A DEAL of ink had run from my pen in thirteen years—thirteen books had been turned out, and thousands of odd articles, there was hardly a paper or magazine in the country to which I had not contributed something. Work had become much easier with practice, and a certain amount of success—far, far more than I ever deserved—had come my way.

During that busy time I wrote more words per week than I wrote in the whole previous nine years. I never believe in people making money they do not require, unless occasionally, and then they should pass their little gains on to some charitable cause. Still less do I believe in anyone writing anything to be printed just for the pleasure of seeing their name in print. That is taking bread out of someone’s mouth, and lowering the market standard. I never wrote a line in my life that was not paid for. Always before me lay two roads, the one grinding on to the bitter end as a writer and journalist, the second string being much the more important as it meant more pay for less risk; or the possibility that some day investments of my husband’s might turn out better and the necessity to work might cease. It did not cease—but after thirteen years I felt my feet sufficiently to bid adieu to journalistic work. A few hundreds here, and a few hundreds there carefully re-invested, three small legacies left because of the “splendid fight I had made,” or “in appreciation of her pluck and hard work,” lifted the cloud, and as the cloud rolled away I took my leave of the journalist’s yoke which had so often galled a sensitive back: the moment I could do without this source of income I left it alone, thankful, grateful for its kindly aid through years of adversity. I don’t suppose my editors missed me. They never knew me personally; incognito I entered their pages except as a name, incognito as a personality I left them.

I was ill—over-work, over-strain, over-anxiety for thirteen years bowled me over—I, who had never had “little ills,” seemed to be always having colds and coughs, sleepless nights, aching temples, tonsilitis, and other stupid little ailments; but in all reverence let me thank God that the necessity that plied the lash so unceasingly for thirteen busy years gradually relaxed.

I suppose there is no loneliness so complete as the creative brain-worker’s. He writes a book through weary months of thought and probably not one member of his own household even knows what it is about or looks at it when done. The painter is almost as bad, although a cursory glance may be given occasionally at his picture. The same with the inventor. The creator must be content to live in loneliness of soul and lack of sympathy. The knowledge that he is doing his best is his only reward. Even wealth is generally denied him.

Often in those busy years I wondered if I had been too fond of pleasure, too absorbed by amusement in those young married days, and if the necessity to work was my punishment. Every little act counts in life. Every good deed brings its reward, every silly action demands its toll.

The completion of my thirteenth year had ended my strenuous literary work. I then had more time for my friends, social purposes, calls of charity, committee work of all sorts and kinds, so although I remained as busy as ever, I was no longer a money-making machine.

It was then that I lost one of my oldest and dearest friends. I was ill myself at the time of his death (April, 1910), but from my bed I dictated, and corrected the proof on my sofa during the days of convalescence of an article for the Fortnightly Review, July, 1910.

“One of the men I should like to meet in England is William Quiller Orchardson.” So spoke the great Shakespearian writer of America, Dr. Horace Howard Furness, when I was staying with him on the Delaware River near Philadelphia (1905).

We were standing before a large engraving of the “Mariage de Convenance,” one of this famous scholar’s dearest possessions.

“The idea,” continued Dr. Furness, “the thought, the sense of design; the space, the refinement, the art of the whole thing, are, to my mind, perfect. The man who did that must be a charming man, and next time I cross the Atlantic I shall hope to see him.”

They will never meet now, but I told Orchardson the story when I came home, and he looked quite shy with simple pleasure that any picture of his was so much appreciated.

Sir William Orchardson was one of Nature’s courtiers. He was refined in manner, delicate in thought, artistic in temperament.

England has lost one of her greatest painters. Orchardson is one of the names that will be known centuries hence. He was one of the few men to see his old work increase in value. He had a style of his own. “Thin,” some called it, doubtless because of his means of work, whereby the canvas remained exposed; but the talent was not thin. It was rich in tone, and the work was strong. Probably no living artist painted with less impasto, and yet produced such effect of solidity.

He had great partiality for yellows and browns, madders and reds, and, whenever he could introduce these tones, did so. He loved the warmth of mahogany, the shade of rich wine in a glass, the subdued tones of a scarlet robe, the russet brown of an old shooting-suit, and as his own hair had a warm hue, he generally wore a shade of clothes which toned in with it. As grey mingled with his locks, he took to grey tweeds, and a very harmonious picture he made with his slouch hat to match.

