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PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER.
(From my Oil Picture.')

tf^'~

THE HERKOMERS.

BY
SIR HUBERT VON HERKOMER,
C.V.O., R.A., D.C.L., LL.D., &c.

PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION.
1910.

CONTENTS.

Chapter. I.
II.
III. IV. V.
VI.
VII.
VIII. IX. X.
XI.
XII.
XIII. XIV. XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII. XIX. XX.
XXI.

XXII.

My Father's Apprenticeship and Mastership
Settlement of the Young Master in his Native
Village : His Emigration to America
Sojourn in America, 1851 to 1857 ...
First Years in England : from 1857
Early Years in England (continued)
Early Years in England (continued)
Early Years in England (continued)
Journey to Munich, 1865
Munich, 1865 
Southampton again — London 
Science and Art Schools, South Kensington
My First Sketching Campaign (1868)
Settling in London. " The Graphic "
Bavaria, Romantic and Paintable ...
Second Visit to Bavaria 
England at Closer Quarters
" The Last Muster "
Death of my Mother

Camping in North

Wales

Mutterturm, Landsberg
Portraiture. . .
Death of my Wife
The Herkomer School. Portrait of Miss Katherine
Grant (" Lady in White "). My Marriage
with Miss Griffiths 
Death of my Wife, Lulu 

Page. 7
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7488
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101
107
116
122 131
133
140

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Portrait of My Father (from my Oil Picture)  Frontispiece.
Portrait or Myself at One Year Old (from a Drawing by
my Father)
Portrait of Myself at Three and a Half Years Old (from
a Daguerrotype)
Portrait of My Mother (from my Water-colour Drawing) ...
Drawing from Nature at the Age of Fourteen
My First Two Drawings on Wood (accepted by the Brothers
Dalziel, 1868) 
Study for the First Drawing accepted by Mr. W. L. Thomas
for " The Graphic," 1870 
Sketch of Guard-Room at Aldershot (drawn for " The
^ Graphic," 1870) 
Study for the First Drawing of the Chelsea Pensioners
("The Graphic," 1870) 
" Gossips " (Water-colour Drawing painted on the first visit to
Garmisch, 1871) 
" After the Toil of the Day " (my first Oil Picture, Painted
in Garmisch, 1872) 
"'DerBittgang': Peasants Praying for a Successful Harvest"
(Water-colour Drawing, Painted in Ramsau, 1874)
Portrait of Myself, with My Two Eldest Children (from an
Etching, 1879) 
Cartoon which Appeared in "Punch" in 1875
(Reproduced by the special permission of the Proprietors of "Punch.")
Portrait of Lord Tennyson (Chalk Drawing, 1879) ...
" God's Shrine " (Oil Painting, 1879-80) 
" A Spinning Party in the Bavarian Alps " (Drawn Facsimile
on the block for "The Illustrated London News," 1878)... „ 94
(Reproduced by the Bpecial permission of the Proprietors of "The Illustrated
London News.")
"Natural Enemies" (Oil Painting, 1882) 
" Our Village " (Oil Painting, 1889) 
" The Last Muster " (Oil Painting, 1875) 
Cartoon which Appeared in " Punch " in 1878
(Reproduced by the special permission of the Proprietors of "Punch.")
"Homeward" (Oil Painting, 1881) 
My Improvised Studio in Ramsau
" Mutterturm," with Later Improvements (from a Drawing)...
Portrait of Archibald Forbes (Oil Painting, 1881) ...
Portrait of Miss Kathkrine Grant (Oil Painting, 1885)
"Found" (Oil Painting, 1884) 
Portrait of My Wife, Lulu (Pencil Drawing, 1885) ...

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iPreface.
A narrative so largely autobiographical as this "Record of the
Family Herkomer " cannot escape a note of egotism ; a note the
more pronounced in these pages by the rather unusual course I have
followed of putting myself under the microscope for temperamental
analysis. Given to the introspective habit — natural in the first
instance, as well as early encouraged by my father — it could hardly
be otherwise than that I should succumb to the temptation of self-
dissection in this story. It remains for the reader to say whether I
have passed the border-line of good taste.
It would be affectation on my part to pretend that I have not
been successful in life. But in this record I wish to bring out into
strongest relief the moral and psychological assistance I have received
from my father, to whom I owe such success as much as to innate
idiosyncrasy. He recognised the flaws in my character, and made
them as non-active as possible, whilst he encouraged and fostered the
proclivities likely to lead me to the desired goal — and this with a
wisdom that was as logical as it has proved to be far-reaching.
I make no apology, therefore, for being obsessed by this love for
my father, and if I have in any way given an adequate portrait of
this unique man, I shall feel that a filial duty has been performed.

THE HERKOMEES.

-?i

Chapter I.
MY FATHER'S APPRENTICESHIP AND MASTERSHIP.
\^7HEN my father was a lad, the mediaeval custom of appren
ticeship to the various trade-guilds was still in vogue in
Bavaria, and he was put to the trade of joiner (" Tischler ") in
the regular way, although in his case without premium, which
unfortunately gave him an inferior position in the house of his
master. The distance from our native village, Waal, to Munich is a
little over forty miles, a twenty hours' journey on foot, with rests.
Walking was the usual form of locomotion ; and to this day, in
the south of Germany, distances are measured by " hours," an hour
being equivalent to about three English miles. Such measurement
is still to be seen on many a milestone.
As my grandfather had also been apprenticed in Munich, he
was acquainted with a modest hostelry, where father and son,
foot-sore and hungry, could rest for the night. The next morning,
my grandfather presented the boy to his master, where he left him
with the words " SeLehrlich und fleissig " — be honest and industrious.
Let me first give some details of that interesting man, my
grandfather, since I take him as my starting point. Further back
in the family history, I have but the scant recollections my father
still retained of his childhood. He remembered vividly, however,
the misery he felt when, as a boy, he had to visit his grandparents,
and was made to pray the livelong day ; for these poor old people
were still direct sufferers from the Thirty Years' War — that terrible
page in Germany's history — and lived in perpetual fear.
My grandfather was by trade a plasterer (" Maurer "), by nature
an inventor of high order. His chances for the exercise of this
7

THE HERKOMERS.
great gift were small indeed; and when he left his trade to take
charge of his little patrimony after the death of his father, his
chances were smaller still. It was only in making and devising
locks to cupboards and gates, which no one unacquainted with the
secret could open, that he was able in any way to exercise his
inventive talent.
I should explain that his mother had the right to keep back
one son from military service, and she chose him in preference to
any one of her other sons, as they were all drunkards and gamblers.
The horror with which those vices filled my grandfather was duly
impressed on my father, who in his turn never touched a card, and
held drunkenness as a deadly sin.
When my grandfather was about ten years old, he was made to
tend horses through the night, in the open. Every now and again
the horses would give a peculiar neigh, which meant that their
nostrils had caught a stench that comes only from dead bodies.
And there they were : human beings dangling from gibbets, on this
side and on that. That is a grim picture ; but fear was not in the
boy. Yet these ghastly companions through the night made him
think ; it was wonderment rather than fear that passed through his
mind as he reflected on the scene. Whilst gazing at the stars in the
clear night he learnt — untaught — to tell the hour by their changes
of position in the sky.
This boy's inventive genius was first shown in a contrivance he
made for shooting down the horses' food from the loft to the manger
below — an arrangement in universal use now. Later on, when he
was apprenticed to his trade, he was once sent by his master with
a message to a silversmith. Whilst the latter absented himself on
the business of the message, the boy was left alone, when his
mechanical mind became interested in a chain that was in process
of making. Without more ado he began working at it, and by the
time the silversmith returned he had added an inch to that chain, of
a workmanship equal to that of the master.
My grandfather was nearly thirty years old when he learned to
8

MY FATHER'S APPRENTICESHIP AND MASTERSHIP.
read and write. I possess a prize that he gained at the " Feiertags-
Schule," a book full of useful hints, moral, mechanical and domestic.
It was in this book that in later years my father found a recipe for
condensing milk, of which I shall have occasion to speak again.
There is no doubt that my grandfather instilled the love of
things artistic into the minds of his sons, and did all in his power, as
far as his limited means permitted, to foster this love. He was, as I
have said, by trade a plasterer ; yet he was also a real artist by
nature. There was always the " Drang " to do something artistic —
yet what ? To satisfy this craving, he made those plastic groups of
figures, with landscape backgrounds, of sacred subjects, so often seen
in Catholic churches. He gave his boys tools, and set them to carve
hands, feet and faces for the figures. The draperies were of real
fabric, which, after being dipped in liquid glue, were arranged in
their proper folds and allowed to stiffen. Finally they were coloured,
and embellished with gold borders. The " Nativity " was a favourite
subject. The tumble-down manger, the animals, the shepherds, the
Magi and the angels, all gave scope to artistic design. These pictures
in relief, when finished, were presented to the church, and after being
blessed by the priest, were accepted by the villagers as something
sacred. When my father was four years old, a famine, only less severe
than that which had occurred in the century before, visited many
parts of Germany, and the families in and around Waal suffered
terrible distress. But the mother, by a fortunate instinct, gave her
children boiled oatmeal (the porridge of our day), of which meal
there was a goodly supply ; yet she wept as she saw her children
eagerly devour the food that she thought unfit for human beings.
That trouble once passed, the life resumed its calm routine.
One is inclined to linger on this type of German village-life:
a house with arable land attached to it — the freehold property of the
family — with a garden of vegetables and fruit, all sufficient to yield
food for the year, should no disaster occur. A craftsman, clever and
ingenious, with time on his hands to make many a little home
9

THE HERKOMERS.
improvement, with a wise and good wife, and clever healthy children
around him — free from debt — with a God and a Church he believes
in ; surely this is a picture not easily surpassed, of man's wants
supplied. But I believe it needs the German character to gild such a
life with the elevating influence of an ideal, without which every life
would become a mere existence.* But to return to my father.
It was the custom in those days — or I ought to say the law — that
the apprentices of the combined trades should be taken in a body on
Sunday to the three different schools : the general school (" Tages-
Schule"), the Sunday school (for religious instruction), and the drawing
school. They were marched through the streets to the respective
schools accompanied by the police ; this was not for the protection of
the apprentices, but for the safety of the populace, for that species of
youth from time immemorial was known to be a little devil, and up
to all kinds of mischief.
The Government offered a medal for the best drawing done by
an apprentice — no matter to what trade he belonged. My father
showed such talent for drawing that the master was anxious for him
to compete for this most coveted of all prizes, the one silver medal
given in the year. But a difficulty stood in the way, and that was
money. Better paper than that which was meted out gratis for the
ordinary drawings in the school had to be bought : further, the rather
expensive item, Indian ink, was necessary. His father could give him
no money, nor in any way subsidise him in the rather inferior position
he had to take in his master's house as a non-premiated apprentice.
He received of course his board and lodging, such as they were, and was
taught his trade, or, rather, was allowed to pick it up as best he could
in the workshop. He was put to much menial labour, however,
which did not belong to the craftroom, but was of a purely domestic
character, such as washing up dishes, cleaning the boots of his master
and family, rumiing on errands, and doing nurse-maid's work. Such
a thing as " Trink-Geld " (tips) never came his way. Now that this
system of apprenticeship has been revived in Germany, I am glad to
find that governmental inspectors closely watch the masters, to see
10

MY FATHER'S APPRENTICESHIP AND MASTERSHIP.
that the boys are not only taught their craft, but that they are not
ill-used, or made to do work not belonging to their trade. This
general protection was necessary in more ways than one, for neither
workman nor master hesitated to give an apprentice blows on the
smallest provocation. To this day cooks in Germany consider they
have a right to smack the faces ©f their kitchen-maids for faults
committed in their work. I had a German cook once in Bushey who
was quite surprised when informed that if she struck her kitchen-
maid, she was liable to be arrested for assault. That is only a
survival of the way in which apprentices were treated in the Middle
Ages. Well, my father could not compete for this medal without some
pecuniary help. To his surprise that help came from his drawing-
master, who supplied him with the necessary materials. The name of
that generous man was Hanfstaangl, a lithographer, and father of the
Hanfstaangls who are at the present day distinguished photographers
of pictures. The competitive drawings my father made were done in " wash,"
with Indian ink, but on a principle of his own invention. He mixed
four distinct tones, which he placed in such a way that each tone
slightly overlapped the other, producing a perfect gradation from
light to dark. He never corrected or altered : although clear, precise,
and accurate, his work was distinctly sympathetic.
These drawings — which are in my possession — could not fail to
make their mark, and the boy gained the medal head and shoulders
over the other competitors. He was told that drawings of such
pre-eminence, done by an apprentice, had never before been seen.
The presentation of the prizes was made the occasion of a
festival and a holiday. The masters of the various guilds assembled
in the old "Rathhaus." They marched in solemn procession to the
big hall — preceded by a fanfare of trumpets — and took their seats
according to seniority. The apprentices of the various trades came
up for their prizes in batches. Now, as there was only one medal
given, and that for drawing, my father had to walk up alone to
11

THE HERKOMERS.
receive the coveted reward from the hands of the " Biirgermeister,"
who presided over the whole ceremony. My father told me it was
the only occasion in his life when he " did not feel his legs " — owing
no doubt to his mental excitement.
From his apprenticeship he soon merged into the higher grade of
" Geselle " (workman), and in due time started on his " Wanderjahre "
— the freest and happiest time of his young days.
This skilful workman, with knapsack strung to his shoulder,
swinging his " Guild-stick " (a special cane, denoting his position as a
workman of a particular guild), and walking from Munich to Paris
via Amsterdam — is a delightful picture to contemplate ! Strong and
sturdy in body ; a mind keenly alive to the beauties of nature ; a
conscience clear and unclouded ; a fancy that could dictate the course
of his journey — surely no life could be more enviable.
He always had enough money in hand to carry him on to the
next place where work might await him ; and he indignantly refused
to resort to the usual methods of begging on the way. The custom
for Wander- workmen to give a " fencing performance " before houses,
in order to obtain money, had not yet died out when he started on
his wanderings. Such performances were called " Fechten," and to
tins day you can hear the word used to denote begging. On his
return to Munich, he made his test work for master-ship. This work
was said to be " unnecessarily good " for the purpose of passing, and
he was proclaimed " Meister " with honour.
Thus he had passed through the various stages of his craft —
so beautifully given in the old German saying:
Wer soil Lehrling sein ?
Jedermann !
Wer soil Geselle sein? Der was kann !
Wer soil Meister sein? Der was ersann !

12

Chapter II.

SETTLEMENT OF THE YOUNG MASTER IN HIS
NATIVE VILLAGE; HIS EMIGRATION TO
AMERICA.
My grandfather died soon after his son became master, and as the
elder brother refused to take over the patrimony, it fell to the next
son, my father, to take possession. The elder was a doctor, and a
most skilful anatomist, whose many preparations of the human body
are still to be seen in the Anatomical Museum at Munich. He
finally settled in a small village where, according to custom, he had
to combine shaving the peasants with his medical practice, which
latter consisted largely of blood-letting. He was an exceedingly
lively, daring and reckless fellow, absolutely without any sense of
caution, which often got him into a tight corner, from which my
father (who was the only person with any influence) had to extricate
him. On taking possession, the first thing my father did was to re
build the parental home, transforming it into a Gothic house, which,
though "simple in design, was architecturally correct. He had studied
that period, and admired and loved the Gothic beyond all other
styles. The erection of this novel piece of house-building brought
down on his head the criticism, " Those Herkomers always do things
differently from other people."
My father started straightway on the commission he had received
from the little community to make a new altar, in Gothic style, for
the church. It was an important work for a young master, and he
rose to the occasion. He was one of the pioneers in the revival of
the Gothic, which had been ousted by that hideous, overcharged,

THE HERKOMERS.
inorganic Baroque. In the eighteenth century, nearly all the
churches of Germany had been filled with this repellent form of
decoration. My father's altar was pure — if stern — in its Gothic, and was
his work from first to last — design, carving, gilding and colouring.
I do not remember his telling me of having had any assistance. The
altar is there to this day — the pride of the villagers, and the chief
attraction of the church.
Being now possessed of property, my father was permitted by
the law to marry. The girl he loved, and made his wife, was
Josephine Niggl, the daughter of a schoolmaster in a village not far
distant from Waal (Denklingen). In all villages and small towns in
Germany, church music is conducted by the schoolmaster ; and to
this day he has to pass his examination in music before he can get an
appointment. It follows therefore that in the education of a school
master's children music forms an important item. From the mother's
side all my relatives have been musicians, and several of my cousins
have become very distinguished pianists.
A couple of years after my father's marriage — that is, in 1849 —
I was born. My father was still working at his altar when the
new-born babe was brought in the arms of the proud old grand
mother to the church for baptism. The young master watched the
ceremony as he stood on the scaffolding, but before the child was
taken from the church he descended to have a peep at the little bit of
humanity — his son, who was to mean so much to him in after-life.
The strangely prophetic words he uttered then have been fulfilled:
" This boy shall become an artist, and my best friend." It was
fortunate that my father insisted on the name of Hubert being given
me, as the custom was to name a child after his god-father, who in
my case had the name of Xavier. Imagine going through the
world with such a name ! To my father, St. Hubertus suggested
the romanticism of the forest, and the German pine-forest was to
him the origin of Gothic architecture.
Abortive though it was, the revolution of 1848 had shaken
14

PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AT ONE YEAR OLD.
(From a, Draioing by my Father.)

SETTLEMENT AND EMIGRATION.
Germany to the core. From that period, and for many years
following, every man who had any feeling for freedom found
Germany intolerable ; and this occasioned a great exodus of the
best and strongest characters to what was universally considered the
land of promise and freedom, America. It was to be expected
that a man of my father's temperament, one of such independent
thinking, such stern rectitude, and such liberal sympathies, should
be influenced by the trend of thought that brought about a rising
of the people against tyranny and injustice: The thought of
emigrating, and beginning life again in the new world, haunted him.
He became more and more restive, and listened less and less to the
well-meaning neighbours, who tried to dissuade him from taking such
a step. The strongest influence against the resolve to leave his home
came from his most important and appreciative patron, who said to
my father : " Such a man as you should not emigrate, for you leave
Germany the poorer by your absence." This was Fiirst von der
Leyen, whose castle in Waal is still in the possession of his descend
ants. But a letter from my father's brother, John, who had already
crossed the Ocean, finally settled the matter, and the die was cast.
The German citizenship was formally given up, the home sold, and
the Fatherland left for the Great Unknown.
The few steamers that crossed to America in those days did not,
so far as I am aware, take emigrants, but if they did, the fare must
have been prohibitive. It was the sailing-vessels that carried the best
blood of Germany to the New World. The modern emigrant is a
pampered creature. He crosses the ocean in the largest and best
steamers afloat ; he is treated with consideration, has a good bed,
good food without stint, and arrives at his destination in six days.
The sailing-vessel in which we crossed took six weeks ! Think of it !
six weeks without seeing land ; six* weeks living on salt meat, with a
small amount of bread, and a cruelly small quantity of drinking-
water. My father had forestalled such eventualities by condensing
a quantity of milk before starting — a process he had read of in an old
book of practical advice, already referred to as the prize my grand-
15

THE HERKOMERS.
father obtained in the " Feiertags-Schule." This condensed milk he
sealed in tins much in the way in which it is now universally sold.
With the small amount of drinking-water allowed daily, the mother
and child received a nourishment without which perhaps neither
would have reached the American shore alive. During those six
weeks, the devoted mother, ill as she was, never let me out of her
arms. But there is an end even to a voyage across the Atlantic in a
sailing-vessel; and the spirits rose high when those long-enduring
emigrants set foot on land. It was New York at last 1 Alas, there
was no protection for such emigrants, no authority to save them from
swindlers, who took every advantage of the "greenhorns" (as they
were called), particularly of their not knowing a word of English ;
and, as it happened, hardly had my father stepped on to the quay
when a couple of ruffians tore from his grasp the box he was carrying,
and one of them mounted it with revolver in hand, threatening to
shoot my father if he did not pay so and so many dollars. It needed
no understanding of the English language to comprehend the
meaning of such an action, and it was not until my father had
paid the sum demanded that he was allowed to proceed with his
property to a lodging, where robbery took another, but equally
unpleasant, form.
A few years after this date the once popular concert-room
" Castle Gardens," where Jenny Lind made her debut, was converted
into a temporary asylum to give emigrants a protection from
sharpers ; and thence they were despatched to the West, where their*
labour was in demand.
The New World — the Land of Promise, had been reached !
All was as strange to the man and his wife as the language spoken
around them. Many and bitter were the qualms of regret at having
left the home in Germany ; but the step had been irrevocably taken,
and the consequences had to be endured.

16

Chapter III.
SOJOURN IN AMERICA, 1851 to 1857.

The events of the six years' sojourn in the United States have been
brought to my knowledge in a fragmentary way by my parents, as
I was too young to observe much for myself. There are, however,
some definite impressions left on my memory.
From what my parents told me, neither the Germans nor the
Irish at that period were in harmony with the Americans, and the
former were always designated as " Dutch " (used as a word of
opprobrium), which was no compliment to the early settlers who
came from Holland, and whose descendants at the present day are
proud of their ancestry ; many a young man is introduced to you in
modern times as belonging to one of the " oldest families " in
America. The Germans held together, talked and disputed over
their home politics, brewed their own Lager beer, established their
" Turn-verein," and, in fact, kept up all their German habits of life.
There are quarters now in New York where you do not see an
English name over a shop, or hear an English word spoken in the
street. I have a distinct recollection of our home in Cleveland. We
occupied the first floor of a large building which was built in the
shape of a flat-iron, and was known as " The Flat-iron Block." My
father and uncle had one room for their work — the largest in the
flat, and my mother established herself in one of the smaller rooms
for music-teaching. There were two or three other rooms, and there
was a kitchen. My recollection is of sparsely furnished rooms ; of
the terrible heat on summer nights, when we slept on the bare floor
in the vain hope of getting a little coolness ; of the exasperating bites
of stinking bugs (the more aristocratic flea, not being indigenous,
17

THE HERKOMERS.
was hardly ever met with) ; of the terrible cold in winter — when we
slept between straw mattresses to get warm ; and of the snow that
beat in through the imperfectly made window-sashes, and "sifted"
half across the floor— a grim contrast to the comforts that all classes
have at their command in modern America. The Flat-iron Block
was built of brick, but the great majority of houses, at least those
of the working classes, were of wood. The latter had the one
advantage of being easily moved to a different part of the town. I
have a clear recollection of a house of this kind, fully furnished, with
the family living in it uninterruptedly, being pulled through the
streets, and it was done in this way : a windlass, worked by a horse,
was fixed into the ground some fifty yards from the house, and drew
the house, by means of a rope, gradually up to it. Then the windlass
was moved on another fifty yards ; and the process was repeated until
the new destination had been reached. It was only necessary to place
such houses on wheels. But in modern times, for the removal of big
houses built of stone, the whole structure is made to move on steel
balls after it has been raised to the level of the road.
During those six years I have no recollection of being taught
to read or write, but in music my mother soon found an apt, though
unwilling, pupil in me ; and at the age of five years I performed a
solo on the piano at one of her pupil-concerts. In the workshop of
my father and uncle I was allowed to potter, play, or work, as I
chose. The following description of me at that age is what I have
gathered from my parents : a round face, dark complexion, with small
but firm-set mouth, big black eyes, a shock of unruly hair, which was
occasionally cut by my mother in the good old German fashion, by
placing a pudding-dish inverted on to my head, and then cutting all
the hair that projected beyond the rim, straight around from ear to
ear (a'form of hair-dressing, by the way, affected by modern French
art-students). Of an excessively restless nature, and always on the
go — through a superabundance of energy that was ever getting me
into mischief— I must surely have been a pickle !
18

PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AT THREE AND A HALF YEARS OLD.
(From a Daguerrotype.)

SOJOURN IN AMERICA.
During those early years my father showed apparently but little
interest in me, and I was placed under the entire charge of my Uncle
John, with whom I slept. But I think I can reconcile that attitude
of my father towards me with the touching devotion of the later
years. He was waiting for the dawn of the artist and the friend
that was to be. Moreover, the new life in that strange (and to
him) unsympathetic country, where endless things jarred on his
artistic and romantic nature, made him taciturn and stern. I certainly
feared him, and clung with my little heart to Uncle John, who was
so gentle and so loving to me : even my mother was not so much to
me then as my uncle. This good uncle, be it told, played the guitar
(by ear) and sang German songs, of which he taught me the simpler
ones ; these I could sing after him very readily, and then, with a
little repetition, as solos to his accompaniment before I was four
years old.
I have now a picture in my memory, of sitting on my uncle's
knee in that warm kitchen on a Christmas Eve, awaiting a knock at
the door to signify that Santa Claus had brought the Christmas-
tree and placed it in the living-room, to which I had been refused
access for some hours previously. Even at that early age I seemed
to have had an eye to effect, for I wanted to be even with this old
Santa Claus, and to give him a surprise. I proposed to sing a song
to the uncle's accompaniment on the guitar, which I felt sure Santa
Claus could hear as he passed the door. But a loud rap at the door
abruptly stopped the song, and a rush was made to the room where,
in German fashion, a Christmas-tree was set up, with candles burning
from the branches— only candles, mark you, with none of the gew
gaw stuff with which we now overcrowd a Christmas-tree. Under
neath the tree were spread some eatables, such as cakes and nuts, and
the present I had so longed for : thin boards, out of which I could cut
various things with a fret-saw. And, oh, the sweet smell of spruce
needles as they caught the flame of a candle — which to this day is a
ioy to me ! On such occasions, my father would unbend, and enjoy
it all with us; indeed, he took the initiative in the arrangements.
19

THE HERKOMERS.
But it was not only for the little boy that a Christmas-tree was put
up ; it was to warm the hearts of the elders, for it was Germany, was
this little tree ! It was the emblem of the home they had left ! I
remember my mother weeping through her smiles, as she took me
lovingly on to her lap.
There was little chance for the father and uncle to show their
craftsmanship, as in the fifties America was without artistic taste ;
and the two brothers had to undertake anything and everything that
came to hand : life-sized effigies, carved in wood, for figure-heads to
ships ; great brackets for the outsides of houses, also carved in wood,
afterwards to be covered with sand to appear like stone. I also
clearly remember their carving the face and hands for a Punchinello,
which greatly excited me. They even undertook to paint portraits,
and my uncle had a great success with a portrait of a baby, owing to
the happy thought of showing the " cunning " little foot peeping
out from, under the little skirt. My uncle had a great gift for
likeness-drawing, and made some charming pen-portraits of officers
whilst he was serving his six years in the army in Germany. He was
greatly in demand for these portraits, which augmented his small pay
as a private ; but to paint portraits in oils without practice or training
is a much more serious undertaking. Photography, which had not
yet progressed beyond the Daguerrotype stage, was only occasionally
available. Then both my father and his brother had erroneous ideas
about the painter's art, believing that the secret lay in the ground
upon which one painted, or in the method of under-painting. So
they were always experimenting, painting little heads (without
nature, of course) first on one kind of ground, then on another, each
being differently prepared; one head was under-painted green,
another red, and so on. These experiments were hung out to dry
in the sun, giving quite a decorative effect to the outside of the
house. Then came varnishes and oils to prepare ; and, needless to say,
they ground their own colours, which they put into little bladders,
with the ends tied up with string, an arrangement which has been in
20

PORTRAIT OF MY MOTHER
(From my Water-colour Drawing.')

SOJOURN IN AMERICA. *
use from the earliest times when oil-colours were first used. This
mode was only abandoned when the modern metallic tube was
introduced. Lest my reader should wonder how these colours in a
bladder, so tied up, could be squeezed on to the palette, I must
explain that the bladder had always to be pricked with a pin, through
which little hole the paint was pressed out.
How my mother obtained pupils, how she learnt the English
language, and what her special trials were, is not very clear in my
memory, for I had not been told much in connection with her life at
that time. That she obtained many pupils before long was not to be
doubted, for I possess two or three Daguerrotypes in which she is
seen seated in the centre of a large group of girls, her pupils, with
myself by her side. One interesting fact, however, I was told, that
she received payment for her teaching of the earliest pupils in kind,
and not in money ; and this ranged from bags of potatoes to the
mending of our boots. Judging, however, from the entries in her
books, in which she put down every penny she had earned, from the
time she settled in America to the time when I persuaded her to cease
teaching, it could not have been long before she received cash for her
lessons in music. She gave her yearly public concert with her
pupils, in which, as I have already stated, I figured as a performer at
the age of five years.
Most of the lessons my mother gave necessitated her attendance
at the pupils' houses. One day, in one of those viciously hot summers,
my mother was brought home unconscious, suffering from sunstroke.
It was a most serious attack, one from which, I may say, she never
completely recovered to the end of her days. As for myself, I had
grown but little physically, although mentally I had advanced. But
it was an advancement that came from a state of neurosis, for I was
an over-wrought nervous boy, and gave my parents not a little
anxiety. What with my mother's impaired health, and my nervous
state, my father felt it his duty to remove to some gentler climate,
and decided to leave America and settle in England.

