DISCOVERED!DISCOVERED!
As I was speaking, some old gentleman in the side gallery had either fallen asleep or was very excited by my remarks, for he somehow jerked the cord which fastened the top of the screen to the gallery, and snap went the cord and down came the screen! Behind it there was an expanse of empty platform, with a semi-circular seat, and on it sat my friend, the enthusiast on art, fast asleep! The limelight, no longer checked by the screen, fell full upon him, and the rounds of applause which followed showed me that my unrehearsed effect, which might have ruined the evening, had made it instead a great success.
There are sure to be occasional mishaps when the lecturer is assisted by the lantern; but as in my case, when one is not taken too seriously, it is easy to turn the misfortune off with a joke.
A fly was the offender on one occasion in my experience. I was showing some portraits of Mr. Gladstone in my entertainment "The Humours of Parliament," and was doing my level best to rouse an appreciative North Country audience to a high pitch of enthusiasm for the man they worshipped so. I was telling them that at one moment he looks like this, and at another moment he looks like that, when I was amazed to hear them go into fits of laughter! In describing Mr. Gladstone I dilate upon him first in a rhetorical vein, and then proceed to caricature my own delineations, and it has always been flattering to me to find that the serious portraits have been received with a grave attention only equalled by the laughter with which thecaricatures have been greeted. But not so on this occasion. I spoke of his flashing eye (titters!), his noble brow (laughter!), his patriarchal head (roars!), and a mention of his commanding aquiline nose nearly sent them into hysterics! Now in my lecturing days mishaps may have occurred which were due to some fault of the lantern or operator provided by the society I lectured to; but with the splendid set of lanterns I had made for my entertainment, engineered by the infallible Professor who exhibited for me, I never troubled to look round to see if the picture was all right. But for a second it struck me that by some mischance he might be showing the caricatures in place of the serious portraits. Quickly I turned round, and the sight that met my eyes made me at once join in the general roar. There was a gigantic fly promenading on the nasal organ of the Grand Old Man, unheeding the attempts which were being made on its life by the Professor, armed with a long pointed weapon. It had walked into the Professor's parlour—that is to say, into his lantern—and taken up its temporary residence between the lenses, whence it was magnified a hundredfold on to the screen!
THE FLY IN THE CAMERA.
If anything of this kind happens to a Professor lecturing on some scientific subject, it is no laughing matter, especially to a gentleman lecturing at a meeting of the British Association. At one of these gatherings a well-known Professor was giving a most interesting and appreciated address, illustrated by the limelight, on the subject of "Quartz Fibres." If I remember rightly, he was explaining to the audience that the strands of a spider's web were purposely rough so that the spider could climb them easily, but that a quartz fibre was smooth and glassy, and a spider would never attempt to ascend one. He showed on the sheet asingle thread of a spider's web and a single quartz fibre, and amid the breathless excitement of the audience a real live spider was put into the lantern. The applause with which it was greeted must have made the poor thing nervous, I suppose, or else it may have had an attack of stage fright; anyhow, it curled itself up in a corner and refused to budge. A sharpened pencil, which magnified on the screen looked like a battering-ram, was brought into play, and the unfortunate creature had to rouse itself. "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you will notice that it is quite impossible for the spider to ascend the quartz fibre—it may try, but it is bound to fail—but see how it will rush to the strand from its familiar web!" The spider received an extra dig with the pencil, and then with astonishing alacrity ran to the quartz fibre, up which it climbed with the greatest ease amid the roars of the delighted audience. The fact was that the Professor had omitted to explain that his argument only applied to female spiders. These have a pernicious habit of running after their spouses and belabouring them, so the poor hubby is provided by Nature with a hirsute growth on his legs which enables him to escape by climbing, and nothing would delight him more than for his wife to give chase to him if there was a quartz fibre anywhere near.
Sometimes there is no gallery in which to place the lantern, and then the pictures have to be shown from the floor of the hall, when it seems to be the delight of everyone coming in late to walk up the centre in the full light of the powerful rays of the lantern, presumably for the pleasure of beholding their image projected in silhouette on to the screen. Those awful feminine hats ought to be abolished, and all late comers ought to be made to find their seats on their hands and knees, as they run the risk of upsetting the thread of the lecturer's discourse, and the gravity of the audience as well, I remember once when I was giving my lecture on "Portraiture: Past and Present," and illustrating the portraits on medals, I came to some near the bottom of the screen. "Here," said I, "we have the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress of London, 1300A.D." At that moment the Mayor and Mayoress of the town, who, for effect I suppose, hadcome in a quarter of an hour late to the seats reserved for them in the centre of the hall, walked past the rays of the lantern, and were of course projected on to the screen, unconsciously burlesquing my picture, and causing an effect they had not anticipated.
LATE ARRIVALS.
