I GAVE my orders to the colorman,
and settled matters with my friend
the artist that day.
The next morning, before the
hour at which I expected my sitter,
having just now as much interest
in the life of Lady Malkinshaw
as Mr. Batterbury had in her
death, I went to make kind inquiries
after her ladyship's health.
The answer was most reassuring.
Lady Malkinshaw had no present
intention of permitting me to
survive her. She was, at that
very moment, meritoriously and
heartily engaged in eating her
breakfast. My prospects being
now of the best possible kind,
l felt encouraged to write once
more to my father, telling him
of my fresh start in life, and
proposing a renewal of our acquaintance.
I regret to say that he was so
rude as not to answer my letter.
Mr. Batterbury was punctual
to the moment. He gave a gasp
of relief when he beheld me,
full of life, with my palette
on my thumb, gazing fondly on
my new canvas.
"That's right!" he said. "I
like to see you with your mind
composed. Annabella would have
come with me; but she has a little
headache this morning. She sends
her love and best wishes."
I seized my chalks and began
with that confidence in myself
which has never forsaken me in
any emergency. Being perfectly
well aware of the absolute dependence
of the art of portrait-painting
on the art of flattery, I determined
to start with making the mere
outline of my likeness a compliment
to my sitter.
It was much easier to resolve
on doing this than really to
do it. In the first place, my
hand would relapse into its wicked
old caricaturing habits. In the
second place, my brother-in-law's
face was so inveterately and
completely ugly as to set every
artifice of pictorial improvement
at flat defiance. When a man
has a nose an inch long, with
the nostrils set perpendicularly,
it is impossible to flatter it--you
must either change it into a
fancy nose, or resignedly acquiesce
in it. When a man has no perceptible
eyelids, and when his eyes globularly
project so far out of his head,
that you expect to have to pick
them up for him whenever you
see him lean forward, how are
mortal fingers and bushes to
diffuse the right complimentary
expression over them? You must
either do them the most hideous
and complete justice, or give
them up altogether. The late
Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.,
was undoubtedly the most artful
and uncompromising flatterer
that ever smoothed out all the
natural characteristic blemishes
from a sitter's face; but even
that accomplished parasite would
have found Mr. Batterbury too
much for him, and would have
been driven, for the first time
in his practice of art, to the
uncustomary and uncourtly resource
of absolutely painting a genuine
likeness.
As for me, I put my trust in
Lady Malkinshaw's power of living,
and portrayed the face of Mr.
Batterbury in all its native
horror. At the same time, I sensibly
guarded against even the most
improbable accidents, by making
him pay me the fifty pounds as
we went on, by installments.
We had ten sittings. Each one
of them began with a message
from Mr. Batterbury, giving me
Annabella's love and apologies
for not being able to come and
see me. Each one of them ended
with an argument between Mr.
Batterbury and me relative to
the transfer of five pounds from
his pocket to mine. I came off
victorious on every occasion--being
backed by the noble behavior
of Lady Malkinshaw, who abstained
from tumb ling down, and who
ate and drank, and slept and
grew lusty, for three weeks together.
Venerable woman! She put fifty
pounds into my pocket. I shall
think of her with gratitude and
respect to the end of my days.
One morning, while I was sitting
before my completed portrait,
inwardly shuddering over the
ugliness of it, a suffocating
smell of musk was wafted into
the studio; it was followed by
a sound of rustling garments;
and that again was succeeded
by the personal appearance of
my affectionate sister, with
her husband at her heels. Annabella
had got to the end of her stock
of apologies, and had come to
see me.
She put her handkerchief to
her nose the moment she entered
the room.
"How do you
do, Frank? Don't kiss me: you
smell of paint,
and I can't bear it."
I felt a similar antipathy
to the smell of musk, and had
not the slightest intention of
kissing her; but I was too gallant
a man to say so; and I only begged
her to favor me by looking at
her husband's portrait.
Annabella glanced all round
the room, with her handkerchief
still at her nose, and gathered
her magnificent silk dress close
about her superb figure with
her disengaged hand.
"What a horrid place!" she
said faintly behind her handkerchief. "Can't
you take some of the paint away?
I'm sure there's oil on the floor.
How am I to get past that nasty
table with the palette on it?
Why can't you bring the picture
down to the carriage, Frank?"
Advancing a few steps, and
looking suspiciously about her
while she spoke, her eyes fell
on the chimney-piece. An eau-de-Cologne
bottle stood upon it, which she
took up immediately with a languishing
sigh.
It contained
turpentine for washing brushes
in. Before I
could warn her, she had sprinkled
herself absently with half the
contents of the bottle. In spite
of all the musk that now filled
the room, the turpentine betrayed
itself almost as soon as I cried "Stop!" Annabella,
with a shriek of disgust, flung
the bottle furiously into the
fireplace. Fortunately it was
summer-time, or I might have
had to echo the shriek with a
cry of "Fire!"
"You wretch! you brute! you
low, mischievous, swindling blackguard!" cried
my amiable sister, shaking her
skirts with all her might, "you
have done this on purpose! Don't
tell me! I know you have. What
do you mean by pestering me to
come to this dog-kennel of a
place?" she continued, turning
fiercely upon the partner of
her existence and legitimate
receptacle of all her superfluous
wrath. "What do you mean by bringing
me here, to see how you have
been swindled? Yes, sir, swindled!
