FIRST LORD LYTTON (BULWER LYTTON).
Drawn from life.
1869.
Slight Sketch of Knebworth.
In an inquisitive mood.
Sketched from memory.
Silent Before dinner.
Sketched from memory
In Art he had no taste whatever, but he was especially fond of artists with literary tastes, which perhaps explains why he "took" so much to Maclise and my father. Maclise (whom he considered everything that could be desired both as a personality and an artist) painted his portrait, which is now at Knebworth. It is an extraordinarily good likeness, but very hard in the quality of painting, and unsympathetic in treatment.
When I was at Knebworth I first found myself in public opposition to my father's dislike of tobacco. I do not think I have mentioned this distaste before. When he gave a dinner at home, he usually persuaded a friend to choose the cigars, and was very glad to escape from the atmosphere of tobacco when they were being smoked by his guests. Later in life the doctor ordered an occasional cigarette to soothe his nerves; he smoked one, and that was too much for him.
À propos of this detestation of tobacco, I suffered what I supposed then to be one of the most humiliating moments of my life. When the cigars were handed round to the guests after dinner, I took one and began to light it, whereupon my father, who had never allowed me to smoke in his presence, saw my cigar, and waved it magnificently down. Considering myself "grown up," I was at the most sensitive period of my boyhood, and I felt I must appear ridiculous in the eyes of all the men at the table, when possibly the whole episode had passed unnoticed, or if they had observed me, would not have given a moment's notice to the occurrence.