An Autobiography

“October 27th.– After the morning’s doings in sunshine the day became sad, and from Foligno, where we had a long wait, the story is but of rain and dusk and night. We became more and more apathetic and bored, though we were roused up at the frontier station, where I saw the Papal gendarmes and gave the alarm. Mamma went on her knees in the carriage and cried, ‘Viva Il Papa Rè!’ We all joined in, drinking his health in some very flat ‘red grignolino’ we had with us. I became more and more excited as we neared the centre of the earth, the capital of Christendom, the highest city in the world. In the rainy darkness we ran into the Roman station, which might have been that of Brighton for aught we could see. I strained my eyes right and left for Papal uniforms, and was rewarded by Zouaves and others, and lots of French (of the Legion) into the bargain.

Then a long wait, in the ’bus of the Anglo-American Hotel, for our luggage; and at last we rattled over the pavement, which, with its cobble stones, was a great contrast to the large flat flags of Florence, along very dark and gloomy streets. An apartment all crimson damask was ready prepared for us, which looked cheery and revived us.

“October 28th, 56, Via del Babuino.– The day began rather dismally – looking for apartments in the rain! The coming of the Œcumenical Council has greatly inflated the prices; Rome is crammed. At last we took this attractive one for six months, ‘esposto a mezzogiorno.’ Facing due south, fortunately.

“The sun came out then, and all things were bright and joyous as we rattled off in a little victoria to feast our eyes (we two for the first time) on St. Peter’s. Papa, knowing Rome already, knew what to do and how best to give us our first impressions. An epoch in my life, never to be forgotten, a moment in my existence too solemn and beyond my power of writing to allow of my describing it! I have seen St. Peter’s. No, indeed, no descriptions have ever given me an adequate idea of what I have just seen. The sensation of seeing the real thing one has gazed at in pictures and photographs with longing is one of peculiar delight.

“To find myself really on the Ponte Sant’ Angelo! No dream this. There is the huge castle and the angel with outstretched wings, and there is St. Peter’s in very truth. The sight of it made the tears rise and my throat tighten, so greatly was I overcome by that soul-moving sight. The dome is perfect; the whole, with its great piazza and colonnade, is perfect; I am utterly overpowered and, as to writing, it is too inadequate, and I do so merely because I must do my duty by this journal.

“What a state I was in, though exteriorly so quiet. And all around us other beauties – the yellow Tiber, the old houses, the great fortress-tomb – oh, Mimi, the artist, is not all the enthusiasm in you at full power? We got out of the carriage at the bottom of the piazza and walked up to the basilica on foot. The two familiar fountains – so familiar, yet seen for the first time in reality – were sending up their spray in such magnificent abundance, which the wind took and sent in cascade-like forms far out over the reflecting pavement. The interior of St. Peter’s, which impresses different people in such various ways, was a radiant revelation to me. We had but a preliminary taste to-day. We drove thence to the Piazza del Popolo, and then had an entrancing walk on Monte Pincio. We came down by the French Academy, with its row of clipped ilexes, under which you see one of the most exquisite views of silvery Rome, St. Peter’s in the middle. We dipped down by the steps of the Trinità, where the models congregate, flecking the wide grey steps with all the colours of the rainbow.

“October 29th.– Papa would not let us linger in the Colosseum too long, for to-day he wanted us to have only a general idea of things. Those bits of distance seen through triumphal arches, between old pillars, through gaps in ancient walls, how they please! As we were climbing the Palatine hill a Black Franciscan came up to us for alms, and in return offered us his snuff-box, out of which Alice and I took a pinch, and we went sneezing over the ruins. On to the Capitol, and down thence homeward through streets full of priests, monks and soldiers. All the afternoon given to being tossed about, with poor Papa, by the Dogana from the railway station to the custom-house in the Baths of Diocletian, and from there to the artist commissioned by the Government to examine incoming works of art. They would not let me have my box of studies, calling them ‘modern pictures’ on which we must pay duty.”

Rome under the Temporal Power was so unlike Rome, capital of Italy, as we see it to-day, that I think it just as well to draw largely from the Diary, which is crammed with descriptions of men and things belonging to the old order which can never be seen again. I love to recall it all. We were in Rome just in time. We left it in May and the Italians entered it in September. Though I was not a Catholic then, and found delight in Rome almost entirely as an artist, the power and vitality of the Church could not but impress me there.