21

Chapter IV.

FIRST YEARS IN ENGLAND: FROM 1857.

How my father's resources stood at the end of his six years
sojourn in America, I cannot say, for such details were not told me
Knowing the work he had had to accept, I am prepared to admit that
they could not have been in a particularly flourishing condition.
However, there was evidently enough money to undertake the journey
to England and to pay the initial expenses of a settlement in a
new country. The ocean was this time crossed in a steamer, but I
remember nothing of this journey beyond the particular smell of that
steamer. I must have had rather an abnormally sensitive nose, for I
had often been able to identify the owners of certain gloves that
pupils left in my mother's music-room. Probably I inhaled the
peculiar redolence of the pupils, because I was jammed in between
two of them at a piano in a six-hand piece — a very favourite form of
showing off the skill of pupils in those days. It was not a happy
position for me, for those were the days of crmolines, which
practically submerged me in their spreading capacity ; and well I
remember pushing down, on either side, the projecting flounces with
my elbows whilst playing the middle and most difficult parts of the
various pieces.
There was no intention at first, I believe, of our remaining in
Southampton ; and before anything was decided my father thought
he would like to see London. We therefore made the journey to
London for sight-seeing, and found some lodgings — a cheap tavern
kept by a German — in a little alley out of Soho Square. It is
curious that, strong as some of my early impressions are of events
before we left America, this visit to London has left absolutely
22

FIRST YEARS IN ENGLAND.
nothing in my memory, except the hoarse roar of the traffic,
unknown in these days of wood-pavements. On our return to
Southampton, my father decided to stay in that town, simply on
the premise that the people were well-dressed, that is to say, in
comparison with the Americans of the same class. This, he argued,
must mean affluence, and affluence, in an old country like England,
must mean a taste for the arts. It was not long before he was
disillusioned, for he soon came to know that the-people spent most of
their money on their appearance, which left nothing for any ex
penditure in the arts, even if they had had the taste for things
artistic, which, to his disadvantage, he found they did not possess.
The real story of my life begins from this date ; the story of
the development of a temperament made for a stormy existence, a
temperament that ran to extremes in all things, with abnormal
ambition and abnormal energy, but handicapped by poverty, as well
as by a mental defect — the want of application. Those character
istics that I described in the small boy in America increased in their
intensity with the added years, and if I had not had such a wise,
considerate, and understanding guide as my father became to me, I
dread now to think what turn my idiosyncrasy might eventually
have taken.
If things and events left but imperfect impressions on my
mind before this date, it was within a few months of our settling
in Southampton that my mind took in all "that happened, and the
potential meaning of these happenings. Thus the struggles of my
parents against adverse circumstances have been " indented " in my
memory, never to be wholly erased.
If America was without artistic taste in the fifties, England,
with less excuse, was little better. Should my reader be old enough,
he will remember that the absence of artistic taste in the applied arts
was general throughout this country. There was no carpet that was
not outrageous or vulgar in pattern and garish in colour ; no wall
paper that was not inartistic or downright hideous ; and no
ornaments for the mantelpiece that were not childish. Flowers
23

THE HERKOMERS.
made of feathers, fruit *made of wax, both sacredly kept under glass
covers, were the fashion. There was of course the ubiquitous anti
macassar ; and a material for the covering of chairs and sofas, made
of horsehair, was considered the height of style. In my motoring
about the country I have still found this kind of furniture in
little wayside inns.
Well, after our brief London visit, having decided to stay in
Southampton, my father took a house in a small street, Windsor
Terrace; he bought some second-hand furniture, just sufficient for the
time being, as he intended to make something artistic for the home.
His first work was to paint an artistic design on a wire-gauze screen,
which was to cover the lower half of the window facing the road.
On this screen — which he decorated with scrolls that included little
figures playing on musical instruments — he wrote the words,
" Madame Herkomer, Teacher of Music." For my father's work
a little back room was arranged, and it was in this room that I
received my education, at the bench of the unique man who became
my teacher, my guide, and my friend. My father felt it imperative
to produce a specimen of his work, in order to show his skill as a
carver. He therefore made a Gothic writing-desk, in the form of a
cabinet. When finished, he offered it to the one firm in the town
that had to do with the decoration and furnishing of houses. But
they would not buy a piece of furniture so different in style from the
commercial article dema*nded by the public. They did the next best
thing, however, and placed it in their shop-window for exhibition.
The price my father asked for this masterpiece of craftsmanship was
only five pounds. But it remained in the window for weeks without
bringing so much as an qffer.
Another painful surprise awaited my father when he settled in
England, as he found that there was but little less prejudice against
foreigners than in America. My mother certainly suffered from this
prejudice, for she found it difficult to get pupils. It was not until
it became known what a gift she possessed for teaching, and what an
unbounded love she had for young people, that they came in greater
24

FIRST YEARS IN ENGLAND.
numbers to her. Even I, as a boy, was under this bane of prejudice,
and I well remember a horse-dealer and jobmaster — whose stables
were at the end of the street — who never failed when he met me to
call me such names as " Dutchman," " Foreigner," " Roman Catholic,"
"Brigand," "Vagabond," "Half-caste," etc.
Months were passing, and the little capital in hand was reaching
its lowest ebb. With few pupils for my mother, and no work for my
father, things looked black indeed. I, too, gave my parents a great
deal of trouble. It was not from wilful disobedience — as I now see
it — that I was so unmannerly ; it was not from want of love for
father and mother : it arose from inordinately high spirits, combined
with excessive energy, with insufficient opportunity to work them off.
In the desperate way I ran and jumped — when playing with the
other boys — I tore up the soles of my boots, and tore the very
clothes from my back. All the remonstrance — even chastisement —
I received could not keep me within bounds ; and my violence
of temper did not make it the easier for my parents to deal
with me.
My clothes were now mostly past mending ; therefore — in
addition to other troubles — a certain inevitable expense, that decency
demanded, was staring my parents in the face. This was not a
trifling incident, as it is only in modern times that cheap ready-made
clothes have been obtainable for boys. In those days clothes were
dear, and always meant a formidable item of expenditure to a family
in our circumstances. Yet something had to be done. Of money in
hand, there was barely enough for rent and food. The only alterna
tive was to convert something already in our possession to this use.
Now, it so happened that my father had -a cloak of good cloth — a
garment he had acquired when he became a master-craftsman in
Germany ; it was a possession he prized and loved. Often have I
heard him sing a folk-lore song, in which an old soldier of the
Thirty Years' War extols the virtue of his cloak — the many
campaigns they had been through together, and the friendly warmth
that cloak had given him in many a wintry night.
25

THE HERKOMERS.
" Schier dreissig Jahre bist du alt, hast manchen
Sturm erlebt,
Hast mich wie ein Bruder beschiitzet,
Und wenn die Kanonen geblitzet,
Wir Beide haben niemals gebebt."
There was no help for it : that beloved cloak had to be sacrificed
to furnish the material for a suit that would again make me look
respectable. It was given by my father without a murmur. He
remarked that he could dispense with it if he walked a little more
briskly when he took his daily constitutional after dark — for he had
no overcoat to replace that garment.
Then came the season of Christmas, which, in England of all
countries in the world, is that of good-will to men. But it found
our home joyless. Boy as I was, and wildly as I seem to have
behaved, that joylessness, in some way or other, burned itself into
my very being. The pity of it all has never left my memory. But
when matters seemed at their worst, a gleam of light penetrated the
gloom of our existence, and showed us the kind hearts that were
near. Some neighbours, by name Griffiths, knowing of our distress,
pressed on my parents a loan of £5. Part of the loan came from a
young German clerk, who was then lodging with them. Later on,
this good man, out of sheer kindness of heart, gave me German
lessons during his dinner hour, and shared with me his pudding or
tart (as I was not used to eating meat) when I had been specially
good and attentive. This was the late Mr. Francis Keller, afterwards
Consul in Southampton for the German Empire, a man greatly
honoured in the town.
In exchange for music-lessons, a pupil of my mother's taught
me reading and writing, in which I was very backward at the age of
eight. But it was soon thought necessary that I should attend a
day-school with other boys, and the school which I joined was kept
by a Mr. Monk. In the spring of 1907, having ascertained that he
was still alive, I paid him a visit. We had not met since I left his
school, but he had closely watched my career, and his delight in
26

FIRST YEARS IN ENGLAND.
seeing me was very great. Looking round his little sitting-room, I
saw hanging on the walls certain water-colour drawings, mostly
copies from chromo-lithographs, that I had painted for the monthly
competition in drawing in his school. A special arrangement had to
be made for me that gave me always the highest marks without
interfering with the real school-competition, as Mr. Monk considered
that my " superior skill " put the other boys at too great a disadvan
tage. There also, on the mantelpiece, were the "flowers made of
feathers, and fruit made of wax " ; nor must I forget the ever-present
antimacassar. That little room gave me a touching glimpse into
? the past. I grasped the new chance of acquiring knowledge at Mr. Monk's
school with my usual enthusiasm, so much so that I overdid it,
became exaggeratedly excited, lost my appetite and my sleep, and
fell ill. This was after only six months' attendance at Mr. Monk's
school. Six months ! — -the sum-total of my life's school-education !
But I had a teacher ; and the viva-voce education that accom
panied work at my father's bench was incomparably more valuable to
my peculiar temperament than any other form of education, for it
was a means of developing, above all things, the power of reflecting.
Endless were the questions I asked from morning to night, and lucid
and direct were the answers I received. To this education my father
devoted his life, and it was this duty (as he felt it) rather than his
pride (as people thought) that prevented him from seeking a position
as an ordinary workman. In that little room, and under those
narrowed circumstances, my father's fife-dream was instilled into my
nature : the dream of a great house built by the family ! The
question of money wherewith to build this house never entered our
thoughts ; it was going to be done, that was enough. Call it fanaticism,
or what you will : it was a vision clearly seen in the very darkness of
our life at that time. This house stands now in actuality, as a
monument to the " seer," and to the two brothers, who, with him,
must be considered its makers.

27

Chapter V.
EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND
(Continued).
Possibly at this distance of time my memory may play me false.
I must, however, give the events of the past as I remember them,
and interpret them as I understand their meaning now.
Looking back, I certainly can understand the mental condition
of the boy ; but that of the parents is more complex. Happy they
were not : how could they be ? The class of people with whom they
came in contact began, in unmistakeable terms, to express their
disapproval of an art career for me, which gave unrest to my mother,
and caused resentment in my father. These people no doubt meant
well enough ; but they instilled into my mother's mind the prevalent
idea that the profession of an artist was of doubtful respectability,
and that starvation was sure to follow. My father, holding stubbornly
to his resolve regarding my future, was considered an eccentric, nay,
even a wicked man. My mother, not understanding art, could not
but listen to people who held such opinions of the artist. When
they further pointed out what an advantage it would be to me if I
could be taken into the Ordnance Survey Office in the town, where
after forty years' service I should be entitled to a pension, my father
lost his patience, and gave his answer definitely in the words : " My
son shall never be a slave." Such outer influences on the mother
were not conducive to a harmony between man and wife, and I seem
to remember my mother constantly in tears, and my father (though
kind and courteous) getting more and more silent. I also remember
that his temper increased in its irascibility ; and with all his self-
control and determined spirit, one could see in his face how much he
suffered in trying to do what he considered right for me, and the
effort it cost him to adhere to his plan.
28

EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND.
The difficulty of making ends meet, even with the increase of
pupils to my mother, remained the daily anxiety. In this congested
state of things, my father took the desperate resolve, in order to
lessen the expenses of our life, of giving up meat, alcoholic drinks,
and smoking — not by gradual steps, but at once. He did not impose
the total abstinence and vegetarianism on my mother : she had her
meat, and the glass of "half-and-half" at her meals. I followed my
father enthusiastically, and wanted to share the glory of his manly
renunciation. • It was not many months before a remarkable change came over
my father. Although he looked paler, and had become thinner, the
irascibility of his temper had practically disappeared. He was
equable and gentle in his moods, which the people, who attacked him
afresh for his dietetic change, could scarcely disturb. In those days,
be it told, teetotallers were objects for scoff, and non-meat-eaters for
ridicule. That a more nitrogenous diet was necessary for my con
stitution can be asserted with truth ; but the total abstinence from
alcohol can be declared as having been my salvation. I can see only
too plainly now what a habit of taking alcoholic drinks would have
meant to my temperament through all my strenuous years. Having
always forced work into a given time, the temptation to resort to a
stimulant in order to be assisted over certain periods would have been
too great to resist ; and I am prepared to say that moderation in its
use would at times have been hardly possible. I have every reason to
be thankful for my father's example in at least this direction. I
remained an abstainer from alcohol until I was nearly fifty years old.
Well, under the new regime my father became quietly happy.
He sang his songs whilst at work with an enjoyment that had a touch
of youthfulness in it, and all things were easier to bear. It must be
also told that the saving on himself made a marked difference in the
weekly expenditure ; the little income went further than before.
About this time a dealer and restorer of old pictures in the town,
having heard of my father as a man who could do most things,
engaged him to back-line and restore old, dirty and ragged canvasses,
29

THE HERKOMERS.
purporting to be Old Masters — for which there was a great rage at
the time. Anybody who had a dark, brown, or cracked picture
rushed to the restorer in the hope of finding it turn out to be an Old
Master. The first thing my father had to do was to clean half a picture
(a portrait), making the division between the clean and the remaining
dirty side come down the centre of the face. This work was con
genial to my father : it paid well, and he earned from two to four
pounds a week. Moreover, it brought within his reach an occasionally
well-painted figure, which he would copy for his own pleasure. This
pleasure-work he only indulged in on Sundays. The little glimpse of
better conditions, alas ! was only to last a short time, for the dealer
became bankrupt, and the dirty old pictures were sold and scattered.
Let me describe our fife in that little house, which varied but
slightly from day to day. To me, as a boy, this house seemed quite
large in its way, and great was my surprise when, after many years, I
knocked at the door and asked the occupier of the house to let me
see the front room. I found it of miniature dimensions.
If I had forgotten the size of that little front music-room, the
smallness of the kitchen has remained in my memory in its true
dimension — no doubt on account of the occasion when my father one
day explained to me the convenience of being able to reach three of
the four walls, while sitting in the middle of the room. The fourth
wall, where the window was located, was slightly beyond the reach,
which gave sufficient space for the small table that was used for our
meals. But there is another incident that happened in that kitchen,
which has clung to my memory. The conversation — brought about,
I believe, by a stupid tumble I had had — was turned to account by
my father, who gave me a physical demonstration of the art of
falling. How well I remember my fright as he fell in various ways
on to the floor, with barely a foot of space to spare for his whole
length ; yet he did this without the least damage to himself. It
seemed horrible to me, and was still more so to my mother. As I
instinctively rushed to pick him up, he rose quickly with a merry
laugh, and, needless to say, without my help. For days after that I
30

DRAWING FROM NATURE AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.

EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND.
practised falls, until I had so many sore bones that my father thought
(as he expressed it) that I had sufficiently grasped the principles.
My parents rose at six a.m., but I was allowed to remain in
bed a little longer. My mother then did a certain amount of house
work that needed the woman's touch. After my father had lighted
the fire in the kitchen, and put on the kettle, he swept the front door
step and the pavement in front of the house. I did not like him to
do this work, for it exposed him to the curious gaze of the passing
folk, and I can recall the feelings that hurt my boyish heart (which
was then already so full of admiration for him) as I saw him at that
menial task. My mother undertook this cleaning of the door-step
whilst in America, but my father would not allow it in England,
where, he soon found, there was much snobbishness amongst the
people with whom we came in contact. I said I did not like my
father doing door-step cleaning, and grumbled a good deal, for I had
an irritating way of worrying others about things that displeased me.
But when my father said : " Well, sonny (an Americanism), will you
do it ? " the thing appeared to me in a new and not very acceptable
light. I did do it for a day or two ; but in my anxiety not to be
seen at the task, I swept those stones in such a perfunctory way that
my father had to resume the duty again.
My mother's day was entirely occupied with her pupils from
breakfast to bed-time, leaving but short respites in which to take her
meals. Therefore it devolved on my father and myself to do house
hold work : cooking, washing up dishes, keeping, the kitchen clean,
answering the front door — my task mostly — and so on. In washing
up dishes, my father never thrust his hands into the hot water, but in
the most artistic way manipulated the little soft loose rag with the
end of a short stick around the plate or dish, holding the part that
projected beyond the water between the first finger and thumb of the
left hand. To me was allotted the drying task, as I had broken too
many things in the washing process.
After breakfast I was sent out, with a large basket on my
arm, to buy provisions. On these errands I got sometimes a little
31

THE HERKOMERS.
mixed with the money-change given me at the different shops, and
could not always account for the exact cost of the different articles,
for in arithmetic I never did shine ; and even to this day I have never
mastered my multiplication table. Curiously enough, although I
strongly objected to being seen with a broom in my hand sweeping
the front- door-step, I did not in the least mind being seen with a
provision-basket. I felt I was a purchaser ; I patronized shops !
Moreover, I was frequently the recipient of favours from shop
keepers. At the grocer's I got a fig or a date ; at the greengrocer's a
handful of nuts, a pear or an apple (generally slightly rotten) ; at the
butcher's, a stray sausage or a kidney. On my return there was a
certain preparation of food in the kitchen — peeling potatoes, preparing
other vegetables, and putting the beef in the saucepan to boil. The
latter was to make the soup, which no German can dispense with at
a mid-day meal. And the meat, which had been boiled to give out its
essence for this soup, was practically the only animal food we had.
A noteworthy education went on in that kitchen. In the
first place, manners at table seemed to my father of great im
portance, and he insisted on my mother and myself sitting down
with him at least for the mid-day meal, and making it, even in our
simple home, a ceremonial occasion. Now it was not easy for me as
a boy to sit still anywhere for any length of time, and it would have
been difficult for me to sit out a long meal had it been at a king's
table. As for my mother, she was always in great haste to get back
to her pupils, consequently both she and I bolted our food— for two
different reasons. My father did all he could to rectify this habit of
ours, on moral and hygienic grounds, but, alas ! to little purpose. In
his own manners he gave us a good precept ; but the deliberate way
in which he took his food was at times to us exasperating. However,
I must have gathered the real meaning of sitting together to break
bread, for it forms the subject of the wall-decoration in the dining-
room of my present house.

o2

Chapter VI.
EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND
( Continued).
I have said that I was sent out on errands ; but I was often away
too long, and I grieve to say, told more than one he to justify my
prolonged absence. I deceived my parents as to the real cause ;
and had the final explanation not come so unexpectedly I might have
had a good thrashing. The truth was that whilst out once on my
purchasing rounds some boys beguiled me into following them to the
free baths, as it was high tide. I started swimming ; and what youth
does not know the excitement of first learning to swim ? Naturally,
the next day, and the days that followed, at the hour when I knew
the tide would be up I sneaked round to the baths, and soon learned
to swim and to dive. One day, entirely forgetting my deception, I
asked my father to come and see me swim ! This was letting the cat
out of the bag with a vengeance. Having forbidden me to bathe,
my father looked at me, and said, " When did you learn to swim ? "
Then I had to make a clean breast of it. But my father, seeing in
the little incident what a clumsy liar I was, smilingly answered that
he would come one day. I was wildly happy, for I wanted his praise.
He came with me to a swimming bath for which an entrance fee of
twopence was charged. Seeing the little boys swim about him as he
was standing in the shallow water, he, too, got the desire to learn this
art, and at the age of fifty he began to swim, and was able very soon
to cover a respectable distance.
As I have already stated, my work at my father's bench was
much interrupted by my various duties. But as I could not stick
long at anything, I was the more ready to jump from one occupation
to another. I was in a considerably excited state : I never walked
downstairs, but slid down the balustrade from top to bottom in one
slide (not a very great distance, perhaps) ; I seldom walked, but
33

THE HERKOMERS.
nearly always ran. I moved in spasmodic jerks ; in fact, I exhibited
my neurotic temperament in every movement. The continuance of
this readiness to jump from one thing to another made my watchful
father form the conclusion that it was not wholly my superabundance
of energy that caused me to commence so many things and finish
nothing, but that it arose from a mental deficiency — the want of
application. In recalling certain things he said to me, and the ways
he employed to re-interest me in work begun, I can clearly see now
that after this discovery he set himself systematically to cure me of
this mental weakness ; and it was so subtly and dexterously done that
I did not realise I was under any special treatment.
This system was as effectual as it was simple. Sometimes, when
I had, perhaps, three or four little carved animals in progress of
making, which I dropped for the copying of an engraving or a
chromo-lithograph that had just seized my fancy, he would take up
one of these commenced animals, and quietly go on carving at it.
First my curiosity was aroused ; then before long I itched to go on
with it myself, when he would give it over to me without a word.
In this way, everything I began was eventually finished. When I was
about fourteen, he divulged his method and the reason for employing
it, urging me to continue it myself, as he knew that talent, without
the power of continuing an effort, would produce little or nothing.
Although he intended me to be an artist, he never regulated my
artistic work. The desire to do this or that was the outcome of my
own momentary impulse, which he never thwarted. Probably he did
not know how a painter was trained. In his whole life he had only
known one artist, the painter of the central panel of the altar he
made for Waal. This artist belonged to the Overbeck school of
painters of religious subjects, and was " academically trained," and a
faithful adherent to the " sweetly religious sentiment " that was made
popular by Overbeck and others at that time. I suspect it was owing
to the influence of this man that my father got the erroneous idea
that the whole secret of art depended on the ground on which one
painted, or on how one under-painted in complementary colours.
34

EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND.
The phrase "academically trained" puts me in mind of a
conversation I overheard in the Old Pinakothek Gallery when I was
first taken to Munich in 1865, which may be inserted here. I visited
that gallery most assiduously. One day I was interested in watching
one of those uniformed porters whose duty it is to clean the galleries
before they are opened, and afterwards to walk round the rooms and
keep an eye on the visitors. He was stealthily following a country
priest from room to room. At last he got his opportunity to open a
conversation, and carefully led up to the fact that he copied pictures.
" So you are a painter," said the priest. " Oh ! yes," was the answer,
" a painter, and academically trained ! " I distinctly remember the
shock this answer produced on me. A painter, academically trained,
yet to be still a porter in a gallery, and dressed in livery — was this
what was in store for me ?
But I must return to my narrative, which has not yet gone
beyond my twelfth year. I wish to dwell on this period, as it was
the dawn of a certain love of mysticism that has increased, rather
than diminished, with the years. By mysticism I do not mean that
adjunct to religious exaltation, or that practice in occult science
so-called, but rather the " mood " occasioned by the contemplation of
some object or some scene, or even by a self-imposed mental image
which, by a co-ordination of the many faculties of the brain, produces
what the Germans call " Stimmung," for which we only have the
inadequate word " mood." It so happened that the house in
Windsor Terrace was the central one in the row, and had a kind of
gabled roof. The space under this roof was used by my father for
the storage of all manner of things which he had taken from
Germany to America, and thence to England. There were steel
engravings after religious pictures, issued by a Society for the
dissemination of such works in Germany, wood-cuts of various kinds
from newspapers and German " Bilder-Bogen," casts, paint-pots, and
what not. I loved to ruminate amongst these things ; it seemed an
inspiring atmosphere to me. The religious engravings interested me
least. There were just two items that fascinated me and which I
35

THE HERKOMERS.
contemplated for hours. To this day I can feel the mood which they
occasioned in me at that time. The one was a wood-cut representing
a deserted garden. The ruins of a Rococo Palace, overgrown with
creeper, were seen in the distance. The garden still showed that there
was once an orderly plan of paths and flower-beds, but it was now
a wilderness of wilful growth of flower and weed. A sun-dial, ivy-
covered, still stood ; and grass grew where it was once carefully
eradicated by human hands. There was a poetic melancholy in the
whole scene that fired my imagination. To symbolize the glory of
the past the artist had produced in the foreground a group of
beautiful fruits of all kinds, by the side of which stood a peacock
with spreading tail. The other item was a photograph from an
engraving, and was of an entirely different character. It represented
something unreal and impossible : floating figures of beautiful women
who, in circles and hand-in-hand, were moving, without natural
volition, around an island in a lake. The head of the central figure
came across the great moon, giving her a nimbus of mystic
significance. These figures incarnated the witchery of twilight. But
they meant more to me than that : they meant woman, spiritualized,
entering for the first time the conscious mind of the advancing boy.
These figures did not represent the dead to me : they were to me
beings who could breathe, who could speak, and who did speak to me
— beings that could have touched me. I gave each figure a name :
and only thought of each by name : they became a part of my
undeveloped boy-life. Unsecretive as my nature always was, I
nevertheless kept all this a secret from my father. I felt I could
not explain, and I dreaded lest his sound judgment would destroy
my dream and leave a void that I thought I could not endure.
And now for the sequel of this infatuation, which I give as a
problem for psychologists to solve : Is it a mere coincidence that
the central figure of the group in that scene should have become the
type of all the female figures in my fife's allegorical and decorative
work ? I think not. It had a deeper meaning.

36

MY FIRST TWO DRAWINGS ON WOOD.
(Accepted by the Brothers Dalziel, 1868.)