I referred just now to mishaps that will occur with the best-regulated lanterns. The gas, for instance, may become prematurely exhausted, which necessitates a stoppage while the cylinders are being changed, and when Rudyard Kipling's work, "The Light that Failed," was published, I immediately sent for a copy, thinking that probably the author had tried entertaining with the aid of the limelight in India and had had some experience of this kind. I could give that clever author plenty of material for another volume on "The Light that Failed"—a collection of anecdotes connected with the magic lantern. But, as I said, it doesn't so much matter to the entertainer as the lecturer, who must beau sérieux, and when I was a lecturer I felt any mishap of the kind very keenly; but an entertainer is a privileged being, and can turn the matter off with a joke at the expense of his manager, his gas-man, his audience, or his subject. No less a personage than Sir William Harcourt happened to be on the screen when my gas went out one evening in Scotland. I had to retire from the platform while new cylinders of gas were being adjusted, and when I made my reappearance I assured my audience that it was probably the first occasion on which Sir William had been put out for want of gas!
I recollect, though, once at Bradford, where I was lecturing, the audience were put out for want of it, for the operators supplied by the association I was lecturing to were utterly incompetent. The gas was bad, to begin with—it became small by degrees and beautifully less, and suddenly went out altogether! So did the operators. They simply bolted out of the hall, and left the lantern to manage itself.
Du Maurier made a delightful drawing forPunchof a sandwich advertising contractor dismissing a man with a board on which was the letter H. "Now, look 'ere, you H! The public don't want yer, norIdon't, nor nobody don't—so 'ook it!" Or something to that effect.
RESERVED SEATS.
I wish lecturers could dismiss chairmen in the same peremptory fashion, for I am sure the public don't want him, norIdon't, nor nobody. Their boredom had better be dropped like the poor letter H—which, by the way, some chairmen drop pretty frequently.
I'll classify the chairmen as follows:—The Absent Chairman, the Ideal Chairman, the Political Chairman, and the Ignorant Chairman.
The Absent Chairman.—I must divide the Absent Chairman into two heads. Two heads are better than one, but if both are absent—the one in body and the other in mind—it is evident no head is better than two. The absent in body does not turn up at the lecture—forgets all about it, or remembers too well what he suffered before. The lecturer and his audience are kept waiting. The absent in mind does turn up, though—turns up anything but trumps. He—"ah!—feels—ah!—the honour—ah!—of presiding this evening." He "has the honour—ah!—of introducing the lecturer, a lady—ah!—a gentleman, I should say, whose name is a household word. Who does not know the name of—ah (feels in all his pockets for syllabus)—of—ah—this gentleman who is about to delight us all this evening on a—yes, yes,"—takes from his pocket a piece of paper from which he reads: "The Rev. Carbon Chalker, M.A., on Microbes found in the Middle Strata of Undiscovered Coal." "This rev. gentleman no doubt——" he proceeds, when he is quickly interrupted by the secretary, who jumps up and says, "Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, that is last year's syllabus you have in your hand."
The Ideal Chairman is one who rises and says, "Ladies and gentlemen,—I have the honour this evening to introduce to you Mr. Snooks, who has something interesting to tell you, and one hour in which to tell it. I will not stand in his way or take up your time by saying anything further." Now how seldom this happens! As a rule the chairman makes an excuse to deliver a speech on his own account. The most extraordinary case of that kind I ever heard of occurred at Birmingham. The amiable Member for one of the districts in Birmingham, whose name is always associated with "three acres and a cow," had to take the chair at a lecture given one evening to the people. As soon as the popular M.P. rose to speak there were loud cries of "Three acres—three acres! How is the coo? How is the coo?" It was just at the time when he had introduced that question. He rose to the occasion and made a long and elaborate speech upon the subject at heart. He went on speaking from about thirty-five to forty minutes. When he sat down the gentleman who had arrived from London to give hislecture on "Wit and Humour" simply rose and said: "Ladies and gentlemen,—I have the honour this evening to propose a vote of thanks to our member for his very interesting address upon the subject of 'Three Acres and a Cow.'" Someone else got up and seconded the motion, and it was carried unanimously amid great laughter and cheering. Then the chairman rose and began thanking the audience for the compliment they had paid him, and for the kind way in which they had listened to him. And a twelve-month later it dawned upon him that he was only the chairman of the meeting. This may be a pure invention, but it is the story as I heard it.
CHAIRMAN NO. 1.
A story is told of a distinguished irritable Scotch lecturer who on one occasion had the misfortune to meet with a loquacious chairman, the presiding genius actually speaking for a whole hour in "introducing" the lecturer, winding up by saying: "It is unnecessary for me to say more, so I call upon the talented gentleman who has come so far to give us his address to-night." The lecturer came forward: "You want my address. I'll give it to you: 322, Rob Roy Crescent, Edinburgh—and I am just off there now. Good-night!"
