It has always delighted me to see William Hunt’s hesitation about that sort of thing in his fine work for the Capitol at Albany. If he did really put breasts and a navel on the figure at the stern of the boat, they, like the decorations by the magician painter of the story, are not to be seen by vulgar eyes. Oh, those inhibitions of Boston! As my uncle George used to say, “Edward, anything but the physical or the material.” I was too young then to realize that in talking so much about it he proved his taste for it. But I am unkind; blind men should not be called to account for the spots on their clothing.
Women are generally utterly ruthless where their vanity is concerned—equal suffrage is doing away with this, however—and will sacrifice the poor artist to its desires. The Ten American Painters were having a retrospective show in Philadelphia. Naturally, we were trying to get hold of all our good work, so I asked a society woman who owned one of my best paintings to lend it for exhibition purposes. She replied that she was having a tea that week and it would make a spot on her wall to take it down. This was quite a contrast to Andrew Carnegie, who not only gladly lent me a marine he had purchased some years before, but had his agent box it, insure it, and send it all at his own expense.
Portrait painters have the hardest time, though, as every woman wishes to see herself idealized or as she was twenty years before. Poor Meissonier was asked to paint in Paris, a portrait of the wife of an American millionaire well known for having made his money in the gold-strike days of California. I knew the lady and I saw the portrait. It was admirable in the sense of being a perfect likeness and bringing out all of her limitations. She looked like a cook and he painted her like a cook. She refused to pay for the work, saying that it was utterly worthless; consequently, Meissonier took her into the courts. In France, the artist has a better show than here, and he won. The lady paid the bill, but announced that as soon as she got home she intended to burn the portrait. Whereupon Meissonier’s counsel asked that the court forbid this, as such an act would establish a bad precedent. It would lie within the power of a wealthy man, wishing to revenge himself, to buy up all the work of a client more than seventy years old, and, by destroying it, render the artist’s life a vain and useless thing. The court took his view and forbade the lady in question to injure the portrait. In spite of the fact that she declared she would disobey, I saw the portrait twenty years after.
When the fine arts and literature meet, many interesting things happen. We have our critics. Some of them are wise and some of them are dull, but not many of them have the slyness of Mr. Emerson when he answered Daniel French’s question as to what he thought of the bust the sculptor had just finished of him, “That is the face I shave.” A queer thing—the literary mind. I objected once to Gilder because he was criticizing a picture, saying that it was not fair, as he was not a painter. He replied that he had heard me discuss a sonnet.
“Yes,” I maintained, “but I have used the English language since my earliest years. I am therefore a professional. You are not a painter. You may say that you do not like a picture, but you may not say what is the matter with it, as you did.”
Every time I think of Gilder I recall something he once told me about the dead Lincoln. He had gone to view the body and was one of a long line of people passing about the form as it lay on its bier, and was much impressed by the august and noble smile on the dead President’s face. So much was he affected by it that he turned to a man standing beside him and mentioned it.
“Yes,” the man replied, “We rather flatter ourselves on our smiles.” It was the undertaker.
It was surprising to see, after that, a sonnet by Gilder on Lincoln’s smile. Sometimes an editor’s sense of humor becomes a trifle dulled. I sat and heard a number of them discuss perfectly seriously whether the word “hell” should be allowed in its entirety, printed “h—l,” or cut out altogether.
I was once foolish enough to contract to make some covers for a well-known magazine. All went well as long as I was allowed to choose my own subjects, but when the editor got the brilliant idea of taking characters out of the Bible and drawing them as modern men, I struck. Take David, for instance; what financier would care to be represented in such fashion? If the gentleman were alive to-day he would be in jail. The editor threw up his hands and said, “But he is in the Bible.” Of course it ended by my displeasing him.
I was called up on the telephone one day by Mr. J——, editor of one of our yellow publications. He said his magazine was considering an article on Decoration and told me to forward, without delay, permission to publish a reproduction of my “Justice,” upon which there is a copyright. I asked what there was in it for me. He was astonished that I did not realize the enormous advertisement it would mean for me. I answered that as Harper’s, Scribner’s, Century, etc. (at that time) always sent me a check for seventy-five dollars when they reproduced anything of mine, I though a thousand would just about pay me for dropping to the level of his magazine.