This I believe was the first year of the Grosvenor Gallery, whose exhibitions represented a revolt of some of the leading artists against the formal traditions of the Royal Academy. There was a battle royal as to the relative merits of the two exhibitions and the rights and wrongs of the quarrel. The leading lights of the Grosvenor Gallery were Burne-Jones, George Watts, and Whistler. Like most such defections the movement proved useful; all the bitter words written and spoken had the happy effect of giving a fresh impulse to British art.
Sir Frederick Leighton was then president of the Royal Academy. On the night of the opening reception at Burlington House, all London flocked to the Academy. The guests were received by Sir Frederick, standing at the head of the main stairway. He was a commanding figure in his silk robes of office, his orders, and decorations. We had for our escorts the Greek Minister, M. Gennadius, and a young artist named John Elliott. The servant who announced the guests mixed the cards and read the Ambassador’s name as the artist advanced. He was received with great cordiality, while the Ambassador got the curtest imaginable nod.
The pictures most noticed that year were by Millais, Leighton, Poynter, Frith, Leslie, Alma-Tadema, and George Boughton, the American, whose pictures had a great vogue. Millais was then the most popular of the London painters, judging by the price his pictures brought. The Pre-Raphaelite group were rather bitter about him. He had been with them in their revolt against the conventional school, but after a few years had deserted them and gone back to the Philistines. I heard much discussion of all these currents in the art world, for we were often at the houses of Alma-Tadema, Burne-Jones, and other artists, where the vital topic of conversation was art with a big A. It gave me a peculiar satisfaction to remind one of my new artist friends that London owed its Royal Academy largely to an American painter, Benjamin West, who induced the King to grant the charter to the Association of which he was president twenty-eight years.
The styles in dress that year were rather extravagant. In the morning the leaders of fashion wore plain, close-fitting silk jerseys, which gave great offense to the prudish, mannish ulsters and derby hats. For afternoon and evening wear trains were de rigueur. At the balls these absurdly long trains made dancing very difficult. I found the average English woman neither so handsome nor so elegant as the average American. When it came to the exceptional ones, it was quite the other way. I have never seen any women who compare, either in beauty or bearing, to the fine fleur of English girlhood.
Our London life was kaleidoscopic, brilliant, shifting, little bits of fashion, art, sport, philanthropy, politics all jostling each other and making a brilliant whole. I remember one grand banquet where General Grant, then on his triumphal progress around the world, was the guest of honor, and was seated at table between Mrs. Langtry and myself. At this time the Jersey Lily was the reigning toast. She was very young, hardly more than twenty, and was without question the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. There was something disarming about her smile, which began in the eyes (like calm blue lakes) and ended in the parting of the perfect lips, the dimpling of the cheek. Watts’ portrait of her in a close little bonnet is very like, but does not quite convey the impression of dazzling loveliness she produced. Among the other reigning beauties were Lady Dudley, a little cold in type compared to the Lily, but looking like “the daughter of a hundred earls”, and Mrs. Cornwallis West, diminutive and charming as a Dresden china figure.
The cult for beauty was unlike anything I have ever known before or since. The aesthetic movement was at its height, and the “short-haired women and long-haired men”, familiar figures at all the great routs and public fêtes, waited to see the entrance of one of the “beauties”, as people wait to see Royalty pass. The photographs of the professional beauties were on sale in the shops with those of the royal family, leading statesmen, and popular actors.
We owed our glimpses of the world of sport largely to Lord Dunraven, owner of the famous yacht Thistle, who was attentive to us for Uncle Sam’s sake. He drove us down to the Derby, where we were his guests in the royal inclosure, and had a close view of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The Prince, later Edward VII, was not far from forty, and looked rather like Holbein’s portrait of Henry the Eighth. The Princess was much beloved, though the people of the court and the diplomats found her hard to talk with on account of her deafness. She was elegant in dress, and for good looks held her own with the professional beauties. Like the Queen, she was devoted to her family, but during the season could not have had much time for her children. Every waking hour of her day seemed filled with official engagements. She was forever opening hospitals, presiding at fêtes, charity bazaars, and graduating exercises.
We went to Ascot with Lord Dunraven, and I remember dimly some yachting excursion with him. This was ten years before the race between the Thistle and the Mayflower for the America’s cup. There was some dispute about this race, and many people felt that Dunraven had not been well treated by our American judges. Feeling ran high in yachting circles and I overheard one sporting character say to another:
“Dunraven they call him,—Done racin’, I call him!”
Lady Dunraven was very unlike her husband in tastes and interests. I remember her as one of the most perfectly bred women I ever met, gentle, domestic, and devoted to her children.