However this may be, Watkiss Lloyd is something better than a popular author; he is an intellectual man, truly a lover of knowledge and of wisdom. Without shutting his eyes to the evils that are in the world, he does not forget the good. On one occasion, after a terrible malady that had occurred to one dear to him, I said that undeserved diseases seemed to me clear evidence of imperfection in the universe. He answered, that as we receive many benefits from the existing order of things that we have not merited in any way, so we may accept those evils that we have not merited either. This struck me as a better reason for resignation than the common assertion that we are wicked enough to deserve the most frightful inflictions. We do not really believe that our wickedness deserves cancer or leprosy.
I never wished to push myself into the society of celebrated persons for the purpose of getting acquainted with them, but I plead guilty to that degree of curiosity which likes to see them in the flesh. I knew Landseer by sight, and probably rather astonished him once in a London street by taking my hat off as if he had been Prince Albert. He used to pass an evening from time to time at Leslie's house, and I met him there. He then seemed a very jovial, merry English humorist, with a natural talent for satire and mimicry; but there was another side to his nature. If he enjoyed himself heartily when in company, he often suffered from deep depression when alone. I remember seeing him by himself when he looked the image of profound melancholy. At that time I had warmer admiration for his art than I have now, and the general public looked upon him as the greatest artist in England. No doubt he was very observant, and had a wonderful memory for animals and their ways, as well as some invention; he had also unsurpassable technical skill, of a superficial kind, in painting.
Harding was another very clever artist whom I met at Leslie's. I had correspondence with him a little as a teacher, and had studied his works. He had taught many amateurs, including Mr. Ruskin and a clever friend of mine in the North. I admired his skill, but disliked his extreme artificiality of style, and the more I went to nature the more objectionable did it appear to me. The kind of success which is attained by forcing nature into drawing-masters' set forms never tempted me in the least. Harding was at one time probably the most successful drawing-master in England. The word "clever" characterizes him exactly. He was clever in the art of substituting himself for nature, clever in the wonderful facility with which he used several graphic arts technically very different from each other, and clever especially in that supreme tact of the successful drawing-master by which he makes the amateur seem to get forward rapidly. He had immense confidence in himself, and in his own theories and principles.
Another well-known artist whom I met at Leslie's was Richard Doyle. He had great gifts of wit and invention, with a curiously small fund of science,—genius without the knowledge that might have given strength to genius. It is impossible, however, to feel any regret on this account, for if Doyle's drawings had been thoroughly learned they would have lost their naïveté. He was intelligent enough to make even his lack of science an element of success, for he turned it into a pretended simplicity. His own face was mobile and expressive, and it was evident that he passed quickly from one idea to another without uttering more than a small percentage of his thoughts.
I remember dancing "Sir Roger de Coverley" when Landseer and Richard Doyle were of the set. They were both extremely amusing, but with this difference: that whereas Landseer evidently laid himself out to be funny in gesture and action, the fun in Doyle's case lay entirely in the play of his physiognomy. Leslie, too, had a most expressive face—not handsome (I mean, of course, the elder Leslie; his son George is handsome), but most interesting, and full of meaning.
CHAPTER XXII.
1854.
Miss Marian Evans.—John Chapman, the publisher.—My friend William Shaw.—His brother Richard.—Mead, the tragedian.—Mrs. Rowan and her daughter.—A vexatious incident.—I suffer from nostalgia for the country.
Mr. Mackay took me to one of the evening receptions that were given at that time by Mr. John Chapman, the publisher. On our way he spoke of Miss Marian Evans, then only known to a few as a translator from the German, and to still fewer as a contributor of articles to the "Westminster Review,"—a periodical that she partly directed. Neither the translations nor the articles revealed anything beyond good ordinary literary abilities. Mr. Mackay told me, however, that this Miss Evans was a very accomplished lady, and played remarkably well on the piano.
She was at Mr. Chapman's little conversazione, and performed for us. I remember being well pleased with the music, and thinking that she was one of the best amateurs I had heard, but I cannot remember what she played, nor anything about her talk, which would probably be a series of little private conversations with people that she already knew.