about +his own coolness in matters probably not less important than this, I +asked the servant to allow me to write a letter to Mr. Labouchere, and I +was shown into his study, where I sat, and intended to sit, until Mr. +Labouchere made his appearance. From time to time the servant looked in, +but the letter was never written. And my thought-reading proved correct. +Without my pen and pencil I drew Mr. Labouchere. He eventually came +downstairs, and gave me all the information I required. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + +London was in darkness. To quote the papers, "Foggy obscuration rested +over the greater part of its area." And I, in common with millions of +others, was having my breakfast by gaslight, when I received an +editorial summons to attend the trial of the Bishop of Lincoln at +Lambeth Palace. Soon a hansom was at the door, with two lamps outside +and one within; the latter smelt most horribly, and I found out later on +that it leaked and had ruined my new overcoat. With an agility quite +marvellous under the circumstances the horse slipped its slimy way over +the greasy streets to Lambeth, and dashed through the fog over +Westminster Bridge in a most reckless manner, which disconcerting +performance was partly explained by its suddenly stopping at the stable +door of Sanger's and refusing to budge. I was partially consoled by the +fact that we were just opposite St. Thomas's Hospital, so that I should +be in good hands if the worst befell. The fog becoming even denser, +Sanger's became veiled from the sight of our fiery steed, which +thereupon consented to slide on towards Lambeth Palace. A sharp turn +brought us to the gateway, where stood a hearse and string of mourning +coaches. Was I too late? Had the Bishops passed sentence, and had the +loved one of Lincoln really been beheaded? + +My fears on this point were relieved by a policeman, who restrained my +driver's energetic endeavours to drive through the wall of the Palace, +and as my password was "Jeune" (November would have been more +appropriate on such a morning) I was allowed inside the gates. Here I +could not see my hand, or anyone else's, in front of me, and after +stumbling up some steps and down some others I finally flattened my nose +against a door. Policeman No. 2 suddenly appeared, and turned his +bull's-eye upon me. I felt that I was doomed to the deepest dungeon +beneath the castle moat; I thought of the whipping-post I have read of +in connection with the Palace; of the Guard Room with its pikes and +instruments of torture, and I trembled. Luckily, however, the rays of +the lantern fell upon the note in my hand, addressed to Francis Jeune, +Q.C., and the good-natured "All right, sir. Go hup. 'E's a-speakin' +now," came as a reprieve. + +I stumble into the large historic hall known as the Library, wherein the +great trial of the Bishop of Lincoln is being held. The weird scene +strongly resembles the Dream Trial in "The Bells," where the judges, +counsel, and all concerned are in a fog. I expect the limelight to flash +suddenly upon the chief actor, the Bishop of Lincoln, as he takes the +stage and re-acts the part that has caused the trial. The only lights in +the long and lofty Library, excepting the clerical and legal, are a +dozen or two wax candles and a few oil-lamps--of daylight, gaslight, or +electric light, nothing. I can hear the voice of Jeune, Q.C., which +gladdens my heart amid these sepulchral surroundings, but I see him not. +As my eyes gradually become accustomed to the strange scene, I find that +it is composed of three distinct "sets," which present the appearance of +a muddled-up stage picture when the flats go wrong, and you have a part +of the Surrey Hills, a corner of Drury Lane and a side of a West End +drawing-room run on at the same time. + +At the further end of the Library we have the Church, very High Church, +represented by an Archbishop and five Bishops; also a Judge, in a +full-bottomed wig, who has evidently got in by mistake. Then we have the +Law, represented by a row of Q.C.'s, their juniors, and attendants; and +then a chorus of ordinary people and common, or Thames Policemen. These +are separated by red ropes and some red tape; the latter I cut with my +self-written passport--my note to the Q.C. who still addresses the +Court. + +[Illustration: THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S TRIAL. (_From "Punch."_)] + +I have come here to see the Bishop of Lincoln, and I roam about in the +fog to find him. Ah, that figure! there he is! I immediately sketch him, +only to find out that the individual in question is the Clerk of the +Court, or whatever the title of that functionary's equivalent may be in +Lambeth Palace. What vexes me is that whenever I enquire the whereabouts +of the Bishop, a warning finger is raised to the lips to denote silence. +The Bishops sit round three tables, on a raised platform. In the centre +is the Archbishop of Canterbury; on his right the mysterious Judge, in +full wig and red robes; here is the Vicar-General, Sir James Parker +Deane, Q.C.; next to him sits Assessor Dr. Atlay, Bishop of Hereford, +who looks anything but happy, his hair presenting the appearance of +being blown about by a strong draught, while his hand is raised to his +face, suggesting that the draught had caused toothache. The portly +Bishop of Oxford on his right, like the other corner man, the Bishop of +Salisbury, scribbles away at a great rate in a huge manuscript book or +roll of foolscap. On the left of the Archbishop sits the Bishop of +London, who severely interrogates the Counsel, and evidently relishes +acting the schoolmaster once more. The Bishop of Rochester, sitting on +London's left, supplies the element of comedy as far as facial +expression goes, and his wide-open mouth and papers held in front of him +lead me to expect him to burst into song at any moment. But where is +_the_ Bishop--the Bishop of Lincoln? Ah, now I see him, in one of those +side courts, and I forthwith sketch him, marvelling at my stupidity in +not identifying him before. I write his name under the sketch, and show +it to one of the reporters. He scribbles "Wrong man" across it. Done +again! I write, "Then where is he?" He waves me away, as Mr. Jeune is +quoting some extraordinary document six hundred years old in reply to +Sir Horace Davey's authority, which only dates back five hundred and +ninety-nine years. It suddenly occurs to me that the Bishop is beside +his Counsel at the other end of the long table, but, alas! there is a +candle in front of him. This is all I can see, so I make my way to the +other side of the table, only to discover that my Bishop is an old lady. +I write on a piece of paper, "Where does the Bishop of Lincoln sit?" and +take it to an official. It is too dark to read, so some time is lost +while he takes my memorandum to a candle. He looks across at me, and +points to a corner. + +At last! good! The old gentleman in the corner is in plain clothes, it +is true, but still he looks every inch a Bishop. I cautiously approach +to a coign of vantage close beside him, and have just finished a careful +study of him, when he turns round to me and whispers, "Please, sir, can +you tell me which is the Bishop of Lincoln?" I shake my head angrily, +and move away. This is really humbug. I'll bide my time, and take +Counsel's opinion--I'll ask Mr. Jeune. He is just occupied in answering +the hundred and seventh question of the Bishop of London, and is being +"supported" by Sir Walter Phillimore. Indeed, it amuses me to see the +way in which these two clever Counsel, when in a fog (and are we not all +in one?), hold an animated legal conversation between themselves, and +totally ignore the Bishops--not that the latter seem to mind, for they +scribble away merrily. An evil suspicion creeps into my head that they +are seizing the opportunity to write their next Sunday's sermons. + +In the meantime I discover that one of the little side courts is +converted into a studio, with an easel and canvas. I approach my brother +brush, feeling that he, or she, or both (for a lady and a gentleman were +jointly at work upon a picture of the Trial, in black and white--the +black was visible, but there was no chance of seeing the white) will +tell me where I can catch a glimpse of the Bishop of Lincoln. I whisper +the question. But a "Hush!" goes up from the H'Usher, and the artists, +sympathising with me in my dilemma, obtain a candle and point out the +Bishop to me in their picture. I slip away in search of that face. Its +owner ought to be near his Counsel. The severe Sir Horace Davey sits +writing letters; next him is the affable Dr. Tristram, then the rubicund +Mr. Danckwerts, but no Bishop--in fact, there is no one of public +interest to be seen; probably they have not come, as to-day is to be a +half-holiday. It is now one o'clock, and the Bishops rise to go to the +Levée. I pounce upon Francis Jeune, Q.C., and gasp, "Where, oh, where is +the Bishop of Lincoln? Quick! I want to sketch him before he leaves." +"Oh, he's not here--never comes near the place!" + +The play is over for the day. I have seen "Hamlet" with the Prince left +out. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + +THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR--A SERIOUS CHAPTER. + + Drawing--"Hieroglyphics"--Clerical Portraiture--A Commission from + General Booth--In Search of Truth--Sir Walter Besant--James Payn--Why + Theodore Hook was Melancholy--"Off with his Head"--Reformers' + Tree--Happy Thoughts--Christmas Story--Lewis Carroll--The Rev. Charles + Lutwidge Dodgson--Sir John Tenniel--The Challenge--Seven Years' + Labour--A Puzzle MS.--Dodgson on Dress--Carroll on Drawing--Sylvie and + Bruno--A Composite Picture--My Real Models--I am very Eccentric--My + "Romps"--A Letter from du Maurier--Caldecott--Tableaux--Fine + Feathers--Models--Fred Barnard--The Haystack--A Wicket Keeper--A Fair + Sitter--Neighbours--The Post-Office Jumble--Puzzling the + Postmen--Writing Backwards--A Coincidence. + +[Illustration: If] + + +If I confess as a caricaturist, surely I need not caricature my +confessions by any mock-modesty. Although I have illustrated novels, +short stories, fairy tales, poems, parodies, satires, and _jeux +d'esprit_, for the realistic, the fanciful, the weirdly imaginative and +the broadly humorous, as my _Punch_ colleague, E. T. Milliken, wrote, my +more distinctive, natural and favourite _métier_ is that of graphic art. +This intimate friend, in publishing his "appreciation" of me, put in his +own too highly-coloured opinion of my black and white work in this +direction. I blush to quote it: + +[Illustration: MAJUBA HILL. DRAWN BY HARRY FURNISS. + _Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of the "Illustrated + London News."_] + +"And they are in error who imagine Mr. Furniss's powers to be +substantially limited to political satire or Parliamentary caricature. +Much of the work he has already given to the public, and perhaps more of +that which he has not yet published, but of which his chosen familiars +are aware, will prove that in more serious or imaginative work, in +strong, vivid realism as well as in frolic fancy, in landscape as well +as in life, in the picturesque as well as in the humorous, he can +display a notable mastery." + +This confession of one of my "chosen familiars" I have the pluck to +reprint, as an answer to those unknown strangers who so frequently write +me down as "a conventional comic draughtsman of funny ill-drawn little +figures." "What shall I call him?" said one; "a master of +hieroglyphics?" Well, if I am commissioned to draw humorous +hieroglyphics, I do my best to master their difficulties. Caricature +pure and simple is not the art I either care for or succeed in +practising as well as I do in my less known more serious and more +finished work. When I joined _Punch_, at the age of twenty-six, I had +had nine-tenths of my time previous to that occupied (ever since I was +fifteen years of age) in drawing far more elaborate and finished work +than would be in keeping in a periodical such as _Punch_. _Punch_ +required "funny little figures," and I supplied them; but my _métier_, I +must confess, was work requiring more demand upon direct draughtsmanship +and power. I am a funny man, a caricaturist, by force of circumstances; +an artist, a satirist, and a cartoonist by nature and training. The one +requires technical knowledge--in the other, "drawing doesn't count." The +more amateurish the work, the funnier the public consider it. The +serious confession I have to make is that I have been mistaken for a +caricaturist in the accepted and limited meaning of the term. + +"It is the ambition of every low comedian to play Hamlet, that of every +caricaturist to be able to paint a picture which shall be worthy of a +place on the walls of the National Gallery," are my own words on the +platform; but I do not essay to play Hamlet on the platform, nor do I +paint pictures for posterity in my studio. Therefore I do not place +myself in the category of either, for I am neither a low comedian nor +am I strictly and solely a mere caricaturist. This fact is perhaps not +generally known to the public, but it is known to the publishers, and +when a Society Church paper wished to present a series of +supplements--portraits of the leading clergy--I was selected as the +artist. The portrait of Canon Liddon, which is here very much reduced, +is one of these. + +[Illustration: CANON LIDDON. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.] + +And furthermore I received a commission from General Booth, which +unfortunately, through pressure of work, I was unable to undertake, to +make a study of Mrs. Booth, who was at the time on her death-bed, +suffering from cancer, which the General was "exceedingly anxious" to +reproduce and issue to his Army, as he had "never yet been able to +secure a good photograph, although frequent attempts had been made by +eminent London photographers." + +I must confirm, a confession I made some years ago to the editor of the +_Magazine of Art_ regarding some of the difficulties with which artists +illustrating books have to contend. In that I questioned whether authors +and artists worked sufficiently together. Few authors are as +conscientious as Dickens was, or, in fact, care to consult with their +illustrators at all. In operatic work the librettist and composer must +work hand in hand. Should not the artist do likewise? + +Undoubtedly there are some writers who take great trouble to see their +subject from the artistic standpoint. One sensational writer with whom I +am acquainted will make a complete model in cardboard of his "Haunted +Grange," so as to avoid absurdities in the working out of the tale. The +"Blood-stained Tower" is therefore always in its place, and the +"Assassin's Door" and "Ghost's Window" do not change places, to the +bewilderment of the keen-witted reader. Many writers, on the other hand, +show an extraordinary carelessness, or, shall I say, agility? "Hilarity +Hall" or "Stucco Castle" is supposed to be a firm erection, capable of +withstanding storm, or, if necessary, siege; whereas the artist too +often detects the author turning it inside out and upside down to suit +his convenience, like the mechanical quick-change scenes in our modern +realistic dramas. + +It may seem strange, but I have never found over-conscientiousness in +seeking to secure "local colour" meet with the slightest reward. Two +instances among many similar experiences which have fallen to my lot +will serve to show my ground for making this observation. + +Those who have read Sir Walter Besant's delightful but little known "All +in a Garden Fair" (it is interesting to know that this was +semi-autobiographical, and that its original title was "All in a Garden +Green") will recollect the minute description of the locality in which +the opening scenes take place. The author and I "talked it over." He +told me the exact spot where the story was laid--a village a good many +miles from London. The next day, provided with exact information, my +wife and I went by train to the station nearest to the village in +question, and then, taking a "trap," went on a voyage of discovery. +First, however, we endeavoured to gain some useful directions from the +proprietor of the hotel where we lunched, but, to our surprise, he knew +of no such village. The driver of our "conveyance" was equally unlearned +concerning the object of our search. + +[Illustration: [Handwritten note]] + +"Strange," said I, "how these country people ignore all the beauties and +graceful associations that are around them--they don't even know of the +existence of this idyllic village." + +Nothing daunted, I undertook to pilot the party to the place, and after +a lovely drive we reached the spot where the village ought to be. Here I +saw a kind of model hotel, and, I think, a shanty of some description; +the rest was an ordinary English landscape. I hardened my heart, and +patiently sketched the building, which, of course, was not there at the +period the story referred to, and some details of the place where a +village only existed in the author's imagination. + +When next I saw Sir Walter Besant, he tried to console me with the +assurance that there certainly must have been a village there some +centuries ago! + +[Illustration: THE LATE SIR WALTER BESANT.] + +Besides being a wit and a delightful conversationalist, Sir Walter was +the most practical and businesslike of authors. It was a treat to meet +him, as I frequently did, walking into Town, and enjoy his vivacious +humour. I recollect one morning, speaking of illustrators, mentioning +the fact that Cruikshank always imagined that Dickens had taken "Oliver +Twist," merely endowing it with literary merit here and there, and +palming it off as his own! + +"Ah!" said Besant, "how funny! Do you know, I overheard two of my little +girls talking a few mornings ago, and one said to the other, 'Papa does +not write all his stories, you know--Charlie Green helps him.'" + +(Green was at the time illustrating Besant's "Chaplain of the Fleet.") + +[Illustration: THE "JETTY."] + +My second instance occurred about the same period. The author was the +most delightful and entertaining of literary men of our time, Mr. James +Payn. I was selected to illustrate the serial story in the _Illustrated +London News_, and as in that also the author minutely describes the +scene of the semi-historical romance, I, being a thoroughly +conscientious artist, visited James Payn, then editor of _Cornhill_, in +his editorial den in Waterloo Place, to talk the matter over. My notes +were: "Jetty--Lovers meet--Ancient church--Old houses." But the "Jetty" +was _the_ important object--I must get that. I therefore started for the +South Coast. Again I was forced to bow down before my author's +wonderful powers of imagination, for once more, in company with my wife, +with a hireling to carry my sketching stool and materials, I walked a +great distance in search of the jetty. Vain, vain! not a ghost of a +jetty was to be seen. The menial could not enlighten us. At last we +unearthed the "oldest inhabitant," who took us back to where a few +sticks in the water alone marked where it stood "a many years ago." I +tried to develop some of the powers of the late Professor Owen, when he +constructed an animal from the smallest bone, and succeeded in +"evolving" a jetty from the green remains of four wooden posts. + +I forgave Payn as I forgave Besant. Both men were as genial as they were +eminent, and but for the circumstances of illustrating their stories I +might not have enjoyed their acquaintanceship. I also illustrated Payn's +most charming story, "The Talk of the Town," for _Cornhill Magazine_. I +never enjoyed any work of the kind so well as this--it has always been +my regret Payn did not write another of the same period. I recollect, +when I first saw him in Waterloo Place, I had just read an article of +his in which he gave a recipe for getting rid of callers, which was to +bring the conversation to an abrupt termination, say absolutely nothing, +but steadfastly stare at your visitor until he left. I can vouch for its +being a simple and effective plan. + +[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FOR "THE TALK OF THE TOWN" (REDUCED). + _By permission of the proprietors of "Cornhill Magazine."_] + +When I entered his editorial sanctum the genial essayist received me +most cordially, and looked the picture of comfort, surrounded as he was +by a heterogeneous collection of pipes. Presently, through the clouds of +smoke through which he had chatted in that lively, vivacious manner +peculiarly his own, he knocked the ashes out of his finished pipe and +mutely stared point-blank at me till I, like the pipe, went out also. +But before making my exit I reminded him that I had read the article I +refer to, up to which he was no doubt acting, and that I was pleased and +interested that he practised the doctrine he preached. Possibly this +remark of mine was unexpected, and therefore somewhat disconcerted him +for a moment, for he quickly replied, "Not at all! not at all! Fact is, +I was rather upset before you came in by a miserable man who called to +see me, and at the moment I was, _à propos_ of him, thinking of a funny +story about Theodore Hook I came across last night I never heard before. +Poor Hook was at a smart dinner one evening, but instead of being as +usual the life and soul of the party, he proved the wet blanket on the +merry meeting, despite the fact that he, in all probability, had imbibed +his stiff glass of brandy to get him up to his usual form before +entering the house at which he was entertained. This most unusual phase +of Hook's character surprised everybody present, so much so that his +host ventured to remark that the volatile Theodore did not seem so merry +as usual. + +"'Merry? I should think not! I should like to see anyone merry who has +gone through what I have this afternoon!' + +"'What was that?' asked everyone, with one voice. + +"'Well, I'll tell you,' said Hook. 'I have just come up from York in the +stage coach, and I was rather late in taking my seat; the top was +occupied to the full, so I had no alternative but to become an inside +passenger. The only other occupant of the interior was a melancholy +individual rolled up in a corner. He had donned his great-coat, the +collar of which was turned right up over his ears. He stolidly sat +there, never uttering a word, until I became fascinated by his weird +appearance. By-and-by the sun sank below the western horizon, the inside +of the coach became darker and darker, and more ghastly seemed the +cadaverous stranger as the blackness increased. The strain was too much +for me. I could not keep silent another minute. + +"'My good sir,' I said, 'whatever is the matter with you?'" + +"'I'll tell you,' he slowly muttered. 'Some months ago I invested in two +tickets in a great lottery, but when I told my wife of the speculation I +had indulged in she nagged and nagged at me to such a frightful extent +that at last I sold the tickets.' + +"'Well?' + +"'Well, do you know, sir, to-day those two numbers won the two first +prizes, and those two prizes represent a sum of money of colossal +magnitude!' + +"'Goodness gracious me!' I shouted. 'If that had happened to me it would +have driven me to desperation! In fact I really believe that I should +have been frantic enough to cut my throat!' + +"'Why, that's just what I have done!' replied the stranger, as he turned +down his collar. 'Look here!'" + +[Illustration: "THAT'S JUST WHAT I HAVE DONE!"] + +This ghastly tale reminds me of one of my earliest and most trying +experiences in illustrating stories. I had made a very careful drawing +to illustrate a startling episode in a novel by Mrs. Henry Wood. +Naturally it was designed on a block, and represented the hero having +just swallowed poison after committing a murder. The face in the drawing +was everything, and I had taken the greatest pains to depict in the +distorted features all the authoress desired--in fact, I was rather +proud of it. The authoress was pleased, and the block was sent to the +engraver. I was then about twenty--photographing a drawing on to wood +was unknown, and process work was not invented--all drawings were made +on boxwood and engraved by hand. To my horror the engraver returned the +block to me a week afterwards with an apologetic note. The face had been +destroyed in the engraver's hands, and he had "plugged the block"--that +is, another piece of wood had been inserted where the hero's head had +been, and whitened over, for me to draw another. The rest of the design +had been engraved. That face gone! How could I conjure it up again on +that unsightly, isolated patch of block, with all the rest of the +drawing engraved and therefore my lines undiscernible? I did my best. +When it was printed it was seen that the face did not fit on the neck +properly, and to my chagrin I received a sarcastic letter from the +editor to inform me that I had made a mistake. The hero had swallowed +poison and had not, as I supposed, cut his head off! + +[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF JAMES PAYN'S WRITING.] + +Another illustration of the conscientious illustrator in search of the +truth. I had to introduce the Reformers' Tree, Hyde Park, into a +picture. Now we are always hearing about the Reformers' Tree in +reference to demonstrations in the Park, so I went in search of the +historical stump. The first person to whom I put a question as to its +whereabouts pointed to a huge tree in flourishing condition. I had just +sketched in its upper branches when it somehow occurred to me that it +would be just as well to ask someone else and make assurance doubly +sure. This time I interrogated a policeman. + +"No, that ain't it; that there row of hoaks is wot people calls the +Reformers' Tree." + +I started another sketch on the strength of this statement, but feeling +a bit dubious over his assertion that the one tree was comprised of a +whole row, I tackled the "oldest inhabitant," an ancient and pensioned +park-keeper, who luckily hove in sight. + +"Hover there," he replied, gruffly, pointing to a stump that resembled +the sole remaining molar the old man possessed. + +This stump was picturesque. It must be the Reformers' Tree. +Result--another sketch, which I showed to the gatekeeper at the Marble +Arch. + +"Reformers' Tree? Why, there ain't no such thing in the Park." And I +really believe there isn't. It is a myth, and merely exists in the +fertile brain of the descriptive author or the imagination of the +agitator. + +After James Payn's "Talk of the Town" no book has given me such pleasure +to illustrate as F. C. Burnand's "Incompleat Angler." The combination of +the picturesqueness of Isaak Walton with the humour of Burnand could not +be otherwise, but most unfortunately the form of its publication ruined +the effect of the drawings. Over this, too, the author and I talked--no, +not exactly--to be exact we laughed over it. I dined with Burnand, and +afterwards in his study he read it to me, and as he frankly admitted he +never laughed so much at anything before. + +[Illustration: THE TYPICAL LOVERS IN ILLUSTRATIONS OF NOVELS.] + +The illustrator's difficulties by no means end when the author is +satisfied. Many authors give you every facility, and hamper you with no +impossibilities; but then steps in the editor, especially if he be the +editor of a "goody" magazine. Novels will be novels, and love and lovers +will find their way even into the immaculate pages of our monthly +elevators. I once found it so, and certainly I thought that here was +plain sailing. A tender interview at the garden gate. She "sighed and +looked down as Charles Thorndike took her hand"--unavoidable and not +unacceptable subject. Lovers are all commonplace young men with large +eyes, long legs, and small moustaches (villains' moustaches grow apace); +moreover, lovers, I believe, generally take care to avoid observation; +but no! it appears that "our subscribers" have a stern code which may +not be lightly infringed. A letter from the editor rebukes my worldly +ways: + + "DEAR SIR,--Will you kindly give Charles Thorndike a beard, and show + an aunt or uncle or some chaperon in the distance; the subject and + treatment is hardly suitable otherwise to our young readers." + +Sometimes a publisher steps in and arranges everything, regardless of +all the author and artist may cherish. + +Years ago a well-known but not very prosperous publisher sent for me, +and spoke as follows: + +"Now, Mr. F., what I want is to knock the B.P. with Christmas. The story +is all blood and murder, but don't mind that--you must supply the +antidote; put in the holly and mistletoe, plenty of snow and +plum-pudding (the story was a seaside one in summer time). I like John +Tenniel's work--give us a bit of him, with a dash of Du Maurier and a +sprinkling of Leech here and there; but none of your Rembrandt +effects--they are too dark, and don't print up well. Never mind what the +author says; he hasn't made it Christmas, so you must!" + +It is equally difficult to comply with an editorial request such as +this: "The story I send you is as dull as ditch-water; do please read it +over and illustrate it with lively pictures." + +But some authors are their own publishers, and they are then generally +more careful of the illustrations. Perhaps the most exacting of all +authors was "Lewis Carroll." + +[Illustration: T] + +The name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is practically unknown outside of +Oxford University, where he was mathematical lecturer of Christ Church; +but the name and fame of "Lewis Carroll," author of those inimitable +books for children, both young and old, "Alice's Adventures in +Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-glass and what Alice found there," +are known and beloved all over the world. His first book for children, +"Alice's Adventures," was published at a time exactly to suit me. I was +just eleven--_the_ age to be first impressed by the pen of Carroll and +the pencil of Tenniel. + +When I, a little, a very little boy in knickerbockers, first enjoyed the +adventures of Alice and worshipped the pen and the pencil which recorded +them, I little thought I would some day work hand in hand with the +author, and when that day did arrive I regretted that I had not been +born twenty-two years before I had, for for me to follow Tenniel was +quite as difficult and unsatisfactory a task as for Carroll to follow +Carroll. The worst of it was that I was conscious of this, and Lewis +Carroll was not. Fortunately for me Sylvie was not like her prototype +Alice; the illustrations for Sylvie would not have suited Tenniel as +Alice did. I therefore did not fear comparison, but what I did fear was +that Carroll would not be Carroll, and Carroll wasn't--he was Dodgson. I +wish I had illustrated him when he was Carroll; that he was not the +Carroll of "Alice" is plainly indicated in his life in the following +passage:[1] "The publication of 'Sylvie and Bruno' marks an epoch in its +author's life, for it was the publication of all the ideals and +sentiments which he held most dear. It was a book with a definite +purpose; it would be more true to say with several definite purposes. +For this very reason it is not an artistic triumph as the two 'Alice' +books undoubtedly are; it is on a lower literary level, there is no +unity in the story. But from a higher standpoint, that of the Christian +and the philanthropist, the book is the best thing he ever wrote. It is +a noble effort to uphold the right, or what he thought to be the right, +without fear of contempt or unpopularity. The influence which his +earlier books had given him he was determined to use in asserting +neglected truths. + + [1] "The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll," by Stuart Dodgson + Collingwood (Fisher Unwin). + +"Of course the story has other features--delightful nonsense not +surpassed by anything in 'Wonderland,' childish prattle with all the +charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to +rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would have +been a great success. As things are, there are probably hundreds of +readers who have been scared by the religious arguments and political +discussions which make up a large part of it, and who have never +discovered that Sylvie is just as entrancing a personage as Alice when +you get to know her." + +[Illustration: INSTRUCTIONS IN A LETTER FROM LEWIS CARROLL.] + +The character of the book was a bitter disappointment to me. I did not +want to illustrate a book of his with any "purpose" other than the +purpose of delightful amusement, as "Alice" was. Tenniel had point-blank +refused to illustrate another story for Carroll--he was, Tenniel told +me, "impossible"--and Carroll evidently was not satisfied with other +artists he had tried, as he wrote me: "I have a considerable mass of +chaotic materials for a story, but have never had the heart to go to +work to construct the story as a whole, owing to its seeming so hopeless +that I should ever find a suitable artist. Now that _you_ are found," +etc. That was in 1885, and we worked together for seven years. Tenniel +and other artists declared I would not work with Carroll for seven +weeks! I accepted the challenge, but I, for that purpose, adopted quite +a new method. No artist is more matter-of-fact or businesslike than +myself: to Carroll I was not Hy. F., but someone else, as _he_ was +someone else. I was wilful and erratic, bordering on insanity. We +therefore got on splendidly. + +Of course it was most interesting to me to study such a genius at such a +time, and in recording my experiences and impressions of Lewis Carroll +my object is not so much to deal with the actual illustration to those +ill-conceived books "Sylvie and Bruno," but to deal with my impressions +of the man obtained by working with him for so long, for to have known +the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll +was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's +books. It was a relief to meet the pure simple, innocent dreamer of +children, after the selfish commercial mind of most authors. Carroll was +a wit, a gentleman, a bore and an egotist--and, like Hans Andersen, a +spoilt child. It is recorded of Andersen that he actually shed tears, +even in late life, should the cake at tea be handed to anyone before he +chose the largest slice. Carroll was not selfish, but a liberal-minded, +liberal-handed philanthropist, but his egotism was all but second +childhood. + +He informed my wife that she was the most privileged woman in the world, +for she knew the man who knew his (Lewis Carroll's) ideas--that ought to +content her. She must not _see_ a picture or read a line of the MS.; it +was sufficient for her to gaze at me outside of my studio with +admiration and respect, as the only man besides Lewis Carroll himself +with a knowledge of Lewis Carroll's forthcoming work. Furthermore he +sent me an elaborate document to sign committing myself to secrecy. This +I indignantly declined to sign. "My word was as good as my bond," I +said, and, striking an attitude, I hinted that I would "strike," +inasmuch as I would not work for years isolated from my wife and +friends. I was therefore no doubt looked upon by him as a lunatic. That +was what I wanted. I was allowed to show my wife the drawings, and he +wrote: "For my own part I have shown _none_ of the MS. to anybody; and, +though I have let some special friends see the pictures, I have +uniformly declined to _explain_ them. 'May I ask so-and-so?' they +enquire. 'Certainly!' I reply; "you may _ask_ as many questions as you +like!' That is all they get out of me." + +But his egotism carried him still further. He was determined no one +should read his MS. but he and I; so in the dead of night (he sometimes +wrote up to 4 a.m.) he cut his MS. into horizontal strips of four or +five lines, then placed the whole of it in a sack and shook it up; +taking out piece by piece, he pasted the strips down as they happened to +come. The result, in such an MS., dealing with nonsense on one page and +theology on another, was audacious in the extreme, if not absolutely +profane--for example: + + "And I found myself repeating, as I left the Church, the words of Jacob, + when he '_awaked out of his sleep_,' surely the Lord is in this. + + "And once more those shrill discordant tones rang out:-- + + "'He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk + Descending from a bus; + He looked again, and found it was-- + A Hippopotamus.'" + +These incongruous strips were elaborately and mysteriously marked with +numbers and letters and various hieroglyphics, to decipher which would +really have turned my assumed eccentricity into positive madness. I +therefore sent the whole MS. back to him, and again threatened to +strike! This had the desired effect. I then received MS. I could read, +although frequently puzzled by its being mixed up with Euclid and +problems in abstruse mathematics. + +I soon discovered that I had undertaken a far more difficult task than I +anticipated, for in the first letter of instructions I received from the +author he frankly acknowledged I had my work "cut out." "Cut out" +suggests dressmaking, the very subject first chosen for discussion and +correspondence. + +The extraordinary workings of this unique mind are shown by quotations +from his letters to me: + + "I think I had better explain part of the plot, as to these two--Sylvie + and Bruno. They are not fairies right through the book--but _children_. + All these conditions make their _dress_ rather a puzzle. They mustn't + have _wings_; that is clear. And it must be _quite_ the common dress of + London life. It should be as fanciful as possible, so as _just_ to be + presentable in Society. The friends might be able to say 'What + oddly-dressed children!' but they oughtn't to say 'They are not human!' + + "Now I think you'll say you have 'got your work cut out for you,' to + invent a suitable dress!" + +How I wish I had had those dresses cut out for me! The above +instructions were quickly followed by other suggestions which added to +my already scanty idea of a costume suitable to Kensington Gardens and +to fairyland! I was thinking this difficulty would be lessened if the +story took place in winter, when I received another letter, which I must +frankly confess rather alarmed me: + +[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF LEWIS CARROLL'S DRAWING AND WRITING.] + + "As to the dresses of these children in their fairy state (we shall + sometimes have them mixing in Society, and supposed to be real children; + and for _that_ they must, I suppose, be dressed as in ordinary life, but + _eccentrically_, so as to make a little distinction). I _wish_ I dared + dispense with _all_ costume; naked children are so perfectly pure and + lovely, but Mrs. Grundy would be furious--it would never do. Then the + question is, how little dress will content her? Bare legs and feet we + _must_ have, at any rate. I so entirely detest that monstrous fashion + _high heels_ (and in fact have planned an attack on it in this very + book), that I cannot possibly allow my sweet little heroine to be + victimised by it." + +Another monstrous fashion he condemns refers to a picture of his +grown-up heroine in London Society: + + "Could you cut off those high shoulders from her sleeves? Why should we + pay any deference to a hideous fashion that will be extinct a year + hence? Next to the unapproachable ugliness of 'crinoline,' I think these + high-shouldered sleeves are the worst things invented for ladies in our + time. Imagine how horrified they would be if one of their daughters were + _really_ shaped like that!" + +I did make a note of a horrified mother with a nineteenth century +malformation, but I did not send it to the author, as it struck me, when +re-reading his letter, he was possibly serious. Still we had Sylvie's +dress, Mrs. Grundy, crinolines, and high heels to discuss: + +[Illustration: ORIGINAL SKETCH BY LEWIS CARROLL OF HIS CHARMING HERO AND +HEROINE.] + + "As to your Sylvie I am charmed with your idea of dressing her in + _white_; it exactly fits my own idea of her; I want her to be a sort of + embodiment of Purity. So I think that, in Society, she should be wholly + in white--white frock ('clinging' certainly; I _hate_ crinoline + fashion): also I _think_ we might venture on making her _fairy_ dress + transparent. Don't you think we might face Mrs. Grundy to _that_ extent? + In fact I think Mrs. G. would be fairly content at finding her + _dressed_, and would not mind whether the material was silk, or muslin, + or even gauze. One thing more. _Please_ don't give Sylvie high heels! + They are an abomination to me." + +Then for months we corresponded about the face of the Heroine alone. My +difficulty was increased by the fact that the fairy child Sylvie and the +Society grown-up Lady Muriel were one and the same person! So I received +reams of written descriptions and piles of useless photographs intended +to inspire me to draw with a few lines a face embodying his ideal in a +space not larger than a threepenny-piece. By one post I would receive a +batch of photographs of some young lady Lewis Carroll fancied had one +feature, or half a feature, of that ideal he had conjured up in his own +mind as his heroine. + +[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL'S NOTE TO ME FOR A PATHETIC PICTURE.] + +He invited me to visit friends of his, and strangers too, from John o' +Groats to Land's End, so as to collect fragments of faces. _A propos_ of +this I wrote in an artists' magazine a brief account of artists' +difficulties with the too exacting author. (It is quite safe to write +anything about Judges and Dons: they never read anything.) I described +how I received the author's recipe for constructing the ideal heroine. I +am not to take _one_ model for the lady-child or child-lady. I am to +take _several_; for all know no face--at least, no face with expression, +or with plenty of life or good abilities, or when showing depth of +religious thought--is perfect. I am therefore to go to Eastbourne to see +and study the face of Miss Matilda Smith, in a pastry-cook's shop, for +the eyes. I am to visit Eastbourne and eat buns and cakes, gazing the +while into the beauteous eyes of Miss Smith. Then in Glasgow there is a +Miss O'Grady, "with oh, such a perfect nose! Could I run up to Scotland +to make a sketch of it?" A letter of introduction is enclosed, and, as a +precaution, I am enjoined that I "must not mind her squint." But I _do_ +mind, and I am sure the blemish would sadly mar my proper judgment of +the lovely feature for gazing on which those eyes have lost their +rectitude. For the ears a journey to Brighton to see Miss Robinson, the +Vicar's daughter, is recommended. No, she may listen, think I, to the +"sad sea-waves," or to her father's sermons, but never to any flattery +from me. The mouth I shall find in Cardiff--not an English or Welsh +mouth, but a sweet Spaniard's Señora Niccolomino, the daughter of a +merchant there. In imagination I picture that cigarette held so lovingly +in those perfect lips. But I am to draw an English heroine of fifteen +innocent summers--how those curly wreaths of pearly smoke would +disenchant my mind of the spell of youth and innocence! For the hair I +must go to Brighton; for the figure to a number of different places. In +fact, my author had mapped out a complete tour for me. Had he never +heard the old story of the artist who was determined to paint a +perfectly correct figure, strictly in accordance with the orthodox rules +of art? As he painted a portion he covered it up, and so went on until +the figure was complete. When it was finished he tore off the covering. +The result was hideous! He went mad! I feel sure that fate would have +been mine had I attempted to carry out Lewis Carroll's instructions. I +therefore worked on my own lines with success. As his biographer states: +"Meanwhile, with much interchange of correspondence between author and +artist, the pictures for the new fairy tale, 'Sylvie and Bruno,' were +being gradually evolved. Each of them was subjected by Lewis Carroll to +the most minute criticism--hypercriticism, perhaps, occasionally." Still +he was enthusiastic in his praise, and absurdly generous in his thanks. +He was jealous that I would not disclose to him who my model was for +Sylvie. When dining with us many a smile played over the features of my +children when he cross-questioned me on this point. Repeatedly he wrote +to me: "How old is your model for Sylvie? And may I have her name and +address?" "My friend Miss E. G. Thomson, an artist great in 'fairies,' +would be glad to know of her, I'm sure," and so on. + +The fairy Sylvie was my own daughter! All the children in his books I +illustrated were my own children; yet this fact never struck him! He +visited us in the country when I was at work, and I soon afterwards +received the following letter: + + "Thanks. I was not aware that the boy, whose photo I sent you, had + far-apart eyes. If you think (and you are _quite_ the best judge of the + point) that these eyes are needed in order to give to the face the fun + and roguery I want expressed, by all means retain them. + + "It had occurred to me to write and beg that, if Arundel did not furnish + all requisite models for drawing from life, you would let all portions + of pictures which would have to be done without models or wait till you + return to town, _wait_. But as I think you definitely told me that you + never do the finished pictures _except_ from life, I presume the + petition to be superfluous." + +When I received this letter at Arundel my second boy was sitting in his +bathing costume on a garden-roller on the lawn for a picture of Bruno +sitting on a dead mouse. I was chaffing my model about flirting with a +young lady he met at a children's garden party, and threatened to inform +his sweetheart in London, when he assured me with knowingness, "Fact is, +papa, the young lady here is all right for the country, you know--but +she would _never_ do in town!" + +[Illustration: SYLVIE AND BRUNO. MY ORIGINAL DRAWING FOR LEWIS CARROLL. + (_Never published._)] + +It was the same idea as Lewis Carroll's about models. + +As I have brought my family into this, I may mention that there is one +picture in "Sylvie and Bruno" (vol. i., p. 134) which brings back to me +the only sorrowful hour I had in connection with the otherwise enjoyable +work. My wife was very ill--so ill it was a question of life and death. +Expert opinion was called in, and the afternoon I had to make that +drawing--with my own children as models--the "consultation" was being +held in my wife's room. Carroll was on his way from Oxford to see the +work, and I was drawing against time. It's the old story of the clown +with the sick wife. Caricaturists are after all but clowns of the +pencil. They must raise a laugh whatever their state of mind may be. For +a long time I never would show Lewis Carroll my work, for the simple +reason I did not do it. He thought I was at work, but I was not. That's +where my acting eccentricity came in. I knew that I would have to draw +the subjects "right off," not one a month or one in six months. +Correspondence for three months, as a rule, led to work for one week. +Isolated verse I did let him have the illustrations for, but not the +body of the book. This was my only chance, and I arrived at this secrecy +by the following bold stroke. + +[Illustration: I GO MAD!] + +Lewis Carroll came from Oxford one evening, early in the history of the +work, to dine, and afterwards to see a batch of work. He ate little, +drank little, but enjoyed a few glasses of sherry, his favourite wine. +"Now," he said, "for the studio!" I rose and led the way. My wife sat in +astonishment. She knew I had nothing to show. Through the drawing-room, +down the steps of the conservatory to the door of my studio. My hand is +on the handle. Through excitement Lewis Carroll stammers worse than +ever. Now to see the work for his great book! I pause, turn my back to +the closed door, and thus address the astonished Don: "Mr. Dodgson, I am +_very_ eccentric--I cannot help it! Let me explain to you clearly, +before you enter my studio, that my eccentricity sometimes takes a +violent form. If I, in showing my work, discover in your face the +slightest sign that you are not _absolutely_ satisfied with any particle +of this work in progress, the _whole_ of it goes into the fire! It is a +risk: will you accept it, or will you wait till I have the drawings +_quite_ finished and send them to Oxford?" + +"I--I--I ap--appreciate your feelings--I--I--should feel the same +myself. I am off to Oxford!" and he went. + +[Illustration: Handwritten note] + +I sent him drawings as they were finished, and each parcel brought back +a budget of letter-writing, each page being carefully numbered. This is +the top of page 5 in his 49,874th letter. I am not sure if I received +all the remaining 49,873 letters in the seven years. To meet him and to +work for him was to me a great treat. I put up with his +eccentricities--real ones, not sham like mine.--I put up with a great +deal of boredom, for he was a bore at times, and I worked over seven +years with his illustrations, in which the actual working hours would +not have occupied me more than seven weeks, purely out of respect for +his genius. I treated him as a problem, and I solved him, and had he +lived I would probably have still worked with him. He remunerated me +liberally for my work; still, he actually proposed that in addition I +should partake of the profits; his gratitude was overwhelming. "I am +grateful; and I feel sure that if _pictures_ could sell a book 'Sylvie +and Bruno' would sell like wildfire." + +Perhaps the most pleasant confession I have to make is my fondness for +children. They always interest and amuse me more than "grown-ups." The +commonplace talk is to them unknown; it is full of surprises. + +Perhaps the nursery's record of my family is not longer or any more +interesting than the sayings and doings of the youngsters of any other +family; still a few extracts may interest those who, like myself, are +interested in first impressions. + +My eldest, just entering on his teens, had as companions two brothers +and one sister. Hearing there was an addition to this little family +group, he, dressed in flannels, ran into my studio, bat in hand, "Papa, +is it a boy or a girl?" + +"A boy." + +"Oh, I am so glad. I do want a wicket-keeper, and Dorothy can't +wicket-keep a bit." + +[Illustration: "I DO WANT A WICKET-KEEPER!"] + +A stoutly-made little fellow of eight, to his mother, who happened to be +extremely thin: + +"Oh, mother, I do believe you must be the very sweetest woman in the +world!" + +"Thanks very much, Lawrence. But why so affectionate? What do you want?" + +"I don't want anything. I only know you must be the very sweetest woman +in the world." + +"Really, you are too flattering. Why this sudden outburst of affection?" + +"Well, you know, I've been thinking over the old, old saying, 'The +nearer the bone the sweeter the meat.'" + +Children, I think, have the art of "leading up" to jokes better than +adults. They hear some strange remark, they naturally analyse it, and it +suggests an application. For instance, this brat possibly objected to +some portion of meat at table. His mother had reminded of the old +saying, "The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat." Thin +mother,--there's the application. + +One of my youngsters ran into the drawing-room at five o'clock tea. A +lady visitor thus addressed him: + +"Come here, my little man. I suppose when you grow up you will be an +artist, like your father?" + +"My father is not an artist." + +"Oh, my dear, he _is_ an artist." + +"Oh, no, no, no, my father is not an artist--he's only a black and white +man. I am going to be an artist in all colours." + +[Illustration: PORTION OF LETTER FROM LAWRENCE, AGE 9.] + +My own children have been my models, not only for Lewis Carroll's books, +but for all my drawings of children. I have three boys and one girl. +Dorothy is now a successful artist, and Lawrence is, at the age of +eighteen, a professional draughtsman of mechanical subjects; my youngest +is just out of his teens. Their portraits manifolded will be found in +the page sketch from "Romps" Du Maurier wrote me a most graceful +appreciation of these books, which, considering his delightful pictures +of children in _Punch_, was most gratifying to me. + +[Illustration: REDUCTION FROM A DESIGN FOR MY "ROMPS."] + +[Illustration: PORTION OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE DU MAURIER.] + +An artist for whose work I have the greatest admiration was the late +Randolph Caldecott, and the only occasion on which I had the pleasure of +meeting him was of a semi-theatrical kind. It was at one of the +"Artists' Tableaux" which were given in London some years ago. In those +produced in Piccadilly I took no part, and the entertainment to which I +refer was held at the Mansion House. At the last moment, in order to +complete one of the pictures, a portly Dutchman was required, and a +telegram was despatched to me to enquire whether I would represent the +character. A dress, which was not a very good fit, was provided for me +by the costumier of the show, and with the aid of a little padding, a +good deal of rouge, a long clay pipe, and a bottle of schnapps, I +managed to look something like the inflated Hollander I was +representing, in the centre of the group, where I was supposed to be +looking on at a game of bowls. Caldecott, who was placed at a window, +flirting with the maids of the Queen, was attired in a graceful costume +of the most faultless description, surmounted by a magnificent hat with +a sweeping brim and splendid feathers, upon which he had expended no +little pains and money. My head-gear consisted of a very insignificant +stage property hat, but as I was not intended to contribute an element +of beauty to the picture, that didn't matter. The tableau was arranged +by Mr. E. A. Abbey, and when taking his last look round before the +curtain was raised, his artistic eye detected that more black was +required in the centre. While we were thus in our allotted positions, +and straining every nerve to remain perfectly rigid--an ordeal which, by +the way, I never wish to go through again, as I had hard work to +restrain myself from breaking out into a Highland fling or an Irish jig, +or calling out "Boo!" to the audience to relieve my pent-up +feelings--Mr. Abbey suddenly seized the superb hat on Caldecott's head, +which the latter had had specially made, and in which he really fancied +himself, handed it to me, and to Caldecott's horror, and almost before +he was conscious that he had been made ridiculous by the wretched +remnant which had been sent from Bow Street for me, the curtain was rung +up. + +I confess I have a certain amount of pity, closely akin to contempt, for +the artist who must have the actual character he wants to paint, who +cannot use a model merely for reference, but paints in everything like a +photograph. Some artists call such feebleness conscientiousness, but to +me it seems mere weakness. Must an author paint each character in his +book, or an actor take his every impersonation on the stage, minutely +from some living model? Surely observation and natural originality is +more than the photographic copying of your "conscientious" artist! Worse +feebleness still it is when an artist has to paint a well-known +character, say King Lear or Mary Queen of Scots, and goes about hunting +for a living person as near as possible in appearance to the original, +and then costumes and slavishly reproduces him or her, without any show +of judgment or insight after the model is once selected. And this lack +of insight into character seems deplorably prevalent among our figure +painters, for how often we see in the exhibitions the model with a "good +head" tamely reproduced over and over again--here as a monk, there as a +Polonius, Thomas à Becket, a "blind beggar," "His Excellency," a +pensioner, or painted by some artist who wants to make a bid for +portraiture as "A portrait of a gentleman"! + +Black and white men have to introduce so many characters into their +work, they are obliged to invent them; but it is a curious fact that +this facility disappears at times. The late Mr. Fred Barnard, clever as +he was at inventing character for his black and white work, found, when +he was painting in oil, that confidence had left him, and he spent +several days wandering about London to find real characters for a +picture he was painting representing the jury in "Pilgrim's Progress." +One day in Oxford Street he saw a hansom-cab driver with a face besotted +with drink and "ripe" for production as a slave to Bacchus. Barnard +hailed the hansom, jumped in, and directed the jehu to drive him to his +studio on Haverstock Hill. In going up the Hampstead Road a tram-car ran +over a child. Barnard was terribly upset by the touching sight, and told +the driver to pull up at the nearest tavern. Getting out, he looked at +his "subject," intending to invite him to refreshment before taking him +on to his studio, where he intended to paint him. To his horror the face +of the bibulous cabman had lost all its "colour," and was of a pale +greenish hue. + +[Illustration: A TRANSFORMATION.] + +"That was horful, sir, warn't it? It'll upset me for a week." + +The disappointed artist dismissed his "subject." + +[Illustration] + +Much could be written of this genuine humourist. His buoyant fun was +irrepressible; indoors and out of doors he entertained himself--and +sometimes his friends--with his jokes. In his studio he kept as pets +some little tortoises. They were allowed to crawl about as they liked, +but he had painted on their backs caricatures--a laughing face, a +sour-green face, one with a look of horror, another of mischief. A +visitor seated unaware of these would suddenly spring off the sofa as +the walking mask slowly appeared from underneath it! Barnard's power of +mimicry was great, and his jokes were as excellent as his drawings. Even +when sitting before the camera for his photograph, he had his little +joke. + +[Illustration: BARNARD AND THE MODELS.] + +There are a number of girls who go the round of the studios, but have no +right whatever to do so. They generally hunt in pairs, and this habit +surely distinguishes them from the real model. They are more easily +drawn than described. Two of this class once called on Barnard. + +"What do you sit for?" he asked. + +"Oh, anything, sir." + +"Ah, I am a figure man, you are no use to me, but there is a friend of +mine over there who is now painting a landscape--I think you might do +very well for a haystack; and your friend might try studio No. 5 and sit +for a thunder-cloud, the artist there is starting a stormy piece--oh, +good morning." Tableau! + +A wretched individual once called upon me and begged me to give him a +sitting. I asked him to sit for what I was at work upon: this was a +wicket-keeper in a cricket match bending over the wicket. I assured the +man he need not apologise, as he had really turned up at an opportune +moment; the drawing was "news," and it had to be finished that day. When +I had shown my model the position and made him understand exactly what I +wanted, I noticed to my surprise that he was trembling all over. I +immediately asked him if he were cold. + +"No." + +"Nervous?" + +"No." + +"Then why not keep still?" + +"Well, that's just what I can't do, sir! I had to give up my occupation +because, sir, I am hafflicted with the palsy, and when I bend I do +tremble so. I only sit for 'ands, sir--for 'ands to portrait painters. I +close 'em for a military gent--I open 'em for a bishop--but when the +hartist is hin a 'urry I know as 'ow to 'ide one 'and in my pocket and +the hother hunder a cocked 'at." + +[Illustration: "I SIT FOR 'ANDS, SIR."] + +Hiding hands recalls to me a fact I may mention in justice to our modern +English caricaturists. We never make capital out of our subjects' +deformities. This I pointed out at a dinner in Birmingham a few years +ago, at which I was the guest of the evening, and as I was addressing +journalists I mention this fact in justice to myself and my brother +caricaturists. As it happened, that afternoon I had heard Mr. Gladstone +making his first speech in the opening of Parliament, 1886, after being +returned in Opposition. Turning round to his young supporters, he used +for the first time the now famous expression "an old Parliamentary +hand," holding up at the same time a hand on which there were only three +fingers. Now had I drawn that hand as it was, minus the first finger, +showing the black patch? It would have been tempting on the part of a +foreign caricaturist, because it had a curious application under the +circumstances. (But it would be noticed that in my sketch in _Punch_ the +first finger, which really did not exist, is prominently shown.) This +was the first time the fact was made public that Mr. Gladstone had not +the first finger on the left hand; since then, however, all artists, +humorous or serious, were careful to show Mr. Gladstone's left hand as +pointed out by me. + +Now I had noticed this for years in the House, and I hold as an argument +that men are not observant the fact that Members who had sat in the +House with Mr. Gladstone, on the same benches, for years, assured me +that they had never noticed his hand before I made this matter public. +So that when I am told that I misrepresent portraits of prominent men I +always point to this fact. + +Mr. Gladstone was careful to hide the deformity in his photographs, but +in his usual energetic manner in the House the black patch in place of +the finger was on many occasions in no way concealed. + +These are plebeian models, but sometimes artists' friends recommend +amateur models--a broken-down gentleman or some other poor relation--and +when you are drawing social modern subjects, of course these are really +of more use than the badly-dressed professional model. + +[Illustration: A _PUNCH_ ENGRAVING, DRAWN ON WOOD.] + +On "Private View Day" at the Royal Academy a few years ago a knot of +artists and their wives were in one of the rooms; it was late, and few +of the visitors remained. The attention of the artists was attracted by +a stately and beautiful being who entered and went round examining the +pictures. + +"How charming!" remarked one. + +"Delightful!" replied another. + +"Oh, if she would but sit to me!" prayed a third. + +"Why not ask her?" asked the practical one. "If anyone can, you can; so +remember that faint heart never won fair sitter!" + +"Well, here goes!" whispered the cavalier, Mr. Val Prinsep, R.A., in the +tone of one about to lead a forlorn hope, and he charged desperately +across the gallery. He approached the fair stranger, and politely taking +off his hat said diffidently: + +"Madam, I am one of the Academy. Should you wish to know anything about +the pictures I shall be glad----" + +"Oh, thanks. I know a good deal about them." + +"Indeed! Then you will understand how we artists are always on the +look-out for beauty to paint--and--ah--hm--well, you see I--that is we" +(pointing to the group) "were so struck with your presence +that--ah--pardon my abruptness--we thought that if such a thing were +possible you might condescend to allow one of us to make a study of your +head--ah." + +"Oh, with pleasure," said the fair visitor, taking from her hand-bag a +neat little note-book, and opening it, she said: + +"Well, I have only got Sundays and one Wednesday next month +disengaged,--I have got sittings on every other day. Will this be of any +use to you?" + +She was a model! + +The first house I occupied after I married faced one occupied by a +well-known and worthy fiery-tempered man of letters, and it so happened +that one evening my wife and I were dining at the house of another +neighbour. We were gratified to learn that our celebrated _vis-à-vis_, +hearing we had come to live in the same square, was anxious to make our +acquaintance. On our return home that night we discovered the latch-key +had been forgotten, and unfortunately our knocking and ringing failed to +arouse the domestics. It was not long, however, before we awoke our +neighbours, and a window of the house opposite was violently thrown +open, and language all the stronger by being endowed with literary merit +came from that man of letters, who in the dark was unable to see the +particular neighbours offending him, and he referred to my wife and +myself in a way that could not be passed over. A battle of words ensued +in which I was proved the victor, and my neighbour beat a hasty retreat. +Before retiring I wrote a note to the friend we had just left to say +that in the circumstances I refused to know my neighbour, and he had +better inform him that I would on the first opportunity punch his head. +By the same post I wrote for a particular model,--a retired pugilist. As +soon as he arrived next morning I placed him at the window of my studio +facing the opposite house, now and then sending him down to the front +door to stand on the doorstep to await some imaginary person, and to +keep his eye on the house opposite. I went on with my work in peace. +Presently a note came: + + "DEAR FURNISS,--Your neighbour has sent round to ask me what you are + like. He has never seen you till this morning, and he is frightened to + leave his house. He implores me to apologise for him." + +He departed from the neighbourhood shortly afterwards. + +[Illustration: MY FIGHTING DOUBLE.] + +Sad to relate that all Governmental undertakings of an artistic nature, +from our most colossal public building or monument to the design of a +postage stamp, are fair game for ridicule! The outward manifest record +of the Post Office Jubilee--rather the "Post Office Jumble"--was the +envelope and post card published by the Government and sold for one +shilling. The pitiful character of the design, from an artistic point of +view, shocked every person of taste; so I set to work and burlesqued it, +strictly following the lines of the genuine article. A glance at my +envelope alone, therefore, is sufficient to show the wretched quality of +the original. It happened that the postmen's grievances were very +prominent at that time. The Postmaster-General and the trade unionists +and others were at fever heat, and excitement ran high. This +caricature-parody, therefore, was a sketch with a purpose. It was said +at one of the meetings that my pencil "may perhaps touch the public +sympathy in behalf of the postman more effectually than any language has +been able to do." The wretched thing was thought worthy of an article +by Mr. M. H. Spielmann. My skit, it is needless to add, was very popular +with the postmen. They showed their gratitude by saving many a +misdirected letter. A letter addressed "Harry Furniss, London," has +frequently found me, without the loss of a post. + +[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S ENVELOPES TO ME.] + +I signed a certain number, which sold at 10_s._ 6_d._ each, and were +bought up principally by the members of the Philatelic Society. + +Perhaps the publication of this "Post Office Jumble" card was also the +cause of the puzzled postmen taking the trouble to decipher and deliver +the far more amusing artistic jokes of that irrepressible joker, Mr. +Linley Sambourne. By his permission I here publish a page, a selection +of the envelopes he has sent me from time to time. + +It is bad enough purposely to puzzle the overworked +letter-carriers--they are too often tried by unintentional touches of +humour emanating from the most innocent and unsuspected members of the +public--but I confess that I was once the innocent cause of Mr. +Sambourne trying the same thing on with the overworked bank clerk. + +[Illustration: CHEQUE FOR 5-1/2D. PASSED THROUGH TWO BANKS AND PAID. I +SIGNED IT _backwards_, AND IT WAS CANCELLED BY CLERK _backwards_.] + +I sent my _Punch_ friend a cheque, here reproduced, for the sum of +5-1/2_d._, payable to "Lynnlay Sam Bourne, Esqre," signed by me +backwards, crossed "Don't you wish you may get it and go." Sambourne +endorsed it "L. Sam. Bourne," and sent it to his bank. The clerk went +one better, and wrote "Cancelled" _backwards_ across my reversed +signature. It passed through my bank, and the money was paid. This is +probably unique in the history of banking. + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING WRITES HIS NAME BACKWARDS.] + +_A propos_ of writing backwards, in days when artists made their +drawings on wood everything of course had to be reversed, and writing +backwards became quite easy. To this day I can write backwards nearly as +quickly as I write in the ordinary way. One night at supper I was +explaining this, and furthermore told my friends that they themselves +could write backwards--in fact, they could not avoid doing so. Not of +course on the table, as I was doing, but by placing the sheet of paper +against the table underneath, and writing with the point upwards. +Perhaps my reader will try--and see the effect. For encouragement here +are a few of the first attempts on that particular evening. + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING'S ATTEMPT.] + +[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE'S FIRST ATTEMPT.] + +[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE'S SECOND ATTEMPT.] + +A few years ago a banquet was given at the Mansion House to the +representatives of French art; several English painters and others +interested in art were invited to meet them. Previous to being presented +to the Lord Mayor, every guest was requested to sign an autograph +album--an unusual proceeding, I think, at a City dinner. Were I Lord +Mayor I would compel my guests to sign their names--not on arrival, but +when leaving the Mansion House, and thus possess an autograph album of +erratic graphology, and one worth studying. In company with my friend +Mr. Whitworth Wallis, the curator of the Birmingham Museum and Art +Gallery, I entered the Mansion House, when we were immediately accosted +by a powdered flunkey in gorgeous uniform, in possession of the +autograph album, who presented a truly magnificent pen at us, and in +peremptory tones demanded our life or our signatures. Whitworth Wallis +wrote his first, with a dash and confidence. I stood by and admired. +"Oh," I said, taking the pen, "that's not half a dash; let me show you +mine." + +[Illustration] + +Jeames, in taking the pen from me, looked condescendingly over the page, +and with the air of a justice delivering judgment said to me: + +"Beaten 'im by hinches, sir. Beaten 'im by hinches!" + +Months after that I gave an entertainment one evening at Woolwich. My +audience was principally composed of Arsenal hands. On leaving the +platform I was taken into the Athletic Club rooms, and asked to sign +their autograph book and say a "few words" to the members. The few words +consisted of the "record" I had made in the signing match I had with Mr. +Wallis at the Mansion House--an incident which was brought to my mind +suddenly when I took the pen in my hand. It so happened that Whitworth +Wallis, who is a well-known lecturer on art matters, was on that same +night lecturing in the North of England, and as he left the platform at +the same hour as I at Woolwich, he was, like me, asked to sign an +autograph book, and told the very same story to his friends in the North +as I was telling under exactly similar circumstances, the same evening, +at the same hour, in the South. Neither of us knew that the other was +lecturing that night. It is not by any means a usual thing to be asked +to sign a club album, and Wallis and I had not met or corresponded since +the evening at the Mansion House. + +After working many years for the _Illustrated London News_, I became a +contributor to the _Graphic_, and for that journal wrote and illustrated +a series of supplements upon "Life in Parliament"; but from this time +forward it would be difficult to name any illustrated paper with which I +have not at some time or other been connected. For instance, the +_Yorkshire Post_ a few years ago started a halfpenny evening paper, and +sent their manager down to me to ask my honorarium to illustrate the +first few numbers with character sketches of the members of the British +Association, who were holding their meetings that week in Leeds. This +was a happy thought, as the "British Asses," as they are too familiarly +called, sent these first numbers of the paper all over the country; the +new ship had something to start upon, and is now a prosperous concern. +There are various stories about the sum I received for this work. It was +a large sum for England, where enterprise of this kind is very rare. I +was "billed" all over the town as if I were a Patti or Paderewski, and +telegrams were sent to the London papers by the special reporters +announcing the terms upon which I was at work; altogether it was a bit +of Yankee booming that would have made a Harmsworth or a Newnes green +with envy. + + + + + CARICATURE. + + CHAPTER V. + +A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL. + + What is Caricature?--Interviewing--Catching Caricatures--Pellegrini--The + "Ha! Ha!"--Black and White _v._ Paint--How to make a + Caricature--M.P.'s--My System--Mr. Labouchere's Attitude--Do the + Subjects object?--Colour in Caricature--Caught!--A Pocket + Caricature--The Danger of the Shirt-cuff--The Danger of a Marble + Table--Quick Change--Advice to those about to Caricature. + +[Illustration: If] + + +If I am asked what is caricature, how can I define it? Ah, here it is +explained by some great authority--whom I cannot say, for I have it +under the heading of "Cuttings from Colney Hatch," undated, unnamed. +Kindly read it carefully: + +[Illustration: THE STUDIO OF A CARICATURIST.] + +"The word itself, 'caricature,' is related etymologically to our own +'cargo,' and means, in all Italian simplicity, a _loading_. So, then, +the finely analytical quality of the Italian intellect, disengaging the +ultimate (material) element out of all the (spiritual) elements of +pictorial distortion and travesty, called it simply a 'loading.' After +all, 'exageration' only substitutes the idea of mound, or _agger_ for +_carica_--the heaping up of a mound--for the common Italian word 'load' +or 'cartload.' One can easily understand how a cold, cynical, and hating +Neapolitan, pushed about by the police for a likeness much too like, +would shrug his shoulders, and say, possibly, the likeness was loaded. +But when we look at the character of the loading, there may be anything +there, from diabolical and malignant spite up to the simplest fun, to +say nothing of the almost impossibility of drawing the real truth, and +the almost necessary tendency to exaggerate one thing and diminish +another. But if the Italian mind, with a head to be chopped off by a +despot for a joke, discovered the colourless and impregnable word +'load,' the French _gamin_, on his own responsibility, hit upon the +identical word in French, namely, 'charge'--_une charge_ meaning both a +pictorial or verbal goak or caricature, and a load. When did the word +'caricature' first obtain in the Italian language, and how? When did the +word 'charge' acquire a similar meaning in France, and was it or not +suggested by the Italian word? But the thing caricature goes back to the +night of ages, and is in its origin connected with the subjective +risible faculty on the one side and the objective tendency to making +faces on the other. Curiously enough, the original German ideas of +caricature appear to have hinged precisely upon the distortion of the +countenance, since _Fratze_, the leading word for caricature, signifies +originally a grimace. Then we have _Posse_, buffoonery (Italian, +_pazzie_), which, without original reference to drawing, would exactly +express many of Mr. ----'s very exquisite drolleries, diving as they do +into the weirdest genius--conceptions of night and of day, of dawn and +of twilight--the mixture of the terrible, the grotesque, the gigantic, +the infinitely little, the animal, the beast, the ethereal, the divinely +loving, the diabolically cynical, the crawling, the high-bred, all in a +universal salmagundi and lobster nightmare, mixing up the loveliest +conceptions with croaking horrors, the eternal aurora with the +everlasting _nitschewo_ of the frozen, blinding steppe. Caricature! What +can we English call it?" + +What indeed after this? Except in despair we adopt the child's +well-known definition--"First you think, and then you draw round the +think." I have been more than once asked to deliver a lecture explaining +the process. Of course such an idea is too absurd for serious +consideration. The comic writer cannot give anyone a recipe for making +jokes, nor can a comic actor show you how to grimace so as to make +others laugh in this serious country. We are not taught to look at the +comic side of things--any humorous element may grow, like Topsy, +unaided--nor is the power given to many to explain to others their +inventions. Bessemer, the inventor of the steel bearing his name, when +he first made his discovery was asked to read a paper explaining his +invention to a large meeting of experts. He had his carefully-prepared +notes in front of him, but they only embarrassed him. He struggled to +speak, but failed. Only the weight of the lumps of metal dangling in his +coattail pocket kept him from collapsing. Suddenly he dived his hand +into the pocket and produced a piece of steel, which he thumped on the +table. "Bother the paper! Here is my steel, and I'll tell you how I made +it!" So would it be with a caricaturist. After a struggle he would say, +"Bother words, words, words! Here is a pencil, and here is some paper. +I'll show you how I caricature." + +Personally, I have no objection to being caricatured--I frequently make +caricatures of myself. Nor have I any objection to being interviewed--I +interview myself. What else are these pages but interviews? I confess I +fail to see any objection to a legitimate caricature or a legitimate +interview. On the contrary, I look upon interviewing by an experienced +and sympathetic writer as invaluable to a public man who is bringing out +something novel and of interest to the public at large. It certainly +seems to me judicious that he should give his preliminary ideas +regarding it to the public firsthand, instead of allowing them to leak +out in an unauthentic and disfigured form through the fervid +imaginations of irresponsible scribes, leading to much misconception. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF ME BY MY DAUGHTER, AGE 15.] + +But I do object to the incapable, be he an interviewer wielding the +pencil or the pen. To illustrate my meaning I shall take the latter +first. The pen in this case did his work in true professional style. He +came to interview me, and by doing so to "boom" me for a journal which +was about to make a feature of my contributions to its pages. He brought +with him a new note-book of remarkable size; an artist with a portfolio, +pencils, and other artistic necessities; and a photographer! The +interviewer shall describe the scene in his own words. + +[Illustration: A SERIOUS PORTRAIT--FROM LIFE.] + +The interviewer remarked that the readers of the ----"would be very +interested in knowing exactly how the thing (interviewing) was done. How +did the ideas come? How did they take shape? And what was the method of +work? Neither at these nor at any other questions did Mr. Furniss wince. +It must not be forgotten that when he was in America last year he was +interviewed, on an average, once a day; and a man who has passed through +such an experience as that is unlikely to recoil before any ordinary +ordeal; although Mr. Furniss was bound to admit that a combination of +interviewer, artist, and photographer had never before got him into his +grip. The situation would have had its ludicrous side for anybody who +had chanced to peep through the skylight. The spectacle of five men (for +the presence of the indefatigable secretary was an indispensable part of +the proceedings) all solemnly drinking tea, while a deer-hound kept a +wistful eye on the sugar-basin, was unusual, and perhaps a little +grotesque--to all save the participants. Seated at his easel in the +characteristic position represented in our sketch, Mr. Furniss would now +and again ask permission to move his arm towards his cup of tea, and +would then bend back to the make-belief work at which he was posing." +There is a picture of interviewing! Everything so prepared, so studied, +so well described to impress the subscribers of the enterprising +journal. The photographer with a wide angle lens took in all that was in +my studio--to "make-believe," as the camera invariably does, that the +apartment was six times larger than it really is. But the artist, who +_should_ idealise if the photographer could not, who so sadly interfered +with my enjoying my tea, who was sent to make the most of me to raise +the enthusiasm of the readers and to increase the subscriptions, +succeeded in doing with his pencil what no interviewer has done with his +pen,--he made me wince! Here is a reduction of the serious portrait +published. + +I have sat down time after time to answer young correspondents' +questions about the "system" to adopt for the production of caricature. +I invariably end by drawing imaginary caricatures of my correspondent +and fail to reply. When interviewed on the subject of caricature, I +discourse on the history of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and the +technique in the work of Burne-Jones, Rossetti, and Holman Hunt, and +caricature is therefore driven from our minds. + +However, the difficulty was solved in a very unexpected manner. One day, +whilst smoking my cigar after lunch, I overheard an interview in my +studio, which I here reproduce. + +A Pencil of mine was working away merrily shortly after the opening of +the Session, when suddenly my favourite Pen flew off the writing-table, +where it had been enjoying a quiet forty winks, and alighted on the +easel. + +[Illustration] + +"How very awkward you are!" cried the Pencil. "See, you have knocked +against and so agitated me that I have actually given Sir William an +extra chin." + +"One more or less does not matter, does it?" rejoined the Pen. "I +apologise, and trust you will make allowances for me, as I am only an +artist's Pen, don't you know, and naturally rather uncouth, I fear." + +"Pray take a seat upon the indiarubber, and let me know to what I am +indebted for the honour of this visit." + +"Well," continued the Pen, "I have flown over here to remind you of your +promise to confess to me some of the secrets of caricature." + +"Ah, yes," replied the Pencil, "I remember now. I have really been so +busy sketching Members of Parliament at St. Stephen's, that I had almost +forgotten my promise." + +"A poor Pen is out of place in an artist's studio, except to minister to +the requirements of the autograph hunter. Well, you need not be jealous. +My literary flight is not intended to be a very high one after all. Now +you know more about the secrets of the studio than I do; so tell me, is +it the custom of H. F. to have a regular sitting for a caricature, after +the fashion of the portrait painters?" + +"Oh, you are too delightfully innocent altogether," laughed the Pencil, +rubbing its leaden head rapidly on a piece of paper, to sharpen its +point. "A regular sitting! What do _you_ think? No, sir, no, +emphatically never. Such an operation would be fatal to the delicate +constitution of a caricature, and the result would not be worth the +paper upon which it is drawn. It is only in ordinary portraiture that a +sitting is required, and upon that point I have a theory." + +"Oh, never mind your theories now, old fellow," rejoined the Pen, as it +took a sip of ink and prepared to chronicle the reply. "What I want to +chat to you about at present is how to catch a caricature." + +The Pencil pricked up his ears, and with a knowing wink, said: + +"Ah, I see! You want to know secrets. Well, I will tell you 'how it's +done.' The great point about a caricature is that it must be caught +unawares. A man when he thinks he is unobserved struts about gaily, just +for all the world like a hedgehog. All his peculiarities are then as +evident as your cousins the quills upon the back of the fretful +porcupine. But the moment the man or woman who is about to be +caricatured observes H. F. take me in hand, I always notice that he +shrivels up and collapses as quickly as one of the insectivora surprised +at his feast. But wait a moment: now you ask me, I do recollect one +unfortunate man who, despite H. F.'s protest, insisted upon coming here +once to sit for a caricature. He looked the picture of misery, and sat +in the chair there, just as if he were at a dentist's. H. F. made a most +flattering portrait. Indeed, so much too handsome was it that I could +hardly follow the workings of his fingers, I was laughing so." + +"'Oh, what a relief!' cried the sitter, when H. F. showed him the +drawing. 'You have certainly made a pretty guy of me, but, thank heaven, +I am not thin-skinned.' + +"'Only thick-headed,' muttered H. F. _sotto voce_ to me as he continued +to chat with the sitter. + +"No sooner had he left the studio than the 'study' was in the fire, and +the caricature which afterwards came from the Furniss was drawn entirely +from memory. + +"The artist is in more evil case when he has absolutely no chance +whatever of making the slightest memorandum, for he must trust to memory +alone," remarked the Pencil. + +"Yet Pellegrini boasted that he always trusted to memory," said the Pen. + +"I know he did," replied the Pencil, "and more than once chaffed H. F. +for bringing me out. H. F., I know, has the greatest admiration for most +of Pellegrini's work, but thinks that 'Ape' certainly had the failing +common to all Italian caricaturists of being cruel rather than funny. I +may mention too, here, an incident for the truth of which H. F. can +vouch, and which illustrates another weakness of the inhabitants of the +Sunny South. When the poor fellow was ill a friend of his one day set to +work to put his room in order, and in moving a screen was surprised to +find behind it a number of soiled shirts. He began to count them over +with a view to sending them to the laundry, when Pellegrini starting up +exclaimed, 'You fellow! you leave my shirts there, or I am a ruined man. +Don't you see they are my "shtock in drade"?' And sure enough upon the +huge familiar linen cuffs were numerous notes in pencil--sketches, in +fact, from life for coming caricatures. Now, when H. F. intends to trust +entirely to memory, I often find that he makes a note in writing after +this fashion: 'Like So-and-so, with a difference,'--and the difference +is noted. Or 'Think of an animal, a bird, or a fish, and to that add +So-and-so, and subtract So-and-so,' and this results in a portrait. For +instance, if he saw a man like this, I should not be surprised by his +writing a single word as 'Penguin' for his guidance, and so on." + +[Illustration: "PENGUIN."] + +"The old caricaturists, I suppose, had a decided advantage over the +moderns in having artistic costumes to depict?" asked the Pen. + +"Of course," replied the Pencil. "Even up to the time of Seymour the +tailor made the man, and was, therefore, largely responsible for the +caricature. You have only to see Mr. Brown in the ordinary attire of +to-day and also in Court dress to appreciate this, and sympathise with +me." + +[Illustration: MR. BROWN, ORDINARY ATTIRE.] + +[Illustration: COURT DRESS.] + +"Now here is another point," continued the Pen, "upon which you can +throw some light, old fellow. I have often seen letters on the +writing-table from people asking H. F. for his recipe for the making of +caricatures. I invariably scribble the same reply, 'Find out the chief +points and exaggerate them.' Not satisfied with this, some have asked +him to explain his _modus operandi_." "I recollect an instance," replied +the Pencil. "It was in the studio here. An interviewer called, and asked +H. F. to explain the art of caricature. So he took down a volume of +portraits from the book-shelves, and opened it at this one. You see it +is the head of a man who should be universally respected by us of the +grey goose fraternity. 'Well, you see there is not much to caricature,' +said H. F.; 'it is simply the portrait of a kindly, intellectual-looking +man, the late Chief Librarian of the British Museum, I remember well," +continued the Pencil, brightening up, "H. F. took me in hand, and +telling me to knock over the forehead, keep in the eyes, pull the nose, +and wipe off the chin, produced a caricature 'on the spot.'" + +[Illustration] + +"I suppose sometimes you find caricatures ready-made, Mr. Pencil?" +continued the Pen. + +[Illustration: A CARICATURE.] + +[Illustration: _NOT_ A CARICATURE.] + +"Of course we do," replied the Pencil. "Nature will have her joke +sometimes, nor can we blame her, for it is only by reason of contrast +that we admire the beautiful. _A propos_ of this, my dear Pen, I may +tell you that in county Wexford, in Ireland, there is a certain very +beautiful estate, round which runs a carefully-built wall. At a +particular point the regularity ceases, and the wall runs on, +constructed in every conceivable style, and contrary to all the canons +of masonry. There is a legend that the owner of the estate, tired of the +monotonous appearance of the wall, ordered that a certain space should +be left in it which should be filled up with a barrier as irregular in +construction as possible. This was done, and that portion of the wall is +called the 'Ha-ha!' because so funny does it look that everyone who +passes is observed to laugh. Now is it not much the same in Nature? A +world full of Venuses and Adonises would soon pall. So now and then we +find a human 'Ha-ha!' interspersed among them. In that case, I say, the +caricaturist's work is already done. He has simply to copy Nature. Yet +there are some who actually find fault with H. F. for doing that very +thing, saying that his pencil (that's me) is 'unkind,' 'cruel,' 'gross,' +and so on. There are many M.P.'s whom he habitually draws without the +slightest exaggeration, notwithstanding which, Mr. Pen, there are +members of your calling who do not scruple to inform the world that in +drawing the Parliamentary 'Ha-ha!' as he is, H. F. is libelling him. +There is one M.P. in particular---- No, I shall not give his name or +show his portrait. I believe him to be very clever, very interesting, +undeniably a great man, and extremely vain of his personal appearance. +But he is built contrary to all the laws of Nature, and if H. F. draws +him as he is, he is accused of libelling him. If he improves him, no one +knows him. Oh, Mr. Pen, you may take it from me that the lot of the +caricaturist is not a happy one." + +"For the matter of that," put in the Pen, "neither is the painter's. You +know Gay's lines: + + "So very like, a painter drew, + That every eye the picture knew, + He hit complexion, feature, air, + So just, the life itself was there. + He gave each muscle all its strength, + The mouth, the chin, the nose's length, + His honest pencil touched with truth, + And marked the date of age and youth. + He lost his friends, his practice failed,-- + Truth should not always be revealed." + +But Gay did not live in the days of Sargent!" + +"We are getting on nicely," said the Pen. "Now answer a question which +is often put to me--viz., why caricaturists eschew paint?" + +"Because," replied the Pencil, "people often seem to forget that in the +present day, when events follow each other in quick succession, a +subject becomes stale almost before the traditional nine days' interest +in it has expired--that paint is no longer the medium by which a +caricaturist can possibly express his thoughts. Of course, I am not +referring to mere tinting, such as that in which the old caricaturists +had their drawings reproduced, but to colouring in oils, after the +manner of the great satirist Hogarth. Some may remember H. F.'s +caricature in _Punch_ of the late Serjeant-at-Arms, Captain Gosset, as a +black-beetle. Now, had he painted a full-length portrait of him, and +sent it elaborately framed to the Royal Academy, it would not only have +taken him very much longer to execute, but the Captain would not have +looked a whit more like a black-beetle than he did in black and white in +the pages of _Punch_. + +"It must be remembered, also, that in caricature everything depends upon +contrast. For instance, in a Parliamentary sketch he can easily make Sir +William Harcourt inflate himself to such an extent that he occupies a +good third of the picture, but were he to paint a portrait of him of +similar proportions it would be necessary to take the roof off +Burlington House and bring over the Eiffel Tower to which to hang the +enormous frame that would be requisite. Moreover, there would be an +additional disadvantage, for it would be impossible to take in the whole +figure at once, and it would be necessary to mount the first platform at +least to obtain a peep at even the lowest of the series of chins which +distinguishes the descendant of kings. However, it is just on the cards +that some day he may open a Parliamentary Portrait Gallery, and then I +can promise that Sir William will have justice done to him at last. +Sixteen yards of 'Historicus' would assuredly be enough to draw the +town. But, in point of fact, it would be just as reasonable to ask an +actor why he is not an opera singer as well, or to ask an opera singer +why he does not dispense with the music and play in legitimate tragedy, +as to enquire of a modern caricaturist why he does not work in colours." + +The Pencil, after the delivery of this discourse, rolled over to the +barber-knife, who trimmed him up. + +"There are some people," continued the Pen, "who object to be sketched +in any shape or form. I recollect an editor once challenging H. F. to +get a sketch of an interesting man who had defied photographers and +artists alike, and absolutely refused to have his portrait taken. You +will find a paragraph about this in press-cutting book, marked 'Pritt.' +Just read it when I'm being attended to." + + "Mr. Pritt, Leeds, is reckoned chief of the Yorkshire anglers. 'A + striking peculiarity with him,' a Yorkshire correspondent says, 'is that + he never will sit for his likeness. Mr. Harry Furniss, however, the + well-known artist of _Punch_, during his recent visit to Leeds, on the + occasion of the meeting of the British Association, managed to 'take' + Mr. Pritt; and the portrait, drawn in characteristic style, appears in + the _Yorkshire Weekly_ under the heading 'Caught at Last'." + +"Yes, that's it. H. F. was invited to dine by this curious and clever +individual. + +"'Delighted to see you, Mr. Furniss; but _one_ thing I must ask you to +understand _at once_--I'm not going to be sketched.' + +"'I assure you,' he said, 'I shall not sketch you unless you are well +aware I am drawing you, and, in fact, willingly give me assistance.' + +"'That's very good of you. Now I am happy. I have made up my mind I +shall never allow my face to be drawn or photographed, and once I make +up my mind nothing in the world will move me.' + +"'Indeed!' he replied. 'But, pardon me, you have not always had that +antipathy. I am looking at a photograph of you hanging on the wall +there, taken when you were a baby.' + +"'Oh, ah! Do you detect that? No one knows it to be me. Of course, I was +not accountable for my actions at that age.' + +"'Ah, how you have altered! Dear me! why, your nose is not that shape +now. Here it is Roman; you have a sort of----' + +"'Have a--what, eh?' + +"'Have you a pencil?' (Taking me out.) 'This will do. Now, your nose is +like that.' + +"'Is it? But my mouth is the same, isn't it?' + +"'Not quite--I will show you.' + +"'Of course, my chin isn't as round?' + +"'Oh, no! It's more like this. And you have less hair--see here.' + +"'Dear me! Of course, one can see who this is. This astonishes me.' + +"Someone else coming in at that moment, he quickly pocketed the sketch +and me, and, much to his host's chagrin, it was duly published as a +portrait of the gentleman from a 'special sitting'--'Caught at Last.' + +[Illustration: THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_ SITS FOR HIS PORTRAIT.] + +"This reminds me, by the way, of a portrait which H. F. once drew of the +author of 'Happy Thoughts' as a frontispiece to a new edition of that +humorous book of books. Our guv'nor's first effort at this portrait was +distinctly a failure, and no wonder, for the moment I was produced the +editor of _Punch_ turned his back upon us, and, with the greatest +vigour, commenced writing at his table. Not being so intimate then with +Mr. Burnand as we subsequently became, both I and the guv'nor thought +him peculiar. But after a considerable time the editorial chair was +wheeled round, and with a smile its genial occupant said calmly, 'Well, +let me see the result.' + +"'The result is _nil_ at present,' replied H. F., 'for I have not yet +caught a glimpse of your face.' + +"Mr. Burnand looked surprised. 'Dear me!' he said; 'I thought you were +making a study of me at work, you know.' + +"'All I could see was the back of your head in silhouette. There +now--sit just as you are, please. That's exactly the pose and expression +which I want to catch. Thanks!' cried the guv'nor, as he rapidly set to +work, when suddenly all cheerfulness vanished from Mr. Burnand's +countenance, as with a horrified look he pointed to the table by my +side, where lay the sketching materials. + +"'What's that?' he cried, dismayed. + +"'Oh, a lump of bread, useful in touching up high lights,' said H. F. + +"'You don't say so! The sight of it quite upset me. I really thought you +had brought your supper with you, and intended to work from me all +night. I shall never recover my natural expression this evening, so +please call again.' And as H. F. closed his sketch-book, the following +brief colloquy took place: + +"The editor of 'Happy Thoughts': 'Caught anything?' + +"H. F.: 'No.' + +"The editor: 'Good evening!' + +"And the door closed. + +[Illustration] + +"Frequently a subject has posed for H. F. without being aware of the +fact that he was making a sketch. For instance, in his happy hunting +ground--Parliament--Brown, M.P., say, comes up to him in the Lobby: 'Ha! +I see you are up to mischief--taking someone off.' + +"H. F. gives a knowing look, and points to Jones. + +"'Ha! ha! I see. I'll talk to him. Ha! ha! and I'll look out for the +caricature. Don't be too hard on poor Jones!' + +"'Thanks, awfully,' replies H. F. He makes a rapid sketch, nods to Brown +as much as to say, 'That'll do,' smiles, and walks off. He has of course +never troubled about Jones at all; it's Brown he has been sketching all +the time. + +"It is utterly absurd to imagine you can escape from the caricaturist. + +"H. F. trained himself to make sketches with his hand in his pocket, and +worked away with me and his book--or rather cards, which he had +specially for the purpose--whilst looking straight into the face of his +victim. He manages in this way to sketch people sitting opposite to him +in the train, and sometimes when talking to them all the time. + +"You know that without special permission from the Lord High Great +Chamberlain no stranger is allowed to pass the door of the English House +of Lords, even when it is empty; but when the precious Peers are +sitting, the difficulty of making a sketch is too great for description. +You are not allowed to sit down, speak, smile, sneeze, or sketch. H. F. +once produced me in the House of Lords. Had he drawn a sword instead of +a pencil he could not have created greater consternation. Explanation +was useless. The officials knew that he was only for 'takkin' notes' for +_Punch_, but the vision of a pencil produced an effect upon them the +same as if they had caught sight of an infernal machine. But necessity +is the mother of invention. It was then he hit upon the plan I have just +told you about. He draws in his pocket. Keeping the card against his +leg, he sketches quite easily. A pocket Hercules is an oft enough +heard-of individual--so why not a pocket artist? + +[Illustration: SKETCH ON A SHIRT-CUFF.] + +"Previous to this he used to make a rapid note on his shirt-cuff; but +that is a dangerous practice. Wives might resent the face if it were too +pretty, and your washerwoman might recognise a Member of Parliament as +her intimate friend. The incident which cured him of using his +shirt-cuff for sketching happened at a large dinner, where he was +introduced to the wife of a well-known public man, who soon showed she +was not altogether pleased by the introduction, and truly at the moment +he had forgotten that he had made a sketch of the lady on his +shirt-cuff, which he did not take sufficient care to conceal. + +[Illustration] + +"I recollect once on the terrace of the House of Commons he was +sketching a lady of foreign extraction, the wife of a gentleman +well-known to the Irish Party, with a profile something like this. I +made the sketch, unfortunately, on the marble tea-table. When H. F.'s +friends were leaving, he found he could not rub this off the table, and +what embarrassed him more was the fact that some Irish Members were +bearing down to take possession of the table as soon as we left. I had a +rapid vision of our guv'nor floating in the Thames, being hurled over by +the infuriated Members from the Emerald Isle; so I quickly transformed +the lady into something resembling a popular Member of Parliament at the +time, and, as we were leaving, I overheard an Irish Member say, 'Bedad! +and Furniss has been dhrawin' that owld beauty, Mundella!' + +[Illustration: "MUNDELLA."] + +"Have you anything new?" asked the Pen. "May I look? I know that St. +Stephen's is your happy hunting ground." + +"Ah, yes," responded the Pencil, "I know it well. But I can tell you it +is not altogether a bed of roses. When we come across Members who have +taken liberties with their personal appearance during the recess, H. F. +and I resent it, I can tell you." + +"Naturally," observed the Pen in a voice of the utmost sympathy, "for it +means more work." + +"Of course," continued the Pencil. "Now I have always held that model M. +P.'s have no right to alter. They are the property of the political +caricaturist, and what on earth is to become of him if the bearded men +begin to shave and the smooth-faced to disguise themselves in +'mutton-chops' or 'Dundrearys'? Yet they _will_ do it. We may draw them +in their new guise, but the public won't have them at any price. They +want their old favourites, and if they miss a well-known 'Imperial,' a +moustache, a pair of dyed whiskers, or other such hall-mark in the +picture, or on the other hand find a set of familiar chins concealed +beneath an incipient Newgate fringe, a nose and chin which have been +accustomed to meet for many a long year suddenly divided by the +intrusion of a bristly moustache, or a delightfully asinine expression +lost under the influence of a pair of bushy side-whiskers, recognition +becomes impossible and the caricature falls flat. The fact is, my friend +Pen, it is not only their features, but their characteristic attitudes +which we make familiar, and their political differences cause the +artistic effect. To me it is marvellous to note how differently artists +draw the same head. Expression of course varies, but the construction of +the head must always remain the same. Yet I have seen no less a head +than that of Mr. Gladstone so altered in appearance in the work of +different artists that I have been forcibly reminded of the old story of +St. Peter's skull. A tourist travelling in Italy was shown a cranium at +Rome which he was assured was the veritable relic. In Florence he was +shown another, and somewhere else he was shown a third. Upon his +remonstrating the guide observed, 'It is quite right, sir: the skull you +saw at Rome was that of St. Peter when he was a boy; that at Florence +was his when he was a young man, and this was his skull when he died.' + +"Then again, familiarity with the subject is only arrived at by +continually watching and sketching a Member. A few years ago I was lying +down in my berth in the sketch-book which was in H. F.'s pocket, when I +overheard a conversation between him and Mr. Labouchere upon +Parliamentary portraits." + +"What did H. F. say about them?" asked the Pen. "He ought to know the +alphabet of Parliamentary portraiture at all events by this time." + +"You're right," nodded the Pencil. "He's drawn a few thousand of them in +his time. What did H. F. say? Well, he told Labouchere that he always +created a type for each Member, and to that he adheres." + +"'Yes,' said the Sage, late of Queen Anne's Gate, 'and when the original +turns up, those who derive their impression of a Member from your +sketches are disappointed if the two do not exactly tally.'" + +"But surely our guv'nor does not sketch direct from life?" asked the +Pen, amazed. + +"Of course he does," indignantly replied the Pencil. "He whips me out of +my bed at all times, but as he pointed out to the Member for Northampton +(see how Parliamentary I am getting), it would never do invariably to +sketch a man as you see him. 'For instance,' went on H. F. addressing +him, 'I made a sketch of you, Mr. Labouchere, in the corridor of the +House of Commons, kneeling on a seat, and had I never seen you before, I +should have no doubt used this as a characteristic instead of an +accidental attitude of yours.' + +"Just fancy what you would have written, my dear Pen, if you had seen in +_Punch_ one of H. F.'s portraits of Lord Hartington with his hat upon +the back of his head instead of over his eyes, or Mr. Gladstone depicted +with a Shakespeare collar, or Mr. Cyril Flower without one, or Mr. +Arnold Morley smiling, or Mr. Balfour looking cross, or Mr. Broadhurst +in evening dress, or Mr. Chamberlain without an orchid in the +button-hole of his coat! Yet I venture to say the time has been when Mr. +Chamberlain may have had to rush down to the House orchidless, and when +Mr. Broadhurst may have worn evening dress. Stranger things than that +have happened, I can tell you. I have actually seen the irrepressible +smile vanish from the face of Mr. John Morley. But never--no, never, +will I believe that the ex-Chief Liberal Whip has ever looked jovial, +that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cyril Flower ever exchanged collars, or that +Lord Hartington ever wore his hat at the back of his head. + +[Illustration: MR. LABOUCHERE.] + +"On the other hand, my dear Pen, you know as well as I do that Lord +Randolph Churchill did not wear imitation G.O.M. collars, that Mr. +Herbert Gladstone is no longer in his teens, that Mr. Gladstone was not +always so wild-looking as H. F. usually represented him, and that +perhaps Sir William Harcourt is not simply an elephantine mass of +egotism." + +"Then why did he draw them so?" enquired the Pen. + +"Ah! that is the secret of the caricaturist," laughed the Pencil. "There +is something more in politicians, you know, than meets the eye, and the +caricaturist tries to record it. You're so captious, my dear Pen. It is +not given to everyone to see a portrait properly, however true it may +be. Some folks there are who are colour-blind. There are others who are +portrait-blind. Others again are blind to the humorous. An old M.P. +came up to H. F. one day in the Lobby of the House of Commons when a new +Parliament had assembled for the first time, and said to him, 'Well, you +have a rich harvest for your pencil (that was me). I never saw such odd +specimens of humanity assembled together before.' + +[Illustration: THE M.P. REAL AND IDEAL.] + +"'That may be so,' replied H. F., 'but mark my words, after a session or +two, my comic sketches of the Members--for which, by the way, the +specimens you are looking at are merely notes, and which you are now +good enough to call faithful portraits--will become so familiar to you +that they will cease to amuse you. And you may even come to pronounce +them gross libels. In other words, you will find that their frequent +repetition will rob them in your eyes of their comic character +altogether, just as in the case with the attendants at the Zoo, on whose +faces you will fail to detect the ghost of a smile at the most +outrageous pranks of the monkeys, although you shall see everyone else +in the place convulsed with laughter.'" + +"But surely, Mr. Pencil," argued the Pen, "you lose friends by +caricaturing them?" + +"Not those who are worthy of friendship," replied the Pencil, with a +solemn air. "And those who cannot take a joke are not worthy of it. H. +F. is not a portrait painter. It makes the lead turn in my case to +witness the snobbishness which exists nowadays among certain +thin-skinned artists and writers. The Society grub has eaten the heart +out of all true artistic ambitions. An honest satirist has no chance +nowadays. He must not draw what he sees, or write what he really thinks +about it. Pleasing wishy-washiness is idolised, whilst Hogarth is voted +coarse. Great Scott! How this age of cigarettes and lemon squash would +have stirred the pulse and nerved the brush of the greatest of English +caricaturists!" + +[Illustration: THE PHOTO. AS HE REALLY IS.] + +Then as the Pencil wiped away a tear of regret for the decadence of +English satirical art the Pen jotted down the following lines culled +from the old tomb-stone at Chiswick: + + "If Genius fire thee Stranger stay, + If Nature touch thee, drop a tear. + If neither move thee, turn away, + For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here." + +"When he has not seen a Member, and has no reference to go by, how does +he manage?" + +"He does not find photography of much use. Sometimes, if he has to draw +a man for some special reason, and has not seen him, a photograph is, of +course, the only means possible; then he generally gets a letter +something like this: + + "'Dear Sir,--I enclose you a photograph of myself, the only one I + possess. It belongs to my wife, and she has reluctantly lent it, and + trusts you will take every care of it and return it at once. It was + taken on our wedding trip. I may mention that I have less hair at the + top of my head and more on my face, and I may seem to some a trifle + older.' + +"Well, here, you see, H. F. has to use his judgment. + +"But to my surprise H. F. received a visit from the original of the +photograph shortly after his sketch was published, who came to inform +the guv'nor that no one could possibly recognise him in the sketch; and +when I saw him in the flesh I quite believed him. You can judge from the +sketch how useful the photograph was. + +"The second appearance of the new and ambitious M.P. in the pages of +_Punch_ did not satisfy the legislator either. It was not his face he +took exception to, but his boots, like Mr. Goldfinch in 'A Pair of +Spectacles.' He lost faith in his bootmaker, squeezed his extremities +into patent leather shoes of the most approved and uncomfortable make, +and hobbled through the Lobbies doing penance at the shrine of +caricature. A caricature, you see, does not depend upon the face alone. + +"One of H. F.'s earliest Parliamentary caricatures was a sketch of Mr. +Henry Broadhurst, the deservedly popular representative of the working +classes. He was Member for Stoke when the sketch was made. There is no +affectation about him. Neither the skin that covers his solid frame nor +that which encases his active feet is thin. His figure is one of the +best known and most characteristic in Parliament. Who is not familiar +with the round, determined little head, with the short cropped hair, the +square-cut beard, the shrewd expression, the genial smile, the short +jacket, the horsey trousers, the round hat, and the thick boots? The +figure often appeared in Mr. Punch's Parliamentary Portrait Gallery. +When our friend the late William Woodall introduced his fellow-candidate +to the electors of Stoke a voice cried out, 'We know 'im! we know 'im! +We've seen 'is boots in _Punch!_' + +"No one can deny that the potters of Staffordshire are an artistic +public. + +"The late chief proprietor of the leading paper had the largest feet +ever seen in the House of Commons, and a certain noble lord whose name +will ever be connected with Majuba carries off the palm for the largest +in the Upper House. The new Member for ---- will, in due course, owe his +Parliamentary fame to the extraordinary heels of his boots, if nothing +else, just as the late Lord Hardwicke's reputation was due to the +mysterious shine of his hat. + +"But, judging from the illustrated papers, M.P.'s all wear spats, new +trousers every day (for they never have a crease), the most +beautifully-fitting coats, and white hats with black bands round them. +Why are they drawn so?" asked the Pen. + +"Excuse the familiar vulgar rejoinder--Ask me another." + +"I hear it said that you never caricature women." + +"What rot! Have I not worked in illustrating the Members of the Houses +of Parliament for years, to say nothing of Judges and--their wives?" + +"I mean young women." + +"Oh, really I have no time to answer these questions; here are a bundle +of my unpublished caricatures; take them and be off." + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + +PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS. + + Gladstone and Disraeli--A Contrast--An unauthenticated Incident--Lord + Beaconsfield's last Visit to the House of Commons--My Serious + Sketch--Historical--Mr. Gladstone--His Portraits--What he thought of + the Artists--Sir J. E. Millais--Frank Holl--The Despatch + Boxes--Impressions--Disraeli--Dan O'Connell--Procedure--American + Wit--Toys--Wine--Pressure--Sandwich Soirée--The G.O.M. dines with + "Toby, M.P."--Walking--Quivering--My Desk--An Interview--Political + Caricaturists--Signature in Sycamore--Scenes in the Commons--Joseph + Gillis Biggar--My Double--Scenes--Divisions--Puck--Sir R. + Temple--Charles Stewart Parnell--A Study--Quick Changes--His Fall--Room + 15--The last Time I saw him--Lord Randolph Churchill--His Youth--His + Height--His Fickleness--His Hair--His Health--His Fall--Lord + Iddesleigh--Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone--Bradlaugh--His Youth--His + Parents--His Tactics--His Fight--His Extinction--John Bright--Jacob + Bright--Sir Isaac Holden--Lord Derby--A Political Prophecy--A Lucky + Guess--My Confession in the _Times_--The Joke that Failed--The + Seer--Fair Play--I deny being a Conservative--I am + Encouraged--Chaff--Reprimanded--Misprinted--Misunderstood. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: THE INNER LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.] + +[Illustration: + 1. Dr. Tanner + 2. Rt. Hon. A. Akers-Douglas + 3. Lord A. Hill + 4. G. Cavendish-Bentinck + 5. J. A. Pinton + 6. Sir W. H. Houldaworth + 7. Sir Albert K. Rollit + 8. Rt. Hon. H. Chaplin + 9. Sir E. Waskin + 10. T. W. Rusell + 11. Rt. Hon. C. B. Spencer + 12. Christopher Sykes + 13. Lord Halabury + 14. H. Lubouchere + 15. T. Sexton + 16. Sir R. H. Fowler + 17. Earl Spencer + 18. Rt. Hon. J. Chamberlain + 19. Admiral Field + 20. Sir Frank Lockwood + 21. Rt. Hon J. B. Balfour + 22. Wm. Woodall + 23. F. Ashmead Bartlett + 24. Baden-Powell + 25. Sir T. W. Maclure + 26. Marquis of Hartington (Duke of Devonshire) + 27. Sir R. Temple + 28. } + 29. } Press + 30. } + 31. } + 32. H. W. Lucy (_Toby M.P._). + 33. Rt. Hon. John Morley + 34. Lord Randolph Churchill + 35. Press (_Times_) + 36. " " + 37. J. Henniker Heaton + 38. James A. Jacoby + 39. Sir H. H. Howorth + 40. P. Power + 41. C. S. Parnell] + + +Some years before Mr. Disraeli quitted the House of Commons upon his +elevation to the Peerage, I enjoyed witnessing a very remarkable +encounter between him and Mr. Gladstone. It was one of those passage +of arms, or to be more correct I should say, perhaps, of words, which in +the days of their Parliamentary youth were so frequent between the great +political rivals; and although I am unable to recall the particular +subject of the debate, or the exact date of its occurrence, I well +remember that Mr. Gladstone had launched a tremendous attack against his +opponent. However, notwithstanding the fact that from the outset of his +speech it was evident that Mr. Gladstone meant war to the knife, that as +it proceeded he waxed more and more hostile, and that his peroration was +couched in the most vehement terms, Disraeli remained to the finish as +if utterly unmoved, sitting in his customary attitude as though he were +asleep, with his arms hanging listlessly at his sides. Once only during +the progress of the attack he appeared to wake up, when, taking his +single eye-glass, which he usually kept in a pocket of his waistcoat, +between his finger and thumb, he calmly surveyed the House as if to +satisfy himself how it was composed, just as an experienced cricketer +eyes the field before batting, in order to see how the enemy are +placed. Then, having taken stock of those present, the eye-glass was +replaced in his pocket, and to all appearance he once more subsided into +a tranquil slumber. But this was only a feint, for the very instant that +Mr. Gladstone sat down up jumped Disraeli. The contrast between his +method and that of Mr. Gladstone was very noticeable. Placing one hand +artistically upon the box in front of him, and the other under his coat +tails, he commenced to speak, and in the calmest manner possible, +although with the most telling and polished satire, he aimed dart after +dart across the table at Mr. Gladstone. As he proceeded to traverse the +speech of his distinguished opponent with the most perfect and effective +skill, it soon became evident that in reality he had slept with one eye +open. With masterly tact, he had reserved the principal point in his +reply to the end, and then, bringing his full force to bear upon it, the +conclusion of his speech told with redoubled effect. + +[Illustration: LORD BEACONSFIELD. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.] + +Whilst upon the subject of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield, I may +narrate a remarkable story, although I am unable to vouch for the +accuracy of it, as I cannot remember who was my original informant, nor +among my friends in or out of Parliament have I succeeded in discovering +anyone who actually witnessed the incident to which it refers. Should it +turn out to be an invention, like the champagne jelly of Lord +Beaconsfield or the eye-glass of Mr. Bright, I shall no doubt be +corrected. But if on the contrary the anecdote be authentic, I may earn +some thanks for resuscitating it. In any case I can testify that at the +time the story was told to me I had undoubtedly every reason to believe +that it was true. + +A similar scene to that which I have described above was taking place in +the House between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, when the latter in the +course of his remarks had occasion to quote a passage from a recent +speech made by his rival upon some platform in the country. + +Suddenly Mr. Gladstone started up and exclaimed: + +"I never said that in my life!" + +Disraeli was silent, and, putting his hands behind his back, simply +gazed apparently in blank astonishment at the box in front of him. +Several seconds went by, but he never moved. The members in the crowded +House looked from one to the other, and many imagined that Disraeli was +merely waiting for his opponent to apologise. But Mr. Gladstone, who had +a habit, which he developed in later years, of chatting volubly to his +neighbour during any interruption of this kind in which he was +concerned, made no sign. A minute passed, but the sphinx did not move. + +A minute and a quarter, but he was still motionless. + +A minute and a half of this silence seemed as if it was an hour. + +When the second minute was completed, the excitement in the House began +to grow intense. Disraeli seemed to be transfixed. Was he ill? Was the +great man sulking? What could this strange silence portend? + +Two minutes and a half! + +Some Members rose and approached him, but Disraeli raised his hand as if +to deprecate their interference, and they stole back to their places +conscious that they were forbidden to interrupt. Then, at last, when the +second hand of the clock had passed three times round its course, the +most remarkable silence which the House had ever experienced within +living memory was broken as the Tory leader slowly began once more to +speak. + +"'Mr. Chairman,'" he said, "'and gentlemen,'" and then word for word he +repeated the whole speech of Mr. Gladstone from which he had made his +quotation, duly introducing the particular passage which the Liberal +leader had denied. Then he paused and looked across at his rival. The +challenge was not to be avoided, and Mr. Gladstone bowed. He would have +raised his hat did he wear one in the House, which, in the phraseology +of the ring, was equivalent to throwing up the sponge. Mr. Disraeli +afterwards informed a friend that, working backwards, he had recalled +the whole of Mr. Gladstone's speech to his mind. Beginning at the +disputed quotation, he recovered the context which led up to it, and so +step by step the entire oration. Then he was enabled to repeat it from +the outset, exactly as he had read it. + +I saw Lord Beaconsfield in the House of Commons on the occasion of his +last visit to that chamber in which he had been the moving spirit. I +well recollect that morning. There had been an Irish all-night sitting: +the House was supposed to be listening to the droning of some Irish +"Mimber." The officials were weary, the legislative chamber was untidy +and dusty, and many of those present had not had their clothes off all +night. Lord Beaconsfield, scented, oiled, and curled, the daintiest of +dandies, sits in the gallery, examining the scene through his single +eye-glass. Leaning over him stands the ever-faithful Monty Corry--now +Lord Rowton. I sat within a few yards of them, and made a sketch which +happens to be the most successful study I ever made. The _Academy_ wrote +of it: "In humour Mr. Harry Furniss generally excels; but his portrait +of Lord Beaconsfield on his last appearance in the House of Commons is +something else than amusing--it is pathetic, almost tragic, and will be +historical;" and columns of flattering notices must be my excuse for +confessing in these pages that I myself consider it to be the best +portrait of Lord Beaconsfield, and in no way a caricature. + +[Illustration: THE LAST VISIT OF LORD BEACONSFIELD TO THE HOUSE.] + +A caricaturist is an artistic contortionist. He is grotesque for effect. +A contortionist twists and distorts himself to cause amusement, but he +is by nature straight of limb and a student of grace before he can +contort his body in burlesque of the "human form divine." Thus also is +it with the caricaturist and his pencil. The good points of his subject +must be plainly apparent to him before he can twist his study into the +grotesque; to him it is necessary that the sublime should be known and +appreciated ere he can convert it into the ridiculous, and without the +aid of serious studies it is impossible for him fully to analyse and +successfully produce the humorous and the satirical. Perchance he may +even entertain a feeling of admiration for the subject he is holding up +to ridicule, for serious moments and serious work are no strangers to +the caricaturist. + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.] + +The famous collars I "invented" for grotesque effect, but I always saw +Mr. Gladstone without them, for to me his head has never been, as some +suppose, a mere block around which to wreathe a fantastic and +exaggerated collar. + +"I am told a Japanese artist who wishes to study a particular flower, +for instance, travels to the part of the country where it is to be +found; he takes no photographic camera, no superb sketching pad or box +of paints, but he lives by the plant, watches day by day the flower +grow, blossom, and decay, under every condition, and mentally notes +every detail, so that ever afterwards he can paint that flower in every +possible way with facility and knowledge. I have myself treated Mr. +Gladstone as that Japanese artist treats the beautiful flower. I have +frequently sat for many many hours watching every gesture, every change +of expression. I have watched the colour leave his cheeks, and the hair +his head; I have marked time contract his mouth, and have noted the +development of each additional wrinkle. I have mused under the shade of +his collars, and wondered at the cut of his clothes, sketched his three +hats and his historical umbrella. More than that; during a great speech +I have seen the flower in his button-hole fade under his flow of +eloquence, seen the bow of his tie travel round to the back of his +neck." + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE. + +"I have seen the flower in his buttonhole fade under his flow of +eloquence." + +_Engraved on wood from an original study._] + +Thus I spoke night after night from the platform, and the laugh always +came with the collars. It was not as a serious critic that I was posing +before the audience, so I could fittingly describe the collars rather +than the man. But when I had left the platform and the limelight, and my +caricatures, I have had many a chat with Mr. Gladstone's admirers, with +regard to the light in which I saw the great man without his collars, +and this fact I will put forward as my excuse for publishing in my +"Confessions" a few studies that I have made from time to time of the +Grand Old Man, as an antidote not only to my own caricatures, but to the +mass of Gladstone portraits published, which, with very few exceptions, +are idealised, perfunctory, stereotyped, and worthless. Generations to +come will not take their impressions of this great man's appearance from +these unsatisfactory canvases, or from the cuts in old-fashioned +illustrated papers, in which all public men are drawn in a purely +conventional tailor's advertisement fashion, with perfect-fitting coats, +trousers without a crease, faces of wax, and figures of the fashionable +fop of the period. The camera killed all this. But the photographer, +although he cannot alter the cut of the clothes, can alter, and does +alter, everything else. He touches up the face beyond recognition, and +the pose is the pose the sitter takes before the camera, and probably +quite different from his usual attitude. So it will be the caricatures, +or, to be correct, the character sketches, that will leave the best +impressions of Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary individuality. + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE--CONVENTIONAL PORTRAIT.] + +I heard Mr. Gladstone express his own views on portraiture one evening +at a small dinner-party. My host of that evening had hit on the happy +idea of having portraits of the celebrities of the age painted for him +by a rising young artist. It was curious to note Mr. Gladstone as he +examined these portraits. His manner was a strange comment on the +political changes which had taken place, for as he came to the portraits +of those of his old supporters who no longer fought under his colours, +he would pass them by as though he had not seen them, or if his +attention were called to any of them he would seem not to recognise the +likeness, and pass on till his eye lighted on some political ally still +numbered among the faithful, when he would at once pronounce the +portrait excellent, and dwell upon its merits with apparent delight. A +portrait of Mr. Labouchere, however, he generally failed to recognise. +The portrait represented the Member for Northampton in a contemplative +mood, certainly not characteristic of his habitual demeanour in the +House. + +"I have found," said he, "the artist I have been looking for for years. +I have found an artist who can paint my portrait in four hours and a +half; he has painted three in thirteen hours; that is Millais." + +I was much surprised by this curious criticism on portrait painting. +Surely, if the portrait of the great orator is to be painted in four +hours and a half, the same limitation, if carried out, would confine the +greatest speech ever made to a period of four-and-a-half seconds! + +Someone pointedly asked Mr. Gladstone whether he liked Millais' +portraits. + +"Well," he replied, evading any brutal directness of reply, "I have been +very much interested with his energy; he is the hardest-working man I +ever saw." + +"Do you prefer his result to Holl's?" + +"Ah, Holl took double the time, and put me in such a very strained +position, nearly on tiptoe. I know my heels were off the ground; it +tired me out, and I was really obliged to lie down and sleep +afterwards." + +"You found Millais charming in conversation?" + +"He never spoke when at work; his interest in his work fascinated me." + +"Mr. Watts?" + +"Ah, there is a delightful conversationalist, and a wonderful artist; he +has attempted my portrait often--three attempts of late years--but he +has not satisfied himself, and I am bound to say that my friends are of +the same mind." + +"I well remember," remarked Lord Granville, who was one of the party, +"how uneasy poor Holl was before he painted your portrait. He came to me +and said, 'I think if you would speak to Mr. Gladstone on some subject +that would interest him, I would watch him, and that would aid me very +much.'" + +In this picture of Mr. Gladstone the late Frank Holl failed to maintain +his reputation as an artist of the highest class: that picture of the +great Liberal leader was disappointing and altogether unworthy of his +name. This was the more unfortunate because, by the exercise of a little +forethought, the artist might easily have avoided that pitfall of +portrait-painters, an awkward, constrained, and unaccustomed attitude, +which Mr. Gladstone confessed was torturing him, and by a very simple +expedient have succeeded in placing Mr. Gladstone in the position which +everyone who has seen him in the act of delivering a speech in the House +of Commons would have recognised at once as a true and characteristic +pose. + +Here I have mentioned Mr. Gladstone himself, saying how uncomfortable he +felt upon the occasion of Mr. Holl's visit to his house for the purpose +of obtaining a sitting; but I should add that the genial artist who was +to do the work informed me that he also was no less ill at ease. When +Mr. Gladstone enquired how he should sit for the portrait, Mr. Holl, +anxious no doubt to secure a natural pose, replied, "Oh, just as you +like!" This appeared to disconcert the great statesman somewhat, and he +appeared to be ruminating as to what sedentary attitude was really his +favourite one, when Holl came to the rescue. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF THE HOLL PORTRAIT.] + +"I happened," said Mr. Gladstone, "to be standing at my library table +with my hands upon a book, when Mr. Holl said, 'That will do, Mr. +Gladstone, exactly,' and the result was that he painted me in that +position. But I felt uncommonly awkward and uncomfortable the whole +time, and as I have just said, I had to lie down and sleep after each +sitting." + +Now why was this? It was the very attitude of all others with which we +who have studied it so often when the ex-Premier has been standing at +the table in the House are so familiar. No artist who had once seen him +in that position would have failed to select it as the most favourable +and characteristic for the purposes of a historical portrait. And yet +the picture, when it was completed, was a failure, and the artist +himself knew that it was. The explanation is, I think, very simple, and +it exemplifies once more the truth of the formula which defines genius +to be "an infinite capacity for taking pains." Frank Holl undoubtedly +had talent, but his omission of an important detail in this picture--a +detail which would have probably made all the difference between success +and failure--shows once more by how narrow a line the highest art is +often divided from the next best, that art of which we have such a +plethora nowadays--which just contrives to miss hitting the bullseye of +perfection. + +When Mr. Holl exclaimed, "That will do, Mr. Gladstone, exactly," he was +no doubt impressed with the idea that the great orator was more at ease +standing at the table in the House of Commons than in any other +position, and he therefore selected it for his picture. But he forgot +that upon the table in the House there stands a box on which Mr. +Gladstone was always in the habit, when he was speaking, of resting one +of his hands, and that if that box was missing he would naturally, +although perhaps unconsciously, be sensible that something to which he +was accustomed was absent, and that he would therefore be as +uncomfortable as a fish out of water. This was actually the case. But if +some substitute for the box, of the proper height and size, had been +forthcoming, I have not the slightest doubt, from my long and close +observation of the habits and movements of Mr. Gladstone in the House, +that he would at once have dropped easily into his customary attitude, +and that the picture in the hands of so true an artist as Holl would +then have been a conspicuous success. + +Mr. Gladstone was asked whether he thought the tone of the House had +degenerated in recent times. He replied that he did not think so at all, +quoting in proof that after the introduction of the first Reform Bill +many Members used to express their feelings in cock-crows and other +offensive ways. Mr. Gladstone, however, at the time I met him, was +getting decidedly deaf, and no doubt much that went on behind him in the +House "did not reach" him. + +Asked if the "count out" ought to be abolished, Mr. Gladstone said it +was too convenient a custom to be abolished, but that he noticed a very +important alteration of late years in the mode of conducting it. Years +ago he recollected it was the rule that, when a Member moved that +"forty Members were not present, he was obliged to remain in his place +while the 'count out' was in progress." "Now," said Mr. Gladstone, "he +gets up and rushes out. + +"Indeed," continued the veteran statesman, "I understand very little +about the rules and regulations of the House now. I am very ignorant +indeed; I believe I am the most ignorant man in the House, and I mean to +continue so; it is not worth my while to begin now to learn fresh +rules." + +[Illustration: NOTE OF MR. GLADSTONE MADE IN THE PRESS GALLERY WITH THE +WRONG END OF A QUILL PEN.] + +He told us of a curious incident which happened in the House when he was +a young Parliamentary hand. Members did not leave the House for a +division, but it was left to the discretion of the Speaker to decide +which side was in the majority. He would then order them to walk to the +other side of the House, and anyone remaining would of course be counted +with the opposite side. Old Sir Watkin Wynn, I believe, was determined +to vote against a certain Bill. He had been hunting all day, and rode up +to town in time to vote. Arriving in his hunting costume and muddy +boots, he took his seat tired out, and soon went fast asleep. The +division came on, and his party were ordered to go over to the other +side of the House. He slept in blissful ignorance, waking some time +afterwards to find to his horror that he had been counted with those in +favour of the Bill. + +Mr. Gladstone remarked that it was curious that in the old days the +Whips could tell to a vote how a division would go. He recollected well, +in 1841, a vote of no confidence in Lord Melbourne was moved. The point +was going to be decided by one vote. I shall never forget the "Grand Old +Man's" graphic description of that vote. There was an old Member who was +known to be to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail. The +excitement was intense to know if that still breathing corpse could be +brought to vote. Mr. Gladstone, with other young Tory Members, stood +anxiously round the lobby door watching, and just at the critical moment +when the vote was to be taken the all but lifeless body was borne along +ignorant of all that was going around him, his vote was recorded, and +that one vote sealed the fate of a Ministry. + +In Mr. Gladstone's opinion, American humour invariably consisted in +dealing with magnitudes. He preferred to hear American stories on this +side of the Atlantic. He never had been in America, and never intended +going. He expressed himself as apprehensive of the effect on the nervous +system of the vibration caused by the engines of a steamer travelling at +a high speed, but spoke with admiration of the rapid travelling at sea +performed by the Continental mail packets, saying that a few days +before, returning from the Continent, he had only just settled down to +read when he was told to disembark, for the steamer had reached Dover. + +I overheard Mr. Gladstone asking the question: "Why is it that when we +get a good thing we do not stick to it?" I fully expected him to launch +into some huge political question, such as the "Unity of the Empire" or +"Universal Franchise." Instead of this, I was somewhat surprised to hear +him proceed: "Now, I recollect an excruciatingly funny toy which you +wound up, and it danced about in a most comical way. I have watched that +little nigger many and many a time, but lately I have been looking +everywhere to get one. I have asked at the shops in the Strand and +elsewhere, and they show me other things, but not the funny nigger I +recollect, so I have given up my search in despair." + +I noticed that Mr. Gladstone took champagne at dinner, and after dinner +a glass of port. Some conversation arising with reference to the history +of wines, the old politician seemed to know more on the subject than +anyone else at table; in fact, during the whole evening, there was not a +subject touched upon on which he did not give the heads for an +interesting essay. The only time Mr. Gladstone mentioned Ireland was in +connection with the subject of wines, when he dilated upon the beauties +of Newfoundland port, which was to be found in Ireland in the good old +days. + +In one respect Mr. Gladstone was not an exception among the old, for he +seemed fond of dwelling upon the great age which men have attained. He +seemed to think that the high pressure at which we live nowadays would +show its effect on the longevity of the rising generation, and remarked: + +"You young men will have a very bad time of it." + +[Illustration] + +It is curious that very few statesmen indeed have led the House of +Commons in their old age. It may be said that Lord John Russell was the +first to do so; Lord Palmerston also was very old before he obtained +office. And so chatted the Grand Old Man, in the most fascinating and +delightful manner. He was always the same on such occasions, entering +into the spirit of the entertainment, and, as was his habit, forgetting +for the time everything else. When my old friend William Woodall, M.P. +for Stoke (Governor-General of the Ordnance in Mr. Gladstone's +Government 1885), gave at St. Anne's Mansions his famous "Sandwich +Soirées" to his friends, the spacious ballroom on the ground floor +packed with his many friends--a characteristic, polyglot gathering of +Ministers and Parliamentarians of all kinds, musicians, dramatists, +authors, artists, actors, and journalists, who sang, recited, and gave a +gratuitous entertainment (for some of these I acted as his hon. +secretary, and helped to get together a collection of modern paintings +on the walls, besides designing the invitations)--I recollect the +greatest success was the Grand Old Man. There was "standing room" only, +but a chair was provided for Mr. Gladstone in the centre of the huge +circle which had formed around the mesmerist Verbeck. Many guests sat on +the floor, to afford those behind a better chance of seeing. The Prime +Minister, noticing this, absolutely declined to be an exception, and he +squatted "à la Turk" on the floor. I confess this struck me as "playing +to the gallery." It certainly was playing to the Press, for Mr. +Gladstone's attitude on that occasion was paragraphed all over the +country, by means of which fact I have here refreshed my memory. In +fact, Mr. Gladstone was always _en évidence_. When the great statesman +dined with Toby, M.P., I was sitting close to him. He had dispensed with +his own shirt-collars, and wore quite the smallest, slenderest, and most +inconspicuous of narrow, turn-down collars, assumed for that occasion +only. "One of Herbert's cast-offs," someone whispered to me. "That's +strange," said another guest to me. "Last night at dinner the pin in the +back of Gladstone's collar came out, and as he got excited, the collar +rose round his head, and we all agreed that 'Furniss ought to have +witnessed what he has so often drawn, but never seen.'" + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE SITS ON THE FLOOR.] + +Mr. Lucy has made the statement that Mr. Gladstone was "a constant +student of _Punch_" and "knew no occasion upon which he was not able to +join in the general merriment of the public; but hadn't there been +enough about the fabulous collars?" + +I received an editorial order to bury them, "but before long they were +out again, flapping their folds in the political breeze." + +[Illustration: THE FRAGMENT OF _PUNCH_ MR. GLADSTONE DID _NOT_ SEE.] + +Well, I have no doubt that Mr. Gladstone for many years was "a constant +student of _Punch_," for during the greater portion of his political +career he was idealised in the pages of _Punch_, and not caricatured. I +doubt very much, however, if he made _Punch_ an exception in his latter +period, for it is well known that for years he was only allowed to see +flattering notices of himself, and all references at all likely to +disturb him were kept from his sight. At Mr. Lucy's own house, the night +Mr. Gladstone dined with him, a copy of _Punch_ was lying on the table, +containing a rare thing for _Punch_--a supplement. In this case it took +the shape of my caricatures of the Royal Academy, 1889. Just as dinner +was announced Mr. Gladstone saw the paper, and was on the point of +taking it up. I handed it to him, but at the same moment slipped the +supplement out of the number and threw it under the table, for it +contained a caricature of Professor Herkomer's Academy portrait of Mrs. +Gladstone, objecting to being placed next to a lady by Mr. Val Prinsep +sitting for the "altogether." During dinner Mr. Gladstone mentioned this +portrait of Mrs. Gladstone, and expressed great delight with Herkomer's +work: it showed her mature age, he said, and as a portrait was very +happy and true--he did not say anything about the hanging of it! + +Mr. Gladstone was the life and soul of a party, and seemed to enjoy +being the centre of attraction wherever he was. + +[Illustration: THE GLADSTONE MATCHBOX.] + +Mr. Gladstone's portrait has been adopted by others besides +caricaturists. It is carved as a gargoyle in the stone-work of a church, +and the head of the Grand Old Man has been turned into a match-box. The +latter I here reproduce. It was shown to me one evening when I was the +guest at the Guard Mess at St. James's Palace. A clever young Guardsman, +who had a taste for turning, worked this out in wood from my caricatures +of Mr. Gladstone, and I advised his having it reproduced in pottery. The +suggestion was carried out by the late Mr. Woodall, the Member for the +Potteries, and was largely distributed at the time the G.O.M. was +politically meeting his match and thought by some to be a little +light-headed. + +In being shown round the beautiful municipal buildings in Glasgow I +found my caricature there accidentally figuring in the marble-work; and +the guides at Antwerp Cathedral (as I have mentioned in the first +chapter) point out a grotesque figure in the wood carving of the choir +stalls which resembles almost exactly Mr. Gladstone's head as depicted +by me. + +I find a note which I introduce here, as I hardly know where to place it +in this hotch-potch of confessions. Is it a fact that Mr. Gladstone +once signed a caricature of himself? In 1896 a Mr. J. T. Cox, of the +"Norwich school" of amateurs, procured a slab of a sycamore tree felled +by Mr. Gladstone, and on it reproduced in pencil my _Punch_ cartoon +depicting a visit of the "Grand Old Undergrad" to his Alma Mater, +Oxford. This was sent to Hawarden, and returned signed with the +following note: + + "HAWARDEN CASTLE. + + "Mr. Gladstone is obliged to refuse his signature, but Mrs. Drew asked + him for it for herself on enclosed--it was so cleverly arranged. + + "_May 5th_, 1896." + +Here is to me, I confess, a first-he-would-and-then-he-wouldn't, Cox and +Box mystery I fail to explain. + +I drew the G.O.M., Mr. Cox drew me, he drew Mrs. Drew, and Mrs. Drew +drew Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone refused his signature, and yet he +signed it. I think he signed his cut of sycamore, and not my cut at him. + +Both as a "special artist" for the _Illustrated London News_ in my +pre-_Punch_ days, and later for various periodicals, I saw and sketched +Mr. Gladstone on many important occasions, but towards the end of his +career it was sad to see the great man. The _Daily News_ once gave me a +chance in the following account of Mr. Gladstone during one of these +scenes; when Mr. Gladstone, having accidentally mentioned the approach +of his eightieth birthday, "the vast audience suddenly leapt to its feet +and burst into ringing cheers. Mr. Gladstone was evidently deeply +touched by this spontaneous outburst of almost personal affection. He +stood with hands folded, head bent down, and _legs quivering_." The fun +of this joke, however, lies in the fact that the "legs" which quivered +were the telegraph operators'. The reporter wrote "lips." + +So great was the public admiration for the illustrious leader of the +Liberal Party that merely to see him was, to the majority of his +audience, enough. In later years he could not be heard at public +meetings. Penetrating as his voice was, it was absolutely impossible for +any but those standing immediately around the platform to hear him upon +such occasions as that of the famous Blackheath meeting, or those at +Birmingham or elsewhere; but the masses nevertheless came in their +thousands, and were more than repaid for their trouble by catching only +a distant glimpse of William Ewart Gladstone. + +Whatever one may think of Mr. Gladstone as a politician (and some say +that he was no statesman, and others that he was never sincere, while +many maintain that he was merely a "dangerous old woman"), all must +agree that as a man he was a figure that England might well be proud of. +It will be interesting to see what historians will make of him. When the +glamour of his personality is forgotten, what will be remembered? His +figure, his face--and shall I say his collars? + +[Illustration] + +In my time Mr. Parnell was the most interesting figure in Parliament, +and, after Mr. Gladstone, had the greatest influence in the House. Mr. +Gladstone was, politically speaking, Parliament itself (at one time he +was the Country); but I doubt if even Mr. Gladstone ever hypnotised the +House by his personality as Parnell did. There was a mystery in +everything connected with the great Irish leader; no mystery hung about +Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone in the House was voluble, eloquent, +communicative. Mr. Parnell was silent, a poor speaker, and as +uncommunicative as the Sphinx. Mr. Gladstone's power lay in his +unreservedness; Mr. Parnell's lay in his absolute reserve. His orders +were "No one to speak to the man at the wheel," and the man at the wheel +spoke to no one. He guided the Irish ship just as he liked over the +troubled waters of a political crisis, and not one of his men knew what +move would be his next. By this means, so foreign to the Irish +character, he held that excitable, rebellious, irrepressible crew in +thrall. He made them dance, sleep, roar; he made them obstructionists, +orators, buffoons, at his will. He made them everything but friends. A +characteristic story was circulated when Parnell was known as "the +uncrowned king." Accompanied by his faithful private secretary, he was +walking from the House, when he met one of his colleagues. The satellite +saluted his chief and "smiled affably at the private secretary." Mr. +Parnell took no notice whatever of Mr. ----, but after a few seconds had +elapsed, turned to his companion and said, "Who was that, Campbell?" + +"Why, ----" (mentioning the name of the hon. Member), was the reply. + +"What a horrible-looking scoundrel!" exclaimed the uncrowned king in his +most supercilious manner, and then began to talk of something else. + +He was a study as fascinating to the artist as to the politician, and no +portrait ever drawn by pen or pencil can hand down to future generations +the mysterious subtlety in the personality of the all-powerful leader. + +[Illustration: PARNELL.] + +He was as puzzling to the Parliamentary artist as he was to the +politician: he never appeared just as one expected him. When I first +made a sketch of him he had short hair, a well-trimmed moustache, +shortly-cut side whiskers, a neat-fitting coat and trousers, and +well-shaped boots. He then let his beard and hair grow, and his coat and +trousers seemed to grow also--the coat in length and the trousers in +width; and his boots grew with the rest--they were ugly and enormous. +His hat didn't grow, but it was out of date. Then he would cut his beard +and hair again, wear a short coat, a sort of pilot jacket, and +eventually a long black coat. So that if a drawing was not published at +once it would have been out of date. + +Some artists have been flattering enough to take my sketches as +references for Parliamentarians, but others depended on photographs, and +for years I have seen Mr. Parnell represented with the neatly-trimmed +moustache and closely-cut side whiskers. _A propos_ of this, I may +mention here how mistakes often become perpetuated. John Bright, for +instance, was generally represented in political sketches with an +eye-glass. This was a slip made by an artist in _Punch_ many years ago. +But ever after John Bright was represented with an eye-glass--which he +never wore, except on one occasion just to see how he liked it. + +The effect upon the House when Mr. Parnell rose was always dramatic. He +sat there during a debate, seldom, if ever, taking a note, with his hat +well over his eyes and his arms crossed, in strong contrast to the +restlessness of those around him. When he rose, it seemed an effort to +lift his voice, and he spoke in a hesitating, ineffective manner. +Neither was there much in what he said, but he was _Parnell_, and the +fact that he said little and said it quietly, that what he said was not +prepared in consultation with his Whips or with his Party, that in fact +he was playing a game in which his closest friends were not consulted, +made his rising interesting from the reporters' gallery to the +doorkeepers in the Lobby the other side. + +Mr. Parnell seemed to have been very little affected by his continued +reverses; and perhaps the only visible effect of his loss of power was +that the "uncrowned king" of Ireland changed his top-hat to a plebeian +bowler, but he did not change his coat. He was always careless about his +dress, and his tall, handsome figure looked somewhat ridiculous when he +wore a bowler, black frock coat, and his hair as usual unkempt. + +The fall of Parnell was one of the most sensational and certainly the +most dramatic incident in the history of Parliament. + +Mr. Parnell was politically ruined and the Irish Party smashed beyond +recovery in the famous Committee Room No. 15, after the disclosures in +the Divorce Court in which Mr. Parnell figured as co-respondent. Mr. +Parnell had found the Irish Party without a leader, without a programme, +without a future. He had by his individual force made it a power which +had to be reckoned with, and which practically controlled Parliament. He +had been attacked by the most important paper in the world. He had come +out of the affair, in the eyes of many, a hero; he made his Party +stronger than their wildest dreams ever anticipated. But his followers +little thought that in hiding from them his tactics he had also hidden +the weakness which caused his ultimate downfall. Howbeit the Irish +Party, whom he held in a hypnotic trance, agreed to stand by him still. +Then, suddenly, Mr. Gladstone made his demand for a sacrifice to Mrs. +Grundy. His famous letter, written November 24th, 1894, to Mr. Morley, +was the death-warrant to Parnellism, and, as it subsequently proved, to +Gladstonianism as well. + +There was a strange fascination in watching the mysterious Leader of the +Irish Party during the crisis, and I took full advantage of my privilege +in the House to do so. I was in and about the House early and late, and +probably saw more of Mr. Parnell than anyone else not connected with +him. It was just before his exposure that I happened to be in an +out-of-the-way passage leading from the House, making a little note in +my sketch-book on a corner of the building, when Mr. Parnell walked out. +He stood close by, not observing me, and was occupied for a minute in +taking letters out of the pocket on the right side of his overcoat: they +were unopened. He looked at them singly; now and then he would tap one +on the other, as much as to say, "I wonder what is in that?" Then he +passed it over with the others and put them all into the pocket on the +left side of his overcoat, and strolled off to catch his train to +Brighton. That incident, as I subsequently found out, was the cause of +much of his trouble; for I was informed, when I mentioned it to a great +friend of Mr. Parnell's and of mine--Mr. Richard Power--that about that +time he had written him important letters which might have saved him if +they had been attended to in time. + +But those who saw the fallen chief during the sittings in Committee Room +No. 15, when, through the letter of Mr. Gladstone to which I have +referred, he was denounced, and had to fight with his back to the wall, +can never forget his tragic figure during that exciting time. No one +knew better than he that the tactics of his lieutenant would be cunning +and perhaps treacherous; so this lazy, self-composed man suddenly awoke +as a general who finds himself surprised in the camp, and determines to +keep watch himself. Every day he took by right the chair at the +meetings. Had he not been present, who knows that it would not have been +wrested from him? In the early afternoon I saw him more than once walk +with a firm step, with an ashy pale face, his eyes fixed straight in +front of him, through the yard, through the Lobby, up the stairs, and +into Room 15, accompanied by his secretary, Mr. Campbell. The members of +his Party, on their arrival, found him sitting where they had left him +the night before. I recollect one morning, as he passed where I was +standing, he never moved his head, but I heard him say to Mr. Campbell, +"Who's that? what does he want?" in a sharp, nervous manner. He never +seemed to recognise anyone, or wish them to recognise him. His one idea +was to face the man who wished to fight him in the little ring they had +selected in the Committee Room No. 15. + +[Illustration: TO ROOM 15.] + +No outsider but myself heard any portion of that debate, for at the +beginning of it the reporters, who were standing round the doors outside +to hear what they could, were ordered away; and I was left there, not +being a reporter, to finish a rather tedious sketch of the corridor. A +policeman was placed at either end of this very long passage, and if +anyone had to pass that way he was not allowed to pause for a moment at +the door of the room upon which the interest of the political world was +centred at the moment. Nearly all the time I was there I only saw the +policeman at either end, and one solitary figure seated on the bench +outside the door. It was the figure of a woman with a kind, +homely-looking face, resting with her head upon her hand. She seemed not +to be aware of, or at least not interested in what was going on inside; +she simply sighed as Big Ben tolled on toward the hour for the dismissal +of the Leader of the Irish Party. She was the wife of a blind Member of +Parliament who was taking part in the proceedings, and her thoughts were +evidently more intent upon seeing that her husband was not worn out by +that strange, long struggle than in the political significance of the +meeting. + +[Illustration: OUTSIDE ROOM 15.] + +It was my good fortune to hear what was perhaps the most interesting of +the speeches--John Redmond's defence of his chief--and I never wish to +listen to a finer oration. Everyone admits that the Irish are, by +nature, good speakers, but they are not always sincere. Here was a +combat in which there was no quarter, no gallery, and no reporters. The +men spoke from their hearts, and if any orator could have moved an +assembly by his power and genius, Mr. Redmond ought to have had a +unanimous vote recorded in favour of his chief. I am not a phonograph, +nor was I a journalist privileged to record what passed, and have no +intention of breaking their trust. + +I shall never forget the scene one Wednesday afternoon when Mr. Maurice +Healy, brother of "Tim," and one of the Members for Cork, challenged Mr. +Parnell to retire and so enable their respective claims to the +confidence of the people of Cork to be tested. He tried to drag Mr. +Parnell into a newspaper controversy upon this point, but failing to do +so repeated in tragic tones his somewhat Hibernian sentiment that Mr. +Parnell did not represent the constituency which elected him. Mr. +Maurice Healy, a somewhat sickly-looking young man, with a family +resemblance to his brother, is much taller than his more famous +relative, but lacks the stamina and vivacity of the Member for Longford. + +At this moment, when the Irish Party might have been likened to +machinery deprived of its principal wheel, it was curious to notice how +energetic Mr. Parnell became. He tried to cover his position by being +unusually active in Parliament; he followed the Chief Secretary for +Ireland in the debates upon the Land Purchase Bill, to the obvious +discomfort of Mr. Morley, and rather delighted the young Conservatives +by twitting the faction which had thrown him over. His speeches, +however, were laboured, and, as one of the Irish Members remarked to me +in the Lobby, it had a curious effect on them to see Mr. Parnell sit +down after making an important speech without hearing a single cheer. +And whereas for years he had addressed the House with the greatest +calmness, his chief characteristic being his "reserve force," he now +changed all this, and one Friday night caused quite a sensation in the +House in his attack upon Mr. Gladstone, not so much by what he said as +by the manner in which he said it. His excitement was visible to all, +and he was observed to be positively convulsed with anger. He also +remained, contrary to his previous custom, late in the House. + +The last occasion on which I saw Charles Stewart Parnell was a few +months before his death. I was in Dublin during the Horse Show week, +giving my "Humours of Parliament" to crowded houses in the "Ancient +Concert Rooms," and my ancient hotel rooms were at Morrison's +Hotel--"Parnell's Hotel," for the "uncrowned king" (at that time +deposed) always stopped there--in fact it was said he had an interest in +the property. It was late on Sunday afternoon. I was writing in my +sitting-room on the first floor, next to Parnell's room, when the +strains of national music of approaching bands smote my ear, and soon +the hotel was surrounded by a cheering, shouting crowd. Banners were +flying, bands were playing, thousands of voices were shouting. Standing +in a brake haranguing the surging mass of people was the familiar figure +of Charles Stewart Parnell. With difficulty he descended from the brake, +and had literally to fight his way into the hotel, while his worshippers +clung on to him into the building, till they were seized and ejected by +the servants. I went out of my door to see the scene, and in the passage +outside, between Parnell's sitting-room and mine, he sat apparently +exhausted. His flesh seemed transparent--I could fancy I saw the +pattern of the wall-paper through his pallid cheeks. The next moment, +before I was aware, another figure sat on the same seat, arms were +thrown round my neck. It was my old Irish nurse, who had come up from +Wexford to see me, and had been lying in wait for me. + +[Illustration: OUTSIDE MY ROOM.] + +The first picture I drew for _Punch's_ essence of Parliament was a +portrait of Lord Randolph Churchill, "Caught on the Hip," to illustrate +the following truly prophetic words of Toby, M.P.: "The new delight you +have given us is the spectacle of an undisciplined Tory--a man who will +not march at the word of command and snaps his fingers at his captain. +You won't last long, Randolph; you are rather funny than witty--more +impudent than important." That was written at the opening of Parliament, +1891. + +[Illustration: "THE G.O.M." AND "RANDY."] + +I must plead guilty to being the cause of giving an erroneous impression +of Lord Randolph's height. He was not a small man, but he _looked_ +small; and when he first came into notoriety, with a small following, +was considered of small importance and, by some, small-minded. It was to +show this political insignificance in humorous contrast to his bombastic +audacity that I represented him as a midget; but the idea was also +suggested from time to time by his opponents in debate. Did not Mr. +Gladstone once call him a gnat? and do we not find the following lines +under _Punch's_ Fancy Portraits, No. 47, drawn by Mr. Sambourne? + + "There is a Midge at Westminster, + A Gnatty little Thing, + It bites at Night + This mighty Mite, + But no one feels its sting." + +Two gentlemen of Yorkshire had a dispute about his correct height, and +one of them, anxious to have an authoritative pronouncement, wrote to +the noble Lord, and received the following reply: + + "2, CONNAUGHT PLACE, W. + + "Dear Sir,--Lord Randolph Churchill desires me to say, in reply to + your letter of the 21st inst., that his height is just under 5ft. 10in. + + "I am, yours faithfully, + + "CECIL DRUMMOND-WOLFF, Secretary." + +[Illustration: MR. LOUIS JENNINGS.] + +Lord Randolph Churchill was a mere creature of impulse, the spoilt pet +of Parliament--what you will--but no one can deny that he was the most +interesting figure in the House since Disraeli. He had none of +Disraeli's chief attraction--namely, mystery. Nor had he Disraeli's +power of organisation, for, although Lord Randolph "educated a party" of +three--the first step to his eventually becoming Leader of the House--it +cannot be said that at any time afterwards he really had, in the strict +sense of the word, a party at all. He was a political Don Quixote, and +he had his Sancho Panza in the person of Mr. Louis Jennings. Perhaps +nothing can show the impulsive nature of Lord Randolph more than the +incident which was the cause of Mr. Jennings breaking with Lord +Randolph. Mr. Louis Jennings was, in many ways, his chief's superior: a +brilliant journalist, originally on the _Times_, afterwards editor of +the _New York World_, when, by dint of his energy and pluck, he was the +chief cause of breaking up the notorious Tammany Ring; a charming writer +of picturesque country scenes--in fact, an accomplished man, and one +harshly treated by that fickle dame Fortune by being branded, rightly or +wrongly, as the mere creature of a political adventurer. + +One afternoon I was standing in the Inner Lobby when Mr. Jennings asked +me to go into the House to a seat under the Gallery to hear him deliver +a speech he had been requested to make by the Government Party, and one +he thought something of. At that moment Lord Randolph came up and said, +"I am going in to hear you, Jennings; I have arranged not to speak till +after dinner." And we all three entered the House. + +Lord Randolph, who had then left the Ministry, sat on the bench in the +second row below the gangway, on the Government side of the House. Mr. +Jennings was seated on the bench behind, close to where he had found a +place for me under the Gallery. He carefully arranged the notes for his +speech, and directly the Member who had been addressing the House sat +down, Mr. Jennings jumped to his feet to "catch the Speaker's eye." But +Lord Randolph, who had been very restless all through the speech just +delivered, sprang to his feet. Jennings leant over to him and said +something, but Churchill waved him impatiently away, and the Speaker +called upon Lord Randolph. Jennings sank back with a look of disgust and +chagrin, which changed to astonishment when Lord Randolph fired out that +famous Pigott speech, in which he attacked his late colleagues with a +vituperation and vulgarity he had never before betrayed. His speech +electrified the House and disgusted his friends--none more so than his +faithful Jennings, who left the Chamber directly after his "friend's" +tirade of abuse, returning later in the evening to make a capital +speech, full of feeling and power, in which he finally threw over Lord +Randolph. In the meantime, meeting me, he did not hide the fact that the +incident had determined him to have nothing more to say to Churchill. +And this was the man I once drew a cartoon of in _Punch_ on all fours, +with a coat covering his head (suspiciously like a donkey's head), with +"Little Randy" riding on his back! + +[Illustration: LORD RANDOLPH AND LOUIS JENNINGS.] + +If Samson's strength vanished with his hair, Lord Randolph's strength +vanished with the growing of his beard. The real reason why Lord +Randolph so strangely transformed himself is not generally known, but it +was for the simplest of all reasons--like that of the gentleman who +committed suicide because he was "tired of buttoning and unbuttoning," +Lord Randolph was tired of shaving or being shaved; hence the heroic +beard, which has offended certain political purists who think that a man +with an established reputation has no right to alter his established +appearance. Still, if he had not vanished to grow his beard, I doubt if +he would have survived the winter; and probably he discovered that it +was good for any man to escape now and then from what the late Mr. R. L. +Stevenson called "the servile life of cities." Perhaps no one received +such a "sending off," or was more fêted, than Lord Randolph Churchill. +Happening to be a guest at more than one of those festive little +gatherings, I heard Lord Randolph say that all the literary food that he +was taking out with him to Mashonaland consisted of the works of two +authors--one English, and the other French. We were asked who they were. +"In Darkest England," suggested one. "Ruff's Guide to the Turf," said +another. Both were wrong. And it ultimately transpired that, together +with his friends' best wishes for his safe return, Lord Randolph was +carrying with him complete sets of the works of Shakespeare and Molière. + +The deafness which attacked Lord Randolph led to his making mistakes, +and to others making a scene, particularly when the noise in the House +was so great through the excitement on the Home Rule question. I find a +note made then upon this point, alluding to a little incident _à propos_ +of Lord Randolph Churchill's deafness: "It is really dangerous, +considering the high state of feeling in the House, that Members +antagonistic to each other should have to sit side by side. During the +stormy scene to which I have just alluded, I was sitting in one of the +front boxes directly over the Speaker's chair, and, although remarks +kept flying about from the benches below, it was difficult to catch the +words, and still more difficult to stop the utterer; so I don't wonder +that Lord Randolph Churchill--who is rather deaf--should have +misconstrued the words, 'You are not dumb!' as 'You are knocked up!' +Later on, however, an Irish Member knocked down another one who was +opposed to him in politics; and this the Press called 'coming into +collision.'" + +[Illustration: LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.] + +There is little doubt that ill-health was the cause of that +querulousness which led to Lord Randolph's curious and fatal move. I +recollect being introduced to an American doctor in the Lobby one +afternoon when Lord Randolph was at the zenith of his height and fame. +Lord Randolph passed close to us, and stood for a few minutes talking to +the Member who had introduced the doctor to me. I whispered to the +American to take stock of the Member his friend was talking to. He did, +and when Lord Randolph walked away he said, "Well, I don't know who that +man is, but he won't live five years." It was unfortunate for the +reputation of Lord Randolph that the doctor's words did not come true. + +Many efforts were made by the friends of Lord Randolph to bring Lord +Salisbury and his lieutenant together again. A deputation of a few +intimate friends, ladies as well as gentlemen, called on Lord Salisbury, +presumably on quite a different matter, but led up to Lord Randolph. +Lord Salisbury, seeing through their object, asked the question, "Have +any of you ever had a carbuncle on the back of your neck?" + +"No." + +"Then I have, and I do not want another." + +But perhaps Lord Salisbury saw more than anyone else that Lord Randolph +was not the man he once was. It was painful in his latter days to see +the Members run out of the House when he rose to speak, and to recollect +that but a few years before they poured in to listen to the "plucky +little Randy"; and the sympathy of everyone for him was shown in a very +marked way by the kindness of the Press when one of the most +extraordinary figures in the Parliamentary world had passed away. + +[Illustration: BEHIND THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR.] + +Lord Randolph Churchill recalls another familiar figure I +caricatured--Lord Iddesleigh, a statesman who will always be remembered +with respect. No statue has ever been erected in the buildings of the +House of Commons to any Member who better deserves it, and, strange to +say, the white marble took the character and style of the man, +chilliness, pure, and firm. A country gentleman in politics and out of +it, free from flashy party-colour rhetoric. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + +Sir Stafford Northcote, as he was known in the House of Commons, the +gentlest of statesmen, had by no means a peaceful career in politics. He +was at one time Mr. Gladstone's secretary, and those who knew him +declare that he never lost his respect and admiration for his former +master, although time took him from Mr. Gladstone's flock to the fold of +Lord Beaconsfield. I recollect on one occasion, when I was seated in a +Press box directly over the Speaker's chair, seeing Mr. Gladstone write +a memorandum on a piece of paper and throw it across the table to Sir +Stafford, who was at that time Leader of the House of Commons; after +reading it, Sir Stafford nodded to Mr. Gladstone, and they both rose +together and went behind the Speaker's chair. One could easily detect in +the manner of the two old friends an existence of personal regard, and +their estrangement on political circumstances must have been a matter of +mutual regret. Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone towards the end, however, +did not show that friendliness that had gone on for so many years. This +may have been brought about by many causes, not the least of which was +the fact that Mr. Gladstone refused to lead the House during the +Bradlaugh scene, and left it to Sir Stafford, then Leader of the +Opposition. For instance, after the division in which Mr. Bradlaugh was +refused the House by a vote of 383 to 233, the Speaker appealed to the +House to know what to do. Mr. Bradlaugh stood at the table and refused +to leave it. Mr. Gladstone lay back on the seat of the Government bench +motionless, so Sir Stafford took up the leadership of the House, and +asked the Prime Minister, whom he facetiously called the Leader of the +House, "whether he intended to propose any counsel, any course for the +purpose of maintaining the authority of the House and of the Chair." And +so it was on many occasions. When Mr. Bradlaugh did rush up to the table +of the House, escorted by Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Bass, and went through +the amusing part of taking the oath, he brought the book which he kissed +and the papers which he signed, and then rushed back into his seat. The +House witnessed the scene indescribable by either pen or pencil. But +here again Mr. Gladstone refused to lead the House. There had been a +division, and Mr. Bradlaugh had once more been refused admission; so Sir +Stafford Northcote came forward, as he always did on these occasions, in +the mildest possible way and the most gentlemanly manner, which rather +added to the effect of his taking the reins left dangling uselessly by +the Leader of the House. He said: "Mr. Speaker, I need hardly say that +if the Leader of the House desires to rise, I will give him the +opportunity; but assuming that he does not, I intend to do so, and as I +see no indication of his consent to do so, I shall call the attention of +the House to the position in which we stand," and so on. Sir Stafford +Northcote was not a man to stand the rough treatment which Members have +had in the House during the last fifteen years. Had he been a Member +twenty years before that, or even a little more, he would have been more +in tone with the "best club in London." He was perplexed by Mr. +Gladstone, he was bullied by Lord Randolph Churchill, and he was +generally looked upon as an old woman, and eventually he was simply sent +up to the other House. It was not until his sad and tragic death +occurred that everyone realised that they had lost one of the most able +statesmen and one of the finest gentlemen that ever sat in the House of +Commons. + +[Illustration: H] + +Had Mr. Bradlaugh taken the oath with the rest of the Members when first +introduced to the House, or had he, after refusing to take it, behaved +with less violence, I doubt if he would have made any name in +Parliament. The House was determined to fight Bradlaugh, and it is not +to be wondered at, for he paraded his atheism, and his views on other +matters, in the most repulsive manner possible. But Bradlaugh did not +run the risk of fighting down mere prejudice. Had he taken the oath, he +would only have won the ear of the House by proving himself a great +politician. This he was not, though he was a hard-working one, and a +model Member from a constituency's point of view. But the only big +question he mastered was his own right to take his seat. Once he got it, +he became a respectable and respected Member of Parliament, and nothing +more. So, with the wisdom of the serpent, he did not enter the House +quietly to fight a wearisome and impossible battle against the +inveterate prejudices of the Members. No, Bradlaugh defied the House of +Commons; he horrified it, he insulted it, he lectured it, he laughed at +it, he tricked it, he shamed it, he humiliated it, he conquered it. He +brought to their knees the men who howled at him--as no other man has +ever been howled at before--by sheer force of character. + +[Illustration: BRADLAUGH TRIUMPHANT. _From "Punch."