Forty Years Of Spy Part 11

My best subjects are those who possess the greatest possibilities of humour. I divide human nature into two cla.s.ses (as a caricaturist, I mean), those who are funny and those who are not. People say to me sometimes, "So-and-so has a big nose--suppose you make it bigger," or words to that effect. My reply is that a big nose made even bigger, need not in itself be funny. The bald man usually insists upon keeping on his hat, forgetting that his bald head contains a good deal in it, is frequently much more interesting than a well-covered cranium, and is nothing to be ashamed of.

The knowledge of human nature, of the foibles, and vanities of man that come with one's study of caricature is extraordinary, one does not come to know a man until he becomes a model for the time being and disports himself in a variety of ways according to his character, temperament, or personality.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HENRY KEMBLE. 1907.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: H. BEERBOHM TREE. 1890.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: GERALD DU MAURIER. 1907.]

WILLIAM GILLETT [Ill.u.s.tration: (_Sherlock Holmes_). 1907.]

There is the man one does not dare caricature in his presence, but contents oneself with studying and noting carefully; and the man one thinks one dare caricature and finds to one's surprise that he takes offence; and the man who comes and says, "So-and-so is splendid, you must do him. D'you know old Tommy What's-his-name? he's capital now, ain't he?" and seeing one observing him, "Now I myself, for instance, I've nothing peculiar about me. If you were to caricature me, my friends wouldn't recognize me." Then there is another type who comes to the studio and dictates as to the style of work one must adopt in a particular caricature; and yet another to whom nature has been unkind, and whom one lets down easily because one has a feeling of compa.s.sion, as I have said, for people so burdened through no fault of their own.

One no longer feels surprise when they say, roaring with laughter, "Very funny, and haven't you been hard on me!... but still it's not bad as a joke!"

Others are very amusing; they come to my studio and settle themselves down as though they were at the photographer's, then suddenly exclaim, "Oh! I forgot. The photographer tells me this is my worst side, I must turn the other towards you if you don't mind." I then thanked him for the tip, as it was the worst I preferred; on one occasion a well-known fighting Colonel who went by the nickname of "Pug" (being so like one) called at my studio to see his caricature which he had been told was very like him. He asked where it was. I said, "On the mantelpiece,"

which he had already scanned. "No! No!" he uttered; "that is not me.

No one could possibly take that for me. I was called 'Bull Dog' in my regiment" (but he was better known as "Pug") "and that thing couldn't possibly fight. You know it yourself. For heaven's sake do me full face." As there was no getting rid of him I was compelled, with a soft heart, to obey; and as I thought I saw a tear in his eye I drew him again. He was much relieved, but I wasn't. In the first caricature I had put the "Pug's" tail on to the crook of his stick which he held behind him, as it so much resembled one. After this I had to keep the profile drawing from publication. But the sensations one experiences on realizing one's profile for the first time, are certainly appalling. When I was a boy I never examined my features at all, I just accepted myself, and got used to seeing my face in the gla.s.s as I brushed my hair, and it did not strike me as being specially offensive; I wished, I must say, that nature had been more generous, but my wishes did not worry me or verge into vague longings after extreme beauty, nor did the sight of myself alarm me until one day I went to my tailor's, where the mirrors were many and large, with a clever arrangement enabling the customer to view himself _en profile_.

In the course of the interview a personal view of my coat from the side was required, and gazing into the mirror I glimpsed a sudden impression of my face from the side.

I left the shop, extremely depressed, for I came to the rapid conclusion _I looked the sort of person sideways that I should have disliked if I had known him_.

It is sad to think few men know their own profile. I once had some very unpleasant moments with a cavalry officer owing to our difference of opinion as to the contour of his legs, and the set of his trousers. He came to my studio looking rather like a musical comedy colonel (although he was a soldier to the backbone), very smart with his perfectly tailored clothes, very tight trousers, immaculate shoes and very well groomed throughout, very typical of the sort of man an actor would delight in as a model. His entrance to my studio was just as full of dash, with great clat he gave himself into my hands, saying, "Do what you like with me, I don't mind anything. Have a good old shot at me just for a joke--I'm a bit of a caricaturist myself."