Chapter VII.
EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND
(Continued).
My real joy was in my father's little workshop. If there was no
commissioned work, my father had always something on hand that
interested me, and he never failed to give me instruction in the things
that I wished to do. He gave me the use of his tools, advised me in
the carving of little animals, which I copied from a book of engravings
of animal life (given me by a lady pupil of my mother's), in the
making of cross-bows, which always had a bit of carving on the
stock, in the making of kites and even of cricket-bats. He would
say : "I cannot buy you anything, but I will help you to make what
you want." In consequence of this help from my father, I became a
most important personage amongst my boy friends, for they came to
me to mend their kites and the broken handles of their bats. I had
another, and rather strange reputation, quite apart from this practical
side, that of being able to entertain my boy friends with stories of
the most fanciful, unreal and impossible kind, always invented on the
spur of the moment — the moment when they were required ; and I
found that the more impossible and outrageous they were, the greater
the approval. In our daily converse I sometimes told my father
these stories, and he evidently saw a certain power of mental image-
making awakening in me, of which he knew the importance for an
artist. Instead of disparaging this- form of mental exercise, he at
once encouraged it. In fine weather he sent me to the Southampton
Common for the day, when I took with me a little lunch, consisting
of brown bread and nuts. Although, at his request, I also took
painting materials with me, he urged me rather to sit in the thicket
and dream dream-pictures, scenes — anything; but he was always
careful to insist that I should " visualize " my thoughts so definitely
that I could tell him clearly what I had evolved in my imaginative
37

THE HERKOMERS.
brain. - I have continued this exercise throughout my life, and it has
been of unspeakable benefit to my career.
These details of my training will possibly be considered trivial,
but it will perhaps be allowed as an excuse for my relating them that
I think they may be of real service to other ardent lads struggling
jor light in an artistic direction.
Our life coursed on from day to day with but little variety ; my
work consisted of toy-makkig, copying engravings in water-colours
(always consulting my father as to the colouring), dreaming and
sketching in the secluded parts of the common, assisting my mother
with her pupils, and performing at her concerts —the latter being very
much to my taste. In these concerts I had not only to play on the
piano, but had to sing songs, dressed up in certain costumes, which
necessitated a little acting.
I may mention that I had a first-rate voice as a boy, and could
reach the high C with ease. I cannot remember how I learnt music,
nor do I remember having ever practised, but, somehow or other, I
could always do what was required of me. Sometimes a visitor
would come, and I was shown off with my voice by my mother.
This was quite to my liking, as I was always ready for praise, and
always ready to cause a surprise when an occasion gave me the chance.
Such visitors would sometimes give me the smallest silver coin of the
realm — I think a fourpenny-bit in those days. It happened at times
that I obtained such a coin for a drawing, which elated me even more.
Thus it was that my rewards, being equally divided between music
and art, caused no disappointment to either of the parents. These
small rewards I was always allowed to spend as I pleased.
My father received but few commissions. But one — a Gothic
armchair, to be made out of old oaken beams taken from an ancient
church — was a happy opportunity for him. He also enjoyed giving
carving lessons to a private gentleman. Otherwise the only stock-jobs
that came his way were the so-called " Oxford frames," at that time
so popular for the framing of engravings. He was paid only seven-
and-sixpence for one of imperial size — inclusive of material.
38

EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND.
When the loan of five pounds— of which I have spoken — had
been paid off by instalments, my father felt justified in spending half-
a-crown at Christmas time. For six months we talked of how this
sum could be laid out to the greatest advantage, and — as my parents
put it — to give me the greatest pleasure. If my memory serves me
rightly, one shilling was spent on the Christmas number of the
" Illustrated London News," one shilling on a Christmas tree — which
sum included the wax candles — and sixpence on nuts. In one
Christmas number there was a reproduction in chromo-lithography of
an English landscape that specially appealed to me. This was after
a picture by B. W. Leader, who years after became a great friend of
mine, and a brother-Academician.
When I had reached the age of fourteen, my father thought it
advisable that I should join the Southampton School of Art. This
was in 1863-4. The master belonged to the first batch of artists who
obtained positions in art schools connected with the South Kensington
system. He was a tolerably well-educated man, but a poor artist ;
and I think he was the worst judge of art I have ever come across.
Under his tuition I was first put to copy those outlines of antique
figures, after which I was advanced to drawing from the cast. The
shading had to be done in the orthodox manner of " chalk-stippling."
This process demanded a needle-point sharpness to the chalk, likewise an
excessive use of bread. My vigour, combined with my impatience, made
the sharpening of those chalks a torture. I did not mind the wasting of
the bread, knowing that the charwoman who cleaned the schools daily
fed her chickens on the blackened bread that she swept up from the floor.
For a drawing of the head of Michael Angelo's " Moses " I
obtained a bronze medal.
From what I heard afterwards, I do not think I won that
medal fairly and squarely. An Academician, who was inspector of
these schools at that time, was, I believe, persuaded by the
master to award me this prize, on the ground that as I was
going to study art in Germany it would be an advertisement
to the school if I could take this medal with me.
39

THE HERKOMERS.
The teaching in that school was stupid and worthless ; and what
was particularly bad in my case happened to be the fact that it did not
confine itself to the hours when I attended there, as the master gave
me his water-colour drawings to take home for copying. Amateurish
to the last degree, these drawings were not likely to inspire me. My
copies were hastily done, and this often got me into a hopeless
muddle. One day, after a particularly obvious failure, my temper
got the better of me, and I began smashing things about the room.
My mother, hearing the noise, came up from her music-room, and
seeing the state of things commenced to cry ; I cried from rage, she
from sympathy. My father, who followed, looked on very calmly.
He understood me, and grasped the situation. Then my mother
persuaded him to try to help me. I see my dear father now, carefully
examining my muddle, and in the most deliberate way setting to work
to paint in the parts I had washed out in my rage. Slowly and t
cautiously he imitated, bit by bit, the touches of the original. This
deliberation was too much for me, and I declared, with tears still
streaming down my cheeks, " Oh, I could do it slow like that ! " He
smiled, and getting up, said, "Very well, sonny." I resumed the
copying madly, not slowly, however, but working at white heat, and
succeeded. In this school it happened that I fell under the influence of a
fellow-student who attended the evening classes — being employed in
the day-time as an engraver. At that time I had read no art books ;
indeed, if I had heard of any, my parents were too poor to buy them.
But this student spent every spare penny in the purchase of such
works, and, what is of greater importance, read them ! I listened to
all he told me as if it were gospel. More than half he read to me I
did not understand, especially when it came to Ruskin's " Modern
Painters." But I thought it all wonderful, and drank eagerly at the
fountain. My companion showed me the landscapes he had painted from
nature (inspired by his readings), which to me seemed most extra
ordinary in colour — all the shadows being purple. Questioning their
40

EARLY YEARS IN ENGLAND.
correctness, I got for answer that Ruskin considered purple a healthy
colour ! That settled the question : henceforth, all my shadows were
to be purple— whether I saw them thus in nature or not. I was
stricken with "Purplitis," from which it took me years to recover.
Symptoms of this disease adhered to me when in after yeaus I was
infatuated with Walker, for I could plainly discern the " healthy "
purple in his work. I had been partially cured ; but a relapse— -and a
bad one — occurred many years after, when I painted my picture
called "Missing."
The time had now arrived when my father thought it imperative
that I should enter on my art education seriously, and he chose
Munich for that purpose. He had received a commission from his
brother in America to carve the four Evangelists, life-size, after the
small statuettes by Peter Vischer. This work, he thought, could be
done in Germany ; and the money his brother advanced him on the
commission would pay the initial expenses of travel and living during
the first few months. Having settled my mother in the house of her
sister, where she could continue her lessons, my father and I started
for the Bavarian Capital — my mind all excitement and hope.

41

Chapter VIII.
JOURNEY TO MUNICH, 1865.
That my father should choose the cheapest route to Germany was
not only natural, but imperative. But how he came to select the one
we actually took, or who recommended it, I cannot recollect. Stray
remarks from acquaintances in Southampton were probabfy all he had
to rely on, and each one no doubt recommended some particular
route. The shipping people could certainly tell him the cheapest
vessel in which to cross the Channel ; and they did, too ; the cheapest
and most uncomfortable. It was one of those small vessels that plied
between Southampton and Antwerp with cargoes of live" sheep.
There was one solitary passenger besides my father and myself, and
no more. Whether there was a cabin or not I cannot say : I only
remember walking the small deck around the hatchway during a
night that seemed interminable, fighting sea-sickness, but, alas,
without success, as the densely-packed sheep below in the hold (which
was open at the top) sent up a horrible, hot, mutton smell, that soon
settled any doubts as to the probability of getting sea-sick. These
sheep were packed like herrings : you could hardly have thrust a
hand between them ; and judging from the sounds, nearly all must
have suffered dreadfully.
Of our one day in Antwerp I have but a hazy recollection — of
seeing, in one of the churches, Rubens' ceiling, which he is said to
have painted entirely with his own hand in fourteen days.
Our journey took us through Alsace and Lorraine, and I have
reason to remember that journey — in a fourth-class carriage — through
those provinces ! The company in that " cattle- van " (for it was little
better) was so disgusting and riotous, their habits so filthy and foul,
the air so laden with stenches of all kinds, that I dare not describe it
42

JOURNEY TO MUNICH.
in detail here. Suffice it that I swore a great oath, that when I
should be successful in the future, I would never travel without
availing myself of every comfort obtainable, even if the cost " broke
the bank " : (N.B. — not the exact wording of the oath). I have kept
that oath, however, for in' travelling I am distinctly extravagant
Further, I remember on the journey great bare waiting-rooms at
stations where we dragged out the weary hours through the night
surrounded by, and lying on, our carpet-bags and bundles, waiting
for another slow, cheap train that would carry us further the next,
morning. It was not possible to get refreshments in the stations.
Perhaps beer was to be obtained, but we were strict teetotallers :
perhaps sausages, but we were vegetarians. The journey pictures
itself to my mind as something horrible in its discomforts.
We finally arrived at a small village near Kempten, in Bavaria —
a slight detour my father made in order to visit the old mother of my
uncle Wurm, who had joined us in England with his wife, as music
teachers. But there was something about that good woman's face
that frightened me, and, despite her friendliness and offer of
hospitality, I could not be induced to stay in her house. It was a
morbid fancy, and soon the reason for it became clear ; I was
sickening for an illness. My father suspected this, and thought it all
the more advisable to stay with the old lady, in order to put me
under some immediate treatment. But no ! I was half crazy to get
away, and begged and prayed that we might return to Kempten.
Now the journey to Kempten meant a two-hours' walk in the
dark night ; and I had not gone far before I began to regret my
insistence. I was compelled to cling to my father's arm for support,
as my legs, in some strange way, seemed as if separated from my
body ; my mind was in a sort of comatose state, as I but imperfectly
heard my father's voice — it seemed so far away; in fact, I was practi
cally asleep whilst walking. On arrival at the little hotel in Kempten
I was promptly put to bed, and wrapped in wet sheets, for I was, as
my father recognised, in a high fever. As it happened, the small
cheap rooms that we ought to have occupied were under repair, and
43

THE HERKOMERS.
the landlord put us in his best room without any extra charge. No
doctor was called in. In the first place, we had no money to pay for
a doctor, and in the second, my father only believed in hydropathy, a
form of therapeutics not yet generally accepted. As long as I can
remember, my father had been doctor and nurse for my mother and
myself, and had treated every ailment according to a little book
written by that " inspired peasant " Priessnitz, on the so-called Water
Cure. The well-known Father Kneipp, who established a sanatorium
at Worishofen, in Bavaria, for the treatment of disease by various
forms of hydropathy, was led to it by reading a copy of this very
book. He came across it accidentally, as he was looking for
manuscripts in the. library of his university ; and by following certain
precepts for the treatment of dyspepsia, cured himself of his
complaint. Having the natural gift of diagnosis, he began to cure
others, until his village became a place of pilgrimage for all classes —
from princes to paupers. When I was three years old there was an
epidemic of dysentery in Cleveland, America. My father applied his
water-cure treatment to my case and refused to call a doctor. This
decision was a grave responsibility, which he fully realized. But the
result of his treatment justified his belief in it : I recovered with a
rapidity and a completeness that was a painful surprise to the
neighbours who had lost one or more of their children, by this terrible
scourge. What my illness was I do not know, but presumably it was
some vicious form of gastritis. The fever was got under in a couple
of days ; but oh ! when my mind cleared — to see the face of my poor
father ! The enforced stay was eating into our slender means, and
there was no knowing when I should be strong enough to proceed.
This doubt, added to the pity and sympathy he felt for me, made him
look an old man ! Although he never breathed other than comfort
ing words to me I could plainly read his mental suffering in his face.
Then around the walls were hung engravings of the most
depressing subjects. One, in a direct line of sight as I lay in bed,
represented a woman with a baby wrapped in her shawl, creeping in
44

STUDY FOR THE FIRST DRAWING ACCEPTED BY MR. W. L. THOMAS
FOR "THE GRAPHIC," 1870.

JOURNEY TO MUNICH.
an exhausted state to the door of a monastery, frantically reaching for
the bell handle. The snow was lying thickly on the ground, and
everything suggested a human tragedy. Seeing its effect on me my
father obtained leave to remove this engraving.
I resolved to make a determined effort to relieve him of this
uncalled-for expense, occasioned by my illness. I insisted on getting
up on the third day. But I was not prepared for the sickening
weakness I felt when I tried to stand ; still I persisted that I could
travel, and, greatly against my father's wishes, we both took the train
for Augsburg — fortunately not a long journey. At the station my
father placed me against a column (there were no seats) whilst he
hurriedly searched outside the station for some refreshment, of winch
I was greatly in need. On his return he saw me clinging for dear
life to the column, to prevent myself from falling, so unutterably
weak did I feel.
We first paid a surprise visit to my Uncle Peter, my father's
eldest brother already referred to, who was a medical practitioner in a
small village not very far from Munich. The brothers had not met
for fourteen years, and had but seldom corresponded. In our class
of life people wrote few letters, and I may say that a letter from a
relative was an event, to which the writing of an answer was an
episode of serious import. On the other hand my mother, who, as a
girl, had already taught in her father's village school, prided herself
on both the diction and the handwriting of her letters. They were of
the good old-fashioned type, with sentences nicely rounded, correct
sentiments added to embellish the commoner topics, and written in
German characters of copper-plate perfection. Well, this visit to my
Uncle Peter afforded a rest that was as agreeable to my spirit as it
was indispensable to my body, for I was barely convalescent ; and
there was, moreover, the ever present possibility of a relapse.
My uncle was a collector of curios^-as far as his means
permitted — and a lover of all things artistic. The principal room in
his house contained Gothic cabinets of simple workmanship, chairs,
tables, etc., gathered from peasants' houses as opportunity offered
45

THE HERKOMERS.
itself. A decorative touch was given by the ivy growing in pots and
feeling its way around the walls. His profession was suggested by a
beautifully prepared child's skull, kept under a glass case, whereby
hung a tale. Then there was a curious old clock on the wall, which
showed on its disc the hours and the seconds, the day of the week,
the date of the month, the year, the moon in all its courses, and the
hour of sunrise through the year. It had that sweet, caressing, soft
tick that makes a clock such a delightful companion. This clock —
of which the works were of wood — was made by monks, and came
into my uncle's possession in a curious way. At the end of the
eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries many
monasteries were " dissolved " by the government in the South of
Germany, and the monks were turned adrift to start a secular life
once more. Some had possessions whilst in the monasteries, which
they sold in order to obtain ready money. It was one of these
monks that possessed the clock I have named, and a peasant living
in my uncle's neighbourhood bought it from him. On my uncle's
medical rounds he saw this curio at the peasant's house, and straight
way — as a collector — coveted it.
Now a real collector will always, in some way or other, get the
object he covets. He resorts to any means in order to attain his end.
" Get it," is the phrase that he hears in his inner consciousness.
Well, in this case the peasant was obdurate : he would not sell. But
my uncle was determined that the peasant should part with it, and
bided his time. He now found out that the peasant was an invete
rate gambler, and he formed his plans for a final attack on this weak
side — when the psychological moment should arrive. It soon came,
and the " coup " was made in this wise : one day my uncle saw him
in a " Wirthshaus," as usual staking high at cards and losing heavily.
His three rows of " silver coin-buttons " on each side of his short
jacket were being rapidly reduced in numbers. When he had lost all
his money, and had staked, and lost, the last button, my uncle
quietly approached him, and in true Mephistophelian manner
whispered the temptation into his ear : " Give me the clock, and I
46

JOURNEY TO MUNICH.
will pay all your debts, as well as give you a surplus." The peasant,
heated with the play, and wild for another chance of redeeming his
losses, agreed ; the devil won, and the peasant gave up the clock !
In my uncle's home, I saw the life and habits of this class of
people in Bavaria. I was not a little surprised and shocked to find
that my uncle took his meals without the family partaking of them
with him. Wife and daughters only waited on him. Even my
father and myself, who were his guests, never partook of food with
the master of the house. His meal was not elaborate : it consisted of
one course — a kind of soup, in which were bits of meat cut into little
squares, some vegetables, and perhaps bread.
I have already stated that I enthusiastically followed my father
in his renunciation of meat, but I never lost my longing for it.
During the first part of my convalesence I had only fruit and
farinaceous food, for which I had little appetite. Now, to sit by my
uncle whilst he was having his "meat stew," giving forth as it did,
that deliriously appetising odour of soup, flavoured by various herbs
(only used in Germany), was too much for me. My craving for it
overcame my principles, and forced me to whisper to my father a
request to ask Uncle Peter to give me some of it. This he did most
joyfully ; and daily, after that, picked out those bits of meat from his
soup and gave them to me. I counted the hours for that meal each
day, and devoured the meat with an avidity that made me feel some
shame — or call it shyness — in the presence of my father. Out of
deference to our principles my uncle had never offered meat to us,
but when my craving for it was hinted by my father he was more
than glad to satisfy it, as he did not think my diet proper for my
condition. My recovery was strikingly rapid. Whether it was owing to
this new nitrogenous diet, or to my disease having spent itself, I
cannot say ; but I was back to fife, and with the returning energy I
felt a longing for work, and a desire to settle in Munich without more
delay, to begin my art-studies.

47

(Chapter IX.

MUNICH, 1865.

Perhaps at no period of my life has my mind been subjected to so
sudden, so severe a transition of impressions, as when, at the age of
sixteen, my father took me away for the first time from Southampton
— a provincial town in England, devoid of all art, present or
traditional — to the Bavarian capital, Munich, with its untold art
treasures, and art-atmosphere everywhere. The change, however,
was not only too sudden, but too violent to benefit me at that age :
it was placing a replete fare before a starved mind, or one that had
not yet acquired the capacity for assimilation. Had unforeseen cir
cumstances not cut short our stay after six months, no doubt I
should have grown and developed with the opportunities offered in
such abundance.
I cannot at this distance of time offer any explanation of my
father's idea that I should study art in Germany. It is certain,
however, that he had no chance of making himself acquainted with
the status of English art* at the* time. I had repeated such of
Ruskin's writings to him as I had heard from my fellow- student at
the Southampton School of Art ; but they were as incomprehensible
to him as they were unclear to me. In that case it was but natural
that he could not see their connection with my career. And so it
came about that his original idea that I should study art in Germany
was never revised or altered. As events have proved, it was more
than fortunate that by an accident England, and not Germany,
became my art-home.
It did not occur to my father to make early enquiries as to the
divisions of the Academy-school's terms, and what with the delays of
48

MUNICH, 1865.
the journey we came to Munich just a week before the long vacation.
In that time, however, I made the competitive drawing as a candidate
for the Academy, For this drawing of an antique head I received
unstinted praise from my master, Professor Echter, and was at once
accepted as a student of the Academy Schools.
This Professor was a pupil and follower of Kaulbach, who
belonged to that ultra-academic school which held the opinion that
painting was secondary to drawing, that the antique should supplant
nature, and that realism of any kind should be once and for all
banished from the Fine Arts. -
King Ludwig the First of Bavaria had the laudable ambition to
make Munich the first Art City in Germany. He gathered artists
of talent around him and employed them generously. He insisted
on Michael Angelo being taken as the model upon which all artists
were to form their art. He thought it only needed a great pattern
to enable his artists to rise to his patriotic ideas, and rival the Italian
giant. But he only created an exotic art around him, which was
neither epoch-making nor vital — therefore was effete.
When I entered my studentship at Munich these classicists,
however, were not yet dethroned. They still felt secure, and looked
upon a newly -risen band of young realists much as the Academical
school in England looked upon the Pre-Raphaelite movement :
realism was not art, and Nature was not art. But for all that these
younger upstarts rankled in their minds," and jealousy rose to ugly
dimensions. When Piloty, who brought over the influence of the
Belgian painter Gallait, exhibited his large picture of " Nero after the
burning of Rome," Kaulbach was persuaded to go and see it. He
only made the caustic remark that "the rubbish was well painted."
Piloty, after the death of Kaulbach, was acknowledged to be the
head of German art, but his reign was of short duration." His
realism did not go far enough to satisfy the trend of the times, which
was merging into individualism — each artist for himself — with less
and less respect for tradition. This movement — which would have
suited my temperament better than the established formula? of study
49

THE HERKOMERS.
to which I was to be subjected — came into existence several years
after I had left Munich. I certainly could not have endured a two
years' course of the antique alone, and that was what my good.
professor had marked out for me. It would have been cut short by
rebellion on my part.
Well, the long vacation had to be filled in with some kind of
work. Professor Echter allowed me to take home casts from his
studio : hands, feet, faces, all from the antique, and he offered to
criticise my drawings of them, for he was the kindest of men, and had
taken an especial liking to me. I did these drawings in our lodgings
dutifully, but not willingly. Hearing of a private evening life-class
to which painters and sculptors resorted for the practice of drawing,
and moreover where there was no master to influence one's method
of work, my father thought, as it was not under the control of my
professor, it might be a good opportunity to anticipate the school
training by an early practice in drawing from the nude, so we both
joined. When I showed my life-studies to Echter, he shook his head
sadly, and picking out one with specially black shadows (drawn as I
had seen them) he said, " Too French." He went on to say, " When
I was young, we aimed at beautiful drawing ; now it is only tone,
tone, tone ! " That was forty-five years ago, and the cry is still
heard. It was a happy time my father and I had together. Freed from
the continual "pin-pricks" that he had to endure in Southampton,
back in his native country, surrounded by the people of his own
blood and sociality, with my art-education started— he enjoyed a
contentment that had been denied him since he emigrated to
America. I too had changed; the wild behaviour and disobedience
of my boyhood were things of the past ; and my ungovernable temper
was in abeyance. The letters my father wrote to my mother at the
time were full of my good behaviour.
We lived in the most frugal manner, one room sufficing for kitchen,
sitting-room, bedroom, and workshop for the carving ofthe Evangelists.
50

SKETCH OF GUARD-ROOM AT ALDERSHOT.
(Drawn for " The Graphic," 1870.)

MUNICH, 1865.
These figures were prepared up to a certain point in the shop of the
carpenter who was our landlord, and lived on the ground-floor.
Twice during our stay we went to the theatre, and of course
occupied the cheapest places. The first piece we witnessed was a
spoken drama, with incidental music by Karl Maria von Weber,
called " Preciosa." How magical it all seemed to me ! It was the
first stage-play I had ever seen. The second piece was Weber's
masterpiece, " Der Freischutz." Neither of the plays have I seen
again, and the magic of that first impression on my mind has
remained undisturbed through all these years.
An event now happened that altered the direction of my whole
artistic career, and settled once and for all the country to which, as
an artist, I was finally to belong. Just before the Academy was to
open my father endeavoured to get his passport renewed, as in those
days a passport was only granted to a naturalised British subject for
six months. He did not know, or it had not been clearly told him,
that such a passport could only be renewed in person in England.
No representative of the British Government in Munich had power to
renew it ; therefore if he stayed away for over six months from
England, he forfeited his British citizenship. If on the other hand he
once more became a German citizen, I, as his son, should have had to
serve my term in the army. This latter alternative was altogether
abhorrent to him, and he decided at very short notice to break my
course of studies in Munich, and return to England. So we left the
city of art — we and the unfinished Evangelists — in the early autumn
of that year, 1865, and once more settled in Southampton.

51

Chapter X*

SOUTHAMPTON AGAIN— LONDON.

The question that now lay uppermost in our minds was, where
my art education should be resumed. Paris did not appeal to my
father as feasible. Whilst in Munich we had heard something of the
fife led by art students in that city, which was not very edifying or
reassuring. I do not know who suggested South Kensington to my
father, nor how it was that the Royal Academy Schools were not
mentioned, more especially as the latter had free tuition. But what
ever the explanation may have been, the South Kensington Schools
were chosen, and 1 was to join them the following year, 1866, for the
summer term of six months.
There was now the winter to be got through ; some kind of work
had to be done. My father rented a disused school-room in which to
finish the Evangelists. In this improvised studio, and amidst the
evangelical chips, I worked at whatever came to hand — without any
definite aims or plans. I carved, modelled, cast leaves from nature
(after a manner we had learnt in Munich), sketched a little out of
doors — and, in fact, " pottered " in art work. It was not satisfying,
however, and left my mind hazy and dull. Then Southampton, after
Munich, seemed unutterably arid and stupid. I missed the galleries
of pictures by the greatest past masters ; I longed for the whole art
atmosphere that surrounded us in the Bavarian Capital. My former
companions had all entered bread-earning occupations and were no
longer available in the day-time ; there was, in fact, a void that was
depressing and irritating.
Although my health was well-established, there was a lull in my
day-dreaming, which deprived me of that precious " inner-world " that
52

SOUTHAMPTON AGAIN— LONDON.
had hitherto gilded my daily life. My ambition was dulled, and I
built up no great future for myself, as I had been wont to do. I cared
not even for reading, and this was the most deplorable part of that
deplorable condition. That would have been the time to read the
writings of John Ruskin ; I should at least have learnt English, if I
had failed to follow his dogmas ; I should have widened the range of
my mental vision, and fed the enfeebled flame of my imagination.
With the spring, however, the settling of certain practical
questions caused some excitement, and somewhat dispelled the gloom
that hung over my mind. My lodging in London was a grave matter.
The parents were appalled at the idea of my living alone amidst
strangers, in a city of such magnitude ; yet there is no city in the
world so secure, so well-regulated, where all parts of its great area are
so easy of access — as London. True, a stranger can feel more lonely
in a crowded street of London than perhaps in any other Capital.
Men and women pass you with an indifference that affects the
stranger unpleasantly. A lady who has dropped her glove will look
at you with suspicion when you offer it to her, and will probably walk
on with an air of indignation. A foot-passenger will give you but
scant attention if you happen to have lost your way and ask for
directions. But nowhere in the world is the policeman so friendly, so
helpful, so patient and kind as in England, and more especially in
London. Other countries have sent their police to study the regula
tion of street traffic in London ; they may imitate the methods, but
they cannot produce the constable.
Well, undefined anxiety, and fear of all kinds, troubled my
parents at the thought of my hving alone in London. They finally
decided that safety was only possible by my hving with a family, and
by a fortunate coincidence a pupil of my mother's had parents living
in Wandsworth Road — the father a retired carpenter— who were
willing to give me a home at a reasonable price. So that was
arranged ; but it entailed a twelve-mile walk on five days of the week,
as Wandsworth Road was three miles from South Kensington, and
the journey had to be made four times a day.
53

THE HERKOMERS.
When my father, who took me to London, saw how I was
housed, he was completely at rest. My host then showed us the way
to South Kensington, the journey I was to take four times a day.
The first turning out of Wandsworth Road brought us abruptly into
a long, slightly curved road, with orchards and fields on either side,
and an entire absence of gas lamps for night-lighting. The fields
mentioned reached as far as the arches of the London, Chatham and
Dover Railway. Passing under these and some second arches, of
another line, we were brought into a road that followed the outside of
Battersea Park. Here, too, there was but imperfect provision for
light after dark. At the end of this road we passed over the
Suspension Bridge ; then, through various slums — now transformed
into elegant streets with fashionable flats — and we arrived in Fulham
Road, from which the schools were not far distant. Having guided
us so far, Mr. Hall left us, and my father and I walked on to Hyde
Park, in a somewhat ominous silence. My father had chosen the
spot near the statue of Achilles for our parting, and it was in front of
this statue that I parted from him for the first time in my life.
How can I describe my sensations as I watched the retreating
steps of my father — alone, yet my own. master, free to act for myself,
needing no longer to ask permission to do this or that ? I can only
liken them to that state of mind when, in our dreams, we seem to
rise from the ground and float in the air ! But there was a counter-
emotion that shook me to the soul. I had not moved from the spot,
and when my father at last disappeared from view, my hitherto
sternly-suppressed tears burst from my eyes, and I felt I wanted to
shriek ! A love for my father welled up in my heart that had never
before been so intense or so overwhelming. A sudden rift in my
clouded mind seemed suddenly to reveal the full meaning of all he
had done for me in the past. There are moments in life that turn
lads instantly into men, and this is what I experienced then.

54

Chapter XI.

SCIENCE AND ART SCHOOLS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
I retraced my steps to my new home, and arrived just in time for
the family dinner — one o'clock. I was much struck with the nicely-
laid table and spotless white cloth. I noticed also the horn-handled
knives and three-pronged forks ; but the cruet-stand and its use were
unknown to me. When and with what were the various contents of
the bottles to be used? I was now to make the acquaintance of
what is called "plain English cooking." Already on my entrance
into the house my nostrils caught the poignant odour of roast meat ;
but I could not identify the beast. The reader must know that I had
eaten no animal food since my Uncle Peter gave me the little bits of
meat from his daily stew. Now, Mr. Hall, good soul, belonged to
that class of people who think you do not like what is offered you
unless you take it in great quantities ; but this presented no
difficulties to me in those fortunate days when I had teeth and a
digestion. Now I have neither ; and the very smell of a great leg of
mutton deprives me of all appetite. So will a large quantity of food
on my plate ; I have in fact arrived at a period of life when " I eat
with my eyes."
Well, this mid-day dinner seemed hardly over before afternoon
tea was served. There was still another meal later on, called supper
— so my host informed me. But on that first day I thought it wiser
to plead weariness and retire to bed early, for I felt I had eaten
enough for a week.
The next morning I started early for the schools, to pay my fees,
and sign my name in the books. I took with me several of my
Munich life-studies, thinking that if they were seen by the master, I
55

THE HERKOMERS.
would naturally be allowed to enter the life-class at once. But this
anticipation was not to be realised. The under-master, who inter
viewed me, sneeringly asked which of the many lines I intended
should represent the correct contour. I began arguing about arbitrary
outlines, which did not improve matters, and he cut the conversation
short by ordering me to start in the antique room without more
ado. I began the figure of the Discobolus, burning all the while with
indignation, and smarting under what I considered the injustice that
had been done me. I felt no more reconciled to the task the next
day ; and indeed, in a couple of hours, I had reached the limit of my
patience. Then I took a desperate resolve : I marched boldly into
the life-class, carrying with me drawing board, chalks, stumps, etc.
None of the students working there suspected that I joined them
without permission, therefore no questions were asked. Now, my
intention was to do as much as possible to my drawing from the
model before the master came round, and then boldly to "face the
music." Fortunately, Mr. Birchett, the head-master, was particularly
late that day, and I was able to get the whole figure drawn in and
some parts finished. I did not feel nervous when he came along, as I
was strung up for a vigorous defence. He looked at the drawing,
and noticing that I was a new man, asked me if I had permission to
draw in the life-class? I answered, "No, Sir," but added that I had
already drawn from the hfe in Munich, and fully expected when I
came to this school to be put in the life-room direct. Then Mr. Birchett
told me it was the rule of the school to pass from the " antique " to
the " hfe." My reply to this was—" I have not broken that rule, Sir ;
I have passed from the antique to the hfe ; I worked in the antique
room all day yesterday." It was fortunate for me that the master
had a sense of humour, for the impudence of my answer seemed
rather to tickle than annoy him. He smiled, and said, " Well, your
drawing is very good, and quite up to the standard required for
admittance to this class. You can stay."
When he left the room the students were all convulsed and took
56

STUDY FOR THE FIRST DRAWING OF THE CHELSEA PENSIONERS.
(" The Graphic;' 1870.)

