THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2861, 13 January 1909, Page 78

THE SKETCHER.

A MODERN CHRONICLER. SOME- EMINENT VICTORIANS. Mr J. Comyns Can's ''Some Eminent Victorian >" (Duckworth) is a lifelike chronicle of mi age that already is partially reckoned with the past; and, above all, it abounds in portraits drawn with fidelity, w ith keen powers of analysis ; with such choice of their words and acts Si> to make th&xn live again before you. If anyone wish to have some characteristic movement which reveals one of the great Victorians, he cannot do better than go to this volume. There are few of them that he will not find here so posed — to borrow from another art — that he can read to their depth. The portrait above all others which has appealed to me. from these qualities in the painter who draws it, is that of Miilais. On him Mr Comyns Carr bestows loving j cni-e ; him he seems, above all others, to ! ha/c thoroughly understood as well as ! completely loved; with the result that I find myself nearer to the heart and core j nl this man than ever I did before, than I piclxtbly I should have done if I had had the privilege of knowing him, not briefly but casually as I did, but intimately and tor a length of time. And when you have read the last page that Mr Comyns Carr devotes to him, you come away with an increased sense of the manliness, simplicity, generosity, and true artistic instinct of the man. "Miilais," says Mr Comyns Carr, "had about him, as I first recall him, and retained to the end of his life, even in the days that were passed under , the shadow of a mortal sickness, a delight- ' fuJ bouyancy of character that was enchainiug and infectious." . In his view of his own art there was , occasionally something of the victorious I arrogance of the schoolboy who has ] lately carried off the first prize, an j arrogance that was, nevertheless, con- i sistenfc with a deep modesty of charac- j ter, that showed it&elf in his reverent J attitude towards Nature, where he Avas j ever ready to admit that he had found j his rival and his master. Of this reverential attitude to Nature — so different from that paradoxical attitude of Whistler — Miilais gave a striking Instance in a little conversation he had with Mr Comyns Carr in Kensington Gardens. It was on a snowy Sunday morning that they met. "When I carelessly said to him, 'How ugly snow is,' Miilais turned to me with sudden vehemence, and said, 'Carr, how can you say that? Nothing in Nature is ugly.' " — Early Days of Miilais. — The early days of Miilais — before he had found himself — were not without their iarkness. "He had had his periods of j dejp depression," says Mr Comyns Carr; I "but they were brief, and the normal j temper of the man was exuberant cheeriness, the optimism of the strong, healthy, s«ne human being. And modest as he was, he yet had abundant appreciation md realisation of his own greatness." I know few pictures of a man more in-s-tiuctive, more chaiacteristic, and more dramatic than that drawn of Miilais at the great moment when his paintings were being collected by Mr Comyn& Carr for exhibition together in the Grosvenoi Gallery. The quotation will have to be long, but I hops it will be enjoyed by my I readers with the same intensity as it was i by me : • j Day by day. a« Halle and I were ■ engaged m avi.inging the pictures upon the wallb, Mulms would come in with , his short wooden pipe in his mouth, ' and wander round examining thf lich j record of hit own career ; sometimes , elated to the \erge of enthu.=ia»m and I sometimes a.- frankly comc.-sdng hij own j dissatisfaction with this work or that, i Taking me by the arm one day he drew ' me round the loom, and pausing l-'.'tre ! the "Knight Errant," he said: "You know, Carr, as I look at these things there are some of them which seem to me to say, 'Miilais, you'ie a fine painter,' and this Ls one," pointing as he spoke to the beautiful picture before us; "and there aie others," he added, his tones suddenly changing from triumph to dejection, "that tell me just as plainly, Miilais, you're a damned vulgar lellow !,' Oh, but thc-ie aic'" he cued, v-> though anticipating my polite piotest. "If ' you don't bcikvd me, look at that," and he pointed to a p cturc I need not no\v mini' , bit v hich he looked at with uaf.ijned ltj-f'iilmcnt and disgust, j And then coineo thia incident — which to me .