_] + +Bradlaugh's bitter struggle would fill a volume. Select Committees were +appointed, and they declared against him. Ignoring them, Bradlaugh +marched up to the table and demanded to be sworn. The Fourth Party would +not let him touch the Testament. Three days followed of angry debate on +Bradlaughism, with more scenes. A new Committee reversed the decision of +its predecessor, and said that Bradlaugh might affirm. Two days were +consumed in discussing this, and the present Lord Chancellor, then Sir +Hardinge Giffard, swayed the House against the report of the Committee. +Nothing daunted, Mr. Bradlaugh the very next day was back at the table +of the House, clamouring to be allowed to address the House on his case. +A scene of wild confusion resulted, Mr. Bradlaugh endeavouring to speak, +the House howling to prevent him. Eventually he was ordered below the +Bar--that is, nominally outside the House, although within the four +walls. After much acrimonious chatter from all sides, he was allowed to +make his speech. His hour had come. He stood like a prisoner pleading +before a single judge and a jury of 670 of his fellow-men. His speech +was more worthy of the Surrey Theatre than of the "Best Club." It was +bombastic and theatrical. He was ordered to withdraw, while the jury +considered their verdict. When he was recalled, it was to hear sentence +of expulsion passed on him. But he would not depart, and another +tremendous uproar took place. Mr. Bradlaugh's well-trained platform +voice rose above all others in loud assertion of his "rights," and he +continued to call for them all through the House, the Lobbies, the +corridors, up the winding stair into the Clock Tower, where he was +immured by the Sergeant-at-Arms. The following day he was released after +another angry debate, and he quickly returned to the forbidden +precincts. Then he was induced to quit, but on the next day he came down +to the House with his family, and with a triumphant procession entered +the House amid the cheers of the crowd. So the drama went on day after +day, like a Chinese play. The characters in it were acted by the leading +players on both sides of the House, and the excitement never flagged for +a moment until Mr. Bradlaugh was allowed to affirm. He was told that he +would vote at his own risk. He voted repeatedly, and by so doing +incurred a fine, at the hands of Mr. Justice Mathew, of the little round +sum of £100,000 (he never had 100,000 farthings), nor could he even open +his mouth in the House without savage interruption. Finally, Mr. +Labouchere, his colleague, moved for a new writ for the borough of +Northampton. Bradlaugh re-won the seat by the small majority of 132 +votes, and the Bradlaugh incubus lay once more on Parliament. Then +followed the same old cycle of events, the same scene at the table, the +same angry religious warfare in debate (Mr. Bright's great oratorical +effort will be remembered), the same speech from Mr. Bradlaugh at the +Bar, the same division, the same result. Scene followed scene, and +scandal scandal for weeks, months, years. + +[Illustration: CHARLES BRADLAUGH.] + +To appreciate Mr. John Bright fully, one must have heard him. Really to +comprehend his power and greatness, one must have heard him at his best. +Yet the greatness of his oratory lay not so much in what he said as in +the beautiful way he said it. + +Previous to my having the opportunity of listening to the debates, Mr. +Bright had reached that stage a singer reaches who has to all intents +retired from the stage, and merely makes an appearance for someone's +benefit now and then. In the first two or three years which I recall in +these pages Mr. Bright was making his last appearance in grand political +opera. He was in the Government, but although he assured the House that +"he was not going to turn his back upon himself"--an assertion of his +powers as a contortionist I endeavoured to depict in _Punch_ the +following week--Mr. Bright had practically turned his back upon making +great oratorical displays. The Bradlaugh scandal was in 1881 the subject +of the hour, and it was whilst appearing for Mr. Bradlaugh's benefit, on +the occasion of one of the numerous matinées arranged by the elected for +Northampton, that Mr. Bright used the words. But on no occasion in my +memory did he rise in a full-dress debate to make one of those grand +efforts with which his name will ever be remembered as the great orator. + +Statesmanship was not so much to him as speechifying. He was not a +diplomatist such as Beaconsfield, a tactician like Mr. Gladstone, a +fearless, dashing debater like Lord Derby the elder, "The Rupert of +Debate"; nor had he the weight of Lord Salisbury, nor the æstheticism of +Mr. Balfour. But as a mere voice in the political opera he had a charm +above them all. In appearance he was commonplace compared with these +others I have mentioned. Often the most indifferent-looking horse in the +stable or in the paddock is the best in action. You would not give £40 +for some standing at ease; but in action, moving to perfection, with +fire and speed and staying power, the price is more like £20,000. Mr. +Bright never got into his stride at any time or in any event while he +came under my observation. + +[Illustration: THE MEET AT ST. STEPHEN'S.] + +These equine remarks about a great politician bring to mind a protest I +received about a drawing of mine, which appeared a year or two ago, +representing Mr. Gladstone as a Grand Old Horse, hearing the horn at the +meet, cantering towards his companions in so many runs in which he had +taken the lead, and for which his day had gone. The protest came from a +Quaker, horrified at my depicting Mr. Gladstone as a gee-gee! as if he +had not been so depicted often enough before. + +Jacob Bright was the very antithesis to his brother, both in appearance +and manner--tall, of a nervous, wiry frame, rigid face, severe +expression. He, like others without a spark of humour, was often the +means of unconscious merriment. For instance, when Lord Randolph +Churchill was Member for Woodstock, Mr. Jacob Bright referred to him as +the noble lord "the Member for Woodcock." Sir John Tenniel in the +cartoon in _Punch_, and myself in the minor pictures of Parliament in +that journal, made full use of the "woodcock," and, therefore, revelling +in heraldry, quickly added the woodcock to the Churchill arms. + +Half the bores in London clubs are Indian officials returned to us with +their digestion and their temper destroyed, to spend the rest of their +days in fighting their poor livers and their unhappy friends. The +etiquette of Clubland prevents one from protesting. But in the "Best +Club" they are not spared. They are either howled at, or left to speak +to empty benches. + +Perhaps Sir George Campbell, who had been Governor of Bombay, was the +most eccentric bore we have ever had in the House of Commons. Sir George +has acknowledged that he could not resist the temptation to speak. On +one occasion he made no less than fifty-five speeches on the Standing +Committee of one Bill. At breakfast in the morning he read in the +_Times_ his heated, unconsidered interruptions in the House the night +before, and he read of the contempt with which they were received--the +"Loud laughter," cries of "Order!" "Divide! divide! divide!" and the +snubs administered to him by the wearied and disgusted Members. He read +after lunch at his club the jeering remarks of the evening Press. He was +well aware he was a nuisance to the House, and he resolved as he walked +down Whitehall not to open his mouth. But as soon as he crossed Palace +Yard and entered the corridors of the House he sniffed the odour of +authority and the fever of debate. He, the Great Sir George of +India,--silent? Never! Whether there was a question about the +bathing-machines on the beach at Hastings, or the spread of scarlet +fever at Battersea, or about an old pump at Littleshrimpton, he cared +not: he must act his part--that of the Pantaloon in Parliament. + +[Illustration: SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL.] + +In appearance he was a striking, handsome man, with a strong +individuality. A good head, piercing eye, well-shaped nose, and tall, +active frame no doubt added to his authority in India. He struck me as a +man who had been taken to pieces on his way home to this country, and +put together again badly, for his joints were all wrong. Certainly his +head was, and he was over wound up. His tongue never ceased, and the +worst of it was he had a rasping, penetrating voice, with the strongest +Scotch accent. One afternoon in the House this accent led to one of +those frequent outbursts of merriment and protest combined--so common +when Sir George bored the House, as he was always doing. Sometimes he +made over thirty speeches in one evening. A question was asked about the +obstructive methods of the irrepressible Sir George, who on this +particular afternoon was supported in his boredom by two other bores, +the Member for Sunderland and Mr. Conybeare. These three had the House +to themselves, and peppered the Government benches with question after +question, speech after speech. Sir George alluded to themselves as "a +band of devoted guerillas." The weary House, not paying particular +attention to every accent, failed to catch most of what Sir George said, +as his rasping Scotch accent left them no escape. But the last word was +misunderstood, and an outburst of laughter, long, loud, and hearty, +followed, and, in a Parliamentary sense, killed Sir George for the day. +The House understood him to say "a band of us devoted gorillas." + +Perhaps the neatest rebuke Sir George ever had in the House--or, as a +matter of fact, any Member ever had--was administered by that most +polished wit, Mr. Plunket (now Lord Rathmore). Sir George solemnly rose +and asked Mr. Plunket, who happened at the time to be Minister of Public +Works, whether he (Mr. Plunket) was responsible for the "fearful +creatures" whose effigies adorn the staircase of Westminster Hall. Mr. +Plunket rose and quietly replied, in his effective, hesitating manner, +"I am not responsible for the fearful creatures either in Westminster +Hall or in this House," a retort which "brought down the House" and +caused it to laugh loud and long. This I chronicled in a drawing for +_Punch_ the following week. + +The subject of gargoyles recalls another witticism, which, however, has +the light touch that failed. + +Now there is nothing so disappointing to a humorist as to lead up to an +interruption, and then find he is not interrupted. Mr. Chamberlain +seldom fails to bring off his little unsuspected repartee, and it is his +mastery of this art that make his speeches sparkle with diamond +brilliancy, but then these are usually serious, and he can afford a few +miss-fires. Mr. Goschen, in the Commons, romped through his "plants" for +his opponents; his interruptions were three or four deep, but he was +ready for all of them. He may be likened to a professional chess player, +playing a dozen opponents at once, and remembering all the moves on the +separate boards. But for a humorist to miss fire--after an elaborate +joke is prepared--is a catastrophe. + +Colonel Sanderson rose on a very important and ticklish occasion to +"draw" Mr. Labouchere. The Member for Northampton had been electrifying +the House by his free handling of a matter affecting the morality of +private individuals, a course of action for which, later on, he was +suspended. Colonel Sanderson, alluding to Mr. Labouchere, called him a +"political gargoyle." Mr. Labouchere did not, as was expected, rise in a +furious state and demand an explanation. The Colonel paused and +repeated, "I say the hon. gentleman, the Member for Northampton, is a +political gargoyle." No notice was taken by the gentleman compared to +the architectural adornment of past days; it was evident that, like the +gargoyle in ancient architecture, the remark of the humorous Colonel was +some elaboration too lofty to be noticed. A few days afterwards Mr. +Labouchere met the Colonel, and asked him what he meant by calling him a +political gargoyle. "Well," said the Colonel, "rather late to ask me; +you will find the definition in the dictionary. It is a grotesque +gutter-spout." Said Mr. Labouchere, "You're a very clever fellow, +Colonel; that would have been a capital point--if you had made it." + +[Illustration: HERALDIC DESIGN ILLUSTRATING MR. PLUNKET'S (NOW LORD +RATHMORE) JOKE. _From "Punch."_] + +Mr. Farmer Atkinson, who succeeded Sir William Ingram of the +_Illustrated London News_ and the _Sketch_ as Member for Boston, +Lincolnshire, was an invaluable "subject" for me during his brief hour +upon the Parliamentary stage. Our introduction was peculiar. It so +happened that when Mr. (now Sir) Christopher Furness was first returned +for Hartlepool, Mr. Atkinson, although of opposite politics, was most +anxious to welcome him to Parliament as a companion Dissenter. After +diligent inquiries for Mr. Furness, I was by mistake pointed out to him. +I suddenly found both my hands clasped and warmly shaken by the mistaken +M.P. "Delighted to meet you, Mr. Furness! Allow me to congratulate you. +We are both Dissenters, you know,--what a pity we are on different sides +of the House!" + +"Yes," I replied, "a thousand pities,--you see, you are inside and I am +outside. + +[Illustration: MR. FARMER ATKINSON.] + +My introduction to Mr. Christopher Furness a day or two afterwards was +in a way similar, but rather more embarrassing. + +Perhaps there are not two men with surnames so similar and yet so +different in every other way than that great man of business, Sir +Christopher Furness, and myself. He has an eye for business, but not one +for his surname--I have an "I" in my name, and two for art only. When +Mr. Furness was first returned to Parliament, plain Mr., neither a +knight nor a millionaire, _then_ he asked to see me alone in one of the +Lobbies of the House of Commons. He held a note in his hand, _strangely_ +and nervously,--so I knew at once it was not a bank-note. + +"I--ah--am very sorry,--you are a stranger to me, I--a--stranger to the +House. This note from a stranger was handed to me by a strange +official. I read it before I noticed the mistake. It is addressed to +you." + +"Oh, that is of no consequence, I assure you," I said. + +"Oh, but it is--it must be of consequence. It is--of--such a private +nature, and so brief. I feel extremely awkward in having to acknowledge +I read it,--a pure accident, I assure you!" + +He handed me the note and was running away, when I called him back. It +read:-- + + "Meet me under the clock at 8. + + "LUCY." + +"I must introduce you to Lucy." + +"No, no! not for worlds," + +But I did. Here he is. + +[Illustration] + +There were more "scenes" in Parliament in the few sessions that I have +selected to write about in this volume than there were in the rest of +the last century put together. This was largely due to the climax of +Irish affairs in the House. For effect in debate the English and Scotch +Members,--not to speak of the Welsh Representatives,--are failures +compared with those Members from across the water. No matter how hard +the phlegmatic Englishman, the querulous Scotchman, or the whinings of +those from gallant little Wales may try for effect, they have to give +way to the Irish in the art of making a scene in the House. +Occasionally, as when Dr. Kenealy shook some pepper over the House, and +in the case of Mr. Plimsoll--or some other honourable gentleman--who +went so far as to hang his umbrella on the Mace, an English Member +causes a sensation which might almost excite a pang of envy in the +breast of Dr. Tanner or Mr. Healy. No Englishman, however, has exceeded +Mr. Bradlaugh in the persistent quality of sensationalism in Parliament, +which now is sadly in want of another political phenomenon to enliven +its proceedings. + +One of the best studies in those days of good subjects for the +Parliamentary caricaturist was the figure of that "squat and leering +Quilp," Joseph Gillis Biggar, Member for County Cavan. Mr. Lucy (Toby, +M.P.), who acted as Biggar's Boswell, records the interesting fact that +when Mr. Biggar rose for the first time in the House (1874) to put a +supplementary question to a Minister, Mr. Disraeli, startled by the +apparition, turned to Lord Barrington as if he had seen seated in the +Irish quarter an ourang-outang or some other strange creature,--"What's +that?" + +[Illustration: JOSEPH GILLIS BIGGAR.] + +From that moment Mr. Biggar was a continual source of amusement--and +"copy." I venture to say that Toby, M.P., has written a good-sized +volume about Mr. Biggar's waistcoat alone. What he saw in the waistcoat +to chronicle I confess I have failed to see. "A fearsome garment," Mr. +Lucy called it, "which, at a distance, might be taken for sealskin, but +was understood to be of native manufacture." + +Mr. Biggar--waistcoat and all--was certainly seen and heard to advantage +"at a distance." He was no doubt useful to his Party, acting, as I +believe he did, as a kind of good-natured nurse to them, looking after +their comfort and seeing they kept in bounds. + +Mr. Biggar was always repulsive in both appearance and manner. His +unfortunate deformity, his gargoyle-like face, his long, bony hands, +large feet, the black tail coat and baggy black trousers, the grin and +the grating voice, and the fact that pork was his study before +Parliament, made Joseph Gillis Biggar's appearance as ugly as his name. +His chief claim to a niche in Parliamentary history is the fact that he +originated Obstruction, and showed the manner in which it should be +applied by making a speech occupying four hours of valuable time. He +also showed the length to which gross impertinence can be carried to +bring the House into contempt. He "spied" His Royal Highness, our +present King, one day in the gallery, and by the law of Parliament a +Member by suddenly observing that he "spies" a stranger may have the +House cleared of all but its Members, including Royalty--worse than that +he on one occasion alluded to Mr. Gladstone as "a vain old gentleman." + +The nearest approach I ever had to enter into practical politics was a +request I received in March, 1892, to become the successor of Lord (then +Sir Charles) Russell, as chairman of a local Radical association. In +reply I confessed my political creed, and I see no reason to alter it. + + + MY POLITICAL CONFESSION. + + "I have just received your flattering communication asking me to become + the chairman of No. 2 Ward of the East Marylebone Liberal and Radical + Association. It is the first time my name has ever been associated with + Party politics, and I am puzzled to know myself whether I am a Radical, + a Tory, a Liberal, or a Liberal Unionist! + + "I read the _Times_ every morning, and the _Star_ and the _Pall Mall + Gazette_ every evening. I read the sporting papers for their politics, + and the political papers for their literary and artistic notes. + + "I work sixteen hours a day myself, and would agree to any law + prohibiting others in my profession from working more than three hours. + + "I am strongly opposed to Home Rule, as the disappearance of the Irish + Members (who are invaluable to me in my profession) from St. Stephen's + would be a serious loss to me. + + "I agree to paying Members of Parliament, but would propose that they + should be fined for non-attendance, and for the privilege of speaking + too long, too often, or not often enough. These fines, in the majority + of cases, would come to three times the amount of the Member's income. + + "I am not in favour of capital punishment, and would do away with all + judges and trials by jury, leaving the Press to fight out the criminal + cases between themselves. + + "I believe in free education, free libraries, and a free breakfast + table, and would propose that free book-stalls and free restaurants + should be compulsory on all railways. + + "I am strongly opposed to vivisection, and hold that the life of a + rabbit is quite as valuable as that of a professor. At the same time I + would not countenance any law making it a punishable offence to boil a + lobster alive. + + "I am a believer in hypnotism, thought-reading, and theosophy (I have + been a bit of an amateur conjurer myself). + + "Right of public meeting? Certainly. This should be a free + country--everyone do as he likes. Football in Hyde Park, and fairs in + Trafalgar Square. Equal freedom for all processions--if Booth can stop + the traffic, why not Sanger's menagerie? + + "As to local option, by all means let all public-houses be closed. (I + never enter one.) And all clubs, too, so long as my own are not + interfered with. + + "I am not at present a member of any political club, but if you wish me + to become one I will put up at the Reform, either as a fervent + Gladstonian or a red-hot Unionist; I don't mind which, as neither have + the slightest chance of getting in now. + + "If, after considering these qualifications, you are of opinion that I + would be the right man in the right place, I shall be most happy and + willing to become your chairman.--Yours, etc." + +[Illustration] + +I regret to have to confess that I once posed as a political prophet. I +was encouraged to prophesy the fact that six months before the election +of July, 1892, when Mr. Gladstone was confident of "sweeping the +country" and coming back with a majority of 170 or so, when both sides +predicted a decisive result, and political prophets were cocksure of +large figures, I luckily happened to be more successful in my +vaticinations than they, giving the Gladstonians a majority of something +between forty and forty-five. The actual majority turned out, six +months afterwards, to be forty-two. This encouraged me to write the +following letter to the _Times_, and it appeared July 19th: + + "_A Parliamentary Prophecy._ + + "Sir,--I am surprised that no Parliamentary chronicler has written to + the papers to thank the electors of the United Kingdom for the happy + result of the General Election. The jaded journalist is the only person + to whom the result is pleasing, as he will have no lack of material for + descriptive matter in the coming Parliament. + + "The Gladstonians are not pleased, because they have barely got a + working majority. The Conservatives are not pleased, because they have + not got one at all. The Liberal Unionists are not pleased, because they + go with the Conservatives. The Irish Nationalists are chagrined, because + of the success of five Unionists in Ireland. The Parnellites feel + mischievous but unhappy. The Labour representatives mischievous and + happy--they are the heroes of the hour--and, although the members of the + Labour Party have hitherto been nonentities in the House, they will + probably be 'named' several times in the future. But Parliament is a + refrigerator for red-hot rhetoric, and such Members will, in time, find + respectability and aspirants,[2] and grow dull. + + [2] See page 212. + + "A harassed leader, an ambitious Opposition, the balance of power + resting in the hands of the Irish, divided amongst themselves, a new and + probably noisy party, boredom increased, faddism intensified--such are + the ingredients of the new House; and with little spice thrown in in the + shape of a revived morality scandal, the new Parliament promises to be a + hotch-potch of surprises. I myself take no side in politics, and am + glad to say that I have numerous friends in all parties. Perhaps it was + in consequence of this that I heard all sides of opinion, thereby + enabling me six months ago to weigh all my information correctly and + predict the result of the General Election--a Gladstonian majority of + between forty and forty-five votes--and to this opinion I have firmly + adhered in spite of the fluctuating prospects before the fight. Even on + Wednesday, the 6th inst., when the returns pouring in seemed to point to + a Government majority, I stuck to my prophecy. + + "I am now receiving from my friends (more especially from my Liberal + friends) congratulations upon my perspicacity, and, although I am no + Schnadhorst, I must now regard myself in the light of a Parliamentary + prophet. Having in that capacity chanted my incantations and calculated + the number of square feet of Irish linen in one of Mr. Gladstone's + collars to be in inverse ratio to the dimensions of his Mid-Lothian + majority, and having by abstruse computations discovered the hitherto + unknown quantity of Sir William Harcourt's chins, I can safely predict + that there will be another General Election within the space of + thirteen months, and that the result of the same will be the return of + the Unionists with a majority of fifteen. + + "Yours truly, + + "HARRY FURNISS. + + "Garrick Club, London, July 19." + +[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM TOBY'S PRIVATE BOX.] + +The regret I felt was not caused by any failure of my prediction +contained in the last paragraph in that letter, but that the whole of it +was taken seriously. Editorial leaders appeared in the principal papers +all over the kingdom. Letters followed, discussions took place, and +politicians referred to it in their speeches. "Mr. Harry Furniss has +taken the public into his confidence, as one who is thoroughly +acquainted with Party politics, though he takes no personal interest in +them. Men who can thus truthfully describe themselves are excessively +rare, as far as we know. It is usually the person who does not +understand politics who takes no interest in them. A man who understands +politics, but does not concern himself to take sides, is in the position +of the looker-on who sees most of the game," was truthfully written of +me _à propos_ of this letter--but why _à propos_ of this letter? Why not +of my serious work instead? No, my "airy persiflage" was only a cloak. I +was seriously and instantaneously accepted as a serious political +prophet, and otherwise criticised: + + "_To the Editor of the 'Times.'_ + + "Sir, In a letter signed by Mr. Harry Furniss, which appeared in the + _Times_ of the 21st inst., the writer concluded by predicting that there + would be another general election within thirteen months, and that the + result would be a Unionist majority of fifteen. + + "Mr. Furniss is evidently fond of odd numbers, but may I point out to + him, and to many other political prophets who have fallen into the same + trap, that the fulfilment of his prediction is an impossibility? + + "In a House of 670 Members, or any other even number, if divided into + two parties, the majority (in the sense he uses the word--viz., the + difference) must always be an even number. It is true that the division + lists sometimes show a majority which is an odd number, but in such a + case an odd number of Members must have been absent from the division. + Mr. Furniss must prophesy either fourteen or sixteen. + + "The English language is so defective that the word 'majority' is used + to mean 'the greater number,' and also 'the difference between the + greater number and the less.' Cannot a new word be invented to replace + 'majority' in one or other of these meanings, and so avoid the use of + the same word for two distinct ideas? + + "Your obedient servant, + + "GEORGE R. GALLAHER, + + "Fellow of the Institute of Bankers. + + "44, Fenchurch Street, London, E.C." + +I suppose F.I.B. stands for "Fellow of the Institute of Bankers." +Anyway, before I had time to reply to the courteous captious critic the +_Times_ published the following: + + "_Political Prophecy._ + + "Sir,--In endeavouring to correct Mr. Furniss your correspondent Mr. + Gallaher has forgotten that, although the House of Commons consists of + an even number of Members, one of those Members will be elected Speaker; + and that consequently, if all the Members were on any occasion to + attend, the majority would be an odd, and not an even number. There is + therefore no necessity for Mr. Furniss to alter his prophecy at present. + + "Your obedient servant, + + "FAIR PLAY." + +Other correspondents, less technical but strongly political, accused me +of being "an inspired Conservative spy." Others that I was an oracle +worth "rigging." And the Irish and Radical Press questioning my +impartiality, I published this letter: + + "_To the Editor of the 'Manchester City News.'_ + + "Sir,--My attention has been called to a paragraph in your issue of July + 23rd, stating that I am a Conservative, an assertion which has highly + amused those who know me well, for I am one of the strongest of Radicals + in some things and the hottest of Tories in others. I earnestly advocate + the claims of the working man, and sometimes I feel myself a Whig of the + old school. Whether I am a Tory, a Liberal or a Radical, troubles me + very little, but as you seem to take a kind interest in my political + opinions I should have preferred you to have styled me an Independent, + which I understand means nothing. + + "HARRY FURNISS. + + "Garrick Club, London." + +But neither "Independent" nor humorous would the partisan +Press allow me to be. Certainly I was applauded by some for +having held steadfastly to my prophecy, despite temptations +which would have made Cassandra succumb. I was flattered +by being held up as an exception among the prophets. From +Mr. Gladstone to Mr. T. P. O'Connor politicians had prophesied +and were hopelessly wide of the mark. Mr. Chamberlain, +speaking at Birmingham that week, said, "The gravity of the +weighty man of the House of Commons, gentlemen, is a thing +to which there is no parallel in the world," and oh! so serious! + +[Illustration: THE GOVERNMENT--BENCH BEFORE HOME RULE. + A rough Sketch made in the House. + +Mr. W. E. Foster. Mr. Gladstone. Mr. John Bright. + Lord E. Fitzmaurice. Lord Hartington.] + +"Prophets--at any rate political prophets--are chiefly distinguished +from other people by being always dull and nearly always wrong. To-day, +however, appears a brilliant exception to the almost universal rule," +wrote one paper, and yet continued, "Mr. Furniss is simply within his +own ground as one of the shrewdest and best trained of living observers, +when he describes the newly-elected House of Commons as thoroughly +discontented with itself. But we wish that Mr. Furniss had carried his +prediction into the regions of counsel, and had been able to read in +'Mr. Gladstone's collars,' or in the 'unknown quantity of Sir William +Harcourt's chins,' and whatever else serves him for his Stars, what is +to be the outcome of a situation in which no party is able to obtain a +working majority. If Mr. Furniss is right, the question of 'how is the +Queen's Government to be carried on?' will assume a practical importance +which it never had before; and unless he himself, as a thoroughly +non-party man, can be induced to undertake the formation of an +administration of similarly fortunate persons, one does not see what is +to be done. Party government is based upon big majorities--it is within +measurable distance of breaking down altogether unless the country will +make up its mind to stand no more nonsense, and to prefer what is really +a party to a conglomerate of fads and factions." + +I was beginning to feel like a man who had started a story and forgotten +the point of it. The only "comic relief" was the following note from the +Editor of _Punch_: + + _21st July, 1892. + + "_Vates et Vox Stellarum._ + + "Dear H. F.,--'Respectability and aspirants.' Didn't you squirm at the + misprint? Is that setter-up-of-type still alive? Je m'en doute. The + reference to Harcourt's _chins_ will _get you liked_ very much. You + dated it from the Garrick, but you didn't put the time of night when + you wrote it. 'P.S.'--_Post Supperal_, eh? + + "Farewell, O Prophet!--but 'why _didn't you say so before_?' + + "Allah il Allah Ari Furniss is His Prophet! + + "Yours ever, + + "F. C. B. + + "_Advt._--'LIKA JOKO'! Parliamentary Prophet!! Prophecies sent out on + shortest notice. Terms, ----. Reduction on taking a quantity." + +Yes! I did squirm at the misprint, which, however, was rectified in the +next issue: + + "_A Parliamentary Prophecy._--In Mr. Harry Furniss's letter under this + title in the _Times_ of yesterday the word 'aspirates' should be read + instead of 'aspirants' in the following passage: 'The Labour + representatives feel mischievous and happy--they are the heroes of the + hour--and, although the members of the Labour Party have hitherto been + nonentities in the House, they will probably be 'named' several times in + the future. But Parliament is a refrigerator for red-hot rhetoric, and + such members will, in time, find respectability and aspirants, and grow + dull." + +I wish I had followed the example of Mr. John Morley, who announced a +couple of months before the election that he had written down his +General Election tip and placed it in a sealed envelope; but so far as I +have heard, he never risked his reputation for prophecy--he refrained +from publishing the secret. That grave and weighty right hon. gentleman +scored as the humorist, and I failed as a prophet in my second attempt. + +[Illustration: REDUCTION OF ONE OF MY PARLIAMENTARY PAGES IN _PUNCH_.] + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + +"PUNCH" + + Two _Punch_ Editors--_Punch's_ Hump--My First _Punch_ Dinner--Charles + Keene--"Robert"--W. H. Bradbury--du Maurier--"Kiki"--A Trip to the + Place of his Birth--He Hates Me--A Practical Joke--du Maurier's Strange + Model--No Sportsman--Tea--Appollinaris--My First Contribution--My + Record--Parliament--Press Gallery Official--I Feel Small--The "Black + Beetle"--Professor Rogers--Sergeant-at-Arms' Room--Styles of + Work--Privileges--Dr. Percy--I Sit in the Table--The Villain of Art--The + New Cabinet--Criticism--_Punch's_ Historical Cartoons--Darwen + MacNeill--Scenes in the Lobby--A Technical Assault--John Burns's + "Invention"--John Burns's Promise--John Burns's Insult--The Lay of Swift + MacNeill--The Truth--Sir Frank Lockwood--"Grand Cross"--Lockwood's + Little Sketch--Lockwood's Little Joke in the House--Lockwood's Little + Joke at Dinner--Lewis Carroll and _Punch_--Gladstone's Head--Sir + William's Portrait--Ciphers--Reversion--_Punch_ at Play--Three _Punch_ + Men in a Boat--Squaring up--Two Pins Club--Its One Joke--Its One + Horse--Its Mystery--Artistic Duties--Lord Russell--Furious + Riding--Before the Beak--Burnand and I in the Saddle--Caricaturing + Pictures for _Punch_--Art under Glass--Arthur Cecil--My Other Eye--The + Ridicule that Kills--Red Tape--_Punch_ in Prison--I make a Mess of + it--Waterproof--"I used your Soap two years ago"--Charles Keene--Charles + Barber--_Punch's_ Advice--_Punch's_ Wives. + +[Illustration: T] + + +The first representative of Mr. Punch with whom I came into contact was +the late Tom Taylor, at that period the tenant of the editorial chair. +To this meeting I have referred on a previous page, when I mentioned +that Mr. Taylor had just returned from the wilds of Connemara and +strongly advised me to make some explorations in that little-known +district for the purpose of making sketches of the "genus _homo_ +indigenous to the soil," which I did a week or so prior to my setting +foot in the busy haunt of men on murky Thames. + +Tom Taylor was, I believe, one of the best of men, and the possessor of +one of the kindest hearts; but although he certainly professed to take +an interest in me (probably owing to the fact that it was to a relative +of mine that he was indebted for his first introduction to literature), +the fact remains that whenever I sent him a sketch I used to receive one +of his extraordinary hieroglyphical missives supposed to be a note +courteously declining my efforts, notwithstanding that I was often +flattered although not enriched by subsequently seeing the subjects of +them appear redrawn under another name in the pages of _Punch_. + +It was not until Tom Taylor had passed away that Mr. Punch would deign +to give me a chance. I had then been seven years in London hard at work +for the leading magazines and illustrated papers, and I may truly say +that my work was the only introduction I ever had to Mr. Burnand. + +[Illustration: Age 26, WHEN I FIRST WORKED FOR PUNCH. [_From a Photo by +C. Watkins._]] + +When I first entered the goal of my boyish ambition--that is to say, the +editorial sanctum of Mr. Punch--I had never met the gentleman who for a +number of years afterwards was destined to be my chief, and I fully +expected to see the editor turn round and receive me with that look of +irrepressible humour and in that habitually jocose style which I had so +often heard described. I looked in vain for the geniality in the +editor's glance, and there was a remarkably complete absence of the +jocose in the sharp, irritable words which he addressed to me. + +"Really," said he, "this is too bad! I wrote to you to meet me at the +Surrey Theatre last night, and you never turned up. We go to press +to-day, and the sketches are not even made." + +"I don't quite understand you," I replied, "for I never heard from you +in my life, and I don't think that you ever saw me before." + +"But surely you are Mr. ----?" (a contributor who had been drawing for +_Punch_ for some weeks). "Are you not?" + +"No," I said. "My name is Furniss, and I understood that you wanted to +see me." + +[Illustration: MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_.] + +This was in 1880, and from that period up to the time of my resignation +from the staff of _Punch_ I certainly do not think that I have ever seen +Burnand's face assume such a threatening and offended expression as it +wore that day. + +I was then twenty-six. Strange to say, Charles Keene and George du +Maurier were exactly the same age when they first made their _début_ in +_Punch_, but not yet invited to "join the table." + +As I was leaving my house one summer evening a few years afterwards, the +youngest member of my family, who was being personally conducted up to +bed by his nurse, enquired where I was going. + +"To dine with Mr. Punch," I replied. + +"Oh, haven't you eaten all his hump _yet_, papa? It _does_ last a long +time!" And the little chap continued his journey to the arms of +Morpheus, evidently quite concerned about his father's long-drawn-out +act of cannibalism. + +The first feast to which I was bidden was not one of the ordinary or +office description, but a banquet given at the "Albion" Tavern, in the +City, on the 3rd of January, 1881, to celebrate the installation of Mr. +Burnand as the occupant of the editorial chair. And on my invitation +card I first sketched my new friends, the _Punch_ staff, and a few of +the outside contributors who were present, conspicuous among whom was +George Augustus Sala, the honoured stranger of the evening. That he +should be so struck me as peculiar, for it was an open secret that Sala +wrote and illustrated that famous attack (nominally by Alfred Bunn), "A +Word with _Punch_," a most vulgar, vicious, and personal insult which +had given much offence years before; a clear proof of Mr. Punch's +forgiving nature. That grand old man of _Punch_, Tenniel, I made an +attempt to sketch as he was "saying a few words," but on this particular +occasion it was my _vis-à-vis_ Charles Keene who interested me more than +any other person present. He wore black kid gloves and never removed +them all during dinner--that puzzled me. Why he wore them I cannot say. +I never saw him wearing gloves at table again, or even out of doors. +Then he was in trouble with his cigar, and finally I noticed that he +threw it under the table and stamped upon it, and produced his favourite +dirty Charles the First pipe, the diminutive bowl of which he filled +continually with what smokers call "dottles." He was then apparently +perfectly happy, as indeed he always looked when puffing away at his +antique clay. Years afterwards, when sketching a background for a +_Punch_ drawing in the East End, I noticed some labourers returning +from working at excavations, laughing over something they had found in +the ground; it was a splendid specimen of the Charles clay pipe, longer +than any I have seen. I bought it from them to present to Keene, but he +was ill then, and soon after the greatest master of black and white +England ever produced had passed away. + +[Illustration: MY FIRST INVITATION FROM _PUNCH_.] + +[Illustration: A LETTER FROM CHARLES KEENE, OBJECTING TO AN +EDITOR INTERVIEWING HIM.] + +[Illustration: "Robert."] + +After Keene the strangest character present was Mr. Deputy +Bedford--"Robert" in the pages of _Punch_--an undertaker in the City, +and one of the most humorous men within its boundary. I recollect +introducing my wife to him at some function at the Mansion House--not as +Robert, but as Mr. Deputy Bedford. She expressed her pleasure at meeting +one of the City dignitaries, and he offered to show her over the +treasures in the Mansion House. "There's a fine statue for you! Don't +know who did it, but we paid a thousand pounds for it. And that one over +there, which weighs half a ton less, cost twice as much. Oh! the +pictures are worth something, too. That portrait cost £800; I don't know +what that one cost, but the frame is cheap at £20. Yes, fine gold plate, +isn't it? Old designs? Yes, but old or new, boiled down, I should think +£80,000 wouldn't be taken for the pile!" And so on, and so on, with a +merry twinkle in his eye and an excellent imitation of what outsiders +consider City men to be. + +[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER. + _From a pen and ink drawing by himself, the property of the Author._] + +My caricature of the genial E. L. S. (Sambourne) is not good, but quite +as kind as Sala's remarks were on that occasion in chaffing Sambourne +for turning up in morning costume. In the bottom right-hand corner of +the card is a note of the late Mr. W. H. Bradbury, one of the +proprietors of _Punch_, the kindest and the best host, the +biggest-hearted and most genial friend, I ever worked for. He has his +eye, I notice, on a gentleman making an impromptu speech--the sensation +of the evening--referred to by Mr. M. H. Spielmann in "The History of +_Punch_." Next to that irrepressible orator is Mr. Lucy, "Toby, M.P.," +as I saw him first. + +I note on this card an attempt to sketch du Maurier, the "Thackeray of +the pencil." By the way, I was certainly the first to apply that term to +him--in my first lecture, "Art and Artists." He was some distance from +me at the banquet when I made these notes. + +It is a curious fact that I really never had a seat allotted to me at +the _Punch_ table. I always sat in du Maurier's, except on the rare +occasions when he came to the dinner, when I moved up one. It was always +a treat to have du Maurier at "the table." He was by far and away the +cleverest conversationalist of his time I ever met,--his delightful +repartees were so neat and effective, and his daring chaff and his +criticisms so bright and refreshing. + +For some extraordinary reason du Maurier was known to the _Punch_ men as +"Kiki," a friendly sobriquet which greeted him when he first joined, and +refers to his nationality. In the same way as an English schoolboy calls +out "Froggy" to a Frenchman, his friends on the _Punch_ staff called him +Kiki, suggested by the Frenchman's peculiar and un-English art of +self-defence. + +Du Maurier took very little interest in the discussions at the table; in +fact, he resented informal debate on the subject of the cartoon as an +interruption to his conversation, although he once suggested a cartoon +which will always rank as one of the most historical hits of Mr. +Punch--a cartoon of the First Napoleon warning Napoleon the Third as he +marches out to meet the Germans in the War of 1870. + +At times he might enter into the artistic treatment of the cartoon; and +I reproduce a sketch he did on the back of a _menu_ to explain some idea +in connection with the cartoon which appeared the following week in +_Punch_. + +Du Maurier's extremely clever conversation struck me the moment I +joined the staff of _Punch_. As I went part of his way to Hampstead, we +sometimes shared a cab, and in one of these journeys I mentioned my +conviction that he, in my mind, was a great deal more than a humorous +artist, and if he would only take up the pen seriously the world would +be all the more indebted to him. He told me that Mr. James had for some +time said nice things of a similar character. + +[Illustration: SUGGESTION BY DU MAURIER FOR _PUNCH_ CARTOON.] + +About ten days afterwards I received a letter saying that my +conversation had had an effect upon him, and that he was starting his +first novel. So perhaps the world is really indebted to me, indirectly, +for the pleasure of reading "Peter Ibbetson" and "Trilby;" the fact +being that he had, with Burnand and myself, just visited Paris--the +first time he had set foot in the gay city since his youth. Many things +he saw had impressed him, and "Peter Ibbetson" was the result. How +interesting it was to watch him in Paris, the place of his birth, +standing, the ideal type of a Frenchman himself, smiling and as amused +as a boy at his own countrymen and women. "So very un-English, you +know!" Then, as we drove about Paris, he stood up in the carriage, +excitedly showing us places familiar to him in his young days, and +greatly amused us by pointing out no fewer than three different houses +in which he was born! We three were the guests of Mr. Staat Forbes at +Fontainebleau during the same trip, and du Maurier's sketches of our +pleasant experiences on that occasion appear in _Punch_, under the +heading "Souvenir de Fontainebleau," in three numbers in October, 1886. +In the drawing of our _al fresco_ dinner, "Smith" is our host, I am +"Brown," du Maurier "Jones," and Mr. Burnand "Robinson." + +Three years afterwards du Maurier re-visited Paris with most of the +staff to see the Paris Exhibition, 1889. In my sketch "En Route--Mr. +Punch at Lunch," du Maurier is speaking to Mr. Anstey Guthrie, who, "for +this occasion only," called du Maurier the Marquis d'Ampstead. + +Du Maurier had a little of the green-eyed monster in his bosom, although +he lived to laugh at all when he himself became the greatest success of +any man in his sphere. + +When I made my hit with my Exhibition of the "Artistic Joke," du +Maurier, to my surprise, turned sharply round to me one night in the cab +and said, "My dear Furniss, I must be honest with you--I hate you, I +loathe you, I detest you!" + +[Illustration: DU MAURIER'S SOUVENIR DE FONTAINEBLEAU. + +_From "Punch."_] + +"Thanks, awfully, my dear fellow! But why?" + +"Ah!" he said, "your success is too great. When I get the return you +send me in the morning, showing me the number of people that have been +to your Exhibition, the tremendous takings at the turnstiles, the number +of albums subscribed for, the number of pictures you have sold, I cannot +work. I go on to Hampstead Heath to walk off my jealousy; when I come in +to lunch I find your first telegram, telling me you have made £80 that +morning. I walk out again, and looking down upon London, although I +shake my fist at the whole place, my wrath is for you alone. I come in +to tea to find another telegram--you have made £100! How can I sit down +and scratch away on a piece of paper when you are making a fortune in a +week?" + +This nearly took my breath away. + +"My dear du Maurier," I replied, "I feel hurt--seriously, irrevocably. +I shall always feel degraded in your eyes. Of course you are the victim +of a practical joke." + +Du Maurier pulled from his pocket one of my supposed returns. It was an +imitation of printing, with the amounts filled in. "This is the kind of +thing I get every morning." + +"Why, of course, it is written, not printed. That is the work of the +irrepressible practical joker. But it makes no difference, du Maurier; +if you thought that I would be such a cad as to send you these returns, +I cannot see how we can ever be great friends." + +Although as du Maurier believed for a time I had the necessary vulgarity +of the "bloated millionaire," to use his own words, we were never much +more than acquaintances--although very pleasant acquaintances--and I +believe du Maurier reciprocated the kind feeling I had towards him. Du +Maurier rarely forgave a satirical thrust at his expense. His dislike +for Mr. Whistler on this account is well known to all the early readers +of "Trilby," and he often related with unconcealed glee a remark he once +made to Whistler. It appears they had not met for a long period, during +which du Maurier with his satirical pictures on the æsthetic craze, +published in _Punch_, and Whistler with his "symphonies" and "harmonies" +on canvas, exhibited in the Law Courts, had both increased their +reputation. + +"Hullo, Kiki!" cried Whistler. "I'm told that your work in _Punch_ is +the making of some men. You have actually invented Tomkins! Why, he +never would have existed but for you! Ha! ha! how on earth did you do +it?" + +"Look here, Jimmy, if you don't look out, by Jove, I'll invent you!" + +How Kiki--du Maurier--carried out his threat in "Trilby," and what +resulted from it, all the world knows. + +By the way, the mention of "Trilby" reminds me of a story about Mr. du +Maurier's own Trilby which is perhaps worth recording. Du Maurier for +some years lived on the top of Hampstead Heath, rather inaccessible for +models. But more than once friends asked him to take a sitting from some +lady or another, as he, drawing fashionable ladies, was different, +perhaps, from painters using models for costumes or, as du Maurier +would say, for the "altogether." In this way a model was introduced to +him, and, to his surprise, she drove up to his house in a hansom, and he +heard her asking one of the servants for change of a sovereign to pay +the cabman. She did not sit very well, so after a short time Mr. du +Maurier told her that he only drew from models for part of the day, and, +rather apologetically, said he of course did not pay for the whole of +the usual day's sitting. And she said: + +"Oh, thanks! I am only too pleased to sit for a short time. But would +you kindly ask one of your servants to fetch me a hansom?" + +[Illustration: _PUNCH_ STAFF RETURNING FROM PARIS. + (_The original hangs on the wall of Mr. Punch's dining room._)] + +This made the artist more than ever miserable, and he said: + +"Excuse me, but perhaps you are not aware we only pay a modest amount +for sitters; in fact, I generally pay five shillings for two +hours--aw----" + +"You don't mean to say you are really going to give me five shillings? +Oh, how kind of you! It will just pay half my cab fare home. I didn't +know I was going to be so lucky." And she vanished, leaving the artist +more bewildered than ever. + +Some time afterwards, in Hyde Park, he was surprised to see a carriage +beautifully appointed pulled up to where he was standing, and a lady +lean out and say: + +"I have never seen you before to thank you for your kindness in allowing +me to sit for you. I was so anxious to see what a studio was like. +Thanks, awfully; you must let me call again." + +Du Maurier had the faculty of unaffected fun, he had also a feeling for +caricature in portraiture, but he did not care to exercise either to any +extent in _Punch_. I recollect Sir Henry Thompson--the celebrated +physician--showing me a copy of a book he had written, in which he +speaks of hospital life in London. Du Maurier had studied in a London +hospital when he first arrived in England, and he wrote to Sir Henry, +then a stranger to him, to ask him if the wretch in his book who wheeled +off the remains of the corpses from the dissecting-room was the same man +he knew and loathed years ago. The sketch accompanying this query Sir +Henry had pasted in the book in triumph. "There is the man," he said, +"to the life!" + +At dinner du Maurier ate sparingly, drank moderately, and smoked +cigarettes. He avoided champagne, preferring the wine of his +country--claret; and after dinner, in place of coffee, he had a huge +breakfast-cup of tea, and, like the soap advertisement boy, he was not +happy till he got it. + +[Illustration: JAPANESE STYLE: A BALLET FROM _PUNCH_.] + +Mentioning an advertisement suggests that it may interest some to know +du Maurier drew the label for a most popular mineral water. It is safe +to predict that not one person in the tens of thousands looking at it +yearly would connect du Maurier with it. It is that elaborate and rather +inartistic design on Appollinaris water, for which he received fifty +guineas from his friend--one of the proprietors. Anyone following his +work in _Punch_ must have noticed that he was a hypochondriac. +Hypochondriasis was a disease with him, he was always thinking of his +health, and I fear that sudden burst of popularity following the success +of "Trilby," in place of bracing him up, made him dwell somewhat more +upon his state of health, and hastened the end. + +I recollect his telling me years ago he was advised to take horse +exercise for his health's sake, so he hired a hack and started in the +direction of Richmond Park. Arriving at the well-known windmill, and +before descending the beautiful slopes on the other side, he took out +his watch and, opening the case, put out his tongue to see what effect +the ride had had on his health. The horse moved, and he found himself +the next moment on the ground. + +He gave up horse exercise after that! + +My first contribution to _Punch_ appeared in the number dated October +30th, 1880. "Punch," as a policeman, commanded the removal of the +newly-erected "Griffin" in the place of Old Temple Bar: "Take away that +Bauble!" The much-abused "Griffin" is the work (but after the design of +Horace Jones) of an old friend of mine, the late C. B. Birch, R.A., a +clever sculptor and a capital fellow. He sent me "his mark" of +appreciation, but I may say he was the last man to use the instrument of +torture suggested by his name. + +[Illustration] + +I then "did the theatres" with the editor--no mistake this time--and a +very pleasant time it was. My first "social" drawing appeared in the +second number in the following December, illustrating Scotch "wut" +manufactured in London. + +Two Scotch rustics outside an eating-house. One points to a card in the +window on which is "Welsh Rabbit, 6d." + +Hungry visitor (ignorant of the nature of this particular delicacy): +"Ah, Donal, mon, we ken weel hev the Rawbit fur saxpence. We ken get twa +Bawbees fur the Skeen when we get bock to Glasgow!" + +The Scotch is certainly new, if the joke is not. + +[Illustration: CHINESE STYLE. FROM A DRAWING ON WOOD. _PUNCH._] + +An Irish joke followed, and then in the Almanack I illustrated a hit at +the style of ladies' dress of the period; in fact, at that time I drew +for _Punch_ quite a number of social subjects dealing with the æsthetic +craze. Besides illustrating various social subjects and caricaturing the +Academy and the new plays, I was illustrating the "Essence of +Parliament." As Mr. M. H. Spielmann in "The History of _Punch_" says +truly, "I romped through _Punch's_ pages." I open a number of _Punch_ +published only eighteen months after my first contribution appeared, and +two years previous to my joining the staff, and find no fewer than +eleven separate subjects from my pencil; and I may say that up to the +last I probably contributed more work to _Punch_ than any other artist +ever contributed in the same number of years, Leech not excepted. I do +not claim that this was wholly due to artistic merit, but to a business +one. I never refused to draw a subject I was asked to do, I never was at +a loss for a subject, and I was never late. It was to this facility I +owe the good terms on which the editor and I worked so pleasantly and +for so long. Being accustomed to work at high pressure for the +illustrated papers and magazines since boyhood, I confess that _Punch_ +work to me was my playtime. + +I contributed over two thousand six hundred designs, from the smallest +to the largest that ever appeared in its pages (the latter were +published in the Christmas Numbers, 1890 and 1891), and I was not in +receipt of a salary, but was paid for each drawing at my full rate. I +have reason to think I drew in the time more money from _Punch_, +proportionately, than any other contributor in its history in a like +period. I read from time to time accounts of the remuneration men like +myself receive. Of course these statements are invariably fiction, as in +fact is nearly everything I have read outside Mr. Spielmann's careful +analysis of _Punch_ concerning myself and my friends. + +I deal with my Parliamentary confessions, personal and artistic, in +other chapters; I shall in this merely touch upon a few points in +connection with _Punch_. The greater portion of my Parliamentary work, +however, appeared in other periodicals, but it is probably by _Punch_ +work in this direction most of my readers identify me. I was fortunate, +in the twelve years I represented _Punch_ in Parliament with the pencil, +in having the exceptional material for work upon Mr. Gladstone at his +most interesting period, Parnell's rise and fall, Churchill's rise and +fall, Bradlaugh's rise and fall, and a host of others strutting their +brief hour on the political stage. Where are they now? Mr. Chamberlain +alone interests the caricaturist. Parliament itself is dull, the public +is apathetic, and everything appertaining to politics is flat and +unprofitable. Yet as far back as 1885, in the figure "Punch," I asked +for some new character, the familiar faces were getting worked out! + +I had attended some sessions of Parliament before I made the +acquaintance of the official presiding over the Press Gallery. The Press +Gallery is, as all know, directly over the Speaker. The front row is +divided into little boxes where the representatives of the leading +papers sit. The others are seated above them against the wall. These +members of the Press look like a row of aged schoolboys very much +troubled to write anything about Parliament to-day. Their monitor sits +by the seat near the door, which in former days was in the middle of the +Gallery. + +[Illustration: FAMILIAR FACES. + +_Mr. Punch (Cartoonist-in-Chief)._ "OH, I KNOW ALL YOU OLD MODELS. I +WANT SOME NEW 'CHARACTER'!"] + +I shall never forget my first experience of this Press Gallery official. +He was big, and fat, and greasy; in evening dress, and he wore a real +gold chain with a badge in front like a mayor or sheriff. He awed +me--recollect I am now speaking of the day I attended as a comparatively +new boy, and I trembled in his presence. There was no seat vacant except +the one next to him. He sleeps! Nervously I slip into the seat. He +wakes, and looks down at me. + +"H'm! What are you?" is his sleepy remark. + +"_Punch_," I reply. + +"Ticket?" + +"Left at home." + +"Bring it next time." + +"Certainly," say I, relieved. He slumbers again. I strain over to see +who is speaking. This wakes the gentleman with the real gold chain +again. He gazes down upon me. I feel smaller. + +"What are you?" + +"_Punch._" + +"Eh! Where's ticket?" + +"Left at home." + +"Bring it next time. Saves bother, young fellow." + +[Illustration: "HE SLEEPS."] + +"Certainly," I reply, and, encouraged by his familiarity, I venture to +ask, "Who is that speaking?" I just got the question out in time, for he +was dozing off again. + +"New Member," he replied, and, half dozing, he goes on, more to himself +than to me: "One more fool! Find his level here! All fools here! Stuff +you've been givin' them at your College Union. Rubbish! Yer +perambulator's waitin' outside. Oh, follow yer Dad to the Upper House, +an' look sharp about it." He mumbles. I well recollect the youthful +Member, so criticised, labouring through his maiden speech. The eldest +son of a Peer, with a rather effeminate face, Saxon fairness of +complexion, and with an apology for a moustache, it struck me that if +petrified he would do very well as a dummy outside a tailor's +establishment. Yet this youthful scion of a noble line has a good +record. He carried off innumerable prizes at Eton, was a double first at +Oxford, President of the Union, and a fellow of his college; one of the +University Eight, and of the Eleven; distinguished at tennis, racquets, +and football; hero of three balloon ascents; great at amateur +theatricals; a writer upon every possible subject, including theology, +for the leading magazines; member of sixteen London clubs; married a +titled heiress, and is only thirty years of age. + +[Illustration: "HERE, I SAY, WHAT ARE YOU?"] + +[Illustration: "_PUNCH_," I REPLIED.] + +Some of his college friends sit in the Strangers' Gallery to hear their +late President make his first great effort in the real Parliament. The +effect disappoints them. Their champion is "funky." When the Oxford +Eight were behind at Barnes Bridge, it was "Dolly's" muscle and nerve +that pulled the crew together and won the race. When at Lord's the match +was nearly over, and the Light Blues had won all but the shouting, +"Dolly" went in last man and rattled up fifty in half an hour and won +the match. When at the Oxford Union he spoke upon the very question now +before the House--namely, whether a tax should be imposed upon +periwinkles--his oratory alone turned the scale, and gave his party the +victory. Yet now his speech upon the periwinkle problem has certainly +not impressed the House. Men listened for a time and then adjourned to +dinner, and his splendid peroration, recognised by his friends as the +same which he had delivered at the Oxford Union, failed to elicit a +single cheer. + +Curiosity, however, induced his supporters to remain and hear the reply. +The next speaker was a contrast to their hero, and a titter went round +among Dolly's friends in the Gallery. He was a type of the preaching +Member. No doubt a very worthy soul, but hardly an Adonis to look at, +nor a Cicero to listen to. Still he is sincere, and with his own class +effective; and sincerity, after all, is the most valuable, and I may add +the most rare, quality in the composition of an ordinary Member of +Parliament. + +My neighbour, the Usher, at this point opens his left eye, which takes +in at a glance the Opposition side of the House, and breaks out in this +style: + +"All right, little 'un! Keep wot yer sayin' till Sunday. Yer sermon's +sending me to sleep. Forcing taxation on the winks of the 'ungry +Englishman will raise the country to revolt. Tommy rot! Here endeth the +first lesson, thank goodness!" + +The soliloquising official rolls off his seat chuckling along the +Gallery. Envelopes are handed to him by the reporters. He rolls back to +the door, opens it, gives the copy to the messengers waiting for it, and +rolls back once more into his seat. In doing so he spies me. + +I feel smaller. + +"Here, I say, what are you?" + +"_Punch._" + +"Where's ticket?" + +"Left at home." + +"H'm! Don't forget it again." + +"Certainly not." + +I say nothing more, as I am too interested in his running commentary of +the proceedings. A grunt. Shake down: + +"Old Waddy, is it? Another sermon. Blow black plaster. Tell that to the +juries, and use it again in chapel. Yer a good friend to us--get a count +soon. Ah, I thought so. Joey Biggar up to count and snuff." + +"Have a pinch?" he said to me. + +"Thanks." I sneeze. + +"What are you?" asked the man of the golden badge, looking down at me. I +met his query as before. + +Same demand. + +Same reply. + +Same promise. + +The electric bells were ringing for a "count out." He opened both eyes +to watch if forty Members came in. They did; and three times forty. + +"Torment 'em! Keep me here all night, I see." + +Samuel Banks Waddy--Pleader, Preacher, Parliamentarian (as he is +designated in a work on M.P.'s)--continues preaching. He is followed by +the Leader of the House. My soliloquising friend continues: + +"Ah, Old Morality--as Lucy calls ye--up at last. Move the closure, now +then, that's right; speak of yer dooty to the House and Country. Set the +Rads laughing, shut yer own mouth, and sit down. Oh lor! 'Ere's the +Grand Old Muddler up. We're getting 'usky, old 'un; both of us have 'ad +too much of this job. We're very much alike, Gladdy and me--both great +eaters and great sleepers." + +[Illustration: "I FEEL SMALLER!"] + +Mr. Gladstone was telling the House all about black plaster, and gave +three points why it should not be used in public hospitals. With the +third point he landed a blow at Home Rule, and his ingenuity in doing +so brought forth a derisive cheer from the Irish benches, which roused +my neighbour. + +I looked up at him smiling, as much as to say, "Just like the Old +Parliamentary Hand." + +"What are you?" he growled. + +"_Punch._" + +"Ticket?" + +Same reply and promise. + +Appeased, he continued: + +"Words, words, words--no 'ed no tail. Oh, of course you remember the +introduction of white plaster--3rd of June, 1840--why didn't you say +half-past two o'clock? More convincing. No doubt you got into some +scrape and 'ad to use it. Won't you catch it from the old woman in the +Gallery when you get home if you say so! Can't 'ear yer, thank goodness. +Scribblers will take down any rot you talk. They want _me_, I suppose. +Blowed if the country wants you." + +Again he rolls out of his seat, collects the reporters' copy, and gives +it to the attendants. + +"Who are you? Ah, _Punch_. Don't forget yer ticket." + +Again he dozes. + +"'Icks Beach up! 'Ave all the Board of Trade chaps up, capping each +other. Funny thing--Board of Trade chap says anything, all the Board of +Traders must have a word in. Same with Local Government Board--new man +says anything, old 'uns put in a word for theirselves, just to keep the +place warm for them to return. Board!--I'm bored--joke there for Lucy. +Thought the Irish lot couldn't keep quiet much longer. Tanner up,--ought +to know more about plaster than politics. Rum fellers, these doctors in +the House; leave their patients at 'ome, and come here to try +ours--'nother good joke for Lucy--make his 'air stand on end. Tanner +sticking to the plaster--now then, young Tories, jeer 'im down. The +Doctor's goin' it. Order! order! That's right, Brand, turn 'im +out,--wouldn't stand 'im in any place else. City Fowler's +bellowing,--scene a-brewing,--good copy for these quill-drivers." + +Dr. Tanner had recited some harrowing tale about black plaster being +used in his native town by a hospital surgeon on the scratched face of +some old woman who had joined "the boys" in a street fight, although she +protested that pink suited her complexion. + +"It was a base Saxon trick!" roared the infuriated Member for Cork +County. "On a par with the mane, dirty doings of puppets and spalpeens +like the Mimbers opposite." + +"Order! order!" cried the Speaker. "The hon. Member must withdraw that +expression." + +"I'll not withdraw anything except by adding that they're all liars on +the Tory benches." + +"The hon. Member must withdraw." + +The Doctor "exits" with a flourish, glares at the Conservative benches +below the gangway, and hisses at them: + +"Better order a ton of plaster, for you'll want it after I meet ye +outside." + +Mr. Labouchere and two or three Irish Members rise at once. + +My neighbour sneers. + +"Oh, sit down, ye rubbishy lot! Labby,--better keep yer jokes for yer +paper. Bless me if Conybeare ain't left standing! Now for an hour of +boredom." + +"He _is_ a bore," I remark. + +"Yes, I've stood Kenealy and Wharton, but this bore I can't. I'll chuck +it up. Kenealy did his best for the Claimant, and was amusing at times; +and Wharton,--well, he had good snuff, and his hat was a treat; but this +Conybeare is a bore and nothing else." + +So he went on. + +The "descendant of kings," Sir William Harcourt, rose to pulverise +Torydom and put an end to the Government and everything in general, when +the Speaker rose and said that the question before the House was whether +black sticking-plaster could be used in public hospitals. + +"Oh, that's right, he wants putting down; too much of the grand Old +Bailey style. Make yer fortune in plush and knee breeches as a prize +flunkey; platform stuff won't do for us. What are you?" I feel smaller! + +"_Punch._" + +"You take Harcourt off with the chins?" + +"Yes." + +"Shake hands!" + +We were friends ever afterwards. + +[Illustration: "I FEEL SMALLER!"] + +One day when I arrived,--actually with my Gallery ticket,-a fresh +pleasant official sat in my old friend's place, wearing his gold chain +and badge. "Should this meet the eye" of his predecessor, soliloquising +in the retirement of his suburban home, I trust it will not disturb the +serenity of his well-earned repose, for he was a capital fellow, and I +can answer for much good sense in his "official utterances." + +If a politician were not a caricature by nature, I made him one. Mr. +Gladstone's collar I invented--for the same reason a journalistic friend +of mine invented Beaconsfield's champagne jelly--for "copy." When +Members suggested nothing new, I turned my attention to officials. The +Sergeant-at-Arms in that way became known as the "Black Beetle." + +I watched Captain Gosset from the Press Gallery walk up the floor of the +House in court dress, his knee-breeches showing off his rather bandy +legs, elbows akimbo, and curious gait; his back view at once suggested +the beetle, and as the Black Beetle he was known. This, I was assured, +gave offence, so that I was rather anxious to see how I should be +greeted when Professor Thorold Rogers took me into the Sergeant's +presence, after I had been drawing him as the "Beetle" for some time. + +The late Professor Thorold Rogers was for many years a familiar +Bohemianish figure in Parliament. He had a marked individuality, a +strong head and a rough tongue, an uncouth manner, sloppy attire, and +his conversation was anything but refined. Still he was kind and +amusing, and, for a Professor in Parliament, popular. Professors are not +liked in St. Stephen's, and never a success; and as a politician +Professor Thorold Rogers was no exception to this rule. It was he who +introduced me to the Sergeant-at-Arms' room, that _sanctum sanctorum_ of +the lively spirits of Parliament. Perhaps I ought correctly to call it +Captain Gosset's room, for although Captain Gosset was the +Sergeant-at-Arms, the Sergeant-at-Arms was by no means Captain Gosset. +An anecdote will illustrate this. + +A friend of mine, a well-known journalist, travelling abroad during the +Recess, fell in with Captain Gosset, and they became companions in their +journey. A few days after they arrived home my journalistic acquaintance +was in the Inner Lobby of the House of Commons as the Sergeant-at-Arms +was passing through, and he called out, "How are you, Captain Gosset? +Any the worse for your journey?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir, I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. +You are mistaken." + +"Nonsense, Captain! Why, we travelled together. I am----" + +"That may be, but---- Oh, I see, you are thinking of that fellow Gosset. +Sir, I am the Sergeant-at-Arms!" And he strode off with the greatest +dignity. + +I was agreeably surprised when I was introduced to the "Black Beetle." + +[Illustration: THE BLACK BEETLE.] + +"Here is Harry Furniss, Gosset" (not Sergeant, I observed); "now give it +to him." + +"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Furniss. You see how I +appreciate your work." And he pointed to a row of black beetles, cut out +of _Punch_ and pasted on the wall, the rest of the wall being covered +with interesting and dignified portraits of Members. Here was Gosset at +twelve o'clock at night. At twelve noon he would be Sergeant-at-Arms, +with power to take me to the Clock Tower. + +[Illustration: THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS' ROOM. _From "Punch."_] + +This room is still the Sergeant-at-Arms' office, but in it are no +portraits, no black beetles--on paper; there may be some living +specimens, for aught I know, haunting the old room in search of the +lively company, the pipes, and the huge decanters. The present +Sergeant-at-Arms is as unlike a black beetle as he is unlike the +Bohemian Gosset. But I shall be surprised if, when the courteous and +universally appreciated Sergeant-at-Arms retires, and the present +Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Gosset, takes his place, we shall not +see the old room again the most entertaining spot in the Houses of +Parliament. + +When Professor Rogers was escorting me to the famous room, he implored +me to leave politics outside of it,--as if I ever talked politics in the +House! "Rule is--no politics, so don't forget it." + +"Ah," he said, as soon as he sat down, "why aint you in the House, Tom, +vilifying and misrepresenting the Irish as I heard you this afternoon! +Disgraceful, I say, disgraceful!" and he thumped the table. + +"No politics, Professor," "Dick" Power remarked. + +"Oh, indeed, my noble Whip; that comes well from a beater to a beaten +gang. Why aint you at your post,--the door-post, ha! ha!--and rally your +men and overthrow these damned Tories? Oh, yes, King-Harman, your good +looks do not atone for bad measures." + +"No politics, Professor," all cried. + +"Come, Furniss, come away, they're all drunk here. I'll tell you my last +story on the Terrace. These Tories destroy everything." + +[Illustration: CAPT. GOSSET, LATE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS. _From the +"Illustrated London News."_] + +Such was my introduction to this select little club in Parliament, in +which, with the exception of the Professor, all forgot politics, and the +best of the Tories, Home Rulers, Radicals, and officials were at peace. +I was always on most friendly terms with my "Black Beetle," a proof that +caricature leaves no unkind sting when the victim is really a man of the +world and a jolly good fellow. Surely nothing could be more offensive to +an official in high office than to be continually represented as a black +beetle! + +[Illustration: MY "CHILDISH" STYLE IN _PUNCH_.] + +When I did not "invent" a character, such as the "Beetle," I adopted for +a change various styles of drawing. For even the work of a caricaturist +becomes monotonous if he is but a master of one style and a slave to +mannerisms. To avoid this I am Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, and at times +"Childish"--a specimen of each style in _Punch_ the proprietors have +kindly allowed me to republish in these pages. There is really very +little artistic merit in the "Childish" style of work. I did not use it +often, but whenever I did I tried to introduce some "drawing" as well. +Here, for instance, are my Academy skits--drawn as if by a boy, but the +figures of the teacher and pupil are in drawing. By the way, these +different styles, I am glad to see, are still kept alive in the pages of +_Punch_ by new--if not younger--hands. This year's (1901) Academy skits +and other drawings, I notice, are signed "'Arry's Son," but they are +not--as might be thought--by one of my own boys. + +[Illustration] + +During most of the time I enjoyed a privilege which belonged to no one +else, not excepting Members, for even Members must, like schoolboys, +keep "within bounds." They are not permitted, for instance, to enter the +Press Gallery, or the portion of the House reserved to the Press; +neither can Press-men enter the Members' rooms at will. The public, +being ignorant of the stringent rules of St. Stephen's, cannot +understand the obstacles there are to seeing the House. One instance +will suffice to show the absurdity of the rules. The ex-Treasurer of the +House of Lords, whose acquaintance I had, and whose offices were in the +corridor by the Select Chamber, could not take anyone into the House, +even when it was empty, without a written order. Although armed with a +Gallery Ticket, and also on the "Lobby list," _i.e._, the right to enter +the Inner Lobby, I was not free to make any sketches of the House +itself, inside or out. Requiring to get such material for the elaborate +interiors and exteriors I use in my Lecture-Entertainment, "The Humours +of Parliament," I boldly bearded the highest official in his den, and +left with this simple document. Aladdin's key could not have caused more +surprise than this talisman. The head of the police, the +Sergeant-at-Arms himself, could not interfere. "The Palace of +Westminster" includes the House of Commons, so I made full use of my +unique opportunity, and possess material invaluable for my Parliamentary +work. + +[Illustration: I SKETCH THE HOUSE.] + +I had facilities in another way. At one time the Engineer-in-Chief was a +friend of mine, Dr. Percy. Few men were better known in and about the +House than this popular official engineer of the Palace of Westminster. +To begin with, he was over six feet high, and had a voice that would +carry from the Commons to the House of Lords. He had to be "all over the +place"--under the House, over the House, and all round the House. He was +as well-known in the smoking-room of the Garrick Club as he was in the +smoking-room of the Commons, and it was when I joined the Garrick I made +his acquaintance. He was also an art _connoisseur_, and had a very fine +collection of water-colours. The first time I saw the Doctor was years +before on a steamer on the Rance, between Normandy and Brittany. I made +a sketch of his extraordinary features, so that when he entered the +Garrick Club I recognised the original of my caricature. We frequently +walked down to the Houses of Parliament together after dinner, and more +than once he invited me behind the scenes and under the stage of +Parliament, through the "fog filter" and ventilating shafts, when he was +wont to indulge in a grim, saturnine humour appropriate to his +subterranean subject. As he opened the iron doors for us to pass from +one passage to another, close to and above which the benches are +situated,--for the whole House is honeycombed for ventilating +purposes,--he pretended that long experience enabled him to discriminate +between the odours from different parts of the House, and declared that +he could tap and draw off a specimen of the atmosphere on the Government +benches, the Opposition side, or the Radical seats, at will. + +"There, my boy! eh? Pretty thick, aint it? That's the Scotch lot. Now +hold your nose. I open this door and we get the Irish draught. Ugh! Come +on, come on quickly--mixture of Irish, working-men M.P.'s, and Rads. +Kill a horse!" + +The table of the House, which Mr. Disraeli erroneously described as "a +solid piece of furniture," is in reality--like so many arguments which +are flung across it--perfectly hollow; and one evening when I arrived +with Dr. Percy and found that in consequence of the winding-up speech of +Mr. Gladstone in a great debate the Press Gallery was full and all the +seats under the gallery were occupied, Dr. Percy kindly allowed me to +sit _inside the table_. I was sorely tempted to try the effect of +inserting my pencil through the grating which forms the side of the +table, and tickle the shins of the right hon. gentleman. Anyway, I +looked straight into the faces of the Ministers and those on the front +bench, and not only heard every word, but the asides and whispers as +well. + +[Illustration: DR. PERCY. "THE HOUSE UP." + +_From "Punch."_] + +I only once caricatured Dr. Percy in _Punch_ (December, 1886), after +there had been a sort of earthquake in the Inner Lobby of the House, and +the tesselated pavement was thrown up. I made a drawing, "The House up +at last." Dr. Percy "is personally directing the improvements." It is +interesting to know that some of the pavement taken up on that occasion +is laid in the hall of an hon. Member's house in the country, not far +from West Kirby, Cheshire. + +[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE. MR. GOSCHEN. + +_From "Punch."_] + + + THE VILLAIN OF ART. + +One frequently hears the remark, "Caricature is so ugly." Well, +certainly pure caricature is the villain of art, and the popular +draughtsman, like the popular actor, should, to remain popular in his +work, always play the virtuous hero. If the leading actor _must_ play +the villain, he takes care to make up inoffensive and tame. So the +villain caricaturist need not be "ugly"--but then he cannot be strong. +Nor is it left to an actor--unless he be the star or actor-manager--to +remain popular by being tame and pretty in every part. So is the +caricaturist, if he is not the star, liable to be cast to play the +villain whether he likes it or not, and if he is a genuine worker he +will not shrink from the part, merely to remain popular and curry favour +with those deserving to be satirised. + +[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE. "ALL HARCOURTS." + _From "Punch."_] + +Now in _Punch_, as I was cast for it, I played the villain's part. In +doing so I was at times necessarily "ugly," and therefore to some +unpopular. I confess I felt it my duty not to shrink from being "ugly," +although whenever I could I introduced some redeeming element into my +designs--the figure of a girl, allegorical of Parliament or whatever the +"ugly" subject might happen to be--but in some of my _Punch_ drawings +this relief was impossible. For instance, the series of "Puzzle Heads," +in each of which a portrait of the celebrity is built up of personal +attributes, characteristics, or incidents in the career of the person +represented, could not but be unpleasant pictures. Some subscribers +threatened to give up the paper if they were continued; others became +subscribers for these Puzzle Heads alone. It is ever so. The old saying, +"One man's meat is another's poison," is as applicable to caricature as +to anything else. It is impossible to please all tastes when catering +for the large public, unless an editor is satisfied to be stereotyped +and perfunctory; but Mr. Punch has made his name by his strength, not +his weakness, and it may be safely inferred that no Tory thinks less of +him for having used all his talent in attacking Benjamin Disraeli year +after year as no man has been attacked before--or since--in his pages. + +In looking through the volumes of _Punch_ one is apt to forget that the +strong situations and stirring events by which a caricaturist's hit is +made effective at the time of publication fade from one's memory. The +cartoon in all its strength remains a record of an event which has lost +its interest. One cannot always realise that the drawing was only strong +because the feeling and interest at the time of its conception demanded +it. Allowance should therefore be made for the villain's ugly +caricature, if it is a good drawing, prophetically correct, and +therefore historically interesting. + +Perhaps no cartoon of mine in _Punch_ caused such hostile criticism as +"The New Cabinet" (August 27, 1892). It gave great offence to the +Gladstonians. The Radical Press attacked me ferociously, and as I think +most unfairly, for they treated it politically and not pictorially, and +severely reprimanded Mr. Punch for publishing it. Had it been a +Conservative Cabinet the Tory Press would not have resented it or +allowed narrow-minded party politics to prejudice their mind in such +trivial matters. _Punch_ is supposed to be non-political. Its present +editor is impartial. Mr. Punch's traditions are Whig, and somehow or +other a certain class of its readers at that particular crisis was +strongly opposed to the two sides of a question being treated. Yet I +venture to say two-thirds of the readers of _Punch_ are Conservatives, +and should therefore be amused. It is impossible to treat a strong +political subject--such as the meeting of that particular Cabinet +caricatured by me--without offending some readers by amusing others, +unless, as I say, the subject is treated in a colourless manner. This +particular cartoon hurt because it hit a strong situation in a truthful +and straight-forward manner, and subsequent events proved it to be a +correct conception. Yet at the time no name was too bad for me, and as +these are my confessions, let me assure the public that had the Cabinet +been a Conservative one I would have treated it in exactly the same way; +and it is my firm conviction that had such been the case I would have +given no offence either inside or outside of Mr. Punch's office. + +My readers will sympathise with me. I am to draw political cartoons +without being political; I am to draw caricatures without being +personal; I am to be funny without holding my subject up to ridicule; I +am to be effective without being strong--in fact, I am to be a +caricaturist without caricature! On the other hand, no cartoon I ever +drew for _Punch_ was more popular. Non-politicians were good enough to +accept it as an antidote to the usual caricatures, and those papers on +the other side of politics were extravagantly complimentary, and I +received a large sum for the original for a private collection. I allow +the following leaderette from the _Birmingham Post_ to illustrate the +point, and at the same time to describe the cartoon. The same paper, I +may add, comments on the principal cartoon in _Punch_ that week--drawn +by Tenniel--as showing that _Punch_ "thinks little of the prospects of +the present Government": + +[Illustration: REDUCTION FROM ENGRAVING IN _PUNCH_.] + + "'Mr. Punch' is in 'excellent fooling' this week. Rarely has he, even + he, more happily burlesqued a political situation than in Mr. Harry + Furniss's cartoon of 'The New Cabinet.' Not a word of explanation + accompanies the picture: it is good wine, needing no bush, and making + very merry. A glance suffices to seize its meaning, for it expresses a + thought that has flitted, at one time or another, through everyone's + mind. The big moment has come when Mr. Gladstone is to reveal to his + colleagues the secret he has hitherto withheld from them, not less than + from the electorate--to submit to them, masterly, succinct, complete, + the scheme which, with unexampled courage and sublimest modesty, they + have defended on trust, for which they have sacrificed their personal + independence without knowing why, and as to which, painful to remember, + they have sometimes blundered into confident and contradictory + conjecture. We can picture the subtle excitement--in one Minister of + joyful expectation, in another of horrid misgiving--under which they + have come together. Well, Mr. Gladstone unfolds the fateful document, + and lo! it is a blank sheet. Paralysis and grim despair fall upon the + spirits of the assembly; face to face with a nightmare reality, not a + man amongst them has strength to say, 'This is a dream.' At the head of + the table, his elbows resting on the parchment, and an undipped quill + actually split upon it in his angry grasp, sits the Premier, a + never-to-be-forgotten picture of impotent ill-humour. The task with + which the Cabinet is confronted, for him as for the rest, is impossible + and yet inexorable. In the candle-flame, by an effect of hallucination + natural at such a moment, the face of Mr. O'Brien seems to limn itself + out, implacable and contemptuous; and there is a fearsome shadow on the + blind--the massive head of Lord Salisbury. The candle, marked '40,' is + the majority, which dwindles while the Ministers are sadly musing; and + over the mantelpiece, behind the Premier's chair, mutely reproachful, + hangs a picture of the great Cabinet of 1880. It is distinctly the best + thing Mr. Furniss has done." + +That impression was shared by my private friends as well, even those on +_Punch_. My dear friend Mr. E. J. Milliken, a strong Radical, and a most +active member of the staff, in a reply to a letter of mine, in which I +intimated that I was afraid my cartoon would give offence, replied in a +most flattering spirit. + +I had to play the "villain" in another scene in the same political +drama, "Mr. Punch's Historical Cartoons" (1893), in which the same +Cabinet is shown in Mr. Gladstone's room in the "Bauble Shop"--the House +of Commons. Those Radicals who had not joined the Unionists again took +offence. Those Radicals who had become Unionist wrote to congratulate +me. From one well-known and powerful personality, a historical name in +the publishing world, I received the following: + + "February 23rd, 1893. + + "Your cartoon p. 95 delights us all. I have looked at it twenty times + and seen fresh points in it. Nothing for years, I should say, has so + entirely caught the very spirit of a great crisis. + + "We shall owe something to you for this felicitous exposure of + Gladstone's insane Bill. Alas! the miners and the brickies, the + costermongers and the dust-cart drivers, have now the power. The middle + class has been out-numbered, and if it were not that some labouring men + and artisans have hard heads enough to comprehend the position we should + be landed in a pretty pickle next September. + + "It is a pity traitors' heads are nowadays their own copyright." + +A "copyright" in heads is a good suggestion, and coming from a publisher +too! But apart from "traitors," there are others known to a +caricaturist. The House of Commons at one time was rich in them. Some +such works of art suffer in being translated. Indeed, what the poet +"Ballyhooley" wrote of one might apply to others: + + "DARWIN MacNEILL. + + "Darwin MacNeill, all the papers are hot on you, + Darwin MacNeill, they are writing a lot on you. + What in the world sort of face have you got on you? + Send us your photograph, Darwin MacNeill. + Surely you must be both lovely and pure! + Have you got fatures that nothing can cure? + Let's have the first of it, + Let's know the worst of it: + Is your face only a caricature? + Here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill, + Let penny canes all your enemies feel; + Show me the crature would slander a fature + Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal. + + "Our childhers are dull, and we wish to be brightening them + Send us your picture and we'll be enlightening them, + Maybe 'twill only be useful for frightening them; + Still let us have it, dear Darwin MacNeill. + Shut up the slander and talk they are at, + Show us the head you've got under your hat; + True every particle, genuine article, + Send us your picture in answer to that. + Here's a health to you, etc. + + "I hear that the Queen she has simply gone crazy, man; + Says she to Gladstone, 'Get out, you old lazy man! + Cannot you see that I'll never be aisy, man, + Till I've a portrait of Darwin MacNeill?' + When of that picture she first got a sight, + She held it up, so they say, to the light, + Looked at the head of it, then all she said of it, + 'I'm of opinion that Darwin is right.' + Here's a health to you, etc. + + "There's just arrived now, to give great content to us, + A lovely picture, which someone has sent to us. + We know the worst now, for there has been sent to us + What's called a portrait of Darwin MacNeill. + If it's a likeness, I just tell you what, + That you have acted in ways you should not. + Don't try a turn of fists + On with the journalists; + Thrash those who gave you the head you have got. + But here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill! + Only just manage new fatures to steal, + Then show me the crature would slander a fature + Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal." + + +This "Pen Portrait," by Mr. Robert Martin, refers to a matter of much +regret to me. I have to confess my sorrow that I was the means of making +a Member of Parliament ridiculous! The innocent item came in the +ordinary course of my work for _Punch_. I was sent an incident to +illustrate for the Diary of Toby, M.P., which, when published, was used +as an excuse to "technically assault" me in the Inner Lobby of the House +of Commons. + +[Illustration: REDUCTION OF PAGE IN _PUNCH_, SHOWING THAT MY CARICATURES +WERE--IN THIS CASE--PUBLISHED TOO LARGE.] + +Perhaps in the circumstances I may be pardoned if I confess a secret +connected with these Parliamentary caricatures. For some years I +provided a page drawing and some small cuts in every number during +Parliament--the latter were generally sketches of Members of Parliament. +These single portraits were supplied in advance, and engraved proofs +sent in a book to Mr. Lucy to select from week by week. The following +letter is worth quoting in full as a characteristic letter from the +Editor, typical of his light and pleasant way of transacting business +with his staff: + + "Dear H. F.,--"Please keyindly see that H. L. (not 'Labby,' but 'Lucy') + has all your parliamentarians whom you (as your predecessor Henry VIII. + did) have executed on the block sent to him, as he found himself + unprovided up to the last moment and so wrote to me in his haste. + + "(?) Fancy portrait. Our artist, H. F., as Henry VIII. taking off his + victims' heads on the block, eh? + "Yours, "F. C. B." + +To this rule, however, there were exceptions. This particular caricature +was one of them: it was drawn at the last moment to illustrate a +particular passage in Mr. Lucy's Diary of Toby, M.P. Here it is: + + "'Look here, Bartley,' said Tommy Bowles; 'if you're going on that tack, + you must come and sit on this side. When I saw MacNeill open his mouth + to speak, I confess I thought I was going to be swallowed whole. You sit + here; there's more of you.'" + +[Illustration: REDUCTION FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING, SHOWING THAT I GAVE +INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CARICATURE TO BE "REDUCED AS USUAL."] + +Now had I shown "Pongo," as he was familiarly called in the House, in +the act of swallowing "Tommy Bowles," I might have produced a most +objectionable caricature. I made, however, a smiling portrait of the +genial Member. I was away at the time recovering from a long illness: +the sketch was made in the country, and sent up to the _Punch_ +engraver's office. By some mistake there, it was not reduced in size in +reproduction as others had been; therefore in the paper it was +apparently given extra importance--I had nothing to do with that. That +Mr. Lucy's reference to Mr. MacNeill is not a caricature can be judged +by anyone reading the passage I had to illustrate, given above. The +notion that the drawing was _purposely_ produced on a larger scale than +usual, so as to give this special caricature prominence, is disproved by +the fact that the caricature of the gallant and genial Admiral Field I +drew exactly under the same conditions appears on the same page also far +too large. Therefore it is a mistaken idea that this particular portrait +was intentionally offensive, or different from others. + +It was really the combination of circumstances, if anything, that called +special attention to that particular page in _Punch,_ and gave rise to + + + A SCENE IN THE LOBBY. + +I shall, in describing the curtain rising on this historical incident, +borrow Mr. Lucy's own account of the way in which the Member approached +me after he had seen my illustration to Mr. Lucy's clever Diary of the +Week: + +"It was shortly after seven o'clock that Mr. Harry Furniss strolled into +the Lobby. He had been suffering from a long and severe sickness, +dedicating this the first evening of his convalescence to a visit to the +scene of labours which have delighted mankind. Over the place there +brooded an air of ineffable peace. The bustle of the earlier hour of +meeting was stilled. The drone of talk went on in the half-empty House +within the glass doors. Now and then a Member hastily crossed the floor +of the Lobby, intent on preparations for dinner. One of these chanced to +be Mr. Swift MacNeill, a Member who, beneath occasional turbulence of +manner, scarcely conceals the gentlest, kindliest disposition, a +gentleman by birth and training, a scholar and a patriot. The House, +whilst it sometimes laughs at his exuberance of manner, always shows +that it likes him. Mr. Furniss, seeing him approach with hurried step, +may naturally have expected that he was making haste to offer those +congratulations on renewed health and reappearance on the scene of +labour that had already been proffered from other quarters. What +followed has been told by Mr. Furniss in language the simplicity and +graphicness of which Defoe could not have excelled." + +Mr. Lucy refers to the following account I wrote at the time: + +"On my return to continue my work in Parliament for Mr. Punch after my +severe illness, I found the jaded legislators yearning for fresh air, +and even the approaching final division on the Home Rule Bill had failed +to arouse more than a languid interest. I felt this depression when I +entered the Lobby, its sole occupants being the tired-out doorkeepers +and the leg-weary policemen. I really believe a swarm of wasps would not +have roused them to activity, for I noticed a bluebottle resting +undisturbed upon the nose of one of Inspector Horsley's staff. Even the +Terrace was dusty, and the Members rusty and morose. One of the Irish +Members had selected as his friend Frank Slavin, the well-known +prize-fighter, who had an admiring group round him, to whom no doubt he +was relating the history of his many plucky battles. + +[Illustration: WHAT HAPPENED.] + +"The stimulating effect of this may have been the cause for the assault +upon me in the Inner Lobby, which has afforded the stale House some +little excitement, which has been the salvation of the silly season. So +many papers have given startling accounts of this attack upon me, some +stating that I was caned, others that I was pummelled, shaken like a +dog, and so on, that I am glad to take the opportunity of giving a clear +statement of what really occurred. I was standing close to the doors of +the Inner Lobby, talking to Mr. Cuthbert Quilter, when Mr. Swift +MacNeill interrupted us by asking me, 'Are you the man that draws the +cartoons in _Punch_?' 'That depends upon what they are,' said I. 'I +refer to one,' said the excited Member, 'that has annoyed me very much,' +'Let me see it,' I replied. Mr. MacNeill then drew out his pocket-book +and showed me a cutting from the current number of _Punch_. 'Yes,' I +said, 'that is from a drawing of mine,' 'Then ye're a low, black-guardly +scoundrel,' melodramatically exclaimed the usually genial Member. Taking +two or three steps back, he hissed at me, with a livid face, a series of +offensive epithets too coarse for publication. Having exhausted his +vocabulary of vulgarity, a happy thought seemed to strike him. 'I want +to assault you,' he said, and forthwith he nervously and gingerly tapped +me as if he were playing with a hot coal. He then danced off to Members +who were looking on, crying, 'This is the scoundrel who has caricatured +me; witness, I assault him!' and he recommenced the tapping process +which constituted this technical assault. Knowing that Mr. MacNeill is a +very excitable subject, and at once detecting that this assault was a +'put-up job,' I was determined to remain perfectly cool; and, truth to +tell, the pirouetting of the agitated Member hugely amused me, +particularly as the more excited he became, the more he resembled the +caricature which was the cause, or supposed to be the cause, of this +attack, I treated the hon. Member exactly as the policeman treated the +bluebottle--with perfect indifference, not even troubling to brush away +the trifling annoyance. But when in the midst of its buzzing round me I +moved in the direction of one of the officials, it flew away. Then +appeared what I had been anticipating, and the real cause of the insult +transpired. Dr. Tanner came up to me just as I recollect Slavin +approaching Jackson in their historic fight. He showered the grossest +insults upon me, and I was surrounded at once by his clique, who were +anxious for the scene which must have occurred had I, like Jackson, been +the first to let out with my left. But here again was I face to face +with a chronically excited Member, backed up by his friends, and I +refused to be drawn into a brawl. But the secret of the real cause of +this organised attack upon me was revealed to me by Dr. Tanner, who at +once informed me that it was the outcome of my imitations of the Irish +Members in my entertainment, 'The Humours of Parliament,' which I have +given for two seasons all over the country. This was my offence; my +caricature of Mr. Swift MacNeill the excuse for the attack." + +[Illustration: DR. TANNER.] + +Mr. MacNeill's "technical assault" was a very childish incident. He +merely touched the sleeve of my coat with the tip of his finger, and +asked me if I would accept that as a "technical assault." This +mysterious pantomime was subsequently explained to me, and meant that I +was to take out a summons--but I only laughed. At the moment Mr. +MacNeill was pirouetting round me at a distance, Mr. John Burns came on +to the scene, and chaffed Mr. MacNeill, drawing an imaginary picture +(for Mr. Burns was not in the Lobby) of a real assault upon me. A +gentleman connected with an evening paper, who happened to enter with +Mr. Burns, failed to see Mr. Burns's humour, and thereupon took down in +shorthand Mr. Burns's imaginary picture as a matter of fact. It was +published as a fact, and, for all I know or care, some may still believe +that I was assaulted! + +[Illustration: ASSAULT ON ME IN THE HOUSE. WHAT THE PRESS DESCRIBED.] + +When I read that I had been treated like a cur, I was rather amused; but +when I read a statement in the papers from a man like John Burns saying +that he saw me "taken by the lapels of the coat and shaken like a dog, +and then taken by the ear and shaken by that," I thought the joke had +been carried far enough. Determined to have this cock-and-bull story +contradicted at once, I went down to the House and saw Mr. John Burns, +who expressed to me his regret that he should have invented the story, +and he left me to go to the writing-room, and promised I should have +from him a written contradiction. + +After waiting a considerable time, a message was brought to me that Mr. +Burns declined to keep his promise. I therefore wrote these particulars +and sent them off to the Press. At the same time Mr. Burns, who had been +closeted with some Radical journalists, wrote an offensive note--which +was shown me, and which I advised him to publish. + +Poor Mr. MacNeill! Well may he say, "Save me from my friends!" The Press +put on their comic men to make copy at his expense. If I were to publish +it all, it would make a volume as large as this. By permission I publish +the following lay from the _St. James' Budget_ (September, 1893): + + + "THE LAY OF SWIFT MACNEILL. + + (_Picked up in the Lobby._) + + "Have ye heard, have ye heard, of the late immortal fray, + When the lion back of Swift MacNeill got up and stood at bay, + When the lion voice of Tanner cried, 'To Judas wid yer chaff!' + An' the Saxon knees were shaking, though they made believe to laugh. + + "'Twas widin the Commons' Lobby, in the corner by the dure, + There was Misther Harry Furniss a-standing on the flure, + When up to him came stalking, like O'Tarquin in his pride, + The bowldest of the bowld, MacNeill, wid the Docther by his side. + + "Then the valiant Swift MacNeill from his pocket he took out + A picther very like him, an' he brandished it about, + An' he held it up to Furniss for his Saxon eyes to see, + An' he asked of him, 'Ye spalpeen, is this porthrait meant for me?' + + "''Tis your likeness, as I see it,' was the answer that he got, + An' the wrath of Misther Swift MacNeill then wax'd exceeding hot, + An' he cast the picther from him, an' he trod it on the ground, + An' he took an' danced an Irish jig the artist's form around. + + "'Ye spalpeen,' thus again he spoke, 'ye most obnoxious fellow! + Ye see that I'm a lion, yet ye've made me a gorilla; + If your Saxon eyes are blinded to the truth of what I say, + Go and borrow for a moment the glasses of Tay Pay. + + "'They will show ye that our seventy are Apollos one and all, + That we're most divinely lovely an' seraphically tall; + They will show ye we're all angels--though for divils I'll allow, + 'Tis the black ones ye'll be seeing where the lost to Redmond bow.' + + "Then Misther Swift MacNeill, just to lave his meaning clear, + Wid flowers of Irish eloquence filled Mr. Furniss' ear; + An' he also shook wid passion, an', moreover, shook his fist, + An' the Docther an' his blackthorn stood all ready to assist. + + "Misther Furniss smiled serenely, an' the only word he spoke + Was to say it seemed that Misther Swift was slow to see a joke, + But for all his jokes an' blarney, things were looking like a fight, + When a minion of the Spayker was seen to be in sight. + + "Then Apollo Swift MacNeill from his dignity got down, + An' he withered Misther Furniss wid a godlike parting frown, + An' he stalked along the Lobby wid his grand O'Tarquin stride, + An' the other Mimbers followed him, an' went the House inside. + + "An' there they still are threading on the necks of Saxon slaves, + An' nightly wid their eloquence they're digging Saxon graves; + An' my counsel to the artist who their fatures would porthray, + Is to thry and see their beauty through the glasses of Tay Pay." + +This manufactured "scene," coming as it did in the silly season, was +made to serve instead of the Sea-Serpent, the Toad-in-the-Rock, the +Shower of Frogs, and other familiar inventions for holiday reading. +Unfortunately the poor Members of Parliament obliged to remain in St. +Stephen's had to suffer far more than I did through the eccentricity of +Mr. Swift MacNeill. Several of them complained to me that he lured them +into the corridors and corners of the House, and then vigorously set to +work to demonstrate practically how he assaulted me, or how he imagined +he assaulted me, to the discomfiture and consternation of the poor +M.P's. + +[Illustration: JOHN BURNS.] + +I should like to explain why this "technical assault" on me was not made +a matter of discussion. I did intend a friendly Member should have +brought it before the Speaker, and in that way published the truth of +the matter and exposed the stupid inventions of Burns & Co. With that +object I had an interview with the Speaker, and he implored me not under +any circumstances to have it brought before the House. He was already +tired, at the end of a trying session, and did not want any personal +questions discussed, which invariably led to protracted scenes. For that +reason, and for that reason only, it was not mentioned in Parliament, +notwithstanding it was really a much more serious affair than was +imagined. It was a deliberately organised conspiracy. When I was leaving +the Lobby, after my amusing interview with Mr. MacNeill, in which he +told me that I was "technically assaulted," Chief Inspector Horsley took +me down a private passage, and informed me that he had been looking for +me, as he had discovered there was a conspiracy to attack me, and at +that moment nine or ten Members from Ireland were in the passage +downstairs, out of which I would have in the ordinary course gone +through, lying in wait for me. So I left with him by another door. + +[Illustration: NOTE FROM SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD, AFTER READING THE BOGUS +ACCOUNT OF THE "ASSAULT."] + +In this I was not more to blame than other caricaturists, but I was more +in evidence, and was selected to be "technically assaulted," so as to +force me to bring an action, in which all papers, except those +supporting the Irish Party, would have been attacked and discussed, and +their influence if possible injured for purely political purposes. An +aggrieved person, smarting under a gross injustice, does not +"technically assault" the aggressor. Had Mr. McNeill tried it on with +me, weak and ill as I was, I think I had enough power to oblige him; as +it happened, I only saw the humour of the thing. + +[Illustration: LETTER SUPPOSED TO COME FROM LORD CROSS. (LOCKWOOD'S +JOKE.)] + +One of the most amusing sketches I received was this from Sir Frank +Lockwood. Lockwood and I frequently exchanged caricatures, as shown by +the clever sketches I introduce here and there in these pages. Sometimes +he sent me some chaffing note written in a disguised hand, and disguised +drawing; but the latter experiment, although it failed to deceive, +certainly entertained me greatly. Here is a letter supposed to be from +Lord Cross, a favourite subject of mine when he was in the Lower House. +Seldom a week passed but I made his nose shorter and his upper lip +longer, made his head stick out, and his spectacles glisten. Did he +object? No, no! "Grand Cross" is a man of the world; nor was he ever a +mere notoriety-seeking political adventurer. I once met him at dinner, +and we chatted over my caricatures of him, and I recollect his saying, +"A man is not worth anything if he is thin-skinned, and certainly not +worth much if he cannot enjoy a joke at his own expense." + +Sir Frank Lockwood whiled away the weary hours in Parliament to his own +amusement and those around him, but he was not aware perhaps that what +he did was seen from the Ladies' Gallery. The ladies got a birdseye view +of his caricatures in progress. One in particular was the cause of much +amusement, not only to the ladies, but to the Members. My lady informant +related the incident to me thus: "I always watch Mr. Lockwood sketching, +and I saw he had his eye on the burly figure of a friend of mine sitting +on the Ministerial bench. Mr. Gladstone turned round to say something to +him, and his quick eye detected Mr. Lockwood sketching. The artistic +Q.C. handed the sketch (which I saw was a caricature of the late Lord +Advocate) to Mr. Gladstone, who fairly doubled up with laughter, and +handed it to those on either side of him. Eventually it was sent over to +Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Balfour, and they thoroughly enjoyed the +caricature of themselves, as did all their Tory friends. But _we_ had +seen it first!" It may have been this sketch subsequently sent to me and +redrawn in _Punch_. + +I recall an incident which happened one evening when I was on watch in +the Inner Lobby to find and sketch a newly-elected M.P., who, I heard, +was about to make his maiden speech, and it was most important I should +catch him. Just as I was going up to the Press Gallery, Sir Frank +Lockwood came into the Lobby and offered to get me a seat under the +Gallery where I could see the new M.P. to advantage. The new M.P. was +"up," so Lockwood went into the House to fetch me the Sergeant's order. +I waited impatiently for his return; a long time passed; still I waited. +A smiling Member came out of the House, and I asked him if he had seen +Lockwood. "Oh, rather," he replied, smiling still; "I've just been +sitting by him, watching him make a capital caricature of a chap making +his maiden speech." When the Member had finished his speech, Lockwood +ran out, and cheeringly apologised to me for his absent-mindedness. "So +tempting, you know, old chap, I couldn't resist sketching him!" + +Sir Frank Lockwood was perhaps the most favourable modern specimen of +the buoyant amateur. Possessing a big heart, kindly feeling, a brilliant +wit, and a facile pen, he treated art as his playfellow and never as his +master. And in the spirit in which his work was executed so must it be +judged. The work of an amateur artist possessing a distinct vein of +humour is, in my opinion, far more entertaining than that of the +professional caricaturist, the former being absolutely spontaneous and +untrammelled by the conscientiousness of subsequent publication, of +correct draughtsmanship, made only from impressions of the moment, and +not the effort (as in the case of many a professional humorist) of +having to be funny to order. + +An excellent example of the amateur at his best is to be found in the +drawings of Sir Frank Lockwood. No one would resent less than Lockwood +himself having the term "amateur" applied to his work; indeed, he would, +I am sure, have felt proud to be classed in the same category as several +of our most popular humorous artists. + +[Illustration: SIR F. LOCKWOOD.] + +Circumstances connected with a curious coincidence concerning a +caricature (what alliteration!) are worth confirming. + +One morning I was taking my usual horse exercise round the ride in the +inner circle of Regent's Park, before that spot, once the quiet haunt of +the horseman, became the noisy ring of the cyclist. At that time a few +cycling beginners used the circle for practice, and their alarming +performances were gradually depleting the number of equestrians. One of +these novices came down the hill, having an arm round the neck of his +instructor, and one leg on the pedal, the other in mid air. He was +unable to steer the machine, and as I cantered up, the performer's hat, +which had been over one eye, fell off, disclosing the features of +Professor Bryce. The next moment the machine, its rider and his +instructor, were "all of a heap" on the ride up which my horse was +cantering. I had just time to jump my horse on to the path and thus +save my own neck, and the life of the energetic Member of Parliament, +who I noticed later in the day, when sitting in the Press Gallery, was +on the front Opposition bench, next to Sir Frank Lockwood, quite +unconcerned. I made a rough sketch of the incident of the morning, and +sent it down to my brother Two Pins, Sir Frank, with a request that his +friend Bryce should in future select some other spot to practise +bicycling. This was handed to Lockwood just as he was leaving the House, +strange to say, on his way home to dress for a dinner at Professor +Bryce's. Lockwood mischievously placed the sketch in the pocket of his +dress coat, and at the dinner led up to the subject of cycling, +suggesting at the same time that his host ought to try it. + +"Well, strange to say, Lockwood, I've been seriously thinking of it, but +I don't know how one should begin." + +"Don't you?" cried Lockwood from the other end of the table. "What do +you say to this, nearly killing my friend Harry Furniss!" And my +caricature was produced and handed down from guest to guest, to the +chagrin of the host. That was Lockwood's version of the coincidence. + +[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL'S SUGGESTION, AND MY SKETCH OF IT IN +_PUNCH_.] + +Suggestions for _Punch_ came to me from most unexpected quarters, but +were rarely of any use. Lewis Carroll--like every one else--got excited +over the Gladstonian crisis, and Sir William Harcourt's head to Lewis +Carroll was much the same as Charles the First's to Mr. Dick in "David +Copperfield," for I find in several letters references to Sir William. + + "_Re_ Gladstone's head and its recent growth, couldn't you make a + picture of it for the 'Essence of Parliament'? I would call it 'Toby's + Dream of A.D. 1900,' and have Gladstone addressing the House, with his + enormous head supported by Harcourt on one side, and Parnell on the + other." + +This suggestion is the only one I adopted. Strange to say, neither +Gladstone, Parnell, nor Lewis Carroll lived to see 1900. + + "Is that anecdote in the papers _true_, that some one has sent you a + pebble with an accidental (and not a 'doctored') likeness of Harcourt? + If so, let me suggest that your most _graceful_ course of action will be + to have it photographed, and to present prints of it to any authors + whose books you may at any time chance to illustrate!" + +This is the "anecdote": + + "Someone found on the seashore the other day a pebble moulded exactly on + the lines of Mr. Furniss' portrait of Sir William Harcourt." + +Other notices were in verse. This from _Vanity Fair_ is the best: + + "For Fame, 'tis said, Sir William craves, + And to some purpose he has sought her; + His face is fashioned by the waves: + When will his name be 'writ in water'?" + +I lay under a charge of plagiarism. Nature had "invented" my Harcourt +portrait, and had been at work upon it probably before I was born; the +wild waves had by degrees moulded a shell into the familiar features, +and when completed had left the sea-sculptured sketch high and dry on +the coast. I now publish, with thanks, a photo-reproduction of the shell +(not a pebble) as I received it: it is not in any way "doctored." It is +a large, weather-beaten shell. + +[Illustration: NATURE'S PUZZLE PORTRAIT.] + +There is no doubt but that at one time Lewis Carroll studied _Punch_, +for in one of his earliest letters to me he writes: + + "To the best of my recollection, one of the first things that suggested + to me the wish to secure your help was a marvellously successful picture + in _Punch_ of a House of Lords entirely composed of Harcourts, where the + figures took all possible attitudes, and gave all possible views of the + face; yet each was a quite unmistakable Sir William Harcourt!" + +Again he refers to _Punch_ (March, 1890): + + "A wish has been expressed in our Common Room (Christ's Church, Oxford), + where we take in and bind _Punch_, that we could have 'keys' to the + portraits in the Bishop of Lincoln's Trial and the 'ciphers' in + Parliament" (a Parliamentary design of mine, "The House all Sixes and + Sevens"). "Will you confer that favour on our Club? If you would give me + them done roughly, I will procure copies of those two numbers, and + subscribe the names in small MS. print, and have the pages bound in to + face the pictures. The simplest way would be for you to put numbers on + the faces, and send a list of names numbered to correspond." + +Yet a few years brought a change (October, 1894): + + "No doubt it is by your direction that three numbers of your new + periodical have come to me. With many thanks for your kind thought, I + will beg you not to waste your bounties on so unfit a recipient, for I + have neither time nor taste for any such literature. I have much more + work yet to do than I am likely to have life to do it in--and my taste + for comic papers is _defunct_. We take in _Punch_ in our Common Room, + but I never look at it!" + +Hardly a generous remark to make to a _Punch_ man who had illustrated +two of his books, and considering that Sir John Tenniel had done so much +to make the author's reputation, and _Punch_ had always been so +friendly; but this is a bygone. + + + PUNCH AT PLAY. + +[Illustration: W] + +Well, Sir John, the Grand Old Man of _Punch_, the evergreen, the +ever-delightful Sir John, has earned a night's repose after all his long +day of glorious work and good-fellowship. "A great artist and a great +gentleman": truer words were never spoken. It seems but yesterday he and +I took our rides together; but yesterday he and I and poor +Milliken--three _Punch_ men in a boat--were "squaring up" at Cookham +after a week's delightful boating holiday on the Thames. + +[Illustration] + + "There sat three oarsmen under a tree, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + They were as puzzled as puzzled could be, + With a down; + And one of them said to his mate, + 'We've got these mems in a doose of a state,' + With a down derry, derry down! + + "Oh, they were wild, these oarsmen three, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + Especially one with the white puggree, + With a down; + For it's precious hard to divide by three + A sum on whose total you can't agree, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "They bit their pencils and tore their hair, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + But those blessed bills, they wouldn't come square, + With a down; + 'Midst muddle and smudge it is hard to fix + If a six is a nine or a nine is a six, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "A crumpled account from a pocket of flannel + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + With dirt in dabs, and the rain in a channel, + With a down, + Is worse to decipher than uniform text, + Oh, that is the verdict of oarsmen vext, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "A man in a boat his ease will take, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + But financial conscience at last will wake, + With a down; + Then Nemesis proddeth the prodigal soul + When he finds that the parts are much more than the whole, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "Those oarsmen are having a deuce of a time, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + The man in the puggree is ripe for crime, + With a down. + Now heaven send every boating man + For keeping accounts a more excellent plan, + With a down derry, derry down!" + +So pencilled poet Milliken. "The man in the puggree" is Sir John,--ripe +for many years to come, and when he has another banquet, may I be there +to see. + +_The Two Pins Club_ was a _Punch_ institution. + +Original notice of + + "THE TWO PINS CLUB. + + "There are Coaching Clubs, Four-in-hand Clubs, Tandem Clubs, and + Sporting Clubs of all sorts, but there is no _Equestrian Club_. + + "The object of the present proposed Club is to supply this want. + + "The Members will meet on Sundays, and ride to some place within + easy reach of town: there lunch, spend a few hours, and return. + + "Due notice will be given of each 'Meet,' and replies must be sent in to + the Secretary by Wednesday afternoon at latest. When it is considered + necessary, Luncheon will be ordered beforehand for the party, and those + who have neglected to reply by the time fixed, and who do not attend the + Meet, will be charged with their share of the Luncheon. + + "There will be other Meets besides those on Sundays, which will be + arranged by the Members from time to time. + + "The title of the Club is taken from the names of the two most celebrated + English Equestrians known to 'the road,' viz.:-- + + "'DICK TURPIN' + + AND + + "'JOHN GILPIN.' + + "The Members of 'THE TWO PINS' will represent all the dash of the one + and all the respectability of the other. + + "The original Members at present are:-- + + MR. F. C. BURNAND. + MR. JOHN TENNIEL. + MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE. + MR. HARRY FURNISS. + MR. R. LEHMANN. + + "It is not proposed at first to exceed the number of twelve. The other + names down for invitation to become members are-- + + MR. FRANK LOCKWOOD, Q.C., M.P. + MR. JOHN HARE.[3] + SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P. + + "We hope you will join. The eight Members can then settle a convenient + day for the first Meet, and inaugurate the TWO PINS CLUB. + + [3] "N.B. No hounds." + +[Illustration: LORD RUSSELL'S ACCEPTANCE TO DINE WITH ME.] + +The Two Pins Club was started in 1890, and flourished until its +President, Lord Russell, was elevated to the Bench. My only claim for +distinction in connection with it rests on the fact that I was the only +member who, except when I was in mid-Atlantic on my return from the +States, never missed a meet. Were the Club now a going concern, I would, +of course, refrain from mentioning it, but as it is referred to in the +"History of _Punch_" by Mr. Spielmann, and in "John Hare, Comedian," by +Mr. Pemberton, I may be pardoned and also forgiven for repeating the one +joke ever made public in connection with this remarkable Club. + +One afternoon our cavalcade was approaching Weybridge, which had been +the scene of the boyish pranks of one of our members. To the amusement +of us all, this brother Two Pins, as reminiscences of the district were +recalled to him by one object and another, grew terribly excited. + +"Ah, my boys, there is the dear old oak tree under which I smoked my +first cigarette! And there, where the new church stands, I shot my first +snipe. Dear me, how all is altered! I wonder if old Sir Henry Tomkins +still lives in the Lodge there, and what has become of the Rector's +pretty daughter?" etc. + +Sir Frank Lockwood, observing lettering on the side of a house, "General +Stores," casually asked our excited reminiscent friend if he "knew a +General Stores about these parts?" + +"General Stores! Of course I do, but he was only a Captain when I lived +here!" + +When the members lunched at The Durdans our host and honorary member, +Lord Rosebery, remarked that it was a Club of "one joke and one horse!" +the fact being that we all drove over from Tadworth, Lord Russell's +residence, where we were staying, with the exception of Lord Russell +himself, who rode. We had, of course, each a horse: some of the members +a great deal more than one, but we were careful to trot out one joke +between us: "General Stores" became our general and only story. + +The first public announcement respecting the Club appeared in the _Daily +Telegraph_, the 4th of May, 1891: + +"The T.P.C. held its first annual meeting at the 'Star and Garter Hotel' +yesterday morning. There was a full attendance of members. Under the +careful and conciliatory guidance of the President, Sir Charles Russell, +supported mainly by Mr. F. C. Burnand, Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Harry +Furniss, Mr. Edward Lawson, Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. John Hare, Mr. +Linley Sambourne, and Mr. R. Lehmann (hon. sec.), the customary +business was satisfactorily transacted, and the principal subjects for +discussion were dealt with in a spirit of intelligent self-control. Mr. +Arthur Russell was unanimously elected a member of the association, +which in point of numbers is now complete." + +[Illustration: _This sketch is à propos of Mr. Linley Sambourne's +portrait in "Vanity Fair." Note refers to his being made +Solicitor-General._] + +[Illustration] + +But the object of the Club being carefully concealed, much mystery +surrounds its name. Few were aware that it was merely a band of +"Sontag-Reiters." Our hon. sec., being at the time prominent in +politics, received congratulations from those who imagined the T.P.C. +was a political association, and much wonderment was excited by the +decidedly enigmatical appellation of the small and select society. Sir +Edward Lawson showed marked ingenuity in retaining the mystery by his +paragraphs in his paper. The first meet of our second season was the +only one I missed during the years the Club existed: + +"The first meeting of the T.P.C. for the season of 1892 took place +yesterday at the 'Star and Garter Hotel,' under the presidency of Sir +Charles Russell, who was assisted in the performance of his duties by +Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Linley Sambourne, Mr. Edward Lawson, and Mr C. +W. Mathews. The arrangements for the season were completed, and a digest +was made of the subjects which claimed the immediate consideration of +the members. The President called attention to a delay which had +occurred in the fulfilment of certain artistic duties which had been +entrusted to Mr. Harry Furniss and Mr. Linley Sambourne, and which had +been retarded in their accomplishment by Mr. Furniss' voyage to America. +But it was understood that immediate attention would now be bestowed +upon the work in hand; and the remainder of the business was of a +routine character." + +[Illustration: MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE.] + +The "artistic duties" referred to, I have no recollection of, but I know +that at our preliminary meeting, when all matters, artistic and +otherwise, were discussed and arranged, the two following important +resolutions were proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously:-- + + "That Mr. Rudolph Lehmann be elected Permanent Secretary, and that the + duty of sending out all notices convening the Meets of the T.P.C., as + well as all arrangements connected with the Club, be entrusted to him; + and that every notice of meeting be posted and prepaid by him eight + lunar, or at least three calendar, days before the date of each Meet; + and further, that records in a neat and clerkly style of each and every + Meet be faithfully kept by the said Secretary, and be at all times open + for the inspection of each and every member of the T.P.C." + + "That Mr. Linley Sambourne shall provide at his own expense the + notepaper and envelopes required for the business of the Club, and shall + invent and draw a design, which design, also at his own expense, he + shall cause to be stamped or otherwise engraved on the said notepaper + and envelopes, and shall cause the said notepaper so stamped or + engraved to be forwarded to the Perpetual President, the Permanent + Secretary, and the other members, for use in connection only with the + business of the Club." + + "It was further resolved that all maps and charts be kept at the + Secretary's Office, and in the event of any dispute, the Ordnance Map or + the Admiralty Chart shall be decisive." + + +But during the existence of the Club there never was any cause to refer +to an Ordnance Map or Admiralty Chart. There never was a Secretary's +Office, nor did Mr. Linley Sambourne either design or provide the +notepaper or envelopes, nor are there any records in existence, either +printed or written "in a neat and clerkly style," of the merry meetings +of this unique Club. It ran its delightful and dangerous course, its +wild career, unmarred by any dispute or accident. The last "meet" was to +dine Lord Russell on his elevation to the Bench. + +[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ME AS A MEMBER OF THE TWO PINS CLUB, BY +LINLEY SAMBOURNE.] + +I shall never forget the first occasion on which I saw the late Lord +Russell. It was in the old days when the Law Courts were in +Westminster,--and I, in search of "character," strangely enough found +myself wandering about the Divorce Court, where so many characters are +lost. It was a _cause célèbre_,--the divorce suit of a most +distinguished Presbyterian cleric who charged his wife, the +co-respondent being the stable-boy. Russell (then plain Mr.) was for the +clergyman, and when I entered the crowded court, he was in the midst of +his appeal to the jury, working himself up to a pitch of eloquence, +appealing to all to look upon the saintly figure of the man of prayer +(the plaintiff, who was playing the part by kneeling and clasping his +hands), and asking the jury to scorn all idea of his client having any +desire to free himself of his wife so as to marry his pretty governess, +or cousin, or whomever it was suggested he most particularly admired. +Russell had arrived at quoting Scripture,--he was at his best, austere, +eloquent, persuasive, an orator, a gentleman, a great advocate, and as +sanctimonious as his kneeling client. + +[Illustration: THE LATE LORD RUSSELL, THE PRESIDENT OF THE TWO PINS +CLUB.] + +He was interrupted by someone handing him a telegram. As he opened it he +said, waving it towards his client, "This may be a message from Heaven +to that saint,--ah, gentlemen of the jury, the words so +pure--so--so----" (he reads the telegram). + +"D----! D----! D----!" He crushed the telegram in his hand, and with an +angry gesture threw it away. Although his words were drowned by the +"laughter in Court," his gestures and face showed his chagrin and +disgust. The Grand National had been run half-an-hour before. + +Years afterwards, on his own lawn at Tadworth, I told him of this +incident, and asked him what the contents of that telegram were. He +declared I was wrong, such an incident never occurred in his career. I +convinced him I was right--it was the first time I saw him, and every +detail was vividly impressed upon my memory. After dinner he came to me +and said, "Furniss, I have been thinking over that incident. You are +quite right--it has all come back to me. I lost my temper, I recollect, +because I had wired to my boy over there to make a bet for me on an +outsider at a long price; when at lunch, I heard the horse had won. I +was delighted, and therefore at my best when I addressed the jury. The +telegram was from my boy to say that he forgot to put the money on!" + +Riding has caused my appearance in a Police Court, but not as a member +of the Two Pins Club. In October, 1895, I was returning from my usual +ride before breakfast, accompanied by my little daughter; we turned into +the terrace in which we live, and our horses cantered up the hill about +120 yards. As we were dismounting, a Police Inspector passed, addressing +me by name, and in a most offensive tone declared that he would summon +me, as I had been cautioned before for furious riding. This remark was +so absolutely untrue that I met the summons, and the Inspector in the +Court made three distinct statements on oath: That I spurred my horse +(when cross-examined by me, he gave a minute description of my spurs); +that I charged up the hill 250 yards at the rate of sixteen miles an +hour; and that I had been cautioned before for the same thing. Now, I +have never been cautioned in my life; the distance I went up the hill is +120 yards, and no horse could get up any pace in that distance; and I do +not wear spurs, although two constables swore I did. + +The magistrate, face to face with these three facts, looked the picture +of misery. It was evident to him, as it must be evident to every +fair-minded man, that the police were in the wrong. And when the +magistrate was thinking out this dilemma, I made a fatal mistake. I gave +my reason for appearing as a sacrifice on my part to show the magistrate +the sort of evidence upon which poor cabmen and others are fined and +made to suffer. The magistrate, Mr. Plowden, waxed very wroth, and as he +could not punish me, and would not reprimand the police, I was asked to +pay the costs of the summons, which was withdrawn. The late Mr. Montagu +Williams, who sat in the Marylebone Police Court, the court in which I +was charged with furious riding, gave it as his private opinion that the +longer a policeman was in the service the less he could rely upon his +word. + +[Illustration: "FURIOUS RIDING." SKETCH BY F. C. GOULD. + _From the "Westminster Gazette._"] + +This case led to all sorts of trouble. I was assailed by people in the +street, strangers to me, for "riding over children." Letters came from +all sorts of societies--Cruelty to Animals, and other excellent +institutions. I found people measuring the terrace; others riding up it +to see if it were possible to get the pace (which it is not), but few +knew the truth. The constable when I left the court remarked to me, +"I'll tache ye to caricature Oirishmen in Parleymint!" However, I was +repaid by the humour the incident gave rise to in the imagination of my +brother workers on the Press. Mr. F. C. Gould made this capital sketch, +and others portrayed my crime in verse. The following was written to me +by one of London's most celebrated editors, and has never been published +before: + + "H. Furniss was an artist gent + Of credit and renown, + Who'd ride a horse up Primrose Hill + With any man in town. + + "The morn was fine as morn could be + Upon last Thursday week, + And, like the early morn, H. F. + Was up before the beak. + + "(Full little dreamed that worthy cit, + Some dozen mornings hence + He would be 'up before the beak' + In quite another sense.) + + "Upon two tits of pranksome mood, + The gallant Lika Joko + And Likajokalina rode, + 'Desipere in loco.' + + "'Cantare pares' rode the pair, + Ad equitatum nati,' + But to a bobby's summons not + 'Respondere parati.' + + "So 'appy rode the blithesome pair, + They scoured the hill and plain, + And warming with their morning's work, + Rode hotly home again. + + "But by the slope of Primrose Hill + The rude Inspector Ross + Beheld H. Furniss canter up + Upon his foaming hoss. + + "'Look 'ere, young man,' says he to him, + 'There are some children dear + That by the ridin' of you folk + Do go in bod'ly fear. + + "'Your hasting steed pull up, I say! + S'welp me, draw your rein! + The innocents abroad, young man, + Are frightened by you twain. + + "'Look at yer smokin' job 'oss 'ere-- + I seen you job 'is flank! + 'E's well nigh done--tyke 'im away, + And back upon the rank.' + + "H. Furniss fixed him with his eye; + His brow was awful cross; + He Kyrled his lip contemptuous-like + At this rude man of Ross. + + "'The spirit of my gallant cob, + Ruffian, you shall not squelch; + I ride nor Scotch nor Irish hot, + But Furniss-heated Welsh. + + "'Mine and my daughter's gentle pace + Could not affright a foundling; + Be off, and peep down areas, or + Move on some harmless groundling!' + + "The Inspector glared: 'Come, Mr. F., + We can't stand this no longer; + I summons you to Marylebone'-- + (He muttered something stronger). + + * * * * * + + "Good Mr. Plowden heard the charge, + As two policemen swore it; + Then heard H. Furniss' defence, + And sagely pondered o'er it. + + "'The Inspector swears you galloped up; + You swear you merely trotted: + My own opinion in this case + Is, as usual, Gordian-knotted. + + "'Now Gordian knots were tied to be + By magistrates divided; + We cut them--and the severed ends + Do much as once the tied did. + + "'In this case, add the paces up, + And then divide by two: + A canter is the quotient; + I think that that should do. + + "'A sound decision that will please + Both parties this I trust is; + It is a fine distinction, but + Avoids the fires of justice. + + "'You, Mr. Furniss, must disburse + Two bob costs to my till, + And promise me to try no more + Primrose babes to kill. + + "'And all in Court, take warning by + The furious Canterer's fate, + And go not up the Primrose path + At such an awful rate. + + "'But if your sluggish livers you + Must vigorously shake, + "Vigor's Horse Exercise at Home" + (Vide Prospectus) take.'" + + +As a matter of fact, the magistrate did not look at the charge-sheet, +or know me, or catch my name, or he might have made +his usual joke at my expense in another way. + +[Illustration: MY PORTRAIT, BY F. C. BURNAND.] + +Mr. Burnand and I rode a great deal together. Avoiding the Row, my +editor preferred to ride to Hampstead, Harrow, or Mill Hill, calling for +me on the way. Once, when I could not ride, he wrote: "Very sorry to +hear of your being laid up with a cold; it shows what even the Wisest +and Best amongst us are liable to. The idea is monstrous of a _Cold +Furniss_. A _coal'd_ furniss is satisfactory. Don't take too much out of +yourself with riding. 'He speaks to thee who hath not got a +horse'--Shakespeare." Then follows later a specimen of his irrepressible +good humour: + + _22 Nov._ + + "Alas and alack! + I've got a hack, + But the weather's been such, + I've not got on his back. + + "I got no jog + Because of the fog, + And up to twelve, + In breeches and boots, + Which I had to shelve + And recover my foots. + I lunched at the 'G' + (So there was, you see, + One _Gee_ for me). + + "Then I came back + And wrote some play + But oh, good lack! + No riding to-day. + If foggy here, + At Ramsgate 'twas clear. + + "Alas and alack! + I'll sell my hack, + Much to my sorrow. + I'll ride to-morrow, + That is, if fine, + But not at nine. + I shall not start, if I'm alive + And have the heart, till ten forty-five. + + "Away to parks I'll trot + To get a little hot, + Also to get a little dirty, + And with you be 11.30. + + "Till one, + Then done. + Back to Lunch, + Then to Office of _Punch_. + This my plan, you'll be happy to learn, is + At your disposal, Mr. Furniss." + +But excursions in search of material my editor and I had to do on foot, +and were not so pleasing; still, Mr. Burnand always managed to have his +little joke in all circumstances. + +[Illustration] + +One day he and I were "doing" the picture shows in the interests of Mr. +Punch. At one o'clock, feeling jaded and tired, a retreat to the Garrick +Club to lunch was suggested. "Happy thought!" said my editor. "Better +still, here is an invitation for two to the Exhibition of French Cookery +at Willis's Rooms. Capital lunch there, I should think." So off we went, +anticipating a _recherché_ lunch. Fancy our chagrin on arrival to find +cooks galore, discussing their art, but, alas! their art, like the high +art of the Masters of the Brush in our National Gallery, was all under +glass! Aggravatingly appetising, but absolutely uninteresting to the two +hungry art critics. We soon were in a cab and at the Garrick. As we +pulled up, the greatest _gourmet_ of the Club, that clever actor, Arthur +Cecil, greeted us: + +"Hallo, Frank, where have you two come from?" + +"Oh, Arthur, _such_ luck! Furniss and I have just had the most +_recherché_ lunch you could imagine." + +"H'm--hullo--h'm--where? The deuce you have! Lucky dogs! Eh, what was it +like?" + +"Oh, you can see it for yourself; it's going on now at the French +Cookery Exhibition in Willis's Rooms. Special invitation--ah, here's a +ticket." + +"Thanks, old chap! what a treat! I'm off there! No, no; you fellows +mustn't pay the cab--I'll do that. Here, driver--Willis's Rooms--look +sharp!" + +Arthur Cecil undoubtedly was a quaint fellow and a clever actor, but he +had an insatiable appetite. One would never have thought so, judging +from appearance: his clever, clean-cut face, his small, thin figure, +together with the little hand-bag he always carried, rather suggested a +lawyer or a clergyman. His eccentricity was a combination of +absent-mindedness and irritability. The latter failing, he told me, +would at times take complete control of him: for instance, he had to +leave a train before his journey was completed, as he felt it impossible +to sit in the carriage and look at the alarm bell without pulling it. I +have watched him seated in the smoking-room of the club we both +attended, in which the star-light in the centre of the ceiling was +shaded by a rather primitive screen of stretched tissue paper, gazing at +it for half-an-hour at a time, and eventually taking all the coins out +of his pocket to throw them one after another at the immediate object of +his irritation. He frequently succeeded in penetrating the screen, the +coins remaining on the top of it, to the delight of the astonished +waiters. + +His eccentricity--perhaps I ought to say in this case his +absent-mindedness--is illustrated by an incident which happened on the +morning of the funeral of a great friend of his. As Cecil (his real name +was Blount) was having his bath, he was suddenly inspired with some idea +for a song; so, pulling his sponge-bath into the adjoining sitting-room +closer to the piano, he placed a chair in it, and sat down to try it +over. A friend, rushing in to fetch him to the funeral, found him so +seated, singing and playing, balancing the dripping sponge on the top of +his head. + + + THE CARICATURING OF PICTURES. + +[Illustration: THE PICTURE SHOWS. + _Design from "Punch."_] + +To feed upon one's own kind is a custom which, like so many other +vestiges of a previous civilisation, seems in the present day to have a +fair chance of revival. We have long had with us the City Cannibal, the +Fleet Street Cannibal, the Dramatic, Literary and Musical Cannibals. +Latterly the Society Cannibal has come more distinctly to the front. +Then why, I long ago asked myself, should there not be the Cannibal of +the etching pen and the brush? Especially as the writhing victims of +those mighty instruments appear to be so enamoured of their fate as to +besiege that comic slaughter-house, the studio of the caricaturist, and +with persistent cries of "Eat us! eat us! Our turn next!" solicit the +"favour of not being forgotten" in his next batch of "subjects." + +[Illustration] + +It may be a revelation to many of my readers, but I can assure them it +is a fact, that it is only in very exceptional cases that artists object +to having their pictures caricatured. Indeed, many of the leading +painters have given me to understand that the omission of their work +from my sketches would be anything but agreeable to them, although, when +the desired travesties of their pictures appear, they may pretend to be +highly indignant. There is one Royal Academician of my acquaintance who +has so keen an appreciation of humour that he never loses an opportunity +of giving me a hint when his magnifying glass has detected the slightest +element of the grotesque in a fellow artist's work. And that most +amiable of men, the late Frank Holl, could never refrain, when occasion +offered, from directing my attention to the humorous points of his +sitters, although I need hardly add that no trace of his having +perceived them was ever apparent in any of his works. Do artists object? +Well, in _Punch_, May, 1889, du Maurier touches this point: + +"What our artist (the awfully funny one) has to put up with: _Brown_: 'I +say, look here! What the deuce do you mean by caricaturing my +pictures--hay?' _Jones_: 'Yes, confound you! and _not caricaturing +mine_!'" + +I have even known artists so anxious to be parodied that, if they +happened to have a vein of humour in their pencils, they would actually +send me caricatures of their own pictures. Even poor Fred Barnard once +sent me an admirable sketch, caricaturing an excellent portrait of his +three children which he had painted for the Royal Academy, where it duly +appeared. Others less humorously imaginative perhaps have written to me +assuring me of the great pleasure which would have been theirs had they +themselves conceived the idea which my caricature of their work +supplied. + +Although, however, there are so few artists who object to having their +pictures caricatured, there is, of course, another side to the question. +It is indeed most true that nothing kills like ridicule, and in the +course of my experience I have found it is just as easy unconsciously to +inflict an injury with my pen and Indian ink as it is to do good. Let us +suppose, for instance, that a great painter has just finished a very +sentimental work--a picture so brimful of beauty and pathos that it +appeals to everybody, myself included. As I stand before it, and admire, +it is impossible perhaps for me to restrain a sympathetic tear from +making its appearance in, at all events, one of my eyes. But how about +the other? Ah! with regard to that other eye, I must confess it is very +differently employed, and, superior to my control, is searching the +canvas high and low for that "something ridiculous" which, except in the +case of the very greatest masters, is always there. Now what ensues? The +purchaser of that picture, who, mark you, unlike myself, regarded it and +admired it with _both_ of his eyes, congratulates himself upon its +acquisition. I have known it for a fact, however--to my regret--that +after the publication of the caricature the purchaser was never able to +look at his picture again through his own glasses, and bitterly +regretted his outlay. + +[Illustration: THE GREAT BACCARAT CASE. MY SKETCH IN PENCIL MADE IN +COURT, AND CONGRATULATORY NOTE FROM THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_.] + +An art publisher with whom I was acquainted agreed to pay a heavy sum +for the copyright of a work of a well-known and popular painter, and +after the caricature had appeared in _Punch_ he resolved to forego the +publication of the engraving from it by which he had hoped to recoup his +expenditure, because he considered that the sobriety of the work was so +completely destroyed as to preclude the possibility of sale; and an +eminent sculptor, who was responsible for a well-known statue which I +caricatured some years ago when it appeared in the Royal Academy, has +told me, since it was put up in the Metropolis, that he has actually +meditated replacing it by another piece, owing to the ludicrous +suggestion affixed to it. + +On the other hand, the caricature of an important work is sometimes +received in the proper spirit. Here is a letter from Professor Herkomer, +with reference to my caricature of the work of our greatest art genius, +Alfred Gilbert, R.A.: + +[Illustration] + +Of course, the caricaturing of pictures has its seamy as well as its +smooth side. Among the annoyances to which an artist engaged on this +description of work is exposed I am inclined to give a prominent place +to the fussy and vexatious regulations imposed upon him by the +authorities at Burlington House. One would have supposed, for instance, +that anyone like myself, who is well-known as merely taking notes for +caricature, would have been allowed to consult his own convenience to +some extent in making his sketches. But not a bit of it. The penalty is +something too dreadful if you are found making the slightest note of a +picture at the Royal Academy at any other time than on the one appointed +day. The object of this regulation is, of course, to protect the +copyright of the pictures--a very proper and legitimate precaution; but +I submit that a better instance of the spirit of Red Tapeism which is so +rampant at Burlington House, and which I am always endeavouring to +expose, could not be adduced than the inability of the officials to +discriminate between the accredited representative of a paper and the +piratical sketcher who is taking notes for an illegitimate purpose. I +need hardly say that this regulation is peculiar to the Royal Academy. +At the Grosvenor Gallery, which, alas! is no more, the officials about +the place understood these matters better, and at all times were pleased +to give every facility to the representative of the Press. The polite +secretary would give up his chair to me any day I liked to look in, and +would often point out to me some comical feature in the surrounding +canvases which his sly humour had detected. + +[Illustration: A PRISONER.] + +Equal praise must indeed be accorded to the management of the New +Gallery and all the other Exhibitions with which I have been brought in +contact in the course of my professional duties. Personally, as I have +always made my notes at the Royal Academy on the authorised occasion, I +have had nothing to fear from those who preside there. But my friend +Linley Sambourne, who wished upon one occasion to caricature a picture +of Burne-Jones' for a political cartoon in _Punch_ (of course altering +the figures and indeed everything else, so as not in any way to trench +upon the great artist's copyright) was dogged by a detective, arrested, +and finally thrown into the darkest dungeon beneath the Burlington House +moat! Protest was useless. What his terror must have been my pen fails +to describe. Visions of the thumbscrew, the rack, and all the tortures +conceivable rose in the fertile imagination of my colleague, and beads +of perspiration made their appearance upon his massive brow. After weary +hours, when lunch-time without the lunch had come and gone, and the +pangs of hunger began to be added to his other miseries, when he was +reflecting that his week's work for _Punch_ was yet unfinished, that the +engravers would be in despair at not having it in time, and that at that +moment his editor was probably telegraphing to him all over London and +instituting a search for his person all over his club, suddenly the +bolts of his prison-chamber were withdrawn and his gaoler, the +blood-thirsty tyrant Red Tape, allowed the genial artist to return to +the bosom of his wife and family--not, however, without leaving a +hostage behind him. The sketch--the guilty sketch--the cause of all his +troubles, was detained. In vain the harassed artist explained to his +grim Cerberus that the work was wanted for the next week's issue of +_Punch_, and although as a matter of fact it duly appeared at the +appointed time, Mr. Sambourne had to trust to his memory instead of to +the courtesy and common sense of Burlington House for the reproduction +of his skit. + +I remember another incident which will serve to illustrate the trials +and misfortunes of the caricaturist when pursuing his vocation outside +the walls of his studio. It was the opening day of the New Gallery, and +as I draw my sketches of the pictures with an ordinary pen and liquid +Indian ink direct, and have them afterwards, like all my drawings, +photographed on wood and engraved--of late years they are reproduced by +process engraving--I was holding my bottle of ink and my sketch-book in +one hand, while my pen was busy with the other. Upon arriving very early +in the morning I thought I must have made a mistake, and that I had +entered a manufactory of hats, for the hall was almost entirely taken up +with hat-boxes. Upon enquiry, however, I learned that these merely +contained the new hats in which the directors would, later on, receive +their visitors. When the hall began to fill, and the fashionable crowd +was pouring in, I was standing in the central lobby, sketching away with +a will, when my friend Sir William Agnew, always early to arrive on such +occasions, happened to come up and soon interested me in conversation +about the genius of Millais and the beauties of Burne-Jones. In my +energetic manner I was debating a matter of some little interest when my +eye caught that of Mr. Comyns-Carr, who, with his newly-selected hat on, +was standing close by and regarding me with an expression of +indescribable horror. "What is the matter with Carr?" I observed to +Agnew; "surely Sargent should be here and hand down that expression to +posterity." But when I followed his eyes as they passed sternly from +mine to the floor, my hat nearly sprang off my head at the sight which I +beheld! Forgetting that I held the bottle of ink in the hand with which +I had been suiting the action to the word in my animated harangue to Sir +William, I had splashed the virgin marble on which we were standing in +all directions with hideous stains of the blackest of liquids. In my +consternation I did not stay to see the incongruous figure of the +charwoman and bucket who was immediately introduced amid the _élite_ of +fashionable London, but fled incontinently from the gallery and, rushing +in where angels fear to tread, sought sanctuary in my accustomed haunt, +the Gallery of the House of Commons. There at least I thought I should +be safe. Presently, when I had somewhat recovered from my agitation, I +was making my way out of the House when I encountered a friend in the +Central Lobby. I was explaining to him the unfortunate _contretemps_ +which had occurred at the New Gallery, and utterly forgot that I still +held the bottle of ink in my hand, and on the sacred floor we stood upon +I had perpetrated the offence again! + +My only consolation for this chapter of accidents was that the +particular ink in my bottle is different from the ordinary writing +fluid, and leaves no stain behind it. It is in fact merely paint, and is +innocent of gall. There are inks, as there are other forms of +journalism, whose consequences are not so easily effaced or so harmless; +but like the caricaturist's work itself, the material with which it is +accomplished often looks blacker than it really is. + +[Illustration: ORIGINAL IDEA AS SENT TO ME. + MY DRAWING OF IT IN _PUNCH_.] + +Fortunately all this happened previous to the introduction of the ink I +use now, known as _Waterproof_ ink--ink that will not _run_ when washed +over with water. The manufacturers of this article sent me a specimen +bottle to experiment with, and asked me for my opinion of it. In +replying, I sent the following note. The sketch was touched in to amuse +my youngest boy, who was puzzled by the meaning of Waterproof ink. The +makers, in acknowledging the note, asked me to mention the sum I would +accept if, with my permission, they used the note and sketch I sent as +an advertisement. I replied that they were welcome to use my note, but +that I could not accept payment. However I received in a few days a +large parcel of artists' materials: paints, sketch-books, brushes, +pencils, &c. + +[Illustration] + +This is more than I ever received for a better known advertisement: "I +used your soap two years ago." I was never offered so much as a cake of +soap from those who used my _Punch_ sketch so freely! Permission was +given for its use by the proprietors of _Punch_, not knowing I had any +objection, and at the time I was ill with fever and unable to protest. +The firm certainly paid me some years afterwards for the publication of +the same advertisement for two insertions in a periodical I was +starting, but only at the ordinary rate. I mention this fact as I have +heard from friends all over the world that I received untold gold for +the use of it, and as it has interested so many perhaps I may at the +same time clear up another fallacy, which I did not know existed until +I read Mr. Spielmann's "History of _Punch_." In that he refers to the +very "oft-quoted drawing (lately used as an advertisement), the idea of +which reached him from an anonymous correspondent. It is that of a +grimy, unshaven, unwashed, mangy-looking tramp, who sits down to write, +with a broken quill, a testimonial for a firm of soap-makers. A further +point of interest about this famous sketch was that Charles Keene was +deeply offended by it at first, in the groundless belief that it was +intended as a skit upon himself. It must at least be admitted that the +head is not unlike what one might have expected to belong to a +dissipated and dilapidated Charles Keene." Poor Keene! How sorry I was +to read this when too late to explain to him that he was never in my +mind for a moment when I was drawing it! But, strange to say, the +original who sat for it was a brother artist, another Charles, quite as +delightful as Keene, equally clever in his own way, and my greatest +friend--Charles Burton Barber, the animal painter, in appearance rather +like Charles Keene, but nothing of the Bohemian about him, and a +non-smoker! Still I am always being told that I had So-and-so in my eye +when drawing the figure. I might in truth quote Sir John Tenniel's +remark _à propos_ of being accused of caricaturing his late comrade, +Horace Mayhew, as the "White Knight" in "Alice in Wonderland": "The +resemblance was purely accidental, a mere unintentional caricature, +which his _friends_, of course, were only too delighted to make the most +of." Ah, those _friends_ are at the bottom of all these +misunderstandings. I could a tale, or two, unfold, but that--that's +another volume. + +[Illustration: I SIT FOR JOHN BROWN.] + +Yes, poor Barber sat for the tramp, and I in return sat to him for a +figure quite as incongruous in my case as the tramp was in his. I sat +for John Brown for the picture Queen Victoria had commissioned of Mr. +Brown surrounded by her pet dogs, which she had in her private room. She +was so delighted with the picture that she had a replica made of it, and +placed it in the passage outside, so that it was the first picture she +looked at as she left her room. Barber's animals and children were +delightful, but he was weak with his men, and was in trouble over John +Brown's calves,--it was then that I posed for the "brawny Scott," but +only for the portion here mentioned. + +[Illustration: A CRIB BY AN AMERICAN ADVERTISER.] + +This figure of the tramp in my sketch of "I used your soap two years +ago" has in fact been mistaken for myself. A relative of my own, who has +been living in the Cape for many years, paid a visit to London, and on +his return informed his children that he had seen me and brought my +portrait back with him. "Oh, we have Cousin Harry's portrait in our +nursery for some time: one he has signed too." It was the Punch-Pears +production in colour! I am sure I do not know how ridiculous stories are +received as true, that I got a fabulous sum for the use of this one; +that such-and-such a member of the staff gets a huge retaining fee, &c., +and other inventions--one in particular. If I have met one, I have met a +score of people at different times of my life who positively declared +that they actually sent that ever famous line: "Punch's advice to those +about to marry--Don't!" and received immediately remuneration in sums +varying from £5 to £500. That joke was probably conceived and thrown in +at the last moment, at the critical point when the editor is "making up" +the paper. + +As I am writing these disjointed notes for family reading, it may +perhaps not be out of place just to refer to the domestic relations of +the staff of _Punch_. Our wives and families were invited to meet on the +occasion of the Lord Mayor's procession, when they may have been +observed upon the roof of the publishing office--till recently it was in +Fleet Street--from which coign of vantage they had an excellent view of +the civic show, afterwards having a capital lunch in a room on the first +floor. Yet how much men who live on their wits owe to their domestic +happiness! It is a pleasant fact to be able to chronicle that--I believe +at all times--the domestic lives of the _Punch_ staff have been most +happy. It is rather curious that all of them have made the same kind of +matrimonial selection--they have married "sensible wives," women who +have all been sympathetic, devoted, bright, and domesticated. The wit at +the dinner-table, the humorous writer or the caricaturist in the pages +you read, is a very different dog at home. It must naturally be so. It +is the reaction, and it is to such men that the woman possessed of tact +and cheerfulness is invaluable. In truth, Punch's advice to those about +to marry, "Don't!" has been disregarded by the majority of his members, +in every case with the utmost satisfaction to themselves. + +[Illustration: BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND +TONBRIDGE.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of a Caricaturist, +Vol. 1 (of 2), by Harry Furniss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST *** + +***** This file should be named 29425-8.txt or 29425-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/2/29425/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) + +Author: Harry Furniss + +Release Date: July 16, 2009 [EBook #29425] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + +<table style="background-color: #ccccff" cellpadding="10" border="0"> + <tr> + <td style="vertical-align: top; width: 25%">Transcriber's note: </td> + <td>A few typographical errors have been corrected. They appear in the + text <span class="correction" title="explanation will pop up">like + this</span>, and the explanation will appear when the mouse pointer is + moved over the marked passage. Original page numbers are displayed in the margin as: Pg xxx. + </td></tr></table> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 457px;"> +<a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a> +<img src="images/img000a.jpg" width="457" height="646" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption">MY CARICATURE OF MR. GLADSTONE.</span> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_CARICATURIST" id="THE_CONFESSIONS_OF_A_CARICATURIST"></a>THE CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>HARRY FURNISS</h2> + +<h3><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></h3> + + +<h2>VOLUME I</h2> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 117px;"> +<img src="images/img000b.jpg" width="117" height="150" alt="" title="publisher logo" /> +</div> + + +<p class="center">NEW YORK AND LONDON:<br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.<br /> +1902.<br /><br /> +BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS,<br /> +LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.<br /><br /> +[<i>All rights reserved.</i>]<br /> +December, 1901.<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3>PREFACE.</h3> +<hr style="width: 15%;" /> + +<p>If, in these volumes, I have made some joke at a friend's +expense, let that friend take it in the spirit intended, and—I +apologise beforehand.</p> + +<p>In America apology in journalism is unknown. The exception +is the well-known story of the man whose death was published +in the obituary column. He rushed into the office of +the paper and cried out to the editor:</p> + +<p>"Look here, sur, what do you mean by this? You have +published two columns and a half of my obituary, and here I +am as large as life!"</p> + +<p>The editor looked up and coolly said, "Sur, I am vury sorry, +I reckon there is a mistake some place, but it kean't be helped. +You are killed by the <i>Jersey Eagle</i>, you are to the world +buried. We nevur correct anything, and we nevur apologise in +Amurrican papers."</p> + +<p>"That won't do for me, sur. My wife's in tears; my friends +are laughing at me; my business will be ruined,—you <i>must</i> +apologise."</p> + +<p>"No, si—ree, an Amurrican editor nevur apologises."</p> + +<p>"Well, sur, I'll take the law on you right away. I'm off to +my attorney."</p> + +<p>"Wait one minute, sur—just one minute. You are a +re-nowned and popular citizen: the <i>Jersey Eagle</i> has killed you—for +that I am vury, vury sorry, and to show you my respect +I will to-morrow find room for you—in the births column."</p> + +<p>Now do not let any editor imagine these pages are my +professional obituary,—my autobiography. If by mistake he +does, then let him place me immediately in their births +column. I am in my forties, and there is quite time for me to +prepare and publish two more volumes of my "Confessions" +from my first to my second birth, and many other things, before +I am fifty.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> +<img src="images/img000c.jpg" width="600" height="131" alt="Signiture." title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class="smcap"> London</span>, 1901.<br /><br /><br /></p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>[The Author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Proprietors and the Editor +of <i>Punch</i>, the Proprietors of the <i>Magazine of Art</i>, the <i>Graphic</i>, the <i>Illustrated London +News</i>, <i>English Illustrated Magazine</i>, <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, <i>Harper's Magazine</i>, <i>Westminster +Gazette</i>, <i>St. James' Gazette</i>, the <i>British Weekly</i> and the <i>Sporting Times</i> for their kindness +in allowing him to reproduce extracts and pictures in these volumes.]</p></div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="85%" +summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td style="width: 85%;"> </td> + <td class="tdr" style="width: 15%;"><span class="smcap">Page</span></td> + </tr> + + <tr> + <th align="center">CHAPTER I.<br /><br />CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD—AND AFTER.</th> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="hanging">Introductory—Birth and Parentage—The Cause of my remaining a Caricaturist—The +Schoolboys' <i>Punch</i>—Infant Prodigies—As a Student—I Start in Life—<i>Zozimus</i>—The +Sullivan Brothers—Pigott—The Forger—The Irish "Pathriot"—Wood +Engraving—Tom Taylor—The Wild West—Judy—Behind the Scenes—Titiens—My +First and Last Appearance in a Play—My Journey to London—My +Companion—A Coincidence</td> +<td class="tdr"><i>pp.</i> <a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a>—<a href='#Page_29'><b>29</b></a></td> +</tr> + + <tr> + <th align="center"><br />CHAPTER II.<br /><br />BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS.</th> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="hanging">I arrive in London—A Rogue and Vagabond—Two Ladies—Letters of Introduction—Bohemia—A +Distinguished Member—My Double—A Rara Avis—The Duke +of Broadacres—The Savages—A Souvenir—Portraits of the Past—J. L. Toole—Art +and Artists—Sir Spencer Wells—John Pettie—Milton's Garden</td> +<td class="tdr"><i>pp.</i> <a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a>—<a href='#Page_53'><b>53</b></a></td> +</tr> + + <tr> + <th align="center"><br />CHAPTER III.<br /><br />MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST.</th> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="hanging">The Light Brigade—Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)—Slumming—The Boat Race—Realism—A +Phantasmagoria—Orlando and the Caitiff—Fancy Dress Balls—Lewis +Wingfield—Cinderella—A Model—All Night Sitting—An Impromptu +Easel—"Where there's a Will there's a Way"—The American Sunday Papers—I +am Deaf—The Grill—The World's Fair—Exaggeration—Personally Conducted—The +Charnel House—10, Downing Street—I attend a Cabinet Council—An +Illustration by Mr. Labouchere—The Great Lincolnshire Trial—Praying +without Prejudice</td> +<td class="tdr"><i>pp.</i> <a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a>—<a href='#Page_87'><b>87</b></a></td> +</tr> + + <tr> + <th align="center"><br />CHAPTER IV.<br /><br />THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR—A SERIOUS CHAPTER.</th> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="hanging">Drawing—"Hieroglyphics"—Clerical Portraiture—A Commission from General +Booth—In Search of Truth—Sir Walter Besant—James Payn—Why Theodore +Hook was Melancholy—"Off with his Head"—Reformers' Tree—Happy +Thoughts—Christmas Story—Lewis Carroll—The Rev. Charles Lutwidge +Dodgson—Sir John Tenniel—The Challenge—Seven Years' Labour—A Puzzle +MS.—Dodgson on Dress—Carroll on Drawing—Sylvie and Bruno—A Composite +Picture—My Real Models—I am very Eccentric—My "Romps"—A +Letter from du Maurier—Caldecott—Tableaux—Fine Feathers—Models—Fred +Barnard—The Haystack—A Wicket Keeper—A Fair Sitter—Neighbours—The +Post Office Jumble—Puzzling the Postmen—Writing Backwards—A +Coincidence</td> +<td class="tdr"><i>pp.</i> <a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a>—<a href='#Page_130'><b>130</b></a></td> +</tr> + + <tr> + <th align="center"><br />CHAPTER V.<br /><br />A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL.</th> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="hanging">What is Caricature?—Interviewing—Catching Caricatures—Pellegrini—The "Ha! +Ha!"—Black and White <i>v.</i> Paint—How to make a Caricature—M.P.'s—My +System—Mr. Labouchere's Attitude—Do the Subjects Object?—Colour in +Caricature—Caught!—A Pocket Caricature—The Danger of the Shirt-cuff—The +Danger of a Marble Table—Quick Change—Advice to those about to +Caricature</td> +<td class="tdr"><i>pp.</i> <a href='#Page_131'><b>131</b></a>—<a href='#Page_153'><b>153</b></a></td> +</tr> + + <tr> + <th align="center"><br />CHAPTER VI.<br /><br />PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS.</th> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="hanging">Gladstone and Disraeli—A Contrast—An unauthenticated Incident—Lord Beaconsfield's +last Visit to the House of Commons—My Serious Sketch—Historical—Mr. +Gladstone—His Portraits—What he thought of the Artists—Sir J. E. Millais—Frank +Holl—The Despatch Boxes—Impressions—Disraeli—Dan O'Connell—Procedure—American +Wit—Toys—Wine—Pressure—Sandwich Soirée—The +G.O.M. dines with "Toby, M.P."—Walking—Quivering—My Desk—An Interview—Political +Caricaturists—Signature in Sycamore—Scenes in the Commons—Joseph +Gillis Biggar—My Double—Scenes—Divisions—Puck—Sir R. Temple—Charles +Stewart Parnell—A Study—Quick Changes—His Fall—Room 15—The +last Time I saw him—Lord Randolph Churchill—His Youth—His Height—His +Fickleness—His Hair—His Health—His Fall—Lord Iddesleigh—Sir +Stafford and Mr. Gladstone—Bradlaugh—His Youth—His Parents—His +Tactics—His Fight—His Extinction—John Bright—Jacob Bright—Sir Isaac +Holden—Lord Derby—A Political Prophecy—A Lucky Guess—My Confession +in the <i>Times</i>—The Joke that Failed—The Seer—Fair Play—I deny being a +Conservative—I am Encouraged—Chaff—Reprimanded—Misprinted—Misunderstood</td> +<td class="tdr"><i>pp.</i> <a href='#Page_154'><b>154</b></a>—<a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a></td> +</tr> + + <tr> + <th align="center"><br />CHAPTER VII.<br /><br />"PUNCH."</th> + <td class="tdr"> </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="hanging">Two <i>Punch</i> Editors—<i>Punch's</i> Hump—My First <i>Punch</i> Dinner—Charles Keene—"Robert"—W. H. +Bradbury—du Maurier—"Kiki"—A Trip to the Place of +his Birth—He Hates Me—A Practical Joke—du Maurier's Strange Model—No +Sportsman—Tea—Appollinaris—My First Contribution—My Record—Parliament—Press +Gallery Official—I Feel Small—The "Black Beetle"—Professor +Rogers—Sergeant-at-Arms' Room—Styles of Work—Privileges—Dr. +Percy—I Sit in the Table—The Villain of Art—The New Cabinet—Criticism—<i>Punch's</i> +Historical Cartoons—Darwen MacNeill—Scenes in the Lobby—A +Technical Assault—John Burns's "Invention"—John Burns's Promise—John +Burns's Insult—The Lay of Swift MacNeill—The Truth—Sir Frank Lockwood—"Grand +Cross"—Lockwood's Little Sketch—Lockwood's Little Joke in the +House—Lockwood's Little Joke at Dinner—Lewis Carroll and <i>Punch</i>—Gladstone's +Head—Sir William's Portrait—Ciphers—Reversion—<i>Punch</i> at Play—Three +<i>Punch</i> Men in a Boat—Squaring up—Two Pins Club—Its One Joke—Its +One Horse—Its Mystery—Artistic Duties—Lord Russell—Furious Riding—Before +the Beak—Burnand and I in the Saddle—Caricaturing Pictures for +<i>Punch</i>—Art under Glass—Arthur Cecil—My Other Eye—The Ridicule that +Kills—Red Tape—<i>Punch</i> in Prison—I make a Mess of it—Waterproof—"I +used your Soap two years ago"—Charles Keene—Charles Barber—<i>Punch's</i> +Advice—<i>Punch's</i> Wives</td> +<td class="tdr"><i>pp.</i> <a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a>—<a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a></td> +</tr> + +</table></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> +<img src="images/img000d.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="HARRY FURNISS'S (EGYPTIAN STYLE)." title="HARRY FURNISS'S (EGYPTIAN STYLE)." /> +<span class="caption">HARRY FURNISS'S (EGYPTIAN STYLE). <i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2> + + +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="90%" cellspacing="0" summary="LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS"> +<tr><td align='left'> </td><td align='right'>PAGE</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My Caricature of Mr. Gladstone</td><td align='right'><a href='#frontis'><i>Frontispiece.</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "In." Writing my Confessions. A Visitor's Snapshot</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'><b>1</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My Mother</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_3'><b>3</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My Father</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_5'><b>5</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Harry Furniss, aged 10</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_6'><b>6</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Caricature, made when a Boy (never published). Dublin Exhibition.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Portrait of Sir A. Guinness (now Lord Iveagh) in centre</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_11'><b>11</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>An Early Illustration on Wood by Harry Furniss. Partly Engraved by him.</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_16'><b>16</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sketches in Galway</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_19'><b>19</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Judy," the Galway Dwarf</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_23'><b>23</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Phelps, the first Actor I saw</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_24'><b>24</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Harry Furniss. From an Early Sketch</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_25'><b>25</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Caricature of Myself, drawn when I first arrived in London</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_30'><b>30</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Age 20</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_35'><b>35</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A successful "Make-Up"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_36'><b>36</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Two Travellers</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_38'><b>38</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Duke of "Broadacres"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_40'><b>40</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Savage Club House Dinner. From a Sketch by Herbert Johnson</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_41'><b>41</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Earl of Dunraven as a Savage</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_42'><b>42</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Another Gap in Our Ranks"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_43'><b>43</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Jope"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_43'><b>43</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>H. J. Byron</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_44'><b>44</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Presentation</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_45'><b>45</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Savage Club. My Design for the Menu, 25th Anniversary Dinner</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_47'><b>47</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Savages"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_50'><b>50</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Letter from Sir Spencer Wells</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_51'><b>51</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Distress in the Black Country</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_54'><b>54</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>At the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_55'><b>55</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>As Special at the Balaclava Celebration</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_57'><b>57</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Distress in the North</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_59'><b>59</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Realism!