¦ m

A

>v'

/^

SCIENCE AND ART SCHOOLS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
an immediate interest in me, considering me quite an eccentric. At
that time, 1866-7, there were some very good draughtsmen in the life-
class, of whom four have since become Royal Academicians, and
three, Members of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours.
Birchett, the head-master, was a worthy man ; he was kind,
considerate, and conscientious, according to his fights, in dealing with
the students' art- work. I cannot remember, however, having gained
anything by his criticism. The under-master in the " life," of whom
we saw more, was a landscape-painter of second rank. His duty was
to pose the model (we had only the male figure), and, knowing his
excitability and nervousness, we students used to delight in getting
a rise out of him by making irritating little remarks as he
" pulled " the model about in the vain endeavour to get an
interesting pose.
Before the sending-in day of the Academy he used to invite us
all to see his contributions. We were sorely tried on these occasions.
The head-master also had a private view of his work, to which we
were asked. But our respect for Birchett prevented us from uttering
rude or frivolous remarks, we tried to admire what we knew to be
second-rate historical painting.
I had two summer-terms at these schools. I certainly got some
practice in drawing and painting from the nude figure ; but it was all
so aimless, so undirected. The system of teaching, whatever it may
have been, did not encourage the student to " dig " for his own
identity. Nor can I remember whether I was influenced by the work
around me. I attended anatomical lectures, which were too dry to
interest me. In the library I copied Gustave Dore's illustrations to
Dante's " Inferno." Ye gods ! Gustave Dor£ ! But Walker soon
became the talk, and I no longer looked at Dor£.
There was a lively discussion as to the merits of Walker's first
essay in oils, " The Bathers." To me it seemed a new direction, a
new light, that had appeared on the horizon. To some, Walker was
only an imitator of William Hunt, and not so good. Others declared
he could not paint ; that he was only treating his pictures as wood-
57

THE HERKOMERS.
drawings in colour, and so on. I was, however, " bitten," and badly
too, as will be seen in subsequent chapters.
The teaching at the Kensington Schools led me nowhere in my
art. There is something wrong in a system for the training of art-
students that does not awaken the power of " seeing " the artistic
aspect of nature, or help the student to grasp the meaning of
" quality " in painting. Not a criticism was given me that would
have led me to either. I did endless studies, all of uniform merit, or
de-merit, and all were quickly and easily done. Judging them nOw
— impersonally — and with the experience of years in teaching, I can
clearly see how a word — the right one at the proper moment — would
have put my young mind on the right track ; I should have
recognised the identity upon which my future depended.
With the absence of direction I drifted on smoothly, and never
(worse luck) had any bad hours. I attended regularly, was in good
health, and my ambition was in abeyance. The pocket-money my
parents allowed me enabled me to indulge in the one pleasure I
desired— that of attending the Saturday Concerts at the Crystal
Palace, under Manns. An exhibitor in the Palace picture-gallery
received a free pass, and as the standard was rather low, the drawing
I sent in order to get this free entrance was accepted. Including the
railway journey, refreshments and programme, my pocket money of
two shillings and sixpence was practically absorbed for the week. I
can truthfully say that I never exceeded that sum from first to last
whilst I studied at Kensington ; I knew only too well how hard it
was for the parents to spare the money for my living in London.
After the second term of these schools and my return to
Southampton, I wanted to show my comrades in Southampton how
to paint from the nude. My skill was not up to a high level, but I
did not think so at the time, and the estimation in which I was held
by those few enthusiasts — men who were longing to be painters but
were tied to some business — did not lessen my self-esteem. But from
boyhood I had the strongest desire to teach, and seldom missed an
opportunity to show others what I knew, or only half-knew. So it was
58

SCIENCE AND ART SCHOOLS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
soon settled that five of us should start an evening life-class. I was
to give all the hints I could, and to criticise the studies of the members.
My work, done under these conditions, was infinitely better than that
which I did at Kensington. The hum-drum curriculum of the
school gave me no incentive to rouse myself : in fact, I became a part
of the system. In this little class I was at once put on my mettle,
and for the obvious reason that I did not dare to repeat the faults in
my own work that I had pointed out in the other studies. Moreover,
my comrades believed in me, and that put me on my honour.
We soon developed a consciousness that we were pioneers in that
town, and that it behoved us — nay, it was a duty — to show the
townspeople that there was a nucleus of young artists amongst them
of which they were unaware. We therefore inaugurated the first art-
exhibition ever held in Southampton. A frame -maker and dealer in
works of art, by name Wiseman, had a small gallery over his shop in
the High Street, which we promptly engaged, and mustered together
sixty-five works for our first show : drawings, sketches, landscapes,
subject-pictures, portraits, and even some of our studies from the
nude. Our expenses were paid by the sale of the catalogue, for which
we charged sixpence. I have the catalogue before me now, with its
grandiloquent preface, written by one of the group — the only one
who had some claims to scholarship. He also gave us the motto :
" labor ipse voluptas." A notice, printed under the word " catalogue,"
runs : " All finished, framed paintings and drawings are for sale. For
price enquire of the Secretary, Mr. Herkomer, who attends in the
Gallery " (the italics are mine). I have also before me Wiseman's
receipt for our expenses : —
"Room expenses ...
(Stevens) Picture, commission...
Two Herkomer pictures, „ ...

£2

2

0

0

2

0

0

9

0

£2

13

0

(Signed over stamp)
Received, July 15th, 1868.
Samuel J. Wiseman."
59

THE HERKOMERS.
As will be seen, only three drawings were sold, and two were
mine. A friend bought one of the latter, and a local artist — Mr. C.
F. Williams, a stranger to me — purchased the other. Lest my
reader should think that I took undue advantage of my position as
" Gallery Attendant," I wish to mention that the last-named water-
colour drawing was sold during my temporary absence from the
exhibition. After Mr. Williams' death Wiseman wrote in an appreciative
article, published in a local paper : " His kindness and consideration
for those seeking art-knowledge were great, and I and many others
have to thank him for help and advice in early days. I have often
made use of his matured experience in selecting drawings and
paintings. He never withheld praise from a fellow artist's work, but
gave it unstintingly if due. His intimate knowledge of David Cox's
work (who was his master) enabled me to verify, or otherwise, work
attributed to that master." ....
The article continues : " Many years ago I cleared my gallery in
order to exhibit the work of a small society of art-students. This
was a great event at the time. The Press were expected early, but
Mr. Williams was averse to a crush, and stole a march on all by
coming in at nine o'clock, before ' the executive ' arrived, and he and
I had a private view all to ourselves. He carefully inspected each
picture, sometimes exclaiming ' Good,' ' Capital,' or ' Poor fellow 1 '
Coming to a little water-colour of Southampton Common, he ex
claimed, ' This fellow has the right stuff in him and will make a name.
Give me a bit of paper.' He marked it sold. The young artist was
Hubert Herkomer, and the price of the drawing was two guineas."
Had it been my good fortune to have come under the influence
of Mr. Williams I should have saved the years that I lost when I was
misguided by the School of Art master. Williams' work was that of
a real artist : it presented nature in its most delicate aspect ; it
lingered lovingly over detail, and was far removed from ordinary
conventionality. A little incident comes to my mind which proves how valuable
60

SCIENCE AND ART SCHOOLS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
would have been his guidance. One day — some years before that
exhibition — I saw him making pencil memoranda on the Western
Shore. The sun had just dropped below the horizon opposite, the sky
all aglow in deep orange 1 I watched for a time at a respectful
distance, thinking the while how I might address him and ask a
question. I approached nearer, then suddenly blurted out : " May I
ask you, Sir, how to paint such a sky ? " Most kindly did he turn to
me with the words : " Look, my boy, look, and always look ; that is
the only way to find out how to paint nature."
I have stated that my criticisms in the life-class had a beneficial
effect on me. But the exhibition called forth a trait that had been
somewhat in abeyance — ambition. The excitement following on the
publicity of work caused a desire in me to do something of real
importance. But I had not yet learnt the art of seeing subjects.
Although Southampton was replete with subjects for the figure-
painter, it did not suggest Walker, and was therefore out of my line
of vision. Then I bethought me of trying some other locahty in the
hope of finding subjects. But where ? Accident soon decided this
question, as will be related in the next chapter.

61

Chapter XII.
MY FIRST SKETCHING CAMPAIGN (1868).

There is a village on the opposite shore of Southampton Water,
called Hythe. Here a gentleman lived who took in pupils. He had
at this time only one boy as boarder, whom he educated with his
daughter. I answered his advertisement for a music-master who
could also teach drawing, and was engaged at a very small salary to
give two lessons a week to this boy and girl. If I remember rightly,
this gentleman was a clergyman. He was fond of gardening and
fruit-growing, and constantly exhibited the produce of his garden.
I remember this because of a curious incident in which neither he nor
I managed to shine. On the table were placed his beautiful fruits,
and he was just writing out labels for exhibition when he suddenly
seemed puzzled. " Dear me," he said, " dear me, dear me " ; and
addressing me, he asked me whether " raspberry " was spelt with a p.
To my shame, I did not know, either, but I made a random shot for
the p, and on consulting a dictionary proved I had hit the mark.
This incident has engraved indelibly on my memory the correct way
of spelling " raspberry." In recent times *the connection of an incident
or an object with a word has been made the basis of a system of
memory training. Well, neither the boy nor the girl had touched
music or drawing, therefore I had nothing to unteach. Hence,
although not especially bright, they progressed quickly, and I soon
got them to play the simple Clementi Sonatas, avoiding theory as
much as possible until they could perform something with tune in it.
In drawing, I avoided the methods of the orthodox drawing-master,
i.e., Harding's lithographs of trees, etc., and made them work either
direct from nature or from casts of leaves which I had myself made.
62

" GOSSIPS."
(Water-colour Drawing pointed on the .first risit lo Garmixch, 1«71.)

MY FIRST SKETCHING CAMPAIGN.
I made them, Ijemember, keep to a large thistle leaf for a fortnight
or more, and do the shading with pen and ink ; but they caught my
enthusiasm, which, even in those days, and under such circumstances,
was strongly marked.
After these lessons. I generally explored the neighbourhood to
pass the time until the boat took me back to Southampton. On one
of these wanderings I came across an old windmill — a picturesque,
lonely-looking, weird thing, as most windmills look when out of
repair and seen against the sky. In this case the loneliness seemed to
be emphasized by an adjoining cottage, which was in a dilapidated
state, and had been uninhabited for a long time ; it might once have
been the cottage of an affluent miller, but had now become uninhabit
able. As I approached the mill the old miller was smoking his pipe
at the door. He had a jovial face, and greeted me with a friendly
smile. I could not help contrasting this specimen of contented
humanity with the sullen aspect of the great wings that swung round
silently, emblems of unwilling obedience. I got into a pleasant
conversation with the be-floured miller, and gradually led up to what
I was contemplating, viz., a stay there for sketching purposes, at the
smallest possible cost. He at once offered me his bed in the mill,
stating that he could always make himself comfortable on a sack.
I looked at his bed, on the third story of that lighthouse-shaped
edifice. It was a sort of box without a fid, placed on the floor.
There was some rough sacking material that contained straw in it,
showing a perfect mould of the miller's figure, for it was never shaken ;
there was also a blanket for covering, and an additional patchwork
quilt, the work of wife or daughter long since dead. Now this bed
and this quilt had never been changed or washed or cleaned for years !
Add to this that he always slept in his " floury " clothes, and it can be
imagined that there was a quality about the bed-clothes not unworthy
of the surface and colour of an Old Master, only flour and dirt of
years' accumulation gives a "something" undefinable, that is more
weird than the mere brown of an Old Master. It gave a texture to
the fabric that I defy any looms to imitate. I was not so squeamish
63

THE HERKOMERS.
in those days as I am now, but that bed was too much for me, for in
addition to the quality, there was a " life " about it, to which my body
would have been an especial attraction. So I made some excuses
about not wishing to deprive him of his bed, and merely thanked
him. I then examined the dilapidated cottage adjoining and found
one room upstairs which still had a door that would shut, and a
window with all the panes intact. From outside I could also see that
the roof was still good over this room, so I decided to use it for my
sleeping apartment, as I got it rent free. Then came the question of
my meals. The miller pointed out another solitary cottage at the
bottom of the hill, where he had his food, and spent the evenings.
I only now needed to interview the woman of this cottage, who, the
miller assured me, was a very "obliging creature." We found the door
of the cottage locked ; but after waiting a little, the miller pointed to
the woman, who was coming up the hill. But what I saw was
distinctly alarming : a tall, gaunt, fierce-looking woman, with a huge
stick in her hand, with which she was driving a drunken man in front
of her. This, I learnt, was her husband, a little man, over whom she
towered a good head and shoulders. When she reached us the miller
introduced me, and explained what I wanted. " Wait a bit," she
said, and, turning to the cottage, she unlocked the door, drove her
reeling husband in with a " whack " across his back, and again turned
the key in the door. Then she came back to us, and faced me with
a scrutinising concentrated stare. Having made up her mind as to
my character, she said : " All right, I'll do for the little gentleman."
Do for me, I thought : yes, it looked like it. But I found this
mannish woman kindness itself; she seemed to take me under her
special protection, which was proved one day. I happened to be
painting in the garden when some passing, half-drunken louts jeered
at me and tried to hinder me from working. Then they hustled me,
when I naturally hit out and gradually backed towards the cottage —
there were four to one, it must be remembered. The old lady heard
the commotion, and burst from the cottage with her formidable stick,
scattering the yokels right and left ; indeed, some began to run the
64

MY FIRST SKETCHING CAMPAIGN.
moment they saw her, as she was well known to take the law into
her own hands. " I'll teach you to interfere with my little gentle
man," she shrieked after them.
My engagement as teacher of music and drawing having termin
ated I received my salary, which, though small, ought to last me,
I thought, for some time in the life I proposed to live, and for which
I had made arrangements.
My parents were easily persuaded to let me try this sketching
experiment, especially as it was near home. In the furmshing of the
bedroom I carried simplicity to the verge of discomfort : a bundle of
straw on the floor, a blanket or two, and a pillow, completed the bed.
As my ablutions were carried out at the spring down in the hollow
below the mill, a wash-hand-stand was quite superfluous. And as for
a candlestick, a bottle was not only more in keeping with the general
" design " of the room than a candlestick of china or metal, but was
calculated to offer a disappointment to any thieves who might venture
to invade my " sleeping apartment " in search of spoil.
Now the spring I have mentioned played an important part in
my career. One morning, whilst I was at my toilet, a little girl, with
hood and pinafore (just such a girl as Birket Foster made so popular,
and Frederick Walker and George Mason made so picturesque), came
to fill her pitcher from the clear spring. She took no notice of me
(although she might have looked at me without a shock), but stood,
with one hand pressing back a branch of an alder tree that almost hid
the trickling water, watching the filling of the vessel, little dreaming of
the artistic impression she was making on me. Here was a subject to
draw, if not to paint. I arranged with her to sit to me (not without
some difficulty), and I made my first drawing on wood that had any
promise in it. I ventured to send it to Dalziel Brothers, the
engravers. A few days after I received a most kind and encouraging
letter from them, with a cheque for four guineas. Here was a begin
ning, truly a "spring" of future possibilities, that I found in that
hollow. The drawing of the little girl at the spring was engraved by the
65

THE HERKOMERS.
Dalziels, and published in Good Words, with a story written to it, called
"Lonely Jane." One of the brothers, Mr. Edward Dalziel, who
became my special friend, was instrumental in the selling of my first
important water-colour drawing in the Dudley Gallery in 1870 — of
which more anon ; and the year afterwards he bought my drawing
painted at Treport, "War News."
But I must go back to my first evening in the one cottage, and
my first night in the other. Both the miller and I had had our
suppers. I cannot recollect of what the supper consisted, but I do
remember of what my daily dinner consisted — potatoes, boiled in
their jackets, and eaten with butter and milk. I see those potatoes
now, piled up on the plate in a pyramidal form ; and I can distinctly
recall the after-effects of that one course !
Well, whatever the supper was, we had had it, and had settled
down for the evening — the miller in his accustomed place, the humbled
husband in the chimney-corner, and the housewife busying herself in
removing our " feast." Then a few privileged neighbours dropped in
and were allowed to smoke their pipes, whilst the miller brought out
his fiddle and I my zither — which latter caused quite a commotion.
The miller had played his half-dozen tunes for years from the same
corner, on the same strings (which never seemed to break), and to the
same audience. He had a reputation, had this miller, and with his
instrument was a personage of importance. I could readily discern
that a rival musician, hkely to put him in the shade, was not at all to
his taste. To prevent any possible jealousy I made him open the
concert, meanwhile leaving my zither on the table for the company to
gaze at. Then I requested him to repeat the tunes, to which I
improvised accompaniments. This made him feel greater than ever.
When, however, I played some of those sweet simple German Volks-
lieder, to which the peculiar tone of the zither gave a certain pathos
that never failed to touch the heart, he frankly acknowledged that he
had to take a back seat. Poor old fellow, he often spoke about
getting a " gamut," as he called it, to learn the notes in music. So I
thought I would try and teach him without the "gamut." But it
66

MY FIRST SKETCHING CAMPAIGN.
was hopeless ; his brain was too dense to admit of such a mathemati
cal problem as musical notation, however simply put.
These musical evenings became very popular, so much so that
the strong woman had to resort to her big stick more than once in
order to keep the place clear of undesirables, who, however, when
driven out of the room, lingered outside, and listened at the window.
About ten o'clock the company broke up, and the miller and I made
our way in a pitch-dark night to our respective quarters. On that first
night it was fortunate that I had a guide whose eyes could penetrate
the darkness like those of a cat. But I had to face another darkness,
and this time alone — a darkness that seemed darker than even the dark
night outside — the inside of that dilapidated cottage where I was to
sleep. For the hfe of me I could not recollect where that blessed
staircase was situated in relation to the front door, and I had no
matches, for, stupidly enough, I had left my one box in the bedroom
by the side of the " bottled " candle, since, as a non-smoker, I never
carried matches about with me. After much groping and knocking
against various corners, I finally found my way to the bedroom.
Needless to say, after this experience I always kept my matchbox in
my pocket, and a candle ready for lighting just inside the front
entrance, for the door had long vanished. On that night I only
partially undressed, as the situation was a bit eerie to my imaginative
mind. There were such a lot of queer sounds, all new to me. For
instance, there were creaking sounds that I could only ascribe to the
stairs in their resentment at the insult of having been used by human
feet after all those years of peaceful rest : sounds something hke the
cracking of our bones when we stretch too suddenly or too violently.
Then the light in the room —which, be it told, I was not in a hurry to
put out — attracted the bats outside, who playfully tapped the window
with their wings at disturbing intervals. Then came the screech of
an owl to make night hideous. But what seemed more weird to my
excited brain than all these sounds was the moan of the wind through
the sails of the mill. It had by no means the poetic effect of an
iEolian lyre, but was more like the voices that we might imagine
67

THE HERKOMERS.
coming from troubled spirits. But just as Luther, when he was
writing, took no more notice of the noises the Devil was making,
knowing them to emanate from the Devil, so did I take no further
notice, after that first night, of the dreadful sounds, knowing their
origin. My nights, however, were not long, as I had to rise at three
o'clock to get at my landscape just before the sun appeared over the
horizon. I selected this scene because I was fascinated by the jewel
like effect of the dew on the cobwebs that formed festoons from
bracken to gorse — an effect impossible to render in paint, even by the
greatest of masters. How curious it is that nearly all young artists
select for a first essay some subject or theme far beyond their powers
— such indeed as they would not dare to tackle in later years !
I am unable to explain why at that time I threw over the
stronger medium of oils and worked steadily in water-colours. It is
the more inexplicable, as all the life studies I painted at the South
Kensington Schools had been in oil-colours. But perhaps my abject
worship of Walker's work naturally led me to imitate the progressive
stages through which he passed — from wood-draughtsman to water-
colourist, and from water-colourist to the painter in oil-colours. I had
experimented a little in drawing on wood during my last course at
Kensington. How well I remember taking my first attempt to Fildes
(now Sir Luke Fildes) in the Galleries of the South Kensington
Museum, where he was at work copying on to the wood block
Armitage's picture of " Judas " for the Illustrated London News ; in
those days photography had not yet been employed for the transfer of
drawings or pictures to wood for the engravers. Fildes was my
senior by four years. He was already, at the time I mention, a well-
known illustrator, working along with Millais, Walker, Pinwell,
Small, Houghton and Sandys. This, I should mention, was before
the advent of The Graphic, which brought many young artists to
the fore. Without in any way resenting the interruption in his work,
Fildes looked at my block-drawing, whilst I looked at his face. I
68

"AFTER THE TOIL OF THE DAY.1'
(My first Oil Philtre. Painted hi Uttrmiseli, 1X72.)

MY FIRST SKETCHING CAMPAIGN.
could plainly discern by his expression the difficulty he had to be both
kind and critical, for it was a poor performance I brought to show
him. But his kindness far outweighed his critical remarks, and this
was all the more to his credit— even as a friend — because the subject,
without even considering its artistic treatment, was banal in the
extreme. I ask the reader to judge for himself: a little girl, with
stick in hand, the end of which was hidden under her apron, stood by
a table in the garden, upon which was placed a big pie to cool. Her
duty was supposed to be the guarding of that pie from probable
attacks of a cat that was seen crouching on a branch of a fruit-tree
near the table. But the worst has yet to be told (as a matter of
morality) : this subject was a direct " crib " from a German Bilder-
Bogen. I had no ideas, no notion how to search for subjects in
nature, and there was nobody to guide me in the matter.
Imitators are known to exaggerate defects of the master with
whom they are infatuated. My admiration for Walker caused me to
fail in the same way. I certainly had no full understanding of his
work or his aims. But never was enthusiastic admiration of a certain
painter the cause of more " narrowing " in judgment, more shutting
out of educational influences, more insistence on just that one
particular phase of art, than in my case at that period — aye, and for
some considerable time to come. It produced a blindness that seems
to me now appalling ; and had my natural bent not been so strong as
to be finally irrepressible, I might never have been able to free
myself from the thraldom of Walker. It is difficult to account for
such conditions in a young brain. My brain was then precisely what
it is now : no new faculty has been — nor could have been — added to
my innate mental composition. It was all there as now, the
" indestructible iron framework we call our nature." I was told that
the Japanese Government once sent a Commission to examine the
art of Japan and the art of Europe. After a long and exhaustive
inspection in the different countries, the Commission reported that
art in Japan was asleep, and that art in Europe was dead. Well,
half my faculties were asleep, and the other half over-active.
69

THE HERKOMERS.
Although it has been the bane and torture of my artistic life to
see too many subjects to paint, yet at that early period I could see
nothing. There, at Hythe, I entirely missed the many subjects that
were around me — the picturesque villagers, the life in cottage and
field. For instance, I never thought of the miller with his fiddle as
a subject to draw, probably because Walker had not done a miller
with a fiddle. Yet this old miller was a delightful subject for artistic
treatment ; nor did that admirable scene in the cottage on the musical
evenings appeal to me — a scene so full of variety of character, a
veritable story of hves, from the gaunt housewife to the meek
husband, and the little company of farm labourers who were
privileged to smoke their pipes in that little cottage room and listen
to the miller's old-fashioned jigs. No, it was always a girl, and again
a girl, that was the idea for a subject. Well, I did do a girl, standing
in a cabbage garden with a knife in her hand. Of this little water-
colour drawing, when it was exhibited in the Dudley Gallery (1869),
a critic said : " It represents an ugly girl, standing in a garden of bad
cabbages, with an impossible background." This drawing was bought
by a friend of mine in Southampton for £2. 10s., including the frame.
Some years after he sent it to Christie's, where it fetched £25, to his
and my surprise.
The landscape, over which I took such infinite trouble, and for
which I tortured myself by early rising (never natural to me), is still
in my possession. It is all faded and changed in colour, and no
wonder, for I used emerald green and vermilion with Chinese white.
It is a conscientious painstaking, inartistic effort, without a vestige of
the picture-making element. Of all my artistic faculties at that time,
my sense of colour was more than ordinarily asleep. I don't know
whether the early rising was the cause of this, but the fact remains
that the little landscapes I did on the block in black-and-white were
infinitely better and more artistic than my work in colour, for,
strangely enough, these landscapes, all drawn in pure line, showed
a true feeling for relative values and tone, and distinctly suggested
colour. 70

MY FIRST SKETCHING CAMPAIGN.
I stayed in Hythe about seven weeks, and by that time I was
anxious to get to my home, not only as my monotonous diet began
to pall, but the romance of my simple hfe had lost much of its charm.
It was not a big artistic spoil I was able to bring home, but as far as
it went, it was earnest and honest. My artistic development, however,
was in a critical state, and at no period in my life was a friendly
adviser more needed to enable me to understand myself. In South
ampton I did not seem to look for figure-subjects, but was continually
impelled to attempt landscape. An incident now happened that
rudely tore me from my love of landscape, and suddenly "pitch
forked " me into the position of a cartoonist for a comic paper. The
friend who bought my " Ugly Girl in the Garden of Bad Cabbages "
was an author, in addition to being a coach-builder. He was acquainted
with Mr. Hain Friswell, who was about a start a new comic paper,
to be called The Censor. This friend, Eustace Hinton Jones, recom
mended me for the drawing of the cartoons, and this over the head of
an already well-known cartoonist and imitator of Tenniel, Mr. Proctor,
who was seeking the position on The Censor. It was a great windfall
to me in the circumstances, as it meant regular employment at £2
per week for one drawing that had to be done in two days, thus
leaving the rest of the week free for my more artistic work. The
first subject given me was, " Folly, instructed by Death, feeds War "
— a girl, wearing a fool's cap, directing Death (a skeleton) to load a
cannon. Then I had to do Bradlaugh besmearing Truth " ; and again,
"Nemesis" — a figure in the sky, with a sword, driving out Queen
Isabella from Spain. A second subject had to be drawn of this
unhappy Isabella, which was of a much more vulgar type : the Pope,
his mitre cocked on one side of his head, and somewhat battered in,
in the character of a pawnbroker, sitting on the door-step of his shop,
while Queen Isabella, in the shape of a ragged woman, with stockings
down at heel, throws the great order she had received from Rome —
the Golden Rose — at the feet of the pawnbroker, uttering the words :
"Now then, Governor! You got me into this row: how much for
the blessed lot f " 71

THE HERKOMERS.
I may mention that some twelve years ago I was invited to dine
with the Prince Regent of Bavaria (at the unearthly hour of four
o'clock), where this very ex-Queen Isabella was the chief guest. She
was then anything but a prepossessing personage, but she was very
friendly to me, smiled at me, and tried to say some pleasant things to
me in French. As I could not speak French, and she neither German
nor English, we were mutually unintelhgible. I merely made my
bow, returned the smiles, and sat down at table, where I was placed
opposite to her. She still smiled at me, lifted her glass more than
once to me, each time with a smile, which I returned each time with
a bow, and my very finest smile. It is not to be wondered at that I
had my particular thoughts on that occasion, thoughts that took me
back to the time when I was the unknown artist who was ordered to
put this good old lady in such an unflattering light.
After I had done some half-dozen Censor cartoons, Mr. Friswell
complained that my figures were too " German " ! The criticism was
a true one, for it put its finger upon the cause, unknowingly — my
father had been my only model for the male figures.
Most people who have attained success in any walk of life are
inclined to look back on certain events that have been turning-points
in their careers. And it is a matter of wonder why just those certain
events, rather than others, should have been selected by fate to
become turning-points. Supposing my position as cartoonist for a
comic paper had continued — continued until I had got thoroughly
used to the work, or to like it, and found my chief interest in merely
the humorous side of life — might not my mind have been diverted
from its real bent, which, as my whole work can testify, has been
towards the pathetic side of life, towards a sympathy for the old, and
for suffering mankind ? The question cannot be answered definitely,
because there was no chance of its being proved one way or another :
it must remain as a surmise. But I firmly believe that the death of
The Censor removed an enemy from my life.
I may here incidentally mention, although I am anticipating,
that I had one more escape in my career, when dire necessity drove
72

" ' DER BITTGANG ' : PEASANTS PRAYING FOR A SUCCESSFUL HARVEST;
(Water-colour Drawing, Painted in Hamsun. 1S7I.)