In these days, when it is the fashion to belittle modern artists, and magnify a hundred-fold the value of so-called “ancient masters,” it was delightful to come across one whose power was actually acknowledged under the hammer in his own lifetime. One of Orchardson’s pictures, “Hard Hit,” painted in 1879, fetched nearly £4000 at Christie’s thirty years later for America. He had the gratification of seeing many of his canvases double and treble in value, and yet he was always well paid for his work on the easel.

He saw his “Mariage de Convenance,” for which he originally received £1200, increase enormously in value, and his picture of “Napoleon on the Deck of the Bellerophon,” painted in 1880, double in value before it went to the Tate Gallery.

But the more success he achieved, the more modest he seemed to become.

Simplicity was the keynote of the man. Simplicity of character, simplicity of life, simplicity of style. There is masterful simplicity in all his work. Look at the large, majestic rooms he depicted, with one or two figures round which the interest lies. His work invariably gives one a sense of space, elegance, and refinement. It is always reserved in colour and design, with great harmony and unity of effect, possibly helped by the use of a very limited range of colour. His drawing was strong in construction, highly sensitive in line, and had an entire absence of flashiness.

His portraits were, perhaps, his greatest achievement, and were extraordinary for their virility and power of characterisation; they were hailed with enthusiasm by the artists both here and on the Continent. He did not do a great number. Indeed, he was by no means a prolific painter—from three to five canvases were the most he accomplished in a single year.

He elaborated his still-life as much as the old Dutch painters, but the whole scheme of colour and design and his eighteenth-century costumes were simple.

As with his work, so with the man. He was moderate in all things. Gentle, refined, sensitive, thorough, and painstaking, always striving for better things. Never really satisfied with his work, never really satisfied with himself. A deeply religious man, he never mentioned religion, but somehow one felt he had profound convictions on this subject. His moral standards were high, his sense of justice was profound.

Two antagonistic qualities were ever fighting in the painter. The gentleness of the man, the determination of the character.

Orchardson had been a veritable hero for years. He had really been an invalid since the final years of the last century, sometimes desperately ill. Often he could only do an hour’s work a day, and during that time Lady Orchardson always read aloud to him. It soothed and amused him at the same time, and volumes of memoirs and travels were his delight. His wife was always beside him, and her encouragement and criticism were of great value to his work. They were a devoted couple.

Even neuritis did not stop his work. The triumph of mind over matter! There were days during those ten or twelve years when he looked as if a puff of wind would blow him away. Yet the work lost none of its brilliancy. Orchardson painted as well at seventy-five as he did forty years before. Of how many men can that be said?

Pluck is a wonderful quality. How few of the people, who admired Orchardson’s marvellous picture of Lord Peel, realised the agonies the artist endured during the time he was painting that and his following canvases. It was about 1897 that he first began to fail. Some put it down to heart trouble, others to an affection of the nerves, but whatever it was he was told that nothing could be done, nothing, at least, which could really cure the malady. With the most splendid fortitude and pluck Orchardson realised the situation. He was still a man of little over sixty. He was at the zenith of his glory, thousands of pounds were paid for his pictures, and orders were far more numerous than he could accomplish; he had a large family beside him, and for years he painted on with this agonising pain, making light of the matter.

How ill he looked one day when I called. He appeared so much thinner than even a month or two previously, and there seemed a depression about the merry laugh and twinkling eyes. He wore his left arm in a black silk sling, and the hands, always thin, seemed to show more blue veins, and look more delicate and nervous than usual. His hands were even more characteristic than his face. He was painting, and beside him his palette was fixed on a music stand.

“A very awkward arrangement,” he laughingly said; “but the best I can do, for I can no longer hold the palette at all.”

“But the stand is just the exact height, and looks all right,” I said.

“Ah, my dear friend,” he replied, “a subtle difference in colour is very slight, but when you are standing back from your canvas and decide that a particular shade is wanted on a particular point of a particular nose, if you have the palette on your hand you can mix it at once, while if you have to walk back six or eight feet to the palette to prepare the paint to complete this little alteration, you may just get sufficiently off the shade to entirely alter the idea. I weigh every tone. I am not an impressionist.”

