"The drawings that G. so kindly enquires about are not in my line. I would rather not attempt to paint what I imagine he wants—proper professional water-colour landscape painter's work.
"Priest and Player."
"Please say that my line is to make to smile the lunatic who has shown no sign of mirth for many months (see the Graphic of Saturday last, 6th January, p. 7, right-hand column—I tumbled upon it in the reading room of the Casino), and not to portray the beauties of this southern clime—not but what I would if I could!"
NORTH ITALIAN FOLK.
It was in the same winter, during his journey in North Italy, that Caldecott made twenty-eight illustrations for a book on North Italian Folk.[9] Here Caldecott's studies, and his habit of sketching the peasantry wherever he went, served him well. Take the picture of the priest and his faithful servant Caterina; the latter, reproaching her master for bringing home a neighbour, Maddalena, "to eat two lasagne with us!" Caterina is "a gaunt threadbare-looking woman of some five-and-thirty years, and the prevosto is gaunt too, and sallow; the two match well together. Caterina's hair is smooth though scant, and her faded print dress is neat, but the bright yellow kerchief round her shoulders is soiled, and the cunning plaits of her grey hair are not as well ordered as the women's are wont to be on mass days.