I went to see the General at the instance of some of his friends, who thought that the portrait of him already included would be all the better for being brought up to date. I recollect being impressed by General Booth’s force of character as manifested alike in his manner and in his appearance. He had a keen eye and classic aquiline features.
Though he made no mention of the matter himself, it was pretty plainly hinted to me that permission to include the General’s portrait should be accompanied by some expression of gratitude on the part of the Exhibition authorities “for the good of the cause.”
I also went to Exeter Hall to study the General’s demeanour while addressing a large audience.
What I remember mostly about that visit was that a “converted” sailor mounted the platform and made a rambling speech. So frank were the confessions of the artless tar that General Booth found it necessary to bundle him unceremoniously off the platform, to the great amusement of the congregation.
I was much interested in modelling a quartette of leading suffragettes, Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Miss Christabel Pankhurst, and Miss Annie Kenney.
The group is conspicuously shown in the Grand Hall to-day. The ladies came separately, several mornings, and took as much interest as I did in the production of their portraits, a process that was in no sense tedious, as their conversation whiled away the time most pleasantly.
I very soon became aware that the suffragette on the political warpath is a very different woman from the suffragette in other circumstances.
None of them in the least degree frightened me or hectored me; in fact, political questions were discussed by them in the quietest, most sensible, and most intelligent manner, giving me the impression then that the extension of the vote to women would not find such women unqualified to make reasonable use of the privilege so long withheld from them.
After the figures were added to the Exhibition, two of the four ladies very good-humouredly hinted to me that the portraits were not very flattering. I remember the ladies in question coming to see the group, and I promised I would make what alterations seemed possible and desirable. As I have not heard from them since, I gather that the likenesses have proved satisfactory.
Months later, after a batch of laughing damsels had left the building, a paper disc, bearing the words “Votes for Women,” was discovered fixed to a button on Mr. Asquith’s coat.