Seeing Orchardson working under such circumstances struck me as one of the most sad and pitiful things I had ever known. Here was he, one of the greatest painters of the day, still in the prime of life, working against the most horrible odds, and yet sticking to it in a manner everyone must admire and few realise, for he always tried to make light of the situation. He painted his picture of Sir Peter Russell under these circumstances, also the portrait of Miss Fairfax Rhodes. Among his best-known portraits are those of Mrs. Pattison, Sir David Stewart, and Sir Walter Gilbey.

Orchardson’s famous picture of four royal generations (called “Windsor Castle, 1897”) was finished in April, 1900, for that year’s Academy. I went one afternoon a week before to have a look at it. The painter and his wife were having tea in the splendid dining-room at Portland Place, and he was thoroughly enjoying his buttered toast after a hard day.

“I like sitting at a table for my tea,” he said, “especially since my arm became troublesome, for even now I really cannot balance a cup. Congratulate me, however, for I have discarded my sling to-day after two years.”

The man who could not hold a cup could paint a picture.

The canvas was enormous—simple and striking. The quiet dignity of Queen Victoria on the left, and the happy little family group of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York (our present King), and baby Prince, was charming.

“A difficult subject,” sighed Orchardson. “It took me months to make up my mind how to tackle it at all. Two black frock-coats and a lady in black seemed impossible, till I insisted on having the child and his white frock to introduce the human interest. For days and days I wandered about Windsor to find a suitable room to paint the group in, and nothing took my fancy till I came to this long corridor. This is a corner just as it stands. The dark cabinet throws out the Queen’s head. The carpet gives warmth. The settee is good colour.”

“How very like that chair, on which the Prince has his hand, is to one of your old Empire chairs,” I exclaimed. The great painter laughed.

“It is mine. I lent it, you see. They have nothing quite so suitable as mine there, so I just painted in one of my own.”

It was only five days before the picture was to go to Burlington House. The Prince of Wales’s—alas, the only portrait he painted of Edward VII—was unfinished; one of the three busts was not even touched, besides many other minor details.

“Will you ever be ready?”

“Oh dear, yes! I once painted half my Academy picture in the last week. I take a long while thinking and planning, but only a short time actually painting. I shall be ready all right. At any time I rarely paint more than four hours a day, often only two; so you see I can accomplish a fair amount with an eight-hours day.”

In 1887 the Orchardsons moved from Victoria to Portland Place. The new house offered all the room required for his large family, but there was no studio. Nothing daunted, the artist designed a studio, and made one of the finest ateliers in London, where stables and loose-boxes once stood. He was not the first, for Turner, the great landscape painter, who lived in Queen Anne Street, close by, had his studio in the stables which later adjoined my father’s house in Harley Street. It was in that stable-studio Turner painted some of his finest pictures, and it was in a stable-studio almost a hundred years later that Orchardson painted his most famous canvases.

Rich tapestries hung upon the walls. Old chairs of the Directoire and Empire periods stood about on parquet floors, on which was reflected the red glow from a huge, blazing fire.

The upstairs rooms, with their pillars and conservatory, formed the background of such pictures as “Her Mother’s Voice,” “Reflections,” “Music, when Soft Voices Die, Vibrates in the Memory,” and “A Tender Chord,” and bits of the studio often served as backgrounds, just as his Adams satin-wood chairs, his clocks and candelabra, glass and old Sheffield plate, stood as models.

Orchardson was a man of wide interests. He was always liberal in his outlook. Anything new, no matter by whom, or what form it took, interested him, and he was particularly good to young men. For instance, the son of Professor Lorimer, of Edinburgh, sent a portrait of his father to the Academy. No one had then heard of young Lorimer, but the picture was accepted and hung on the line. Two or three years after, when the artist was in London, he was introduced to Orchardson, who at once exclaimed:

“‘J. H. Lorimer’! Ah, yes! I remember. I hung a picture of yours on the line at the Academy a few years ago, because it showed promise.” And thus began a delightful friendship. That was his way. Whenever he could do a young artist a good turn, he did so; whenever he could say a word of encouragement, he was always willing; endless were the visits he paid to the studios of youthful aspirants, and many the kindly words of advice and encouragement he left behind.