•■A.enis tuiielnu^ly dramatic — just the ine-jd-Liit if I had been an iiiti^t which I should like to have perpetuated <i*> one I , of MilLiis't gie.itest moments.: , ' AfUr many mv.it. at fiist uneuccess- , ful, we had at 'a^t pei'-uaded the owner ' j ■of "The Kiiyu. not to lend it for tlu , occasion; but thio i'avouiable answer to < oui request only i< ached us when the ie-st oi the exhibition * was aheady ai- i r.iiigci!. It - j cuanc^l that Mi'laU had not f=i. '.n the picture since the yeai 1852, vLc-n v va", panned, auel he was there- i fore pu'ieuli'ilv anxious that it should , Ija liielucied iv t' c exhib'tion. It was* lat-f in the e\ v-niiiy v,h>n the pictuic 'tinvtd m lth C'-c iiom Pie«tun: imii Mi!lai c ha<l v, aitul. evidently m fomc i.epid it.Jii as to Lov thu hist triumph of hife yovth v-ould imnrccs him when j ue ppw it I'^tin. It^ place had been i vy-ci\_l oi> the vail, and the caipen- ' 1 tois quickly uiiGCiewing the ca=e, held \ up the pic'uue for the painter to i-ee. ' MilLti'. We's standing bepide me as they hurried forward in their work, and i ! felt hi- arm tremble on my ?houldw-rlui-ins tho if.v moMenta that prefaced 1 i's appearance: ard then, when at last it w.r" rai-ed to its place, he said in v v').'« iha< '•■•£« half-broken by emotion. \U v A v. <" i" t r-o damned bad for a }. i .•::«-. .. ' And, lighting his little '

wooden pipe, hurried out of the Gallery and took his way downstairs into the street. You know the picture by its engraving. Was there ever 6ueh a beautiI ful face as that of the girl in it — 1 a beautiful face as that of the girl in ithalf child, half woman ; with such unfathomable depths ot gentleness, devotion, and anxiety in her wondrous eyes ; with such almost divine refinement in nose and mouth and cheek? It is no wonder that Millaifi loved the picture. And yet what a curious and characteristic contrast — what a truly British contrast, too — this man, capable of risiug to such •ecstasies of poetry, finding no better method of articulating his thoughts, than the poor schoolboy and commonplace words lie s-aid, and, sucking his little wcoden pipe, walking off without another word into the darkness of Bond street by night ! — Miilais and Leighton. — There is another scene, which throws a pleasant and eloquent light on the character of Mill.-iis. It is unfortunate that another artist- has to figure in the picture-, and to some disadvantage ; but that is not the fault of the narrator. "Millais's manner," says Mr Comyns Carr, by way of introduction to the story, "was spontaneous, careless, and buoyant ; Leighton was ever graceful and courteous, but never quite without the sense of conscious and deliberate effort,"' and then he goes on to tell this story : The essential difference between the ' two men wis made very manifest by an incident that occurred at a dinner given by the Arts Club to celebrate Leighton,' 3 election as President of the Royal Academy. Leighton's speech was expected i to be the speech of the evening, and so, in a sense, it was. But Leigh ton never spoke without the polished pre- | paration of every word, and though his I gifts as an orator were conspicuous, i there was always, even upon the hapi piest occasion* a sense of something | artificial in his aptly-chosen phrases; ; and on the evening of which lam thinking, the fact of his being fast bound and fettered by a string of carefully- • forged and gracetul sentences proved disastrous to the speaker. Before Leighton rose to make his acknowledgements of the compliment that had been paid to him, Miilais had his part in the programme to discharge, and although he could never boast any considerable gifts as a speaker, there was a directness and simplicity in his utterances that placpd his audience in quick sympathy with the man. When I complimented him afterwards he replied, "Yes, my boy; but, you see, I had a story to tell." And so he had; but that was not the whole secret of the great impression he made upon his hearers that evening, for though the story was r>imple enough in itself, it was told with 6uch genuine feeling and with such frank revelation of his own character that it moved his audience not a little. He recalled a day of his youth when he had been summoned by Mr Thackeray, who lay ill in bed, to receive some instructions for designs for the Cornhill Magazine. The business ended, Mr Thackeray turned to him and said : "Miilais, my boy, you muot look to your laurels. There's a young fellow in Rome, called Leighton, who is making prodigious strides in his pit. He syeaKs every European language, and is au accomplished musician as well. If I'm not mistaken that yong man will one lay be President of the Royal Academy." And then Miilais turned to us, and in words of the simplest candour confessed that Mr Thackeray"* prophecy had somewhat hurt him. "For I will own,' he said, "that ai that time, with the | ambition of a l>oi. . I cherished the hope that I might some clay he President of the R-oyal Academy " And then after a pause ho added, "But> now, looking back, I can say, 'Mr Thackeray, yoii were right, and the right man has been chosen.' " It is not easy to convey ihf effect which that speech made upon IHe crowded audience, most of whom wete artists, but the depth of the impression was shortly realised when Leighton ro»s to respond. It would have been impossible ior any speaker bom to his task to have followed Miilais without betraying in response a sensibility to those deeper rhoids of feeling which hi& i;imple words had touched. But