</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_61'><b>61</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"The Caitiff" and Orlando</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_62'><b>62</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>An Invitation</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_63'><b>63</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>At a Fancy Dress Ball</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_65'><b>65</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lewis Wingfield as a Street Nigger Home from the Derby</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_67'><b>67</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"The Liberal Candidate"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_68'><b>68</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sketches at the Liverpool Election: A Ward Meeting</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_69'><b>69</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My Easel. Drawing Mr. Gladstone at a Public Meeting</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_71'><b>71</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The American Sunday Papers</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_72'><b>72</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Major Handy</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_74'><b>74</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The World's Fair, Chicago. A "Special's" Visit</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_75'><b>75</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"On dashed the Horses in their wild Career"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_77'><b>77</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "A"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_79'><b>79</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Charnel-House. Chicago World's Fair</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_80'><b>80</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "London"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_83'><b>83</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Bishop of Lincoln's Trial</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_85'><b>85</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "If"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_88'><b>88</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Majuba Hill</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_89'><b>89</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Canon Liddon. A Sketch from Life</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_92'><b>92</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Letter from Sir Walter Besant</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_94'><b>94</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Late Sir Walter Besant</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_95'><b>95</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The "Jetty"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_95'><b>95</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Illustration for "The Talk of the Town"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_96'><b>96</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"That's just what I have done!"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_98'><b>98</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Specimen of James Payn's Writing</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_99'><b>99</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Typical Lovers in Illustrated Novels</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_100'><b>100</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "T"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_101'><b>101</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Instructions in a Letter from Lewis Carroll</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_103'><b>103</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Specimen of Lewis Carroll's Drawing and Writing</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_106'><b>106</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Original Sketch by Lewis Carroll of his Charming Hero and Heroine</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_107'><b>107</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lewis Carroll's Note to me or a Pathetic Picture</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_108'><b>108</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sylvie and Bruno. My Original Drawing for Lewis Carroll</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_110'><b>110</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I Go Mad!</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_111'><b>111</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>From Lewis Carroll</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_112'><b>112</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"I do want a Wicket-keeper!"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_113'><b>113</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Portion of Letter from Lawrence, age 9</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_114'><b>114</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Reduction from a Design for my "Romps"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_115'><b>115</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Portion of a Letter from George du Maurier</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_117'><b>117</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Transformation</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_119'><b>119</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Yours always, Barnard"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_119'><b>119</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Barnard and the Models</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_120'><b>120</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"I sit for 'Ands, Sir"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_121'><b>121</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Grand Old Hand and the Young 'Un</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_122'><b>122</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My Fighting Double</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_124'><b>124</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Specimen of Mr. Linley Sambourne's Envelopes to me</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_125'><b>125</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Cheque for 5½d. passed through two Banks and paid. I signed it</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>backwards</i>, and it was cancelled by Clerk <i>backwards</i></span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_127'><b>127</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sir Henry Irving writes his Name backwards</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sir Henry Irving's Attempt</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. J. L. Toole's first Attempt</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. J. L. Toole's second Attempt</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_128'><b>128</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Autograph: Harry Furniss</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_129'><b>129</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "If"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_131'><b>131</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Studio of a Caricaturist</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_132'><b>132</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Caricature of me by my Daughter, age 15</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_134'><b>134</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A serious Portrait—from Life</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_135'><b>135</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "H"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_136'><b>136</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Penguin"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_139'><b>139</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Brown, Ordinary Attire. Court Dress</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_139'><b>139</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Two Portraits</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Caricature</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Not</i> a Caricature</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_140'><b>140</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Editor of <i>Punch</i> sits for his Portrait</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_144'><b>144</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Model unawares and the Result</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_145'><b>145</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sketch on a Shirt-Cuff</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_146'><b>146</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Mundella"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_147'><b>147</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Labouchere</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_149'><b>149</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The M.P. Real and Ideal</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_150'><b>150</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Photo. As he really is</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_151'><b>151</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Dizzy" (Beaconsfield) and Gladstone</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_154'><b>154</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Inner Lobby of the House of Commons</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_156'><b>156</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Explanation to Illustration on page 156</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_157'><b>157</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lord Beaconsfield. A Sketch from Life</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_158'><b>158</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The last Visit of Lord Beaconsfield to the House</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_161'><b>161</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Gladstone. A Sketch from Life</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_163'><b>163</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Gladstone "under his Flow of Eloquence"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_165'><b>165</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Gladstone. Conventional Portrait</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_167'><b>167</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Caricature of the Holl Portrait</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_169'><b>169</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Note of Mr. Gladstone made in the Press Gallery with the wrong</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">end of a Quill Pen</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_171'><b>171</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Invitation to a "Sandwich Soirée"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_173'><b>173</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Gladstone sits on the Floor</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_174'><b>174</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Fragment of <i>Punch</i> Mr. Gladstone did not see</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_175'><b>175</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Gladstone Matchbox</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_176'><b>176</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Gladstone's Collars</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_178'><b>178</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Parnell</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_179'><b>179</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>To Room 15</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_182'><b>182</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Outside Room 15</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_183'><b>183</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Outside my Room</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"The G.O.M." and "Randy"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_185'><b>185</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Louis Jennings</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_186'><b>186</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lord Randolph and Louis Jennings</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_188'><b>188</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lord Randolph Churchill</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_189'><b>189</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Behind the Speaker's Chair</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_190'><b>190</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "S"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_191'><b>191</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "H"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_193'><b>193</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Bradlaugh Triumphant. <i>From "Punch"</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_194'><b>194</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Charles Bradlaugh</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_195'><b>195</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Meet at St. Stephen's</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_197'><b>197</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sir George Campbell</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_199'><b>199</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Heraldic Design illustrating Mr. Plunkett's (now Lord Rathmore) Joke</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_201'><b>201</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Farmer Atkinson</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_202'><b>202</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I must Introduce you to Lucy. Here he is</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_203'><b>203</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Joseph Gillis Biggar</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_204'><b>204</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "I"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_206'><b>206</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The House of Commons from Toby's Private Box</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_208'><b>208</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Government Bench—before Home Rule</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_211'><b>211</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Reduction of one of my Parliamentary Pages in <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_214'><b>214</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "T"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_215'><b>215</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Age 26, when I first worked for <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_216'><b>216</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My first Meeting with the Editor of <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_217'><b>217</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My first Invitation from <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_218'><b>218</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Letter from Charles Keene, objecting to an Editor interviewing him</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_219'><b>219</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Robert"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_220'><b>220</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>George du Maurier</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_221'><b>221</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Suggestion by du Maurier for <i>Punch</i> Cartoon</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_224'><b>224</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Du Maurier's Souvenir de Fontainebleau. <i>From "Punch</i>"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_225'><b>225</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><i>Punch</i> Staff returning from Paris</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_227'><b>227</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Japanese Style</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_229'><b>229</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Birch—His Mark"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_231'><b>231</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Chinese Style. From a Drawing on Wood</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_232'><b>232</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Familiar Faces</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_234'><b>234</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>An Official in the Press Gallery</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_235'><b>235</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"He spies me"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_236'><b>236</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"What are you?"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_236'><b>236</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Blowed if the Country wants you"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_238'><b>238</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"I feel smaller!"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_241'><b>241</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Black Beetle</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_242'><b>242</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Sergeant-at-Arms' Room</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_243'><b>243</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Capt. Gosset, late Sergeant-at-Arms</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_244'><b>244</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My "Childish" Style in <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_245'><b>245</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A simple Document</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_246'><b>246</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I Sketch the House</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_247'><b>247</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Dr. Percy. "The House Up"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_250'><b>250</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="correction" title="originally without period">Mr.</span> Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. Mr. Goschen</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_251'><b>251</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. "All Harcourts"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_252'><b>252</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The New Cabinet</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_255'><b>255</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Reduction of Page in <i>Punch</i>, showing that my Caricatures were—in this</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">case—published too large</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_258'><b>258</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Reduction from the Original Drawing, showing that I gave Instructions for the Caricature to be</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">"reduced as usual"</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_259'><b>259</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>What really happened</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_261'><b>261</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span class="correction" title="corrected from page 622">Dr. Tanner</span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_262'><b>262</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Assault on me in the House. What the Press described</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_263'><b>263</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>John Burns</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_265'><b>265</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Note from Sir Frank Lockwood, after reading the Bogus Account of the "Assault"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_266'><b>266</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Letter supposed to come from Lord Cross. (Lockwood's Joke)</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_267'><b>267</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Sir F. Lockwood</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_269'><b>269</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lewis Carroll's Suggestion, and my sketch of it in <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_270'><b>270</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Nature's Puzzle Portrait</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_271'><b>271</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Initial "W"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_272'><b>272</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Three Oarsmen under a Tree"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_273'><b>273</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Lord Russell's Acceptance to dine with me</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_275'><b>275</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"It's your Turn next"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Letter from Sir Frank Lockwood</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_277'><b>277</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Linley Sambourne</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_278'><b>278</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Portrait of me as a Member of the Two Pins Club, by Linley Sambourne</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_279'><b>279</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The late Lord Russell, the President of the Two Pins Club</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_280'><b>280</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Furious Riding." Sketch by F. C. Gould</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_282'><b>282</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>My Portrait, by F. C. Burnand</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_285'><b>285</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Punch "doing" the Picture Shows</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_286'><b>286</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Picture Shows. Design from <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_288'><b>288</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"The World-Renowned and Talented Barnardo Family"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_289'><b>289</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>The Great Baccarat Case. My Sketch in Pencil made in Court, and</td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Congratulatory Note from the Editor of <i>Punch</i></span></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_291'><b>291</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Letter from Professor Herkomer</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_293'><b>293</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Prisoner</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_294'><b>294</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"Good Advertisement." Original Idea as sent to me</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_297'><b>297</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Ditto. My Drawing of it in <i>Punch</i></td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_297'><b>297</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>"English Waterproof Ink"</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_299'><b>299</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>I sit for John Brown</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_300'><b>300</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>A Crib by an American Advertiser</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_301'><b>301</b></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align='left'>Finis</td><td align='right'><a href='#Page_302'><b>302</b></a></td></tr> +</table></div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><br /><br /></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CONFESSIONS_OF_A_CARICATURIST" id="CONFESSIONS_OF_A_CARICATURIST"></a>CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST.<br /><br /></h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<h3>CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD—AND AFTER.</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; margin-top: 3em; "> +<img src="images/img001.jpg" width="400" height="440" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">Introductory—Birth and Parentage—The Cause of my remaining a +Caricaturist—The Schoolboys' <i>Punch</i>—Infant +Prodigies—As a Student—I +Start in Life—<i>Zozimus</i>—The +Sullivan Brothers—Pigott—The +Forger—The Irish "Pathriot"—Wood +Engraving—Tom Taylor—The Wild +West—Judy—Behind the Scenes—Titiens—My +First and Last Appearance +in a Play—My Journey +to London—My Companion—A +Coincidence.<br /><br /></p></div> + +<p>In offering the following pages to the public, I should like it to be +known that no interviewer has extracted them from me by the thumbscrew +of a morning call, nor have they been wheedled out of me by the caresses +of those iron-maidens of literature, the publishers. For the most part +they have been penned in odd half-hours as I sat in my easy-chair in the +solitude of my studio, surrounded by the aroma of the post-prandial +cigarette.</p> + +<p>I would also at the outset warn those who may purchase this work in the +expectation of finding therein the revelations of a caricaturist's +Chamber of Horrors, that they will be disappointed. Some day I may be +tempted to bring forth my skeletons from the seclusion of their +cupboards and strip my mummies, taking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> certain familiar figures +and faces to pieces and exposing not only the jewels with which they +were packed away, but all those spicy secrets too which are so relished +by scandal-loving readers.</p> + +<p>At present, however, I am in an altogether lighter and more genial vein. +My confessions up to date are of a purely personal character, and like a +literary Liliputian I am placing myself in the hand of that colossal +Gulliver the Public.</p> + +<p>I may, it is true, in the course of my remarks be led to retaliate to +some extent upon those who have had the hardihood to assert that all +caricaturists ought, in the interest of historical accuracy, to be +shipped on board an unseaworthy craft and left in the middle of the +Channel, for the crime of handing down to posterity distorted images of +those now in the land of the living. This I feel bound to do in +self-defence, as well as in the cause of truth, for to judge by the +biographical sketches of myself which continually appear and reach me +through the medium of a press-cutting agency, caricaturists as +distorters of features are not so proficient as authors as distorters of +facts.</p> + +<p>I think it best therefore to begin by giving as briefly as possible an +authentic outline of my early career.</p> + +<p>For the benefit of anyone who may not feel particularly interested in +such details, I should mention that the narration of this plain +unvarnished tale extends from this line to page 29.</p> + +<p>I was born in Ireland, in the town of Wexford, on March 26th, 1854. I do +not, however, claim, to be an Irishman. My father was a typical +Englishman, hailing from Yorkshire, and not in his appearance only, but +in his tastes and sympathies, he was an unmistakable John Bull. By +profession he was a civil engineer, and he migrated to Ireland some +years before I was born, having been invited to throw some light upon +that "benighted counthry" by designing and superintending the erection +of gas works in various towns and cities.</p> + +<p>My mother was Scotch. My great-great-grandfather was a captain in the +Pretender's army at Culloden, and had a son, Angus, who settled in +Aberdeen. When Æneas MacKenzie, my grandfather, was born, his family +moved south and settled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> in Newcastle-on-Tyne. A local biographer +writes of him: "A man who by dint of perseverance and self-denial +acquired more learning than ninety-nine in a hundred ever got at a +university—an accomplished and most trustworthy writer. The real +founder of the Newcastle Mechanics' Institute, and the leader of the +group of Philosophical Radicals who made not a little stir in the North +of England at the beginning of the last century." + + +<span class="figright" style="width: 300px; margin-bottom: 0; "> +<img src="images/img003a.jpg" width="300" height="390" alt="" title="" /> +</span> + +<span class="figright" style="width: 300px; margin-top: 0; "> +<img src="images/img003b.jpg" width="300" height="147" alt="" title="" /> +</span> + +He was not only a benevolent, active member of society and an ardent +politician (Joseph Cowen received his earliest impressions from +him—and never forgot his indebtedness), but the able historian of +Northumberland, Durham, and of Newcastle itself, a town in which he +spent his life and his energies. If I possess any hereditary aptitude +for journalism, it is to him I owe it; whilst to my mother, who at a +time when miniature painting was fashionable, cultivated the natural +artistic taste with much success, I am directly indebted for such +artistic faculties as are innate in me.</p> + +<p>My family moved from Wexford to Dublin when I was ten. It is pleasant to +know they left a good impression. In Miss Mary Banim's account of +Ireland I find the following reference to these aliens in Wexford, which +I must allow my egotism to transcribe: "Many are the kindly memories +that remain in Wexford of this warm-hearted, gifted family, who are said +not only to be endowed with rare talents, but, better still, with those +qualities that endear people to those they meet in daily intercourse." +The flattering adjectives with which the remarks about myself are +sandwiched prevent my modest nature from quoting any more. However, as +one does not remember much of that period of their life before they +reach <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> their teens I need not apologise for quoting from the same +work this reference to me at that age:</p> + +<p>"One who was his playmate—he is still a young man—describes +Mr. Furniss as very small of stature, full of animation and merriment, +constantly amusing himself and his friends with clever[!] reproductions +of each humorous character or scene that met his eye in the +ever-fruitful gallery of living art—gay, grotesque, pathetic, even +beautiful—that the streets and outlets of such a town as Wexford +present to a quick eye and a ready pencil."</p> + +<p>I can appreciate the fact that at that early age I had an eye for the +"pathetic, and even beautiful," but, alas! I have been misunderstood +from the day of my birth. I used to sit and study the heavens before I +could walk, and my nurse, a wise and shrewd woman, predicted that I +should become a great astronomer; but instead of the works of Herschel +being put into my hands, I was satiated with the vilest comic toy books, +and deluged with the frivolous nursery literature now happily a thing of +the past. At odd times my old leaning towards serious reflection and +ambition for high art come over me, but there is a fatality which dogs +my footsteps and always at the critical moment ruins my hopes.</p> + +<p>It is indeed strange how slight an incident may alter the +whole course of one's life, as will be seen from the following +instance, which I insert here although it took place some years +after the period to which I am now alluding.</p> + +<p>The scene was Antwerp, to which I was paying my first visit, +and where I was, like all artists, very much impressed and +delighted with the cathedral of the quaint old place. The afternoon +was merging into evening as I entered the sacred building, +and the broad amber rays of the setting sun glowed amid the +stately pillars and deepened the shadowy glamour of the solemn +aisles. As I gazed on the scene of grandeur I felt profoundly +moved by the picturesque effect, and the following morning +discovered me hard at work upon a most elaborate study of the +beautiful carved figures upon the confessional boxes. I had +just laid out my palette preparatory to painting that picture +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +which would of course make my name and fortune, when a +hoarse and terribly British guffaw at my elbow startled me, and +turning round I encountered some acquaintances to whom the +scene seemed to afford considerable amusement. One of them +was good enough to remark that to have come all the way to +Antwerp to find a caricaturist painting the confessional boxes +in the cathedral was certainly the funniest thing he had ever +heard of, and thereupon insisted upon dragging me off to dine + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img005.jpg" width="300" height="471" alt="MY FATHER" title="MY FATHER" /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 300px; ">MY FATHER</span> + +with him, a proposition to which I immediately assented, feeling far +more foolish than I could possibly have looked. I may add that as the +sun that evening dipped beneath the western horizon, so vanished the +visions of high art by which I had been inspired, and thus it is that +Michael Angelo Vandyck Correggio Raphael Furniss lies buried in Antwerp +Cathedral. Strangely enough I came across the following paragraph some +years afterwards: "The guides of Antwerp Cathedral point out a grotesque +in the wood carving of the choir which resembles almost exactly the head +of Mr. Gladstone, as depicted by Harry Furniss."</p> + +<p>My earliest recollections are altogether too modern to be of much +interest. Crimean heroes were veterans when they, as guests at my +father's table, fought their battles o'er again. The <i>Great Eastern</i> +steamship was quite an old white elephant of the sea when I, held up in +my nurse's arms, saw Brunel's blunder pass Greenore Point. I was hardly +eligible for "Etons" when our present King was married. When first taken +to church I was most interested, as standing on tiptoe on the seat in +our square family pew, and peering into the next pew, I saw a young +governess, at that moment the most talked-of woman in Great Britain, the +niece of the notorious poisoner Palmer. She +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +had just returned from the condemned cell, having made that scoundrel +confess his crime, and there was more pleasure in the sight than in +listening to the good old Rector Elgee who had christened me, or in +seeing his famous daughter the poetess "Speranza," otherwise known as +Lady Wilde.</p> + +<p>In the newspaper shop windows—always an attraction to me—the coloured +portrait of Garibaldi was fly-blown, the pictures of the great fight +between Sayers and Heenan were illustrations of ancient history, and in +the year I was born <i>Punch</i> published his twenty-sixth volume.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img006.jpg" width="300" height="471" alt="HARRY FURNISS, AGED 10." title="HARRY FURNISS, AGED 10." /> +<span class="caption">HARRY FURNISS, AGED 10.</span> +</div> + +<p>Leaving Wexford before the railway there was opened, my parents removed +to the metropolis of Ireland, and I went to school in Dublin at the age +of twelve. It was at the Wesleyan Connexional School, now known as the +Wesleyan College, St. Stephen's Green, that I struggled through my first +pages of Cæsar and stumbled over the "pons asinorum," and here I must +mention that although the Wesleyan College bears the name of the great +religious reformer, a considerable number of the boys who studied +there—myself included—were in no way connected with the +Wesleyan body. I merely say this because I have seen it stated more than +once that I am a Wesleyan, and as this little sketch professes to be an +authentic account of myself, I wish it to be correct, however trivial my +remarks may seem to the general reader. It is in the same spirit that I +have disclaimed the honour of being an Irishman.</p> + +<p>Once upon a time, when I was a very little boy, I remember being very +much impressed by a heading in my copybook which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> ran: "He who can +learn to write, can learn to draw." Now this was putting the cart before +the horse, so far as my experience had gone, for I could most certainly +draw before I could write, and had not only become an editor long before +I was fit to be a contributor, but was also a publisher before I had +even seen a printing press. In fact, I was but a little urchin in +knickerbockers when I brought out a periodical—in MS. it is +true—of which the ambitious title was "The Schoolboys' <i>Punch</i>." +The ingenuous simplicity with which I am universally credited by all who +know me now had not then, I fancy, obtained complete possession of me. I +must have been artful, designing, diplomatic, almost Machiavellian; for +anxious to curry favour with the head master of my school, I resolved to +use the columns of "The Schoolboys' <i>Punch</i>" not so much in the interest +of the schoolboy world as to attract the head master's favourable notice +to the editor.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, the first cartoon I drew for the paper was specially +designed with this purpose in view, and I need scarcely say it was +highly complimentary to the head master. He was represented in a +Poole-made suit of perfectly-fitting evening dress, and the trousers, I +remember, were particularly free from the slightest wrinkle, and must +have been extremely uncomfortable to the wearer. This tailorish +impossibility was matched by the tiny patent boots which encased the +great man's small and exquisitely moulded feet. I furnished him with a +pair of dollish light eyes, with long eyelashes carefully drawn in, and +as a masterstroke threw in the most taper-shaped waist.</p> + +<p>The subject of the picture, I flattered myself, was selected with no +little cleverness and originality. A celebrated conjuror who had +recently exposed the frauds of the Davenport Brothers was at the moment +creating a sensation in the town where the school was situated, and from +that incident I determined to draw my inspiration. The magnitude of the +design and the importance of the occasion seemed to demand a +double-paged cartoon. On one side I depicted a hopelessly scared little +schoolboy, not unlike myself at the time, tightly corded in a cabinet, +which represented the school, with trailing Latin roots, <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> heavy Greek exercises, and chains of +figures. The door, supposed to be closed on this distressing but +necessary situation, is observed in the opposite cartoon to be +majestically thrown open by the beaming and consciously successful head +master, in order to allow a young college student, the pink of +scholastic perfection, to step out, loaded with learning and academical +honours.</p> + +<p>"Great events from little causes spring!"—great, at least, to me. +So well was my juvenile effort received, that it is not too much to say +it decided my future career. Had my subtle flattery taken the shape of a +written panegyric upon the head master in lieu of a cartoon, it is +possible that I might, had I met with equal success, have devoted myself +to journalism and literature; but from that day forward I clung to the +pencil, and in a few years was regularly contributing "cartoons" to +public journals, and practising the profession I have ever since +pursued.</p> + +<p>Drawing, in fact, seemed to come to me naturally and intuitively. This +was well for me, for small indeed was the instruction I received. I +recollect that a German governess, who professed, among other things, to +teach drawing, undertook to cultivate my genius; but I derived little +benefit from her unique system, as it consisted in placing over the +paper the drawing to be copied, and pricking the leading points with a +pin, after which, the copy being removed, the lines were drawn from one +point to another. The copies were of course soon perforated beyond +recognition, and, although I warmly protested against this sacrilege of +art, she explained that it was by that system that Albert Dürer had been +taught. This, of course, accounts for our having infant prodigies in +art, as well as music and the drama. The rapidity with which Master +Hoffmann was followed by infantile Lizsts and little Otto Hegner as soon +as it became apparent that there was a demand for such phenomena, seems +to indicate that in music at all events supply will follow demand as a +matter of course, and if the infant artist can only be "crammed" in +daubing on canvas as youthful musicians are in playing on the piano, +then perhaps a new sensation is in store for the artistic world, and we +shall see babies executing replicas of the old masters, and the Infant +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> Slapdash painter painting the portraits of Society beauties. As a +welcome relief to Chopin's Nocturne in D flat, played by Baby Hegner at +St. James's Hall, we shall step across to Bond Street and behold "Le +Petit Américain" dashing off his "Nocturne" on canvas. I sometimes +wonder if I might have been made such an infant art prodigy, but when I +was a lad public taste was not in its second childhood in matters of art +patronage, nor was the forcing of children practised in the same manner +as it is nowadays.</p> + +<p>Naturally enough I did not altogether escape the thraldom of the +drawing-master, and as years went on I made a really serious effort to +study at an art school under the Kensington system, which I must confess +I believe to be positively prejudicial to a young artist possessing +imagination and originality. The late Lord Beaconsfield made one of his +characters in "Lothair" declare that "critics are those who have failed +in literature and art." Whether this is true as to the art critics, or +that the dramatic critic is generally a disappointed playwright, it must +in truth be said that drawing-masters are nearly always those who have +failed in art. I can remember one gentleman who was the especial terror +of my youth. I can see him now going his rounds along the chilly +corridor, where, perhaps, one had been placed to draw something "from +the flat." After years and years of practice at this rubbish, he would +halt beside you, look at your work in a perfunctory manner, and with a +dexterity which appalled you until you reflected that he had been doing +the same thing exactly, and nothing else, for perhaps a decade, he would +draw in a section of a leaf, and if, as in my case, you happened to have +a pretty sister attending the ladies' class in the school, he would add +leaf to leaf until your whole paper was covered with his mechanical +handiwork, in order to have a little extra conversation with you, +although, I need scarcely add, it was not exclusively confined to the +subject of art.</p> + +<p>This sort of thing was called "instruction in freehand drawing," and had +to be endured and persisted in for months and months. Freehand! Shade of +Apelles! What is there free in squinting and measuring, and feebly +touching in and fiercely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> rubbing out a collection of straggling +mechanical pencil lines on a piece of paper pinned on to a hard board, +which after a few weeks becomes nothing but a confused jumble of +fingermarks?</p> + +<p>Had I an Art School I would treat my students according to their +individual requirements, just as a doctor treats his patients. I am led +here to repeat what I have already observed in one of my lectures, that +for the young the pill of knowledge should be silver-coated, and that +while they are being instructed they should also be amused. In other +words, interest your pupils, do not depress them. Giotto did not begin +by rigidly elaborating a drawing of the crook of his shepherd's staff +for weeks together; his drawings upon the sand and upon the flat stones +which he found on the hillsides are said to have been of the picturesque +sheep he tended, and all the interesting and fascinating objects that +met his eye. Then, when his hand had gained practice, he was able to +draw that perfect circle which he sent to the Pope as a proof of his +command of hand. But the truth is that we begin at the wrong end, and +try to make our boys draw a perfect circle before they are in love with +drawing at all. For my part, I had to endure some weeks of weary +struggling with a cone and ball and other chilly objects, the effect of +which was to fill my mind with an overwhelming sense of the dreariness +of art education under the Kensington system. A short time, therefore, +sufficed to disgust me with the Art School, and I preferred to stay at +home caricaturing my relatives, educating myself, and practising alone +the rudiments of my art.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img011.jpg" width="500" height="325" alt="A CARICATURE, MADE WHEN A BOY" title="A CARICATURE, MADE WHEN A BOY" /> +<span class="caption">A CARICATURE, MADE WHEN A BOY (NEVER PUBLISHED). DUBLIN EXHIBITION. PORTRAIT OF SIR A. GUINNESS<br /> +(NOW LORD IVEAGH) IN CENTRE.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> + +<p>Early in my teens, however, I was invited to join the Life School of the +Hibernian Academy, as there happened to be a paucity of students at that +institution, and in order to secure the Government grant it was +necessary to bring them up to the required number. But here also there +was no idea of proper teaching. Some fossilised member of the Academy +would stand about roasting his toes over the stove. A recollection of a +fair specimen of the body still haunts me. He used to roll round the +easels, and you became conscious of his approaching presence by an aroma +of onions. I believe he was a landscape painter, and saw no more beauty +in the female form divine than in a haystack. It was his custom to take +up a huge piece of charcoal and come down upon one of your delicately +drawn pencil lines of a figure with a terrible stroke about an inch +wide.</p> + +<p>"There, me boy," he would exclaim, "that's what it wants," and walk on, +leaving you in doubt upon which side of the line you had drawn he +intended his alteration to come.</p> + +<p>I soon decided to have my own models and study for myself, and this +practice I have maintained to the present day. I really don't know what +Mrs. Grundy would have said if she had known that at this early age I +was drawing Venuses from the life, instead of tinting the illustrations +to "Robinson Crusoe" or "Gulliver's Travels" in my playroom at home.</p> + +<p>Few imagine that a caricaturist requires models to draw from. Although I +will not further digress at this point, I may perhaps be pardoned if I +return later on in this book to the explanation of my <i>modus +operandi</i>—a subject which, if I may judge from the number of +letters I receive about it, is likely to prove of interest to a large +number of my readers.</p> + +<p>It was when I was still quite a boy that my first great chance came. +Being in Dublin, I was asked one day by my friend the late Mr. A. M. +Sullivan to make some illustrations for a paper called <i>Zozimus</i>, of +which he was the editor and founder. As a matter of fact, <i>Zozimus</i> was +the Irish <i>Punch</i>. Mr. Sullivan, who was a Nationalist, and a man of +exceptional energy and ability, began life as an artist. He came to +Dublin, I was told, as a very young man, and began to paint; but the +sails of his ships were pronounced to be far too yellow, the seas on +which the vessels floated were derided as being far too green, while the +skies above them were scoffed at as being far too blue. In these adverse +circumstances, then, the artist soon drifted into journalism, and, +inducing his brothers to join him in his new venture, thenceforth took +up the pen and abandoned the brush. Each member of the family became a +well-known figure in Parliamentary life. Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet of +the Irish <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Party, is still a well-known figure in the world of +politics; but my friend Mr. A. M. Sullivan, who died some years ago, +belonged rather to the more moderate <i>régime</i> which prevailed in the +Irish Party during the leadership of Mr. Butt.</p> + +<p>At the time when I first made his acquaintance he was the editor and +moving spirit of the <i>Nation</i>. It was a curious office, and I can recall +many whom I first met there who have since come more or less prominently +to the front in public life. There was Mr. Sexton, whom my friend "Toby" +has since christened "Windbag Sexton" in his Parliamentary reports. Mr. +Sexton then presided over the scissors and paste department of the +journals owned by Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and, unlike the posing orator he +afterwards became, was at that early stage of his career of a very +modest and retiring disposition. Mr. Leamy also, I think, was connected +with the staff, while Mr. Dennis Sullivan superintended the sale of the +papers in the publishing department.</p> + +<p>But the central figure in the office was unquestionably the editor and +proprietor, Mr. A. M. Sullivan. His personality was of itself +remarkable. Possessed of wonderful energy and nerve, he was a confirmed +teetotaller, and his prominent eyes, beaming with intelligence, seemed +almost to be starting from his head as, intent upon some project, he +darted about the office, ever and anon checking his erratic movements to +give further directions to his subordinates, when he had a funny habit +of placing his hand on his mouth and blowing his moustache through his +fingers, much to the amusement of his listeners, and to my astonishment, +as I stood modestly in a corner of the editorial sanctum observing with +awe the great Mr. Sexton, who, amid the distractions of scissors and +paste, would drawl out a sentence or two in a voice strongly resembling +the sarcastic tones of Mr. Labouchere.</p> + +<p>In another part of the office sat Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet +aforesaid, who, like his brother, is a genial and kindly man at heart, +although possessing the volcanic temperament characteristic of his +family. There he sat—a poet with a large family—his hair +dishevelled, his trousers worked by excitement halfway up <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> his calves, emitting various +stertorous sounds after the manner of his brother, as he savagely tore +open the recently-arrived English newspapers. Such was the interior of +the office of the <i>Nation</i>, the representative organ of the most +advanced type of the National Press of Ireland.</p> + +<p>But <i>Zozimus</i>, the paper to which I was then contributing, had nothing +in common with the rest of the publications issuing from that office. It +was of a purely social character, and was a praiseworthy attempt to do +something of a more artistic nature than the coarsely-conceived and +coarsely-executed National cartoons which were the only specimens of +illustrative art produced in Ireland. Fortunately for me, there was an +effort made in Dublin just then to produce a better class of +publications, and the result was that I began to get fairly busy, +although it was merely a wave of artistic energy, which did not last +long, but soon subsided into that dead level of mediocrity which does +not appear likely to be again disturbed.</p> + +<p>I was now in my seventeenth year, and, intent on making as much hay as +possible the while the sun shone, I accepted every kind of work that was +offered me; and a strange medley it was. Religious books, medical works, +scientific treatises, scholastic primers and story books afforded in +turn illustrative material for my pencil. One week I was engaged upon +designs for the most advanced Catholic and Jesuitical manuals, and the +next upon similar work for a Protestant prayer-book. At one moment it +seemed as if I were destined to achieve fame as an artist of the +ambulance corps and the dissecting-room. One of my earliest +dreams—which I attribute to the fact that my eldest brother, with +whom I had much in common, was a doctor—had been to adopt the +medical profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for +caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical +student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital +lecture-room with pictorial <i>jeux d'esprit</i> of a livelier cast than +those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses of the +learned Mr. Sawbones.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; "> +<img src="images/img016.jpg" width="550" height="372" alt="AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION ON WOOD BY HARRY FURNISS" title="AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION ON WOOD BY HARRY FURNISS" /> +<span class="caption">AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION ON WOOD BY HARRY FURNISS. PARTLY +ENGRAVED BY HIM.</span> +</div> + +<p>I remember that about this period a leading surgeon was +anxious that I should devote myself to the pursuit of this +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +anything but pleasant form of art, and seriously proposed that I +should draw and paint for him some of his surgical cases. I +accepted his offer without hesitation, and, burning to distinguish +myself as an anatomical expert with the brush, I gave instruction +to our family butcher to send me, as a model to study from, a +kidney, which was to be the acme of goriness and as repulsive in +appearance as possible. Of this piece of uncooked meat I made +a quite pre-Raphaelite study in water-colours, but so realistic +was the result that the effect it had upon me was the very +antithesis to what I anticipated, disgusting me to such an extent +that I not only declined to pursue further anatomical illustration, +but for years afterwards was quite unable to touch a kidney, +although I believe that had I selected a calf's head or a sucking-pig +for my maiden effort in this direction, I might by now have +blossomed into a Rembrandt or a Landseer.</p> + +<p>Amongst other incidents which occurred during this period of +my life was one which it now almost makes me shudder to think +of. I was commissioned by no less a personage than the late +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +Mr. Pigott, of Parnell Commission notoriety, to illustrate for +him a story of the broadest Irish humour. Little did I think +when I entered his office in Abbey Street, Dublin, and had an +interview with the genial and pleasant-looking little man with +the eye-glass, that he would one day play so prominent a <i>rôle</i> in +the Parliamentary drama, or that the weak little arm he extended +to me was destined years afterwards to be the instrument of a +tragedy. I can truly say, at all events, my recollection as a boy +of sixteen of the great <i>Times</i> forger is by no means unfavourable, +and he dwells in my memory as one of the most pleasant and +genial of men. I ought, perhaps, to say that in feeling I was +anything but a Nationalist, because in Ireland, generally speaking, +you must be either black or white. But like a lawyer +who takes his brief from every source, I never studied who my +clients were when they required my juvenile services.</p> + +<p>Although I was not of Irish parentage and did not lean +towards Nationalism in politics, it was necessary to sympathise +now and then with the down-trodden race. For instance, +I remember that one evening a respectable-looking mechanic +called at my fathers house and requested to see me. His +manner was strange and mysterious, and as he wanted to +see me alone, I took him into an anteroom, where, with my +hand on the door handle and the other within easy distance of +the bell, I asked the excitable-looking stranger the nature of his +business. Pulling from his pocket a roll of one-pound Irish +bank-notes, he thrust them into my hand, and besought me at +the same time not to refuse the request he was about to make. +An idea flashed through my mind that perhaps he had seen me +coming out of the offices of the National Press, and had jumped +to the conclusion that I could therefore be bought over to +perpetrate some terrible political crime. I even imagined that +in the roll of notes I should find the knife with which the fell +deed had to be done. Seeing that I shrank from him, he seized +hold of my arm, and, in a most pitiable voice, said:</p> + +<p>"Don't, young sorr, refuse me what I am about to ask you. +I'm only a working man, but here are all my savings, which you +may take if you will just dhraw me a picter to be placed at the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +top of a complete set of photographs of our Irish leaders. I +want Britannia at the head of the group, a bastely dhrunken old +hag, wid her fut on the throat of the beautiful Erin, who is to +be bound hand and fut wid chains, and being baten and starved. +Thin I want prisons at the sides, showing the grand sons of Ould +Oireland dying in their cells by torture, whilst a fine Oirish +liberator wid dhrawn sword is just on the point of killing +Britannia outright, and so saving his disthressful country."</p> + +<p>About this time someone had been good enough to inform me +that all black and white artists are in the habit of engraving +their own work, and, religiously believing this, I duly provided +myself with some engraving tools, bought some boxwood, a +jeweller's eye-glass, and a sand bag, without which no engraver's +table can be said to be complete.</p> + +<p>Then, setting to work to practise the difficult art, I struggled +on as best I could, until one fine day a professional engraver +enlightened me upon the matter. I need scarcely say he went +into fits of laughter when I told him that every artist was +expected to be a Bewick, and he pointed out to me that not only +do artists as a rule know very little about engraving, but in +addition they have often only a limited knowledge of how to +draw for engravers.</p> + +<p>However, thinking I should better understand the difficulties +of drawing for publishers if I first mastered the technical art of +reproduction, with the assistance of the engraver aforesaid I +rapidly acquired sufficient dexterity with the tools to engrave +my own drawings, and this I continued to do until I left Dublin, +at the age of nineteen. Since then I have never utilised one of +my gravers, except to pick a lock or open a box of sardines. +Nor is this to be wondered at, considering that one can make a +drawing in an hour which takes a week to engrave, and that an +engraver may take five guineas for his share of the work whilst +an artist may get fifty. There is very little doubt, therefore, as +to the reason why artists who can draw refrain from engraving +their own work.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px; "> +<img src="images/img019.jpg" width="387" height="550" alt="SKETCHES IN GALWAY." title="SKETCHES IN GALWAY." /> +<span class="caption">SKETCHES IN GALWAY.<br /> +<i>Republished by permission of the proprietors of the "Illustrated London News."</i></span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the studio of the engraver to whom I have above referred +there hung a huge map of London, and as I used to pore over it +I took many an imaginary walk down Fleet Street, many a +canter in the Row, and many a voyage to Greenwich on a penny +steamboat, before I bade adieu to "dear dirty Dublin" in the +year 1873, and, as many have done before me, arrived in the +"little village" in search of fame and wealth.</p> + +<p>Just prior to my leaving Ireland for the land of my parents I +met no less an editor than Tom Taylor, who was then the presiding +genius of the <i>Punch</i> table, and he gave me every +encouragement to hasten my migration. He, however, had just +returned from the wilds of Connemara, and before setting my +face in the direction of Holyhead he strongly advised me also to +pay a visit to the trackless wastes of the Western country, for the +purpose of committing to paper the lineaments of the natives +indigenous to the soil. This I did a week or so before quitting +the land of my birth, and the sketches I made upon that +occasion formed part of my stock-in-trade when I arrived in +London.</p> + +<p>After making the accompanying page of studies, I strolled +along the bank of the river; and while sketching some men +breaking stones an incident happened which first aroused me +to the fact that the lot of the sketching artist is not always +a happy one. A fiend in human shape—an overbearing overseer—came +up at the moment, and roundly abused the poor +labourers for taking the "base Saxon's" coin. Inciting them to +believe that I was a special informer from London, he laughed +on my declaring that I was merely a novice, and informed me +that I ought to be "dhrounded." He was about to suit the +action to the word and pitch me into the salmon-stuffed river +when he was stopped by the mediation of my models, and I +escaped from the grip of the agitator. In due course I found +myself in the Claddagh, a village of mud huts, which formed +the frontispiece by John Leech to "A Little Tour in Ireland" +by "An Oxonian," "a village of miserable cabins, the walls of +mud and stone, and for the most part windowless, the floors +damp and dirty, and the roofs a mass of rotten straw and +weeds." Pigs and fowls mixed up with boats and fish refuse. +Women old, dried and ugly; girls young, dark, of Spanish type, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +scantily dressed in bright-coloured short garments, all tattered +and torn; and children grotesque beyond description. I sketch +three members of one family clothed (!) in the three articles of +attire discarded by their father—one claimed the coat, another +the trousers, whilst the third had only a waistcoat. No doubt +Leech had seen the same sixteen years before, when he was +there; and if "the Oxonian," who survives him—Canon Hole, of +Rochester—were to make another little tour in Ireland, he would +find the Claddagh still a spot to give an Englishman "a new +sensation." All I can say is, that having escaped a "dhrouning" +in the river when in Galway in 1873, I have visited many +countries and seen much filth and misery, but I have seen +nothing approaching the sad squalor of the wild West of Ireland.</p> + +<p>The majority of those I sketched were hardly human. Tom +Taylor was right—"I would find such characters there not to be +found in all the world over," and I haven't. The people got on +my overstrung youthful nerves. I left the country the moment +I had sufficient material for my sketches. I had shaken off the +unpleasant feeling of being murdered in the river. I had survived +living a week or two in the worst inns in the world. +I had risked typhoid and every other disease fostered by the +insanitary surroundings—for I had to hide myself in narrow +turnings and obnoxious corners so as to sketch unseen, as the +religion of the natives opposed any attempt to have themselves +"dhrawn," believing that the destruction of their "pictur'" +would be fatal to their souls! I had sketched the famous house +in Deadman's Lane—and listened as I sketched it, in the falling +shades of night, to the old, old story of Fitz-Stephen the Warden, +who had lived there, and had in virtue of his office to assist at +the hanging of his own son. And, when in the dark I was +strolling back to my hotel, my reflections were suddenly interrupted +by something powerful seizing me in a grip of iron round +my leg. I was held as in a vice, and could hardly move, by +what—a huge dog—a wolf? No, something heavier; something +more hideous; something clothed! As I dragged it under a lamp +I saw revealed a huge head, covered by a black skull cap—a +man's head—a dwarf, muttering in Irish something I could not +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +understand—except one word, "Judy! Judy! Judy!" It was +a woman of extraordinary strength thus clasped on to me. I +dragged her to the hotel door, where I engaged an interpreter in +the shape of the "boots," and made a bargain with "Judy" to +release me on my giving her one shilling, and to sit to me for +this sketch for half-a-crown. I have still a lively recollection of +the vice-like grip.</p> + +<p>My friend who had introduced me to the editor of <i>Punch</i> was a prominent +city official, and entertainer in chief of all men of talent from + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img023.jpg" width="250" height="435" alt="JUDY, THE GALWAY DWARF." title="JUDY, THE GALWAY DWARF." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 250px; ">"JUDY," THE GALWAY DWARF.</span> + +London, and was also, like Tom Taylor, an author and dramatist; and when +I was a boy I illustrated one of his first stories. He also introduced +me behind the scenes at the old Theatre Royal. I recollect my boyish +delight when one day I was on the stage during the rehearsal of the +Italian opera. Shall I ever forget that treat? It was much greater in my +eyes than the real performance later on. If my memory serves, "Don +Giovanni" was the opera. One of the principals was suddenly taken ill, +and this rehearsal was called for the benefit of the understudy. He was +a dumpy, puffy little Italian, and played the heavy father. Madame +Titiens was—well—the heavy daughter. In the first scene she has to +throw herself upon her prostrate father. This is the incident I saw +rehearsed: the little fat father lay on the dusty stage, with one eye on +the O.P. side. As soon as the massive form of Titiens bore down upon him +he rolled over and over out of the way. This pantomime highly amused all +of us, the ever-jovial Titiens in particular, and she again and again +rushed laughingly in, but with the same result.</p> + +<p>The first actor I ever saw perform was Phelps, in "The Man of +the World." If anything could disillusionise a youth regarding +the romance of the theatre, that play surely would. Be it to +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> +my credit that my first impression was admiration for a fine—if +dull—performance. From that day I have been a constant +theatre-goer. If I am to believe the following anecdote, published +in a Dublin paper a few years ago, I "did the theatre in +style," and had an early taste which I did not possess for +making jokes.</p> + +<p>"The jarvey drove Harry Furniss, when a boy, down to the +old Theatre Royal, Dublin. On the way there Jehu enquired of +the budding artist whether it was true that the roof was provided +with a tank whence every part of the building could be deluged, +shower-bath fashion, if necessary. 'Yes,' replied Raphael +junior; 'and, you see, I always bring +an umbrella in case of fire.'"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img024.jpg" width="200" height="231" alt="PHELPS, THE FIRST ACTOR I SAW." title="PHELPS, THE FIRST ACTOR I SAW." /> +<span class="caption">PHELPS, THE FIRST ACTOR I SAW.</span> +</div> + +<p>I may confess that I have only once appeared in theatricals, and that +was in high comedy as a member of the Dublin Amateur Theatrical Society. +The play was "She Stoops to Conquer," and I took the part +of—think!—<i>Mrs.</i> Hardcastle. I was only seventeen, and very small for +my age, so I owe any success I may have made to the costumier and +wig-maker. The Tony Lumpkin was so excellent that he adopted the stage +as his profession, and became a very popular comedian; and our Diggory +is now a judge—"and a good judge too"—in the High Court.</p> + +<p>It was on a bright, breezy morning late in July, 1873, I shook +the dust of "dear dirty Dublin" off my feet. With the exception +of the Welsh railways, the Irish are notoriously the slowest +in the world, and on that particular morning the mail train +seemed to my impatient mind to progress pig-ways. The engine +was attached to the rear of the train and faced the station, so +that when it began to pull it was only the "parvarsity in the +baste" caused it to go in the opposite direction, towards Kingstown, +in an erratic, spasmodic, and uncertain fashion, so that the +eight miles journey seemed to me eighty. It was quite a tedious +journey to Salthill and Blackrock. At the latter station I saw +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +for the last time the porter famous for being the slave of habit. For +years it had been his duty to call out the name of the station, +"Blackrock! Blackrock! Blackrock!" In due course he was removed to +Salthill station, on the same line, and well do I remember how he +puzzled many a Saxon tourist by his calling out continually, +"Blackrock—Salthill-I-mane! Blackrock—Salthill-I-mane!" No doubt the + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img025.jpg" width="300" height="488" alt="MRS. HARDCASTLE. MR. HARRY FURNISS." title="MRS. HARDCASTLE. MR. HARRY FURNISS." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 300px; ">MRS. HARDCASTLE. MR. HARRY FURNISS,<br /> +FROM AN EARLY SKETCH.</span> + +traveller put this chronic absent-mindedness down to "Irish humour." I +must confess that I agree in a great measure with the opinion of the +late T. W. Robertson (author of "Caste," "School," &c.), that the +witticisms of Irish carmen and others are the ingenious inventions of +Charles Lever, Samuel Lover, William Carleton, and other educated men.</p> + +<p>Dickens failed to see Irish humour, or in fact to understand what was +meant by it. So when he was on tour with his readings a friend of mine, +who was his host, in the North, undertook to initiate him into the +mysteries of Irish wit. As a sample he gave Dickens the following: A +definition of nothing,—a footless stocking without a leg. This conveyed +nothing whatever to the mind of the greatest of English humourists; but +when my friend took him to a certain spot and showed him a wall built +round a vacant space, and explained to him that the native masons were +instructed to build a wall round an old ruined church to protect it, and +pulled down the church for the material to build the wall, he laughed +heartily, and acknowledged the Irish had a sense of humour after +all,—if not, a quaint absence of it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> + +<p>To me so-called Irish wit is a curious combination not wholly +dependent on humour, and frequently unconscious. There is a +story that when Mr. Beerbohm Tree arrived in Dublin he was +received by a crowd of his admirers, and jumping on to a car +said to his jarvey, "Splendid reception that, driver!"</p> + +<p>The jarvey thought a moment, and replied, "Maybe ye +think so, but begorrah, it ain't a patch on the small-pox scare!" +Was that <i>meant</i>?</p> + +<p>The poor Saxon "towrist"—what he may suffer in the +Emerald Isle! There is a story on record of three Irishmen +rushing away from the race meeting at Punchestown to catch +a train back to Dublin. At the moment a train from a long +distance pulled up at the station, and the three men scrambled +in. In the carriage was seated one other passenger. As soon +as they had regained their breath, one said:</p> + +<p>"Pat, have you got th' tickets?"</p> + +<p>"What tickets? I've got me loife; I thought I'd have lost +that gettin' in th' thrain. Have you got 'em, Moike?"</p> + +<p>"Oi, begorrah, I haven't."</p> + +<p>"Oh, we're all done for thin," said the third. "They'll charge +us roight from the other soide of Oireland."</p> + +<p>The old gentleman looked over his newspaper and said:</p> + +<p>"You are quite safe, gintlemen; wait till we get to the next +station."</p> + +<p>They all three looked at each other. "Bedad, he's a +directhor,—we're done for now entoirely."</p> + +<p>But as soon as the train pulled up the little gentleman +jumped out and came back with three first-class tickets. Handing +them to the astonished strangers, he said, "Whist, I'll tell ye +how I did it. I wint along the thrain—'Tickets plaze, tickets +plaze,' I called, and these belong to three Saxon towrists in +another carriage."</p> + +<p>On the morning I left Ireland to seek my fortune in London +I had a youthful notion that, once on the mainland of my +parents' country, St. Paul's and the smoke of London would be +visible; but we had passed through the Menai tunnel, grazed +Conway Castle walls, and skirted miles of the Welsh rock-bound +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +coast, and yet no St. Paul's was visible to my naked eye which +was plastered against the window-pane of the carriage. The +other eye, clothed and in its right mind, inspected the carriage +and discovered that there were two other occupants—a lady and +her maid. These interesting passengers had recovered from the +effects of the Channel passage, and were eating their lunch. +The lady politely offered me some sandwiches. "No, thanks," +I replied; "I shall lunch in London." This reminds me of a +story I heard when I was in America, of two young English +ladies arriving at New York. They immediately entered the +Northern Express at the West Central. About 7 o'clock in the +evening they arrived at Niagara—half an hour or so is given to +the passengers to alight and look at the wonderful Falls. The +gentleman who told me the story informed me that as the two +ladies were getting back into the carriage he asked them if they +were going to dine at once. They, ignorant of the vastness of +the "gre—e—at country Amuraka," replied, "Oh, no, thanks, +we are going to dine with our friends when we arrive. It +can't be long now, we have been travelling so fast all the +day!"</p> + +<p>"And may I ask, young ladies, where your friends +live?"</p> + +<p>"We are going to an uncle who has been taken suddenly ill +in San Francisco."</p> + +<p>These young ladies would have had to wait certainly five +days for their dinner,—I only five hours.</p> + +<p>The strange lady and I conversed a great deal on various +topics. By degrees she discovered that I was a young artist, +friendless, and on his way to the great city to battle with +fortune. I may have told her of my history, of my youthful +ambitions and my professional plans,—anyway she told me of +hers, and, while her maid was lazily slumbering, she confessed +to me her troubles.</p> + +<p>"My story," she said, "is a sad one. I am of good family, +and I married a well-known professional London man. He +turned out to be a gambler, and ran through my money, and I +returned to my parents. I have left them this morning again, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +and, like you, I am now on my way to London to start in life, +and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance +is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly +handsome, a refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, +I am also fortunate in having a good voice, it is +well-trained, and I am going to London to sing as a paid +professional in the houses in which I have formerly been a +guest."</p> + +<p>I sympathised with her, and she continued, weeping, to +relate to me events of her unhappy married life until we arrived +at Euston. I saw her and her maid into a four-wheeler, and I +saw their luggage on the top. She gave me her card with her +parents' address in London written on it, and requested that I +would write to her at that address, as she would like to hear +how I got on in London. I never saw her again. But I did +write home, and found there was such a lady, her family were +well-known society people in Ireland, and that her marriage had +not been a happy one.</p> + +<p>After three years in London I ran over to Ireland to see +my parents. On my return I seemed to miss the charming +companion of my journey over the same ground three years +previously. Two uninteresting men were in the carriage: a +typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a +typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey +was a long one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to +sleep, and after some hours the other man and I exchanged a +word. The fact is I thought I knew his face,—I told him so. +He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to school together?" +"No." He was at least ten years my senior. It happened he +had been to school with my half-brother (my father was married +twice,—I am the youngest son of his second family). We +chatted freely about each other's family and on various topics, +including the sleeping Teuton in the corner. I incidentally +mentioned my last journey. The lady interested him, so I told +him of the way in which she confessed to me. I waxed +eloquent over her wrongs. He got still more excited as I +described her husband as she described him to me; and as the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +train rolled into Euston, he said, "Well, you know who I am, I +know who you are,—I'll tell you one thing more: that woman's +story is perfectly true—I'm her husband!"</p> + +<p>That was one of the most extraordinary coincidences which ever happened +to me. Three years after meeting the wife, over the same journey, at the +same time of the year, I meet the husband; and I had never been the +journey in the meantime.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<h3>BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">I arrive in London—A Rogue and Vagabond—Two Ladies—Letters of +Introduction—Bohemia—A Distinguished Member—My Double—A +Rara Avis—The Duke of Broadacres—The Savages—A Souvenir—Portraits +of the Past—J. L. Toole—Art and Artists—Sir Spencer +Wells—John Pettie—Milton's Garden.<br /><br /></p></div> + +<p>I did not make my appearance in London with merely the proverbial +half-crown in my pocket, nor was I breathlessly expectant to find the + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img030.jpg" width="200" height="264" alt="CARICATURE OF MYSELF." title="CARICATURE OF MYSELF." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 200px; ">CARICATURE OF MYSELF,<br /> +DRAWN WHEN I FIRST<br /> +ARRIVED IN LONDON.</span> + +streets paved with gold. Thanks chiefly to my savings in Dublin, my +balance at my bankers' was sufficient to keep me for at least a year, +and as soon as the editors returned from their summer holidays I was +fortunate enough to procure commissions, which have been pouring in +pretty steadily ever since.</p> + +<p>It was with a strange feeling that I found myself for the first time in +London, among four millions of people, with not one of whom I could +claim acquaintance, and I think it will not be out of place if I here +offer a hint which may possibly be of use to other young men who are +placed in similar circumstances. Upon first coming to the metropolis, +then, let them invariably act, in as much as it is possible, as if they +were Londoners old and seasoned. To stand gazing at St. Paul's with +mouth agape and eyes astare, or to enquire your way to the National +Gallery or Madame Tussaud's, is a sure means of finding yourself ere +long <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> in the hands of the unscrupulous and designing. For my +part, as I took my first admiring peep at the masterpiece of Sir +Christopher, I whistled to myself with an air of nonchalance, and as I +passed down Fleet Street I made a point of nodding familiarly to the +passers-by as if I were already a frequent <i>habitué</i> of the thoroughfare +of letters. Did I find myself accosted by any particularly ingenuous +stranger asking his way, I always promptly told him to go on as straight +as ever he could go—a piece of advice which, coming from one so young, +I think was highly proper and creditable, whatever may have proved its +value in some cases from a topographical point of view. On the other +hand, the following incident will serve to show the prudence of +exercising due caution in addressing strangers oneself.</p> + +<p>Upon the evening of my arrival in the big city I had dined at the London +Restaurant, which was situate at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet +Street, in the premises now occupied by Messrs. Partridge and Cooper +(the name of this firm must not be taken as an indication of the nature +of my repast), and, fired with the curiosity of youth, I mounted the +knifeboard of an omnibus bound for Hyde Park. Arrived at the famous +statue of Wellington astride the impossible horse which has since ambled +off to the seclusion of Aldershot, and which at once recalled to my mind +the inimitable drawings of that infamous quadruped by John Leech, an +artist who had done as much to familiarise me with London scenes and +characters with his pencil as had Dickens with the pen, I happened to +ask a sturdy artisan who was sitting beside me whether this was Hyde +Park Corner.</p> + +<p>"'Ide Park!" he muttered. "'Oo are you a-tryin' ter git at? 'Ide Park! +None o' yer 'anky panky with me, my covey!"</p> + +<p>I forthwith slipped off that 'bus, not a little nettled that the first +person to whom I had spoken in London should have taken me for a rogue +and a vagabond.</p> + +<p>I had been fortunate enough to secure quarters which had been +recommended to me in a comfortable boarding-house in one of the +old-fashioned Inns in Holborn—Thavies' Inn—in which, I <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>was informed, whether accurately or +not I do not pretend to know, the Knight Templars of old had once +resided. There were no Knight Templars there when I arrived, but in +their stead I found some highly-proper and non-belligerent clerics with +their wives and families, and other visitors from the country, who +seemed very satisfied with the comfortable provision that was made for +them. But, best of all, I found a hostess who soon became one of the +kindest and best of friends I ever had, and although I at once engaged a +studio in the neighbouring artistic quarter of Newman Street, I +continued for some time to live in Thavies' Inn in the enjoyment of the +pleasant society and many advantages of her pleasant home.</p> + +<p>Not the least of these to me was the perfect gallery of characters who +were continually coming and going, and the many and various studies I +made of the different visitors to that boarding-house long supplied me +with ample material for my sketch-book.</p> + +<p>I should be ungallant indeed were I to omit to add that not only was it +a lady who first made me feel at home amid the bustle and turmoil of +Modern Babylon, but that it was also a lady who primarily welcomed me as +a contributor to the Press and gave me my first work in London. +Curiously enough, both of these ladies possessed points of resemblance, +not only in person, but in manner and goodness of heart. It was Miss +Florence Marryat, then editress of <i>London Society</i>, who gave me my +first commission, and I am more anxious to record the fact because I am +aware that many a youthful journalist besides myself owed his first +introduction to the public to the sympathy and enterprise of this +accomplished lady. Perhaps I have less to grumble at personally than +most others concerning the treatment which, as a young man, I +experienced at the hands of editors; but I must say that the majority of +such potentates with whom I then came in contact lamentably lacked that +readiness to welcome new-comers which Miss Florence Marryat notably, and +possibly too readily, evinced. Here I may offer a hint to +beginners—that on coming to London letters of introduction are of +little or no value. One such letter I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> possessed, and it led me +into more trouble, and was the means of my losing more time, than I +should ever have received recompense for, even if it had obtained me the +work which it was intended to bring me.</p> + +<p>In the first place, these letters often get into the hands of others +than the particular individuals to whom they are addressed. In my case +the letter had been inadvertently directed to the literary editor +instead of to the art editor of one of the largest publishing firms, and +that gentleman—I refer to the literary editor—was good enough to +supply me with a quantity of work. I executed the commission, but, lo +and behold! when I sent the work in, the monster Red Tape intervened in +the person of the art editor, who became scarlet with rage because he +had not been invoked instead of his colleague, and promptly repudiated +the entire contract. Thereupon the literary editor wrote to me saying +that unless I withdrew my contributions he would be personally out of +pocket; and it may not be uninteresting to record that some day, when I +strip this amongst my other mummies, it will be found that he +subsequently became a wearer of lawn sleeves. Thus, whilst the two +editors quarrelled between themselves, I was left out in the cold, and +became a considerable loser over the transaction.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> of letters of introduction, I am reminded of a brother +artist, who, although a caricaturist, was entirely devoid of guile, and, +in addition, was as absent-minded as the popularly-accepted type of +ardent scientist or professor of ultra-abstruse subject. Well, this +curious species of satirist was setting forth on travels in foreign +climes, and in order to lighten in some measure the vicissitudes +inseparable from peripatetic wandering, he was provided with a letter of +introduction to a certain British consul. The writer of this letter +enclosed it in one to my friend, in which he said that he would find the +consul a most arrant snob, and a bumptious, arrogant humbug as well—in +fact, a cad to the backbone; but that he (my friend) was not to mind +this, for, as he could claim acquaintanceship with several dukes and +duchesses, all he had to do was to trot out their names for the +edification of the consul, who would then render him every <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> attention, and thus compensate him +to some extent for having to come into contact with such an insufferable +vulgarian. On the return of the guileless satirist to England the writer +of the letter of introduction inquired how he had fared with the consul, +and great was his surprise to hear him drawl out, in his habitual +lethargic manner:</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear fellow, he did not receive me very warmly, and he did not +ask me to dinner. In fact, he struck me as being rather cool."</p> + +<p>"Well, you do surprise me!" rejoined his friend. "He's a horrible cad, +as I told you in my letter, but he's awfully hospitable, and I really +can't understand what you tell me. You gave him my letter of +introduction?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I thought so," said my friend; "but, do you know, on my journey +home I discovered it in my pocket-book, so I must have handed him +instead your note to me about him!"</p> + +<p>Of course, in the remarks which I have been making I have not been +alluding to letters of merely social introduction, which are of an +entirely different nature. Such letters are generally handed to the +individual to whom they are addressed at more propitious moments, when +he is not either hard at work, as the case may be, in his editorial +chair, or overburdened with anxiety as to the fluctuations of the Bank +rate.</p> + +<p>Be that as it may, I cannot refrain from citing here the case of another +brother artist, who was particular in the extreme as regarded the +neatness of his apparel and his personal appearance in general; in fact, +he laboured, rightly or wrongly, under the impression that the manner in +which a letter of introduction is received and acted upon by the person +to whom it is addressed depends upon the raiment and <i>tout ensemble</i> of +the bearer.</p> + +<p>Well, it so happened that he once had a letter of introduction to a man +he particularly wished to know, but, of all places in the world, fate +had designed that he should have no choice but to deliver it in the +boring of the Channel Tunnel, where the dripping roof rendered it +necessary for all visitors to be encased from head to foot in the vilest +and most unbecoming tarpaulin overalls. It was in these circumstances, +then, that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> the introduction took place, and as nothing came of +it, my friend will now go to his grave in the firm belief that fine +feathers make fine birds in the eyes of all those who receive letters of +introduction.</p> + + +<p>The first Bohemian Club I joined was located over Gaze's Tourist Offices +in the Strand. Nearly my first engagement in London was for a still +flourishing sixpenny weekly. Started in Wellington Street, close by, the +editorial offices were there certainly, but editor, proprietors, and +others were not. They were only to be found in "the Club," so through +necessity I became a member. + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img035.jpg" width="350" height="347" alt="AGE 20." title="AGE 20." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 350px; ">AGE 20.<br /> +[<i>From a photo. by W. & D. Downey.</i>]</span> + +The flowing bowl of that iniquitous concoction, punch, was brewed for +the staff early in the afternoon and kept flowing till early the next +morning. The "Club" never closed day or night till the broker's man took +possession and closed it for good. I, being young and unknown, was +surprised to find myself an object of attraction whenever I was in the +Club. There was something strange about me, something mysterious. This +was so marked that my brief visits to find my editor were few and far +between. I discovered afterwards that the curiosity and attention paid +me had nothing to do with my work, or my personal appearance, or my +natural shyness or youth. It was aroused by the fact that I was known as +"the member who had paid his subscription!"</p> + +<p>This fact being noised abroad. I found it an easy matter to get elected +to another and a better Bohemian Club, having beautiful premises on the +Adelphi Terrace—a Club which has since gone through many vicissitudes, +but I think still exists in a small way. At the time I mention it was +much what the Savage Club is now; in fact, was located in the same +Terrace. Its smoking concerts, too, were its great attractions, and on +one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> of these evenings I played a part worth reciting, if only to +illustrate how difficult it is for some minds to understand a joke.</p> + +<p>A well-known literary man called to see me. On a table in my studio lay +a "make-up" box—used by actors preparing their faces for the +footlights—a bald head with fringe of light hair, large fair moustache, +wig paste, a suit of clothes too large for me, and other trifles. My +visitor's curiosity was aroused. Taking up my "properties," he asked me +what they were for. I explained to him a huge joke had been arranged as +a surprise at the Club smoking concert to take place that very evening, + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img036.jpg" width="350" height="323" alt="A SUCCESSFUL MAKE-UP." title="A SUCCESSFUL MAKE-UP." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 350px; ">A SUCCESSFUL "MAKE-UP."</span> + +in which I was to play a part with a well-known and highly-popular +member—the funny man of the Club, and an eccentric-looking one to boot. +He had conceived the idea to make me up as a double of himself. We were +the same height, but otherwise we in no way resembled each other. He was +stout, I was thin; he prematurely bald, I enjoyed a superabundance of +auburn locks; but he had very marked characteristics, and wore very +remarkable clothes. He was also very clever at "making-up." The idea was +to test his talent in this direction, and deceive the whole of our +friends. It was arranged that he was to leave the piano after singing +half his song, and I—up to that moment concealed—was to come forward +and continue it. This I explained to my visitor, who expressed his +belief that the deception was impossible. He promised to keep the +secret, and that evening was early in the room and seated close to the +piano. My "double"—fortunately for me, an amateur—sang the first +verses of one of his well-known songs, but in the middle of it +complained of the heat of the room (one of those large rooms on the +first floor in Adelphi Terrace, famous for the Angelica Kaufmann +paintings on the ceiling), and opening the French <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> window close +to the piano he went out on to the balcony. There I was, having walked +along the balcony from the next room. So successful was my "make-up" +that in passing through the supper-room to get on to the balcony some of +the members spoke to me under the impression I was the other member! The +hall-porter had handed me a letter intended for my "double." Of course I +imitated his walk, his mannerisms at the piano, and his voice, but I +made a poor attempt to sing. This was the joke. "What was the matter?" +"Never sang like that before," "Evidently thinks it is funny to be +completely out of tune," "Hullo, what is this?" as <i>my</i> "double" walked +through the crowded room just as I finished, and shook hands with me!</p> + +<p>I would really have sung the song better, but my eye happened to catch +the puzzled stare of my friend the literary visitor in the front row. He +looked angry and annoyed, and before my "double" came up to me, my +friend, scowling at me, said, "Sir, I think it is infernal bad taste on +your part to imitate my friend Harry Furniss!"</p> + +<p>Who is it that says we English have no sense of humour? My "double" in +the preceding tale was my brother-in-law, who as a boy was the companion +of Mr. George Grossmith, and in fact once appeared as an amateur at +German Reed's, the old Gallery of Illustration, in a piece, with "Gee +Gee" as his double, entitled "Too much Alike."</p> + +<p>He was also an inveterate and clever <i>raconteur</i>, and of course +occasionally made a slip, as for instance, on a railway journey to +Brighton once, when he found himself alone with a stranger. The stranger +in conversation happened to ask my relative casually if he were fond of +travelling. "Travelling? I should rather think so" he replied airily, +and imagining he was impressing someone who was "something in the City," +he continued, "Yes, sir, I'm a pretty experienced traveller. Been mostly +round the world and all that kind of thing, you know, and had my share +of adventures, I can tell you!" After a bit he gained more confidence, +and launched into details, giving the stranger the benefit of his +experience. "Why, sir, you read in books that hunters of big game, such +as tigers, watch their eyes. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> Not a bit of it. What you have got +to do is to watch the <i>tail</i>, and that's the thing. It mesmerises the +animal, so to speak, and you have him at your mercy," and so forth, and +so forth. On arriving at the hotel he found his travelling companion had +just signed his name in the visitors' book. It was Richard Burton! My +brother-in-law hastened to apologise to Sir Richard for his absurd +tales. He had no idea, of course, to whom he was retailing his stiff +yarns. Burton laughed. "My dear sir, not a word, please. I was more +entertained than I can tell you. You really might have travelled—you +lie so well!"</p> + +<p>One of the most eccentric men I ever met, and certainly one of the most +successful journalists—a <i>rara avis</i>, for he made a fortune in Fleet + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img038.jpg" width="300" height="238" alt="TWO TRAVELLERS." title="TWO TRAVELLERS." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 300px; ">TWO TRAVELLERS.</span> + +Street, and retired to live in a castle in the country—was a man whose +name, although a very singular one, remains absolutely unknown even to +members of the Fourth Estate. He was a clever, hard-working journalist; +every line he wrote—and he was always writing—was printed and +well-paid for, but he never signed an article, whilst others, +journalists, specialists, poets, essayists—logrollers of high +degree—see their name often enough, are "celebrities," "men of the +time," fêted and written about, but eventually retire on the Civil List. +Eccentricity is the breath of their nostrils, their very existence +depends upon it, publicity is essential. My friend's eccentricity was +for his own pleasure. He lived in a frugal—some might think in a +miserly way—in two rooms in one of the Inns of Court. Perhaps I shall +be more correct if I say he <i>existed</i> in one. A loaf of bread and half a +pint of milk was his daily fare. The room he slept in he worked in. The +other was empty, save for bundles of dusty old newspapers containing +articles from his ever active brain. "I keep this room," said he, "for +times when I am over-wrought. Then I shut myself up in it, and <i>roar</i>! +When by this process I have blown away my mental cobwebs, my brain <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> regains its pristine energy, and I +go back to my study calm and collected, having done no one any harm, and +myself a lot of good." I have dined at his Club with him in the most +luxurious fashion, quite regardless of expense. He was a capital host, +but, like the magazines he wrote for, he only appeared replete once a +month. His Press work he looked upon as mere bread and milk. His work +was excellent, journalism which editors term "safe," neither too +brilliant nor too dull, certainly having no trace whatever of +eccentricity.</p> + +<p>I may here offer an opinion, and make a suggestion to young journalists, +and that is—safe, steady, dull mediocrity is what pays in the long run; +to attempt to be brilliant when not a genius is fatal. To have the +genius, brilliancy, pluck, and success means tremendous prosperity and +favour for a time, but the editors and the public tire of your +cleverness. You are too much in evidence. It is safer from a mere +business standpoint to be the steady, stupid tortoise than the brilliant +hare. The man or woman who writes a carefully thought-out essay is +flattered, and quoted, and talked about: for that article the writer may +possibly receive as many sovereigns as the writer of a newspaper article +receives shillings; but the shillings come every day, and the sovereigns +once a month. It is wiser in the long run to be satisfied with a loaf +and milk once a day than with a dinner at a Club every four weeks.</p> + +<p>If in the old days the Bohemian scribbler was not in Society, he could +at least imagine himself there. There was nothing to prevent his +speaking of a member of the aristocracy as "one of us" with far less +embarrassment and with as much truth as he could nowadays when he <i>is</i> +invited—but still as the oil that never will mix with water. Except in +imagination—an imagination such as I recollect a well-known figure in +literary Bohemia had when I knew it well, a writer of stories for the +popular papers: Society stories, in which a Duke ran away with a +governess, or a Duchess eloped with an artist, each weekly instalment +winding up with a sensational event, so as to carry forward the interest +of the reader. This writer—quite excellent in his way—a thorough +Bohemian, knowing nothing about the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> Society he wrote about, had +the power of making himself, and sometimes fresh acquaintances, believe +that he played in real life a part in the story he was writing. He did +not refer to the experiences as related by him as incidents in his +story, but as actual events of the day.</p> + +<p>"Brandy and soda? Thanks. My dear fellow, I feel a perfect wreck, shaken +to pieces. I had an experience to-day I shall never forget. I have just + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img040.jpg" width="300" height="567" alt="THE DUKE OF BROADACRES." title="THE DUKE OF BROADACRES." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 300px; ">THE DUKE OF BROADACRES.</span> + +arrived from Devonshire; ran down by a night train to look at a hunter +Lord Briarrose wanted to sell me. Bob—that is Briarrose—and I +travelled together. He is going to be married, you know; heiress; great +beauty—neighbour—rolling in wealth. I stopped at the Castle last +night, and before Bob was up I was on the thoroughbred and well over the +country, returning about eleven along the top of the cliffs. To my +horror, I saw a carriage and pair charging down a road which at one time +continued a long distance skirting the cliffs. Cliffs had fallen; road +cut off; unprotected; drop down cliff eight hundred feet on to pointed +rocks and deep sea. There was nothing between the runaway horses and the +cliff, except a storm-broken solitary tree with one branch curved over +the road. When the horses bolted, the groom fell off. There was only a +lady in the carriage, powerless to stop the frightened steeds dashing on +to death. As she approached I was electrified. Something told me she was +Bob's <i>fiancée</i>. A moment and I was charging the hunter under that tree. +Jumping up out of the saddle, I clasped the solitary branch with both +hands, and turning as an acrobat would on a trapeze, I hung by my legs, +hands downwards, calling to the lady to clasp them. The fiery steeds and +the oscillating carriage dashed under me—our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> hands met. With a +superhuman effort I raised the fainting fairy form out of the vehicle as +it passed like a whirlwind. The next moment horses and carriage were +being dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Under our united weight the +branch of the tree broke, and we fell unhurt on the moss-covered path. +When the eyes of the fair lady opened to gaze upon her deliverer, I +started as if shot. She sprang to her feet. 'Reginald!' she cried. 'Is +it you?'</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img041.jpg" width="250" height="548" alt="FROM A SKETCH BY HERBERT JOHNSON." title="FROM A SKETCH BY HERBERT JOHNSON." /> +<span class="caption">FROM A SKETCH BY HERBERT<br /> +JOHNSON.</span> +</div> + +<p>"She was my first love. We had not seen each other for years! Thanks. +I'll have some more brandy. Hot this time, with some sugar, please."</p> + +<p>The following week <i>The London Library</i> appeared. I bought it, and read +"The Duke's Oak," all about Lord Briarrose and Lady Betty Buttercup and +the runaway horses. The tree with the one branch gave the title to the +story, and the Dashing Duke of Broadacres was the aristocratic +acrobat—my friend the author!</p> + +<p>The Savage Club is a remnant of Bohemian London. It was started at a +period when art, literature, and the drama were at their lowest ebb—in +the "good old days" when artists wore seedy velveteen coats, smoked +clays, and generally had their works of art exhibited in pawnbrokers' +windows; when journalists were paid at the same rate and received the +same treatment as office-boys; and when actors commanded as many +shillings a week as they do pounds at present. This typical trio now +exists only in the imagination of the lady novelist. When first the +little band of Savages met they smoked their calumets over a +public-house in the vicinity of Drury Lane, in a room with a sanded +floor; a chop and a pint of ale was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> their fare, and +good-fellowship atoned for lack of funds. The Brothers Brough, Andrew +Halliday, Tom Robertson, and other clever men were the original Savages, +and the latter in one of his charming pieces made capital out of an +incident at the Club. One member asks another for a few shillings. "Very +sorry, old chap, I haven't got it, but I'll ask Smith." Smith replies, +"Not a cent myself, but I'll ask Brown." Brown asks Robinson, and so on +until a Crœsus is found with five shillings in his pocket, which he +is only too willing to lend. But this true Bohemianism is as dead as + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img042.jpg" width="200" height="333" alt="THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN AS A SAVAGE." title="THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN AS A SAVAGE." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 200px; ">THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN AS<br /> +A SAVAGE.</span> + +Queen Anne, and the Savages now live merely on the traditions of the +past. His Majesty the King, when Prince of Wales, was a member of the +Club, and an Earl takes the chair and entertains my Lord Mayor with his +flunkeys and all. The Club is now as much advertised as the Imperial +Institute, but the true old flavour is no more. No doubt some excellent +men and good fellows are still in the Savage wigwam. Some Bohemians—a +sprinkling of those Micawbers, "waiting for something to turn up"—keep +up its reputation, but in reality it is only Savage now in name.</p> + +<p>I was not thirty when I ceased to be a member. I had been on the +committee, and had taken an active part in matters concerning it, until +it changed its character and lost its true Bohemian individuality, and +being a member of the Garrick Club, I found matured in it the element +the Savage endeavoured at that time to emulate. Although I am still in +my forties, few of those with whom I smoked the calumet of peace round +the camp fire at a great pow-wow in the wigwam of the excellent Savages, +alas! remain.</p> + +<p>The old Grecian Theatre in the City Road was the nursery of many members +of the theatrical profession, and authors too. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> Two well-known +members of the Savage Club, Merritt and Pettitt, were writers of the + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img043a.jpg" width="200" height="450" alt="ANOTHER GAP IN OUR RANKS." title="ANOTHER GAP IN OUR RANKS." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 200px; ">ANOTHER GAP IN OUR<br /> +RANKS.</span> + +common stuff necessary for the melodramas of the kind connected with +their names. Merritt would have made an equal fortune if exhibited as +the original fat boy in "Pickwick," or as a prize baby at a show. I +suppose my readers are aware that it is not necessary to be a baby in +order to be exhibited as one, for I recollect, in my Bohemian days, +going down to Woolwich Gardens when the famous William Holland was +manager of them, and accidentally strolling into a tent outside of which +was a placard, "The Largest Baby in the World! 6d." I was not +expected,—and the "Baby" was walking about in his baby-clothes, with +little pink bows on his shoulders, smoking a horrible black clay pipe. +He was the dwarf policeman in Holland's pantomime in the winter-time!</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img043b.jpg" width="250" height="344" alt="JOPE." title="JOPE." /> +<span class="caption">JOPE.</span> +</div> + +<p>Merritt would have made a capital prize baby. He was tall, very stout, +and possessed of a perfectly hairless, baby's face and a squeaky little +voice. I shall never forget a prize remark this transpontine author made +in the Savage Club, when an editor rushed in and said, "Have you heard +the news? Carlyle is dead!" Merritt rose, and putting his hand on his +chest, squeaked out, "Another gap in our ranks!"</p> + +<p>A peculiar figure in Bohemia in those old days was "J." Pope, known as +"Jope," brother of the late celebrated K.C. Jo was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> nearly as +large as his brother, the well-known legal luminary, and Paul Merritt +rolled into one, and wore his black wide-awake on the back of his +pleasing, intelligent head. I saw him one sultry autumn evening leaning +against a lamp-post in Chancery Lane to take breath.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Pope, where are you going?"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img044.jpg" width="200" height="566" alt="H. J. BYRON." title="H. J. BYRON." /> +<span class="caption">H. J. BYRON.</span> +</div> + +<p>"My dear boy, let me lean on you a minute. I'm going up to the +Birkbeck—to lecture—to lecture on 'Air, and How We Breathe!'"</p> + +<p>As a contrast to the popular Doctor was a wit more popularly known, H. J. +Byron—as thin as the proverbial lamp-post. Of course the stories about +Byron would fill a volume, but there is one that is always worth +repeating, and that is his reply to a vulgar and obtrusive stranger who +met him at Plymouth, and said to him, "Mr. Byron, I've 'ad a walk <i>h</i>all +round the 'Oe."</p> + +<p>"Yes, old chap, and the next time you have a walk I advise you to walk +all round the H."</p> + +<p>In those merry gatherings I recall the familiar features of true +Bohemians, when Bohemianism was at its best—not the ornamental names of +those one finds mentioned in all reports of the famous gatherings, but +of the members who really used and made the Club. Few of the outside +public recollect, for instance, the name of Arthur Mathieson, who wrote +and sang that pathetic ballad, "The Little Hero"; who also was an actor +and writer of ability,—in fact, he was what is fatal to men of his +class—a veritable Crichton. Being in appearance not unlike Sir Henry +Irving, he was engaged by our leading actor to play his double in "The +Corsican Brothers," and made up so like his chief that no one could +possibly tell the difference between the two. One evening during the run +of the piece an old Irishwoman who was duster of the theatre, and with +whom <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> the genial double of Sir Henry often had a friendly word, +approached as she thought the familiar M., and in a rather frivolous +mood innocently tickled the actor under the chin with her dusting-broom.</p> + +<p>"My good woman, what do you mean?"</p> + +<p>The poor Irishwoman dropped on her knees, clasped her hands and said, +"The Saints protect me! it's the Masther himself—I'm kilt entoirely."</p> + +<p>The "Masther," however, probably enjoyed the humour of it. Sir Henry, +like his dear old friend Mr. J. L. Toole, has found a relief in +occasional harmless fun. Toole, however, was irrepressible.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 260px; "> +<img src="images/img045.jpg" width="260" height="316" alt="A PRESENTATION." title="A PRESENTATION." /> +<span class="caption">A PRESENTATION.</span> +</div> + +<p>I was one day walking with him in Leeds (when he was appearing in the +evening on the stage, and I on the platform). A street hawker proffered +the comedian a metal pencil-case for the sum of a halfpenny. Toole made +this valuable purchase. As soon as I left the platform that night, I +found a note for me, inviting me to the theatre directly after the +performance. Toole came back on to the stage, and making me an elaborate +and complimentary speech, referring to me as "a brother artist in +another sphere," etc., etc., presented me with the pencil! I made an +appropriate reply, and we went to supper.</p> + +<p>The following paragraph from the pen of Mr. Toole appeared in the Press +the next day in London as well as the provinces:</p> + +<p>"Brother artists, even when working in different grooves, do not lack +appreciation of each other's work. After Mr. Harry Furniss's lecture in +Leeds the other night, he and Mr. Toole foregathered; and the popular +and genial actor presented the 'comedian of the pencil' with a very neat +and handsome pencil-case, just adapted for the jotting down, wherever +duty takes him, of those graphic sketches with which the caricaturist +amuses us week by week."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p> + +<p>I must confess I am sometimes guilty of mild practical jokes, but I am +always careful to select reciprocative and kindred spirits—with such a +spirit of practical joking as J. L. Toole, for instance. He and I have +had many a joke at each other's expense. It so happened that when he was +producing the great success, "The House Boat," he wintered at Hastings, +where I had a house for the season, and we saw a great deal of each +other. Toole was always what is called a bad study—that is, it was with +great difficulty and pain he learnt his parts. On this occasion the time +was drawing nearer and nearer for the production; he was getting more +and more nervous about his new part, and I received a visit from his +friend the late Edmund Routledge, asking me to protect "Johnny" from his +friends—in other words, to keep his whereabouts dark, as he had to +study. Toole had had one or two little practical jokes with me, which I +owed him for, so having to rush up to town, I had the following letter +written to him:</p> + +<p class="ind"><span class="smcap">"Dear Mr. Toole</span>,—I suppose you recollect your old friends in Smoketown +when you performed one night at our Hall and did us the honour of +stopping at our house over Sunday. You then kindly asked us all to stop +with you when we went to London—a promise we have treasured ever since. +We called at Maida Vale yesterday, but finding you were at Hastings I +write now to say that we are on our way. Besides myself I am bringing +dear Aunt Jane you will remember—now unfortunately a confirmed +invalid—and my boy Tom who has got a bad leg, and Uncle William and his +three daughters, and my dear Sue, who, I am sorry to say, is still +suffering, but I think a week at Hastings will do us all a world of +good—particularly to have you to amuse us all the time.</p> + +<p class="center"><span style="margin-left: 8em;">"Yours very truly,"</span></p> + +<p>And a signature was attached which I could not myself read.</p> + +<p>The next day in London a hansom pulled up close to where I was walking, +and a friend of Toole's jumped out, and, seizing my hand, he said, "I +say, Furniss, you travel about a lot, lecturing and all that kind of +thing—do you know Smoketown?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 420px; "> +<img src="images/img047a.jpg" width="420" height="610" alt="SAVAGE CLUB." title="SAVAGE CLUB." /> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 420px; "> +<img src="images/img047b.jpg" width="417" height="611" alt="SAVAGE CLUB." title="SAVAGE CLUB." /> +</div> + +<div style="clear: both; text-align: center"> +<span class="caption">SAVAGE CLUB.<br /> +MY DESIGN FOR THE MENU 25TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER.<br /> +<i>The Original Drawing was by request presented to His Royal Highness</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Smoketown!" I said, "Smoketown!" (Truth to tell, at the moment I had +quite forgotten all about my letter to Toole; then it dawned upon me.) +"Oh, yes—well," I said; "I had one night there, and some frightful +friends of Toole's bored my life out. He had invited them, I believe, to +stop with him in London, and they—"</p> + +<p>"Just the people I want. What's their name?"</p> + +<p>"I forget that entirely."</p> + +<p>"Can you read this?" he said, producing my letter.</p> + +<p>"No," I said; "I can't read that signature."</p> + +<p>"Do you know where they are likely to put up in town?"</p> + +<p>"Not the slightest idea."</p> + +<p>"I've tried every hotel in London."</p> + +<p>"Temperance?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"No, not one. Happy thought!—of course that is where they'll be."</p> + +<p>"Try them all," I said, as I waved my hand. And off the cab rushed to +visit the various temperance hotels in London.</p> + +<p>The next day I returned to Hastings, and went straight to Mr. Toole's +hotel. Getting the hall porter into my confidence, he sent up a message +to Mr. Toole that a gentleman with a large family had arrived to see +him; and the porter and I made the noise of ten up the stairs, and +eventually the gentleman and family were announced at Toole's door. I +shall never forget poor Toole, standing in an attitude so familiar to +the British public, with his eye-glass in his hand and his eyes cast on +the ground—he was afraid to raise them. As soon as he did, however, his +other hand caught the first book that was handy, and it was flung at my +head.</p> + +<p>Bohemianism, when I arrived in London, was emigrating from the tavern of +sanded floors and clay pipes into Clubland. Artists, authors, actors, +and journalists were starting clubs of their own, simply to continue the +same pot-house life without restraint; in place of turning the +public-house into a club, they turned the club into a public-house. If +journalists in Grub Street were at their worst in those days, artists +were at their best. The great boom in trade which followed the +Franco-German War produced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> a wave of extraordinary prosperity, +which landed many a tramp struggling in troubled waters safely on the +beach of fortune. Working men in the North were drinking champagne; some +of them rose to be masters and millionaires. They tired of drinking +champagne, they could not play the pianos they had bought, or enjoy the +mansions they had built; but they could rival each other in covering +their walls with pictures, so the poorest "pot-boiler" found a ready +sale. The most indifferent daubs were sold as quickly as they could be +framed. Artists then built their mansions, drank champagne, and played + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img050.jpg" width="350" height="353" alt="" title="" /></span> + +on their grand pianos. When I, still in my teens, first met these good +fellows, I might have been tempted, seeing what wretched work satisfied +the picture-dealer, to abandon black and white for colour; but already +the boom was over. Artists, like their patrons, had found out their +mistake. They had either to let or sell their costly houses, and have, +with few exceptions, little to show now for those wonderful days of +prosperity in the early seventies—which they still talk over in their +clubs in Bohemia.</p> + +<p>The few exceptions are the survival of the fittest. But the best of +artists have never seen such a boom in art as that I saw in my early +days in London. It cannot be denied that, from a fashionable point of +view, picture shows are going down. Artists have had to stand on one +side as popular Society favourites: the actors have taken their place. +One has only to visit the studios on "Show Sundays" to see what a +falling off there is. "Show Sunday" was, some years ago, one of the +events of the year. From Kensington to St. John's Wood, and up to +Hampstead, the studios of the mighty attracted hosts of fashionable +people to these annual gatherings.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p> + +<p>A familiar figure at these for many years was the genial Sir Spencer +Wells, the well-known surgeon. He lived monarch of all he surveyed at +Golder's Hill, Hampstead, and many a morning I met him when riding, and +we jogged into town together. He was a capital <i>raconteur</i>, a happy wit, +and told one incident I always recall to mind as I pass a house on the +top of Fitzjohn's Avenue, where a few years ago lived, painted and +"received" that Wilson Barrett of the brush, Edwin Long, R.A., a +hard-working, self-made artist who amassed a fortune by successfully +gauging the taste of the large middle-class English public in mixing +religion with voluptuous melodrama. On the annual "Show Sunday" no + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img051.jpg" width="450" height="344" alt="" title="" /></span> + +studio was more popular than Long's. His subjects perhaps had something +to do with it. They were in keeping with the Sabbath. The work too was +as smooth and as highly finished as the most orthodox sermon. <i>Ars longa +est.</i> Yes, said some cynic, but art is not Long. But anyway Long's art +was commercially successful, and he was what is known as "a good +business man."</p> + +<p>As haberdashers in the days of crude advertising used to place men in +costume at the shop door—a fireman when they were selling off a damaged +salvage stock, or a sailor or, if a <i>very</i> enterprising tradesman, a +diver, helmet and all, when selling off goods damaged from a wreck—so +did this Academician, when exhibiting Biblical subjects on "Show +Sunday," engage a Nubian model to stand at the door of his shop. This +man had also to announce the names of the guests, and when the small, +spectacled, simple man with the large smile gave his name, Sir Spencer +Wells, the model pulled himself up to his full height and in his best +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> English proudly and loudly announced to the crowd in the +studio—</p> + +<p>"The Prince of Wales!"</p> + +<p>The effect was magical: all fell in line, ladies curtseyed, men bowed, +when the Prince of Hampstead Heath entered. The artist looked as black +as his model, and the visitors laughed.</p> + +<p>At the other end of Fitzjohn's Avenue once lived that ever popular +Academician, the late Mr. John Pettie. Mr. Pettie was a vigorous +draughtsman and a beautiful colourist, and many of his portraits are +very fine. He seemed to revel in painting a red coat—an object to many +painters as maddening as it is to the infuriated bull. On one "Show +Sunday" before the sending-in day of the Royal Academy, at which he +exhibited, I recollect admiring a portrait of Mr. Lamb, the celebrated +golfer, in his red coat, when the original of the portrait came into the +studio. Not feeling very well, Mr. Pettie had to avoid the crowd of his +admirers seeing him. There were a few exceptions, of which I was one. I +had just left him when I saw Mr. Lamb before his picture. In this +portrait the "bulger" golf club—which Mr. Lamb, I believe, invented, to +the delight of the golfing world—is introduced. I ran back to Mr. +Pettie and told him that there was a stupid man in the studio wanting to +know why artists always draw golf clubs wrongly; that as a Scotchman he +must protest against such a club, which was out of shape, like a club +foot. "Tell him, mon, it's a bulger—Lamb's invention!" I returned. "He +wants to know who Mr. Lamb is, and what is a bulger?—perhaps it's a new +kind of hunting-crop and not a golf club at all?" In rushed Mr. Pettie, +like an enraged lion, to slay the ignorant visitor, but in reality to +shake hands with Mr. Lamb and explain my childish joke.</p> + +<p>Leaving Pettie, I called at a studio near Hampstead occupied by a very +clever Irish artist, who was very much depressed when I entered. Gazing +in bewilderment at his picture for the Academy, representing Milton with +his daughters in his garden at Chalfont St. Giles, he said—</p> + +<p>"Furniss, I'm in an awful state entoirely over this picture. One of +those critic fellows has been in here, and he tells me this <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> picture won't do at all at all. I've +painted in Milton's garden as I've seen it, but the critic tells me that +these are all modern flowers and weren't known in the country in the +poet's time. Now, what on earth am Oi to do?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't bother about those critics," I said. "They know nothing. +Milton was blind, don't you know, so how could he tell whether the +flowers were correct or not?"</p> + +<p>"Begorrah, Furniss, you're right. Oi never thought of that. It's just +like those ignorant critic chaps to upset a fellow in this way."</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<h3>MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST.</h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img054.jpg" width="600" height="377" alt="DISTRESS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY." title="DISTRESS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY." /> +<span class="caption">DISTRESS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY.<br /> +<i>Acting as Special Artist for The Illustrated London News</i>.</span> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">The Light Brigade—Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)—Slumming—The Boat +Race—Realism—A Phantasmagoria—Orlando and the Caitiff—Fancy Dress +Balls—Lewis Wingfield—Cinderella—A Model—All Night Sitting—An +Impromptu Easel—"Where there's a Will there's a Way"—The American +Sunday Papers—I am Deaf—The Grill—The World's +Fair—Exaggeration—Personally Conducted—The Charnel House—10, Downing +Street—I attend a Cabinet Council—An Illustration by Mr. +Labouchere—The Great Lincolnshire Trial—Praying without Prejudice<br /><br /></p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img055.jpg" width="600" height="405" alt="AT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE." title="AT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE." /> +<span class="caption">AT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE. (<i>Reduction of Large Drawing</i>.)</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> + +<p>Sir William Russell and I were called upon at a banquet in the City to +respond to the toast of the Press. Sir William made one of his +characteristic, graceful little speeches, reminiscential and modest. +When I rose I was for a moment also reminiscential—but not modest. "My +Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Masters of this Worshipful Company,—I +appreciate the appropriateness in coupling my name with that of Sir +William Russell, for both of us have made a noise in the world at the +same time—Dr. Russell with his first war letters to the <i>Times</i>, and I +in my cradle, for I came into this troubled world while others in arms +were making a noise in the Crimea."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; "> +<img src="images/img057.jpg" width="550" height="456" alt="AS SPECIAL AT THE BALACLAVA CELEBRATION." title="AS SPECIAL AT THE BALACLAVA CELEBRATION." /> +<span class="caption">AS SPECIAL AT THE BALACLAVA CELEBRATION.</span> +</div> + +<p>Naturally for this reason I have always taken an interest in the doings +of that time; so it was quite <i>con amore</i> that I acted as "special" at +the first Balaclava Celebration Banquet (1875), twenty years after +"Billy" Russell's first war letters and my first birthday.</p> + +<p>The roll-call on the occasion was funny, seeing that it was that of the +"Light Brigade"—some were "light" and many were heavy—one I recollect +was about eighteen stone. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>banquet was held in the Alexandra +Palace, Muswell Hill. The visitors, except the military—past or +present—were shamefully treated. We had to stand all the time behind +the chairs and wearily watch a scene not altogether elevating to +lookers-on. We were not allowed a chair to sit on, nor any refreshment +of any kind—not even if we paid for it; and I well recollect how hungry +I was when I returned to my studio after a tedious journey at 1 in the +morning, having had nothing to eat since 1 of the previous day. Such Red +Tape was, I suppose, to illustrate the disgraceful arrangements of the +commissariat in the Crimea! I was standing close to Miss Thompson (Lady +Butler), who had just become famous by her picture "The Roll Call." She +was making notes, and possibly intended painting a sequel to her +celebrated picture. She was exhausted and tired, and no doubt too +disgusted by such ungallant conduct on the part of the organisers of the +banquet to touch the subject. Had she painted this particular roll-call +I fear many of the figures would have had to be drawn out of the +perpendicular.</p> + +<p>Twenty years before one of the heroes was, possibly, a better and a +wiser man, and tackled the "Rooshins" with greater dexterity than he +displayed on this occasion in managing a jelly. He had waiters to right +of him, waiters to left of him, and waiters behind him, but that jelly +defeated him, although he charged it with fork, spoon, and finally with +fingers.</p> + +<p>From a very early age it was naturally my ambition to be introduced to +Mr. Punch, but this was not to be just yet, and the first London paper +for which I drew regularly was the <i>Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic +News</i>, which was started soon after I arrived in London. I continued to +work for it until it was bought by the proprietor of the <i>Illustrated +London News</i>, when I became a large contributor to that leading +illustrated paper.</p> + +<p>Most of my work for the <i>Illustrated London News</i> consisted of single +and double pages of character sketches, in which Eton and Harrow cricket +matches, Oxford and Cambridge boat races, tennis meetings, the Lawn at +Goodwood, and many other scenes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>of English life were treated +pictorially; but I also acted sometimes in the capacity of a special +correspondent, and this duty sometimes took me into places far from +pleasant.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img059.jpg" width="600" height="433" alt="DISTRESS IN THE NORTH." title="DISTRESS IN THE NORTH." /> +<span class="caption">DISTRESS IN THE NORTH.<br /> +<i>Page (reduction), "Illustrated London News." Republished by permission of the proprietors</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p>On my twenty-fourth Christmas, the year after I was married, I recollect +having to start off upon such a mission to the North of England, where, +owing to strikes and labour disputes, most distressing scenes were +taking place. Throwing myself into the work, I thoroughly ferreted out +the distress which prevailed, pursuing my investigations into the very +garrets of the poor starving creatures whose privacy I thus disturbed at +the entreaty and under the escort of the district visitors and other +benevolent people, whilst the criminal classes also came in for a share +of my observation, which in this case was conducted under the sheltering +wing of a detective.</p> + +<p>I cannot, however, say that my energy met with its due reward, for such +was the realism with which I had treated the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>subject allotted to +me that the editor and proprietors of the <i>Illustrated London News</i> were +reluctant to shock the susceptibilities of their readers by presenting +them with such scenes, and I had to substitute for them sketches of soup +kitchens, committee meetings and refuges. That the editorial decision +was not a sound one was amply proved a few years later, when during a +somewhat similar crisis Mr. G. R. Sims and the late Mr. Fred Barnard +published work of a similar breadth and boldness with signal effect.</p> + +<p>Visiting slums, seeing death from want and misery on all sides, is +certainly not the most pleasant way of spending the festive season. In +company with detectives, clergymen, or self-sacrificing district +visitors, you may swallow the pill with the silver on; but try it +single-handed, and it is a very different affair. I was taken for some +demon rent-collector prowling about, and was peered at through broken +windows and doors, and received with language warm enough to thaw the +icicles. The sketches I made during the weeks I spent in the haunts of +want and misery would have made a startling volume, but time and money +were thrown away, and only the perfunctory pictures were published. The +public have no idea, or seldom think, of the great trouble and expense +incurred in faithfully depicting everyday scenes. Still, it is not +possible for a "special" even to see everything, or to be in two places +simultaneously; and consequently, in ordinary pictorial representations, +dummy figures are frequently looked upon as true portraits. One boat +race, for example, is very much like another. Some years ago I executed +a panoramic series of sketches of the University Race from start to +finish, and as they were urgently wanted, the drawings had to be sent in +the same day. Early in the morning, before the break of fast, I found +myself at Putney, rowing up to Mortlake, taking notes of the different +points on the way—local colour through a fog. Getting home before the +Londoners started for the scene, I was at work, and the drawings—minus +the boats—were sent in shortly after the news of the race. The figures +were imaginary and unimportant, but one correspondent wrote to point out +the exact spot where he stood, and complained <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>of my leaving out +the black band on his white hat, and placing him too near a pretty girl, +adding that his wife, who had not been present, had recognised his +portrait.</p> + +<p>Yes, I must confess, one has often to draw upon the imagination even in +serious "realism," Some years ago I went with a colleague of the pen to +illustrate and describe the dreadful scenes which were said to take +place in St. James's Park, where the poor people were seen to sleep all +night on the seats. We arrived about 2 <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> It was a beautiful moonlight +night, but though we walked up and down for hours not a soul came in +sight. My companion said, "It's a bad business; we cannot do anything +with this." I replied, "We must not go away without something to show; + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img061.jpg" width="300" height="232" alt="REALISM!" title="REALISM!" /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 300px; ">REALISM!</span> + +now if you will lie down I will make a sketch of you, and then I will +lie down and you can describe me."</p> + +<p>One of the most "uncanny" experiences I ever had as a "special" I find +graphically described by the late Hon. Lewis Wingfield, who accompanied +me on the strange mission.</p> + +<p>"Winter without. Snow. A sea of billows drifting across the sky, +glittering, frosted—a symphony in metals—silver, aluminium, +lead—rendered buoyant for the nonce, ethereal—as though the world were +really gone Christmas mad, and, having a sudden attack of topsy-turvydom +in its inside, had taken to showering its treasures about the firmament, +instead of keeping them snugly put away in mines below ground. A sheet +of snow, and bitter white rain driving still. A huge building looming +black, its many eyes staring into the dark—lidless, bilious, vacant. +This is a hospital. Or is it a factory, disguised with a veneer of the +Puginesque? Or an æsthetic barrack? Or an artistic workhouse? Visible +yet, under falling snow which has not had time to cover them, are +flower-beds, shrub-plots, meandering walks. Too genteel and ambitious +for the most æsthetic of workhouses or advanced of hospitals, we <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> wonder what the building is; and our +wonder is not decreased by seeing a postern opened in a huge black wall, +from which a handful of conspirators creep silently. We rub our eyes. +Are we dreaming? Is this, or is it not, the age of scientific marvels, +levelling of castes, rampant communism, murder, agrarian outrage, sudden +massacre?—the <i>olla podrida</i> which we are pleased to denominate +enlightenment? That first black figure is James the Second. Heavens! The +Jacobites live yet, and will join, doubtless, with the Fenians and Mr. +Bradlaugh, and a <i>posse comitatus</i> of iconoclasts, to upset the reign of + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img062.jpg" width="350" height="408" alt="THE CAITIFF AND ORLANDO." title="THE CAITIFF AND ORLANDO." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 350px; ">"THE CAITIFF" AND ORLANDO.</span> + +order, and add a thorn to the chaplet of our hard-run Premier. James the +Second. Not a doubt of it. There he is—periwig, black velvet, and +bugles. Where, oh where, is the Great Seal, with which he played ducks +and drakes in the Thames? Yet no. This is no Jacobite plot, for His +Majesty is followed by no troop of partisans on tiptoe in hose and +doublet. He is not seeking to win his own again. A woodman trudges +behind—we recognise him, for his name's "Orlando"—(Wingfield himself, +in a beautiful costume, which he had made two years previously when +playing the part of Orlando in a production of "As You Like It" in +Manchester, the Calvert Memorial performance; Miss Helen Faucit (Lady +Martin), Rosalind; Herman Merivale, Touchstone; Tom Taylor, Adam; and +other well-known celebrities assisting). Then he describes me: "A +muffled creature of sinister aspect. Short, auburn-locked, extinguished +by a portentous hat, tripping and stumbling over a cloak, or robe, in +whose dragging folds he conceals his identity as well as his power of +volition, a weird and gruesome phantom. What—oh <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>what—is this +hovering ghost? He must be just defunct, for the purgatorial garments +fit him not, he stumbles at every step, and when he trips an underdress +is unveiled that's like a City waiter's. What is he—the arch +conspirator—doing himself? He starts, tries to conceal a book, but we +snatch it from him. Sketches! lots of sketches! caricatures, low and +vulgar portraits of ourselves! 'What are you?' we scream, 'and why this +orgy? Speak, caitiff, or for ever hold your peace!'</p> + +<p>"Perceiving that we are in earnest and not to be trifled with, and glare +with forbidding mien, the caitiff speaks in trembling accents. 'If you +please,' he says, 'I'm the artist from the great illustrated journal; + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img063.jpg" width="300" height="162" alt="" title="" /></span> + +I'm drawing pictures of the lunatics. My disguise is beyond my own +control, and trips me up, but I'm told it's becoming.' 'Lunatics!' we +echo.</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' the caitiff murmurs. 'This is the annual fancy dress ball at +Brookwood Asylum. You and I and the doctors and attendants are the only +sane people in the place. By-and-by the country gentry will be admitted, +and then the tangle will be hopeless, for even in everyday life it's +impossible to know who's mad and who isn't. How much more here?'</p> + +<p>"We left the trembling caitiff to his secret sketching, and the +despondency produced by his appearance. He was sane, was he? Then in him +were we revenged on human nature, for sure never was mortal more +oppressed by his gear and his surroundings."</p> + +<p>The fact is that my editor, in sending his "young man," omitted to say +that the invitation was crossed with "fancy dress only," so I arrived in +ordinary war-paint. The Doctor was horrified. "This will never do. My +patients will resent it. You <i>must</i> be in fancy dress." All my host +could find was a seedy red curtain and an old cocked hat (had it been a +nightcap I should have been complete as Caudle). I wrapped this martial +cloak around me, and soon found myself in the most extraordinary scene, +so graphically described by Wingfield. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>He was not alone in his +scorn for me. The "Duke of York" had a great contempt for my appearance, +but when introduced to him as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, he +unbent, waved his bauble, and commanded me to be seated. The visitors +eyed me suspiciously all the evening, and on my entering the +supper-room, accompanied by the Doctor, they were seized with the idea +that I must be a very dangerous case, and readily made room—in fact, +made off. One of the poor patients was an artist, and showed me his +sketch-book, the work of many, many months—a number of drawings in +colour, stuck one on top of the other, resembling an elongated +concertina, so that only the corners of the pages could be seen. The +patients wore costumes designed and made by themselves, in marked +contrast to their stylish keepers. Among the guests the county families +were well represented, and garrison officers from a neighbouring depôt +formed a motley group which a looker-on, viewing the scene as in a +kaleidoscope, would laugh at. One turn, and the next moment some +incident might occur which an imaginative brain could easily work into a +romance too touching to relate.</p> + +<p>For some years I had quite a run of fancy dress balls, a craze at that +time, acting as special artist for various periodicals, the <i>Illustrated +London News</i> in particular. The ball above recorded was unique, but +there is very little variety in such gatherings, where variety is the +one thing aimed at, thus showing the limit of our English artistic +invention. The ingredients of a ball of three hundred, say, would be as +follows,—Thirty Marie Stuarts, ten Marguerites, twenty-eight Fausts, +fifty Flower Girls, nine Portias, three Clowns, sixteen Matadores, +thirty Sailors, twenty-five Ophelias, twenty-five Desdemonas, the +remainder uniforms and nondescripts. Of course any popular figure, +picture or play of the moment will be represented. When the relief of +Mafeking took place, the number of Baden-Powells, tall, short, young, +old, thin and stout, in the various fancy balls and bazaars appearing +will be, as newspaper leader-writers say, "a fact fresh in the mind of +the reader." Some years ago a portrait of the "missing Gainsborough," a +picture of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>the Duchess of Devonshire, which mysteriously +vanished from Agnew's gallery in Bond Street, was represented in dozens +at the fancy balls of the period, and the Gilbert-Sullivan opera +"Patience," supplied many a costume. My brother "special" on this +occasion—Lewis Wingfield—was a Crichton of eccentricity. The son of an +Irish peer, an officer in the Guards, he dressed as a ballet-girl and +danced on the stage; was a journalist and wrote for Charles Dickens when +that great novelist edited <i>Household Words</i>. Wingfield never did +anything by halves, so in writing a series of articles for Dickens on +the casual wards of London he personated a street photographer (having +delicate hands he could not pretend to be a labourer), and wrote his +experiences of the dreadful state of affairs existing in those days +under the rule of Bumbledom. The last he sought relief at was situated +close to Golden Square. Here he was very harshly treated, and when he +left he rapidly changed into his usual clothes, drove up to the +establishment as one of the life patrons (all his family had for years +supported the charity), and had the satisfaction of dismissing the +overbearing overseer, to the wretch's chagrin. Wingfield related this +incident with great glee.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img065.jpg" width="600" height="350" alt="AT A FANCY DRESS BALL." title="AT A FANCY DRESS BALL." /> +<span class="caption">AT A FANCY DRESS BALL.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> + +<p>Anxious to find out the amount niggers made on the Derby Day, he decided +to go as a burnt-cork nigger himself; but it is impossible to do this +unless you are of that ilk, for like the business of the beggars and +street performers, everything is properly organised; there is a proper +system and superintendent to arrange matters. After some difficulty he +managed to get introduced as the genuine article, and at 4 in the +morning had to stand with the other Ethiopian minstrels at "Poverty +Junction," between Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Station, while lots were +drawn for positions on the course. As luck would have it, Wingfield drew +a pitch opposite the Grand Stand, where at least he would be among his +own acquaintances. All the niggers had to walk to Epsom, unless it +happened some friendly carter could be induced to offer a seat. Had +four-in-hands come along Wingfield might have been saved a walk, but +costers were to him unknown. By lunch-time he was heartily sick of his +new life. However, he was determined to carry it through. In the +evening, after his long, hot day's work, he found he had to wait for the +policeman's train. After the half-million people had returned to London, +he was allowed to crawl into a carriage, and being thoroughly tired he +fell asleep in a corner of the compartment. But the police wanted some +entertainment, and waking him up, said:</p> + +<p>"Now then, darky, tune up! we can pay you as well as the toffs; let's +have a song!" They had a concert all the way, Wingfield singing the +solos. The hat was sent round and a collection made, and to the bitter +end Wingfield had to bang away at his banjo and squeak with what little +voice he had left. This nearly finished him. Arriving at Victoria, he +hailed a hansom. One driver after another eyed him scornfully and passed +on. He then for the first time realised that it is not a customary thing +for an itinerant nigger to drive about London in hansoms, even on Derby +Day. So he dragged himself wearily along the streets until he happened +to meet an intimate friend. To him he explained matters, and his friend +called a hansom for him and paid the driver as well before he would take +up his dusky fare. He thought the fact of his driving a street nigger +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>a great joke, and made merry over his passenger as he passed the +other drivers. But he was very much astonished when he drove up in front +of quite an imposing dwelling and saw the door opened by a footman as +the nigger toiled up the steps.</p> + +<p>As an artist Wingfield was ambitious. Finding, as he told me, that he +could never be a great artist, he preferred not to be one at all. On his +walls were large classic paintings, not likely ever to find their way to +the walls of anyone else. But he tried his hand at popular art as well. +A scene in a circus, for instance, was one subject. A pretty little + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img067.jpg" width="200" height="343" alt="LEWIS WINGFIELD AS A STREET NIGGER" title="LEWIS WINGFIELD AS A STREET NIGGER" /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 200px; ">LEWIS WINGFIELD AS<br /> +A STREET NIGGER HOME<br /> +FROM THE DERBY.</span> + +child was engaged to sit in his studio, but as that day he was going to +Hengler's Circus to paint the background he, to the delight of the +child, took her with him. The little girl played about in the ring, and +was noticed by Mr. Hengler, who asked her if she would like to be +dressed up and play in the same ring at night. This led to the child +becoming a professional. She enchanted everyone as Cinderella. Her name +was Connie Gilchrist. I fell in love with her myself when I was in my +teens and first saw her as Cinderella. Afterwards when I came to London +I was as ignorant as a Lord Chief Justice as to who Connie Gilchrist +was; but I recollect a model sitting to me recommending my writing to +her younger sister for some figures she thought her sister would suit. +The day was fixed, but by the morning's post I received a letter from +the young lady to say that Mr. Hollingshead, of the Gaiety Theatre, had +sent for her, and she could not sit to me. She was Connie Gilchrist, and +I believe this was the last engagement she had accepted as a +professional model.</p> + +<p>Telegram from the editor of the <i>Illustrated London News</i>:—"Election, +Liverpool, see to it at once." So I did. On arriving in the evening, I +rushed off to a "ward meeting," To my surprise the artist of a rival +paper sat down beside me. He did not frighten me away, but candidly +confessed that he had seen a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> private telegram of mine saying I +was starting, and his editor packed him off by the same train. Ha! I +must be equal to him! I sat up all night and drew a page on wood, ready +for engraving, and sent it off by the first train in the morning. It was +in the press before my rival's rough notes left Liverpool. One would +hardly think, to see candles stuck in my boots, that the hotel was the +Old Adelphi. I trust the "special" of the future will find the electric +light, or a better supply of bedroom candlesticks. All day again +sketching, and all night hard at work, burning the midnight oil (I was +nearly writing boots). A slice of luck kept me awake in the early +morning. A knock at my door, and to my surprise a friend walked in who +had come down by a night train for a "daily" and seeing my name in the + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img068.jpg" width="300" height="269" alt="AN ALL-NIGHT SITTING." title="AN ALL-NIGHT SITTING." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 300px; ">AN ALL-NIGHT SITTING.</span> + +visitors' book had looked me up, thinking I could give him some "tips." +"All right," I said; "a bargain: you sit for me and I'll talk. Here, +stand like this"—the Liberal candidate. "Capital! Now round like +this"—the Conservative. "Drawn from life! And after another day of this +kind of thing, I reached home without having had an hour's sleep. Oh! a +"special's" life is not a happy one.</p> + +<p>Great political excitement, there is no doubt, turns men's heads. Once +I recollect finding a most dignified provincial politician in this +state, and necessity compelled me to turn him into a sketching-stool. +Mr. Gladstone was speaking at Bingley Hall, Birmingham, and although +close to him on the platform, I could not, being only five feet two, see +over the heads of others when all stood to cheer. I mentioned this fact +to my neighbour. "Oh, you must not miss this scene!" he said, and +quickly, without ceremony, he had me on his back, his bald head serving +as an easel. It has struck me since that had this old gentleman, a big +man in his native town, and still bigger in his own estimation, seen +himself as others saw him at that moment, the probability is that he +would not have felt anything like so kindly to me as I did to him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img069.jpg" width="500" height="628" alt="SKETCHES AT THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION" title="SKETCHES AT THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION" /> +<span class="caption">SKETCHES AT THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION: A WARD MEETING.—SEE PAGE 138.<br /> +<i>Reduction of Page Design. Brush Drawing on wood, made after election meeting at night, and +despatched to London by early morning train. See the Confessions of a Special Artist.</i></span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another instance of a special artist having to depend upon his wits was +when I found myself at a big central manufacturing town, sent down in a +hurry from London by the <i>Illustrated London News</i> to illustrate a most +important election meeting—an election upon which the fate of the +Government of the day depended. When I arrived the mills had been +closed, crowds were in the streets, and it would have been a simple +matter to have got into Mafeking compared with getting into the hall in +which the meeting was at the time being held.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img071.jpg" width="250" height="463" alt="MY EASEL." title="MY EASEL." /> +<span class="caption">MY EASEL. DRAWING MR.<br /> +GLADSTONE AT A PUBLIC MEETING.</span> +</div> + +<p>If there is one thing I dislike more than another it is a crowd, +particularly an electioneering crowd. Political fever is a bad malady, +even when one is impervious to it, if he has to fight his way through an +infected mob. Quickly slipping round to the principal hotel, and finding +there the carriages engaged for the celebrities of the meeting, I got +into one and was driven rapidly up to the hall, cheered by the mob, who +doubtless looked upon me as some active politician. Had I put my head +out of the window and promised them any absurdity, I believe they would +have chosen me their member on the spot. Arriving at the hall, I was +received by the tipstaffs, who, probably not catching my name +distinctly, thought as the hotel people had done, that I was sent down +in some official capacity, and politely ushered me to the platform, +where I was given a seat in the front row.</p> + +<p>Ah, you little know the difficulties of the poor artist in running his +subjects to earth. When in New York I was specially engaged by the <i>New +York Herald</i> to contribute a series of studies of the leading public +men. These were to appear in the Sunday edition.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> + +<p>Those Sunday papers! What gluttons for reading the Americans are! The +first Sabbath morning I was in the States I telephoned in an off-hand +sort of way from my bedroom for "some Sunday papers." I went on +dressing, and somehow forgot my order, but on leaving, or rather +attempting to leave, my room afterwards, I found to my astonishment the +doorway completely blocked with newspapers to the quantity of several +tons. I rang my bell vigorously. The attendant arrived, and seemed +considerably amused at my look of consternation. He explained to me that +these were five of the Sunday papers, and added apologetically that they +were all he could get at present. If I had stayed to read through that +pile I should be in the States now.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img072.jpg" width="400" height="456" alt="THE AMERICAN SUNDAY PAPERS." title="THE AMERICAN SUNDAY PAPERS." /> +<span class="caption">THE AMERICAN SUNDAY PAPERS.</span> +</div> + +<p>The first "subject" I was requested to caricature was the celebrated +sensational preacher, Dr. Parkhurst. When I arrived at his church it was +crowded to the doors, and I could not get near him. A churchwarden told +me to sit down where I was, but I put my hand to my ear and shook my +head, as much as to say "I do not hear you." Then one churchwarden said +to the other churchwarden, "This man is deaf, he doesn't hear; I was +telling him to sit down—"</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, but are you speaking?" I whispered. "I regret to say that I +am very deaf. I came specially from London to hear your great preacher, +and I should not like to return without gratifying this one desire I +have."</p> + +<p>"Say, is your wife here to-day?" asked one churchwarden of the other.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, she is sick at home."</p> + +<p>"Could not you squeeze this funny little Britisher into your pew?"</p> + +<p>"Guess I could."</p> + +<p>So they beckoned to me to follow them, and I was ushered up the aisle +and sat under the Doctor. The result of that little manœuvre was that +I did my work in peace, although sadly troubled to see his face in +consequence of the church being dark and the reading lamp hiding portion +of it.</p> + +<p>In America introductions are superfluous, so knowing Dr. Parkhurst came +over in the <i>Germanic</i>, the same ship that I travelled in some months +later, I walked boldly after the service into his room, shook him by the +hand, and mentioned in a familiar way the officers of the ship, the +storm, and other matters connected with his journey, and in that way had +the chance of ten minutes' chat and a closer observation of his facial +expression.</p> + +<p>It may happen, even when everything is carefully prepared to make the +visit of a special artist easy and comfortable, that work may be +difficult to accomplish. I must go to the United States for an +illustration of what I mean.</p> + +<p>Some years ago I met Max O'Rell at a London club, and was introduced by +him to a very English-looking gentleman with an American accent, who +immediately said:</p> + +<p>"Glad to meet you, Mr. Furniss. When you come over to the States we must +put you on the grill!"</p> + +<p>What did he mean? I looked at Max. Max turned pale, and seemed for a +moment to lose his self-possession, then hurriedly whispered in my ear:</p> + +<p>"Jolly good fellow—very witty—president of strange club in America +where they chaff their guests—see my last book!"</p> + +<p>I recollected reading about a club that goes in for roasting as well as +toasting its guests, and replied:</p> + +<p>"Strange!" I said. "I always thought the Americans were in advance of +the English; yet here in my country we do not put the Furniss on the +grill, but the grill on the furnace!"</p> + +<p>Max laughed and looked relieved, and said:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You'll do—they'll let you off easy. A Frenchman can't stand chaff, so +I sat down."</p> + +<p>He had stood the fire of the enemy upon the field of battle, but he +couldn't stand the fusillade of wit from the Americans at their dinner +table.</p> + +<p>The stranger was no other than Major Moses P. Handy, afterwards "Chief +of Department of Publicity and Promotion at the World's Columbian +Exposition, Chicago;" so when I found myself in the "Windy City" as an +unattached "special" from the Old World to the New "World's Fair," I +called at Rand-McNally Buildings, not to be put on the grill, but to be +put in possession of some facts concerning that great "Exposition."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 280px; "> +<img src="images/img074.jpg" width="280" height="258" alt="MAJOR HANDY." title="MAJOR HANDY." /> +<span class="caption">MAJOR HANDY.</span> +</div> + +<p>Sometimes there is a great deal in a name. For instance, the late Major +Handy at once indicated the man—handy, always ready with tongue, hands +and legs. He handed me round the city, told me of its wonders, and sent +me off enraptured to the "Exposition." Here I was met by one of the +staff, and escorted all over the skeleton of what eventually proved to +be the most wonderful "Exposition," Exhibition, World's Fair, or +whatever you like to call it, that the New World had ever seen.</p> + +<p>The gentleman in possession who met me and acted as my guide was a +clean-cut featured, smooth-faced, typical American, "full of wise saws +and modern instances" and—tobacco juice. He had a merry wit, and his +running commentary would have been invaluable "copy" to America's pet +humourist, Bill Nye.</p> + +<p>I had a pencil in the pocket in one side of my coat, and a note-book in +the pocket in the other side, but the carriage in which I was driven +about rushed on so over the rough ground and "corduroy roads" and hills +and chasms, that I found it a matter of utter impossibility to get the +pencil and the book out together, and, therefore, the facts I give about +the "Exposition" may <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> want verification, for my worthy guide +kept firing them into me with the rapidity of a Maxim or a Hotchkiss.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img075.jpg" width="600" height="504" alt="THE WORLD'S FAIR, CHICAGO." title="THE WORLD'S FAIR, CHICAGO." /> +<span class="caption">THE WORLD'S FAIR, CHICAGO. A "SPECIAL'S" VISIT.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Now here is the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Guess the +largest building ever erected—1,641,223 feet long, 17,894 feet high—" +Down goes the trap on one side, plunging into some excavation, like a +double-harnessed Roman chariot. However, we scrambled up again, but I +had lost the important figure of the width of the building. Now I don't +for a moment wish to imply that my guide was exaggerating, but this +rather reminds me of a story told of an American visiting England, and +his host there one day remarked to him:</p> + +<p>"My dear fellow, we are delighted with you here—in fact, you are quite +a favourite; but you will excuse me if I tell you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> that you +possess one failing pretty general with your countrymen—you do +exaggerate so!"</p> + +<p>"Guess I kean't help it, but if you'll just kindly give me a kick under +the table when I'm going too far I'll pull up sharp!"</p> + +<p>With this agreement they went out to dinner that evening, and among +other topics the conversation turned upon conservatories. Captain de +Vere said that he had a conservatory 200 feet long, but that the Duke of +Orchid had one nearly 1,000 feet long. The American here struck in with:</p> + +<p>"I reckon, gentlemen, you're talking about conserva<i>tor</i>ies. Now there's +a friend of mine in Amurrca, a private gentleman, who has a +conserva<i>tor</i>y 5,000 feet long, 3,000 feet high, and" (kick)—"oh!—2 +feet wide!"</p> + +<p>But had I heard the figures representing the width of the building, I +don't suppose they would have been in the same absurd proportion as +this, for not all the shin-kicking in the world would have deterred my +entertaining and conversational conductor.</p> + +<p>"You must assemble together in your mind's eye all the mighty structures +already existing in the world to form any idea of the magnitude of this +<i>tre</i>menjious edifice before you. It is sixteen times as large as St. +Peter's Cathedral at Rome, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral +would nestle together in its ventilating shaft, and the whole of the +armies of Europe could sit down comfortably to dinner in the central +hall. The Tower of London would be lost under one of the staircases, and +fifty Cleopatra's Needles stuck one on top of the other would not +scratch the roof. The building cost fifty million six hundred and +eighty-four thousand two hundred dollars seventy-five cents, and——" On +dashed the horses in their wild career.</p> + +<p>Down we went, I thought into the bed of Lake Michigan, but in an instant +we were up again, my hat in one direction and my stick in another, and I +was well shaken before being taken to the next building.</p> + +<p>"Say, Mr. Furniss, the roads are not complete yet, but you mustn't mind +these little ups and downs. Guess these horses <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> would pull +through anything—brought 'em right away from the fire-engine shed, +considerable fresh!"</p> + +<p>At this moment a train came puffing along laden with masses of ironwork +for the central building. The horses shied at the smoky monster, turned +a somersault (at least, so it seemed to me), and we nearly took a header +into the lake again; but the charioteer managed to turn them just in +time, and the fiery fire-engine steeds snorted past their iron brother, +eclipsing even his noise and steam.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img077.jpg" width="650" height="459" alt="ON DASHED THE HORSES IN THEIR WILD CAREER." title="ON DASHED THE HORSES IN THEIR WILD CAREER." /> +<span class="caption">"ON DASHED THE HORSES IN THEIR WILD CAREER."</span> +</div> + +<p>I now began to feel thoroughly happy, but I kept a watchful eye on those +gee-gees, and as we skipped over impromptu bridges, whizzed round the +corners of newly-made piles, and bumped over incomplete parapets, I +quite enjoyed myself; but somehow or other I couldn't quite manage to +catch all the marvellous details respecting the buildings we were +passing. I was qualifying myself for the Volunteer Fire Brigade. But our +steeds were reined in for a moment while my guide pointed out to me the +Dairy Building.</p> + +<p>"I reckon, sir," he said, "that dairy will be an eye-opener. It'll be +<i>soo</i>perb, and I guess it won't be long after the opening of the show +that they'll be turning out gold-edged butter!"</p> + +<p>Off we go again, over mounds and down dykes, jumping <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> rocks and +shooting rapids, and I am certain that had our conveyance been a +milk-cart, butter, gold-edged or otherwise, would have been produced +pretty soon. We pull up with a jerk opposite the Agricultural Building.</p> + +<p>"The building is 5,000 by 8,000 feet, design bold and heroic. On each +corner and from the centre of the building are reared pavilions."</p> + +<p>"Indeed!" I said. "Are they reared by incubators, or upon some special +soil from the fertile tracts of the Far West?"</p> + +<p>My guide did not evidently deem my question worthy an answer, and +continued:</p> + +<p>"Surmounted by a mammoth glass dome 460 feet high, constructed on +purpose to accommodate the giant Pennsylvania pumpkin we're having +raised specially for the Exposition. That pumpkin will be hollowed out, +and 600 people will be able to sit down together at once in its +interior."</p> + +<p>"Now we'll go to the Transportation Building," said my indefatigable +conductor to the driver.</p> + +<p>"Bless me!" I thought; "is this a convict prison? Are we to have +visitors from Sing Sing, and am I to see some of my friends from +Portland and Dartmoor? Will there be a model of the Bastille, and a +contingent of escaped refugees from the mines of Siberia? Or is the +building an enormous concern for the transport of visitors to and from +the Exposition?"</p> + +<p>"Say, Mr. Furniss, this is the most original conception in the whole +Exposition. You'll see contrasted here every mode of transport, and a +complete train, with a display of locomotives never before attempted, +will be quite <i>stu</i>pendous! To quote the guidebook: 'There will be at +least 100 engines exhibited, and placed so as to face each other,' and +every day we will have a steam tournament. Guess it will be a case of +the survival of the fittest of the engines when they meet! Visitors fond +of railway accidents can be despatched with a completeness only to be +witnessed in the stock-yards of this great city!"</p> + +<p>This ghastly suggestion had the effect of making me feel more +comfortable than ever.</p> + +<p>We had been some hours driving through this wonderful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> skeleton +city. The last dying rays of the setting sun, sinking behind the +sweeping prairies of the far, far West, lit up the horizon with a +blood-red glow, and, as the shades of evening began to descend and +envelop the embryo Exposition, the driver turned the horses' heads +whence we had come—towards the sunset.</p> + +<p>The animals snorted, their nostrils inflated, their eyes glistened, and, +with tails erect, they tore off straight ahead at a tremendous rate. +They couldn't understand why they had been driven aimlessly about all +this time; but now they saw the glare, as they thought, of the fire—the +glare they had been accustomed to regard as the beacon to guide them to +their goal—a goal which had to be reached with lightning speed.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img079.jpg" width="300" height="162" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>It seemed as if we were flying through a beautiful place destroyed by +the ravages of fire, for in the dim evening light the outlined houses +gave one the impression that they formed a city dead, not a city +newly-born.</p> + +<p>Away to the Wild West of the Exposition we flew, and were eventually +pulled up outside of one of the larger and more complete buildings. My +faculties had been about all shaken out of me by this time, and I was so +bewildered by the chaos of figures in my brain—all that were left of +the volumes that had been poured into my ears—that I had to be all but +lifted out of the fire-engine trap by my good guide. He said, in an +undertone:</p> + +<p>"Now I'm going to show you something we keep a profound secret."</p> + +<p>Making a supreme effort, I dispersed temporarily the armies of figures +conflicting in my unfortunate head, and became once more a rational +being, so as to appreciate fully this visual tit-bit reserved to the +last. We entered the structure. What was it? A mortuary, a +dissecting-chamber, or a pantomime property-room? Numbers of ghost-like +beings with bared arms streaming with an opaque-white liquid appeared to +be engaged in some ghoulish machinations. Mutilated figures of gigantic +creatures lay strewn about in reckless confusion. It seemed as if +pigmies <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> were butchering giants; and in the dim, weird light +among these uncanny surroundings my jumbled imagination whispered to me +that, after all, this stupendous Exhibition I had just rushed through +could not possibly be the work of the insignificant little men who +swarmed all over the colossal buildings in such ridiculously absurd +proportion to their pretended handiwork.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img080.jpg" width="600" height="459" alt="THE CHARNEL-HOUSE, CHICAGO'S WORLD FAIR." title="THE CHARNEL-HOUSE, CHICAGO'S WORLD FAIR." /> +<span class="caption">THE CHARNEL-HOUSE, CHICAGO'S WORLD FAIR.</span> +</div> + +<p>No, these giants had performed this herculean undertaking, and were now +being cut up—the reward of many who attempt such ambitious tasks. In +reality, though, this charnel-house was the sculptors' studio, in which +were modelled the gigantic figures which were to be placed on the +buildings and about the grounds.</p> + +<p>Now were I to design a model for a statue to be placed in the +Exposition, it would certainly be one of my excellent and entertaining +companion, who proved himself a model conductor, a model of an American +gentleman, and one who is justly proud, as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> all Americans must +be, of the greatness and thoroughness of the most splendid and most +interesting Exhibition ever recorded in the annals of their great +country.</p> + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<p>One day I slipped up to 10, Downing Street, to make a note of that very +ordinary, albeit mystical, abode of English Premiers and officials. The +eagle eye of the policeman was upon me, and he was soon at my side +subjecting me to minute examination. My explanation satisfied him that +the only lead I had about me was encased in wood for the purpose of +drawing, and that the substance in my hand was not dynamite, but +innocent indiarubber, for wiping out people and places only of my own +creation. "Ah, sir, there ain't much to see there, unless the 'all +porter's a-lookin' out of the winder. But you ought ter be 'ere in the +mornin' and see the Premier a-shavin' of 'imself, with a piece of old +lookin'-glass stuck up on the winder ter see 'imself in—just wot the +likes of us would do!"</p> + +<p>So I, as a "special," was allowed to make a sketch of the outside of the +famous No. 10. Not long afterwards I happened to be standing in the same +place with a number of journalists and a crowd of the public when a +political crisis drew all attention to the Cabinet, the members of which +were arriving at intervals, recognised and cheered by the curious. As +the door opened to allow one of the members of the Cabinet to enter, a +certain official noticed me standing on the opposite side of the street. +To my surprise he beckoned to me, and said, "I have been waiting to see +you, Mr. Furniss, for a long time. I have some sketches in the house +here I want you to see whenever you can honour me with a visit."</p> + +<p>"No time like the present moment," I said.</p> + +<p>Before the official realised that the present moment was a dangerous one +for the admittance of strangers I was taken into the house. While +examining the works of art in the official's private room a knock came +to the door, which necessitated his leaving me. The moment of the +"special" had arrived—now or never for a Cabinet Council! I was down +the passage, and in a few minutes stood in the presence of the Cabinet, +when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> Mr. Gladstone, the Premier, was addressing Lord Granville +and the others, who were seated, and just as the Duke of Devonshire +(then Lord Hartington) pushed by me into the room, I was seized by the +alarmed official. Of course I apologised for my stupidity in taking the +wrong turning, and I asked him about Mr. Gladstone's three mysterious +hats in the hall, which he informed me Mr. Gladstone always had by +him,—three hats symbolic of his oratorical peculiarity of using the +well-known phrase, "There are three courses open to us."</p> + +<p>I patted Lord Hartington's dog on the head, and had quietly taken my +departure before the official was called into the Cabinet and questioned +about the "spy" who had so mysteriously interrupted their proceedings.</p> + +<p>But what was perhaps a more daring and difficult feat than seeing a +Cabinet Council was to disturb the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate" in his +semi-official residence. It so happened some few years ago I was +commissioned by an illustrated paper to make a drawing of a peculiar +scene that took place in the House of Commons. It was Mr. Gladstone's +only appearance in the Strangers' smoking-room of the House, into which +he had been lured by the Member for Northampton to attend a performance +of a thought reader, which Mr. Labouchere had arranged perhaps to show +his serious interest in the business of the country connected with our +great Houses of Parliament. Not being present at this show, I had no +means of getting material, and, being in a hurry, I boldly drove up to +the house of the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate." And as I always treat +people as they treat others, I thought that a little of the Laboucherian +cheek (shall I substitute the word for confidence?) would not be out of +place in this instance. The servant took my card, and brought back the +message that Mr. Labouchere was not at home. As I was at that moment +actually acting the character of the "Sage," and remembering the +stories, true or untrue, which he so delights in telling himself about +his own coolness in matters probably not less important than this, I +asked the servant to allow me to write a letter to Mr. Labouchere, and I +was shown into his study, where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> I sat, and intended to sit, +until Mr. Labouchere made his appearance. From time to time the servant +looked in, but the letter was never written. And my thought-reading +proved correct. Without my pen and pencil I drew Mr. Labouchere. He +eventually came downstairs, and gave me all the information I required.</p> + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img083.jpg" width="250" height="366" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>was in darkness. To quote the papers, "Foggy obscuration rested over the +greater part of its area." And I, in common with millions of others, was +having my breakfast by gaslight, when I received an editorial summons to +attend the trial of the Bishop of Lincoln at Lambeth Palace. Soon a +hansom was at the door, with two lamps outside and one within; the +latter smelt most horribly, and I found out later on that it leaked and +had ruined my new overcoat. With an agility quite marvellous under the +circumstances the horse slipped its slimy way over the greasy streets to +Lambeth, and dashed through the fog over Westminster Bridge in a most +reckless manner, which disconcerting performance was partly explained by +its suddenly stopping at the stable door of Sanger's and refusing to +budge. I was partially consoled by the fact that we were just opposite +St. Thomas's Hospital, so that I should be in good hands if the worst +befell. The fog becoming even denser, Sanger's became veiled from the +sight of our fiery steed, which thereupon consented to slide on towards +Lambeth Palace. A sharp turn brought us to the gateway, where stood a +hearse and string of mourning coaches. Was I too late? Had the Bishops +passed sentence, and had the loved one of Lincoln really been beheaded?