At Monaco and at Monte Carlo, Caldecott found so much that suited his pencil that it is a wonder that he found time for any more serious work. With touches of satire that remind us of Thackeray, and a gaiety all his own, these spontaneous and delightful letters form the best picture of Caldecott that can be given in 1877.
"Round the tables," he writes, "from noon to nearly midnight—seven days a week—the monde élégant congregates, from the Yorkshireman to the Japanese." Then follow sketches of an Englishman in Scotch tweed, and a young man from Japan. Next is a general sketch of the crowd at the round table, the artist's own figure, admirably given, standing back to us, hat in hand. It was a marvellous gathering presented on the printed page, "all intent on gambling—editors of journals, English justices of the peace, venerable matrons and innocent girls, beloved sons who are 'travelling,' artistes, chevaliers of the legion of honour, dames who are not of that legion." "Such costumes and toilettes sweep the polished floor, such delicately-gloved fingers clutch the glittering coins—when they happen to win, and sometimes when they don't—such a clinking of money, as the croupiers mass the rakings."
The Gaming Tables at Monte Carlo.
From the fashionable crowd and the heated atmosphere of the Casino the artist takes us along the cool shores of the Mediterranean, where, in one of the best sketches in these letters, full of air and light, he brings two figures into unexpected contrast. "Walking one afternoon along the Mentone road, we reached a point commanding a fine view of sea, hills, and olive trees. There was a stone seat, and on it an aged round-backed man. On the wall and bench before him were spread out many cards dotted with the results of numerous twirls of the roulette ball. He was studying his chances for the future. As we turned away we met a priest reading in a little book as he passed."
As the landscapes suffered in reproduction in the newspaper, and were the least successful part in these letters, it may be well to mention that some of Caldecott's landscape studies in oils and water colours, on the shores of the Mediterranean, were the best he ever did, attracting much attention at the sale of his works in 1886.
That he did not put a high estimate on his powers as a landscape painter at that time may be gathered from a few words in a private letter declining some commissions.