MY FIRST SKETCHING CAMPAIGN.
me to try my zither as an asset, for I had been on the point of being
engaged by some Christy Minstrels, whose manager was very pleased
with my performance on that instrument. I had carefully calculated
the advantages that such an engagement would be to me in my
impecunious position, before I apphed for it. And they seemed to
me principally — the regular weekly pay for only evening work, leaving
the day clear for my art ; and the security against recognition by the
assumed name and the blackened face. Fortunately for me there was
some hitch in the preliminaries of the engagement, and I never
appeared on that stage. With my musical and dramatic interests,
heaven only knows into what a hfe or career I might have drifted ?
The question was now, what next ? The Dajziels had kindly
taken a few landscape drawings on the block, but it was all so
uncertain that I felt more and more the necessity of establishing
myself in London, so as to be nearer to the source of employment.
I had rightly judged that an engraver, who had to employ artists,
would give the first chance to a man who called upon him rather than
to a man who lived some eighty odd miles away from London. But
this removal to London meant a radical change in my hfe, which my
parents rather dreaded for me at my age. There were many family
consultations, many arguments for and against ; tears from the
anxious, loving mother ; earnest thought on the part of the father,
and it was some time before my parents gave their consent for me to
settle in London. I pressed the necessity of the case with all the
impetuosity of my nature. Southampton began to choke me, for
I was handicapped on all sides, which my natural ambition resented.
It was finally decided that I should make the change, and I left my
home for the great metropolis with a joyous heart, building up in my
mind the great things I was going to achieve in the future. But my
good parents were left with doubt and anxiety in their hearts.

73

Chapter XIII.
SETTLING IN LONDON.
"THE GRAPHIC."
My parents again desired me to live with a family rather than in
lodgings by myself. Very reluctantly did I give way to this wish,
and the home of a fellow-student was chosen. The arrangement
soon proved an impossible one : I was lodger, yet without the freedom
of such ; I was debarred from having the models I wanted ; I had to
conform to the hours in which the family took their meals ; and, what
was worse than all, had to share the bed with the student.
The only work I did there was a small water-colour drawing of
the student's sister. I was more taken with the rather old-fashioned
silk dress she wore than with the young lady herself. I represented her
in a standing position, contemplating a sketch, which she held at arm's
length. Well, Alfred Stevens and Whistler have both painted
pictures with no more subject, that have nevertheless become
celebrated. I had not yet heard the trite saying : " It is not what
you do, but how you do it." I had the temerity to send this "raw"
drawing to the Royal Academy that same year, 1869. Wonderful
to relate, it was not only hung, but was hung in a place of honour —
that is, in the centre of a wall, on the line. When I think of the
quality of that drawing I am forced to believe that the standard of
the water-colours sent to the Academy at that time was at a pretty
low ebb. The room now numbered IX., usually known as the " gem
room," was in those days used for the water-colours. If the standard
had not been so low I do not see how so much favour could have
been shown to a drawing that could make but little claim to merit.
However, the mere fact of its being hung entitled me to a ticket for
the soiree. I was most anxious to attend, but alas, I had no dress
74

SETTLING IN LONDON.— "THE GRAPHIC."
suit. The only way out of my difficulty was to hire one. I
consequently went to a pawnbroker's shop in King's Road, Chelsea,
where I got the article I needed. The charge for one night's loan
was 10/6. I won't answer for the fit, but it gave me the entree to the
Academy that evening, and nobody, I thought, would know that I had
not been " brought up " on dress suits. Describing the scene to a
friend in a letter I said it was " the grandest assembly of people I
have ever seen."
The arrangement of living with a family finally became intoler
able, and in the spring of this year, 1869, I took lodgings in Smith
Street, Chelsea. The front room on the first floor looked to the
north, and had two French windows leading to a balcony. The back
room — separated by folding doors — was to be my sleeping apart
ment. Whilst waiting for some necessary furniture from my parents
I met a student at Victoria station whose acquaintance I had made at
St. Martin's School of Art. I told him of my venture, and he
immediately suggested joining me in the day-time, as he had a home
with his parents. He took a great fancy to me. I was amusingly
eccentric to him, and he always sought amusement. Life was in no
way a serious thing to him ; he was always in good humour, and
seemed to laugh — with a " catching " laugh — at everything. I at
once accepted his suggestion to work with me, for there was some
thing that drew us together, although he was the very antithesis in
character to myself. He was easy-going, lazy, and exceedingly
amiable, with an imperturbable temper which often wrought me up to
a state of fury. He had the fatal habit of preluding his words with
— " Now, old chap, don't fly out at what I am going to say 1 "
Needless to say, I " flew out " before his words were uttered.
He certainly dispelled many of the black moments that came to
me at that time, and under his guidance we did the silliest and most
inane things, over which I will draw a veil. Let us not throw stones
at the ridiculous things students do, be they art-students, or University
students, of any country : all have gone through the inane phase,
and found fun in it — fun in what we now consider beneath contempt.
75

THE HERKOMERS.
The furniture my parents sent me came by instalments, but
when my front room was finally made comfortable, my companion
said, " Let us do a subject together — have a model ; " he knew a
female model, and possessed a Greek dress of transparent gauze : " Do
something classical, rather ! " I was much smitten with the idea ; but
now for the subject of this classical work. After much consultation we
decided on a Greek girl feeding fish in a little pool around a fountain.
The coming of this model was an event (for I had not spoken to a
live female model, and had not drawn from one since my Munich
days). She was a Frenchwoman, and by no means very young,
although she assumed a naive youthfulness, for she brought a doll
with her, with which she played like a child. She was very well
dressed, very chic, very amusing with her broken English, and
altogether a person of great importance — certainly to my inexperienced
eye. When the moment came to pay her, we were afraid to offer
her the money, thinking she might be offended. How to give her the
money troubled us all the day ; at last I hit upon the idea of asking
her for her purse, so that I might place the money in it. This was a
mistake, for it aroused her suspicions, and she got into a violent
temper, asking what I wanted her purse for. When I explained, and
she saw the actual cash in my hand, she laughed loudly, and we felt
fools. Well, the classical pictures were never finished ; the subject being
too new for me, I took little interest in it. After this, the sharer of
my room came less and less frequently, and finally only dropped in as
a friend — which suited me well.
It was getting towards the autumn in the year 1869, when a
former student at Kensington, whose father was a carpenter on a
gentleman's estate in Sussex, suggested that several of us should come
to his home and work there: we could live very cheaply in his
parents' cottage. This was very alluring to me, for I was just then
only pottering with work in a very dissatisfied way, and, what was
worse, earning next to nothing. With the consent, and monetary
help once more of my parents, I joined E. F. Brewtnall (afterwards
76

PORTRAIT OF MYSELF, WITH MY TWO ELDEST CHILDREN.
(From an Etching, 1879.)

SETTLING IN LONDON.— "THE GRAPHIC."
R.W.S.) and William Wise (both Kensington students) in this little
experiment. We three kept very much together. We walked
together, and (what often proved to be very impracticable) saw
subjects together. This sometimes caused a httle friction. An
effect, a picturesque figure of a peasant at work, or a bit of landscape,
would strike us all at the same moment : then one would say " I'm
going to paint that ; " another, " The subject is mine, I saw it first,"
and so on. We never quarrelled, however, and each man soon settled
down to his own subject. I found my subject in a group of peasants
hoeing in a turnip field. I was struck at once with the pictorial
aspect of the scene, with the strong relief of these figures against the
trees in the background, which were in their autumnal garb, rich in
russet and gold. Then, whilst I was watching, a little girl approached
the oldest man of the group, and handed him some refreshments. He
stiffly and slowly straightened his back, and remained standing whilst
the others were in various attitudes at their work. The child gave
the final touch to the sentiment, as I thought. I was glad to have
been unaccompanied when I saw this, as there could be no dispute
about the copyright. I looked long and hard at the scene and tried
to take it all in, then returned to the house, and sketched out the
group and designed the lines of the background. For this drawing I
used the largest piece of paper I had. These few strokes on that
paper suggested to me the picture, and I could clearly see it in my
mind's eye. Whether I had the manipulative skill to render it had
yet to be seen, but I felt no nervousness when I started to paint. I
dashed at it in my impulsive way, and worked very rapidly. This
rapidity of work was not quite to the liking of my comrades, as it
gave me more to show at the end of the day than either of the
other two.
Our evenings were as lively as we could make them with the
resources at our command. Quite a little air of romance was given
to our stay by the presence of a young lady who was hving with the
family — indeed, had been brought up by them. There was a mystery
about this damsel that we could never fathom, for the old lady knew
77

THE HERKOMERS.
how to keep her counsel. The girl was decidedly good-looking, but
was badly educated, knew nothing, and cared for nothing, laziness
being her strong point. However, we all flirted with her, but, let me
add, quite harmlessly. Now Brewtnall had a gift for making
doggerel rhymes, and I could compose tunes on my zither, so he and
I got up a httle conspiracy to give the company a surprise one
evening. He wrote some verses (of course, all about the girl and
ourselves), and there was a chorus, repeated after each verse, all of
which I put to music. This chorus ran as follows :
One was a yeoman, stalwart and bold (Rassall) ;
One was a German, a regular beau (myself) ;
One was a Saxon, with hair like gold (Brewtnall,
who had red hair) ;
And the other was a knight from Pimlico (Wise,
who lived in that district).
It was a great success, and everybody enjoyed roaring and shouting
in the chorus. Foolish and silly it all appears at this distance of time,
but there was nothing vicious about it : it was the result of youthful-
ness in the enjoyment of health and high spirits. I have lingered
somewhat over this episode, as it was the last time that that particular
phase appeared in my life. Of the picture I painted, which became
the starting-point of my career, I shall speak presently.
Before I returned to Chelsea, I paid my parents a visit in
Southampton, for I was specially eager to show them my
picture — the first I had succeeded in painting that could be called
a picture. This home-coming of mine was a great event to the parents. On
that day the mother's pupils were sent home earlier than usual, so as
to give her time to cook some special Bavarian dish of which she
knew I was particularly fond. The father was putting the finishing
touches to a " settle " that he had made as a surprise for me, and
which was destined for my Chelsea lodgings. A spotless white cloth
on the little table, four candlesticks with tall candles burning — an
78

SETTLING IN LONDON.— "THE GRAPHIC."
unheard-of extravagance at any other time — greeted me. I rapidly
unpacked my picture, and hung it on the wall.
My father was deeply moved : he had not expected such a
sudden advance in my work ; he could not speak, but drew me to
him, and held me in a long embrace. The mother could not judge
the picture, but she could understand the meaning of it all, and her
tears were those of joy. Then we sat down to that meal, and oh ! so
devoutly and purely happy — all three, all three for different reasons !
That visit made me realise how hard it was for my parents to
give me the money I still needed. No doubt they had expected a
quicker return in my earnings when I had settled in London. I felt
this, and smarted under the idea that I was still dependent on them.
When I returned to Chelsea there was no better outlook : I was
earning nothing, although I did some drawings on the block, which I
took to the Dalziel Brothers in hopes that they would be able to
place them for publication ; but there was a " slump " in that kind
of illustration. I had my large water-colour drawing, but that was
not convertible into money at that time. Then I reduced my
expenses in my diet, and lived on bread, butter, cheese and porridge
—this for weeks, too. My former companion sometimes came to see
me, and of course laughed, and was merry ; and I laughed too, but
was not merry in my heart. Something had to be done — this drag
on the parents must cease.
There was a troupe of Christy Minstrels performing in London
(not the well-known Moore and Burgess Minstrels), and I sought an
evening engagement with them as a zither player. This engagement,
as I have already stated in a former chapter, fortunately did not come
off. Then I heard of some work at the South Kensington Museum,
for which young students were wanted. It was a common job, a
decoration for the Ceramic Gallery of the Museum, and most of it
had to be done mechanically by stencilling, with just a little touching
up by hand.
A fellow-student and I obtained this work, and our payment was
79

THE HERKOMERS.
9d. an hour. Well, we worked no end of hours, but somehow did
not produce much in the time. Mr. Redgrave, R.A., who was
inspector, came round one day and declared that the work was not
satisfactory as to quantity, and told us to do it piece-work. Then we
did too much in the time, and were again called over the coals.
This work at least gave me some money in hand — money of my
own earning ; and after receiving the first week's payment I gave
myself a treat — I went to an " eating-house " for a good square meal
of meat and vegetables. Soon I had enough money in hand to
venture on something more in keeping with my art, in conformity
with my ambition, and in consonance with my independent nature.
On the morning of my last visit to the. Museum I purposely came
late ; my companion was steadily at work, as usual. I entered the
room with the air of a man who was on strike : " Look here, old
chap," I said, " I can't stand this work any longer ; it is too degrading."
" Well," he answered, " what are you going to do ? " I told him that
I had taken a long walk on the preceding Sunday to Wimbledon
Common, where I saw some gipsies in camp, who were making
clothes-pegs. " I am going to draw that," I answered, " and try and
get it taken by the new illustrated paper, The Graphic." I was eager
to do this subject, for had not Walker drawn and painted gipsies ?
My companion tried to dissuade me from the venture ; he thought it
most risky. "Well, let it be risky. I am going to do it, whatever
happens ; I have the money to buy a page block (costing a sovereign),
a few shillings for the models, and I have paid my lodgings for
another week." I immediately walked back to Wimbledon Common,
and arranged with the woman and a boy to come to my lodgings in
Chelsea. Now, to get a gipsy woman with a baby to come all the
way from Wimbledon Common to Chelsea, with but little money to
give her, was a moral feat. The young man, a great hulking fellow
of some seventeen years, was easily managed, as I could satisfy
him with a huge rabbit pie ; but the woman did her utmost to
increase the sum I had promised her, by resorting to fortune-telling.
These fortunes began in rosy hues, but altered for the worse as she
80

SETTLING IN LONDON.— "THE GRAPHIC."
realised that the money first promised her was all that would be
forthcoming. I made my studies, however (one of which is repro
duced in this book), and then drew them on to the block, not, alas,
in the free way in which these studies were done, but in careful line,
as exact facsimile work was always insisted upon by the engravers
in those days. When the block was finished, I took it to The
Graphic office.
Now, Mr. W. L. Thomas, the founder and manager of The
Graphic, had a sort of watch-dog, that all applicants had to pass
before being allowed to enter his private room. This watch-dog had
a little kennel, i.e., a tiny room at the top of the stairs, where he
worked (between his " barking ") at wood-engraving. He gave me a
curt reception. " Mr. Thomas is engaged ; you can't see him." He
became insolent. "Dozens of you fellows come here every day."
I answered, " Very sorry ; I must again ask you to show the Manager
my drawing," during which sentence I opened my parcel, and laid the
drawing on his table. He cast a side-long glance at it, and said,
" Well, I'll take it, but I know he won't see you." It was not long
before he returned, and said, " The Manager wants to see you." As
I entered, Mr. Thomas (seated at his engraving) was holding my
block, and closely examining it. . As I approached him he turned,
re-adjusted his eye-glass, held out his hand, and said: "How are
you ? " " Thank you, sir, quite well." " But," he added, " where
have you been, or what have you done ? I have not seen any of
your work before." "No, sir, I have not had the chance of doing
any, beyond small drawings for the Dalziels, and I have done this
block as a venture." Then came the verdict : " Well, as much work
as you like to do of this quality I shall be glad to have."
Unforgettable words ! I received £8 on the spot for that drawing,
and I have never lacked work from that day to this. On my way
out I passed the open door of the watch-dog's kennel, glared at him,
showed my empty hands to denote that my block was taken, and, at
the risk of breaking my neck, dashed down the steep stairs, two steps
at a time, and hurried home to write to my parents of my good
81

THE HERKOMERS.
fortune. Here at last was something tangible, something that meant a
future ; it now only depended on me to make money and a reputation.
I honestly confess that money-making was my first thought, money
wherewith to repay my parents, and to render their lives easier.
I paid a second visit to The Graphic office at the earliest date
that decency permitted ; the watch-dog this time wagged his tail, and
readily announced me to Mr. Thomas, who saw me at once ; but a
disappointment awaited me. I came to ask to be supplied with
subjects, as other draughtsmen were. " No," said Mr. Thomas, " you
look for your own subjects." In my heart I bitterly resented these
words, but they were the words I needed : they were the making of me
as an artist ! My first day's search for a subject was abortive. It
was the same on the day following. On the third, a Sunday,
I wandered in a sort of aimless way, perhaps for want of something
better to do, into the Chapel of the Royal Hospital, which was situated
at the end of my street. I was put into one of the side pews allotted
to visitors, for the whole body of the chapel was occupied by the old
pensioners, wearing their red coats. What grand old heads ! here was
a subject of the first water ! The service, the sermon, and the music
were non-existent for me. I was alone with my subject. After
service I lingered on, got into conversation with one or two of the
veterans, and soon found there would be no difficulty in getting them
to sit — for a consideration. Before I went to bed that night my
design was made, and the next day I made the studies of two of the
foremost in the group ; one a fine bullet-headed old fighting Irishman,
who had seen much service ; the other a man with finely-cut features
of the Wellingtonian type, who had seen very little service. They
constituted my principal contrasts. These studies were done in
chalk, on rather smooth paper, and with a freedom that was somewhat
lost in transposing that technique to line on the block. Unfortunately
in those days photography was not yet a practicable thing for the
transfer to the block of a drawing made on paper. In that case the
engravers would always have had the drawing to refer to : as it was,
the original drawing was cut away, and the only satisfaction left to
82

CARTOON WHICH APPEARED IN "PUNCH" IN 1875.
(Reproduced by the special permission of the Proprietors of "Punch.")

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[May 22, 1875.

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SETTLING IN LONDON.— "THE GRAPHIC."
the artist was to growl at the engraver. In only too many cases the
creed of the latter was — "cut through that shower of lines, never
mind what the artist drew," with the result that we could barely
recognise our own work. Mr. Thomas was delighted with my
drawing of the Pensioners, and gave me, I think, £10 for it. When
it appeared in The Graphic, in spite of the cruel destruction of my
artistic hnes it was hailed as the work of a man of promise.
Another great event came to me in April of that year, 1870.
My large water-colour drawing of peasants hoeing was sent to the
Dudley Gallery, along with the drawings of Brewtnall and Wise.
My readers must know that the Dudley Gallery in those days
sufficed as a nursery for those exclusive galleries the Old and New
Water-colour Societies. An anxious time followed the sending in of
my picture. After every morning's post I would go to Brewtnall's
rooms (he had lately settled a few doors below me in Smith Street,
with E. J. Gregory) to know whether he also had not yet received a
notice of rejection. Presently I received a private letter from the
Secretary of the Gallery, asking me to call. I immediately rushed
into Brewtnall's lodgings with my letter, asking him if he could
understand what it meant. He could not, but thought it distinctly
strange, suggesting that something must be wrong. This / also
thought, and I walked with a curious oppression on me to the
Gallery. Knocking at the closed door, which was opened by the
gallery attendant, I was shown into the secretary's room. Room !
It was merely a large cupboard, choked up with rejected pictures,
leaving but little space for the secretary's writing table. I had just
time for a rapid and anxious glance round those unhappy pictures,
fearing to see my own, when the secretary rose, and, shaking hands
with me, said he was " very glad " to make my acquaintance.
Instinctively I felt that something good was in store for me. He
then told me that the hanging committee had asked him to write and
request me to raise the price of my drawing, adding (strictly in
confidence) that my picture was hung in the place of honour.
Afterwards I heard that the hanging committee consisted of
83

THE HERKOMERS.
Mr. (now Sir Edward) Poynter, Mr. H. S. Marks (afterwards R.A.)
and Mr. Arthur Severn. It was a signal service they did me by
their generous action at a critical moment of my career.
My friend Mr. Edward Dalziel persuaded Mr. Strahan, the
publisher, to buy this drawing for the price recommended by the
hanging committee, £40. With this sum, and with the money
obtained for one or two Graphic drawings after " The Pensioners," I
had something substantial in hand ; I could send some money to
my parents, and still have enough to pay for a couple of months of
painting in the country. But I had set my heart on getting some new
impressions, and selected the little fishing village of Treport, not far
from Dieppe.
It certainly was a fishing- village, pure and simple ; not a tree
was within two or three miles of it. To me, who so loved trees, it
was indeed a strange experience ; but the picturesqueness of the
figures, and the newness of the whole scene, fully occupied my mind,
and shut out for the time my love for green swards and foliage. The
scare of the impending Franco-German war was in the air, and had
even reached that fishing-village. One day I saw a woman sitting on
her fish-basket, with an eager group around her, reading the latest
news. Here was the nucleus for my subject : " Reading War-News."
After having designed my group I got the different characters one by
one to sit for me. They were most polite and amiable people. In
the court yard behind my small lodgings, where I worked, there was
always a little curious crowd around me, standing in a semi
circle, watching my brush with the greatest interest. Their
behaviour was unimpeachable ; I do not say that they did not
sometimes indulge in a little banter at the expense of the model,
but never at mine.
This went on for some four weeks, but when war was really
declared, knowing that I was a German they rather altered their
attitude towards me ; it was not very marked, but it was enough to
make me uncomfortable. Of course, they pitied me — pitied the
whole German nation, for how could they resist this new weapon of
84

SETTLING IN LONDON.— " THE GRAPHIC."
the French government, the Mitrailleuse, which could shoot down
three hundred horses at one shot ? etc., etc.
I thought it best to beat a retreat, as my drawing was sufficiently
advanced to enable me to finish it in Chelsea. But I had not yet had
my " fill " of a summer's painting, and decided to go into Devonshire,
which was quite new to me. There I made up for the want of trees
at Treport, with a vengeance ! I painted an orchard, with as vicious
a green as my colour-box would produce. Into that orchard I
introduced the nice-looking children of the vicar of the place, whose
acquaintance I had made. This emerald-green orchard and my
Treport fisher-folk were sent in due course to the Dudley Gallery the
following year, and were well hung. That same year, in company
with E. J. Gregory (who had meanwhile made a name as a wood-
draughtsman), I was invited by the President of the Institute of
Painters in Water-Colours to join that institution without the regular
competition. Judging from a letter I wrote to an old friend just before this
event, I had given myself six years to gam admission to one of the
societies ; but it had come in less than one year. I wrote the
following : " I am happy to inform you that I have been more
successful than I anticipated, not only as regards the getting
of a living, but I can paint more decently  1 am
determined . . . . to be in some society before six
years. If I don't get in by that time, I'll defy them, and
wait for the Academy. You know in three or four years one
can learn a great deal in painting, that is if you are in
earnest."
I give the letter just as it was written, with its mixed tenses and
persons. My social life was limited to the circle of my colleagues and my
employers ; Mr. Dalziel, Mr. Swain, and Mr. Thomas. I also visited
Mr. Marks and Mr. Leslie, who were most kind to me. In my
85

THE HERKOMERS.
little front-room studio in Smith Street, which was already assuming
an original type through the furniture my father had made for me,
I used, occasionally, to give small supper-parties. What I provided
for my friends I cannot remember ; I do remember, however, that
the guests who honoured my little diggings included such men as
Fildes, Wood, Linton, Gregory, Brewtnall, Pinwell, Charles and
Townley Green, and Small. What a bevy of men of talent ! I also
remember with pleasure my acquaintance with Charles Keene. He
took me to the house of Mr. Boyce, who in addition to being a
charming water-colour painter, was also a man of wealth. Often
afterwards Keene and I met there to sing trios, Boyce being at the
piano. At this period I played the zither a great deal, and became
quite a good player, so that when I visited my friends I was always
requested to bring the instrument with me. I also hired a piano, and
tried to compose waltzes and marches ; I actually had a set of
waltzes published by Robert Cox, and a march, arranged for four
hands, by Augener, if I remember rightly. But I have no re
collection of much reading, nor of any real attempt to make up for
my deficiency in education. I worked very hard at my wood-
drawing, and my faculty for seeing subjects rapidly awakened. Mr.
Thomas, somewhat relenting, sent me now and again a war-sketch
by Sidney Hall (The Graphic Special Correspondent at the seat of
war) to work out on the block. Between this work, however, I was
constantly making studies from the nude in my studio, which acted
alike as tonic and art-education, and led me, perhaps unconsciously,
into decorative designing.
As I was making quite a respectable income I suddenly resolved,
in the early spring of 1871, to break new ground again, and paint in
the Bavarian Alps, also to take my father with me. It would be his
first holiday — the first he had had since his " Wanderjahre."
I felt no risk, and had no misgivings in this new plan. What if
the money I had in hand did not hold out for the six months I
intended to be away ? I could always do a block for the Graphic —
that was my bank ! Before leaving I finished a water-colour drawing
86

PORTRAIT OF LORD TENNYSON.
(('hull: Drawing, 1879.)

SETTLING IN LONDON.— "THE GRAPHIC."
of the " Chelsea Pensioners in Church," a commission from Mr. W.
L. Thomas. I also ordered a little wooden studio to be erected in
the back garden of my lodgings, which was to be finished and put up
by the time I should return.
After seeing that my mother was comfortably settled in her
sister's house (where she continued to give her lessons), my father and
I set out for Bavaria with joyous anticipations.

87

Chapter XIV.
BAVARIA, ROMANTIC AND PAINTABLE.

The first visit to the Bavarian Alps was of psychological import to
me, and influenced my whole career. The German side of my nature,
hitherto quiescent, was now to assert itself. Owing to circumstances,
England had first taken hold of my art-vision, and I was led, whilst
in a supple state, to understand and love its special aspect. That the
influence of my father's mind — a mind so German in its ideals, so
persistent, and so intense in its subjectiveness — had also penetrated
my being, was not to be wondered at, and the fact was revealed to me
in that first visit to the beautiful highlands of my native country.
The romance of it all — the paintableness of everything that caught
my eyes, from peasant to peak — touched a note in me which had not
before been made audible in the same degree 1 Yet I was cognisant
of Walker's art all the time. Strange " seeing " — strange paradox —
such eyes stuck in a German head ! I could not, however, point to a
figure, or to a bit of landscape, and truly say, " How like Walker."
What I saw was a possibility of treatment in the " spirit " of
Walker's art, and with the sentiment that was the keynote to that
school of which he was so brilliant an exponent. But it was now to
be a sentiment belonging to Bavaria, to be brought out by penetrating
the inner characteristics of this people. If my adherence to the
Walker school blocked the way to my development, it left me at
least this good lesson, which I have carried with me through life — to
seek truth in sentiment, and sentiment in truth.
Whether Walker had a personal sympathy with the humanity he
painted, or whether it was only an artistic sympathy, I cannot tell, for
I never met him, and only saw him at a distance on two occasions.
88

BAVARIA, ROMANTIC AND PAINTABLE.
But, as I thought then, no other painter's art (except, perhaps, George
Mason's, of which I knew but little) would have given me the type
that would adequately express the sentiment I felt to belong to this
people. I had to adopt a type of art, since independently I had not
yet acquired one.
Strangely enough, I felt that this type — this sentiment — could
only be adequately expressed in the water-colour medium. I am
quite at a loss to explain my idea. Surely sentiment has nothing to
do with pigment ? It is expressible in any pigment, or material, if
felt by the painter. The only differences in the result would arise
from the hmitations or difficulties of the pigment used.
. I brought the desire for sentiment in art from England, but I
left my English eyes in that country, and I did not paint English
peasants in Bavarian costumes ; the peasant, as I represented him, was
true to nature — Bavarian to the core. Yet there was a " something "
in my interpretation that differed from the works of German painters
who had been trained in Germany. Another factor in English
methods of work was the insistence on truth of light in open-air
scenes, which German painters had entirely ignored up to that time.
Equipped with these English art-principles, and full of feverish
eagerness for the momentous beginning of my career as a painter
of subjects, I settled down in Garmisch for six months' earnest work,
with the sweetest of companions — my father.
All who knew Garmisch in those days will remember its charm,
its long row of wooden houses burnt by the sun to a rich depth of
colour, which formed so splendid a background for figures and flowers.
All will remember the long seats in front of those sun-burnt houses,
where the home coming peasant rested for a chat : the wood-cutter,
who had worked in the forest during the week and was now eager to
hear what had happened in his absence ; the hunter, who had not yet
aroused feelings of vengeance; the women-folk, who brought their
spinning- wheels, which added their "hum" to that of the conversation.
This was the news-bureau of the village, from which emanated the
true and the false news, just as from all other news-bureaux.
89

THE HERKOMERS.
The virile mountain people still retained the simple trust in their
religion and in their church. The struggle for social equality was
unknown to them ; they had bravely endured the hardships of the
Franco- German war, had fought with marked coolness, and obeyed
the word of command, even though it may have led to death. And
those who returned resumed their former life, and thanked God for it.
These men, with their women-folk, were my models. Could a
painter desire more ?
We took a bedroom in a peasant's house ; it was on the first
floor, and differed little from other rooms furnished for visitors who
wished to live cheaply : whitewashed walls, with here and there a
coloured print of a saint, or a Virgin Mary, or other representations
of sacred subjects, all more or less grotesque in treatment ; a crucifix
in the corner, surrounded by dried plants of various kinds, and objects
that had been blessed by the priest — all held in great reverence. Then
there were the two single bedsteads, with towering straw mattresses,
tiny pillows, and coverlets with the sheets turned over and sewn down,
upon which rested a feather bed of such small dimensions that to keep
more than a section of the body covered at a time became a fine art !
But the shortness of the bedsteads was the greatest trial ; unless you
curled up hke a dog, you soon found your feet dangling over the end.
A plain deal table, some wooden chairs, and (strange inconsistency) a
modern sofa — cheap and pretentious, thin curtains for the windows,
one little washhand-stand, with basin and jug that held about a pint
of water, and one small towel that was to serve two people — this consti
tuted the furnishing of such rooms. As for light, in our case there
was more than needful, for the room had three outer walls, each with
two or three windows. I must not forget the tiled stove, universally
used in Bavaria, whose pecuhar heat makes one feel giddy.
Once again my father cooked our frugal meals, consisting of
farinaceous dishes that did not take long to prepare. Once in a
way we would take a meal at the Inn, when I treated myself to meat.
The stove in our room being made only for heating purposes,
my father had to rely on the "Hausfrau's" cooking stove, which
90

"GODS SHRINE."
(Oil Pointing, 1x79-80.)

