In this ingrained pride and self-esteem of Seymour Haden’s he was far too proud to be vain. I do not think he had any vanity at all. In this respect he differed, “as far as the east is from the west,” from his illustrious brother-in-law, Whistler. The latter’s lifelong habit was to pose and to perform like an actor on the stage—whether his audience consisted of many auditors or of only one; while Haden, though an eminently well-bred gentleman, cared nothing whatever about the impression he might be making on his auditors—so long as his actions were approved by himself. On such occasions all went charmingly until some other person uttered a heterodox opinion on art, or politics, or any other subject; but when that happened Sir Seymour’s indignation would burst forth like a raging volcano.
On one such occasion, while I was a guest in his country house, I infuriated him—though with no evil intention. It was at the time when the patriot Charles Stewart Parnell was making such a brave struggle in the House of Commons on behalf of Home Rule for Ireland, I expressed my admiration for Parnell, when Sir Seymour got very angry and so made all the company uncomfortable. Thus far I did not blame myself; but a year later I certainly was ashamed of my own indiscretion. I had quite forgotten about the outbreak of the former year and I again expressed my warm sympathy with the cause of Irish Home Rule. It was just at the beginning of dinner at Sir Seymour’s hospitable table, but no sooner had I mentioned the subject than he flung down knife and fork, marched out of the dining-room, banged the door behind him, and tramped up-stairs to his bedroom. That sweet woman, Lady Haden, said to me very quietly, “We shall see no more of Sir Seymour to-night,” and next morning, before my host appeared at breakfast, his very tactful wife, laying her hand gently on my arm, said to me, “Mr. Keppel, in conversing with my husband, pray avoid the subject of Home Rule in Ireland.” Most readers would think that the little incident ended here; but it didn’t. Presently Sir Seymour came down to breakfast and carried in his hand a large and handsome book which he presented to me. On the fly-leaf I read a long and most kindly dedication written by himself; and so that was the end of the incident. I remember that when I received this amende honorable my first impulse was to recall a characteristic Irish adage which says: “First cut my head, an’ then give me a plasther!”
Sir Seymour Haden
From the drawing by Alphonse Legros, done in 1895
Woodcote Manor (the Home of Sir Seymour Haden)
From the etching by Percy Thomas
Size of the original etching, 6⅝ × 10½ inches
Lady Haden was, in a very quiet and refined way, a remarkable woman. She was daughter of an American army officer, Major Whistler, and she bore the Puritan Christian names of Deborah Delano. In more than one of Sir Seymour’s etchings her first name is quieted down to “Dasha.” She was half-sister to the great Whistler, who was the issue of her father’s second marriage, and she clung to her “brother Jimmie” to the end of her life. All the art which was inherent in the Whistler family manifested itself in Lady Haden’s music. She was a marvelous reader of piano music, and when Sir Seymour got possession of the fine old Elizabethan mansion of Woodcote Manor in Hampshire, Lady Haden, perceiving that there was no musical skill among the young men of the neighboring village of Bramdean, organized a band or orchestra for these rustics. To one she taught the violin, to another the flute, to another the trombone, etc. After about two years of drilling I had the opportunity of hearing her band performing in the school-house at Bramdean, and they played respectably well, while the sweet old lady conducted the music with her baton. Toward the end of her life she became totally blind, and after that I never was more affected in my life than when, at Woodcote Manor, I saw her grope her way to her piano and heard her play, superbly, some great compositions by Beethoven and Chopin.
At Woodcote Manor Sir Seymour enjoyed his life thoroughly (except when something went wrong and made him angry). The mansion stood in its own park and there was a beautiful old garden inclosed with high stone walls. One summer when his long hedge of sweet pea was in full bloom he took me to see it and told me that he had thought out a new and interesting botanical fact, on which he had written a paper for the learned Royal Society, and that he intended to send it to them in London and to invite some eminent botanists of the Society to come to Woodcote and see the phenomenon for themselves. His theory was that garden flowers always had a tendency to return to the original color of the same blossoms in the wild plant, especially when the garden plant grew tall, and then he showed me that, in his hedge of sweet pea, the purple blossoms at the top were much more numerous than the flowers of pink or blue or white which were lower down, thus proving that when a garden sweet pea grew tall the blossoms returned to the original purple color of the wild pea.