There was Lord Crowhurst, I knew him first
When only Misther Pips he was.
During his stay in America he learned to like our people greatly, and it was his intention to make us a second visit and to bring his charming American wife along with him; but this purpose of his was never carried out.
Shortly before leaving our shores, he said to me: “One thing alone would render it impossible for me ever to reside permanently in the United States, and that is the intolerable and brutal insolence of the lower classes.” To this I made answer: “But, Mr. Haden, in America we have no ‘lower classes.’ What you suffered from these people was really your own fault. It is all very well in England for a fine gentleman to bully and denounce the cabman, the railway-porter, and the servants at hotels, but it will not do here, and no American, however eminent, ever does it.”
When Seymour Haden returned to England he took with him the genuine good will of many Americans, and the lasting friendship of not a few.
THE WATER-COLORS AND DRAWINGS OF
SIR SEYMOUR HADEN, P.R.E.
By H. NAZEBY HARRINGTON
Author of “The Engraved Work of Sir Francis
Seymour Haden, P.R.E.”
AS an etcher the work of Sir Seymour Haden is known to all lovers of art the wide world over, and not least in the United States, but his general capacity as an artist in other forms of expression is less well known, partly from lack of opportunity and partly from the very limited amount of material.
It must never be forgotten that art was not the main business of his life; it was but an occasional and fitful relaxation in a life devoted to another profession and full of other and varied interests. The wonder is, not that his artistic work was so limited, but that it was so great and so successful.