thoroughly sincere, and that they say even more out of my hearing than to my face.”
The Sultan Abdul Aziz and the Khedive Ismail paid a visit to London that year. We were in the midst of the festivities; and such church-bell ringing, fireworks, musical uproar, especially at the Crystal Palace, where the “Hallelujah,” “Moses in Egypt,” and other Biblical choruses vied with the cheering of the crowds in expressions of exultation, seldom had London known. This fills pages and pages of the Diary. As we looked on from Willis and Sotheran’s shop window, out of which all the books had been cleared for us, in Trafalgar Square, at the arrival of the “Father of the Faithful,” it seemed a strange thing for the bells of our churches to be pealing forth their joyous welcome. But how vain all these political doings appear as time goes by! What sort of reception would we give the present Sultan I wonder? We have even abolished Khedives. Much more reasonable and sane was the mob’s welcome to the Belgian volunteers, who were also England’s guests that year. We English were very courteous to the Belgians. Papa took us to the great Belgian ball, where we appeared wearing red, black, and yellow sashes. He offered to hold a Belgian officer’s sword for him while he (the Belgian) waltzed me round the hall. A silver medal was struck to commemorate this visit, and every Belgian was presented with this decoration. On it were engraved the words “Vive La Belge.” No one could tell who the lady was.
This year saw my meek beginning in the showing of an oil picture (“Horses in Sunshine”) at the Women Artists’ Exhibition, and then followed a water colour, “Bavarian Artillery going into Action,” at the Dudley Gallery – that delightful gallery which is now no more and which The Times designated the “nursery of young reputations.” I continued exhibiting water colours and black-and-whites for some years there. I had the rare sensation of walking on air when my father, meeting me on parting with Tom Taylor, the critic of The Times, told me the latter had just come from the Dudley’s press view and seen my “Bavarian Artillery” on its walls. I had begun!
In the latter part of this year’s work at South Kensington Mr. Burchett stirred us up by giving us “time” and “memory” drawing to do from the antique, and many things which required quickness, imagination and concentration, all of which suited me well. Charcoal studies on tinted paper delighted me. I was always at home in such things. We often had “time” drawings to do on very rough paper, using charcoal with the hog’s hair paint brush. What a good change from the dawdling chalk work formerly in vogue when I joined. I had by this time painted my way in oils through many models, male and female, with all the ups and downs recorded elaborately, the encouragements and depressions, and the happy, though slow, progress in the management of the brush. I had won a medal for two life-size female heads in oils, and through all the ups and downs the devotion of my dear “Red Cross” fellow students never fluctuated.
The year 1868 saw me steadily working away at the Schools and doing a great many drawings for sketching clubs and various competitions during this period, till we were off once more to Italy in October. On March 19th of that year I wrote in the Diary: “Ruskin has invited himself to tea here on Monday!!!” Then: “Memorable Monday. On thee I was introduced to Ruskin! Punctually at six came the great man. If I had been disposed to be nervous with him, his cold formal bow and closing of the eyes, his somewhat supercilious under-lip and sensitive nostrils would not have put me at my ease. But, fortunately, I felt quite normal – unlike Mamma and Alice, the latter of whom had reason for quaking, seeing that one of her young poems, sent him by a friend, had been scanned by that eye and pondered by that greatest of living minds.
“He sat talking a little, not commonplaces at all; on the contrary, he immediately began on great topics, Mamma and he coinciding all through, particularly on the subject of modern ugliness, railways, factory chimneys, backs of English houses, sash windows, etc., etc. Then he directed his talk to me, and we sat talking together about art, of course, and I showed him two life studies, which he expressed himself as exceedingly pleased with in a very emphatic manner. But here we went down to tea. After tea I showed him my imaginative drawings, which he criticised a good deal. He said there was no reason why I should not become a great artist (!), that I was ‘destined to do great things.’ But he remarked, after this too kindly beginning, that it was evident I had not studied enough from nature in those drawings, the light and shade being incorrect and the relations of tones, etc., etc. He told me to beware of sensational subjects, as yet, à propos of the Lancelot and Guinevere drawing; that such were dangerous, leading me to think I had quite succeeded by virtue of the strength of my subject and to overlook the consideration of minor points. He said, ‘Do fewer of these things, but what you do do right and never mind the subject.’ I did not like that; my great idea is that an artist should choose a worthy subject and concentrate his attention on the chief point. But Ruskin is a lover of landscape art and loves to see every blade of grass in a foreground lovingly dwelt upon. I cannot write down all he said as he and I leant over the piano where my drawings were. But it was with my artillery water colour, ‘The Crest of the Hill,’ that he was most pleased. He knelt down before it where it hung low down and held a candle before it the better to see it, and exclaimed ‘Wonderful!’ two or three times, and said it had ‘immense power.’ Thank you, Dudley Gallery, for not hanging it where Ruskin would never have seen it!
“He listened to Mamma’s playing and Alice’s singing of Mamma’s ‘Ave Maria’ with perfectly absorbed attention, and seemed to enjoy the lovely sounds. He had many kind things to say to Alice about her poem, saying that he knew she was forced to write it; but was she always obliged to write so sadly? Then he spied out Mamma’s pictures, and insisted on seeing lots of her water colours, which I know he must have enjoyed more than my imaginative things, seeing with what humble lovingness Mamma paints her landscapes. In fact, we showed him our paces all the evening. Papa says he (P.) was like the circus man, standing in the middle with the long whip, touching us up as we were trotted out before the great man. He seems, by the by, to have a great contempt for the modern French school, as I expected.”
Daily records follow of steady work, much more to the purpose than in the humdrum old days. Mr. Burchett continued the new system with increasing energy. He seemed to have taken it up in our Life class with real pleasure latterly. In July the session ended, and I was not to re-enter the schools till after my Italian art training had brought me a long way forward.
CHAPTER V
STUDY IN FLORENCE
ITALY once more! Again the old palazzo at Albaro and the old friends surrounding us! My work never relaxed, for I set up a little studio and went in for life-size heads, and got more and more facility with the brush. The kindly peasants let me paint them, and I victimised my obliging friends and had professional models out from Genoa. That was a very greatly enjoyed autumn, winter and spring, and the gaieties of the English Colony, the private theatricals, the concerts at Villa Novello – all those things did me good. The childish carnival revels had still power over me – yea, more– though I was grown up, and, to tell the truth, I got all the fun out of them that was possible within bounds. “The Red Cross Sketch Book,” which I filled with illustrations of our journey out and of life at Genoa, I dedicated to the club and sent to them when we left for Florence.
We found Genoa just as we had left it, still the brilliantly picturesque city of the sea, its populace brightly clad in their Ligurian national dress, the women still wearing the pezzotto, and the men the red cap I loved; the port all delightful with oriental character, its shouting muleteers and facchini, its fruit and flower sellers in the narrow streets and entrances to the palaces – all the old local colour. Alas! I was there only the other day, and found all the local charm had gone – modernised away!
When we left Genoa in April my father tried to get a vetturino to take us as far as Pisa by road on our way to Florence, for auld lang syne, but Antonio – he who used to drive us into Genoa in the old days – said that was now impossible on account of the railway – “Non ci conviene, signore!” – but he would take us as far as Spezzia. So, to our delight, we were able once more to experience