</p> + +<p>My fears on this point were relieved by a policeman, who restrained my +driver's energetic endeavours to drive through the wall of the Palace, +and as my password was "Jeune" (November would have been more +appropriate on such a morning) I was allowed inside the gates. Here I +could not see my hand, or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> anyone else's, in front of me, and +after stumbling up some steps and down some others I finally flattened +my nose against a door. Policeman No. 2 suddenly appeared, and turned +his bull's-eye upon me. I felt that I was doomed to the deepest dungeon +beneath the castle moat; I thought of the whipping-post I have read of +in connection with the Palace; of the Guard Room with its pikes and +instruments of torture, and I trembled. Luckily, however, the rays of +the lantern fell upon the note in my hand, addressed to Francis Jeune, +Q.C., and the good-natured "All right, sir. Go hup. 'E's a-speakin' +now," came as a reprieve.</p> + +<p>I stumble into the large historic hall known as the Library, wherein the +great trial of the Bishop of Lincoln is being held. The weird scene +strongly resembles the Dream Trial in "The Bells," where the judges, +counsel, and all concerned are in a fog. I expect the limelight to flash +suddenly upon the chief actor, the Bishop of Lincoln, as he takes the +stage and re-acts the part that has caused the trial. The only lights in +the long and lofty Library, excepting the clerical and legal, are a +dozen or two wax candles and a few oil-lamps—of daylight, gaslight, or +electric light, nothing. I can hear the voice of Jeune, Q.C., which +gladdens my heart amid these sepulchral surroundings, but I see him not. +As my eyes gradually become accustomed to the strange scene, I find that +it is composed of three distinct "sets," which present the appearance of +a muddled-up stage picture when the flats go wrong, and you have a part +of the Surrey Hills, a corner of Drury Lane and a side of a West End +drawing-room run on at the same time.</p> + +<p>At the further end of the Library we have the Church, very High Church, +represented by an Archbishop and five Bishops; also a Judge, in a +full-bottomed wig, who has evidently got in by mistake. Then we have the +Law, represented by a row of Q.C.'s, their juniors, and attendants; and +then a chorus of ordinary people and common, or Thames Policemen. These +are separated by red ropes and some red tape; the latter I cut with my +self-written passport—my note to the Q.C. who still addresses the +Court.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img085.jpg" width="600" height="468" alt="THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S TRIAL." title="THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S TRIAL." /> +<span class="caption">THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S TRIAL. (<i>From "Punch."</i>)</span> +</div> + +<p>I have come here to see the Bishop of Lincoln, and I roam about in the +fog to find him. Ah, that figure! there he is! I immediately sketch him, +only to find out that the individual in question is the Clerk of the +Court, or whatever the title of that functionary's equivalent may be in +Lambeth Palace. What vexes me is that whenever I enquire the whereabouts +of the Bishop, a warning finger is raised to the lips to denote silence. +The Bishops sit round three tables, on a raised platform. In the centre +is the Archbishop of Canterbury; on his right the mysterious Judge, in +full wig and red robes; here is the Vicar-General, Sir James Parker +Deane, Q.C.; next to him sits Assessor Dr. Atlay, Bishop of Hereford, +who looks anything but happy, his hair presenting the appearance of +being blown about by a strong draught, while his hand is raised to his +face, suggesting that the draught had caused toothache. The portly +Bishop of Oxford on his right, like the other corner man, the Bishop of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Salisbury, scribbles away at a great rate in a huge manuscript +book or roll of foolscap. On the left of the Archbishop sits the Bishop +of London, who severely interrogates the Counsel, and evidently relishes +acting the schoolmaster once more. The Bishop of Rochester, sitting on +London's left, supplies the element of comedy as far as facial +expression goes, and his wide-open mouth and papers held in front of him +lead me to expect him to burst into song at any moment. But where is +<i>the</i> Bishop—the Bishop of Lincoln? Ah, now I see him, in one of those +side courts, and I forthwith sketch him, marvelling at my stupidity in +not identifying him before. I write his name under the sketch, and show +it to one of the reporters. He scribbles "Wrong man" across it. Done +again! I write, "Then where is he?" He waves me away, as Mr. Jeune is +quoting some extraordinary document six hundred years old in reply to +Sir Horace Davey's authority, which only dates back five hundred and +ninety-nine years. It suddenly occurs to me that the Bishop is beside +his Counsel at the other end of the long table, but, alas! there is a +candle in front of him. This is all I can see, so I make my way to the +other side of the table, only to discover that my Bishop is an old lady. +I write on a piece of paper, "Where does the Bishop of Lincoln sit?" and +take it to an official. It is too dark to read, so some time is lost +while he takes my memorandum to a candle. He looks across at me, and +points to a corner.</p> + +<p>At last! good! The old gentleman in the corner is in plain clothes, it +is true, but still he looks every inch a Bishop. I cautiously approach +to a coign of vantage close beside him, and have just finished a careful +study of him, when he turns round to me and whispers, "Please, sir, can +you tell me which is the Bishop of Lincoln?" I shake my head angrily, +and move away. This is really humbug. I'll bide my time, and take +Counsel's opinion—I'll ask Mr. Jeune. He is just occupied in answering +the hundred and seventh question of the Bishop of London, and is being +"supported" by Sir Walter Phillimore. Indeed, it amuses me to see the +way in which these two clever Counsel, when in a fog (and are we not all +in one?), hold an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> animated legal conversation between +themselves, and totally ignore the Bishops—not that the latter seem to +mind, for they scribble away merrily. An evil suspicion creeps into my +head that they are seizing the opportunity to write their next Sunday's +sermons.</p> + +<p>In the meantime I discover that one of the little side courts is +converted into a studio, with an easel and canvas. I approach my brother +brush, feeling that he, or she, or both (for a lady and a gentleman were +jointly at work upon a picture of the Trial, in black and white—the +black was visible, but there was no chance of seeing the white) will +tell me where I can catch a glimpse of the Bishop of Lincoln. I whisper +the question. But a "Hush!" goes up from the H'Usher, and the artists, +sympathising with me in my dilemma, obtain a candle and point out the +Bishop to me in their picture. I slip away in search of that face. Its +owner ought to be near his Counsel. The severe Sir Horace Davey sits +writing letters; next him is the affable Dr. Tristram, then the rubicund +Mr. Danckwerts, but no Bishop—in fact, there is no one of public +interest to be seen; probably they have not come, as to-day is to be a +half-holiday. It is now one o'clock, and the Bishops rise to go to the +Levée. I pounce upon Francis Jeune, Q.C., and gasp, "Where, oh, where is +the Bishop of Lincoln? Quick! I want to sketch him before he leaves." +"Oh, he's not here—never comes near the place!"</p> + +<p>The play is over for the day. I have seen "Hamlet" with the Prince left +out.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<h3>THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR—A SERIOUS CHAPTER</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">Drawing—"Hieroglyphics"—Clerical Portraiture—A Commission from +General Booth—In Search of Truth—Sir Walter Besant—James Payn—Why +Theodore Hook was Melancholy—"Off with his Head"—Reformers' +Tree—Happy Thoughts—Christmas Story—Lewis Carroll—The Rev. Charles +Lutwidge Dodgson—Sir John Tenniel—The Challenge—Seven Years' +Labour—A Puzzle MS.—Dodgson on Dress—Carroll on Drawing—Sylvie and +Bruno—A Composite Picture—My Real Models—I am very Eccentric—My +"Romps"—A Letter from du Maurier—Caldecott—Tableaux—Fine +Feathers—Models—Fred Barnard—The Haystack—A Wicket Keeper—A Fair +Sitter—Neighbours—The Post-Office Jumble—Puzzling the +Postmen—Writing Backwards—A Coincidence.<br /><br /></p></div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img088.jpg" width="300" height="401" alt="If" title="If" /> +</div> + +<p>I confess as a caricaturist, surely I need not caricature my confessions +by any mock-modesty. Although I have illustrated novels, short stories, +fairy tales, poems, parodies, satires, and <i>jeux d'esprit</i>, for the +realistic, the fanciful, the weirdly imaginative and the broadly +humorous, as my <i>Punch</i> colleague, E. T. Milliken, wrote, my more +distinctive, natural and favourite <i>métier</i> is that of graphic art. This +intimate friend, in publishing his "appreciation" of me, put in his own +too highly-coloured opinion of my black and white work in this +direction. I blush to quote it:</p> + +<p>"And they are in error who imagine Mr. Furniss's powers to be +substantially limited to political satire or Parliamentary caricature. +Much of the work he has already given to the public, and perhaps more of +that which he has not yet published, but of which his chosen familiars +are aware, will prove that in more serious or imaginative work, in +strong, vivid realism as well as in frolic fancy, in landscape as well +as in life, in the picturesque as well as in the humorous, he can +display a notable mastery."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img089.jpg" width="500" height="687" alt="MAJUBA HILL." title="MAJUBA HILL." /> +<span class="caption">MAJUBA HILL. DRAWN BY HARRY FURNISS<br /> +<i>Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of the "Illustrated London News."</i></span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p> + +<p>This confession of one of my "chosen familiars" I have the pluck to +reprint, as an answer to those unknown strangers who so frequently write +me down as "a conventional comic draughtsman of funny ill-drawn little +figures." "What shall I call him?" said one; "a master of +hieroglyphics?" Well, if I am commissioned to draw humorous +hieroglyphics, I do my best to master their difficulties. Caricature +pure and simple is not the art I either care for or succeed in +practising as well as I do in my less known more serious and more +finished work. When I joined <i>Punch</i>, at the age of twenty-six, I had +had nine-tenths of my time previous to that occupied (ever since I was +fifteen years of age) in drawing far more elaborate and finished work +than would be in keeping in a periodical such as <i>Punch</i>. <i>Punch</i> +required "funny little figures," and I supplied them; but my <i>métier</i>, I +must confess, was work requiring more demand upon direct draughtsmanship +and power. I am a funny man, a caricaturist, by force of circumstances; +an artist, a satirist, and a cartoonist by nature and training. The one +requires technical knowledge—in the other, "drawing doesn't count." The +more amateurish the work, the funnier the public consider it. The +serious confession I have to make is that I have been mistaken for a +caricaturist in the accepted and limited meaning of the term.</p> + +<p>"It is the ambition of every low comedian to play Hamlet, that of every +caricaturist to be able to paint a picture which shall be worthy of a +place on the walls of the National Gallery," are my own words on the +platform; but I do not essay to play Hamlet on the platform, nor do I +paint pictures for posterity in my studio. Therefore I do not place +myself in the category of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> either, for I am neither a low +comedian nor am I strictly and solely a mere caricaturist. This fact is +perhaps not generally known to the public, but it is known to the +publishers, and when a Society Church paper wished to present a series +of supplements—portraits of the leading clergy—I was selected as the +artist. The portrait of Canon Liddon, which is here very much reduced, +is one of these.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img092.jpg" width="550" height="631" alt="CANON LIDDON." title="CANON LIDDON." /> +<span class="caption">CANON LIDDON. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.</span> +</div> + +<p>And furthermore I received a commission from General Booth, which +unfortunately, through pressure of work, I was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> unable to +undertake, to make a study of Mrs. Booth, who was at the time on her +death-bed, suffering from cancer, which the General was "exceedingly +anxious" to reproduce and issue to his Army, as he had "never yet been +able to secure a good photograph, although frequent attempts had been +made by eminent London photographers."</p> + +<p>I must confirm, a confession I made some years ago to the editor of the +<i>Magazine of Art</i> regarding some of the difficulties with which artists +illustrating books have to contend. In that I questioned whether authors +and artists worked sufficiently together. Few authors are as +conscientious as Dickens was, or, in fact, care to consult with their +illustrators at all. In operatic work the librettist and composer must +work hand in hand. Should not the artist do likewise?</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly there are some writers who take great trouble to see their +subject from the artistic standpoint. One sensational writer with whom I +am acquainted will make a complete model in cardboard of his "Haunted +Grange," so as to avoid absurdities in the working out of the tale. The +"Blood-stained Tower" is therefore always in its place, and the +"Assassin's Door" and "Ghost's Window" do not change places, to the +bewilderment of the keen-witted reader. Many writers, on the other hand, +show an extraordinary carelessness, or, shall I say, agility? "Hilarity +Hall" or "Stucco Castle" is supposed to be a firm erection, capable of +withstanding storm, or, if necessary, siege; whereas the artist too +often detects the author turning it inside out and upside down to suit +his convenience, like the mechanical quick-change scenes in our modern +realistic dramas.</p> + +<p>It may seem strange, but I have never found over-conscientiousness in +seeking to secure "local colour" meet with the slightest reward. Two +instances among many similar experiences which have fallen to my lot +will serve to show my ground for making this observation.</p> + +<p>Those who have read Sir Walter Besant's delightful but little known "All +in a Garden Fair" (it is interesting to know that this was +semi-autobiographical, and that its original title <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> was "All in +a Garden Green") will recollect the minute description of the locality +in which the opening scenes take place. The author and I "talked it + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img094.jpg" width="500" height="612" alt="" title="" /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 500px; "></span> + +over." He told me the exact spot where the story was laid—a village a +good many miles from London. The next day, provided with exact +information, my wife and I went by train to the station nearest to the +village in question, and then, taking a "trap," went on a voyage of +discovery. First, however, we endeavoured to gain some useful directions +from the proprietor of the hotel where we lunched, but, to our surprise, +he knew of no such village. The driver of our "conveyance" was equally +unlearned concerning the object of our search.</p> + +<p>"Strange," said I, "how these country people ignore all the beauties and +graceful associations that are around them—they don't even know of the +existence of this idyllic village."</p> + +<p>Nothing daunted, I undertook to pilot the party to the place, and after +a lovely drive we reached the spot where the village ought to be. Here I +saw a kind of model hotel, and, I think, a shanty of some description; +the rest was an ordinary English landscape. I hardened my heart, and +patiently sketched the building, which, of course, was not there at the +period the story referred to, and some details of the place where a +village only existed in the author's imagination.</p> + +<p>When next I saw Sir Walter Besant, he tried to console me +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> +with the assurance that there certainly must have been a village +there some centuries ago!</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img095a.jpg" width="200" height="329" alt="THE LATE SIR WALTER BESANT." title="THE LATE SIR WALTER BESANT." /> +<span class="caption">THE LATE SIR<br /> +WALTER BESANT.</span> +</div> + +<p>Besides being a wit and a delightful conversationalist, Sir Walter was +the most practical and businesslike of authors. It was a treat to meet +him, as I frequently did, walking into Town, and enjoy his vivacious +humour. I recollect one morning, speaking of illustrators, mentioning +the fact that Cruikshank always imagined that Dickens had taken "Oliver +Twist," merely endowing it with literary merit here and there, and +palming it off as his own!</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said Besant, "how funny! Do you know, I overheard two of my little +girls talking a few mornings ago, and one said to the other, 'Papa does +not write all his stories, you know—Charlie Green helps him.'"</p> + +<p>(Green was at the time illustrating Besant's "Chaplain of the Fleet.")</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img095b.jpg" width="300" height="360" alt="THE JETTY." title="THE JETTY." /> +<span class="caption">THE "JETTY."</span> +</div> + +<p>My second instance occurred about the same period. The author was the +most delightful and entertaining of literary men of our time, Mr. James +Payn. I was selected to illustrate the serial story in the <i>Illustrated +London News</i>, and as in that also the author minutely describes the +scene of the semi-historical romance, I, being a thoroughly +conscientious artist, visited James Payn, then editor of <i>Cornhill</i>, in +his editorial den in Waterloo Place, to talk the matter over. My notes +were: "Jetty—Lovers meet—Ancient church—Old houses." But the "Jetty" +was <i>the</i> important object—I must get that. I therefore started for the +South Coast. Again I was forced to bow down before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> my author's +wonderful powers of imagination, for once more, in company with my wife, +with a hireling to carry my sketching stool and materials, I walked a +great distance in search of the jetty. Vain, vain! not a ghost of a +jetty was to be seen. The menial could not enlighten us. At last we +unearthed the "oldest inhabitant," who took us back to where a few +sticks in the water alone marked where it stood "a many years ago." I +tried to develop some of the powers of the late Professor Owen, when he +constructed an animal from the smallest bone, and succeeded in +"evolving" a jetty from the green remains of four wooden posts.</p> + +<p>I forgave Payn as I forgave Besant. Both men were as genial as they were +eminent, and but for the circumstances of illustrating their stories I +might not have enjoyed their acquaintanceship. I also illustrated Payn's +most charming story, "The Talk of the Town," for <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>. I +never enjoyed any work of the kind so well as this—it has always been +my regret Payn did not write another of the same period. I recollect, +when I first saw him in Waterloo Place, I had just read an article of +his in which he gave a recipe for getting rid of callers, which was to +bring the conversation to an abrupt termination, say absolutely nothing, +but steadfastly stare at your visitor until he left. I can vouch for its +being a simple and effective plan.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img096.jpg" width="400" height="524" alt="THE TALK OF THE TOWN" title="THE TALK OF THE TOWN" /> +<span class="caption">ILLUSTRATION FOR "THE TALK OF THE TOWN" (REDUCED).<br /> +<i>By permission of the proprietors of "Cornhill Magazine."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>When I entered his editorial sanctum the genial essayist received me +most cordially, and looked the picture of comfort, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> surrounded +as he was by a heterogeneous collection of pipes. Presently, through the +clouds of smoke through which he had chatted in that lively, vivacious +manner peculiarly his own, he knocked the ashes out of his finished pipe +and mutely stared point-blank at me till I, like the pipe, went out +also. But before making my exit I reminded him that I had read the +article I refer to, up to which he was no doubt acting, and that I was +pleased and interested that he practised the doctrine he preached. +Possibly this remark of mine was unexpected, and therefore somewhat +disconcerted him for a moment, for he quickly replied, "Not at all! not +at all! Fact is, I was rather upset before you came in by a miserable +man who called to see me, and at the moment I was, <i>à propos</i> of him, +thinking of a funny story about Theodore Hook I came across last night I +never heard before. Poor Hook was at a smart dinner one evening, but +instead of being as usual the life and soul of the party, he proved the +wet blanket on the merry meeting, despite the fact that he, in all +probability, had imbibed his stiff glass of brandy to get him up to his +usual form before entering the house at which he was entertained. This +most unusual phase of Hook's character surprised everybody present, so +much so that his host ventured to remark that the volatile Theodore did +not seem so merry as usual.</p> + +<p>"'Merry? I should think not! I should like to see anyone merry who has +gone through what I have this afternoon!'</p> + +<p>"'What was that?' asked everyone, with one voice.</p> + +<p>"'Well, I'll tell you,' said Hook. 'I have just come up from York in the +stage coach, and I was rather late in taking my seat; the top was +occupied to the full, so I had no alternative but to become an inside +passenger. The only other occupant of the interior was a melancholy +individual rolled up in a corner. He had donned his great-coat, the +collar of which was turned right up over his ears. He stolidly sat +there, never uttering a word, until I became fascinated by his weird +appearance. By-and-by the sun sank below the western horizon, the inside +of the coach became darker and darker, and more ghastly seemed the +cadaverous stranger as the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> blackness increased. The strain was +too much for me. I could not keep silent another minute.</p> + +<p>"'My good sir,' I said, 'whatever is the matter with you?'"</p> + +<p>"'I'll tell you,' he slowly muttered. 'Some months ago I invested in two +tickets in a great lottery, but when I told my wife of the speculation I +had indulged in she nagged and nagged at me to such a frightful extent +that at last I sold the tickets.'</p> + +<p>"'Well?'</p> + +<p>"'Well, do you know, sir, to-day those two numbers won the two first +prizes, and those two prizes represent a sum of money of colossal +magnitude!'</p> + +<p>"'Goodness gracious me!' I shouted. 'If that had happened to me it would +have driven me to desperation! In fact I really believe that I should +have been frantic enough to cut my throat!'</p> + +<p>"'Why, that's just what I have done!' replied the stranger, as he turned +down his collar. 'Look here!'"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img098.jpg" width="200" height="155" alt="THAT'S JUST WHAT I HAVE DONE!" title="THAT'S JUST WHAT I HAVE DONE!" /> +<span class="caption">"THAT'S JUST WHAT I HAVE DONE!"</span> +</div> + +<p>This ghastly tale reminds me of one of my earliest and most trying +experiences in illustrating stories. I had made a very careful drawing +to illustrate a startling episode in a novel by Mrs. Henry Wood. +Naturally it was designed on a block, and represented the hero having +just swallowed poison after committing a murder. The face in the drawing +was everything, and I had taken the greatest pains to depict in the +distorted features all the authoress desired—in fact, I was rather +proud of it. The authoress was pleased, and the block was sent to the +engraver. I was then about twenty—photographing a drawing on to wood +was unknown, and process work was not invented—all drawings were made +on boxwood and engraved by hand. To my horror the engraver returned the +block to me a week afterwards with an apologetic note. The face had been +destroyed in the engraver's hands, and he had "plugged the block"—that +is, another piece of wood had been inserted where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> the hero's +head had been, and whitened over, for me to draw another. The rest of +the design had been engraved. That face gone! How could I conjure it up +again on that unsightly, isolated patch of block, with all the rest of +the drawing engraved and therefore my lines undiscernible? I did my +best. When it was printed it was seen that the face did not fit on the +neck properly, and to my chagrin I received a sarcastic letter from the +editor to inform me that I had made a mistake. The hero had swallowed +poison and had not, as I supposed, cut his head off!</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img099.jpg" width="400" height="375" alt="SPECIMEN OF JAMES PAYN'S WRITING." title="SPECIMEN OF JAMES PAYN'S WRITING." /> +<span class="caption">SPECIMEN OF JAMES PAYN'S WRITING.</span> +</div> + +<p>Another illustration of the conscientious illustrator in search of the +truth. I had to introduce the Reformers' Tree, Hyde Park, into a +picture. Now we are always hearing about the Reformers' Tree in +reference to demonstrations in the Park, so I went in search of the +historical stump. The first person to whom I put a question as to its +whereabouts pointed to a huge tree in flourishing condition. I had just +sketched in its upper branches when it somehow occurred to me that it +would be just as well to ask someone else and make assurance doubly +sure. This time I interrogated a policeman.</p> + +<p>"No, that ain't it; that there row of hoaks is wot people calls the +Reformers' Tree."</p> + +<p>I started another sketch on the strength of this statement, but feeling +a bit dubious over his assertion that the one tree was comprised of a +whole row, I tackled the "oldest inhabitant," an ancient and pensioned +park-keeper, who luckily hove in sight.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Hover there," he replied, gruffly, pointing to a stump that resembled +the sole remaining molar the old man possessed.</p> + +<p>This stump was picturesque. It must be the Reformers' Tree. +Result—another sketch, which I showed to the gatekeeper at the Marble +Arch.</p> + +<p>"Reformers' Tree? Why, there ain't no such thing in the Park." And I +really believe there isn't. It is a myth, and merely exists in the +fertile brain of the descriptive author or the imagination of the +agitator.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img100.jpg" width="250" height="363" alt="THE TYPICAL LOVERS IN ILLUSTRATIONS OF NOVELS." title="THE TYPICAL LOVERS IN ILLUSTRATIONS OF NOVELS." /> +<span class="caption">THE TYPICAL LOVERS IN ILLUSTRATIONS OF NOVELS.</span> +</div> + +<p>After James Payn's "Talk of the Town" no book has given me such pleasure +to illustrate as F. C. Burnand's "Incompleat Angler." The combination of +the picturesqueness of Isaak Walton with the humour of Burnand could not +be otherwise, but most unfortunately the form of its publication ruined +the effect of the drawings. Over this, too, the author and I talked—no, +not exactly—to be exact we laughed over it. I dined with Burnand, and +afterwards in his study he read it to me, and as he frankly admitted he +never laughed so much at anything before.</p> + +<p>The illustrator's difficulties by no means end when the author is +satisfied. Many authors give you every facility, and hamper you with no +impossibilities; but then steps in the editor, especially if he be the +editor of a "goody" magazine. Novels will be novels, and love and lovers +will find their way even into the immaculate pages of our monthly +elevators. I once found it so, and certainly I thought that here was +plain sailing. A tender interview at the garden gate. She "sighed and +looked down as Charles Thorndike took her hand"—unavoidable and not +unacceptable subject. Lovers are all commonplace young men with large +eyes, long legs, and small moustaches (villains' moustaches grow apace); +moreover, lovers, I believe, generally take care to avoid observation; +but no! it appears that "our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> subscribers" have a stern code +which may not be lightly infringed. A letter from the editor rebukes my +worldly ways:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Will you kindly give Charles Thorndike a beard, and +show an aunt or uncle or some chaperon in the distance; the subject and +treatment is hardly suitable otherwise to our young readers."</p></div> + +<p>Sometimes a publisher steps in and arranges everything, regardless of +all the author and artist may cherish.</p> + +<p>Years ago a well-known but not very prosperous publisher sent for me, +and spoke as follows:</p> + +<p>"Now, Mr. F., what I want is to knock the B.P. with Christmas. The story +is all blood and murder, but don't mind that—you must supply the +antidote; put in the holly and mistletoe, plenty of snow and +plum-pudding (the story was a seaside one in summer time). I like John +Tenniel's work—give us a bit of him, with a dash of Du Maurier and a +sprinkling of Leech here and there; but none of your Rembrandt +effects—they are too dark, and don't print up well. Never mind what the +author says; he hasn't made it Christmas, so you must!"</p> + +<p>It is equally difficult to comply with an editorial request such as +this: "The story I send you is as dull as ditch-water; do please read it +over and illustrate it with lively pictures."</p> + +<p>But some authors are their own publishers, and they are then generally +more careful of the illustrations. Perhaps the most exacting of all +authors was "Lewis Carroll."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 230px; "> +<img src="images/img101.jpg" width="230" height="287" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>he name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is practically unknown outside of +Oxford University, where he was mathematical lecturer of Christ Church; +but the name and fame of "Lewis Carroll," author of those inimitable +books for children, both young and old, "Alice's Adventures in +Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-glass and what Alice found there," +are known and beloved all over the world. His first book for children, +"Alice's Adventures," was published at a time exactly to suit me. I was +just eleven—<i>the</i> age <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> to be first impressed by the pen of +Carroll and the pencil of Tenniel.</p> + +<p>When I, a little, a very little boy in knickerbockers, first enjoyed the +adventures of Alice and worshipped the pen and the pencil which recorded +them, I little thought I would some day work hand in hand with the +author, and when that day did arrive I regretted that I had not been +born twenty-two years before I had, for for me to follow Tenniel was +quite as difficult and unsatisfactory a task as for Carroll to follow +Carroll. The worst of it was that I was conscious of this, and Lewis +Carroll was not. Fortunately for me Sylvie was not like her prototype +Alice; the illustrations for Sylvie would not have suited Tenniel as +Alice did. I therefore did not fear comparison, but what I did fear was +that Carroll would not be Carroll, and Carroll wasn't—he was Dodgson. I +wish I had illustrated him when he was Carroll; that he was not the +Carroll of "Alice" is plainly indicated in his life in the following +passage:<a href="#Footnote_1" name="FnAnchor_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> "The publication of 'Sylvie and Bruno' marks an epoch in its +author's life, for it was the publication of all the ideals and +sentiments which he held most dear. It was a book with a definite +purpose; it would be more true to say with several definite purposes. +For this very reason it is not an artistic triumph as the two 'Alice' +books undoubtedly are; it is on a lower literary level, there is no +unity in the story. But from a higher standpoint, that of the Christian +and the philanthropist, the book is the best thing he ever wrote. It is +a noble effort to uphold the right, or what he thought to be the right, +without fear of contempt or unpopularity. The influence which his +earlier books had given him he was determined to use in asserting +neglected truths.</p> + +<div class="blockquot2"><p><a href="#FnAnchor_1" name="Footnote_1">[1]</a> "The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll," by Stuart Dodgson +Collingwood (Fisher Unwin).</p></div> + +<p>"Of course the story has other features—delightful nonsense not +surpassed by anything in 'Wonderland,' childish prattle with all the +charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to +rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would have +been a great success. As things are, there are probably hundreds of +readers who have been scared by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> the religious arguments and +political discussions which make up a large part of it, and who have +never discovered that Sylvie is just as entrancing a personage as Alice +when you get to know her."</p> + + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img103.jpg" width="350" height="457" alt="INSTRUCTIONS IN A LETTER FROM LEWIS CARROLL." title="INSTRUCTIONS IN A LETTER FROM LEWIS CARROLL." /> +<span class="caption">INSTRUCTIONS IN A LETTER FROM LEWIS CARROLL.</span> +</div> + +<p>The character of the book was a bitter disappointment to me. I did not +want to illustrate a book of his with any "purpose" other than the +purpose of delightful amusement, as "Alice" was. Tenniel had point-blank +refused to illustrate another story for Carroll—he was, Tenniel told +me, "impossible"—and Carroll evidently was not satisfied with other +artists he had tried, as he wrote me: "I have a considerable mass of +chaotic materials for a story, but have never had the heart to go to +work to construct the story as a whole, owing to its seeming so hopeless +that I should ever find a suitable artist. Now that <i>you</i> are found," +etc. That was in 1885, and we worked together for seven years. Tenniel +and other artists declared I would not work with Carroll for seven +weeks! I accepted the challenge, but I, for that purpose, adopted quite +a new method. No artist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> is more matter-of-fact or businesslike +than myself: to Carroll I was not Hy. F., but someone else, as <i>he</i> was +someone else. I was wilful and erratic, bordering on insanity. We +therefore got on splendidly.</p> + +<p>Of course it was most interesting to me to study such a genius at such a +time, and in recording my experiences and impressions of Lewis Carroll +my object is not so much to deal with the actual illustration to those +ill-conceived books "Sylvie and Bruno," but to deal with my impressions +of the man obtained by working with him for so long, for to have known +the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll +was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's +books. It was a relief to meet the pure simple, innocent dreamer of +children, after the selfish commercial mind of most authors. Carroll was +a wit, a gentleman, a bore and an egotist—and, like Hans Andersen, a +spoilt child. It is recorded of Andersen that he actually shed tears, +even in late life, should the cake at tea be handed to anyone before he +chose the largest slice. Carroll was not selfish, but a liberal-minded, +liberal-handed philanthropist, but his egotism was all but second +childhood.</p> + +<p>He informed my wife that she was the most privileged woman in the world, +for she knew the man who knew his (Lewis Carroll's) ideas—that ought to +content her. She must not <i>see</i> a picture or read a line of the MS.; it +was sufficient for her to gaze at me outside of my studio with +admiration and respect, as the only man besides Lewis Carroll himself +with a knowledge of Lewis Carroll's forthcoming work. Furthermore he +sent me an elaborate document to sign committing myself to secrecy. This +I indignantly declined to sign. "My word was as good as my bond," I +said, and, striking an attitude, I hinted that I would "strike," +inasmuch as I would not work for years isolated from my wife and +friends. I was therefore no doubt looked upon by him as a lunatic. That +was what I wanted. I was allowed to show my wife the drawings, and he +wrote: "For my own part I have shown <i>none</i> of the MS. to anybody; and, +though I have let some special friends see the pictures, I have <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> uniformly declined to <i>explain</i> +them. 'May I ask so-and-so?' they enquire. 'Certainly!' I reply; "you +may <i>ask</i> as many questions as you like!' That is all they get out of +me."</p> + +<p>But his egotism carried him still further. He was determined no one +should read his MS. but he and I; so in the dead of night (he sometimes +wrote up to 4 a.m.) he cut his MS. into horizontal strips of four or +five lines, then placed the whole of it in a sack and shook it up; +taking out piece by piece, he pasted the strips down as they happened to +come. The result, in such an MS., dealing with nonsense on one page and +theology on another, was audacious in the extreme, if not absolutely +profane—for example:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>"And I found myself repeating, as I left the Church, the words of Jacob, +when he '<i>awaked out of his sleep</i>,' surely the Lord is in this.</p> + +<p>"And once more those shrill discordant tones rang out:—</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<span class="i0">"'He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Descending from a bus;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He looked again, and found it was—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">A Hippopotamus.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>These incongruous strips were elaborately and mysteriously marked with +numbers and letters and various hieroglyphics, to decipher which would +really have turned my assumed eccentricity into positive madness. I +therefore sent the whole MS. back to him, and again threatened to +strike! This had the desired effect. I then received MS. I could read, +although frequently puzzled by its being mixed up with Euclid and +problems in abstruse mathematics.</p> + +<p>I soon discovered that I had undertaken a far more difficult task than I +anticipated, for in the first letter of instructions I received from the +author he frankly acknowledged I had my work "cut out." "Cut out" +suggests dressmaking, the very subject first chosen for discussion and +correspondence.</p> + +<p>The extraordinary workings of this unique mind are shown by quotations +from his letters to me:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>"I think I had better explain part of the plot, as to these two—Sylvie +and Bruno. They are not fairies right through the book—but <i>children</i>. +All these conditions make their <i>dress</i> rather a puzzle. They mustn't have +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +<i>wings</i>; that is clear. And it must be <i>quite</i> the common dress of London +life. It should be as fanciful as possible, so as <i>just</i> to be presentable in +Society. The friends might be able to say 'What oddly-dressed children!' +but they oughtn't to say 'They are not human!'</p> + +<p>"Now I think you'll say you have 'got your work cut out for you,' to +invent a suitable dress!"</p> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img106.jpg" width="350" height="446" alt="SPECIMEN OF LEWIS CARROLL'S DRAWING AND WRITING." title="SPECIMEN OF LEWIS CARROLL'S DRAWING AND WRITING." /> +<span class="caption">SPECIMEN OF LEWIS CARROLL'S DRAWING AND WRITING.</span> +</div> + +<p>How I wish I had had those dresses cut out for me! The above +instructions were quickly followed by other suggestions which added to +my already scanty idea of a costume suitable to Kensington Gardens and +to fairyland! I was thinking this difficulty would be lessened if the +story took place in winter, when I received another letter, which I must +frankly confess rather alarmed me:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>"As to the dresses of these children in their fairy state (we shall +sometimes have them mixing in Society, and supposed to be real children; +and for <i>that</i> they must, I suppose, be dressed as in ordinary life, but +<i>eccentrically</i>, so as to make a little distinction). I <i>wish</i> I dared +dispense with <i>all</i> costume; naked children are so perfectly pure and +lovely, but Mrs. Grundy would be furious—it would never do. Then the +question is, how little dress will content her? Bare legs and feet we +<i>must</i> have, at any rate. I so entirely detest that monstrous fashion +<i>high heels</i> (and in fact have planned an attack on it in this very +book), that I cannot possibly allow my sweet little heroine to be +victimised by it."</p> </div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>Another monstrous fashion he condemns refers to a picture of his +grown-up heroine in London Society:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>"Could you cut off those high shoulders from her sleeves? Why +should we pay any deference to a hideous fashion that will be extinct a +year hence? Next to the unapproachable ugliness of 'crinoline,' I think +these high-shouldered sleeves are the worst things invented for ladies in +our time. Imagine how horrified they would be if one of their daughters +were <i>really</i> shaped like that!"</p> </div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img107.jpg" width="500" height="292" alt="SKETCH BY LEWIS CARROLL" title="SKETCH BY LEWIS CARROLL" /> +<span class="caption">ORIGINAL SKETCH BY LEWIS CARROLL OF HIS CHARMING HERO AND HEROINE.</span> +</div> + +<p>I did make a note of a horrified mother with a nineteenth century +malformation, but I did not send it to the author, as it struck me, when +re-reading his letter, he was possibly serious. Still we had Sylvie's +dress, Mrs. Grundy, crinolines, and high heels to discuss:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>"As to your Sylvie I am charmed with your idea of dressing her in +<i>white</i>; it exactly fits my own idea of her; I want her to be a sort of +embodiment of Purity. So I think that, in Society, she should be wholly +in white—white frock ('clinging' certainly; I <i>hate</i> crinoline +fashion): also I <i>think</i> we might venture on making her <i>fairy</i> dress +transparent. Don't you think we might face Mrs. Grundy to <i>that</i> extent? +In fact I think Mrs. G. would be fairly content at finding her +<i>dressed</i>, and would not mind whether the material was silk, or muslin, +or even gauze. One thing more. <i>Please</i> don't give Sylvie high heels! +They are an abomination to me."</p> </div> + +<p>Then for months we corresponded about the face of the Heroine alone. My +difficulty was increased by the fact that the fairy child Sylvie and the +Society grown-up Lady Muriel were one and the same person! So I received +reams of written descriptions and piles of useless photographs intended +to inspire me to draw with a few lines a face embodying his ideal in a +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> space not larger than a threepenny-piece. By one post I would +receive a batch of photographs of some young lady Lewis Carroll fancied +had one feature, or half a feature, of that ideal he had conjured up in +his own mind as his heroine.</p> + +<p>He invited me to visit friends of his, and strangers too, from John o' +Groats to Land's End, so as to collect fragments of faces. <i>A propos</i> of +this I wrote in an artists' magazine a brief account of artists' +difficulties with the too exacting author. (It is quite safe to write +anything about Judges and Dons: they never read anything.) I described +how I received the author's recipe for constructing the ideal heroine. I +am not to take <i>one</i> model for the lady-child or child-lady. I am to +take <i>several</i>; for all know no face—at least, no face with expression, +or with plenty of life or good abilities, or when showing depth of + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img108.jpg" width="500" height="175" alt="LEWIS CARROLL'S NOTE" title="LEWIS CARROLL'S NOTE" /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 500px; ">LEWIS CARROLL'S NOTE TO ME FOR A PATHETIC PICTURE.</span> + +religious thought—is perfect. I am therefore to go to Eastbourne to see +and study the face of Miss Matilda Smith, in a pastry-cook's shop, for +the eyes. I am to visit Eastbourne and eat buns and cakes, gazing the +while into the beauteous eyes of Miss Smith. Then in Glasgow there is a +Miss O'Grady, "with oh, such a perfect nose! Could I run up to Scotland +to make a sketch of it?" A letter of introduction is enclosed, and, as a +precaution, I am enjoined that I "must not mind her squint." But I <i>do</i> +mind, and I am sure the blemish would sadly mar my proper judgment of +the lovely feature for gazing on which those eyes have lost their +rectitude. For the ears a journey to Brighton to see Miss Robinson, the +Vicar's daughter, is recommended. No, she may listen, think I, to the +"sad sea-waves," or to her father's sermons, but never to any flattery +from me. The mouth I shall find in Cardiff—not an English or Welsh +mouth, but a sweet Spaniard's Señora Niccolomino, the daughter of a +merchant there. In imagination I picture that cigarette held so lovingly +in those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> perfect lips. But I am to draw an English heroine of +fifteen innocent summers—how those curly wreaths of pearly smoke would +disenchant my mind of the spell of youth and innocence! For the hair I +must go to Brighton; for the figure to a number of different places. In +fact, my author had mapped out a complete tour for me. Had he never +heard the old story of the artist who was determined to paint a +perfectly correct figure, strictly in accordance with the orthodox rules +of art? As he painted a portion he covered it up, and so went on until +the figure was complete. When it was finished he tore off the covering. +The result was hideous! He went mad! I feel sure that fate would have +been mine had I attempted to carry out Lewis Carroll's instructions. I +therefore worked on my own lines with success. As his biographer states: +"Meanwhile, with much interchange of correspondence between author and +artist, the pictures for the new fairy tale, 'Sylvie and Bruno,' were +being gradually evolved. Each of them was subjected by Lewis Carroll to +the most minute criticism—hypercriticism, perhaps, occasionally." Still +he was enthusiastic in his praise, and absurdly generous in his thanks. +He was jealous that I would not disclose to him who my model was for +Sylvie. When dining with us many a smile played over the features of my +children when he cross-questioned me on this point. Repeatedly he wrote +to me: "How old is your model for Sylvie? And may I have her name and +address?" "My friend Miss E. G. Thomson, an artist great in 'fairies,' +would be glad to know of her, I'm sure," and so on.</p> + +<p>The fairy Sylvie was my own daughter! All the children in his books I +illustrated were my own children; yet this fact never struck him! He +visited us in the country when I was at work, and I soon afterwards +received the following letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p>"Thanks. I was not aware that the boy, whose photo I sent you, had +far-apart eyes. If you think (and you are <i>quite</i> the best judge of the +point) that these eyes are needed in order to give to the face the fun +and roguery I want expressed, by all means retain them.</p> + +<p>"It had occurred to me to write and beg that, if Arundel did not furnish +all requisite models for drawing from life, you would let all portions +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> pictures which would have to be done without models or wait +till you return to town, <i>wait</i>. But as I think you definitely told me +that you never do the finished pictures <i>except</i> from life, I presume +the petition to be superfluous."</p> </div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img110.jpg" width="500" height="521" alt="SYLVIE AND BRUNO." title="SYLVIE AND BRUNO." /> +<span class="caption">SYLVIE AND BRUNO. MY ORIGINAL DRAWING FOR LEWIS CARROLL.<br /> +(<i>Never published</i>.)</span> +</div> + +<p>When I received this letter at Arundel my second boy was sitting in his +bathing costume on a garden-roller on the lawn for a picture of Bruno +sitting on a dead mouse. I was chaffing my model about flirting with a +young lady he met at a children's garden party, and threatened to inform +his sweetheart in London, when he assured me with knowingness, "Fact is, +papa, the young lady here is all right for the country, you know—but +she would <i>never</i> do in town!"</p> + +<p>It was the same idea as Lewis Carroll's about models.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img111.jpg" width="350" height="524" alt="I GO MAD!" title="I GO MAD!" /> +<span class="caption">I GO MAD!</span> +</div> + +<p>As I have brought my family into this, I may mention that there is one +picture in "Sylvie and Bruno" (vol. i., p. 134) which <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> brings back to me the only +sorrowful hour I had in connection with the otherwise enjoyable work. My +wife was very ill—so ill it was a question of life and death. Expert +opinion was called in, and the afternoon I had to make that +drawing—with my own children as models—the "consultation" was being +held in my wife's room. Carroll was on his way from Oxford to see the +work, and I was drawing against time. It's the old story of the clown +with the sick wife. Caricaturists are after all but clowns of the +pencil. They must raise a laugh whatever their state of mind may be. For +a long time I never would show Lewis Carroll my work, for the simple +reason I did not do it. He thought I was at work, but I was not. That's +where my acting eccentricity came in. I knew that I would have to draw +the subjects "right off," not one a month or one in six months. +Correspondence for three months, as a rule, led to work for one week. +Isolated verse I did let him have the illustrations for, but not the +body of the book. This was my only chance, and I arrived at this secrecy +by the following bold stroke.</p> + +<p>Lewis Carroll came from Oxford one evening, early in the history of the +work, to dine, and afterwards to see a batch of work. He ate little, +drank little, but enjoyed a few glasses of sherry, his favourite wine. +"Now," he said, "for the studio!" I rose and led the way. My wife sat in +astonishment. She knew I had nothing to show. Through the drawing-room, +down the steps of the conservatory to the door of my studio. My hand is +on the handle. Through excitement Lewis Carroll <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> stammers worse +than ever. Now to see the work for his great book! I pause, turn my back +to the closed door, and thus address the astonished Don: "Mr. Dodgson, I +am <i>very</i> eccentric—I cannot help it! Let me explain to you clearly, +before you enter my studio, that my eccentricity sometimes takes a +violent form. If I, in showing my work, discover in your face the +slightest sign that you are not <i>absolutely</i> satisfied with any particle +of this work in progress, the <i>whole</i> of it goes into the fire! It is a +risk: will you accept it, or will you wait till I have the drawings +<i>quite</i> finished and send them to Oxford?"</p> + +<p>"I—I—I ap—appreciate your feelings—I—I—should feel the same +myself. I am off to Oxford!" and he went.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img112.jpg" width="500" height="156" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>I sent him drawings as they were finished, and each parcel brought back +a budget of letter-writing, each page being carefully numbered. This is +the top of page 5 in his 49,874th letter. I am not sure if I received +all the remaining 49,873 letters in the seven years. To meet him and to +work for him was to me a great treat. I put up with his +eccentricities—real ones, not sham like mine.—I put up with a great +deal of boredom, for he was a bore at times, and I worked over seven +years with his illustrations, in which the actual working hours would +not have occupied me more than seven weeks, purely out of respect for +his genius. I treated him as a problem, and I solved him, and had he +lived I would probably have still worked with him. He remunerated me +liberally for my work; still, he actually proposed that in addition I +should partake of the profits; his gratitude was overwhelming. "I am +grateful; and I feel sure that if <i>pictures</i> could sell a book 'Sylvie +and Bruno' would sell like wildfire."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> + +<p>Perhaps the most pleasant confession I have to make is my fondness for +children. They always interest and amuse me more than "grown-ups." The +commonplace talk is to them unknown; it is full of surprises.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the nursery's record of my family is not longer or any more +interesting than the sayings and doings of the youngsters of any other +family; still a few extracts may interest those who, like myself, are +interested in first impressions.</p> + +<p>My eldest, just entering on his teens, had as companions two brothers +and one sister. Hearing there was an addition to this little family +group, he, dressed in flannels, ran into my studio, bat in hand, "Papa, +is it a boy or a girl?"</p> + +<p>"A boy."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I am so glad. I do want a wicket-keeper, and Dorothy can't +wicket-keep a bit."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img113.jpg" width="250" height="393" alt="I DO WANT A WICKET-KEEPER!" title="I DO WANT A WICKET-KEEPER!" /> +<span class="caption">"I DO WANT A WICKET-KEEPER!"</span> +</div> + +<p>A stoutly-made little fellow of eight, to his mother, who happened to be +extremely thin:</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother, I do believe you must be the very sweetest woman in the +world!"</p> + +<p>"Thanks very much, Lawrence. But why so affectionate? What do you want?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want anything. I only know you must be the very sweetest woman +in the world."</p> + +<p>"Really, you are too flattering. Why this sudden outburst of affection?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, I've been thinking over the old, old saying, 'The +nearer the bone the sweeter the meat.'"</p> + +<p>Children, I think, have the art of "leading up" to jokes better than +adults. They hear some strange remark, they naturally analyse it, and it +suggests an application. For instance, this brat possibly objected to +some portion of meat at table. His mother had reminded of the old +saying, "The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat." Thin +mother,—there's the application.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + +<p>One of my youngsters ran into the drawing-room at five o'clock tea. A +lady visitor thus addressed him:</p> + +<p>"Come here, my little man. I suppose when you grow up you will be an +artist, like your father?"</p> + +<p>"My father is not an artist."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, he <i>is</i> an artist."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, no, no, my father is not an artist—he's only a black and white +man. I am going to be an artist in all colours."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img114.jpg" width="400" height="608" alt="PORTION OF LETTER FROM LAWRENCE, AGE 9." title="PORTION OF LETTER FROM LAWRENCE, AGE 9." /> +<span class="caption">PORTION OF LETTER FROM LAWRENCE, AGE 9.</span> +</div> + +<p>My own children have been my models, not only for Lewis Carroll's books, +but for all my drawings of children. I have three boys and one girl. +Dorothy is now a successful artist, and Lawrence is, at the age of +eighteen, a professional draughtsman of mechanical subjects; my youngest +is just out of his teens. Their portraits manifolded will be found in +the page sketch from "Romps" Du Maurier wrote me a most graceful +appreciation of these books, which, considering his delightful pictures +of children in <i>Punch</i>, was most gratifying to me.</p> + +<p>An artist for whose work I have the greatest admiration was the late +Randolph Caldecott, and the only occasion on which I had the pleasure of +meeting him was of a semi-theatrical kind. It was at one of the +"Artists' Tableaux" which were given in London some years ago. In those +produced in Piccadilly I took no part, and the entertainment to which I +refer was held at the Mansion House.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum' style="clear: both; "><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img115.jpg" width="600" height="344" alt="REDUCTION FROM A DESIGN FOR MY ROMPS" title="REDUCTION FROM A DESIGN FOR MY ROMPS" /> +<span class="caption">REDUCTION FROM A DESIGN FOR MY "ROMPS."</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>At the last moment, in order to complete one of the pictures, a portly +Dutchman was required, and a telegram was despatched to me to enquire +whether I would represent the character. A dress, which was not a very +good fit, was provided for me by the costumier of the show, and with the + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img117.jpg" width="400" height="552" alt="PORTION OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE DU MAURIER." title="PORTION OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE DU MAURIER." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 400px; ">PORTION OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE DU MAURIER.</span> + +aid of a little padding, a good deal of rouge, a long clay pipe, and a +bottle of schnapps, I managed to look something like the inflated +Hollander I was representing, in the centre of the group, where I was +supposed to be looking on at a game of bowls. Caldecott, who was placed +at a window, flirting with the maids of the Queen, was attired in a +graceful costume of the most faultless description, surmounted by a +magnificent hat with a sweeping brim and splendid feathers, upon which +he had expended no little pains and money. My head-gear consisted of a +very insignificant stage property hat, but as I was not intended to +contribute an element of beauty to the picture, that didn't matter. The +tableau was arranged by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> Mr. E. A. Abbey, and when taking his +last look round before the curtain was raised, his artistic eye detected +that more black was required in the centre. While we were thus in our +allotted positions, and straining every nerve to remain perfectly +rigid—an ordeal which, by the way, I never wish to go through again, as +I had hard work to restrain myself from breaking out into a Highland +fling or an Irish jig, or calling out "Boo!" to the audience to relieve +my pent-up feelings—Mr. Abbey suddenly seized the superb hat on +Caldecott's head, which the latter had had specially made, and in which +he really fancied himself, handed it to me, and to Caldecott's horror, +and almost before he was conscious that he had been made ridiculous by +the wretched remnant which had been sent from Bow Street for me, the +curtain was rung up.</p> + +<p>I confess I have a certain amount of pity, closely akin to contempt, for +the artist who must have the actual character he wants to paint, who +cannot use a model merely for reference, but paints in everything like a +photograph. Some artists call such feebleness conscientiousness, but to +me it seems mere weakness. Must an author paint each character in his +book, or an actor take his every impersonation on the stage, minutely +from some living model? Surely observation and natural originality is +more than the photographic copying of your "conscientious" artist! Worse +feebleness still it is when an artist has to paint a well-known +character, say King Lear or Mary Queen of Scots, and goes about hunting +for a living person as near as possible in appearance to the original, +and then costumes and slavishly reproduces him or her, without any show +of judgment or insight after the model is once selected. And this lack +of insight into character seems deplorably prevalent among our figure +painters, for how often we see in the exhibitions the model with a "good +head" tamely reproduced over and over again—here as a monk, there as a +Polonius, Thomas à Becket, a "blind beggar," "His Excellency," a +pensioner, or painted by some artist who wants to make a bid for +portraiture as "A portrait of a gentleman"!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img119a.jpg" width="350" height="166" alt="A TRANSFORMATION." title="A TRANSFORMATION." /> +<span class="caption">A TRANSFORMATION.</span> +</div> + +<p>Black and white men have to introduce so many characters into their +work, they are obliged to invent them; but it is a curious fact that +this facility disappears at times. The late Mr. Fred Barnard, clever as +he was at inventing character for his black and white work, found, when + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img119b.jpg" width="250" height="362" alt="" title="" /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 250px; "></span> + +he was painting in oil, that confidence had left him, and he spent +several days wandering about London to find real characters for a +picture he was painting representing the jury in "Pilgrim's Progress." +One day in Oxford Street he saw a hansom-cab driver with a face besotted +with drink and "ripe" for production as a slave to Bacchus. Barnard +hailed the hansom, jumped in, and directed the jehu to drive him to his +studio on Haverstock Hill. In going up the Hampstead Road a tram-car ran +over a child. Barnard was terribly upset by the touching sight, and told +the driver to pull up at the nearest tavern. Getting out, he looked at +his "subject," intending to invite him to refreshment before taking him +on to his studio, where he intended to paint him. To his horror the face +of the bibulous cabman had lost all its "colour," and was of a pale +greenish hue.</p> + +<p>"That was horful, sir, warn't it? It'll upset me for a week."</p> + +<p>The disappointed artist dismissed his "subject."</p> + +<p>Much could be written of this genuine humourist. His buoyant fun was +irrepressible; indoors and out of doors he entertained himself—and +sometimes his friends—with his jokes. In his studio he kept as pets +some little tortoises. They were allowed to crawl about as they liked, +but he had painted on their backs caricatures—a laughing face, a +sour-green face, one with a look of horror, another of mischief. A +visitor seated unaware <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> of these would suddenly spring off the +sofa as the walking mask slowly appeared from underneath it! Barnard's +power of mimicry was great, and his jokes were as excellent as his +drawings. Even when sitting before the camera for his photograph, he had +his little joke.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img120.jpg" width="350" height="489" alt="BARNARD AND THE MODELS." title="BARNARD AND THE MODELS." /> +<span class="caption">BARNARD AND THE MODELS.</span> +</div> + +<p>There are a number of girls who go the round of the studios, but have no +right whatever to do so. They generally hunt in pairs, and this habit +surely distinguishes them from the real model. They are more easily +drawn than described. Two of this class once called on Barnard.</p> + +<p>"What do you sit for?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, anything, sir."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I am a figure man, you are no use to me, but there is a friend of +mine over there who is now painting a landscape—I think you might do +very well for a haystack; and your friend might try studio No. 5 and sit +for a thunder-cloud, the artist there is starting a stormy piece—oh, +good morning." Tableau!</p> + +<p>A wretched individual once called upon me and begged me to give him a +sitting. I asked him to sit for what I was at work upon: this was a +wicket-keeper in a cricket match bending over the wicket. I assured the +man he need not apologise, as he had really turned up at an opportune +moment; the drawing was "news," and it had to be finished that day. When +I had shown my model the position and made him understand exactly what I +wanted, I noticed to my surprise that he was trembling all over. I +immediately asked him if he were cold.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 210px; "> +<img src="images/img121.jpg" width="210" height="689" alt="I SIT FOR 'ANDS, SIR." title="I SIT FOR 'ANDS, SIR." /> +<span class="caption">"I SIT FOR 'ANDS, SIR."</span> +</div> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Nervous?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then why not keep still?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, that's just what I can't do, sir! I had to give up my occupation +because, sir, I am hafflicted with the palsy, and when I bend I do +tremble so. I only sit for 'ands, sir—for 'ands to portrait painters. I +close 'em for a military gent—I open 'em for a bishop—but when the +hartist is hin a 'urry I know as 'ow to 'ide one 'and in my pocket and +the hother hunder a cocked 'at."</p> + +<p>Hiding hands recalls to me a fact I may mention in justice to our modern +English caricaturists. We never make capital out of our subjects' +deformities. This I pointed out at a dinner in Birmingham a few years +ago, at which I was the guest of the evening, and as I was addressing +journalists I mention this fact in justice to myself and my brother +caricaturists. As it happened, that afternoon I had heard Mr. Gladstone +making his first speech in the opening of Parliament, 1886, after being +returned in Opposition. Turning round to his young supporters, he used +for the first time the now famous expression "an old Parliamentary +hand," holding up at the same time a hand on which there were only three +fingers. Now had I drawn that hand as it was, minus the first finger, +showing the black patch? It would have been tempting on the part of a +foreign caricaturist, because it had a curious application under the +circumstances. (But it would be noticed that in my sketch in <i>Punch</i> the +first finger, which really did not exist, is prominently shown.) This +was the first time the fact was made public that Mr. Gladstone had not +the first finger on the left hand; since then, however, all artists, +humorous or serious, were careful to show Mr. Gladstone's left hand as +pointed out by me.</p> + +<p>Now I had noticed this for years in the House, and I hold as an argument +that men are not observant the fact that Members who had sat in the +House with Mr. Gladstone, on the same benches, for years, assured me +that they had never noticed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> his hand before I made this matter +public. So that when I am told that I misrepresent portraits of +prominent men I always point to this fact.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone was careful to hide the deformity in his photographs, but +in his usual energetic manner in the House the black patch in place of +the finger was on many occasions in no way concealed.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img122.jpg" width="600" height="272" alt="A PUNCH ENGRAVING" title="A PUNCH ENGRAVING" /> +<span class="caption">A <i>PUNCH</i> ENGRAVING, DRAWN ON WOOD.</span> +</div> + +<p>These are plebeian models, but sometimes artists' friends recommend +amateur models—a broken-down gentleman or some other poor relation—and +when you are drawing social modern subjects, of course these are really +of more use than the badly-dressed professional model.</p> + +<p>On "Private View Day" at the Royal Academy a few years ago a knot of +artists and their wives were in one of the rooms; it was late, and few +of the visitors remained. The attention of the artists was attracted by +a stately and beautiful being who entered and went round examining the +pictures.</p> + +<p>"How charming!" remarked one.</p> + +<p>"Delightful!" replied another.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if she would but sit to me!" prayed a third.</p> + +<p>"Why not ask her?" asked the practical one. "If anyone can, you can; so +remember that faint heart never won fair sitter!"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, here goes!" whispered the cavalier, Mr. Val Prinsep, R.A., in the +tone of one about to lead a forlorn hope, and he charged desperately +across the gallery. He approached the fair stranger, and politely taking +off his hat said diffidently:</p> + +<p>"Madam, I am one of the Academy. Should you wish to know anything about +the pictures I shall be glad——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, thanks. I know a good deal about them."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Then you will understand how we artists are always on the +look-out for beauty to paint—and—ah—hm—well, you see I—that is we" +(pointing to the group) "were so struck with your presence +that—ah—pardon my abruptness—we thought that if such a thing were +possible you might condescend to allow one of us to make a study of your +head—ah."</p> + +<p>"Oh, with pleasure," said the fair visitor, taking from her hand-bag a +neat little note-book, and opening it, she said:</p> + +<p>"Well, I have only got Sundays and one Wednesday next month +disengaged,—I have got sittings on every other day. Will this be of any +use to you?"</p> + +<p>She was a model!</p> + +<p>The first house I occupied after I married faced one occupied by a +well-known and worthy fiery-tempered man of letters, and it so happened +that one evening my wife and I were dining at the house of another +neighbour. We were gratified to learn that our celebrated <i>vis-à-vis</i>, +hearing we had come to live in the same square, was anxious to make our +acquaintance. On our return home that night we discovered the latch-key +had been forgotten, and unfortunately our knocking and ringing failed to +arouse the domestics. It was not long, however, before we awoke our +neighbours, and a window of the house opposite was violently thrown +open, and language all the stronger by being endowed with literary merit +came from that man of letters, who in the dark was unable to see the +particular neighbours offending him, and he referred to my wife and +myself in a way that could not be passed over. A battle of words ensued +in which I was proved the victor, and my neighbour beat a hasty retreat. +Before retiring I wrote a note to the friend we had just left to say +that in the circumstances I refused to know my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> neighbour, and + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img124.jpg" width="300" height="638" alt="MY FIGHTING DOUBLE." title="MY FIGHTING DOUBLE." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 300px; ">MY FIGHTING DOUBLE.</span> + +he had better inform him that I would on the first opportunity punch his +head. By the same post I wrote for a particular model,—a retired +pugilist. As soon as he arrived next morning I placed him at the window +of my studio facing the opposite house, now and then sending him down to +the front door to stand on the doorstep to await some imaginary person, +and to keep his eye on the house opposite. I went on with my work in +peace. Presently a note came:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p><span class="smcap">"Dear Furniss</span>,—Your neighbour has sent round to ask me what you are +like. He has never seen you till this morning, and he is frightened to +leave his house. He implores me to apologise for him."</p></div> + +<p>He departed from the neighbourhood shortly afterwards.</p> + +<p>Sad to relate that all Governmental undertakings of an artistic nature, +from our most colossal public building or monument to the design of a +postage stamp, are fair game for ridicule! The outward manifest record +of the Post Office Jubilee—rather the "Post Office Jumble"—was the +envelope and post card published by the Government and sold for one +shilling. The pitiful character of the design, from an artistic point of +view, shocked every person of taste; so I set to work and burlesqued it, +strictly following the lines of the genuine article. A glance at my +envelope alone, therefore, is sufficient to show the wretched quality of +the original. It happened that the postmen's grievances were very +prominent at that time. The Postmaster-General and the trade unionists +and others were at fever heat, and excitement ran high. This +caricature-parody, therefore, was a sketch with a purpose. It was said +at one of the meetings that my pencil "may perhaps touch the public +sympathy in behalf of the postman more effectually than any language has +been able to do." The wretched thing was thought worthy of an article +by Mr. M. H. Spielmann. My skit, it is needless to add, was very popular +with the postmen. They showed their gratitude by saving many a +misdirected letter. A letter addressed "Harry Furniss, London," has +frequently found me, without the loss of a post.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum' style="clear: both; "><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; clear: both"> +<img src="images/img125.jpg" width="500" height="632" alt="SPECIMEN OF MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S ENVELOPES TO ME." title="SPECIMEN OF MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S ENVELOPES TO ME." /> +<span class="caption">SPECIMEN OF MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S ENVELOPES TO ME.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> + +<p>I signed a certain number, which sold at 10<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> each, and were +bought up principally by the members of the Philatelic Society.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; clear: both"> +<img src="images/img127.jpg" width="600" height="269" alt="CHEQUE FOR 5½D." title="CHEQUE FOR 5½D." /> +<span class="caption">CHEQUE FOR 5½D. PASSED THROUGH TWO BANKS AND PAID. I SIGNED IT +<i>backwards</i>, AND IT WAS CANCELLED BY CLERK <i>backwards</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p>Perhaps the publication of this "Post Office Jumble" card was also the +cause of the puzzled postmen taking the trouble to decipher and deliver +the far more amusing artistic jokes of that irrepressible joker, Mr. +Linley Sambourne. By his permission I here publish a page, a selection +of the envelopes he has sent me from time to time.</p> + +<p>It is bad enough purposely to puzzle the overworked +letter-carriers—they are too often tried by unintentional touches of +humour emanating from the most innocent and unsuspected members of the +public—but I confess that I was once the innocent cause of Mr. +Sambourne trying the same thing on with the overworked bank clerk.</p> + +<p>I sent my <i>Punch</i> friend a cheque, here reproduced, for the sum of +½<i>d.</i>, payable to "Lynnlay Sam Bourne, Esqre," signed <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img128a.jpg" width="300" height="277" alt="SIR HENRY IRVING WRITES HIS NAME BACKWARDS." title="SIR HENRY IRVING WRITES HIS NAME BACKWARDS." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 300px; ">SIR HENRY IRVING WRITES HIS NAME BACKWARDS.</span> + +by me backwards, crossed "Don't you wish you may get it and go." +Sambourne endorsed it "L. Sam. Bourne," and sent it to his bank. The +clerk went one better, and wrote "Cancelled" <i>backwards</i> across my +reversed signature. It passed through my bank, and the money was paid. +This is probably unique in the history of banking.</p> + +<p><i>A propos</i> of writing backwards, in days when artists made their +drawings on wood everything of course had to be reversed, and writing +backwards became quite easy. To this day I can write backwards nearly as +quickly as I write in the ordinary way. One night at supper I was + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img128b.jpg" width="130" height="88" alt="SIR HENRY IRVING'S ATTEMPT." title="SIR HENRY IRVING'S ATTEMPT." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 130px; ">SIR HENRY IRVING'S ATTEMPT.</span> + +explaining this, and furthermore told my friends that they themselves +could write backwards—in fact, they could not avoid doing so. Not +of course on the table, as I was doing, but by placing the sheet of +paper against the table underneath, and writing with the point upwards. +Perhaps my reader will try—and see the effect. For encouragement +here are a few of the first attempts on that particular evening.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 220px; "> +<img src="images/img128c.jpg" width="220" height="108" alt="MR. J. L. TOOLE'S FIRST ATTEMPT." title="MR. J. L. TOOLE'S FIRST ATTEMPT." /> +<span class="caption">MR. J. L. TOOLE'S FIRST ATTEMPT.</span> +</div> + +<p>A few years ago a banquet was given at the Mansion House to the +representatives of French art; several English painters and others +interested in art were invited to meet them. Previous to being presented +to the Lord Mayor, every guest was requested to sign an autograph +album—an unusual proceeding, I think, at a City dinner. + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img128d.jpg" width="150" height="42" alt="MR. J. L. TOOLE'S SECOND ATTEMPT." title="MR. J. L. TOOLE'S SECOND ATTEMPT." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 150px; ">MR. J. L. TOOLE'S SECOND ATTEMPT.</span> + +Were I Lord Mayor I would compel my guests to sign their names—not on +arrival, but when leaving the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Mansion House, and thus possess +an autograph album of erratic graphology, and one worth studying. In +company with my friend Mr. Whitworth Wallis, the curator of the +Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, I entered the Mansion House, when we +were immediately accosted by a powdered flunkey in gorgeous uniform, in +possession of the autograph album, who presented a truly magnificent pen +at us, and in peremptory tones demanded our life or our signatures. +Whitworth Wallis wrote his first, with a dash and confidence. I stood by +and admired. "Oh," I said, taking the pen, "that's not half a dash; let +me show you mine."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img129.jpg" width="500" height="83" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>Jeames, in taking the pen from me, looked condescendingly over the page, +and with the air of a justice delivering judgment said to me:</p> + +<p>"Beaten 'im by hinches, sir. Beaten 'im by hinches!"</p> + +<p>Months after that I gave an entertainment one evening at Woolwich. My +audience was principally composed of Arsenal hands. On leaving the +platform I was taken into the Athletic Club rooms, and asked to sign +their autograph book and say a "few words" to the members. The few words +consisted of the "record" I had made in the signing match I had with +Mr. Wallis at the Mansion House—an incident which was brought to my +mind suddenly when I took the pen in my hand. It so happened that +Whitworth Wallis, who is a well-known lecturer on art matters, was on +that same night lecturing in the North of England, and as he left the +platform at the same hour as I at Woolwich, he was, like me, asked to +sign an autograph book, and told the very same story to his friends in +the North as I was telling under exactly similar circumstances, the same +evening, at the same hour, in the South. Neither of us knew that the +other was lecturing that night. It is not by any means a usual thing to +be asked to sign a club album, and Wallis and I had not met or +corresponded since the evening at the Mansion House.</p> + +<p>After working many years for the <i>Illustrated London News</i>, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> +I became a contributor to the <i>Graphic</i>, and for that journal +wrote and illustrated a series of supplements upon "Life in +Parliament"; but from this time forward it would be difficult +to name any illustrated paper with which I have not at some +time or other been connected. For instance, the <i>Yorkshire +Post</i> a few years ago started a halfpenny evening paper, and +sent their manager down to me to ask my honorarium to +illustrate the first few numbers with character sketches of the +members of the British Association, who were holding their +meetings that week in Leeds. This was a happy thought, as +the "British Asses," as they are too familiarly called, sent these +first numbers of the paper all over the country; the new ship +had something to start upon, and is now a prosperous concern. +There are various stories about the sum I received for this work. +It was a large sum for England, where enterprise of this kind is +very rare. I was "billed" all over the town as if I were a +Patti or Paderewski, and telegrams were sent to the London +papers by the special reporters announcing the terms upon +which I was at work; altogether it was a bit of Yankee +booming that would have made a Harmsworth or a Newnes +green with envy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CARICATURE.</h2> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<h3>A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">What is Caricature?—Interviewing—Catching Caricatures—Pellegrini—The +"Ha! Ha!"—Black and White <i>v</i>. Paint—How to make a +Caricature—M.P.'s—My System—Mr. Labouchere's Attitude—Do the +Subjects object?—Colour in Caricature—Caught!—A Pocket +Caricature—The Danger of the Shirt-cuff—The Danger of a Marble +Table—Quick Change—Advice to those about to Caricature.<br /><br /></p></div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img131.jpg" width="250" height="379" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>I am asked what is caricature, how can I define it? Ah, here it is +explained by some great authority—whom I cannot say, for I have it +under the heading of "Cuttings from Colney Hatch," undated, unnamed. +Kindly read it carefully:</p> + +<p>"The word itself, 'caricature,' is related etymologically to our own +'cargo,' and means, in all Italian simplicity, a <i>loading</i>. So, then, +the finely analytical quality of the Italian intellect, disengaging the +ultimate (material) element out of all the (spiritual) elements of +pictorial distortion and travesty, called it simply a 'loading.' After +all, 'exageration' only substitutes the idea of mound, or <i>agger</i> for +<i>carica</i>—the heaping up of a mound—for the common Italian word 'load' +or 'cartload.' One can easily understand how a cold, cynical, and hating +Neapolitan, pushed about by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> police for a likeness much too +like, would shrug his shoulders, and say, possibly, the likeness was +loaded. But when we look at the character of the loading, there may be +anything there, from diabolical and malignant spite up to the simplest +fun, to say nothing of the almost impossibility of drawing the real +truth, and the almost necessary tendency to exaggerate one thing and +diminish another. But if the Italian mind, with a head to be chopped off +by a despot for a joke, discovered the colourless and impregnable word +'load,' the French <i>gamin</i>, on his own responsibility, hit upon the +identical word in French, namely, 'charge'—<i>une charge</i> meaning both a +pictorial or verbal goak or caricature, and a load. When did the word +'caricature' first obtain in the Italian language, and how? When did the +word 'charge' acquire a similar meaning in France, and was it or not +suggested by the Italian word? But the thing caricature goes back to the +night of ages, and is in its origin connected with the subjective +risible faculty on the one side and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> objective tendency to +making faces on the other. Curiously enough, the original German ideas +of caricature appear to have hinged precisely upon the distortion of the +countenance, since <i>Fratze</i>, the leading word for caricature, signifies +originally a grimace. Then we have <i>Posse</i>, buffoonery (Italian, +<i>pazzie</i>), which, without original reference to drawing, would exactly +express many of Mr. ——'s very exquisite drolleries, diving as they do +into the weirdest genius—conceptions of night and of day, of dawn and +of twilight—the mixture of the terrible, the grotesque, the gigantic, +the infinitely little, the animal, the beast, the ethereal, the divinely +loving, the diabolically cynical, the crawling, the high-bred, all in a +universal salmagundi and lobster nightmare, mixing up the loveliest +conceptions with croaking horrors, the eternal aurora with the +everlasting <i>nitschewo</i> of the frozen, blinding steppe. Caricature! What +can we English call it?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 610px; clear: both"> +<img src="images/img132.jpg" width="610" height="436" alt="THE STUDIO OF A CARICATURIST." title="THE STUDIO OF A CARICATURIST." /> +<span class="caption">THE STUDIO OF A CARICATURIST.</span> +</div> + +<p>What indeed after this? Except in despair we adopt the child's +well-known definition—"First you think, and then you draw round the +think." I have been more than once asked to deliver a lecture explaining +the process. Of course such an idea is too absurd for serious +consideration. The comic writer cannot give anyone a recipe for making +jokes, nor can a comic actor show you how to grimace so as to make +others laugh in this serious country. We are not taught to look at the +comic side of things—any humorous element may grow, like Topsy, +unaided—nor is the power given to many to explain to others their +inventions. Bessemer, the inventor of the steel bearing his name, when +he first made his discovery was asked to read a paper explaining his +invention to a large meeting of experts. He had his carefully-prepared +notes in front of him, but they only embarrassed him. He struggled to +speak, but failed. Only the weight of the lumps of metal dangling in his +coattail pocket kept him from collapsing. Suddenly he dived his hand +into the pocket and produced a piece of steel, which he thumped on the +table. "Bother the paper! Here is my steel, and I'll tell you how I made +it!" So would it be with a caricaturist. After a struggle he would say, +"Bother words, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> words, words! Here is a pencil, and here is +some paper. I'll show you how I caricature."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img134.jpg" width="300" height="497" alt="CARICATURE OF ME BY MY DAUGHTER, AGE 15." title="CARICATURE OF ME BY MY DAUGHTER, AGE 15." /> +<span class="caption">CARICATURE OF ME BY MY DAUGHTER, AGE 15.</span> +</div> + +<p>Personally, I have no objection to being caricatured—I frequently make +caricatures of myself. Nor have I any objection to being interviewed—I +interview myself. What else are these pages but interviews? I confess I +fail to see any objection to a legitimate caricature or a legitimate +interview. On the contrary, I look upon interviewing by an experienced +and sympathetic writer as invaluable to a public man who is bringing out +something novel and of interest to the public at large. It certainly +seems to me judicious that he should give his preliminary ideas +regarding it to the public firsthand, instead of allowing them to leak +out in an unauthentic and disfigured form through the fervid +imaginations of irresponsible scribes, leading to much misconception.</p> + +<p>But I do object to the incapable, be he an interviewer wielding the +pencil or the pen. To illustrate my meaning I shall take the latter +first. The pen in this case did his work in true professional style. He +came to interview me, and by doing so to "boom" me for a journal which +was about to make a feature of my contributions to its pages. He brought +with him a new note-book of remarkable size; an artist with a portfolio, +pencils, and other artistic necessities; and a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> photographer! +The interviewer shall describe the scene in his own words.</p> + +<p>The interviewer remarked that the readers of the ——"would be very +interested in knowing exactly how the thing (interviewing) was done. How +did the ideas come? How did they take shape? And what was the method of +work? Neither at these nor at any other questions did Mr. Furniss wince. +It must not be forgotten that when he was in America last year he was +interviewed, on an average, once a day; and a man who has passed through + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img135.jpg" width="300" height="551" alt="A SERIOUS PORTRAIT—FROM LIFE." title="A SERIOUS PORTRAIT—FROM LIFE." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 300px; ">A SERIOUS PORTRAIT—FROM LIFE.</span> + +such an experience as that is unlikely to recoil before any ordinary +ordeal; although Mr. Furniss was bound to admit that a combination of +interviewer, artist, and photographer had never before got him into his +grip. The situation would have had its ludicrous side for anybody who +had chanced to peep through the skylight. The spectacle of five men (for +the presence of the indefatigable secretary was an indispensable part of +the proceedings) all solemnly drinking tea, while a deer-hound kept a +wistful eye on the sugar-basin, was unusual, and perhaps a little +grotesque—to all save the participants. Seated at his easel in the +characteristic position represented in our sketch, Mr. Furniss would now +and again ask permission to move his arm towards his cup of tea, and +would then bend back to the make-belief work at which he was posing." +There is a picture of interviewing! Everything so prepared, so studied, +so well described to impress the subscribers of the enterprising +journal. The photographer with a wide angle lens took in all that was in +my studio—to "make-believe," as the camera <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> invariably does, +that the apartment was six times larger than it really is. But the +artist, who <i>should</i> idealise if the photographer could not, who so +sadly interfered with my enjoying my tea, who was sent to make the most +of me to raise the enthusiasm of the readers and to increase the +subscriptions, succeeded in doing with his pencil what no interviewer +has done with his pen,—he made me wince! Here is a reduction of the +serious portrait published.</p> + +<p>I have sat down time after time to answer young correspondents' +questions about the "system" to adopt for the production of caricature. +I invariably end by drawing imaginary caricatures of my correspondent +and fail to reply. When interviewed on the subject of caricature, I +discourse on the history of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and the +technique in the work of Burne-Jones, Rossetti, and Holman Hunt, and +caricature is therefore driven from our minds.</p> + +<p>However, the difficulty was solved in a very unexpected manner. One day, +whilst smoking my cigar after lunch, I overheard an interview in my +studio, which I here reproduce.</p> + +<p>A Pencil of mine was working away merrily shortly after the opening of +the Session, when suddenly my favourite Pen flew off the writing-table, +where it had been enjoying a quiet forty winks, and alighted on the +easel.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img136.jpg" width="300" height="364" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ow very awkward you are!" cried the Pencil. "See, you have knocked +against and so agitated me that I have actually given Sir William an +extra chin."</p> + +<p>"One more or less does not matter, does it?" rejoined the Pen. "I +apologise, and trust you will make allowances for me, as I am only an +artist's Pen, don't you know, and naturally rather uncouth, I fear."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Pray take a seat upon the indiarubber, and let me know to what I am +indebted for the honour of this visit."</p> + +<p>"Well," continued the Pen, "I have flown over here to remind you of your +promise to confess to me some of the secrets of caricature."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," replied the Pencil, "I remember now. I have really been so +busy sketching Members of Parliament at St. Stephen's, that I had almost +forgotten my promise."</p> + +<p>"A poor Pen is out of place in an artist's studio, except to minister to +the requirements of the autograph hunter. Well, you need not be jealous. +My literary flight is not intended to be a very high one after all. Now +you know more about the secrets of the studio than I do; so tell me, is +it the custom of H. F. to have a regular sitting for a caricature, after +the fashion of the portrait painters?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are too delightfully innocent altogether," laughed the Pencil, +rubbing its leaden head rapidly on a piece of paper, to sharpen its +point. "A regular sitting! What do <i>you</i> think? No, sir, no, +emphatically never. Such an operation would be fatal to the delicate +constitution of a caricature, and the result would not be worth the +paper upon which it is drawn. It is only in ordinary portraiture that a +sitting is required, and upon that point I have a theory."</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind your theories now, old fellow," rejoined the Pen, as it +took a sip of ink and prepared to chronicle the reply. "What I want to +chat to you about at present is how to catch a caricature."</p> + +<p>The Pencil pricked up his ears, and with a knowing wink, said:</p> + +<p>"Ah, I see! You want to know secrets. Well, I will tell you 'how it's +done.' The great point about a caricature is that it must be caught +unawares. A man when he thinks he is unobserved struts about gaily, just +for all the world like a hedgehog. All his peculiarities are then as +evident as your cousins the quills upon the back of the fretful +porcupine. But the moment the man or woman who is about to be +caricatured observes H. F. take me in hand, I always notice that he +shrivels up and collapses as quickly as one of the insectivora surprised +at his feast. But wait a moment: now you ask me, I do <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> recollect one unfortunate man +who, despite H. F.'s protest, insisted upon coming here once to sit for +a caricature. He looked the picture of misery, and sat in the chair +there, just as if he were at a dentist's. H. F. made a most flattering +portrait. Indeed, so much too handsome was it that I could hardly follow +the workings of his fingers, I was laughing so."</p> + +<p>"'Oh, what a relief!' cried the sitter, when H. F. showed him the +drawing. 'You have certainly made a pretty guy of me, but, thank heaven, +I am not thin-skinned.'</p> + +<p>"'Only thick-headed,' muttered H. F. <i>sotto voce</i> to me as he continued +to chat with the sitter.</p> + +<p>"No sooner had he left the studio than the 'study' was in the fire, and +the caricature which afterwards came from the Furniss was drawn entirely +from memory.</p> + +<p>"The artist is in more evil case when he has absolutely no chance +whatever of making the slightest memorandum, for he must trust to memory +alone," remarked the Pencil.</p> + +<p>"Yet Pellegrini boasted that he always trusted to memory," said the Pen.</p> + +<p>"I know he did," replied the Pencil, "and more than once chaffed H. F. +for bringing me out. H. F., I know, has the greatest admiration for most +of Pellegrini's work, but thinks that 'Ape' certainly had the failing +common to all Italian caricaturists of being cruel rather than funny. I +may mention too, here, an incident for the truth of which H. F. can +vouch, and which illustrates another weakness of the inhabitants of the +Sunny South. When the poor fellow was ill a friend of his one day set to +work to put his room in order, and in moving a screen was surprised to +find behind it a number of soiled shirts. He began to count them over +with a view to sending them to the laundry, when Pellegrini starting up +exclaimed, 'You fellow! you leave my shirts there, or I am a ruined man. +Don't you see they are my "shtock in drade"?' And sure enough upon the +huge familiar linen cuffs were numerous notes in pencil—sketches, in +fact, from life for coming caricatures. Now, when H. F. intends to trust +entirely to memory, I often find that he makes a note in writing after +this fashion: 'Like So-and-so, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> with a difference,'—and the +difference is noted. Or 'Think of an animal, a bird, or a fish, and to +that add So-and-so, and subtract So-and-so,' and this results in a +portrait. For instance, if he saw a man like this, I should not be +surprised by his writing a single word as 'Penguin' for his guidance, +and so on."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img139a.jpg" width="200" height="408" alt="PENGUIN." title="PENGUIN." /> +<span class="caption">"PENGUIN."</span> +</div> + +<p>"The old caricaturists, I suppose, had a decided advantage over the +moderns in having artistic costumes to depict?" asked the Pen.</p> + +<p>"Of course," replied the Pencil. "Even up to the time of Seymour the +tailor made the man, and was, therefore, largely responsible for the +caricature. You have only to see Mr. Brown in the ordinary attire of +to-day and also in Court dress to appreciate this, and sympathise with +me."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img139b.jpg" width="400" height="213" alt="MR. BROWN, ORDINARY ATTIRE. COURT DRESS." title="MR. BROWN, ORDINARY ATTIRE. COURT DRESS." /> +<span class="caption">MR. BROWN, ORDINARY ATTIRE. COURT DRESS.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Now here is another point," continued the Pen, "upon which you can +throw some light, old fellow. I have often seen letters on the +writing-table from people asking H. F. for his recipe for the making of +caricatures. I invariably scribble the same reply, 'Find out the chief +points and exaggerate them.' Not satisfied with this, some have asked +him to explain his <i>modus operandi</i>." "I recollect an instance," replied +the Pencil. "It was in the studio here. An interviewer called, and asked +H. F. to explain the art of caricature. So he took down a volume of +portraits from the book-shelves, and opened it at this one. You see it +is the head of a man who should be universally respected by us of the +grey goose fraternity. 'Well, you see there is not much to caricature,' +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> said H. F.; 'it is simply the portrait of a kindly, + +<span class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img140a.jpg" width="400" height="359" alt="" title="" /></span> + +intellectual-looking man, the late Chief Librarian of the British +Museum, I remember well," continued the Pencil, brightening up, "H. F. +took me in hand, and telling me to knock over the forehead, keep in the +eyes, pull the nose, and wipe off the chin, produced a caricature 'on +the spot.'"</p> + +<p>"I suppose sometimes you find caricatures ready-made, Mr. Pencil?" +continued the Pen.</p> + +<p>"Of course we do," replied the Pencil. "Nature will have her joke +sometimes, nor can we blame her, for it is only by reason of contrast +that we admire the beautiful. <i>A propos</i> of this, my dear Pen, I may + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img140b.jpg" width="130" height="198" alt="A CARICATURE." title="A CARICATURE." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 130px; ">A CARICATURE.</span> + +tell you that in county Wexford, in Ireland, there is a certain very +beautiful estate, round which runs a carefully-built wall. At a +particular point the regularity ceases, and the wall runs on, +constructed in every conceivable style, and contrary to all the canons +of masonry. There is a legend that the owner of the estate, tired of the + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img140c.jpg" width="130" height="198" alt="NOT A CARICATURE." title="NOT A CARICATURE." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 130px; "><i>NOT</i> A CARICATURE.</span> + +monotonous appearance of the wall, ordered that a certain space should +be left in it which should be filled up with a barrier as irregular in +construction as possible. This was done, and that portion of the wall is +called the 'Ha-ha!' because so funny does it look that everyone who +passes is observed to laugh. Now is it not much the same in Nature? A +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> world full of Venuses and Adonises would soon pall. So now and +then we find a human 'Ha-ha!' interspersed among them. In that case, I +say, the caricaturist's work is already done. He has simply to copy +Nature. Yet there are some who actually find fault with H. F. for doing +that very thing, saying that his pencil (that's me) is 'unkind,' +'cruel,' 'gross,' and so on. There are many M.P.'s whom he habitually +draws without the slightest exaggeration, notwithstanding which, Mr. +Pen, there are members of your calling who do not scruple to inform the +world that in drawing the Parliamentary 'Ha-ha!' as he is, H. F. is +libelling him. There is one M.P. in particular—— No, I shall not +give his name or show his portrait. I believe him to be very clever, +very interesting, undeniably a great man, and extremely vain of his +personal appearance. But he is built contrary to all the laws of Nature, +and if H. F. draws him as he is, he is accused of libelling him. If he +improves him, no one knows him. Oh, Mr. Pen, you may take it from me +that the lot of the caricaturist is not a happy one."</p> + +<p>"For the matter of that," put in the Pen, "neither is the painter's. You +know Gay's lines:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<div class="poem"> +<p><span class="i0">"So very like, a painter drew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That every eye the picture knew,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He hit complexion, feature, air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So just, the life itself was there.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He gave each muscle all its strength,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The mouth, the chin, the nose's length,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His honest pencil touched with truth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And marked the date of age and youth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He lost his friends, his practice failed,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth should not always be revealed."<br /></span></p> +</div></div> + +<p>But Gay did not live in the days of Sargent!"</p> + +<p>"We are getting on nicely," said the Pen. "Now answer a question which +is often put to me—viz., why caricaturists eschew paint?"</p> + +<p>"Because," replied the Pencil, "people often seem to forget that in the +present day, when events follow each other in quick succession, a +subject becomes stale almost before the traditional <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> nine days' +interest in it has expired—that paint is no longer the medium by which +a caricaturist can possibly express his thoughts. Of course, I am not +referring to mere tinting, such as that in which the old caricaturists +had their drawings reproduced, but to colouring in oils, after the +manner of the great satirist Hogarth. Some may remember H. F.'s +caricature in <i>Punch</i> of the late Serjeant-at-Arms, Captain Gosset, as +a black-beetle. Now, had he painted a full-length portrait of him, and +sent it elaborately framed to the Royal Academy, it would not only have +taken him very much longer to execute, but the Captain would not have +looked a whit more like a black-beetle than he did in black and white in +the pages of <i>Punch</i>.</p> + +<p>"It must be remembered, also, that in caricature everything depends upon +contrast. For instance, in a Parliamentary sketch he can easily make Sir +William Harcourt inflate himself to such an extent that he occupies a +good third of the picture, but were he to paint a portrait of him of +similar proportions it would be necessary to take the roof off +Burlington House and bring over the Eiffel Tower to which to hang the +enormous frame that would be requisite. Moreover, there would be an +additional disadvantage, for it would be impossible to take in the whole +figure at once, and it would be necessary to mount the first platform at +least to obtain a peep at even the lowest of the series of chins which +distinguishes the descendant of kings. However, it is just on the cards +that some day he may open a Parliamentary Portrait Gallery, and then I +can promise that Sir William will have justice done to him at last. +Sixteen yards of 'Historicus' would assuredly be enough to draw the +town. But, in point of fact, it would be just as reasonable to ask an +actor why he is not an opera singer as well, or to ask an opera singer +why he does not dispense with the music and play in legitimate tragedy, +as to enquire of a modern caricaturist why he does not work in colours."</p> + +<p>The Pencil, after the delivery of this discourse, rolled over to the +barber-knife, who trimmed him up.</p> + +<p>"There are some people," continued the Pen, "who object to be sketched +in any shape or form. I recollect an editor once <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> challenging +H. F. to get a sketch of an interesting man who had defied photographers +and artists alike, and absolutely refused to have his portrait taken. +You will find a paragraph about this in press-cutting book, marked +'Pritt.' Just read it when I'm being attended to."</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p> "Mr. Pritt, Leeds, is reckoned chief of the Yorkshire anglers. 'A +striking peculiarity with him,' a Yorkshire correspondent says, 'is that +he never will sit for his likeness. Mr. Harry Furniss, however, the +well-known artist of <i>Punch</i>, during his recent visit to Leeds, on the +occasion of the meeting of the British Association, managed to 'take' +Mr. Pritt; and the portrait, drawn in characteristic style, appears in +the <i>Yorkshire Weekly</i> under the heading 'Caught at Last'." </p></div> + +<p>"Yes, that's it. H. F. was invited to dine by this curious and clever +individual.</p> + +<p>"'Delighted to see you, Mr. Furniss; but <i>one</i> thing I must ask you to +understand <i>at once</i>—I'm not going to be sketched.'</p> + +<p>"'I assure you,' he said, 'I shall not sketch you unless you are well +aware I am drawing you, and, in fact, willingly give me assistance.'</p> + +<p>"'That's very good of you. Now I am happy. I have made up my mind I +shall never allow my face to be drawn or photographed, and once I make +up my mind nothing in the world will move me.'</p> + +<p>"'Indeed!' he replied. 'But, pardon me, you have not always had that +antipathy. I am looking at a photograph of you hanging on the wall +there, taken when you were a baby.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, ah! Do you detect that? No one knows it to be me. Of course, I was +not accountable for my actions at that age.'</p> + +<p>"'Ah, how you have altered! Dear me! why, your nose is not that shape +now. Here it is Roman; you have a sort of——'</p> + +<p>"'Have a—what, eh?'</p> + +<p>"'Have you a pencil?' (Taking me out.) 'This will do. Now, your nose is +like that.'</p> + +<p>"'Is it? But my mouth is the same, isn't it?'</p> + +<p>"'Not quite—I will show you.'</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Of course, my chin isn't as round?'</p> + +<p>"'Oh, no! It's more like this. And you have less hair—see here.'</p> + +<p>"'Dear me! Of course, one can see who this is. This astonishes me.'</p> + +<p>"Someone else coming in at that moment, he quickly pocketed the sketch +and me, and, much to his host's chagrin, it was duly published as a +portrait of the gentleman from a 'special sitting'—'Caught at Last.'</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 220px; "> +<img src="images/img144.jpg" width="220" height="247" alt="THE EDITOR OF PUNCH SITS FOR HIS PORTRAIT." title="THE EDITOR OF PUNCH SITS FOR HIS PORTRAIT." /> +<span class="caption">THE EDITOR OF <i>PUNCH</i> SITS FOR HIS PORTRAIT.</span> +</div> + +<p>"This reminds me, by the way, of a portrait which H. F. once drew of the +author of 'Happy Thoughts' as a frontispiece to a new edition of that +humorous book of books. Our guv'nor's first effort at this portrait was +distinctly a failure, and no wonder, for the moment I was produced the +editor of <i>Punch</i> turned his back upon us, and, with the greatest +vigour, commenced writing at his table. Not being so intimate then with +Mr. Burnand as we subsequently became, both I and the guv'nor thought +him peculiar. But after a considerable time the editorial chair was +wheeled round, and with a smile its genial occupant said calmly, 'Well, +let me see the result.'</p> + +<p>"'The result is <i>nil</i> at present,' replied H. F., 'for I have not yet +caught a glimpse of your face.'</p> + +<p>"Mr. Burnand looked surprised. 'Dear me!' he said; 'I thought you were +making a study of me at work, you know.'</p> + +<p>"'All I could see was the back of your head in silhouette. There +now—sit just as you are, please. That's exactly the pose and expression +which I want to catch. Thanks!' cried the guv'nor, as he rapidly set to +work, when suddenly all cheerfulness vanished from Mr. Burnand's +countenance, as with a horrified look he pointed to the table by my +side, where lay the sketching materials.</p> + +<p>"'What's that?' he cried, dismayed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Oh, a lump of bread, useful in touching up high lights,' said H. F.</p> + +<p>"'You don't say so! The sight of it quite upset me. I really thought you +had brought your supper with you, and intended to work from me all +night. I shall never recover my natural expression this evening, so +please call again.' And as H. F. closed his sketch-book, the following +brief colloquy took place:</p> + +<p>"The editor of 'Happy Thoughts': 'Caught anything?'</p> + +<p>"H. F.: 'No.'</p> + +<p>"The editor: 'Good evening!'</p> + +<p>"And the door closed.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img145.jpg" width="350" height="415" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"Frequently a subject has posed for H. F. without being aware of the +fact that he was making a sketch. For instance, in his happy hunting +ground—Parliament—Brown, M.P., say, comes up to him in the Lobby: 'Ha! +I see you are up to mischief—taking someone off.'</p> + +<p>"H. F. gives a knowing look, and points to Jones.</p> + +<p>"'Ha! ha! I see. I'll talk to him. Ha! ha! and I'll look out for the +caricature. Don't be too hard on poor Jones!'</p> + +<p>"'Thanks, awfully,' replies H. F. He makes a rapid sketch, nods to Brown +as much as to say, 'That'll do,' smiles, and walks off. He has of course +never troubled about Jones at all; it's Brown he has been sketching all +the time.</p> + +<p>"It is utterly absurd to imagine you can escape from the caricaturist.</p> + +<p>"H. F. trained himself to make sketches with his hand in his pocket, and +worked away with me and his book—or rather cards, which he had +specially for the purpose—whilst looking straight into the face of his +victim. He manages in this way to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> sketch people sitting +opposite to him in the train, and sometimes when talking to them all the +time.</p> + +<p>"You know that without special permission from the Lord High Great +Chamberlain no stranger is allowed to pass the door of the English House +of Lords, even when it is empty; but when the precious Peers are +sitting, the difficulty of making a sketch is too great for description. +You are not allowed to sit down, speak, smile, sneeze, or sketch. H. F. +once produced me in the House of Lords. Had he drawn a sword instead of +a pencil he could not have created greater consternation. Explanation +was useless. The officials knew that he was only for 'takkin' notes' for +<i>Punch</i>, but the vision of a pencil produced an effect upon them the +same as if they had caught sight of an infernal machine. But necessity +is the mother of invention. It was then he hit upon the plan I have just +told you about. He draws in his pocket. Keeping the card against his +leg, he sketches quite easily. A pocket Hercules is an oft enough +heard-of individual—so why not a pocket artist?</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 130px; "> +<img src="images/img146a.jpg" width="130" height="223" alt="SKETCH ON A SHIRT-CUFF." title="SKETCH ON A SHIRT-CUFF." /> +<span class="caption">SKETCH ON A SHIRT-CUFF.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Previous to this he used to make a rapid note on his shirt-cuff; but +that is a dangerous practice. Wives might resent the face if it were too +pretty, and your washerwoman might recognise a Member of Parliament as +her intimate friend. The incident which cured him of using his +shirt-cuff for sketching happened at a large dinner, where he was +introduced to the wife of a well-known public man, who soon showed she +was not altogether pleased by the introduction, and truly at the moment +he had forgotten that he had made a sketch of the lady on his +shirt-cuff, which he did not take sufficient care to conceal.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 100px; "> +<img src="images/img146b.jpg" width="100" height="85" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>"I recollect once on the terrace of the House of Commons he was +sketching a lady of foreign extraction, the wife of a gentleman +well-known to the Irish Party, with a profile something like this. I +made the sketch, unfortunately, on the marble tea-table. When H. F.'s +friends were leaving, he found he could not rub this off the table, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> and what embarrassed him more was the fact that some Irish +Members were bearing down to take possession of the table as soon as we +left. I had a rapid vision of our guv'nor floating in the Thames, being +hurled over by the infuriated Members from the Emerald Isle; so I +quickly transformed the lady into something resembling a popular Member +of Parliament at the time, and, as we were leaving, I overheard an Irish +Member say, 'Bedad! and Furniss has been dhrawin' that owld beauty, +Mundella!'</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 150px; "> +<img src="images/img147.jpg" width="150" height="154" alt="MUNDELLA." title="MUNDELLA." /> +<span class="caption">MUNDELLA.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Have you anything new?" asked the +Pen. "May I look? I know that St. Stephen's is your happy +hunting ground."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes," responded the Pencil, "I know it well. But I can tell you it +is not altogether a bed of roses. When we come across Members who have +taken liberties with their personal appearance during the recess, H. F. +and I resent it, I can tell you."</p> + +<p>"Naturally," observed the Pen in a voice of the utmost sympathy, "for it +means more work."</p> + +<p>"Of course," continued the Pencil. "Now I have always held that model M. +P.'s have no right to alter. They are the property of the political +caricaturist, and what on earth is to become of him if the bearded men +begin to shave and the smooth-faced to disguise themselves in +'mutton-chops' or 'Dundrearys'? Yet they <i>will</i> do it. We may draw them +in their new guise, but the public won't have them at any price. They +want their old favourites, and if they miss a well-known 'Imperial,' a +moustache, a pair of dyed whiskers, or other such hall-mark in the +picture, or on the other hand find a set of familiar chins concealed +beneath an incipient Newgate fringe, a nose and chin which have been +accustomed to meet for many a long year suddenly divided by the +intrusion of a bristly moustache, or a delightfully asinine expression +lost under the influence of a pair of bushy side-whiskers, recognition +becomes impossible and the caricature falls flat. The fact is, my friend +Pen, it is not only their features, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> but their characteristic +attitudes which we make familiar, and their political differences cause +the artistic effect. To me it is marvellous to note how differently +artists draw the same head. Expression of course varies, but the +construction of the head must always remain the same. Yet I have seen no +less a head than that of Mr. Gladstone so altered in appearance in the +work of different artists that I have been forcibly reminded of the old +story of St. Peter's skull. A tourist travelling in Italy was shown a +cranium at Rome which he was assured was the veritable relic. In +Florence he was shown another, and somewhere else he was shown a third. +Upon his remonstrating the guide observed, <span class="correction" title="originally It">'It</span> is quite right, sir: the +skull you saw at Rome was that of St. Peter when he was a boy; that at +Florence was his when he was a young man, and this was his skull when he +died.'</p> + +<p>"Then again, familiarity with the subject is only arrived at by +continually watching and sketching a Member. A few years ago I was lying +down in my berth in the sketch-book which was in H. F.'s pocket, when I +overheard a conversation between him and Mr. Labouchere upon +Parliamentary portraits."</p> + +<p>"What did H. F. say about them?" asked the Pen. "He ought to know the +alphabet of Parliamentary portraiture at all events by this time."</p> + +<p>"You're right," nodded the Pencil. "He's drawn a few thousand of them in +his time. What did H. F. say? Well, he told Labouchere that he always +created a type for each Member, and to that he adheres."</p> + +<p>"'Yes,' said the Sage, late of Queen Anne's Gate, 'and when the original +turns up, those who derive their impression of a Member from your +sketches are disappointed if the two do not exactly tally.'"</p> + +<p>"But surely our guv'nor does not sketch direct from life?" asked the +Pen, amazed.</p> + +<p>"Of course he does," indignantly replied the Pencil. "He whips me out of +my bed at all times, but as he pointed out to the Member for Northampton +(see how Parliamentary I am getting), it would never do invariably to +sketch a man as you see him. 'For instance,' went on H. F. addressing +him, 'I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> made a sketch of you, Mr. Labouchere, in the corridor +of the House of Commons, kneeling on a seat, and had I never seen you +before, I should have no doubt used this as a characteristic instead of +an accidental attitude of yours.'</p> + +<p>"Just fancy what you would have written, my dear Pen, if you had seen in +<i>Punch</i> one of H. F.'s portraits of Lord Hartington with his hat upon +the back of his head instead of over his eyes, or Mr. Gladstone depicted +with a Shakespeare collar, or Mr. Cyril Flower without one, or Mr. +Arnold Morley smiling, or Mr. Balfour looking cross, or Mr. Broadhurst + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img149.jpg" width="250" height="429" alt="MR. LABOUCHERE." title="MR. LABOUCHERE." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 250px; ">MR. LABOUCHERE.</span> + +in evening dress, or Mr. Chamberlain without an orchid in the +button-hole of his coat! Yet I venture to say the time has been when Mr. +Chamberlain may have had to rush down to the House orchidless, and when +Mr. Broadhurst may have worn evening dress. Stranger things than that +have happened, I can tell you. I have actually seen the irrepressible +smile vanish from the face of Mr. John Morley. But never—no, never, +will I believe that the ex-Chief Liberal Whip has ever looked jovial, +that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cyril Flower ever exchanged collars, or that +Lord Hartington ever wore his hat at the back of his head.</p> + +<p>"On the other hand, my dear Pen, you know as well as I do that Lord +Randolph Churchill did not wear imitation G.O.M. collars, that Mr. +Herbert Gladstone is no longer in his teens, that Mr. Gladstone was not +always so wild-looking as H. F. usually represented him, and that +perhaps Sir William Harcourt is not simply an elephantine mass of +egotism."</p> + +<p>"Then why did he draw them so?" enquired the Pen.</p> + +<p>"Ah! that is the secret of the caricaturist," laughed the Pencil. "There +is something more in politicians, you know, than meets the eye, and the +caricaturist tries to record it. You're so captious, my dear Pen. It is +not given to everyone to see a portrait properly, however true it may +be. Some folks there are who are colour-blind. There are others who are +portrait-blind. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> Others again are blind to the humorous. An old +M.P. came up to H. F. one day in the Lobby of the House of Commons when +a new Parliament had assembled for the first time, and said to him, +'Well, you have a rich harvest for your pencil (that was me). I never +saw such odd specimens of humanity assembled together before.'</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img150.jpg" width="350" height="400" alt="THE M.P. REAL AND IDEAL." title="THE M.P. REAL AND IDEAL." /> +<span class="caption">THE M.P. REAL AND IDEAL.</span> +</div> + +<p>"'That may be so,' replied H. F., 'but mark my words, after a session or +two, my comic sketches of the Members—for which, by the way, the +specimens you are looking at are merely notes, and which you are now +good enough to call faithful portraits—will become so familiar to you +that they will cease to amuse you. And you may even come to pronounce +them gross libels. In other words, you will find that their frequent +repetition will rob them in your eyes of their comic character +altogether, just as in the case with the attendants at the Zoo, on whose +faces you will fail to detect the ghost of a smile at the most +outrageous pranks of the monkeys, although you shall see everyone else +in the place convulsed with laughter.'"</p> + +<p>"But surely, Mr. Pencil," argued the Pen, "you lose friends by +caricaturing them?"</p> + +<p>"Not those who are worthy of friendship," replied the Pencil, with a +solemn air. "And those who cannot take a joke are not worthy of it. H. +F. is not a portrait painter. It makes the lead turn in my case to +witness the snobbishness which exists nowadays among certain +thin-skinned artists and writers. The Society grub has eaten the heart +out of all true artistic ambitions. An honest satirist has no chance +nowadays. He must not draw what he sees, or write what he really thinks +about it. Pleasing wishy-washiness is idolised, whilst Hogarth is voted +coarse. Great Scott! How this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> age of cigarettes and lemon +squash would have stirred the pulse and nerved the brush of the greatest +of English caricaturists!"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 449px; "> +<img src="images/img151b.jpg" width="449" height="544" alt="THE PHOTO." title="THE PHOTO. AS HE REALLY IS." /> +<span class="caption">THE PHOTO.</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img151a.jpg" width="300" height="544" alt="AS HE REALLY IS." title="AS HE REALLY IS." /> +<span class="caption">AS HE REALLY IS.</span> +</div> + +<p style="clear: both; ">Then as the Pencil wiped away a tear of regret for the decadence of +English satirical art the Pen jotted down the following lines culled +from the old tomb-stone at Chiswick:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<div class="poem"> +<p><span class="i0">"If Genius fire thee Stranger stay,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If Nature touch thee, drop a tear.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If neither move thee, turn away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here."</span></p> +</div></div> + +<p>"When he has not seen a Member, and has no reference to go by, how does +he manage?"</p> + +<p>"He does not find photography of much use. Sometimes, if he has to draw +a man for some special reason, and has not seen him, a photograph is, of +course, the only means possible; then he generally gets a letter +something like this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"><p> +"'<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—I enclose you a photograph of myself, the only one I +possess. It belongs to my wife, and she has reluctantly lent it, and +trusts you will take every care of it and return it at once. It was +taken on our wedding trip. I may mention that I have less hair at the +top of my head and more on my face, and I may seem to some a trifle +older.' +</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, here, you see, H. F. has to use his judgment.</p> + +<p>"But to my surprise H. F. received a visit from the original of the +photograph shortly after his sketch was published, who came to inform +the guv'nor that no one could possibly recognise him in the sketch; and +when I saw him in the flesh I quite believed him. You can judge from the +sketch how useful the photograph was.</p> + +<p>"The second appearance of the new and ambitious M.P. in the pages of +<i>Punch</i> did not satisfy the legislator either. It was not his face he +took exception to, but his boots, like Mr. Goldfinch in 'A Pair of +Spectacles.' He lost faith in his bootmaker, squeezed his extremities +into patent leather shoes of the most approved and uncomfortable make, +and hobbled through the Lobbies doing penance at the shrine of +caricature. A caricature, you see, does not depend upon the face alone.</p> + +<p>"One of H. F.'s earliest Parliamentary caricatures was a sketch of Mr. +Henry Broadhurst, the deservedly popular representative of the working +classes. He was Member for Stoke when the sketch was made. There is no +affectation about him. Neither the skin that covers his solid frame nor +that which encases his active feet is thin. His figure is one of the +best known and most characteristic in Parliament. Who is not familiar +with the round, determined little head, with the short cropped hair, the +square-cut beard, the shrewd expression, the genial smile, the short +jacket, the horsey trousers, the round hat, and the thick boots? The +figure often appeared in Mr. Punch's Parliamentary Portrait Gallery. +When our friend the late William Woodall introduced his fellow-candidate +to the electors of Stoke a voice cried out, 'We know 'im! we know 'im! +We've seen 'is boots in <i>Punch!</i>'</p> + +<p>"No one can deny that the potters of Staffordshire are an artistic +public.</p> + +<p>"The late chief proprietor of the leading paper had the largest feet +ever seen in the House of Commons, and a certain noble lord whose name +will ever be connected with Majuba carries off the palm for the largest +in the Upper House. The new Member for —— will, in due course, owe his +Parliamentary fame to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> extraordinary heels of his boots, if +nothing else, just as the late Lord Hardwicke's reputation was due to +the mysterious shine of his hat.</p> + +<p>"But, judging from the illustrated papers, M.P.'s all wear spats, new +trousers every day (for they never have a crease), the most +beautifully-fitting coats, and white hats with black bands round them. +Why are they drawn so?" asked the Pen.</p> + +<p>"Excuse the familiar vulgar rejoinder—Ask me another."</p> + +<p>"I hear it said that you never caricature women."</p> + +<p>"What rot! Have I not worked in illustrating the Members of the Houses +of Parliament for years, to say nothing of Judges and—their wives?"</p> + +<p>"I mean young women."</p> + +<p>"Oh, really I have no time to answer these questions; here are a bundle +of my unpublished caricatures; take them and be off."</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<h3>PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">Gladstone and Disraeli—A Contrast—An unauthenticated Incident—Lord +Beaconsfield's last Visit to the House of Commons—My Serious +Sketch—Historical—Mr. Gladstone—His Portraits—What he thought of the +Artists—Sir J. E. Millais—Frank Holl—The Despatch +Boxes—Impressions—Disraeli—Dan O'Connell—Procedure—American +Wit—Toys—Wine—Pressure—Sandwich Soirée—The G.O.M. dines with "Toby, +M.P."—Walking—Quivering—My Desk—An Interview—Political +Caricaturists—Signature in Sycamore—Scenes in the Commons—Joseph +Gillis Biggar—My Double—Scenes—Divisions—Puck—Sir R. +Temple—Charles Stewart Parnell—A Study—Quick Changes—His Fall—Room +15—The last Time I saw him—Lord Randolph Churchill—His Youth—His +Height—His Fickleness—His Hair—His Health—His Fall—Lord +Iddesleigh—Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone—Bradlaugh—His Youth—His +Parents—His Tactics—His Fight—His Extinction—John Bright—Jacob +Bright—Sir Isaac Holden—Lord Derby—A Political Prophecy—A Lucky +Guess—My Confession in the <i>Times</i>—The Joke that Failed—The +Seer—Fair Play—I deny being a Conservative—I am +Encouraged—Chaff—Reprimanded—Misprinted—Misunderstood.<br /><br /></p></div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; clear: both;"> +<img src="images/img154.jpg" width="550" height="237" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img156.jpg" width="650" height="387" alt="THE INNER LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS." title="THE INNER LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS." /> +<span class="caption">THE INNER LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px; clear: both"> +<img src="images/img157.jpg" width="650" height="230" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div style= "font-size: 80%"> +<div class='centered'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="1" width="80%" cellspacing="0"> + +<tr> +<td style="width: 30%;"> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">1. Dr. Tanner<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">2. Rt. Hon. A. Akers-Douglas<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">3. Lord A. Hill<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">4. G. Cavendish-Bentinck<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">5. J. A. Pinton<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">6. Sir W. H. Houldaworth<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">7. Sir Albert K. Rollit<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">8. Rt. Hon. H. Chaplin<br /></span> +<span style= "margin-left: 0.5em">9. Sir E. Waskin<br /></span> +10. T. W. Rusell<br /> +11. Rt. Hon. C. B. Spencer<br /> +12. Christopher Sykes<br /> +13. Lord Halabury<br /> +14. H. Lubouchere<br /></td> +<td style="width: 30%;"> +15. T. Sexton<br /> +16. Sir R. H. Fowler<br /> +17. Earl Spencer<br /> +18. Rt. Hon. J. Chamberlain<br /> +19. Admiral Field<br /> +20. Sir Frank Lockwood<br /> +21. Rt. Hon J. B. Balfour<br /> +22. Wm. Woodall<br /> +23. F. Ashmead Bartlett<br /> +24. Baden-Powell<br /> +25. Sir T. W. Maclure<br /> +26. Marquis of Hartington<br /> +<span style= "margin-left: 5em">(Duke of Devonshire)<br /></span> +27. Sir R. Temple</td> +<td style="width: 30%;"> + +<table> <tr> +<td style="width: 5%;"> + 28.<br /> + 29.<br /> + 30.<br /> + 31.</td> +<td style="width: 10%;"><span style="font-size: 450%; ">}</span></td> +<td style="width: 85%;"><br />Press</td> +</tr></table> + +32. H. W. Lucy (<i>Toby M.P.</i>).<br /> +33. Rt. Hon. John Morley<br /> +34. Lord Randolph Churchill<br /> + +<table> <tr> +<td style="width: 5%;"> + 35.<br /> + 36.</td> +<td style="width: 10%;"><span style="font-size: 250%; ">}</span></td> +<td style="width: 85%;"><br />Press (<i>Times</i>)</td> +</tr></table> + +37. J. Henniker Heaton<br /> +38. James A. Jacoby<br /> +39. Sir H. H. Howorth<br /> +40. P. Power<br /> +41. C. S. Parnell</td> +</tr> +</table></div></div> + +<p>Some years before Mr. Disraeli quitted the House of Commons upon his +elevation to the Peerage, I enjoyed witnessing a very remarkable +encounter between him and Mr. Gladstone. It was one of those passage of +arms, or to be more correct I should say, perhaps, of words, which in +the days of their Parliamentary youth were so frequent between the great +political rivals; and although I am unable to recall the particular +subject of the debate, or the exact date of its occurrence, I well +remember that Mr. Gladstone had launched a tremendous attack against his +opponent. However, notwithstanding the fact that from the outset of his +speech it was evident that Mr. Gladstone meant war to the knife, that as +it proceeded he waxed more and more hostile, and that his peroration was +couched in the most vehement terms, Disraeli remained to the finish as +if utterly unmoved, sitting in his customary attitude as though he were +asleep, with his arms hanging listlessly at his sides. Once only during +the progress of the attack he appeared to wake up, when, taking his +single eye-glass, which he usually kept in a pocket of his waistcoat, +between his finger and thumb, he calmly surveyed the House as if to +satisfy himself how it was composed, just as an experienced cricketer +eyes the field before batting, in order <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> to see how the enemy +are placed. Then, having taken stock of those present, the eye-glass was +replaced in his pocket, and to all appearance he once more subsided into +a tranquil slumber. But this was only a feint, for the very instant that +Mr. Gladstone sat down up jumped Disraeli. The contrast between his +method and that of Mr. Gladstone was very noticeable. Placing one hand +artistically upon the box in front of him, and the other under his coat +tails, he commenced to speak, and in the calmest manner possible, +although with the most telling and polished satire, he aimed dart after +dart across the table at Mr. Gladstone. As he proceeded to traverse the +speech of his distinguished opponent with the most perfect and effective +skill, it soon became evident that in reality he had slept with one eye +open. With masterly tact, he had reserved the principal point in his +reply to the end, and then, bringing his full force to bear upon it, the +conclusion of his speech told with redoubled effect.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img158.jpg" width="350" height="446" alt="LORD BEACONSFIELD." title="LORD BEACONSFIELD." /> +<span class="caption">LORD BEACONSFIELD. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.</span> +</div> + +<p>Whilst upon the subject of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield, I may +narrate a remarkable story, although I am unable to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> vouch for +the accuracy of it, as I cannot remember who was my original informant, +nor among my friends in or out of Parliament have I succeeded in +discovering anyone who actually witnessed the incident to which it +refers. Should it turn out to be an invention, like the champagne jelly +of Lord Beaconsfield or the eye-glass of Mr. Bright, I shall no doubt be +corrected. But if on the contrary the anecdote be authentic, I may earn +some thanks for resuscitating it. In any case I can testify that at the +time the story was told to me I had undoubtedly every reason to believe +that it was true.</p> + +<p>A similar scene to that which I have described above was taking place in +the House between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, when the latter in the +course of his remarks had occasion to quote a passage from a recent +speech made by his rival upon some platform in the country.</p> + +<p>Suddenly Mr. Gladstone started up and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"I never said that in my life!"</p> + +<p>Disraeli was silent, and, putting his hands behind his back, simply +gazed apparently in blank astonishment at the box in front of him. +Several seconds went by, but he never moved. The members in the crowded +House looked from one to the other, and many imagined that Disraeli was +merely waiting for his opponent to apologise. But Mr. Gladstone, who had +a habit, which he developed in later years, of chatting volubly to his +neighbour during any interruption of this kind in which he was +concerned, made no sign. A minute passed, but the sphinx did not move.</p> + +<p>A minute and a quarter, but he was still motionless.</p> + +<p>A minute and a half of this silence seemed as if it was an hour.</p> + +<p>When the second minute was completed, the excitement in the House began +to grow intense. Disraeli seemed to be transfixed. Was he ill? Was the +great man sulking? What could this strange silence portend?</p> + +<p>Two minutes and a half!</p> + +<p>Some Members rose and approached him, but Disraeli raised his hand as if +to deprecate their interference, and they stole back <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> to their +places conscious that they were forbidden to interrupt. Then, at last, +when the second hand of the clock had passed three times round its +course, the most remarkable silence which the House had ever experienced +within living memory was broken as the Tory leader slowly began once +more to speak.</p> + +<p>"'Mr. Chairman,'" he said, "'and gentlemen,'" and then word for word he +repeated the whole speech of Mr. Gladstone from which he had made his +quotation, duly introducing the particular passage which the Liberal +leader had denied. Then he paused and looked across at his rival. The +challenge was not to be avoided, and Mr. Gladstone bowed. He would have +raised his hat did he wear one in the House, which, in the phraseology +of the ring, was equivalent to throwing up the sponge. Mr. Disraeli +afterwards informed a friend that, working backwards, he had recalled +the whole of Mr. Gladstone's speech to his mind. Beginning at the +disputed quotation, he recovered the context which led up to it, and so +step by step the entire oration. Then he was enabled to repeat it from +the outset, exactly as he had read it.</p> + +<p>I saw Lord Beaconsfield in the House of Commons on the occasion of his +last visit to that chamber in which he had been the moving spirit. I +well recollect that morning. There had been an Irish all-night sitting: +the House was supposed to be listening to the droning of some Irish +"Mimber." The officials were weary, the legislative chamber was untidy +and dusty, and many of those present had not had their clothes off all +night. Lord Beaconsfield, scented, oiled, and curled, the daintiest of +dandies, sits in the gallery, examining the scene through his single +eye-glass. Leaning over him stands the ever-faithful Monty Corry—now +Lord Rowton. I sat within a few yards of them, and made a sketch which +happens to be the most successful study I ever made. The <i>Academy</i> wrote +of it: "In humour Mr. Harry Furniss generally excels; but his portrait +of Lord Beaconsfield on his last appearance in the House of Commons is +something else than amusing—it is pathetic, almost tragic, and will be +historical;" and columns of flattering notices must be my excuse for +confessing in these pages that I myself consider it to be the best +portrait of Lord Beaconsfield, and in no way a caricature.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img161.jpg" width="600" height="695" alt="THE LAST VISIT OF LORD BEACONSFIELD TO THE HOUSE." title="THE LAST VISIT OF LORD BEACONSFIELD TO THE HOUSE." /> +<span class="caption">THE LAST VISIT OF LORD BEACONSFIELD TO THE HOUSE.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 220px; "> +<img src="images/img163.jpg" width="220" height="591" alt="MR. GLADSTONE." title="MR. GLADSTONE." /> +<span class="caption">MR. GLADSTONE. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.</span> +</div> + +<p>A caricaturist is an artistic contortionist. He is grotesque for effect. +A contortionist twists and distorts himself to cause amusement, but he +is by nature straight of limb and a student of grace before he can +contort his body in burlesque of the "human form divine." Thus also is +it with the caricaturist and his pencil. The good points of his subject +must be plainly apparent to him before he can twist his study into the +grotesque; to him it is necessary that the sublime should be known and +appreciated ere he can convert it into the ridiculous, and without the +aid of serious studies it is impossible for him fully to analyse and +successfully produce the humorous and the satirical. Perchance he may +even entertain a feeling of admiration for the subject he is holding up +to ridicule, for serious moments and serious work are no strangers to +the caricaturist.</p> + +<p>The famous collars I "invented" for grotesque effect, but I always saw +Mr. Gladstone without them, for to me his head has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> never been, +as some suppose, a mere block around which to wreathe a fantastic and +exaggerated collar.</p> + +<p>"I am told a Japanese artist who wishes to study a particular flower, +for instance, travels to the part of the country where it is to be +found; he takes no photographic camera, no superb sketching pad or box +of paints, but he lives by the plant, watches day by day the flower +grow, blossom, and decay, under every condition, and mentally notes +every detail, so that ever afterwards he can paint that flower in every +possible way with facility and knowledge. I have myself treated Mr. +Gladstone as that Japanese artist treats the beautiful flower. I have +frequently sat for many many hours watching every gesture, every change +of expression. I have watched the colour leave his cheeks, and the hair +his head; I have marked time contract his mouth, and have noted the +development of each additional wrinkle. I have mused under the shade of +his collars, and wondered at the cut of his clothes, sketched his three +hats and his historical umbrella. More than that; during a great speech +I have seen the flower in his button-hole fade under his flow of +eloquence, seen the bow of his tie travel round to the back of his +neck."</p> + +<p>Thus I spoke night after night from the platform, and the +laugh always came with the collars. It was not as a serious +critic that I was posing before the audience, so I could fittingly +describe the collars rather than the man. But when I had left +the platform and the limelight, and my caricatures, I have had +many a chat with Mr. Gladstone's admirers, with regard to the +light in which I saw the great man without his collars, and +this fact I will put forward as my excuse for publishing +in my "Confessions" a few studies that I have made from +time to time of the Grand Old Man, as an antidote not only +to my own caricatures, but to the mass of Gladstone portraits +published, which, with very few exceptions, are idealised, +perfunctory, stereotyped, and worthless.</p> + +<p style="clear: both; "> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img165.jpg" width="500" height="754" alt="MR. GLADSTONE." title="MR. GLADSTONE." /> +<span class="caption">MR. GLADSTONE.<br /> +"I have seen the flower in his buttonhole fade under his flow of eloquence."<br /></span> +<span class="caption" style= "margin-left: 7em"><i>Engraved on wood from an original study.</i></span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> + +<p>Generations to come will not take their impressions of this great man's +appearance from these unsatisfactory canvases, or from the cuts in +old-fashioned illustrated papers, in which all public men are drawn in a +purely conventional tailor's advertisement fashion, with perfect-fitting +coats, trousers without a crease, faces of wax, and figures of the +fashionable fop of the period. The camera killed all this. But the +photographer, although he cannot alter the cut of the clothes, can +alter, and does alter, everything else. He touches up the face beyond +recognition, and the pose is the pose the sitter takes before the +camera, and probably quite different from his usual attitude. So it will +be the caricatures, or, to be correct, the character sketches, that will +leave the best impressions of Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary +individuality.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img167.jpg" width="250" height="388" alt="MR. GLADSTONE—CONVENTIONAL PORTRAIT." title="MR. GLADSTONE—CONVENTIONAL PORTRAIT." /> +<span class="caption">MR. GLADSTONE—CONVENTIONAL PORTRAIT.</span> +</div> + +<p>I heard Mr. Gladstone express his own views on portraiture one evening +at a small dinner-party. My host of that evening had hit on the happy +idea of having portraits of the celebrities of the age painted for him +by a rising young artist. It was curious to note Mr. Gladstone as he +examined these portraits. His manner was a strange comment on the +political changes which had taken place, for as he came to the portraits +of those of his old supporters who no longer fought under his colours, +he would pass them by as though he had not seen them, or if his +attention were called to any of them he would seem not to recognise the +likeness, and pass on till his eye lighted on some political ally still +numbered among the faithful, when he would at once pronounce the +portrait excellent, and dwell upon its merits with apparent delight. A +portrait of Mr. Labouchere, however, he generally failed to recognise. +The portrait represented the Member for Northampton in a contemplative +mood, certainly not characteristic of his habitual demeanour in the +House.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I have found," said he, "the artist I have been looking for for years. +I have found an artist who can paint my portrait in four hours and a +half; he has painted three in thirteen hours; that is Millais."</p> + +<p>I was much surprised by this curious criticism on portrait painting. +Surely, if the portrait of the great orator is to be painted in four +hours and a half, the same limitation, if carried out, would confine the +greatest speech ever made to a period of four-and-a-half seconds!</p> + +<p>Someone pointedly asked Mr. Gladstone whether he liked Millais' +portraits.</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied, evading any brutal directness of reply, "I have been +very much interested with his energy; he is the hardest-working man I +ever saw."</p> + +<p>"Do you prefer his result to Holl's?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, Holl took double the time, and put me in such a very strained +position, nearly on tiptoe. I know my heels were off the ground; it +tired me out, and I was really obliged to lie down and sleep +afterwards."</p> + +<p>"You found Millais charming in conversation?"</p> + +<p>"He never spoke when at work; his interest in his work fascinated me."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Watts?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, there is a delightful conversationalist, and a wonderful artist; he +has attempted my portrait often—three attempts of late years—but he +has not satisfied himself, and I am bound to say that my friends are of +the same mind."</p> + +<p>"I well remember," remarked Lord Granville, who was one of the party, +"how uneasy poor Holl was before he painted your portrait. He came to me +and said, 'I think if you would speak to Mr. Gladstone on some subject +that would interest him, I would watch him, and that would aid me very +much.'"</p> + +<p>In this picture of Mr. Gladstone the late Frank Holl failed to maintain +his reputation as an artist of the highest class: that picture of the +great Liberal leader was disappointing and altogether unworthy of his +name. This was the more unfortunate because, by the exercise of a little +forethought, the artist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> might easily have avoided that pitfall +of portrait-painters, an awkward, constrained, and unaccustomed +attitude, which Mr. Gladstone confessed was torturing him, and by a very +simple expedient have succeeded in placing Mr. Gladstone in the position +which everyone who has seen him in the act of delivering a speech in the +House of Commons would have recognised at once as a true and +characteristic pose.</p> + +<p>Here I have mentioned Mr. Gladstone himself, saying how uncomfortable he +felt upon the occasion of Mr. Holl's visit to his house for the purpose +of obtaining a sitting; but I should add that the genial artist who was +to do the work informed me that he also was no less ill at ease. When +Mr. Gladstone enquired how he should sit for the portrait, Mr. Holl, +anxious no doubt to secure a natural pose, replied, "Oh, just as you +like!" This appeared to disconcert the great statesman somewhat, and he +appeared to be ruminating as to what sedentary attitude was really his +favourite one, when Holl came to the rescue.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 160px; "> +<img src="images/img169.jpg" width="160" height="283" alt="CARICATURE OF THE HOLL PORTRAIT." title="CARICATURE OF THE HOLL PORTRAIT." /> +<span class="caption">CARICATURE OF THE HOLL PORTRAIT.</span> +</div> + +<p>"I happened," said Mr. Gladstone, "to be standing at my library table +with my hands upon a book, when Mr. Holl said, 'That will do, Mr. +Gladstone, exactly,' and the result was that he painted me in that +position. But I felt uncommonly awkward and uncomfortable the whole +time, and as I have just said, I had to lie down and sleep after each +sitting."</p> + +<p>Now why was this? It was the very attitude of all others with which we +who have studied it so often when the ex-Premier has been standing at +the table in the House are so familiar. No artist who had once seen him +in that position would have failed to select it as the most favourable +and characteristic for the purposes of a historical portrait. And yet +the picture, when it was completed, was a failure, and the artist +himself knew that it was. The explanation is, I think, very simple, and +it exemplifies once more the truth of the formula which defines genius +to be "an infinite capacity for taking pains." Frank <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> Holl +undoubtedly had talent, but his omission of an important detail in this +picture—a detail which would have probably made all the difference +between success and failure—shows once more by how narrow a line the +highest art is often divided from the next best, that art of which we +have such a plethora nowadays—which just contrives to miss hitting the +bullseye of perfection.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Holl exclaimed, "That will do, Mr. Gladstone, exactly," he was +no doubt impressed with the idea that the great orator was more at ease +standing at the table in the House of Commons than in any other +position, and he therefore selected it for his picture. But he forgot +that upon the table in the House there stands a box on which Mr. +Gladstone was always in the habit, when he was speaking, of resting one +of his hands, and that if that box was missing he would naturally, +although perhaps unconsciously, be sensible that something to which he +was accustomed was absent, and that he would therefore be as +uncomfortable as a fish out of water. This was actually the case. But if +some substitute for the box, of the proper height and size, had been +forthcoming, I have not the slightest doubt, from my long and close +observation of the habits and movements of Mr. Gladstone in the House, +that he would at once have dropped easily into his customary attitude, +and that the picture in the hands of so true an artist as Holl would +then have been a conspicuous success.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone was asked whether he thought the tone of the House had +degenerated in recent times. He replied that he did not think so at all, +quoting in proof that after the introduction of the first Reform Bill +many Members used to express their feelings in cock-crows and other +offensive ways. Mr. Gladstone, however, at the time I met him, was +getting decidedly deaf, and no doubt much that went on behind him in the +House "did not reach" him.</p> + +<p>Asked if the "count out" ought to be abolished, Mr. Gladstone said it +was too convenient a custom to be abolished, but that he noticed a very +important alteration of late years in the mode of conducting it. Years +ago he recollected it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> the rule that, when a Member moved +that "forty Members were not present, he was obliged to remain in his +place while the 'count out' was in progress." "Now," said Mr. Gladstone, +"he gets up and rushes out.</p> + +<p>"Indeed," continued the veteran statesman, "I understand very little +about the rules and regulations of the House now. I am very ignorant +indeed; I believe I am the most ignorant man in the House, and I mean to +continue so; it is not worth my while to begin now to learn fresh +rules."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img171.jpg" width="350" height="516" alt="NOTE OF MR. GLADSTONE." title="NOTE OF MR. GLADSTONE." /> +<span class="caption">NOTE OF MR. GLADSTONE MADE IN THE PRESS GALLERY WITH THE WRONG END OF A QUILL PEN.</span> +</div> + +<p>He told us of a curious incident which happened in the House when he was +a young Parliamentary hand. Members did not leave the House for a +division, but it was left to the discretion of the Speaker to decide +which side was in the majority. He would then order them to walk to the +other side of the House, and anyone remaining would of course be counted +with the opposite side. Old Sir Watkin Wynn, I believe, was determined +to vote against a certain Bill. He had been hunting all day, and rode up +to town in time to vote. Arriving in his hunting costume and muddy +boots, he took his seat tired out, and soon went fast asleep. The +division came on, and his party were ordered to go over to the other +side of the House. He slept in blissful ignorance, waking some time +afterwards to find to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> his horror that he had been counted with +those in favour of the Bill.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone remarked that it was curious that in the old days the +Whips could tell to a vote how a division would go. He recollected well, +in 1841, a vote of no confidence in Lord Melbourne was moved. The point +was going to be decided by one vote. I shall never forget the "Grand Old +Man's" graphic description of that vote. There was an old Member who was +known to be to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail. The +excitement was intense to know if that still breathing corpse could be +brought to vote. Mr. Gladstone, with other young Tory Members, stood +anxiously round the lobby door watching, and just at the critical moment +when the vote was to be taken the all but lifeless body was borne along +ignorant of all that was going around him, his vote was recorded, and +that one vote sealed the fate of a Ministry.</p> + +<p>In Mr. Gladstone's opinion, American humour invariably consisted in +dealing with magnitudes. He preferred to hear American stories on this +side of the Atlantic. He never had been in America, and never intended +going. He expressed himself as apprehensive of the effect on the nervous +system of the vibration caused by the engines of a steamer travelling at +a high speed, but spoke with admiration of the rapid travelling at sea +performed by the Continental mail packets, saying that a few days +before, returning from the Continent, he had only just settled down to +read when he was told to disembark, for the steamer had reached Dover.</p> + +<p>I overheard Mr. Gladstone asking the question: "Why is it that when we +get a good thing we do not stick to it?" I fully expected him to launch +into some huge political question, such as the "Unity of the Empire" or +"Universal Franchise." Instead of this, I was somewhat surprised to hear +him proceed: "Now, I recollect an excruciatingly funny toy which you +wound up, and it danced about in a most comical way. I have watched that +little nigger many and many a time, but lately I have been looking +everywhere to get one. I have asked at the shops in the Strand and +elsewhere, and they show me other things, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> not the funny +nigger I recollect, so I have given up my search in despair."</p> + +<p>I noticed that Mr. Gladstone took champagne at dinner, and after dinner +a glass of port. Some conversation arising with reference to the history +of wines, the old politician seemed to know more on the subject than +anyone else at table; in fact, during the whole evening, there was not a +subject touched upon on which he did not give the heads for an +interesting essay. The only time Mr. Gladstone mentioned Ireland was in +connection with the subject of wines, when he dilated upon the beauties +of Newfoundland port, which was to be found in Ireland in the good old +days.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img173.jpg" width="350" height="273" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In one respect Mr. Gladstone was not an exception among the old, for he +seemed fond of dwelling upon the great age which men have attained. He +seemed to think that the high pressure at which we live nowadays would +show its effect on the longevity of the rising generation, and remarked:</p> + +<p>"You young men will have a very bad time of it."</p> + +<p>It is curious that very few statesmen indeed have led the House of +Commons in their old age. It may be said that Lord John Russell was the +first to do so; Lord Palmerston also was very old before he obtained +office. And so chatted the Grand Old Man, in the most fascinating and +delightful manner. He was always the same on such occasions, entering +into the spirit of the entertainment, and, as was his habit, forgetting +for the time everything else. When my old friend William Woodall, M.P. +for Stoke (Governor-General of the Ordnance in Mr. Gladstone's +Government 1885), gave at St. Anne's Mansions his famous "Sandwich +Soirées" to his friends, the spacious ballroom on the ground floor +packed with his many friends—a characteristic, polyglot gathering of +Ministers and Parliamentarians <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> of all kinds, musicians, +dramatists, authors, artists, actors, and journalists, who sang, +recited, and gave a gratuitous entertainment (for some of these I acted +as his hon. secretary, and helped to get together a collection of modern +paintings on the walls, besides designing the invitations)—I recollect +the greatest success was the Grand Old Man. There was "standing room" +only, but a chair was provided for Mr. Gladstone in the centre of the +huge circle which had formed around the mesmerist Verbeck. Many guests +sat on the floor, to afford those behind a better chance of seeing. The + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img174.jpg" width="350" height="301" alt="MR. GLADSTONE SITS ON THE FLOOR." title="MR. GLADSTONE SITS ON THE FLOOR." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 350px; ">MR. GLADSTONE SITS ON THE FLOOR.</span> + +Prime Minister, noticing this, absolutely declined to be an exception, +and he squatted "à la Turk" on the floor. I confess this struck me as +"playing to the gallery." It certainly was playing to the Press, for Mr. +Gladstone's attitude on that occasion was paragraphed all over the +country, by means of which fact I have here refreshed my memory. In +fact, Mr. Gladstone was always <i>en évidence</i>. When the great statesman +dined with Toby, M.P., I was sitting close to him. He had dispensed with +his own shirt-collars, and wore quite the smallest, slenderest, and most +inconspicuous of narrow, turn-down collars, assumed for that occasion +only. "One of Herbert's cast-offs," someone whispered to me. "That's +strange," said another guest to me. "Last night at dinner the pin in the +back of Gladstone's collar came out, and as he got excited, the collar +rose round his head, and we all agreed that 'Furniss ought to have +witnessed what he has so often drawn, but never seen.'"</p> + +<p>Mr. Lucy has made the statement that Mr. Gladstone was "a constant +student of <i>Punch</i>" and "knew no occasion upon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> which he was +not able to join in the general merriment of the public; but hadn't +there been enough about the fabulous collars?"</p> + +<p>I received an editorial order to bury them, "but before long they were +out again, flapping their folds in the political breeze."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px; clear: both"> +<img src="images/img175.jpg" width="650" height="419" alt="THE FRAGMENT." title="THE FRAGMENT." /> +<span class="caption">THE FRAGMENT OF <i>PUNCH</i> MR. GLADSTONE DID <i>NOT</i> SEE.</span> +</div> + +<p>Well, I have no doubt that Mr. Gladstone for many years was "a constant +student of <i>Punch</i>," for during the greater portion of his political +career he was idealised in the pages of <i>Punch</i>, and not caricatured. I +doubt very much, however, if he made <i>Punch</i> an exception in his latter +period, for it is well known that for years he was only allowed to see +flattering notices of himself, and all references at all likely to +disturb him were kept from his sight. At Mr. Lucy's own house, the night +Mr. Gladstone dined with him, a copy of <i>Punch</i> was lying on the table, +containing a rare thing for <i>Punch</i>—a supplement. In this case it took +the shape of my caricatures of the Royal Academy, 1889. Just as dinner +was announced Mr. Gladstone <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> saw the paper, and was on the +point of taking it up. I handed it to him, but at the same moment +slipped the supplement out of the number and threw it under the table, +for it contained a caricature of Professor Herkomer's Academy portrait +of Mrs. Gladstone, objecting to being placed next to a lady by Mr. Val +Prinsep sitting for the "altogether." During dinner Mr. Gladstone +mentioned this portrait of Mrs. Gladstone, and expressed great delight +with Herkomer's work: it showed her mature age, he said, and as a +portrait was very happy and true—he did not say anything about the +hanging of it!</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone was the life and soul of a party, and seemed to enjoy +being the centre of attraction wherever he was.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img176.jpg" width="200" height="213" alt="THE GLADSTONE MATCHBOX." title="THE GLADSTONE MATCHBOX." /> +<span class="caption">THE GLADSTONE MATCHBOX.</span> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone's portrait has been adopted by others besides +caricaturists. It is carved as a gargoyle in the stone-work of a church, +and the head of the Grand Old Man has been turned into a match-box. The +latter I here reproduce. It was shown to me one evening when I was the +guest at the Guard Mess at St. James's Palace. A clever young Guardsman, +who had a taste for turning, worked this out in wood from my caricatures +of Mr. Gladstone, and I advised his having it reproduced in pottery. +The suggestion was carried out by the late Mr. Woodall, the Member for +the Potteries, and was largely distributed at the time the G.O.M. was +politically meeting his match and thought by some to be a little +light-headed.</p> + +<p>In being shown round the beautiful municipal buildings in Glasgow I +found my caricature there accidentally figuring in the marble-work; and +the guides at Antwerp Cathedral (as I have mentioned in the first +chapter) point out a grotesque figure in the wood carving of the choir +stalls which resembles almost exactly Mr. Gladstone's head as depicted +by me.</p> + +<p>I find a note which I introduce here, as I hardly know where to place it +in this hotch-potch of confessions. Is it a fact that <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> Mr. Gladstone once signed a +caricature of himself? In 1896 a Mr. J. T. Cox, of the "Norwich school" +of amateurs, procured a slab of a sycamore tree felled by Mr. Gladstone, +and on it reproduced in pencil my <i>Punch</i> cartoon depicting a visit of +the "Grand Old Undergrad" to his Alma Mater, Oxford. This was sent to +Hawarden, and returned signed with the following note:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<div style="text-align: right; "> +<span class="smcap">"Hawarden Castle.<br /></span></div> + +<p>"Mr. Gladstone is obliged to refuse his signature, but Mrs. Drew +asked him for it for herself on enclosed—it was so cleverly arranged.</p> + +<p>"<i>May 5th</i>, 1896."</p> +</div> + +<p>Here is to me, I confess, a first-he-would-and-then-he-wouldn't, Cox and +Box mystery I fail to explain.</p> + +<p>I drew the G.O.M., Mr. Cox drew me, he drew Mrs. Drew, and Mrs. Drew +drew Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone refused his signature, and yet he +signed it. I think he signed his cut of sycamore, and not my cut at him.</p> + +<p>Both as a "special artist" for the <i>Illustrated London News</i> in my +pre-<i>Punch</i> days, and later for various periodicals, I saw and sketched +Mr. Gladstone on many important occasions, but towards the end of his +career it was sad to see the great man. The <i>Daily News</i> once gave me a +chance in the following account of Mr. Gladstone during one of these +scenes; when Mr. Gladstone, having accidentally mentioned the approach +of his eightieth birthday, "the vast audience suddenly leapt to its feet +and burst into ringing cheers. Mr. Gladstone was evidently deeply +touched by this spontaneous outburst of almost personal affection. He +stood with hands folded, head bent down, and <i>legs quivering</i>." The fun +of this joke, however, lies in the fact that the "legs" which quivered +were the telegraph operators'. The reporter wrote "lips."</p> + +<p>So great was the public admiration for the illustrious leader of the +Liberal Party that merely to see him was, to the majority of his +audience, enough. In later years he could not be heard at public +meetings. Penetrating as his voice was, it was absolutely impossible for +any but those standing immediately around <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> the platform to hear +him upon such occasions as that of the famous Blackheath meeting, or +those at Birmingham or elsewhere; but the masses nevertheless came in +their thousands, and were more than repaid for their trouble by catching +only a distant glimpse of William Ewart Gladstone.</p> + +<p>Whatever one may think of Mr. Gladstone as a politician (and some say +that he was no statesman, and others that he was never sincere, while +many maintain that he was merely a "dangerous old woman"), all must +agree that as a man he was a figure that England might well be proud of. +It will be interesting to see what historians will make of him. When the +glamour of his personality is forgotten, what will be remembered? His +figure, his face—and shall I say his collars?</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img178.jpg" width="400" height="138" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>In my time Mr. Parnell was the most interesting figure in Parliament, +and, after Mr. Gladstone, had the greatest influence in the House. Mr. +Gladstone was, politically speaking, Parliament itself (at one time he +was the Country); but I doubt if even Mr. Gladstone ever hypnotised the +House by his personality as Parnell did. There was a mystery in +everything connected with the great Irish leader; no mystery hung about +Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone in the House was voluble, eloquent, +communicative. Mr. Parnell was silent, a poor speaker, and as +uncommunicative as the Sphinx. Mr. Gladstone's power lay in his +unreservedness; Mr. Parnell's lay in his absolute reserve. His orders +were "No one to speak to the man at the wheel," and the man at the wheel +spoke to no one. He guided the Irish ship just as he liked over the +troubled waters of a political crisis, and not one of his men knew what +move would be his next. By this means, so foreign to the Irish +character, he held that excitable, rebellious, irrepressible crew in +thrall. He made them dance, sleep, roar; he made them obstructionists, +orators, buffoons, at his will. He made them everything but friends. +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> A characteristic story was circulated when Parnell was known +as "the uncrowned king." Accompanied by his faithful private secretary, +he was walking from the House, when he met one of his colleagues. The +satellite saluted his chief and "smiled affably at the private +secretary." Mr. Parnell took no notice whatever of Mr. ——, but after a +few seconds had elapsed, turned to his companion and said, "Who was +that, Campbell?"</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 160px; "> +<img src="images/img179.jpg" width="160" height="445" alt="PARNELL." title="PARNELL." /> +<span class="caption">PARNELL.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Why, ——" (mentioning the name of the hon. Member), was the reply.</p> + +<p>"What a horrible-looking scoundrel!" exclaimed the uncrowned king in his +most supercilious manner, and then began to talk of something else.</p> + +<p>He was a study as fascinating to the artist as to the politician, and no +portrait ever drawn by pen or pencil can hand down to future generations +the mysterious subtlety in the personality of the all-powerful leader.</p> + +<p>He was as puzzling to the Parliamentary artist as he was to the +politician: he never appeared just as one expected him. When I first +made a sketch of him he had short hair, a well-trimmed moustache, +shortly-cut side whiskers, a neat-fitting coat and trousers, and +well-shaped boots. He then let his beard and hair grow, and his coat and +trousers seemed to grow also—the coat in length and the trousers in +width; and his boots grew with the rest—they were ugly and enormous. +His hat didn't grow, but it was out of date. Then he would cut his beard +and hair again, wear a short coat, a sort of pilot jacket, and +eventually a long black coat. So that if a drawing was not published at +once it would have been out of date.</p> + +<p>Some artists have been flattering enough to take my sketches as +references for Parliamentarians, but others depended on photographs, and +for years I have seen Mr. Parnell represented with the neatly-trimmed +moustache and closely-cut side whiskers. <i>A propos</i> of this, I may +mention here how mistakes often become <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> perpetuated. John +Bright, for instance, was generally represented in political sketches +with an eye-glass. This was a slip made by an artist in <i>Punch</i> many +years ago. But ever after John Bright was represented with an +eye-glass—which he never wore, except on one occasion just to see how he +liked it.</p> + +<p>The effect upon the House when Mr. Parnell rose was always dramatic. He +sat there during a debate, seldom, if ever, taking a note, with his hat +well over his eyes and his arms crossed, in strong contrast to the +restlessness of those around him. When he rose, it seemed an effort to +lift his voice, and he spoke in a hesitating, ineffective manner. +Neither was there much in what he said, but he was <i>Parnell</i>, and the +fact that he said little and said it quietly, that what he said was not +prepared in consultation with his Whips or with his Party, that in fact +he was playing a game in which his closest friends were not consulted, +made his rising interesting from the reporters' gallery to the +doorkeepers in the Lobby the other side.</p> + +<p>Mr. Parnell seemed to have been very little affected by his continued +reverses; and perhaps the only visible effect of his loss of power was +that the "uncrowned king" of Ireland changed his top-hat to a plebeian +bowler, but he did not change his coat. He was always careless about his +dress, and his tall, handsome figure looked somewhat ridiculous when he +wore a bowler, black frock coat, and his hair as usual unkempt.</p> + +<p>The fall of Parnell was one of the most sensational and certainly the +most dramatic incident in the history of Parliament.</p> + +<p>Mr. Parnell was politically ruined and the Irish Party smashed beyond +recovery in the famous Committee Room No. 15, after the disclosures in +the Divorce Court in which Mr. Parnell figured as co-respondent. Mr. +Parnell had found the Irish Party without a leader, without a programme, +without a future. He had by his individual force made it a power which +had to be reckoned with, and which practically controlled Parliament. He +had been attacked by the most important paper in the world. He had come +out of the affair, in the eyes of many, a hero; he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> made his +Party stronger than their wildest dreams ever anticipated. But his +followers little thought that in hiding from them his tactics he had +also hidden the weakness which caused his ultimate downfall. Howbeit the +Irish Party, whom he held in a hypnotic trance, agreed to stand by him +still. Then, suddenly, Mr. Gladstone made his demand for a sacrifice to +Mrs. Grundy. His famous letter, written November 24th, 1894, to Mr. +Morley, was the death-warrant to Parnellism, and, as it subsequently +proved, to Gladstonianism as well.</p> + +<p>There was a strange fascination in watching the mysterious Leader of the +Irish Party during the crisis, and I took full advantage of my privilege +in the House to do so. I was in and about the House early and late, and +probably saw more of Mr. Parnell than anyone else not connected with +him. It was just before his exposure that I happened to be in an +out-of-the-way passage leading from the House, making a little note in +my sketch-book on a corner of the building, when Mr. Parnell walked out. +He stood close by, not observing me, and was occupied for a minute in +taking letters out of the pocket on the right side of his overcoat: they +were unopened. He looked at them singly; now and then he would tap one +on the other, as much as to say, "I wonder what is in that?" Then he +passed it over with the others and put them all into the pocket on the +left side of his overcoat, and strolled off to catch his train to +Brighton. That incident, as I subsequently found out, was the cause of +much of his trouble; for I was informed, when I mentioned it to a great +friend of Mr. Parnell's and of mine—Mr. Richard Power—that about that +time he had written him important letters which might have saved him if +they had been attended to in time.</p> + +<p>But those who saw the fallen chief during the sittings in Committee Room +No. 15, when, through the letter of Mr. Gladstone to which I have +referred, he was denounced, and had to fight with his back to the wall, +can never forget his tragic figure during that exciting time. No one +knew better than he that the tactics of his lieutenant would be cunning +and perhaps treacherous; so this lazy, self-composed man suddenly awoke +as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> a general who finds himself surprised in the camp, and +determines to keep watch himself. Every day he took by right the chair +at the meetings. Had he not been present, who knows that it would not +have been wrested from him? In the early afternoon I saw him more than +once walk with a firm step, with an ashy pale face, his eyes fixed +straight in front of him, through the yard, through the Lobby, up the +stairs, and into Room 15, accompanied by his secretary, Mr. Campbell. +The members of his Party, on their arrival, found him sitting where they +had left him the night before. I recollect one morning, as he passed +where I was standing, he never moved his head, but I heard him say to +Mr. Campbell, "Who's that? what does he want?" in a sharp, nervous +manner. He never seemed to recognise anyone, or wish them to recognise +him. His one idea was to face the man who wished to fight him in the +little ring they had selected in the Committee Room No. 15.