BAVARIA, ROMANTIC AND PAINTABLE.
necessitated his waiting until she had finished the meal for her family,
when she would call up to us : " Now, gracious sir, you can cook " —
in the dialect : '• Jetzt, gna' Herr, konnen S' kochen."
With the experience of life and fuller understanding of self, I
realised more and more the truth of the assertion made by some
scientists that training cannot eradicate racial peculiarities : infusion of
other blood alone can make an alteration in the type. As far as I can
ascertain, my family, on both sides, are unmixed Bavarians. One
could speculate (with a considerable stretch of probability) that the
extensive settlement of the Romans in the district from which my
mother came left a track of dark-complexioned, black-haired, and
black-eyed people. My mother had jet-black hair and black eyes,
with a sallow complexion. So had I (once), and when I first visited
Italy I was told by several Italian friends that I looked hke "a
Roman brought up in Tuscany." Be that far-back influence what it
may have been, I certainly found my German blood assert itself on
that first visit to the Bavarian Alps. Something more than delight in
the picturesqueness of this new ground was aroused in me : I felt it
belonged to me, and that / belonged to Bavaria ; I was of the same
race, and the same blood that flowed in their veins flowed in mine.
On our arrival in Garmisch, after a long carriage-drive (the
railway had not yet reached so far), we left our luggage at the
lodgings, and then hurried out to prospect the place — as, with my
usual impetuosity, I could not wait until the unpacking had been
done. It was a drizzly cold day in May. The mist hung low, and
entirely shut out the mountains that, we were told, rose almost from
the village : one, the " Zugspitze," to an altitude of 10,000 feet.
What would they be like ? I had never seen a mountain ! It was
well perhaps that I could only see the people and their habitations
first, as indeed our walk through the village street produced an
extraordinary effect on my young impressionable mind, and I was
wild with delight at what I saw of the various types of figures, of
houses, of backgrounds, etc. A series of ejaculations escaped me,
such as : " Look, father, look there — look at that old man in leathern
91

THE HERKOMERS.
knee-breeches smoking his long German pipe ; and notice its china
bowl, covered with enamel paintings," which, by the way, I found
afterwards were of doubtful morality in subject ; " how that ' Zipfel-
kappe ' " (a kind of knitted cap with a tassel) " sets off his finely-cut
features and sun-burnt face — what a model ! Look at that sturdy
wench carrying a ' Schaffel ' of water on her head ; " and again :
" Look : that is a real ' Holzhacker ' " (wood-cutter) ; " his implements
for forest-work strapped to his shoulders, his week's commissariat
in his ' Rucksack ' ; — he must sit to me ! " And so it went on — until
my steps were suddenly arrested by a sight that seemed, without
exaggeration, to stop the beating of my heart for a moment : a rift in
the mist, high above us, suddenly revealed the uppermost peak of the
" Zugspitze " all aglow with the rays of the setting sun — just the peak
and nothing more, the rest still shrouded in the impenetrable vapour !
It was a glory framed in grey — with nothing to suggest its possible
connection with the earth — it was the splendour of a world that
existed only in man's imagination ! Yet it was the Zugspitze, upon
whose highest crag I stood the year after ! When I saw that
mountain on the following day, clearly, from base to pinnacle — bereft
of all mystery — I felt the pain of a first disillusion 1
It was enough for one day. " Komm', Vater, we will go to
our lodgings and unpack." Bewildered by the super-abundance
of subjects I had seen, and with the emotions I had gone
through, in addition to the weariness of body occasioned by the
long, tedious journey, my father and I retired to bed early, and
I knew nothing more until he awoke me at six o'clock the next
morning. After my somewhat painful search for subjects in England, to be
now suddenly surrounded by such a quantity of material was almost
disconcerting. Fortunately, I concentrated myself at first on three
small drawings, which contained but few figures. But it was not long
before I started a rather ambitious subject (on my largest piece of
paper), entailing a number of figures of various ages, minus, however,
the everlasting " girl," for I was attracted mostly by the pathos of old
92

BAVARIA, ROMANTIC AND PAINTABLE.
age, by the quaintness of the Alpine children, and by the romantic
appearance of the men.
As often as my work permitted, my father and I spent the after
noons in the forests, where, on the soft moss, we sat and " visualized "
thoughts. When hunger drew us down from the clouds we would
make a fire and boil the water for our tea. And what a feast that
frugal meal was with such a setting ! The needs of the body satisfied,
we resumed our places on the soft moss by the forest-rivulet, and
listened mentally to all the mysticism that the environment suggested.
The hours thus spent were dream-hours to us. We spoke little. To
my father it was the re-incarnation of an old love — Romance ; to me,
the birth of a New Understanding.
Reader, have you ever been in a pine-forest, such as clothes the
base of a Bavarian mountain ? You stand in nature's cathedral,
religious, mystic, with musical murmur of the wind wafting the tops
of the stately pines, whose stems rise up on either side of you,
straight as pillars of a Gothic edifice. Overhead, dome-like, the
branches meet, leaving but httle openings that transform the sky into
blinking stars. For all the stillness in this forest there is no
melancholy ; you stand enchanted, and you no longer wonder why
the Germans have peopled these mystic forests with strange
existences, with odd little creatures that burrow in the ground, and
hold treasures untold ; with cobold and dwarf, with forest-spirits good
and bad ; with fairy-life. You tread foot-deep and repose on moss
that is studded with wood-sorrel, bright as emeralds. The fallen tree,
rotting on the ground, has a fairy-like growth on it of miniature forms,
exquisite in shape, colour, and texture. In these forests the sounds
and thoughts of the daily life, with its sordid troubles, are shut off,
and the innermost, and truly religious, side of your existence bursts
forth from its cage of conventionality, and you hve a hfe of mind for
the time being. You dream, dream, dream ! The httle bhnking
stars overhead are gone ; a darkness creeps imperceptibly through the
forest, when suddenly a shaft of red light illumines a few stems.
Still dreaming, you barely realize that it is the last rays of the setting
93

THE HERKOMERS.
sun, and that night is creeping on apace. You cannot rise yet from
your bed of moss ; you watch the fading of the red light ; you feel
the darkness deepening, yet you cannot awaken ; you will not awaken,
for the German forest has cast its spell over you ! And that Spell
was my New Understanding.
I returned to the struggles of my art with a mind that had been
refreshed by the contrast. Thus it was that my father led me to
understand the great truth — that perpetual productivity impoverishes,
rather than strengthens, the art-faculties unless the repose of contem
plation is allowed its proper place.
Although my work so far was in water-colours, I thought I would
venture on an oil picture, of some four feet in length, before leaving,
and decided to do the group of peasants that, returning from work,
rested on the bench in front of the largest house by the riverside.
Incredible as it may seem, I had, after only those few years, com
pletely forgotten the technique of oil-colour painting, and had
absolutely no feeling for it. I used the colours from the tubes,
certainly, but thinned them down with benzine, or petroleum, until I
could wash them on in the manner of water-colour painting. There
was fairly good drawing and characterization in that picture, but the
technique was devoid of all quality ; it was cold, lifeless, and dry.
But therein lay just the crazy turn of my mind regarding the Stronger
medium. The luscious, full-blooded quality of good oil-painting was
detestable to me then.
Well, it was now time to return to England, for me to resume
my Graphic work and finish my Bavarian pictures, and for my father
to join my mother in Southampton. Soon after my arrival in
Chelsea, Mr. H. S. Marks and Mr. G. D. Leslie paid me a visit, and
bestowed much praise on the water-colour work. But of the oil-
colour picture Mr. Marks said, " Don't exhibit that, burn it ; you'll
do better next year." Kindest and most valuable of advice ! Had I
sent that first oil-colour attempt to an exhibition, I certainly should
have been unable in after years to air my pet boast, that I had never
been rejected, nor badly hung. 94

"A SPINNING PARTY IN THE BAVARIAN ALPS."
{Drawn Facsimile on the. block for " The Illustrated London ,\rirs.' 1S7S.)
(Reproduced by the special permission of the Proprietors of "The Illustrated London News.")

BAVARIA, ROMANTIC AND PAINTABLE.
My new studio in the back yard was a great joy to me, although
it was only twenty-four feet long, and eight feet wide. What made
it especially attractive to me was that one end of it was entirely of
glass. This enabled me, for the first time in my hfe, to have models,
both draped and undraped, in the effect of daylight, with comfort.
Whilst my memory was still fresh I straightway started on the design
of the picture I was going to paint in Bavaria the next summer.
This was my picture, " After the Toil of the Day." It was a land
scape, with figures introduced, representing that picturesque street of
old sun-burnt houses ; and on the bench in front of the foremost
house I again depicted, in amplified design, the group of peasants
resting. Along the banks of the river, which was to the left of the
picture, grew, at certain measured intervals, apple trees, which were a
great attraction to me, for was not Walker fond of apple trees ? Nor
could I leave out the flock of geese being driven home by a boy, for
had not Walker painted a flock of geese in an English village road as
they were being driven home ?
I sold all the water-colour drawings that I painted on that first
visit to Bavaria, and they were mostly exhibited at the Institute of
Painters in Water-Colours. The money I obtained for these drawings,
in addition to my earnings on The Graphic, gave me a clear Two
Hundred Pounds in hand, that is, after paying my frame-maker, my
tailor, and the various firms from whom I had bought carpets and
objects wherewith to beautify my lodgings. Now 1 could take my
mother as well as my father to the Alps for six months. In order to
give the former a surprise I obtained the whole sum of £200 in
gold, and placed it in httle piles on the table to show her. That
was the real thing ; I have never seen so much actual gold since.

95

Chapter XV.

SECOND VISIT TO BAVARIA.

I did not experience the emotional surprise on my second visit to
Garmisch that so affected me on the first. But without loss of
interest, I was, for that very reason, able to go to work in a more
business-hke way. My ambitious oil-picture was fully designed, and
I could, without hesitation, commence to " lay in " the landscape, and
start on my various models in their proper places, as I had already, on
the previous visit, settled on every man, woman, and child that I had
intended to use as models for this picture. I only needed a large easel,
which my father made me without delay.
There was a shed in the garden in which the landlord worked
at wood-shingle making. Containing a rough carpenter's bench,
it was used to house the hay-cart, and also as a roosting shelter
for the chickens at night. By opening the large doors I could get
plenty of light, and so it became a practicable studio. In front
of these doors I put up a strange erection, in which I intended
to place my models.
During the painting of this picture I was constantly asking
myself such questions as these : How did Walker paint apple-trees
against the sky ? How did he treat his flock of geese ? What was
the dominant note of colour in his work? Having answered these
questions to my own satisfaction, I directed my whole energy to their
fulfilment, never allowing nature to put me out.
Let me describe how I posed the leading gander of my flock of
geese. I had neither practised making rapid sketches of moving
creatures nor educated my form-memory; therefore I bethought myself
96

SECOND VISIT TO BAVARIA.
of a device by which I could get the exact drawing of that gander.
I bought a fine bird from a peasant, had it killed, and then strung it
up in its walking attitude with innumerable pieces of string that were
attached to the roof of the model-house. There it stood, strutting
proudly towards me, real and natural ! With such a quiet model I
was enabled to get both drawing and texture of the feathers. This
gander had its revenge however, when, after a few days, it took
advantage of the hot weather and became too odoriferous for any
place above ground.
For the neglect to practise rapid sketching the tenets of the
Walkerian faith (in which I then believed implicitly) were principally
to blame. From Pin well I received the dogma : " Never work from
sketches, but always paint direct from nature on your actual picture ;
and there should only be this one effort from first to- last." No doubt
I got hold of the wrong end of the idea, for surely Walker made
many preliminary studies in water-colour and black-and-white, which
he utilised whilst painting his larger pictures.
Well, my picture, "After the Toil of the Day," was painted
direct from nature on to the large canvas, with one exception, the girl
at the spinning wheel. I had great difficulty in getting her to fit into
the picture : she needed more " pictorial treatment " than I was able
to secure when painting direct from nature. If my mind had not
been so fanatically given over to a particular behef I might have
benefited by this incident, but Pinwell's dictum was ever before me.
Naturally, so important a work took up most of my time ; still,
I found leisure to do some drawings for The Graphic, in which I
began to feel my way to the dramatic aspect of Bavarian life.
Our menage was greatly improved by the presence of my mother,
which enabled my father to give his whole time (when not making
something for me) to landscape painting, an unspeakable joy to him.
The work he did to my ' dictation ' (as it were) showed what he might
have done in painting had chance given him the opportunity in early
life to study art. A piano was hired, and duets enlivened the
evenings ; these were played by my mother, either with me or with an
97

THE HERKOMERS.
official's wife who hved next door. This lady was also an excellent
zither-player, which gave me a second player for zither duets, greatly
to my satisfaction and pleasure.
During this visit I suffered one terrible anxiety for the safety of
my parents. They had gone out for a stroll about two hours before
sunset. It was a dead-still evening. I happened to be standing
within the doorway of our house, chatting with the landlord, when
we simultaneously noticed a curiously-shaped cloud in the little bit of
sky seen near the horizon, between the mountains. We remarked
how rapidly that black blot was approaching us. Hardly had the
words escaped us when a gust of wind, sudden, overpowering,
vicious, swept over the village. The shutters of the house flew into
the air, as if they had been made of paper ; and the long wooden water-
gutter at the roof fell plump at our feet. The more recently-built
houses, with their zinc roofs, had that metal torn off bodily and thrown
a hundred yards off. Trees with trunks of two feet in diameter were
torn up by the roots. Where would my parents be ? And now
came the rain in sheets, a positive " Wolken-Bruch." In the house,
the family of the peasant were shrieking with fear, crawling about the
room on their knees with unlighted 'priest-blest' candles in their
hands. Outside, the wind and the rain and the crashing of things
torn from their positions made a pandemonium of sound never to be
forgotten. Where could my parents be? Would they be safe?
These thoughts tortured me almost beyond endurance, for it was an
entirely new sensation to have this anxiety about them.
The storm lasted but fifteen minutes ; then came a sudden
silence — a horrible silence — again. After about half an hour my
parents arrived, wet through but unhurt. It seemed to me as if they
had come from another world. The destructive gust overtook them
suddenly as they were walking along a main road, on either side of
which grew tall trees. Realizing the danger, my father placed his
arms around my mother, and forcibly keeping her to the centre of the
road, he avoided being near to the trees, from which huge branches
were flying in all directions about him. When the danger was over,
98

NATURAL ENEMIES.'
(Oil Painting, 1882.)

SECOND VISIT TO BAVARIA.
and they could proceed on their way home, they had to step over
many a great tree-trunk that barred the road.
My parents had one other adventure, but it was one of their own
making ; and although it caused a certain amount of nervousness on
the part of my mother, it gave my father great dehght. They wished
to take advantage of my three-days' absence for my first mountain
climbing expedition, to visit an isolated peasant's house, some four
hours' walk from Garmisch, from which a superb view of the " Zug
spitze " could be obtained. As almost the entire path to it lay
through the dense forest it was a favourite tour for visitors. Some
how or other my parents started rather late in the day for this long
walk. Added to this they lost their way, and found darkness coming
on before they could retrace their steps and find the right path that
led to the house. What was to be done ? It was impossible to go
forward or backward with safety — for that was before the days when
the " Verschonerungs-Vereine " in Bavaria had made paths, and signs
of direction, to every spot worth visiting. What was to be done ?
My mother got very nervous, but my father, secretly, deep down in
his heart, saw a chance of gratifying a long-felt wish — to spend a
night by fire-light in the forest ! The decision was quickly made.
My father gathered some dry branches and lighted a fire, which soon
shot up its ruddy flames, and illumined the trees around in a weird
way. He cut some spruce branches, and made a bed for my mother
of that sweetly-scented growth. But the fitful light of the fire only
increased my mother's nervousness : it made her constantly look
round and fancy she saw somebody or something coming that would
cause danger. Yet no living human being was hkely to molest them
there at that time of night, and if a stray stag passed it would only
add to the romance of the situation. As it was midsummer the night
was short, and at day-break the parents soon found the right track,
and reached the peasant's house after an hour's walk. This hour of
arrival was so unusually early that the peasant — who had still an
over-night " schnapps " drunk on him — thought he saw spectres ;
moreover, from stoking in the night, my parents were begrimed and
99

THE HERKOMERS.
blackened, hands and face. However, after a wash, and some
refreshing coffee, they felt only the enjoyable side of the adventure.
I presume my mountain-chmbing experience was similar to that
of all others. I certainly had the craze to get higher, always higher.
Strange to say, the artist was obhterated in me for the time being.
The grand scenery gave me no artistic thrill — it was all physical, the
pleasure felt by youth in the possession of a steady head and lithe
limbs. It was pretty rough climbing, too, up that Zugspitze in those
days, before the organized paths had been made as they exist in the
present day. There is even an observatory built near the summit
now, with telephonic communications to the valley below ; and a
comfortable overnight hut has since been built near it.

100

Chapter XVI.

ENGLAND AT CLOSER QUARTERS.

There was immediate work to do for The Graphic on my return to
England ; but I was greatly exercised to find a purchaser for my large
oil-picture. Dealers had taken no note of me, and I knew that it
would be highly impolitic for me to approach them. The price was
soon settled in my mind. As a colleague had sold his first oil-picture
for £600, I certainly intended to get £500 for mine. As a matter of
courtesy I gave my early patron the first refusal. He offered me a
sum that was £20 short of my price ; this I refused to take.
Quite unexpectedly, and through the strangest of circumstances,
a purchaser was found. Riding one day in an omnibus I got into
conversation with a gentleman sitting next to me. As will be
imagined, it did not. take long before I launched out into "shop-talk."
He then informed me that his father, who had been a collector, had
left him a number of landscapes by Nasmyth, and I received an
invitation to go and see them. I didn't know Nasmyth from Adam,
but I joyfully accepted. Curiously enough, we were both going to
the Old Masters exhibition, and there -I had some further conversation
with him. At parting I took the opportunity to ask him to my studio,
and he in turn readily agreed to come.
Before he came, however, he wrote and asked me if he might
bring a friend with him. Might? Drag in the whole world, I
thought ! The friend he brought was Mr. Waller, the builder, whose
workshops abutted on the garden in which my studio was located.
Daily, in the working hours, I used to hear the " hum " of the wood
working machines — httle dreaming that the same sound would one
day gladden my ears in my own workshops at Bushey. Well, both
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THE HERKOMERS.
gentlemen seemed pleased with the picture, but, if I remember rightly,
said little. It was not many days before I received a letter from
Mr. Waller asking if he might bring a client of his. Again the same
generous thought crossed my mind — drag in the whole world ! On
the appointed day he came with his client, Mr. C. W. Mansel Lewis
(for whom he was making great additions to his castle in Wales) — a
handsome, refined young man, who had just come into his property,
and was spending his money freely on works of art. Mr. Waller
lingered behind, and asked me the price, but, beyond that, nothing
was said with regard to a possible purchase.
Some few days after this visit, as I sat in my little studio glaring
at my picture, and wondering what its fate would be, I gradually fell
asleep ; 1 was not aware of having dropped off until a knock at the
door fully awakened me. Opening the door I found Mr. Waller.
I noticed that he had a piece of paper in his hand, of a pink colour,
which turned out to be a cheque ! He said : " Mr. Lewis, whom I
brought the other day, wishes to buy your picture, and I bring you,
at his request, the cheque for £500 ; and further, he hopes you will
accept a commission for another work, at £250." Was I dreaming,
or was it all real ? No, there could be no mistake — for the cheque
was in my hand !
I was somewhat puzzled at the wording of the cheque : " To
Order." All the cheques I had hitherto received had been made out
" To Bearer," and I could get them cashed over the counter. But I
was not going to expose my ignorance by offering this one at the
bank without further information. I therefore called on Mr. Swain,
the engraver, and requested him to enlighten me. He soon
made things clear, and further advised me to open an account
with the London and Westminster Bank. Armed with a letter of
recommendation I paid my cheque into this bank, and received a
book of fifty cheques.
Now I had never written out a document of this kind, and was
obliged once again to resort to Mr. Swain's tutoring. It was fortunate
that I did so, for I might have fallen into the mistake ascribed to a
102

ENGLAND AT CLOSER QUARTERS.
lady who had overdrawn her banking account in her husband's
absence, and, on being remonstrated with by the irate husband,
declared it was impossible she should have overdrawn, as she had only
used half the cheques he had left her.
My picture, which I called "After the Toil of the Day," was
exhibited in the Royal Academy, and was hung on the line. I used
to stand in front of the picture and listen to remarks ; but that is a
habit of which one soon gets cured ! What I heard there, almost
without exception, from those whose attention had been arrested by
my picture, was : " Oh, here's a Walker." In later years I was told
that this imitation did not in any way please Walker.
The picture, as I have said, was hung on the line ; and in spite of
its Walkerian aspect was received with considerable favour by the
public, to whom my Bavarian peasants were new ; by the painters
who thought they saw signs of a coming man ; and by the press, who
accepted it on all these counts, albeit guardedly.
With £500 in the bank, a market for my water-colours, and as
much black-and-white work as I cared to do, I felt I could carry out
my long-felt wish to establish my parents in a home of my own
making, one that should be within easy reach of London, and in
which I could join them when not at work in Chelsea. My mother
was loth to give up her teaching and her independence (my father was
already working for our future house), but I felt sure the task of
weaning my mother from her work was only a matter of time. It
was the more necessary as she was far from strong. Having inherited
her ceaseless energy I could well understand her dread of what she
called " an idle life," and of having to depend wholly on me. Yet it
was just this dependence that I was longing to bring about.
Her leave-taking of her pupils was most touching, for they had
long learnt to appreciate her great heart and strength of character.
It was not only for lessons that they came to her, but for her
counsel. My mother put together all the books in which were entered
the lessons she had given from the time we arrived in America to the
103

THE HERKOMERS.
time when, to please me, she gave up her beloved work. These
books are the sweetest legacies she could have left me, and they are
now sacredly kept under glass in the httle parental museum in my
" Mutterthurm " at Landsberg. Self-sacrifice for, and unbounded
kindness to others were characteristics that dominated her nature.
Her pure mind had a strange touch of spirituality, which gave her at
moments a wonderful power of telepathy. Without exception, she
always knew the hour, or even the moment when I fell ill — no matter
at what distance I might have been from her. Always ailing a little,
and often in much pain, she was never known away from her post at
the piano for more than a day. The exceptionally tender care and
nursing of my father certainly saved her many a serious collapse.
I rented a cottage at Bushey, near Watford, for the parents.
The reason for choosing this Hertfordshire village was because my
early patron, Mr. C. E. Fry, lived in Watford. Bushey, when I first
settled my parents there in the winter of 1873, was a sleepy,
picturesque place. It had no water laid on, and there was no
sanitation except of the most primitive kind. The drinking-water
was brought to the houses in buckets, for which the old people, who
carried it round, charged a halfpenny a bucket. The one and only
well from which they could obtain this drinking-water was situated
quite near the churchyard, a rather doubtful proximity, according to
our modern ideas. There was of course the usual well attached to
each house for collecting rain-water, which I remember was consider
ably stocked with five matter. A few years later a deep well was
sunk at Watford, from which an inexhaustible supply of the best
water was brought to Bushey and the neighbourhood. When I first
came to Bushey there was not even a completed railway station,
nothing but a httle shanty and a porter.
I never hked town life, and Bushey, besides giving me the joy
of hving with my parents, offered me much subject-matter to paint.
The cottage 1 rented was semi-detached, and quite of the simple
order, with none of the conveniences that are now to be found in
almost every newly-built workman's dwelling. But with our
104

"OUR VILLAGE."
(Oil Painting, 1889.)

ENGLAND AT CLOSER QUARTERS.
furniture it soon assumed an aspect that showed even the most casual
observer that the occupants might not be the kind of people who
usually rented such cottages. A small room with a skylight was
used by my father for his work ; yet, small as it was, there was still
some space left for me to paint from a village model. A httle
garden, both front and back, wherein grew fruit-trees, completed a
truly happy abode.
This year of 1873 must be named as a serious turning point in
my hfe. I had advanced from wood-drawing to water-colour paint
ing with success, and had now been admitted to a space on the line in
the Academy with an oil-picture of six feet, which was well received.
So far the outside, as it were, of my career. Temperamentally I had
many difficulties that harassed me : impetuosity and hastiness of
temper, and undue high spirits with their usual depressing counter
action, to which must be added an undefinable unrest of mind — all
disturbed the satisfaction that should have been mine at that period.
It was always something different, something more, something not yet
attained, that my nature seemed to grope for. The present might
have been a phantasy, for it seemed hardly real to my state of mind.
What the next development was to be I did not know, but it came
as suddenly and unexpectedly as disastrously.
I had seen little or nothing of society up to that date. I do not
remember having been invited to a dinner-party of the upper classes.
I had visited the studios of my colleagues, and the houses of my
employers. I stuck to my few friends, and there my " Welt " began
and ended.In that year, and under those circumstances, I met the lady who
was to become my wife. German by birth and education, older than
myself, this lady was yet hardly a helpmeet in my hfe. When I
further add that she was of a delicate constitution, which soon turned
her into a confirmed invalid, the situation will be understood. Her
serious illness of congestion of the lungs soon after marriage was the
beginning of a ten years' martyrdom on her part, and a trial on mine
which, but for the help of two rare friends, would in all probability
105

THE HERKOMERS.
have killed me. As my wife was progressing towards recovery the
first nurse was replaced by another — a Miss Griffiths — who, long
before it was fashionable for ladies to take to nursing, made this work
her life's mission. Her first appearance in our family must be noted
here as she will be often mentioned in these pages.
At this time my work in England was practically suspended for
months. I thought a chance was in store for me when, on the
recommendation of the doctor, I took my wife to a mild part of the
Bavarian Alps — Ramsau, near Berchtesgaden.
This village, nesthng so picturesquely in a hollow, with its
exceptionally luxurious vegetation, certainly was mild in its climate —
not to say enervating. Still, it provided me with a type of peasant
differing considerably from that in and around Garmisch. The
houses, though fewer in number, were inhabited by large families ;
and one house alone supplied me with ten models, ranging in age
from five to seventy years.
I was, however, only able to get two small water-colour drawings
done during that visit : " Im Wald," and " Der Bittgang." Into the
details of our return journey I will not enter ; suffice it, that it took
five weeks. On the 8th of December, 1874, our boy was born in
Bushey.

106

Chapter XVII.

THE LAST MUSTER.

