Sargent
The patient went first to London and enjoyed her stay there. During it, she conceived a strong wish to be painted by her eminent fellow-countryman, Sargent, the magician who reveals unknowingly what have been hidden mysteries. The portrait when finished was highly thought of and presently despatched to the parents of the sitter, while she went her way to Switzerland and Italy. The great artist's work delighted the father and mother. An "at home" was arranged that their many friends might share their admiration. All of this took place; among the invited guests being the friendly doctor who had been so puzzled by the condition of his patient. I will come briefly to the sad sequel. The doctor gazed at the portrait long and earnestly: he left the house perturbed and saddened. On the following day he sought an interview with the father, told him that Sargent had revealed to him, beyond doubt, what he had failed to discover himself. Put briefly, the poor girl afterwards died in a madhouse. When Tadema had finished his story, Abbey, who was also present, quietly remarked: "All too true. I could tell you the names of those concerned."
The painter who ran dear Millais close in my appreciation, and who has given me, if I bare my heart and tell the naked truth, greater pleasure than any other painter, was Orchardson; the fact that his work is so dramatic being, I suppose, the reason. His two phases of the Mariage de Convenance were gems. I don't know whether Act I surpassed Act II, or if the verdict was the other way. The glorious Queen of the Swords, The Challenge, Hard Hit, The Young Duke, Napoleon in the Bellerophon, The First Cloud, with their exquisite colourings, the secret of which never seems to have been divulged; and still one other, so delicate in conception, so perfect in its pathos, Her Mother's Voice. What a story! How simply told!
Edwin Abbey was also a painter who appealed strongly to me; again, because he was dramatic. His Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and the Lady Anne, I always looked upon with admiration. The splendour of its colouring is lost to me, for I see it now only en gravure. Nor can his Hamlet and King Lear be forgotten, while his decorative work was magnificent and will preserve his fame. He had great charm as host and guest.
I travel back to the far-off days when W. P. Frith, an old friend, was the popular Academician of his time; his pictures of the Derby Day and Ramsgate Sands having to be "railed in" at the Annual Exhibition, which was then held in the National Gallery, to protect them from the crowd.
Frith, I remember, was struck with the beauty of our production of the School for Scandal, which he highly praised. In its acting and historical accuracy he said it was like the last edition of a grand book, the handsomest and the best. He fell in love with the minuet, and said it took him back to the days of his great-grandmother. The minuet, which was introduced at Lady Sneerwell's "rout," was the brilliant idea of my wife: it was danced by two couples in a crowded room of guests. I have since seen it danced by a crowd to an otherwise empty stage.
I look back with interest to pleasant times spent in the company of Hubert Herkomer, that "jack-of-all-trades and master of many." His versatility was bewildering. Tools of every kind and shape seemed to be playthings in his hands; he grasped them with firmness and used them with skill; painting, engraving, etching, and all sorts of metal work alike came easily to him; he played the piano and the zither, composed and wrote, and was, in a way, a pioneer of film work. His shoals of portraits were amazing, and his fame might rest enduringly upon his painting of The Last Muster.
Briton Rivière was for many years our friend. We met first in the Engadine. He was, in my opinion, a great artist, and has crowded my memory with his works. I think often of those speaking dogs in The Vacant Chair, Sympathy and Charity, as I do of Circe with the amorous pigs, and the majestic Daniel facing the lions in their den.
I have always understood that Rivière was within an ace of being elected President when Millais died.