THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, DR. TEMPLE 1902
At the official residence of the Bishop of Stepney, 2, Amen Court, in the precincts of St. Paul's Cathedral, I sketched both the Bishop of London and the present Archbishop of York at the time when each ruled over the see of Stepney. When sketching Dr. Winnington-Ingram again, as Bishop of London, for The World, he came to my studio, and was extremely friendly and entertaining as a sitter. It was about the time of my marriage that my drawing of Canon Fleming appeared in Vanity Fair. Of course I knew his face very well indeed. He was the kindest-looking of men, and the cartoon eventually came into the possession of his family.
It was through my old friend, Archie Stuart-Wortley, that I first knew John Scott-Montagu, now Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, his first cousin and great pal, and we spent many delightful days together, at the Palace House, Beaulieu, and in his delightful bungalow on the Solent. John was a brilliant and most versatile young man; it was difficult to say what he could not do, and there is very little about which he does not know something. At one time he will be absorbed in engineering, at another in commerce or in literary work, or may be political. He is a very fine shot, a keen fisherman, in fact, a good all-round sportsman and a most entertaining companion. He has driven a railway engine, but although now absorbed in plans and buildings for the development of Beaulieu, and also in the building of another beautiful house on the Solent for himself, he is, of course, always tremendously keen on everything relating to The Car. His brain power and energy are amazing. I have drawn him and also his wife, who is a daughter of the late Marquis of Lothian. She is an accomplished musician and a charming hostess. I always think of Lord Montagu in connection with the difficulty of conveying a correct sense of height in these full-length Vanity Fair cartoons. For instance, to insure a clear impression of his moderate height, in my drawing I lowered the head considerably below the margin of the paper upon which it was drawn, while in its published form the printers had placed it on a level with the margin, thereby giving the impression of increased height, and consequently of a decidedly tall man.
Naturally the proportion of a figure being relative to the space surrounding it, I took good care in the case of Major Oswald Ames, who is something like 6 feet 8 inches, to make his head almost touch the margin; the same rule applied to the feet, and with the aid of a miniature chair in the background the effect was produced.
I conclude I was fortunate with sketches of the late Lord Salisbury, as a lady, a great friend of his, said that a grease paint picture I made of him, in Cyril Maude's dressing-room at the Haymarket Theatre, was quite the best she had ever seen of that distinguished statesman. In 1902, I made another, after watching him again in the House of Lords. It happened to be on the easel one day when Lord Redesdale came to my studio, and he, being struck with it, complimented me by asking if I would part with it, so that the original is now in his possession, and by his permission is reproduced in this book.
THE MARQUIS OF SALISBURY, 1902.