After standing a little while he grew tired, and as is frequently the case, self-conscious, and began to wonder why he came, and in consequence became rather depressed. A spell of fidgeting seized him, and he expressed a desire to see the drawing, which I informed him was against the rules.

"Oh, d.a.m.n it all, let's have a look," he expostulated, and to keep him quiet I was obliged to show him my work.

"Hang it, I didn't come here to be made a pigmy of!" he shouted.

"You'd better put a bit on the legs--they're not like that!"

It was getting near lunch time, so I went on working for another five minutes or so, when presently he wanted to look again. Remonstrating, I said, "You'll spoil the drawing if you keep on interrupting."

But he insisted upon another glance to rea.s.sure himself; this time he was angry.

"I'm not coming here to have the Queen's uniform insulted!" and looking deeper into the drawing: "and my nose doesn't turn round the corner like that."

I expostulated, and presently he stood once more. After the same brief interval he bounced over again.

"I won't have the Queen's uniform ridiculed. My ears are not so large as that--you must cut a bit off them...."

At this I retired to the sofa, tired out, and determined to settle my recalcitrant soldier.

"Look here," I began, "I didn't ask you here to teach me my business.

I really can't continue under your instructions."

"Oh, very well," he said, changing his tone, "I'm sure we're both hungry, and I think you'd better come with me and have a bit of lunch at my club, and we'll settle this after."

I agreed, thinking perhaps he had been out of humour. We had an excellent lunch and parted good friends. Before leaving he said, "I have no doubt you'll see there was something in my suggestion, and I'll come again to-morrow."

I finished the drawing, without further discussion, but he did not leave my studio looking quite happy, and he carefully ascertained before getting the address of the lithographers who were going to reproduce the drawing. I heard afterwards that he lost very little time in paying them a visit and begging them to cut a considerable piece off the ears, which they informed him was impossible as they had no right of alterations, and it would be quite against their principles.

An officer in my unhappy subject's regiment said to me afterwards, that the result was greatly appreciated at Aldershot, but that they were all greatly disappointed to find that I had flattered him!

My caricatures are frequently described as "gross" by the wife who is hurt by the pencil that points a joke at her husband's peculiarities; or she says, "Why don't you do my husband as you did So-and-so!"

(referring to a decided and unsparing caricature). I have been described as unkind; or sometimes when, carried away by a fascinating subject, I have perhaps not sufficiently controlled my pencil, I have been accused of "brutality." The truth is that in working one may not intend anything personal, or for one moment imagine any one could take the result seriously; but the finished work, made with a detailed, and possibly inhuman devotion to one's own conception, strikes the beholder in a mood entirely different. Very few of those who admire a caricature realize that its satire lies, not in any personal venom, but in the artist's detached observation of life and character. In the early days of _Vanity Fair_ people viewed caricature as something entirely new, and in the light of this novelty viewed it in the right spirit; later they grew particular, and, as they frequently paid (from which I did not benefit), an entirely new type of subject came to me; it was as though a spirit of commercialism crept between me and my sitters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIFTH EARL OF PORTSMOUTH, 1876.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAJOR OSWALD AMES (OZZIE).

1896.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: EARL OF LONSDALE.

1879.]

A subject whom I strongly caricatured, pleased me by saying when introduced to him, "No man is worth _that_ (snapping his fingers) if he can't join in a laugh against himself."

I remember going to lunch with a very rich man (for the purpose of studying him), who would insist on looking at my rough notes in spite of my protestations to the effect that they were only notes, not drawings. He became highly incensed.