I cannot vouch for the truth of either of these stories. However, I have known chairmen myself who were very nearly as bad. I remember one—I think he was a doctor—who rose to introduce me. Instead of two or three minutes he took ten or twelve minutes. Of course he said I was very well known, and went on with some very flattering remarks about my work, and then he added: "Ah, how well I remember—yes, ladies and gentlemen, how well I remember years ago thosepolitical sketches of the late Doyle and others, and when I think that in years to come that Mr. Furniss's attempts will be handed down to our children as I may say, recording the great events of the time we are passing through. Yes, let us see what the value will be to our children to know that Mr. Gladstone once—("Order, order," and "Hear, hear")—that, I say, Mr. Gladstone—(cries of "Sit down, we have not come to hear you")—that, I say, Mr. Gladstone, the grand old man of our time—("Sit down, sit down, sit down, we have not come to hear you—sit down")—Yes, and when I say that Lord Beaconsfield, whom I have no doubt you will see upon the sheet—("Wrap yourself up in yours, go home to bed, go home to bed")." Cries of this sort went on; the gentleman struggled on for about a quarter of an hour and then sat down. Well, I discovered afterwards that he was a very ardent politician, not altogether in tone with the audience, who were opposed to him in politics, and that he seized this chance of repeating a political speech he had often given to others of a different class. As a matter of fact my lecture that night had nothing whatever to do with Parliament; it was purely art matter; and this gentleman happened to be a great art collector and connoisseur, and in returning thanks for me afterwards made a very graceful little speech about art matters. If he had only asked me beforehand, of course it would have been a very agreeable opening instead of rather an unfortunate one. But it is quite as distressing to the lecturer to find that a chairman knows too much about his subject as to find one who knows nothing. If you happen to have delivered your lecture in another hall, and someone present who has heard you is the chairman of an evening when you are going to give it again, he will get up and inform his audience, with the usual flattery of chairmen, that there is a great treat in store for them, that he has had the pleasure of hearing you before, and you are going to tell them this, and going to tell them that, and in some cases he will even give a mangled version of some of the stories—in fact, will take all the plums out of the pudding that you have ready to tickle the appetites of your audience with.
Some chairmen impress their audience that they know far more about the subject than the lecturer. But worst of all is the chairman who knows absolutely nothing about the subject or about yourself. I remember one evening some pompous chairman getting up and saying: "I have great pleasure this evening in introducing to you Mr. Furniss. I know you have all heard of Mr. Furniss, and anyone connected as I am with engineering must look upon one of his great achievements with delight. All who have been to the great Metropolis and travelled along the Thames Embankment—a beautiful way that skirts the Thames—and have considered that at one time what was a heap of mud is now one of the handsomest thoroughfares in the world, must always consider that the work of the gentleman in front of you in being the constructor of that immense work deserves the gratitude of his countrymen, and I therefore take this occasion, before he rises to address you and enlighten you upon the engineering and the large contracting work in the great city in which he has the pleasure to live, to assure him as a brother engineer of the great work which he has performed for his fellow-countrymen."
On enquiry I discovered that a namesake of mine was the contractor for the Thames Embankment, which was built when I was in knickerbockers.
Of recent years I have had few experiences of chairmen, but proportionately their mistakes seem to be as of old. In the North of England last year I was specially engaged to appear before a literary society, and I supposed, by their paying me to go so far, they were, with Northern shrewdness, acquainted with the article in which they were investing. On these special occasions it is strange that a chairman is considered a compliment to the performer, and most certainly it affords the entertainer himself amusement. For instance, in this case I recollect my chairman—a most accomplished and representative man in the neighbourhood—was introduced to me as soon as I arrived at the hall. (I may mention it was not my first visit.) He quickly introduced me to the audience: "Ladies and gentlemen,—This evening I have the honour of introducing toyou a gentleman whom we have all heard about, but few of us, if any, have seen before. We all know his work in Parliament in the pages ofPunchfor some years past; we all have enjoyed the writings of 'Toby, M.P.' This is Mr. H.W. Lucy, ofPunch, our old friend 'Toby, M.P.'" I was giving my "Humours of Parliament," and during the evening I, of course as "Toby, M.P.," informed the audience at times that this was Harry Furniss's idea of Parliament, but I begged to differ with that gentleman, and it was rather a variety for me to play a Parliamentary Jekyl and Hyde for one night only.
CHAIRMAN NO. 2.
If one must have a chairman, why should not the performer be allowed to turn a chairman into account, as that popular and versatile barrister, the late Sir Frank Lockwood, was in the habit of doing? When he lectured at Hackney he "brought down the house" in his description of Sergeant Buzfuz in "Pickwick" by giving a laughable imitation of his chairman—the late Lord Chief Justice, when Sir Charles Russell—cross-examining a witness. For all I know, others may follow the example of poor Lockwood. We shall read of the Bishop of Ripon giving imitations of the Archbishop of Canterbury; Sir Alexander Mackenzie is ready to make the musical world roar by his burlesque of Paderewski; and Lord Kitchener, when he returns from the war and gives the inevitable lecture, will delight military circles by his imitations of his chairman, the Commander-in-Chief.
