At the time of his brother's being made Cardinal, some ardent admirers of the Professor's in Australia sent him a very beautiful silver inkstand. His delight and pleasure in receiving such a present was great. But that people should think of him in that way was a great surprise, for his humility as regarded his powers was a very noticeable fact about him always. The design of the inkstand was one of great beauty and good workmanship. It represented ostriches standing under a palm tree, and beside them was an exquisitely made silver feather for a pen.
[Illustration: FRANCIS NEWMAN
EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF LONDON UNIVERSITY
Enlargement of photograph of the bronze bust done from life by Mrs.
Georgina Bainsmith, sculptor, of St. Ives, Cornwall, which is now in
University College, London.]
One afternoon my father, mother, and I were all sitting reading, when the door opened and the Professor walked in. He held his hat in his hand, and a large rug was fastened round his shoulders like a shawl (over his three coats), and in his hands he held a small brown-paper parcel. As he came in he said, "I don't know why your maid did not announce me—I see she is a stranger"; and then turning to my mother, who had been ill, he said, "My cook has made a new vegetarian dish for my lunch to-day, and I requested her to make some for you, as I am quite sure it will suit you." The dish turned out to be delicious—one of those which his wonderful vegetarian cook was so constantly inventing. [Footnote: The parlourmaid, on being reprimanded for not showing Newman into the drawing-room, said she thought she was only to show "gentlemen" into the drawing-room!]
Newman had a theory that plants feel pain, and that we should treat all vegetable life as if it were sentient, and care for it accordingly.
The Professor was always ready to respond to any appeals for the advancement of the Woman's Suffrage movement. At that time it was very unpopular, but whenever we had meetings in favour of it at our house he was always the moving spirit.
At Weston-super-Mare Newman lived a life of great seclusion, and I believe I was the only young girl who visited him constantly—indeed, ours was the only house to which he came almost daily. Once when he was very ill, I think I was the only visitor admitted; and as Hannah, his old servant, ushered me in with a smile of pleasure, I heard a curious sound. On looking back to the hall door I saw a huge netting hanging from where the letter-box should be, trailing along the floor like a huge sausage, crammed full of letters of enquiry for the Professor. Hannah told me "the master had not been able to attend to them."
I had long possessed a great wish to devote my time to the study of modelling, and my father's great wish was that I should devote myself to Art. In 1885 I gained the distinction of a silver medal at Taunton Exhibition for modelling some flowers in clay on vases, with low relief panels. This pleased the Professor very much; and when, one day, I told him how keenly I wanted to model a bust of his head and shoulders, he smiled, and said, with an odd boyish, shy sort of pleasure, "Was he good- looking enough to be immortalized?" and added he would be delighted to sit to me for his portrait, though he had always refused to sit to others to be photographed.
So he used to come and talk to my mother, and thus I was able to work at my modelling with ease. Great was my delight when I found I possessed power over the clay, and was succeeding in making a portrait which everyone considered a good one. The Professor insisted on my being very particular over the collar and the scarf. (His collars always had to be made for him, as he could not buy in shops the kind he wore.) In later years of hard student life that followed, for me, with the added distinction of other medals, nothing ever came up to the excitement caused by my portrait of the Professor. The bust [Footnote: This bust is now standing in the general library of London University, with this inscription:—
"FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN
(brother of the Cardinal),
Emeritus Professor of University College, London.
Natus June 27, 1805. Obiit October 4th, 1897.
As an expression of the great esteem and affection in which he was held
by all who knew him, this bust (modelled from life by the
Sculptor) is presented to this University by