"I may be stoutish," he exclaimed, "but I'm not a fat, dumpish figure like that. Now wouldn't it be a good and a new idea if you were to make me different. You see my friends know me as a short, round man, it would be so funny and quite a novelty if you were to make me tall and thin. Now you think it well over--it would be quite a departure in caricature."

I intimated that I thought the idea was rather far-fetched and that it was possible that his friends would prefer him as nature had made him.

"If you want to please me, you must make me tall," he said. "I'll come to your studio and pay you a visit and perhaps buy some of your work--if you satisfy me in this respect."

I told him I was not accustomed to be bribed in that manner and wished I had not accepted his hospitality. There are people who think they can do anything by bribery. They call at one's studio, and hint that one shall paint a portrait of them and go as far as to point out how it shall be done, and what the price shall be. Others, when one has done a mere drawing of them, imagine that they have been tremendously caricatured and complain bitterly.

If it had not been a question of time and money, I would not have encouraged sitters in my studio at all. When I became pressed for time, however, it was impossible to seek my subjects, especially when, with the exception of men of definite public position, I was not always sure of finding them. One interesting point in connection with the men whom one finds only in such places as the House of Commons, is the fact that one is then at the mercy of the lighting of the building. This frequently accounts for bad portraits and unrecognizable caricatures, for lighting falsifies extraordinarily.

Of course I had innumerable sitters who were delightful in every way, and many who, if they were peculiar, were otherwise good sorts; but I am chiefly concerned at this moment with the strange stories of the exceptional cases that have astonished me from time to time. A peculiarity of some of my sitters in which I have rarely found an exception, is as to their professed ability to stand. I do not like to tire my sitters, and I usually tell them I am afraid they will find a position wearisome, which they deny, telling me at the same time that standing for hours is not in the least tedious to them. Half an hour goes by--and they start to sigh and fidget, and presently give in, and finally confess they had not expected it to be such an ordeal--and always with the air of having remarked something entirely original. I have noticed, too, the brightness of step with which my sitters enter my studio, and, after a long sitting, the revived brightness brought about by the mention of lunch.

Bradlaugh, who was a willing subject, asked me upon entering my studio rather breezily whether I wished him to stand upon "'is 'ead or 'is 'eels," so he quite appreciated the situation.

There are people who become nervous about their clothes. I have known a peer object to spats because they did not look nice in a picture.

One man who was a noted dandy grew very concerned about his trousers.

After making innumerable efforts to persuade him to stand still, I was obliged to wait while he explained about his clothes.

"My trousers are usually perfect, and without a crease," he said, bending to look at them, while he bagged out the knees and found creases in every direction. The more creases he saw the more concerned he became and looked at them in grieved surprise as though he had never seen them before.

A sitter who worried over his clothes came to me in the form of a gentleman from Islington, who wore the most extraordinary trousers, for which he continually apologized, and seemed quite oblivious of the fact that I was drawing him in profile. Every other moment he would turn full face to me with some remark ending with another apology for his trousers (which reminded me of the first Lord Lytton's, they were so wide at the foot).

"Please remember I am drawing you in profile," I would interject occasionally, as he turned his face to me, and each time he would try to remember, apologize for his nether garments, and his forgetfulness, raising his hat and bowing to me at every apology. Why he was so conscious of his clothes I do not know, unless he found their cut necessary to Islington.

_ propos_ of clothes. After being at Tattersall's one day, I went with Mr. Sterling Stuart to lunch, and afterwards we proceeded to his dressing-room to choose a suit which he was to wear when I drew his caricature. As he gave me a free hand I found one which attracted my eye immediately; it was an old tweed with a good broad, brown stripe, and I felt there was no question to which was the best for my purpose.

He appeared the next day in my studio looking the pink of perfection, and as I surveyed him I suddenly realized with dismay that his trousers did not match the incomparable coat. I drew his attention to what I imagined was an oversight.

"Well, my boy! do you think," he said, "that the man who built that coat could have lived to build the trousers too?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REV. R. J. CAMPBELL.