But I personally have no objection to a chairman if I am announced as alecturerand it is the habit of the particular society to pay the lecturer the compliment of formally introducinghim. But my appearances as a lecturer are few and far between, and when I, as I generally do, appeal direct to the public, I am most anxious to avoid giving my platform work any appearance of a lecture; yet the Press insist upon any entertainment given by men of my class being a lecture. I am a bit of an amateur conjurer, and I thoroughly believe were I to appear on the platform on a bicycle or on an acrobat's globe, and keep three balls in the air with one hand and spin a plate on a stick with the other, and at the same time retail some stories, the notice in the Press on the following morning would begin: "Mr. Harry Furniss gave an instructivelecturelast night on subjects with which we are familiar. Some of his stories were good, some poor, and some we had heard before." And that is the rub! We had heard some stories before! I repeat I honestly have no objection to a chairman—the Ideal Chairman, who will inform the audience that you are an acrobat, and not a lecturer; but I do object to my friends and brother journalists who will tell the public you are a lecturer when you are not, keeping many of their readers away, and who will also publish your jokes. Of course, all stories are "chestnuts" an hour after they are told. When I first went on the platform I retailed new stories, but they were invariably served up in the next morning's papers, and were therefore known to many of the audience who came to hear me on the following evening. In fact, I once overheard a man at breakfast in an hotel saying, "No, I don't think much of Furniss; I have read that story of his about the pumpkin in the papers." Now this story of the pumpkin was an impromptu of mine the evening before, and I was naturally puzzled by over-hearing this remark. When the speaker left the room I took up the paper he had been reading. It contained an account of my efforton the platform the night before, and my impromptu story was in it!
THE PUMPKIN—A CHESTNUT.THE PUMPKIN—A CHESTNUT.
Of course, as in everything else, one must not be too original on the platform if he is to be served up in every course. If you treat general subjects in anything but a general way, and you are humorous and occasionally satirical, you will find that national failing, want of humour, will tell against you, as well as certain prejudices political and social. The selection of lecturers is generally in the hands of a committee. You have probably said something that grated upon the Radical opinions of one member, or upon the old Tory prejudices of another, or told some joke that they failed to see. So long as you keep to microbes, and heavenly bodies, and objects of the sea, you are proportionately successful with your dulness. But to be professionally humorous and a critic is to be eyed with suspicion. Your programme is criticised and generally misunderstood. Perhaps I can show no better instance of this than what occurred to me in connection with my old friend "Lewis Carroll," the author of "Alice in Wonderland."
The Rev. C. L. Dodgson ("Lewis Carroll") in some respects was the typical Oxford Don—once a schoolmaster always a schoolmaster. He lectured his friends as he had lectured his youths, and treated grown-up men of the world as if they were children. In due course I visited Oxford to give my entertainments—"Humours of Parliament" first; "America in a Hurry" followed a few years afterwards. In the latter I gave a wordless imitation of that eccentric American, Talmage, at the same time carefully pointing out to my audience that I imitated his gestures and voice—not Talmage in the character of a preacher, but as a showman; I was therefore surprised to receive the following letter:
"Christchurch, Oxford."Dear Mr. Furniss,—Yesterday I went to Russell's shop and bought four 5s. tickets for your American entertainment on the 23rd, thinking I would treat three young friends to it, and feeling quite confident that there could be no objectionable feature in any entertainment produced by you. An hour afterwards I chanced to notice in the programme the item 'A Sermon in Spasms,' and, in the quotations from Press notices,a commendation of your 'clever imitations of Dr. Talmage's sermons,' and immediately went and returned the tickets.... It did not seem necessary to speak (to the shopkeeper) of the more serious aspect of such an insult to Christianity, and such profaning of holy things...."
"Christchurch, Oxford.
"Dear Mr. Furniss,—Yesterday I went to Russell's shop and bought four 5s. tickets for your American entertainment on the 23rd, thinking I would treat three young friends to it, and feeling quite confident that there could be no objectionable feature in any entertainment produced by you. An hour afterwards I chanced to notice in the programme the item 'A Sermon in Spasms,' and, in the quotations from Press notices,a commendation of your 'clever imitations of Dr. Talmage's sermons,' and immediately went and returned the tickets.... It did not seem necessary to speak (to the shopkeeper) of the more serious aspect of such an insult to Christianity, and such profaning of holy things...."
I hastened to assure the rev. gentleman that Talmage was an "entertainer," like myself, that I used no words in imitation of him; merely his eccentric manner and showman's voice. I also hinted that I always had a number of clergymen in my audiences, and those who had heard me found nothing whatever objectionable, nor could they detect in what I did anything touching upon sacred things. This brought a lengthy rejoinder, from which I quote the following interesting passage:
"The fact that thousands of clergymen havenotbeen deterred by that announcement from going to the entertainment does not surprise me. In this age of ever-increasing irreverence, it is my lot to hear many a profane anecdote told; and theworstoffenders in this line are, I am sorry to say,Clergymen."
"The fact that thousands of clergymen havenotbeen deterred by that announcement from going to the entertainment does not surprise me. In this age of ever-increasing irreverence, it is my lot to hear many a profane anecdote told; and theworstoffenders in this line are, I am sorry to say,Clergymen."
If this was so—and the Rev. C. L. Dodgson could not possibly exaggerate any more than "Lewis Carroll" could avoid exaggeration—how much better it would have been for him to listen to my wordless and harmless imitation of a public entertainer than to sit in the Common Room and listen to profane anecdotes from the lips of his fellow ministers of religion!
IN "THE HUMOURS OF PARLIAMENT."BALLYHOOLEY PATHETIC.