Domestic events had caused me to miss a year in the Academy.
The almost constant attendance at the bedside of my invalid wife
entirely precluded any attempt at a big picture ; but the certainty
was forcing itself upon me that I could not retain the ground I had
gained in my art unless I could produce another work better than the
first. I had set my heart on a large and amplified version of my
Chelsea Pensioners in Church. All my artist-friends, however, tried
to dissuade me from the venture, declaring that I could make nothing
of those red coats, and further, that the pubhc would not be interested
in a lot of old men. This opposition rather strengthened than
weakened my resolution.
But Christmas had come and gone, yet I had not even stretched
my canvas. The year 1875 had already come in when only this
preparatory stage had been reached.
Once again I used but the raw linen, with a coating of size.
That being stretched, and the glass-end of my little studio in Chelsea
pasted up in places with brown paper, so as to imitate the cross-lights
of the Chapel as they fell on my models, I feverishly began to sketch
in the central figure and the man on the bench in front of him from
Ufe, merely guessing at the relative correctness of their positions.
Probably no important picture on that scale was ever proceeded with
in so crazy and haphazard a manner as I thought proper to pursue in
painting this subject.
I intended to keep the main design as it appeared in the Graphic
five years previously. I made no prehminary studies, and took no
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THE HERKOMERS.
measurements of the architectural background, but I resorted to an
eminently practicable method for getting the correct sizes of the heads
as they retreated, and another method, equally advantageous, for
securing the perspective of the black and white marble slabs of the
floor. The former was simple : I placed a pensioner on the nearest
seat, and another right over on the other side of the Chapel, and then
sketched the two heads as they appeared in size, one against the other,
so to speak. But for the latter — the lines of the marble slabs — some
more scientific procedure was requisite.
As I knew nothing of perspective, and had not then heard that
draughtsmen existed who made it their business to " doctor " or work
out, pictorial perspective at so much an hour, my father suggested
that I should resort to an " Old Master Dodge," one that was used
and illustrated by Albrecht Diirer, which we carried out as follows :
first we drew the squares on a large board, and laid this flat on the
table. Then, by placing myself so as to obtain the right point of
sight, and looking through a pin-hole fixed at arm's-length from a
glass set upright in a frame, I was able to draw on that glass the
lines of the floor in their correct foreshortening ; and this gave the
absolutely true perspective, whatever may be said of the legitimacy of
the means by which it was consummated. I then placed a piece of
shghtly damped paper on the glass (the latter having had a weak
coating of size) which, by being rubbed at the back, rendered a
perfect impression of the ink hnes I had traced on that sheet of glass ;
of course, it was reversed, but that did not matter. This tracing I
enlarged to full size the right way round, and then I copied these
correctly foreshortened slabs of black and white marble into my
picture between the feet and legs of the pensioners, when, behold ! a
magical result. With the exception of resorting to these two devices,
all was guess-work in my methods of procedure. But guess-work or
no guess-work, I never altered the position of a single head or
figure. The perspective of the background bothered me considerably.
I used to sit in the Chapel and look and look at it until the oblique
108

THE LAST MUSTER.
(Oil Painting, 1875.)

"THE LAST MUSTER."
perspective soaked itself into my brain. Of this background I
made a water-colour sketch, from which I was compelled to work, as,
greatly to my distress, I could not place my large picture in the
Chapel for direct work.
As I have already stated, my studio in Chelsea was twenty-four
feet long, and but eight feet wide ; yet it was in that box-studio that
I painted " The Last Muster." If I guessed at the relative positions
of the figures in the composition, the judgment of my painting, whilst
at work, was even more a matter of guessing, my only corrector being
a mirror at my side. When not working from the model I could
place the picture at the end of the studio and obtain a tolerably good
view of it ; but owing to the nearness of the sky-light above it the
picture assumed a brilhancy that it could not sustain in other hghts.
The fatal error of working with a near light is known to all artists,
but they only become aware of it by experience. How low my sky
light was will be gathered from the following incident. For this
large canvas it was necessary to buy an upright easel, with a screw
movement for raising and lowering it. One day, wishing to work at
the boots, I wound up the easel ; but before the desired height had
been reached, the upper part of the easel crashed through the
sky-hght, and a shower of broken glass came down on my head.
Towards the end of February the picture was still far from being
finished, yet my strength was perceptibly decreasing. It is always
undesirable to force work into a given time, albeit I have done so
through my hfe with varying effects on my constitution. At this
period such forcing was particularly dangerous, since there was no
rest for me after the day's work that, in itself, was almost too much
for me. I now found that I could no longer stand to my work; a
perpetually drowsy feeling overcame me, which I knew to be the
forerunner of a breakdown. The picture must at all hazards be done
for that year's Academy ; but how ? I was a total abstainer, and
would not dream of resorting to alcoholic stimulants. Someone said
I needed exercise ; but I had neither the strength nor the time for
109

THE HERKOMERS.
that. Still, the remark struck me as being right, and the question
arose as to how I could obtain exercise without interruption to my
work. Then I heard of a machine, invented by an American, that
was said to have saved many an overworked brain, and was called the
"health lift." Knowing where one of these was to be found I
immediately purchased it, and established it in my studio. It was a
strange-looking device, not covering more than two feet of ground.
Some queer levers were in the structure, and two handles, sticking
up, inviting a lift. It was so devised that you could measure
precisely the weight you pulled — from a few pounds to twelve
hundred ; yet whilst you pulled yourself up bodily in the act of
lifting, the measured poundage of your own weight was cunningly
deducted. Every muscle in the body was stretched at each single
pull. Naturally I set the indicator to the lightest weight first, then
gradually increased it. I took a pull at every pause in my work, and
in eight days I could feel a marked improvement in my strength. In
less than three weeks I could lift nine hundred pounds, and was
completely restored to health. This was accomplished without a
moment's interruption in my work.
Now, in painting the picture of the Pensioners I had un
consciously freed myself from the Walker influence. This was the
more strange as I had no desire nor intention of so doing ; but the
time at my disposal for the completion of the picture was so short
that I could think little of any type of work ; I simply had to get
those men on to the canvas. As the front figures were just a little
under life-size I painted them with a breadth of touch that I had
hitherto studiously avoided. When it was finished, however, I began
to reflect on its manner of work, and heartily detested the result —
for the simple reason, alas, that "it was so unlike Walker." Further,
when I thought of the Academy, I felt equally miserable, arguing
with myself that so curious a picture would never be hung. The
canvas was literally divided into two parts : the upper all archi
tecture ; and the lower all figures — the row of heads forming the
central dividing hne. It was a section of the chapel, with all the
110

"THE LAST MUSTER."
figures that came within that section ; it had no beginning and no
end ; in short, it was no composition.
Some solace came to me when my first patron, Mr. Fry, bought
the picture for £1,200, and this before it was sent to the Academy.
That sum, however, was soon swallowed up in paying off arrears,
arising from the expenses occasioned by my wife's long illness. At
last the day came for sending the picture to the Academy, and I
awaited the result with heavy forebodings.
Within a week of sending in I received letters from two
members then sitting on Council, congratulating me on my picture.
Mr. (afterwards Lord) Leighton— although quite a stranger to me —
not only praised it warmly, but analysed the merits of the picture.
The other letter was from Mr. George Richmond, who added that
when the picture came before them the whole Council clapped their
hands enthusiastically.
These letters caused a turmoil of emotions in me. It was a
success as overwhelming as unexpected. On the opening of the
exhibition practically the whole press burst forth in a unanimous
chorus of praise ; and my name and work was on the hps of all who
had seen the picture. The question seemed to float in the air — who
was this Herkomer, who had thus leapt into ripe work with a bound ?
Yes, who was he ? / could not have told them, for I was hourly
asking myself the same question, which resolved itself into a painful
enquiry as to my next move ! I could not go on " leaping " hke this
through my life ? These reflections caused a depression in me that
counter-balanced the joy I ought to have felt at my success. Yet I
can see now how fortunate it was for me that my mind was led that
way ; I might have fallen into the other extreme of self-laudation.
Wherever I went, and whomsoever I met, it was all congratulations,
and again congratulations ! My good friend Pinwell, who had for
years been at work on an oil picture for the Academy, said to
me : " You have done the right thing at the right time ; " and I must
mention that all those friends who tried to dissuade me from painting
that subject in oils were most ready to acknowledge their mistake.
Ill

THE HERKOMERS.
This picture, only three years later, obtained even a greater
success than was meted out to it in the Royal Academy ; and that
was at the International Exhibition in Paris, of 1878.
My election as an Associate of the Royal Academy did not take
place until 1879 ; therefore in the previous year, I was still an
" outsider." As an outsider I was only allowed to send to Paris two
oil pictures and two water-colours (or black-and-white drawings),
whereas the Academicians were each privileged to send ten works in
oils. I was therefore represented by my only two available oil
pictures, " After the Toil of the Day," and " The Last Muster," and
by two water-colours.
This exhibition contained the finest, as well as the largest,
collection of Enghsh pictures that had ever been seen in France. It
caused that country, hitherto so jealous of its artistic supremacy, to
acknowledge that England did possess artists, and had a national
art. The International Jury first marked the pictures that were to
receive the great Medals of Honour, of which ten only were to be
given to the world, for art. My name stood on the top of the list ;
and standing with Millais, I gained an immediate position in the eyes
of the world, which, under ordinary circumstances, would have taken
years to attain.
At the distribution of awards the recipients of the medals of
honour were arranged in double file, and, preceded by the bearer of
the Art-Banner, were marched in this order into the vast hall of the
Champs-Elysees. I was placed next to Millais — my rightful position.
As we entered the great hall to the stirring strains of military
Bands, dear old Millais broke out in strong ejaculations: "Ah, this is
a big affair ! " And again, several times after, he nudged me with his
elbow, saying, "Big thing, is'nt it?"
We were seated in the front row, facing the innumerable steps
that led to the dais, on which sat the President of the Republic,
McMahon. Millais was altogether a study on that occasion. He kept
112

CARTOON WHICH APPEARED IN "PUNCH" IN 1878.
(Reproduced by the special permission of the Proprietors ol " Punch." )

"THE LAST MUSTER.'
asking me whether I thought we should have to mount those
steps to receive our medals — for he was distinctly nervous at the
prospect. The first man to mount those steps was Meissonier, as President
of the International Jury, wearing the embroidered coat of the
" Immortals." But it was not until we saw the secretaries of the
different countries approach the President that we reahsed they
would receive all the medals for their respective countries, for each
one returned with a flat basket under his arm, filled with the prizes.
Then Millais heaved a great sigh, and said under his breath, " Thank
goodness ! "
As Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen, England's secretary, approached us
with his basket, I urged Millais to ask him for our medals, as I knew
it would take weeks before we got them through the usual official
channels. " No," he said, " I don't like to ; you ask him ! " That
was dear, great-hearted Millais all over. It never occurred to him that
I was but a youngster, and he the acknowledged head of British art !
But I was too young, or perhaps too pushing by nature, to be guided
by his example, and consequently straightway asked Sir Philip for
our awards. He smilingly acquiesced, and at once began to grope
about in his basket — which he had in the meantime placed on the
floor — and, with a sort, of half-mocking bow, handed us the red
leather cases that contained our great medals.
That evening most of those who had received awards or had
come to witness the distribution were to cross the Channel. But it
happened that it was low-tide, which caused the twin-ship, " Calais-
Douvres," to stick in the mud, just outside the Calais pier. A few
of the braver ones (Millais amongst them) ventured to cross in a
smaller boat ; I dared not, and remained with the rest who had
returned to shore, at the Hotel Dessin. The table-d'hote was
composed of an array of quiet English people, and it was interesting
to see them demurely eating their French dinner, speaking in tones
little above a whisper. Two gentlemen sitting opposite me, in
discussing the events of the day, expressed a curiosity as to what
113

THE HERKOMERS.
those Medals of Honour were like ; so much at least I could catch
from their low-toned conversation. I took the red case from my
breast pocket, saying: "Pardon me, gentlemen, but I have one of
those medals here, if you care to see it." They looked at the medal,
then they looked at me, and finally, in the most hesitating way, asked
whose it was. "Mine," I answered simply. Effect! Of course
I then went into details, which caused the other guests to prick
up their ears, and soon polite demands were passed along for
a peep at the precious thing. So the medal took its round of the
table. After Paris, " The Last Muster " was exhibited in several
Continental exhibitions with unvarying success, carrying off in each
the highest award. -This concludes the history of " The Last Muster,"
which I have traced from its incipiency to its finality.
But I must now get back to the year when its first appearance in
the Royal Academy gave me a sudden position that depressed rather
than elated me. I deliberately avoided an English subject in the
picture that was to follow, and painted a Bavarian scene called, " At
Death's Door." When exhibited in the Academy, in the year 1876,
it attracted but little notice — one Academician alone speaking to me
about it, remarking that it had a "stained-glass aspect." Stained-
glass, forsooth ! What did he mean ? To this day I do not know
whether he meant praise or censure. The public and the painters
generally were pretty unanimous in their opinion that I had made a
mistake in painting a Bavarian subject after my success with one that
was essentially Enghsh. I certainly lost favour for a few years, but
it gave me my artistic freedom, which is my particular joy to this
day. The public may like or dishke what I do, but they cannot
anticipate what I am likely to produce. The public voice said at
the time, " Follow up your first success " ; but my inner voice said,
"Restrain"! Maybe the former was right from the standpoint of
popularity. But popularity invariably contains the germ of early
decay : it allures its victim by smiles and flattery, and destroys it by
its frowns. It is capricious, illogical, and unaccountable. Perhaps,
114

"THE LAST MUSTER."
at the time, I could not have made all this clear to myself, but I must
have felt intuitively the danger that lay before me, otherwise I
would hardly have deliberately courted disfavour.
My mental condition at the time presented a curious state. I
was hovering between two art-personalities — Walker's and my own !
The former had become weaker, and my unconscious assertion of
"self" — as exemplified in the Pensioners — had not yet been vitahsed.
In fact, I could not wholly return to the old, and was not yet secure
in the new. It was in this vacillating state of mind that I painted
the picture that was to follow " The Last Muster." I tried hard to
get back to Walker, but somehow it would not come off. Although
the " hesitating touches " prevailed, and the good qualities were not
sufficiently sustained, the picture marks a place of importance in my
career.

115

Chapter XVIII.
DEATH OF MY MOTHER.
I wish I could pass over in silence the next few years of my domestic
life ; but to do so would lead the reader to surmise that it had either
improved, or that I had become callous — in fact, had learnt to bear
my troubles with indifference. Yet conditions had neither improved,
nor had I learnt to be indifferent.
My mother could watch these struggles no longer, and desired
me to make a home for her and my father in Germany, where they
could hve peaceably in their old age. Their old age ! Yes, it was my
dream to sweeten that ; and now, I thought, by an action of my own
choosing I had embittered their last days.
Just before my triumph in Paris my parents left me for the
new home that I had arranged for them — an upper flat in a
" Zimmermann's "* house in Landsberg-am-Lech, Bavaria, a small
town some six miles from our native village, Waal.
The perpetual worries of my home life acted hke a rasp. With
such odds against me, my enduring powers had at last reached their
limit, and I succumbed to an attack of brain-fever. Had it not been
for the skill and knowledge of Miss Griffiths (who had, at the urgent
request of my wife, thrown in her lot with ours, and had even
persuaded her younger sister Margaret to join us) in applying the
proper treatment, I might have had my brain permanently impaired
in some serious way ; as it was, the disease only deprived me of my
previous exemption from giddiness at great heights.
For more than six weeks after my illness I was unable to bear
the light, and the first work I did, in a dimmed light, with dark blue
* A carpenter who does the rougher type of work, for whom
we have no equivalent in England.
116

" HOMEWARD."
(Oil Painting, 1881.)

DEATH OF MY MOTHER,
goggles over my eyes, was to make a model group of the figures for
an enormous water-colour I had planned to paint that summer in
Ramsau, which I called, " Light, Life, and Melody."
This brain-fever, coming so soon after my Paris success, caused
the world to say I could not stand it. Kind world, how little it knew !
There were now two children — the last, a girl. Expenses
increased in alarming disproportion to my income, and I was unable
to cope with the bills. Money had to be borrowed, for which my
father's carved furniture, in addition to a moderate life insurance, was
given as security. This borrowed sum was paid off in instalments.
When I was barely convalescent I painted Tennyson at Farring-
ford. I rapidly gained strength whilst on that visit, which I owed to
the great kindness I received at the hands of the angelic lady his wife.
In the late summer of that year, during my visit to Ramsau,
I painted the principal figures into the large water-colour picture,
which measured six feet by five. My health was deplorable, and I
could only work in a perfunctory sort of way, which no doubt was
the cause of the smaller water-colour work I did being of a slight
nature. The large water colour was altogether a tour de force — an
experiment that I fortunately never repeated. I cannot help thinking
that there must be a flaw in my brain that drives me to untlue size.
In my etching (a new art that I had lately taken up, with my usual
feverish enthusiasm), I sinned grievously in matters of size ; and to
this day I have to watch myself lest I get the heads of my portrait-
sitters over hfe-size.
There was a noteworthy reason for painting so large a picture in
water-colour rather than in oil. On those painters who commenced
their career in water-colour this material keeps an extraordinary hold :
it is hke a first love, never forgotten, never quite replaced by a new.
When I first took seriously to oil-colour I felt as if I were committing
bigamy ! I pined for my first love, and the knowledge that my
career demanded the change did not comfort me, but only lacerated
my constancy. I had to argue that although it was a matter of
expediency, I did not commit an artistic immorality ; that the
117

THE HERKOMERS.
limitations of water-colour prevented the fuller development of what
ever talent I might possess ; that I could never hope to reach the top
of the tree unless I competed with the strong, in the strong material ;
that nothing less, hi fact, than successful work in oil-colour could
satisfy my ambition as a painter.
These arguments certainly did not err on the side of modesty,
but in the main they were right. There were these fitful returns to
my first love, always in the hope that I might yet circumvent the
necessary change of material ; hence my frantic attempts to rival the
stronger material, both in size and quality.
The year 1879 was one that marked another corner-stone in my
career. A scheme for serious landscape-painting in Wales had long
occupied my thoughts, and had been talked over with my friend,
Mr. Mansel Lewis — himself an excellent artist. We proposed to
camp there for that purpose, and live some weeks with our subject.
The life was to combine romanticism with practicable comfort. On
the details of this novel scheme I will not dwell here, as it has been
fully described in the book, " My School and My Gospel."
A most unexpected commission now came to hand — to paint the
portrait of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, for King's College, Cambridge.
This commission, which was given me on the strength of my success
with the " Chelsea Pensioners," brought me the first proof of the
" ticketing " I so dreaded : I was the painter of old men !
Well, my subject certainly was an old man, over ninety. He
was bodily an invalid, too, having had to live in his chair, day and
night, for some two years before I painted him. Over and above
these conditions, the room in which I had to paint faced the south,
and received the full sunhght. These were circumstances that might
have baffled any experienced portrait-painter. Yet here was I, with
no practice in painting portraits in oils, with no experience in matters
of procedure, an invalid for my subject, and a room in which to paint
that was almost impossible for such a purpose. To this day I wonder
how I ever managed to succeed in giving satisfaction to the college
authorities. I am not easily daunted, and do not know the day when
118

DEATH OF MY MOTHER.
I was frightened by difficulties, and so it was that I got through this
task with respectability.
His Lordship was to be painted in a black coat, and wearing his
special orders ; but as an invalid he could not endure that coat for
any length of time, and I did not dare to hand him down to posterity
in a dressing-gown. I remember that more than half my time was
taken up by attending to him as a nurse. Every now and again I
would put a touch on the canvas, which I had to lay flat on the floor,
in order to get some kind of light by which I could see what I was
doing. In spite of his bodily decrepitude Lord Stratford de Redcliffe
was, at that time, still vigorous in mind, dwelling chiefly on subjects
of a poetic and philosophical nature. A curious remark remains in
my memory as showing how he could idealise a common event. One
morning the sun, which as usual streamed through the window,
caught the cloth shoe that covered his gouty foot; he gazed at the
shoe awhile, and said to me, " Very kind of old Phoebus to shine on
an old Boot."
And now, more than a year after my success in Paris, I was
received into the Academy as an Associate.
Punch has always been known to reflect the current opinions in
connection with any event, and the reader will see from the cartoon,
reproduced in this book, how my success in Paris was looked upon in
the art circles of this country.
My election was not altogether flattering, as my majority
consisted of two, the opponent who ran me so closely being Miss
Thompson, afterwards Lady Butler. One of these two precious votes
was given by a member who asked his neighbour on the night of the
election, " Who is this Herkomer, anyway ; he is a foreigner, isn't
he ? " He got for answer : " Well, whatever he is, his art is
thoroughly British. He's all right; you vote for him." I do not
mention this incident to expose a sore ; I was only too glad to get
into the Academy, and have remained, and will always remain, one of
its most devoted and loyal members. 119

THE HERKOMERS.
That summer I paid a visit to my parents at Landsberg, and
found them most comfortably housed. Many a little bit of decoration
and furniture had been made by my father to keep the " Herkomer
type " in evidence ; but my mother was distinctly failing in health.
Having a kind and attentive landlady she preferred to stay in
Landsberg whilst I took my father to Ramsau. I am in possession
of a letter written by my father — one of the very few he ever wrote
— to friends whilst he and I were there. In it he speaks touchingly
of his anxiety about my mother's health, and adds : " Our mission in
life is fulfilled " (Unsere Aufgabe in dieser Welt ist gelost). He
meant by this that their mission in life was to help me on the road to
success. That having so far been consummated, their great object
in life was realised.
In Ramsau I converted a huge barn into a studio, from the doors of
which I painted my large landscape in oil-colour called " God's Shrine."
I also painted a rather large water-colour called " Grandfather's Pet."
Both were exhibited at the Academy in 1880. The reader will see,
in the reproduced photograph, how I worked, and how the models
were placed for the latter picture. On the left-hand side my father is
sitting at his sketching easel ; and it will be seen that I am dressed in
the native costume. I would just like to mention that I was the first
of the visitors to adopt this costume, which now every sickly
townsman, young or old, adopts. And what makes the fraud the
more objectionable is that the dealers in these costumes fade the
tanning of the leather breeches, so as to make them old and worn in
appearance. But a certain rough-cast about me suited the disguise —
if so it could be called in my case, for was I not a born Bavarian ?
Further, I spoke the dialect perfectly— indeed, on two occasions I
received tips from visitors for giving them directions and information,
which sufficiently proved the excellence of my impersonation.
My work during that stay in Ramsau was seriously interrupted
by illness, and my condition became so alarming that my father
urged me to send for Miss Griffiths. I was suffering from the most
painful form of indigestion, the result of wrong and bad diet, which
120

MY IMPROVISED STUDIO IN RAMSAU.1

DEATH OF MY MOTHER.
soon, however, disappeared when that lady cooked — with her own
hands — the food that I could assimilate. Thus, with improved
health, 1 completed my work.
We returned to Landsberg, and although my mother was up
and about, I could discern a strange change in her — not physical, but
spiritual. Her mind seemed to foreshadow her near end. In saying
good-bye at the station I could see how intense was the suffering of
that parting to her.
On the day before Christmas Eve of that same year, 1879, a
letter came to say she was ill ; but that I was not to come over, as
her illness did not suggest any danger. On Christmas Eve, a
telegram came to say she was dead !
My domestic unhappiness was a pain to her that tortured every
waking moment of her life. But now there was rest for that great
loving soul.
I am not a spiritualist, but I cannot refrain from mentioning that
at the moment of dissolution there were heard strange knockings in
the room — heard by my father and others who were present at
my mother's death. Several years after this strange occurrence, whilst
sleeping in the same room, both my present wife and I heard similar
sounds at an hour when nobody was about, which, perhaps by a
strange coincidence, were the forerunner of a sad event. I place
these facts before the reader without comment.
My father came back to my home in England, and our meeting
at Victoria Station — he alone — seemed painfully strange to me. He
was there, true, but my mind was ever revolving the question —
" Why, why, is Mother not with him ? "

121

Chapter XIX.
MUTTERTURM, LANDSBERG.
CAMPING IN NORTH WALES.
PORTRAITURE.
I had retained the httle flat in the " Zimmermann's " house in
Landsberg where my mother died. On visiting the place the
following year with my father a strange impulse took hold of me
which must be related. But before I go into closer details it will be
necessary to give the reader an idea of the locahty.
Landsberg, on the River Lech, Bavaria, is six miles from our
native village, Waal. Although it has only six thousand inhabitants
— which in many parts of England would be considered a mere
village — it has its mayor, and municipal arrangements such as you
usually find in a town of thirty to forty thousand inhabitants in this
country. A little branch railway connects it with the main line
between Munich and Lindau. The main part of Landsberg still
retains its mediaeval character. For over three hundred years its
gabled houses have stood intact, all additional building being
restricted to the outer parts of the town.
The "Zimmermann's" house stood near the border — on the
western side— of the swiftly flowing river, Lech, from which side one
obtained a panoramic view of the old town on the opposite side. In
front of this house stood the big shed — his workshop — with long,
uncut timber lying about, and the ground strewn with chips made in
squaring the beams for roof-structures. Within fifty yards of the
house flowed a httle stream of crystal clearness, which separated the
"Zimmermann's" property from that of his neighbour, the miller.
This stream was utilised by the miller for floating timber into his
122

" MUTTERTURM," WITH LATER IMPROVEMENTS.
(From a Draioiiig.)