Lsighton . was incapable, by liib habit ai-'l tenipeiament, oi iliseii fling what • ha had prepared ; and it happened that the discourse he cL'lneie.l, though no le.ss pei feet and polialvi than was h.s wont, left hi-5 audience guively di>appoui and wholly unuioved. — Gladstone, Disraeli, and Blight. — • I have tiriicd over the-e glimpses of Millaifc because* they ha', e struck ms move than f>nytliing eke in the boo'v ; bin I phould give a veiy false impression and should be unjust to its variety of interesting contents if I did not allude to fcome of the other portrait*,. TheT© is a very good pietuie of Gladstone and of Di'-raeh, m-iclc the moie jiitei^t ng by .1 iuggc. U- 1 contrast in the two. f quo.c an exolloi't sayang o! Disiaeli, v. Inch it vt-iy characteristic of the man: His- piefeieiice lor the fashion of an oarher d'nc in iJI maiie-i.-- appertaining to Uihio was, . . . deeply lnijJ mUd in Dj.'Ui'tfli s native. ... it w\n> during one oi Sir William Hoitourt'h visits to Hughendoii that Disraeli turned to him aitcr dinner and said: "Harcourt, I hd\e had two j-oung gentleman ' iioin Oxfoid staying with me latejv. and it siynb from what I have learned [ iiom them that our judgments in all ', literary nnUers are sadly old-fashioned. ' These younsr gentlemen assure me that, ' according to the accepted canons of the \ present day. the late Lord JJyion us to be admiivd not go much for his qualities * as it poet as for the beauly of his moral 1 chai< r icter. There is aLo an excellent picture of Dls- ■

raeli a« he looked. I can confirm ifc from my own quite vivid recollections of the man : Lord Beaconsfield's appearance . . .■ still retained something of the florid taste that had characterised him as a youth. The bright colours ho chose to affect stood in striking contrast with the impassive pallor oi a countenance that seemed, as it gazed out upon the world, like somo insoluble riddle of the East. The racial characteristics of his face weTe sufficiently marked, but the sense of death-like stillness that pervaded it gave it something of historic remoteness and antique calm. John Bright figures largely in some pages, and there is a very striking account of one of his greatest speeches — the speech he made in St. James's Hall when he was agitating for the reduction of the franchise qualification. Bright was defending himself from the charge of creating dangeious excitement in the minds of the masses, and he used this striking image : Suppose I stood at the foot of Vesuvius or Etna, and, seeing a hamlet or a homestead planted on its slope, I said to the dwellers in that hamlet or in that homestead. "You see that vapour which ascends from the summit of the mountain? Tiia-t vapour may become adense black smoke that will obscure the tky. You s^p that trickling of lavi from the crevices or fissures in the side of the mountain That trickimg lava may become a river of fire. You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain ? That muttering may become a bsl'owing thander, the voice of a violent convulsion that may shake half a continent. You know that at your feet is the grave of great cities, for which, there is no resurrection, as histcry tells us ; that dynasties and aristocracies have p<i.=ssd away .md have been known no more for ever." If I say this to the dwellers upon the slope of the mountain, and if there comes hereafter a catastrophe which makes the world to shudder, am I responsible for that catastrophe? I did not build the mountain or fill it with explosive materials. I merely warned the men who were in danger. And then comes this description of Bright'? manner. It is absolutely accurate, as I can testify after long years of watching that remarkable man : Never prodigal of gesture, his slightest movement became tor that reason the more significant and dramatic. The greater part of his speech had been delivered with the tips of his fingers just touching the table before him, content, for all accompaniment to the words he uttered, to rely upon the swiftly-chang-ing expression of his leonine face, which seemed to mirror in its noble dignity the very soul and spirit of the man. But when he came to the words, "You hear that muttering in the bowels of the mountain?" he raised his hand to his ear, and at the call of that simple gesture it seemed to us who listened to him as though he had summoned into the very hall itself the sound he had only suggested *in words. The effect was as though the building in which we aat was actually threatened, and it was as with ai&ense- almost of relief that the deafening cheers broke forth as he | brought this noble vindication of his own character to an end. I It will be seen that Mr Comvns Caxr is an ideal chronicler — light and pleasant, and yet ready to dissect a character or an incident or an epoch; and his book will remain as a valuable guide to another generation as to the great men, the habits, the ideal* of the Victorian age. — T.IV» Weekly.