To those about to appear on the platform I would give the same advice as Mr. Punch gave to those about to marry—"Don't." "Lectures," "Readings," or whatever they are called, are very little in demand now compared with twelve years ago. Many of the literary institutes and lecture societies are either dying from inanition or are content with a course of lectures of a poor description. This has been brought about by trying to do the thing on the cheap, and thereby disgusting the subscribers, who are not going to turn out of their cosy, warm houses on a winter's night to hear a poor speaker with a dull subject. The subscription lists are therefore depleted, and the societies cannot afford to engage experienced lecturers and entertainers.
It is a great mistake to imagine one has only to "write something," and, provided with a few "slides," a reading-desk, and a glass of water—and a chairman, mount a platform and read. Of course, an agent can always "boom" a novice—someone who has travelled, or written a book, or gone to smash, or become notorious in any way—for a course of "lectures," provided there are sufficient chairmen to be found willing to act as an extra draw.
Anyone nowadays thirsting for notoriety jumps on to the platform as a lecturer. He may have been "Perhaps a soldier full of 'cute ways, and fearless like his Pa! Stake your dollar sudden and quick to boom. Seeking a bauble reputation even at the Commons mouth." Or he may have been an aristocratic stowaway in a troop-ship, for instance, and become the hero in the pages of our new English-Americanised Press paying for and publishing his startling disclosures.
The lecture is the natural sequence of the boom fever—a lecture, say, on "Red Tape Rats." A reading-desk, a glass of water, a map, a few amateurish snapshot slides exhibited by means of a lantern,anda great and popular chairman—then success is assured. But the crowd is not present to be interested in rats, nor are the reporters there to write about rats, nor is the chairman presiding so as to refer to the stowaway's paper on rats. For the chairman has his own Red Tape Rats to let loose with which to startle the audience and nobble the Press. The next day thereport of the lecture is not headed "The Hon. Babbling Brook on Rats," but runs "An Admiral of the Fleet on Naval Reform," or "A Field Marshal with a Grievance," and a list of the fashionable party on the platform is considered of more importance than the lecturer's remarks.
HARRY FURNISS AS A PICTORIAL ENTERTAINER.Drawn by Clement Flower. Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of "The Graphic."
In more tranquil times a penny-reading style of entertainment will suffice. A bishop or a duke may take the chair, and Charity take the proceeds. But the chairman with a name is the thing with which to catch the interest of the public.
What I have said about lecturing in England applies equally to America and Australia, and I wish it to be distinctly understood that, as I am writing these lines for the benefit of those who think of accepting the tempting offers to go on the platform, I have no personal feeling in the matter whatever. Both in America and in Australia I have had splendid audiences; but in consequence of the long distances and expenses lecturing does not pay, and the stories one reads about men returning with thousands and thousands of pounds in their pockets are absolutely false. Do not believe them. They are manufactured statements for booming purposes. Dr. Conan Doyle honestly gave his opinion, and the correct one, that taking one thing with another you can make just as much money in England as you can in America or the Colonies. Of course there are exceptions,—I might more truly say accidents. Even a poor speaker, if he happens to be a clergyman (and some critics are unkind enough to say that these generally go together), and an author who has written a successful story, may in America have a great chance of making money, for the publishers and booksellers will advertise and push him so as to sell his books,—they will go so far as turning their shops into ticket offices. Then, too, he will find themeenisters, particularly if he is a Scotchman, will advertise him in advance from their pulpits, and probably in return get the "lecturer" to preach a sermon. Consequently he has two publics to work upon which no other lecturer or reader can procure,—the religious and the literary. But that is not a genuine test of the professional lecturer or reader. All literary men on the platform will get a certain number of people who have read their books in a celebrity-hunting country. They want to see the author, and once they have seen him they are satisfied. Return visits I know of, such as these, have been appalling failures. No, a manmust give an entertainment which is in itself amusing and of such stuff that people will go even if any one else had given it—metal attractive to his audience, instead of merely being looked upon as a curiosity in the same way that one looks upon an orchid in a flower-show or a prize ox at Islington. But for the ordinary man, no matter how good he may be, to expect to have a triumphal tour, returning with a shipload of American dollars, is, believe me, absurd on the face of it. The lecture business died out years ago. When that country was younger all the people in the provinces attended lectures as part of their daily education, but now that class of entertainment is as out-of-date as a German Reed entertainment.
I confess that I was overworked at one time. As an illustration of mere physical endurance it is perhaps worth recording. In fact, much in these pages might well have been published under the title of "Confessions of Endurance" in Sandow's magazine or in theLancet, for the edification of those professional men who give advice to others not to overwork and invariably overwork themselves at the same time. Travelling every day, giving "The Humours of Parliament," with my imitations of ranting M.P.'s—nearly a two hours' tearing recitation—to large audiences every night, was perhaps sufficient for one man. The excitement of the success I made, the "booming," interviewing, and unavoidable entertainment at every town, the late hours, the early start, the business worries, fresh to each place, day after day, week after week, can only be understood by those who have gone through it. But this was only part of my work. Each week as I travelled I had to keep up my contributions toPunch—a whole page and several small drawings. I also wrote an article, fully illustrated, on every town I went to week by week forBlack and White(subsequently reprinted in book form, "On Tour"), to say nothing of drawing in the train.