He thought it one of the crying shames of the day that more was not done for living painters and sculptors. He considered our public buildings and open spaces should be adorned by sculpture, that our public libraries and edifices should be decorated by paintings.

“There is just as good talent as ever there was,” he would say, “if these millionaires would only encourage it, and not pay vast sums for spurious old masters. You have only to call a thing old, and it will be bought, but call the same thing new, and no one will even look at it.”

Speaking to him once about a fellow-artist’s death, I said what a pity it was a man should live to over-paint himself, just as men lived to over-write themselves—paint until their eye has lost all idea of form and colour.

He did not agree to this. “Once a painter, always a painter,” he declared. “Our individual taste improves, our life becomes more educated, until we look upon work as bad which, years before, we thought good. In fact,” he maintained, “if the early pictures of an artist were put with his later work, you would probably find he had not deteriorated at all.” He gave as an illustration the works in the Manchester Exhibition—where one man had, perhaps, twenty pictures, painted in different years, hung side by side; and these, he maintained, one and all reached a certain standard, and did not deteriorate or improve very much with years.

Once asked to paint a picture containing several portraits, he agreed, although the subjects were not handsome—ugly, in fact.

“What a trial that must be to you?”

“Oh dear, no! I far prefer an ugly face to a beautiful one. It is generally so much more interesting.”

“Then you choose their dresses and surroundings, presumably?”

“No; I do not. I like to paint them as they are, and in their own home. Dressing them up and giving them strange surroundings takes away their identity, and makes a picture, but not a portrait. Men paint with their brain, and if they haven’t got brains, no amount of teaching will make them artists. They must feel what they do with the mind. Colour is in the artist himself, but he must learn for years and years, not to paint, but to draw. Drawing can only be acquired, and is difficult at first. No man can hope to be an artist until drawing is no longer a difficulty. Then, but not till then, he may start to paint. Look how beautifully Frenchmen draw. Art is poorly paid and a disheartening affair. When I see and hear of the thousands of ‘artists’ barely earning a living to keep body and soul together, it makes me positively sick.”

One day a friend brought a beautiful bunch of roses to Portland Place. Mrs. Orchardson was so delighted with them, she took them into the studio to show her husband.

“Can’t you paint them?” she enquired.

“Well, they are lovely,” he replied. And after thinking a moment, he went and fetched a large canvas, on which he had drawn roughly his scheme for the now famous picture of “The Young Duke.” Many feet of white canvas and charcoal lines were there. The rest of the scheme and the colour was only in the artist’s head. He fetched a bowl, placed the roses in it, and there and then painted the flowers upon the great white canvas. So began the picture, round the bowl of roses.

Flowers and the country were always attractive to Orchardson, and in 1897 he bought a house near Farningham. Once settled, they were invited to a large county dinner-party to be introduced to their neighbours. Just before it was time to dress for dinner, it was discovered that Orchardson had not brought his dress-clothes from London. Should they send a message that they could not go? No; they decided that would be ridiculous. Had he a frock-coat? No; he had not even that in the country, and a blue serge suit was all that could be produced. Accordingly, the artist appeared at the formal county dinner arranged in his special honour more like an English yachtsman than a dinner-party guest; and, to add to their misery—it had taken so long to hunt for the clothes, and it took much longer to drive than they had anticipated—the guests had already sat down when they were ushered into the dining-room.

For many years before this, the Orchardsons lived off and on at Westgate. It was there he built the tennis-court—real tennis, not lawn tennis—that from first to last cost about £3000, and was finally pulled down and sold as old bricks and mortar. That game was his recreation and his amusement, and round him the painter collected tennis players from all over the world. He called it the “king of games,” just as he called fly-fishing the “king of sports.”

