"Do you know, 'Mr. Spy,' that it's very bad manners to whisper?"
So addressing myself to the lady, I offered my humble apologies and regrets for my forgetfulness (much to her amusement).
When the caricature appeared he wondered "who the fellow was who had seen him," and tried to remember when it was he had worn lilies of the valley in his dress coat. I wonder he did not suspect "Mr. Spy."
CHAPTER VII
PORTRAITURE
Some of my sitters.—Mrs. Tom Caley.—Lady Lucia Warner.—Lady Loudoun.—Colonel Corbett.—Miss Reiss.—The late Mrs. Harry McCalmont.—The Duke of Hamilton.—Sir W. Jaffray.—The Queen of Spain.—Soldier sitters.—Millais.—Sir William Cunliffe Brooks.—Holman Hunt.—George Richmond.—Sir William Richmond.—Sir Luke Fildes.—Lord Leighton.—Sir Laurence Alma Tadema.—Sir George Reid.—Orchardson.—Pettie.—Frank Dicksee.—Augustus Lumley.—"Archie" Stuart Wortley.—John Varley.—John Collier.—Sir Keith Fraser.—Sir Charles Fraser.—Mrs. Langtry.—Mrs. Cornwallis West.—Miss Rousby.—The Prince of Wales.—King George as a boy.—Children's portraits.—Mrs. Weldon.—Christabel Pankhurst.
"In portraits, the grace and one may add the likeness consists more in the general air than in the exact similitude of every feature."
Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Of the study of portraiture I was always fond, and the prospect of becoming a portrait painter appealed greatly to me.
Although Fate interrupted this good intention through the unforeseen offer to work for Vanity Fair (which, with my love for caricature, I could not resist the temptation of accepting), I did not refuse commissions to execute portraits, but as the number of cartoons that I had undertaken to do for publication was considerable, naturally private work had to make way for it. Finding it difficult to direct my mind to both the serious and the comic at the same time, I was obliged to select different days for each; in case I might put too humorous an expression into the picture of a baby, or distort the features of a mayor in his robes.