Let me briefly give a fair average of one day's work at the time:
REDUCTION OF A PAGE DRAWING FORPUNCHMADE BY ME WHILST TRAVELLING BY TRAINView larger image
Morning.—Start 9.30 train, eight hours' journey,—means up at seven, breakfast at eight. In train dictate lettersto secretary, who takes down in shorthand. (I never yet found a secretary who could write in a train. I can write quite easily; the secret is tosit up, holding pad in hand, and let the body move with the oscillation of the train. To write on your knee or on a table, or in any other way but this, is impossible.) 3.30 arrive at destination; go to hotel and order dinner. Then to my "travelling studio"—a large case fitted up with everything necessary for drawing in black and white. Straight to private sitting-room, order dinner to be ready in half-an-hour, at work at once—before the others and the luggage arrive. After light dinner, to hall or theatre to see if arrangements are complete. Then visit from local manager or secretary—friends—strangers, a walk round the town to get "copy," tea, a good hour's drawing (no matter how tired I can work on tea), dress, off to evening's work on stage; autographs to be written and people to meet; back to change, supper at some club, speeches; back 3 a.m., bed, sleep—no, only occasionally. Hotel servants turn on electric light, begin sweeping the passage—sw—w—w—whish, sw—w—w—whish! they chat and laugh just outside one's door; they gradually sweep down the long, long passage. Doze—sleep. Bang, bang! "Five o'clock, sir." Bang, bang! the Boots awakening commercial men for early trains. Thump, thump! baggage packing-room over your head. Commercial, or sportsman, or entertainer, or whatever he may be, whistles or sings loudly as he dresses. Altercation with Boots about trains in passage. Bells, bells! "Hot water, hot water. Bath ready, sir." Train leaves at 8.15. I'm up. Something attempted—sleep—something not done,—I have earned but not got a night's repose. So in the cold, wet, misty morning off again with a heart for any amount of work; still achieving, still pursuing, learning to labour—and not to wait!
Mr. E.J. Milliken, ofPunch, frequently wrote to me in 'Arry verse. When I was confined to my bed with fever in the summer of 1893, I was terribly busy. I had myPunchwork, my syndicated "London Letter" (a column-and-a-half of a newspaper, with four or five illustrations), and much other workto do every week, and I, much against my doctor's and nurse's wish, worked all the time.A proposof this I received the following:
"'ARRY TO HARRY."Dear 'Arry,"'Ow are yer, old 'ermit? I 'opes you're gittin' on prime For a sick man you put in good work, mate, and make the best use o' your time. You're like no one else, that's a moral. WhenI'mill I go flabby as suet, But you keep the pot at full bile! 'Ow the doose do yer manage to do it?"I'm glad to believe you're a-mendin', though kep' on the strictest Q.T. The confinement must fret you, I'm sure, 'ow I wish I could drop in to see, And give you a regular rouser. But that is a pleasure to come; When wedomeet again, we will split a fizz magnum, and make the thing hum."I drop yer these lines just to show yer you ain't gone slap out o' my 'ed, Because I'm cavortin' round pooty permiskus, while you're nailed to bed! 'Taint a prison I'm nuts on, old pal, and I'll swear as it doesn't suityou,So 'ere's wishin' you out of it, 'Arry, and well on Life's war-path, Hurroo!!!"I sent over my pasteboard this mornin' to do the perlitecummy fo,But this 'ere isentry noobarney, a bit of a lark like, yer know. I picter you jest rampin' round like a big arktic bear in a cage! Well, keep up yer pecker, my pippin, and keep down yer natural rage. I'm yours to command, when you want me, to gossip or work, fetch or carry;"And that Harry may soon be O.K. and a 'arf, is the wish of"Yours,"'Arry."
"Dear 'Arry,
"'Ow are yer, old 'ermit? I 'opes you're gittin' on prime For a sick man you put in good work, mate, and make the best use o' your time. You're like no one else, that's a moral. WhenI'mill I go flabby as suet, But you keep the pot at full bile! 'Ow the doose do yer manage to do it?
"I'm glad to believe you're a-mendin', though kep' on the strictest Q.T. The confinement must fret you, I'm sure, 'ow I wish I could drop in to see, And give you a regular rouser. But that is a pleasure to come; When wedomeet again, we will split a fizz magnum, and make the thing hum.
"I drop yer these lines just to show yer you ain't gone slap out o' my 'ed, Because I'm cavortin' round pooty permiskus, while you're nailed to bed! 'Taint a prison I'm nuts on, old pal, and I'll swear as it doesn't suityou,So 'ere's wishin' you out of it, 'Arry, and well on Life's war-path, Hurroo!!!
"I sent over my pasteboard this mornin' to do the perlitecummy fo,But this 'ere isentry noobarney, a bit of a lark like, yer know. I picter you jest rampin' round like a big arktic bear in a cage! Well, keep up yer pecker, my pippin, and keep down yer natural rage. I'm yours to command, when you want me, to gossip or work, fetch or carry;
"And that Harry may soon be O.K. and a 'arf, is the wish of
"Yours,"'Arry."