Another hobby was old furniture. One of his most prized treasures was an old piano. A Vienna Flügel of the seventeenth century, containing peals, drums, and bells. It was shaped like an ordinary grand, with rounded side-pieces of beautiful rich-coloured mahogany, and in tone resembled a spinet. This he gave a year or two before his death with a tall harp piano, to the South Kensington Museum. One day, walking down Oxford Street, he had seen the end of this Flügel piano sticking out of some straw outside an auctioneer’s. The wood and form struck him, and he pulled aside the straw to examine it more closely. He had the legs brought out to him, and found they were figures supporting worlds, on which the piano rested. Charmed and delighted at the whole design, he offered to bid for it—and as only two very old musicians, who remembered the piano in their youth, bid against him, it was knocked down to him. Afterwards he found the only other similar one in England was owned by the Queen, and stood at Windsor.

Funnily enough, he who had himself painted so many portraits, disliked nothing in the world so much as sitting himself.

“I am a fidget,” he said, “and it worries me to keep still. When Charlie [his son] asked me to sit to him in the autumn of ’98, I said, ‘My dear boy, I would rather do anything else in the world for you.’ However, his mother persuaded me that it would be to Charlie’s advantage, and therefore, like a weak man—for man is always weak in the hands of woman—I gave in. The boy painted it very cleverly, and people tell me it is a good portrait. Not that I know much about that, for no one knows what he really looks like.”

Orchardson was just twenty-nine when sitting in his little studio in Edinburgh he read long accounts of the great Exhibition of 1862. “By Jove, I’ll go and have a look at it,” he exclaimed. No sooner said than done. With a small hand-bag he came to London. The die was cast. He never returned to Edinburgh to live.

Those early days in this great city were days of work and struggle for John Pettie, Peter Graham, John MacWhirter, and William Quiller Orchardson, who all came together, and lived together in Pimlico, and then in Fitzroy Square. They all worked in black and white to keep the pot boiling, and right merry they were in those long-ago days. All attained success. Orchardson’s first stroke of luck came three years after his arrival in London, when he won a £100 prize for “The Challenge,” and for the next forty-five years he continued to work steadily, and climbed the ladder of fame rung by rung.

My last personal recollection of Sir William was when I was sitting to Herbert Hampton, the sculptor. One day we were talking about Orchardson, and Mr. Hampton was eulogistic in speaking of his work, and regretted Sir William had never been to his studio.

“I will ask him to come.” Below is his reply, written on March 12th, 1910, exactly a month before his death.

It was his habit to go out daily for fresh air, and, when able for it, for exercise, so I suggested fetching him in a taxi the next time I was to sit. To this he replied a few days later:

The writing was very shaky, as it had been for some years. For years he could paint firmly and yet only write badly. This was probably due to his extraordinary power of concentration. Even ten days before his death he was struggling daily to the studio, too weak to stand before his canvas, callous to all outside matters, so determined to finish his pictures that he could concentrate his mind on his work and make great strides in a quarter of an hour. Then he would fall back exhausted. Here was a case of indomitable pluck, and such determination and concentration that he almost died with his brush in his hand.

Orchardson was a delightful raconteur, and although I knew him intimately for twenty years, I never heard him say an unkind word of anyone, and often admired his refinement of thought and delightful belief in everyone and in everything beautiful. He was by nature a serious, thoughtful man, although a certain air of gaiety overspread his speech, and a merry twinkle often sparkled in his eye. He told stories dramatically, quickly turning from grave to gay. Although casual in manner, unconventional in ideas, and remiss in answering letters, he never seemed to give offence to anyone. That same slack, casual way of acting on impulse that brought young Orchardson to London in 1862, remained through life. He never could make plans; seldom knew from week to week where he would be. He was, in fact, irresponsible by nature, but so sweet in character that the gods smiled on him and oblivion of time was excused, just as forgetfulness of appointments was exonerated. That was the man; but when work was foremost, all was changed.

Orchardson was a great painter and a kindly man. The world is the poorer for his death. Such men can ill be spared.

When my article appeared it was pleasant to hear from the wife of the painter:

Or again from his old friend Mr. John MacWhirter, R.A., who followed him so quickly to the grave:

These few kindly words were a great reward for a very little work. Poor MacWhirter himself died a few months later.

Some years ago the Society of Women Journalists did me the honour of appointing me one of its Vice-Presidents, an unmerited honour, for I was a bad journalist in the sense of ordinary journalism. I have never written about fashions or Society functions, and did little of the ordinary journalistic hack-work, such as reporting, though I wrote yards of “copy” of all sorts and kinds.