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img182.jpg" width="250" height="291" alt="TO ROOM 15." title="TO ROOM 15." /> +<span class="caption">TO ROOM 15.</span> +</div> + +<p>No outsider but myself heard any portion of that debate, for at the +beginning of it the reporters, who were standing round the doors outside +to hear what they could, were ordered away; and I was left there, not +being a reporter, to finish a rather tedious sketch of the corridor. A +policeman was placed at either end of this very long passage, and if +anyone had to pass that way he was not allowed to pause for a moment at +the door of the room upon which the interest of the political world was +centred at the moment. Nearly all the time I was there I only saw the +policeman at either end, and one solitary figure seated on the bench +outside the door. It was the figure of a woman with a kind, +homely-looking face, resting with her head upon her hand. She seemed not +to be aware of, or at least not interested in what was going on inside; +she simply sighed as Big Ben tolled on toward the hour for the dismissal +of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> Leader of the Irish Party. She was the wife of a blind +Member of Parliament who was taking part in the proceedings, and her +thoughts were evidently more intent upon seeing that her husband was not +worn out by that strange, long struggle than in the political +significance of the meeting.</p> + +<p>It was my good fortune to hear what was perhaps the most interesting of +the speeches—John Redmond's defence of his chief—and I never wish to +listen to a finer oration. Everyone admits that the Irish are, by +nature, good speakers, but they are not always sincere. Here was a +combat in which there was no quarter, no gallery, and no reporters. The +men spoke from their hearts, and if any orator could have moved an +assembly by his power and genius, Mr. Redmond ought to have had a +unanimous vote recorded in favour of his chief. I am not a phonograph, +nor was I a journalist privileged to record what passed, and have no +intention of breaking their trust.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img183.jpg" width="300" height="498" alt="OUTSIDE ROOM 15." title="OUTSIDE ROOM 15." /> +<span class="caption">OUTSIDE ROOM 15.</span> +</div> + +<p>I shall never forget the scene one Wednesday afternoon when Mr. Maurice +Healy, brother of "Tim," and one of the Members for Cork, challenged Mr. +Parnell to retire and so enable their respective claims to the +confidence of the people of Cork to be tested. He tried to drag Mr. +Parnell into a newspaper controversy upon this point, but failing to do +so repeated in tragic tones his somewhat Hibernian sentiment that Mr. +Parnell did not represent the constituency which elected him. Mr. +Maurice Healy, a somewhat sickly-looking young man, with a family +resemblance to his brother, is much taller than his more famous +relative, but lacks the stamina and vivacity of the Member for Longford.</p> + +<p>At this moment, when the Irish Party might have been likened to +machinery deprived of its principal wheel, it was curious to <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> notice how energetic Mr. Parnell +became. He tried to cover his position by being unusually active in +Parliament; he followed the Chief Secretary for Ireland in the debates +upon the Land Purchase Bill, to the obvious discomfort of Mr. Morley, +and rather delighted the young Conservatives by twitting the faction +which had thrown him over. His speeches, however, were laboured, and, as +one of the Irish Members remarked to me in the Lobby, it had a curious +effect on them to see Mr. Parnell sit down after making an important +speech without hearing a single cheer. And whereas for years he had +addressed the House with the greatest calmness, his chief characteristic +being his "reserve force," he now changed all this, and one Friday night +caused quite a sensation in the House in his attack upon Mr. Gladstone, +not so much by what he said as by the manner in which he said it. His +excitement was visible to all, and he was observed to be positively +convulsed with anger. He also remained, contrary to his previous custom, +late in the House.</p> + +<p>The last occasion on which I saw Charles Stewart Parnell was a few +months before his death. I was in Dublin during the Horse Show week, +giving my "Humours of Parliament" to crowded houses in the "Ancient +Concert Rooms," and my ancient hotel rooms were at Morrison's +Hotel—"Parnell's Hotel," for the "uncrowned king" (at that time +deposed) always stopped there—in fact it was said he had an interest in +the property. It was late on Sunday afternoon. I was writing in my +sitting-room on the first floor, next to Parnell's room, when the +strains of national music of approaching bands smote my ear, and soon +the hotel was surrounded by a cheering, shouting crowd. Banners were +flying, bands were playing, thousands of voices were shouting. Standing +in a brake haranguing the surging mass of people was the familiar figure +of Charles Stewart Parnell. With difficulty he descended from the brake, +and had literally to fight his way into the hotel, while his worshippers +clung on to him into the building, till they were seized and ejected by + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img185a.jpg" width="450" height="260" alt="OUTSIDE MY ROOM." title="OUTSIDE MY ROOM." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 450px; ">OUTSIDE MY ROOM.</span> + +the servants. I went out of my door to see the scene, and in the passage +outside, between Parnell's sitting-room and mine, he sat apparently +exhausted. His flesh seemed transparent—I could <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> +fancy I saw the pattern of the wall-paper through his pallid cheeks. The +next moment, before I was aware, another figure sat on the same seat, +arms were thrown round my neck. It was my old Irish nurse, who had come +up from Wexford to see me, and had been lying in wait for me.</p> + +<p>The first picture I drew for <i>Punch's</i> essence of Parliament was a +portrait of Lord Randolph Churchill, "Caught on the Hip," to illustrate +the following truly prophetic words of Toby, M.P.: "The new delight you +have given us is the spectacle of an undisciplined Tory—a man who will +not march at the word of command and snaps his fingers at his captain. +You won't last long, Randolph; you are rather funny than witty—more +impudent than important." That was written at the opening of Parliament, +1891.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img185b.jpg" width="400" height="275" alt="THE G.O.M. AND RANDY." title="THE G.O.M. AND RANDY." /> +<span class="caption">"THE G.O.M." AND "RANDY."</span> +</div> + +<p>I must plead guilty to being the cause of giving an erroneous impression +of Lord Randolph's height. He was not a small man, but he <i>looked</i> +small; and when he first came into notoriety, with a small following, +was considered of small importance and, by some, small-minded. It was to +show this political insignificance in humorous contrast to his bombastic +audacity that I represented him as a midget; but the idea was also +suggested from time to time by his opponents in debate. Did not Mr. +Gladstone once call him a gnat? and do we not find the <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> following lines under <i>Punch's</i> +Fancy Portraits, No. 47, drawn by Mr. Sambourne?</p> + +<div style="font-size: 90%; "><p> +<span style="margin-left: 5em; ">"There is a Midge at Westminster,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 7em; ">A Gnatty little Thing,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 9em; ">It bites at Night<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 9em; ">This mighty Mite,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 7em; ">But no one feels its sting."</span></p></div> + +<p>Two gentlemen of Yorkshire had a dispute about his correct height, and +one of them, anxious to have an authoritative pronouncement, wrote to +the noble Lord, and received the following reply:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<div style="text-align: right; "> +<span class="smcap">"2, Connaught Place, W.<br /></span></div> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,—Lord Randolph Churchill desires me to say, in reply to +your letter of the 21st inst., that his height is just under 5ft. 10in.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center; ">"I am, yours faithfully,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; ">"<span class="smcap">Cecil Drummond-Wolff</span>, Secretary."</p> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 220px; "> +<img src="images/img186.jpg" width="220" height="467" alt="MR. LOUIS JENNINGS." title="MR. LOUIS JENNINGS." /> +<span class="caption">MR. LOUIS JENNINGS.</span> +</div> + +<p>Lord Randolph Churchill was a mere creature of impulse, the spoilt pet +of Parliament—what you will—but no one can deny that he was the most +interesting figure in the House since Disraeli. He had none of +Disraeli's chief attraction—namely, mystery. Nor had he Disraeli's +power of organisation, for, although Lord Randolph "educated a party" of +three—the first step to his eventually becoming Leader of the House—it +cannot be said that at any time afterwards he really had, in the strict +sense of the word, a party at all. He was a political Don Quixote, and +he had his Sancho Panza in the person of Mr. Louis Jennings. Perhaps +nothing can show the impulsive nature of Lord Randolph more than the +incident which was the cause of Mr. Jennings breaking with Lord +Randolph. Mr. Louis Jennings was, in many ways, his chief's superior: a +brilliant journalist, originally on the <i>Times</i>, afterwards editor of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the <i>New York World</i>, when, by dint of his energy and pluck, +he was the chief cause of breaking up the notorious Tammany Ring; a +charming writer of picturesque country scenes—in fact, an accomplished +man, and one harshly treated by that fickle dame Fortune by being +branded, rightly or wrongly, as the mere creature of a political +adventurer.</p> + +<p>One afternoon I was standing in the Inner Lobby when Mr. Jennings asked +me to go into the House to a seat under the Gallery to hear him deliver +a speech he had been requested to make by the Government Party, and one +he thought something of. At that moment Lord Randolph came up and said, +"I am going in to hear you, Jennings; I have arranged not to speak till +after dinner." And we all three entered the House.</p> + +<p>Lord Randolph, who had then left the Ministry, sat on the bench in the +second row below the gangway, on the Government side of the House. Mr. +Jennings was seated on the bench behind, close to where he had found a +place for me under the Gallery. He carefully arranged the notes for his +speech, and directly the Member who had been addressing the House sat +down, Mr. Jennings jumped to his feet to "catch the Speaker's eye." But +Lord Randolph, who had been very restless all through the speech just +delivered, sprang to his feet. Jennings leant over to him and said +something, but Churchill waved him impatiently away, and the Speaker +called upon Lord Randolph. Jennings sank back with a look of disgust and +chagrin, which changed to astonishment when Lord Randolph fired out that +famous Pigott speech, in which he attacked his late colleagues with a +vituperation and vulgarity he had never before betrayed. His speech +electrified the House and disgusted his friends—none more so than his +faithful Jennings, who left the Chamber directly after his "friend's" +tirade of abuse, returning later in the evening to make a capital +speech, full of feeling and power, in which he finally threw over Lord +Randolph. In the meantime, meeting me, he did not hide the fact that the +incident had determined him to have nothing more to say to Churchill. +And this was the man I once drew a cartoon of in <i>Punch</i> on all fours, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> with a coat covering his head (suspiciously like a donkey's +head), with "Little Randy" riding on his back!</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img188.jpg" width="350" height="392" alt="LORD RANDOLPH AND LOUIS JENNINGS." title="LORD RANDOLPH AND LOUIS JENNINGS." /> +<span class="caption">LORD RANDOLPH AND LOUIS JENNINGS.</span> +</div> + +<p>If Samson's strength vanished with his hair, Lord Randolph's strength +vanished with the growing of his beard. The real reason why Lord +Randolph so strangely transformed himself is not generally known, but it +was for the simplest of all reasons—like that of the gentleman who +committed suicide because he was "tired of buttoning and unbuttoning," +Lord Randolph was tired of shaving or being shaved; hence the heroic +beard, which has offended certain political purists who think that a man +with an established reputation has no right to alter his established +appearance. Still, if he had not vanished to grow his beard, I doubt if +he would have survived the winter; and probably he discovered that it +was good for any man to escape now and then from what the late Mr. R. L. +Stevenson called "the servile life of cities." Perhaps no one received +such a "sending off," or was more fêted, than Lord Randolph Churchill. +Happening to be a guest at more than one of those festive little +gatherings, I heard Lord Randolph say that all the literary food that he +was taking out with him to Mashonaland consisted of the works of two +authors—one English, and the other French. We were asked who they were. +"In Darkest England," suggested one. "Ruff's Guide to the Turf," said +another. Both were wrong. And it ultimately transpired that, together +with his friends' best wishes for his safe return, Lord Randolph was +carrying with him complete sets of the works of Shakespeare and Molière.</p> + +<p>The deafness which attacked Lord Randolph led to his making mistakes, +and to others making a scene, particularly when the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> noise in +the House was so great through the excitement on the Home Rule question. +I find a note made then upon this point, alluding to a little incident +<i>à propos</i> of Lord Randolph Churchill's deafness: "It is really +dangerous, considering the high state of feeling in the House, that +Members antagonistic to each other should have to sit side by side. + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img189.jpg" width="320" height="623" alt="LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL." title="LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 320px; ">LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.</span> + +During the stormy scene to which I have just alluded, I was sitting in +one of the front boxes directly over the Speaker's chair, and, although +remarks kept flying about from the benches below, it was difficult to +catch the words, and still more difficult to stop the utterer; so I +don't wonder that Lord Randolph Churchill—who is rather deaf—should +have misconstrued the words, 'You are not dumb!' as 'You are knocked +up!' Later on, however, an Irish Member knocked down another one who was +opposed to him in politics; and this the Press called 'coming into +collision.'"</p> + +<p>There is little doubt that ill-health was the cause of that +querulousness which led to Lord Randolph's curious and fatal move. I +recollect being introduced to an American doctor in the Lobby one +afternoon when Lord Randolph was at the zenith of his height and fame. +Lord Randolph passed close to us, and stood for a few minutes talking to +the Member who had introduced the doctor to me. I whispered to the +American to take stock of the Member his friend was talking to. He did, +and when Lord Randolph walked away he said, "Well, I don't know who that +man is, but he won't live five years." It was unfortunate for the +reputation of Lord Randolph that the doctor's words did not come true.</p> + +<p>Many efforts were made by the friends of Lord Randolph to <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> bring Lord Salisbury and his +lieutenant together again. A deputation of a few intimate friends, +ladies as well as gentlemen, called on Lord Salisbury, presumably on +quite a different matter, but led up to Lord Randolph. Lord Salisbury, +seeing through their object, asked the question, "Have any of you ever +had a carbuncle on the back of your neck?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then I have, and I do not want another."</p> + +<p>But perhaps Lord Salisbury saw more than anyone else that Lord Randolph +was not the man he once was. It was painful in his latter days to see +the Members run out of the House when he rose to speak, and to recollect +that but a few years before they poured in to listen to the "plucky +little Randy"; and the sympathy of everyone for him was shown in a very +marked way by the kindness of the Press when one of the most +extraordinary figures in the Parliamentary world had passed away.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img190.jpg" width="500" height="410" alt="BEHIND THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR." title="BEHIND THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR." /> +<span class="caption">BEHIND THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR.</span> +</div> + +<p>Lord Randolph Churchill recalls another familiar figure I +caricatured—Lord Iddesleigh, a statesman who will always be +remembered with respect. No statue has ever been erected in +the buildings of the House of Commons to any Member who +better deserves it, and, strange to say, the white marble took +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> +the character and style of the man, chilliness, pure, and firm. +A country gentleman in politics and out of it, free from flashy +party-colour rhetoric.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img191.jpg" width="200" height="370" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ir Stafford Northcote, as he was known in the House of Commons, the +gentlest of statesmen, had by no means a peaceful career in politics. He +was at one time Mr. Gladstone's secretary, and those who knew him +declare that he never lost his respect and admiration for his former +master, although time took him from Mr. Gladstone's flock to the fold of +Lord Beaconsfield. I recollect on one occasion, when I was seated in a +Press box directly over the Speaker's chair, seeing Mr. Gladstone write +a memorandum on a piece of paper and throw it across the table to Sir +Stafford, who was at that time Leader of the House of Commons; after +reading it, Sir Stafford nodded to Mr. Gladstone, and they both rose +together and went behind the Speaker's chair. One could easily detect in +the manner of the two old friends an existence of personal regard, and +their estrangement on political circumstances must have been a matter of +mutual regret. Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone towards the end, however, +did not show that friendliness that had gone on for so many years. This +may have been brought about by many causes, not the least of which was +the fact that Mr. Gladstone refused to lead the House during the +Bradlaugh scene, and left it to Sir Stafford, then Leader of the +Opposition. For instance, after the division in which Mr. Bradlaugh was +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> refused the House by a vote of 383 to 233, the Speaker appealed +to the House to know what to do. Mr. Bradlaugh stood at the table and +refused to leave it. Mr. Gladstone lay back on the seat of the +Government bench motionless, so Sir Stafford took up the leadership of +the House, and asked the Prime Minister, whom he facetiously called the +Leader of the House, "whether he intended to propose any counsel, any +course for the purpose of maintaining the authority of the House and of +the Chair." And so it was on many occasions. When Mr. Bradlaugh did rush +up to the table of the House, escorted by Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Bass, +and went through the amusing part of taking the oath, he brought the +book which he kissed and the papers which he signed, and then rushed +back into his seat. The House witnessed the scene indescribable by +either pen or pencil. But here again Mr. Gladstone refused to lead the +House. There had been a division, and Mr. Bradlaugh had once more been +refused admission; so Sir Stafford Northcote came forward, as he always +did on these occasions, in the mildest possible way and the most +gentlemanly manner, which rather added to the effect of his taking the +reins left dangling uselessly by the Leader of the House. He said: "Mr. +Speaker, I need hardly say that if the Leader of the House desires to +rise, I will give him the opportunity; but assuming that he does not, I +intend to do so, and as I see no indication of his consent to do so, I +shall call the attention of the House to the position in which we +stand," and so on. Sir Stafford Northcote was not a man to stand the +rough treatment which Members have had in the House during the last +fifteen years. Had he been a Member twenty years before that, or even a +little more, he would have been more in tone with the "best club in +London." He was perplexed by Mr. Gladstone, he was bullied by Lord +Randolph Churchill, and he was generally looked upon as an old woman, +and eventually he was simply sent up to the other House. It was not +until his sad and tragic death occurred that everyone realised that they +had lost one of the most able statesmen and one of the finest gentlemen +that ever sat in the House of Commons.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img193.jpg" width="300" height="380" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption"></span> +</div> + +<p>ad Mr. Bradlaugh taken the oath with the rest of the Members when first +introduced to the House, or had he, after refusing to take it, behaved +with less violence, I doubt if he would have made any name in +Parliament. The House was determined to fight Bradlaugh, and it is not +to be wondered at, for he paraded his atheism, and his views on other +matters, in the most repulsive manner possible. But Bradlaugh did not +run the risk of fighting down mere prejudice. Had he taken the oath, he +would only have won the ear of the House by proving himself a great +politician. This he was not, though he was a hard-working one, and a +model Member from a constituency's point of view. But the only big +question he mastered was his own right to take his seat. Once he got it, +he became a respectable and respected Member of Parliament, and nothing +more. So, with the wisdom of the serpent, he did not enter the House +quietly to fight a wearisome and impossible battle against the +inveterate prejudices of the Members. No, Bradlaugh defied the House of +Commons; he horrified it, he insulted it, he lectured it, he laughed at +it, he tricked it, he shamed it, he humiliated it, he conquered it. He +brought to their knees the men who howled at him—as no other man has +ever been howled at before—by sheer force of character.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum' style="clear: both; "><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img194.jpg" width="600" height="640" alt="BRADLAUGH TRIUMPHANT." title="BRADLAUGH TRIUMPHANT." /> +<span class="caption">BRADLAUGH TRIUMPHANT. <i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>Bradlaugh's bitter struggle would fill a volume. Select Committees were +appointed, and they declared against him. Ignoring them, Bradlaugh +marched up to the table and demanded to be sworn. The Fourth Party would +not let him touch the Testament. Three days followed of angry debate on +Bradlaughism, with more scenes. A new Committee reversed the decision of +its predecessor, and said that Bradlaugh might affirm. Two days were +consumed in discussing this, and the present Lord Chancellor, then Sir +Hardinge Giffard, swayed the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> House against the report of the +Committee. Nothing daunted, Mr. Bradlaugh the very next day was back at +the table of the House, clamouring to be allowed to address the House on +his case. A scene of wild confusion resulted, Mr. Bradlaugh endeavouring +to speak, the House howling to prevent him. Eventually he was ordered +below the Bar—that is, nominally outside the House, although within the +four walls. After much acrimonious chatter from all sides, he was + +<span class="figright"> +<img src="images/img195.jpg" width="200" height="318" alt="CHARLES BRADLAUGH." title="CHARLES BRADLAUGH." /></span> +<span class="capright" style="width: 200px; ">CHARLES BRADLAUGH.</span> + +allowed to make his speech. His hour had come. He stood like a prisoner +pleading before a single judge and a jury of 670 of his fellow-men. His +speech was more worthy of the Surrey Theatre than of the "Best Club." It +was bombastic and theatrical. He was ordered to withdraw, while the jury +considered their verdict. When he was recalled, it was to hear sentence +of expulsion passed on him. But he would not depart, and another +tremendous uproar took place. Mr. Bradlaugh's well-trained platform +voice rose above all others in loud assertion of his "rights," and he +continued to call for them all through the House, the Lobbies, the +corridors, up the winding stair into the Clock Tower, where he was +immured by the Sergeant-at-Arms. The following day he was released after +another angry debate, and he quickly returned to the forbidden +precincts. Then he was induced to quit, but on the next day he came down +to the House with his family, and with a triumphant procession entered +the House amid the cheers of the crowd. So the drama went on day after +day, like a Chinese play. The characters in it were acted by the leading +players on both sides of the House, and the excitement never flagged for +a moment until Mr. Bradlaugh was allowed to affirm. He was told that he +would vote at his own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> risk. He voted repeatedly, and by so +doing incurred a fine, at the hands of Mr. Justice Mathew, of the little +round sum of £100,000 (he never had 100,000 farthings), nor could he +even open his mouth in the House without savage interruption. Finally, +Mr. Labouchere, his colleague, moved for a new writ for the borough of +Northampton. Bradlaugh re-won the seat by the small majority of 132 +votes, and the Bradlaugh incubus lay once more on Parliament. Then +followed the same old cycle of events, the same scene at the table, the +same angry religious warfare in debate (Mr. Bright's great oratorical +effort will be remembered), the same speech from Mr. Bradlaugh at the +Bar, the same division, the same result. Scene followed scene, and +scandal scandal for weeks, months, years.</p> + +<p>To appreciate Mr. John Bright fully, one must have heard him. Really to +comprehend his power and greatness, one must have heard him at his best. +Yet the greatness of his oratory lay not so much in what he said as in +the beautiful way he said it.</p> + +<p>Previous to my having the opportunity of listening to the debates, Mr. +Bright had reached that stage a singer reaches who has to all intents +retired from the stage, and merely makes an appearance for someone's +benefit now and then. In the first two or three years which I recall in +these pages Mr. Bright was making his last appearance in grand political +opera. He was in the Government, but although he assured the House that +"he was not going to turn his back upon himself"—an assertion of his +powers as a contortionist I endeavoured to depict in <i>Punch</i> the +following week—Mr. Bright had practically turned his back upon making +great oratorical displays. The Bradlaugh scandal was in 1881 the subject +of the hour, and it was whilst appearing for Mr. Bradlaugh's benefit, on +the occasion of one of the numerous matinées arranged by the elected for +Northampton, that Mr. Bright used the words. But on no occasion in my +memory did he rise in a full-dress debate to make one of those grand +efforts with which his name will ever be remembered as the great orator.</p> + +<p>Statesmanship was not so much to him as speechifying. He <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> was not a diplomatist such as +Beaconsfield, a tactician like Mr. Gladstone, a fearless, dashing +debater like Lord Derby the elder, "The Rupert of Debate"; nor had he +the weight of Lord Salisbury, nor the æstheticism of Mr. Balfour. But as +a mere voice in the political opera he had a charm above them all. In +appearance he was commonplace compared with these others I have +mentioned. Often the most indifferent-looking horse in the stable or in +the paddock is the best in action. You would not give £40 for some +standing at ease; but in action, moving to perfection, with fire and +speed and staying power, the price is more like £20,000. Mr. Bright +never got into his stride at any time or in any event while he came +under my observation.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; clear: both; "> +<img src="images/img197.jpg" width="600" height="408" alt="THE MEET AT ST. STEPHEN'S." title="THE MEET AT ST. STEPHEN'S." /> +<span class="caption">THE MEET AT ST. STEPHEN'S.</span> +</div> + +<p>These equine remarks about a great politician bring to mind a protest I +received about a drawing of mine, which appeared a year or two ago, +representing Mr. Gladstone as a Grand Old Horse, hearing the horn at the +meet, cantering towards his companions in so many runs in which he had +taken the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> lead, and for which his day had gone. The protest +came from a Quaker, horrified at my depicting Mr. Gladstone as a +gee-gee! as if he had not been so depicted often enough before.</p> + +<p>Jacob Bright was the very antithesis to his brother, both in appearance +and manner—tall, of a nervous, wiry frame, rigid face, severe +expression. He, like others without a spark of humour, was often the +means of unconscious merriment. For instance, when Lord Randolph +Churchill was Member for Woodstock, Mr. Jacob Bright referred to him as +the noble lord "the Member for Woodcock." Sir John Tenniel in the +cartoon in <i>Punch</i>, and myself in the minor pictures of Parliament in +that journal, made full use of the "woodcock," and, therefore, revelling +in heraldry, quickly added the woodcock to the Churchill arms.</p> + +<p>Half the bores in London clubs are Indian officials returned to us with +their digestion and their temper destroyed, to spend the rest of their +days in fighting their poor livers and their unhappy friends. The +etiquette of Clubland prevents one from protesting. But in the "Best +Club" they are not spared. They are either howled at, or left to speak +to empty benches.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Sir George Campbell, who had been Governor of Bombay, was the +most eccentric bore we have ever had in the House of Commons. Sir George +has acknowledged that he could not resist the temptation to speak. On +one occasion he made no less than fifty-five speeches on the Standing +Committee of one Bill. At breakfast in the morning he read in the +<i>Times</i> his heated, unconsidered interruptions in the House the night +before, and he read of the contempt with which they were received—the +"Loud laughter," cries of "Order!" "Divide! divide! divide!" and the +snubs administered to him by the wearied and disgusted Members. He read +after lunch at his club the jeering remarks of the evening Press. He was +well aware he was a nuisance to the House, and he resolved as he walked +down Whitehall not to open his mouth. But as soon as he crossed Palace +Yard and entered the corridors of the House he sniffed the odour of +authority and the fever of debate. He, the Great Sir George of +India,—silent? Never! Whether <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> there was a question about the +bathing-machines on the beach at Hastings, or the spread of scarlet +fever at Battersea, or about an old pump at Littleshrimpton, he cared +not: he must act his part—that of the Pantaloon in Parliament.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img199.jpg" width="200" height="371" alt="SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL." title="SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL." /> +<span class="caption">SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL.</span> +</div> + +<p>In appearance he was a striking, handsome man, with a strong +individuality. A good head, piercing eye, well-shaped nose, and tall, +active frame no doubt added to his authority in India. He struck me as a +man who had been taken to pieces on his way home to this country, and +put together again badly, for his joints were all wrong. Certainly his +head was, and he was over wound up. His tongue never ceased, and the +worst of it was he had a rasping, penetrating voice, with the strongest +Scotch accent. One afternoon in the House this accent led to one of +those frequent outbursts of merriment and protest combined—so common +when Sir George bored the House, as he was always doing. Sometimes he +made over thirty speeches in one evening. A question was asked about the +obstructive methods of the irrepressible Sir George, who on this +particular afternoon was supported in his boredom by two other bores, +the Member for Sunderland and Mr. Conybeare. These three had the House +to themselves, and peppered the Government benches with question after +question, speech after speech. Sir George alluded to themselves as "a +band of devoted guerillas." The weary House, not paying particular +attention to every accent, failed to catch most of what Sir George said, +as his rasping Scotch accent left them no escape. But the last word was +misunderstood, and an outburst of laughter, long, loud, and hearty, +followed, and, in a Parliamentary sense, killed Sir George for the day. +The House understood him to say "a band of us devoted gorillas."</p> + +<p>Perhaps the neatest rebuke Sir George ever had in the House—or, as a +matter of fact, any Member ever had—was administered by that most +polished wit, Mr. Plunket (now Lord Rathmore). <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> Sir George +solemnly rose and asked Mr. Plunket, who happened at the time to be +Minister of Public Works, whether he (Mr. Plunket) was responsible for +the "fearful creatures" whose effigies adorn the staircase of +Westminster Hall. Mr. Plunket rose and quietly replied, in his +effective, hesitating manner, "I am not responsible for the fearful +creatures either in Westminster Hall or in this House," a retort which +"brought down the House" and caused it to laugh loud and long. This I +chronicled in a drawing for <i>Punch</i> the following week.</p> + +<p>The subject of gargoyles recalls another witticism, which, however, has +the light touch that failed.</p> + +<p>Now there is nothing so disappointing to a humorist as to lead up to an +interruption, and then find he is not interrupted. Mr. Chamberlain +seldom fails to bring off his little unsuspected repartee, and it is his +mastery of this art that make his speeches sparkle with diamond +brilliancy, but then these are usually serious, and he can afford a few +miss-fires. Mr. Goschen, in the Commons, romped through his "plants" for +his opponents; his interruptions were three or four deep, but he was +ready for all of them. He may be likened to a professional chess player, +playing a dozen opponents at once, and remembering all the moves on the +separate boards. But for a humorist to miss fire—after an elaborate +joke is prepared—is a catastrophe.</p> + +<p>Colonel Sanderson rose on a very important and ticklish occasion to +"draw" Mr. Labouchere. The Member for Northampton had been electrifying +the House by his free handling of a matter affecting the morality of +private individuals, a course of action for which, later on, he was +suspended. Colonel Sanderson, alluding to Mr. Labouchere, called him a +"political gargoyle." Mr. Labouchere did not, as was expected, rise in a +furious state and demand an explanation. The Colonel paused and +repeated, "I say the hon. gentleman, the Member for Northampton, is a +political gargoyle." No notice was taken by the gentleman compared to +the architectural adornment of past days; it was evident that, like the +gargoyle in ancient architecture, the remark of the humorous Colonel was +some elaboration too lofty to be noticed. A few days afterwards <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> Mr. Labouchere met the Colonel, +and asked him what he meant by calling him a political gargoyle. "Well," +said the Colonel, "rather late to ask me; you will find the definition +in the dictionary. It is a grotesque gutter-spout." Said Mr. Labouchere, +"You're a very clever fellow, Colonel; that would have been a capital +point—if you had made it."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img201.jpg" width="500" height="670" alt="MR. PLUNKET'S JOKE." title="MR. PLUNKET'S JOKE." /> +<span class="caption">HERALDIC DESIGN ILLUSTRATING MR. PLUNKET'S (NOW LORD RATHMORE) JOKE. <i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr. Farmer Atkinson, who succeeded Sir William Ingram of the +<i>Illustrated London News</i> and the <i>Sketch</i> as Member for Boston, +Lincolnshire, was an invaluable "subject" for me during his brief hour +upon the Parliamentary stage. Our introduction was peculiar. It so +happened that when Mr. (now Sir) Christopher Furness was first returned +for Hartlepool, Mr. Atkinson, although of opposite politics, was most +anxious to welcome him to Parliament as a companion Dissenter. After +diligent inquiries for Mr. Furness, I was by mistake pointed out to him. +I suddenly found both my hands clasped and warmly shaken by the mistaken +M.P. "Delighted to meet you, Mr. Furness! Allow me to congratulate you. +We are both Dissenters, you know,—what a pity we are on different sides +of the House!"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img202.jpg" width="300" height="243" alt="MR. FARMER ATKINSON." title="MR. FARMER ATKINSON." /> +<span class="caption">MR. FARMER ATKINSON.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Yes," I replied, "a thousand pities,—you see, you are inside and I am +outside.</p> + +<p>My introduction to Mr. Christopher Furness a day or two afterwards was +in a way similar, but rather more embarrassing.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there are not two men with surnames so similar and yet so +different in every other way than that great man of business, Sir +Christopher Furness, and myself. He has an eye for business, but not one +for his surname—I have an "I" in my name, and two for art only. When +Mr. Furness was first returned to Parliament, plain Mr., neither a +knight nor a millionaire, <i>then</i> he asked to see me alone in one of the +Lobbies of the House of Commons. He held a note in his hand, <i>strangely</i> +and nervously,—so I knew at once it was not a bank-note.</p> + +<p>"I—ah—am very sorry,—you are a stranger to me, I—a—stranger to the +House. This note from a stranger was handed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> to me by a strange +official. I read it before I noticed the mistake. It is addressed to +you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is of no consequence, I assure you," I said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, but it is—it must be of consequence. It is—of—such a private +nature, and so brief. I feel extremely awkward in having to acknowledge +I read it,—a pure accident, I assure you!"</p> + +<p>He handed me the note and was running away, when I called him back. It +read:—</p> + +<p style="font-size: 90%; text-align: center; ">"Meet me under the clock at 8.</p> + +<p style="font-variant: small-caps; font-size: 90%; text-align: center; margin-left: 5em; ">"Lucy."</p> + +<p>"I must introduce you to Lucy."</p> + +<p>"No, no! not for worlds,"</p> + +<p>But I did. Here he is.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 120px; margin-right: 15em; "> +<img src="images/img203.jpg" width="120" height="159" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>There were more "scenes" in Parliament in the few sessions that I have +selected to write about in this volume than there were in the rest of +the last century put together. This was largely due to the climax of +Irish affairs in the House. For effect in debate the English and Scotch +Members,—not to speak of the Welsh Representatives,—are failures +compared with those Members from across the water. No matter how hard +the phlegmatic Englishman, the querulous Scotchman, or the whinings of +those from gallant little Wales may try for effect, they have to give +way to the Irish in the art of making a scene in the House. +Occasionally, as when Dr. Kenealy shook some pepper over the House, and +in the case of Mr. Plimsoll—or some other honourable gentleman—who +went so far as to hang his umbrella on the Mace, an English Member +causes a sensation which might almost excite a pang of envy in the +breast of Dr. Tanner or Mr. Healy. No Englishman, however, has exceeded +Mr. Bradlaugh in the persistent quality of sensationalism in Parliament, +which now is sadly in want of another political phenomenon to enliven +its proceedings.</p> + +<p>One of the best studies in those days of good subjects for the +Parliamentary caricaturist was the figure of that "squat and <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> leering Quilp," Joseph Gillis +Biggar, Member for County Cavan. Mr. Lucy (Toby, M.P.), who acted as +Biggar's Boswell, records the interesting fact that when Mr. Biggar rose +for the first time in the House (1874) to put a supplementary question +to a Minister, Mr. Disraeli, startled by the apparition, turned to Lord +Barrington as if he had seen seated in the Irish quarter an +ourang-outang or some other strange creature,—"What's that?"</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img204.jpg" width="400" height="454" alt="JOSEPH GILLIS BIGGAR." title="JOSEPH GILLIS BIGGAR." /> +<span class="caption">JOSEPH GILLIS BIGGAR.</span> +</div> + +<p>From that moment Mr. Biggar was a continual source of amusement—and +"copy." I venture to say that Toby, M.P., has written a good-sized +volume about Mr. Biggar's waistcoat alone. What he saw in the waistcoat +to chronicle I confess I have failed to see. "A fearsome garment," Mr. +Lucy called it, "which, at a distance, might be taken for sealskin, but +was understood to be of native manufacture."</p> + +<p>Mr. Biggar—waistcoat and all—was certainly seen and heard to advantage +"at a distance." He was no doubt useful to his Party, acting, as I +believe he did, as a kind of good-natured nurse to them, looking after +their comfort and seeing they kept in bounds.</p> + +<p>Mr. Biggar was always repulsive in both appearance and manner. His +unfortunate deformity, his gargoyle-like face, his long, bony hands, +large feet, the black tail coat and baggy black trousers, the grin and +the grating voice, and the fact that pork was his study before +Parliament, made Joseph Gillis Biggar's appearance as ugly as his name. +His chief claim to a niche in Parliamentary history is the fact that he +originated Obstruction, and showed the manner in which it should be +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> applied by making a speech occupying four hours of valuable +time. He also showed the length to which gross impertinence can be +carried to bring the House into contempt. He "spied" His Royal Highness, +our present King, one day in the gallery, and by the law of Parliament a +Member by suddenly observing that he "spies" a stranger may have the +House cleared of all but its Members, including Royalty—worse than that +he on one occasion alluded to Mr. Gladstone as "a vain old gentleman."</p> + +<p>The nearest approach I ever had to enter into practical politics was a +request I received in March, 1892, to become the successor of Lord (then +Sir Charles) Russell, as chairman of a local Radical association. In +reply I confessed my political creed, and I see no reason to alter it.</p> + +<h3>MY POLITICAL CONFESSION.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> have just received your flattering communication asking me to +become the chairman of No. 2 Ward of the East Marylebone Liberal and +Radical Association. It is the first time my name has ever been associated +with Party politics, and I am puzzled to know myself whether I am a +Radical, a Tory, a Liberal, or a Liberal Unionist!</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> read the <i>Times</i> every morning, and the <i>Star</i> and the <i>Pall Mall +Gazette</i> every evening. I read the sporting papers for their politics, and +the political papers for their literary and artistic notes.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> work sixteen hours a day myself, and would agree to any law prohibiting +others in my profession from working more than three hours.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> am strongly opposed to Home Rule, as the disappearance of the Irish +Members (who are invaluable to me in my profession) from St. Stephen's +would be a serious loss to me.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> agree to paying Members of Parliament, but would propose that they +should be fined for non-attendance, and for the privilege of speaking too +long, too often, or not often enough. These fines, in the majority of cases, +would come to three times the amount of the Member's income.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> am not in favour of capital punishment, and would do away with all +judges and trials by jury, leaving the Press to fight out the criminal cases +between themselves.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> believe in free education, free libraries, and a free breakfast table, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +and would propose that free book-stalls and free restaurants should be +compulsory on all railways.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> am strongly opposed to vivisection, and hold that the life of a rabbit +is quite as valuable as that of a professor. At the same time I would not +countenance any law making it a punishable offence to boil a lobster alive.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> am a believer in hypnotism, thought-reading, and theosophy (I have +been a bit of an amateur conjurer myself).</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"R</span>ight of public meeting? Certainly. This should be a free country—everyone +do as he likes. Football in Hyde Park, and fairs in Trafalgar +Square. Equal freedom for all processions—if Booth can stop the traffic, +why not Sanger's menagerie?</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"A</span>s to local option, by all means let all public-houses be closed. (I never +enter one.) And all clubs, too, so long as my own are not interfered with.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span> am not at present a member of any political club, but if you wish +me to become one I will put up at the Reform, either as a fervent +Gladstonian or a red-hot Unionist; I don't mind which, as neither have +the slightest chance of getting in now.</p> + +<p><span style="font-size: 150%; ">"I</span>f, after considering these qualifications, you are of opinion that I +would be the right man in the right place, I shall be most happy and +willing to become your chairman.—Yours, etc."</p> +</div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img206.jpg" width="250" height="332" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>regret to have to confess that I once posed as a political prophet. I +was encouraged to prophesy the fact that six months before the election +of July, 1892, when Mr. Gladstone was confident of "sweeping the +country" and coming back with a majority of 170 or so, when both sides +predicted a decisive result, and political prophets were cocksure of +large figures, I luckily happened to be more successful in my +vaticinations than they, giving the Gladstonians a majority of something +between forty and forty-five. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> The actual majority turned out, +six months afterwards, to be forty-two. This encouraged me to write the +following letter to the <i>Times</i>, and it appeared July 19th:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="text-align: center; ">"<i>A Parliamentary Prophecy.</i></p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—I am surprised that no Parliamentary chronicler has written to +the papers to thank the electors of the United Kingdom for the happy +result of the General Election. The jaded journalist is the only person +to whom the result is pleasing, as he will have no lack of material for +descriptive matter in the coming Parliament.</p> + +<p>"The Gladstonians are not pleased, because they have barely got a +working majority. The Conservatives are not pleased, because they have +not got one at all. The Liberal Unionists are not pleased, because they +go with the Conservatives. The Irish Nationalists are chagrined, because +of the success of five Unionists in Ireland. The Parnellites feel +mischievous but unhappy. The Labour representatives mischievous and +happy—they are the heroes of the hour—and, although the members of the +Labour Party have hitherto been nonentities in the House, they will +probably be 'named' several times in the future. But Parliament is a +refrigerator for red-hot rhetoric, and such Members will, in time, find +respectability and aspirants,<a href="#Footnote_2" name="FnAnchor_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> and grow dull.</p> + +<p>"A harassed leader, an ambitious Opposition, the balance of power +resting in the hands of the Irish, divided amongst themselves, a new and +probably noisy party, boredom increased, faddism intensified—such are +the ingredients of the new House; and with little spice thrown in in the +shape of a revived morality scandal, the new Parliament promises to be a +hotch-potch of surprises. I myself take no side in politics, and am glad +to say that I have numerous friends in all parties. Perhaps it was in +consequence of this that I heard all sides of opinion, thereby enabling +me six months ago to weigh all my information correctly and predict the +result of the General Election—a Gladstonian majority of between forty +and forty-five votes—and to this opinion I have firmly adhered in spite +of the fluctuating prospects before the fight. Even on Wednesday, the +6th inst., when the returns pouring in seemed to point to a Government +majority, I stuck to my prophecy.</p> + +<p>"I am now receiving from my friends (more especially from my Liberal +friends) congratulations upon my perspicacity, and, although I am no +Schnadhorst, I must now regard myself in the light of a Parliamentary +prophet. Having in that capacity chanted my incantations and calculated +the number of square feet of Irish linen in one of Mr. Gladstone's +collars to be in inverse ratio to the dimensions of his Mid-Lothian +majority, and having by abstruse computations discovered the hitherto +unknown quantity of Sir William Harcourt's chins, I can safely predict +that there will be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> another General Election within the space +of thirteen months, and that the result of the same will be the return +of the Unionists with a majority of fifteen.</p> +</div> + +<p style="font-size: 80%; margin-left: 6em; "><a href="#FnAnchor_2" name="Footnote_2">[2]</a> See page 212.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img208.jpg" width="500" height="634" alt="THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM TOBY'S PRIVATE BOX." title="THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM TOBY'S PRIVATE BOX." /> +<span class="caption">THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM TOBY'S PRIVATE BOX.</span> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot1"> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 8em; ">"Yours truly,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 2em; font-variant: small-caps; ">"Harry Furniss.</p> + +<p>"Garrick Club, London, July 19."</p></div> + +<p>The regret I felt was not caused by any failure of my prediction +contained in the last paragraph in that letter, but that the +whole of it was taken seriously. Editorial leaders appeared in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +the principal papers all over the kingdom. Letters followed, +discussions took place, and politicians referred to it in their +speeches. "Mr. Harry Furniss has taken the public into his +confidence, as one who is thoroughly acquainted with Party +politics, though he takes no personal interest in them. Men +who can thus truthfully describe themselves are excessively rare, +as far as we know. It is usually the person who does not understand +politics who takes no interest in them. A man who +understands politics, but does not concern himself to take sides, +is in the position of the looker-on who sees most of the game," +was truthfully written of me <i>à propos</i> of this letter—but why +<i>à propos</i> of this letter? Why not of my serious work instead? +No, my "airy persiflage" was only a cloak. I was seriously +and instantaneously accepted as a serious political prophet, and +otherwise criticised:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="text-align: center; ">"<i>To the Editor of the 'Times.'</i></p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>, In a letter signed by Mr. Harry Furniss, which appeared in the +<i>Times</i> of the 21st inst., the writer concluded by predicting that there +would be another general election within thirteen months, and that the +result would be a Unionist majority of fifteen.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Furniss is evidently fond of odd numbers, but may I point out to +him, and to many other political prophets who have fallen into the same +trap, that the fulfilment of his prediction is an impossibility?</p> + +<p>"In a House of 670 Members, or any other even number, if divided into +two parties, the majority (in the sense he uses the word—viz., the +difference) must always be an even number. It is true that the division +lists sometimes show a majority which is an odd number, but in such a +case an odd number of Members must have been absent from the division. +Mr. Furniss must prophesy either fourteen or sixteen.</p> + +<p>"The English language is so defective that the word 'majority' is used +to mean 'the greater number,' and also 'the difference between the +greater number and the less.' Cannot a new word be invented to replace +'majority' in one or other of these meanings, and so avoid the use of +the same word for two distinct ideas?</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 6em; ">"Your obedient servant,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 2em; ">"<span class="smcap">George R. Gallaher</span>,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; ">"Fellow of the Institute of Bankers.</p> + +<p>"44, Fenchurch Street, London, E.C."</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p> + +<p>I suppose F.I.B. stands for "Fellow of the Institute of Bankers." +Anyway, before I had time to reply to the courteous captious critic the +<i>Times</i> published the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="text-align: center; ">"<i>Political Prophecy</i>.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—In endeavouring to correct Mr. Furniss your correspondent Mr. +Gallaher has forgotten that, although the House of Commons consists of +an even number of Members, one of those Members will be elected Speaker; +and that consequently, if all the Members were on any occasion to +attend, the majority would be an odd, and not an even number. There is +therefore no necessity for Mr. Furniss to alter his prophecy at present.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 6em; ">"Your obedient servant,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 2em; ">"<span class="smcap">Fair Play</span>."</p> +</div> + +<p>Other correspondents, less technical but strongly political, accused me +of being "an inspired Conservative spy." Others that I was an oracle +worth "rigging." And the Irish and Radical Press questioning my +impartiality, I published this letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="text-align: center; ">"<i>To the Editor of the 'Manchester City News.'</i></p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—My attention has been called to a paragraph in your issue of July +23rd, stating that I am a Conservative, an assertion which has highly +amused those who know me well, for I am one of the strongest of Radicals +in some things and the hottest of Tories in others. I earnestly advocate +the claims of the working man, and sometimes I feel myself a Whig of the +old school. Whether I am a Tory, a Liberal or a Radical, troubles me +very little, but as you seem to take a kind interest in my political +opinions I should have preferred you to have styled me an Independent, +which I understand means nothing.</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 2em; ">"<span class="smcap">Harry Furniss</span>.</p> + +<p>"Garrick Club, London."</p> +</div> + +<p>But neither "Independent" nor humorous would the partisan Press allow me +to be. Certainly I was applauded by some for having held steadfastly to +my prophecy, despite temptations which would have made Cassandra +succumb. I was flattered by being held up as an exception among the +prophets. From Mr. Gladstone to Mr. T. P. O'Connor politicians had +prophesied and were hopelessly wide of the mark. Mr. Chamberlain, +speaking at Birmingham that week, said, "The gravity of the weighty man +of the House of Commons, gentlemen, is a thing to which there is no +parallel in the world," and oh! so serious!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 720px; "> +<img src="images/img211.jpg" width="720" height="496" alt="THE GOVERNMENT—BENCH BEFORE HOME RULE" title="THE GOVERNMENT—BENCH BEFORE HOME RULE" /> +<span class="caption">THE GOVERNMENT—BENCH BEFORE HOME RULE<br /> +A rough Sketch made in the House.</span> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot2"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="85%" cellspacing="0"> +<tr><td align='left'>Mr. W. E. Foster.</td><td>Mr. Gladstone.</td><td>Mr. John Bright.</td></tr> +<tr><td align='right'>Lord E. Fitzmaurice.</td><td align='right'>Lord Hartington.</td><td> </td></tr> +</table></div> + +<p>"Prophets—at any rate political prophets—are chiefly distinguished +from other people by being always dull and nearly always +wrong. To-day, however, appears a brilliant exception to the +almost universal rule," wrote one paper, and yet continued, +"Mr. Furniss is simply within his own ground as one of the +shrewdest and best trained of living observers, when he describes +the newly-elected House of Commons as thoroughly discontented +with itself. But we wish that Mr. Furniss had carried his prediction into the +regions of counsel, and had been able to read in 'Mr. Gladstone's +collars,' or in the 'unknown quantity of Sir William Harcourt's chins,' +and whatever else serves him for his Stars, what is to be the outcome of +a situation in which no party is able to obtain a working majority. If +Mr. Furniss is right, the question of 'how is the Queen's Government to +be carried on?' will assume a practical importance which it never had +before; and unless he himself, as a thoroughly non-party man, can be +induced to undertake the formation of an administration of similarly +fortunate persons, one does not see what is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> to be done. Party +government is based upon big majorities—it is within measurable +distance of breaking down altogether unless the country will make up its +mind to stand no more nonsense, and to prefer what is really a party to +a conglomerate of fads and factions."</p> + +<p>I was beginning to feel like a man who had started a story and forgotten +the point of it. The only "comic relief" was the following note from the +Editor of <i>Punch</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 1em; ">21st July, 1892.</p> + +<p style="text-align: center; "><i>Vates et Vox Stellarum.</i></p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Dear</span> H. F.,—'Respectability and aspirants.' Didn't you squirm at the +misprint? Is that setter-up-of-type still alive? Je m'en doute. The +reference to Harcourt's <i>chins</i> will <i>get you liked</i> very much. You +dated it from the Garrick, but you didn't put the time of night when you +wrote it. 'P.S.'—<i>Post Supperal</i>, eh?</p> + +<p>"Farewell, O Prophet!—but 'why <i>didn't you say so before</i>?'</p> + +<p>"Allah il Allah Ari Furniss is His Prophet!</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 3em; ">"Yours ever,</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 1em; ">"F. C. B.</p><br /> + +<p>"<i>Advt</i>.—'LIKA JOKO'! Parliamentary Prophet!! Prophecies sent out +on shortest notice. Terms, ——. Reduction on taking a quantity."</p> +</div> + +<p>Yes! I did squirm at the misprint, which, however, was +rectified in the next issue:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"<i>A Parliamentary Prophecy</i>.—In Mr. Harry Furniss's letter under this +title in the <i>Times</i> of yesterday the word 'aspirates' should be read +instead of 'aspirants' in the following passage: 'The Labour +representatives feel mischievous and happy—they are the heroes of the +hour—and, although the members of the Labour Party have hitherto been +nonentities in the House, they will probably be 'named' several times in +the future. But Parliament is a refrigerator for red-hot rhetoric, and +such members will, in time, find respectability and aspirants, and grow +dull."</p> +</div> + +<p>I wish I had followed the example of Mr. John Morley, who announced a +couple of months before the election that he had written down his +General Election tip and placed it in a sealed envelope; but so far as I +have heard, he never risked his reputation for prophecy—he refrained +from publishing the secret. That grave and weighty right hon. gentleman +scored as the humorist, and I failed as a prophet in my second attempt.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 570px; "> +<img src="images/img214.jpg" width="570" height="728" alt="REDUCTION OF ONE OF MY PARLIAMENTARY PAGES." title="REDUCTION OF ONE OF MY PARLIAMENTARY PAGES." /> +<span class="caption">REDUCTION OF ONE OF MY PARLIAMENTARY PAGES IN <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<h3>"PUNCH."</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.5in">Two <i>Punch</i> Editors—<i>Punch's</i> Hump—My First <i>Punch</i> Dinner—Charles +Keene—"Robert"—W. H. Bradbury—du Maurier—"Kiki"—A Trip to the Place +of his Birth—He Hates Me—A Practical Joke—du Maurier's Strange +Model—No Sportsman—Tea—Appollinaris—My First Contribution—My +Record—Parliament—Press Gallery Official—I Feel Small—The "Black +Beetle"—Professor Rogers—Sergeant-at-Arms' Room—Styles of +Work—Privileges—Dr. Percy—I Sit in the Table—The Villain of Art—The +New Cabinet—Criticism—<i>Punch's</i> Historical Cartoons—Darwen +MacNeill—Scenes in the Lobby—A Technical Assault—John Burns's +"Invention"—John Burns's Promise—John Burns's Insult—The Lay of Swift +MacNeill—The Truth—Sir Frank Lockwood—"Grand Cross"—Lockwood's +Little Sketch—Lockwood's Little Joke in the House—Lockwood's Little +Joke at Dinner—Lewis Carroll and <i>Punch</i>—Gladstone's Head—Sir +William's Portrait—Ciphers—Reversion—<i>Punch</i> at Play—Three <i>Punch</i> +Men in a Boat—Squaring up—Two Pins Club—Its One Joke—Its One +Horse—Its Mystery—Artistic Duties—Lord Russell—Furious +Riding—Before the Beak—Burnand and I in the Saddle—Caricaturing +Pictures for <i>Punch</i>—Art under Glass—Arthur Cecil—My Other Eye—The +Ridicule that Kills—Red Tape—<i>Punch</i> in Prison—I make a Mess of +it—Waterproof—"I used your Soap two years ago"—Charles Keene—Charles +Barber—<i>Punch's</i> Advice—<i>Punch's</i> Wives.<br /><br /></p></div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 220px; "> +<img src="images/img215.jpg" width="220" height="221" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>he first representative of Mr. Punch with whom I came into contact was +the late Tom Taylor, at that period the tenant of the editorial chair. +To this meeting I have referred on a previous page, when I mentioned +that Mr. Taylor had just returned from the wilds of Connemara and +strongly advised me to make some explorations in that little-known +district for the purpose of making sketches of the "genus <i>homo</i> +indigenous to the soil," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> which I did a week or so prior to my +setting foot in the busy haunt of men on murky Thames.</p> + +<p>Tom Taylor was, I believe, one of the best of men, and the possessor of +one of the kindest hearts; but although he certainly professed to take +an interest in me (probably owing to the fact that it was to a relative +of mine that he was indebted for his first introduction to literature), +the fact remains that whenever I sent him a sketch I used to receive one +of his extraordinary hieroglyphical missives supposed to be a note +courteously declining my efforts, notwithstanding that I was often +flattered although not enriched by subsequently seeing the subjects of +them appear redrawn under another name in the pages of <i>Punch</i>.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img216.jpg" width="350" height="433" alt="Age 26, WHEN I FIRST WORKED FOR PUNCH." title="Age 26, WHEN I FIRST WORKED FOR PUNCH." /> +<span class="caption">Age 26, WHEN I FIRST WORKED FOR PUNCH.<br /> +[<i>From a Photo by C. Watkins.</i>]</span> +</div> + +<p>It was not until Tom Taylor had passed away that Mr. Punch would deign +to give me a chance. I had then been seven years in London hard at work +for the leading magazines and illustrated papers, and I may truly say +that my work was the only introduction I ever had to Mr. Burnand.</p> + +<p>When I first entered the goal of my boyish ambition—that is to say, the +editorial sanctum of Mr. Punch—I had never met the gentleman who for a +number of years afterwards was destined to be my chief, and I fully +expected to see the editor turn round and receive me with that look of +irrepressible humour and in that habitually jocose style which I had so +often heard described. I looked in vain for the geniality in the +editor's glance, and there was a remarkably complete absence of the +jocose in the sharp, irritable words which he addressed to me.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Really," said he, "this is too bad! I wrote to you to meet me at the +Surrey Theatre last night, and you never turned up. We go to press +to-day, and the sketches are not even made."</p> + +<p>"I don't quite understand you," I replied, "for I never heard from you +in my life, and I don't think that you ever saw me before."</p> + +<p>"But surely you are Mr. ——?" (a contributor who had been drawing for +<i>Punch</i> for some weeks). "Are you not?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said. "My name is Furniss, and I understood that you wanted to +see me."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img217.jpg" width="350" height="310" alt="MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITOR." title="MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITOR." /> +<span class="caption">MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITOR OF <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p>This was in 1880, and from that period up to the time of my resignation +from the staff of <i>Punch</i> I certainly do not think that I have ever seen +Burnand's face assume such a threatening and offended expression as it +wore that day.</p> + +<p>I was then twenty-six. Strange to say, Charles Keene and George du +Maurier were exactly the same age when they first made their <i>début</i> in +<i>Punch</i>, but not yet invited to "join the table."</p> + +<p>As I was leaving my house one summer evening a few years afterwards, the +youngest member of my family, who was being personally conducted up to +bed by his nurse, enquired where I was going.</p> + +<p>"To dine with Mr. Punch," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, haven't you eaten all his hump <i>yet</i>, papa? It <i>does</i> last a long +time!" And the little chap continued his journey to the arms of +Morpheus, evidently quite concerned about his father's long-drawn-out +act of cannibalism.</p> + +<p>The first feast to which I was bidden was not one of the ordinary or +office description, but a banquet given at the "Albion" Tavern, in the +City, on the 3rd of January, 1881, to celebrate the installation of Mr. +Burnand as the occupant of the editorial chair. And on my invitation +card I first sketched my new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> friends, the <i>Punch</i> staff, and a +few of the outside contributors who were present, conspicuous among whom +was George Augustus Sala, the honoured stranger of the evening. That he +should be so struck me as peculiar, for it was an open secret that Sala +wrote and illustrated that famous attack (nominally by Alfred Bunn), "A +Word with <i>Punch</i>," a most vulgar, vicious, and personal insult which +had given much offence years before; a clear proof of Mr. Punch's +forgiving nature.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 650px; "> +<img src="images/img218.jpg" width="650" height="477" alt="MY FIRST INVITATION FROM PUNCH." title="MY FIRST INVITATION FROM PUNCH." /> +<span class="caption">MY FIRST INVITATION FROM <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p>That grand old man of <i>Punch</i>, Tenniel, I made an attempt to sketch as +he was "saying a few words," but on this particular occasion it was my +<i>vis-à-vis</i> Charles Keene who interested me more than any other person +present. He wore black kid gloves and never removed them all during +dinner—that puzzled me. Why he wore them I cannot say. I never saw him +wearing gloves at table again, or even out of doors. Then he was in +trouble with his cigar, and finally I noticed that he threw it under the +table and stamped upon it, and produced his favourite dirty Charles the +First pipe, the diminutive bowl of which he filled continually with what +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> smokers call "dottles." He was then apparently perfectly +happy, as indeed he always looked when puffing away at his antique clay.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img219.jpg" width="400" height="644" alt="A LETTER FROM CHARLES KEENE." title="A LETTER FROM CHARLES KEENE." /> +<span class="caption">A LETTER FROM CHARLES KEENE, OBJECTING TO AN EDITOR INTERVIEWING HIM.</span> +</div> + +<p>Years afterwards, when sketching a background for a <i>Punch</i> drawing in +the East End, I noticed some labourers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> returning from working +at excavations, laughing over something they had found in the ground; it +was a splendid specimen of the Charles clay pipe, longer than any I have +seen. I bought it from them to present to Keene, but he was ill then, +and soon after the greatest master of black and white England ever +produced had passed away.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img220.jpg" width="350" height="356" alt="Robert." title="Robert." /> +<span class="caption">"Robert."</span> +</div> + +<p>After Keene the strangest character present was Mr. Deputy +Bedford—"Robert" in the pages of <i>Punch</i>—an undertaker in the City, +and one of the most humorous men within its boundary. I recollect +introducing my wife to him at some function at the Mansion House—not as +Robert, but as Mr. Deputy Bedford. She expressed her pleasure at meeting +one of the City dignitaries, and he offered to show her over the +treasures in the Mansion House. "There's a fine statue for you! Don't +know who did it, but we paid a thousand pounds for it. And that one over +there, which weighs half a ton less, cost twice as much. Oh! the +pictures are worth something, too. That portrait cost £800; I don't know +what that one cost, but the frame is cheap at £20. Yes, fine gold plate, +isn't it? Old designs? Yes, but old or new, boiled down, I should think +£80,000 wouldn't be taken for the pile!" And so on, and so on, with a +merry twinkle in his eye and an excellent imitation of what outsiders +consider City men to be.</p> + +<p>My caricature of the genial E. L. S. (Sambourne) is not good, but quite +as kind as Sala's remarks were on that occasion in chaffing Sambourne +for turning up in morning costume. In the bottom right-hand corner of +the card is a note of the late Mr. W. H. Bradbury, one of the +proprietors of <i>Punch</i>, the kindest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> and the best host, the +biggest-hearted and most genial friend, I ever worked for. He has his +eye, I notice, on a gentleman making an impromptu speech—the +sensation of the evening—referred to by Mr. M. H. Spielmann in +"The History of <i>Punch</i>." Next to that irrepressible orator is Mr. Lucy, +"Toby, <span class="correction" title="added missing double quotes">M.P.,"</span> as I saw him first.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img221.jpg" width="400" height="511" alt="GEORGE DU MAURIER." title="GEORGE DU MAURIER." /> +<span class="caption">GEORGE DU MAURIER.<br /> +<i>From a pen and ink drawing by himself, the property of the Author</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>I note on this card an attempt to sketch du Maurier, the "Thackeray of +the pencil." By the way, I was certainly the first to apply that term to +him—in my first lecture, "Art and Artists." He was some distance from +me at the banquet when I made these notes.</p> + +<p>It is a curious fact that I really never had a seat allotted to me at +the <i>Punch</i> table. I always sat in du Maurier's, except on the rare +occasions when he came to the dinner, when I moved up one. It was always +a treat to have du Maurier at "the table." He was by far and away the +cleverest conversationalist of his time I ever met,—his delightful +repartees were so neat and effective, and his daring chaff and his +criticisms so bright and refreshing.</p> + +<p>For some extraordinary reason du Maurier was known to the <i>Punch</i> men as +"Kiki," a friendly sobriquet which greeted him when he first joined, and +refers to his nationality. In the same way as an English schoolboy calls +out "Froggy" to a Frenchman, his friends on the <i>Punch</i> staff called him +Kiki, suggested by the Frenchman's peculiar and un-English art of +self-defence.</p> + +<p>Du Maurier took very little interest in the discussions at the table; in +fact, he resented informal debate on the subject of the cartoon as an +interruption to his conversation, although he once suggested a cartoon +which will always rank as one of the most historical hits of Mr. +Punch—a cartoon of the First Napoleon warning Napoleon the Third as he +marches out to meet the Germans in the War of 1870.</p> + +<p>At times he might enter into the artistic treatment of the cartoon; and +I reproduce a sketch he did on the back of a <i>menu</i> to explain some idea +in connection with the cartoon which appeared the following week in +<i>Punch</i>.</p> + +<p>Du Maurier's extremely clever conversation struck me the <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> moment I joined the staff of +<i>Punch</i>. As I went part of his way to Hampstead, we sometimes shared a +cab, and in one of these journeys I mentioned my conviction that he, in +my mind, was a great deal more than a humorous artist, and if he would +only take up the pen seriously the world would be all the more indebted +to him. He told me that Mr. James had for some time said nice things of +a similar character.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img224.jpg" width="350" height="215" alt="SUGGESTION BY DU MAURIER FOR PUNCH CARTOON." title="SUGGESTION BY DU MAURIER FOR PUNCH CARTOON." /> +<span class="caption">SUGGESTION BY DU MAURIER FOR <i>PUNCH</i> CARTOON.</span> +</div> + +<p>About ten days afterwards I received a letter saying that my +conversation had had an effect upon him, and that he was starting his +first novel. So perhaps the world is really indebted to me, indirectly, +for the pleasure of reading "Peter Ibbetson" and "Trilby;" the fact +being that he had, with Burnand and myself, just visited Paris—the +first time he had set foot in the gay city since his youth. Many things +he saw had impressed him, and "Peter Ibbetson" was the result. How +interesting it was to watch him in Paris, the place of his birth, +standing, the ideal type of a Frenchman himself, smiling and as amused +as a boy at his own countrymen and women. "So very un-English, you +know!" Then, as we drove about Paris, he stood up in the carriage, +excitedly showing us places familiar to him in his young days, and +greatly amused us by pointing out no fewer than three different houses +in which he was born! We three were the guests of Mr. Staat Forbes at +Fontainebleau during the same trip, and du Maurier's sketches of our +pleasant experiences on that occasion appear in <i>Punch</i>, under the +heading "Souvenir de Fontainebleau," in three numbers in October, 1886. +In the drawing of our <i>al fresco</i> dinner, "Smith" is our host, I am +"Brown," du Maurier "Jones," and Mr. Burnand "Robinson."</p> + +<p>Three years afterwards du Maurier re-visited Paris with most <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> of the staff to see the Paris +Exhibition, 1889. In my sketch "En Route—Mr. Punch at Lunch," du +Maurier is speaking to Mr. Anstey Guthrie, who, "for this occasion +only," called du Maurier the Marquis d'Ampstead.</p> + +<p>Du Maurier had a little of the green-eyed monster in his bosom, although +he lived to laugh at all when he himself became the greatest success of +any man in his sphere.</p> + +<p>When I made my hit with my Exhibition of the "Artistic Joke," du +Maurier, to my surprise, turned sharply round to me one night in the cab +and said, "My dear Furniss, I must be honest with you—I hate you, I +loathe you, I detest you!"</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 450px; "> +<img src="images/img225.jpg" width="450" height="290" alt="DU MAURIER'S SOUVENIR DE FONTAINEBLEAU." title="DU MAURIER'S SOUVENIR DE FONTAINEBLEAU." /> +<span class="caption">DU MAURIER'S SOUVENIR DE FONTAINEBLEAU.<br /> +<i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>"Thanks, awfully, my dear fellow! But why?"</p> + +<p>"Ah!" he said, "your success is too great. When I get the return you +send me in the morning, showing me the number of people that have been +to your Exhibition, the tremendous takings at the turnstiles, the number +of albums subscribed for, the number of pictures you have sold, I cannot +work. I go on to Hampstead Heath to walk off my jealousy; when I come in +to lunch I find your first telegram, telling me you have made £80 that +morning. I walk out again, and looking down upon London, although I +shake my fist at the whole place, my wrath is for you alone. I come in +to tea to find another telegram—you have made £100! How can I sit down +and scratch away on a piece of paper when you are making a fortune in a +week?"</p> + +<p>This nearly took my breath away.</p> + +<p>"My dear du Maurier," I replied, "I feel hurt—seriously, <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> irrevocably. I shall always feel +degraded in your eyes. Of course you are the victim of a practical +joke."</p> + +<p>Du Maurier pulled from his pocket one of my supposed returns. It was an +imitation of printing, with the amounts filled in. "This is the kind of +thing I get every morning."</p> + +<p>"Why, of course, it is written, not printed. That is the work of the +irrepressible practical joker. But it makes no difference, du Maurier; +if you thought that I would be such a cad as to send you these returns, +I cannot see how we can ever be great friends."</p> + +<p>Although as du Maurier believed for a time I had the necessary vulgarity +of the "bloated millionaire," to use his own words, we were never much +more than acquaintances—although very pleasant acquaintances—and I +believe du Maurier reciprocated the kind feeling I had towards him. Du +Maurier rarely forgave a satirical thrust at his expense. His dislike +for Mr. Whistler on this account is well known to all the early readers +of "Trilby," and he often related with unconcealed glee a remark he once +made to Whistler. It appears they had not met for a long period, during +which du Maurier with his satirical pictures on the æsthetic craze, +published in <i>Punch</i>, and Whistler with his "symphonies" and "harmonies" +on canvas, exhibited in the Law Courts, had both increased their +reputation.</p> + +<p>"Hullo, Kiki!" cried Whistler. "I'm told that your work in <i>Punch</i> is +the making of some men. You have actually invented Tomkins! Why, he +never would have existed but for you! Ha! ha! how on earth did you do +it?"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Jimmy, if you don't look out, by Jove, I'll invent you!"</p> + +<p>How Kiki—du Maurier—carried out his threat in "Trilby," and what +resulted from it, all the world knows.</p> + +<p>By the way, the mention of "Trilby" reminds me of a story about Mr. du +Maurier's own Trilby which is perhaps worth recording. Du Maurier for +some years lived on the top of Hampstead Heath, rather inaccessible for +models. But more than once friends asked him to take a sitting from some +lady or another, as he, drawing fashionable ladies, was different, +perhaps, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> from painters using models for costumes or, as du +Maurier would say, for the "altogether." In this way a model was +introduced to him, and, to his surprise, she drove up to his house in a +hansom, and he heard her asking one of the servants for change of a +sovereign to pay the cabman. She did not sit very well, so after a short +time Mr. du Maurier told her that he only drew from models for part of +the day, and, rather apologetically, said he of course did not pay for +the whole of the usual day's sitting. And she said:</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 720px; "> +<img src="images/img227.jpg" width="720" height="523" alt="PUNCH STAFF RETURNING FROM PARIS." title="PUNCH STAFF RETURNING FROM PARIS." /> +<span class="caption"><i>PUNCH</i> STAFF RETURNING FROM PARIS.<br /> +(<i>The original hangs on the wall of Mr. Punch's dining room.</i>)</span> +</div> + +<p>"Oh, thanks! I am only too pleased to sit for a short time. But would +you kindly ask one of your servants to fetch me a hansom?"</p> + +<p>This made the artist more than ever miserable, and he said:</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, but perhaps you are not aware we only pay a modest amount +for sitters; in fact, I generally pay five shillings for two +hours—aw——"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You don't mean to say you are really going to give me five shillings? +Oh, how kind of you! It will just pay half my cab fare home. I didn't +know I was going to be so lucky." And she vanished, leaving the artist +more bewildered than ever.</p> + +<p>Some time afterwards, in Hyde Park, he was surprised to see a carriage +beautifully appointed pulled up to where he was standing, and a lady +lean out and say:</p> + +<p>"I have never seen you before to thank you for your kindness in allowing +me to sit for you. I was so anxious to see what a studio was like. +Thanks, awfully; you must let me call again."</p> + +<p>Du Maurier had the faculty of unaffected fun, he had also a feeling for +caricature in portraiture, but he did not care to exercise either to any +extent in <i>Punch</i>. I recollect Sir Henry Thompson—the celebrated +physician—showing me a copy of a book he had written, in which he +speaks of hospital life in London. Du Maurier had studied in a London +hospital when he first arrived in England, and he wrote to Sir Henry, +then a stranger to him, to ask him if the wretch in his book who wheeled +off the remains of the corpses from the dissecting-room was the same man +he knew and loathed years ago. The sketch accompanying this query Sir +Henry had pasted in the book in triumph. "There is the man," he said, +"to the life!"</p> + +<p>At dinner du Maurier ate sparingly, drank moderately, and smoked +cigarettes. He avoided champagne, preferring the wine of his +country—claret; and after dinner, in place of coffee, he had a huge +breakfast-cup of tea, and, like the soap advertisement boy, he was not +happy till he got it.</p> + +<p>Mentioning an advertisement suggests that it may interest some to know +du Maurier drew the label for a most popular mineral water. It is safe +to predict that not one person in the tens of thousands looking at it +yearly would connect du Maurier with it. It is that elaborate and rather +inartistic design on Appollinaris water, for which he received fifty +guineas from his friend—one of the proprietors. Anyone following his +work in <i>Punch</i> must have noticed that he was a hypochondriac.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 570px; "> +<img src="images/img229.jpg" width="570" height="746" alt="JAPANESE STYLE: A BALLET FROM PUNCH." title="JAPANESE STYLE: A BALLET FROM PUNCH." /> +<span class="caption">JAPANESE STYLE: A BALLET FROM <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> + +<p>Hypochondriasis was a disease with him, he was always thinking of his +health, and I fear that sudden burst of popularity following the success +of "Trilby," in place of bracing him up, made him dwell somewhat more +upon his state of health, and hastened the end.</p> + +<p>I recollect his telling me years ago he was advised to take horse +exercise for his health's sake, so he hired a hack and started in the +direction of Richmond Park. Arriving at the well-known windmill, and +before descending the beautiful slopes on the other side, he took out +his watch and, opening the case, put out his tongue to see what effect +the ride had had on his health. The horse moved, and he found himself +the next moment on the ground.</p> + +<p>He gave up horse exercise after that!</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img231.jpg" width="300" height="120" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>My first contribution to <i>Punch</i> appeared in the number dated October +30th, 1880. "Punch," as a policeman, commanded the removal of the +newly-erected "Griffin" in the place of Old Temple Bar: "Take away that +Bauble!" The much-abused "Griffin" is the work (but after the design of +Horace Jones) of an old friend of mine, the late C. B. Birch, R.A., a +clever sculptor and a capital fellow. He sent me "his mark" of +appreciation, but I may say he was the last man to use the instrument of +torture suggested by his name.</p> + +<p>I then "did the theatres" with the editor—no mistake this time—and a +very pleasant time it was. My first "social" drawing appeared in the +second number in the following December, illustrating Scotch "wut" +manufactured in London.</p> + +<p>Two Scotch rustics outside an eating-house. One points to a card in the +window on which is "Welsh Rabbit, 6d."</p> + +<p>Hungry visitor (ignorant of the nature of this particular delicacy): +"Ah, Donal, mon, we ken weel hev the Rawbit fur saxpence. We ken get twa +Bawbees fur the Skeen when we get bock to Glasgow!"</p> + +<p>The Scotch is certainly new, if the joke is not.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; "> +<img src="images/img232.jpg" width="550" height="535" alt="CHINESE STYLE." title="CHINESE STYLE." /> +<span class="caption">CHINESE STYLE. FROM A DRAWING ON WOOD. <i>PUNCH.</i></span> +</div> + +<p>An Irish joke followed, and then in the Almanack I illustrated a hit at +the style of ladies' dress of the period; in fact, at that time I drew +for <i>Punch</i> quite a number of social subjects dealing with the æsthetic +craze. Besides illustrating various social subjects and caricaturing the +Academy and the new plays, I was illustrating the "Essence of +Parliament." As Mr. M. H. Spielmann in "The History of <i>Punch</i>" says +truly, "I romped through <i>Punch's</i> pages." I open a number of <i>Punch</i> +published only eighteen months after my first contribution appeared, and +two years previous to my joining the staff, and find no fewer than +eleven separate subjects from my pencil; and I may say that up to the +last I probably contributed more work to <i>Punch</i> <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> than any +other artist ever contributed in the same number of years, Leech not +excepted. I do not claim that this was wholly due to artistic merit, but +to a business one. I never refused to draw a subject I was asked to do, +I never was at a loss for a subject, and I was never late. It was to +this facility I owe the good terms on which the editor and I worked so +pleasantly and for so long. Being accustomed to work at high pressure +for the illustrated papers and magazines since boyhood, I confess that +<i>Punch</i> work to me was my playtime.</p> + +<p>I contributed over two thousand six hundred designs, from the smallest +to the largest that ever appeared in its pages (the latter were +published in the Christmas Numbers, 1890 and 1891), and I was not in +receipt of a salary, but was paid for each drawing at my full rate. I +have reason to think I drew in the time more money from <i>Punch</i>, +proportionately, than any other contributor in its history in a like +period. I read from time to time accounts of the remuneration men like +myself receive. Of course these statements are invariably fiction, as in +fact is nearly everything I have read outside Mr. Spielmann's careful +analysis of <i>Punch</i> concerning myself and my friends.</p> + +<p>I deal with my Parliamentary confessions, personal and artistic, in +other chapters; I shall in this merely touch upon a few points in +connection with <i>Punch</i>. The greater portion of my Parliamentary work, +however, appeared in other periodicals, but it is probably by <i>Punch</i> +work in this direction most of my readers identify me. I was fortunate, +in the twelve years I represented <i>Punch</i> in Parliament with the pencil, +in having the exceptional material for work upon Mr. Gladstone at his +most interesting period, Parnell's rise and fall, Churchill's rise and +fall, Bradlaugh's rise and fall, and a host of others strutting their +brief hour on the political stage. Where are they now? Mr. Chamberlain +alone interests the caricaturist. Parliament itself is dull, the public +is apathetic, and everything appertaining to politics is flat and +unprofitable. Yet as far back as 1885, in the figure "Punch," I asked +for some new character, the familiar faces were getting worked out!</p> + +<p>I had attended some sessions of Parliament before I made <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> the acquaintance of the official +presiding over the Press Gallery. The Press Gallery is, as all know, +directly over the Speaker. The front row is divided into little boxes +where the representatives of the leading papers sit. The others are +seated above them against the wall. These members of the Press look like +a row of aged schoolboys very much troubled to write anything about +Parliament to-day. Their monitor sits by the seat near the door, which +in former days was in the middle of the Gallery.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 570px; "> +<img src="images/img234.jpg" width="570" height="570" alt="FAMILIAR FACES." title="FAMILIAR FACES." /> +<span class="caption">FAMILIAR FACES.<br /> +<i>Mr. Punch (Cartoonist-in-Chief).</i></span> "<span class="caption" style="font-variant: small-caps; ">Oh, I know all you Old Models. I want some New 'Character'!</span>" +</div> + +<p>I shall never forget my first experience of this Press Gallery official. +He was big, and fat, and greasy; in evening dress, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> and he wore +a real gold chain with a badge in front like a mayor or sheriff. He awed +me—recollect I am now speaking of the day I attended as a comparatively +new boy, and I trembled in his presence. There was no seat vacant except +the one next to him. He sleeps! Nervously I slip into the seat. He +wakes, and looks down at me.</p> + +<p>"H'm! What are you?" is his sleepy remark.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img235.jpg" width="350" height="495" alt="HE SLEEPS." title="HE SLEEPS." /> +<span class="caption">"HE SLEEPS."</span> +</div> + +<p>"<i>Punch</i>," I reply.</p> + +<p>"Ticket?"</p> + +<p>"Left at home."</p> + +<p>"Bring it next time."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," say I, relieved. He slumbers again. I strain over to see +who is speaking. This wakes the gentleman with the real gold chain +again. He gazes down upon me. I feel smaller.</p> + +<p>"What are you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Punch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Eh! Where's ticket?"</p> + +<p>"Left at home."</p> + +<p>"Bring it next time. Saves bother, young fellow."</p> + +<p>"Certainly," I reply, and, encouraged by his familiarity, I venture to +ask, "Who is that speaking?" I just got the question out in time, for he +was dozing off again.</p> + +<p>"New Member," he replied, and, half dozing, he goes on, more to himself +than to me: "One more fool! Find his level here! All fools here! Stuff +you've been givin' them at your College Union. Rubbish! Yer +perambulator's waitin' outside. Oh, follow yer Dad to the Upper House, +an' look sharp about it." He mumbles. I well recollect the youthful +Member, so criticised, labouring through his maiden speech. The eldest +son of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> Peer, with a rather effeminate face, Saxon fairness +of complexion, and with an apology for a moustache, it struck me that if +petrified he would do very well as a dummy outside a tailor's +establishment. Yet this youthful scion of a noble line has a good +record. He carried off innumerable prizes at Eton, was a double first at +Oxford, President of the Union, and a fellow of his college; one of the +University Eight, and of the Eleven; distinguished at tennis, racquets, +and football; hero of three balloon ascents; great at amateur +theatricals; a writer upon every possible subject, including theology, +for the leading magazines; member of sixteen London clubs; married a +titled heiress, and is only thirty years of age.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img236a.jpg" width="300" height="255" alt="HERE, I SAY, WHAT ARE YOU?" title="HERE, I SAY, WHAT ARE YOU?" /> +<span class="caption">"HERE, I SAY, WHAT ARE YOU?"</span> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 293px; "> +<img src="images/img236b.jpg" width="293" height="255" alt="PUNCH, I REPLIED." title="PUNCH, I REPLIED." /> +<span class="caption">"<i>PUNCH</i>," I REPLIED.</span> +</div> + +<p>Some of his college friends sit in the Strangers' Gallery to hear their +late President make his first great effort in the real Parliament. The +effect disappoints them. Their champion is "funky." When the Oxford +Eight were behind at Barnes Bridge, it was "Dolly's" muscle and nerve +that pulled the crew together and won the race. When at Lord's the match +was nearly over, and the Light Blues had won all but the shouting, +"Dolly" went in last man and rattled up fifty in half an hour and won +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> the match. When at the Oxford Union he spoke upon the very +question now before the House—namely, whether a tax should be imposed +upon periwinkles—his oratory alone turned the scale, and gave his party +the victory. Yet now his speech upon the periwinkle problem has +certainly not impressed the House. Men listened for a time and then +adjourned to dinner, and his splendid peroration, recognised by his +friends as the same which he had delivered at the Oxford Union, failed +to elicit a single cheer.</p> + +<p>Curiosity, however, induced his supporters to remain and hear the reply. +The next speaker was a contrast to their hero, and a titter went round +among Dolly's friends in the Gallery. He was a type of the preaching +Member. No doubt a very worthy soul, but hardly an Adonis to look at, +nor a Cicero to listen to. Still he is sincere, and with his own class +effective; and sincerity, after all, is the most valuable, and I may add +the most rare, quality in the composition of an ordinary Member of +Parliament.</p> + +<p>My neighbour, the Usher, at this point opens his left eye, which takes +in at a glance the Opposition side of the House, and breaks out in this +style:</p> + +<p>"All right, little 'un! Keep wot yer sayin' till Sunday. Yer sermon's +sending me to sleep. Forcing taxation on the winks of the 'ungry +Englishman will raise the country to revolt. Tommy rot! Here endeth the +first lesson, thank goodness!"</p> + +<p>The soliloquising official rolls off his seat chuckling along the +Gallery. Envelopes are handed to him by the reporters. He rolls back to +the door, opens it, gives the copy to the messengers waiting for it, and +rolls back once more into his seat. In doing so he spies me.</p> + +<p>I feel smaller.</p> + +<p>"Here, I say, what are you?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Punch.</i>"</p> + +<p>"Where's ticket?"</p> + +<p>"Left at home."</p> + +<p>"H'm! Don't forget it again."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>I say nothing more, as I am too interested in his running commentary of +the proceedings. A grunt. Shake down:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Old Waddy, is it? Another sermon. Blow black plaster. Tell that to the +juries, and use it again in chapel. Yer a good friend to us—get a count +soon. Ah, I thought so. Joey Biggar up to count and snuff."</p> + +<p>"Have a pinch?" he said to me.</p> + +<p>"Thanks." I sneeze.</p> + +<p>"What are you?" asked the man of the golden badge, looking down at me. I +met his query as before.</p> + +<p>Same demand.</p> + +<p>Same reply.</p> + +<p>Same promise.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img238.jpg" width="300" height="271" alt="I FEEL SMALLER!" title="I FEEL SMALLER!" /> +<span class="caption">"I FEEL SMALLER!"</span> +</div> + +<p>The electric bells were ringing for a "count out." He opened both eyes +to watch if forty Members came in. They did; and three times forty.</p> + +<p>"Torment 'em! Keep me here all night, I see."</p> + +<p>Samuel Banks Waddy—Pleader, Preacher, Parliamentarian (as he is +designated in a work on M.P.'s)—continues preaching. He is followed by +the Leader of the House. My soliloquising friend continues:</p> + +<p>"Ah, Old Morality—as Lucy calls ye—up at last. Move the closure, now +then, that's right; speak of yer dooty to the House and Country. Set the +Rads laughing, shut yer own mouth, and sit down. Oh lor! 'Ere's the +Grand Old Muddler up. We're getting 'usky, old 'un; both of us have 'ad +too much of this job. We're very much alike, Gladdy and me—both great +eaters and great sleepers."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone was telling the House all about black plaster, and gave +three points why it should not be used in public hospitals. With the +third point he landed a blow at Home Rule, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> and his ingenuity +in doing so brought forth a derisive cheer from the Irish benches, which +roused my neighbour.</p> + +<p>I looked up at him smiling, as much as to say, "Just like the Old +Parliamentary Hand."</p> + +<p>"What are you?" he growled.</p> + +<p>"<i>Punch</i>."</p> + +<p>"Ticket?"</p> + +<p>Same reply and promise.</p> + +<p>Appeased, he continued:</p> + +<p>"Words, words, words—no 'ed no tail. Oh, of course you remember the +introduction of white plaster—3rd of June, 1840—why didn't you say +half-past two o'clock? More convincing. No doubt you got into some +scrape and 'ad to use it. Won't you catch it from the old woman in the +Gallery when you get home if you say so! Can't 'ear yer, thank goodness. +Scribblers will take down any rot you talk. They want <i>me</i>, I suppose. +Blowed if the country wants you."</p> + +<p>Again he rolls out of his seat, collects the reporters' copy, and gives +it to the attendants.</p> + +<p>"Who are you? Ah, <i>Punch</i>. Don't forget yer ticket."</p> + +<p>Again he dozes.</p> + +<p>"'Icks Beach up! 'Ave all the Board of Trade chaps up, capping each +other. Funny thing—Board of Trade chap says anything, all the Board of +Traders must have a word in. Same with Local Government Board—new man +says anything, old 'uns put in a word for theirselves, just to keep the +place warm for them to return. Board!—I'm bored—joke there for Lucy. +Thought the Irish lot couldn't keep quiet much longer. Tanner up,—ought +to know more about plaster than politics. Rum fellers, these doctors in +the House; leave their patients at 'ome, and come here to try +ours—'nother good joke for Lucy—make his 'air stand on end. Tanner +sticking to the plaster—now then, young Tories, jeer 'im down. The +Doctor's goin' it. Order! order! That's right, Brand, turn 'im +out,—wouldn't stand 'im in any place else. City Fowler's +bellowing,—scene a-brewing,—good copy for these quill-drivers."</p> + +<p>Dr. Tanner had recited some harrowing tale about black <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> plaster being used in his native +town by a hospital surgeon on the scratched face of some old woman who +had joined "the boys" in a street fight, although she protested that +pink suited her complexion.</p> + +<p>"It was a base Saxon trick!" roared the infuriated Member for Cork +County. "On a par with the mane, dirty doings of puppets and spalpeens +like the Mimbers opposite."</p> + +<p>"Order! order!" cried the Speaker. "The hon. Member must withdraw that +expression."</p> + +<p>"I'll not withdraw anything except by adding that they're all liars on +the Tory benches."</p> + +<p>"The hon. Member must withdraw."</p> + +<p>The Doctor "exits" with a flourish, glares at the Conservative benches +below the gangway, and hisses at them:</p> + +<p>"Better order a ton of plaster, for you'll want it after I meet ye +outside."</p> + +<p>Mr. Labouchere and two or three Irish Members rise at once.</p> + +<p>My neighbour sneers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sit down, ye rubbishy lot! Labby,—better keep yer jokes for yer +paper. Bless me if Conybeare ain't left standing! Now for an hour of +boredom."</p> + +<p>"He <i>is</i> a bore," I remark.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've stood Kenealy and Wharton, but this bore I can't. I'll chuck +it up. Kenealy did his best for the Claimant, and was amusing at times; +and Wharton,—well, he had good snuff, and his hat was a treat; but this +Conybeare is a bore and nothing else."</p> + +<p>So he went on.</p> + +<p>The "descendant of kings," Sir William Harcourt, rose to pulverise +Torydom and put an end to the Government and everything in general, when +the Speaker rose and said that the question before the House was whether +black sticking-plaster could be used in public hospitals.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's right, he wants putting down; too much of the grand Old +Bailey style. Make yer fortune in plush and knee breeches as a prize +flunkey; platform stuff won't do for us. What are you?" I feel smaller!</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>Punch</i>."</p> + +<p>"You take Harcourt off with the chins?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Shake hands!"</p> + +<p>We were friends ever afterwards.</p> + +<p>One day when I arrived,—actually with my Gallery ticket,-a fresh +pleasant official sat in my old friend's place, wearing his gold chain +and badge. "Should this meet the eye" of his predecessor, soliloquising +in the retirement of his suburban home, I trust it will not disturb the +serenity of his well-earned repose, for he was a capital fellow, and I +can answer for much good sense in his "official utterances."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img241.jpg" width="300" height="275" alt="I FEEL SMALLER!" title="I FEEL SMALLER!" /> +<span class="caption">I FEEL SMALLER!</span> +</div> + +<p>If a politician were not a caricature by nature, I made him one. Mr. +Gladstone's collar I invented—for the same reason a journalistic friend +of mine invented Beaconsfield's champagne jelly—for "copy." When +Members suggested nothing new, I turned my attention to officials. The +Sergeant-at-Arms in that way became known as the "Black Beetle."</p> + +<p>I watched Captain Gosset from the Press Gallery walk up the floor of the +House in court dress, his knee-breeches showing off his rather bandy +legs, elbows akimbo, and curious gait; his back view at once suggested +the beetle, and as the Black Beetle he was known. This, I was assured, +gave offence, so that I was rather anxious to see how I should be +greeted when Professor Thorold Rogers took me into the Sergeant's +presence, after I had been drawing him as the "Beetle" for some time.</p> + +<p>The late Professor Thorold Rogers was for many years a familiar +Bohemianish figure in Parliament. He had a marked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> +individuality, a strong head and a rough tongue, an uncouth manner, +sloppy attire, and his conversation was anything but refined. Still he +was kind and amusing, and, for a Professor in Parliament, popular. +Professors are not liked in St. Stephen's, and never a success; and as a +politician Professor Thorold Rogers was no exception to this rule. It +was he who introduced me to the Sergeant-at-Arms' room, that <i>sanctum +sanctorum</i> of the lively spirits of Parliament. Perhaps I ought +correctly to call it Captain Gosset's room, for although Captain Gosset +was the Sergeant-at-Arms, the Sergeant-at-Arms was by no means Captain +Gosset. An anecdote will illustrate this.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img242.jpg" width="200" height="260" alt="THE BLACK BEETLE." title="THE BLACK BEETLE." /> +<span class="caption">THE BLACK BEETLE.</span> +</div> + +<p>A friend of mine, a well-known journalist, travelling abroad during the +Recess, fell in with Captain Gosset, and they became companions in their +journey. A few days after they arrived home my journalistic acquaintance +was in the Inner Lobby of the House of Commons as the Sergeant-at-Arms +was passing through, and he called out, "How are you, Captain Gosset? +Any the worse for your journey?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, sir, I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. +You are mistaken."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Captain! Why, we travelled together. I am——"</p> + +<p>"That may be, but—— Oh, I see, you are thinking of that fellow Gosset. +Sir, I am the Sergeant-at-Arms!" And he strode off with the greatest +dignity.</p> + +<p>I was agreeably surprised when I was introduced to the "Black Beetle."</p> + +<p>"Here is Harry Furniss, <span class="correction" title="added missing double quotes">Gosset"</span> (not Sergeant, I observed); "now give it +to him."</p> + +<p>"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Furniss. You see how I +appreciate your work." And he pointed to a row of black beetles, cut out +of <i>Punch</i> and pasted on the wall, the rest of the wall being covered +with interesting and dignified portraits of Members. Here was Gosset at +twelve o'clock at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> night. At twelve noon he would be +Sergeant-at-Arms, with power to take me to the Clock Tower.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img243.jpg" width="600" height="483" alt="THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS' ROOM." title="THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS' ROOM." /> +<span class="caption">THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS' ROOM. <i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>This room is still the Sergeant-at-Arms' office, but in it are no +portraits, no black beetles—on paper; there may be some living +specimens, for aught I know, haunting the old room in search of the +lively company, the pipes, and the huge decanters. The present +Sergeant-at-Arms is as unlike a black beetle as he is unlike the +Bohemian Gosset. But I shall be surprised if, when the courteous and +universally appreciated Sergeant-at-Arms retires, and the present +Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Gosset, takes his place, we shall not +see the old room again the most entertaining spot in the Houses of +Parliament.</p> + +<p>When Professor Rogers was escorting me to the famous room, he implored +me to leave politics outside of it,—as if I ever talked politics in the +House! "Rule is—no politics, so don't forget it." </p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ah," he said, as soon as he sat down, "why aint you in the House, Tom, +vilifying and misrepresenting the Irish as I heard you this afternoon! +Disgraceful, I say, disgraceful!" and he thumped the table.</p> + +<p>"No politics, Professor," "Dick" Power remarked.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img244.jpg" width="300" height="460" alt="CAPT. GOSSET, LATE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS." title="CAPT. GOSSET, LATE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS." /> +<span class="caption">CAPT. GOSSET, LATE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS. <i>From the "Illustrated London News."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>"Oh, indeed, my noble Whip; that comes well from a beater to a beaten +gang. Why aint you at your post,—the door-post, ha! ha!—and rally your +men and overthrow these damned Tories? Oh, yes, King-Harman, your good +looks do not atone for bad measures."</p> + +<p>"No politics, Professor," all cried.</p> + +<p>"Come, Furniss, come away, they're all drunk here. I'll tell you my last +story on the Terrace. These Tories destroy everything."</p> + +<p>Such was my introduction to this select little club in Parliament, in +which, with the exception of the Professor, all forgot politics, and the +best of the Tories, Home Rulers, Radicals, and officials were at peace. +I was always on most friendly terms with my "Black Beetle," a proof that +caricature leaves no unkind sting when the victim is really a man of the +world and a jolly good fellow. Surely nothing could be more offensive to +an official in high office than to be continually represented as a black +beetle!</p> + +<p>When I did not "invent" a character, such as the "Beetle," I adopted for +a change various styles of drawing. For even the work of a caricaturist +becomes monotonous if he is but a master of one style and a slave to +mannerisms. To avoid this I am Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, and at times +"Childish"—a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> specimen of each style in <i>Punch</i> the +proprietors have kindly allowed me to republish in these pages. There is +really very little artistic merit in the "Childish" style of work. I did +not use it often, but whenever I did I tried to introduce some "drawing" +as well. Here, for instance, are my Academy skits—drawn as if by a boy, +but the figures of the teacher and pupil are in drawing. By the way, +these different styles, I am glad to see, are still kept alive in the +pages of <i>Punch</i> by new—if not younger—hands. This year's (1901) +Academy skits and other drawings, I notice, are signed "'Arry's Son," +but they are not—as might be thought—by one of my own boys.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img245.jpg" width="600" height="799" alt="MY CHILDISH STYLE IN PUNCH." title="MY CHILDISH STYLE IN PUNCH." /> +<span class="caption">MY "CHILDISH" STYLE IN <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 420px; "> +<img src="images/img246.jpg" width="420" height="468" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>During most of the time I enjoyed a privilege which belonged to no one +else, not excepting Members, for even Members must, like schoolboys, +keep "within bounds." They are not permitted, for instance, to enter the +Press Gallery, or the portion of the House reserved to the Press; +neither can Press-men enter the Members' rooms at will. The public, +being ignorant of the stringent rules of St. Stephen's, cannot +understand the obstacles there are to seeing the House. One instance +will suffice to show the absurdity of the rules. The ex-Treasurer of the +House of Lords, whose acquaintance I had, and whose offices were in the +corridor by the Select Chamber, could not take anyone into the House, +even when it was empty, without a written order. Although armed with a +Gallery Ticket, and also on the "Lobby list," <i>i.e.</i>, the right to enter +the Inner Lobby, I was not free to make any sketches of the House +itself, inside or out. Requiring to get such material for the elaborate +interiors and exteriors I use in my Lecture-Entertainment, "The Humours +of Parliament," I boldly bearded the highest official in his den, and +left with this simple document. Aladdin's key could not have caused more +surprise than this talisman. The head of the police, the +Sergeant-at-Arms himself, could not interfere. "The Palace of +Westminster" includes the House of Commons, so I made full use of my +unique opportunity, and possess material invaluable for my Parliamentary +work.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img247.jpg" width="600" height="388" alt="I SKETCH THE HOUSE." title="I SKETCH THE HOUSE." /> +<span class="caption">I SKETCH THE HOUSE.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> + +<p>I had facilities in another way. At one time the Engineer-in-Chief was a +friend of mine, Dr. Percy. Few men were better known in and about the +House than this popular official engineer of the Palace of Westminster. +To begin with, he was over six feet high, and had a voice that would +carry from the Commons to the House of Lords. He had to be "all over the +place"—under the House, over the House, and all round the House. He was +as well-known in the smoking-room of the Garrick Club as he was in the +smoking-room of the Commons, and it was when I joined the Garrick I made +his acquaintance. He was also an art <i>connoisseur</i>, and had a very fine +collection of water-colours. The first time I saw the Doctor was years +before on a steamer on the Rance, between Normandy and Brittany. I made +a sketch of his extraordinary features, so that when he entered the +Garrick Club I recognised the original of my caricature. We frequently +walked down to the Houses of Parliament together after dinner, and more +than once he invited me behind the scenes and under the stage of +Parliament, through the "fog filter" and ventilating shafts, when he was +wont to indulge in a grim, saturnine humour appropriate to his +subterranean subject. As he opened the iron doors for us to pass from +one passage to another, close to and above which the benches are +situated,—for the whole House is honeycombed for ventilating +purposes,—he pretended that long experience enabled him to discriminate +between the odours from different parts of the House, and declared that +he could tap and draw off a specimen of the atmosphere on the Government +benches, the Opposition side, or the Radical seats, at will.</p> + +<p>"There, my boy! eh? Pretty thick, aint it? That's the Scotch lot. Now +hold your nose. I open this door and we get the Irish draught. Ugh! Come +on, come on quickly—mixture of Irish, working-men M.P.'s, and Rads. +Kill a horse!"</p> + +<p>The table of the House, which Mr. Disraeli erroneously described as "a +solid piece of furniture," is in reality—like so many arguments which +are flung across it—perfectly hollow; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> and one evening when I +arrived with Dr. Percy and found that in consequence of the winding-up +speech of Mr. Gladstone in a great debate the Press Gallery was full and +all the seats under the gallery were occupied, Dr. Percy kindly allowed +me to sit <i>inside the table</i>. I was sorely tempted to try the effect of +inserting my pencil through the grating which forms the side of the +table, and tickle the shins of the right hon. gentleman. Anyway, I +looked straight into the faces of the Ministers and those on the front +bench, and not only heard every word, but the asides and whispers as +well.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px; "> +<img src="images/img250.jpg" width="600" height="595" alt="DR. PERCY. THE HOUSE UP." title="DR. PERCY. THE HOUSE UP." /> +<span class="caption">DR. PERCY. "THE HOUSE UP."<br /> +<i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>I only once caricatured Dr. Percy in <i>Punch</i> (December, 1886), after +there had been a sort of earthquake in the Inner Lobby of the House, and +the tesselated pavement was thrown up. I made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> a drawing, "The +House up at last." Dr. Percy "is personally directing the improvements." +It is interesting to know that some of the pavement taken up on that +occasion is laid in the hall of an hon. Member's house in the country, +not far from West Kirby, Cheshire.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px; "> +<img src="images/img251.jpg" width="450" height="501" alt="MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE." title="MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE." /> +<span class="caption">MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE. MR. GOSCHEN.<br /> +<i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<h3><br /><br />THE VILLAIN OF ART.</h3> + +<p>One frequently hears the remark, "Caricature is so ugly." Well, +certainly pure caricature is the villain of art, and the popular +draughtsman, like the popular actor, should, to remain popular in his +work, always play the virtuous hero. If the leading actor <i>must</i> play +the villain, he takes care to make up inoffensive and tame. So the +villain caricaturist need not be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> "ugly"—but then he cannot be +strong. Nor is it left to an actor—unless he be the star or +actor-manager—to remain popular by being tame and pretty in every part. +So is the caricaturist, if he is not the star, liable to be cast to play +the villain whether he likes it or not, and if he is a genuine worker he +will not shrink from the part, merely to remain popular and curry favour +with those deserving to be satirised.</p> + + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img252.jpg" width="500" height="566" alt="MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE." title="MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE." /> +<span class="caption">PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE. "ALL HARCOURTS."<br /> +<i>From "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>Now in <i>Punch</i>, as I was cast for it, I played the villain's part. In +doing so I was at times necessarily "ugly," and therefore to some +unpopular. I confess I felt it my duty not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> to shrink from +being "ugly," although whenever I could I introduced some redeeming +element into my designs—the figure of a girl, allegorical of Parliament +or whatever the "ugly" subject might happen to be—but in some of my +<i>Punch</i> drawings this relief was impossible. For instance, the series of +"Puzzle Heads," in each of which a portrait of the celebrity is built up +of personal attributes, characteristics, or incidents in the career of +the person represented, could not but be unpleasant pictures. Some +subscribers threatened to give up the paper if they were continued; +others became subscribers for these Puzzle Heads alone. It is ever so. +The old saying, "One man's meat is another's poison," is as applicable +to caricature as to anything else. It is impossible to please all tastes +when catering for the large public, unless an editor is satisfied to be +stereotyped and perfunctory; but Mr. Punch has made his name by his +strength, not his weakness, and it may be safely inferred that no Tory +thinks less of him for having used all his talent in attacking Benjamin +Disraeli year after year as no man has been attacked before—or +since—in his pages.</p> + +<p>In looking through the volumes of <i>Punch</i> one is apt to forget that the +strong situations and stirring events by which a caricaturist's hit is +made effective at the time of publication fade from one's memory. The +cartoon in all its strength remains a record of an event which has lost +its interest. One cannot always realise that the drawing was only strong +because the feeling and interest at the time of its conception demanded +it. Allowance should therefore be made for the villain's ugly +caricature, if it is a good drawing, prophetically correct, and +therefore historically interesting.</p> + +<p>Perhaps no cartoon of mine in <i>Punch</i> caused such hostile criticism as +"The New Cabinet" (August 27, 1892). It gave great offence to the +Gladstonians. The Radical Press attacked me ferociously, and as I think +most unfairly, for they treated it politically and not pictorially, and +severely reprimanded Mr. Punch for publishing it. Had it been a +Conservative Cabinet the Tory Press would not have resented it or +allowed narrow-minded party politics to prejudice their mind in such +trivial <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> matters. <i>Punch</i> is supposed to be non-political. Its +present editor is impartial. Mr. Punch's traditions are Whig, and +somehow or other a certain class of its readers at that particular +crisis was strongly opposed to the two sides of a question being +treated. Yet I venture to say two-thirds of the readers of <i>Punch</i> are +Conservatives, and should therefore be amused. It is impossible to treat +a strong political subject—such as the meeting of that particular +Cabinet caricatured by me—without offending some readers by amusing +others, unless, as I say, the subject is treated in a colourless manner. +This particular cartoon hurt because it hit a strong situation in a +truthful and straight-forward manner, and subsequent events proved it to +be a correct conception. Yet at the time no name was too bad for me, and +as these are my confessions, let me assure the public that had the +Cabinet been a Conservative one I would have treated it in exactly the +same way; and it is my firm conviction that had such been the case I +would have given no offence either inside or outside of Mr. Punch's +office.</p> + +<p>My readers will sympathise with me. I am to draw political cartoons +without being political; I am to draw caricatures without being +personal; I am to be funny without holding my subject up to ridicule; I +am to be effective without being strong—in fact, I am to be a +caricaturist without caricature! On the other hand, no cartoon I ever +drew for <i>Punch</i> was more popular. Non-politicians were good enough to +accept it as an antidote to the usual caricatures, and those papers on +the other side of politics were extravagantly complimentary, and I +received a large sum for the original for a private collection. I allow +the following leaderette from the <i>Birmingham Post</i> to illustrate the +point, and at the same time to describe the cartoon. The same paper, I +may add, comments on the principal cartoon in <i>Punch</i> that week—drawn +by Tenniel—as showing that <i>Punch</i> "thinks little of the prospects of +the present Government":</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"'Mr. Punch' is in 'excellent fooling' this week. Rarely has he, even +he, more happily burlesqued a political situation than in Mr. Harry +Furniss's cartoon of 'The New Cabinet.' Not a word of explanation +accompanies the picture: it is good wine, needing no bush, and making +very merry.</p></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; "> +<img src="images/img255.jpg" width="550" height="410" alt="REDUCTION FROM ENGRAVING IN PUNCH." title="REDUCTION FROM ENGRAVING IN PUNCH." /> +<span class="caption">REDUCTION FROM ENGRAVING IN <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>A glance suffices to seize its meaning, for it expresses a thought that +has flitted, at one time or another, through everyone's mind. The big +moment has come when Mr. Gladstone is to reveal to his colleagues the +secret he has hitherto withheld from them, not less than from the +electorate—to submit to them, masterly, succinct, complete, the scheme +which, with unexampled courage and sublimest modesty, they have defended +on trust, for which they have sacrificed their personal independence +without knowing why, and as to which, painful to remember, they have +sometimes blundered into confident and contradictory conjecture. We can +picture the subtle excitement—in one Minister of joyful expectation, in +another of horrid misgiving—under which they have come together. Well, +Mr. Gladstone unfolds the fateful document, and lo! it is a blank sheet. +Paralysis and grim despair fall upon the spirits of the assembly; face +to face with a nightmare reality, not a man amongst them has strength to +say, 'This is a dream.' At the head of the table, his elbows resting on +the parchment, and an undipped quill actually split upon it in his angry +grasp, sits the Premier, a never-to-be-forgotten picture of impotent +ill-humour. The task with which the Cabinet is confronted, for him as +for the rest, is impossible and yet inexorable. In the candle-flame, by +an effect of hallucination natural at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> such a moment, the face +of Mr. O'Brien seems to limn itself out, implacable and contemptuous; +and there is a fearsome shadow on the blind—the massive head of Lord +Salisbury. The candle, marked '40,' is the majority, which dwindles +while the Ministers are sadly musing; and over the mantelpiece, behind +the Premier's chair, mutely reproachful, hangs a picture of the great +Cabinet of 1880. It is distinctly the best thing Mr. Furniss has done."</p> +</div> + +<p>That impression was shared by my private friends as well, even those on +<i>Punch</i>. My dear friend Mr. E. J. Milliken, a strong Radical, and a most +active member of the staff, in a reply to a letter of mine, in which I +intimated that I was afraid my cartoon would give offence, replied in a +most flattering spirit.</p> + +<p>I had to play the "villain" in another scene in the same political +drama, "Mr. Punch's Historical Cartoons" (1893), in which the same +Cabinet is shown in Mr. Gladstone's room in the "Bauble Shop"—the House +of Commons. Those Radicals who had not joined the Unionists again took +offence. Those Radicals who had become Unionist wrote to congratulate +me. From one well-known and powerful personality, a historical name in +the publishing world, I received the following:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="text-align: right; margin-right: 1em; ">"February 23rd, 1893.</p> + +<p>"Your cartoon p. 95 delights us all. I have looked at it twenty times +and seen fresh points in it. Nothing for years, I should say, has so +entirely caught the very spirit of a great crisis.</p> + +<p>"We shall owe something to you for this felicitous exposure of +Gladstone's insane Bill. Alas! the miners and the brickies, the +costermongers and the dust-cart drivers, have now the power. The middle +class has been out-numbered, and if it were not that some labouring men +and artisans have hard heads enough to comprehend the position we should +be landed in a pretty pickle next September.</p> + +<p>"It is a pity traitors' heads are nowadays their own copyright."</p></div> + +<p>A "copyright" in heads is a good suggestion, and coming from a publisher +too! But apart from "traitors," there are others known to a +caricaturist. The House of Commons at one time was rich in them. Some +such works of art suffer in being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> translated. Indeed, what the +poet "Ballyhooley" wrote of one might apply to others:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="font-variant: small-caps; text-align: center; ">"Darwin MacNeill.</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 5em; "> +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Darwin MacNeill, all the papers are hot on you,</span><br /> +Darwin MacNeill, they are writing a lot on you.<br /> +What in the world sort of face have you got on you?<br /> +Send us your photograph, Darwin MacNeill.<br /> +Surely you must be both lovely and pure!<br /> +Have you got fatures that nothing can cure?<br /> +Let's have the first of it,<br /> +Let's know the worst of it:<br /> +Is your face only a caricature?<br /> +Here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill,<br /> +Let penny canes all your enemies feel;<br /> +Show me the crature would slander a fature<br /> +Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal.<br /></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Our childhers are dull, and we wish to be brightening them</span><br /> +Send us your picture and we'll be enlightening them,<br /> +Maybe 'twill only be useful for frightening them;<br /> +Still let us have it, dear Darwin MacNeill.<br /> +Shut up the slander and talk they are at,<br /> +Show us the head you've got under your hat;<br /> +True every particle, genuine article,<br /> +Send us your picture in answer to that.<br /> +Here's a health to you, etc.<br /></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"I hear that the Queen she has simply gone crazy, man;</span><br /> +Says she to Gladstone, 'Get out, you old lazy man!<br /> +Cannot you see that I'll never be aisy, man,<br /> +Till I've a portrait of Darwin MacNeill?'<br /> +When of that picture she first got a sight,<br /> +She held it up, so they say, to the light,<br /> +Looked at the head of it, then all she said of it,<br /> +'I'm of opinion that Darwin is right.'<br /> +Here's a health to you, etc.<br /></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"There's just arrived now, to give great content to us,</span><br /> +A lovely picture, which someone has sent to us.<br /> +We know the worst now, for there has been sent to us<br /> +What's called a portrait of Darwin MacNeill.<br /> +If it's a likeness, I just tell you what,<br /> +That you have acted in ways you should not.<br /> +Don't try a turn of fists<br /> +On with the journalists;<br /> +Thrash those who gave you the head you have got.<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> + +But here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill!<br /> +Only just manage new fatures to steal,<br /> +Then show me the crature would slander a fature<br /> +Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal."</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img258.jpg" width="350" height="478" alt="REDUCTION OF PAGE IN PUNCH." title="REDUCTION OF PAGE IN PUNCH." /> +<span class="caption">REDUCTION OF PAGE IN <i>PUNCH</i>, SHOWING THAT MY CARICATURES WERE—IN THIS <span class="correction" title="originally CSAE">CASE</span>—PUBLISHED TOO LARGE.</span> +</div> + +<p>This "Pen Portrait," by Mr. Robert Martin, refers to a matter of much +regret to me. I have to confess my sorrow that I was the means of making +a Member of Parliament ridiculous! The innocent item came in the +ordinary course of my work for <i>Punch</i>. I was sent an incident to +illustrate for the Diary of Toby, M.P., which, when published, was used +as an excuse to "technically assault" me in the Inner Lobby of the House +of Commons.</p> + +<p>Perhaps in the circumstances I may be pardoned if I confess a secret +connected with these Parliamentary caricatures. For some years I +provided a page drawing and some small cuts in every number during +Parliament—the latter were generally sketches of Members of Parliament. +These single portraits were supplied in advance, and engraved proofs +sent in a book to Mr. Lucy to select from week by week. The following +letter is worth quoting in full as a characteristic letter from the +Editor, typical of his light and pleasant way of transacting business +with his staff:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"Dear H. F.,—"Please keyindly see that H. L. (not 'Labby,' but 'Lucy') +has all your parliamentarians whom you (as your predecessor Henry VIII. +did) have executed on the block sent to him, as he found himself +unprovided up to the last moment and so wrote to me in his haste.</p> + +<p>"(?) Fancy portrait. Our artist, H. F., as Henry VIII. taking off his +victims' heads on the block, eh?</p> + +<p style="text-align: right; ">"Yours, "F. C. B."</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> + +<p>To this rule, however, there were exceptions. This particular caricature +was one of them: it was drawn at the last moment to illustrate a +particular passage in Mr. Lucy's Diary of Toby, M.P. Here it is:</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img259.jpg" width="350" height="440" alt="I GAVE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CARICATURE TO BE REDUCED AS USUAL." title="I GAVE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CARICATURE TO BE REDUCED AS USUAL." /> +<span class="caption">REDUCTION FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING, SHOWING THAT I GAVE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CARICATURE TO BE "REDUCED AS USUAL."</span> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"'Look here, Bartley,' said Tommy Bowles; 'if you're going on that tack, +you must come and sit on this side. When I saw MacNeill open his mouth +to speak, I confess I thought I was going to be swallowed whole. You sit +here; there's more of you.'"</p> +</div> + +<p>Now had I shown "Pongo," as he was familiarly called in the House, in +the act of swallowing "Tommy Bowles," I might have produced a most +objectionable caricature. I made, however, a smiling portrait of the +genial Member. I was away at the time recovering from a long illness: +the sketch was made in the country, and sent up to the <i>Punch</i> +engraver's office. By some mistake there, it was not reduced in size in +reproduction as others had been; therefore in the paper it was +apparently given extra importance—I had nothing to do with that. That +Mr. Lucy's reference to Mr. MacNeill is not a caricature can be judged +by anyone reading the passage I had to illustrate, given above. The +notion that the drawing was <i>purposely</i> produced on a larger scale than +usual, so as to give this special caricature prominence, is disproved by +the fact that the caricature of the gallant and genial <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> Admiral Field I drew exactly +under the same conditions appears on the same page also far too large. +Therefore it is a mistaken idea that this particular portrait was +intentionally offensive, or different from others.</p> + +<p>It was really the combination of circumstances, if anything, that called +special attention to that particular page in <i>Punch,</i> and gave rise to</p> + +<h3>A SCENE IN THE LOBBY.</h3> + +<p>I shall, in describing the curtain rising on this historical incident, +borrow Mr. Lucy's own account of the way in which the Member approached +me after he had seen my illustration to Mr. Lucy's clever Diary of the +Week:</p> + +<p>"It was shortly after seven o'clock that Mr. Harry Furniss strolled into +the Lobby. He had been suffering from a long and severe sickness, +dedicating this the first evening of his convalescence to a visit to the +scene of labours which have delighted mankind. Over the place there +brooded an air of ineffable peace. The bustle of the earlier hour of +meeting was stilled. The drone of talk went on in the half-empty House +within the glass doors. Now and then a Member hastily crossed the floor +of the Lobby, intent on preparations for dinner. One of these chanced to +be Mr. Swift MacNeill, a Member who, beneath occasional turbulence of +manner, scarcely conceals the gentlest, kindliest disposition, a +gentleman by birth and training, a scholar and a patriot. The House, +whilst it sometimes laughs at his exuberance of manner, always shows +that it likes him. Mr. Furniss, seeing him approach with hurried step, +may naturally have expected that he was making haste to offer those +congratulations on renewed health and reappearance on the scene of +labour that had already been proffered from other quarters. What +followed has been told by Mr. Furniss in language the simplicity and +graphicness of which Defoe could not have excelled."</p> + +<p>Mr. Lucy refers to the following account I wrote at the time:</p> + +<p>"On my return to continue my work in Parliament for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> Mr. Punch +after my severe illness, I found the jaded legislators yearning for +fresh air, and even the approaching final division on the Home Rule Bill +had failed to arouse more than a languid interest. I felt this +depression when I entered the Lobby, its sole occupants being the +tired-out doorkeepers and the leg-weary policemen. I really believe a +swarm of wasps would not have roused them to activity, for I noticed a +bluebottle resting undisturbed upon the nose of one of Inspector +Horsley's staff. Even the Terrace was dusty, and the Members rusty and +morose. One of the Irish Members had selected as his friend Frank +Slavin, the well-known prize-fighter, who had an admiring group round +him, to whom no doubt he was relating the history of his many plucky +battles.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img261.jpg" width="300" height="261" alt="WHAT HAPPENED." title="WHAT HAPPENED." /> +<span class="caption">WHAT HAPPENED.</span> +</div> + +<p>"The stimulating effect of this may have been the cause for the assault +upon me in the Inner Lobby, which has afforded the stale House some +little excitement, which has been the salvation of the silly season. So +many papers have given startling accounts of this attack upon me, some +stating that I was caned, others that I was pummelled, shaken like a +dog, and so on, that I am glad to take the opportunity of giving a clear +statement of what really occurred. I was standing close to the doors of +the Inner Lobby, talking to Mr. Cuthbert Quilter, when Mr. Swift +MacNeill interrupted us by asking me, 'Are you the man that draws the +cartoons in <i>Punch</i>?' 'That depends upon what they are,' said I. 'I +refer to one,' said the excited Member, 'that has annoyed me very much,' +'Let me see it,' I replied. Mr. MacNeill then drew out his pocket-book +and showed me a cutting from the current number of <i>Punch</i>. 'Yes,' I +said, 'that is from a drawing of mine,' 'Then ye're a low, black-guardly +scoundrel,' melodramatically exclaimed the usually genial Member. Taking +two or three steps back, he hissed at me, with a livid face, a series of +offensive epithets too coarse for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> publication. Having +exhausted his vocabulary of vulgarity, a happy thought seemed to strike +him. 'I want to assault you,' he said, and forthwith he nervously and +gingerly tapped me as if he were playing with a hot coal. He then danced +off to Members who were looking on, crying, 'This is the scoundrel who +has caricatured me; witness, I assault him!' and he recommenced the +tapping process which constituted this technical assault. + +<span class="figleft"> +<img src="images/img262.jpg" width="150" height="195" alt="DR. TANNER." title="DR. TANNER." /></span> +<span class="capleft" style="width: 150px; ">DR. TANNER.</span> + +Knowing that Mr. MacNeill is a very excitable subject, and at once +detecting that this assault was a 'put-up job,' I was determined to +remain perfectly cool; and, truth to tell, the pirouetting of the +agitated Member hugely amused me, particularly as the more excited he +became, the more he resembled the caricature which was the cause, or +supposed to be the cause, of this attack, I treated the hon. Member +exactly as the policeman treated the bluebottle—with perfect +indifference, not even troubling to brush away the trifling annoyance. +But when in the midst of its buzzing round me I moved in the direction +of one of the officials, it flew away. Then appeared what I had been +anticipating, and the real cause of the insult transpired. Dr. Tanner +came up to me just as I recollect Slavin approaching Jackson in their +historic fight. He showered the grossest insults upon me, and I was +surrounded at once by his clique, who were anxious for the scene which +must have occurred had I, like Jackson, been the first to let out with +my left. But here again was I face to face with a chronically excited +Member, backed up by his friends, and I refused to be drawn into a +brawl. But the secret of the real cause of this organised attack upon me +was revealed to me by Dr. Tanner, who at once informed me that it was +the outcome of my imitations of the Irish Members in my entertainment, +'The Humours of Parliament,' which I have given for two seasons all over +the country. This was my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> offence; my caricature of Mr. Swift +MacNeill the excuse for the attack."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img263.jpg" width="350" height="585" alt="ASSAULT ON ME IN THE HOUSE." title="ASSAULT ON ME IN THE HOUSE." /> +<span class="caption">ASSAULT ON ME IN THE HOUSE.<br /> +WHAT THE PRESS DESCRIBED.</span> +</div> + +<p>Mr. MacNeill's "technical assault" was a very childish incident. He +merely touched the sleeve of my coat with the tip of his finger, and +asked me if I would accept that as a "technical assault." This +mysterious pantomime was subsequently explained to me, and meant that I +was to take out a summons—but I only laughed. At the moment Mr. +MacNeill was pirouetting round me at a distance, Mr. John Burns came on +to the scene, and chaffed Mr. MacNeill, drawing an imaginary picture +(for Mr. Burns was not in the Lobby) of a real assault upon me. A +gentleman connected with an evening paper, who happened to enter with +Mr. Burns, failed to see Mr. Burns's humour, and thereupon took down in +shorthand Mr. Burns's imaginary picture as a matter of fact. It was +published as a fact, and, for all I know or care, some may still believe +that I was assaulted!</p> + +<p>When I read that I had been treated like a cur, I was rather amused; but +when I read a statement in the papers from a man like John Burns saying +that he saw me "taken by the lapels of the coat and shaken like a dog, +and then taken by the ear and shaken by that," I thought the joke had +been carried far enough. Determined to have this cock-and-bull story +contradicted at once, I went down to the House and saw Mr. John Burns, +who expressed to me his regret that he should have invented the story, +and he left me to go to the writing-room, and promised I should have +from him a written contradiction.</p> + +<p>After waiting a considerable time, a message was brought to <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> me that Mr. Burns declined to +keep his promise. I therefore wrote these particulars and sent them off +to the Press. At the same time Mr. Burns, who had been closeted with +some Radical journalists, wrote an offensive note—which was shown me, +and which I advised him to publish.</p> + +<p>Poor Mr. MacNeill! Well may he say, "Save me from my friends!" The Press +put on their comic men to make copy at his expense. If I were to publish +it all, it would make a volume as large as this. By permission I publish +the following lay from the <i>St. James' Budget</i> (September, 1893):</p> + + +<p style="text-align: center; clear: both; ">"THE LAY OF SWIFT MACNEILL.</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p style="text-align: center; ">(<i>Picked up in the Lobby.</i>)</p> + +<div style="margin-left: 1em; "> +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Have ye heard, have ye heard, of the late immortal fray,</span><br /> +When the lion back of Swift MacNeill got up and stood at bay,<br /> +When the lion voice of Tanner cried, 'To Judas wid yer chaff!'<br /> +An' the Saxon knees were shaking, though they made believe to laugh.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Twas widin the Commons' Lobby, in the corner by the dure,</span><br /> +There was Misther Harry Furniss a-standing on the flure,<br /> +When up to him came stalking, like O'Tarquin in his pride,<br /> +The bowldest of the bowld, MacNeill, wid the Docther by his side.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Then the valiant Swift MacNeill from his pocket he took out</span><br /> +A picther very like him, an' he brandished it about,<br /> +An' he held it up to Furniss for his Saxon eyes to see,<br /> +An' he asked of him, 'Ye spalpeen, is this porthrait meant for me?'</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"''Tis your likeness, as I see it,' was the answer that he got,</span><br /> +An' the wrath of Misther Swift MacNeill then wax'd exceeding hot,<br /> +An' he cast the picther from him, an' he trod it on the ground,<br /> +An' he took an' danced an Irish jig the artist's form around.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Ye spalpeen,' thus again he spoke, 'ye most obnoxious fellow!</span><br /> +Ye see that I'm a lion, yet ye've made me a gorilla;<br /> +If your Saxon eyes are blinded to the truth of what I say,<br /> +Go and borrow for a moment the glasses of Tay Pay.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'They will show ye that our seventy are Apollos one and all,</span><br /> +That we're most divinely lovely an' seraphically tall;<br /> +They will show ye we're all angels—though for divils I'll allow,<br /> +'Tis the black ones ye'll be seeing where the lost to Redmond bow.'</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Then Misther Swift MacNeill, just to lave his meaning clear,</span><br /> +Wid flowers of Irish eloquence filled Mr. Furniss' ear;<br /> +An' he also shook wid passion, an', moreover, shook his fist,<br /> +An' the Docther an' his blackthorn stood all ready to assist.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Misther Furniss smiled serenely, an' the only word he spoke</span><br /> +Was to say it seemed that Misther Swift was slow to see a joke,<br /> +But for all his jokes an' blarney, things were looking like a fight,<br /> +When a minion of the Spayker was seen to be in sight.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Then Apollo Swift MacNeill from his dignity got down,</span><br /> +An' he withered Misther Furniss wid a godlike parting frown,<br /> +An' he stalked along the Lobby wid his grand O'Tarquin stride,<br /> +An' the other Mimbers followed him, an' went the House inside.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"An' there they still are threading on the necks of Saxon slaves,</span><br /> +An' nightly wid their eloquence they're digging Saxon graves;<br /> +An' my counsel to the artist who their fatures would porthray,<br /> +Is to thry and see their beauty through the glasses of Tay Pay."</p> +</div></div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px; margin-right: 5em; "> +<img src="images/img265.jpg" width="250" height="637" alt="JOHN BURNS." title="JOHN BURNS." /> +<span class="caption">JOHN BURNS.</span> +</div> + +<p>This manufactured "scene," coming as it did in the silly season, was +made to serve instead of the Sea-Serpent, the Toad-in-the-Rock, the +Shower of Frogs, and other familiar inventions for holiday reading. +Unfortunately the poor Members of Parliament obliged to remain in St. +Stephen's had to suffer far more than I did through the eccentricity of +Mr. Swift MacNeill. Several of them complained to me that he lured them +into the corridors and corners of the House, and then vigorously set to +work to demonstrate practically how he assaulted me, or how he imagined +he assaulted me, to the discomfiture and consternation of the poor +M.P's.</p> + +<p>I should like to explain why this "technical assault" on me was not made +a matter of discussion. I did intend a friendly Member should have +brought it before the Speaker, and in that way published the truth of +the matter and exposed the stupid inventions of Burns & Co. With that +object I had an interview with the Speaker, and he implored me not under +any circumstances <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> to have it brought before the House. He was +already tired, at the end of a trying session, and did not want any +personal questions discussed, which invariably led to protracted scenes. +For that reason, and for that reason only, it was not mentioned in +Parliament, notwithstanding it was really a much more serious affair +than was imagined. It was a deliberately organised conspiracy. When I +was leaving the Lobby, after my amusing interview with Mr. MacNeill, in +which he told me that I was "technically assaulted," Chief Inspector +Horsley took me down a private passage, and informed me that he had been +looking for me, as he had discovered there was a conspiracy to attack +me, and at that moment nine or ten Members from Ireland were in the +passage downstairs, out of which I would have in the ordinary course +gone through, lying in wait for me. So I left with him by another door.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; "> +<img src="images/img266.jpg" width="550" height="350" alt="NOTE FROM SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD." title="NOTE FROM SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD." /> +<span class="caption">NOTE FROM SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD, AFTER READING THE BOGUS ACCOUNT OF THE "ASSAULT."</span> +</div> + +<p>In this I was not more to blame than other caricaturists, but I was more +in evidence, and was selected to be "technically assaulted," so as to +force me to bring an action, in which all papers, except those +supporting the Irish Party, would have been attacked and discussed, and +their influence if possible injured for purely political purposes. An +aggrieved person, smarting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> under a gross injustice, does not +"technically assault" the aggressor. Had Mr. <span class="correction" title="originally McNeill">MacNeill</span> tried it on with +me, weak and ill as I was, I think I had enough power to oblige him; as +it happened, I only saw the humour of the thing.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; "> +<img src="images/img267.jpg" width="550" height="416" alt="LETTER SUPPOSED TO COME FROM LORD CROSS." title="LETTER SUPPOSED TO COME FROM LORD CROSS." /> +<span class="caption">LETTER SUPPOSED TO COME FROM LORD CROSS.<br /> +(LOCKWOOD'S JOKE.)</span> +</div> + +<p>One of the most amusing sketches I received was this from Sir Frank +Lockwood. Lockwood and I frequently exchanged caricatures, as shown by +the clever sketches I introduce here and there in these pages. Sometimes +he sent me some chaffing note written in a disguised hand, and disguised +drawing; but the latter experiment, although it failed to deceive, +certainly entertained me greatly. Here is a letter supposed to be from +Lord Cross, a favourite subject of mine when he was in the Lower House. +Seldom a week passed but I made his nose shorter and his upper lip +longer, made his head stick out, and his spectacles glisten. Did he +object? No, no! "Grand Cross" is a man of the world; nor was he ever a +mere notoriety-seeking political adventurer. I once met him at dinner, +and we chatted over my caricatures of him, and I recollect his saying, +"A man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> is not worth anything if he is thin-skinned, and +certainly not worth much if he cannot enjoy a joke at his own expense."</p> + +<p>Sir Frank Lockwood whiled away the weary hours in Parliament to his own +amusement and those around him, but he was not aware perhaps that what +he did was seen from the Ladies' Gallery. The ladies got a birdseye view +of his caricatures in progress. One in particular was the cause of much +amusement, not only to the ladies, but to the Members. My lady informant +related the incident to me thus: "I always watch Mr. Lockwood sketching, +and I saw he had his eye on the burly figure of a friend of mine sitting +on the Ministerial bench. Mr. Gladstone turned round to say something to +him, and his quick eye detected Mr. Lockwood sketching. The artistic +Q.C. handed the sketch (which I saw was a caricature of the late Lord +Advocate) to Mr. Gladstone, who fairly doubled up with laughter, and +handed it to those on either side of him. Eventually it was sent over to +Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Balfour, and they thoroughly enjoyed the +caricature of themselves, as did all their Tory friends. But <i>we</i> had +seen it first!" It may have been this sketch subsequently sent to me and +redrawn in <i>Punch</i>.</p> + +<p>I recall an incident which happened one evening when I was on watch in +the Inner Lobby to find and sketch a newly-elected M.P., who, I heard, +was about to make his maiden speech, and it was most important I should +catch him. Just as I was going up to the Press Gallery, Sir Frank +Lockwood came into the Lobby and offered to get me a seat under the +Gallery where I could see the new M.P. to advantage. The new M.P. was +"up," so Lockwood went into the House to fetch me the Sergeant's order. +I waited impatiently for his return; a long time passed; still I waited. +A smiling Member came out of the House, and I asked him if he had seen +Lockwood. "Oh, rather," he replied, smiling still; "I've just been +sitting by him, watching him make a capital caricature of a chap making +his maiden speech." When the Member had finished his speech, Lockwood +ran out, and cheeringly apologised to me for his absent-mindedness. "So +tempting, you know, old chap, I couldn't resist sketching him!"</p> + +<p>Sir Frank Lockwood was perhaps the most favourable modern <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> specimen of the buoyant amateur. +Possessing a big heart, kindly feeling, a brilliant wit, and a facile +pen, he treated art as his playfellow and never as his master. And in +the spirit in which his work was executed so must it be judged. The work +of an amateur artist possessing a distinct vein of humour is, in my +opinion, far more entertaining than that of the professional +caricaturist, the former being absolutely spontaneous and untrammelled +by the conscientiousness of subsequent publication, of correct +draughtsmanship, made only from impressions of the moment, and not the +effort (as in the case of many a professional humorist) of having to be +funny to order.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img269.jpg" width="200" height="489" alt="SIR F. LOCKWOOD." title="SIR F. LOCKWOOD." /> +<span class="caption">SIR F. LOCKWOOD.</span> +</div> + +<p>An excellent example of the amateur at his best is to be found in the +drawings of Sir Frank Lockwood. No one would resent less than Lockwood +himself having the term "amateur" applied to his work; indeed, he would, +I am sure, have felt proud to be classed in the same category as several +of our most popular humorous artists.</p> + +<p>Circumstances connected with a curious coincidence concerning a +caricature (what alliteration!) are worth confirming.</p> + +<p>One morning I was taking my usual horse exercise round the ride in the +inner circle of Regent's Park, before that spot, once the quiet haunt of +the horseman, became the noisy ring of the cyclist. At that time a few +cycling beginners used the circle for practice, and their alarming +performances were gradually depleting the number of equestrians. One of +these novices came down the hill, having an arm round the neck of his +instructor, and one leg on the pedal, the other in mid air. He was +unable to steer the machine, and as I cantered up, the performer's hat, +which had been over one eye, fell off, disclosing the features of +Professor Bryce. The next moment the machine, its rider and his +instructor, were "all of a heap" on the ride up which my horse was +cantering. I had just time to jump my horse on to the path <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> and thus save my own neck, and +the life of the energetic Member of Parliament, who I noticed later in +the day, when sitting in the Press Gallery, was on the front Opposition +bench, next to Sir Frank Lockwood, quite unconcerned. I made a rough +sketch of the incident of the morning, and sent it down to my brother +Two Pins, Sir Frank, with a request that his friend Bryce should in +future select some other spot to practise bicycling. This was handed to +Lockwood just as he was leaving the House, strange to say, on his way +home to dress for a dinner at Professor Bryce's. Lockwood mischievously +placed the sketch in the pocket of his dress coat, and at the dinner led +up to the subject of cycling, suggesting at the same time that his host +ought to try it.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img270.jpg" width="250" height="472" alt="LEWIS CARROLL'S SUGGESTION." title="LEWIS CARROLL'S SUGGESTION." /> +<span class="caption">LEWIS CARROLL'S SUGGESTION, AND MY SKETCH OF IT IN <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Well, strange to say, Lockwood, I've been seriously thinking of it, but +I don't know how one should begin."</p> + +<p>"Don't you?" cried Lockwood from the other end of the table. "What do +you say to this, nearly killing my friend Harry Furniss!" And my +caricature was produced and handed down from guest to guest, to the +chagrin of the host. That was Lockwood's version of the coincidence.</p> + +<p>Suggestions for <i>Punch</i> came to me from most unexpected quarters, but +were rarely of any use. Lewis Carroll—like every one else—got excited +over the Gladstonian crisis, and Sir William Harcourt's head to Lewis +Carroll was much the same as Charles the First's to Mr. Dick in "David +Copperfield," for I find in several letters references to Sir William.</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"<i>Re</i> Gladstone's head and its recent growth, couldn't you make a +picture of it for the 'Essence of Parliament'? I would call it 'Toby's +Dream of A.D. 1900,' and have Gladstone addressing the House, with his +enormous head supported by Harcourt on one side, and Parnell on the +other."</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> + +<p>This suggestion is the only one I adopted. Strange to say, neither +Gladstone, Parnell, nor Lewis Carroll lived to see 1900.</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"Is that anecdote in the papers <i>true</i>, that some one has sent you a +pebble with an accidental (and not a 'doctored') likeness of Harcourt? +If so, let me suggest that your most <i>graceful</i> course of action will be +to have it photographed, and to present prints of it to any authors +whose books you may at any time chance to illustrate!"</p> +</div> + +<p>This is the "anecdote":</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"Someone found on the seashore the other day a pebble moulded exactly on +the lines of Mr. Furniss' portrait of Sir William Harcourt."</p> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img271.jpg" width="250" height="370" alt="NATURE'S PUZZLE PORTRAIT." title="NATURE'S PUZZLE PORTRAIT." /> +<span class="caption">NATURE'S PUZZLE PORTRAIT.</span> +</div> + +<p>Other notices were in verse. This from <i>Vanity Fair</i> is the best:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"For Fame, 'tis said, Sir William craves,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em; ">And to some purpose he has sought her;</span><br /> +His face is fashioned by the waves:<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em; ">When will his name be 'writ in water'?"</span></p> +</div> + +<p>I lay under a charge of plagiarism. Nature had "invented" my Harcourt +portrait, and had been at work upon it probably before I was born; the +wild waves had by degrees moulded a shell into the familiar features, +and when completed had left the sea-sculptured sketch high and dry on +the coast. I now publish, with thanks, a photo-reproduction of the shell +(not a pebble) as I received it: it is not in any way "doctored." It is +a large, weather-beaten shell.</p> + +<p>There is no doubt but that at one time Lewis Carroll studied <i>Punch</i>, +for in one of his earliest letters to me he writes:</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"To the best of my recollection, one of the first things that suggested +to me the wish to secure your help was a marvellously successful picture +in <i>Punch</i> of a House of Lords entirely composed of Harcourts, where the +figures took all possible attitudes, and gave all possible views of the +face; yet each was a quite unmistakable Sir William Harcourt!"</p> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> + +<p>Again he refers to <i>Punch</i> (March, 1890):</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"A wish has been expressed in our Common Room (Christ's Church, Oxford), +where we take in and bind <i>Punch</i>, that we could have 'keys' to the +portraits in the Bishop of Lincoln's Trial and the 'ciphers' in +Parliament" (a Parliamentary design of mine, "The House all Sixes and +Sevens"). "Will you confer that favour on our Club? If you would give me +them done roughly, I will procure copies of those two numbers, and +subscribe the names in small MS. print, and have the pages bound in to +face the pictures. The simplest way would be for you to put numbers on +the faces, and send a list of names numbered to correspond."</p> +</div> + +<p>Yet a few years brought a change (October, 1894):</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"No doubt it is by your direction that three numbers of your new +periodical have come to me. With many thanks for your kind thought, I +will beg you not to waste your bounties on so unfit a recipient, for I +have neither time nor taste for any such literature. I have much more +work yet to do than I am likely to have life to do it in—and my taste +for comic papers is <i>defunct</i>. We take in <i>Punch</i> in our Common Room, +but I never look at it!"</p> +</div> + +<p>Hardly a generous remark to make to a <i>Punch</i> man who had illustrated +two of his books, and considering that Sir John Tenniel had done so much +to make the author's reputation, and <i>Punch</i> had always been so +friendly; but this is a bygone.<br /></p> + +<h3>PUNCH AT PLAY.</h3> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img272.jpg" width="250" height="272" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption"></span> +</div> + +<p>ell, Sir John, the Grand Old Man of <i>Punch</i>, the evergreen, the +ever-delightful Sir John, has earned a night's repose after all his long +day of glorious work and good-fellowship. "A great artist and a great +gentleman": truer words were never spoken. It seems but yesterday he and +I took our rides together; but yesterday he and I and poor +Milliken—three <i>Punch</i> men in a boat—were "squaring up" at Cookham +after a week's delightful boating holiday on the Thames.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot1" style="margin-left: 10em; "> +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; clear: both; ">"There sat three oarsmen under a tree,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!<br /></span> +They were as puzzled as puzzled could be,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em; ">With a down;<br /></span> +And one of them said to his mate,<br /> +'We've got these mems in a doose of a state,'<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">With a down derry, derry down!</span></p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px; "> +<img src="images/img273.jpg" width="550" height="378" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot1" style="margin-left: 10em; "> +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Oh, they were wild, these oarsmen three,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!<br /></span> +Especially one with the white puggree,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em; ">With a down;<br /></span> +For it's precious hard to divide by three<br /> +A sum on whose total you can't agree,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">With a down derry, derry down!</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"They bit their pencils and tore their hair,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!<br /></span> +But those blessed bills, they wouldn't come square,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em; ">With a down;<br /></span> +'Midst muddle and smudge it is hard to fix<br /> +If a six is a nine or a nine is a six,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">With a down derry, derry down!</span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"A crumpled account from a pocket of flannel<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!<br /></span> +With dirt in dabs, and the rain in a channel,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em; ">With a down,<br /></span> +Is worse to decipher than uniform text,<br /> +Oh, that is the verdict of oarsmen vext,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">With a down derry, derry down!</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"A man in a boat his ease will take,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!<br /></span> +But financial conscience at last will wake,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em; ">With a down;<br /></span> +Then Nemesis proddeth the prodigal soul<br /> +When he finds that the parts are much more than the whole,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">With a down derry, derry down!</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Those oarsmen are having a deuce of a time,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Down, a-down, a-down—hey down!<br /></span> +The man in the puggree is ripe for crime,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4em; ">With a down.<br /></span> +Now heaven send every boating man<br /> +For keeping accounts a more excellent plan,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">With a down derry, derry down!"</span></p> +</div> + +<p>So pencilled poet Milliken. "The man in the puggree" is Sir John,—ripe +for many years to come, and when he has another banquet, may I be there +to see.</p> + +<p><i>The Two Pins Club</i> was a <i>Punch</i> institution.</p> + +<p>Original notice of</p> + +<p style="text-align: center; ">"THE TWO PINS CLUB.</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"There are Coaching Clubs, Four-in-hand Clubs, Tandem Clubs, and +Sporting Clubs of all sorts, but there is no <i>Equestrian Club</i>.</p> + +<p>"The object of the present proposed Club is to supply this want.</p> + +<p>"The Members will meet on Sundays, and ride to some place within easy +reach of town: there lunch, spend a few hours, and return.</p> + +<p>"Due notice will be given of each 'Meet,' and replies must be sent in to +the Secretary by Wednesday afternoon at latest. When it is considered +necessary, Luncheon will be ordered beforehand for the party, and those +who have neglected to reply by the time fixed, and who do not attend the +Meet, will be charged with their share of the Luncheon.</p> + +<p>"There will be other Meets besides those on Sundays, which will be +arranged by the Members from time to time.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The title of the Club is taken from the names of the two most +celebrated English Equestrians known to 'the road,' viz.:—</p> + +<p class="center">'DICK TURPIN'</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-variant: small-caps; ">and</p> + +<p class="center">'JOHN GILPIN.'</p> + +<p>"The Members of 'THE TWO PINS' will represent all the dash of the one +and all the respectability of the other.</p> + +<p>"The original Members at present are:—</p> +</div> + +<div style="margin-left: 20em; font-size: 90%; "> +<p>MR. F. C. BURNAND.<br /> +MR. JOHN TENNIEL.<br /> +MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE.<br /> +MR. HARRY FURNISS.<br /> +MR. R. LEHMANN.</p> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"It is not proposed at first to exceed the number of twelve. The other +names down for invitation to become members are—</p> +</div> + +<div style="margin-left: 18em; font-size: 90%; "> +<p>MR. FRANK LOCKWOOD, Q.C., M.P.<br /> +MR. JOHN HARE.<a href="#Footnote_3" name="FnAnchor_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a><br /> +SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P.</p> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"We hope you will join. The eight Members can then settle a convenient +day for the first Meet, and inaugurate the TWO PINS CLUB.</p> + +<p style="margin-left: 22em; "><a href="#FnAnchor_3" name="Footnote_3">[3]</a> "N.B. No hounds."</p> +</div> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img275.jpg" width="350" height="205" alt="LORD RUSSELL'S ACCEPTANCE TO DINE WITH ME." title="LORD RUSSELL'S ACCEPTANCE TO DINE WITH ME." /> +<span class="caption">LORD RUSSELL'S ACCEPTANCE TO DINE WITH ME.</span> +</div> + +<p>The Two Pins Club was started in 1890, and flourished until its +President, Lord Russell, was elevated to the Bench. My only claim for +distinction in connection with it rests on the fact that I was the only +member who, except when I was in mid-Atlantic on my return from the +States, never missed a meet. Were the Club now a going concern, I would, +of course, refrain from mentioning it, but as it is referred to in the +"History of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> <i>Punch</i>" by Mr. Spielmann, and in "John Hare, +Comedian," by Mr. Pemberton, I may be pardoned and also forgiven for +repeating the one joke ever made public in connection with this +remarkable Club.</p> + +<p>One afternoon our cavalcade was approaching Weybridge, which had been +the scene of the boyish pranks of one of our members. To the amusement +of us all, this brother Two Pins, as reminiscences of the district were +recalled to him by one object and another, grew terribly excited.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my boys, there is the dear old oak tree under which I smoked my +first cigarette! And there, where the new church stands, I shot my first +snipe. Dear me, how all is altered! I wonder if old Sir Henry Tomkins +still lives in the Lodge there, and what has become of the Rector's +pretty daughter?" etc.</p> + +<p>Sir Frank Lockwood, observing lettering on the side of a house, "General +Stores," casually asked our excited reminiscent friend if he "knew a +General Stores about these parts?"</p> + +<p>"General Stores! Of course I do, but he was only a Captain when I lived +here!"</p> + +<p>When the members lunched at The Durdans our host and honorary member, +Lord Rosebery, remarked that it was a Club of "one joke and one horse!" +the fact being that we all drove over from Tadworth, Lord Russell's +residence, where we were staying, with the exception of Lord Russell +himself, who rode. We had, of course, each a horse: some of the members +a great deal more than one, but we were careful to trot out one joke +between us: "General Stores" became our general and only story.</p> + +<p>The first public announcement respecting the Club appeared in the <i>Daily +Telegraph</i>, the 4th of May, 1891:</p> + +<p>"The T.P.C. held its first annual meeting at the 'Star and Garter Hotel' +yesterday morning. There was a full attendance of members. Under the +careful and conciliatory guidance of the President, Sir Charles Russell, +supported mainly by Mr. F. C. Burnand, Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Harry +Furniss, Mr. Edward Lawson, Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. John Hare, Mr. +Linley Sambourne, and Mr. R. Lehmann (hon. sec.), <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> the +customary business was satisfactorily transacted, and the principal +subjects for discussion were dealt with in a spirit of intelligent +self-control. Mr. Arthur Russell was unanimously elected a member of the +association, which in point of numbers is now complete."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 380px; "> +<img src="images/img277a.jpg" width="380" height="345" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> +<p style="font-size: 90%; text-indent: -1em; "><i>This sketch is à propos of Mr. +Linley Sambourne's portrait +in "Vanity Fair." Note +refers to his being made +Solicitor-General.</i></p> +<p style="clear: both; "> </p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 350px; "> +<img src="images/img277b.jpg" width="350" height="500" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>But the object of the Club being carefully concealed, much mystery +surrounds its name. Few were aware that it was merely a band of +"Sontag-Reiters." Our hon. sec., being at the time prominent in +politics, received congratulations from those who imagined the T.P.C. +was a political association, and much wonderment was excited by the +decidedly enigmatical appellation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> of the small and select +society. Sir Edward Lawson showed marked ingenuity in retaining the +mystery by his paragraphs in his paper. The first meet of our second +season was the only one I missed during the years the Club existed:</p> + +<p>"The first meeting of the T.P.C. for the season of 1892 took place +yesterday at the 'Star and Garter Hotel,' under the presidency of Sir +Charles Russell, who was assisted in the performance of his duties by +Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Linley Sambourne, Mr. Edward Lawson, and Mr C. +W. Mathews. The arrangements for the season were completed, and a digest +was made of the subjects which claimed the immediate consideration of +the members. The President called attention to a delay which had +occurred in the fulfilment of certain artistic duties which had been +entrusted to Mr. Harry Furniss and Mr. Linley Sambourne, and which had +been retarded in their accomplishment by Mr. Furniss' voyage to America. +But it was understood that immediate attention would now be bestowed +upon the work in hand; and the remainder of the business was of a +routine character."</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img278.jpg" width="200" height="196" alt="MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE." title="MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE." /> +<span class="caption">MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE.</span> +</div> + +<p>The "artistic duties" referred to, I have no recollection of, but I know +that at our preliminary meeting, when all matters, artistic and +otherwise, were discussed and arranged, the two following important +resolutions were proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously:—</p> + +<div class="blockquot1"> +<p>"That Mr. Rudolph Lehmann be elected Permanent Secretary, and that the +duty of sending out all notices convening the Meets of the T.P.C., as +well as all arrangements connected with the Club, be entrusted to him; +and that every notice of meeting be posted and prepaid by him eight +lunar, or at least three calendar, days before the date of each Meet; +and further, that records in a neat and clerkly style of each and every +Meet be faithfully kept by the said Secretary, and be at all times open +for the inspection of each and every member of the T.P.C."</p> + +<p>"That Mr. Linley Sambourne shall provide at his own expense the +notepaper and envelopes required for the business of the Club, and shall +invent and draw a design, which design, also at his own expense, he +shall cause to be stamped or otherwise engraved on the said notepaper +and envelopes, and shall cause the said notepaper so stamped or engraved +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> to be forwarded to the Perpetual President, the Permanent +Secretary, and the other members, for use in connection only with the +business of the Club."