I should like to confess my real reason for going on to the platform. The fact is that for many years I was mistaken in the country, particularly in Liverpool, Leeds and Bradford, for an artist who signed political caricatures "H. F.," and whose name, strange to say, is Harold Furniss. I understand he is about twice my size. So that I thought if I showed myself in public, particularly in the provinces, it would be seen that I was not this Mr. Harold Furniss. Now, unfortunately, on the stage or platform I look tall—in fact, bets have been made that I am over six feet high. On three or four occasions after I have left the platform or the stage I have had to grant aninterview to gentlemen who have made bets on this point. The explanation is, however, simple enough: as there is no one on the stage or platform but myself, there is nothing to give my height, so the particular object of my appearing in public was frustrated.
DOWN WITH DRYASDUST.DOWN WITH DRYASDUST.
Portraiture Past and Present—The National Portrait Gallery Scandal—Fashionable Portraiture—The Price of an Autograph—Marquis Tseng—"So That's My Father!"—Sala Attacks Me—My Retort—Du Maurier's Little Joke—My Speech—What I Said and What I Did Not Say—Fury of Sala—The Great Six-Toe Trial—Lockwood Serious—My Little Joke—Nottingham Again—Prince of Journalists—Royal Academy Antics—An Earnest Confession—My Object—My Lady Oil—Congratulations—Confirmations—The Tate Gallery—The Proposed Banquet—The P.R.A. and Modern Art—My Confessions in the Central Criminal Court—Cricket in the Park—Reform!—All About that Snake—The Discovery—The Capture—Safe—The Press—Mystery—Evasive—Experts—I Retaliate—TheWestminster Gazette—The Schoolboy—The Scare—Sensation—Death—Matters Zoological—Modern Inconveniences—Do Women Fail in Art?—Wanted a Wife.
Portraiture Past and Present—The National Portrait Gallery Scandal—Fashionable Portraiture—The Price of an Autograph—Marquis Tseng—"So That's My Father!"—Sala Attacks Me—My Retort—Du Maurier's Little Joke—My Speech—What I Said and What I Did Not Say—Fury of Sala—The Great Six-Toe Trial—Lockwood Serious—My Little Joke—Nottingham Again—Prince of Journalists—Royal Academy Antics—An Earnest Confession—My Object—My Lady Oil—Congratulations—Confirmations—The Tate Gallery—The Proposed Banquet—The P.R.A. and Modern Art—My Confessions in the Central Criminal Court—Cricket in the Park—Reform!—All About that Snake—The Discovery—The Capture—Safe—The Press—Mystery—Evasive—Experts—I Retaliate—TheWestminster Gazette—The Schoolboy—The Scare—Sensation—Death—Matters Zoological—Modern Inconveniences—Do Women Fail in Art?—Wanted a Wife.
From a Photo by Debenham & Gould.
My attack upon the National Portrait Gallery was in the form of a lecture entitled "Portraiture Past and Present." I found the subject so large, so complicated, I may say so octopus-like, embracing such varied periods and phases, and throwing forth its arms or ramifications in so many directions, that I soon discovered I was struggling with a monster subject, with which it was impossible to grapple completely in the limited time allowed for the performance. Still I managed in a light way to review the history ofportraiture from Dibutades to Millais, and from its display in the Temples to its discouragement at the National Portrait Gallery, taking as my text Carlyle's dictum that "Human Portraits faithfully drawn are of all pictures the welcomest on Human Walls," a sentiment that appeals to all, for there is no doubt human beings interest us more than anything else. The Pyramids of Egypt awe, but our interest is in those who raised them; Ancient Rome enchants in exact proportion to our interest in the Ancient Romans; the Forum is but a frame which the imagination instinctively fills with the forms of the mighty men who moved there; the Amphitheatre would have little interest but for those who made its dust; and when we wander through our Parliament at Westminster it is not so much the place that interests us as the senators associated with its name. I confess that when I travel on the Continent I cut cathedrals and study the people, in the boulevards, in the streets, in the market-place. When I have spare time in London I do the same, and at one time made a point of spending a day now and then wandering about the East End of London for the purpose of studying character; and it was while so occupied that I happened to stray into our National Portrait Gallery. I was astonished and disgusted at such a collection having such a name, and there and then decided that I would make this the subject of my lecture, and the following is briefly my indictment as I then laid it before the Grand Jury, composed of the Press and the Public:
"Of all places, a Portrait Gallery should appeal to you most, and the National Portrait Gallery is the place in which to spend a happy day.
"That is, if you are not critical. If you are, then get thee to a library and bury thyself in books of biography, for portrait painters were deceivers ever, historical portrait painters in particular.
"The National Portrait Gallery was founded about thirty years ago, and the founder, Lord Stanhope, had the audacity to ask for a yearly grant of £500 for the purpose of supplying the nation with a representative collection of national portraits.The first purchase made by the trustees was a portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh (rather suggestive of the undertaking ending in smoke). However, it has struggled on, such as it is.
