Some of the essays of that earlier time of youthful impulse and more poetic design had grown unfamiliar to him. Many of them he had not seen from the date when they first left his studio, and I recall in particular with what eager and yet nervous expectation he awaited the arrival of “The Huguenot,” a picture that had served as the foundation of his fame as a young man. I think as he saw it unpacked, with its delicate beauty untarnished by time, that for the moment his faith in the uninterrupted progress of his career was partly shaken. I know at least that his voice trembled with emotion as he muttered some blunt words of praise for a picture which, as he said, was “not so bad for a youngster,” and I remember that as it took its place upon the wall, after gazing at it intently for some time in silence, he relit his pipe and took his way thoughtfully down the stairs into the street.
Millais used to contend that, until the advent of Watteau, the beauty of women had found no fit interpreters in art, and he would cite the example of Rembrandt as showing how poorly the feminine features which he portrayed compared with the lovely faces imaged by Reynolds and Gainsborough. Perhaps he was hardly equipped to deliver final judgment on such a subject, for I do not think he leaned with any enthusiasm towards those finer examples of Italian painting wherein the subtleties of feminine beauty have certainly not suffered by neglect. But these dogmatic assertions of men of genius, if they are not irrefutable in themselves, are often instructive in illuminating the finer tendencies of their own achievement; and it will remain as one of Millais’s indestructible claims to recognition that both in his earlier and in his later time he was able to interpret with matchless power the finer shades of emotional expression in the faces of beautiful women. When the chosen model rightly inspired him—and without that model his invention was often vapid and inert—he could succeed in a degree which no other artist has matched or surpassed in registering not only the permanent facts of beauty in form and feature, but in arresting with equal felicity the most fleeting moments of tender or passionate expression.
In the later days of his life it was at the Garrick Club that I saw most of Millais, for there, in the card-room, he was to be found nearly every afternoon, and as we both then dwelt in Kensington we often wandered homeward together. The buoyancy of his youth and early manhood never quite deserted him, even at that sadder season, when he was already in conflict with that dread opponent against whom his all-conquering spirit was powerless, and I never heard from him, however great the dejection of spirit he must have suffered, a single sour word concerning life or nature. His outlook on the world was never tainted by self-compassion, never clouded by any bitterness of personal experience, and one came to recognise then, as his life and strength gradually waned and failed, that the spirit of optimism which seemed sometimes unsympathetic in the season of his opulent vigour and virility was indeed a beauty deeply resident in his character, which even the shadow of coming death was powerless to cloud or darken.
AT HOME WITH ALMA-TADEMA
The death of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, following only too closely upon the loss of his gracious and gifted wife, finally closed the doors of one of the most delightful houses that overlooked the shores of Bohemia. They both possessed in rare measure the genius of friendship, and to both belonged the fine and generous sympathy of nature which is the abiding secret of true hospitality. And in their case a friendship once formed was steadfastly held. There are men and women not a few, who, as they advance along the path that leads to fame and distinction, contrive to shed the friends and comrades of an earlier day in haste to make room for guests more important or influential. This was never true of Tadema at any period of his career, and those who can recall the earlier Tuesday evenings at Townshend House, which looked across the waters of the canal to the green shade of the Regent’s Park, can bear witness that the simplest and most modest of his associates of that time found as cordial a welcome in the more spacious premises which he afterwards built for himself in the Grove End Road.
It was in the year 1877 that I first became an intimate guest at the pleasant weekly receptions at Townshend House, and I remember that what first struck me about them was the delightful sense of ease and informality that the host and hostess contrived to infuse into every gathering. Sometimes the friends assembled might number only a few; sometimes the rooms would be thronged with all that was most notable in the world of literature and art; but the party, whether large or small, knew no constraint of dulness, nor were we ever oppressed by that overpowering sense of social decorum which is apt to benumb the best-intentioned efforts of ordinary English hospitality. And, this I think, was due in great measure to an element in Tadema’s character that was almost unique.
