Some eminent Victorians: Personal recollections in the world of art and letters

by J. Comyns Carr

I remember one evening the subject of spiritualism was under discussion, and Mr. Hall was avowing his confident faith in the reality of messages from another world to which he confessed that he himself in his writing was particularly indebted.

“On these occasions,” he said, “when I have written something which I have deemed to be particularly inspired, I have often turned round to the spirit whom I knew to be at my side, and have said with fervid gratitude, ‘Thank you, my dear sir; thank you.’”

It was only upon longer acquaintance I discovered that the air of venerable piety, which never deserted him in social intercourse, was consistent with a very shrewd appreciation of commercial success. Little by little I found the sanctity of his manner sometimes giving way to very pointed suggestions that the mercantile interest of the Journal must not be wholly sacrificed to my independent views upon Art.

At first these suggestions were only tentatively put forward, and always with an elaborate deference to my better judgment as a critic, but day by day they became more encroaching, until at last the conviction was forced upon me that the columns under my charge were intended to serve as a useful support to the advertisement department of the Journal. After a while these constant interferences became so galling and exasperating to me that I determined to break our connection, and in a letter, which I strove to make polite but which I intended to be deeply sarcastic, I ventured to hint that as the criticism I was called upon to write was now required to take so entirely the colour of an advertisement, I thought it would be better that it should pass directly into the hands of the manager of the advertisement department.

I confess I thought my letter would provoke an explosion of indignant protest, but in this I was sadly disappointed; for all response I got only a honeyed little note of acknowledgment, which, as far as I can remember, ran in these terms:—“I hasten to acknowledge with many thanks your courteous letter. So much I feel compelled to say, more than this I will not say.”

The old gentleman’s unflinching urbanity had stood him in good stead, and even Whistler himself, had he been confronted with such a letter, could hardly have found the means to continue the controversy.

While I was still associated with the Art Journal I had become also a contributor to the Portfolio, then under the editorship of Mr. Philip Hamerton, who is best known to the world by his book upon Etching, and his studies of that part of rural France in which he usually resided. And a little later I also wrote upon Art matters in the columns of the Academy.

These several engagements, combined with the work that I had to do for the Manchester Guardian, made the annual occasions of the opening of the Spring Exhibitions a specially busy time for me.

I remember one Sunday morning in May, when I had sat up very far into the night completing my opening article for the Guardian, my servant awakened me with the intelligence that a young gentleman was in the drawing-room waiting to see me. He did not give his name, as he told her that it would be unknown to me; but he had arrived only the previous evening, as he said, from New York, and was the bearer of several messages from friends there which he was anxious to deliver before his departure for the Continent later in the day.

On the night before he had sailed, he said—and this was his excuse for intruding upon me,—he had supped with some of the artists best known on the other side, and amongst them he specially introduced the names of Frank Millet and Edwin Abbey, who, as he said, had drawn from him the promise that he would on no account quit London without having shaken me by the hand.