An Autobiography. Elizabeth Butler
me. ‘Little Pale Face’ is very charming with me indeed. One girl told me a dream she had had of me, and Mrs. C., wife of the Athenæum art critic, clapped me on the back very cordially.”
I give these extracts just to launch the Memoirs into that student life which was of such importance to me. Till the Easter vacation I did all I could to retrieve what I considered a good deal of leeway in my art training. There were Sketching Club competitions of intense effort on my part, and how joyful I felt at such events as my illustrations to Thackeray’s “Newcomes” coming through marked “Best” by the judges.
“May 9th.—Veni, vidi, vici! My re-entry into the schools after the vacation has been a triumphal one, for my ‘Newcomes’ have been returned ‘The Best.’ The girls were so glad to see me back. I have chosen, as there is not to be a model till next Monday week, a beautiful headpiece of elaborate design on whose surface the red drapery near it is reflected. Some time after lunch Mrs. C. came running to me from the Antique triumphantly waving a bunch of lilac above her head and crying out that my ‘Newcomes’ had won! I jumped up, overjoyed, and went to see the sketches, around which a crowd of students was buzzing. Mr. Denby, who couldn’t help knowing whose the ‘Best’ were, gave me a nod of approbation. I was very happy. Returning to Fulham, I told the glad tidings to Papa, Mamma, Grandpapa and Grandmamma as they each came in. So this has been a charming day indeed.”
Page after page, closely written, describes the student life, than which there cannot be a happier one for a boy or girl; thorough searchings through the Royal Academy rooms for everything I could find for instruction, admiration and criticism. I joined a class in Bolsover Street for the study of the “undraped” female model, and worked very hard there on alternate days. This necessitated long omnibus rides to that dismal locality, but I always managed to post myself near the omnibus door, so as to study the horses in motion in the crowded streets from that coign of vantage. I also joined a painting class in Conduit Street, but that venture was not a success. I went in about the same time for very thorough artistic anatomy at the schools. I gave sketches to nearly all my fellow students – fights round standards, cavalry charges, thundering guns. I wonder where they are all now! I had always had a great liking for the representation of movement, but at the same time a deep well of melancholy existed in my nature, and caused me to draw from its depths some very sad subjects for my sketches and plans for future pictures. How strange it seems that I should have been so impregnated, if I may use the word, with the warrior spirit in art, seeing that we had had no soldiers in either my father’s or mother’s family! My father had a deep admiration for the great captains of war, but my mother detested war, though respecting deeply the heroism of the soldier. Though she and I had much in common, yet, as regards the military idea, we were somewhat far asunder; my dear and devoted mother wished to see me lean towards other phases of art as well, especially the religious phase, and my Italian studies in days to come very much inclined me to sacred subjects. But as time went on circumstances conducted me to the genre militaire, and there I have remained, as regards my principal oil paintings, with few exceptions. My own reading of war – that mysteriously inevitable recurrence throughout the sorrowful history of our world – is that it calls forth the noblest and the basest impulses of human nature. The painter should be careful to keep himself at a distance, lest the ignoble and vile details under his eyes should blind him irretrievably to the noble things that rise beyond. To see the mountain tops we must not approach the base, where the foot-hills mask the summits. Wellington’s answer to enthusiastic artists and writers seeking information concerning the details of his crowning victory was full of meaning: “The best thing you can do for the Battle of Waterloo is to leave it alone.” He had passed along the dreadful foot-hills which blocked his vision of the Alps.
I worked hard at the schools and in the country throughout 1867, and, with many ups and downs, progressed in the Life class. My fellow students were a great delight to me, so enthusiastically did they watch my progress and foretell great things for me. We formed a little club of four or five students – kindred spirits – for mutual help and all sorts of good deeds, the badge being a red cross and the motto “Thorough.” I remember a money-box into which we were, by the rules, to drop what coins we could spare for the Poor. We were to read a chapter of the New Testament every day, and a chapter of Thomas à Kempis, and all our works were to be signed with the red cross and the club monogram. Seeing this little sign in the corner of “The Roll Call” over my name set one of those absurd stories circulating in the Press with which the public was amused in 1874, namely, that I had been a Red Cross nurse in the Crimea. As a counterpoise to this more “copy” was obtained for the papers by paragraphs representing me as an infant prodigy, which I thank my stars I was not!
One day in this year 1867 I had, with great trepidation, asked Mr. Burchett to accept two pen and ink illustrations I had made to Morris’s poem, “Riding together.” Great commotion amongst the students. Some preferred the drawing for the gay and happy first verse:
Our spears stood bright and thick together,
Straight out the banners streamed behind,
As we galloped on in the sunny weather,
With our faces turned towards the wind.
and others the tragic sequel:
They bound my blood-stained hands together,
They bound his corpse to nod by my side,
Then on we rode in the bright March weather,
With clash of cymbal did we ride.
The Diary says: “Mr. Burchett, surrounded by my dear fellow red crosses, Va., B., and Vy., talked about the drawings in a way which pleased me very much. When he was gone, Va. and B. disappeared and soon reappeared, Va. with a crown of leaves to crown me with and B. with a comb and some paper on which to play ‘See the Conquering Hero comes’ whilst Va. and Vy. should carry me along the great corridor in a dandy chair. They had great trouble to crown me, and then to get me to mount. It was a most uncomfortable triumphal progress, Vy. being nearly six foot and Va. rather short. They just put me down in time, for, had we gone an inch further on, we should have confronted Miss Truelock,3 who swooped round the corner. I cannot describe the homage these three pay me, Va.’s in particular – Vy.’s is measured, and not humble like Va.’s or radiantly enthusiastic like B.’s. I am glad that I stand proof against all this, but it is hard to do so, as I know it is so thoroughly sincere, and that they say even more out of my hearing than to my face.”
The Sultan Abdul Aziz and the Khedive Ismail paid a visit to London that year. We were in the midst of the festivities; and such church-bell ringing, fireworks, musical uproar, especially at the Crystal Palace, where the “Hallelujah,” “Moses in Egypt,” and other Biblical choruses vied with the cheering of the crowds in expressions of exultation, seldom had London known. This fills pages and pages of the Diary. As we looked on from Willis and Sotheran’s shop window, out of which all the books had been cleared for us, in Trafalgar Square, at the arrival of the “Father of the Faithful,” it seemed a strange thing for the bells of our churches to be pealing forth their joyous welcome. But how vain all these political doings appear as time goes by! What sort of reception would we give the present Sultan I wonder? We have even abolished Khedives. Much more reasonable and sane was the mob’s welcome to the Belgian volunteers, who were also England’s guests that year. We English were very courteous to the Belgians. Papa took us to the great Belgian ball, where we appeared wearing red, black, and yellow sashes. He offered to hold a Belgian officer’s sword for him while he (the Belgian) waltzed me round the hall. A silver medal was struck to commemorate this visit, and every Belgian was presented with this decoration. On it were engraved the words “Vive La Belge.” No one could tell who the lady was.
This year saw my meek beginning in the showing of an oil picture (“Horses in Sunshine”) at the Women Artists’ Exhibition, and then followed a water colour, “Bavarian Artillery going into Action,” at the Dudley Gallery – that delightful gallery which is now no more and which The Times designated the “nursery of young reputations.” I continued exhibiting water colours and black-and-whites for some years there. I had the rare sensation of walking on air when my father,
The severe Lady Superintendent.