Ireland has many historic ancestral dwellings, and one of these became my daughter’s new home in Meath. Shakespeare’s “cloud-capp’d towers” seemed not so much the “baseless fabric” of the poet’s vision when I saw, one day, the low-lying trail of a bright Irish mist brush the high tops of the towers of Gormanston. A thing of visions, too, is realised there in a cloister carved so solidly out of the dense foliage of the yew that never monastic cloister of stone gave a more restful “contiguity of shade.”
I spent the winter of 1911—12 in London, and worked hard at water colours, of which I was able to exhibit a goodly number at a “one-man show” in the spring. The King lent my good old “Roll Call,” and the whole thing was a success. I showed many landscapes there as well as military subjects; many Italian and Egyptian drawings made during my travels, and scenes in Ireland. These exhibitions in a well-lighted gallery are pleasant, and the private view day a social rendezvous for one’s friends.
Through my sister, with whom I revisited Rome early in 1913, I had the pleasure of knowing many Americans there. How refreshing they are, and responsive (I don’t mean the mere tourist!), whereas my dear compatriots are very heavy in hand sometimes. American women are particularly well read and cultivated and full of life. They don’t travel in Europe for nothing. I have had some dull experiences in the English world when embarking, at our solemn British dinners, on cosmopolitan subjects for conversation. What was I to say to a man who, having lately returned from Florence, gave it as his opinion that it was only “a second-rate Cheltenham”? I tried that unlucky Florentine subject on another. He: “Florence? Oh, yes, I liked that—that—minaret thing by the side of the—the—er——“ I: “The Duomo?” He: “Oh, yes, the Duomo.” I (in gloomy despair): “Do you mean Giotto’s Tower?” Collapse of our conversation.
Very probably I bade my last farewell to St. Peter’s that year. I had more than once bidden a provisional “good-bye” at sundown on leaving Rome to that dome which I always loved to see against the western glory from the familiar terrace on Monte Pincio, only to return, on a further visit, and see it again with the old, fresh feeling of thankfulness. My initial enthusiasm, crudely chronicled as it is in my early Diary on first coming in sight of St. Peter’s, was a young artist’s emotion, but to the maturer mind what a miracle that Sermon in Stone reveals! The tomb of one Simon, no better, before his call, than any ordinary fisherman one may see to-day on our coasts—and now? “TU ES PETRUS....”
CHAPTER XXV
THE GREAT WAR
I WAS very busy with oil brush and water-colour brush during the summer of 1913, and the succeeding winter, in Ireland, accomplishing a large oil, “The Cuirassier’s Last Reveil, Morning of Waterloo,” and a number of drawings, all of that inexhaustible battle, for my next “one-man show” held on its centenary, 1915. I left no stone unturned to get true studies of dawn twilight for that reveil, and I got them. At the pretty house of my friends, the Egerton Castles, on a steep Surrey hill, I had my chance. The house faced the east. It was midsummer; an alarm clock roused me each morning at 2.30. I had modelled a little grey horse and a man, and set them up on my balcony, facing in the right direction, and there I waited, with palette spread, for the dawn. Time was short; the first ray of sunrise would spoil all, so I could only dab down the tones, anyhow; but they were all-important dabs, and made the big picture run without a hitch. Nothing delays a picture more than the searching for the true relations of tone without sufficient data. But this is a truism.
The Waterloo water colours were most interesting to work out. I had any amount of books for reference, records of old uniforms to get from contemporary paintings; and I utilised the many studies of horses I had made for years, chiefly on the chance of their coming in useful some day. The result was the best “show” I had yet had at the Leicester Galleries. But ere that exhibition opened, the World War burst upon us! First my soldier son went off, and then the Benedictine donned khaki, as chaplain to the forces. He went, one may say, from the cloister to the cannon. I had to pass through the ordeal which became the lot of so many mothers of sons throughout the Empire.
“Lyndhurst, New Forest, September 22nd, 1914.—I must keep up the old Diary during this most eventful time, when the biggest war the world has ever been stricken with is raging. To think that I have lived to see it! It was always said a war would be too terrible now to run the risk of, and that nations would fear too much to hazard such a peril. Lo! here we are pouring soldiers into the great jaws of death in hundreds of thousands, and sending poor human flesh and blood to face the new ‘scientific’ warfare—the same flesh and blood and nervous system of the days of bows and arrows. Patrick is off as A.D.C. to General Capper, commanding the 7th Division. Martin, who was the first to be ordered to the front, attached to the 2nd Royal Irish, has been transferred to the wireless military station at Valentia. That regiment has been utterly shattered in the Mons retreat, so I have reason to be thankful for the change. I am here, at Patrick’s suggestion, that I may see an army under war conditions and have priceless opportunities of studying ‘the real thing.’ The 7th Division[18] is now nearly complete, and by October 3rd should be on the sea. I arrived at Southampton to-day, and my good old son in his new Staff uniform was at the station ready to motor me up to Lyndhurst where the Staff are, and all the division, under canvas. I was very proud of the red tabs on Patrick’s collar, meaning so much. I saw at once, on arriving, the difference between this and my Aldershot impressions. This is war, and there is no doubt the bearing of the men is different. They were always smart, always cheery, but not like this. There is a quiet seriousness quite new to me. They are going to look death straight in the face.
“September 23rd.—I had a most striking lesson in the appearance of men after a very long march, plus that look which is quite absent on peace manœuvres, however hot and trying the conditions. What surprises and telling ‘bits’ one sees which could never be imagined with such a convincing power. A team of eight mammoth shire horses drawing a great gun is a sight never to be forgotten; shapely, superb cart horses with coats as satiny as any thoroughbred’s, in polished artillery harness, with the mild eyes of their breed—I must do that amongst many most real subjects. But I see the German shells ploughing through these teams of willing beasts. They will suffer terribly.
“September 25th.—Getting hotter every day and not a cloud. I brought this weather with me. Patrick waits on me whenever he is off duty for an hour or so, and it is a charming experience to have him riding by the side of the carriage to direct the driver and explain to me every necessary detail. The place swarms with troops for ever in movement, and the roll of guns and drums, and the notes of the cheery pipes and fifes go on all day. The Gordons have arrived.