Shakespeare has told us of the “boy eternal,” and many men of distinction have owned and kept that quality to the end of their days. But Tadema went one better, for he retained throughout his life some of the simple impulses and attributes of a veritable child. He had the wondering delight of a child in each new experience as it came within the range of his vision, and there were times when some passing ebullition of temper would betray something also of a child’s wayward petulance. It was characteristic of this side of his nature, which for the rest ranked among the most masculine and virile I have known, that he preserved to the last a child’s abiding delight in all forms of mechanical toys. This was a weakness well known to his intimate friends, who, on the annual occasion of his birthday, would vie with one another in presenting him with the most admired achievements of the toy-maker’s art. I remember, in particular, a certain ferocious tiger, which moved by clock-work across the polished floor of the studio. Tadema was absolutely fascinated by the antics of this mimic beast, remaining under the spell of its enchantment during the whole of the evening; and whenever a pause in the music permitted it, I could hear the whirr of the wheels of the clock as the delighted owner of this new plaything prepared to start it again upon an excursion round the room.
These birthday parties were occasions fondly cherished by our host. He loved every detail in the little ceremonial that might be arranged for their celebration, and would reckon up with the earnest intentness of a schoolboy over his first sum in arithmetic, the candles set around his birthday cake, that counted the sum of his years. And then followed the inevitable speech proposing his health—a task which usually fell to my lot; whereupon Tadema, who always thought that whatever was done in his honour exceeded in excellence any tribute accorded to another, would stoutly maintain that, as an effort in oratory, it far surpassed any speech he had ever heard made. This naïve delight of his in little things, that remained as a constant element of his character, was linked with a large generosity of nature in all that concerned the greater issues of life. And if he exacted from all who came within the range of his influence the little acts of homage and respect that he thought were his due, there was no one who would so freely place himself at the disposal of those whom he believed he could serve. He loved to gather round him the young students of his craft, ever on the alert to note and welcome new talent as it appeared, and when his counsel or advice was needed, he would spare neither time nor pains to afford the aid and encouragement which his superb technical resources so well fitted him to bestow. I have heard artists of position declare that if they had reached some crux in a picture that proved difficult of solution, there was no one so helpful as Tadema; and this, I think, was due mainly to the fact that his quick sympathy and swift apprehension enabled him at once to appreciate the point of view of the comrade who had sought his advice.
The last of those pleasant Tuesday evenings at Townshend House, which occurred in the spring of 1885, brought with it a certain feeling of sadness that found constant expression as the evening wore on. We had all become deeply attached to the quaintly-adorned dwelling where so many joyous evenings had been passed, and some there were who may have been conscious of a lurking fear lest the more spacious premises that were then in course of reconstruction in the Grove End Road should rob these festive gatherings of some part of the ease and intimacy that had hitherto been their most delightful characteristic. Certain it was that for his friends during many months to come, the week would contain no Tuesday worth the name, and as we parted that night I think there was a wide-spread feeling that the new order of things could never rival the old. But such fears, so often justified by experience, proved in this case wholly without foundation, and when, in the autumn of 1887, we were bidden to the richly-decorated new studio, in the construction of which Tadema had taken such infinite delight, it was found that the old spirit of hospitality, unchanged and unimpaired, was able quickly to accommodate itself to its more imposing surroundings.
I had known the house in Grove End Road before it took on the stamp of Tadema’s quaint invention and fanciful ingenuity. It had been inhabited by the French painter Tissot during a great part of his residence in England, and I recall a dinner party given by him on an occasion shortly after the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery, at which he announced to me his serious and solemn intention of making a radical revolution in the purpose and direction of his art. Up to that time the pictures of this most adroit of craftsmen had been wholly mundane, it might even be said demi-mundane, in character; but he had been profoundly impressed by the recent display of the works of Burne-Jones, to which the public for the first time had accorded a larger welcome; and it immediately struck the shrewd spirit of Tissot that there were commercial possibilities in the region of ideal art of which he was bound as a practical man to take account and advantage. As he himself naïvely expressed it on that evening: “Vraiment, mon ami, je vois qu’il y a quelque chose à faire”; and he forthwith led the way to his studio, where he had already commenced a group of allegorical subjects, to the infinite amusement of his friend Heilbuth, who at that time, I think, knew him better than he knew himself.