</p> + +<p>"It was further resolved that all maps and charts be kept at the +Secretary's Office, and in the event of any dispute, the Ordnance Map or +the Admiralty Chart shall be decisive."</p></div> + +<p>But during the existence of the Club there never was any cause to refer +to an Ordnance Map or Admiralty Chart. There never was a Secretary's +Office, nor did Mr. Linley Sambourne either design or provide the +notepaper or envelopes, nor are there any records in existence, either +printed or written "in a neat and clerkly style," of the merry meetings +of this unique Club. It ran its delightful and dangerous course, its +wild career, unmarred by any dispute or accident. The last "meet" was to +dine Lord Russell on his elevation to the Bench.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img279.jpg" width="500" height="295" alt="PORTRAIT OF ME AS A MEMBER OF THE TWO PINS CLUB." title="PORTRAIT OF ME AS A MEMBER OF THE TWO PINS CLUB." /> +<span class="caption">PORTRAIT OF ME AS A MEMBER OF THE TWO PINS CLUB,<br /> +BY LINLEY SAMBOURNE.</span> +</div> + +<p>I shall never forget the first occasion on which I saw the late Lord +Russell. It was in the old days when the Law Courts were in +Westminster,—and I, in search of "character," strangely enough found +myself wandering about the Divorce Court, where so many characters are +lost. It was a <i>cause célèbre</i>,—the divorce suit of a most +distinguished Presbyterian cleric who charged his wife, the +co-respondent being the stable-boy. Russell (then plain Mr.) was for the +clergyman, and when I entered the crowded court, he was in the midst of +his appeal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> to the jury, working himself up to a pitch of +eloquence, appealing to all to look upon the saintly figure of the man +of prayer (the plaintiff, who was playing the part by kneeling and +clasping his hands), and asking the jury to scorn all idea of his client +having any desire to free himself of his wife so as to marry his pretty +governess, or cousin, or whomever it was suggested he most particularly +admired. Russell had arrived at quoting Scripture,—he was at his best, +austere, eloquent, persuasive, an orator, a gentleman, a great advocate, +and as sanctimonious as his kneeling client.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img280.jpg" width="300" height="415" alt="THE LATE LORD RUSSELL." title="THE LATE LORD RUSSELL." /> +<span class="caption">THE LATE LORD RUSSELL, THE PRESIDENT OF THE TWO PINS CLUB.</span> +</div> + +<p>He was interrupted by someone handing him a telegram. As he opened it he +said, waving it towards his client, "This may be a message from Heaven +to that saint,—ah, gentlemen of the jury, the words so +pure—so—so——" (he reads the telegram).</p> + +<p>"D——! D——! D——!" He crushed the telegram in his hand, and with an +angry gesture threw it away. Although his words were drowned by the +"laughter in Court," his gestures and face showed his chagrin and +disgust. The Grand National had been run half-an-hour before.</p> + +<p>Years afterwards, on his own lawn at Tadworth, I told him of this +incident, and asked him what the contents of that telegram were. He +declared I was wrong, such an incident never occurred in his career. I +convinced him I was right—it was the first time I saw him, and every +detail was vividly impressed upon my memory. After dinner he came to me +and said, "Furniss, I have been thinking over that incident. You are +quite right—it has all come back to me. I lost my temper, I recollect, +because I had wired to my boy over there to make a bet for me on an +outsider at a long price; when at lunch, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> heard the horse had +won. I was delighted, and therefore at my best when I addressed the +jury. The telegram was from my boy to say that he forgot to put the +money on!"</p> + +<p>Riding has caused my appearance in a Police Court, but not as a member +of the Two Pins Club. In October, 1895, I was returning from my usual +ride before breakfast, accompanied by my little daughter; we turned into +the terrace in which we live, and our horses cantered up the hill about +120 yards. As we were dismounting, a Police Inspector passed, addressing +me by name, and in a most offensive tone declared that he would summon +me, as I had been cautioned before for furious riding. This remark was +so absolutely untrue that I met the summons, and the Inspector in the +Court made three distinct statements on oath: That I spurred my horse +(when cross-examined by me, he gave a minute description of my spurs); +that I charged up the hill 250 yards at the rate of sixteen miles an +hour; and that I had been cautioned before for the same thing. Now, I +have never been cautioned in my life; the distance I went up the hill is +120 yards, and no horse could get up any pace in that distance; and I do +not wear spurs, although two constables swore I did.</p> + +<p>The magistrate, face to face with these three facts, looked the picture +of misery. It was evident to him, as it must be evident to every +fair-minded man, that the police were in the wrong. And when the +magistrate was thinking out this dilemma, I made a fatal mistake. I gave +my reason for appearing as a sacrifice on my part to show the magistrate +the sort of evidence upon which poor cabmen and others are fined and +made to suffer. The magistrate, Mr. Plowden, waxed very wroth, and as he +could not punish me, and would not reprimand the police, I was asked to +pay the costs of the summons, which was withdrawn. The late Mr. Montagu +Williams, who sat in the Marylebone Police Court, the court in which I +was charged with furious riding, gave it as his private opinion that the +longer a policeman was in the service the less he could rely upon his +word.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img282.jpg" width="400" height="455" alt="FURIOUS RIDING." title="FURIOUS RIDING." /> +<span class="caption">"FURIOUS RIDING." SKETCH BY F. C. GOULD.<br /> +<i>From the "Westminster Gazette.</i>"</span> +</div> + +<p>This case led to all sorts of trouble. I was assailed by people in the +street, strangers to me, for "riding over children." Letters came from +all sorts of societies—Cruelty to Animals, and other excellent +institutions. I found people measuring the terrace; others riding up it +to see if it were possible to get the pace (which it is not), but few +knew the truth. The constable when I left the court remarked to me, +"I'll tache ye to caricature Oirishmen in Parleymint!" However, I was +repaid by the humour the incident gave rise to in the imagination of my +brother workers on the Press. Mr. F. C. Gould made this capital sketch, +and others portrayed my crime in verse. The following was written to me +by one of London's most celebrated editors, and has never been published +before:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot1" style="margin-left: 16em; "> +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; clear: both; ">"H. Furniss was an artist gent<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Of credit and renown,<br /></span> +Who'd ride a horse up Primrose Hill<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">With any man in town.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"The morn was fine as morn could be<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Upon last Thursday week,<br /></span> +And, like the early morn, H. F.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Was up before the beak.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"(Full little dreamed that worthy cit,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Some dozen mornings hence<br /></span> +He would be 'up before the beak'<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">In quite another sense.)</span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Upon two tits of pranksome mood,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">The gallant Lika Joko<br /></span> +And Likajokalina rode,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">'Desipere in loco.'</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Cantare pares' rode the pair,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Ad equitatum nati,'<br /></span> +But to a bobby's summons not<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">'Respondere parati.'</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"So 'appy rode the blithesome pair,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">They scoured the hill and plain,<br /></span> +And warming with their morning's work,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Rode hotly home again.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"But by the slope of Primrose Hill<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">The rude Inspector Ross<br /></span> +Beheld H. Furniss canter up<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Upon his foaming hoss.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Look 'ere, young man,' says he to him,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">'There are some children dear<br /></span> +That by the ridin' of you folk<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Do go in bod'ly fear.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Your hasting steed pull up, I say!<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">S'welp me, draw your rein!<br /></span> +The innocents abroad, young man,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Are frightened by you twain.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Look at yer smokin' job 'oss 'ere—<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">I seen you job 'is flank!<br /></span> +'E's well nigh done—tyke 'im away,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">And back upon the rank.'</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"H. Furniss fixed him with his eye;<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">His brow was awful cross;<br /></span> +He Kyrled his lip contemptuous-like<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">At this rude man of Ross.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'The spirit of my gallant cob,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Ruffian, you shall not squelch;<br /></span> +I ride nor Scotch nor Irish hot,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">But Furniss-heated Welsh.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Mine and my daughter's gentle pace<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Could not affright a foundling;<br /></span> +Be off, and peep down areas, or<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Move on some harmless groundling!'</span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"The Inspector glared: 'Come, Mr. F.,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">We can't stand this no longer;<br /></span> +I summons you to Marylebone'—<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">(He muttered something stronger).</span></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="40%"> + <tr> + <td style="width: 25%;">*</td> + <td style="width: 25%;">*</td> + <td style="width: 25%;">*</td> + <td style="width: 25%;">*</td> + <td>*</td> + </tr></table> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Good Mr. Plowden heard the charge,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">As two policemen swore it;<br /></span> +Then heard H. Furniss' defence,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">And sagely pondered o'er it.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'The Inspector swears you galloped up;<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">You swear you merely trotted:<br /></span> +My own opinion in this case<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Is, as usual, Gordian-knotted.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'Now Gordian knots were tied to be<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">By magistrates divided;<br /></span> +We cut them—and the severed ends<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Do much as once the tied did.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'In this case, add the paces up,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">And then divide by two:<br /></span> +A canter is the quotient;<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">I think that that should do.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'A sound decision that will please<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Both parties this I trust is;<br /></span> +It is a fine distinction, but<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Avoids the fires of justice.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'You, Mr. Furniss, must disburse<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Two bob costs to my till,<br /></span> +And promise me to try no more<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Primrose babes to kill.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'And all in Court, take warning by<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">The furious Canterer's fate,<br /></span> +And go not up the Primrose path<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">At such an awful rate.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"'But if your sluggish livers you<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Must vigorously shake,<br /></span> +"Vigor's Horse Exercise at Home"<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">(Vide Prospectus) take.'"</span></p> +</div> + +<p>As a matter of fact, the magistrate did not look at the charge-sheet, or +know me, or catch my name, or he might have made his usual joke at my +expense in another way.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img285.jpg" width="300" height="234" alt="MY PORTRAIT, BY F. C. BURNAND." title="MY PORTRAIT, BY F. C. BURNAND." /> +<span class="caption">MY PORTRAIT, BY F. C. BURNAND.</span> +</div> + +<p>Mr. Burnand and I rode a great deal together. Avoiding the Row, my +editor preferred to ride to Hampstead, Harrow, or Mill Hill, calling for +me on the way. Once, when I could not ride, he wrote: "Very sorry to +hear of your being laid up with a cold; it shows what even the Wisest +and Best amongst us are liable to. The idea is monstrous of a <i>Cold +Furniss</i>. A <i>coal'd</i> furniss is satisfactory. Don't take too much out of +yourself with riding. 'He speaks to thee who hath not got a +horse'—Shakespeare." Then follows later a specimen of his irrepressible +good humour:</p> + + +<div class="blockquot1" style="margin-left: 16em; "> +<p><span style="margin-left: 15em; clear: right; "><i>22 Nov.</i></span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Alas and alack!<br /></span> +I've got a hack,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -2em; ">But the weather's been such,<br /></span> +I've not got on his back.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"I got no jog<br /></span> +Because of the fog,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">And up to twelve,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 2em; ">In breeches and boots,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Which I had to shelve<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 2em; ">And recover my foots.<br /></span> +I lunched at the 'G'<br /> +(So there was, you see,<br /> +One <i>Gee</i> for me).</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Then I came back<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">And wrote some play<br /></span> +But oh, good lack!<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">No riding to-day.<br /></span> +If foggy here,<br /> +At Ramsgate 'twas clear.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Alas and alack!<br /></span> +I'll sell my hack,<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Much to my sorrow.<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">I'll ride to-morrow,<br /></span> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> + +That is, if fine,<br /> +But not at nine.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: -2em; ">I shall not start, if I'm alive<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: -2em; ">And have the heart, till ten forty-five.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Away to parks I'll trot<br /></span> +To get a little hot,<br /> +Also to get a little dirty,<br /> +And with you be 11.30.</p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: -0.5em; ">"Till one,<br /></span> +Then done.<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Back to Lunch,<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: 1em; ">Then to Office of <i>Punch</i>.<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: -2em; ">This my plan, you'll be happy to learn, is<br /></span> +<span style="margin-left: -2em; ">At your disposal, Mr. Furniss."</span></p> +</div> + +<p>But excursions in search of material my editor and I had to do on foot, +and were not so pleasing; still, Mr. Burnand always managed to have his +little joke in all circumstances.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img286.jpg" width="200" height="420" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>One day he and I were "doing" the picture shows in the interests of Mr. +Punch. At one o'clock, feeling jaded and tired, a retreat to the Garrick +Club to lunch was suggested. "Happy thought!" said my editor. "Better +still, here is an invitation for two to the Exhibition of French Cookery +at Willis's Rooms. Capital lunch there, I should think." So off we went, +anticipating a <i>recherché</i> lunch. Fancy our chagrin on arrival to find +cooks galore, discussing their art, but, alas! their art, like the high +art of the Masters of the Brush in our National Gallery, was all under +glass! Aggravatingly appetising, but absolutely uninteresting to the two +hungry art critics. We soon were in a cab and at the Garrick. As we +pulled up, the greatest <i>gourmet</i> of the Club, that clever actor, Arthur +Cecil, greeted us:</p> + +<p>"Hallo, Frank, where have you two come from?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Arthur, <i>such</i> luck! Furniss and I have just had the most +<i>recherché</i> lunch you could imagine."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p> + +<p>"H'm—hullo—h'm—where? The deuce you have! Lucky dogs! Eh, what was it +like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you can see it for yourself; it's going on now at the French +Cookery Exhibition in Willis's Rooms. Special invitation—ah, here's a +ticket."</p> + +<p>"Thanks, old chap! what a treat! I'm off there! No, no; you fellows +mustn't pay the cab—I'll do that. Here, driver—Willis's Rooms—look +sharp!"</p> + +<p>Arthur Cecil undoubtedly was a quaint fellow and a clever actor, but he +had an insatiable appetite. One would never have thought so, judging +from appearance: his clever, clean-cut face, his small, thin figure, +together with the little hand-bag he always carried, rather suggested a +lawyer or a clergyman. His eccentricity was a combination of +absent-mindedness and irritability. The latter failing, he told me, +would at times take complete control of him: for instance, he had to +leave a train before his journey was completed, as he felt it impossible +to sit in the carriage and look at the alarm bell without pulling it. I +have watched him seated in the smoking-room of the club we both +attended, in which the star-light in the centre of the ceiling was +shaded by a rather primitive screen of stretched tissue paper, gazing at +it for half-an-hour at a time, and eventually taking all the coins out +of his pocket to throw them one after another at the immediate object of +his irritation. He frequently succeeded in penetrating the screen, the +coins remaining on the top of it, to the delight of the astonished +waiters.</p> + +<p>His eccentricity—perhaps I ought to say in this case his +absent-mindedness—is illustrated by an incident which happened on the +morning of the funeral of a great friend of his. As Cecil (his real name +was Blount) was having his bath, he was suddenly inspired with some idea +for a song; so, pulling his sponge-bath into the adjoining sitting-room +closer to the piano, he placed a chair in it, and sat down to try it +over. A friend, rushing in to fetch him to the funeral, found him so +seated, singing and playing, balancing the dripping sponge on the top of +his head.<br /><br /></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE CARICATURING OF PICTURES.</h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px; "> +<img src="images/img288.jpg" width="500" height="559" alt="THE PICTURE SHOWS." title="THE PICTURE SHOWS." /> +<span class="caption">THE PICTURE SHOWS.<br /> +<i>Design from "Punch."</i></span> +</div> + +<p>To feed upon one's own kind is a custom which, like so many other +vestiges of a previous civilisation, seems in the present day to have a +fair chance of revival. We have long had with us the City Cannibal, the +Fleet Street Cannibal, the Dramatic, Literary and Musical Cannibals. +Latterly the Society Cannibal has come more distinctly to the front. +Then why, I long ago asked myself, should there not be the Cannibal of +the etching pen and the brush? Especially as the writhing victims of +those mighty instruments appear to be so enamoured of their fate as to +besiege that comic slaughter-house, the studio of the caricaturist, and +with persistent cries of "Eat us! eat us! Our turn next!" <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> solicit the "favour of not being +forgotten" in his next batch of "subjects."</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img289.jpg" width="400" height="532" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<p>It may be a revelation to many of my readers, but I can assure them it +is a fact, that it is only in very exceptional cases that artists object +to having their pictures caricatured. Indeed, many of the leading +painters have given me to understand that the omission of their work +from my sketches would be anything but agreeable to them, although, when +the desired travesties of their pictures appear, they may pretend to be +highly indignant. There is one Royal Academician of my acquaintance who +has so keen an appreciation of humour that he never loses an opportunity +of giving me a hint when his magnifying glass has detected the slightest +element of the grotesque in a fellow artist's work. And that most +amiable of men, the late Frank Holl, could never refrain, when occasion +offered, from directing my attention to the humorous points of his +sitters, although I need hardly add that no trace of his having +perceived them was ever apparent in any of his works. Do artists object? +Well, in <i>Punch</i>, May, 1889, du Maurier touches this point:</p> + +<p>"What our artist (the awfully funny one) has to put up with: <i>Brown</i>: 'I +say, look here! What the deuce do you mean by caricaturing my +pictures—hay?' <i>Jones</i>: 'Yes, confound you! and <i>not caricaturing +mine</i>!'"</p> + +<p>I have even known artists so anxious to be parodied that, if <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> they happened to have a vein of +humour in their pencils, they would actually send me caricatures of +their own pictures. Even poor Fred Barnard once sent me an admirable +sketch, caricaturing an excellent portrait of his three children which +he had painted for the Royal Academy, where it duly appeared. Others +less humorously imaginative perhaps have written to me assuring me of +the great pleasure which would have been theirs had they themselves +conceived the idea which my caricature of their work supplied.</p> + +<p>Although, however, there are so few artists who object to having their +pictures caricatured, there is, of course, another side to the question. +It is indeed most true that nothing kills like ridicule, and in the +course of my experience I have found it is just as easy unconsciously to +inflict an injury with my pen and Indian ink as it is to do good. Let us +suppose, for instance, that a great painter has just finished a very +sentimental work—a picture so brimful of beauty and pathos that it +appeals to everybody, myself included. As I stand before it, and admire, +it is impossible perhaps for me to <span class="correction" title="originally restain">restrain</span> a sympathetic tear from +making its appearance in, at all events, one of my eyes. But how about +the other? Ah! with regard to that other eye, I must confess it is very +differently employed, and, superior to my control, is searching the +canvas high and low for that "something ridiculous" which, except in the +case of the very greatest masters, is always there. Now what ensues? The +purchaser of that picture, who, mark you, unlike myself, regarded it and +admired it with <i>both</i> of his eyes, congratulates himself upon its +acquisition. I have known it for a fact, however—to my regret—that +after the publication of the caricature the purchaser was never able to +look at his picture again through his own glasses, and bitterly +regretted his outlay.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 580px; "> +<img src="images/img291.jpg" width="580" height="918" alt="THE GREAT BACCARAT CASE." title="THE GREAT BACCARAT CASE." /> +<span class="caption">THE GREAT BACCARAT CASE. MY SKETCH IN PENCIL MADE IN COURT, AND CONGRATULATORY NOTE FROM THE EDITOR OF <i>PUNCH</i>.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p> + +<p>An art publisher with whom I was acquainted agreed to pay a heavy sum +for the copyright of a work of a well-known and popular painter, and +after the caricature had appeared in <i>Punch</i> he resolved to forego the +publication of the engraving from it by which he had hoped to recoup his +expenditure, because he considered that the sobriety of the work was so +completely destroyed as to preclude the possibility of sale; and an +eminent sculptor, who was responsible for a well-known statue which I +caricatured some years ago when it appeared in the Royal Academy, has +told me, since it was put up in the Metropolis, that he has actually +meditated replacing it by another piece, owing to the ludicrous +suggestion affixed to it.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 400px; "> +<img src="images/img293.jpg" width="400" height="631" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption"></span> +</div> + +<p>On the other hand, the caricature of an important work is sometimes +received in the proper spirit. Here is a letter from Professor Herkomer, +with reference to my caricature of the work of our greatest art genius, +Alfred Gilbert, R.A.:</p> + +<p>Of course, the caricaturing of pictures has its seamy as well as its +smooth side. Among the annoyances to which an artist engaged on this +description of work is exposed I am inclined to give a prominent place +to the fussy and vexatious regulations imposed upon him by the +authorities at Burlington House. One would have supposed, for instance, +that anyone like myself, who is well-known as merely taking notes for +caricature, would have been allowed to consult his own convenience to +some extent in making his sketches. But not a bit of it. The <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> penalty is something too dreadful +if you are found making the slightest note of a picture at the Royal +Academy at any other time than on the one appointed day. The object of +this regulation is, of course, to protect the copyright of the +pictures—a very proper and legitimate precaution; but I submit that a +better instance of the spirit of Red Tapeism which is so rampant at +Burlington House, and which I am always endeavouring to expose, could +not be adduced than the inability of the officials to discriminate +between the accredited representative of a paper and the piratical +sketcher who is taking notes for an illegitimate purpose. I need hardly +say that this regulation is peculiar to the Royal Academy. At the +Grosvenor Gallery, which, alas! is no more, the officials about the +place understood these matters better, and at all times were pleased to +give every facility to the representative of the Press. The polite +secretary would give up his chair to me any day I liked to look in, and +would often point out to me some comical feature in the surrounding +canvases which his sly humour had detected.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px; "> +<img src="images/img294.jpg" width="200" height="320" alt="A PRISONER." title="A PRISONER." /> +<span class="caption">A PRISONER.</span> +</div> + +<p>Equal praise must indeed be accorded to the management of the New +Gallery and all the other Exhibitions with which I have been brought in +contact in the course of my professional duties. Personally, as I have +always made my notes at the Royal Academy on the authorised occasion, I +have had nothing to fear from those who preside there. But my friend +Linley Sambourne, who wished upon one occasion to caricature a picture +of Burne-Jones' for a political cartoon in <i>Punch</i> (of course altering +the figures and indeed everything else, so as not in any way to trench +upon the great artist's copyright) was dogged by a detective, arrested, +and finally thrown into the darkest dungeon beneath the Burlington House +moat! Protest was useless. What his terror must have been my pen fails +to describe. Visions of the thumbscrew, the rack, and all the tortures +conceivable rose in the fertile imagination of my colleague, and <span class='pagenum'><a +name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> beads of perspiration made their +appearance upon his massive brow. After weary hours, when lunch-time +without the lunch had come and gone, and the pangs of hunger began to be +added to his other miseries, when he was reflecting that his week's work +for <i>Punch</i> was yet unfinished, that the engravers would be in despair +at not having it in time, and that at that moment his editor was +probably telegraphing to him all over London and instituting a search +for his person all over his club, suddenly the bolts of his +prison-chamber were withdrawn and his gaoler, the blood-thirsty tyrant +Red Tape, allowed the genial artist to return to the bosom of his wife +and family—not, however, without leaving a hostage behind him. The +sketch—the guilty sketch—the cause of all his troubles, was detained. +In vain the harassed artist explained to his grim Cerberus that the work +was wanted for the next week's issue of <i>Punch</i>, and although as a +matter of fact it duly appeared at the appointed time, Mr. Sambourne had +to trust to his memory instead of to the courtesy and common sense of +Burlington House for the reproduction of his skit.</p> + +<p>I remember another incident which will serve to illustrate the trials +and misfortunes of the caricaturist when pursuing his vocation outside +the walls of his studio. It was the opening day of the New Gallery, and +as I draw my sketches of the pictures with an ordinary pen and liquid +Indian ink direct, and have them afterwards, like all my drawings, +photographed on wood and engraved—of late years they are reproduced by +process engraving—I was holding my bottle of ink and my sketch-book in +one hand, while my pen was busy with the other. Upon arriving very early +in the morning I thought I must have made a mistake, and that I had +entered a manufactory of hats, for the hall was almost entirely taken up +with hat-boxes. Upon enquiry, however, I learned that these merely +contained the new hats in which the directors would, later on, receive +their visitors. When the hall began to fill, and the fashionable crowd +was pouring in, I was standing in the central lobby, sketching away with +a will, when my friend Sir William Agnew, always early to arrive on such +occasions, happened to come up and soon interested me in conversation +about the genius of Millais <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> and the beauties of Burne-Jones. +In my energetic manner I was debating a matter of some little interest +when my eye caught that of Mr. Comyns-Carr, who, with his newly-selected +hat on, was standing close by and regarding me with an expression of +indescribable horror. "What is the matter with Carr?" I observed to +Agnew; "surely Sargent should be here and hand down that expression to +posterity." But when I followed his eyes as they passed sternly from +mine to the floor, my hat nearly sprang off my head at the sight which I +beheld! Forgetting that I held the bottle of ink in the hand with which +I had been suiting the action to the word in my animated harangue to Sir +William, I had splashed the virgin marble on which we were standing in +all directions with hideous stains of the blackest of liquids. In my +consternation I did not stay to see the incongruous figure of the +charwoman and bucket who was immediately introduced amid the <i>élite</i> of +fashionable London, but fled incontinently from the gallery and, rushing +in where angels fear to tread, sought sanctuary in my accustomed haunt, +the Gallery of the House of Commons. There at least I thought I should +be safe. Presently, when I had somewhat recovered from my agitation, I +was making my way out of the House when I encountered a friend in the +Central Lobby. I was explaining to him the unfortunate <i>contretemps</i> +which had occurred at the New Gallery, and utterly forgot that I still +held the bottle of ink in my hand, and on the sacred floor we stood upon +I had perpetrated the offence again!</p> + +<p>My only consolation for this chapter of accidents was that the +particular ink in my bottle is different from the ordinary writing +fluid, and leaves no stain behind it. It is in fact merely paint, and is +innocent of gall. There are inks, as there are other forms of +journalism, whose consequences are not so easily effaced or so harmless; +but like the caricaturist's work itself, the material with which it is +accomplished often looks blacker than it really is.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 720px; "> +<img src="images/img297.jpg" width="720" height="450" alt="ORIGINAL IDEA AS SENT TO ME." title="ORIGINAL IDEA AS SENT TO ME." /> +<div class="caption"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="80%"> + <tr> + <td style="width: 50%;">ORIGINAL IDEA AS SENT TO ME.</td> + <td style="width: 50%;">MY DRAWING OF IT IN <i>PUNCH</i>.</td> + </tr></table> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> +<p> </p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span></p> + +<p>Fortunately all this happened previous to the introduction of the ink I +use now, known as <i>Waterproof</i> ink—ink that will not <i>run</i> when washed +over with water. The manufacturers of this article sent me a specimen +bottle to experiment with, and asked me for my opinion of it. In +replying, I sent the following note. The sketch was touched in to amuse +my youngest boy, who was puzzled by the meaning of Waterproof ink. The +makers, in acknowledging the note, asked me to mention the sum I would +accept if, with my permission, they used the note and sketch I sent as +an advertisement. I replied that they were welcome to use my note, but +that I could not accept payment. However I received in a few days a +large parcel of artists' materials: paints, sketch-books, brushes, +pencils, &c.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 450px; "> +<img src="images/img299.jpg" width="450" height="747" alt="" title="" /> +<span class="caption"></span> +</div> + +<p>This is more than I ever received for a better known advertisement: "I +used your soap two years ago." I was never offered so much as a cake of +soap from those who used my <i>Punch</i> sketch so freely! Permission was +given for its use by the proprietors of <i>Punch</i>, not knowing I had any +objection, and at the time I was ill with fever and unable to protest. +The firm certainly paid me some years afterwards for the publication of +the same advertisement for two insertions in a periodical I was +starting, but only at the ordinary rate. I mention this fact as I have +heard from friends all over the world that I received untold gold for +the use of it, and as it has interested so many perhaps I may at the +same time clear up another fallacy, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> I did not know existed +until I read Mr. Spielmann's "History of <i>Punch</i>." In that he refers to +the very "oft-quoted drawing (lately used as an advertisement), the idea +of which reached him from an anonymous correspondent. It is that of a +grimy, unshaven, unwashed, mangy-looking tramp, who sits down to write, +with a broken quill, a testimonial for a firm of soap-makers. A further +point of interest about this famous sketch was that Charles Keene was +deeply offended by it at first, in the groundless belief that it was +intended as a skit upon himself. It must at least be admitted that the +head is not unlike what one might have expected to belong to a +dissipated and dilapidated Charles Keene." Poor Keene! How sorry I was +to read this when too late to explain to him that he was never in my +mind for a moment when I was drawing it! But, strange to say, the +original who sat for it was a brother artist, another Charles, quite as +delightful as Keene, equally clever in his own way, and my greatest +friend—Charles Burton Barber, the animal painter, in appearance rather +like Charles Keene, but nothing of the Bohemian about him, and a +non-smoker! Still I am always being told that I had So-and-so in my eye +when drawing the figure. I might in truth quote Sir John Tenniel's +remark <i>à propos</i> of being accused of caricaturing his late comrade, +Horace Mayhew, as the "White Knight" in "Alice in Wonderland": "The +resemblance was purely accidental, a mere unintentional caricature, +which his <i>friends</i>, of course, were only too delighted to make the most +of." Ah, those <i>friends</i> are at the bottom of all these +misunderstandings. I could a tale, or two, unfold, but that—that's +another volume.</p> + +<div class="figleft" style="width: 300px; "> +<img src="images/img300.jpg" width="300" height="289" alt="I SIT FOR JOHN BROWN." title="I SIT FOR JOHN BROWN." /> +<span class="caption">I SIT FOR JOHN BROWN.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yes, poor Barber sat for the tramp, and I in return sat to him for a +figure quite as incongruous in my case as the tramp was in his. I sat +for John Brown for the picture Queen Victoria had commissioned of Mr. +Brown surrounded by her pet dogs, which she had in her private room. She +was so delighted with the picture that she had a replica made of it, and +placed it in the passage outside, so that it was the first picture she +looked at as she left her room. Barber's animals and children were +delightful, but he was weak with his men, and was in trouble over John +Brown's calves,—it was then that I posed for the "brawny Scott," but +only for the portion here mentioned.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width: 450px; "> +<img src="images/img301.jpg" width="450" height="446" alt="A CRIB BY AN AMERICAN ADVERTISER." title="A CRIB BY AN AMERICAN ADVERTISER." /> +<span class="caption">A CRIB BY AN AMERICAN ADVERTISER.</span> +</div> + +<p>This figure of the tramp in my sketch of "I used your soap two years +ago" has in fact been mistaken for myself. A relative of my own, who has +been living in the Cape for many years, paid a visit to London, and on +his return informed his children that he had seen me and brought my +portrait back with him. "Oh, we have Cousin Harry's portrait in our +nursery for some time: one he has signed too." It was the Punch-Pears +production in colour! I am sure I do not know how ridiculous stories are +received as true, that I got a fabulous sum for the use of this one; +that such-and-such a member of the staff gets a huge retaining fee, &c., +and other inventions—one in particular. If I have met one, I have met a +score of people at different times of my life who positively declared +that they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> actually sent that ever famous line: "Punch's advice +to those about to marry—Don't!" and received immediately remuneration +in sums varying from £5 to £500. That joke was probably conceived and +thrown in at the last moment, at the critical point when the editor is +"making up" the paper.</p> + +<p>As I am writing these disjointed notes for family reading, it may +perhaps not be out of place just to refer to the domestic relations of +the staff of <i>Punch</i>. Our wives and families were invited to meet on the +occasion of the Lord Mayor's procession, when they may have been +observed upon the roof of the publishing office—till recently it was in +Fleet Street—from which coign of vantage they had an excellent view of +the civic show, afterwards having a capital lunch in a room on the first +floor. Yet how much men who live on their wits owe to their domestic +happiness! It is a pleasant fact to be able to chronicle that—I believe +at all times—the domestic lives of the <i>Punch</i> staff have been most +happy. It is rather curious that all of them have made the same kind of +matrimonial selection—they have married "sensible wives," women who +have all been sympathetic, devoted, bright, and domesticated. The wit at +the dinner-table, the humorous writer or the caricaturist in the pages +you read, is a very different dog at home. It must naturally be so. It +is the reaction, and it is to such men that the woman possessed of tact +and cheerfulness is invaluable. In truth, Punch's advice to those about +to marry, "Don't!" has been disregarded by the majority of his members, +in every case with the utmost satisfaction to themselves.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px; "> +<img src="images/img302.jpg" width="250" height="364" alt="BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD." title="BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD." /> +</div> + +<p style="text-align: center; font-size: 60%; ">BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) + +Author: Harry Furniss + +Release Date: July 16, 2009 [EBook #29425] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +[Illustration: MY CARICATURE OF MR. GLADSTONE.] + + + THE + + CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST + + BY + + HARRY FURNISS + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + + VOLUME I + +[Illustration] + + +NEW YORK AND LONDON: + +HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS. + +1902. + + + + +BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS + +LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. + +[_All rights reserved._] + +December, 1901. + + + + + PREFACE. + + +If, in these volumes, I have made some joke at a friend's expense, let +that friend take it in the spirit intended, and--I apologise beforehand. + +In America apology in journalism is unknown. The exception is the +well-known story of the man whose death was published in the obituary +column. He rushed into the office of the paper and cried out to the +editor: + +"Look here, sur, what do you mean by this? You have published two +columns and a half of my obituary, and here I am as large as life!" + +The editor looked up and coolly said, "Sur, I am vury sorry, I reckon +there is a mistake some place, but it kean't be helped. You are killed +by the _Jersey Eagle_, you are to the world buried. We nevur correct +anything, and we nevur apologise in Amurrican papers." + +"That won't do for me, sur. My wife's in tears; my friends are laughing +at me; my business will be ruined,--you _must_ apologise." + +"No, si--ree, an Amurrican editor nevur apologises." + +"Well, sur, I'll take the law on you right away. I'm off to my +attorney." + +"Wait one minute, sur--just one minute. You are a re-nowned and popular +citizen: the _Jersey Eagle_ has killed you--for that I am vury, vury +sorry, and to show you my respect I will to-morrow find room for you--in +the births column." + +Now do not let any editor imagine these pages are my professional +obituary,--my autobiography. If by mistake he does, then let him place +me immediately in their births column. I am in my forties, and there is +quite time for me to prepare and publish two more volumes of my +"Confessions" from my first to my second birth, and many other things, +before I am fifty. + +[Illustration: Faithfully yours + Harry Furniss] + +LONDON, 1901. + + [The Author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness to the Proprietors + and the Editor of _Punch_, the Proprietors of the _Magazine of Art_, + the _Graphic_, the _Illustrated London News_, _English Illustrated + Magazine_, _Cornhill Magazine_, _Harper's Magazine_, _Westminster + Gazette_, _St. James' Gazette_, the _British Weekly_ and the _Sporting + Times_ for their kindness in allowing him to reproduce extracts and + pictures in these volumes.] + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. + + CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD--AND AFTER. + + Introductory--Birth and Parentage--The Cause of my remaining a + Caricaturist--The Schoolboys' _Punch_--Infant Prodigies--As a + Student--I Start in Life--_Zozimus_--The Sullivan + Brothers--Pigott--The Forger--The Irish "Pathriot"--Wood + Engraving--Tom Taylor--The Wild West--Judy--Behind the + Scenes--Titiens--My First and Last Appearance in a Play--My Journey to + London--My Companion--A Coincidence _pp._ 1-29 + + + CHAPTER II. + + BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS. + + I arrive in London--A Rogue and Vagabond--Two Ladies--Letters of + Introduction--Bohemia--A Distinguished Member--My Double--A Rara + Avis--The Duke of Broadacres--The Savages--A Souvenir--Portraits of + the Past--J. L. Toole--Art and Artists--Sir Spencer Wells--John + Pettie--Milton's Garden _pp._ 30-53 + + + CHAPTER III. + + MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST. + + The Light Brigade--Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)--Slumming--The Boat + Race--Realism--A Phantasmagoria--Orlando and the Caitiff--Fancy Dress + Balls--Lewis Wingfield--Cinderella--A Model--All Night Sitting--An + Impromptu Easel--"Where there's a Will there's a Way"--The American + Sunday Papers--I am Deaf--The Grill--The World's + Fair--Exaggeration--Personally Conducted--The Charnel House--10, + Downing Street--I attend a Cabinet Council--An Illustration by Mr. + Labouchere--The Great Lincolnshire Trial--Praying without Prejudice + _pp._ 54-87 + + CHAPTER IV. + + THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR--A SERIOUS CHAPTER. + + Drawing--"Hieroglyphics"--Clerical Portraiture--A Commission from + General Booth--In Search of Truth--Sir Walter Besant--James Payn--Why + Theodore Hook was Melancholy--"Off with his Head"--Reformers' + Tree--Happy Thoughts--Christmas Story--Lewis Carroll--The Rev. Charles + Lutwidge Dodgson--Sir John Tenniel--The Challenge--Seven Years' + Labour--A Puzzle MS.--Dodgson on Dress--Carroll on Drawing--Sylvie and + Bruno--A Composite Picture--My Real Models--I am very Eccentric--My + "Romps"--A Letter from du Maurier--Caldecott--Tableaux--Fine + Feathers--Models--Fred Barnard--The Haystack--A Wicket Keeper--A Fair + Sitter--Neighbours--The Post Office Jumble--Puzzling the + Postmen--Writing Backwards--A Coincidence _pp._ 88-130 + + + CHAPTER V. + + A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL. + + What is Caricature?--Interviewing--Catching + Caricatures--Pellegrini--The "Ha! Ha!"--Black and White _v._ + Paint--How to make a Caricature--M.P.'s--My System--Mr. Labouchere's + Attitude--Do the Subjects Object?--Colour in Caricature--Caught!--A + Pocket Caricature--The Danger of the Shirt-cuff--The Danger of a + Marble Table--Quick Change--Advice to those about to Caricature + _pp._ 131--153 + + + CHAPTER VI. + + PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS. + + Gladstone and Disraeli--A Contrast--An unauthenticated Incident--Lord + Beaconsfield's last Visit to the House of Commons--My Serious + Sketch--Historical--Mr. Gladstone--His Portraits--What he thought of + the Artists--Sir J. E. Millais--Frank Holl--The Despatch + Boxes--Impressions--Disraeli--Dan O'Connell--Procedure--American + Wit--Toys--Wine--Pressure--Sandwich Soiree--The G.O.M. dines with + "Toby, M.P."--Walking--Quivering--My Desk--An Interview--Political + Caricaturists--Signature in Sycamore--Scenes in the Commons--Joseph + Gillis Biggar--My Double--Scenes--Divisions--Puck--Sir R. + Temple--Charles Stewart Parnell--A Study--Quick Changes--His + Fall--Room 15--The last Time I saw him--Lord Randolph Churchill--His + Youth--His Height--His Fickleness--His Hair--His Health--His + Fall--Lord Iddesleigh--Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone--Bradlaugh--His + Youth--His Parents--His Tactics--His Fight--His Extinction--John + Bright--Jacob Bright--Sir Isaac Holden--Lord Derby--A Political + Prophecy--A Lucky Guess--My Confession in the _Times_--The Joke that + Failed--The Seer--Fair Play--I deny being a Conservative--I am + Encouraged--Chaff--Reprimanded--Misprinted--Misunderstood + _pp._ 154--214 + + + CHAPTER VII. + + "PUNCH." + + Two _Punch_ Editors--_Punch's_ Hump--My First _Punch_ Dinner--Charles + Keene--"Robert"--W. H. Bradbury--du Maurier--"Kiki"--A Trip to the + Place of his Birth--He Hates Me--A Practical Joke--du Maurier's + Strange Model--No Sportsman--Tea--Appollinaris--My First + Contribution--My Record--Parliament--Press Gallery Official--I Feel + Small--The "Black Beetle"--Professor Rogers--Sergeant-at-Arms' + Room--Styles of Work--Privileges--Dr. Percy--I Sit in the Table--The + Villain of Art--The New Cabinet--Criticism--_Punch's_ Historical + Cartoons--Darwen MacNeill--Scenes in the Lobby--A Technical + Assault--John Burns's "Invention"--John Burns's Promise--John Burns's + Insult--The Lay of Swift MacNeill--The Truth--Sir Frank + Lockwood--"Grand Cross"--Lockwood's Little Sketch--Lockwood's Little + Joke in the House--Lockwood's Little Joke at Dinner--Lewis Carroll and + _Punch_--Gladstone's Head--Sir William's + Portrait--Ciphers--Reversion--_Punch_ at Play--Three _Punch_ Men in a + Boat--Squaring up--Two Pins Club--Its One Joke--Its One Horse--Its + Mystery--Artistic Duties--Lord Russell--Furious Riding--Before the + Beak--Burnand and I in the Saddle--Caricaturing Pictures for + _Punch_--Art under Glass--Arthur Cecil--My Other Eye--The Ridicule + that Kills--Red Tape--_Punch_ in Prison--I make a Mess of + it--Waterproof--"I used your Soap two years ago"--Charles + Keene--Charles Barber--_Punch's_ Advice--_Punch's_ Wives + _pp._ 215--302 + +[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS'S (EGYPTIAN STYLE). _From "Punch."_] + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. + + + PAGE + My Caricature of Mr. Gladstone _Frontispiece_ + + Initial "In." Writing my Confessions. A Visitor's Snapshot 1 + + My Mother 3 + + My Father 5 + + Harry Furniss, aged 10 6 + + A Caricature, made when a Boy (never published). Dublin Exhibition. + Portrait of Sir A. Guinness (now Lord Iveagh) in centre 11 + + An Early Illustration on Wood by Harry Furniss. Partly Engraved + by him. 16 + + Sketches in Galway 19 + + "Judy," the Galway Dwarf 23 + + Phelps, the first Actor I saw 24 + + Mrs. Hardcastle. Mr. Harry Furniss. From an Early Sketch 25 + + Caricature of Myself, drawn when I first arrived in London 30 + + Age 20 35 + + A successful "Make-Up" 36 + + Two Travellers 38 + + The Duke of "Broadacres" 40 + + Savage Club House Dinner. From a Sketch by Herbert Johnson 41 + + The Earl of Dunraven as a Savage 42 + + "Another Gap in Our Ranks" 43 + + "Jope" 43 + + H. J. Byron 44 + + A Presentation 45 + + Savage Club. My Design for the Menu, 25th Anniversary Dinner 47 + + "Savages" 50 + + Letter from Sir Spencer Wells 51 + + Distress in the Black Country 54 + + At the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race 55 + + As Special at the Balaclava Celebration 57 + + Distress in the North 59 + + Realism! 61 + + "The Caitiff" and Orlando 62 + + An Invitation 63 + + At a Fancy Dress Ball 65 + + Lewis Wingfield as a Street Nigger Home from the Derby 67 + + "The Liberal Candidate" 68 + + Sketches at the Liverpool Election: A Ward Meeting 69 + + My Easel. Drawing Mr. Gladstone at a Public Meeting 71 + + The American Sunday Papers 72 + + Major Handy 74 + + The World's Fair, Chicago. A "Special's" Visit 75 + + "On dashed the Horses in their wild Career" 77 + + Initial "A" 79 + + The Charnel-House. Chicago World's Fair 80 + + Initial "London" 83 + + The Bishop of Lincoln's Trial 85 + + Initial "If" 88 + + Majuba Hill 89 + + Canon Liddon. A Sketch from Life 92 + + Letter from Sir Walter Besant 94 + + The Late Sir Walter Besant 95 + + The "Jetty" 95 + + Illustration for "The Talk of the Town" 96 + + "That's just what I have done!" 98 + + Specimen of James Payn's Writing 99 + + The Typical Lovers in Illustrated Novels 100 + + Initial "T" 101 + + Instructions in a Letter from Lewis Carroll 103 + + Specimen of Lewis Carroll's Drawing and Writing 106 + + Original Sketch by Lewis Carroll of his Charming Hero and Heroine 107 + + Lewis Carroll's Note to me or a Pathetic Picture 108 + + Sylvie and Bruno. My Original Drawing for Lewis Carroll 110 + + I Go Mad! 111 + + From Lewis Carroll 112 + + "I do want a Wicket-keeper!" 113 + + Portion of Letter from Lawrence, age 9 114 + + Reduction from a Design for my "Romps" 115 + + Portion of a Letter from George du Maurier 117 + + A Transformation 119 + + "Yours always, Barnard" 119 + + Barnard and the Models 120 + + "I sit for 'Ands, Sir" 121 + + The Grand Old Hand and the Young 'Un 122 + + My Fighting Double 124 + + Specimen of Mr. Linley Sambourne's Envelopes to me 125 + + Cheque for 5-1/2d. passed through two Banks and paid. I signed it + _backwards_, and it was cancelled by Clerk _backwards_ 127 + + Sir Henry Irving writes his Name backwards 128 + + Sir Henry Irving's Attempt 128 + + Mr. J. L. Toole's first Attempt 128 + + Mr. J. L. Toole's second Attempt 128 + + Autograph: Harry Furniss 129 + + Initial "If" 131 + + The Studio of a Caricaturist 132 + + Caricature of me by my Daughter, age 15 134 + + A serious Portrait--from Life 135 + + Initial "H" 136 + + "Penguin" 139 + + Mr. Brown, Ordinary Attire. Court Dress 139 + + Two Portraits 140 + + A Caricature 140 + + _Not_ a Caricature 140 + + The Editor of _Punch_ sits for his Portrait 144 + + A Model unawares and the Result 145 + + Sketch on a Shirt-Cuff 146 + + "Mundella" 147 + + Mr. Labouchere 149 + + The M.P. Real and Ideal 150 + + The Photo. As he really is 151 + + "Dizzy" (Beaconsfield) and Gladstone 154 + + The Inner Lobby of the House of Commons 156 + + Explanation to Illustration on page 156 157 + + Lord Beaconsfield. A Sketch from Life 158 + + The last Visit of Lord Beaconsfield to the House 161 + + Mr. Gladstone. A Sketch from Life 163 + + Mr. Gladstone "under his Flow of Eloquence" 165 + + Mr. Gladstone. Conventional Portrait 167 + + Caricature of the Holl Portrait 169 + + Note of Mr. Gladstone made in the Press Gallery with the wrong + end of a Quill Pen 171 + + Invitation to a "Sandwich Soiree" 173 + + Mr. Gladstone sits on the Floor 174 + + The Fragment of _Punch_ Mr. Gladstone did not see 175 + + The Gladstone Matchbox 176 + + Mr. Gladstone's Collars 178 + + Parnell 179 + + To Room 15 182 + + Outside Room 15 183 + + Outside my Room 185 + + "The G.O.M." and "Randy" 185 + + Mr. Louis Jennings 186 + + Lord Randolph and Louis Jennings 188 + + Lord Randolph Churchill 189 + + Behind the Speaker's Chair 190 + + Initial "S" 191 + + Initial "H" 193 + + Bradlaugh Triumphant. _From "Punch"_ 194 + + Charles Bradlaugh 195 + + The Meet at St. Stephen's 197 + + Sir George Campbell 199 + + Heraldic Design illustrating Mr. Plunkett's (now Lord Rathmore) + Joke 201 + + Mr. Farmer Atkinson 202 + + I must Introduce you to Lucy. Here he is 203 + + Joseph Gillis Biggar 204 + + Initial "I" 206 + + The House of Commons from Toby's Private Box 208 + + The Government Bench--before Home Rule 211 + + Reduction of one of my Parliamentary Pages in _Punch_ 214 + + Initial "T" 215 + + Age 26, when I first worked for _Punch_ 216 + + My first Meeting with the Editor of _Punch_ 217 + + My first Invitation from _Punch_ 218 + + A Letter from Charles Keene, objecting to an Editor interviewing + him 219 + + "Robert" 220 + + George du Maurier 221 + + Suggestion by du Maurier for _Punch_ Cartoon 224 + + Du Maurier's Souvenir de Fontainebleau. _From "Punch_" 225 + + _Punch_ Staff returning from Paris 227 + + Japanese Style 229 + + "Birch--His Mark" 231 + + Chinese Style. From a Drawing on Wood 232 + + Familiar Faces 234 + + An Official in the Press Gallery 235 + + "He spies me" 236 + + "What are you?" 236 + + "Blowed if the Country wants you" 238 + + "I feel smaller!" 241 + + The Black Beetle 242 + + The Sergeant-at-Arms' Room 243 + + Capt. Gosset, late Sergeant-at-Arms 244 + + My "Childish" Style in _Punch_ 245 + + A simple Document 246 + + I Sketch the House 247 + + Dr. Percy. "The House Up" 250 + + Mr. Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. Mr. Goschen 251 + + Mr. Punch's Puzzle-Headed People. "All Harcourts" 252 + + The New Cabinet 255 + + Reduction of Page in _Punch_, showing that my Caricatures were--in + this case--published too large 258 + + Reduction from the Original Drawing, showing that I gave + Instructions for the Caricature to be "reduced as usual" 259 + + What really happened 261 + + Dr. Tanner 262 + + Assault on me in the House. What the Press described 263 + + John Burns 265 + + Note from Sir Frank Lockwood, after reading the Bogus Account of + the "Assault" 266 + + Letter supposed to come from Lord Cross. (Lockwood's Joke) 267 + + Sir F. Lockwood 269 + + Lewis Carroll's Suggestion, and my sketch of it in _Punch_ 270 + + Nature's Puzzle Portrait 271 + + Initial "W" 272 + + "Three Oarsmen under a Tree" 273 + + Lord Russell's Acceptance to dine with me 275 + + "It's your Turn next" 277 + + Letter from Sir Frank Lockwood 277 + + Mr. Linley Sambourne 278 + + Portrait of me as a Member of the Two Pins Club, by Linley + Sambourne 279 + + The late Lord Russell, the President of the Two Pins Club 280 + + "Furious Riding." Sketch by F. C. Gould 282 + + My Portrait, by F. C. Burnand 285 + + Mr. Punch "doing" the Picture Shows 286 + + The Picture Shows. Design from _Punch_ 288 + + "The World-Renowned and Talented Barnardo Family" 289 + + The Great Baccarat Case. My Sketch in Pencil made in Court, and + Congratulatory Note from the Editor of _Punch_ 291 + + Letter from Professor Herkomer 293 + + A Prisoner 294 + + "Good Advertisement." Original Idea as sent to me 297 + + Ditto. My Drawing of it in _Punch_ 297 + + "English Waterproof Ink" 299 + + I sit for John Brown 300 + + A Crib by an American Advertiser 301 + + Finis 302 + + + + + CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + +CONFESSIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD--AND AFTER. + + Introductory--Birth and Parentage--The Cause of my remaining a + Caricaturist--The Schoolboys' _Punch_--Infant Prodigies--As a Student--I + Start in Life--_Zozimus_--The Sullivan Brothers--Pigott--The Forger--The + Irish "Pathriot"--Wood Engraving--Tom Taylor--The Wild + West--Judy--Behind the Scenes--Titiens--My First and Last Appearance in + a Play--My Journey to London--My Companion--A Coincidence. + +[Illustration] + + +In offering the following pages to the public, I should like it to be +known that no interviewer has extracted them from me by the thumbscrew +of a morning call, nor have they been wheedled out of me by the caresses +of those iron-maidens of literature, the publishers. For the most part +they have been penned in odd half-hours as I sat in my easy-chair in the +solitude of my studio, surrounded by the aroma of the post-prandial +cigarette. + +I would also at the outset warn those who may purchase this work in the +expectation of finding therein the revelations of a caricaturist's +Chamber of Horrors, that they will be disappointed. Some day I may be +tempted to bring forth my skeletons from the seclusion of their +cupboards and strip my mummies, taking certain familiar figures and +faces to pieces and exposing not only the jewels with which they were +packed away, but all those spicy secrets too which are so relished by +scandal-loving readers. + +At present, however, I am in an altogether lighter and more genial vein. +My confessions up to date are of a purely personal character, and like a +literary Liliputian I am placing myself in the hand of that colossal +Gulliver the Public. + +I may, it is true, in the course of my remarks be led to retaliate to +some extent upon those who have had the hardihood to assert that all +caricaturists ought, in the interest of historical accuracy, to be +shipped on board an unseaworthy craft and left in the middle of the +Channel, for the crime of handing down to posterity distorted images of +those now in the land of the living. This I feel bound to do in +self-defence, as well as in the cause of truth, for to judge by the +biographical sketches of myself which continually appear and reach me +through the medium of a press-cutting agency, caricaturists as +distorters of features are not so proficient as authors as distorters of +facts. + +I think it best therefore to begin by giving as briefly as possible an +authentic outline of my early career. + +For the benefit of anyone who may not feel particularly interested in +such details, I should mention that the narration of this plain +unvarnished tale extends from this line to page 29. + +I was born in Ireland, in the town of Wexford, on March 26th, 1854. I do +not, however, claim, to be an Irishman. My father was a typical +Englishman, hailing from Yorkshire, and not in his appearance only, but +in his tastes and sympathies, he was an unmistakable John Bull. By +profession he was a civil engineer, and he migrated to Ireland some +years before I was born, having been invited to throw some light upon +that "benighted counthry" by designing and superintending the erection +of gas works in various towns and cities. + +My mother was Scotch. My great-great-grandfather was a captain in the +Pretender's army at Culloden, and had a son, Angus, who settled in +Aberdeen. When AEneas MacKenzie, my grandfather, was born, his family +moved south and settled in Newcastle-on-Tyne. A local biographer writes +of him: "A man who by dint of perseverance and self-denial acquired more +learning than ninety-nine in a hundred ever got at a university--an +accomplished and most trustworthy writer. The real founder of the +Newcastle Mechanics' Institute, and the leader of the group of +Philosophical Radicals who made not a little stir in the North of +England at the beginning of the last century." He was not only a +benevolent, active member of society and an ardent politician (Joseph +Cowen received his earliest impressions from him--and never forgot his +indebtedness), but the able historian of Northumberland, Durham, and of +Newcastle itself, a town in which he spent his life and his energies. If +I possess any hereditary aptitude for journalism, it is to him I owe it; +whilst to my mother, who at a time when miniature painting was +fashionable, cultivated the natural artistic taste with much success, I +am directly indebted for such artistic faculties as are innate in me. + +[Illustration] + +My family moved from Wexford to Dublin when I was ten. It is pleasant to +know they left a good impression. In Miss Mary Banim's account of +Ireland I find the following reference to these aliens in Wexford, which +I must allow my egotism to transcribe: "Many are the kindly memories +that remain in Wexford of this warm-hearted, gifted family, who are said +not only to be endowed with rare talents, but, better still, with those +qualities that endear people to those they meet in daily intercourse." +The flattering adjectives with which the remarks about myself are +sandwiched prevent my modest nature from quoting any more. However, as +one does not remember much of that period of their life before they +reach their teens I need not apologise for quoting from the same work +this reference to me at that age: + +"One who was his playmate--he is still a young man--describes Mr. +Furniss as very small of stature, full of animation and merriment, +constantly amusing himself and his friends with clever[!] reproductions +of each humorous character or scene that met his eye in the +ever-fruitful gallery of living art--gay, grotesque, pathetic, even +beautiful--that the streets and outlets of such a town as Wexford +present to a quick eye and a ready pencil." + +I can appreciate the fact that at that early age I had an eye for the +"pathetic, and even beautiful," but, alas! I have been misunderstood +from the day of my birth. I used to sit and study the heavens before I +could walk, and my nurse, a wise and shrewd woman, predicted that I +should become a great astronomer; but instead of the works of Herschel +being put into my hands, I was satiated with the vilest comic toy books, +and deluged with the frivolous nursery literature now happily a thing of +the past. At odd times my old leaning towards serious reflection and +ambition for high art come over me, but there is a fatality which dogs +my footsteps and always at the critical moment ruins my hopes. + +It is indeed strange how slight an incident may alter the whole course +of one's life, as will be seen from the following instance, which I +insert here although it took place some years after the period to which +I am now alluding. + +The scene was Antwerp, to which I was paying my first visit, and where I +was, like all artists, very much impressed and delighted with the +cathedral of the quaint old place. The afternoon was merging into +evening as I entered the sacred building, and the broad amber rays of +the setting sun glowed amid the stately pillars and deepened the shadowy +glamour of the solemn aisles. As I gazed on the scene of grandeur I felt +profoundly moved by the picturesque effect, and the following morning +discovered me hard at work upon a most elaborate study of the beautiful +carved figures upon the confessional boxes. I had just laid out my +palette preparatory to painting that picture which would of course make +my name and fortune, when a hoarse and terribly British guffaw at my +elbow startled me, and turning round I encountered some acquaintances to +whom the scene seemed to afford considerable amusement. One of them was +good enough to remark that to have come all the way to Antwerp to find a +caricaturist painting the confessional boxes in the cathedral was +certainly the funniest thing he had ever heard of, and thereupon +insisted upon dragging me off to dine with him, a proposition to which I +immediately assented, feeling far more foolish than I could possibly +have looked. I may add that as the sun that evening dipped beneath the +western horizon, so vanished the visions of high art by which I had been +inspired, and thus it is that Michael Angelo Vandyck Correggio Raphael +Furniss lies buried in Antwerp Cathedral. Strangely enough I came across +the following paragraph some years afterwards: "The guides of Antwerp +Cathedral point out a grotesque in the wood carving of the choir which +resembles almost exactly the head of Mr. Gladstone, as depicted by Harry +Furniss." + +[Illustration: MY FATHER.] + +My earliest recollections are altogether too modern to be of much +interest. Crimean heroes were veterans when they, as guests at my +father's table, fought their battles o'er again. The _Great Eastern_ +steamship was quite an old white elephant of the sea when I, held up in +my nurse's arms, saw Brunel's blunder pass Greenore Point. I was hardly +eligible for "Etons" when our present King was married. When first taken +to church I was most interested, as standing on tiptoe on the seat in +our square family pew, and peering into the next pew, I saw a young +governess, at that moment the most talked-of woman in Great Britain, the +niece of the notorious poisoner Palmer. She had just returned from the +condemned cell, having made that scoundrel confess his crime, and there +was more pleasure in the sight than in listening to the good old Rector +Elgee who had christened me, or in seeing his famous daughter the +poetess "Speranza," otherwise known as Lady Wilde. + +In the newspaper shop windows--always an attraction to me--the coloured +portrait of Garibaldi was fly-blown, the pictures of the great fight +between Sayers and Heenan were illustrations of ancient history, and in +the year I was born _Punch_ published his twenty-sixth volume. + +[Illustration: HARRY FURNISS, AGED 10.] + +Leaving Wexford before the railway there was opened, my parents removed +to the metropolis of Ireland, and I went to school in Dublin at the age +of twelve. It was at the Wesleyan Connexional School, now known as the +Wesleyan College, St. Stephen's Green, that I struggled through my first +pages of Caesar and stumbled over the "pons asinorum," and here I must +mention that although the Wesleyan College bears the name of the great +religious reformer, a considerable number of the boys who studied +there--myself included--were in no way connected with the Wesleyan body. +I merely say this because I have seen it stated more than once that I am +a Wesleyan, and as this little sketch professes to be an authentic +account of myself, I wish it to be correct, however trivial my remarks +may seem to the general reader. It is in the same spirit that I have +disclaimed the honour of being an Irishman. + +Once upon a time, when I was a very little boy, I remember being very +much impressed by a heading in my copybook which ran: "He who can learn +to write, can learn to draw." Now this was putting the cart before the +horse, so far as my experience had gone, for I could most certainly draw +before I could write, and had not only become an editor long before I +was fit to be a contributor, but was also a publisher before I had even +seen a printing press. In fact, I was but a little urchin in +knickerbockers when I brought out a periodical--in MS. it is true--of +which the ambitious title was "The Schoolboys' _Punch._" The ingenuous +simplicity with which I am universally credited by all who know me now +had not then, I fancy, obtained complete possession of me. I must have +been artful, designing, diplomatic, almost Machiavellian; for anxious to +curry favour with the head master of my school, I resolved to use the +columns of "The Schoolboys' _Punch_" not so much in the interest of the +schoolboy world as to attract the head master's favourable notice to the +editor. + +Accordingly, the first cartoon I drew for the paper was specially +designed with this purpose in view, and I need scarcely say it was +highly complimentary to the head master. He was represented in a +Poole-made suit of perfectly-fitting evening dress, and the trousers, I +remember, were particularly free from the slightest wrinkle, and must +have been extremely uncomfortable to the wearer. This tailorish +impossibility was matched by the tiny patent boots which encased the +great man's small and exquisitely moulded feet. I furnished him with a +pair of dollish light eyes, with long eyelashes carefully drawn in, and +as a masterstroke threw in the most taper-shaped waist. + +The subject of the picture, I flattered myself, was selected with no +little cleverness and originality. A celebrated conjuror who had +recently exposed the frauds of the Davenport Brothers was at the moment +creating a sensation in the town where the school was situated, and from +that incident I determined to draw my inspiration. The magnitude of the +design and the importance of the occasion seemed to demand a +double-paged cartoon. On one side I depicted a hopelessly scared little +schoolboy, not unlike myself at the time, tightly corded in a cabinet, +which represented the school, with trailing Latin roots, heavy Greek +exercises, and chains of figures. The door, supposed to be closed on +this distressing but necessary situation, is observed in the opposite +cartoon to be majestically thrown open by the beaming and consciously +successful head master, in order to allow a young college student, the +pink of scholastic perfection, to step out, loaded with learning and +academical honours. + +"Great events from little causes spring!"--great, at least, to me. So +well was my juvenile effort received, that it is not too much to say it +decided my future career. Had my subtle flattery taken the shape of a +written panegyric upon the head master in lieu of a cartoon, it is +possible that I might, had I met with equal success, have devoted myself +to journalism and literature; but from that day forward I clung to the +pencil, and in a few years was regularly contributing "cartoons" to +public journals, and practising the profession I have ever since +pursued. + +Drawing, in fact, seemed to come to me naturally and intuitively. This +was well for me, for small indeed was the instruction I received. I +recollect that a German governess, who professed, among other things, to +teach drawing, undertook to cultivate my genius; but I derived little +benefit from her unique system, as it consisted in placing over the +paper the drawing to be copied, and pricking the leading points with a +pin, after which, the copy being removed, the lines were drawn from one +point to another. The copies were of course soon perforated beyond +recognition, and, although I warmly protested against this sacrilege of +art, she explained that it was by that system that Albert Duerer had been +taught. This, of course, accounts for our having infant prodigies in +art, as well as music and the drama. The rapidity with which Master +Hoffmann was followed by infantile Lizsts and little Otto Hegner as soon +as it became apparent that there was a demand for such phenomena, seems +to indicate that in music at all events supply will follow demand as a +matter of course, and if the infant artist can only be "crammed" in +daubing on canvas as youthful musicians are in playing on the piano, +then perhaps a new sensation is in store for the artistic world, and we +shall see babies executing replicas of the old masters, and the Infant +Slapdash painter painting the portraits of Society beauties. As a +welcome relief to Chopin's Nocturne in D flat, played by Baby Hegner at +St. James's Hall, we shall step across to Bond Street and behold "Le +Petit Americain" dashing off his "Nocturne" on canvas. I sometimes +wonder if I might have been made such an infant art prodigy, but when I +was a lad public taste was not in its second childhood in matters of art +patronage, nor was the forcing of children practised in the same manner +as it is nowadays. + +Naturally enough I did not altogether escape the thraldom of the +drawing-master, and as years went on I made a really serious effort to +study at an art school under the Kensington system, which I must confess +I believe to be positively prejudicial to a young artist possessing +imagination and originality. The late Lord Beaconsfield made one of his +characters in "Lothair" declare that "critics are those who have failed +in literature and art." Whether this is true as to the art critics, or +that the dramatic critic is generally a disappointed playwright, it must +in truth be said that drawing-masters are nearly always those who have +failed in art. I can remember one gentleman who was the especial terror +of my youth. I can see him now going his rounds along the chilly +corridor, where, perhaps, one had been placed to draw something "from +the flat." After years and years of practice at this rubbish, he would +halt beside you, look at your work in a perfunctory manner, and with a +dexterity which appalled you until you reflected that he had been doing +the same thing exactly, and nothing else, for perhaps a decade, he would +draw in a section of a leaf, and if, as in my case, you happened to have +a pretty sister attending the ladies' class in the school, he would add +leaf to leaf until your whole paper was covered with his mechanical +handiwork, in order to have a little extra conversation with you, +although, I need scarcely add, it was not exclusively confined to the +subject of art. + +This sort of thing was called "instruction in freehand drawing," and had +to be endured and persisted in for months and months. Freehand! Shade of +Apelles! What is there free in squinting and measuring, and feebly +touching in and fiercely rubbing out a collection of straggling +mechanical pencil lines on a piece of paper pinned on to a hard board, +which after a few weeks becomes nothing but a confused jumble of +fingermarks? + +Had I an Art School I would treat my students according to their +individual requirements, just as a doctor treats his patients. I am led +here to repeat what I have already observed in one of my lectures, that +for the young the pill of knowledge should be silver-coated, and that +while they are being instructed they should also be amused. In other +words, interest your pupils, do not depress them. Giotto did not begin +by rigidly elaborating a drawing of the crook of his shepherd's staff +for weeks together; his drawings upon the sand and upon the flat stones +which he found on the hillsides are said to have been of the picturesque +sheep he tended, and all the interesting and fascinating objects that +met his eye. Then, when his hand had gained practice, he was able to +draw that perfect circle which he sent to the Pope as a proof of his +command of hand. But the truth is that we begin at the wrong end, and +try to make our boys draw a perfect circle before they are in love with +drawing at all. For my part, I had to endure some weeks of weary +struggling with a cone and ball and other chilly objects, the effect of +which was to fill my mind with an overwhelming sense of the dreariness +of art education under the Kensington system. A short time, therefore, +sufficed to disgust me with the Art School, and I preferred to stay at +home caricaturing my relatives, educating myself, and practising alone +the rudiments of my art. + +[Illustration: A CARICATURE, MADE WHEN A BOY (NEVER PUBLISHED). DUBLIN +EXHIBITION. PORTRAIT OF SIR A. GUINNESS (NOW LORD IVEAGH) IN CENTRE.] + +Early in my teens, however, I was invited to join the Life School of the +Hibernian Academy, as there happened to be a paucity of students at that +institution, and in order to secure the Government grant it was +necessary to bring them up to the required number. But here also there +was no idea of proper teaching. Some fossilised member of the Academy +would stand about roasting his toes over the stove. A recollection of a +fair specimen of the body still haunts me. He used to roll round the +easels, and you became conscious of his approaching presence by an +aroma of onions. I believe he was a landscape painter, and saw no more +beauty in the female form divine than in a haystack. It was his custom +to take up a huge piece of charcoal and come down upon one of your +delicately drawn pencil lines of a figure with a terrible stroke about +an inch wide. + +"There, me boy," he would exclaim, "that's what it wants," and walk on, +leaving you in doubt upon which side of the line you had drawn he +intended his alteration to come. + +I soon decided to have my own models and study for myself, and this +practice I have maintained to the present day. I really don't know what +Mrs. Grundy would have said if she had known that at this early age I +was drawing Venuses from the life, instead of tinting the illustrations +to "Robinson Crusoe" or "Gulliver's Travels" in my playroom at home. + +Few imagine that a caricaturist requires models to draw from. Although I +will not further digress at this point, I may perhaps be pardoned if I +return later on in this book to the explanation of my _modus +operandi_--a subject which, if I may judge from the number of letters I +receive about it, is likely to prove of interest to a large number of my +readers. + +It was when I was still quite a boy that my first great chance came. +Being in Dublin, I was asked one day by my friend the late Mr. A. M. +Sullivan to make some illustrations for a paper called _Zozimus_, of +which he was the editor and founder. As a matter of fact, _Zozimus_ was +the Irish _Punch_. Mr. Sullivan, who was a Nationalist, and a man of +exceptional energy and ability, began life as an artist. He came to +Dublin, I was told, as a very young man, and began to paint; but the +sails of his ships were pronounced to be far too yellow, the seas on +which the vessels floated were derided as being far too green, while the +skies above them were scoffed at as being far too blue. In these adverse +circumstances, then, the artist soon drifted into journalism, and, +inducing his brothers to join him in his new venture, thenceforth took +up the pen and abandoned the brush. Each member of the family became a +well-known figure in Parliamentary life. Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet of +the Irish Party, is still a well-known figure in the world of politics; +but my friend Mr. A. M. Sullivan, who died some years ago, belonged +rather to the more moderate _regime_ which prevailed in the Irish Party +during the leadership of Mr. Butt. + +At the time when I first made his acquaintance he was the editor and +moving spirit of the _Nation_. It was a curious office, and I can recall +many whom I first met there who have since come more or less prominently +to the front in public life. There was Mr. Sexton, whom my friend "Toby" +has since christened "Windbag Sexton" in his Parliamentary reports. Mr. +Sexton then presided over the scissors and paste department of the +journals owned by Mr. A. M. Sullivan, and, unlike the posing orator he +afterwards became, was at that early stage of his career of a very +modest and retiring disposition. Mr. Leamy also, I think, was connected +with the staff, while Mr. Dennis Sullivan superintended the sale of the +papers in the publishing department. + +But the central figure in the office was unquestionably the editor and +proprietor, Mr. A. M. Sullivan. His personality was of itself +remarkable. Possessed of wonderful energy and nerve, he was a confirmed +teetotaller, and his prominent eyes, beaming with intelligence, seemed +almost to be starting from his head as, intent upon some project, he +darted about the office, ever and anon checking his erratic movements to +give further directions to his subordinates, when he had a funny habit +of placing his hand on his mouth and blowing his moustache through his +fingers, much to the amusement of his listeners, and to my astonishment, +as I stood modestly in a corner of the editorial sanctum observing with +awe the great Mr. Sexton, who, amid the distractions of scissors and +paste, would drawl out a sentence or two in a voice strongly resembling +the sarcastic tones of Mr. Labouchere. + +In another part of the office sat Mr. T. D. Sullivan, the poet +aforesaid, who, like his brother, is a genial and kindly man at heart, +although possessing the volcanic temperament characteristic of his +family. There he sat--a poet with a large family--his hair dishevelled, +his trousers worked by excitement halfway up his calves, emitting +various stertorous sounds after the manner of his brother, as he +savagely tore open the recently-arrived English newspapers. Such was the +interior of the office of the _Nation_, the representative organ of the +most advanced type of the National Press of Ireland. + +But _Zozimus_, the paper to which I was then contributing, had nothing +in common with the rest of the publications issuing from that office. It +was of a purely social character, and was a praiseworthy attempt to do +something of a more artistic nature than the coarsely-conceived and +coarsely-executed National cartoons which were the only specimens of +illustrative art produced in Ireland. Fortunately for me, there was an +effort made in Dublin just then to produce a better class of +publications, and the result was that I began to get fairly busy, +although it was merely a wave of artistic energy, which did not last +long, but soon subsided into that dead level of mediocrity which does +not appear likely to be again disturbed. + +I was now in my seventeenth year, and, intent on making as much hay as +possible the while the sun shone, I accepted every kind of work that was +offered me; and a strange medley it was. Religious books, medical works, +scientific treatises, scholastic primers and story books afforded in +turn illustrative material for my pencil. One week I was engaged upon +designs for the most advanced Catholic and Jesuitical manuals, and the +next upon similar work for a Protestant prayer-book. At one moment it +seemed as if I were destined to achieve fame as an artist of the +ambulance corps and the dissecting-room. One of my earliest +dreams--which I attribute to the fact that my eldest brother, with whom +I had much in common, was a doctor--had been to adopt the medical +profession. Curiously enough, my brother also had a taste for +caricaturing, and, like the illustrious John Leech in his medical +student days, he was wont to embellish his notes in the hospital +lecture-room with pictorial _jeux d'esprit_ of a livelier cast than +those for which scope is usually afforded by the discourses of the +learned Mr. Sawbones. + +I remember that about this period a leading surgeon was anxious that I +should devote myself to the pursuit of this anything but pleasant form +of art, and seriously proposed that I should draw and paint for him some +of his surgical cases. I accepted his offer without hesitation, and, +burning to distinguish myself as an anatomical expert with the brush, I +gave instruction to our family butcher to send me, as a model to study +from, a kidney, which was to be the acme of goriness and as repulsive in +appearance as possible. Of this piece of uncooked meat I made a quite +pre-Raphaelite study in water-colours, but so realistic was the result +that the effect it had upon me was the very antithesis to what I +anticipated, disgusting me to such an extent that I not only declined to +pursue further anatomical illustration, but for years afterwards was +quite unable to touch a kidney, although I believe that had I selected a +calf's head or a sucking-pig for my maiden effort in this direction, I +might by now have blossomed into a Rembrandt or a Landseer. + +[Illustration: AN EARLY ILLUSTRATION ON WOOD BY HARRY FURNISS. PARTLY +ENGRAVED BY HIM.] + +Amongst other incidents which occurred during this period of my life was +one which it now almost makes me shudder to think of. I was commissioned +by no less a personage than the late Mr. Pigott, of Parnell Commission +notoriety, to illustrate for him a story of the broadest Irish humour. +Little did I think when I entered his office in Abbey Street, Dublin, +and had an interview with the genial and pleasant-looking little man +with the eye-glass, that he would one day play so prominent a _role_ in +the Parliamentary drama, or that the weak little arm he extended to me +was destined years afterwards to be the instrument of a tragedy. I can +truly say, at all events, my recollection as a boy of sixteen of the +great _Times_ forger is by no means unfavourable, and he dwells in my +memory as one of the most pleasant and genial of men. I ought, perhaps, +to say that in feeling I was anything but a Nationalist, because in +Ireland, generally speaking, you must be either black or white. But like +a lawyer who takes his brief from every source, I never studied who my +clients were when they required my juvenile services. + +Although I was not of Irish parentage and did not lean towards +Nationalism in politics, it was necessary to sympathise now and then +with the down-trodden race. For instance, I remember that one evening a +respectable-looking mechanic called at my fathers house and requested to +see me. His manner was strange and mysterious, and as he wanted to see +me alone, I took him into an anteroom, where, with my hand on the door +handle and the other within easy distance of the bell, I asked the +excitable-looking stranger the nature of his business. Pulling from his +pocket a roll of one-pound Irish bank-notes, he thrust them into my +hand, and besought me at the same time not to refuse the request he was +about to make. An idea flashed through my mind that perhaps he had seen +me coming out of the offices of the National Press, and had jumped to +the conclusion that I could therefore be bought over to perpetrate some +terrible political crime. I even imagined that in the roll of notes I +should find the knife with which the fell deed had to be done. Seeing +that I shrank from him, he seized hold of my arm, and, in a most +pitiable voice, said: + +"Don't, young sorr, refuse me what I am about to ask you. I'm only a +working man, but here are all my savings, which you may take if you will +just dhraw me a picter to be placed at the top of a complete set of +photographs of our Irish leaders. I want Britannia at the head of the +group, a bastely dhrunken old hag, wid her fut on the throat of the +beautiful Erin, who is to be bound hand and fut wid chains, and being +baten and starved. Thin I want prisons at the sides, showing the grand +sons of Ould Oireland dying in their cells by torture, whilst a fine +Oirish liberator wid dhrawn sword is just on the point of killing +Britannia outright, and so saving his disthressful country." + +About this time someone had been good enough to inform me that all black +and white artists are in the habit of engraving their own work, and, +religiously believing this, I duly provided myself with some engraving +tools, bought some boxwood, a jeweller's eye-glass, and a sand bag, +without which no engraver's table can be said to be complete. + +Then, setting to work to practise the difficult art, I struggled on as +best I could, until one fine day a professional engraver enlightened me +upon the matter. I need scarcely say he went into fits of laughter when +I told him that every artist was expected to be a Bewick, and he pointed +out to me that not only do artists as a rule know very little about +engraving, but in addition they have often only a limited knowledge of +how to draw for engravers. + +However, thinking I should better understand the difficulties of drawing +for publishers if I first mastered the technical art of reproduction, +with the assistance of the engraver aforesaid I rapidly acquired +sufficient dexterity with the tools to engrave my own drawings, and this +I continued to do until I left Dublin, at the age of nineteen. Since +then I have never utilised one of my gravers, except to pick a lock or +open a box of sardines. Nor is this to be wondered at, considering that +one can make a drawing in an hour which takes a week to engrave, and +that an engraver may take five guineas for his share of the work whilst +an artist may get fifty. There is very little doubt, therefore, as to +the reason why artists who can draw refrain from engraving their own +work. + +[Illustration: SKETCHES IN GALWAY. +_Republished by permission of the proprietors of the "Illustrated London +News."_] + +In the studio of the engraver to whom I have above referred there hung a +huge map of London, and as I used to pore over it I took many an +imaginary walk down Fleet Street, many a canter in the Row, and many a +voyage to Greenwich on a penny steamboat, before I bade adieu to "dear +dirty Dublin" in the year 1873, and, as many have done before me, +arrived in the "little village" in search of fame and wealth. + +Just prior to my leaving Ireland for the land of my parents I met no +less an editor than Tom Taylor, who was then the presiding genius of the +_Punch_ table, and he gave me every encouragement to hasten my +migration. He, however, had just returned from the wilds of Connemara, +and before setting my face in the direction of Holyhead he strongly +advised me also to pay a visit to the trackless wastes of the Western +country, for the purpose of committing to paper the lineaments of the +natives indigenous to the soil. This I did a week or so before quitting +the land of my birth, and the sketches I made upon that occasion formed +part of my stock-in-trade when I arrived in London. + +After making the accompanying page of studies, I strolled along the bank +of the river; and while sketching some men breaking stones an incident +happened which first aroused me to the fact that the lot of the +sketching artist is not always a happy one. A fiend in human shape--an +overbearing overseer--came up at the moment, and roundly abused the +poor labourers for taking the "base Saxon's" coin. Inciting them to +believe that I was a special informer from London, he laughed on my +declaring that I was merely a novice, and informed me that I ought to be +"dhrounded." He was about to suit the action to the word and pitch me +into the salmon-stuffed river when he was stopped by the mediation of my +models, and I escaped from the grip of the agitator. In due course I +found myself in the Claddagh, a village of mud huts, which formed the +frontispiece by John Leech to "A Little Tour in Ireland" by "An +Oxonian," "a village of miserable cabins, the walls of mud and stone, +and for the most part windowless, the floors damp and dirty, and the +roofs a mass of rotten straw and weeds." Pigs and fowls mixed up with +boats and fish refuse. Women old, dried and ugly; girls young, dark, of +Spanish type, scantily dressed in bright-coloured short garments, all +tattered and torn; and children grotesque beyond description. I sketch +three members of one family clothed (!) in the three articles of attire +discarded by their father--one claimed the coat, another the trousers, +whilst the third had only a waistcoat. No doubt Leech had seen the same +sixteen years before, when he was there; and if "the Oxonian," who +survives him--Canon Hole, of Rochester--were to make another little tour +in Ireland, he would find the Claddagh still a spot to give an +Englishman "a new sensation." All I can say is, that having escaped a +"dhrouning" in the river when in Galway in 1873, I have visited many +countries and seen much filth and misery, but I have seen nothing +approaching the sad squalor of the wild West of Ireland. + +The majority of those I sketched were hardly human. Tom Taylor was +right--"I would find such characters there not to be found in all the +world over," and I haven't. The people got on my overstrung youthful +nerves. I left the country the moment I had sufficient material for my +sketches. I had shaken off the unpleasant feeling of being murdered in +the river. I had survived living a week or two in the worst inns in the +world. I had risked typhoid and every other disease fostered by the +insanitary surroundings--for I had to hide myself in narrow turnings and +obnoxious corners so as to sketch unseen, as the religion of the natives +opposed any attempt to have themselves "dhrawn," believing that the +destruction of their "pictur'" would be fatal to their souls! I had +sketched the famous house in Deadman's Lane--and listened as I sketched +it, in the falling shades of night, to the old, old story of +Fitz-Stephen the Warden, who had lived there, and had in virtue of his +office to assist at the hanging of his own son. And, when in the dark I +was strolling back to my hotel, my reflections were suddenly interrupted +by something powerful seizing me in a grip of iron round my leg. I was +held as in a vice, and could hardly move, by what--a huge dog--a wolf? +No, something heavier; something more hideous; something clothed! As I +dragged it under a lamp I saw revealed a huge head, covered by a black +skull cap--a man's head--a dwarf, muttering in Irish something I could +not understand--except one word, "Judy! Judy! Judy!" It was a woman of +extraordinary strength thus clasped on to me. I dragged her to the hotel +door, where I engaged an interpreter in the shape of the "boots," and +made a bargain with "Judy" to release me on my giving her one shilling, +and to sit to me for this sketch for half-a-crown. I have still a lively +recollection of the vice-like grip. + +[Illustration: "JUDY," THE GALWAY DWARF.] + +My friend who had introduced me to the editor of _Punch_ was a prominent +city official, and entertainer in chief of all men of talent from +London, and was also, like Tom Taylor, an author and dramatist; and when +I was a boy I illustrated one of his first stories. He also introduced +me behind the scenes at the old Theatre Royal. I recollect my boyish +delight when one day I was on the stage during the rehearsal of the +Italian opera. Shall I ever forget that treat? It was much greater in my +eyes than the real performance later on. If my memory serves, "Don +Giovanni" was the opera. One of the principals was suddenly taken ill, +and this rehearsal was called for the benefit of the understudy. He was +a dumpy, puffy little Italian, and played the heavy father. Madame +Titiens was--well--the heavy daughter. In the first scene she has to +throw herself upon her prostrate father. This is the incident I saw +rehearsed: the little fat father lay on the dusty stage, with one eye on +the O.P. side. As soon as the massive form of Titiens bore down upon him +he rolled over and over out of the way. This pantomime highly amused all +of us, the ever-jovial Titiens in particular, and she again and again +rushed laughingly in, but with the same result. + +The first actor I ever saw perform was Phelps, in "The Man of the +World." If anything could disillusionise a youth regarding the romance +of the theatre, that play surely would. Be it to my credit that my +first impression was admiration for a fine--if dull--performance. From +that day I have been a constant theatre-goer. If I am to believe the +following anecdote, published in a Dublin paper a few years ago, I "did +the theatre in style," and had an early taste which I did not possess +for making jokes. + +"The jarvey drove Harry Furniss, when a boy, down to the old Theatre +Royal, Dublin. On the way there Jehu enquired of the budding artist +whether it was true that the roof was provided with a tank whence every +part of the building could be deluged, shower-bath fashion, if +necessary. 'Yes,' replied Raphael junior; 'and, you see, I always bring +an umbrella in case of fire.'" + +[Illustration: PHELPS, THE FIRST ACTOR I SAW.] + +I may confess that I have only once appeared in theatricals, and that +was in high comedy as a member of the Dublin Amateur Theatrical Society. +The play was "She Stoops to Conquer," and I took the part +of--think!--_Mrs._ Hardcastle. I was only seventeen, and very small for +my age, so I owe any success I may have made to the costumier and +wig-maker. The Tony Lumpkin was so excellent that he adopted the stage +as his profession, and became a very popular comedian; and our Diggory +is now a judge--"and a good judge too"--in the High Court. + +It was on a bright, breezy morning late in July, 1873, I shook the dust +of "dear dirty Dublin" off my feet. With the exception of the Welsh +railways, the Irish are notoriously the slowest in the world, and on +that particular morning the mail train seemed to my impatient mind to +progress pig-ways. The engine was attached to the rear of the train and +faced the station, so that when it began to pull it was only the +"parvarsity in the baste" caused it to go in the opposite direction, +towards Kingstown, in an erratic, spasmodic, and uncertain fashion, so +that the eight miles journey seemed to me eighty. It was quite a tedious +journey to Salthill and Blackrock. At the latter station I saw for the +last time the porter famous for being the slave of habit. For years it +had been his duty to call out the name of the station, "Blackrock! +Blackrock! Blackrock!" In due course he was removed to Salthill station, +on the same line, and well do I remember how he puzzled many a Saxon +tourist by his calling out continually, "Blackrock--Salthill-I-mane! +Blackrock--Salthill-I-mane!" No doubt the traveller put this chronic +absent-mindedness down to "Irish humour." I must confess that I agree in +a great measure with the opinion of the late T. W. Robertson (author of +"Caste," "School," &c.), that the witticisms of Irish carmen and others +are the ingenious inventions of Charles Lever, Samuel Lover, William +Carleton, and other educated men. + +[Illustration: MRS. HARDCASTLE. MR. HARRY FURNISS, FROM AN EARLY +SKETCH.] + +Dickens failed to see Irish humour, or in fact to understand what was +meant by it. So when he was on tour with his readings a friend of mine, +who was his host, in the North, undertook to initiate him into the +mysteries of Irish wit. As a sample he gave Dickens the following: A +definition of nothing,--a footless stocking without a leg. This conveyed +nothing whatever to the mind of the greatest of English humourists; but +when my friend took him to a certain spot and showed him a wall built +round a vacant space, and explained to him that the native masons were +instructed to build a wall round an old ruined church to protect it, and +pulled down the church for the material to build the wall, he laughed +heartily, and acknowledged the Irish had a sense of humour after +all,--if not, a quaint absence of it. + +To me so-called Irish wit is a curious combination not wholly dependent +on humour, and frequently unconscious. There is a story that when Mr. +Beerbohm Tree arrived in Dublin he was received by a crowd of his +admirers, and jumping on to a car said to his jarvey, "Splendid +reception that, driver!" + +The jarvey thought a moment, and replied, "Maybe ye think so, but +begorrah, it ain't a patch on the small-pox scare!" Was that _meant_? + +The poor Saxon "towrist"--what he may suffer in the Emerald Isle! There +is a story on record of three Irishmen rushing away from the race +meeting at Punchestown to catch a train back to Dublin. At the moment a +train from a long distance pulled up at the station, and the three men +scrambled in. In the carriage was seated one other passenger. As soon as +they had regained their breath, one said: + +"Pat, have you got th' tickets?" + +"What tickets? I've got me loife; I thought I'd have lost that gettin' +in th' thrain. Have you got 'em, Moike?" + +"Oi, begorrah, I haven't." + +"Oh, we're all done for thin," said the third. "They'll charge us roight +from the other soide of Oireland." + +The old gentleman looked over his newspaper and said: + +"You are quite safe, gintlemen; wait till we get to the next station." + +They all three looked at each other. "Bedad, he's a directhor,--we're +done for now entoirely." + +But as soon as the train pulled up the little gentleman jumped out and +came back with three first-class tickets. Handing them to the astonished +strangers, he said, "Whist, I'll tell ye how I did it. I wint along the +thrain--'Tickets plaze, tickets plaze,' I called, and these belong to +three Saxon towrists in another carriage." + +On the morning I left Ireland to seek my fortune in London I had a +youthful notion that, once on the mainland of my parents' country, St. +Paul's and the smoke of London would be visible; but we had passed +through the Menai tunnel, grazed Conway Castle walls, and skirted miles +of the Welsh rock-bound coast, and yet no St. Paul's was visible to my +naked eye which was plastered against the window-pane of the carriage. +The other eye, clothed and in its right mind, inspected the carriage and +discovered that there were two other occupants--a lady and her maid. +These interesting passengers had recovered from the effects of the +Channel passage, and were eating their lunch. The lady politely offered +me some sandwiches. "No, thanks," I replied; "I shall lunch in London." +This reminds me of a story I heard when I was in America, of two young +English ladies arriving at New York. They immediately entered the +Northern Express at the West Central. About 7 o'clock in the evening +they arrived at Niagara--half an hour or so is given to the passengers +to alight and look at the wonderful Falls. The gentleman who told me the +story informed me that as the two ladies were getting back into the +carriage he asked them if they were going to dine at once. They, +ignorant of the vastness of the "gre--e--at country Amuraka," replied, +"Oh, no, thanks, we are going to dine with our friends when we arrive. +It can't be long now, we have been travelling so fast all the day!" + +"And may I ask, young ladies, where your friends live?" + +"We are going to an uncle who has been taken suddenly ill in San +Francisco." + +These young ladies would have had to wait certainly five days for their +dinner,--I only five hours. + +The strange lady and I conversed a great deal on various topics. By +degrees she discovered that I was a young artist, friendless, and on his +way to the great city to battle with fortune. I may have told her of my +history, of my youthful ambitions and my professional plans,--anyway she +told me of hers, and, while her maid was lazily slumbering, she +confessed to me her troubles. + +"My story," she said, "is a sad one. I am of good family, and I married +a well-known professional London man. He turned out to be a gambler, and +ran through my money, and I returned to my parents. I have left them +this morning again, and, like you, I am now on my way to London to +start in life, and if possible make my own living. You see my appearance +is not altogether unprepossessing" (she was tall, singularly handsome, a +refined woman of style) ... I bowed ... "Well, I am also fortunate in +having a good voice, it is well-trained, and I am going to London to +sing as a paid professional in the houses in which I have formerly been +a guest." + +I sympathised with her, and she continued, weeping, to relate to me +events of her unhappy married life until we arrived at Euston. I saw her +and her maid into a four-wheeler, and I saw their luggage on the top. +She gave me her card with her parents' address in London written on it, +and requested that I would write to her at that address, as she would +like to hear how I got on in London. I never saw her again. But I did +write home, and found there was such a lady, her family were well-known +society people in Ireland, and that her marriage had not been a happy +one. + +After three years in London I ran over to Ireland to see my parents. On +my return I seemed to miss the charming companion of my journey over the +same ground three years previously. Two uninteresting men were in the +carriage: a typical German professor on tour, and communicative; and a +typical English gentleman, uncommunicative. As the journey was a long +one the German smoked, ate and drank himself to sleep, and after some +hours the other man and I exchanged a word. The fact is I thought I knew +his face,--I told him so. He thought he knew mine. "Had we gone to +school together?" "No." He was at least ten years my senior. It happened +he had been to school with my half-brother (my father was married +twice,--I am the youngest son of his second family). We chatted freely +about each other's family and on various topics, including the sleeping +Teuton in the corner. I incidentally mentioned my last journey. The lady +interested him, so I told him of the way in which she confessed to me. I +waxed eloquent over her wrongs. He got still more excited as I described +her husband as she described him to me; and as the train rolled into +Euston, he said, "Well, you know who I am, I know who you are,--I'll +tell you one thing more: that woman's story is perfectly true--I'm her +husband!" + +That was one of the most extraordinary coincidences which ever happened +to me. Three years after meeting the wife, over the same journey, at the +same time of the year, I meet the husband; and I had never been the +journey in the meantime. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + +BOHEMIAN CONFESSIONS. + + I arrive in London--A Rogue and Vagabond--Two Ladies--Letters of + Introduction--Bohemia--A Distinguished Member--My Double--A Rara + Avis--The Duke of Broadacres--The Savages--A Souvenir---Portraits + of the Past--J. L. Toole--Art and Artists--Sir Spencer Wells--John + Pettie--Milton's Garden. + + +I did not make my appearance in London with merely the proverbial +half-crown in my pocket, nor was I breathlessly expectant to find the +streets paved with gold. Thanks chiefly to my savings in Dublin, my +balance at my bankers' was sufficient to keep me for at least a year, +and as soon as the editors returned from their summer holidays I was +fortunate enough to procure commissions, which have been pouring in +pretty steadily ever since. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF MYSELF, DRAWN WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN +LONDON.] + +It was with a strange feeling that I found myself for the first time in +London, among four millions of people, with not one of whom I could +claim acquaintance, and I think it will not be out of place if I here +offer a hint which may possibly be of use to other young men who are +placed in similar circumstances. Upon first coming to the metropolis, +then, let them invariably act, in as much as it is possible, as if they +were Londoners old and seasoned. To stand gazing at St. Paul's with +mouth agape and eyes astare, or to enquire your way to the National +Gallery or Madame Tussaud's, is a sure means of finding yourself ere +long in the hands of the unscrupulous and designing. For my part, as I +took my first admiring peep at the masterpiece of Sir Christopher, I +whistled to myself with an air of nonchalance, and as I passed down +Fleet Street I made a point of nodding familiarly to the passers-by as +if I were already a frequent _habitue_ of the thoroughfare of letters. +Did I find myself accosted by any particularly ingenuous stranger asking +his way, I always promptly told him to go on as straight as ever he +could go--a piece of advice which, coming from one so young, I think was +highly proper and creditable, whatever may have proved its value in some +cases from a topographical point of view. On the other hand, the +following incident will serve to show the prudence of exercising due +caution in addressing strangers oneself. + +Upon the evening of my arrival in the big city I had dined at the London +Restaurant, which was situate at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet +Street, in the premises now occupied by Messrs. Partridge and Cooper +(the name of this firm must not be taken as an indication of the nature +of my repast), and, fired with the curiosity of youth, I mounted the +knifeboard of an omnibus bound for Hyde Park. Arrived at the famous +statue of Wellington astride the impossible horse which has since ambled +off to the seclusion of Aldershot, and which at once recalled to my mind +the inimitable drawings of that infamous quadruped by John Leech, an +artist who had done as much to familiarise me with London scenes and +characters with his pencil as had Dickens with the pen, I happened to +ask a sturdy artisan who was sitting beside me whether this was Hyde +Park Corner. + +"'Ide Park!" he muttered. "'Oo are you a-tryin' ter git at? 'Ide Park! +None o' yer 'anky panky with me, my covey!" + +I forthwith slipped off that 'bus, not a little nettled that the first +person to whom I had spoken in London should have taken me for a rogue +and a vagabond. + +I had been fortunate enough to secure quarters which had been +recommended to me in a comfortable boarding-house in one of the +old-fashioned Inns in Holborn--Thavies' Inn--in which, I was informed, +whether accurately or not I do not pretend to know, the Knight Templars +of old had once resided. There were no Knight Templars there when I +arrived, but in their stead I found some highly-proper and +non-belligerent clerics with their wives and families, and other +visitors from the country, who seemed very satisfied with the +comfortable provision that was made for them. But, best of all, I found +a hostess who soon became one of the kindest and best of friends I ever +had, and although I at once engaged a studio in the neighbouring +artistic quarter of Newman Street, I continued for some time to live in +Thavies' Inn in the enjoyment of the pleasant society and many +advantages of her pleasant home. + +Not the least of these to me was the perfect gallery of characters who +were continually coming and going, and the many and various studies I +made of the different visitors to that boarding-house long supplied me +with ample material for my sketch-book. + +I should be ungallant indeed were I to omit to add that not only was it +a lady who first made me feel at home amid the bustle and turmoil of +Modern Babylon, but that it was also a lady who primarily welcomed me as +a contributor to the Press and gave me my first work in London. +Curiously enough, both of these ladies possessed points of resemblance, +not only in person, but in manner and goodness of heart. It was Miss +Florence Marryat, then editress of _London Society_, who gave me my +first commission, and I am more anxious to record the fact because I am +aware that many a youthful journalist besides myself owed his first +introduction to the public to the sympathy and enterprise of this +accomplished lady. Perhaps I have less to grumble at personally than +most others concerning the treatment which, as a young man, I +experienced at the hands of editors; but I must say that the majority of +such potentates with whom I then came in contact lamentably lacked that +readiness to welcome new-comers which Miss Florence Marryat notably, and +possibly too readily, evinced. Here I may offer a hint to +beginners--that on coming to London letters of introduction are of +little or no value. One such letter I possessed, and it led me into +more trouble, and was the means of my losing more time, than I should +ever have received recompense for, even if it had obtained me the work +which it was intended to bring me. + +In the first place, these letters often get into the hands of others +than the particular individuals to whom they are addressed. In my case +the letter had been inadvertently directed to the literary editor +instead of to the art editor of one of the largest publishing firms, and +that gentleman--I refer to the literary editor--was good enough to +supply me with a quantity of work. I executed the commission, but, lo +and behold! when I sent the work in, the monster Red Tape intervened in +the person of the art editor, who became scarlet with rage because he +had not been invoked instead of his colleague, and promptly repudiated +the entire contract. Thereupon the literary editor wrote to me saying +that unless I withdrew my contributions he would be personally out of +pocket; and it may not be uninteresting to record that some day, when I +strip this amongst my other mummies, it will be found that he +subsequently became a wearer of lawn sleeves. Thus, whilst the two +editors quarrelled between themselves, I was left out in the cold, and +became a considerable loser over the transaction. + +_A propos_ of letters of introduction, I am reminded of a brother +artist, who, although a caricaturist, was entirely devoid of guile, and, +in addition, was as absent-minded as the popularly-accepted type of +ardent scientist or professor of ultra-abstruse subject. Well, this +curious species of satirist was setting forth on travels in foreign +climes, and in order to lighten in some measure the vicissitudes +inseparable from peripatetic wandering, he was provided with a letter of +introduction to a certain British consul. The writer of this letter +enclosed it in one to my friend, in which he said that he would find the +consul a most arrant snob, and a bumptious, arrogant humbug as well--in +fact, a cad to the backbone; but that he (my friend) was not to mind +this, for, as he could claim acquaintanceship with several dukes and +duchesses, all he had to do was to trot out their names for the +edification of the consul, who would then render him every attention, +and thus compensate him to some extent for having to come into contact +with such an insufferable vulgarian. On the return of the guileless +satirist to England the writer of the letter of introduction inquired +how he had fared with the consul, and great was his surprise to hear him +drawl out, in his habitual lethargic manner: + +"Well, my dear fellow, he did not receive me very warmly, and he did not +ask me to dinner. In fact, he struck me as being rather cool." + +"Well, you do surprise me!" rejoined his friend. "He's a horrible cad, +as I told you in my letter, but he's awfully hospitable, and I really +can't understand what you tell me. You gave him my letter of +introduction?" + +"Well, I thought so," said my friend; "but, do you know, on my journey +home I discovered it in my pocket-book, so I must have handed him +instead your note to me about him!" + +Of course, in the remarks which I have been making I have not been +alluding to letters of merely social introduction, which are of an +entirely different nature. Such letters are generally handed to the +individual to whom they are addressed at more propitious moments, when +he is not either hard at work, as the case may be, in his editorial +chair, or overburdened with anxiety as to the fluctuations of the Bank +rate. + +Be that as it may, I cannot refrain from citing here the case of another +brother artist, who was particular in the extreme as regarded the +neatness of his apparel and his personal appearance in general; in fact, +he laboured, rightly or wrongly, under the impression that the manner in +which a letter of introduction is received and acted upon by the person +to whom it is addressed depends upon the raiment and _tout ensemble_ of +the bearer. + +Well, it so happened that he once had a letter of introduction to a man +he particularly wished to know, but, of all places in the world, fate +had designed that he should have no choice but to deliver it in the +boring of the Channel Tunnel, where the dripping roof rendered it +necessary for all visitors to be encased from head to foot in the vilest +and most unbecoming tarpaulin overalls. It was in these circumstances, +then, that the introduction took place, and as nothing came of it, my +friend will now go to his grave in the firm belief that fine feathers +make fine birds in the eyes of all those who receive letters of +introduction. + +The first Bohemian Club I joined was located over Gaze's Tourist Offices +in the Strand. Nearly my first engagement in London was for a still +flourishing sixpenny weekly. Started in Wellington Street, close by, the +editorial offices were there certainly, but editor, proprietors, and +others were not. They were only to be found in "the Club," so through +necessity I became a member. The flowing bowl of that iniquitous +concoction, punch, was brewed for the staff early in the afternoon and +kept flowing till early the next morning. The "Club" never closed day or +night till the broker's man took possession and closed it for good. I, +being young and unknown, was surprised to find myself an object of +attraction whenever I was in the Club. There was something strange about +me, something mysterious. This was so marked that my brief visits to +find my editor were few and far between. I discovered afterwards that +the curiosity and attention paid me had nothing to do with my work, or +my personal appearance, or my natural shyness or youth. It was aroused +by the fact that I was known as "the member who had paid his +subscription!" + +[Illustration: AGE 20. [_From a photo. by W. & D. Downey._]] + +This fact being noised abroad. I found it an easy matter to get elected +to another and a better Bohemian Club, having beautiful premises on the +Adelphi Terrace--a Club which has since gone through many vicissitudes, +but I think still exists in a small way. At the time I mention it was +much what the Savage Club is now; in fact, was located in the same +Terrace. Its smoking concerts, too, were its great attractions, and on +one of these evenings I played a part worth reciting, if only to +illustrate how difficult it is for some minds to understand a joke. + +[Illustration: A SUCCESSFUL "MAKE-UP."] + +A well-known literary man called to see me. On a table in my studio lay +a "make-up" box--used by actors preparing their faces for the +footlights--a bald head with fringe of light hair, large fair moustache, +wig paste, a suit of clothes too large for me, and other trifles. My +visitor's curiosity was aroused. Taking up my "properties," he asked me +what they were for. I explained to him a huge joke had been arranged as +a surprise at the Club smoking concert to take place that very evening, +in which I was to play a part with a well-known and highly-popular +member--the funny man of the Club, and an eccentric-looking one to boot. +He had conceived the idea to make me up as a double of himself. We were +the same height, but otherwise we in no way resembled each other. He was +stout, I was thin; he prematurely bald, I enjoyed a superabundance of +auburn locks; but he had very marked characteristics, and wore very +remarkable clothes. He was also very clever at "making-up." The idea was +to test his talent in this direction, and deceive the whole of our +friends. It was arranged that he was to leave the piano after singing +half his song, and I--up to that moment concealed--was to come forward +and continue it. This I explained to my visitor, who expressed his +belief that the deception was impossible. He promised to keep the +secret, and that evening was early in the room and seated close to the +piano. My "double"--fortunately for me, an amateur--sang the first +verses of one of his well-known songs, but in the middle of it +complained of the heat of the room (one of those large rooms on the +first floor in Adelphi Terrace, famous for the Angelica Kaufmann +paintings on the ceiling), and opening the French window close to the +piano he went out on to the balcony. There I was, having walked along +the balcony from the next room. So successful was my "make-up" that in +passing through the supper-room to get on to the balcony some of the +members spoke to me under the impression I was the other member! The +hall-porter had handed me a letter intended for my "double." Of course I +imitated his walk, his mannerisms at the piano, and his voice, but I +made a poor attempt to sing. This was the joke. "What was the matter?" +"Never sang like that before," "Evidently thinks it is funny to be +completely out of tune," "Hullo, what is this?" as _my_ "double" walked +through the crowded room just as I finished, and shook hands with me! + +I would really have sung the song better, but my eye happened to catch +the puzzled stare of my friend the literary visitor in the front row. He +looked angry and annoyed, and before my "double" came up to me, my +friend, scowling at me, said, "Sir, I think it is infernal bad taste on +your part to imitate my friend Harry Furniss!" + +Who is it that says we English have no sense of humour? My "double" in +the preceding tale was my brother-in-law, who as a boy was the companion +of Mr. George Grossmith, and in fact once appeared as an amateur at +German Reed's, the old Gallery of Illustration, in a piece, with "Gee +Gee" as his double, entitled "Too much Alike." + +He was also an inveterate and clever _raconteur_, and of course +occasionally made a slip, as for instance, on a railway journey to +Brighton once, when he found himself alone with a stranger. The stranger +in conversation happened to ask my relative casually if he were fond of +travelling. "Travelling? I should rather think so" he replied airily, +and imagining he was impressing someone who was "something in the City," +he continued, "Yes, sir, I'm a pretty experienced traveller. Been mostly +round the world and all that kind of thing, you know, and had my share +of adventures, I can tell you!" After a bit he gained more confidence, +and launched into details, giving the stranger the benefit of his +experience. "Why, sir, you read in books that hunters of big game, such +as tigers, watch their eyes. Not a bit of it. What you have got to do +is to watch the _tail_, and that's the thing. It mesmerises the animal, +so to speak, and you have him at your mercy," and so forth, and so +forth. On arriving at the hotel he found his travelling companion had +just signed his name in the visitors' book. It was Richard Burton! My +brother-in-law hastened to apologise to Sir Richard for his absurd +tales. He had no idea, of course, to whom he was retailing his stiff +yarns. Burton laughed. "My dear sir, not a word, please. I was more +entertained than I can tell you. You really might have travelled--you +lie so well!" + +[Illustration: TWO TRAVELLERS.] + +One of the most eccentric men I ever met, and certainly one of the most +successful journalists--a _rara avis_, for he made a fortune in Fleet +Street, and retired to live in a castle in the country--was a man whose +name, although a very singular one, remains absolutely unknown even to +members of the Fourth Estate. He was a clever, hard-working journalist; +every line he wrote--and he was always writing--was printed and +well-paid for, but he never signed an article, whilst others, +journalists, specialists, poets, essayists--logrollers of high +degree--see their name often enough, are "celebrities," "men of the +time," feted and written about, but eventually retire on the Civil List. +Eccentricity is the breath of their nostrils, their very existence +depends upon it, publicity is essential. My friend's eccentricity was +for his own pleasure. He lived in a frugal--some might think in a +miserly way--in two rooms in one of the Inns of Court. Perhaps I shall +be more correct if I say he _existed_ in one. A loaf of bread and half a +pint of milk was his daily fare. The room he slept in he worked in. The +other was empty, save for bundles of dusty old newspapers containing +articles from his ever active brain. "I keep this room," said he, "for +times when I am over-wrought. Then I shut myself up in it, and _roar_! +When by this process I have blown away my mental cobwebs, my brain +regains its pristine energy, and I go back to my study calm and +collected, having done no one any harm, and myself a lot of good." I +have dined at his Club with him in the most luxurious fashion, quite +regardless of expense. He was a capital host, but, like the magazines he +wrote for, he only appeared replete once a month. His Press work he +looked upon as mere bread and milk. His work was excellent, journalism +which editors term "safe," neither too brilliant nor too dull, certainly +having no trace whatever of eccentricity. + +I may here offer an opinion, and make a suggestion to young journalists, +and that is--safe, steady, dull mediocrity is what pays in the long run; +to attempt to be brilliant when not a genius is fatal. To have the +genius, brilliancy, pluck, and success means tremendous prosperity and +favour for a time, but the editors and the public tire of your +cleverness. You are too much in evidence. It is safer from a mere +business standpoint to be the steady, stupid tortoise than the brilliant +hare. The man or woman who writes a carefully thought-out essay is +flattered, and quoted, and talked about: for that article the writer may +possibly receive as many sovereigns as the writer of a newspaper article +receives shillings; but the shillings come every day, and the sovereigns +once a month. It is wiser in the long run to be satisfied with a loaf +and milk once a day than with a dinner at a Club every four weeks. + +If in the old days the Bohemian scribbler was not in Society, he could +at least imagine himself there. There was nothing to prevent his +speaking of a member of the aristocracy as "one of us" with far less +embarrassment and with as much truth as he could nowadays when he _is_ +invited--but still as the oil that never will mix with water. Except in +imagination--an imagination such as I recollect a well-known figure in +literary Bohemia had when I knew it well, a writer of stories for the +popular papers: Society stories, in which a Duke ran away with a +governess, or a Duchess eloped with an artist, each weekly instalment +winding up with a sensational event, so as to carry forward the interest +of the reader. This writer--quite excellent in his way--a thorough +Bohemian, knowing nothing about the Society he wrote about, had the +power of making himself, and sometimes fresh acquaintances, believe that +he played in real life a part in the story he was writing. He did not +refer to the experiences as related by him as incidents in his story, +but as actual events of the day. + +[Illustration: "THE DUKE OF BROADACRES."] + +"Brandy and soda? Thanks. My dear fellow, I feel a perfect wreck, shaken +to pieces. I had an experience to-day I shall never forget. I have just +arrived from Devonshire; ran down by a night train to look at a hunter +Lord Briarrose wanted to sell me. Bob--that is Briarrose--and I +travelled together. He is going to be married, you know; heiress; great +beauty--neighbour--rolling in wealth. I stopped at the Castle last +night, and before Bob was up I was on the thoroughbred and well over the +country, returning about eleven along the top of the cliffs. To my +horror, I saw a carriage and pair charging down a road which at one time +continued a long distance skirting the cliffs. Cliffs had fallen; road +cut off; unprotected; drop down cliff eight hundred feet on to pointed +rocks and deep sea. There was nothing between the runaway horses and the +cliff, except a storm-broken solitary tree with one branch curved over +the road. When the horses bolted, the groom fell off. There was only a +lady in the carriage, powerless to stop the frightened steeds dashing on +to death. As she approached I was electrified. Something told me she was +Bob's _fiancee_. A moment and I was charging the hunter under that tree. +Jumping up out of the saddle, I clasped the solitary branch with both +hands, and turning as an acrobat would on a trapeze, I hung by my legs, +hands downwards, calling to the lady to clasp them. The fiery steeds and +the oscillating carriage dashed under me--our hands met. With a +superhuman effort I raised the fainting fairy form out of the vehicle as +it passed like a whirlwind. The next moment horses and carriage were +being dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Under our united weight the +branch of the tree broke, and we fell unhurt on the moss-covered path. +When the eyes of the fair lady opened to gaze upon her deliverer, I +started as if shot. She sprang to her feet. 'Reginald!' she cried. 'Is +it you?' + +"She was my first love. We had not seen each other for years! Thanks. +I'll have some more brandy. Hot this time, with some sugar, please." + +The following week _The London Library_ appeared. I bought it, and read +"The Duke's Oak," all about Lord Briarrose and Lady Betty Buttercup and +the runaway horses. The tree with the one branch gave the title to the +story, and the Dashing Duke of Broadacres was the aristocratic +acrobat--my friend the author! + +[Illustration: FROM A SKETCH BY HERBERT JOHNSON.] + +The Savage Club is a remnant of Bohemian London. It was started at a +period when art, literature, and the drama were at their lowest ebb--in +the "good old days" when artists wore seedy velveteen coats, smoked +clays, and generally had their works of art exhibited in pawnbrokers' +windows; when journalists were paid at the same rate and received the +same treatment as office-boys; and when actors commanded as many +shillings a week as they do pounds at present. This typical trio now +exists only in the imagination of the lady novelist. When first the +little band of Savages met they smoked their calumets over a +public-house in the vicinity of Drury Lane, in a room with a sanded +floor; a chop and a pint of ale was their fare, and good-fellowship +atoned for lack of funds. The Brothers Brough, Andrew Halliday, Tom +Robertson, and other clever men were the original Savages, and the +latter in one of his charming pieces made capital out of an incident at +the Club. One member asks another for a few shillings. "Very sorry, old +chap, I haven't got it, but I'll ask Smith." Smith replies, "Not a cent +myself, but I'll ask Brown." Brown asks Robinson, and so on until a +Croesus is found with five shillings in his pocket, which he is only +too willing to lend. But this true Bohemianism is as dead as Queen Anne, +and the Savages now live merely on the traditions of the past. His +Majesty the King, when Prince of Wales, was a member of the Club, and an +Earl takes the chair and entertains my Lord Mayor with his flunkeys and +all. The Club is now as much advertised as the Imperial Institute, but +the true old flavour is no more. No doubt some excellent men and good +fellows are still in the Savage wigwam. Some Bohemians--a sprinkling of +those Micawbers, "waiting for something to turn up"--keep up its +reputation, but in reality it is only Savage now in name. + +[Illustration: THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN AS A SAVAGE.] + +I was not thirty when I ceased to be a member. I had been on the +committee, and had taken an active part in matters concerning it, until +it changed its character and lost its true Bohemian individuality, and +being a member of the Garrick Club, I found matured in it the element +the Savage endeavoured at that time to emulate. Although I am still in +my forties, few of those with whom I smoked the calumet of peace round +the camp fire at a great pow-wow in the wigwam of the excellent Savages, +alas! remain. + +The old Grecian Theatre in the City Road was the nursery of many members +of the theatrical profession, and authors too. Two well-known members +of the Savage Club, Merritt and Pettitt, were writers of the common +stuff necessary for the melodramas of the kind connected with their +names. Merritt would have made an equal fortune if exhibited as the +original fat boy in "Pickwick," or as a prize baby at a show. I suppose +my readers are aware that it is not necessary to be a baby in order to +be exhibited as one, for I recollect, in my Bohemian days, going down to +Woolwich Gardens when the famous William Holland was manager of them, +and accidentally strolling into a tent outside of which was a placard, +"The Largest Baby in the World! 6d." I was not expected,--and the "Baby" +was walking about in his baby-clothes, with little pink bows on his +shoulders, smoking a horrible black clay pipe. He was the dwarf +policeman in Holland's pantomime in the winter-time! + +[Illustration: "ANOTHER GAP IN OUR RANKS."] + +Merritt would have made a capital prize baby. He was tall, very stout, +and possessed of a perfectly hairless, baby's face and a squeaky little +voice. I shall never forget a prize remark this transpontine author made +in the Savage Club, when an editor rushed in and said, "Have you heard +the news? Carlyle is dead!" Merritt rose, and putting his hand on his +chest, squeaked out, "Another gap in our ranks!" + +[Illustration: "JOPE."] + +A peculiar figure in Bohemia in those old days was "J." Pope, known as +"Jope," brother of the late celebrated K.C. Jo was nearly as large as +his brother, the well-known legal luminary, and Paul Merritt rolled into +one, and wore his black wide-awake on the back of his pleasing, +intelligent head. I saw him one sultry autumn evening leaning against a +lamp-post in Chancery Lane to take breath. + +"Hullo, Pope, where are you going?" + +"My dear boy, let me lean on you a minute. I'm going up to the +Birkbeck--to lecture--to lecture on 'Air, and How We Breathe!'" + +As a contrast to the popular Doctor was a wit more popularly known, H. J. +Byron--as thin as the proverbial lamp-post. Of course the stories about +Byron would fill a volume, but there is one that is always worth +repeating, and that is his reply to a vulgar and obtrusive stranger who +met him at Plymouth, and said to him, "Mr. Byron, I've 'ad a walk _h_all +round the 'Oe." + +"Yes, old chap, and the next time you have a walk I advise you to walk +all round the H." + +[Illustration: H. J. BYRON.] + +In those merry gatherings I recall the familiar features of true +Bohemians, when Bohemianism was at its best--not the ornamental names of +those one finds mentioned in all reports of the famous gatherings, but +of the members who really used and made the Club. Few of the outside +public recollect, for instance, the name of Arthur Mathieson, who wrote +and sang that pathetic ballad, "The Little Hero"; who also was an actor +and writer of ability,--in fact, he was what is fatal to men of his +class--a veritable Crichton. Being in appearance not unlike Sir Henry +Irving, he was engaged by our leading actor to play his double in "The +Corsican Brothers," and made up so like his chief that no one could +possibly tell the difference between the two. One evening during the run +of the piece an old Irishwoman who was duster of the theatre, and with +whom the genial double of Sir Henry often had a friendly word, +approached as she thought the familiar M., and in a rather frivolous +mood innocently tickled the actor under the chin with her dusting-broom. + +"My good woman, what do you mean?" + +The poor Irishwoman dropped on her knees, clasped her hands and said, +"The Saints protect me! it's the Masther himself--I'm kilt entoirely." + +The "Masther," however, probably enjoyed the humour of it. Sir Henry, +like his dear old friend Mr. J. L. Toole, has found a relief in +occasional harmless fun. Toole, however, was irrepressible. + +[Illustration: A PRESENTATION.] + +I was one day walking with him in Leeds (when he was appearing in the +evening on the stage, and I on the platform). A street hawker proffered +the comedian a metal pencil-case for the sum of a halfpenny. Toole made +this valuable purchase. As soon as I left the platform that night, I +found a note for me, inviting me to the theatre directly after the +performance. Toole came back on to the stage, and making me an elaborate +and complimentary speech, referring to me as "a brother artist in +another sphere," etc., etc., presented me with the pencil! I made an +appropriate reply, and we went to supper. + +The following paragraph from the pen of Mr. Toole appeared in the Press +the next day in London as well as the provinces: + +"Brother artists, even when working in different grooves, do not lack +appreciation of each other's work. After Mr. Harry Furniss's lecture in +Leeds the other night, he and Mr. Toole foregathered; and the popular +and genial actor presented the 'comedian of the pencil' with a very neat +and handsome pencil-case, just adapted for the jotting down, wherever +duty takes him, of those graphic sketches with which the caricaturist +amuses us week by week." + +I must confess I am sometimes guilty of mild practical jokes, but I am +always careful to select reciprocative and kindred spirits--with such a +spirit of practical joking as J. L. Toole, for instance. He and I have +had many a joke at each other's expense. It so happened that when he was +producing the great success, "The House Boat," he wintered at Hastings, +where I had a house for the season, and we saw a great deal of each +other. Toole was always what is called a bad study--that is, it was with +great difficulty and pain he learnt his parts. On this occasion the time +was drawing nearer and nearer for the production; he was getting more +and more nervous about his new part, and I received a visit from his +friend the late Edmund Routledge, asking me to protect "Johnny" from his +friends--in other words, to keep his whereabouts dark, as he had to +study. Toole had had one or two little practical jokes with me, which I +owed him for, so having to rush up to town, I had the following letter +written to him: + + "DEAR MR. TOOLE,--I suppose you recollect your old friends in Smoketown +when you performed one night at our Hall and did us the honour of +stopping at our house over Sunday. You then kindly asked us all to stop +with you when we went to London--a promise we have treasured ever since. +We called at Maida Vale yesterday, but finding you were at Hastings I +write now to say that we are on our way. Besides myself I am bringing +dear Aunt Jane you will remember--now unfortunately a confirmed +invalid--and my boy Tom who has got a bad leg, and Uncle William and his +three daughters, and my dear Sue, who, I am sorry to say, is still +suffering, but I think a week at Hastings will do us all a world of +good--particularly to have you to amuse us all the time. + + "Yours very truly," + +And a signature was attached which I could not myself read. + +The next day in London a hansom pulled up close to where I was walking, +and a friend of Toole's jumped out, and, seizing my hand, he said, "I +say, Furniss, you travel about a lot, lecturing and all that kind of +thing--do you know Smoketown?" + +[Illustration: SAVAGE CLUB. + MY DESIGN FOR THE MENU 25TH ANNIVERSARY DINNER. +_The Original Drawing was by request presented to His Royal Highness._] + +"Smoketown!" I said, "Smoketown!" (Truth to tell, at the moment I had +quite forgotten all about my letter to Toole; then it dawned upon me.) +"Oh, yes--well," I said; "I had one night there, and some frightful +friends of Toole's bored my life out. He had invited them, I believe, to +stop with him in London, and they--" + +"Just the people I want. What's their name?" + +"I forget that entirely." + +"Can you read this?" he said, producing my letter. + +"No," I said; "I can't read that signature." + +"Do you know where they are likely to put up in town?" + +"Not the slightest idea." + +"I've tried every hotel in London." + +"Temperance?" I asked. + +"No, not one. Happy thought!--of course that is where they'll be." + +"Try them all," I said, as I waved my hand. And off the cab rushed to +visit the various temperance hotels in London. + +The next day I returned to Hastings, and went straight to Mr. Toole's +hotel. Getting the hall porter into my confidence, he sent up a message +to Mr. Toole that a gentleman with a large family had arrived to see +him; and the porter and I made the noise of ten up the stairs, and +eventually the gentleman and family were announced at Toole's door. I +shall never forget poor Toole, standing in an attitude so familiar to +the British public, with his eye-glass in his hand and his eyes cast on +the ground--he was afraid to raise them. As soon as he did, however, his +other hand caught the first book that was handy, and it was flung at my +head. + +Bohemianism, when I arrived in London, was emigrating from the tavern of +sanded floors and clay pipes into Clubland. Artists, authors, actors, +and journalists were starting clubs of their own, simply to continue the +same pot-house life without restraint; in place of turning the +public-house into a club, they turned the club into a public-house. If +journalists in Grub Street were at their worst in those days, artists +were at their best. The great boom in trade which followed the +Franco-German War produced a wave of extraordinary prosperity, which +landed many a tramp struggling in troubled waters safely on the beach of +fortune. Working men in the North were drinking champagne; some of them +rose to be masters and millionaires. They tired of drinking champagne, +they could not play the pianos they had bought, or enjoy the mansions +they had built; but they could rival each other in covering their walls +with pictures, so the poorest "pot-boiler" found a ready sale. The most +indifferent daubs were sold as quickly as they could be framed. Artists +then built their mansions, drank champagne, and played on their grand +pianos. When I, still in my teens, first met these good fellows, I might +have been tempted, seeing what wretched work satisfied the +picture-dealer, to abandon black and white for colour; but already the +boom was over. Artists, like their patrons, had found out their mistake. +They had either to let or sell their costly houses, and have, with few +exceptions, little to show now for those wonderful days of prosperity in +the early seventies--which they still talk over in their clubs in +Bohemia. + +[Illustration] + +The few exceptions are the survival of the fittest. But the best of +artists have never seen such a boom in art as that I saw in my early +days in London. It cannot be denied that, from a fashionable point of +view, picture shows are going down. Artists have had to stand on one +side as popular Society favourites: the actors have taken their place. +One has only to visit the studios on "Show Sundays" to see what a +falling off there is. "Show Sunday" was, some years ago, one of the +events of the year. From Kensington to St. John's Wood, and up to +Hampstead, the studios of the mighty attracted hosts of fashionable +people to these annual gatherings. + +A familiar figure at these for many years was the genial Sir Spencer +Wells, the well-known surgeon. He lived monarch of all he surveyed at +Golder's Hill, Hampstead, and many a morning I met him when riding, and +we jogged into town together. He was a capital _raconteur_, a happy wit, +and told one incident I always recall to mind as I pass a house on the +top of Fitzjohn's Avenue, where a few years ago lived, painted and +"received" that Wilson Barrett of the brush, Edwin Long, R.A., a +hard-working, self-made artist who amassed a fortune by successfully +gauging the taste of the large middle-class English public in mixing +religion with voluptuous melodrama. On the annual "Show Sunday" no +studio was more popular than Long's. His subjects perhaps had something +to do with it. They were in keeping with the Sabbath. The work too was +as smooth and as highly finished as the most orthodox sermon. _Ars longa +est._ Yes, said some cynic, but art is not Long. But anyway Long's art +was commercially successful, and he was what is known as "a good +business man." + +[Illustration] + +As haberdashers in the days of crude advertising used to place men in +costume at the shop door--a fireman when they were selling off a damaged +salvage stock, or a sailor or, if a _very_ enterprising tradesman, a +diver, helmet and all, when selling off goods damaged from a wreck--so +did this Academician, when exhibiting Biblical subjects on "Show +Sunday," engage a Nubian model to stand at the door of his shop. This +man had also to announce the names of the guests, and when the small, +spectacled, simple man with the large smile gave his name, Sir Spencer +Wells, the model pulled himself up to his full height and in his best +English proudly and loudly announced to the crowd in the studio-- + +"The Prince of Wales!" + +The effect was magical: all fell in line, ladies curtseyed, men bowed, +when the Prince of Hampstead Heath entered. The artist looked as black +as his model, and the visitors laughed. + +At the other end of Fitzjohn's Avenue once lived that ever popular +Academician, the late Mr. John Pettie. Mr. Pettie was a vigorous +draughtsman and a beautiful colourist, and many of his portraits are +very fine. He seemed to revel in painting a red coat--an object to many +painters as maddening as it is to the infuriated bull. On one "Show +Sunday" before the sending-in day of the Royal Academy, at which he +exhibited, I recollect admiring a portrait of Mr. Lamb, the celebrated +golfer, in his red coat, when the original of the portrait came into the +studio. Not feeling very well, Mr. Pettie had to avoid the crowd of his +admirers seeing him. There were a few exceptions, of which I was one. I +had just left him when I saw Mr. Lamb before his picture. In this +portrait the "bulger" golf club--which Mr. Lamb, I believe, invented, to +the delight of the golfing world--is introduced. I ran back to Mr. +Pettie and told him that there was a stupid man in the studio wanting to +know why artists always draw golf clubs wrongly; that as a Scotchman he +must protest against such a club, which was out of shape, like a club +foot. "Tell him, mon, it's a bulger--Lamb's invention!" I returned. "He +wants to know who Mr. Lamb is, and what is a bulger?--perhaps it's a new +kind of hunting-crop and not a golf club at all?" In rushed Mr. Pettie, +like an enraged lion, to slay the ignorant visitor, but in reality to +shake hands with Mr. Lamb and explain my childish joke. + +Leaving Pettie, I called at a studio near Hampstead occupied by a very +clever Irish artist, who was very much depressed when I entered. Gazing +in bewilderment at his picture for the Academy, representing Milton with +his daughters in his garden at Chalfont St. Giles, he said-- + +"Furniss, I'm in an awful state entoirely over this picture. One of +those critic fellows has been in here, and he tells me this picture +won't do at all at all. I've painted in Milton's garden as I've seen it, +but the critic tells me that these are all modern flowers and weren't +known in the country in the poet's time. Now, what on earth am Oi to +do?" + +"Oh, don't bother about those critics," I said. "They know nothing. +Milton was blind, don't you know, so how could he tell whether the +flowers were correct or not?" + +"Begorrah, Furniss, you're right. Oi never thought of that. It's just +like those ignorant critic chaps to upset a fellow in this way." + + + + + CHAPTER III. + +MY CONFESSIONS AS A SPECIAL ARTIST. + +[Illustration: DISTRESS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY. _Acting as Special Artist +for The Illustrated London News._] + + The Light Brigade--Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)--Slumming--The Boat + Race--Realism--A Phantasmagoria--Orlando and the Caitiff--Fancy Dress + Balls--Lewis Wingfield--Cinderella--A Model--All Night Sitting--An + Impromptu Easel--"Where there's a Will there's a Way"--The American + Sunday Papers--I am Deaf--The Grill--The World's + Fair--Exaggeration--Personally Conducted--The Charnel House--10, + Downing Street--I attend a Cabinet Council--An Illustration by Mr. + Labouchere--The Great Lincolnshire Trial--Praying without Prejudice. + +[Illustration: AT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE. (_Reduction of +Large Drawing._)] + + +Sir William Russell and I were called upon at a banquet in the City to +respond to the toast of the Press. Sir William made one of his +characteristic, graceful little speeches, reminiscential and modest. +When I rose I was for a moment also reminiscential--but not modest. "My +Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Masters of this Worshipful Company,--I +appreciate the appropriateness in coupling my name with that of Sir +William Russell, for both of us have made a noise in the world at the +same time--Dr. Russell with his first war letters to the _Times_, and I +in my cradle, for I came into this troubled world while others in arms +were making a noise in the Crimea." + +[Illustration: AS SPECIAL AT THE BALACLAVA CELEBRATION.] + +Naturally for this reason I have always taken an interest in the doings +of that time; so it was quite _con amore_ that I acted as "special" at +the first Balaclava Celebration Banquet (1875), twenty years after +"Billy" Russell's first war letters and my first birthday. + +The roll-call on the occasion was funny, seeing that it was that of the +"Light Brigade"--some were "light" and many were heavy--one I recollect +was about eighteen stone. The banquet was held in the Alexandra Palace, +Muswell Hill. The visitors, except the military--past or present--were +shamefully treated. We had to stand all the time behind the chairs and +wearily watch a scene not altogether elevating to lookers-on. We were +not allowed a chair to sit on, nor any refreshment of any kind--not even +if we paid for it; and I well recollect how hungry I was when I returned +to my studio after a tedious journey at 1 in the morning, having had +nothing to eat since 1 of the previous day. Such Red Tape was, I +suppose, to illustrate the disgraceful arrangements of the commissariat +in the Crimea! I was standing close to Miss Thompson (Lady Butler), who +had just become famous by her picture "The Roll Call." She was making +notes, and possibly intended painting a sequel to her celebrated +picture. She was exhausted and tired, and no doubt too disgusted by such +ungallant conduct on the part of the organisers of the banquet to touch +the subject. Had she painted this particular roll-call I fear many of +the figures would have had to be drawn out of the perpendicular. + +Twenty years before one of the heroes was, possibly, a better and a +wiser man, and tackled the "Rooshins" with greater dexterity than he +displayed on this occasion in managing a jelly. He had waiters to right +of him, waiters to left of him, and waiters behind him, but that jelly +defeated him, although he charged it with fork, spoon, and finally with +fingers. + +From a very early age it was naturally my ambition to be introduced to +Mr. Punch, but this was not to be just yet, and the first London paper +for which I drew regularly was the _Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic +News_, which was started soon after I arrived in London. I continued to +work for it until it was bought by the proprietor of the _Illustrated +London News_, when I became a large contributor to that leading +illustrated paper. + +Most of my work for the _Illustrated London News_ consisted of single +and double pages of character sketches, in which Eton and Harrow cricket +matches, Oxford and Cambridge boat races, tennis meetings, the Lawn at +Goodwood, and many other scenes of English life were treated +pictorially; but I also acted sometimes in the capacity of a special +correspondent, and this duty sometimes took me into places far from +pleasant. + +[Illustration: DISTRESS IN THE NORTH. _Page (reduction), "Illustrated +London News." Republished by permission of the proprietors._] + +On my twenty-fourth Christmas, the year after I was married, I recollect +having to start off upon such a mission to the North of England, where, +owing to strikes and labour disputes, most distressing scenes were +taking place. Throwing myself into the work, I thoroughly ferreted out +the distress which prevailed, pursuing my investigations into the very +garrets of the poor starving creatures whose privacy I thus disturbed at +the entreaty and under the escort of the district visitors and other +benevolent people, whilst the criminal classes also came in for a share +of my observation, which in this case was conducted under the sheltering +wing of a detective. + +I cannot, however, say that my energy met with its due reward, for such +was the realism with which I had treated the subject allotted to me +that the editor and proprietors of the _Illustrated London News_ were +reluctant to shock the susceptibilities of their readers by presenting +them with such scenes, and I had to substitute for them sketches of soup +kitchens, committee meetings and refuges. That the editorial decision +was not a sound one was amply proved a few years later, when during a +somewhat similar crisis Mr. G. R. Sims and the late Mr. Fred Barnard +published work of a similar breadth and boldness with signal effect. + +Visiting slums, seeing death from want and misery on all sides, is +certainly not the most pleasant way of spending the festive season. In +company with detectives, clergymen, or self-sacrificing district +visitors, you may swallow the pill with the silver on; but try it +single-handed, and it is a very different affair. I was taken for some +demon rent-collector prowling about, and was peered at through broken +windows and doors, and received with language warm enough to thaw the +icicles. The sketches I made during the weeks I spent in the haunts of +want and misery would have made a startling volume, but time and money +were thrown away, and only the perfunctory pictures were published. The +public have no idea, or seldom think, of the great trouble and expense +incurred in faithfully depicting everyday scenes. Still, it is not +possible for a "special" even to see everything, or to be in two places +simultaneously; and consequently, in ordinary pictorial representations, +dummy figures are frequently looked upon as true portraits. One boat +race, for example, is very much like another. Some years ago I executed +a panoramic series of sketches of the University Race from start to +finish, and as they were urgently wanted, the drawings had to be sent in +the same day. Early in the morning, before the break of fast, I found +myself at Putney, rowing up to Mortlake, taking notes of the different +points on the way--local colour through a fog. Getting home before the +Londoners started for the scene, I was at work, and the drawings--minus +the boats--were sent in shortly after the news of the race. The figures +were imaginary and unimportant, but one correspondent wrote to point out +the exact spot where he stood, and complained of my leaving out the +black band on his white hat, and placing him too near a pretty girl, +adding that his wife, who had not been present, had recognised his +portrait. + +Yes, I must confess, one has often to draw upon the imagination even in +serious "realism," Some years ago I went with a colleague of the pen to +illustrate and describe the dreadful scenes which were said to take +place in St. James's Park, where the poor people were seen to sleep all +night on the seats. We arrived about 2 A.M. It was a beautiful moonlight +night, but though we walked up and down for hours not a soul came in +sight. My companion said, "It's a bad business; we cannot do anything +with this." I replied, "We must not go away without something to show; +now if you will lie down I will make a sketch of you, and then I will +lie down and you can describe me." + +[Illustration: REALISM!] + +One of the most "uncanny" experiences I ever had as a "special" I find +graphically described by the late Hon. Lewis Wingfield, who accompanied +me on the strange mission. + +[Illustration: "THE CAITIFF" AND ORLANDO.] + +"Winter without. Snow. A sea of billows drifting across the sky, +glittering, frosted--a symphony in metals--silver, aluminium, +lead--rendered buoyant for the nonce, ethereal--as though the world were +really gone Christmas mad, and, having a sudden attack of topsy-turvydom +in its inside, had taken to showering its treasures about the firmament, +instead of keeping them snugly put away in mines below ground. A sheet +of snow, and bitter white rain driving still. A huge building looming +black, its many eyes staring into the dark--lidless, bilious, vacant. +This is a hospital. Or is it a factory, disguised with a veneer of the +Puginesque? Or an aesthetic barrack? Or an artistic workhouse? Visible +yet, under falling snow which has not had time to cover them, are +flower-beds, shrub-plots, meandering walks. Too genteel and ambitious +for the most aesthetic of workhouses or advanced of hospitals, we +wonder what the building is; and our wonder is not decreased by seeing a +postern opened in a huge black wall, from which a handful of +conspirators creep silently. We rub our eyes. Are we dreaming? Is this, +or is it not, the age of scientific marvels, levelling of castes, +rampant communism, murder, agrarian outrage, sudden massacre?--the _olla +podrida_ which we are pleased to denominate enlightenment? That first +black figure is James the Second. Heavens! The Jacobites live yet, and +will join, doubtless, with the Fenians and Mr. Bradlaugh, and a _posse +comitatus_ of iconoclasts, to upset the reign of order, and add a thorn +to the chaplet of our hard-run Premier. James the Second. Not a doubt of +it. There he is--periwig, black velvet, and bugles. Where, oh where, is +the Great Seal, with which he played ducks and drakes in the Thames? Yet +no. This is no Jacobite plot, for His Majesty is followed by no troop of +partisans on tiptoe in hose and doublet. He is not seeking to win his +own again. A woodman trudges behind--we recognise him, for his name's +"Orlando"--(Wingfield himself, in a beautiful costume, which he had made +two years previously when playing the part of Orlando in a production of +"As You Like It" in Manchester, the Calvert Memorial performance; Miss +Helen Faucit (Lady Martin), Rosalind; Herman Merivale, Touchstone; Tom +Taylor, Adam; and other well-known celebrities assisting). Then he +describes me: "A muffled creature of sinister aspect. Short, +auburn-locked, extinguished by a portentous hat, tripping and stumbling +over a cloak, or robe, in whose dragging folds he conceals his identity +as well as his power of volition, a weird and gruesome phantom. +What--oh what--is this hovering ghost? He must be just defunct, for the +purgatorial garments fit him not, he stumbles at every step, and when he +trips an underdress is unveiled that's like a City waiter's. What is +he--the arch conspirator--doing himself? He starts, tries to conceal a +book, but we snatch it from him. Sketches! lots of sketches! +caricatures, low and vulgar portraits of ourselves! 'What are you?' we +scream, 'and why this orgy? Speak, caitiff, or for ever hold your +peace!' + +[Illustration] + +"Perceiving that we are in earnest and not to be trifled with, and glare +with forbidding mien, the caitiff speaks in trembling accents. 'If you +please,' he says, 'I'm the artist from the great illustrated journal; +I'm drawing pictures of the lunatics. My disguise is beyond my own +control, and trips me up, but I'm told it's becoming.' 'Lunatics!' we +echo. + +"'Yes,' the caitiff murmurs. 'This is the annual fancy dress ball at +Brookwood Asylum. You and I and the doctors and attendants are the only +sane people in the place. By-and-by the country gentry will be admitted, +and then the tangle will be hopeless, for even in everyday life it's +impossible to know who's mad and who isn't. How much more here?' + +"We left the trembling caitiff to his secret sketching, and the +despondency produced by his appearance. He was sane, was he? Then in him +were we revenged on human nature, for sure never was mortal more +oppressed by his gear and his surroundings." + +The fact is that my editor, in sending his "young man," omitted to say +that the invitation was crossed with "fancy dress only," so I arrived in +ordinary war-paint. The Doctor was horrified. "This will never do. My +patients will resent it. You _must_ be in fancy dress." All my host +could find was a seedy red curtain and an old cocked hat (had it been a +nightcap I should have been complete as Caudle). I wrapped this martial +cloak around me, and soon found myself in the most extraordinary scene, +so graphically described by Wingfield. He was not alone in his scorn +for me. The "Duke of York" had a great contempt for my appearance, but +when introduced to him as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, he +unbent, waved his bauble, and commanded me to be seated. The visitors +eyed me suspiciously all the evening, and on my entering the +supper-room, accompanied by the Doctor, they were seized with the idea +that I must be a very dangerous case, and readily made room--in fact, +made off. One of the poor patients was an artist, and showed me his +sketch-book, the work of many, many months--a number of drawings in +colour, stuck one on top of the other, resembling an elongated +concertina, so that only the corners of the pages could be seen. The +patients wore costumes designed and made by themselves, in marked +contrast to their stylish keepers. Among the guests the county families +were well represented, and garrison officers from a neighbouring depot +formed a motley group which a looker-on, viewing the scene as in a +kaleidoscope, would laugh at. One turn, and the next moment some +incident might occur which an imaginative brain could easily work into a +romance too touching to relate. + +For some years I had quite a run of fancy dress balls, a craze at that +time, acting as special artist for various periodicals, the _Illustrated +London News_ in particular. The ball above recorded was unique, but +there is very little variety in such gatherings, where variety is the +one thing aimed at, thus showing the limit of our English artistic +invention. The ingredients of a ball of three hundred, say, would be as +follows,--Thirty Marie Stuarts, ten Marguerites, twenty-eight Fausts, +fifty Flower Girls, nine Portias, three Clowns, sixteen Matadores, +thirty Sailors, twenty-five Ophelias, twenty-five Desdemonas, the +remainder uniforms and nondescripts. Of course any popular figure, +picture or play of the moment will be represented. When the relief of +Mafeking took place, the number of Baden-Powells, tall, short, young, +old, thin and stout, in the various fancy balls and bazaars appearing +will be, as newspaper leader-writers say, "a fact fresh in the mind of +the reader." Some years ago a portrait of the "missing Gainsborough," a +picture of the Duchess of Devonshire, which mysteriously vanished from +Agnew's gallery in Bond Street, was represented in dozens at the fancy +balls of the period, and the Gilbert-Sullivan opera "Patience," supplied +many a costume. My brother "special" on this occasion--Lewis +Wingfield--was a Crichton of eccentricity. The son of an Irish peer, an +officer in the Guards, he dressed as a ballet-girl and danced on the +stage; was a journalist and wrote for Charles Dickens when that great +novelist edited _Household Words_. Wingfield never did anything by +halves, so in writing a series of articles for Dickens on the casual +wards of London he personated a street photographer (having delicate +hands he could not pretend to be a labourer), and wrote his experiences +of the dreadful state of affairs existing in those days under the rule +of Bumbledom. The last he sought relief at was situated close to Golden +Square. Here he was very harshly treated, and when he left he rapidly +changed into his usual clothes, drove up to the establishment as one of +the life patrons (all his family had for years supported the charity), +and had the satisfaction of dismissing the overbearing overseer, to the +wretch's chagrin. Wingfield related this incident with great glee. + +[Illustration: AT A FANCY DRESS BALL.] + +Anxious to find out the amount niggers made on the Derby Day, he decided +to go as a burnt-cork nigger himself; but it is impossible to do this +unless you are of that ilk, for like the business of the beggars and +street performers, everything is properly organised; there is a proper +system and superintendent to arrange matters. After some difficulty he +managed to get introduced as the genuine article, and at 4 in the +morning had to stand with the other Ethiopian minstrels at "Poverty +Junction," between Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Station, while lots were +drawn for positions on the course. As luck would have it, Wingfield drew +a pitch opposite the Grand Stand, where at least he would be among his +own acquaintances. All the niggers had to walk to Epsom, unless it +happened some friendly carter could be induced to offer a seat. Had +four-in-hands come along Wingfield might have been saved a walk, but +costers were to him unknown. By lunch-time he was heartily sick of his +new life. However, he was determined to carry it through. In the +evening, after his long, hot day's work, he found he had to wait for the +policeman's train. After the half-million people had returned to London, +he was allowed to crawl into a carriage, and being thoroughly tired he +fell asleep in a corner of the compartment. But the police wanted some +entertainment, and waking him up, said: + +"Now then, darky, tune up! we can pay you as well as the toffs; let's +have a song!" They had a concert all the way, Wingfield singing the +solos. The hat was sent round and a collection made, and to the bitter +end Wingfield had to bang away at his banjo and squeak with what little +voice he had left. This nearly finished him. Arriving at Victoria, he +hailed a hansom. One driver after another eyed him scornfully and passed +on. He then for the first time realised that it is not a customary thing +for an itinerant nigger to drive about London in hansoms, even on Derby +Day. So he dragged himself wearily along the streets until he happened +to meet an intimate friend. To him he explained matters, and his friend +called a hansom for him and paid the driver as well before he would take +up his dusky fare. He thought the fact of his driving a street nigger a +great joke, and made merry over his passenger as he passed the other +drivers. But he was very much astonished when he drove up in front of +quite an imposing dwelling and saw the door opened by a footman as the +nigger toiled up the steps. + +[Illustration: LEWIS WINGFIELD AS A STREET NIGGER HOME FROM THE DERBY.] + +As an artist Wingfield was ambitious. Finding, as he told me, that he +could never be a great artist, he preferred not to be one at all. On his +walls were large classic paintings, not likely ever to find their way to +the walls of anyone else. But he tried his hand at popular art as well. +A scene in a circus, for instance, was one subject. A pretty little +child was engaged to sit in his studio, but as that day he was going to +Hengler's Circus to paint the background he, to the delight of the +child, took her with him. The little girl played about in the ring, and +was noticed by Mr. Hengler, who asked her if she would like to be +dressed up and play in the same ring at night. This led to the child +becoming a professional. She enchanted everyone as Cinderella. Her name +was Connie Gilchrist. I fell in love with her myself when I was in my +teens and first saw her as Cinderella. Afterwards when I came to London +I was as ignorant as a Lord Chief Justice as to who Connie Gilchrist +was; but I recollect a model sitting to me recommending my writing to +her younger sister for some figures she thought her sister would suit. +The day was fixed, but by the morning's post I received a letter from +the young lady to say that Mr. Hollingshead, of the Gaiety Theatre, had +sent for her, and she could not sit to me. She was Connie Gilchrist, and +I believe this was the last engagement she had accepted as a +professional model. + +Telegram from the editor of the _Illustrated London News_:--"Election, +Liverpool, see to it at once." So I did. On arriving in the evening, I +rushed off to a "ward meeting," To my surprise the artist of a rival +paper sat down beside me. He did not frighten me away, but candidly +confessed that he had seen a private telegram of mine saying I was +starting, and his editor packed him off by the same train. Ha! I must be +equal to him! I sat up all night and drew a page on wood, ready for +engraving, and sent it off by the first train in the morning. It was in +the press before my rival's rough notes left Liverpool. One would hardly +think, to see candles stuck in my boots, that the hotel was the Old +Adelphi. I trust the "special" of the future will find the electric +light, or a better supply of bedroom candlesticks. All day again +sketching, and all night hard at work, burning the midnight oil (I was +nearly writing boots). A slice of luck kept me awake in the early +morning. A knock at my door, and to my surprise a friend walked in who +had come down by a night train for a "daily" and seeing my name in the +visitors' book had looked me up, thinking I could give him some "tips." +"All right," I said; "a bargain: you sit for me and I'll talk. Here, +stand like this"--the Liberal candidate. "Capital! Now round like +this"--the Conservative. "Drawn from life! And after another day of this +kind of thing, I reached home without having had an hour's sleep. Oh! a +"special's" life is not a happy one. + +[Illustration: AN ALL-NIGHT SITTING.] + +Great political excitement, there is no doubt, turns men's heads. Once I +recollect finding a most dignified provincial politician in this state, +and necessity compelled me to turn him into a sketching-stool. Mr. +Gladstone was speaking at Bingley Hall, Birmingham, and although close +to him on the platform, I could not, being only five feet two, see over +the heads of others when all stood to cheer. I mentioned this fact to my +neighbour. "Oh, you must not miss this scene!" he said, and quickly, +without ceremony, he had me on his back, his bald head serving as an +easel. It has struck me since that had this old gentleman, a big man in +his native town, and still bigger in his own estimation, seen himself as +others saw him at that moment, the probability is that he would not +have felt anything like so kindly to me as I did to him. + +[Illustration: SKETCHES AT THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION: A WARD MEETING.