One day the Horse Guards, directed by their surgeon, had a magnificent black charger thrown down in the riding school at Knightsbridge (on deep sawdust) for me to see, and get hints from, for the fallen horse in my foreground. The riding master strapped up one of the furious animal’s forelegs and then let him go. What a commotion before he fell! How he plunged and snorted in clouds of dust till the final plunge, when the riding master and a trooper threw themselves on him to keep him down while I made a frantic sketch. “What must it be,” I ask, “when a horse is wounded in battle, if this painless proceeding can put him into such a state?”
The spring of 1875 was full of experiences for me. I note that “at the Horse Guards’ riding school a charger was again ‘put down’ for me, but more gently this time, and without the risk, as the riding master said, of breaking the horse’s neck, as last time. I was favoured with a charge, two troopers riding full tilt at me and pulling up at within two yards of where I stood, covering me with the sawdust. I stood it bravely the second time, but the first I got out of the way. With ‘Quatre Bras’ in my head, I tried to fancy myself one of my young fellows being charged, but I fear my expression was much too feminine and pacific.” March 22nd gave me a long day’s tussle with the grey, bounding horse shot in mid-career. I say: “This is a teaser. I was tired out and faint when I got home.” If that was a black day, the next was a white one: “The sculptor, Boehm, came in, and gave me the very hints I wanted to complete my bounding horse. Galloway also came. He says ‘Quatre Bras’ beats ‘The Roll Call’ into a cocked hat! He gave me £500 on account. Oh! the nice and strange feeling of easiness of mind and slackening of speed; it is beginning to refresh me at last, and my seven months’ task is nearly accomplished.” Another visitor was the Duke of Cambridge, who, it appears, gave each soldier in my square a long scrutiny and showed how well he understood the points.
On “Studio Monday” the crowds came, so that I could do very little in the morning. The novelty, which amused me at first, had worn off, and I was vexed that such numbers arrived, and tried to put in a touch here and there whenever I could. Millais’ visit, however, I record as “nice, for he was most sincerely pleased with the picture, going over it with great gusto. It is the drawing, character, and expression he most dwells on, which is a comfort. But I must now try to improve my tone, I know. And what about ‘quality’? To-day, Sending-in Day, Mrs. Millais came, and told me what her husband had been saying. He considers me, she said, an even stronger artist than Rosa Bonheur, and is greatly pleased with my drawing. That (the ‘drawing’) pleased me more than anything. But I think it is a pity to make comparisons between artists. I may be equal to Rosa Bonheur in power, but how widely apart lie our courses! I was so put out in the morning, when I arrived early to get a little painting, to find the wretched photographers in possession. I showed my vexation most unmistakably, and at last bundled the men out. They were working for Messrs. Dickinson. So much of my time had been taken from me that I was actually dabbing at the picture when the men came to take it away; I dabbing in front and they tapping at the nails behind. How disagreeable!”
After doing a water colour of a Scots Grey orderly for the “Institute,” which Agnew bought, I was free at last to take my holiday. So my Mother and I were off to Canterbury to be present at the opening of St. Thomas’s Church there.
“April 11th, Canterbury.—To Mass in the wretched barn over a stable wherein a hen, having laid an egg, cackled all through the service. And this has been our only church since the mission was first begun six years ago, up till now, in the city of the great English Martyr. But this state of things comes to an end on Tuesday.”
This opening of St. Thomas’s Church was the first public act of Cardinal Manning as Cardinal, and it went off most successfully. There were rows of Bishops and Canons and Monsignori and mitred Abbots, and monks and secular priests, all beautifully disposed in the Sanctuary. The sun shone nearly the whole time on the Cardinal as he sat on his throne. After Mass came the luncheon at which much cheering and laughter were indulged in. Later on Benediction, and a visit to the Cathedral. I rather winced when a group of men went down on their knees and kissed the place where the blood of St. Thomas à Becket is supposed to still stain the flags. The Anglican verger stared and did not understand.
On Varnishing Day at the Academy I was evidently not enchanted with the position of my picture. “It is in what is called ‘the Black Hole’—the only dark room, the light of which looks quite blue by contrast with the golden sun-glow in the others. However, the artists seemed to think it a most enviable position. The big picture is conspicuous, forming the centre of the line on that wall. One academician told me that on account of the rush there would be to see it they felt they must put it there. This ‘Lecture Room’ I don’t think was originally meant for pictures and acts on the principle of a lobster pot. You may go round and round the galleries and never find your way into it! I had the gratification of being told by R.A. after R.A. that my picture was in some respects an advance on last year’s, and I was much congratulated on having done what was generally believed more than doubtful—that is, sending any important picture this year with the load and responsibility of my ‘almost overwhelming success,’ as they called it, of last year on my mind. And that I should send such a difficult one, with so much more in it than the other, they all consider ‘very plucky.’ I was not very happy myself, although I know ‘Quatre Bras’ to be to ‘The Roll Call’ as a mountain to a hill. However, it was all very gratifying, and I stayed there to the end. My picture was crowded, and I could see how it was being pulled to pieces and unmercifully criticised. I returned to the studio, where I found a champagne lunch spread and a family gathering awaiting me, all anxiety as to the position of my magnum opus. After that hilarious meal I sped back to the fascination of Burlington House. I don’t think, though, that Mamma will ever forgive the R.A.’s for the ‘Black Hole.’
“April 30th.—The private view, to which Papa and I went. It is very seldom that an ‘outsider’ gets invited, but they make a pet of me at the Academy. Again this day contrasted very soberly with the dazzling P.V. of ‘74. There were fewer great guns, and I was not torn to pieces to be introduced here, there, and everywhere, most of the people being the same as last year, and knowing me already. The same furore cannot be repeated; the first time, as I said, can never be a second. Papa and I and lots of others lunched over the way at the Penders’ in Arlington Street, our hosts of last night, and it was all very friendly and nice, and we returned in a body to the R.A. afterwards. I was surprised, at the big ‘At Home’ last night, to find myself a centre again, and people all so anxious to hear my answers to their questions. Last year I felt all this more keenly, as it had all the fascination of novelty. This year just the faintest atom of zest is gone.
“May 3rd.—To the Academy on this, the opening day. A dense, surging multitude before my picture. The whole place was crowded so that before ‘Quatre Bras’ the jammed people numbered in dozens and the picture was most completely and satisfactorily rendered invisible. It was chaos, for there was no policeman, as last year, to make people move one way. They clashed in front of that canvas and, in struggling to wriggle out, lunged right against it. Dear little Mamma, who was there nearly all the time of our visit, told me this, for I could not stay there as, to my regret, I find I get recognised (I suppose from my latest photos, which are more like me than the first horror) and the report soon spreads that I am present. So I wander about in other rooms. I don’t know why I feel so irritated at starers. One can have a little too much popularity. Not one single thing in this world is without its drawbacks. I see I am in for minute and severe criticism in the papers, which actually give me their first notices of the R.A. The Telegraph gives me its entire article. The Times leads off with me because it says ‘Quatre Bras’ will be the picture the public will want to hear about most. It seems to be discussed from every point of view in a way not usual with battle pieces. But that is as it should be, for I hope my military pictures will have moral and artistic qualities not generally thought necessary to military genre.
“May 4th.—All of us and friends to the Academy, where we had a lively lunch, Mamma nearly all the time in ‘my crowd,’ half delighted with the success and half terrified at the danger the picture was in from the eagerness of the curious multitude. I just furtively glanced between the people, and could only see a head of a soldier at a time. A nice notion the public must have of the tout ensemble of my production!”