(Then come many pages of the reasons which prevent her from writing.)
After she came to live near the Tennysons, Mrs. Cameron had no sense of ever having done enough for them or more than enough. She would arrive at Farringford at all hours, convenient and inconvenient, entering by the door, by the drawing-room window, always bringing goodwill and life in her train. She would walk in at night, followed by friends, by sons carrying lanterns, by nieces, by maids bearing parcels and photographs. Hers was certainly a gift for making life and light for others, though at times I have known her spirits sink into deepest depths as do those of impressionable people. Torch-bearers sometimes consume themselves and burn some of their own life and spirit in the torches they carry. When Julia Cameron took to photography, her enthusiasm was infectious and her beautiful pictures seemed a revelation. She was an artist at heart and she had never felt satisfied till she found her own channel of expression in these new developments. Watts greatly encouraged her, and I heard him say of one of her pictures of himself, that he knew no finer portrait among the old Masters.
One of her admirers, F. D. Maurice, wrote:
‘Had we such portraits of Shakespeare and Milton, we should know more of their own selves. We should have better commentaries on “Hamlet” and on “Comus” than we now possess, even as you have secured to us a better commentary on “Maud” and “In Memoriam” than all our critics ever will give us.’
Browning, Darwin, Carlyle, Lecky, Sir John Herschell, Henry Taylor with his flowing beard were all among her sitters and still reveal themselves to us through her. She photographed without ceasing, in season and out of season, and she summoned everyone round about to watch the process.
‘I turned my coal-house into my dark room,’ she wrote, ‘and a glazed fowl-house I had given to my children became my glass house, the society of hens and chickens was soon changed into that of poets, prophets, painters, children and lovely maidens. I worked fruitlessly but not hopelessly.... I longed to arrest all the beauty that came before me, and at length the longing was satisfied.’
Miss Marie Spartali, a very beautiful young lady who had come over to pose to Mrs. Cameron, described finding her absorbed in another sitter—her own parlourmaid, Mary Hillier, draped and patient, representing some mythological personage. There was a ring at the outer bell (focussing in those days took long and anxious minutes), and as Mary Hillier could not be allowed to move, Miss Spartali went to the door, where the visitor, seeing this stately lovely apparition dressed in wonderful attire, exclaimed ‘Are you then the beautiful parlourmaid?’ This little ancient joke is still quoted against the beautiful lady.
How familiar to all, who were forced by the photographer into the little studio, is the remembrance of the mingled scent of chemicals and sweetbriar already meeting one in the road outside Dimbola! The terrors of the studio itself are still remembered, the long painful waiting, when we would have trembled had we dared to do so, under her impetuous directions to be still.
This is her own description of her art, writing to Mrs. Tennyson:
‘I send you dear Louie Simeon’s letter to show how they all value the likeness of the father of that house and home. It is a sacred blessing which has attended my photography. It gives a pleasure to millions and a deeper happiness to very many.... While the spirit is in me I must praise those I love.’