--SEE +PAGE 138. + +_Reduction of Page Design. Brush Drawing on wood, made after election +meeting at night, and despatched to London by early morning train. See +the Confessions of a Special Artist._] + +Another instance of a special artist having to depend upon his wits was +when I found myself at a big central manufacturing town, sent down in a +hurry from London by the _Illustrated London News_ to illustrate a most +important election meeting--an election upon which the fate of the +Government of the day depended. When I arrived the mills had been +closed, crowds were in the streets, and it would have been a simple +matter to have got into Mafeking compared with getting into the hall in +which the meeting was at the time being held. + +[Illustration: MY EASEL. DRAWING MR. GLADSTONE AT A PUBLIC MEETING.] + +If there is one thing I dislike more than another it is a crowd, +particularly an electioneering crowd. Political fever is a bad malady, +even when one is impervious to it, if he has to fight his way through an +infected mob. Quickly slipping round to the principal hotel, and finding +there the carriages engaged for the celebrities of the meeting, I got +into one and was driven rapidly up to the hall, cheered by the mob, who +doubtless looked upon me as some active politician. Had I put my head +out of the window and promised them any absurdity, I believe they would +have chosen me their member on the spot. Arriving at the hall, I was +received by the tipstaffs, who, probably not catching my name +distinctly, thought as the hotel people had done, that I was sent down +in some official capacity, and politely ushered me to the platform, +where I was given a seat in the front row. + +Ah, you little know the difficulties of the poor artist in running his +subjects to earth. When in New York I was specially engaged by the _New +York Herald_ to contribute a series of studies of the leading public +men. These were to appear in the Sunday edition. + +Those Sunday papers! What gluttons for reading the Americans are! The +first Sabbath morning I was in the States I telephoned in an off-hand +sort of way from my bedroom for "some Sunday papers." I went on +dressing, and somehow forgot my order, but on leaving, or rather +attempting to leave, my room afterwards, I found to my astonishment the +doorway completely blocked with newspapers to the quantity of several +tons. I rang my bell vigorously. The attendant arrived, and seemed +considerably amused at my look of consternation. He explained to me that +these were five of the Sunday papers, and added apologetically that they +were all he could get at present. If I had stayed to read through that +pile I should be in the States now. + +[Illustration: THE AMERICAN SUNDAY PAPERS.] + +The first "subject" I was requested to caricature was the celebrated +sensational preacher, Dr. Parkhurst. When I arrived at his church it was +crowded to the doors, and I could not get near him. A churchwarden told +me to sit down where I was, but I put my hand to my ear and shook my +head, as much as to say "I do not hear you." Then one churchwarden said +to the other churchwarden, "This man is deaf, he doesn't hear; I was +telling him to sit down--" + +"Pardon me, but are you speaking?" I whispered. "I regret to say that I +am very deaf. I came specially from London to hear your great preacher, +and I should not like to return without gratifying this one desire I +have." + +"Say, is your wife here to-day?" asked one churchwarden of the other. + +"No, she is sick at home." + +"Could not you squeeze this funny little Britisher into your pew?" + +"Guess I could." + +So they beckoned to me to follow them, and I was ushered up the aisle +and sat under the Doctor. The result of that little manoeuvre was that +I did my work in peace, although sadly troubled to see his face in +consequence of the church being dark and the reading lamp hiding portion +of it. + +In America introductions are superfluous, so knowing Dr. Parkhurst came +over in the _Germanic_, the same ship that I travelled in some months +later, I walked boldly after the service into his room, shook him by the +hand, and mentioned in a familiar way the officers of the ship, the +storm, and other matters connected with his journey, and in that way had +the chance of ten minutes' chat and a closer observation of his facial +expression. + +It may happen, even when everything is carefully prepared to make the +visit of a special artist easy and comfortable, that work may be +difficult to accomplish. I must go to the United States for an +illustration of what I mean. + +Some years ago I met Max O'Rell at a London club, and was introduced by +him to a very English-looking gentleman with an American accent, who +immediately said: + +"Glad to meet you, Mr. Furniss. When you come over to the States we must +put you on the grill!" + +What did he mean? I looked at Max. Max turned pale, and seemed for a +moment to lose his self-possession, then hurriedly whispered in my ear: + +"Jolly good fellow--very witty--president of strange club in America +where they chaff their guests--see my last book!" + +I recollected reading about a club that goes in for roasting as well as +toasting its guests, and replied: + +"Strange!" I said. "I always thought the Americans were in advance of +the English; yet here in my country we do not put the Furniss on the +grill, but the grill on the furnace!" + +Max laughed and looked relieved, and said: + +"You'll do--they'll let you off easy. A Frenchman can't stand chaff, so +I sat down." + +He had stood the fire of the enemy upon the field of battle, but he +couldn't stand the fusillade of wit from the Americans at their dinner +table. + +The stranger was no other than Major Moses P. Handy, afterwards "Chief +of Department of Publicity and Promotion at the World's Columbian +Exposition, Chicago;" so when I found myself in the "Windy City" as an +unattached "special" from the Old World to the New "World's Fair," I +called at Rand-McNally Buildings, not to be put on the grill, but to be +put in possession of some facts concerning that great "Exposition." + +[Illustration: MAJOR HANDY.] + +Sometimes there is a great deal in a name. For instance, the late Major +Handy at once indicated the man--handy, always ready with tongue, hands +and legs. He handed me round the city, told me of its wonders, and sent +me off enraptured to the "Exposition." Here I was met by one of the +staff, and escorted all over the skeleton of what eventually proved to +be the most wonderful "Exposition," Exhibition, World's Fair, or +whatever you like to call it, that the New World had ever seen. + +The gentleman in possession who met me and acted as my guide was a +clean-cut featured, smooth-faced, typical American, "full of wise saws +and modern instances" and--tobacco juice. He had a merry wit, and his +running commentary would have been invaluable "copy" to America's pet +humourist, Bill Nye. + +I had a pencil in the pocket in one side of my coat, and a note-book in +the pocket in the other side, but the carriage in which I was driven +about rushed on so over the rough ground and "corduroy roads" and hills +and chasms, that I found it a matter of utter impossibility to get the +pencil and the book out together, and, therefore, the facts I give about +the "Exposition" may want verification, for my worthy guide kept firing +them into me with the rapidity of a Maxim or a Hotchkiss. + +[Illustration: THE WORLD'S FAIR, CHICAGO. A "SPECIAL'S" VISIT.] + +"Now here is the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Guess the +largest building ever erected--1,641,223 feet long, 17,894 feet high--" +Down goes the trap on one side, plunging into some excavation, like a +double-harnessed Roman chariot. However, we scrambled up again, but I +had lost the important figure of the width of the building. Now I don't +for a moment wish to imply that my guide was exaggerating, but this +rather reminds me of a story told of an American visiting England, and +his host there one day remarked to him: + +"My dear fellow, we are delighted with you here--in fact, you are quite +a favourite; but you will excuse me if I tell you that you possess one +failing pretty general with your countrymen--you do exaggerate so!" + +"Guess I kean't help it, but if you'll just kindly give me a kick under +the table when I'm going too far I'll pull up sharp!" + +With this agreement they went out to dinner that evening, and among +other topics the conversation turned upon conservatories. Captain de +Vere said that he had a conservatory 200 feet long, but that the Duke of +Orchid had one nearly 1,000 feet long. The American here struck in with: + +"I reckon, gentlemen, you're talking about conserva_tor_ies. Now there's +a friend of mine in Amurrca, a private gentleman, who has a +conserva_tor_y 5,000 feet long, 3,000 feet high, and" (kick)--"oh!--2 +feet wide!" + +But had I heard the figures representing the width of the building, I +don't suppose they would have been in the same absurd proportion as +this, for not all the shin-kicking in the world would have deterred my +entertaining and conversational conductor. + +"You must assemble together in your mind's eye all the mighty structures +already existing in the world to form any idea of the magnitude of this +_tre_menjious edifice before you. It is sixteen times as large as St. +Peter's Cathedral at Rome, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral +would nestle together in its ventilating shaft, and the whole of the +armies of Europe could sit down comfortably to dinner in the central +hall. The Tower of London would be lost under one of the staircases, and +fifty Cleopatra's Needles stuck one on top of the other would not +scratch the roof. The building cost fifty million six hundred and +eighty-four thousand two hundred dollars seventy-five cents, and----" On +dashed the horses in their wild career. + +Down we went, I thought into the bed of Lake Michigan, but in an instant +we were up again, my hat in one direction and my stick in another, and I +was well shaken before being taken to the next building. + +"Say, Mr. Furniss, the roads are not complete yet, but you mustn't mind +these little ups and downs. Guess these horses would pull through +anything--brought 'em right away from the fire-engine shed, considerable +fresh!" + +At this moment a train came puffing along laden with masses of ironwork +for the central building. The horses shied at the smoky monster, turned +a somersault (at least, so it seemed to me), and we nearly took a header +into the lake again; but the charioteer managed to turn them just in +time, and the fiery fire-engine steeds snorted past their iron brother, +eclipsing even his noise and steam. + +[Illustration: "ON DASHED THE HORSES IN THEIR WILD CAREER."] + +I now began to feel thoroughly happy, but I kept a watchful eye on those +gee-gees, and as we skipped over impromptu bridges, whizzed round the +corners of newly-made piles, and bumped over incomplete parapets, I +quite enjoyed myself; but somehow or other I couldn't quite manage to +catch all the marvellous details respecting the buildings we were +passing. I was qualifying myself for the Volunteer Fire Brigade. But our +steeds were reined in for a moment while my guide pointed out to me the +Dairy Building. + +"I reckon, sir," he said, "that dairy will be an eye-opener. It'll be +_soo_perb, and I guess it won't be long after the opening of the show +that they'll be turning out gold-edged butter!" + +Off we go again, over mounds and down dykes, jumping rocks and shooting +rapids, and I am certain that had our conveyance been a milk-cart, +butter, gold-edged or otherwise, would have been produced pretty soon. +We pull up with a jerk opposite the Agricultural Building. + +"The building is 5,000 by 8,000 feet, design bold and heroic. On each +corner and from the centre of the building are reared pavilions." + +"Indeed!" I said. "Are they reared by incubators, or upon some special +soil from the fertile tracts of the Far West?" + +My guide did not evidently deem my question worthy an answer, and +continued: + +"Surmounted by a mammoth glass dome 460 feet high, constructed on +purpose to accommodate the giant Pennsylvania pumpkin we're having +raised specially for the Exposition. That pumpkin will be hollowed out, +and 600 people will be able to sit down together at once in its +interior." + +"Now we'll go to the Transportation Building," said my indefatigable +conductor to the driver. + +"Bless me!" I thought; "is this a convict prison? Are we to have +visitors from Sing Sing, and am I to see some of my friends from +Portland and Dartmoor? Will there be a model of the Bastille, and a +contingent of escaped refugees from the mines of Siberia? Or is the +building an enormous concern for the transport of visitors to and from +the Exposition?" + +"Say, Mr. Furniss, this is the most original conception in the whole +Exposition. You'll see contrasted here every mode of transport, and a +complete train, with a display of locomotives never before attempted, +will be quite _stu_pendous! To quote the guidebook: 'There will be at +least 100 engines exhibited, and placed so as to face each other,' and +every day we will have a steam tournament. Guess it will be a case of +the survival of the fittest of the engines when they meet! Visitors fond +of railway accidents can be despatched with a completeness only to be +witnessed in the stock-yards of this great city!" + +This ghastly suggestion had the effect of making me feel more +comfortable than ever. + +We had been some hours driving through this wonderful skeleton city. +The last dying rays of the setting sun, sinking behind the sweeping +prairies of the far, far West, lit up the horizon with a blood-red glow, +and, as the shades of evening began to descend and envelop the embryo +Exposition, the driver turned the horses' heads whence we had +come--towards the sunset. + +The animals snorted, their nostrils inflated, their eyes glistened, and, +with tails erect, they tore off straight ahead at a tremendous rate. +They couldn't understand why they had been driven aimlessly about all +this time; but now they saw the glare, as they thought, of the fire--the +glare they had been accustomed to regard as the beacon to guide them to +their goal--a goal which had to be reached with lightning speed. + +[Illustration] + +It seemed as if we were flying through a beautiful place destroyed by +the ravages of fire, for in the dim evening light the outlined houses +gave one the impression that they formed a city dead, not a city +newly-born. + +Away to the Wild West of the Exposition we flew, and were eventually +pulled up outside of one of the larger and more complete buildings. My +faculties had been about all shaken out of me by this time, and I was so +bewildered by the chaos of figures in my brain--all that were left of +the volumes that had been poured into my ears--that I had to be all but +lifted out of the fire-engine trap by my good guide. He said, in an +undertone: + +"Now I'm going to show you something we keep a profound secret." + +Making a supreme effort, I dispersed temporarily the armies of figures +conflicting in my unfortunate head, and became once more a rational +being, so as to appreciate fully this visual tit-bit reserved to the +last. We entered the structure. What was it? A mortuary, a +dissecting-chamber, or a pantomime property-room? Numbers of ghost-like +beings with bared arms streaming with an opaque-white liquid appeared to +be engaged in some ghoulish machinations. Mutilated figures of gigantic +creatures lay strewn about in reckless confusion. It seemed as if +pigmies were butchering giants; and in the dim, weird light among these +uncanny surroundings my jumbled imagination whispered to me that, after +all, this stupendous Exhibition I had just rushed through could not +possibly be the work of the insignificant little men who swarmed all +over the colossal buildings in such ridiculously absurd proportion to +their pretended handiwork. + +[Illustration: THE CHARNEL-HOUSE, CHICAGO'S WORLD FAIR.] + +No, these giants had performed this herculean undertaking, and were now +being cut up--the reward of many who attempt such ambitious tasks. In +reality, though, this charnel-house was the sculptors' studio, in which +were modelled the gigantic figures which were to be placed on the +buildings and about the grounds. + +Now were I to design a model for a statue to be placed in the +Exposition, it would certainly be one of my excellent and entertaining +companion, who proved himself a model conductor, a model of an American +gentleman, and one who is justly proud, as all Americans must be, of +the greatness and thoroughness of the most splendid and most interesting +Exhibition ever recorded in the annals of their great country. + + * * * * * + +One day I slipped up to 10, Downing Street, to make a note of that very +ordinary, albeit mystical, abode of English Premiers and officials. The +eagle eye of the policeman was upon me, and he was soon at my side +subjecting me to minute examination. My explanation satisfied him that +the only lead I had about me was encased in wood for the purpose of +drawing, and that the substance in my hand was not dynamite, but +innocent indiarubber, for wiping out people and places only of my own +creation. "Ah, sir, there ain't much to see there, unless the 'all +porter's a-lookin' out of the winder. But you ought ter be 'ere in the +mornin' and see the Premier a-shavin' of 'imself, with a piece of old +lookin'-glass stuck up on the winder ter see 'imself in--just wot the +likes of us would do!" + +So I, as a "special," was allowed to make a sketch of the outside of the +famous No. 10. Not long afterwards I happened to be standing in the same +place with a number of journalists and a crowd of the public when a +political crisis drew all attention to the Cabinet, the members of which +were arriving at intervals, recognised and cheered by the curious. As +the door opened to allow one of the members of the Cabinet to enter, a +certain official noticed me standing on the opposite side of the street. +To my surprise he beckoned to me, and said, "I have been waiting to see +you, Mr. Furniss, for a long time. I have some sketches in the house +here I want you to see whenever you can honour me with a visit." + +"No time like the present moment," I said. + +Before the official realised that the present moment was a dangerous one +for the admittance of strangers I was taken into the house. While +examining the works of art in the official's private room a knock came +to the door, which necessitated his leaving me. The moment of the +"special" had arrived--now or never for a Cabinet Council! I was down +the passage, and in a few minutes stood in the presence of the Cabinet, +when Mr. Gladstone, the Premier, was addressing Lord Granville and the +others, who were seated, and just as the Duke of Devonshire (then Lord +Hartington) pushed by me into the room, I was seized by the alarmed +official. Of course I apologised for my stupidity in taking the wrong +turning, and I asked him about Mr. Gladstone's three mysterious hats in +the hall, which he informed me Mr. Gladstone always had by him,--three +hats symbolic of his oratorical peculiarity of using the well-known +phrase, "There are three courses open to us." + +I patted Lord Hartington's dog on the head, and had quietly taken my +departure before the official was called into the Cabinet and questioned +about the "spy" who had so mysteriously interrupted their proceedings. + +But what was perhaps a more daring and difficult feat than seeing a +Cabinet Council was to disturb the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate" in his +semi-official residence. It so happened some few years ago I was +commissioned by an illustrated paper to make a drawing of a peculiar +scene that took place in the House of Commons. It was Mr. Gladstone's +only appearance in the Strangers' smoking-room of the House, into which +he had been lured by the Member for Northampton to attend a performance +of a thought reader, which Mr. Labouchere had arranged perhaps to show +his serious interest in the business of the country connected with our +great Houses of Parliament. Not being present at this show, I had no +means of getting material, and, being in a hurry, I boldly drove up to +the house of the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate." And as I always treat +people as they treat others, I thought that a little of the Laboucherian +cheek (shall I substitute the word for confidence?) would not be out of +place in this instance. The servant took my card, and brought back the +message that Mr. Labouchere was not at home. As I was at that moment +actually acting the character of the "Sage," and remembering the +stories, true or untrue, which he so delights in telling himself about +his own coolness in matters probably not less important than this, I +asked the servant to allow me to write a letter to Mr. Labouchere, and I +was shown into his study, where I sat, and intended to sit, until Mr. +Labouchere made his appearance. From time to time the servant looked in, +but the letter was never written. And my thought-reading proved correct. +Without my pen and pencil I drew Mr. Labouchere. He eventually came +downstairs, and gave me all the information I required. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + +London was in darkness. To quote the papers, "Foggy obscuration rested +over the greater part of its area." And I, in common with millions of +others, was having my breakfast by gaslight, when I received an +editorial summons to attend the trial of the Bishop of Lincoln at +Lambeth Palace. Soon a hansom was at the door, with two lamps outside +and one within; the latter smelt most horribly, and I found out later on +that it leaked and had ruined my new overcoat. With an agility quite +marvellous under the circumstances the horse slipped its slimy way over +the greasy streets to Lambeth, and dashed through the fog over +Westminster Bridge in a most reckless manner, which disconcerting +performance was partly explained by its suddenly stopping at the stable +door of Sanger's and refusing to budge. I was partially consoled by the +fact that we were just opposite St. Thomas's Hospital, so that I should +be in good hands if the worst befell. The fog becoming even denser, +Sanger's became veiled from the sight of our fiery steed, which +thereupon consented to slide on towards Lambeth Palace. A sharp turn +brought us to the gateway, where stood a hearse and string of mourning +coaches. Was I too late? Had the Bishops passed sentence, and had the +loved one of Lincoln really been beheaded? + +My fears on this point were relieved by a policeman, who restrained my +driver's energetic endeavours to drive through the wall of the Palace, +and as my password was "Jeune" (November would have been more +appropriate on such a morning) I was allowed inside the gates. Here I +could not see my hand, or anyone else's, in front of me, and after +stumbling up some steps and down some others I finally flattened my nose +against a door. Policeman No. 2 suddenly appeared, and turned his +bull's-eye upon me. I felt that I was doomed to the deepest dungeon +beneath the castle moat; I thought of the whipping-post I have read of +in connection with the Palace; of the Guard Room with its pikes and +instruments of torture, and I trembled. Luckily, however, the rays of +the lantern fell upon the note in my hand, addressed to Francis Jeune, +Q.C., and the good-natured "All right, sir. Go hup. 'E's a-speakin' +now," came as a reprieve. + +I stumble into the large historic hall known as the Library, wherein the +great trial of the Bishop of Lincoln is being held. The weird scene +strongly resembles the Dream Trial in "The Bells," where the judges, +counsel, and all concerned are in a fog. I expect the limelight to flash +suddenly upon the chief actor, the Bishop of Lincoln, as he takes the +stage and re-acts the part that has caused the trial. The only lights in +the long and lofty Library, excepting the clerical and legal, are a +dozen or two wax candles and a few oil-lamps--of daylight, gaslight, or +electric light, nothing. I can hear the voice of Jeune, Q.C., which +gladdens my heart amid these sepulchral surroundings, but I see him not. +As my eyes gradually become accustomed to the strange scene, I find that +it is composed of three distinct "sets," which present the appearance of +a muddled-up stage picture when the flats go wrong, and you have a part +of the Surrey Hills, a corner of Drury Lane and a side of a West End +drawing-room run on at the same time. + +At the further end of the Library we have the Church, very High Church, +represented by an Archbishop and five Bishops; also a Judge, in a +full-bottomed wig, who has evidently got in by mistake. Then we have the +Law, represented by a row of Q.C.'s, their juniors, and attendants; and +then a chorus of ordinary people and common, or Thames Policemen. These +are separated by red ropes and some red tape; the latter I cut with my +self-written passport--my note to the Q.C. who still addresses the +Court. + +[Illustration: THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S TRIAL. (_From "Punch."_)] + +I have come here to see the Bishop of Lincoln, and I roam about in the +fog to find him. Ah, that figure! there he is! I immediately sketch him, +only to find out that the individual in question is the Clerk of the +Court, or whatever the title of that functionary's equivalent may be in +Lambeth Palace. What vexes me is that whenever I enquire the whereabouts +of the Bishop, a warning finger is raised to the lips to denote silence. +The Bishops sit round three tables, on a raised platform. In the centre +is the Archbishop of Canterbury; on his right the mysterious Judge, in +full wig and red robes; here is the Vicar-General, Sir James Parker +Deane, Q.C.; next to him sits Assessor Dr. Atlay, Bishop of Hereford, +who looks anything but happy, his hair presenting the appearance of +being blown about by a strong draught, while his hand is raised to his +face, suggesting that the draught had caused toothache. The portly +Bishop of Oxford on his right, like the other corner man, the Bishop of +Salisbury, scribbles away at a great rate in a huge manuscript book or +roll of foolscap. On the left of the Archbishop sits the Bishop of +London, who severely interrogates the Counsel, and evidently relishes +acting the schoolmaster once more. The Bishop of Rochester, sitting on +London's left, supplies the element of comedy as far as facial +expression goes, and his wide-open mouth and papers held in front of him +lead me to expect him to burst into song at any moment. But where is +_the_ Bishop--the Bishop of Lincoln? Ah, now I see him, in one of those +side courts, and I forthwith sketch him, marvelling at my stupidity in +not identifying him before. I write his name under the sketch, and show +it to one of the reporters. He scribbles "Wrong man" across it. Done +again! I write, "Then where is he?" He waves me away, as Mr. Jeune is +quoting some extraordinary document six hundred years old in reply to +Sir Horace Davey's authority, which only dates back five hundred and +ninety-nine years. It suddenly occurs to me that the Bishop is beside +his Counsel at the other end of the long table, but, alas! there is a +candle in front of him. This is all I can see, so I make my way to the +other side of the table, only to discover that my Bishop is an old lady. +I write on a piece of paper, "Where does the Bishop of Lincoln sit?" and +take it to an official. It is too dark to read, so some time is lost +while he takes my memorandum to a candle. He looks across at me, and +points to a corner. + +At last! good! The old gentleman in the corner is in plain clothes, it +is true, but still he looks every inch a Bishop. I cautiously approach +to a coign of vantage close beside him, and have just finished a careful +study of him, when he turns round to me and whispers, "Please, sir, can +you tell me which is the Bishop of Lincoln?" I shake my head angrily, +and move away. This is really humbug. I'll bide my time, and take +Counsel's opinion--I'll ask Mr. Jeune. He is just occupied in answering +the hundred and seventh question of the Bishop of London, and is being +"supported" by Sir Walter Phillimore. Indeed, it amuses me to see the +way in which these two clever Counsel, when in a fog (and are we not all +in one?), hold an animated legal conversation between themselves, and +totally ignore the Bishops--not that the latter seem to mind, for they +scribble away merrily. An evil suspicion creeps into my head that they +are seizing the opportunity to write their next Sunday's sermons. + +In the meantime I discover that one of the little side courts is +converted into a studio, with an easel and canvas. I approach my brother +brush, feeling that he, or she, or both (for a lady and a gentleman were +jointly at work upon a picture of the Trial, in black and white--the +black was visible, but there was no chance of seeing the white) will +tell me where I can catch a glimpse of the Bishop of Lincoln. I whisper +the question. But a "Hush!" goes up from the H'Usher, and the artists, +sympathising with me in my dilemma, obtain a candle and point out the +Bishop to me in their picture. I slip away in search of that face. Its +owner ought to be near his Counsel. The severe Sir Horace Davey sits +writing letters; next him is the affable Dr. Tristram, then the rubicund +Mr. Danckwerts, but no Bishop--in fact, there is no one of public +interest to be seen; probably they have not come, as to-day is to be a +half-holiday. It is now one o'clock, and the Bishops rise to go to the +Levee. I pounce upon Francis Jeune, Q.C., and gasp, "Where, oh, where is +the Bishop of Lincoln? Quick! I want to sketch him before he leaves." +"Oh, he's not here--never comes near the place!" + +The play is over for the day. I have seen "Hamlet" with the Prince left +out. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + +THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ILLUSTRATOR--A SERIOUS CHAPTER. + + Drawing--"Hieroglyphics"--Clerical Portraiture--A Commission from + General Booth--In Search of Truth--Sir Walter Besant--James Payn--Why + Theodore Hook was Melancholy--"Off with his Head"--Reformers' + Tree--Happy Thoughts--Christmas Story--Lewis Carroll--The Rev. Charles + Lutwidge Dodgson--Sir John Tenniel--The Challenge--Seven Years' + Labour--A Puzzle MS.--Dodgson on Dress--Carroll on Drawing--Sylvie and + Bruno--A Composite Picture--My Real Models--I am very Eccentric--My + "Romps"--A Letter from du Maurier--Caldecott--Tableaux--Fine + Feathers--Models--Fred Barnard--The Haystack--A Wicket Keeper--A Fair + Sitter--Neighbours--The Post-Office Jumble--Puzzling the + Postmen--Writing Backwards--A Coincidence. + +[Illustration: If] + + +If I confess as a caricaturist, surely I need not caricature my +confessions by any mock-modesty. Although I have illustrated novels, +short stories, fairy tales, poems, parodies, satires, and _jeux +d'esprit_, for the realistic, the fanciful, the weirdly imaginative and +the broadly humorous, as my _Punch_ colleague, E. T. Milliken, wrote, my +more distinctive, natural and favourite _metier_ is that of graphic art. +This intimate friend, in publishing his "appreciation" of me, put in his +own too highly-coloured opinion of my black and white work in this +direction. I blush to quote it: + +[Illustration: MAJUBA HILL. DRAWN BY HARRY FURNISS. + _Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of the "Illustrated + London News."_] + +"And they are in error who imagine Mr. Furniss's powers to be +substantially limited to political satire or Parliamentary caricature. +Much of the work he has already given to the public, and perhaps more of +that which he has not yet published, but of which his chosen familiars +are aware, will prove that in more serious or imaginative work, in +strong, vivid realism as well as in frolic fancy, in landscape as well +as in life, in the picturesque as well as in the humorous, he can +display a notable mastery." + +This confession of one of my "chosen familiars" I have the pluck to +reprint, as an answer to those unknown strangers who so frequently write +me down as "a conventional comic draughtsman of funny ill-drawn little +figures." "What shall I call him?" said one; "a master of +hieroglyphics?" Well, if I am commissioned to draw humorous +hieroglyphics, I do my best to master their difficulties. Caricature +pure and simple is not the art I either care for or succeed in +practising as well as I do in my less known more serious and more +finished work. When I joined _Punch_, at the age of twenty-six, I had +had nine-tenths of my time previous to that occupied (ever since I was +fifteen years of age) in drawing far more elaborate and finished work +than would be in keeping in a periodical such as _Punch_. _Punch_ +required "funny little figures," and I supplied them; but my _metier_, I +must confess, was work requiring more demand upon direct draughtsmanship +and power. I am a funny man, a caricaturist, by force of circumstances; +an artist, a satirist, and a cartoonist by nature and training. The one +requires technical knowledge--in the other, "drawing doesn't count." The +more amateurish the work, the funnier the public consider it. The +serious confession I have to make is that I have been mistaken for a +caricaturist in the accepted and limited meaning of the term. + +"It is the ambition of every low comedian to play Hamlet, that of every +caricaturist to be able to paint a picture which shall be worthy of a +place on the walls of the National Gallery," are my own words on the +platform; but I do not essay to play Hamlet on the platform, nor do I +paint pictures for posterity in my studio. Therefore I do not place +myself in the category of either, for I am neither a low comedian nor +am I strictly and solely a mere caricaturist. This fact is perhaps not +generally known to the public, but it is known to the publishers, and +when a Society Church paper wished to present a series of +supplements--portraits of the leading clergy--I was selected as the +artist. The portrait of Canon Liddon, which is here very much reduced, +is one of these. + +[Illustration: CANON LIDDON. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.] + +And furthermore I received a commission from General Booth, which +unfortunately, through pressure of work, I was unable to undertake, to +make a study of Mrs. Booth, who was at the time on her death-bed, +suffering from cancer, which the General was "exceedingly anxious" to +reproduce and issue to his Army, as he had "never yet been able to +secure a good photograph, although frequent attempts had been made by +eminent London photographers." + +I must confirm, a confession I made some years ago to the editor of the +_Magazine of Art_ regarding some of the difficulties with which artists +illustrating books have to contend. In that I questioned whether authors +and artists worked sufficiently together. Few authors are as +conscientious as Dickens was, or, in fact, care to consult with their +illustrators at all. In operatic work the librettist and composer must +work hand in hand. Should not the artist do likewise? + +Undoubtedly there are some writers who take great trouble to see their +subject from the artistic standpoint. One sensational writer with whom I +am acquainted will make a complete model in cardboard of his "Haunted +Grange," so as to avoid absurdities in the working out of the tale. The +"Blood-stained Tower" is therefore always in its place, and the +"Assassin's Door" and "Ghost's Window" do not change places, to the +bewilderment of the keen-witted reader. Many writers, on the other hand, +show an extraordinary carelessness, or, shall I say, agility? "Hilarity +Hall" or "Stucco Castle" is supposed to be a firm erection, capable of +withstanding storm, or, if necessary, siege; whereas the artist too +often detects the author turning it inside out and upside down to suit +his convenience, like the mechanical quick-change scenes in our modern +realistic dramas. + +It may seem strange, but I have never found over-conscientiousness in +seeking to secure "local colour" meet with the slightest reward. Two +instances among many similar experiences which have fallen to my lot +will serve to show my ground for making this observation. + +Those who have read Sir Walter Besant's delightful but little known "All +in a Garden Fair" (it is interesting to know that this was +semi-autobiographical, and that its original title was "All in a Garden +Green") will recollect the minute description of the locality in which +the opening scenes take place. The author and I "talked it over." He +told me the exact spot where the story was laid--a village a good many +miles from London. The next day, provided with exact information, my +wife and I went by train to the station nearest to the village in +question, and then, taking a "trap," went on a voyage of discovery. +First, however, we endeavoured to gain some useful directions from the +proprietor of the hotel where we lunched, but, to our surprise, he knew +of no such village. The driver of our "conveyance" was equally unlearned +concerning the object of our search. + +[Illustration: [Handwritten note]] + +"Strange," said I, "how these country people ignore all the beauties and +graceful associations that are around them--they don't even know of the +existence of this idyllic village." + +Nothing daunted, I undertook to pilot the party to the place, and after +a lovely drive we reached the spot where the village ought to be. Here I +saw a kind of model hotel, and, I think, a shanty of some description; +the rest was an ordinary English landscape. I hardened my heart, and +patiently sketched the building, which, of course, was not there at the +period the story referred to, and some details of the place where a +village only existed in the author's imagination. + +When next I saw Sir Walter Besant, he tried to console me with the +assurance that there certainly must have been a village there some +centuries ago! + +[Illustration: THE LATE SIR WALTER BESANT.] + +Besides being a wit and a delightful conversationalist, Sir Walter was +the most practical and businesslike of authors. It was a treat to meet +him, as I frequently did, walking into Town, and enjoy his vivacious +humour. I recollect one morning, speaking of illustrators, mentioning +the fact that Cruikshank always imagined that Dickens had taken "Oliver +Twist," merely endowing it with literary merit here and there, and +palming it off as his own! + +"Ah!" said Besant, "how funny! Do you know, I overheard two of my little +girls talking a few mornings ago, and one said to the other, 'Papa does +not write all his stories, you know--Charlie Green helps him.'" + +(Green was at the time illustrating Besant's "Chaplain of the Fleet.") + +[Illustration: THE "JETTY."] + +My second instance occurred about the same period. The author was the +most delightful and entertaining of literary men of our time, Mr. James +Payn. I was selected to illustrate the serial story in the _Illustrated +London News_, and as in that also the author minutely describes the +scene of the semi-historical romance, I, being a thoroughly +conscientious artist, visited James Payn, then editor of _Cornhill_, in +his editorial den in Waterloo Place, to talk the matter over. My notes +were: "Jetty--Lovers meet--Ancient church--Old houses." But the "Jetty" +was _the_ important object--I must get that. I therefore started for the +South Coast. Again I was forced to bow down before my author's +wonderful powers of imagination, for once more, in company with my wife, +with a hireling to carry my sketching stool and materials, I walked a +great distance in search of the jetty. Vain, vain! not a ghost of a +jetty was to be seen. The menial could not enlighten us. At last we +unearthed the "oldest inhabitant," who took us back to where a few +sticks in the water alone marked where it stood "a many years ago." I +tried to develop some of the powers of the late Professor Owen, when he +constructed an animal from the smallest bone, and succeeded in +"evolving" a jetty from the green remains of four wooden posts. + +I forgave Payn as I forgave Besant. Both men were as genial as they were +eminent, and but for the circumstances of illustrating their stories I +might not have enjoyed their acquaintanceship. I also illustrated Payn's +most charming story, "The Talk of the Town," for _Cornhill Magazine_. I +never enjoyed any work of the kind so well as this--it has always been +my regret Payn did not write another of the same period. I recollect, +when I first saw him in Waterloo Place, I had just read an article of +his in which he gave a recipe for getting rid of callers, which was to +bring the conversation to an abrupt termination, say absolutely nothing, +but steadfastly stare at your visitor until he left. I can vouch for its +being a simple and effective plan. + +[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION FOR "THE TALK OF THE TOWN" (REDUCED). + _By permission of the proprietors of "Cornhill Magazine."_] + +When I entered his editorial sanctum the genial essayist received me +most cordially, and looked the picture of comfort, surrounded as he was +by a heterogeneous collection of pipes. Presently, through the clouds of +smoke through which he had chatted in that lively, vivacious manner +peculiarly his own, he knocked the ashes out of his finished pipe and +mutely stared point-blank at me till I, like the pipe, went out also. +But before making my exit I reminded him that I had read the article I +refer to, up to which he was no doubt acting, and that I was pleased and +interested that he practised the doctrine he preached. Possibly this +remark of mine was unexpected, and therefore somewhat disconcerted him +for a moment, for he quickly replied, "Not at all! not at all! Fact is, +I was rather upset before you came in by a miserable man who called to +see me, and at the moment I was, _a propos_ of him, thinking of a funny +story about Theodore Hook I came across last night I never heard before. +Poor Hook was at a smart dinner one evening, but instead of being as +usual the life and soul of the party, he proved the wet blanket on the +merry meeting, despite the fact that he, in all probability, had imbibed +his stiff glass of brandy to get him up to his usual form before +entering the house at which he was entertained. This most unusual phase +of Hook's character surprised everybody present, so much so that his +host ventured to remark that the volatile Theodore did not seem so merry +as usual. + +"'Merry? I should think not! I should like to see anyone merry who has +gone through what I have this afternoon!' + +"'What was that?' asked everyone, with one voice. + +"'Well, I'll tell you,' said Hook. 'I have just come up from York in the +stage coach, and I was rather late in taking my seat; the top was +occupied to the full, so I had no alternative but to become an inside +passenger. The only other occupant of the interior was a melancholy +individual rolled up in a corner. He had donned his great-coat, the +collar of which was turned right up over his ears. He stolidly sat +there, never uttering a word, until I became fascinated by his weird +appearance. By-and-by the sun sank below the western horizon, the inside +of the coach became darker and darker, and more ghastly seemed the +cadaverous stranger as the blackness increased. The strain was too much +for me. I could not keep silent another minute. + +"'My good sir,' I said, 'whatever is the matter with you?'" + +"'I'll tell you,' he slowly muttered. 'Some months ago I invested in two +tickets in a great lottery, but when I told my wife of the speculation I +had indulged in she nagged and nagged at me to such a frightful extent +that at last I sold the tickets.' + +"'Well?' + +"'Well, do you know, sir, to-day those two numbers won the two first +prizes, and those two prizes represent a sum of money of colossal +magnitude!' + +"'Goodness gracious me!' I shouted. 'If that had happened to me it would +have driven me to desperation! In fact I really believe that I should +have been frantic enough to cut my throat!' + +"'Why, that's just what I have done!' replied the stranger, as he turned +down his collar. 'Look here!'" + +[Illustration: "THAT'S JUST WHAT I HAVE DONE!"] + +This ghastly tale reminds me of one of my earliest and most trying +experiences in illustrating stories. I had made a very careful drawing +to illustrate a startling episode in a novel by Mrs. Henry Wood. +Naturally it was designed on a block, and represented the hero having +just swallowed poison after committing a murder. The face in the drawing +was everything, and I had taken the greatest pains to depict in the +distorted features all the authoress desired--in fact, I was rather +proud of it. The authoress was pleased, and the block was sent to the +engraver. I was then about twenty--photographing a drawing on to wood +was unknown, and process work was not invented--all drawings were made +on boxwood and engraved by hand. To my horror the engraver returned the +block to me a week afterwards with an apologetic note. The face had been +destroyed in the engraver's hands, and he had "plugged the block"--that +is, another piece of wood had been inserted where the hero's head had +been, and whitened over, for me to draw another. The rest of the design +had been engraved. That face gone! How could I conjure it up again on +that unsightly, isolated patch of block, with all the rest of the +drawing engraved and therefore my lines undiscernible? I did my best. +When it was printed it was seen that the face did not fit on the neck +properly, and to my chagrin I received a sarcastic letter from the +editor to inform me that I had made a mistake. The hero had swallowed +poison and had not, as I supposed, cut his head off! + +[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF JAMES PAYN'S WRITING.] + +Another illustration of the conscientious illustrator in search of the +truth. I had to introduce the Reformers' Tree, Hyde Park, into a +picture. Now we are always hearing about the Reformers' Tree in +reference to demonstrations in the Park, so I went in search of the +historical stump. The first person to whom I put a question as to its +whereabouts pointed to a huge tree in flourishing condition. I had just +sketched in its upper branches when it somehow occurred to me that it +would be just as well to ask someone else and make assurance doubly +sure. This time I interrogated a policeman. + +"No, that ain't it; that there row of hoaks is wot people calls the +Reformers' Tree." + +I started another sketch on the strength of this statement, but feeling +a bit dubious over his assertion that the one tree was comprised of a +whole row, I tackled the "oldest inhabitant," an ancient and pensioned +park-keeper, who luckily hove in sight. + +"Hover there," he replied, gruffly, pointing to a stump that resembled +the sole remaining molar the old man possessed. + +This stump was picturesque. It must be the Reformers' Tree. +Result--another sketch, which I showed to the gatekeeper at the Marble +Arch. + +"Reformers' Tree? Why, there ain't no such thing in the Park." And I +really believe there isn't. It is a myth, and merely exists in the +fertile brain of the descriptive author or the imagination of the +agitator. + +After James Payn's "Talk of the Town" no book has given me such pleasure +to illustrate as F. C. Burnand's "Incompleat Angler." The combination of +the picturesqueness of Isaak Walton with the humour of Burnand could not +be otherwise, but most unfortunately the form of its publication ruined +the effect of the drawings. Over this, too, the author and I talked--no, +not exactly--to be exact we laughed over it. I dined with Burnand, and +afterwards in his study he read it to me, and as he frankly admitted he +never laughed so much at anything before. + +[Illustration: THE TYPICAL LOVERS IN ILLUSTRATIONS OF NOVELS.] + +The illustrator's difficulties by no means end when the author is +satisfied. Many authors give you every facility, and hamper you with no +impossibilities; but then steps in the editor, especially if he be the +editor of a "goody" magazine. Novels will be novels, and love and lovers +will find their way even into the immaculate pages of our monthly +elevators. I once found it so, and certainly I thought that here was +plain sailing. A tender interview at the garden gate. She "sighed and +looked down as Charles Thorndike took her hand"--unavoidable and not +unacceptable subject. Lovers are all commonplace young men with large +eyes, long legs, and small moustaches (villains' moustaches grow apace); +moreover, lovers, I believe, generally take care to avoid observation; +but no! it appears that "our subscribers" have a stern code which may +not be lightly infringed. A letter from the editor rebukes my worldly +ways: + + "DEAR SIR,--Will you kindly give Charles Thorndike a beard, and show + an aunt or uncle or some chaperon in the distance; the subject and + treatment is hardly suitable otherwise to our young readers." + +Sometimes a publisher steps in and arranges everything, regardless of +all the author and artist may cherish. + +Years ago a well-known but not very prosperous publisher sent for me, +and spoke as follows: + +"Now, Mr. F., what I want is to knock the B.P. with Christmas. The story +is all blood and murder, but don't mind that--you must supply the +antidote; put in the holly and mistletoe, plenty of snow and +plum-pudding (the story was a seaside one in summer time). I like John +Tenniel's work--give us a bit of him, with a dash of Du Maurier and a +sprinkling of Leech here and there; but none of your Rembrandt +effects--they are too dark, and don't print up well. Never mind what the +author says; he hasn't made it Christmas, so you must!" + +It is equally difficult to comply with an editorial request such as +this: "The story I send you is as dull as ditch-water; do please read it +over and illustrate it with lively pictures." + +But some authors are their own publishers, and they are then generally +more careful of the illustrations. Perhaps the most exacting of all +authors was "Lewis Carroll." + +[Illustration: T] + +The name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson is practically unknown outside of +Oxford University, where he was mathematical lecturer of Christ Church; +but the name and fame of "Lewis Carroll," author of those inimitable +books for children, both young and old, "Alice's Adventures in +Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-glass and what Alice found there," +are known and beloved all over the world. His first book for children, +"Alice's Adventures," was published at a time exactly to suit me. I was +just eleven--_the_ age to be first impressed by the pen of Carroll and +the pencil of Tenniel. + +When I, a little, a very little boy in knickerbockers, first enjoyed the +adventures of Alice and worshipped the pen and the pencil which recorded +them, I little thought I would some day work hand in hand with the +author, and when that day did arrive I regretted that I had not been +born twenty-two years before I had, for for me to follow Tenniel was +quite as difficult and unsatisfactory a task as for Carroll to follow +Carroll. The worst of it was that I was conscious of this, and Lewis +Carroll was not. Fortunately for me Sylvie was not like her prototype +Alice; the illustrations for Sylvie would not have suited Tenniel as +Alice did. I therefore did not fear comparison, but what I did fear was +that Carroll would not be Carroll, and Carroll wasn't--he was Dodgson. I +wish I had illustrated him when he was Carroll; that he was not the +Carroll of "Alice" is plainly indicated in his life in the following +passage:[1] "The publication of 'Sylvie and Bruno' marks an epoch in its +author's life, for it was the publication of all the ideals and +sentiments which he held most dear. It was a book with a definite +purpose; it would be more true to say with several definite purposes. +For this very reason it is not an artistic triumph as the two 'Alice' +books undoubtedly are; it is on a lower literary level, there is no +unity in the story. But from a higher standpoint, that of the Christian +and the philanthropist, the book is the best thing he ever wrote. It is +a noble effort to uphold the right, or what he thought to be the right, +without fear of contempt or unpopularity. The influence which his +earlier books had given him he was determined to use in asserting +neglected truths. + + [1] "The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll," by Stuart Dodgson + Collingwood (Fisher Unwin). + +"Of course the story has other features--delightful nonsense not +surpassed by anything in 'Wonderland,' childish prattle with all the +charm of reality about it, and pictures which may fairly be said to +rival those of Sir John Tenniel. Had these been all, the book would have +been a great success. As things are, there are probably hundreds of +readers who have been scared by the religious arguments and political +discussions which make up a large part of it, and who have never +discovered that Sylvie is just as entrancing a personage as Alice when +you get to know her." + +[Illustration: INSTRUCTIONS IN A LETTER FROM LEWIS CARROLL.] + +The character of the book was a bitter disappointment to me. I did not +want to illustrate a book of his with any "purpose" other than the +purpose of delightful amusement, as "Alice" was. Tenniel had point-blank +refused to illustrate another story for Carroll--he was, Tenniel told +me, "impossible"--and Carroll evidently was not satisfied with other +artists he had tried, as he wrote me: "I have a considerable mass of +chaotic materials for a story, but have never had the heart to go to +work to construct the story as a whole, owing to its seeming so hopeless +that I should ever find a suitable artist. Now that _you_ are found," +etc. That was in 1885, and we worked together for seven years. Tenniel +and other artists declared I would not work with Carroll for seven +weeks! I accepted the challenge, but I, for that purpose, adopted quite +a new method. No artist is more matter-of-fact or businesslike than +myself: to Carroll I was not Hy. F., but someone else, as _he_ was +someone else. I was wilful and erratic, bordering on insanity. We +therefore got on splendidly. + +Of course it was most interesting to me to study such a genius at such a +time, and in recording my experiences and impressions of Lewis Carroll +my object is not so much to deal with the actual illustration to those +ill-conceived books "Sylvie and Bruno," but to deal with my impressions +of the man obtained by working with him for so long, for to have known +the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll +was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's +books. It was a relief to meet the pure simple, innocent dreamer of +children, after the selfish commercial mind of most authors. Carroll was +a wit, a gentleman, a bore and an egotist--and, like Hans Andersen, a +spoilt child. It is recorded of Andersen that he actually shed tears, +even in late life, should the cake at tea be handed to anyone before he +chose the largest slice. Carroll was not selfish, but a liberal-minded, +liberal-handed philanthropist, but his egotism was all but second +childhood. + +He informed my wife that she was the most privileged woman in the world, +for she knew the man who knew his (Lewis Carroll's) ideas--that ought to +content her. She must not _see_ a picture or read a line of the MS.; it +was sufficient for her to gaze at me outside of my studio with +admiration and respect, as the only man besides Lewis Carroll himself +with a knowledge of Lewis Carroll's forthcoming work. Furthermore he +sent me an elaborate document to sign committing myself to secrecy. This +I indignantly declined to sign. "My word was as good as my bond," I +said, and, striking an attitude, I hinted that I would "strike," +inasmuch as I would not work for years isolated from my wife and +friends. I was therefore no doubt looked upon by him as a lunatic. That +was what I wanted. I was allowed to show my wife the drawings, and he +wrote: "For my own part I have shown _none_ of the MS. to anybody; and, +though I have let some special friends see the pictures, I have +uniformly declined to _explain_ them. 'May I ask so-and-so?' they +enquire. 'Certainly!' I reply; "you may _ask_ as many questions as you +like!' That is all they get out of me." + +But his egotism carried him still further. He was determined no one +should read his MS. but he and I; so in the dead of night (he sometimes +wrote up to 4 a.m.) he cut his MS. into horizontal strips of four or +five lines, then placed the whole of it in a sack and shook it up; +taking out piece by piece, he pasted the strips down as they happened to +come. The result, in such an MS., dealing with nonsense on one page and +theology on another, was audacious in the extreme, if not absolutely +profane--for example: + + "And I found myself repeating, as I left the Church, the words of Jacob, + when he '_awaked out of his sleep_,' surely the Lord is in this. + + "And once more those shrill discordant tones rang out:-- + + "'He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk + Descending from a bus; + He looked again, and found it was-- + A Hippopotamus.'" + +These incongruous strips were elaborately and mysteriously marked with +numbers and letters and various hieroglyphics, to decipher which would +really have turned my assumed eccentricity into positive madness. I +therefore sent the whole MS. back to him, and again threatened to +strike! This had the desired effect. I then received MS. I could read, +although frequently puzzled by its being mixed up with Euclid and +problems in abstruse mathematics. + +I soon discovered that I had undertaken a far more difficult task than I +anticipated, for in the first letter of instructions I received from the +author he frankly acknowledged I had my work "cut out." "Cut out" +suggests dressmaking, the very subject first chosen for discussion and +correspondence. + +The extraordinary workings of this unique mind are shown by quotations +from his letters to me: + + "I think I had better explain part of the plot, as to these two--Sylvie + and Bruno. They are not fairies right through the book--but _children_. + All these conditions make their _dress_ rather a puzzle. They mustn't + have _wings_; that is clear. And it must be _quite_ the common dress of + London life. It should be as fanciful as possible, so as _just_ to be + presentable in Society. The friends might be able to say 'What + oddly-dressed children!' but they oughtn't to say 'They are not human!' + + "Now I think you'll say you have 'got your work cut out for you,' to + invent a suitable dress!" + +How I wish I had had those dresses cut out for me! The above +instructions were quickly followed by other suggestions which added to +my already scanty idea of a costume suitable to Kensington Gardens and +to fairyland! I was thinking this difficulty would be lessened if the +story took place in winter, when I received another letter, which I must +frankly confess rather alarmed me: + +[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF LEWIS CARROLL'S DRAWING AND WRITING.] + + "As to the dresses of these children in their fairy state (we shall + sometimes have them mixing in Society, and supposed to be real children; + and for _that_ they must, I suppose, be dressed as in ordinary life, but + _eccentrically_, so as to make a little distinction). I _wish_ I dared + dispense with _all_ costume; naked children are so perfectly pure and + lovely, but Mrs. Grundy would be furious--it would never do. Then the + question is, how little dress will content her? Bare legs and feet we + _must_ have, at any rate. I so entirely detest that monstrous fashion + _high heels_ (and in fact have planned an attack on it in this very + book), that I cannot possibly allow my sweet little heroine to be + victimised by it." + +Another monstrous fashion he condemns refers to a picture of his +grown-up heroine in London Society: + + "Could you cut off those high shoulders from her sleeves? Why should we + pay any deference to a hideous fashion that will be extinct a year + hence? Next to the unapproachable ugliness of 'crinoline,' I think these + high-shouldered sleeves are the worst things invented for ladies in our + time. Imagine how horrified they would be if one of their daughters were + _really_ shaped like that!" + +I did make a note of a horrified mother with a nineteenth century +malformation, but I did not send it to the author, as it struck me, when +re-reading his letter, he was possibly serious. Still we had Sylvie's +dress, Mrs. Grundy, crinolines, and high heels to discuss: + +[Illustration: ORIGINAL SKETCH BY LEWIS CARROLL OF HIS CHARMING HERO AND +HEROINE.] + + "As to your Sylvie I am charmed with your idea of dressing her in + _white_; it exactly fits my own idea of her; I want her to be a sort of + embodiment of Purity. So I think that, in Society, she should be wholly + in white--white frock ('clinging' certainly; I _hate_ crinoline + fashion): also I _think_ we might venture on making her _fairy_ dress + transparent. Don't you think we might face Mrs. Grundy to _that_ extent? + In fact I think Mrs. G. would be fairly content at finding her + _dressed_, and would not mind whether the material was silk, or muslin, + or even gauze. One thing more. _Please_ don't give Sylvie high heels! + They are an abomination to me." + +Then for months we corresponded about the face of the Heroine alone. My +difficulty was increased by the fact that the fairy child Sylvie and the +Society grown-up Lady Muriel were one and the same person! So I received +reams of written descriptions and piles of useless photographs intended +to inspire me to draw with a few lines a face embodying his ideal in a +space not larger than a threepenny-piece. By one post I would receive a +batch of photographs of some young lady Lewis Carroll fancied had one +feature, or half a feature, of that ideal he had conjured up in his own +mind as his heroine. + +[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL'S NOTE TO ME FOR A PATHETIC PICTURE.] + +He invited me to visit friends of his, and strangers too, from John o' +Groats to Land's End, so as to collect fragments of faces. _A propos_ of +this I wrote in an artists' magazine a brief account of artists' +difficulties with the too exacting author. (It is quite safe to write +anything about Judges and Dons: they never read anything.) I described +how I received the author's recipe for constructing the ideal heroine. I +am not to take _one_ model for the lady-child or child-lady. I am to +take _several_; for all know no face--at least, no face with expression, +or with plenty of life or good abilities, or when showing depth of +religious thought--is perfect. I am therefore to go to Eastbourne to see +and study the face of Miss Matilda Smith, in a pastry-cook's shop, for +the eyes. I am to visit Eastbourne and eat buns and cakes, gazing the +while into the beauteous eyes of Miss Smith. Then in Glasgow there is a +Miss O'Grady, "with oh, such a perfect nose! Could I run up to Scotland +to make a sketch of it?" A letter of introduction is enclosed, and, as a +precaution, I am enjoined that I "must not mind her squint." But I _do_ +mind, and I am sure the blemish would sadly mar my proper judgment of +the lovely feature for gazing on which those eyes have lost their +rectitude. For the ears a journey to Brighton to see Miss Robinson, the +Vicar's daughter, is recommended. No, she may listen, think I, to the +"sad sea-waves," or to her father's sermons, but never to any flattery +from me. The mouth I shall find in Cardiff--not an English or Welsh +mouth, but a sweet Spaniard's Senora Niccolomino, the daughter of a +merchant there. In imagination I picture that cigarette held so lovingly +in those perfect lips. But I am to draw an English heroine of fifteen +innocent summers--how those curly wreaths of pearly smoke would +disenchant my mind of the spell of youth and innocence! For the hair I +must go to Brighton; for the figure to a number of different places. In +fact, my author had mapped out a complete tour for me. Had he never +heard the old story of the artist who was determined to paint a +perfectly correct figure, strictly in accordance with the orthodox rules +of art? As he painted a portion he covered it up, and so went on until +the figure was complete. When it was finished he tore off the covering. +The result was hideous! He went mad! I feel sure that fate would have +been mine had I attempted to carry out Lewis Carroll's instructions. I +therefore worked on my own lines with success. As his biographer states: +"Meanwhile, with much interchange of correspondence between author and +artist, the pictures for the new fairy tale, 'Sylvie and Bruno,' were +being gradually evolved. Each of them was subjected by Lewis Carroll to +the most minute criticism--hypercriticism, perhaps, occasionally." Still +he was enthusiastic in his praise, and absurdly generous in his thanks. +He was jealous that I would not disclose to him who my model was for +Sylvie. When dining with us many a smile played over the features of my +children when he cross-questioned me on this point. Repeatedly he wrote +to me: "How old is your model for Sylvie? And may I have her name and +address?" "My friend Miss E. G. Thomson, an artist great in 'fairies,' +would be glad to know of her, I'm sure," and so on. + +The fairy Sylvie was my own daughter! All the children in his books I +illustrated were my own children; yet this fact never struck him! He +visited us in the country when I was at work, and I soon afterwards +received the following letter: + + "Thanks. I was not aware that the boy, whose photo I sent you, had + far-apart eyes. If you think (and you are _quite_ the best judge of the + point) that these eyes are needed in order to give to the face the fun + and roguery I want expressed, by all means retain them. + + "It had occurred to me to write and beg that, if Arundel did not furnish + all requisite models for drawing from life, you would let all portions + of pictures which would have to be done without models or wait till you + return to town, _wait_. But as I think you definitely told me that you + never do the finished pictures _except_ from life, I presume the + petition to be superfluous." + +When I received this letter at Arundel my second boy was sitting in his +bathing costume on a garden-roller on the lawn for a picture of Bruno +sitting on a dead mouse. I was chaffing my model about flirting with a +young lady he met at a children's garden party, and threatened to inform +his sweetheart in London, when he assured me with knowingness, "Fact is, +papa, the young lady here is all right for the country, you know--but +she would _never_ do in town!" + +[Illustration: SYLVIE AND BRUNO. MY ORIGINAL DRAWING FOR LEWIS CARROLL. + (_Never published._)] + +It was the same idea as Lewis Carroll's about models. + +As I have brought my family into this, I may mention that there is one +picture in "Sylvie and Bruno" (vol. i., p. 134) which brings back to me +the only sorrowful hour I had in connection with the otherwise enjoyable +work. My wife was very ill--so ill it was a question of life and death. +Expert opinion was called in, and the afternoon I had to make that +drawing--with my own children as models--the "consultation" was being +held in my wife's room. Carroll was on his way from Oxford to see the +work, and I was drawing against time. It's the old story of the clown +with the sick wife. Caricaturists are after all but clowns of the +pencil. They must raise a laugh whatever their state of mind may be. For +a long time I never would show Lewis Carroll my work, for the simple +reason I did not do it. He thought I was at work, but I was not. That's +where my acting eccentricity came in. I knew that I would have to draw +the subjects "right off," not one a month or one in six months. +Correspondence for three months, as a rule, led to work for one week. +Isolated verse I did let him have the illustrations for, but not the +body of the book. This was my only chance, and I arrived at this secrecy +by the following bold stroke. + +[Illustration: I GO MAD!] + +Lewis Carroll came from Oxford one evening, early in the history of the +work, to dine, and afterwards to see a batch of work. He ate little, +drank little, but enjoyed a few glasses of sherry, his favourite wine. +"Now," he said, "for the studio!" I rose and led the way. My wife sat in +astonishment. She knew I had nothing to show. Through the drawing-room, +down the steps of the conservatory to the door of my studio. My hand is +on the handle. Through excitement Lewis Carroll stammers worse than +ever. Now to see the work for his great book! I pause, turn my back to +the closed door, and thus address the astonished Don: "Mr. Dodgson, I am +_very_ eccentric--I cannot help it! Let me explain to you clearly, +before you enter my studio, that my eccentricity sometimes takes a +violent form. If I, in showing my work, discover in your face the +slightest sign that you are not _absolutely_ satisfied with any particle +of this work in progress, the _whole_ of it goes into the fire! It is a +risk: will you accept it, or will you wait till I have the drawings +_quite_ finished and send them to Oxford?" + +"I--I--I ap--appreciate your feelings--I--I--should feel the same +myself. I am off to Oxford!" and he went. + +[Illustration: Handwritten note] + +I sent him drawings as they were finished, and each parcel brought back +a budget of letter-writing, each page being carefully numbered. This is +the top of page 5 in his 49,874th letter. I am not sure if I received +all the remaining 49,873 letters in the seven years. To meet him and to +work for him was to me a great treat. I put up with his +eccentricities--real ones, not sham like mine.--I put up with a great +deal of boredom, for he was a bore at times, and I worked over seven +years with his illustrations, in which the actual working hours would +not have occupied me more than seven weeks, purely out of respect for +his genius. I treated him as a problem, and I solved him, and had he +lived I would probably have still worked with him. He remunerated me +liberally for my work; still, he actually proposed that in addition I +should partake of the profits; his gratitude was overwhelming. "I am +grateful; and I feel sure that if _pictures_ could sell a book 'Sylvie +and Bruno' would sell like wildfire." + +Perhaps the most pleasant confession I have to make is my fondness for +children. They always interest and amuse me more than "grown-ups." The +commonplace talk is to them unknown; it is full of surprises. + +Perhaps the nursery's record of my family is not longer or any more +interesting than the sayings and doings of the youngsters of any other +family; still a few extracts may interest those who, like myself, are +interested in first impressions. + +My eldest, just entering on his teens, had as companions two brothers +and one sister. Hearing there was an addition to this little family +group, he, dressed in flannels, ran into my studio, bat in hand, "Papa, +is it a boy or a girl?" + +"A boy." + +"Oh, I am so glad. I do want a wicket-keeper, and Dorothy can't +wicket-keep a bit." + +[Illustration: "I DO WANT A WICKET-KEEPER!"] + +A stoutly-made little fellow of eight, to his mother, who happened to be +extremely thin: + +"Oh, mother, I do believe you must be the very sweetest woman in the +world!" + +"Thanks very much, Lawrence. But why so affectionate? What do you want?" + +"I don't want anything. I only know you must be the very sweetest woman +in the world." + +"Really, you are too flattering. Why this sudden outburst of affection?" + +"Well, you know, I've been thinking over the old, old saying, 'The +nearer the bone the sweeter the meat.'" + +Children, I think, have the art of "leading up" to jokes better than +adults. They hear some strange remark, they naturally analyse it, and it +suggests an application. For instance, this brat possibly objected to +some portion of meat at table. His mother had reminded of the old +saying, "The nearer the bone the sweeter the meat." Thin +mother,--there's the application. + +One of my youngsters ran into the drawing-room at five o'clock tea. A +lady visitor thus addressed him: + +"Come here, my little man. I suppose when you grow up you will be an +artist, like your father?" + +"My father is not an artist." + +"Oh, my dear, he _is_ an artist." + +"Oh, no, no, no, my father is not an artist--he's only a black and white +man. I am going to be an artist in all colours." + +[Illustration: PORTION OF LETTER FROM LAWRENCE, AGE 9.] + +My own children have been my models, not only for Lewis Carroll's books, +but for all my drawings of children. I have three boys and one girl. +Dorothy is now a successful artist, and Lawrence is, at the age of +eighteen, a professional draughtsman of mechanical subjects; my youngest +is just out of his teens. Their portraits manifolded will be found in +the page sketch from "Romps" Du Maurier wrote me a most graceful +appreciation of these books, which, considering his delightful pictures +of children in _Punch_, was most gratifying to me. + +[Illustration: REDUCTION FROM A DESIGN FOR MY "ROMPS."] + +[Illustration: PORTION OF A LETTER FROM GEORGE DU MAURIER.] + +An artist for whose work I have the greatest admiration was the late +Randolph Caldecott, and the only occasion on which I had the pleasure of +meeting him was of a semi-theatrical kind. It was at one of the +"Artists' Tableaux" which were given in London some years ago. In those +produced in Piccadilly I took no part, and the entertainment to which I +refer was held at the Mansion House. At the last moment, in order to +complete one of the pictures, a portly Dutchman was required, and a +telegram was despatched to me to enquire whether I would represent the +character. A dress, which was not a very good fit, was provided for me +by the costumier of the show, and with the aid of a little padding, a +good deal of rouge, a long clay pipe, and a bottle of schnapps, I +managed to look something like the inflated Hollander I was +representing, in the centre of the group, where I was supposed to be +looking on at a game of bowls. Caldecott, who was placed at a window, +flirting with the maids of the Queen, was attired in a graceful costume +of the most faultless description, surmounted by a magnificent hat with +a sweeping brim and splendid feathers, upon which he had expended no +little pains and money. My head-gear consisted of a very insignificant +stage property hat, but as I was not intended to contribute an element +of beauty to the picture, that didn't matter. The tableau was arranged +by Mr. E. A. Abbey, and when taking his last look round before the +curtain was raised, his artistic eye detected that more black was +required in the centre. While we were thus in our allotted positions, +and straining every nerve to remain perfectly rigid--an ordeal which, by +the way, I never wish to go through again, as I had hard work to +restrain myself from breaking out into a Highland fling or an Irish jig, +or calling out "Boo!" to the audience to relieve my pent-up +feelings--Mr. Abbey suddenly seized the superb hat on Caldecott's head, +which the latter had had specially made, and in which he really fancied +himself, handed it to me, and to Caldecott's horror, and almost before +he was conscious that he had been made ridiculous by the wretched +remnant which had been sent from Bow Street for me, the curtain was rung +up. + +I confess I have a certain amount of pity, closely akin to contempt, for +the artist who must have the actual character he wants to paint, who +cannot use a model merely for reference, but paints in everything like a +photograph. Some artists call such feebleness conscientiousness, but to +me it seems mere weakness. Must an author paint each character in his +book, or an actor take his every impersonation on the stage, minutely +from some living model? Surely observation and natural originality is +more than the photographic copying of your "conscientious" artist! Worse +feebleness still it is when an artist has to paint a well-known +character, say King Lear or Mary Queen of Scots, and goes about hunting +for a living person as near as possible in appearance to the original, +and then costumes and slavishly reproduces him or her, without any show +of judgment or insight after the model is once selected. And this lack +of insight into character seems deplorably prevalent among our figure +painters, for how often we see in the exhibitions the model with a "good +head" tamely reproduced over and over again--here as a monk, there as a +Polonius, Thomas a Becket, a "blind beggar," "His Excellency," a +pensioner, or painted by some artist who wants to make a bid for +portraiture as "A portrait of a gentleman"! + +Black and white men have to introduce so many characters into their +work, they are obliged to invent them; but it is a curious fact that +this facility disappears at times. The late Mr. Fred Barnard, clever as +he was at inventing character for his black and white work, found, when +he was painting in oil, that confidence had left him, and he spent +several days wandering about London to find real characters for a +picture he was painting representing the jury in "Pilgrim's Progress." +One day in Oxford Street he saw a hansom-cab driver with a face besotted +with drink and "ripe" for production as a slave to Bacchus. Barnard +hailed the hansom, jumped in, and directed the jehu to drive him to his +studio on Haverstock Hill. In going up the Hampstead Road a tram-car ran +over a child. Barnard was terribly upset by the touching sight, and told +the driver to pull up at the nearest tavern. Getting out, he looked at +his "subject," intending to invite him to refreshment before taking him +on to his studio, where he intended to paint him. To his horror the face +of the bibulous cabman had lost all its "colour," and was of a pale +greenish hue. + +[Illustration: A TRANSFORMATION.] + +"That was horful, sir, warn't it? It'll upset me for a week." + +The disappointed artist dismissed his "subject." + +[Illustration] + +Much could be written of this genuine humourist. His buoyant fun was +irrepressible; indoors and out of doors he entertained himself--and +sometimes his friends--with his jokes. In his studio he kept as pets +some little tortoises. They were allowed to crawl about as they liked, +but he had painted on their backs caricatures--a laughing face, a +sour-green face, one with a look of horror, another of mischief. A +visitor seated unaware of these would suddenly spring off the sofa as +the walking mask slowly appeared from underneath it! Barnard's power of +mimicry was great, and his jokes were as excellent as his drawings. Even +when sitting before the camera for his photograph, he had his little +joke. + +[Illustration: BARNARD AND THE MODELS.] + +There are a number of girls who go the round of the studios, but have no +right whatever to do so. They generally hunt in pairs, and this habit +surely distinguishes them from the real model. They are more easily +drawn than described. Two of this class once called on Barnard. + +"What do you sit for?" he asked. + +"Oh, anything, sir." + +"Ah, I am a figure man, you are no use to me, but there is a friend of +mine over there who is now painting a landscape--I think you might do +very well for a haystack; and your friend might try studio No. 5 and sit +for a thunder-cloud, the artist there is starting a stormy piece--oh, +good morning." Tableau! + +A wretched individual once called upon me and begged me to give him a +sitting. I asked him to sit for what I was at work upon: this was a +wicket-keeper in a cricket match bending over the wicket. I assured the +man he need not apologise, as he had really turned up at an opportune +moment; the drawing was "news," and it had to be finished that day. When +I had shown my model the position and made him understand exactly what I +wanted, I noticed to my surprise that he was trembling all over. I +immediately asked him if he were cold. + +"No." + +"Nervous?" + +"No." + +"Then why not keep still?" + +"Well, that's just what I can't do, sir! I had to give up my occupation +because, sir, I am hafflicted with the palsy, and when I bend I do +tremble so. I only sit for 'ands, sir--for 'ands to portrait painters. I +close 'em for a military gent--I open 'em for a bishop--but when the +hartist is hin a 'urry I know as 'ow to 'ide one 'and in my pocket and +the hother hunder a cocked 'at." + +[Illustration: "I SIT FOR 'ANDS, SIR."] + +Hiding hands recalls to me a fact I may mention in justice to our modern +English caricaturists. We never make capital out of our subjects' +deformities. This I pointed out at a dinner in Birmingham a few years +ago, at which I was the guest of the evening, and as I was addressing +journalists I mention this fact in justice to myself and my brother +caricaturists. As it happened, that afternoon I had heard Mr. Gladstone +making his first speech in the opening of Parliament, 1886, after being +returned in Opposition. Turning round to his young supporters, he used +for the first time the now famous expression "an old Parliamentary +hand," holding up at the same time a hand on which there were only three +fingers. Now had I drawn that hand as it was, minus the first finger, +showing the black patch? It would have been tempting on the part of a +foreign caricaturist, because it had a curious application under the +circumstances. (But it would be noticed that in my sketch in _Punch_ the +first finger, which really did not exist, is prominently shown.) This +was the first time the fact was made public that Mr. Gladstone had not +the first finger on the left hand; since then, however, all artists, +humorous or serious, were careful to show Mr. Gladstone's left hand as +pointed out by me. + +Now I had noticed this for years in the House, and I hold as an argument +that men are not observant the fact that Members who had sat in the +House with Mr. Gladstone, on the same benches, for years, assured me +that they had never noticed his hand before I made this matter public. +So that when I am told that I misrepresent portraits of prominent men I +always point to this fact. + +Mr. Gladstone was careful to hide the deformity in his photographs, but +in his usual energetic manner in the House the black patch in place of +the finger was on many occasions in no way concealed. + +These are plebeian models, but sometimes artists' friends recommend +amateur models--a broken-down gentleman or some other poor relation--and +when you are drawing social modern subjects, of course these are really +of more use than the badly-dressed professional model. + +[Illustration: A _PUNCH_ ENGRAVING, DRAWN ON WOOD.] + +On "Private View Day" at the Royal Academy a few years ago a knot of +artists and their wives were in one of the rooms; it was late, and few +of the visitors remained. The attention of the artists was attracted by +a stately and beautiful being who entered and went round examining the +pictures. + +"How charming!" remarked one. + +"Delightful!" replied another. + +"Oh, if she would but sit to me!" prayed a third. + +"Why not ask her?" asked the practical one. "If anyone can, you can; so +remember that faint heart never won fair sitter!" + +"Well, here goes!" whispered the cavalier, Mr. Val Prinsep, R.A., in the +tone of one about to lead a forlorn hope, and he charged desperately +across the gallery. He approached the fair stranger, and politely taking +off his hat said diffidently: + +"Madam, I am one of the Academy. Should you wish to know anything about +the pictures I shall be glad----" + +"Oh, thanks. I know a good deal about them." + +"Indeed! Then you will understand how we artists are always on the +look-out for beauty to paint--and--ah--hm--well, you see I--that is we" +(pointing to the group) "were so struck with your presence +that--ah--pardon my abruptness--we thought that if such a thing were +possible you might condescend to allow one of us to make a study of your +head--ah." + +"Oh, with pleasure," said the fair visitor, taking from her hand-bag a +neat little note-book, and opening it, she said: + +"Well, I have only got Sundays and one Wednesday next month +disengaged,--I have got sittings on every other day. Will this be of any +use to you?" + +She was a model! + +The first house I occupied after I married faced one occupied by a +well-known and worthy fiery-tempered man of letters, and it so happened +that one evening my wife and I were dining at the house of another +neighbour. We were gratified to learn that our celebrated _vis-a-vis_, +hearing we had come to live in the same square, was anxious to make our +acquaintance. On our return home that night we discovered the latch-key +had been forgotten, and unfortunately our knocking and ringing failed to +arouse the domestics. It was not long, however, before we awoke our +neighbours, and a window of the house opposite was violently thrown +open, and language all the stronger by being endowed with literary merit +came from that man of letters, who in the dark was unable to see the +particular neighbours offending him, and he referred to my wife and +myself in a way that could not be passed over. A battle of words ensued +in which I was proved the victor, and my neighbour beat a hasty retreat. +Before retiring I wrote a note to the friend we had just left to say +that in the circumstances I refused to know my neighbour, and he had +better inform him that I would on the first opportunity punch his head. +By the same post I wrote for a particular model,--a retired pugilist. As +soon as he arrived next morning I placed him at the window of my studio +facing the opposite house, now and then sending him down to the front +door to stand on the doorstep to await some imaginary person, and to +keep his eye on the house opposite. I went on with my work in peace. +Presently a note came: + + "DEAR FURNISS,--Your neighbour has sent round to ask me what you are + like. He has never seen you till this morning, and he is frightened to + leave his house. He implores me to apologise for him." + +He departed from the neighbourhood shortly afterwards. + +[Illustration: MY FIGHTING DOUBLE.] + +Sad to relate that all Governmental undertakings of an artistic nature, +from our most colossal public building or monument to the design of a +postage stamp, are fair game for ridicule! The outward manifest record +of the Post Office Jubilee--rather the "Post Office Jumble"--was the +envelope and post card published by the Government and sold for one +shilling. The pitiful character of the design, from an artistic point of +view, shocked every person of taste; so I set to work and burlesqued it, +strictly following the lines of the genuine article. A glance at my +envelope alone, therefore, is sufficient to show the wretched quality of +the original. It happened that the postmen's grievances were very +prominent at that time. The Postmaster-General and the trade unionists +and others were at fever heat, and excitement ran high. This +caricature-parody, therefore, was a sketch with a purpose. It was said +at one of the meetings that my pencil "may perhaps touch the public +sympathy in behalf of the postman more effectually than any language has +been able to do." The wretched thing was thought worthy of an article +by Mr. M. H. Spielmann. My skit, it is needless to add, was very popular +with the postmen. They showed their gratitude by saving many a +misdirected letter. A letter addressed "Harry Furniss, London," has +frequently found me, without the loss of a post. + +[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE'S ENVELOPES TO ME.] + +I signed a certain number, which sold at 10_s._ 6_d._ each, and were +bought up principally by the members of the Philatelic Society. + +Perhaps the publication of this "Post Office Jumble" card was also the +cause of the puzzled postmen taking the trouble to decipher and deliver +the far more amusing artistic jokes of that irrepressible joker, Mr. +Linley Sambourne. By his permission I here publish a page, a selection +of the envelopes he has sent me from time to time. + +It is bad enough purposely to puzzle the overworked +letter-carriers--they are too often tried by unintentional touches of +humour emanating from the most innocent and unsuspected members of the +public--but I confess that I was once the innocent cause of Mr. +Sambourne trying the same thing on with the overworked bank clerk. + +[Illustration: CHEQUE FOR 5-1/2D. PASSED THROUGH TWO BANKS AND PAID. I +SIGNED IT _backwards_, AND IT WAS CANCELLED BY CLERK _backwards_.] + +I sent my _Punch_ friend a cheque, here reproduced, for the sum of +5-1/2_d._, payable to "Lynnlay Sam Bourne, Esqre," signed by me +backwards, crossed "Don't you wish you may get it and go." Sambourne +endorsed it "L. Sam. Bourne," and sent it to his bank. The clerk went +one better, and wrote "Cancelled" _backwards_ across my reversed +signature. It passed through my bank, and the money was paid. This is +probably unique in the history of banking. + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING WRITES HIS NAME BACKWARDS.] + +_A propos_ of writing backwards, in days when artists made their +drawings on wood everything of course had to be reversed, and writing +backwards became quite easy. To this day I can write backwards nearly as +quickly as I write in the ordinary way. One night at supper I was +explaining this, and furthermore told my friends that they themselves +could write backwards--in fact, they could not avoid doing so. Not of +course on the table, as I was doing, but by placing the sheet of paper +against the table underneath, and writing with the point upwards. +Perhaps my reader will try--and see the effect. For encouragement here +are a few of the first attempts on that particular evening. + +[Illustration: SIR HENRY IRVING'S ATTEMPT.] + +[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE'S FIRST ATTEMPT.] + +[Illustration: MR. J. L. TOOLE'S SECOND ATTEMPT.] + +A few years ago a banquet was given at the Mansion House to the +representatives of French art; several English painters and others +interested in art were invited to meet them. Previous to being presented +to the Lord Mayor, every guest was requested to sign an autograph +album--an unusual proceeding, I think, at a City dinner. Were I Lord +Mayor I would compel my guests to sign their names--not on arrival, but +when leaving the Mansion House, and thus possess an autograph album of +erratic graphology, and one worth studying. In company with my friend +Mr. Whitworth Wallis, the curator of the Birmingham Museum and Art +Gallery, I entered the Mansion House, when we were immediately accosted +by a powdered flunkey in gorgeous uniform, in possession of the +autograph album, who presented a truly magnificent pen at us, and in +peremptory tones demanded our life or our signatures. Whitworth Wallis +wrote his first, with a dash and confidence. I stood by and admired. +"Oh," I said, taking the pen, "that's not half a dash; let me show you +mine." + +[Illustration] + +Jeames, in taking the pen from me, looked condescendingly over the page, +and with the air of a justice delivering judgment said to me: + +"Beaten 'im by hinches, sir. Beaten 'im by hinches!" + +Months after that I gave an entertainment one evening at Woolwich. My +audience was principally composed of Arsenal hands. On leaving the +platform I was taken into the Athletic Club rooms, and asked to sign +their autograph book and say a "few words" to the members. The few words +consisted of the "record" I had made in the signing match I had with Mr. +Wallis at the Mansion House--an incident which was brought to my mind +suddenly when I took the pen in my hand. It so happened that Whitworth +Wallis, who is a well-known lecturer on art matters, was on that same +night lecturing in the North of England, and as he left the platform at +the same hour as I at Woolwich, he was, like me, asked to sign an +autograph book, and told the very same story to his friends in the North +as I was telling under exactly similar circumstances, the same evening, +at the same hour, in the South. Neither of us knew that the other was +lecturing that night. It is not by any means a usual thing to be asked +to sign a club album, and Wallis and I had not met or corresponded since +the evening at the Mansion House. + +After working many years for the _Illustrated London News_, I became a +contributor to the _Graphic_, and for that journal wrote and illustrated +a series of supplements upon "Life in Parliament"; but from this time +forward it would be difficult to name any illustrated paper with which I +have not at some time or other been connected. For instance, the +_Yorkshire Post_ a few years ago started a halfpenny evening paper, and +sent their manager down to me to ask my honorarium to illustrate the +first few numbers with character sketches of the members of the British +Association, who were holding their meetings that week in Leeds. This +was a happy thought, as the "British Asses," as they are too familiarly +called, sent these first numbers of the paper all over the country; the +new ship had something to start upon, and is now a prosperous concern. +There are various stories about the sum I received for this work. It was +a large sum for England, where enterprise of this kind is very rare. I +was "billed" all over the town as if I were a Patti or Paderewski, and +telegrams were sent to the London papers by the special reporters +announcing the terms upon which I was at work; altogether it was a bit +of Yankee booming that would have made a Harmsworth or a Newnes green +with envy. + + + + + CARICATURE. + + CHAPTER V. + +A CHAT BETWEEN MY PEN AND PENCIL. + + What is Caricature?--Interviewing--Catching Caricatures--Pellegrini--The + "Ha! Ha!"--Black and White _v._ Paint--How to make a + Caricature--M.P.'s--My System--Mr. Labouchere's Attitude--Do the + Subjects object?--Colour in Caricature--Caught!--A Pocket + Caricature--The Danger of the Shirt-cuff--The Danger of a Marble + Table--Quick Change--Advice to those about to Caricature. + +[Illustration: If] + + +If I am asked what is caricature, how can I define it? Ah, here it is +explained by some great authority--whom I cannot say, for I have it +under the heading of "Cuttings from Colney Hatch," undated, unnamed. +Kindly read it carefully: + +[Illustration: THE STUDIO OF A CARICATURIST.] + +"The word itself, 'caricature,' is related etymologically to our own +'cargo,' and means, in all Italian simplicity, a _loading_. So, then, +the finely analytical quality of the Italian intellect, disengaging the +ultimate (material) element out of all the (spiritual) elements of +pictorial distortion and travesty, called it simply a 'loading.' After +all, 'exageration' only substitutes the idea of mound, or _agger_ for +_carica_--the heaping up of a mound--for the common Italian word 'load' +or 'cartload.' One can easily understand how a cold, cynical, and hating +Neapolitan, pushed about by the police for a likeness much too like, +would shrug his shoulders, and say, possibly, the likeness was loaded. +But when we look at the character of the loading, there may be anything +there, from diabolical and malignant spite up to the simplest fun, to +say nothing of the almost impossibility of drawing the real truth, and +the almost necessary tendency to exaggerate one thing and diminish +another. But if the Italian mind, with a head to be chopped off by a +despot for a joke, discovered the colourless and impregnable word +'load,' the French _gamin_, on his own responsibility, hit upon the +identical word in French, namely, 'charge'--_une charge_ meaning both a +pictorial or verbal goak or caricature, and a load. When did the word +'caricature' first obtain in the Italian language, and how? When did the +word 'charge' acquire a similar meaning in France, and was it or not +suggested by the Italian word? But the thing caricature goes back to the +night of ages, and is in its origin connected with the subjective +risible faculty on the one side and the objective tendency to making +faces on the other. Curiously enough, the original German ideas of +caricature appear to have hinged precisely upon the distortion of the +countenance, since _Fratze_, the leading word for caricature, signifies +originally a grimace. Then we have _Posse_, buffoonery (Italian, +_pazzie_), which, without original reference to drawing, would exactly +express many of Mr. ----'s very exquisite drolleries, diving as they do +into the weirdest genius--conceptions of night and of day, of dawn and +of twilight--the mixture of the terrible, the grotesque, the gigantic, +the infinitely little, the animal, the beast, the ethereal, the divinely +loving, the diabolically cynical, the crawling, the high-bred, all in a +universal salmagundi and lobster nightmare, mixing up the loveliest +conceptions with croaking horrors, the eternal aurora with the +everlasting _nitschewo_ of the frozen, blinding steppe. Caricature! What +can we English call it?" + +What indeed after this? Except in despair we adopt the child's +well-known definition--"First you think, and then you draw round the +think." I have been more than once asked to deliver a lecture explaining +the process. Of course such an idea is too absurd for serious +consideration. The comic writer cannot give anyone a recipe for making +jokes, nor can a comic actor show you how to grimace so as to make +others laugh in this serious country. We are not taught to look at the +comic side of things--any humorous element may grow, like Topsy, +unaided--nor is the power given to many to explain to others their +inventions. Bessemer, the inventor of the steel bearing his name, when +he first made his discovery was asked to read a paper explaining his +invention to a large meeting of experts. He had his carefully-prepared +notes in front of him, but they only embarrassed him. He struggled to +speak, but failed. Only the weight of the lumps of metal dangling in his +coattail pocket kept him from collapsing. Suddenly he dived his hand +into the pocket and produced a piece of steel, which he thumped on the +table. "Bother the paper! Here is my steel, and I'll tell you how I made +it!" So would it be with a caricaturist. After a struggle he would say, +"Bother words, words, words! Here is a pencil, and here is some paper. +I'll show you how I caricature." + +Personally, I have no objection to being caricatured--I frequently make +caricatures of myself. Nor have I any objection to being interviewed--I +interview myself. What else are these pages but interviews? I confess I +fail to see any objection to a legitimate caricature or a legitimate +interview. On the contrary, I look upon interviewing by an experienced +and sympathetic writer as invaluable to a public man who is bringing out +something novel and of interest to the public at large. It certainly +seems to me judicious that he should give his preliminary ideas +regarding it to the public firsthand, instead of allowing them to leak +out in an unauthentic and disfigured form through the fervid +imaginations of irresponsible scribes, leading to much misconception. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF ME BY MY DAUGHTER, AGE 15.] + +But I do object to the incapable, be he an interviewer wielding the +pencil or the pen. To illustrate my meaning I shall take the latter +first. The pen in this case did his work in true professional style. He +came to interview me, and by doing so to "boom" me for a journal which +was about to make a feature of my contributions to its pages. He brought +with him a new note-book of remarkable size; an artist with a portfolio, +pencils, and other artistic necessities; and a photographer! The +interviewer shall describe the scene in his own words. + +[Illustration: A SERIOUS PORTRAIT--FROM LIFE.] + +The interviewer remarked that the readers of the ----"would be very +interested in knowing exactly how the thing (interviewing) was done. How +did the ideas come? How did they take shape? And what was the method of +work? Neither at these nor at any other questions did Mr. Furniss wince. +It must not be forgotten that when he was in America last year he was +interviewed, on an average, once a day; and a man who has passed through +such an experience as that is unlikely to recoil before any ordinary +ordeal; although Mr. Furniss was bound to admit that a combination of +interviewer, artist, and photographer had never before got him into his +grip. The situation would have had its ludicrous side for anybody who +had chanced to peep through the skylight. The spectacle of five men (for +the presence of the indefatigable secretary was an indispensable part of +the proceedings) all solemnly drinking tea, while a deer-hound kept a +wistful eye on the sugar-basin, was unusual, and perhaps a little +grotesque--to all save the participants. Seated at his easel in the +characteristic position represented in our sketch, Mr. Furniss would now +and again ask permission to move his arm towards his cup of tea, and +would then bend back to the make-belief work at which he was posing." +There is a picture of interviewing! Everything so prepared, so studied, +so well described to impress the subscribers of the enterprising +journal. The photographer with a wide angle lens took in all that was in +my studio--to "make-believe," as the camera invariably does, that the +apartment was six times larger than it really is. But the artist, who +_should_ idealise if the photographer could not, who so sadly interfered +with my enjoying my tea, who was sent to make the most of me to raise +the enthusiasm of the readers and to increase the subscriptions, +succeeded in doing with his pencil what no interviewer has done with his +pen,--he made me wince! Here is a reduction of the serious portrait +published. + +I have sat down time after time to answer young correspondents' +questions about the "system" to adopt for the production of caricature. +I invariably end by drawing imaginary caricatures of my correspondent +and fail to reply. When interviewed on the subject of caricature, I +discourse on the history of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and the +technique in the work of Burne-Jones, Rossetti, and Holman Hunt, and +caricature is therefore driven from our minds. + +However, the difficulty was solved in a very unexpected manner. One day, +whilst smoking my cigar after lunch, I overheard an interview in my +studio, which I here reproduce. + +A Pencil of mine was working away merrily shortly after the opening of +the Session, when suddenly my favourite Pen flew off the writing-table, +where it had been enjoying a quiet forty winks, and alighted on the +easel. + +[Illustration] + +"How very awkward you are!" cried the Pencil. "See, you have knocked +against and so agitated me that I have actually given Sir William an +extra chin." + +"One more or less does not matter, does it?" rejoined the Pen. "I +apologise, and trust you will make allowances for me, as I am only an +artist's Pen, don't you know, and naturally rather uncouth, I fear." + +"Pray take a seat upon the indiarubber, and let me know to what I am +indebted for the honour of this visit." + +"Well," continued the Pen, "I have flown over here to remind you of your +promise to confess to me some of the secrets of caricature." + +"Ah, yes," replied the Pencil, "I remember now. I have really been so +busy sketching Members of Parliament at St. Stephen's, that I had almost +forgotten my promise." + +"A poor Pen is out of place in an artist's studio, except to minister to +the requirements of the autograph hunter. Well, you need not be jealous. +My literary flight is not intended to be a very high one after all. Now +you know more about the secrets of the studio than I do; so tell me, is +it the custom of H. F. to have a regular sitting for a caricature, after +the fashion of the portrait painters?" + +"Oh, you are too delightfully innocent altogether," laughed the Pencil, +rubbing its leaden head rapidly on a piece of paper, to sharpen its +point. "A regular sitting! What do _you_ think? No, sir, no, +emphatically never. Such an operation would be fatal to the delicate +constitution of a caricature, and the result would not be worth the +paper upon which it is drawn. It is only in ordinary portraiture that a +sitting is required, and upon that point I have a theory." + +"Oh, never mind your theories now, old fellow," rejoined the Pen, as it +took a sip of ink and prepared to chronicle the reply. "What I want to +chat to you about at present is how to catch a caricature." + +The Pencil pricked up his ears, and with a knowing wink, said: + +"Ah, I see! You want to know secrets. Well, I will tell you 'how it's +done.' The great point about a caricature is that it must be caught +unawares. A man when he thinks he is unobserved struts about gaily, just +for all the world like a hedgehog. All his peculiarities are then as +evident as your cousins the quills upon the back of the fretful +porcupine. But the moment the man or woman who is about to be +caricatured observes H. F. take me in hand, I always notice that he +shrivels up and collapses as quickly as one of the insectivora surprised +at his feast. But wait a moment: now you ask me, I do recollect one +unfortunate man who, despite H. F.'s protest, insisted upon coming here +once to sit for a caricature. He looked the picture of misery, and sat +in the chair there, just as if he were at a dentist's. H. F. made a most +flattering portrait. Indeed, so much too handsome was it that I could +hardly follow the workings of his fingers, I was laughing so." + +"'Oh, what a relief!' cried the sitter, when H. F. showed him the +drawing. 'You have certainly made a pretty guy of me, but, thank heaven, +I am not thin-skinned.' + +"'Only thick-headed,' muttered H. F. _sotto voce_ to me as he continued +to chat with the sitter. + +"No sooner had he left the studio than the 'study' was in the fire, and +the caricature which afterwards came from the Furniss was drawn entirely +from memory. + +"The artist is in more evil case when he has absolutely no chance +whatever of making the slightest memorandum, for he must trust to memory +alone," remarked the Pencil. + +"Yet Pellegrini boasted that he always trusted to memory," said the Pen. + +"I know he did," replied the Pencil, "and more than once chaffed H. F. +for bringing me out. H. F., I know, has the greatest admiration for most +of Pellegrini's work, but thinks that 'Ape' certainly had the failing +common to all Italian caricaturists of being cruel rather than funny. I +may mention too, here, an incident for the truth of which H. F. can +vouch, and which illustrates another weakness of the inhabitants of the +Sunny South. When the poor fellow was ill a friend of his one day set to +work to put his room in order, and in moving a screen was surprised to +find behind it a number of soiled shirts. He began to count them over +with a view to sending them to the laundry, when Pellegrini starting up +exclaimed, 'You fellow! you leave my shirts there, or I am a ruined man. +Don't you see they are my "shtock in drade"?' And sure enough upon the +huge familiar linen cuffs were numerous notes in pencil--sketches, in +fact, from life for coming caricatures. Now, when H. F. intends to trust +entirely to memory, I often find that he makes a note in writing after +this fashion: 'Like So-and-so, with a difference,'--and the difference +is noted. Or 'Think of an animal, a bird, or a fish, and to that add +So-and-so, and subtract So-and-so,' and this results in a portrait. For +instance, if he saw a man like this, I should not be surprised by his +writing a single word as 'Penguin' for his guidance, and so on." + +[Illustration: "PENGUIN."] + +"The old caricaturists, I suppose, had a decided advantage over the +moderns in having artistic costumes to depict?" asked the Pen. + +"Of course," replied the Pencil. "Even up to the time of Seymour the +tailor made the man, and was, therefore, largely responsible for the +caricature. You have only to see Mr. Brown in the ordinary attire of +to-day and also in Court dress to appreciate this, and sympathise with +me." + +[Illustration: MR. BROWN, ORDINARY ATTIRE.] + +[Illustration: COURT DRESS.] + +"Now here is another point," continued the Pen, "upon which you can +throw some light, old fellow. I have often seen letters on the +writing-table from people asking H. F. for his recipe for the making of +caricatures. I invariably scribble the same reply, 'Find out the chief +points and exaggerate them.' Not satisfied with this, some have asked +him to explain his _modus operandi_." "I recollect an instance," replied +the Pencil. "It was in the studio here. An interviewer called, and asked +H. F. to explain the art of caricature. So he took down a volume of +portraits from the book-shelves, and opened it at this one. You see it +is the head of a man who should be universally respected by us of the +grey goose fraternity. 'Well, you see there is not much to caricature,' +said H. F.; 'it is simply the portrait of a kindly, intellectual-looking +man, the late Chief Librarian of the British Museum, I remember well," +continued the Pencil, brightening up, "H. F. took me in hand, and +telling me to knock over the forehead, keep in the eyes, pull the nose, +and wipe off the chin, produced a caricature 'on the spot.'" + +[Illustration] + +"I suppose sometimes you find caricatures ready-made, Mr. Pencil?" +continued the Pen. + +[Illustration: A CARICATURE.] + +[Illustration: _NOT_ A CARICATURE.] + +"Of course we do," replied the Pencil. "Nature will have her joke +sometimes, nor can we blame her, for it is only by reason of contrast +that we admire the beautiful. _A propos_ of this, my dear Pen, I may +tell you that in county Wexford, in Ireland, there is a certain very +beautiful estate, round which runs a carefully-built wall. At a +particular point the regularity ceases, and the wall runs on, +constructed in every conceivable style, and contrary to all the canons +of masonry. There is a legend that the owner of the estate, tired of the +monotonous appearance of the wall, ordered that a certain space should +be left in it which should be filled up with a barrier as irregular in +construction as possible. This was done, and that portion of the wall is +called the 'Ha-ha!' because so funny does it look that everyone who +passes is observed to laugh. Now is it not much the same in Nature? A +world full of Venuses and Adonises would soon pall. So now and then we +find a human 'Ha-ha!' interspersed among them. In that case, I say, the +caricaturist's work is already done. He has simply to copy Nature. Yet +there are some who actually find fault with H. F. for doing that very +thing, saying that his pencil (that's me) is 'unkind,' 'cruel,' 'gross,' +and so on. There are many M.P.'s whom he habitually draws without the +slightest exaggeration, notwithstanding which, Mr. Pen, there are +members of your calling who do not scruple to inform the world that in +drawing the Parliamentary 'Ha-ha!' as he is, H. F. is libelling him. +There is one M.P. in particular---- No, I shall not give his name or +show his portrait. I believe him to be very clever, very interesting, +undeniably a great man, and extremely vain of his personal appearance. +But he is built contrary to all the laws of Nature, and if H. F. draws +him as he is, he is accused of libelling him. If he improves him, no one +knows him. Oh, Mr. Pen, you may take it from me that the lot of the +caricaturist is not a happy one." + +"For the matter of that," put in the Pen, "neither is the painter's. You +know Gay's lines: + + "So very like, a painter drew, + That every eye the picture knew, + He hit complexion, feature, air, + So just, the life itself was there. + He gave each muscle all its strength, + The mouth, the chin, the nose's length, + His honest pencil touched with truth, + And marked the date of age and youth. + He lost his friends, his practice failed,-- + Truth should not always be revealed." + +But Gay did not live in the days of Sargent!" + +"We are getting on nicely," said the Pen. "Now answer a question which +is often put to me--viz., why caricaturists eschew paint?" + +"Because," replied the Pencil, "people often seem to forget that in the +present day, when events follow each other in quick succession, a +subject becomes stale almost before the traditional nine days' interest +in it has expired--that paint is no longer the medium by which a +caricaturist can possibly express his thoughts. Of course, I am not +referring to mere tinting, such as that in which the old caricaturists +had their drawings reproduced, but to colouring in oils, after the +manner of the great satirist Hogarth. Some may remember H. F.'s +caricature in _Punch_ of the late Serjeant-at-Arms, Captain Gosset, as a +black-beetle. Now, had he painted a full-length portrait of him, and +sent it elaborately framed to the Royal Academy, it would not only have +taken him very much longer to execute, but the Captain would not have +looked a whit more like a black-beetle than he did in black and white in +the pages of _Punch_. + +"It must be remembered, also, that in caricature everything depends upon +contrast. For instance, in a Parliamentary sketch he can easily make Sir +William Harcourt inflate himself to such an extent that he occupies a +good third of the picture, but were he to paint a portrait of him of +similar proportions it would be necessary to take the roof off +Burlington House and bring over the Eiffel Tower to which to hang the +enormous frame that would be requisite. Moreover, there would be an +additional disadvantage, for it would be impossible to take in the whole +figure at once, and it would be necessary to mount the first platform at +least to obtain a peep at even the lowest of the series of chins which +distinguishes the descendant of kings. However, it is just on the cards +that some day he may open a Parliamentary Portrait Gallery, and then I +can promise that Sir William will have justice done to him at last. +Sixteen yards of 'Historicus' would assuredly be enough to draw the +town. But, in point of fact, it would be just as reasonable to ask an +actor why he is not an opera singer as well, or to ask an opera singer +why he does not dispense with the music and play in legitimate tragedy, +as to enquire of a modern caricaturist why he does not work in colours." + +The Pencil, after the delivery of this discourse, rolled over to the +barber-knife, who trimmed him up. + +"There are some people," continued the Pen, "who object to be sketched +in any shape or form. I recollect an editor once challenging H. F. to +get a sketch of an interesting man who had defied photographers and +artists alike, and absolutely refused to have his portrait taken. You +will find a paragraph about this in press-cutting book, marked 'Pritt.' +Just read it when I'm being attended to." + + "Mr. Pritt, Leeds, is reckoned chief of the Yorkshire anglers. 'A + striking peculiarity with him,' a Yorkshire correspondent says, 'is that + he never will sit for his likeness. Mr. Harry Furniss, however, the + well-known artist of _Punch_, during his recent visit to Leeds, on the + occasion of the meeting of the British Association, managed to 'take' + Mr. Pritt; and the portrait, drawn in characteristic style, appears in + the _Yorkshire Weekly_ under the heading 'Caught at Last'." + +"Yes, that's it. H. F. was invited to dine by this curious and clever +individual. + +"'Delighted to see you, Mr. Furniss; but _one_ thing I must ask you to +understand _at once_--I'm not going to be sketched.' + +"'I assure you,' he said, 'I shall not sketch you unless you are well +aware I am drawing you, and, in fact, willingly give me assistance.' + +"'That's very good of you. Now I am happy. I have made up my mind I +shall never allow my face to be drawn or photographed, and once I make +up my mind nothing in the world will move me.' + +"'Indeed!' he replied. 'But, pardon me, you have not always had that +antipathy. I am looking at a photograph of you hanging on the wall +there, taken when you were a baby.' + +"'Oh, ah! Do you detect that? No one knows it to be me. Of course, I was +not accountable for my actions at that age.' + +"'Ah, how you have altered! Dear me! why, your nose is not that shape +now. Here it is Roman; you have a sort of----' + +"'Have a--what, eh?' + +"'Have you a pencil?' (Taking me out.) 'This will do. Now, your nose is +like that.' + +"'Is it? But my mouth is the same, isn't it?' + +"'Not quite--I will show you.' + +"'Of course, my chin isn't as round?' + +"'Oh, no! It's more like this. And you have less hair--see here.' + +"'Dear me! Of course, one can see who this is. This astonishes me.' + +"Someone else coming in at that moment, he quickly pocketed the sketch +and me, and, much to his host's chagrin, it was duly published as a +portrait of the gentleman from a 'special sitting'--'Caught at Last.' + +[Illustration: THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_ SITS FOR HIS PORTRAIT.] + +"This reminds me, by the way, of a portrait which H. F. once drew of the +author of 'Happy Thoughts' as a frontispiece to a new edition of that +humorous book of books. Our guv'nor's first effort at this portrait was +distinctly a failure, and no wonder, for the moment I was produced the +editor of _Punch_ turned his back upon us, and, with the greatest +vigour, commenced writing at his table. Not being so intimate then with +Mr. Burnand as we subsequently became, both I and the guv'nor thought +him peculiar. But after a considerable time the editorial chair was +wheeled round, and with a smile its genial occupant said calmly, 'Well, +let me see the result.' + +"'The result is _nil_ at present,' replied H. F., 'for I have not yet +caught a glimpse of your face.' + +"Mr. Burnand looked surprised. 'Dear me!' he said; 'I thought you were +making a study of me at work, you know.' + +"'All I could see was the back of your head in silhouette. There +now--sit just as you are, please. That's exactly the pose and expression +which I want to catch. Thanks!' cried the guv'nor, as he rapidly set to +work, when suddenly all cheerfulness vanished from Mr. Burnand's +countenance, as with a horrified look he pointed to the table by my +side, where lay the sketching materials. + +"'What's that?' he cried, dismayed. + +"'Oh, a lump of bread, useful in touching up high lights,' said H. F. + +"'You don't say so! The sight of it quite upset me. I really thought you +had brought your supper with you, and intended to work from me all +night. I shall never recover my natural expression this evening, so +please call again.' And as H. F. closed his sketch-book, the following +brief colloquy took place: + +"The editor of 'Happy Thoughts': 'Caught anything?' + +"H. F.: 'No.' + +"The editor: 'Good evening!' + +"And the door closed. + +[Illustration] + +"Frequently a subject has posed for H. F. without being aware of the +fact that he was making a sketch. For instance, in his happy hunting +ground--Parliament--Brown, M.P., say, comes up to him in the Lobby: 'Ha! +I see you are up to mischief--taking someone off.' + +"H. F. gives a knowing look, and points to Jones. + +"'Ha! ha! I see. I'll talk to him. Ha! ha! and I'll look out for the +caricature. Don't be too hard on poor Jones!' + +"'Thanks, awfully,' replies H. F. He makes a rapid sketch, nods to Brown +as much as to say, 'That'll do,' smiles, and walks off. He has of course +never troubled about Jones at all; it's Brown he has been sketching all +the time. + +"It is utterly absurd to imagine you can escape from the caricaturist. + +"H. F. trained himself to make sketches with his hand in his pocket, and +worked away with me and his book--or rather cards, which he had +specially for the purpose--whilst looking straight into the face of his +victim. He manages in this way to sketch people sitting opposite to him +in the train, and sometimes when talking to them all the time. + +"You know that without special permission from the Lord High Great +Chamberlain no stranger is allowed to pass the door of the English House +of Lords, even when it is empty; but when the precious Peers are +sitting, the difficulty of making a sketch is too great for description. +You are not allowed to sit down, speak, smile, sneeze, or sketch. H. F. +once produced me in the House of Lords. Had he drawn a sword instead of +a pencil he could not have created greater consternation. Explanation +was useless. The officials knew that he was only for 'takkin' notes' for +_Punch_, but the vision of a pencil produced an effect upon them the +same as if they had caught sight of an infernal machine. But necessity +is the mother of invention. It was then he hit upon the plan I have just +told you about. He draws in his pocket. Keeping the card against his +leg, he sketches quite easily. A pocket Hercules is an oft enough +heard-of individual--so why not a pocket artist? + +[Illustration: SKETCH ON A SHIRT-CUFF.] + +"Previous to this he used to make a rapid note on his shirt-cuff; but +that is a dangerous practice. Wives might resent the face if it were too +pretty, and your washerwoman might recognise a Member of Parliament as +her intimate friend. The incident which cured him of using his +shirt-cuff for sketching happened at a large dinner, where he was +introduced to the wife of a well-known public man, who soon showed she +was not altogether pleased by the introduction, and truly at the moment +he had forgotten that he had made a sketch of the lady on his +shirt-cuff, which he did not take sufficient care to conceal. + +[Illustration] + +"I recollect once on the terrace of the House of Commons he was +sketching a lady of foreign extraction, the wife of a gentleman +well-known to the Irish Party, with a profile something like this. I +made the sketch, unfortunately, on the marble tea-table. When H. F.'s +friends were leaving, he found he could not rub this off the table, and +what embarrassed him more was the fact that some Irish Members were +bearing down to take possession of the table as soon as we left. I had a +rapid vision of our guv'nor floating in the Thames, being hurled over by +the infuriated Members from the Emerald Isle; so I quickly transformed +the lady into something resembling a popular Member of Parliament at the +time, and, as we were leaving, I overheard an Irish Member say, 'Bedad! +and Furniss has been dhrawin' that owld beauty, Mundella!' + +[Illustration: "MUNDELLA."] + +"Have you anything new?" asked the Pen. "May I look? I know that St. +Stephen's is your happy hunting ground." + +"Ah, yes," responded the Pencil, "I know it well. But I can tell you it +is not altogether a bed of roses. When we come across Members who have +taken liberties with their personal appearance during the recess, H. F. +and I resent it, I can tell you." + +"Naturally," observed the Pen in a voice of the utmost sympathy, "for it +means more work." + +"Of course," continued the Pencil. "Now I have always held that model M. +P.'s have no right to alter. They are the property of the political +caricaturist, and what on earth is to become of him if the bearded men +begin to shave and the smooth-faced to disguise themselves in +'mutton-chops' or 'Dundrearys'? Yet they _will_ do it. We may draw them +in their new guise, but the public won't have them at any price. They +want their old favourites, and if they miss a well-known 'Imperial,' a +moustache, a pair of dyed whiskers, or other such hall-mark in the +picture, or on the other hand find a set of familiar chins concealed +beneath an incipient Newgate fringe, a nose and chin which have been +accustomed to meet for many a long year suddenly divided by the +intrusion of a bristly moustache, or a delightfully asinine expression +lost under the influence of a pair of bushy side-whiskers, recognition +becomes impossible and the caricature falls flat. The fact is, my friend +Pen, it is not only their features, but their characteristic attitudes +which we make familiar, and their political differences cause the +artistic effect. To me it is marvellous to note how differently artists +draw the same head. Expression of course varies, but the construction of +the head must always remain the same. Yet I have seen no less a head +than that of Mr. Gladstone so altered in appearance in the work of +different artists that I have been forcibly reminded of the old story of +St. Peter's skull. A tourist travelling in Italy was shown a cranium at +Rome which he was assured was the veritable relic. In Florence he was +shown another, and somewhere else he was shown a third. Upon his +remonstrating the guide observed, 'It is quite right, sir: the skull you +saw at Rome was that of St. Peter when he was a boy; that at Florence +was his when he was a young man, and this was his skull when he died.' + +"Then again, familiarity with the subject is only arrived at by +continually watching and sketching a Member. A few years ago I was lying +down in my berth in the sketch-book which was in H. F.'s pocket, when I +overheard a conversation between him and Mr. Labouchere upon +Parliamentary portraits." + +"What did H. F. say about them?" asked the Pen. "He ought to know the +alphabet of Parliamentary portraiture at all events by this time." + +"You're right," nodded the Pencil. "He's drawn a few thousand of them in +his time. What did H. F. say? Well, he told Labouchere that he always +created a type for each Member, and to that he adheres." + +"'Yes,' said the Sage, late of Queen Anne's Gate, 'and when the original +turns up, those who derive their impression of a Member from your +sketches are disappointed if the two do not exactly tally.'" + +"But surely our guv'nor does not sketch direct from life?" asked the +Pen, amazed. + +"Of course he does," indignantly replied the Pencil. "He whips me out of +my bed at all times, but as he pointed out to the Member for Northampton +(see how Parliamentary I am getting), it would never do invariably to +sketch a man as you see him. 'For instance,' went on H. F. addressing +him, 'I made a sketch of you, Mr. Labouchere, in the corridor of the +House of Commons, kneeling on a seat, and had I never seen you before, I +should have no doubt used this as a characteristic instead of an +accidental attitude of yours.' + +"Just fancy what you would have written, my dear Pen, if you had seen in +_Punch_ one of H. F.'s portraits of Lord Hartington with his hat upon +the back of his head instead of over his eyes, or Mr. Gladstone depicted +with a Shakespeare collar, or Mr. Cyril Flower without one, or Mr. +Arnold Morley smiling, or Mr. Balfour looking cross, or Mr. Broadhurst +in evening dress, or Mr. Chamberlain without an orchid in the +button-hole of his coat! Yet I venture to say the time has been when Mr. +Chamberlain may have had to rush down to the House orchidless, and when +Mr. Broadhurst may have worn evening dress. Stranger things than that +have happened, I can tell you. I have actually seen the irrepressible +smile vanish from the face of Mr. John Morley. But never--no, never, +will I believe that the ex-Chief Liberal Whip has ever looked jovial, +that Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cyril Flower ever exchanged collars, or that +Lord Hartington ever wore his hat at the back of his head. + +[Illustration: MR. LABOUCHERE.] + +"On the other hand, my dear Pen, you know as well as I do that Lord +Randolph Churchill did not wear imitation G.O.M. collars, that Mr. +Herbert Gladstone is no longer in his teens, that Mr. Gladstone was not +always so wild-looking as H. F. usually represented him, and that +perhaps Sir William Harcourt is not simply an elephantine mass of +egotism." + +"Then why did he draw them so?" enquired the Pen. + +"Ah! that is the secret of the caricaturist," laughed the Pencil. "There +is something more in politicians, you know, than meets the eye, and the +caricaturist tries to record it. You're so captious, my dear Pen. It is +not given to everyone to see a portrait properly, however true it may +be. Some folks there are who are colour-blind. There are others who are +portrait-blind. Others again are blind to the humorous. An old M.P. +came up to H. F. one day in the Lobby of the House of Commons when a new +Parliament had assembled for the first time, and said to him, 'Well, you +have a rich harvest for your pencil (that was me). I never saw such odd +specimens of humanity assembled together before.' + +[Illustration: THE M.P. REAL AND IDEAL.] + +"'That may be so,' replied H. F., 'but mark my words, after a session or +two, my comic sketches of the Members--for which, by the way, the +specimens you are looking at are merely notes, and which you are now +good enough to call faithful portraits--will become so familiar to you +that they will cease to amuse you. And you may even come to pronounce +them gross libels. In other words, you will find that their frequent +repetition will rob them in your eyes of their comic character +altogether, just as in the case with the attendants at the Zoo, on whose +faces you will fail to detect the ghost of a smile at the most +outrageous pranks of the monkeys, although you shall see everyone else +in the place convulsed with laughter.'" + +"But surely, Mr. Pencil," argued the Pen, "you lose friends by +caricaturing them?" + +"Not those who are worthy of friendship," replied the Pencil, with a +solemn air. "And those who cannot take a joke are not worthy of it. H. +F. is not a portrait painter. It makes the lead turn in my case to +witness the snobbishness which exists nowadays among certain +thin-skinned artists and writers. The Society grub has eaten the heart +out of all true artistic ambitions. An honest satirist has no chance +nowadays. He must not draw what he sees, or write what he really thinks +about it. Pleasing wishy-washiness is idolised, whilst Hogarth is voted +coarse. Great Scott! How this age of cigarettes and lemon squash would +have stirred the pulse and nerved the brush of the greatest of English +caricaturists!" + +[Illustration: THE PHOTO. AS HE REALLY IS.] + +Then as the Pencil wiped away a tear of regret for the decadence of +English satirical art the Pen jotted down the following lines culled +from the old tomb-stone at Chiswick: + + "If Genius fire thee Stranger stay, + If Nature touch thee, drop a tear. + If neither move thee, turn away, + For Hogarth's honoured dust lies here." + +"When he has not seen a Member, and has no reference to go by, how does +he manage?" + +"He does not find photography of much use. Sometimes, if he has to draw +a man for some special reason, and has not seen him, a photograph is, of +course, the only means possible; then he generally gets a letter +something like this: + + "'Dear Sir,--I enclose you a photograph of myself, the only one I + possess. It belongs to my wife, and she has reluctantly lent it, and + trusts you will take every care of it and return it at once. It was + taken on our wedding trip. I may mention that I have less hair at the + top of my head and more on my face, and I may seem to some a trifle + older.' + +"Well, here, you see, H. F. has to use his judgment. + +"But to my surprise H. F. received a visit from the original of the +photograph shortly after his sketch was published, who came to inform +the guv'nor that no one could possibly recognise him in the sketch; and +when I saw him in the flesh I quite believed him. You can judge from the +sketch how useful the photograph was. + +"The second appearance of the new and ambitious M.P. in the pages of +_Punch_ did not satisfy the legislator either. It was not his face he +took exception to, but his boots, like Mr. Goldfinch in 'A Pair of +Spectacles.' He lost faith in his bootmaker, squeezed his extremities +into patent leather shoes of the most approved and uncomfortable make, +and hobbled through the Lobbies doing penance at the shrine of +caricature. A caricature, you see, does not depend upon the face alone. + +"One of H. F.'s earliest Parliamentary caricatures was a sketch of Mr. +Henry Broadhurst, the deservedly popular representative of the working +classes. He was Member for Stoke when the sketch was made. There is no +affectation about him. Neither the skin that covers his solid frame nor +that which encases his active feet is thin. His figure is one of the +best known and most characteristic in Parliament. Who is not familiar +with the round, determined little head, with the short cropped hair, the +square-cut beard, the shrewd expression, the genial smile, the short +jacket, the horsey trousers, the round hat, and the thick boots? The +figure often appeared in Mr. Punch's Parliamentary Portrait Gallery. +When our friend the late William Woodall introduced his fellow-candidate +to the electors of Stoke a voice cried out, 'We know 'im! we know 'im! +We've seen 'is boots in _Punch!_' + +"No one can deny that the potters of Staffordshire are an artistic +public. + +"The late chief proprietor of the leading paper had the largest feet +ever seen in the House of Commons, and a certain noble lord whose name +will ever be connected with Majuba carries off the palm for the largest +in the Upper House. The new Member for ---- will, in due course, owe his +Parliamentary fame to the extraordinary heels of his boots, if nothing +else, just as the late Lord Hardwicke's reputation was due to the +mysterious shine of his hat. + +"But, judging from the illustrated papers, M.P.'s all wear spats, new +trousers every day (for they never have a crease), the most +beautifully-fitting coats, and white hats with black bands round them. +Why are they drawn so?" asked the Pen. + +"Excuse the familiar vulgar rejoinder--Ask me another." + +"I hear it said that you never caricature women." + +"What rot! Have I not worked in illustrating the Members of the Houses +of Parliament for years, to say nothing of Judges and--their wives?" + +"I mean young women." + +"Oh, really I have no time to answer these questions; here are a bundle +of my unpublished caricatures; take them and be off." + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + +PARLIAMENTARY CONFESSIONS. + + Gladstone and Disraeli--A Contrast--An unauthenticated Incident--Lord + Beaconsfield's last Visit to the House of Commons--My Serious + Sketch--Historical--Mr. Gladstone--His Portraits--What he thought of + the Artists--Sir J. E. Millais--Frank Holl--The Despatch + Boxes--Impressions--Disraeli--Dan O'Connell--Procedure--American + Wit--Toys--Wine--Pressure--Sandwich Soiree--The G.O.M. dines with + "Toby, M.P."--Walking--Quivering--My Desk--An Interview--Political + Caricaturists--Signature in Sycamore--Scenes in the Commons--Joseph + Gillis Biggar--My Double--Scenes--Divisions--Puck--Sir R. + Temple--Charles Stewart Parnell--A Study--Quick Changes--His Fall--Room + 15--The last Time I saw him--Lord Randolph Churchill--His Youth--His + Height--His Fickleness--His Hair--His Health--His Fall--Lord + Iddesleigh--Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone--Bradlaugh--His Youth--His + Parents--His Tactics--His Fight--His Extinction--John Bright--Jacob + Bright--Sir Isaac Holden--Lord Derby--A Political Prophecy--A Lucky + Guess--My Confession in the _Times_--The Joke that Failed--The + Seer--Fair Play--I deny being a Conservative--I am + Encouraged--Chaff--Reprimanded--Misprinted--Misunderstood. + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: THE INNER LOBBY OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.] + +[Illustration: + 1. Dr. Tanner + 2. Rt. Hon. A. Akers-Douglas + 3. Lord A. Hill + 4. G. Cavendish-Bentinck + 5. J. A. Pinton + 6. Sir W. H. Houldaworth + 7. Sir Albert K. Rollit + 8. Rt. Hon. H. Chaplin + 9. Sir E. Waskin + 10. T. W. Rusell + 11. Rt. Hon. C. B. Spencer + 12. Christopher Sykes + 13. Lord Halabury + 14. H. Lubouchere + 15. T. Sexton + 16. Sir R. H. Fowler + 17. Earl Spencer + 18. Rt. Hon. J. Chamberlain + 19. Admiral Field + 20. Sir Frank Lockwood + 21. Rt. Hon J. B. Balfour + 22. Wm. Woodall + 23. F. Ashmead Bartlett + 24. Baden-Powell + 25. Sir T. W. Maclure + 26. Marquis of Hartington (Duke of Devonshire) + 27. Sir R. Temple + 28. } + 29. } Press + 30. } + 31. } + 32. H. W. Lucy (_Toby M.P._). + 33. Rt. Hon. John Morley + 34. Lord Randolph Churchill + 35. Press (_Times_) + 36. " " + 37. J. Henniker Heaton + 38. James A. Jacoby + 39. Sir H. H. Howorth + 40. P. Power + 41. C. S. Parnell] + + +Some years before Mr. Disraeli quitted the House of Commons upon his +elevation to the Peerage, I enjoyed witnessing a very remarkable +encounter between him and Mr. Gladstone. It was one of those passage +of arms, or to be more correct I should say, perhaps, of words, which in +the days of their Parliamentary youth were so frequent between the great +political rivals; and although I am unable to recall the particular +subject of the debate, or the exact date of its occurrence, I well +remember that Mr. Gladstone had launched a tremendous attack against his +opponent. However, notwithstanding the fact that from the outset of his +speech it was evident that Mr. Gladstone meant war to the knife, that as +it proceeded he waxed more and more hostile, and that his peroration was +couched in the most vehement terms, Disraeli remained to the finish as +if utterly unmoved, sitting in his customary attitude as though he were +asleep, with his arms hanging listlessly at his sides. Once only during +the progress of the attack he appeared to wake up, when, taking his +single eye-glass, which he usually kept in a pocket of his waistcoat, +between his finger and thumb, he calmly surveyed the House as if to +satisfy himself how it was composed, just as an experienced cricketer +eyes the field before batting, in order to see how the enemy are +placed. Then, having taken stock of those present, the eye-glass was +replaced in his pocket, and to all appearance he once more subsided into +a tranquil slumber. But this was only a feint, for the very instant that +Mr. Gladstone sat down up jumped Disraeli. The contrast between his +method and that of Mr. Gladstone was very noticeable. Placing one hand +artistically upon the box in front of him, and the other under his coat +tails, he commenced to speak, and in the calmest manner possible, +although with the most telling and polished satire, he aimed dart after +dart across the table at Mr. Gladstone. As he proceeded to traverse the +speech of his distinguished opponent with the most perfect and effective +skill, it soon became evident that in reality he had slept with one eye +open. With masterly tact, he had reserved the principal point in his +reply to the end, and then, bringing his full force to bear upon it, the +conclusion of his speech told with redoubled effect. + +[Illustration: LORD BEACONSFIELD. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.] + +Whilst upon the subject of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Beaconsfield, I may +narrate a remarkable story, although I am unable to vouch for the +accuracy of it, as I cannot remember who was my original informant, nor +among my friends in or out of Parliament have I succeeded in discovering +anyone who actually witnessed the incident to which it refers. Should it +turn out to be an invention, like the champagne jelly of Lord +Beaconsfield or the eye-glass of Mr. Bright, I shall no doubt be +corrected. But if on the contrary the anecdote be authentic, I may earn +some thanks for resuscitating it. In any case I can testify that at the +time the story was told to me I had undoubtedly every reason to believe +that it was true. + +A similar scene to that which I have described above was taking place in +the House between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli, when the latter in the +course of his remarks had occasion to quote a passage from a recent +speech made by his rival upon some platform in the country. + +Suddenly Mr. Gladstone started up and exclaimed: + +"I never said that in my life!" + +Disraeli was silent, and, putting his hands behind his back, simply +gazed apparently in blank astonishment at the box in front of him. +Several seconds went by, but he never moved. The members in the crowded +House looked from one to the other, and many imagined that Disraeli was +merely waiting for his opponent to apologise. But Mr. Gladstone, who had +a habit, which he developed in later years, of chatting volubly to his +neighbour during any interruption of this kind in which he was +concerned, made no sign. A minute passed, but the sphinx did not move. + +A minute and a quarter, but he was still motionless. + +A minute and a half of this silence seemed as if it was an hour. + +When the second minute was completed, the excitement in the House began +to grow intense. Disraeli seemed to be transfixed. Was he ill? Was the +great man sulking? What could this strange silence portend? + +Two minutes and a half! + +Some Members rose and approached him, but Disraeli raised his hand as if +to deprecate their interference, and they stole back to their places +conscious that they were forbidden to interrupt. Then, at last, when the +second hand of the clock had passed three times round its course, the +most remarkable silence which the House had ever experienced within +living memory was broken as the Tory leader slowly began once more to +speak. + +"'Mr. Chairman,'" he said, "'and gentlemen,'" and then word for word he +repeated the whole speech of Mr. Gladstone from which he had made his +quotation, duly introducing the particular passage which the Liberal +leader had denied. Then he paused and looked across at his rival. The +challenge was not to be avoided, and Mr. Gladstone bowed. He would have +raised his hat did he wear one in the House, which, in the phraseology +of the ring, was equivalent to throwing up the sponge. Mr. Disraeli +afterwards informed a friend that, working backwards, he had recalled +the whole of Mr. Gladstone's speech to his mind. Beginning at the +disputed quotation, he recovered the context which led up to it, and so +step by step the entire oration. Then he was enabled to repeat it from +the outset, exactly as he had read it. + +I saw Lord Beaconsfield in the House of Commons on the occasion of his +last visit to that chamber in which he had been the moving spirit. I +well recollect that morning. There had been an Irish all-night sitting: +the House was supposed to be listening to the droning of some Irish +"Mimber." The officials were weary, the legislative chamber was untidy +and dusty, and many of those present had not had their clothes off all +night. Lord Beaconsfield, scented, oiled, and curled, the daintiest of +dandies, sits in the gallery, examining the scene through his single +eye-glass. Leaning over him stands the ever-faithful Monty Corry--now +Lord Rowton. I sat within a few yards of them, and made a sketch which +happens to be the most successful study I ever made. The _Academy_ wrote +of it: "In humour Mr. Harry Furniss generally excels; but his portrait +of Lord Beaconsfield on his last appearance in the House of Commons is +something else than amusing--it is pathetic, almost tragic, and will be +historical;" and columns of flattering notices must be my excuse for +confessing in these pages that I myself consider it to be the best +portrait of Lord Beaconsfield, and in no way a caricature. + +[Illustration: THE LAST VISIT OF LORD BEACONSFIELD TO THE HOUSE.] + +A caricaturist is an artistic contortionist. He is grotesque for effect. +A contortionist twists and distorts himself to cause amusement, but he +is by nature straight of limb and a student of grace before he can +contort his body in burlesque of the "human form divine." Thus also is +it with the caricaturist and his pencil. The good points of his subject +must be plainly apparent to him before he can twist his study into the +grotesque; to him it is necessary that the sublime should be known and +appreciated ere he can convert it into the ridiculous, and without the +aid of serious studies it is impossible for him fully to analyse and +successfully produce the humorous and the satirical. Perchance he may +even entertain a feeling of admiration for the subject he is holding up +to ridicule, for serious moments and serious work are no strangers to +the caricaturist. + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE. A SKETCH FROM LIFE.] + +The famous collars I "invented" for grotesque effect, but I always saw +Mr. Gladstone without them, for to me his head has never been, as some +suppose, a mere block around which to wreathe a fantastic and +exaggerated collar. + +"I am told a Japanese artist who wishes to study a particular flower, +for instance, travels to the part of the country where it is to be +found; he takes no photographic camera, no superb sketching pad or box +of paints, but he lives by the plant, watches day by day the flower +grow, blossom, and decay, under every condition, and mentally notes +every detail, so that ever afterwards he can paint that flower in every +possible way with facility and knowledge. I have myself treated Mr. +Gladstone as that Japanese artist treats the beautiful flower. I have +frequently sat for many many hours watching every gesture, every change +of expression. I have watched the colour leave his cheeks, and the hair +his head; I have marked time contract his mouth, and have noted the +development of each additional wrinkle. I have mused under the shade of +his collars, and wondered at the cut of his clothes, sketched his three +hats and his historical umbrella. More than that; during a great speech +I have seen the flower in his button-hole fade under his flow of +eloquence, seen the bow of his tie travel round to the back of his +neck." + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE. + +"I have seen the flower in his buttonhole fade under his flow of +eloquence." + +_Engraved on wood from an original study._] + +Thus I spoke night after night from the platform, and the laugh always +came with the collars. It was not as a serious critic that I was posing +before the audience, so I could fittingly describe the collars rather +than the man. But when I had left the platform and the limelight, and my +caricatures, I have had many a chat with Mr. Gladstone's admirers, with +regard to the light in which I saw the great man without his collars, +and this fact I will put forward as my excuse for publishing in my +"Confessions" a few studies that I have made from time to time of the +Grand Old Man, as an antidote not only to my own caricatures, but to the +mass of Gladstone portraits published, which, with very few exceptions, +are idealised, perfunctory, stereotyped, and worthless. Generations to +come will not take their impressions of this great man's appearance from +these unsatisfactory canvases, or from the cuts in old-fashioned +illustrated papers, in which all public men are drawn in a purely +conventional tailor's advertisement fashion, with perfect-fitting coats, +trousers without a crease, faces of wax, and figures of the fashionable +fop of the period. The camera killed all this. But the photographer, +although he cannot alter the cut of the clothes, can alter, and does +alter, everything else. He touches up the face beyond recognition, and +the pose is the pose the sitter takes before the camera, and probably +quite different from his usual attitude. So it will be the caricatures, +or, to be correct, the character sketches, that will leave the best +impressions of Mr. Gladstone's extraordinary individuality. + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE--CONVENTIONAL PORTRAIT.] + +I heard Mr. Gladstone express his own views on portraiture one evening +at a small dinner-party. My host of that evening had hit on the happy +idea of having portraits of the celebrities of the age painted for him +by a rising young artist. It was curious to note Mr. Gladstone as he +examined these portraits. His manner was a strange comment on the +political changes which had taken place, for as he came to the portraits +of those of his old supporters who no longer fought under his colours, +he would pass them by as though he had not seen them, or if his +attention were called to any of them he would seem not to recognise the +likeness, and pass on till his eye lighted on some political ally still +numbered among the faithful, when he would at once pronounce the +portrait excellent, and dwell upon its merits with apparent delight. A +portrait of Mr. Labouchere, however, he generally failed to recognise. +The portrait represented the Member for Northampton in a contemplative +mood, certainly not characteristic of his habitual demeanour in the +House. + +"I have found," said he, "the artist I have been looking for for years. +I have found an artist who can paint my portrait in four hours and a +half; he has painted three in thirteen hours; that is Millais." + +I was much surprised by this curious criticism on portrait painting. +Surely, if the portrait of the great orator is to be painted in four +hours and a half, the same limitation, if carried out, would confine the +greatest speech ever made to a period of four-and-a-half seconds! + +Someone pointedly asked Mr. Gladstone whether he liked Millais' +portraits. + +"Well," he replied, evading any brutal directness of reply, "I have been +very much interested with his energy; he is the hardest-working man I +ever saw." + +"Do you prefer his result to Holl's?" + +"Ah, Holl took double the time, and put me in such a very strained +position, nearly on tiptoe. I know my heels were off the ground; it +tired me out, and I was really obliged to lie down and sleep +afterwards." + +"You found Millais charming in conversation?" + +"He never spoke when at work; his interest in his work fascinated me." + +"Mr. Watts?" + +"Ah, there is a delightful conversationalist, and a wonderful artist; he +has attempted my portrait often--three attempts of late years--but he +has not satisfied himself, and I am bound to say that my friends are of +the same mind." + +"I well remember," remarked Lord Granville, who was one of the party, +"how uneasy poor Holl was before he painted your portrait. He came to me +and said, 'I think if you would speak to Mr. Gladstone on some subject +that would interest him, I would watch him, and that would aid me very +much.'" + +In this picture of Mr. Gladstone the late Frank Holl failed to maintain +his reputation as an artist of the highest class: that picture of the +great Liberal leader was disappointing and altogether unworthy of his +name. This was the more unfortunate because, by the exercise of a little +forethought, the artist might easily have avoided that pitfall of +portrait-painters, an awkward, constrained, and unaccustomed attitude, +which Mr. Gladstone confessed was torturing him, and by a very simple +expedient have succeeded in placing Mr. Gladstone in the position which +everyone who has seen him in the act of delivering a speech in the House +of Commons would have recognised at once as a true and characteristic +pose. + +Here I have mentioned Mr. Gladstone himself, saying how uncomfortable he +felt upon the occasion of Mr. Holl's visit to his house for the purpose +of obtaining a sitting; but I should add that the genial artist who was +to do the work informed me that he also was no less ill at ease. When +Mr. Gladstone enquired how he should sit for the portrait, Mr. Holl, +anxious no doubt to secure a natural pose, replied, "Oh, just as you +like!" This appeared to disconcert the great statesman somewhat, and he +appeared to be ruminating as to what sedentary attitude was really his +favourite one, when Holl came to the rescue. + +[Illustration: CARICATURE OF THE HOLL PORTRAIT.] + +"I happened," said Mr. Gladstone, "to be standing at my library table +with my hands upon a book, when Mr. Holl said, 'That will do, Mr. +Gladstone, exactly,' and the result was that he painted me in that +position. But I felt uncommonly awkward and uncomfortable the whole +time, and as I have just said, I had to lie down and sleep after each +sitting." + +Now why was this? It was the very attitude of all others with which we +who have studied it so often when the ex-Premier has been standing at +the table in the House are so familiar. No artist who had once seen him +in that position would have failed to select it as the most favourable +and characteristic for the purposes of a historical portrait. And yet +the picture, when it was completed, was a failure, and the artist +himself knew that it was. The explanation is, I think, very simple, and +it exemplifies once more the truth of the formula which defines genius +to be "an infinite capacity for taking pains." Frank Holl undoubtedly +had talent, but his omission of an important detail in this picture--a +detail which would have probably made all the difference between success +and failure--shows once more by how narrow a line the highest art is +often divided from the next best, that art of which we have such a +plethora nowadays--which just contrives to miss hitting the bullseye of +perfection. + +When Mr. Holl exclaimed, "That will do, Mr. Gladstone, exactly," he was +no doubt impressed with the idea that the great orator was more at ease +standing at the table in the House of Commons than in any other +position, and he therefore selected it for his picture. But he forgot +that upon the table in the House there stands a box on which Mr. +Gladstone was always in the habit, when he was speaking, of resting one +of his hands, and that if that box was missing he would naturally, +although perhaps unconsciously, be sensible that something to which he +was accustomed was absent, and that he would therefore be as +uncomfortable as a fish out of water. This was actually the case. But if +some substitute for the box, of the proper height and size, had been +forthcoming, I have not the slightest doubt, from my long and close +observation of the habits and movements of Mr. Gladstone in the House, +that he would at once have dropped easily into his customary attitude, +and that the picture in the hands of so true an artist as Holl would +then have been a conspicuous success. + +Mr. Gladstone was asked whether he thought the tone of the House had +degenerated in recent times. He replied that he did not think so at all, +quoting in proof that after the introduction of the first Reform Bill +many Members used to express their feelings in cock-crows and other +offensive ways. Mr. Gladstone, however, at the time I met him, was +getting decidedly deaf, and no doubt much that went on behind him in the +House "did not reach" him. + +Asked if the "count out" ought to be abolished, Mr. Gladstone said it +was too convenient a custom to be abolished, but that he noticed a very +important alteration of late years in the mode of conducting it. Years +ago he recollected it was the rule that, when a Member moved that +"forty Members were not present, he was obliged to remain in his place +while the 'count out' was in progress." "Now," said Mr. Gladstone, "he +gets up and rushes out. + +"Indeed," continued the veteran statesman, "I understand very little +about the rules and regulations of the House now. I am very ignorant +indeed; I believe I am the most ignorant man in the House, and I mean to +continue so; it is not worth my while to begin now to learn fresh +rules." + +[Illustration: NOTE OF MR. GLADSTONE MADE IN THE PRESS GALLERY WITH THE +WRONG END OF A QUILL PEN.] + +He told us of a curious incident which happened in the House when he was +a young Parliamentary hand. Members did not leave the House for a +division, but it was left to the discretion of the Speaker to decide +which side was in the majority. He would then order them to walk to the +other side of the House, and anyone remaining would of course be counted +with the opposite side. Old Sir Watkin Wynn, I believe, was determined +to vote against a certain Bill. He had been hunting all day, and rode up +to town in time to vote. Arriving in his hunting costume and muddy +boots, he took his seat tired out, and soon went fast asleep. The +division came on, and his party were ordered to go over to the other +side of the House. He slept in blissful ignorance, waking some time +afterwards to find to his horror that he had been counted with those in +favour of the Bill. + +Mr. Gladstone remarked that it was curious that in the old days the +Whips could tell to a vote how a division would go. He recollected well, +in 1841, a vote of no confidence in Lord Melbourne was moved. The point +was going to be decided by one vote. I shall never forget the "Grand Old +Man's" graphic description of that vote. There was an old Member who was +known to be to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail. The +excitement was intense to know if that still breathing corpse could be +brought to vote. Mr. Gladstone, with other young Tory Members, stood +anxiously round the lobby door watching, and just at the critical moment +when the vote was to be taken the all but lifeless body was borne along +ignorant of all that was going around him, his vote was recorded, and +that one vote sealed the fate of a Ministry. + +In Mr. Gladstone's opinion, American humour invariably consisted in +dealing with magnitudes. He preferred to hear American stories on this +side of the Atlantic. He never had been in America, and never intended +going. He expressed himself as apprehensive of the effect on the nervous +system of the vibration caused by the engines of a steamer travelling at +a high speed, but spoke with admiration of the rapid travelling at sea +performed by the Continental mail packets, saying that a few days +before, returning from the Continent, he had only just settled down to +read when he was told to disembark, for the steamer had reached Dover. + +I overheard Mr. Gladstone asking the question: "Why is it that when we +get a good thing we do not stick to it?" I fully expected him to launch +into some huge political question, such as the "Unity of the Empire" or +"Universal Franchise." Instead of this, I was somewhat surprised to hear +him proceed: "Now, I recollect an excruciatingly funny toy which you +wound up, and it danced about in a most comical way. I have watched that +little nigger many and many a time, but lately I have been looking +everywhere to get one. I have asked at the shops in the Strand and +elsewhere, and they show me other things, but not the funny nigger I +recollect, so I have given up my search in despair." + +I noticed that Mr. Gladstone took champagne at dinner, and after dinner +a glass of port. Some conversation arising with reference to the history +of wines, the old politician seemed to know more on the subject than +anyone else at table; in fact, during the whole evening, there was not a +subject touched upon on which he did not give the heads for an +interesting essay. The only time Mr. Gladstone mentioned Ireland was in +connection with the subject of wines, when he dilated upon the beauties +of Newfoundland port, which was to be found in Ireland in the good old +days. + +In one respect Mr. Gladstone was not an exception among the old, for he +seemed fond of dwelling upon the great age which men have attained. He +seemed to think that the high pressure at which we live nowadays would +show its effect on the longevity of the rising generation, and remarked: + +"You young men will have a very bad time of it." + +[Illustration] + +It is curious that very few statesmen indeed have led the House of +Commons in their old age. It may be said that Lord John Russell was the +first to do so; Lord Palmerston also was very old before he obtained +office. And so chatted the Grand Old Man, in the most fascinating and +delightful manner. He was always the same on such occasions, entering +into the spirit of the entertainment, and, as was his habit, forgetting +for the time everything else. When my old friend William Woodall, M.P. +for Stoke (Governor-General of the Ordnance in Mr. Gladstone's +Government 1885), gave at St. Anne's Mansions his famous "Sandwich +Soirees" to his friends, the spacious ballroom on the ground floor +packed with his many friends--a characteristic, polyglot gathering of +Ministers and Parliamentarians of all kinds, musicians, dramatists, +authors, artists, actors, and journalists, who sang, recited, and gave a +gratuitous entertainment (for some of these I acted as his hon. +secretary, and helped to get together a collection of modern paintings +on the walls, besides designing the invitations)--I recollect the +greatest success was the Grand Old Man. There was "standing room" only, +but a chair was provided for Mr. Gladstone in the centre of the huge +circle which had formed around the mesmerist Verbeck. Many guests sat on +the floor, to afford those behind a better chance of seeing. The Prime +Minister, noticing this, absolutely declined to be an exception, and he +squatted "a la Turk" on the floor. I confess this struck me as "playing +to the gallery." It certainly was playing to the Press, for Mr. +Gladstone's attitude on that occasion was paragraphed all over the +country, by means of which fact I have here refreshed my memory. In +fact, Mr. Gladstone was always _en evidence_. When the great statesman +dined with Toby, M.P., I was sitting close to him. He had dispensed with +his own shirt-collars, and wore quite the smallest, slenderest, and most +inconspicuous of narrow, turn-down collars, assumed for that occasion +only. "One of Herbert's cast-offs," someone whispered to me. "That's +strange," said another guest to me. "Last night at dinner the pin in the +back of Gladstone's collar came out, and as he got excited, the collar +rose round his head, and we all agreed that 'Furniss ought to have +witnessed what he has so often drawn, but never seen.'" + +[Illustration: MR. GLADSTONE SITS ON THE FLOOR.] + +Mr. Lucy has made the statement that Mr. Gladstone was "a constant +student of _Punch_" and "knew no occasion upon which he was not able to +join in the general merriment of the public; but hadn't there been +enough about the fabulous collars?" + +I received an editorial order to bury them, "but before long they were +out again, flapping their folds in the political breeze." + +[Illustration: THE FRAGMENT OF _PUNCH_ MR. GLADSTONE DID _NOT_ SEE.] + +Well, I have no doubt that Mr. Gladstone for many years was "a constant +student of _Punch_," for during the greater portion of his political +career he was idealised in the pages of _Punch_, and not caricatured. I +doubt very much, however, if he made _Punch_ an exception in his latter +period, for it is well known that for years he was only allowed to see +flattering notices of himself, and all references at all likely to +disturb him were kept from his sight. At Mr. Lucy's own house, the night +Mr. Gladstone dined with him, a copy of _Punch_ was lying on the table, +containing a rare thing for _Punch_--a supplement. In this case it took +the shape of my caricatures of the Royal Academy, 1889. Just as dinner +was announced Mr. Gladstone saw the paper, and was on the point of +taking it up. I handed it to him, but at the same moment slipped the +supplement out of the number and threw it under the table, for it +contained a caricature of Professor Herkomer's Academy portrait of Mrs. +Gladstone, objecting to being placed next to a lady by Mr. Val Prinsep +sitting for the "altogether." During dinner Mr. Gladstone mentioned this +portrait of Mrs. Gladstone, and expressed great delight with Herkomer's +work: it showed her mature age, he said, and as a portrait was very +happy and true--he did not say anything about the hanging of it! + +Mr. Gladstone was the life and soul of a party, and seemed to enjoy +being the centre of attraction wherever he was. + +[Illustration: THE GLADSTONE MATCHBOX.] + +Mr. Gladstone's portrait has been adopted by others besides +caricaturists. It is carved as a gargoyle in the stone-work of a church, +and the head of the Grand Old Man has been turned into a match-box. The +latter I here reproduce. It was shown to me one evening when I was the +guest at the Guard Mess at St. James's Palace. A clever young Guardsman, +who had a taste for turning, worked this out in wood from my caricatures +of Mr. Gladstone, and I advised his having it reproduced in pottery. The +suggestion was carried out by the late Mr. Woodall, the Member for the +Potteries, and was largely distributed at the time the G.O.M. was +politically meeting his match and thought by some to be a little +light-headed. + +In being shown round the beautiful municipal buildings in Glasgow I +found my caricature there accidentally figuring in the marble-work; and +the guides at Antwerp Cathedral (as I have mentioned in the first +chapter) point out a grotesque figure in the wood carving of the choir +stalls which resembles almost exactly Mr. Gladstone's head as depicted +by me. + +I find a note which I introduce here, as I hardly know where to place it +in this hotch-potch of confessions. Is it a fact that Mr. Gladstone +once signed a caricature of himself? In 1896 a Mr. J. T. Cox, of the +"Norwich school" of amateurs, procured a slab of a sycamore tree felled +by Mr. Gladstone, and on it reproduced in pencil my _Punch_ cartoon +depicting a visit of the "Grand Old Undergrad" to his Alma Mater, +Oxford. This was sent to Hawarden, and returned signed with the +following note: + + "HAWARDEN CASTLE. + + "Mr. Gladstone is obliged to refuse his signature, but Mrs. Drew asked + him for it for herself on enclosed--it was so cleverly arranged. + + "_May 5th_, 1896." + +Here is to me, I confess, a first-he-would-and-then-he-wouldn't, Cox and +Box mystery I fail to explain. + +I drew the G.O.M., Mr. Cox drew me, he drew Mrs. Drew, and Mrs. Drew +drew Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone refused his signature, and yet he +signed it. I think he signed his cut of sycamore, and not my cut at him. + +Both as a "special artist" for the _Illustrated London News_ in my +pre-_Punch_ days, and later for various periodicals, I saw and sketched +Mr. Gladstone on many important occasions, but towards the end of his +career it was sad to see the great man. The _Daily News_ once gave me a +chance in the following account of Mr. Gladstone during one of these +scenes; when Mr. Gladstone, having accidentally mentioned the approach +of his eightieth birthday, "the vast audience suddenly leapt to its feet +and burst into ringing cheers. Mr. Gladstone was evidently deeply +touched by this spontaneous outburst of almost personal affection. He +stood with hands folded, head bent down, and _legs quivering_." The fun +of this joke, however, lies in the fact that the "legs" which quivered +were the telegraph operators'. The reporter wrote "lips." + +So great was the public admiration for the illustrious leader of the +Liberal Party that merely to see him was, to the majority of his +audience, enough. In later years he could not be heard at public +meetings. Penetrating as his voice was, it was absolutely impossible for +any but those standing immediately around the platform to hear him upon +such occasions as that of the famous Blackheath meeting, or those at +Birmingham or elsewhere; but the masses nevertheless came in their +thousands, and were more than repaid for their trouble by catching only +a distant glimpse of William Ewart Gladstone. + +Whatever one may think of Mr. Gladstone as a politician (and some say +that he was no statesman, and others that he was never sincere, while +many maintain that he was merely a "dangerous old woman"), all must +agree that as a man he was a figure that England might well be proud of. +It will be interesting to see what historians will make of him. When the +glamour of his personality is forgotten, what will be remembered? His +figure, his face--and shall I say his collars? + +[Illustration] + +In my time Mr. Parnell was the most interesting figure in Parliament, +and, after Mr. Gladstone, had the greatest influence in the House. Mr. +Gladstone was, politically speaking, Parliament itself (at one time he +was the Country); but I doubt if even Mr. Gladstone ever hypnotised the +House by his personality as Parnell did. There was a mystery in +everything connected with the great Irish leader; no mystery hung about +Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Gladstone in the House was voluble, eloquent, +communicative. Mr. Parnell was silent, a poor speaker, and as +uncommunicative as the Sphinx. Mr. Gladstone's power lay in his +unreservedness; Mr. Parnell's lay in his absolute reserve. His orders +were "No one to speak to the man at the wheel," and the man at the wheel +spoke to no one. He guided the Irish ship just as he liked over the +troubled waters of a political crisis, and not one of his men knew what +move would be his next. By this means, so foreign to the Irish +character, he held that excitable, rebellious, irrepressible crew in +thrall. He made them dance, sleep, roar; he made them obstructionists, +orators, buffoons, at his will. He made them everything but friends. A +characteristic story was circulated when Parnell was known as "the +uncrowned king." Accompanied by his faithful private secretary, he was +walking from the House, when he met one of his colleagues. The satellite +saluted his chief and "smiled affably at the private secretary." Mr. +Parnell took no notice whatever of Mr. ----, but after a few seconds had +elapsed, turned to his companion and said, "Who was that, Campbell?" + +"Why, ----" (mentioning the name of the hon. Member), was the reply. + +"What a horrible-looking scoundrel!" exclaimed the uncrowned king in his +most supercilious manner, and then began to talk of something else. + +He was a study as fascinating to the artist as to the politician, and no +portrait ever drawn by pen or pencil can hand down to future generations +the mysterious subtlety in the personality of the all-powerful leader. + +[Illustration: PARNELL.] + +He was as puzzling to the Parliamentary artist as he was to the +politician: he never appeared just as one expected him. When I first +made a sketch of him he had short hair, a well-trimmed moustache, +shortly-cut side whiskers, a neat-fitting coat and trousers, and +well-shaped boots. He then let his beard and hair grow, and his coat and +trousers seemed to grow also--the coat in length and the trousers in +width; and his boots grew with the rest--they were ugly and enormous. +His hat didn't grow, but it was out of date. Then he would cut his beard +and hair again, wear a short coat, a sort of pilot jacket, and +eventually a long black coat. So that if a drawing was not published at +once it would have been out of date. + +Some artists have been flattering enough to take my sketches as +references for Parliamentarians, but others depended on photographs, and +for years I have seen Mr. Parnell represented with the neatly-trimmed +moustache and closely-cut side whiskers. _A propos_ of this, I may +mention here how mistakes often become perpetuated. John Bright, for +instance, was generally represented in political sketches with an +eye-glass. This was a slip made by an artist in _Punch_ many years ago. +But ever after John Bright was represented with an eye-glass--which he +never wore, except on one occasion just to see how he liked it. + +The effect upon the House when Mr. Parnell rose was always dramatic. He +sat there during a debate, seldom, if ever, taking a note, with his hat +well over his eyes and his arms crossed, in strong contrast to the +restlessness of those around him. When he rose, it seemed an effort to +lift his voice, and he spoke in a hesitating, ineffective manner. +Neither was there much in what he said, but he was _Parnell_, and the +fact that he said little and said it quietly, that what he said was not +prepared in consultation with his Whips or with his Party, that in fact +he was playing a game in which his closest friends were not consulted, +made his rising interesting from the reporters' gallery to the +doorkeepers in the Lobby the other side. + +Mr. Parnell seemed to have been very little affected by his continued +reverses; and perhaps the only visible effect of his loss of power was +that the "uncrowned king" of Ireland changed his top-hat to a plebeian +bowler, but he did not change his coat. He was always careless about his +dress, and his tall, handsome figure looked somewhat ridiculous when he +wore a bowler, black frock coat, and his hair as usual unkempt. + +The fall of Parnell was one of the most sensational and certainly the +most dramatic incident in the history of Parliament. + +Mr. Parnell was politically ruined and the Irish Party smashed beyond +recovery in the famous Committee Room No. 15, after the disclosures in +the Divorce Court in which Mr. Parnell figured as co-respondent. Mr. +Parnell had found the Irish Party without a leader, without a programme, +without a future. He had by his individual force made it a power which +had to be reckoned with, and which practically controlled Parliament. He +had been attacked by the most important paper in the world. He had come +out of the affair, in the eyes of many, a hero; he made his Party +stronger than their wildest dreams ever anticipated. But his followers +little thought that in hiding from them his tactics he had also hidden +the weakness which caused his ultimate downfall. Howbeit the Irish +Party, whom he held in a hypnotic trance, agreed to stand by him still. +Then, suddenly, Mr. Gladstone made his demand for a sacrifice to Mrs. +Grundy. His famous letter, written November 24th, 1894, to Mr. Morley, +was the death-warrant to Parnellism, and, as it subsequently proved, to +Gladstonianism as well. + +There was a strange fascination in watching the mysterious Leader of the +Irish Party during the crisis, and I took full advantage of my privilege +in the House to do so. I was in and about the House early and late, and +probably saw more of Mr. Parnell than anyone else not connected with +him. It was just before his exposure that I happened to be in an +out-of-the-way passage leading from the House, making a little note in +my sketch-book on a corner of the building, when Mr. Parnell walked out. +He stood close by, not observing me, and was occupied for a minute in +taking letters out of the pocket on the right side of his overcoat: they +were unopened. He looked at them singly; now and then he would tap one +on the other, as much as to say, "I wonder what is in that?" Then he +passed it over with the others and put them all into the pocket on the +left side of his overcoat, and strolled off to catch his train to +Brighton. That incident, as I subsequently found out, was the cause of +much of his trouble; for I was informed, when I mentioned it to a great +friend of Mr. Parnell's and of mine--Mr. Richard Power--that about that +time he had written him important letters which might have saved him if +they had been attended to in time. + +But those who saw the fallen chief during the sittings in Committee Room +No. 15, when, through the letter of Mr. Gladstone to which I have +referred, he was denounced, and had to fight with his back to the wall, +can never forget his tragic figure during that exciting time. No one +knew better than he that the tactics of his lieutenant would be cunning +and perhaps treacherous; so this lazy, self-composed man suddenly awoke +as a general who finds himself surprised in the camp, and determines to +keep watch himself. Every day he took by right the chair at the +meetings. Had he not been present, who knows that it would not have been +wrested from him? In the early afternoon I saw him more than once walk +with a firm step, with an ashy pale face, his eyes fixed straight in +front of him, through the yard, through the Lobby, up the stairs, and +into Room 15, accompanied by his secretary, Mr. Campbell. The members of +his Party, on their arrival, found him sitting where they had left him +the night before. I recollect one morning, as he passed where I was +standing, he never moved his head, but I heard him say to Mr. Campbell, +"Who's that? what does he want?" in a sharp, nervous manner. He never +seemed to recognise anyone, or wish them to recognise him. His one idea +was to face the man who wished to fight him in the little ring they had +selected in the Committee Room No. 15. + +[Illustration: TO ROOM 15.] + +No outsider but myself heard any portion of that debate, for at the +beginning of it the reporters, who were standing round the doors outside +to hear what they could, were ordered away; and I was left there, not +being a reporter, to finish a rather tedious sketch of the corridor. A +policeman was placed at either end of this very long passage, and if +anyone had to pass that way he was not allowed to pause for a moment at +the door of the room upon which the interest of the political world was +centred at the moment. Nearly all the time I was there I only saw the +policeman at either end, and one solitary figure seated on the bench +outside the door. It was the figure of a woman with a kind, +homely-looking face, resting with her head upon her hand. She seemed not +to be aware of, or at least not interested in what was going on inside; +she simply sighed as Big Ben tolled on toward the hour for the dismissal +of the Leader of the Irish Party. She was the wife of a blind Member of +Parliament who was taking part in the proceedings, and her thoughts were +evidently more intent upon seeing that her husband was not worn out by +that strange, long struggle than in the political significance of the +meeting. + +[Illustration: OUTSIDE ROOM 15.] + +It was my good fortune to hear what was perhaps the most interesting of +the speeches--John Redmond's defence of his chief--and I never wish to +listen to a finer oration. Everyone admits that the Irish are, by +nature, good speakers, but they are not always sincere. Here was a +combat in which there was no quarter, no gallery, and no reporters. The +men spoke from their hearts, and if any orator could have moved an +assembly by his power and genius, Mr. Redmond ought to have had a +unanimous vote recorded in favour of his chief. I am not a phonograph, +nor was I a journalist privileged to record what passed, and have no +intention of breaking their trust. + +I shall never forget the scene one Wednesday afternoon when Mr. Maurice +Healy, brother of "Tim," and one of the Members for Cork, challenged Mr. +Parnell to retire and so enable their respective claims to the +confidence of the people of Cork to be tested. He tried to drag Mr. +Parnell into a newspaper controversy upon this point, but failing to do +so repeated in tragic tones his somewhat Hibernian sentiment that Mr. +Parnell did not represent the constituency which elected him. Mr. +Maurice Healy, a somewhat sickly-looking young man, with a family +resemblance to his brother, is much taller than his more famous +relative, but lacks the stamina and vivacity of the Member for Longford. + +At this moment, when the Irish Party might have been likened to +machinery deprived of its principal wheel, it was curious to notice how +energetic Mr. Parnell became. He tried to cover his position by being +unusually active in Parliament; he followed the Chief Secretary for +Ireland in the debates upon the Land Purchase Bill, to the obvious +discomfort of Mr. Morley, and rather delighted the young Conservatives +by twitting the faction which had thrown him over. His speeches, +however, were laboured, and, as one of the Irish Members remarked to me +in the Lobby, it had a curious effect on them to see Mr. Parnell sit +down after making an important speech without hearing a single cheer. +And whereas for years he had addressed the House with the greatest +calmness, his chief characteristic being his "reserve force," he now +changed all this, and one Friday night caused quite a sensation in the +House in his attack upon Mr. Gladstone, not so much by what he said as +by the manner in which he said it. His excitement was visible to all, +and he was observed to be positively convulsed with anger. He also +remained, contrary to his previous custom, late in the House. + +The last occasion on which I saw Charles Stewart Parnell was a few +months before his death. I was in Dublin during the Horse Show week, +giving my "Humours of Parliament" to crowded houses in the "Ancient +Concert Rooms," and my ancient hotel rooms were at Morrison's +Hotel--"Parnell's Hotel," for the "uncrowned king" (at that time +deposed) always stopped there--in fact it was said he had an interest in +the property. It was late on Sunday afternoon. I was writing in my +sitting-room on the first floor, next to Parnell's room, when the +strains of national music of approaching bands smote my ear, and soon +the hotel was surrounded by a cheering, shouting crowd. Banners were +flying, bands were playing, thousands of voices were shouting. Standing +in a brake haranguing the surging mass of people was the familiar figure +of Charles Stewart Parnell. With difficulty he descended from the brake, +and had literally to fight his way into the hotel, while his worshippers +clung on to him into the building, till they were seized and ejected by +the servants. I went out of my door to see the scene, and in the passage +outside, between Parnell's sitting-room and mine, he sat apparently +exhausted. His flesh seemed transparent--I could fancy I saw the +pattern of the wall-paper through his pallid cheeks. The next moment, +before I was aware, another figure sat on the same seat, arms were +thrown round my neck. It was my old Irish nurse, who had come up from +Wexford to see me, and had been lying in wait for me. + +[Illustration: OUTSIDE MY ROOM.] + +The first picture I drew for _Punch's_ essence of Parliament was a +portrait of Lord Randolph Churchill, "Caught on the Hip," to illustrate +the following truly prophetic words of Toby, M.P.: "The new delight you +have given us is the spectacle of an undisciplined Tory--a man who will +not march at the word of command and snaps his fingers at his captain. +You won't last long, Randolph; you are rather funny than witty--more +impudent than important." That was written at the opening of Parliament, +1891. + +[Illustration: "THE G.O.M." AND "RANDY."] + +I must plead guilty to being the cause of giving an erroneous impression +of Lord Randolph's height. He was not a small man, but he _looked_ +small; and when he first came into notoriety, with a small following, +was considered of small importance and, by some, small-minded. It was to +show this political insignificance in humorous contrast to his bombastic +audacity that I represented him as a midget; but the idea was also +suggested from time to time by his opponents in debate. Did not Mr. +Gladstone once call him a gnat? and do we not find the following lines +under _Punch's_ Fancy Portraits, No. 47, drawn by Mr. Sambourne? + + "There is a Midge at Westminster, + A Gnatty little Thing, + It bites at Night + This mighty Mite, + But no one feels its sting." + +Two gentlemen of Yorkshire had a dispute about his correct height, and +one of them, anxious to have an authoritative pronouncement, wrote to +the noble Lord, and received the following reply: + + "2, CONNAUGHT PLACE, W. + + "Dear Sir,--Lord Randolph Churchill desires me to say, in reply to + your letter of the 21st inst., that his height is just under 5ft. 10in. + + "I am, yours faithfully, + + "CECIL DRUMMOND-WOLFF, Secretary." + +[Illustration: MR. LOUIS JENNINGS.] + +Lord Randolph Churchill was a mere creature of impulse, the spoilt pet +of Parliament--what you will--but no one can deny that he was the most +interesting figure in the House since Disraeli. He had none of +Disraeli's chief attraction--namely, mystery. Nor had he Disraeli's +power of organisation, for, although Lord Randolph "educated a party" of +three--the first step to his eventually becoming Leader of the House--it +cannot be said that at any time afterwards he really had, in the strict +sense of the word, a party at all. He was a political Don Quixote, and +he had his Sancho Panza in the person of Mr. Louis Jennings. Perhaps +nothing can show the impulsive nature of Lord Randolph more than the +incident which was the cause of Mr. Jennings breaking with Lord +Randolph. Mr. Louis Jennings was, in many ways, his chief's superior: a +brilliant journalist, originally on the _Times_, afterwards editor of +the _New York World_, when, by dint of his energy and pluck, he was the +chief cause of breaking up the notorious Tammany Ring; a charming writer +of picturesque country scenes--in fact, an accomplished man, and one +harshly treated by that fickle dame Fortune by being branded, rightly or +wrongly, as the mere creature of a political adventurer. + +One afternoon I was standing in the Inner Lobby when Mr. Jennings asked +me to go into the House to a seat under the Gallery to hear him deliver +a speech he had been requested to make by the Government Party, and one +he thought something of. At that moment Lord Randolph came up and said, +"I am going in to hear you, Jennings; I have arranged not to speak till +after dinner." And we all three entered the House. + +Lord Randolph, who had then left the Ministry, sat on the bench in the +second row below the gangway, on the Government side of the House. Mr. +Jennings was seated on the bench behind, close to where he had found a +place for me under the Gallery. He carefully arranged the notes for his +speech, and directly the Member who had been addressing the House sat +down, Mr. Jennings jumped to his feet to "catch the Speaker's eye." But +Lord Randolph, who had been very restless all through the speech just +delivered, sprang to his feet. Jennings leant over to him and said +something, but Churchill waved him impatiently away, and the Speaker +called upon Lord Randolph. Jennings sank back with a look of disgust and +chagrin, which changed to astonishment when Lord Randolph fired out that +famous Pigott speech, in which he attacked his late colleagues with a +vituperation and vulgarity he had never before betrayed. His speech +electrified the House and disgusted his friends--none more so than his +faithful Jennings, who left the Chamber directly after his "friend's" +tirade of abuse, returning later in the evening to make a capital +speech, full of feeling and power, in which he finally threw over Lord +Randolph. In the meantime, meeting me, he did not hide the fact that the +incident had determined him to have nothing more to say to Churchill. +And this was the man I once drew a cartoon of in _Punch_ on all fours, +with a coat covering his head (suspiciously like a donkey's head), with +"Little Randy" riding on his back! + +[Illustration: LORD RANDOLPH AND LOUIS JENNINGS.] + +If Samson's strength vanished with his hair, Lord Randolph's strength +vanished with the growing of his beard. The real reason why Lord +Randolph so strangely transformed himself is not generally known, but it +was for the simplest of all reasons--like that of the gentleman who +committed suicide because he was "tired of buttoning and unbuttoning," +Lord Randolph was tired of shaving or being shaved; hence the heroic +beard, which has offended certain political purists who think that a man +with an established reputation has no right to alter his established +appearance. Still, if he had not vanished to grow his beard, I doubt if +he would have survived the winter; and probably he discovered that it +was good for any man to escape now and then from what the late Mr. R. L. +Stevenson called "the servile life of cities." Perhaps no one received +such a "sending off," or was more feted, than Lord Randolph Churchill. +Happening to be a guest at more than one of those festive little +gatherings, I heard Lord Randolph say that all the literary food that he +was taking out with him to Mashonaland consisted of the works of two +authors--one English, and the other French. We were asked who they were. +"In Darkest England," suggested one. "Ruff's Guide to the Turf," said +another. Both were wrong. And it ultimately transpired that, together +with his friends' best wishes for his safe return, Lord Randolph was +carrying with him complete sets of the works of Shakespeare and Moliere. + +The deafness which attacked Lord Randolph led to his making mistakes, +and to others making a scene, particularly when the noise in the House +was so great through the excitement on the Home Rule question. I find a +note made then upon this point, alluding to a little incident _a propos_ +of Lord Randolph Churchill's deafness: "It is really dangerous, +considering the high state of feeling in the House, that Members +antagonistic to each other should have to sit side by side. During the +stormy scene to which I have just alluded, I was sitting in one of the +front boxes directly over the Speaker's chair, and, although remarks +kept flying about from the benches below, it was difficult to catch the +words, and still more difficult to stop the utterer; so I don't wonder +that Lord Randolph Churchill--who is rather deaf--should have +misconstrued the words, 'You are not dumb!' as 'You are knocked up!' +Later on, however, an Irish Member knocked down another one who was +opposed to him in politics; and this the Press called 'coming into +collision.'" + +[Illustration: LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL.] + +There is little doubt that ill-health was the cause of that +querulousness which led to Lord Randolph's curious and fatal move. I +recollect being introduced to an American doctor in the Lobby one +afternoon when Lord Randolph was at the zenith of his height and fame. +Lord Randolph passed close to us, and stood for a few minutes talking to +the Member who had introduced the doctor to me. I whispered to the +American to take stock of the Member his friend was talking to. He did, +and when Lord Randolph walked away he said, "Well, I don't know who that +man is, but he won't live five years." It was unfortunate for the +reputation of Lord Randolph that the doctor's words did not come true. + +Many efforts were made by the friends of Lord Randolph to bring Lord +Salisbury and his lieutenant together again. A deputation of a few +intimate friends, ladies as well as gentlemen, called on Lord Salisbury, +presumably on quite a different matter, but led up to Lord Randolph. +Lord Salisbury, seeing through their object, asked the question, "Have +any of you ever had a carbuncle on the back of your neck?" + +"No." + +"Then I have, and I do not want another." + +But perhaps Lord Salisbury saw more than anyone else that Lord Randolph +was not the man he once was. It was painful in his latter days to see +the Members run out of the House when he rose to speak, and to recollect +that but a few years before they poured in to listen to the "plucky +little Randy"; and the sympathy of everyone for him was shown in a very +marked way by the kindness of the Press when one of the most +extraordinary figures in the Parliamentary world had passed away. + +[Illustration: BEHIND THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR.] + +Lord Randolph Churchill recalls another familiar figure I +caricatured--Lord Iddesleigh, a statesman who will always be remembered +with respect. No statue has ever been erected in the buildings of the +House of Commons to any Member who better deserves it, and, strange to +say, the white marble took the character and style of the man, +chilliness, pure, and firm. A country gentleman in politics and out of +it, free from flashy party-colour rhetoric. + + * * * * * + +[Illustration] + +Sir Stafford Northcote, as he was known in the House of Commons, the +gentlest of statesmen, had by no means a peaceful career in politics. He +was at one time Mr. Gladstone's secretary, and those who knew him +declare that he never lost his respect and admiration for his former +master, although time took him from Mr. Gladstone's flock to the fold of +Lord Beaconsfield. I recollect on one occasion, when I was seated in a +Press box directly over the Speaker's chair, seeing Mr. Gladstone write +a memorandum on a piece of paper and throw it across the table to Sir +Stafford, who was at that time Leader of the House of Commons; after +reading it, Sir Stafford nodded to Mr. Gladstone, and they both rose +together and went behind the Speaker's chair. One could easily detect in +the manner of the two old friends an existence of personal regard, and +their estrangement on political circumstances must have been a matter of +mutual regret. Sir Stafford and Mr. Gladstone towards the end, however, +did not show that friendliness that had gone on for so many years. This +may have been brought about by many causes, not the least of which was +the fact that Mr. Gladstone refused to lead the House during the +Bradlaugh scene, and left it to Sir Stafford, then Leader of the +Opposition. For instance, after the division in which Mr. Bradlaugh was +refused the House by a vote of 383 to 233, the Speaker appealed to the +House to know what to do. Mr. Bradlaugh stood at the table and refused +to leave it. Mr. Gladstone lay back on the seat of the Government bench +motionless, so Sir Stafford took up the leadership of the House, and +asked the Prime Minister, whom he facetiously called the Leader of the +House, "whether he intended to propose any counsel, any course for the +purpose of maintaining the authority of the House and of the Chair." And +so it was on many occasions. When Mr. Bradlaugh did rush up to the table +of the House, escorted by Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Bass, and went through +the amusing part of taking the oath, he brought the book which he kissed +and the papers which he signed, and then rushed back into his seat. The +House witnessed the scene indescribable by either pen or pencil. But +here again Mr. Gladstone refused to lead the House. There had been a +division, and Mr. Bradlaugh had once more been refused admission; so Sir +Stafford Northcote came forward, as he always did on these occasions, in +the mildest possible way and the most gentlemanly manner, which rather +added to the effect of his taking the reins left dangling uselessly by +the Leader of the House. He said: "Mr. Speaker, I need hardly say that +if the Leader of the House desires to rise, I will give him the +opportunity; but assuming that he does not, I intend to do so, and as I +see no indication of his consent to do so, I shall call the attention of +the House to the position in which we stand," and so on. Sir Stafford +Northcote was not a man to stand the rough treatment which Members have +had in the House during the last fifteen years. Had he been a Member +twenty years before that, or even a little more, he would have been more +in tone with the "best club in London." He was perplexed by Mr. +Gladstone, he was bullied by Lord Randolph Churchill, and he was +generally looked upon as an old woman, and eventually he was simply sent +up to the other House. It was not until his sad and tragic death +occurred that everyone realised that they had lost one of the most able +statesmen and one of the finest gentlemen that ever sat in the House of +Commons. + +[Illustration: H] + +Had Mr. Bradlaugh taken the oath with the rest of the Members when first +introduced to the House, or had he, after refusing to take it, behaved +with less violence, I doubt if he would have made any name in +Parliament. The House was determined to fight Bradlaugh, and it is not +to be wondered at, for he paraded his atheism, and his views on other +matters, in the most repulsive manner possible. But Bradlaugh did not +run the risk of fighting down mere prejudice. Had he taken the oath, he +would only have won the ear of the House by proving himself a great +politician. This he was not, though he was a hard-working one, and a +model Member from a constituency's point of view. But the only big +question he mastered was his own right to take his seat. Once he got it, +he became a respectable and respected Member of Parliament, and nothing +more. So, with the wisdom of the serpent, he did not enter the House +quietly to fight a wearisome and impossible battle against the +inveterate prejudices of the Members. No, Bradlaugh defied the House of +Commons; he horrified it, he insulted it, he lectured it, he laughed at +it, he tricked it, he shamed it, he humiliated it, he conquered it. He +brought to their knees the men who howled at him--as no other man has +ever been howled at before--by sheer force of character. + +[Illustration: BRADLAUGH TRIUMPHANT. _From "Punch."