"Truly it is in no sense a National Portrait Gallery, and although the richest and most civilised nation in the world now generally grants £1,000 a year to supply itself with representative portraits of its great men and women, being I may say about the price of one portrait by a successful painter, the portraits of our great lights do not swell the number of the collection.
"It has been difficult, no doubt, even with this immense amount of cash, to get portraits of those of the past. They have been locked up in the stately homes of England.
"Of late years Charles Surface, Earl of Spendthrift, knocks his ancestors down to the highest chance bidder, but the National Portrait Gallery knows them not.
"The reason of this is not far to seek.
"Taking up at random an annual report of the trustees, I read: 'The salaries of officials amount to £1,176, other expenses £591, the police £635, total £2,402.' And now we come to the interesting item: 'The money spent on the purchase of portraits £255'! But the particular section of the report dealing with this item says seven works have been purchased for £143 18s.—that is, £20 11s.1d.each.
"Small wonder then that many works in the National Portrait Gallery of England—England where portraiture flourishes—are unworthy of the attendance of even £35 worth of policemen. Can we wonder when £635 is paid to the police to gaze at £143 18s.worth of portraits, the purchase of the year?" and so on.
The result of this "ridiculing the State," as theTimes, in its leader, expressed it, for the penurious pittance it doles out of the revenues of the richest country in the world towards the maintenance of a National Portrait Gallery, was that I was the cause of arousing the Press of Great Britain to the miserable condition of the National Portrait Gallery, which ended in our having one in its place more worthy of the country.
Besides drawing public attention to the National Portrait Gallery, in the same lecture I put in a word for the struggling unknown portrait painters. Speaking of payment reminded me of the story told of Bularchus, a successful painter 716 B.C. Candaules, King of Lydia, paid him with as much gold as would cover the surface of the work. I told my audience that I doubted whether, if that system existed now, the portrait painters would leave any room at all on the Academy walls for subject pictures.
Would Meissonier or Alma Tadema, say, paint your portrait for three napoleons, and would you pay Slapdash, R.A., fifteen thousand for a larger one? I then made the assertion, "It is not too much to say that a fashionable portrait painter often receives £900 for his name, and £100 for the value of the picture to the sitter as a portrait. It is the artist's autograph with a dash of something attached." I asked, "Why should snobbery tempt those away from an honest, well-painted portrait by a less-known man, to accept a failure with a Society signature?" a query that was replied to by my receiving any number of letters from all over the country asking me to recommend artists; in fact, at the time I might have started an agency for portrait painters. One of the artists I suggested had already had a very striking portrait of the Chinese Ambassador, Marquis Tseng, hung in the Academy, and over that painting he had had a trying experience. His sitter, like Queen Elizabeth, objected to shadows, not like the conceited Queen through vanity, but, being an Oriental, he really did not understand what the shadows were, and rushed to the glass to see if his face was dirty. He was a high official in his own country, and naturally anxious not to be mistaken for the Dirty Boy. Again he got into a frightful state at the glazy appearance of his skin—it was an oil painting.
"Only opium-eaters have shiny skins, and I am free from that vice. This is a libel, sir, and will disgrace me at home."
Then he had no idea of perspective, but a great idea of his own rank, and commanded my bewildered brother-artist to paint the red button on the top of his hat, the feather down theback, the orders in front, and was disappointed that his different coats and sashes, three and four deep, could not all be shown at once.
Another illustration of the difficulties of portrait painters I gave in the same lecture has since been so frequently repeated in the Press that I fear it will be stale to most of my readers—the story of the man who called upon the portrait painter and asked him to paint his father.
"But where is your father?"
"Oh, he died ten years ago."
"Then how can I paint him?" asked the artist.
"Why, I've just seen your picture of Moses, and surely if you can paint the portrait of a man who died thousands of years ago, you can more easily paint my father, who has only been dead ten years!"
Seeing the sort of man with whom he had to deal, the young artist agreed to paint the defunct gentleman, and the picture in due time was sent home. It was carefully hung on the drawing-room wall, and the newly-blossomed art patron was called in to see it. He gazed at it for some time in silence, his eyes filled with tears, and then, slowly nodding his head, he said softly and reverently, "So that is my father! Ah, how he is changed!"
But out of this lecture comes another story—the story of "The Great Six Toes Trial." I must start at the beginning of its strange, eventful history, the same way as, in my lecture, I began with the origin of portraiture.
Now the late George Augustus Sala, in his leader in theDaily Telegraphon this lecture, accused me of not giving the origin of portraiture. "Mr. Harry Furniss was bold enough to maintain that, although Greek art remained the model art of the world, portraiture had very little to do with it. Mr. Furniss should not tell this story to the prehistoric toad, for that reptile's presumably long memory might enable it to remind the graphic artist that thousands of years ago the art of portraiture was invented by a sentimental young Greek girl, the daughter of a potter of Corinth, Dibutades." In the samearticle he sneered at "a whimsical caricaturist lecturing his contemporaries," and in his references to me was about as offensive as he could be.