One day the idea came to me that it would be nice to invite my fellow-journalists to tea before finally ringing down the curtain on my journalistic life, and as a tea-party composed entirely of themselves would be rather too much of a family affair, I decided to ask some of my own friends as well. The card indicated on the next page was accordingly sent out.

There are three hundred members of the Society of Women Journalists, not all of course living in London, so we reckoned that one hundred might turn up during the afternoon. As it happened, the total number of people who crossed my doorstep between 3.45 and 7.15 (for they came before the appointed time and stayed after the allotted hour) was four hundred—one hundred and sixty-four of whom were men!

Luckily, some days beforehand I had sorted out the glass and china, been to the plate-chest, seen to the table-linen, ordered the hat-stands and urns, and made everything in readiness, for on Monday night before this memorable Wednesday I was taken ill.

Internal chills are like influenza, they sound so little and may mean so much. Tuesday found me worse, and when the doctor came late in the day, my suffering was so intense that he insisted upon an injection of morphia. I was too dull with pain, too stupefied from the drug to so much as even think about putting off that party. It seemed to me an absolutely impossible task. I had not tacked those tiresome letters “R.S.V.P.” on the cards of invitation, and therefore had not the slightest idea how many people would come, so as everything had been arranged, it seemed best to let things take their course, and chance my being up, clothed, and in my right mind.

The Fates decided otherwise. By Tuesday night I was worse. The nurse shook her head, still the doctor saw the impossibility of stopping the party, and wisely begged me not to trouble myself about it.

I knew my sister, Mrs. W. F. Goodbody, would be quite equal to the task of receiving in my absence. Besides, I sent messages to one or two intimate friends to come early and hand tea and coffee, and smile and talk; in fact, turn themselves into public entertainers for the afternoon. Everyone behaved splendidly. With so much brilliant talent to amuse them, they could hardly be dull. Even to my bed there rose the shouts of laughter and sounds of enthusiastic applause after the recitations and music.

The nurse stood over me like a dragon, refusing to let anyone cross the threshold of the sick-room; as a kindly angel she trotted backwards and forwards, telling me some of the names she heard announced. An Ambassador, and several Ministers, Royal Academicians, inventors, authors, Admirals, Generals, actors, and scientists, all came in turn.

I shall never really know who all my guests were at that party, for only in a haphazard way have I heard who came and who did not. But it proved that Hamlet without the Dane, or a wedding without the bride, might almost be possible when a party without a hostess can be a “great success.” Such is the comedy and tragedy of life. My guests were told I was suffering from a “little chill,” and, though kindly or politely regretful, they little guessed that their enjoyment was counterbalanced by my agony.

Many days passed before I was up again, and then I only crawled to Woodhall Spa. Crawled is a fairly correct expression, for the first time I was able to leave my room was to go to the train, and then a porter trundled me along the platform at King’s Cross in a Bath chair. So lying on my back all the journey, I arrived there a human wreck; but, thanks to Dr. Calthrop, and the efficacy of the waters, the patient found herself on her feet a few weeks later.

All praise to Woodhall Spa.

A day or two after my arrival even that quiet, sleepy little village was raised to the tiptoe of anxiety when a rumour came that King Edward VII. was dangerously ill. On that Friday night—May 6th, 1910—we tried to telephone to London for the latest bulletin, but no message could be got through; and it was not till the early hours of Saturday morning that the dreaded news which had already spanned the world in a flash, reached the restful retreat of Woodhall Spa, by means of the mail cart.

The King was dead.

A strong contrast was the little English village, where I learnt the sad tidings, to that wonderfully dramatic scene in the recesses of a Mexican cave, in which news of the death of Queen Victoria was announced to me.

All of us in the hotel were wearing coloured clothes, and all with one accord telegraphed home, or to the London shops or dressmakers, for black things to be sent; and rich ladies sallied forth and bought pots of paint to blacken their hats, or bits of ribbon of funereal hue.

And those wonderful days following the death of King Edward VII. showed forth not only spontaneous world-wide reverence for the Great Peacemaker, and homage to his dignity and prestige as a monarch; they bore witness to the sorrow of individuals numbered by multitudes and nations—the sob of a grief-stricken Empire that had lost and was mourning a valued friend.