_] + +Bradlaugh's bitter struggle would fill a volume. Select Committees were +appointed, and they declared against him. Ignoring them, Bradlaugh +marched up to the table and demanded to be sworn. The Fourth Party would +not let him touch the Testament. Three days followed of angry debate on +Bradlaughism, with more scenes. A new Committee reversed the decision of +its predecessor, and said that Bradlaugh might affirm. Two days were +consumed in discussing this, and the present Lord Chancellor, then Sir +Hardinge Giffard, swayed the House against the report of the Committee. +Nothing daunted, Mr. Bradlaugh the very next day was back at the table +of the House, clamouring to be allowed to address the House on his case. +A scene of wild confusion resulted, Mr. Bradlaugh endeavouring to speak, +the House howling to prevent him. Eventually he was ordered below the +Bar--that is, nominally outside the House, although within the four +walls. After much acrimonious chatter from all sides, he was allowed to +make his speech. His hour had come. He stood like a prisoner pleading +before a single judge and a jury of 670 of his fellow-men. His speech +was more worthy of the Surrey Theatre than of the "Best Club." It was +bombastic and theatrical. He was ordered to withdraw, while the jury +considered their verdict. When he was recalled, it was to hear sentence +of expulsion passed on him. But he would not depart, and another +tremendous uproar took place. Mr. Bradlaugh's well-trained platform +voice rose above all others in loud assertion of his "rights," and he +continued to call for them all through the House, the Lobbies, the +corridors, up the winding stair into the Clock Tower, where he was +immured by the Sergeant-at-Arms. The following day he was released after +another angry debate, and he quickly returned to the forbidden +precincts. Then he was induced to quit, but on the next day he came down +to the House with his family, and with a triumphant procession entered +the House amid the cheers of the crowd. So the drama went on day after +day, like a Chinese play. The characters in it were acted by the leading +players on both sides of the House, and the excitement never flagged for +a moment until Mr. Bradlaugh was allowed to affirm. He was told that he +would vote at his own risk. He voted repeatedly, and by so doing +incurred a fine, at the hands of Mr. Justice Mathew, of the little round +sum of L100,000 (he never had 100,000 farthings), nor could he even open +his mouth in the House without savage interruption. Finally, Mr. +Labouchere, his colleague, moved for a new writ for the borough of +Northampton. Bradlaugh re-won the seat by the small majority of 132 +votes, and the Bradlaugh incubus lay once more on Parliament. Then +followed the same old cycle of events, the same scene at the table, the +same angry religious warfare in debate (Mr. Bright's great oratorical +effort will be remembered), the same speech from Mr. Bradlaugh at the +Bar, the same division, the same result. Scene followed scene, and +scandal scandal for weeks, months, years. + +[Illustration: CHARLES BRADLAUGH.] + +To appreciate Mr. John Bright fully, one must have heard him. Really to +comprehend his power and greatness, one must have heard him at his best. +Yet the greatness of his oratory lay not so much in what he said as in +the beautiful way he said it. + +Previous to my having the opportunity of listening to the debates, Mr. +Bright had reached that stage a singer reaches who has to all intents +retired from the stage, and merely makes an appearance for someone's +benefit now and then. In the first two or three years which I recall in +these pages Mr. Bright was making his last appearance in grand political +opera. He was in the Government, but although he assured the House that +"he was not going to turn his back upon himself"--an assertion of his +powers as a contortionist I endeavoured to depict in _Punch_ the +following week--Mr. Bright had practically turned his back upon making +great oratorical displays. The Bradlaugh scandal was in 1881 the subject +of the hour, and it was whilst appearing for Mr. Bradlaugh's benefit, on +the occasion of one of the numerous matinees arranged by the elected for +Northampton, that Mr. Bright used the words. But on no occasion in my +memory did he rise in a full-dress debate to make one of those grand +efforts with which his name will ever be remembered as the great orator. + +Statesmanship was not so much to him as speechifying. He was not a +diplomatist such as Beaconsfield, a tactician like Mr. Gladstone, a +fearless, dashing debater like Lord Derby the elder, "The Rupert of +Debate"; nor had he the weight of Lord Salisbury, nor the aestheticism of +Mr. Balfour. But as a mere voice in the political opera he had a charm +above them all. In appearance he was commonplace compared with these +others I have mentioned. Often the most indifferent-looking horse in the +stable or in the paddock is the best in action. You would not give L40 +for some standing at ease; but in action, moving to perfection, with +fire and speed and staying power, the price is more like L20,000. Mr. +Bright never got into his stride at any time or in any event while he +came under my observation. + +[Illustration: THE MEET AT ST. STEPHEN'S.] + +These equine remarks about a great politician bring to mind a protest I +received about a drawing of mine, which appeared a year or two ago, +representing Mr. Gladstone as a Grand Old Horse, hearing the horn at the +meet, cantering towards his companions in so many runs in which he had +taken the lead, and for which his day had gone. The protest came from a +Quaker, horrified at my depicting Mr. Gladstone as a gee-gee! as if he +had not been so depicted often enough before. + +Jacob Bright was the very antithesis to his brother, both in appearance +and manner--tall, of a nervous, wiry frame, rigid face, severe +expression. He, like others without a spark of humour, was often the +means of unconscious merriment. For instance, when Lord Randolph +Churchill was Member for Woodstock, Mr. Jacob Bright referred to him as +the noble lord "the Member for Woodcock." Sir John Tenniel in the +cartoon in _Punch_, and myself in the minor pictures of Parliament in +that journal, made full use of the "woodcock," and, therefore, revelling +in heraldry, quickly added the woodcock to the Churchill arms. + +Half the bores in London clubs are Indian officials returned to us with +their digestion and their temper destroyed, to spend the rest of their +days in fighting their poor livers and their unhappy friends. The +etiquette of Clubland prevents one from protesting. But in the "Best +Club" they are not spared. They are either howled at, or left to speak +to empty benches. + +Perhaps Sir George Campbell, who had been Governor of Bombay, was the +most eccentric bore we have ever had in the House of Commons. Sir George +has acknowledged that he could not resist the temptation to speak. On +one occasion he made no less than fifty-five speeches on the Standing +Committee of one Bill. At breakfast in the morning he read in the +_Times_ his heated, unconsidered interruptions in the House the night +before, and he read of the contempt with which they were received--the +"Loud laughter," cries of "Order!" "Divide! divide! divide!" and the +snubs administered to him by the wearied and disgusted Members. He read +after lunch at his club the jeering remarks of the evening Press. He was +well aware he was a nuisance to the House, and he resolved as he walked +down Whitehall not to open his mouth. But as soon as he crossed Palace +Yard and entered the corridors of the House he sniffed the odour of +authority and the fever of debate. He, the Great Sir George of +India,--silent? Never! Whether there was a question about the +bathing-machines on the beach at Hastings, or the spread of scarlet +fever at Battersea, or about an old pump at Littleshrimpton, he cared +not: he must act his part--that of the Pantaloon in Parliament. + +[Illustration: SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL.] + +In appearance he was a striking, handsome man, with a strong +individuality. A good head, piercing eye, well-shaped nose, and tall, +active frame no doubt added to his authority in India. He struck me as a +man who had been taken to pieces on his way home to this country, and +put together again badly, for his joints were all wrong. Certainly his +head was, and he was over wound up. His tongue never ceased, and the +worst of it was he had a rasping, penetrating voice, with the strongest +Scotch accent. One afternoon in the House this accent led to one of +those frequent outbursts of merriment and protest combined--so common +when Sir George bored the House, as he was always doing. Sometimes he +made over thirty speeches in one evening. A question was asked about the +obstructive methods of the irrepressible Sir George, who on this +particular afternoon was supported in his boredom by two other bores, +the Member for Sunderland and Mr. Conybeare. These three had the House +to themselves, and peppered the Government benches with question after +question, speech after speech. Sir George alluded to themselves as "a +band of devoted guerillas." The weary House, not paying particular +attention to every accent, failed to catch most of what Sir George said, +as his rasping Scotch accent left them no escape. But the last word was +misunderstood, and an outburst of laughter, long, loud, and hearty, +followed, and, in a Parliamentary sense, killed Sir George for the day. +The House understood him to say "a band of us devoted gorillas." + +Perhaps the neatest rebuke Sir George ever had in the House--or, as a +matter of fact, any Member ever had--was administered by that most +polished wit, Mr. Plunket (now Lord Rathmore). Sir George solemnly rose +and asked Mr. Plunket, who happened at the time to be Minister of Public +Works, whether he (Mr. Plunket) was responsible for the "fearful +creatures" whose effigies adorn the staircase of Westminster Hall. Mr. +Plunket rose and quietly replied, in his effective, hesitating manner, +"I am not responsible for the fearful creatures either in Westminster +Hall or in this House," a retort which "brought down the House" and +caused it to laugh loud and long. This I chronicled in a drawing for +_Punch_ the following week. + +The subject of gargoyles recalls another witticism, which, however, has +the light touch that failed. + +Now there is nothing so disappointing to a humorist as to lead up to an +interruption, and then find he is not interrupted. Mr. Chamberlain +seldom fails to bring off his little unsuspected repartee, and it is his +mastery of this art that make his speeches sparkle with diamond +brilliancy, but then these are usually serious, and he can afford a few +miss-fires. Mr. Goschen, in the Commons, romped through his "plants" for +his opponents; his interruptions were three or four deep, but he was +ready for all of them. He may be likened to a professional chess player, +playing a dozen opponents at once, and remembering all the moves on the +separate boards. But for a humorist to miss fire--after an elaborate +joke is prepared--is a catastrophe. + +Colonel Sanderson rose on a very important and ticklish occasion to +"draw" Mr. Labouchere. The Member for Northampton had been electrifying +the House by his free handling of a matter affecting the morality of +private individuals, a course of action for which, later on, he was +suspended. Colonel Sanderson, alluding to Mr. Labouchere, called him a +"political gargoyle." Mr. Labouchere did not, as was expected, rise in a +furious state and demand an explanation. The Colonel paused and +repeated, "I say the hon. gentleman, the Member for Northampton, is a +political gargoyle." No notice was taken by the gentleman compared to +the architectural adornment of past days; it was evident that, like the +gargoyle in ancient architecture, the remark of the humorous Colonel was +some elaboration too lofty to be noticed. A few days afterwards Mr. +Labouchere met the Colonel, and asked him what he meant by calling him a +political gargoyle. "Well," said the Colonel, "rather late to ask me; +you will find the definition in the dictionary. It is a grotesque +gutter-spout." Said Mr. Labouchere, "You're a very clever fellow, +Colonel; that would have been a capital point--if you had made it." + +[Illustration: HERALDIC DESIGN ILLUSTRATING MR. PLUNKET'S (NOW LORD +RATHMORE) JOKE. _From "Punch."_] + +Mr. Farmer Atkinson, who succeeded Sir William Ingram of the +_Illustrated London News_ and the _Sketch_ as Member for Boston, +Lincolnshire, was an invaluable "subject" for me during his brief hour +upon the Parliamentary stage. Our introduction was peculiar. It so +happened that when Mr. (now Sir) Christopher Furness was first returned +for Hartlepool, Mr. Atkinson, although of opposite politics, was most +anxious to welcome him to Parliament as a companion Dissenter. After +diligent inquiries for Mr. Furness, I was by mistake pointed out to him. +I suddenly found both my hands clasped and warmly shaken by the mistaken +M.P. "Delighted to meet you, Mr. Furness! Allow me to congratulate you. +We are both Dissenters, you know,--what a pity we are on different sides +of the House!" + +"Yes," I replied, "a thousand pities,--you see, you are inside and I am +outside. + +[Illustration: MR. FARMER ATKINSON.] + +My introduction to Mr. Christopher Furness a day or two afterwards was +in a way similar, but rather more embarrassing. + +Perhaps there are not two men with surnames so similar and yet so +different in every other way than that great man of business, Sir +Christopher Furness, and myself. He has an eye for business, but not one +for his surname--I have an "I" in my name, and two for art only. When +Mr. Furness was first returned to Parliament, plain Mr., neither a +knight nor a millionaire, _then_ he asked to see me alone in one of the +Lobbies of the House of Commons. He held a note in his hand, _strangely_ +and nervously,--so I knew at once it was not a bank-note. + +"I--ah--am very sorry,--you are a stranger to me, I--a--stranger to the +House. This note from a stranger was handed to me by a strange +official. I read it before I noticed the mistake. It is addressed to +you." + +"Oh, that is of no consequence, I assure you," I said. + +"Oh, but it is--it must be of consequence. It is--of--such a private +nature, and so brief. I feel extremely awkward in having to acknowledge +I read it,--a pure accident, I assure you!" + +He handed me the note and was running away, when I called him back. It +read:-- + + "Meet me under the clock at 8. + + "LUCY." + +"I must introduce you to Lucy." + +"No, no! not for worlds," + +But I did. Here he is. + +[Illustration] + +There were more "scenes" in Parliament in the few sessions that I have +selected to write about in this volume than there were in the rest of +the last century put together. This was largely due to the climax of +Irish affairs in the House. For effect in debate the English and Scotch +Members,--not to speak of the Welsh Representatives,--are failures +compared with those Members from across the water. No matter how hard +the phlegmatic Englishman, the querulous Scotchman, or the whinings of +those from gallant little Wales may try for effect, they have to give +way to the Irish in the art of making a scene in the House. +Occasionally, as when Dr. Kenealy shook some pepper over the House, and +in the case of Mr. Plimsoll--or some other honourable gentleman--who +went so far as to hang his umbrella on the Mace, an English Member +causes a sensation which might almost excite a pang of envy in the +breast of Dr. Tanner or Mr. Healy. No Englishman, however, has exceeded +Mr. Bradlaugh in the persistent quality of sensationalism in Parliament, +which now is sadly in want of another political phenomenon to enliven +its proceedings. + +One of the best studies in those days of good subjects for the +Parliamentary caricaturist was the figure of that "squat and leering +Quilp," Joseph Gillis Biggar, Member for County Cavan. Mr. Lucy (Toby, +M.P.), who acted as Biggar's Boswell, records the interesting fact that +when Mr. Biggar rose for the first time in the House (1874) to put a +supplementary question to a Minister, Mr. Disraeli, startled by the +apparition, turned to Lord Barrington as if he had seen seated in the +Irish quarter an ourang-outang or some other strange creature,--"What's +that?" + +[Illustration: JOSEPH GILLIS BIGGAR.] + +From that moment Mr. Biggar was a continual source of amusement--and +"copy." I venture to say that Toby, M.P., has written a good-sized +volume about Mr. Biggar's waistcoat alone. What he saw in the waistcoat +to chronicle I confess I have failed to see. "A fearsome garment," Mr. +Lucy called it, "which, at a distance, might be taken for sealskin, but +was understood to be of native manufacture." + +Mr. Biggar--waistcoat and all--was certainly seen and heard to advantage +"at a distance." He was no doubt useful to his Party, acting, as I +believe he did, as a kind of good-natured nurse to them, looking after +their comfort and seeing they kept in bounds. + +Mr. Biggar was always repulsive in both appearance and manner. His +unfortunate deformity, his gargoyle-like face, his long, bony hands, +large feet, the black tail coat and baggy black trousers, the grin and +the grating voice, and the fact that pork was his study before +Parliament, made Joseph Gillis Biggar's appearance as ugly as his name. +His chief claim to a niche in Parliamentary history is the fact that he +originated Obstruction, and showed the manner in which it should be +applied by making a speech occupying four hours of valuable time. He +also showed the length to which gross impertinence can be carried to +bring the House into contempt. He "spied" His Royal Highness, our +present King, one day in the gallery, and by the law of Parliament a +Member by suddenly observing that he "spies" a stranger may have the +House cleared of all but its Members, including Royalty--worse than that +he on one occasion alluded to Mr. Gladstone as "a vain old gentleman." + +The nearest approach I ever had to enter into practical politics was a +request I received in March, 1892, to become the successor of Lord (then +Sir Charles) Russell, as chairman of a local Radical association. In +reply I confessed my political creed, and I see no reason to alter it. + + + MY POLITICAL CONFESSION. + + "I have just received your flattering communication asking me to become + the chairman of No. 2 Ward of the East Marylebone Liberal and Radical + Association. It is the first time my name has ever been associated with + Party politics, and I am puzzled to know myself whether I am a Radical, + a Tory, a Liberal, or a Liberal Unionist! + + "I read the _Times_ every morning, and the _Star_ and the _Pall Mall + Gazette_ every evening. I read the sporting papers for their politics, + and the political papers for their literary and artistic notes. + + "I work sixteen hours a day myself, and would agree to any law + prohibiting others in my profession from working more than three hours. + + "I am strongly opposed to Home Rule, as the disappearance of the Irish + Members (who are invaluable to me in my profession) from St. Stephen's + would be a serious loss to me. + + "I agree to paying Members of Parliament, but would propose that they + should be fined for non-attendance, and for the privilege of speaking + too long, too often, or not often enough. These fines, in the majority + of cases, would come to three times the amount of the Member's income. + + "I am not in favour of capital punishment, and would do away with all + judges and trials by jury, leaving the Press to fight out the criminal + cases between themselves. + + "I believe in free education, free libraries, and a free breakfast + table, and would propose that free book-stalls and free restaurants + should be compulsory on all railways. + + "I am strongly opposed to vivisection, and hold that the life of a + rabbit is quite as valuable as that of a professor. At the same time I + would not countenance any law making it a punishable offence to boil a + lobster alive. + + "I am a believer in hypnotism, thought-reading, and theosophy (I have + been a bit of an amateur conjurer myself). + + "Right of public meeting? Certainly. This should be a free + country--everyone do as he likes. Football in Hyde Park, and fairs in + Trafalgar Square. Equal freedom for all processions--if Booth can stop + the traffic, why not Sanger's menagerie? + + "As to local option, by all means let all public-houses be closed. (I + never enter one.) And all clubs, too, so long as my own are not + interfered with. + + "I am not at present a member of any political club, but if you wish me + to become one I will put up at the Reform, either as a fervent + Gladstonian or a red-hot Unionist; I don't mind which, as neither have + the slightest chance of getting in now. + + "If, after considering these qualifications, you are of opinion that I + would be the right man in the right place, I shall be most happy and + willing to become your chairman.--Yours, etc." + +[Illustration] + +I regret to have to confess that I once posed as a political prophet. I +was encouraged to prophesy the fact that six months before the election +of July, 1892, when Mr. Gladstone was confident of "sweeping the +country" and coming back with a majority of 170 or so, when both sides +predicted a decisive result, and political prophets were cocksure of +large figures, I luckily happened to be more successful in my +vaticinations than they, giving the Gladstonians a majority of something +between forty and forty-five. The actual majority turned out, six +months afterwards, to be forty-two. This encouraged me to write the +following letter to the _Times_, and it appeared July 19th: + + "_A Parliamentary Prophecy._ + + "Sir,--I am surprised that no Parliamentary chronicler has written to + the papers to thank the electors of the United Kingdom for the happy + result of the General Election. The jaded journalist is the only person + to whom the result is pleasing, as he will have no lack of material for + descriptive matter in the coming Parliament. + + "The Gladstonians are not pleased, because they have barely got a + working majority. The Conservatives are not pleased, because they have + not got one at all. The Liberal Unionists are not pleased, because they + go with the Conservatives. The Irish Nationalists are chagrined, because + of the success of five Unionists in Ireland. The Parnellites feel + mischievous but unhappy. The Labour representatives mischievous and + happy--they are the heroes of the hour--and, although the members of the + Labour Party have hitherto been nonentities in the House, they will + probably be 'named' several times in the future. But Parliament is a + refrigerator for red-hot rhetoric, and such Members will, in time, find + respectability and aspirants,[2] and grow dull. + + [2] See page 212. + + "A harassed leader, an ambitious Opposition, the balance of power + resting in the hands of the Irish, divided amongst themselves, a new and + probably noisy party, boredom increased, faddism intensified--such are + the ingredients of the new House; and with little spice thrown in in the + shape of a revived morality scandal, the new Parliament promises to be a + hotch-potch of surprises. I myself take no side in politics, and am + glad to say that I have numerous friends in all parties. Perhaps it was + in consequence of this that I heard all sides of opinion, thereby + enabling me six months ago to weigh all my information correctly and + predict the result of the General Election--a Gladstonian majority of + between forty and forty-five votes--and to this opinion I have firmly + adhered in spite of the fluctuating prospects before the fight. Even on + Wednesday, the 6th inst., when the returns pouring in seemed to point to + a Government majority, I stuck to my prophecy. + + "I am now receiving from my friends (more especially from my Liberal + friends) congratulations upon my perspicacity, and, although I am no + Schnadhorst, I must now regard myself in the light of a Parliamentary + prophet. Having in that capacity chanted my incantations and calculated + the number of square feet of Irish linen in one of Mr. Gladstone's + collars to be in inverse ratio to the dimensions of his Mid-Lothian + majority, and having by abstruse computations discovered the hitherto + unknown quantity of Sir William Harcourt's chins, I can safely predict + that there will be another General Election within the space of + thirteen months, and that the result of the same will be the return of + the Unionists with a majority of fifteen. + + "Yours truly, + + "HARRY FURNISS. + + "Garrick Club, London, July 19." + +[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM TOBY'S PRIVATE BOX.] + +The regret I felt was not caused by any failure of my prediction +contained in the last paragraph in that letter, but that the whole of it +was taken seriously. Editorial leaders appeared in the principal papers +all over the kingdom. Letters followed, discussions took place, and +politicians referred to it in their speeches. "Mr. Harry Furniss has +taken the public into his confidence, as one who is thoroughly +acquainted with Party politics, though he takes no personal interest in +them. Men who can thus truthfully describe themselves are excessively +rare, as far as we know. It is usually the person who does not +understand politics who takes no interest in them. A man who understands +politics, but does not concern himself to take sides, is in the position +of the looker-on who sees most of the game," was truthfully written of +me _a propos_ of this letter--but why _a propos_ of this letter? Why not +of my serious work instead? No, my "airy persiflage" was only a cloak. I +was seriously and instantaneously accepted as a serious political +prophet, and otherwise criticised: + + "_To the Editor of the 'Times.'_ + + "Sir, In a letter signed by Mr. Harry Furniss, which appeared in the + _Times_ of the 21st inst., the writer concluded by predicting that there + would be another general election within thirteen months, and that the + result would be a Unionist majority of fifteen. + + "Mr. Furniss is evidently fond of odd numbers, but may I point out to + him, and to many other political prophets who have fallen into the same + trap, that the fulfilment of his prediction is an impossibility? + + "In a House of 670 Members, or any other even number, if divided into + two parties, the majority (in the sense he uses the word--viz., the + difference) must always be an even number. It is true that the division + lists sometimes show a majority which is an odd number, but in such a + case an odd number of Members must have been absent from the division. + Mr. Furniss must prophesy either fourteen or sixteen. + + "The English language is so defective that the word 'majority' is used + to mean 'the greater number,' and also 'the difference between the + greater number and the less.' Cannot a new word be invented to replace + 'majority' in one or other of these meanings, and so avoid the use of + the same word for two distinct ideas? + + "Your obedient servant, + + "GEORGE R. GALLAHER, + + "Fellow of the Institute of Bankers. + + "44, Fenchurch Street, London, E.C." + +I suppose F.I.B. stands for "Fellow of the Institute of Bankers." +Anyway, before I had time to reply to the courteous captious critic the +_Times_ published the following: + + "_Political Prophecy._ + + "Sir,--In endeavouring to correct Mr. Furniss your correspondent Mr. + Gallaher has forgotten that, although the House of Commons consists of + an even number of Members, one of those Members will be elected Speaker; + and that consequently, if all the Members were on any occasion to + attend, the majority would be an odd, and not an even number. There is + therefore no necessity for Mr. Furniss to alter his prophecy at present. + + "Your obedient servant, + + "FAIR PLAY." + +Other correspondents, less technical but strongly political, accused me +of being "an inspired Conservative spy." Others that I was an oracle +worth "rigging." And the Irish and Radical Press questioning my +impartiality, I published this letter: + + "_To the Editor of the 'Manchester City News.'_ + + "Sir,--My attention has been called to a paragraph in your issue of July + 23rd, stating that I am a Conservative, an assertion which has highly + amused those who know me well, for I am one of the strongest of Radicals + in some things and the hottest of Tories in others. I earnestly advocate + the claims of the working man, and sometimes I feel myself a Whig of the + old school. Whether I am a Tory, a Liberal or a Radical, troubles me + very little, but as you seem to take a kind interest in my political + opinions I should have preferred you to have styled me an Independent, + which I understand means nothing. + + "HARRY FURNISS. + + "Garrick Club, London." + +But neither "Independent" nor humorous would the partisan +Press allow me to be. Certainly I was applauded by some for +having held steadfastly to my prophecy, despite temptations +which would have made Cassandra succumb. I was flattered +by being held up as an exception among the prophets. From +Mr. Gladstone to Mr. T. P. O'Connor politicians had prophesied +and were hopelessly wide of the mark. Mr. Chamberlain, +speaking at Birmingham that week, said, "The gravity of the +weighty man of the House of Commons, gentlemen, is a thing +to which there is no parallel in the world," and oh! so serious! + +[Illustration: THE GOVERNMENT--BENCH BEFORE HOME RULE. + A rough Sketch made in the House. + +Mr. W. E. Foster. Mr. Gladstone. Mr. John Bright. + Lord E. Fitzmaurice. Lord Hartington.] + +"Prophets--at any rate political prophets--are chiefly distinguished +from other people by being always dull and nearly always wrong. To-day, +however, appears a brilliant exception to the almost universal rule," +wrote one paper, and yet continued, "Mr. Furniss is simply within his +own ground as one of the shrewdest and best trained of living observers, +when he describes the newly-elected House of Commons as thoroughly +discontented with itself. But we wish that Mr. Furniss had carried his +prediction into the regions of counsel, and had been able to read in +'Mr. Gladstone's collars,' or in the 'unknown quantity of Sir William +Harcourt's chins,' and whatever else serves him for his Stars, what is +to be the outcome of a situation in which no party is able to obtain a +working majority. If Mr. Furniss is right, the question of 'how is the +Queen's Government to be carried on?' will assume a practical importance +which it never had before; and unless he himself, as a thoroughly +non-party man, can be induced to undertake the formation of an +administration of similarly fortunate persons, one does not see what is +to be done. Party government is based upon big majorities--it is within +measurable distance of breaking down altogether unless the country will +make up its mind to stand no more nonsense, and to prefer what is really +a party to a conglomerate of fads and factions." + +I was beginning to feel like a man who had started a story and forgotten +the point of it. The only "comic relief" was the following note from the +Editor of _Punch_: + + _21st July, 1892. + + "_Vates et Vox Stellarum._ + + "Dear H. F.,--'Respectability and aspirants.' Didn't you squirm at the + misprint? Is that setter-up-of-type still alive? Je m'en doute. The + reference to Harcourt's _chins_ will _get you liked_ very much. You + dated it from the Garrick, but you didn't put the time of night when + you wrote it. 'P.S.'--_Post Supperal_, eh? + + "Farewell, O Prophet!--but 'why _didn't you say so before_?' + + "Allah il Allah Ari Furniss is His Prophet! + + "Yours ever, + + "F. C. B. + + "_Advt._--'LIKA JOKO'! Parliamentary Prophet!! Prophecies sent out on + shortest notice. Terms, ----. Reduction on taking a quantity." + +Yes! I did squirm at the misprint, which, however, was rectified in the +next issue: + + "_A Parliamentary Prophecy._--In Mr. Harry Furniss's letter under this + title in the _Times_ of yesterday the word 'aspirates' should be read + instead of 'aspirants' in the following passage: 'The Labour + representatives feel mischievous and happy--they are the heroes of the + hour--and, although the members of the Labour Party have hitherto been + nonentities in the House, they will probably be 'named' several times in + the future. But Parliament is a refrigerator for red-hot rhetoric, and + such members will, in time, find respectability and aspirants, and grow + dull." + +I wish I had followed the example of Mr. John Morley, who announced a +couple of months before the election that he had written down his +General Election tip and placed it in a sealed envelope; but so far as I +have heard, he never risked his reputation for prophecy--he refrained +from publishing the secret. That grave and weighty right hon. gentleman +scored as the humorist, and I failed as a prophet in my second attempt. + +[Illustration: REDUCTION OF ONE OF MY PARLIAMENTARY PAGES IN _PUNCH_.] + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + +"PUNCH" + + Two _Punch_ Editors--_Punch's_ Hump--My First _Punch_ Dinner--Charles + Keene--"Robert"--W. H. Bradbury--du Maurier--"Kiki"--A Trip to the + Place of his Birth--He Hates Me--A Practical Joke--du Maurier's Strange + Model--No Sportsman--Tea--Appollinaris--My First Contribution--My + Record--Parliament--Press Gallery Official--I Feel Small--The "Black + Beetle"--Professor Rogers--Sergeant-at-Arms' Room--Styles of + Work--Privileges--Dr. Percy--I Sit in the Table--The Villain of Art--The + New Cabinet--Criticism--_Punch's_ Historical Cartoons--Darwen + MacNeill--Scenes in the Lobby--A Technical Assault--John Burns's + "Invention"--John Burns's Promise--John Burns's Insult--The Lay of Swift + MacNeill--The Truth--Sir Frank Lockwood--"Grand Cross"--Lockwood's + Little Sketch--Lockwood's Little Joke in the House--Lockwood's Little + Joke at Dinner--Lewis Carroll and _Punch_--Gladstone's Head--Sir + William's Portrait--Ciphers--Reversion--_Punch_ at Play--Three _Punch_ + Men in a Boat--Squaring up--Two Pins Club--Its One Joke--Its One + Horse--Its Mystery--Artistic Duties--Lord Russell--Furious + Riding--Before the Beak--Burnand and I in the Saddle--Caricaturing + Pictures for _Punch_--Art under Glass--Arthur Cecil--My Other Eye--The + Ridicule that Kills--Red Tape--_Punch_ in Prison--I make a Mess of + it--Waterproof--"I used your Soap two years ago"--Charles Keene--Charles + Barber--_Punch's_ Advice--_Punch's_ Wives. + +[Illustration: T] + + +The first representative of Mr. Punch with whom I came into contact was +the late Tom Taylor, at that period the tenant of the editorial chair. +To this meeting I have referred on a previous page, when I mentioned +that Mr. Taylor had just returned from the wilds of Connemara and +strongly advised me to make some explorations in that little-known +district for the purpose of making sketches of the "genus _homo_ +indigenous to the soil," which I did a week or so prior to my setting +foot in the busy haunt of men on murky Thames. + +Tom Taylor was, I believe, one of the best of men, and the possessor of +one of the kindest hearts; but although he certainly professed to take +an interest in me (probably owing to the fact that it was to a relative +of mine that he was indebted for his first introduction to literature), +the fact remains that whenever I sent him a sketch I used to receive one +of his extraordinary hieroglyphical missives supposed to be a note +courteously declining my efforts, notwithstanding that I was often +flattered although not enriched by subsequently seeing the subjects of +them appear redrawn under another name in the pages of _Punch_. + +It was not until Tom Taylor had passed away that Mr. Punch would deign +to give me a chance. I had then been seven years in London hard at work +for the leading magazines and illustrated papers, and I may truly say +that my work was the only introduction I ever had to Mr. Burnand. + +[Illustration: Age 26, WHEN I FIRST WORKED FOR PUNCH. [_From a Photo by +C. Watkins._]] + +When I first entered the goal of my boyish ambition--that is to say, the +editorial sanctum of Mr. Punch--I had never met the gentleman who for a +number of years afterwards was destined to be my chief, and I fully +expected to see the editor turn round and receive me with that look of +irrepressible humour and in that habitually jocose style which I had so +often heard described. I looked in vain for the geniality in the +editor's glance, and there was a remarkably complete absence of the +jocose in the sharp, irritable words which he addressed to me. + +"Really," said he, "this is too bad! I wrote to you to meet me at the +Surrey Theatre last night, and you never turned up. We go to press +to-day, and the sketches are not even made." + +"I don't quite understand you," I replied, "for I never heard from you +in my life, and I don't think that you ever saw me before." + +"But surely you are Mr. ----?" (a contributor who had been drawing for +_Punch_ for some weeks). "Are you not?" + +"No," I said. "My name is Furniss, and I understood that you wanted to +see me." + +[Illustration: MY FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_.] + +This was in 1880, and from that period up to the time of my resignation +from the staff of _Punch_ I certainly do not think that I have ever seen +Burnand's face assume such a threatening and offended expression as it +wore that day. + +I was then twenty-six. Strange to say, Charles Keene and George du +Maurier were exactly the same age when they first made their _debut_ in +_Punch_, but not yet invited to "join the table." + +As I was leaving my house one summer evening a few years afterwards, the +youngest member of my family, who was being personally conducted up to +bed by his nurse, enquired where I was going. + +"To dine with Mr. Punch," I replied. + +"Oh, haven't you eaten all his hump _yet_, papa? It _does_ last a long +time!" And the little chap continued his journey to the arms of +Morpheus, evidently quite concerned about his father's long-drawn-out +act of cannibalism. + +The first feast to which I was bidden was not one of the ordinary or +office description, but a banquet given at the "Albion" Tavern, in the +City, on the 3rd of January, 1881, to celebrate the installation of Mr. +Burnand as the occupant of the editorial chair. And on my invitation +card I first sketched my new friends, the _Punch_ staff, and a few of +the outside contributors who were present, conspicuous among whom was +George Augustus Sala, the honoured stranger of the evening. That he +should be so struck me as peculiar, for it was an open secret that Sala +wrote and illustrated that famous attack (nominally by Alfred Bunn), "A +Word with _Punch_," a most vulgar, vicious, and personal insult which +had given much offence years before; a clear proof of Mr. Punch's +forgiving nature. That grand old man of _Punch_, Tenniel, I made an +attempt to sketch as he was "saying a few words," but on this particular +occasion it was my _vis-a-vis_ Charles Keene who interested me more than +any other person present. He wore black kid gloves and never removed +them all during dinner--that puzzled me. Why he wore them I cannot say. +I never saw him wearing gloves at table again, or even out of doors. +Then he was in trouble with his cigar, and finally I noticed that he +threw it under the table and stamped upon it, and produced his favourite +dirty Charles the First pipe, the diminutive bowl of which he filled +continually with what smokers call "dottles." He was then apparently +perfectly happy, as indeed he always looked when puffing away at his +antique clay. Years afterwards, when sketching a background for a +_Punch_ drawing in the East End, I noticed some labourers returning +from working at excavations, laughing over something they had found in +the ground; it was a splendid specimen of the Charles clay pipe, longer +than any I have seen. I bought it from them to present to Keene, but he +was ill then, and soon after the greatest master of black and white +England ever produced had passed away. + +[Illustration: MY FIRST INVITATION FROM _PUNCH_.] + +[Illustration: A LETTER FROM CHARLES KEENE, OBJECTING TO AN +EDITOR INTERVIEWING HIM.] + +[Illustration: "Robert."] + +After Keene the strangest character present was Mr. Deputy +Bedford--"Robert" in the pages of _Punch_--an undertaker in the City, +and one of the most humorous men within its boundary. I recollect +introducing my wife to him at some function at the Mansion House--not as +Robert, but as Mr. Deputy Bedford. She expressed her pleasure at meeting +one of the City dignitaries, and he offered to show her over the +treasures in the Mansion House. "There's a fine statue for you! Don't +know who did it, but we paid a thousand pounds for it. And that one over +there, which weighs half a ton less, cost twice as much. Oh! the +pictures are worth something, too. That portrait cost L800; I don't know +what that one cost, but the frame is cheap at L20. Yes, fine gold plate, +isn't it? Old designs? Yes, but old or new, boiled down, I should think +L80,000 wouldn't be taken for the pile!" And so on, and so on, with a +merry twinkle in his eye and an excellent imitation of what outsiders +consider City men to be. + +[Illustration: GEORGE DU MAURIER. + _From a pen and ink drawing by himself, the property of the Author._] + +My caricature of the genial E. L. S. (Sambourne) is not good, but quite +as kind as Sala's remarks were on that occasion in chaffing Sambourne +for turning up in morning costume. In the bottom right-hand corner of +the card is a note of the late Mr. W. H. Bradbury, one of the +proprietors of _Punch_, the kindest and the best host, the +biggest-hearted and most genial friend, I ever worked for. He has his +eye, I notice, on a gentleman making an impromptu speech--the sensation +of the evening--referred to by Mr. M. H. Spielmann in "The History of +_Punch_." Next to that irrepressible orator is Mr. Lucy, "Toby, M.P.," +as I saw him first. + +I note on this card an attempt to sketch du Maurier, the "Thackeray of +the pencil." By the way, I was certainly the first to apply that term to +him--in my first lecture, "Art and Artists." He was some distance from +me at the banquet when I made these notes. + +It is a curious fact that I really never had a seat allotted to me at +the _Punch_ table. I always sat in du Maurier's, except on the rare +occasions when he came to the dinner, when I moved up one. It was always +a treat to have du Maurier at "the table." He was by far and away the +cleverest conversationalist of his time I ever met,--his delightful +repartees were so neat and effective, and his daring chaff and his +criticisms so bright and refreshing. + +For some extraordinary reason du Maurier was known to the _Punch_ men as +"Kiki," a friendly sobriquet which greeted him when he first joined, and +refers to his nationality. In the same way as an English schoolboy calls +out "Froggy" to a Frenchman, his friends on the _Punch_ staff called him +Kiki, suggested by the Frenchman's peculiar and un-English art of +self-defence. + +Du Maurier took very little interest in the discussions at the table; in +fact, he resented informal debate on the subject of the cartoon as an +interruption to his conversation, although he once suggested a cartoon +which will always rank as one of the most historical hits of Mr. +Punch--a cartoon of the First Napoleon warning Napoleon the Third as he +marches out to meet the Germans in the War of 1870. + +At times he might enter into the artistic treatment of the cartoon; and +I reproduce a sketch he did on the back of a _menu_ to explain some idea +in connection with the cartoon which appeared the following week in +_Punch_. + +Du Maurier's extremely clever conversation struck me the moment I +joined the staff of _Punch_. As I went part of his way to Hampstead, we +sometimes shared a cab, and in one of these journeys I mentioned my +conviction that he, in my mind, was a great deal more than a humorous +artist, and if he would only take up the pen seriously the world would +be all the more indebted to him. He told me that Mr. James had for some +time said nice things of a similar character. + +[Illustration: SUGGESTION BY DU MAURIER FOR _PUNCH_ CARTOON.] + +About ten days afterwards I received a letter saying that my +conversation had had an effect upon him, and that he was starting his +first novel. So perhaps the world is really indebted to me, indirectly, +for the pleasure of reading "Peter Ibbetson" and "Trilby;" the fact +being that he had, with Burnand and myself, just visited Paris--the +first time he had set foot in the gay city since his youth. Many things +he saw had impressed him, and "Peter Ibbetson" was the result. How +interesting it was to watch him in Paris, the place of his birth, +standing, the ideal type of a Frenchman himself, smiling and as amused +as a boy at his own countrymen and women. "So very un-English, you +know!" Then, as we drove about Paris, he stood up in the carriage, +excitedly showing us places familiar to him in his young days, and +greatly amused us by pointing out no fewer than three different houses +in which he was born! We three were the guests of Mr. Staat Forbes at +Fontainebleau during the same trip, and du Maurier's sketches of our +pleasant experiences on that occasion appear in _Punch_, under the +heading "Souvenir de Fontainebleau," in three numbers in October, 1886. +In the drawing of our _al fresco_ dinner, "Smith" is our host, I am +"Brown," du Maurier "Jones," and Mr. Burnand "Robinson." + +Three years afterwards du Maurier re-visited Paris with most of the +staff to see the Paris Exhibition, 1889. In my sketch "En Route--Mr. +Punch at Lunch," du Maurier is speaking to Mr. Anstey Guthrie, who, "for +this occasion only," called du Maurier the Marquis d'Ampstead. + +Du Maurier had a little of the green-eyed monster in his bosom, although +he lived to laugh at all when he himself became the greatest success of +any man in his sphere. + +When I made my hit with my Exhibition of the "Artistic Joke," du +Maurier, to my surprise, turned sharply round to me one night in the cab +and said, "My dear Furniss, I must be honest with you--I hate you, I +loathe you, I detest you!" + +[Illustration: DU MAURIER'S SOUVENIR DE FONTAINEBLEAU. + +_From "Punch."_] + +"Thanks, awfully, my dear fellow! But why?" + +"Ah!" he said, "your success is too great. When I get the return you +send me in the morning, showing me the number of people that have been +to your Exhibition, the tremendous takings at the turnstiles, the number +of albums subscribed for, the number of pictures you have sold, I cannot +work. I go on to Hampstead Heath to walk off my jealousy; when I come in +to lunch I find your first telegram, telling me you have made L80 that +morning. I walk out again, and looking down upon London, although I +shake my fist at the whole place, my wrath is for you alone. I come in +to tea to find another telegram--you have made L100! How can I sit down +and scratch away on a piece of paper when you are making a fortune in a +week?" + +This nearly took my breath away. + +"My dear du Maurier," I replied, "I feel hurt--seriously, irrevocably. +I shall always feel degraded in your eyes. Of course you are the victim +of a practical joke." + +Du Maurier pulled from his pocket one of my supposed returns. It was an +imitation of printing, with the amounts filled in. "This is the kind of +thing I get every morning." + +"Why, of course, it is written, not printed. That is the work of the +irrepressible practical joker. But it makes no difference, du Maurier; +if you thought that I would be such a cad as to send you these returns, +I cannot see how we can ever be great friends." + +Although as du Maurier believed for a time I had the necessary vulgarity +of the "bloated millionaire," to use his own words, we were never much +more than acquaintances--although very pleasant acquaintances--and I +believe du Maurier reciprocated the kind feeling I had towards him. Du +Maurier rarely forgave a satirical thrust at his expense. His dislike +for Mr. Whistler on this account is well known to all the early readers +of "Trilby," and he often related with unconcealed glee a remark he once +made to Whistler. It appears they had not met for a long period, during +which du Maurier with his satirical pictures on the aesthetic craze, +published in _Punch_, and Whistler with his "symphonies" and "harmonies" +on canvas, exhibited in the Law Courts, had both increased their +reputation. + +"Hullo, Kiki!" cried Whistler. "I'm told that your work in _Punch_ is +the making of some men. You have actually invented Tomkins! Why, he +never would have existed but for you! Ha! ha! how on earth did you do +it?" + +"Look here, Jimmy, if you don't look out, by Jove, I'll invent you!" + +How Kiki--du Maurier--carried out his threat in "Trilby," and what +resulted from it, all the world knows. + +By the way, the mention of "Trilby" reminds me of a story about Mr. du +Maurier's own Trilby which is perhaps worth recording. Du Maurier for +some years lived on the top of Hampstead Heath, rather inaccessible for +models. But more than once friends asked him to take a sitting from some +lady or another, as he, drawing fashionable ladies, was different, +perhaps, from painters using models for costumes or, as du Maurier +would say, for the "altogether." In this way a model was introduced to +him, and, to his surprise, she drove up to his house in a hansom, and he +heard her asking one of the servants for change of a sovereign to pay +the cabman. She did not sit very well, so after a short time Mr. du +Maurier told her that he only drew from models for part of the day, and, +rather apologetically, said he of course did not pay for the whole of +the usual day's sitting. And she said: + +"Oh, thanks! I am only too pleased to sit for a short time. But would +you kindly ask one of your servants to fetch me a hansom?" + +[Illustration: _PUNCH_ STAFF RETURNING FROM PARIS. + (_The original hangs on the wall of Mr. Punch's dining room._)] + +This made the artist more than ever miserable, and he said: + +"Excuse me, but perhaps you are not aware we only pay a modest amount +for sitters; in fact, I generally pay five shillings for two +hours--aw----" + +"You don't mean to say you are really going to give me five shillings? +Oh, how kind of you! It will just pay half my cab fare home. I didn't +know I was going to be so lucky." And she vanished, leaving the artist +more bewildered than ever. + +Some time afterwards, in Hyde Park, he was surprised to see a carriage +beautifully appointed pulled up to where he was standing, and a lady +lean out and say: + +"I have never seen you before to thank you for your kindness in allowing +me to sit for you. I was so anxious to see what a studio was like. +Thanks, awfully; you must let me call again." + +Du Maurier had the faculty of unaffected fun, he had also a feeling for +caricature in portraiture, but he did not care to exercise either to any +extent in _Punch_. I recollect Sir Henry Thompson--the celebrated +physician--showing me a copy of a book he had written, in which he +speaks of hospital life in London. Du Maurier had studied in a London +hospital when he first arrived in England, and he wrote to Sir Henry, +then a stranger to him, to ask him if the wretch in his book who wheeled +off the remains of the corpses from the dissecting-room was the same man +he knew and loathed years ago. The sketch accompanying this query Sir +Henry had pasted in the book in triumph. "There is the man," he said, +"to the life!" + +At dinner du Maurier ate sparingly, drank moderately, and smoked +cigarettes. He avoided champagne, preferring the wine of his +country--claret; and after dinner, in place of coffee, he had a huge +breakfast-cup of tea, and, like the soap advertisement boy, he was not +happy till he got it. + +[Illustration: JAPANESE STYLE: A BALLET FROM _PUNCH_.] + +Mentioning an advertisement suggests that it may interest some to know +du Maurier drew the label for a most popular mineral water. It is safe +to predict that not one person in the tens of thousands looking at it +yearly would connect du Maurier with it. It is that elaborate and rather +inartistic design on Appollinaris water, for which he received fifty +guineas from his friend--one of the proprietors. Anyone following his +work in _Punch_ must have noticed that he was a hypochondriac. +Hypochondriasis was a disease with him, he was always thinking of his +health, and I fear that sudden burst of popularity following the success +of "Trilby," in place of bracing him up, made him dwell somewhat more +upon his state of health, and hastened the end. + +I recollect his telling me years ago he was advised to take horse +exercise for his health's sake, so he hired a hack and started in the +direction of Richmond Park. Arriving at the well-known windmill, and +before descending the beautiful slopes on the other side, he took out +his watch and, opening the case, put out his tongue to see what effect +the ride had had on his health. The horse moved, and he found himself +the next moment on the ground. + +He gave up horse exercise after that! + +My first contribution to _Punch_ appeared in the number dated October +30th, 1880. "Punch," as a policeman, commanded the removal of the +newly-erected "Griffin" in the place of Old Temple Bar: "Take away that +Bauble!" The much-abused "Griffin" is the work (but after the design of +Horace Jones) of an old friend of mine, the late C. B. Birch, R.A., a +clever sculptor and a capital fellow. He sent me "his mark" of +appreciation, but I may say he was the last man to use the instrument of +torture suggested by his name. + +[Illustration] + +I then "did the theatres" with the editor--no mistake this time--and a +very pleasant time it was. My first "social" drawing appeared in the +second number in the following December, illustrating Scotch "wut" +manufactured in London. + +Two Scotch rustics outside an eating-house. One points to a card in the +window on which is "Welsh Rabbit, 6d." + +Hungry visitor (ignorant of the nature of this particular delicacy): +"Ah, Donal, mon, we ken weel hev the Rawbit fur saxpence. We ken get twa +Bawbees fur the Skeen when we get bock to Glasgow!" + +The Scotch is certainly new, if the joke is not. + +[Illustration: CHINESE STYLE. FROM A DRAWING ON WOOD. _PUNCH._] + +An Irish joke followed, and then in the Almanack I illustrated a hit at +the style of ladies' dress of the period; in fact, at that time I drew +for _Punch_ quite a number of social subjects dealing with the aesthetic +craze. Besides illustrating various social subjects and caricaturing the +Academy and the new plays, I was illustrating the "Essence of +Parliament." As Mr. M. H. Spielmann in "The History of _Punch_" says +truly, "I romped through _Punch's_ pages." I open a number of _Punch_ +published only eighteen months after my first contribution appeared, and +two years previous to my joining the staff, and find no fewer than +eleven separate subjects from my pencil; and I may say that up to the +last I probably contributed more work to _Punch_ than any other artist +ever contributed in the same number of years, Leech not excepted. I do +not claim that this was wholly due to artistic merit, but to a business +one. I never refused to draw a subject I was asked to do, I never was at +a loss for a subject, and I was never late. It was to this facility I +owe the good terms on which the editor and I worked so pleasantly and +for so long. Being accustomed to work at high pressure for the +illustrated papers and magazines since boyhood, I confess that _Punch_ +work to me was my playtime. + +I contributed over two thousand six hundred designs, from the smallest +to the largest that ever appeared in its pages (the latter were +published in the Christmas Numbers, 1890 and 1891), and I was not in +receipt of a salary, but was paid for each drawing at my full rate. I +have reason to think I drew in the time more money from _Punch_, +proportionately, than any other contributor in its history in a like +period. I read from time to time accounts of the remuneration men like +myself receive. Of course these statements are invariably fiction, as in +fact is nearly everything I have read outside Mr. Spielmann's careful +analysis of _Punch_ concerning myself and my friends. + +I deal with my Parliamentary confessions, personal and artistic, in +other chapters; I shall in this merely touch upon a few points in +connection with _Punch_. The greater portion of my Parliamentary work, +however, appeared in other periodicals, but it is probably by _Punch_ +work in this direction most of my readers identify me. I was fortunate, +in the twelve years I represented _Punch_ in Parliament with the pencil, +in having the exceptional material for work upon Mr. Gladstone at his +most interesting period, Parnell's rise and fall, Churchill's rise and +fall, Bradlaugh's rise and fall, and a host of others strutting their +brief hour on the political stage. Where are they now? Mr. Chamberlain +alone interests the caricaturist. Parliament itself is dull, the public +is apathetic, and everything appertaining to politics is flat and +unprofitable. Yet as far back as 1885, in the figure "Punch," I asked +for some new character, the familiar faces were getting worked out! + +I had attended some sessions of Parliament before I made the +acquaintance of the official presiding over the Press Gallery. The Press +Gallery is, as all know, directly over the Speaker. The front row is +divided into little boxes where the representatives of the leading +papers sit. The others are seated above them against the wall. These +members of the Press look like a row of aged schoolboys very much +troubled to write anything about Parliament to-day. Their monitor sits +by the seat near the door, which in former days was in the middle of the +Gallery. + +[Illustration: FAMILIAR FACES. + +_Mr. Punch (Cartoonist-in-Chief)._ "OH, I KNOW ALL YOU OLD MODELS. I +WANT SOME NEW 'CHARACTER'!"] + +I shall never forget my first experience of this Press Gallery official. +He was big, and fat, and greasy; in evening dress, and he wore a real +gold chain with a badge in front like a mayor or sheriff. He awed +me--recollect I am now speaking of the day I attended as a comparatively +new boy, and I trembled in his presence. There was no seat vacant except +the one next to him. He sleeps! Nervously I slip into the seat. He +wakes, and looks down at me. + +"H'm! What are you?" is his sleepy remark. + +"_Punch_," I reply. + +"Ticket?" + +"Left at home." + +"Bring it next time." + +"Certainly," say I, relieved. He slumbers again. I strain over to see +who is speaking. This wakes the gentleman with the real gold chain +again. He gazes down upon me. I feel smaller. + +"What are you?" + +"_Punch._" + +"Eh! Where's ticket?" + +"Left at home." + +"Bring it next time. Saves bother, young fellow." + +[Illustration: "HE SLEEPS."] + +"Certainly," I reply, and, encouraged by his familiarity, I venture to +ask, "Who is that speaking?" I just got the question out in time, for he +was dozing off again. + +"New Member," he replied, and, half dozing, he goes on, more to himself +than to me: "One more fool! Find his level here! All fools here! Stuff +you've been givin' them at your College Union. Rubbish! Yer +perambulator's waitin' outside. Oh, follow yer Dad to the Upper House, +an' look sharp about it." He mumbles. I well recollect the youthful +Member, so criticised, labouring through his maiden speech. The eldest +son of a Peer, with a rather effeminate face, Saxon fairness of +complexion, and with an apology for a moustache, it struck me that if +petrified he would do very well as a dummy outside a tailor's +establishment. Yet this youthful scion of a noble line has a good +record. He carried off innumerable prizes at Eton, was a double first at +Oxford, President of the Union, and a fellow of his college; one of the +University Eight, and of the Eleven; distinguished at tennis, racquets, +and football; hero of three balloon ascents; great at amateur +theatricals; a writer upon every possible subject, including theology, +for the leading magazines; member of sixteen London clubs; married a +titled heiress, and is only thirty years of age. + +[Illustration: "HERE, I SAY, WHAT ARE YOU?"] + +[Illustration: "_PUNCH_," I REPLIED.] + +Some of his college friends sit in the Strangers' Gallery to hear their +late President make his first great effort in the real Parliament. The +effect disappoints them. Their champion is "funky." When the Oxford +Eight were behind at Barnes Bridge, it was "Dolly's" muscle and nerve +that pulled the crew together and won the race. When at Lord's the match +was nearly over, and the Light Blues had won all but the shouting, +"Dolly" went in last man and rattled up fifty in half an hour and won +the match. When at the Oxford Union he spoke upon the very question now +before the House--namely, whether a tax should be imposed upon +periwinkles--his oratory alone turned the scale, and gave his party the +victory. Yet now his speech upon the periwinkle problem has certainly +not impressed the House. Men listened for a time and then adjourned to +dinner, and his splendid peroration, recognised by his friends as the +same which he had delivered at the Oxford Union, failed to elicit a +single cheer. + +Curiosity, however, induced his supporters to remain and hear the reply. +The next speaker was a contrast to their hero, and a titter went round +among Dolly's friends in the Gallery. He was a type of the preaching +Member. No doubt a very worthy soul, but hardly an Adonis to look at, +nor a Cicero to listen to. Still he is sincere, and with his own class +effective; and sincerity, after all, is the most valuable, and I may add +the most rare, quality in the composition of an ordinary Member of +Parliament. + +My neighbour, the Usher, at this point opens his left eye, which takes +in at a glance the Opposition side of the House, and breaks out in this +style: + +"All right, little 'un! Keep wot yer sayin' till Sunday. Yer sermon's +sending me to sleep. Forcing taxation on the winks of the 'ungry +Englishman will raise the country to revolt. Tommy rot! Here endeth the +first lesson, thank goodness!" + +The soliloquising official rolls off his seat chuckling along the +Gallery. Envelopes are handed to him by the reporters. He rolls back to +the door, opens it, gives the copy to the messengers waiting for it, and +rolls back once more into his seat. In doing so he spies me. + +I feel smaller. + +"Here, I say, what are you?" + +"_Punch._" + +"Where's ticket?" + +"Left at home." + +"H'm! Don't forget it again." + +"Certainly not." + +I say nothing more, as I am too interested in his running commentary of +the proceedings. A grunt. Shake down: + +"Old Waddy, is it? Another sermon. Blow black plaster. Tell that to the +juries, and use it again in chapel. Yer a good friend to us--get a count +soon. Ah, I thought so. Joey Biggar up to count and snuff." + +"Have a pinch?" he said to me. + +"Thanks." I sneeze. + +"What are you?" asked the man of the golden badge, looking down at me. I +met his query as before. + +Same demand. + +Same reply. + +Same promise. + +The electric bells were ringing for a "count out." He opened both eyes +to watch if forty Members came in. They did; and three times forty. + +"Torment 'em! Keep me here all night, I see." + +Samuel Banks Waddy--Pleader, Preacher, Parliamentarian (as he is +designated in a work on M.P.'s)--continues preaching. He is followed by +the Leader of the House. My soliloquising friend continues: + +"Ah, Old Morality--as Lucy calls ye--up at last. Move the closure, now +then, that's right; speak of yer dooty to the House and Country. Set the +Rads laughing, shut yer own mouth, and sit down. Oh lor! 'Ere's the +Grand Old Muddler up. We're getting 'usky, old 'un; both of us have 'ad +too much of this job. We're very much alike, Gladdy and me--both great +eaters and great sleepers." + +[Illustration: "I FEEL SMALLER!"] + +Mr. Gladstone was telling the House all about black plaster, and gave +three points why it should not be used in public hospitals. With the +third point he landed a blow at Home Rule, and his ingenuity in doing +so brought forth a derisive cheer from the Irish benches, which roused +my neighbour. + +I looked up at him smiling, as much as to say, "Just like the Old +Parliamentary Hand." + +"What are you?" he growled. + +"_Punch._" + +"Ticket?" + +Same reply and promise. + +Appeased, he continued: + +"Words, words, words--no 'ed no tail. Oh, of course you remember the +introduction of white plaster--3rd of June, 1840--why didn't you say +half-past two o'clock? More convincing. No doubt you got into some +scrape and 'ad to use it. Won't you catch it from the old woman in the +Gallery when you get home if you say so! Can't 'ear yer, thank goodness. +Scribblers will take down any rot you talk. They want _me_, I suppose. +Blowed if the country wants you." + +Again he rolls out of his seat, collects the reporters' copy, and gives +it to the attendants. + +"Who are you? Ah, _Punch_. Don't forget yer ticket." + +Again he dozes. + +"'Icks Beach up! 'Ave all the Board of Trade chaps up, capping each +other. Funny thing--Board of Trade chap says anything, all the Board of +Traders must have a word in. Same with Local Government Board--new man +says anything, old 'uns put in a word for theirselves, just to keep the +place warm for them to return. Board!--I'm bored--joke there for Lucy. +Thought the Irish lot couldn't keep quiet much longer. Tanner up,--ought +to know more about plaster than politics. Rum fellers, these doctors in +the House; leave their patients at 'ome, and come here to try +ours--'nother good joke for Lucy--make his 'air stand on end. Tanner +sticking to the plaster--now then, young Tories, jeer 'im down. The +Doctor's goin' it. Order! order! That's right, Brand, turn 'im +out,--wouldn't stand 'im in any place else. City Fowler's +bellowing,--scene a-brewing,--good copy for these quill-drivers." + +Dr. Tanner had recited some harrowing tale about black plaster being +used in his native town by a hospital surgeon on the scratched face of +some old woman who had joined "the boys" in a street fight, although she +protested that pink suited her complexion. + +"It was a base Saxon trick!" roared the infuriated Member for Cork +County. "On a par with the mane, dirty doings of puppets and spalpeens +like the Mimbers opposite." + +"Order! order!" cried the Speaker. "The hon. Member must withdraw that +expression." + +"I'll not withdraw anything except by adding that they're all liars on +the Tory benches." + +"The hon. Member must withdraw." + +The Doctor "exits" with a flourish, glares at the Conservative benches +below the gangway, and hisses at them: + +"Better order a ton of plaster, for you'll want it after I meet ye +outside." + +Mr. Labouchere and two or three Irish Members rise at once. + +My neighbour sneers. + +"Oh, sit down, ye rubbishy lot! Labby,--better keep yer jokes for yer +paper. Bless me if Conybeare ain't left standing! Now for an hour of +boredom." + +"He _is_ a bore," I remark. + +"Yes, I've stood Kenealy and Wharton, but this bore I can't. I'll chuck +it up. Kenealy did his best for the Claimant, and was amusing at times; +and Wharton,--well, he had good snuff, and his hat was a treat; but this +Conybeare is a bore and nothing else." + +So he went on. + +The "descendant of kings," Sir William Harcourt, rose to pulverise +Torydom and put an end to the Government and everything in general, when +the Speaker rose and said that the question before the House was whether +black sticking-plaster could be used in public hospitals. + +"Oh, that's right, he wants putting down; too much of the grand Old +Bailey style. Make yer fortune in plush and knee breeches as a prize +flunkey; platform stuff won't do for us. What are you?" I feel smaller! + +"_Punch._" + +"You take Harcourt off with the chins?" + +"Yes." + +"Shake hands!" + +We were friends ever afterwards. + +[Illustration: "I FEEL SMALLER!"] + +One day when I arrived,--actually with my Gallery ticket,-a fresh +pleasant official sat in my old friend's place, wearing his gold chain +and badge. "Should this meet the eye" of his predecessor, soliloquising +in the retirement of his suburban home, I trust it will not disturb the +serenity of his well-earned repose, for he was a capital fellow, and I +can answer for much good sense in his "official utterances." + +If a politician were not a caricature by nature, I made him one. Mr. +Gladstone's collar I invented--for the same reason a journalistic friend +of mine invented Beaconsfield's champagne jelly--for "copy." When +Members suggested nothing new, I turned my attention to officials. The +Sergeant-at-Arms in that way became known as the "Black Beetle." + +I watched Captain Gosset from the Press Gallery walk up the floor of the +House in court dress, his knee-breeches showing off his rather bandy +legs, elbows akimbo, and curious gait; his back view at once suggested +the beetle, and as the Black Beetle he was known. This, I was assured, +gave offence, so that I was rather anxious to see how I should be +greeted when Professor Thorold Rogers took me into the Sergeant's +presence, after I had been drawing him as the "Beetle" for some time. + +The late Professor Thorold Rogers was for many years a familiar +Bohemianish figure in Parliament. He had a marked individuality, a +strong head and a rough tongue, an uncouth manner, sloppy attire, and +his conversation was anything but refined. Still he was kind and +amusing, and, for a Professor in Parliament, popular. Professors are not +liked in St. Stephen's, and never a success; and as a politician +Professor Thorold Rogers was no exception to this rule. It was he who +introduced me to the Sergeant-at-Arms' room, that _sanctum sanctorum_ of +the lively spirits of Parliament. Perhaps I ought correctly to call it +Captain Gosset's room, for although Captain Gosset was the +Sergeant-at-Arms, the Sergeant-at-Arms was by no means Captain Gosset. +An anecdote will illustrate this. + +A friend of mine, a well-known journalist, travelling abroad during the +Recess, fell in with Captain Gosset, and they became companions in their +journey. A few days after they arrived home my journalistic acquaintance +was in the Inner Lobby of the House of Commons as the Sergeant-at-Arms +was passing through, and he called out, "How are you, Captain Gosset? +Any the worse for your journey?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir, I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. +You are mistaken." + +"Nonsense, Captain! Why, we travelled together. I am----" + +"That may be, but---- Oh, I see, you are thinking of that fellow Gosset. +Sir, I am the Sergeant-at-Arms!" And he strode off with the greatest +dignity. + +I was agreeably surprised when I was introduced to the "Black Beetle." + +[Illustration: THE BLACK BEETLE.] + +"Here is Harry Furniss, Gosset" (not Sergeant, I observed); "now give it +to him." + +"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Furniss. You see how I +appreciate your work." And he pointed to a row of black beetles, cut out +of _Punch_ and pasted on the wall, the rest of the wall being covered +with interesting and dignified portraits of Members. Here was Gosset at +twelve o'clock at night. At twelve noon he would be Sergeant-at-Arms, +with power to take me to the Clock Tower. + +[Illustration: THE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS' ROOM. _From "Punch."_] + +This room is still the Sergeant-at-Arms' office, but in it are no +portraits, no black beetles--on paper; there may be some living +specimens, for aught I know, haunting the old room in search of the +lively company, the pipes, and the huge decanters. The present +Sergeant-at-Arms is as unlike a black beetle as he is unlike the +Bohemian Gosset. But I shall be surprised if, when the courteous and +universally appreciated Sergeant-at-Arms retires, and the present +Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Gosset, takes his place, we shall not +see the old room again the most entertaining spot in the Houses of +Parliament. + +When Professor Rogers was escorting me to the famous room, he implored +me to leave politics outside of it,--as if I ever talked politics in the +House! "Rule is--no politics, so don't forget it." + +"Ah," he said, as soon as he sat down, "why aint you in the House, Tom, +vilifying and misrepresenting the Irish as I heard you this afternoon! +Disgraceful, I say, disgraceful!" and he thumped the table. + +"No politics, Professor," "Dick" Power remarked. + +"Oh, indeed, my noble Whip; that comes well from a beater to a beaten +gang. Why aint you at your post,--the door-post, ha! ha!--and rally your +men and overthrow these damned Tories? Oh, yes, King-Harman, your good +looks do not atone for bad measures." + +"No politics, Professor," all cried. + +"Come, Furniss, come away, they're all drunk here. I'll tell you my last +story on the Terrace. These Tories destroy everything." + +[Illustration: CAPT. GOSSET, LATE SERGEANT-AT-ARMS. _From the +"Illustrated London News."_] + +Such was my introduction to this select little club in Parliament, in +which, with the exception of the Professor, all forgot politics, and the +best of the Tories, Home Rulers, Radicals, and officials were at peace. +I was always on most friendly terms with my "Black Beetle," a proof that +caricature leaves no unkind sting when the victim is really a man of the +world and a jolly good fellow. Surely nothing could be more offensive to +an official in high office than to be continually represented as a black +beetle! + +[Illustration: MY "CHILDISH" STYLE IN _PUNCH_.] + +When I did not "invent" a character, such as the "Beetle," I adopted for +a change various styles of drawing. For even the work of a caricaturist +becomes monotonous if he is but a master of one style and a slave to +mannerisms. To avoid this I am Egyptian, Chinese, Japanese, and at times +"Childish"--a specimen of each style in _Punch_ the proprietors have +kindly allowed me to republish in these pages. There is really very +little artistic merit in the "Childish" style of work. I did not use it +often, but whenever I did I tried to introduce some "drawing" as well. +Here, for instance, are my Academy skits--drawn as if by a boy, but the +figures of the teacher and pupil are in drawing. By the way, these +different styles, I am glad to see, are still kept alive in the pages of +_Punch_ by new--if not younger--hands. This year's (1901) Academy skits +and other drawings, I notice, are signed "'Arry's Son," but they are +not--as might be thought--by one of my own boys. + +[Illustration] + +During most of the time I enjoyed a privilege which belonged to no one +else, not excepting Members, for even Members must, like schoolboys, +keep "within bounds." They are not permitted, for instance, to enter the +Press Gallery, or the portion of the House reserved to the Press; +neither can Press-men enter the Members' rooms at will. The public, +being ignorant of the stringent rules of St. Stephen's, cannot +understand the obstacles there are to seeing the House. One instance +will suffice to show the absurdity of the rules. The ex-Treasurer of the +House of Lords, whose acquaintance I had, and whose offices were in the +corridor by the Select Chamber, could not take anyone into the House, +even when it was empty, without a written order. Although armed with a +Gallery Ticket, and also on the "Lobby list," _i.e._, the right to enter +the Inner Lobby, I was not free to make any sketches of the House +itself, inside or out. Requiring to get such material for the elaborate +interiors and exteriors I use in my Lecture-Entertainment, "The Humours +of Parliament," I boldly bearded the highest official in his den, and +left with this simple document. Aladdin's key could not have caused more +surprise than this talisman. The head of the police, the +Sergeant-at-Arms himself, could not interfere. "The Palace of +Westminster" includes the House of Commons, so I made full use of my +unique opportunity, and possess material invaluable for my Parliamentary +work. + +[Illustration: I SKETCH THE HOUSE.] + +I had facilities in another way. At one time the Engineer-in-Chief was a +friend of mine, Dr. Percy. Few men were better known in and about the +House than this popular official engineer of the Palace of Westminster. +To begin with, he was over six feet high, and had a voice that would +carry from the Commons to the House of Lords. He had to be "all over the +place"--under the House, over the House, and all round the House. He was +as well-known in the smoking-room of the Garrick Club as he was in the +smoking-room of the Commons, and it was when I joined the Garrick I made +his acquaintance. He was also an art _connoisseur_, and had a very fine +collection of water-colours. The first time I saw the Doctor was years +before on a steamer on the Rance, between Normandy and Brittany. I made +a sketch of his extraordinary features, so that when he entered the +Garrick Club I recognised the original of my caricature. We frequently +walked down to the Houses of Parliament together after dinner, and more +than once he invited me behind the scenes and under the stage of +Parliament, through the "fog filter" and ventilating shafts, when he was +wont to indulge in a grim, saturnine humour appropriate to his +subterranean subject. As he opened the iron doors for us to pass from +one passage to another, close to and above which the benches are +situated,--for the whole House is honeycombed for ventilating +purposes,--he pretended that long experience enabled him to discriminate +between the odours from different parts of the House, and declared that +he could tap and draw off a specimen of the atmosphere on the Government +benches, the Opposition side, or the Radical seats, at will. + +"There, my boy! eh? Pretty thick, aint it? That's the Scotch lot. Now +hold your nose. I open this door and we get the Irish draught. Ugh! Come +on, come on quickly--mixture of Irish, working-men M.P.'s, and Rads. +Kill a horse!" + +The table of the House, which Mr. Disraeli erroneously described as "a +solid piece of furniture," is in reality--like so many arguments which +are flung across it--perfectly hollow; and one evening when I arrived +with Dr. Percy and found that in consequence of the winding-up speech of +Mr. Gladstone in a great debate the Press Gallery was full and all the +seats under the gallery were occupied, Dr. Percy kindly allowed me to +sit _inside the table_. I was sorely tempted to try the effect of +inserting my pencil through the grating which forms the side of the +table, and tickle the shins of the right hon. gentleman. Anyway, I +looked straight into the faces of the Ministers and those on the front +bench, and not only heard every word, but the asides and whispers as +well. + +[Illustration: DR. PERCY. "THE HOUSE UP." + +_From "Punch."_] + +I only once caricatured Dr. Percy in _Punch_ (December, 1886), after +there had been a sort of earthquake in the Inner Lobby of the House, and +the tesselated pavement was thrown up. I made a drawing, "The House up +at last." Dr. Percy "is personally directing the improvements." It is +interesting to know that some of the pavement taken up on that occasion +is laid in the hall of an hon. Member's house in the country, not far +from West Kirby, Cheshire. + +[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE. MR. GOSCHEN. + +_From "Punch."_] + + + THE VILLAIN OF ART. + +One frequently hears the remark, "Caricature is so ugly." Well, +certainly pure caricature is the villain of art, and the popular +draughtsman, like the popular actor, should, to remain popular in his +work, always play the virtuous hero. If the leading actor _must_ play +the villain, he takes care to make up inoffensive and tame. So the +villain caricaturist need not be "ugly"--but then he cannot be strong. +Nor is it left to an actor--unless he be the star or actor-manager--to +remain popular by being tame and pretty in every part. So is the +caricaturist, if he is not the star, liable to be cast to play the +villain whether he likes it or not, and if he is a genuine worker he +will not shrink from the part, merely to remain popular and curry favour +with those deserving to be satirised. + +[Illustration: MR. PUNCH'S PUZZLE-HEADED PEOPLE. "ALL HARCOURTS." + _From "Punch."_] + +Now in _Punch_, as I was cast for it, I played the villain's part. In +doing so I was at times necessarily "ugly," and therefore to some +unpopular. I confess I felt it my duty not to shrink from being "ugly," +although whenever I could I introduced some redeeming element into my +designs--the figure of a girl, allegorical of Parliament or whatever the +"ugly" subject might happen to be--but in some of my _Punch_ drawings +this relief was impossible. For instance, the series of "Puzzle Heads," +in each of which a portrait of the celebrity is built up of personal +attributes, characteristics, or incidents in the career of the person +represented, could not but be unpleasant pictures. Some subscribers +threatened to give up the paper if they were continued; others became +subscribers for these Puzzle Heads alone. It is ever so. The old saying, +"One man's meat is another's poison," is as applicable to caricature as +to anything else. It is impossible to please all tastes when catering +for the large public, unless an editor is satisfied to be stereotyped +and perfunctory; but Mr. Punch has made his name by his strength, not +his weakness, and it may be safely inferred that no Tory thinks less of +him for having used all his talent in attacking Benjamin Disraeli year +after year as no man has been attacked before--or since--in his pages. + +In looking through the volumes of _Punch_ one is apt to forget that the +strong situations and stirring events by which a caricaturist's hit is +made effective at the time of publication fade from one's memory. The +cartoon in all its strength remains a record of an event which has lost +its interest. One cannot always realise that the drawing was only strong +because the feeling and interest at the time of its conception demanded +it. Allowance should therefore be made for the villain's ugly +caricature, if it is a good drawing, prophetically correct, and +therefore historically interesting. + +Perhaps no cartoon of mine in _Punch_ caused such hostile criticism as +"The New Cabinet" (August 27, 1892). It gave great offence to the +Gladstonians. The Radical Press attacked me ferociously, and as I think +most unfairly, for they treated it politically and not pictorially, and +severely reprimanded Mr. Punch for publishing it. Had it been a +Conservative Cabinet the Tory Press would not have resented it or +allowed narrow-minded party politics to prejudice their mind in such +trivial matters. _Punch_ is supposed to be non-political. Its present +editor is impartial. Mr. Punch's traditions are Whig, and somehow or +other a certain class of its readers at that particular crisis was +strongly opposed to the two sides of a question being treated. Yet I +venture to say two-thirds of the readers of _Punch_ are Conservatives, +and should therefore be amused. It is impossible to treat a strong +political subject--such as the meeting of that particular Cabinet +caricatured by me--without offending some readers by amusing others, +unless, as I say, the subject is treated in a colourless manner. This +particular cartoon hurt because it hit a strong situation in a truthful +and straight-forward manner, and subsequent events proved it to be a +correct conception. Yet at the time no name was too bad for me, and as +these are my confessions, let me assure the public that had the Cabinet +been a Conservative one I would have treated it in exactly the same way; +and it is my firm conviction that had such been the case I would have +given no offence either inside or outside of Mr. Punch's office. + +My readers will sympathise with me. I am to draw political cartoons +without being political; I am to draw caricatures without being +personal; I am to be funny without holding my subject up to ridicule; I +am to be effective without being strong--in fact, I am to be a +caricaturist without caricature! On the other hand, no cartoon I ever +drew for _Punch_ was more popular. Non-politicians were good enough to +accept it as an antidote to the usual caricatures, and those papers on +the other side of politics were extravagantly complimentary, and I +received a large sum for the original for a private collection. I allow +the following leaderette from the _Birmingham Post_ to illustrate the +point, and at the same time to describe the cartoon. The same paper, I +may add, comments on the principal cartoon in _Punch_ that week--drawn +by Tenniel--as showing that _Punch_ "thinks little of the prospects of +the present Government": + +[Illustration: REDUCTION FROM ENGRAVING IN _PUNCH_.] + + "'Mr. Punch' is in 'excellent fooling' this week. Rarely has he, even + he, more happily burlesqued a political situation than in Mr. Harry + Furniss's cartoon of 'The New Cabinet.' Not a word of explanation + accompanies the picture: it is good wine, needing no bush, and making + very merry. A glance suffices to seize its meaning, for it expresses a + thought that has flitted, at one time or another, through everyone's + mind. The big moment has come when Mr. Gladstone is to reveal to his + colleagues the secret he has hitherto withheld from them, not less than + from the electorate--to submit to them, masterly, succinct, complete, + the scheme which, with unexampled courage and sublimest modesty, they + have defended on trust, for which they have sacrificed their personal + independence without knowing why, and as to which, painful to remember, + they have sometimes blundered into confident and contradictory + conjecture. We can picture the subtle excitement--in one Minister of + joyful expectation, in another of horrid misgiving--under which they + have come together. Well, Mr. Gladstone unfolds the fateful document, + and lo! it is a blank sheet. Paralysis and grim despair fall upon the + spirits of the assembly; face to face with a nightmare reality, not a + man amongst them has strength to say, 'This is a dream.' At the head of + the table, his elbows resting on the parchment, and an undipped quill + actually split upon it in his angry grasp, sits the Premier, a + never-to-be-forgotten picture of impotent ill-humour. The task with + which the Cabinet is confronted, for him as for the rest, is impossible + and yet inexorable. In the candle-flame, by an effect of hallucination + natural at such a moment, the face of Mr. O'Brien seems to limn itself + out, implacable and contemptuous; and there is a fearsome shadow on the + blind--the massive head of Lord Salisbury. The candle, marked '40,' is + the majority, which dwindles while the Ministers are sadly musing; and + over the mantelpiece, behind the Premier's chair, mutely reproachful, + hangs a picture of the great Cabinet of 1880. It is distinctly the best + thing Mr. Furniss has done." + +That impression was shared by my private friends as well, even those on +_Punch_. My dear friend Mr. E. J. Milliken, a strong Radical, and a most +active member of the staff, in a reply to a letter of mine, in which I +intimated that I was afraid my cartoon would give offence, replied in a +most flattering spirit. + +I had to play the "villain" in another scene in the same political +drama, "Mr. Punch's Historical Cartoons" (1893), in which the same +Cabinet is shown in Mr. Gladstone's room in the "Bauble Shop"--the House +of Commons. Those Radicals who had not joined the Unionists again took +offence. Those Radicals who had become Unionist wrote to congratulate +me. From one well-known and powerful personality, a historical name in +the publishing world, I received the following: + + "February 23rd, 1893. + + "Your cartoon p. 95 delights us all. I have looked at it twenty times + and seen fresh points in it. Nothing for years, I should say, has so + entirely caught the very spirit of a great crisis. + + "We shall owe something to you for this felicitous exposure of + Gladstone's insane Bill. Alas! the miners and the brickies, the + costermongers and the dust-cart drivers, have now the power. The middle + class has been out-numbered, and if it were not that some labouring men + and artisans have hard heads enough to comprehend the position we should + be landed in a pretty pickle next September. + + "It is a pity traitors' heads are nowadays their own copyright." + +A "copyright" in heads is a good suggestion, and coming from a publisher +too! But apart from "traitors," there are others known to a +caricaturist. The House of Commons at one time was rich in them. Some +such works of art suffer in being translated. Indeed, what the poet +"Ballyhooley" wrote of one might apply to others: + + "DARWIN MacNEILL. + + "Darwin MacNeill, all the papers are hot on you, + Darwin MacNeill, they are writing a lot on you. + What in the world sort of face have you got on you? + Send us your photograph, Darwin MacNeill. + Surely you must be both lovely and pure! + Have you got fatures that nothing can cure? + Let's have the first of it, + Let's know the worst of it: + Is your face only a caricature? + Here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill, + Let penny canes all your enemies feel; + Show me the crature would slander a fature + Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal. + + "Our childhers are dull, and we wish to be brightening them + Send us your picture and we'll be enlightening them, + Maybe 'twill only be useful for frightening them; + Still let us have it, dear Darwin MacNeill. + Shut up the slander and talk they are at, + Show us the head you've got under your hat; + True every particle, genuine article, + Send us your picture in answer to that. + Here's a health to you, etc. + + "I hear that the Queen she has simply gone crazy, man; + Says she to Gladstone, 'Get out, you old lazy man! + Cannot you see that I'll never be aisy, man, + Till I've a portrait of Darwin MacNeill?' + When of that picture she first got a sight, + She held it up, so they say, to the light, + Looked at the head of it, then all she said of it, + 'I'm of opinion that Darwin is right.' + Here's a health to you, etc. + + "There's just arrived now, to give great content to us, + A lovely picture, which someone has sent to us. + We know the worst now, for there has been sent to us + What's called a portrait of Darwin MacNeill. + If it's a likeness, I just tell you what, + That you have acted in ways you should not. + Don't try a turn of fists + On with the journalists; + Thrash those who gave you the head you have got. + But here's a health to you, Darwin MacNeill! + Only just manage new fatures to steal, + Then show me the crature would slander a fature + Of the beautiful Mimber for ould Donegal." + + +This "Pen Portrait," by Mr. Robert Martin, refers to a matter of much +regret to me. I have to confess my sorrow that I was the means of making +a Member of Parliament ridiculous! The innocent item came in the +ordinary course of my work for _Punch_. I was sent an incident to +illustrate for the Diary of Toby, M.P., which, when published, was used +as an excuse to "technically assault" me in the Inner Lobby of the House +of Commons. + +[Illustration: REDUCTION OF PAGE IN _PUNCH_, SHOWING THAT MY CARICATURES +WERE--IN THIS CASE--PUBLISHED TOO LARGE.] + +Perhaps in the circumstances I may be pardoned if I confess a secret +connected with these Parliamentary caricatures. For some years I +provided a page drawing and some small cuts in every number during +Parliament--the latter were generally sketches of Members of Parliament. +These single portraits were supplied in advance, and engraved proofs +sent in a book to Mr. Lucy to select from week by week. The following +letter is worth quoting in full as a characteristic letter from the +Editor, typical of his light and pleasant way of transacting business +with his staff: + + "Dear H. F.,--"Please keyindly see that H. L. (not 'Labby,' but 'Lucy') + has all your parliamentarians whom you (as your predecessor Henry VIII. + did) have executed on the block sent to him, as he found himself + unprovided up to the last moment and so wrote to me in his haste. + + "(?) Fancy portrait. Our artist, H. F., as Henry VIII. taking off his + victims' heads on the block, eh? + "Yours, "F. C. B." + +To this rule, however, there were exceptions. This particular caricature +was one of them: it was drawn at the last moment to illustrate a +particular passage in Mr. Lucy's Diary of Toby, M.P. Here it is: + + "'Look here, Bartley,' said Tommy Bowles; 'if you're going on that tack, + you must come and sit on this side. When I saw MacNeill open his mouth + to speak, I confess I thought I was going to be swallowed whole. You sit + here; there's more of you.'" + +[Illustration: REDUCTION FROM THE ORIGINAL DRAWING, SHOWING THAT I GAVE +INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CARICATURE TO BE "REDUCED AS USUAL."] + +Now had I shown "Pongo," as he was familiarly called in the House, in +the act of swallowing "Tommy Bowles," I might have produced a most +objectionable caricature. I made, however, a smiling portrait of the +genial Member. I was away at the time recovering from a long illness: +the sketch was made in the country, and sent up to the _Punch_ +engraver's office. By some mistake there, it was not reduced in size in +reproduction as others had been; therefore in the paper it was +apparently given extra importance--I had nothing to do with that. That +Mr. Lucy's reference to Mr. MacNeill is not a caricature can be judged +by anyone reading the passage I had to illustrate, given above. The +notion that the drawing was _purposely_ produced on a larger scale than +usual, so as to give this special caricature prominence, is disproved by +the fact that the caricature of the gallant and genial Admiral Field I +drew exactly under the same conditions appears on the same page also far +too large. Therefore it is a mistaken idea that this particular portrait +was intentionally offensive, or different from others. + +It was really the combination of circumstances, if anything, that called +special attention to that particular page in _Punch,_ and gave rise to + + + A SCENE IN THE LOBBY. + +I shall, in describing the curtain rising on this historical incident, +borrow Mr. Lucy's own account of the way in which the Member approached +me after he had seen my illustration to Mr. Lucy's clever Diary of the +Week: + +"It was shortly after seven o'clock that Mr. Harry Furniss strolled into +the Lobby. He had been suffering from a long and severe sickness, +dedicating this the first evening of his convalescence to a visit to the +scene of labours which have delighted mankind. Over the place there +brooded an air of ineffable peace. The bustle of the earlier hour of +meeting was stilled. The drone of talk went on in the half-empty House +within the glass doors. Now and then a Member hastily crossed the floor +of the Lobby, intent on preparations for dinner. One of these chanced to +be Mr. Swift MacNeill, a Member who, beneath occasional turbulence of +manner, scarcely conceals the gentlest, kindliest disposition, a +gentleman by birth and training, a scholar and a patriot. The House, +whilst it sometimes laughs at his exuberance of manner, always shows +that it likes him. Mr. Furniss, seeing him approach with hurried step, +may naturally have expected that he was making haste to offer those +congratulations on renewed health and reappearance on the scene of +labour that had already been proffered from other quarters. What +followed has been told by Mr. Furniss in language the simplicity and +graphicness of which Defoe could not have excelled." + +Mr. Lucy refers to the following account I wrote at the time: + +"On my return to continue my work in Parliament for Mr. Punch after my +severe illness, I found the jaded legislators yearning for fresh air, +and even the approaching final division on the Home Rule Bill had failed +to arouse more than a languid interest. I felt this depression when I +entered the Lobby, its sole occupants being the tired-out doorkeepers +and the leg-weary policemen. I really believe a swarm of wasps would not +have roused them to activity, for I noticed a bluebottle resting +undisturbed upon the nose of one of Inspector Horsley's staff. Even the +Terrace was dusty, and the Members rusty and morose. One of the Irish +Members had selected as his friend Frank Slavin, the well-known +prize-fighter, who had an admiring group round him, to whom no doubt he +was relating the history of his many plucky battles. + +[Illustration: WHAT HAPPENED.] + +"The stimulating effect of this may have been the cause for the assault +upon me in the Inner Lobby, which has afforded the stale House some +little excitement, which has been the salvation of the silly season. So +many papers have given startling accounts of this attack upon me, some +stating that I was caned, others that I was pummelled, shaken like a +dog, and so on, that I am glad to take the opportunity of giving a clear +statement of what really occurred. I was standing close to the doors of +the Inner Lobby, talking to Mr. Cuthbert Quilter, when Mr. Swift +MacNeill interrupted us by asking me, 'Are you the man that draws the +cartoons in _Punch_?' 'That depends upon what they are,' said I. 'I +refer to one,' said the excited Member, 'that has annoyed me very much,' +'Let me see it,' I replied. Mr. MacNeill then drew out his pocket-book +and showed me a cutting from the current number of _Punch_. 'Yes,' I +said, 'that is from a drawing of mine,' 'Then ye're a low, black-guardly +scoundrel,' melodramatically exclaimed the usually genial Member. Taking +two or three steps back, he hissed at me, with a livid face, a series of +offensive epithets too coarse for publication. Having exhausted his +vocabulary of vulgarity, a happy thought seemed to strike him. 'I want +to assault you,' he said, and forthwith he nervously and gingerly tapped +me as if he were playing with a hot coal. He then danced off to Members +who were looking on, crying, 'This is the scoundrel who has caricatured +me; witness, I assault him!' and he recommenced the tapping process +which constituted this technical assault. Knowing that Mr. MacNeill is a +very excitable subject, and at once detecting that this assault was a +'put-up job,' I was determined to remain perfectly cool; and, truth to +tell, the pirouetting of the agitated Member hugely amused me, +particularly as the more excited he became, the more he resembled the +caricature which was the cause, or supposed to be the cause, of this +attack, I treated the hon. Member exactly as the policeman treated the +bluebottle--with perfect indifference, not even troubling to brush away +the trifling annoyance. But when in the midst of its buzzing round me I +moved in the direction of one of the officials, it flew away. Then +appeared what I had been anticipating, and the real cause of the insult +transpired. Dr. Tanner came up to me just as I recollect Slavin +approaching Jackson in their historic fight. He showered the grossest +insults upon me, and I was surrounded at once by his clique, who were +anxious for the scene which must have occurred had I, like Jackson, been +the first to let out with my left. But here again was I face to face +with a chronically excited Member, backed up by his friends, and I +refused to be drawn into a brawl. But the secret of the real cause of +this organised attack upon me was revealed to me by Dr. Tanner, who at +once informed me that it was the outcome of my imitations of the Irish +Members in my entertainment, 'The Humours of Parliament,' which I have +given for two seasons all over the country. This was my offence; my +caricature of Mr. Swift MacNeill the excuse for the attack." + +[Illustration: DR. TANNER.] + +Mr. MacNeill's "technical assault" was a very childish incident. He +merely touched the sleeve of my coat with the tip of his finger, and +asked me if I would accept that as a "technical assault." This +mysterious pantomime was subsequently explained to me, and meant that I +was to take out a summons--but I only laughed. At the moment Mr. +MacNeill was pirouetting round me at a distance, Mr. John Burns came on +to the scene, and chaffed Mr. MacNeill, drawing an imaginary picture +(for Mr. Burns was not in the Lobby) of a real assault upon me. A +gentleman connected with an evening paper, who happened to enter with +Mr. Burns, failed to see Mr. Burns's humour, and thereupon took down in +shorthand Mr. Burns's imaginary picture as a matter of fact. It was +published as a fact, and, for all I know or care, some may still believe +that I was assaulted! + +[Illustration: ASSAULT ON ME IN THE HOUSE. WHAT THE PRESS DESCRIBED.] + +When I read that I had been treated like a cur, I was rather amused; but +when I read a statement in the papers from a man like John Burns saying +that he saw me "taken by the lapels of the coat and shaken like a dog, +and then taken by the ear and shaken by that," I thought the joke had +been carried far enough. Determined to have this cock-and-bull story +contradicted at once, I went down to the House and saw Mr. John Burns, +who expressed to me his regret that he should have invented the story, +and he left me to go to the writing-room, and promised I should have +from him a written contradiction. + +After waiting a considerable time, a message was brought to me that Mr. +Burns declined to keep his promise. I therefore wrote these particulars +and sent them off to the Press. At the same time Mr. Burns, who had been +closeted with some Radical journalists, wrote an offensive note--which +was shown me, and which I advised him to publish. + +Poor Mr. MacNeill! Well may he say, "Save me from my friends!" The Press +put on their comic men to make copy at his expense. If I were to publish +it all, it would make a volume as large as this. By permission I publish +the following lay from the _St. James' Budget_ (September, 1893): + + + "THE LAY OF SWIFT MACNEILL. + + (_Picked up in the Lobby._) + + "Have ye heard, have ye heard, of the late immortal fray, + When the lion back of Swift MacNeill got up and stood at bay, + When the lion voice of Tanner cried, 'To Judas wid yer chaff!' + An' the Saxon knees were shaking, though they made believe to laugh. + + "'Twas widin the Commons' Lobby, in the corner by the dure, + There was Misther Harry Furniss a-standing on the flure, + When up to him came stalking, like O'Tarquin in his pride, + The bowldest of the bowld, MacNeill, wid the Docther by his side. + + "Then the valiant Swift MacNeill from his pocket he took out + A picther very like him, an' he brandished it about, + An' he held it up to Furniss for his Saxon eyes to see, + An' he asked of him, 'Ye spalpeen, is this porthrait meant for me?' + + "''Tis your likeness, as I see it,' was the answer that he got, + An' the wrath of Misther Swift MacNeill then wax'd exceeding hot, + An' he cast the picther from him, an' he trod it on the ground, + An' he took an' danced an Irish jig the artist's form around. + + "'Ye spalpeen,' thus again he spoke, 'ye most obnoxious fellow! + Ye see that I'm a lion, yet ye've made me a gorilla; + If your Saxon eyes are blinded to the truth of what I say, + Go and borrow for a moment the glasses of Tay Pay. + + "'They will show ye that our seventy are Apollos one and all, + That we're most divinely lovely an' seraphically tall; + They will show ye we're all angels--though for divils I'll allow, + 'Tis the black ones ye'll be seeing where the lost to Redmond bow.' + + "Then Misther Swift MacNeill, just to lave his meaning clear, + Wid flowers of Irish eloquence filled Mr. Furniss' ear; + An' he also shook wid passion, an', moreover, shook his fist, + An' the Docther an' his blackthorn stood all ready to assist. + + "Misther Furniss smiled serenely, an' the only word he spoke + Was to say it seemed that Misther Swift was slow to see a joke, + But for all his jokes an' blarney, things were looking like a fight, + When a minion of the Spayker was seen to be in sight. + + "Then Apollo Swift MacNeill from his dignity got down, + An' he withered Misther Furniss wid a godlike parting frown, + An' he stalked along the Lobby wid his grand O'Tarquin stride, + An' the other Mimbers followed him, an' went the House inside. + + "An' there they still are threading on the necks of Saxon slaves, + An' nightly wid their eloquence they're digging Saxon graves; + An' my counsel to the artist who their fatures would porthray, + Is to thry and see their beauty through the glasses of Tay Pay." + +This manufactured "scene," coming as it did in the silly season, was +made to serve instead of the Sea-Serpent, the Toad-in-the-Rock, the +Shower of Frogs, and other familiar inventions for holiday reading. +Unfortunately the poor Members of Parliament obliged to remain in St. +Stephen's had to suffer far more than I did through the eccentricity of +Mr. Swift MacNeill. Several of them complained to me that he lured them +into the corridors and corners of the House, and then vigorously set to +work to demonstrate practically how he assaulted me, or how he imagined +he assaulted me, to the discomfiture and consternation of the poor +M.P's. + +[Illustration: JOHN BURNS.] + +I should like to explain why this "technical assault" on me was not made +a matter of discussion. I did intend a friendly Member should have +brought it before the Speaker, and in that way published the truth of +the matter and exposed the stupid inventions of Burns & Co. With that +object I had an interview with the Speaker, and he implored me not under +any circumstances to have it brought before the House. He was already +tired, at the end of a trying session, and did not want any personal +questions discussed, which invariably led to protracted scenes. For that +reason, and for that reason only, it was not mentioned in Parliament, +notwithstanding it was really a much more serious affair than was +imagined. It was a deliberately organised conspiracy. When I was leaving +the Lobby, after my amusing interview with Mr. MacNeill, in which he +told me that I was "technically assaulted," Chief Inspector Horsley took +me down a private passage, and informed me that he had been looking for +me, as he had discovered there was a conspiracy to attack me, and at +that moment nine or ten Members from Ireland were in the passage +downstairs, out of which I would have in the ordinary course gone +through, lying in wait for me. So I left with him by another door. + +[Illustration: NOTE FROM SIR FRANK LOCKWOOD, AFTER READING THE BOGUS +ACCOUNT OF THE "ASSAULT."] + +In this I was not more to blame than other caricaturists, but I was more +in evidence, and was selected to be "technically assaulted," so as to +force me to bring an action, in which all papers, except those +supporting the Irish Party, would have been attacked and discussed, and +their influence if possible injured for purely political purposes. An +aggrieved person, smarting under a gross injustice, does not +"technically assault" the aggressor. Had Mr. McNeill tried it on with +me, weak and ill as I was, I think I had enough power to oblige him; as +it happened, I only saw the humour of the thing. + +[Illustration: LETTER SUPPOSED TO COME FROM LORD CROSS. (LOCKWOOD'S +JOKE.)] + +One of the most amusing sketches I received was this from Sir Frank +Lockwood. Lockwood and I frequently exchanged caricatures, as shown by +the clever sketches I introduce here and there in these pages. Sometimes +he sent me some chaffing note written in a disguised hand, and disguised +drawing; but the latter experiment, although it failed to deceive, +certainly entertained me greatly. Here is a letter supposed to be from +Lord Cross, a favourite subject of mine when he was in the Lower House. +Seldom a week passed but I made his nose shorter and his upper lip +longer, made his head stick out, and his spectacles glisten. Did he +object? No, no! "Grand Cross" is a man of the world; nor was he ever a +mere notoriety-seeking political adventurer. I once met him at dinner, +and we chatted over my caricatures of him, and I recollect his saying, +"A man is not worth anything if he is thin-skinned, and certainly not +worth much if he cannot enjoy a joke at his own expense." + +Sir Frank Lockwood whiled away the weary hours in Parliament to his own +amusement and those around him, but he was not aware perhaps that what +he did was seen from the Ladies' Gallery. The ladies got a birdseye view +of his caricatures in progress. One in particular was the cause of much +amusement, not only to the ladies, but to the Members. My lady informant +related the incident to me thus: "I always watch Mr. Lockwood sketching, +and I saw he had his eye on the burly figure of a friend of mine sitting +on the Ministerial bench. Mr. Gladstone turned round to say something to +him, and his quick eye detected Mr. Lockwood sketching. The artistic +Q.C. handed the sketch (which I saw was a caricature of the late Lord +Advocate) to Mr. Gladstone, who fairly doubled up with laughter, and +handed it to those on either side of him. Eventually it was sent over to +Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Balfour, and they thoroughly enjoyed the +caricature of themselves, as did all their Tory friends. But _we_ had +seen it first!" It may have been this sketch subsequently sent to me and +redrawn in _Punch_. + +I recall an incident which happened one evening when I was on watch in +the Inner Lobby to find and sketch a newly-elected M.P., who, I heard, +was about to make his maiden speech, and it was most important I should +catch him. Just as I was going up to the Press Gallery, Sir Frank +Lockwood came into the Lobby and offered to get me a seat under the +Gallery where I could see the new M.P. to advantage. The new M.P. was +"up," so Lockwood went into the House to fetch me the Sergeant's order. +I waited impatiently for his return; a long time passed; still I waited. +A smiling Member came out of the House, and I asked him if he had seen +Lockwood. "Oh, rather," he replied, smiling still; "I've just been +sitting by him, watching him make a capital caricature of a chap making +his maiden speech." When the Member had finished his speech, Lockwood +ran out, and cheeringly apologised to me for his absent-mindedness. "So +tempting, you know, old chap, I couldn't resist sketching him!" + +Sir Frank Lockwood was perhaps the most favourable modern specimen of +the buoyant amateur. Possessing a big heart, kindly feeling, a brilliant +wit, and a facile pen, he treated art as his playfellow and never as his +master. And in the spirit in which his work was executed so must it be +judged. The work of an amateur artist possessing a distinct vein of +humour is, in my opinion, far more entertaining than that of the +professional caricaturist, the former being absolutely spontaneous and +untrammelled by the conscientiousness of subsequent publication, of +correct draughtsmanship, made only from impressions of the moment, and +not the effort (as in the case of many a professional humorist) of +having to be funny to order. + +An excellent example of the amateur at his best is to be found in the +drawings of Sir Frank Lockwood. No one would resent less than Lockwood +himself having the term "amateur" applied to his work; indeed, he would, +I am sure, have felt proud to be classed in the same category as several +of our most popular humorous artists. + +[Illustration: SIR F. LOCKWOOD.] + +Circumstances connected with a curious coincidence concerning a +caricature (what alliteration!) are worth confirming. + +One morning I was taking my usual horse exercise round the ride in the +inner circle of Regent's Park, before that spot, once the quiet haunt of +the horseman, became the noisy ring of the cyclist. At that time a few +cycling beginners used the circle for practice, and their alarming +performances were gradually depleting the number of equestrians. One of +these novices came down the hill, having an arm round the neck of his +instructor, and one leg on the pedal, the other in mid air. He was +unable to steer the machine, and as I cantered up, the performer's hat, +which had been over one eye, fell off, disclosing the features of +Professor Bryce. The next moment the machine, its rider and his +instructor, were "all of a heap" on the ride up which my horse was +cantering. I had just time to jump my horse on to the path and thus +save my own neck, and the life of the energetic Member of Parliament, +who I noticed later in the day, when sitting in the Press Gallery, was +on the front Opposition bench, next to Sir Frank Lockwood, quite +unconcerned. I made a rough sketch of the incident of the morning, and +sent it down to my brother Two Pins, Sir Frank, with a request that his +friend Bryce should in future select some other spot to practise +bicycling. This was handed to Lockwood just as he was leaving the House, +strange to say, on his way home to dress for a dinner at Professor +Bryce's. Lockwood mischievously placed the sketch in the pocket of his +dress coat, and at the dinner led up to the subject of cycling, +suggesting at the same time that his host ought to try it. + +"Well, strange to say, Lockwood, I've been seriously thinking of it, but +I don't know how one should begin." + +"Don't you?" cried Lockwood from the other end of the table. "What do +you say to this, nearly killing my friend Harry Furniss!" And my +caricature was produced and handed down from guest to guest, to the +chagrin of the host. That was Lockwood's version of the coincidence. + +[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL'S SUGGESTION, AND MY SKETCH OF IT IN +_PUNCH_.] + +Suggestions for _Punch_ came to me from most unexpected quarters, but +were rarely of any use. Lewis Carroll--like every one else--got excited +over the Gladstonian crisis, and Sir William Harcourt's head to Lewis +Carroll was much the same as Charles the First's to Mr. Dick in "David +Copperfield," for I find in several letters references to Sir William. + + "_Re_ Gladstone's head and its recent growth, couldn't you make a + picture of it for the 'Essence of Parliament'? I would call it 'Toby's + Dream of A.D. 1900,' and have Gladstone addressing the House, with his + enormous head supported by Harcourt on one side, and Parnell on the + other." + +This suggestion is the only one I adopted. Strange to say, neither +Gladstone, Parnell, nor Lewis Carroll lived to see 1900. + + "Is that anecdote in the papers _true_, that some one has sent you a + pebble with an accidental (and not a 'doctored') likeness of Harcourt? + If so, let me suggest that your most _graceful_ course of action will be + to have it photographed, and to present prints of it to any authors + whose books you may at any time chance to illustrate!" + +This is the "anecdote": + + "Someone found on the seashore the other day a pebble moulded exactly on + the lines of Mr. Furniss' portrait of Sir William Harcourt." + +Other notices were in verse. This from _Vanity Fair_ is the best: + + "For Fame, 'tis said, Sir William craves, + And to some purpose he has sought her; + His face is fashioned by the waves: + When will his name be 'writ in water'?" + +I lay under a charge of plagiarism. Nature had "invented" my Harcourt +portrait, and had been at work upon it probably before I was born; the +wild waves had by degrees moulded a shell into the familiar features, +and when completed had left the sea-sculptured sketch high and dry on +the coast. I now publish, with thanks, a photo-reproduction of the shell +(not a pebble) as I received it: it is not in any way "doctored." It is +a large, weather-beaten shell. + +[Illustration: NATURE'S PUZZLE PORTRAIT.] + +There is no doubt but that at one time Lewis Carroll studied _Punch_, +for in one of his earliest letters to me he writes: + + "To the best of my recollection, one of the first things that suggested + to me the wish to secure your help was a marvellously successful picture + in _Punch_ of a House of Lords entirely composed of Harcourts, where the + figures took all possible attitudes, and gave all possible views of the + face; yet each was a quite unmistakable Sir William Harcourt!" + +Again he refers to _Punch_ (March, 1890): + + "A wish has been expressed in our Common Room (Christ's Church, Oxford), + where we take in and bind _Punch_, that we could have 'keys' to the + portraits in the Bishop of Lincoln's Trial and the 'ciphers' in + Parliament" (a Parliamentary design of mine, "The House all Sixes and + Sevens"). "Will you confer that favour on our Club? If you would give me + them done roughly, I will procure copies of those two numbers, and + subscribe the names in small MS. print, and have the pages bound in to + face the pictures. The simplest way would be for you to put numbers on + the faces, and send a list of names numbered to correspond." + +Yet a few years brought a change (October, 1894): + + "No doubt it is by your direction that three numbers of your new + periodical have come to me. With many thanks for your kind thought, I + will beg you not to waste your bounties on so unfit a recipient, for I + have neither time nor taste for any such literature. I have much more + work yet to do than I am likely to have life to do it in--and my taste + for comic papers is _defunct_. We take in _Punch_ in our Common Room, + but I never look at it!" + +Hardly a generous remark to make to a _Punch_ man who had illustrated +two of his books, and considering that Sir John Tenniel had done so much +to make the author's reputation, and _Punch_ had always been so +friendly; but this is a bygone. + + + PUNCH AT PLAY. + +[Illustration: W] + +Well, Sir John, the Grand Old Man of _Punch_, the evergreen, the +ever-delightful Sir John, has earned a night's repose after all his long +day of glorious work and good-fellowship. "A great artist and a great +gentleman": truer words were never spoken. It seems but yesterday he and +I took our rides together; but yesterday he and I and poor +Milliken--three _Punch_ men in a boat--were "squaring up" at Cookham +after a week's delightful boating holiday on the Thames. + +[Illustration] + + "There sat three oarsmen under a tree, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + They were as puzzled as puzzled could be, + With a down; + And one of them said to his mate, + 'We've got these mems in a doose of a state,' + With a down derry, derry down! + + "Oh, they were wild, these oarsmen three, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + Especially one with the white puggree, + With a down; + For it's precious hard to divide by three + A sum on whose total you can't agree, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "They bit their pencils and tore their hair, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + But those blessed bills, they wouldn't come square, + With a down; + 'Midst muddle and smudge it is hard to fix + If a six is a nine or a nine is a six, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "A crumpled account from a pocket of flannel + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + With dirt in dabs, and the rain in a channel, + With a down, + Is worse to decipher than uniform text, + Oh, that is the verdict of oarsmen vext, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "A man in a boat his ease will take, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + But financial conscience at last will wake, + With a down; + Then Nemesis proddeth the prodigal soul + When he finds that the parts are much more than the whole, + With a down derry, derry down! + + "Those oarsmen are having a deuce of a time, + Down, a-down, a-down--hey down! + The man in the puggree is ripe for crime, + With a down. + Now heaven send every boating man + For keeping accounts a more excellent plan, + With a down derry, derry down!" + +So pencilled poet Milliken. "The man in the puggree" is Sir John,--ripe +for many years to come, and when he has another banquet, may I be there +to see. + +_The Two Pins Club_ was a _Punch_ institution. + +Original notice of + + "THE TWO PINS CLUB. + + "There are Coaching Clubs, Four-in-hand Clubs, Tandem Clubs, and + Sporting Clubs of all sorts, but there is no _Equestrian Club_. + + "The object of the present proposed Club is to supply this want. + + "The Members will meet on Sundays, and ride to some place within + easy reach of town: there lunch, spend a few hours, and return. + + "Due notice will be given of each 'Meet,' and replies must be sent in to + the Secretary by Wednesday afternoon at latest. When it is considered + necessary, Luncheon will be ordered beforehand for the party, and those + who have neglected to reply by the time fixed, and who do not attend the + Meet, will be charged with their share of the Luncheon. + + "There will be other Meets besides those on Sundays, which will be + arranged by the Members from time to time. + + "The title of the Club is taken from the names of the two most celebrated + English Equestrians known to 'the road,' viz.:-- + + "'DICK TURPIN' + + AND + + "'JOHN GILPIN.' + + "The Members of 'THE TWO PINS' will represent all the dash of the one + and all the respectability of the other. + + "The original Members at present are:-- + + MR. F. C. BURNAND. + MR. JOHN TENNIEL. + MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE. + MR. HARRY FURNISS. + MR. R. LEHMANN. + + "It is not proposed at first to exceed the number of twelve. The other + names down for invitation to become members are-- + + MR. FRANK LOCKWOOD, Q.C., M.P. + MR. JOHN HARE.[3] + SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, Q.C., M.P. + + "We hope you will join. The eight Members can then settle a convenient + day for the first Meet, and inaugurate the TWO PINS CLUB. + + [3] "N.B. No hounds." + +[Illustration: LORD RUSSELL'S ACCEPTANCE TO DINE WITH ME.] + +The Two Pins Club was started in 1890, and flourished until its +President, Lord Russell, was elevated to the Bench. My only claim for +distinction in connection with it rests on the fact that I was the only +member who, except when I was in mid-Atlantic on my return from the +States, never missed a meet. Were the Club now a going concern, I would, +of course, refrain from mentioning it, but as it is referred to in the +"History of _Punch_" by Mr. Spielmann, and in "John Hare, Comedian," by +Mr. Pemberton, I may be pardoned and also forgiven for repeating the one +joke ever made public in connection with this remarkable Club. + +One afternoon our cavalcade was approaching Weybridge, which had been +the scene of the boyish pranks of one of our members. To the amusement +of us all, this brother Two Pins, as reminiscences of the district were +recalled to him by one object and another, grew terribly excited. + +"Ah, my boys, there is the dear old oak tree under which I smoked my +first cigarette! And there, where the new church stands, I shot my first +snipe. Dear me, how all is altered! I wonder if old Sir Henry Tomkins +still lives in the Lodge there, and what has become of the Rector's +pretty daughter?" etc. + +Sir Frank Lockwood, observing lettering on the side of a house, "General +Stores," casually asked our excited reminiscent friend if he "knew a +General Stores about these parts?" + +"General Stores! Of course I do, but he was only a Captain when I lived +here!" + +When the members lunched at The Durdans our host and honorary member, +Lord Rosebery, remarked that it was a Club of "one joke and one horse!" +the fact being that we all drove over from Tadworth, Lord Russell's +residence, where we were staying, with the exception of Lord Russell +himself, who rode. We had, of course, each a horse: some of the members +a great deal more than one, but we were careful to trot out one joke +between us: "General Stores" became our general and only story. + +The first public announcement respecting the Club appeared in the _Daily +Telegraph_, the 4th of May, 1891: + +"The T.P.C. held its first annual meeting at the 'Star and Garter Hotel' +yesterday morning. There was a full attendance of members. Under the +careful and conciliatory guidance of the President, Sir Charles Russell, +supported mainly by Mr. F. C. Burnand, Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Harry +Furniss, Mr. Edward Lawson, Mr. Charles Mathews, Mr. John Hare, Mr. +Linley Sambourne, and Mr. R. Lehmann (hon. sec.), the customary +business was satisfactorily transacted, and the principal subjects for +discussion were dealt with in a spirit of intelligent self-control. Mr. +Arthur Russell was unanimously elected a member of the association, +which in point of numbers is now complete." + +[Illustration: _This sketch is a propos of Mr. Linley Sambourne's +portrait in "Vanity Fair." Note refers to his being made +Solicitor-General._] + +[Illustration] + +But the object of the Club being carefully concealed, much mystery +surrounds its name. Few were aware that it was merely a band of +"Sontag-Reiters." Our hon. sec., being at the time prominent in +politics, received congratulations from those who imagined the T.P.C. +was a political association, and much wonderment was excited by the +decidedly enigmatical appellation of the small and select society. Sir +Edward Lawson showed marked ingenuity in retaining the mystery by his +paragraphs in his paper. The first meet of our second season was the +only one I missed during the years the Club existed: + +"The first meeting of the T.P.C. for the season of 1892 took place +yesterday at the 'Star and Garter Hotel,' under the presidency of Sir +Charles Russell, who was assisted in the performance of his duties by +Mr. Frank Lockwood, Mr. Linley Sambourne, Mr. Edward Lawson, and Mr C. +W. Mathews. The arrangements for the season were completed, and a digest +was made of the subjects which claimed the immediate consideration of +the members. The President called attention to a delay which had +occurred in the fulfilment of certain artistic duties which had been +entrusted to Mr. Harry Furniss and Mr. Linley Sambourne, and which had +been retarded in their accomplishment by Mr. Furniss' voyage to America. +But it was understood that immediate attention would now be bestowed +upon the work in hand; and the remainder of the business was of a +routine character." + +[Illustration: MR. LINLEY SAMBOURNE.] + +The "artistic duties" referred to, I have no recollection of, but I know +that at our preliminary meeting, when all matters, artistic and +otherwise, were discussed and arranged, the two following important +resolutions were proposed, seconded, and carried unanimously:-- + + "That Mr. Rudolph Lehmann be elected Permanent Secretary, and that the + duty of sending out all notices convening the Meets of the T.P.C., as + well as all arrangements connected with the Club, be entrusted to him; + and that every notice of meeting be posted and prepaid by him eight + lunar, or at least three calendar, days before the date of each Meet; + and further, that records in a neat and clerkly style of each and every + Meet be faithfully kept by the said Secretary, and be at all times open + for the inspection of each and every member of the T.P.C." + + "That Mr. Linley Sambourne shall provide at his own expense the + notepaper and envelopes required for the business of the Club, and shall + invent and draw a design, which design, also at his own expense, he + shall cause to be stamped or otherwise engraved on the said notepaper + and envelopes, and shall cause the said notepaper so stamped or + engraved to be forwarded to the Perpetual President, the Permanent + Secretary, and the other members, for use in connection only with the + business of the Club." + + "It was further resolved that all maps and charts be kept at the + Secretary's Office, and in the event of any dispute, the Ordnance Map or + the Admiralty Chart shall be decisive." + + +But during the existence of the Club there never was any cause to refer +to an Ordnance Map or Admiralty Chart. There never was a Secretary's +Office, nor did Mr. Linley Sambourne either design or provide the +notepaper or envelopes, nor are there any records in existence, either +printed or written "in a neat and clerkly style," of the merry meetings +of this unique Club. It ran its delightful and dangerous course, its +wild career, unmarred by any dispute or accident. The last "meet" was to +dine Lord Russell on his elevation to the Bench. + +[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF ME AS A MEMBER OF THE TWO PINS CLUB, BY +LINLEY SAMBOURNE.] + +I shall never forget the first occasion on which I saw the late Lord +Russell. It was in the old days when the Law Courts were in +Westminster,--and I, in search of "character," strangely enough found +myself wandering about the Divorce Court, where so many characters are +lost. It was a _cause celebre_,--the divorce suit of a most +distinguished Presbyterian cleric who charged his wife, the +co-respondent being the stable-boy. Russell (then plain Mr.) was for the +clergyman, and when I entered the crowded court, he was in the midst of +his appeal to the jury, working himself up to a pitch of eloquence, +appealing to all to look upon the saintly figure of the man of prayer +(the plaintiff, who was playing the part by kneeling and clasping his +hands), and asking the jury to scorn all idea of his client having any +desire to free himself of his wife so as to marry his pretty governess, +or cousin, or whomever it was suggested he most particularly admired. +Russell had arrived at quoting Scripture,--he was at his best, austere, +eloquent, persuasive, an orator, a gentleman, a great advocate, and as +sanctimonious as his kneeling client. + +[Illustration: THE LATE LORD RUSSELL, THE PRESIDENT OF THE TWO PINS +CLUB.] + +He was interrupted by someone handing him a telegram. As he opened it he +said, waving it towards his client, "This may be a message from Heaven +to that saint,--ah, gentlemen of the jury, the words so +pure--so--so----" (he reads the telegram). + +"D----! D----! D----!" He crushed the telegram in his hand, and with an +angry gesture threw it away. Although his words were drowned by the +"laughter in Court," his gestures and face showed his chagrin and +disgust. The Grand National had been run half-an-hour before. + +Years afterwards, on his own lawn at Tadworth, I told him of this +incident, and asked him what the contents of that telegram were. He +declared I was wrong, such an incident never occurred in his career. I +convinced him I was right--it was the first time I saw him, and every +detail was vividly impressed upon my memory. After dinner he came to me +and said, "Furniss, I have been thinking over that incident. You are +quite right--it has all come back to me. I lost my temper, I recollect, +because I had wired to my boy over there to make a bet for me on an +outsider at a long price; when at lunch, I heard the horse had won. I +was delighted, and therefore at my best when I addressed the jury. The +telegram was from my boy to say that he forgot to put the money on!" + +Riding has caused my appearance in a Police Court, but not as a member +of the Two Pins Club. In October, 1895, I was returning from my usual +ride before breakfast, accompanied by my little daughter; we turned into +the terrace in which we live, and our horses cantered up the hill about +120 yards. As we were dismounting, a Police Inspector passed, addressing +me by name, and in a most offensive tone declared that he would summon +me, as I had been cautioned before for furious riding. This remark was +so absolutely untrue that I met the summons, and the Inspector in the +Court made three distinct statements on oath: That I spurred my horse +(when cross-examined by me, he gave a minute description of my spurs); +that I charged up the hill 250 yards at the rate of sixteen miles an +hour; and that I had been cautioned before for the same thing. Now, I +have never been cautioned in my life; the distance I went up the hill is +120 yards, and no horse could get up any pace in that distance; and I do +not wear spurs, although two constables swore I did. + +The magistrate, face to face with these three facts, looked the picture +of misery. It was evident to him, as it must be evident to every +fair-minded man, that the police were in the wrong. And when the +magistrate was thinking out this dilemma, I made a fatal mistake. I gave +my reason for appearing as a sacrifice on my part to show the magistrate +the sort of evidence upon which poor cabmen and others are fined and +made to suffer. The magistrate, Mr. Plowden, waxed very wroth, and as he +could not punish me, and would not reprimand the police, I was asked to +pay the costs of the summons, which was withdrawn. The late Mr. Montagu +Williams, who sat in the Marylebone Police Court, the court in which I +was charged with furious riding, gave it as his private opinion that the +longer a policeman was in the service the less he could rely upon his +word. + +[Illustration: "FURIOUS RIDING." SKETCH BY F. C. GOULD. + _From the "Westminster Gazette._"] + +This case led to all sorts of trouble. I was assailed by people in the +street, strangers to me, for "riding over children." Letters came from +all sorts of societies--Cruelty to Animals, and other excellent +institutions. I found people measuring the terrace; others riding up it +to see if it were possible to get the pace (which it is not), but few +knew the truth. The constable when I left the court remarked to me, +"I'll tache ye to caricature Oirishmen in Parleymint!" However, I was +repaid by the humour the incident gave rise to in the imagination of my +brother workers on the Press. Mr. F. C. Gould made this capital sketch, +and others portrayed my crime in verse. The following was written to me +by one of London's most celebrated editors, and has never been published +before: + + "H. Furniss was an artist gent + Of credit and renown, + Who'd ride a horse up Primrose Hill + With any man in town. + + "The morn was fine as morn could be + Upon last Thursday week, + And, like the early morn, H. F. + Was up before the beak. + + "(Full little dreamed that worthy cit, + Some dozen mornings hence + He would be 'up before the beak' + In quite another sense.) + + "Upon two tits of pranksome mood, + The gallant Lika Joko + And Likajokalina rode, + 'Desipere in loco.' + + "'Cantare pares' rode the pair, + Ad equitatum nati,' + But to a bobby's summons not + 'Respondere parati.' + + "So 'appy rode the blithesome pair, + They scoured the hill and plain, + And warming with their morning's work, + Rode hotly home again. + + "But by the slope of Primrose Hill + The rude Inspector Ross + Beheld H. Furniss canter up + Upon his foaming hoss. + + "'Look 'ere, young man,' says he to him, + 'There are some children dear + That by the ridin' of you folk + Do go in bod'ly fear. + + "'Your hasting steed pull up, I say! + S'welp me, draw your rein! + The innocents abroad, young man, + Are frightened by you twain. + + "'Look at yer smokin' job 'oss 'ere-- + I seen you job 'is flank! + 'E's well nigh done--tyke 'im away, + And back upon the rank.' + + "H. Furniss fixed him with his eye; + His brow was awful cross; + He Kyrled his lip contemptuous-like + At this rude man of Ross. + + "'The spirit of my gallant cob, + Ruffian, you shall not squelch; + I ride nor Scotch nor Irish hot, + But Furniss-heated Welsh. + + "'Mine and my daughter's gentle pace + Could not affright a foundling; + Be off, and peep down areas, or + Move on some harmless groundling!' + + "The Inspector glared: 'Come, Mr. F., + We can't stand this no longer; + I summons you to Marylebone'-- + (He muttered something stronger). + + * * * * * + + "Good Mr. Plowden heard the charge, + As two policemen swore it; + Then heard H. Furniss' defence, + And sagely pondered o'er it. + + "'The Inspector swears you galloped up; + You swear you merely trotted: + My own opinion in this case + Is, as usual, Gordian-knotted. + + "'Now Gordian knots were tied to be + By magistrates divided; + We cut them--and the severed ends + Do much as once the tied did. + + "'In this case, add the paces up, + And then divide by two: + A canter is the quotient; + I think that that should do. + + "'A sound decision that will please + Both parties this I trust is; + It is a fine distinction, but + Avoids the fires of justice. + + "'You, Mr. Furniss, must disburse + Two bob costs to my till, + And promise me to try no more + Primrose babes to kill. + + "'And all in Court, take warning by + The furious Canterer's fate, + And go not up the Primrose path + At such an awful rate. + + "'But if your sluggish livers you + Must vigorously shake, + "Vigor's Horse Exercise at Home" + (Vide Prospectus) take.'" + + +As a matter of fact, the magistrate did not look at the charge-sheet, +or know me, or catch my name, or he might have made +his usual joke at my expense in another way. + +[Illustration: MY PORTRAIT, BY F. C. BURNAND.] + +Mr. Burnand and I rode a great deal together. Avoiding the Row, my +editor preferred to ride to Hampstead, Harrow, or Mill Hill, calling for +me on the way. Once, when I could not ride, he wrote: "Very sorry to +hear of your being laid up with a cold; it shows what even the Wisest +and Best amongst us are liable to. The idea is monstrous of a _Cold +Furniss_. A _coal'd_ furniss is satisfactory. Don't take too much out of +yourself with riding. 'He speaks to thee who hath not got a +horse'--Shakespeare." Then follows later a specimen of his irrepressible +good humour: + + _22 Nov._ + + "Alas and alack! + I've got a hack, + But the weather's been such, + I've not got on his back. + + "I got no jog + Because of the fog, + And up to twelve, + In breeches and boots, + Which I had to shelve + And recover my foots. + I lunched at the 'G' + (So there was, you see, + One _Gee_ for me). + + "Then I came back + And wrote some play + But oh, good lack! + No riding to-day. + If foggy here, + At Ramsgate 'twas clear. + + "Alas and alack! + I'll sell my hack, + Much to my sorrow. + I'll ride to-morrow, + That is, if fine, + But not at nine. + I shall not start, if I'm alive + And have the heart, till ten forty-five. + + "Away to parks I'll trot + To get a little hot, + Also to get a little dirty, + And with you be 11.30. + + "Till one, + Then done. + Back to Lunch, + Then to Office of _Punch_. + This my plan, you'll be happy to learn, is + At your disposal, Mr. Furniss." + +But excursions in search of material my editor and I had to do on foot, +and were not so pleasing; still, Mr. Burnand always managed to have his +little joke in all circumstances. + +[Illustration] + +One day he and I were "doing" the picture shows in the interests of Mr. +Punch. At one o'clock, feeling jaded and tired, a retreat to the Garrick +Club to lunch was suggested. "Happy thought!" said my editor. "Better +still, here is an invitation for two to the Exhibition of French Cookery +at Willis's Rooms. Capital lunch there, I should think." So off we went, +anticipating a _recherche_ lunch. Fancy our chagrin on arrival to find +cooks galore, discussing their art, but, alas! their art, like the high +art of the Masters of the Brush in our National Gallery, was all under +glass! Aggravatingly appetising, but absolutely uninteresting to the two +hungry art critics. We soon were in a cab and at the Garrick. As we +pulled up, the greatest _gourmet_ of the Club, that clever actor, Arthur +Cecil, greeted us: + +"Hallo, Frank, where have you two come from?" + +"Oh, Arthur, _such_ luck! Furniss and I have just had the most +_recherche_ lunch you could imagine." + +"H'm--hullo--h'm--where? The deuce you have! Lucky dogs! Eh, what was it +like?" + +"Oh, you can see it for yourself; it's going on now at the French +Cookery Exhibition in Willis's Rooms. Special invitation--ah, here's a +ticket." + +"Thanks, old chap! what a treat! I'm off there! No, no; you fellows +mustn't pay the cab--I'll do that. Here, driver--Willis's Rooms--look +sharp!" + +Arthur Cecil undoubtedly was a quaint fellow and a clever actor, but he +had an insatiable appetite. One would never have thought so, judging +from appearance: his clever, clean-cut face, his small, thin figure, +together with the little hand-bag he always carried, rather suggested a +lawyer or a clergyman. His eccentricity was a combination of +absent-mindedness and irritability. The latter failing, he told me, +would at times take complete control of him: for instance, he had to +leave a train before his journey was completed, as he felt it impossible +to sit in the carriage and look at the alarm bell without pulling it. I +have watched him seated in the smoking-room of the club we both +attended, in which the star-light in the centre of the ceiling was +shaded by a rather primitive screen of stretched tissue paper, gazing at +it for half-an-hour at a time, and eventually taking all the coins out +of his pocket to throw them one after another at the immediate object of +his irritation. He frequently succeeded in penetrating the screen, the +coins remaining on the top of it, to the delight of the astonished +waiters. + +His eccentricity--perhaps I ought to say in this case his +absent-mindedness--is illustrated by an incident which happened on the +morning of the funeral of a great friend of his. As Cecil (his real name +was Blount) was having his bath, he was suddenly inspired with some idea +for a song; so, pulling his sponge-bath into the adjoining sitting-room +closer to the piano, he placed a chair in it, and sat down to try it +over. A friend, rushing in to fetch him to the funeral, found him so +seated, singing and playing, balancing the dripping sponge on the top of +his head. + + + THE CARICATURING OF PICTURES. + +[Illustration: THE PICTURE SHOWS. + _Design from "Punch."_] + +To feed upon one's own kind is a custom which, like so many other +vestiges of a previous civilisation, seems in the present day to have a +fair chance of revival. We have long had with us the City Cannibal, the +Fleet Street Cannibal, the Dramatic, Literary and Musical Cannibals. +Latterly the Society Cannibal has come more distinctly to the front. +Then why, I long ago asked myself, should there not be the Cannibal of +the etching pen and the brush? Especially as the writhing victims of +those mighty instruments appear to be so enamoured of their fate as to +besiege that comic slaughter-house, the studio of the caricaturist, and +with persistent cries of "Eat us! eat us! Our turn next!" solicit the +"favour of not being forgotten" in his next batch of "subjects." + +[Illustration] + +It may be a revelation to many of my readers, but I can assure them it +is a fact, that it is only in very exceptional cases that artists object +to having their pictures caricatured. Indeed, many of the leading +painters have given me to understand that the omission of their work +from my sketches would be anything but agreeable to them, although, when +the desired travesties of their pictures appear, they may pretend to be +highly indignant. There is one Royal Academician of my acquaintance who +has so keen an appreciation of humour that he never loses an opportunity +of giving me a hint when his magnifying glass has detected the slightest +element of the grotesque in a fellow artist's work. And that most +amiable of men, the late Frank Holl, could never refrain, when occasion +offered, from directing my attention to the humorous points of his +sitters, although I need hardly add that no trace of his having +perceived them was ever apparent in any of his works. Do artists object? +Well, in _Punch_, May, 1889, du Maurier touches this point: + +"What our artist (the awfully funny one) has to put up with: _Brown_: 'I +say, look here! What the deuce do you mean by caricaturing my +pictures--hay?' _Jones_: 'Yes, confound you! and _not caricaturing +mine_!'" + +I have even known artists so anxious to be parodied that, if they +happened to have a vein of humour in their pencils, they would actually +send me caricatures of their own pictures. Even poor Fred Barnard once +sent me an admirable sketch, caricaturing an excellent portrait of his +three children which he had painted for the Royal Academy, where it duly +appeared. Others less humorously imaginative perhaps have written to me +assuring me of the great pleasure which would have been theirs had they +themselves conceived the idea which my caricature of their work +supplied. + +Although, however, there are so few artists who object to having their +pictures caricatured, there is, of course, another side to the question. +It is indeed most true that nothing kills like ridicule, and in the +course of my experience I have found it is just as easy unconsciously to +inflict an injury with my pen and Indian ink as it is to do good. Let us +suppose, for instance, that a great painter has just finished a very +sentimental work--a picture so brimful of beauty and pathos that it +appeals to everybody, myself included. As I stand before it, and admire, +it is impossible perhaps for me to restrain a sympathetic tear from +making its appearance in, at all events, one of my eyes. But how about +the other? Ah! with regard to that other eye, I must confess it is very +differently employed, and, superior to my control, is searching the +canvas high and low for that "something ridiculous" which, except in the +case of the very greatest masters, is always there. Now what ensues? The +purchaser of that picture, who, mark you, unlike myself, regarded it and +admired it with _both_ of his eyes, congratulates himself upon its +acquisition. I have known it for a fact, however--to my regret--that +after the publication of the caricature the purchaser was never able to +look at his picture again through his own glasses, and bitterly +regretted his outlay. + +[Illustration: THE GREAT BACCARAT CASE. MY SKETCH IN PENCIL MADE IN +COURT, AND CONGRATULATORY NOTE FROM THE EDITOR OF _PUNCH_.] + +An art publisher with whom I was acquainted agreed to pay a heavy sum +for the copyright of a work of a well-known and popular painter, and +after the caricature had appeared in _Punch_ he resolved to forego the +publication of the engraving from it by which he had hoped to recoup his +expenditure, because he considered that the sobriety of the work was so +completely destroyed as to preclude the possibility of sale; and an +eminent sculptor, who was responsible for a well-known statue which I +caricatured some years ago when it appeared in the Royal Academy, has +told me, since it was put up in the Metropolis, that he has actually +meditated replacing it by another piece, owing to the ludicrous +suggestion affixed to it. + +On the other hand, the caricature of an important work is sometimes +received in the proper spirit. Here is a letter from Professor Herkomer, +with reference to my caricature of the work of our greatest art genius, +Alfred Gilbert, R.A.: + +[Illustration] + +Of course, the caricaturing of pictures has its seamy as well as its +smooth side. Among the annoyances to which an artist engaged on this +description of work is exposed I am inclined to give a prominent place +to the fussy and vexatious regulations imposed upon him by the +authorities at Burlington House. One would have supposed, for instance, +that anyone like myself, who is well-known as merely taking notes for +caricature, would have been allowed to consult his own convenience to +some extent in making his sketches. But not a bit of it. The penalty is +something too dreadful if you are found making the slightest note of a +picture at the Royal Academy at any other time than on the one appointed +day. The object of this regulation is, of course, to protect the +copyright of the pictures--a very proper and legitimate precaution; but +I submit that a better instance of the spirit of Red Tapeism which is so +rampant at Burlington House, and which I am always endeavouring to +expose, could not be adduced than the inability of the officials to +discriminate between the accredited representative of a paper and the +piratical sketcher who is taking notes for an illegitimate purpose. I +need hardly say that this regulation is peculiar to the Royal Academy. +At the Grosvenor Gallery, which, alas! is no more, the officials about +the place understood these matters better, and at all times were pleased +to give every facility to the representative of the Press. The polite +secretary would give up his chair to me any day I liked to look in, and +would often point out to me some comical feature in the surrounding +canvases which his sly humour had detected. + +[Illustration: A PRISONER.] + +Equal praise must indeed be accorded to the management of the New +Gallery and all the other Exhibitions with which I have been brought in +contact in the course of my professional duties. Personally, as I have +always made my notes at the Royal Academy on the authorised occasion, I +have had nothing to fear from those who preside there. But my friend +Linley Sambourne, who wished upon one occasion to caricature a picture +of Burne-Jones' for a political cartoon in _Punch_ (of course altering +the figures and indeed everything else, so as not in any way to trench +upon the great artist's copyright) was dogged by a detective, arrested, +and finally thrown into the darkest dungeon beneath the Burlington House +moat! Protest was useless. What his terror must have been my pen fails +to describe. Visions of the thumbscrew, the rack, and all the tortures +conceivable rose in the fertile imagination of my colleague, and beads +of perspiration made their appearance upon his massive brow. After weary +hours, when lunch-time without the lunch had come and gone, and the +pangs of hunger began to be added to his other miseries, when he was +reflecting that his week's work for _Punch_ was yet unfinished, that the +engravers would be in despair at not having it in time, and that at that +moment his editor was probably telegraphing to him all over London and +instituting a search for his person all over his club, suddenly the +bolts of his prison-chamber were withdrawn and his gaoler, the +blood-thirsty tyrant Red Tape, allowed the genial artist to return to +the bosom of his wife and family--not, however, without leaving a +hostage behind him. The sketch--the guilty sketch--the cause of all his +troubles, was detained. In vain the harassed artist explained to his +grim Cerberus that the work was wanted for the next week's issue of +_Punch_, and although as a matter of fact it duly appeared at the +appointed time, Mr. Sambourne had to trust to his memory instead of to +the courtesy and common sense of Burlington House for the reproduction +of his skit. + +I remember another incident which will serve to illustrate the trials +and misfortunes of the caricaturist when pursuing his vocation outside +the walls of his studio. It was the opening day of the New Gallery, and +as I draw my sketches of the pictures with an ordinary pen and liquid +Indian ink direct, and have them afterwards, like all my drawings, +photographed on wood and engraved--of late years they are reproduced by +process engraving--I was holding my bottle of ink and my sketch-book in +one hand, while my pen was busy with the other. Upon arriving very early +in the morning I thought I must have made a mistake, and that I had +entered a manufactory of hats, for the hall was almost entirely taken up +with hat-boxes. Upon enquiry, however, I learned that these merely +contained the new hats in which the directors would, later on, receive +their visitors. When the hall began to fill, and the fashionable crowd +was pouring in, I was standing in the central lobby, sketching away with +a will, when my friend Sir William Agnew, always early to arrive on such +occasions, happened to come up and soon interested me in conversation +about the genius of Millais and the beauties of Burne-Jones. In my +energetic manner I was debating a matter of some little interest when my +eye caught that of Mr. Comyns-Carr, who, with his newly-selected hat on, +was standing close by and regarding me with an expression of +indescribable horror. "What is the matter with Carr?" I observed to +Agnew; "surely Sargent should be here and hand down that expression to +posterity." But when I followed his eyes as they passed sternly from +mine to the floor, my hat nearly sprang off my head at the sight which I +beheld! Forgetting that I held the bottle of ink in the hand with which +I had been suiting the action to the word in my animated harangue to Sir +William, I had splashed the virgin marble on which we were standing in +all directions with hideous stains of the blackest of liquids. In my +consternation I did not stay to see the incongruous figure of the +charwoman and bucket who was immediately introduced amid the _elite_ of +fashionable London, but fled incontinently from the gallery and, rushing +in where angels fear to tread, sought sanctuary in my accustomed haunt, +the Gallery of the House of Commons. There at least I thought I should +be safe. Presently, when I had somewhat recovered from my agitation, I +was making my way out of the House when I encountered a friend in the +Central Lobby. I was explaining to him the unfortunate _contretemps_ +which had occurred at the New Gallery, and utterly forgot that I still +held the bottle of ink in my hand, and on the sacred floor we stood upon +I had perpetrated the offence again! + +My only consolation for this chapter of accidents was that the +particular ink in my bottle is different from the ordinary writing +fluid, and leaves no stain behind it. It is in fact merely paint, and is +innocent of gall. There are inks, as there are other forms of +journalism, whose consequences are not so easily effaced or so harmless; +but like the caricaturist's work itself, the material with which it is +accomplished often looks blacker than it really is. + +[Illustration: ORIGINAL IDEA AS SENT TO ME. + MY DRAWING OF IT IN _PUNCH_.] + +Fortunately all this happened previous to the introduction of the ink I +use now, known as _Waterproof_ ink--ink that will not _run_ when washed +over with water. The manufacturers of this article sent me a specimen +bottle to experiment with, and asked me for my opinion of it. In +replying, I sent the following note. The sketch was touched in to amuse +my youngest boy, who was puzzled by the meaning of Waterproof ink. The +makers, in acknowledging the note, asked me to mention the sum I would +accept if, with my permission, they used the note and sketch I sent as +an advertisement. I replied that they were welcome to use my note, but +that I could not accept payment. However I received in a few days a +large parcel of artists' materials: paints, sketch-books, brushes, +pencils, &c. + +[Illustration] + +This is more than I ever received for a better known advertisement: "I +used your soap two years ago." I was never offered so much as a cake of +soap from those who used my _Punch_ sketch so freely! Permission was +given for its use by the proprietors of _Punch_, not knowing I had any +objection, and at the time I was ill with fever and unable to protest. +The firm certainly paid me some years afterwards for the publication of +the same advertisement for two insertions in a periodical I was +starting, but only at the ordinary rate. I mention this fact as I have +heard from friends all over the world that I received untold gold for +the use of it, and as it has interested so many perhaps I may at the +same time clear up another fallacy, which I did not know existed until +I read Mr. Spielmann's "History of _Punch_." In that he refers to the +very "oft-quoted drawing (lately used as an advertisement), the idea of +which reached him from an anonymous correspondent. It is that of a +grimy, unshaven, unwashed, mangy-looking tramp, who sits down to write, +with a broken quill, a testimonial for a firm of soap-makers. A further +point of interest about this famous sketch was that Charles Keene was +deeply offended by it at first, in the groundless belief that it was +intended as a skit upon himself. It must at least be admitted that the +head is not unlike what one might have expected to belong to a +dissipated and dilapidated Charles Keene." Poor Keene! How sorry I was +to read this when too late to explain to him that he was never in my +mind for a moment when I was drawing it! But, strange to say, the +original who sat for it was a brother artist, another Charles, quite as +delightful as Keene, equally clever in his own way, and my greatest +friend--Charles Burton Barber, the animal painter, in appearance rather +like Charles Keene, but nothing of the Bohemian about him, and a +non-smoker! Still I am always being told that I had So-and-so in my eye +when drawing the figure. I might in truth quote Sir John Tenniel's +remark _a propos_ of being accused of caricaturing his late comrade, +Horace Mayhew, as the "White Knight" in "Alice in Wonderland": "The +resemblance was purely accidental, a mere unintentional caricature, +which his _friends_, of course, were only too delighted to make the most +of." Ah, those _friends_ are at the bottom of all these +misunderstandings. I could a tale, or two, unfold, but that--that's +another volume. + +[Illustration: I SIT FOR JOHN BROWN.] + +Yes, poor Barber sat for the tramp, and I in return sat to him for a +figure quite as incongruous in my case as the tramp was in his. I sat +for John Brown for the picture Queen Victoria had commissioned of Mr. +Brown surrounded by her pet dogs, which she had in her private room. She +was so delighted with the picture that she had a replica made of it, and +placed it in the passage outside, so that it was the first picture she +looked at as she left her room. Barber's animals and children were +delightful, but he was weak with his men, and was in trouble over John +Brown's calves,--it was then that I posed for the "brawny Scott," but +only for the portion here mentioned. + +[Illustration: A CRIB BY AN AMERICAN ADVERTISER.] + +This figure of the tramp in my sketch of "I used your soap two years +ago" has in fact been mistaken for myself. A relative of my own, who has +been living in the Cape for many years, paid a visit to London, and on +his return informed his children that he had seen me and brought my +portrait back with him. "Oh, we have Cousin Harry's portrait in our +nursery for some time: one he has signed too." It was the Punch-Pears +production in colour! I am sure I do not know how ridiculous stories are +received as true, that I got a fabulous sum for the use of this one; +that such-and-such a member of the staff gets a huge retaining fee, &c., +and other inventions--one in particular. If I have met one, I have met a +score of people at different times of my life who positively declared +that they actually sent that ever famous line: "Punch's advice to those +about to marry--Don't!" and received immediately remuneration in sums +varying from L5 to L500. That joke was probably conceived and thrown in +at the last moment, at the critical point when the editor is "making up" +the paper. + +As I am writing these disjointed notes for family reading, it may +perhaps not be out of place just to refer to the domestic relations of +the staff of _Punch_. Our wives and families were invited to meet on the +occasion of the Lord Mayor's procession, when they may have been +observed upon the roof of the publishing office--till recently it was in +Fleet Street--from which coign of vantage they had an excellent view of +the civic show, afterwards having a capital lunch in a room on the first +floor. Yet how much men who live on their wits owe to their domestic +happiness! It is a pleasant fact to be able to chronicle that--I believe +at all times--the domestic lives of the _Punch_ staff have been most +happy. It is rather curious that all of them have made the same kind of +matrimonial selection--they have married "sensible wives," women who +have all been sympathetic, devoted, bright, and domesticated. The wit at +the dinner-table, the humorous writer or the caricaturist in the pages +you read, is a very different dog at home. It must naturally be so. It +is the reaction, and it is to such men that the woman possessed of tact +and cheerfulness is invaluable. In truth, Punch's advice to those about +to marry, "Don't!" has been disregarded by the majority of his members, +in every case with the utmost satisfaction to themselves. + +[Illustration: BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND +TONBRIDGE.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Confessions of a Caricaturist, +Vol. 1 (of 2), by Harry Furniss + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONFESSIONS OF A CARICATURIST *** + +***** This file should be named 29425.txt or 29425.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/2/29425/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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