MUTTERTURM, LANDSBERG.
mill, where it was cut into boards, the same water moving a great
wheel that constituted the motive power for driving the machinery.
The same power answered also for the corn-mill that was above the
saw-mill. As I stood contemplating that little double property, amounting
to about two and a-half acres, the thought flashed across my mind to
become the possessor of it one day, and to build a tower to the
memory of my mother by the side of the house in which she died,
and to give it the name, " Mutterturm." My father was much
touched by the thought, but was not quite happy about its financial
side. I assured him that that was all arranged in my mind. I would
only buy a bit of ground, just enough to take the tower, and only
build as much each year as I could afford. The " Zimmermann "
readily sold me the few yards of ground I needed to start my scheme,
and I straightway designed the ground plan by placing chips on the
ground, from which design, as it happened, I never deviated.
The idea was settled : its consummation was only a matter of time.
That same year the foundations were put in, and the structure rose to
some six feet above the ground. There I stopped, as it was all I
could afford for that season. The next year it rose further, and so
through several seasons until it reached its destined height of one
hundred feet. Meanwhile I was able to buy the house belonging to
the " Zimmermann," with its ground, and likewise the mill. When
the latter was pulled down, and the wheel removed, the stream
tumbled down over rocks to a depth of twenty feet, in a most
entrancing fashion. One disconcerting item remained : there was a
right of way by the edge of the river, just below my tower. It was
town property, which they could not sell. But they got out of their
difficulty by the graceful act of presenting that pathway to me.
The laying-out of the grounds needed early attention ; and
during a cold winter I planted a copse of trees in front of the house,
mostly spruce, varied by a few oak trees with trunks some fifteen
inches in diameter. Although the transplanted trees were of large
dimensions I lost but few, and gained sixty or more years of growth.
123

THE HERKOMERS.
There are six rooms in the tower, one to each storey, which
are reached by a winding staircase. The principal room is on the
first floor. There, in a place of honour, hangs the portrait of my
mother, the only painting she allowed me to make of her, and which
was done only a few hours before she left England never to return
again. The room above is devoted entirely to relics of my parents.
I must now refer" to the art work of that year, 1879, of which it
is only necessary to mention a portrait of John Ruskin in water-
colours, which I presented, some years later, to the National Portrait
Gallery of London.
I was now greatly interested in my etching experiments. What
etcher has not felt the excitement that accompanies the first plunge
into this art ? Time, food, damage to hands, to carpet and furniture,
are alike scorned. How he is struck with wonder when he sees the
first print of his plate ! Those hnes that he scribbled on the black
ground in a few moments have become, by the magic of the acid, full
of expression ; and the superb quality of those lines, when printed,
makes him tingle all over ! So the rhapsody proceeds — at first !
I never acquired the sensible habit of obtaining technical hints
on a new art before I plunged into it ; it was always " to do the
thing, and then find out how to do it." That is somewhat akin to
the taking of drugs without understanding their properties. A well-
known doctor once declared that " the taking of drugs is like going
into a dark room with a club to attack a burglar, and hitting right
and left. One may hit the burglar by chance, but one is sure to
damage the furniture." WeU, in every sense of the word I damaged
things around me when I first took up etching, and did not, at least
for some time, get at the real meaning of the art, aesthetically or
technically. In my mezzotint experiments I had no option but to
blunder along in my usual way, as the engravers were extremely
exclusive. All the help I could get in this latter art was from my
printer, whose knowledge was at second hand.
Of our first camping in Wales little need be said, as it was only
partially successful, owing to our attempting to live, work, and sleep
124

CAMPING IN NORTH WALES.
in the one tent. This was obviously a mistake, as we soon discovered ;
and I determined for the next year to have some specially constructed
huts made for the painting of our large landscapes.
As I knew the painting of one landscape would not give me
sufficient occupation for so many weeks, I took with me all the
paraphernalia of the etcher — plates, grounds, dishes, acids, and a small
printing press (an invention of Mr. Hamerton's). This wretched
little contrivance proved utterly inadequate for my work. In order
to get a decent impression we tightened the rollers to their last gasp,
and then we dragged the whole machine around the tent in the vain
attempt to turn the toy handles. Still, it was under those circum
stances that I did— what I consider my best etching — a portrait of
(the handy model) myself, with my two children in the lower corner
of the plate.
In the spring of the year 1880 we pitched our camp in that wild,
desolate spot, Lake Idwal ; and one more tent was added for my
father. The newly-invented huts proved eminently successful ; and
as Lewis and I had separate painting huts, our dwelling-tent, which
was no longer polluted by the smell of oil-paint and varnish, became
a charming and comfortable retreat. We stayed ten weeks on the
spot — until, in fact, the approaching summer changed the grass from
russet to green, and wholly transformed the aspect of what we had
been painting. The large landscape I produced during that stay was
one I called " The Gloom of Idwal."
In those wild regions of Wales anyone with sensitiveness to
nature's influences would have found the life we led in camp most
delightful and inspiring — the nights, above all, were most weird and
alluring. Well, weird is a mild word for the conditions on the first night,
when a storm was raging outside. We got up, dressed, and awaited
disaster to our tent. But as nothing happened, I learnt to know the
tent's enduring powers, and henceforth slept soundly, being often
surprised in the morning to hear that it had been a dreadful night.
1 describe this locahty thus in the book already referred to ;
125

THE HERKOMERS.
" What English landscape-painter does not know this region of Lake
Idwal, with its forbidding aspect, and its utter absence of all leafage ?
Impressive and almost terrifying under certain conditions of cloud
and wind, that amphitheatre of dark rock, sloping down to the black
pool of Idwal, cannot be grasped in all its character by the casual
visitor, be he painter or layman. He must live there. He must be
able to linger after the sun has cast its last rays in a single line of red
across the grim " Devil's Kitchen," with all the rest in deep gloom !
He must be able to watch the wind-swept clouds tearing across the
face of the moon ; and he must be a witness of the dawn, with its
low-lying mists that change the familiar scene out of all recognition.
Then he will begin to grasp the essentials of that poetic spot.
" I doubt if it has been adequately rendered by painter. The
early Welsh bards gave its character in words. It was certainly felt
by Tahesin, when he thundered out his ' Ode to the Wind ' in the
seventh century. No change has taken place in the aspect of Idwal
since those days ; and, beyond a fallen rock or two, it is now as it was
when the giant bard stood there to deliver his message. Idwal must
be seen in its wild mood ; in the sunny days of summer it carries a
false face — as false as that of a woman who is rouged and powdered !"
Through the winter of that year and the early part of the next
I painted the large oil picture called "Missing." It was a scene
outside the dock-yard gates at Portsmouth, and represented the crowd
of anxious enquirers after a long-overdue ship. Alas, the great red
brick wall that formed the background was the initial cause of my
having another, but thank goodness the last, relapse of " Purplitis " ;
to make matters worse I painted the picture against the studio wall,
which had been covered with purple cloth. Naturally, the red brick
wall became a purple wall and that fatal colour dominated the tone of
the whole picture.
Seventeen years after, when I again saw this picture, at the
house of the owner, a kind of fury and shame overcame me ; fury,
that I should have allowed myself to have lapsed into an old error ;
and shame, that I should have permitted my good friend to have
126

CAMPING IN NORTH WALES.
become its possessor. I recovered my calm, however, when my friend
agreed to exchange it for my last important work (for which I had
refused several offers), entitled " Our Village." I then took the
picture " Missing " home, and burnt it with savage delight ! If this
exchange should be pronounced as " Bad Business," I answer that it
was doubly " Good Conscience."
In the following year, 1881, the company in our camp amounted
to eight souls — hving in the wild region of Idwal during the months
of April and May. For the ladies and children I had a tent made of
special construction, with divisions for sleeping, living, and cooking
accommodation. To get at my subject that year I had to bring into play a little
engineering, in order to place my hut at the proper point of sight,
which was from the centre of the river. I accomplished this by
placing nine beams, of twenty-four feet length, across the stream from
bank to bank; and it was on these beams that I placed my " revolving
painting-hut." As the little river passed directly under it, I allowed
five feet for a probable rise of water ; but one day there was a rise of
over six feet, causing the water to dash angrily against the front
panelling of the hut, and flood my floor. But as I never left anything
on the floor, and always had my picture a foot above it, no damage
was done within ; and without, hut and beams remained intact.
As I had not painted such a stream before, it was an epicurean
pleasure to be able to watch, with all bodily comforts, the .strange
antics of that mountain stream from behind a plate-glass window.
I used to take snap-shots of it, not with a camera, but by the quick
opening and shutting of my eyes. Although the water that tumbled
over those rocks was never two days alike, either in volume or colour,
I found I could, by such constant watching, secure a natural average
in actual drawing that suggested more than an arrested instant in the
motion. The instantaneous photographs of water in action always seemed
to me to leave out the suggestion of the next movement. Further,
the camera brings into prominence certain surface forms that, to the
127

THE HERKOMERS.
painter's eye, seem non-essentials, simply because it cannot differentiate
between the opaque and the transparent tones in nature. At first
glance, photographs of water seem wonderful, and most painters have
hoped to get assistance from them. But they only baffle the artist
when the practical test is applied. No, I think the snap-shot of the
eyes (both eyes working together) is more serviceable, and is certainly
in closer connection with the brain.
The stream in its circuitous course tumbled over rocks, under
which it formed a deep, dark pool, swirling round in beautiful lines,
be-jewelled by prismatic bubbles and foam, and finally rushed out of
the very centre under my hut. On either side were lichen-covered
boulders, first large, then diminishing in size, until they lost
themselves in the deep tones of the distant, cloud-capped, mountain
side. The sky, which played an unimportant part in the design, was
kept simple — a subterfuge usually employed by figure-painters when
they paint landscape.
Here was a subject with all the elements of a poetic and romantic
landscape. With the exception of a little modification in the lines of
composition, it only needed doing. It may have been just this
convenient housing whilst painting that caused me, perhaps, to give
it too much of a "doing," for I am aware of the rather " heavyhanded-
ness " in the technique ; but it was an earnest attempt to give the
great characteristic of rock — weight!
Our camp that year was a merry one. The ladies and children
thoroughly enjoyed the absence of all necessity to dress up. They
wore mostly waterproofs from head to foot, for Wales at that time of
year is a formidable rival to Scotland for rain-power.
We had practically pitched our tents on a bog ; but the wooden
floors of the tents were a full twelve inches above the ground ;
further, two layers of canvas (with an air space between) at the sides,
three over the roof, and four plate-glass windows, kept out all
dampness. Around the tents the ground was unquestionably a bit
treacherous, and the available terra firma had to be known— a know
ledge often dearly bought. Our servant, who prided himself on being
128

PORTRAIT OF ARCHIBALD FORBES.
(Oil Painting, 1881.)

PORTRAITURE.
able to cross the bog in the dark, was one day carrying the little girl
on his back when one of his legs sank in the bog to over his knee and
transfixed him. Rescue was at hand, and the child, who still clung
to his back, being first removed, two of us pulled the servant out of
the quagmire. As no lights had ever been seen on that spot before, their first
appearance opened the flood-gates of superstition in the neighbour
hood. But re-assurance was made manifest when, on a dark night,
some natives tampered with our cask of petroleum (a spirit we used
for heating and cooking), thinking it was beer.
It was during this camping that I made the resolve henceforth
to devote myself chiefly to portraiture. With the exception of that
unaccountable commission, so early in my career, to paint Lord
Stratford de Redcliffe, I had only received one order. The absence
of commissions can easily be accounted for by the fact that my name
had hitherto been attached to subject and landscape work. It was
therefore necessary to do a specimen portrait, and for that purpose I
selected my friend Archibald Forbes, the war-correspondent.
Forbes sat to me in the summer of that same year, and strangely
enough, whilst I was at work upon his portrait, I received three
unsolicited portrait commissions — the late Master of Trinity, Cam
bridge, Dr. Thompson ; Mr. Staats Forbes ; and a Welsh gentleman.
The portraits of Archibald Forbes, Thompson, and the Welsh
gentlemen were exhibited in the Academy the following year, and
that of Mr. Staats Forbes in the Grosvenor.
But it was the Archibald Forbes that made the mark, and
started my career as a portrait painter. Standing erect, dressed in
self-designed khaki jacket, with hands behind him, he was the very
incarnation of strong manhood; with a striking brow, regular features,
and a square-set jaw, he showed power in every line.
Now, it happened that the first commissions obtained through
this portrait were all from gentlemen who thought they resembled
Forbes, especiaUy in the manly bearing, and requested to be similarly
represented. I did my best to make heroes of them all ; but
129

THE HERKOMERS.
I did more for myself by straining every nerve to master my new
craft. I was indeed considerably at sea when I started on the war
correspondent, and at one stage the work was in such a hopeless state
that my father questioned my ability to pull it through. This very
doubt on his part was just the tonic I needed, and I did pull it
through — to some purpose.
That was a period — which lasted a decade and more — when the
patronage of art in England was at its height. Everybody in any
position and possessing wealth, newly acquired or otherwise, was
desirous of being painted. The few portrait painters then practising
were more than fully employed. Present conditions are very
different, the sitters having decreased, and the portrait painters
disproportionately increased.

130

Chapter XX.
DEATH OF MY WIFE.
In the late autumn of the year 1881 a change was effected in my
domestic arrangements. Owing to the delicacy of my wife's lungs
she was ordered to spend the winter at Wiesbaden, and it was
decided that Miss Margaret Griffiths and my boy Siegfried should
accompany her. From there, in the foUowing summer, they went to
Norderney. At the end of July the whole family met in Ramsau,
where we made a stay of some two months.
My father had by this time become somewhat reconciled to his
loss, and the love we all showered on him made him feel how much
there was yet to five for ; besides, he was with me, and I was the
pivot upon which his existence turned. Our positions to each other
had, at his own suggestion many years before, been reversed, when he
uttered the remarkable words, " You and I now change places ; you
have more experience and knowledge than I, therefore I look to you
henceforth for guidance, and I will obey you."
On this visit to Ramsau I painted several oil colour pictures, of
medium dimensions, the subjects being of a dramatic character, one
or two of which I had already drawn for The Graphic.
I must hasten over the next domestic events. Whilst at
Norderney my wife had met a doctor in whose skill she had an almost
superstitious belief, and she desired to settle near him in Vienna,
where he practised. It was therefore arranged that Miss Griffiths,
as well as the two children, should accompany her.
The wife being comfortably settled in Vienna accordingly, all
things went smoothly at first. My father and I had in the meanwhile
gone to America, where I very soon plunged into portrait work. In
131

THE HERKOMERS.
the spring of the following year, 1883, news came that my wife had
caught a chill, and that complications were feared. As only evasive
answers were sent to my repeated telegrams asking for the truth
about her illness, we abruptly cut our visit short, and took the first
available steamer to Europe, for the suspense had become intolerable.
This sudden departure caused many portrait-orders to remain over for
another visit.
On landing at Liverpool we were met by Miss Griffiths' elder
brother with the news that my wife had died the day before of
gaUoping consumption. We just touched Bushey, and then hurried
to Vienna, accompanied by Miss Griffiths, where we found Margaret
worn with the strain of the terrible nursing, but, although bereft of
the power of sleep, courageously keeping up. The two children
had scared looks still upon them ; there was the black atmosphere
of death pervading the whole dwelling — albeit that my wife had
been buried two days before our arrival.
Margaret's endurance against almost inhuman odds was preter
natural, and all she went through with her charge will never be
known — for noble women speak but little of the good work they do.
That she lived through it all — and lives now to bless my life — is little
short of miraculous !
Miss Griffiths, my father and the two children then returned to
Bushey : Margaret and her younger brother, who had come over to
help her, accompanied me on a httle tour through the interesting
cities of Germany, after which we returned to Bushey.
Life all anew seemed so strange. What was it that was missed ?
A mother ? The children, owing to the unusual circumstances, had
had scarce a mother other than the sisters Griffiths, each to a child.
A wife ? Never, poor soul, was she able to be wife to me. I was a
widower, yet had not known true wife. No blame to her— she was
not responsible ! Pitiful the whole history, pitiful the mistake made,
and pitiful the result of that mistake. I take it all on myself, for
it was I who made the mistake, and with open eyes!

132

PORTRAIT OF MISS KATHERINE GRANT.
(Oil Pal tiling, 1885.)

Chapter XXI.
THE HERKOMER SCHOOL.
PORTRAIT OF MISS KATHERINE GRANT
("LADY IN WHITE").
MY MARRIAGE WITH MISS GRIFFITHS.
On my return to Bushey I was at once engaged on portraits ; I was
likewise occupied with the picture, " Pressing to the West," which
had been begun in New York during my first visit. It represented
emigrants housed in " Castle Gardens " prior to being sent westward.
The extraordinary medley of nationalities interested me ; but the
subject touched me in another way that was more personal. Here I
saw the emigrant's life and hardships — conditions in which my parents
found themselves when they left the Fatherland for this Land of
Promise. But between that date and the time when I witnessed
that heterogeneous mass of humanity this asylum had been given
them for their protection against sharpers. I have already alluded
to this building as having once served as the fashionable concert room
of New York, in which Jenny Lind made her debut. My picture of
the emigrants found a permanent home in the National Gallery of
Leipzig, after having been exhibited in our Academy and other
places. But by far the most important event of this year was the
inauguration of the " Herkomer School." For the details of this
occurrence I must again refer the reader to my book, " My School
and My Gospel."
I now pass on to the year 1884, which was so important to me,
artistically and domestically. My portrait of Miss Grant — otherwise
133

THE HERKOMERS.
known as " The Lady in White " — was painted in that year, likewise
my large landscape, called "Found," which was bought for the
nation. I must go a little into detail regarding the former.
The unusual success of this portrait in England, Germany,
Austria, France and America was as puzzling as it was gratifying
to me. In the last four countries it was awarded first-class gold
medals, and to this day, in Germany, it is the best-remembered
portrait ever exhibited. I visited Berlin when it was first exhibited
there, and having but a day for sight-seeing I engaged a guide.
Without my having given him my name he suggested — when we
were making out the day's programme — that I must visit the
exhibition of pictures, where, he said, " There is a portrait by an
Englishman that all Berlin is talking about." In our rounds we took
this exhibition early in the day— soon, in fact, after the gallery was
opened to the public ; therefore we had the room almost to ourselves.
The guide took me straight up to my portrait, and on my expressing
surprise at seeing so many chairs placed in front of it — I think I
counted some fifty — he told me that people came there of an
afternoon and " sat for hours " — his words — contemplating this " Lady
in White." The painting of the portrait came about in this wise. As I had
so far only received commissions for men's portraits, arising, no
doubt, from my first portrait having been that of a man — Archibald
Forbes — it began to be voiced about that I could paint a man, but
not a woman. I naturally wished to remove this odium, as I was
considerably piqued. To this end I selected a friend, Miss Katherine
Grant— the youngest daughter of Mr. Owen Grant— an Enghsh, and
not an American lady as it has been so persistently stated. She was
sympathetic to me as a personahty, and attractive as a type of female
beauty. The white muslin dress she wore, which was of her own
devising, followed no particular fashion ; and with the exception of
the long tawny-coloured gloves— then all the rage— there was nothing
to indicate a date in her appearance.
The selection of a white background was to a considerable extent
134

" FOUND."
(Oil Painting, 1884.)

PORTRAIT OF MISS KATHERINE GRANT.
owing to an accident. I began the portrait with a dark background ;
but finding that the sitter's somewhat colourless complexion was
made too pronounced by the contrast, I one day — as an experiment —
placed a white canvas behind her, allowing one part of it to touch the
back of the small chair upon which she was sitting. The transfor
mation of the whole aspect of the sitter was remarkable. The face
assumed a delicate warm tint, and her telling dark eyes and black
hair became dominant notes in the scheme. The white canvas, being
placed so near her, received incisive shadows from her head and
figure ; the rest was graduated in subtle bluish hues, which gave
sufficient contrast to the cream white of the dress to give the latter
delicate relief.
The scheme of white on white was universally acclaimed to
constitute the originality of the portrait. But Bastien Lepage, in his
small portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, had already solved that problem,
and with dazzling virtuosity.
In the spring of the year 1884 (accompanied by Mr. Mansel
Lewis and my father), I camped once more, and for the last time in
Wales. Somewhat up from the road, and on the slope of a hill
side — where the necessary level ground for the pitching of our tents
and painting-huts had to be made with pick-axe and shovel— I
painted the landscape which now hangs in the Tate Gallery, entitled
" Found." But an event of solemn import was awaiting me this same year.
Miss Lulu Griffiths consented to be my wife, and we were married
from her home in Ruthin in August.
The overwhelming serenity that followed on this marriage almost
frightened me. From long familiarity with irremediable sorrows I
had contracted the habit of looking for the grim shade— trouble.
The new conditions were all so wonderful, so like the dreams and
longings I. had had through the weary years. Lulu, as my wife, was
so much to me. She was my counsellor ; she raised the status of my
social hfe by her innate comprehension of the duties of hostess ; she
foresaw the recognition that would come to my lot, and the course I
135

THE HERKOMERS.
was to follow in the world — things hidden from my mental view at
that time. She was true helpmeet, and with that sentence all is said.
But this unalloyed happiness was only destined to be a " curtain-
raiser " in my new life. The real drama was still to come, and that
in deadly earnest !
My first work in the early spring of 1885 worth mentioning was
the picture I called "Hard Times: 1885." It articulated a distress
amongst the labouring classes, poignantly felt by them that year.
Hundreds of honest labourers wandered through the country in
search of work ; the man, with pickaxe and shovel tied together — his
only stock-in-trade— and his bulky bundle of household goods (that
had escaped the pawnbroker) slung across his strong shoulders ; the
woman following, with smaller bundle hanging from the wrist of the
arm that supported the babe wrapped in her shawl ; and the other
little ones trudging after father and mother as best they could, giving
a diminishing line to the wretched procession.
It was such a group, resting by the wayside of a country lane,
that I depicted. The lane, with winding roadway and high untrimmed
hedges of hawthorn, lay at my very door at Bushey. It was named
by the students, " Hard Times Lane," and to this day is known by
that designation.
I was now about to make the doubtful experiment of producing
forty pictures and sketches for the Fine Art Society (London) of
" Life and Labour in the Bavarian Alps." These were, moreover, to
be the product of one single summer, as the exhibition had been fixed
for the late autumn of the same year, 1885. In addition to a time-
limit not made by myself (new and irritating as it was to me), there
was the inclusion of so-called "sketches," that disturbed me on the
score of honesty. I was not a sketcher ; I had deliberately avoided
acquiring that facility, for reasons already stated. I could not, and
cannot to this day, sit down and make an irresponsible sketch.
" Make a picture of everything you do " — that was the Walkerian
Shibboleth ; and from habits of thought and work it has soaked itself
into my nature. 136

MY MARRIAGE WITH MISS GRIFFITHS.
Having formed this habit of making a picture of everything I
did, and moreover of making the one effort final, I was never able to
use a sketch satisfactorily. The backgrounds of my " Last Muster "
and " Charterhouse Chapel " left me no option, and I had to work
from carefully painted water-colour sketches. But in both cases I
could (and did) go constantly to study the originals, which enabled
me to correct the deficiencies that crept in through the (to me)
unnatural procedure of work.
I had always held the opinion that if a painter wished to start a
deterioration in his art he was only to undertake a given number of
new works within a certain period. And now I had voluntarily
exposed myself to that dangerous undertaking, choosing Ramsau
again for the subjects of my pictures.
However, I faced it all in the most practicable way. To produce
this number of pictures in a given time, all interruption in work
through inclement weather had to be provided against, and that
meant building a studio. The " Zimmermann " had much difficulty
in getting a bit of ground for its erection. None of the peasants
would spare an inch of their precious fields, and all he could secure
was a piece of ground that was useless to the owner owing to its
conformation. With some manipulation it only just sufficed for a
little studio of about fourteen feet by twelve, with a small glass-house
attached. Although near the house we hved in, it was approached by
a path so steep that one thought twice before undertaking the
journey. The migration of the whole family to Ramsau was delayed until
August, so as to allow my wife to recover from a distressing fausse
couche — distressing I say, because a hfe was given for a hfe. She had
needed some change, and the doctor advised me to take her to some
quiet town. Soon after our arrival, whilst I was making a purchase
in a shop, she remained outside. Suddenly she saw a child knocked
down by a horse carelessly driven. Without a thought of her
condition she darted out and rescued the child just in the nick of
time, and so prevented the wheels of the cart passing over the little
137

THE HERKOMERS.
body. It all happened so suddenly that I knew nothing of what
had occurred until I came out of the shop. The child was quite
unhurt ; but that same night Lulu's child was born dead.
In August then, my wife, Margaret, the two children and my
father settled in Ramsau. The visit started badly. The house in
which we lived had been the old school-house, but a new building for
school purposes had been erected next door. As our house was just
short of one bedroom, Margaret slept in the one adjoining. The
morning after the first night she awoke with a painful throat accom
panied by high fever — diphtheria ! Her sister at once isolated her,
covered the door with a sheet dipped in some disinfectant, and gave
herself up entirely to the nursing. On enquiry it transpired that
twelve months previously a child had died in the room and in the
very bed that Margaret occupied. The landlady declared that every
thing had been washed and the room thoroughly cleaned ; but this
microbe laughs at water.
Well, that passed, and things became normal again. In figures
to paint Ramsau was particularly rich — one family alone supplying
me with ten models, of all ages — and endless " bits " of background
were ready at hand. But to me the most picturesque figure and
paintable background had httle value until I had formed a definite
idea of a treatment — in short, until they were formulated in my mind
as a subject, however simple. In looking back I am somewhat
surprised that I did not paint single figures without an attempt at
converting them into some kind of subject — merely character-painting,
I could have done this very well and quickly, but I probably thought
such studies of single figures did not fulfil the demands of the
" sketch." When a month had passed I found I had not got half my number.
This alarmed me ; and the feverish search for subjects began afresh.
I made scouts of my family, who searched and reported. Then in
reviewing what had so far been done I could plainly see that the
shghter drawings were simply urifinished little pictures, and the more
elaborate subjects were hurriedly and imperfectly done. But I could
138

MY MARRIAGE WITH MISS GRIFFITHS.
not permit myself to go back on such work for further development
or improvement ; more, more, my number! How I cursed that word !
My wife's heart was now beginning to develop some alarming
symptoms. When a girl she had had rheumatic fever, which left the
heart permanently damaged. But it never seemed to give her much
trouble, nor had she ever allowed any temporary disturbance in that
organ to interfere with her life's work. There was now, however, a
change that boded no good, and I attributed this new phase to the
extra strain put on the heart by her late fausse couche.
Not only were we all longing to get away from that enervating
climate, but I was more than anxious to get my wife home. After a
sojourn of seven weeks, full of anxieties and irritating work, we left
for home.

139

Chapter XXII.
DEATH OF MY WIFE, LULU.
There were still some five weeks before the opening of the
exhibition, which gave me ample time to " tinker " my number.
At last the day came for arranging the series of pictures and
"sketches" in the gallery of the Fine Art Society.
I left my wife in bed, as she had not been well, and urged her
not to get up until I came back. She encouraged me to go to town
without anxiety ; she wished me success with my exhibition ; and
then we talked awhile of our proposed visit to America in December,
as I had received a letter from an eminent specialist that very
morning, saying that my wife would run no undue risk in under
taking the journey— that, on the contrary, it might prove beneficial.
Oh ! the comfort a doctor's word can mean to poor suffering
mankind !
After a long, weary day at the Gallery, I returned by a train
arriving something after six o'clock in the evening. Our doctor met
me at Bushey station, and, linking his arm in mine, said, " Mrs.
Herkomer is dangerously ill." He said no more, but hurried me
into a cab. From his ill-disguised emotion I knew, I felt, what was
awaiting me. On arrival at the house I found Margaret, my father,
my nephew, and even the servants awaiting me in the hall of our
little cottage, Dyreham (dear home). The hasty question to my
father (spoken in German), " Is it over ? " was answered by an
affirmative nod of the head, for he was weeping too bitterly to speak.
I rushed upstairs alone ; there on the bed lay my blessed wife, dead,
with the broad bandage still on to keep the dead jaw in its living
position. She lay just where I left her in the morning, when she
140

PORTRAIT OP MY WIFE, LULU "
(Pencil Drawing, 188."..)

DEATH OF MY WIFE, LULU.
was so full of concern for me, so encouraging, so wise in her counsels,
when she promised not to leave her bed until I returned, to please
me. Yet it was less than an hour before I came back that death
snatched her from us all. One hour earlier, and I could have heard
her speak ; one hour earlier, and I might have held my living wife in
my arms ; cruel, that one common-place hour should deprive me of
all — all — counsellor, wife, helpmeet ! And cruel was that short
hour to those others, to my father, and to Margaret. The suddenness
of the death struck terror into their hearts, which increased with the
sickening waiting for my return. They feared the effect this calamity
would have on me ; but the very terror written on every line of their
faces showed me my path of duty. The dead was at peace ; but
peace had to be brought to the living, and I alone could do that.
This proved my salvation.

I have had occasion to speak of the strange " knockings " that
were heard in the room in which my mother died, a few minutes
before she passed away ; and again of a similar singularity on two
consecutive mornings when I slept in the same room some years
after ; which latter, by some strange coincidence — or call it what you
will — was the herald of a sad mishap.
I must now relate a third repetition of these "knockings,"
which happened shortly before Lulu died. In Margaret's own words
this is what occurred : " On the day of her death Lulu felt oppressed
in her breathing, and constantly urged me to help her to a sitting
posture in the bed. Finding pillows no longer sufficed I supported
her against myself. Late in the afternoon her struggle in breathing
became worse, and she begged to be held more and more upright.
Feeling alarmed, I insisted on getting some brandy, to which she had
a great aversion. In descending the stairs I heard a violent knocking
on the closed shutters of the dining-room " (which was just under
neath my wife's bedroom) ; " this strange knocking was heard
simultaneously by the butler, who came running out from his pantry
141

THE HERKOMERS.
' to catch,' as he said, 'the boys that played the trick.' Rushing out
suddenly, he could find no trace of anybody. I had in the meantime
hurried back to Lulu, and had given her some of the brandy. But it
had no effect. Within a few minutes of taking the brandy, and
whilst I was supporting her, she said T feel as if I were going to faint.'
Hardly had she uttered the words when she gave a great gasp, and
throwing her head violently back, fell heavily into my arms ; all was
over ! From the time when I heard the ' knockings ' to the moment
of her death, not more than ten minutes could have elapsed."
There being no available data for such phenomena, comment
would be out of place. I merely state the plain facts.
It required all the will-power I possessed to retain the grip of
life. To give confidence and peace to those around me and to
suppress my own anguish at the same time, was as severe a strain as
could be put upon a man. Work, work, incessant, unremitting —
to mock the situation and benumb the heart ! Work, to save me
from bitterness and from indifference to hfe ! This I dinned into my
soul every waking moment. And work there was at hand. My school
needed attention ; the students had to be individually directed as to
their studies during my absence in America. A new field of activity
also lay before me, for I had been elected Slade Professor in the
University of Oxford. In one matter I was at rest ; Margaret had
promised to remain to direct the household and help the children.
On the seventh of December my father and I crossed over to
America, whilst Margaret took the children to her home in Wales,
where she intended to remain until my return.
That a reaction should some time or other set in was inevitable ;
and hardly had I landed when my health broke down utterly. At
the hotel my father once more watched over me as in those early
days. Friends, however, soon came, and vied with each other in kind
offices. But sympathy and kindness were also shown me by persons
httle suspected of such sentiments — the interviewers. They came
the moment they heard of my arrival. I sent them a message that
I was under a cloud of great domestic sorrow, begging them to desist
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DEATH OF MY WIFE, LULU.
from trying to see me. They returned an answer full of sympathy,
adding that if there was anything they could do for me I was to
command them. They never again, during my whole visit, attempted
to interview me.
In a narrative of a life so full, so strenuous, and so full of extremes
in both joys and sorrows, it is somewhat difficult to decide on the
appropriate moment for the ending of a first volume. As the death,
of my wife Lulu was a crisis, affecting in every way my whole
existence, it may be as well to break the story of my life here.

END OF FIRST VOLUME.

WERTHEIMER, LEA & CO , Printers, 46 & 47, London Wall, and Clifton House, Worship Street, E.C,