He has no more idea of painting
than you have. He has cheated
you out of your money. If he
was starving tomorrow he would
be the last man in England to
make away with himself--he is
too great a wretch--he is too
vicious--he is too lost to all
sense of respectability--he is
too much of a discredit to his
family. Take me away! Give me
your arm directly! I told you
not to go near him from the first.
This is what comes of your horrid
fondness for money. Suppose Lady
Malkinshaw does outlive him;
suppose I do lose my legacy.
What is three thousand pounds
to you? My dress is ruined. My
shawl's spoiled. He die!
If the old woman lives to the
age of Methuselah, he won't die.
Give me your arm. No! Go to my
father. I want medical advice.
My nerves are torn to pieces.
I m giddy, faint, sick--SICK,
Mr. Batterbury!"
Here she became hysterical,
and vanished, leaving a mixed
odor of musk and turpentine behind
her, which preserved the memory
of her visit for nearly a week
afterward.
"Another scene in the drama
of my life seems likely to close
in before long," thought I. "No
chance now of getting my amiable
sister to patronize struggling
genius. Do I know of anybody
else who will sit to me? No,
not a soul. Having thus no portraits
of other people to paint, what
is it my duty, as a neglected
artist, to do next? Clearly to
take a portrait of myself."
I did so, making my own likeness
quite a pleasant relief to the
ugliness of my brother-in-law's.
It was my intention to send both
portraits to the Royal Academy
Exhibition, to get custom, and
show the public generally what
I could do. I knew the institution
with which I had to deal, and
called my own likeness, Portrait
of a Nobleman.
That dexterous appeal to the
tenderest feelings of my distinguished
countrymen very nearly succeeded.
The portrait of Mr. Batterbury
(much the more carefully-painted
picture of the two) was summarily
turned out. The Portrait of a
Nobleman was politely reserved
to be hung up, if the Royal Academicians
could possibly find room for
it. They could not. So that picture
also vanished back into the obscurity
of the artist's easel. Weak and
well-meaning people would have
desponded under these circumstances;
but your genuine Rogue is a man
of elastic temperament, not easily
compressible under any pressure
of disaster. I sent the portrait
of Mr. Batterbury to the house
of that distinguished patron,
and the Portrait of a Nobleman
to the Pawnbroker's. After this
I had plenty of elbow-room in
the studio, and could walk up
and down briskly, smoking my
pipe, and thinking about what
I should do next.
I had observed that the generous
friend and vagabond brother artist,
whose lodger I now was, never
seemed to be in absolute want
of money; and yet the walls of
his studio informed me that nobody
bought his pictures. There hung
all his great works, rejected
by the Royal Academy, and neglected
by the patrons of Art; and there,
nevertheless, was he, blithely
plying the brush; not rich, it
is true, but certainly never
without money enough in his pocket
for the supply of all his modest
wants. Where did he find his
resources? I determined to ask
him the question the very next
time he came to the studio.
"Dick," I said (we called each
other by our Christian names), "where
do you get your money?"
"Frank," he answered, "what
makes you ask that question?"
"Necessity," I proceeded. "My
stock of money is decreasing,
and I don't know how to replenish
it. My pictures have been turned
out of the exhibition-rooms;
nobody comes to sit to me; I
can't make a farthing; and I
must try another line in the
Arts, or leave your studio. We
are old friends now. I've paid
you honestly week by week; and
if you can oblige me, I think
you ought. You earn money somehow.
Why can't I?"
"Are you at all particular?" asked
Dick.
"Not in the least," I
answered.
Dick nodded, and looked pleased;
handed me my hat, and put on
his own.
"You are just the sort of man
I like," he remarked, "and I
would sooner trust you than any
one else I know. You ask how
I contrive to earn money, seeing
that all my pictures are still
in my own possession. My dear
fellow, whenever my pockets are
empty, and I want a ten-pound
note to put into them, I make
an Old Master."
I stared hard at him, not at
first quite understanding what
he meant.
"The Old Master I can make
best," continued Dick, "is Claude
Lorraine, whom you may have heard
of occasionally as a famous painter
of classical landscapes. I don't
exactly know (he has been dead
so long) how many pictures he
turned out, from first to last;
but we will say, for the sake
of argument, five hundred. Not
five of these are offered for
sale, perhaps, in the course
of five years. Enlightened collectors
of old pictures pour into the
market by fifties, while genuine
specimens of Claude, or of any
other Old Master you like to
mention, only dribble in by ones
and twos. Under these circumstances,
what is to be done? Are unoffending
owners of galleries to be subjected
to disappointment? Or are the
works of Claude, and the other
fellows, to be benevolently increased
in number, to supply the wants
of persons of taste and quality?
No man of humanity but must lean
to the latter alternative. The
collectors, observe, don't know
anything about it--they buy Claude
(to take an instance from my
own practice) as they buy all
the other Old Masters, because
of his reputation, not because
of the pleasure they get from
his works. Give them a picture
with a good large ruin, fancy
trees, prancing nymphs, and a
watery sky; dirty it down dexterously
to the right pitch; put it in
an old frame; call it a Claude;
and the sphere of the Old Master
is enlarged, the collector is
delighted, the picture-dealer
is enriched, and the neglected
modern artist claps a joyful
hand on a well-filled pocket.
Some men have a knack at making
Rembrandts, others have a turn
for Raphaels, Titians, Cuyps,
Watteaus, and the rest of them.
Anyhow, we are all made happy--all
pleased with each other--all
benefited alike. Kindness is
propagated and money is dispersed.
Come along, my boy, and make
an Old Master!"
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