“October 30th.– This has been one of the most perfectly enjoyable days of my life. Papa and I drove to the Vatican through that bright light air which gives one such energy. The Vatican! What a place wherein to revel. We climbed one of the mighty staircases guarded by the interesting Papal Guards, halberd on shoulder, until we got to the top loggia and went into the picture gallery, I to enchant my eyes with the grandest pictures that men have conceived. But I will not touch on them till I go there to study. And so on from one glory to another. We turned into St. Peter’s and there strolled a long time. Before we went in, and as we were standing at the bottom of the Scala Regia enjoying the clearness of the sunshine on the city, we saw the gendarmes, the Zouaves and others standing at attention, and, looking back, we saw the red, black, and yellow Swiss running with operatic effect to seize their halberds, and Cardinal Antonelli came down to get into his carriage, almost stumbling over me, who didn’t know he was so near. Before he got into his great old-fashioned coach, harnessed to those heavy black horses with the trailing scarlet traces, a picturesque incident occurred. A girl-faced young priest tremulously accosted the Cardinal, hat in hand, no doubt begging some favour of the great man. The Cardinal spoke a little time to him with grand kindness, and then the priest fell on one knee, kissed the Cardinal’s ring, and got up blushing pink all over his beautiful young face, and passed on, gracefully and modestly, as he had done the rest. Then off rattled the carriage, the Zouaves presented arms, salutes were made, hats lifted, and Antonelli was gone.

“In St. Peter’s were crowds of priests in different colours, forming masses of black, purple, and scarlet of great beauty. Two Oriental bishops were making the round, one, a Dominican, having with him a sort of Malay for a chaplain in turban and robe. Two others had Chinamen with pigtails in attendance, these two emaciated prelates bearing signs of recent torture endured in China, living martyrs out of Florentine frescoes. Yonder comes a bearded Oriental with mild, beautiful face, and following him a scarlet-clad German with yellow hair, projecting ears, coarse mouth, and spectacles over his little eyes; and then a sharp-visaged Jesuit, or a spiritual, wan Franciscan and a burly Roman secular. No end of types. One very young Italian monk had the face of a saint, all ready made for a fresco. I looked at him in unspeakable admiration as he stood looking up at some inscription, probably translating it in his own mind. On our way home, to crown all, we met the Pope. His outrider in cocked hat and feathers came clattering along the narrow street in advance, then a red-and-gold coach, black prancing horses – all shadowy to me, as I was intent only on catching a view of the Holy Father. We got out of the carriage, as in duty bound, and bent the knee like the rest as he passed by. I saw his profile well, with that well-known smile on his kind face. As we looked after the carriages and horsemen the effect was touching of the people kneeling in masses along the way. The sight of Italian men kneeling is novel to me in the extreme.

“October 31st.– I went first, with Mamma and Alice, to St. Peter’s, where I studied types, attitudes and costumes. The sight of a Zouave officer kneeling, booted and spurred, his sword by his side, and his face shaded with his hand, is indeed striking, and one knows all those have enrolled themselves for a sacred cause they have at heart – higher even than for love of any particular country. The difference of types among these Zouaves is most interesting. The Belgian and Dutch decidedly predominate. Papa and I went thence for a fascinating stroll of many hours, finding it hard to turn back. We went up to Sant’ Onofrio and then round by the great Farnese Palace. The view from Sant’ Onofrio over Rome is – well, my language is utterly annihilated here. How invigorated I felt, and not a bit tired.”

I have never been able to call up enthusiasm over the Pantheon, low-lying, black and pagan in every line. Why does Byron lash himself into calling it “Pride of Rome”? For the same reason, I suppose, that he laments and sighs over the disappearance of Dodona’s “aged grove and oracle divine.” As if any one cares! The view of Rome from Monte Mario, being the view, should have a place here as we saw it one of those richly-coloured days.

“November 3rd.– My birthday, marked by the customary birthday expedition, this time to Monte Mario. Nothing could be more splendid than looked the Capital of the World as it lay below us when we reached the top of that commanding height. The Campagna lay beyond it, ending in that direction with the Sabine and Alban Mountains, the furthest all white with snow. Buildings, cypresses, pines, formed foreground groups to the silver city as they only can do to such perfection in these parts. In another direction we could see the Campagna with its straight horizon like a calm rosy-brown sea meeting the limpid sky. We drove a long way on the high road across the Campagna Florence-wards. No high walls as in the Florentine drives were here to shut out the views, which unfolded themselves on all sides as we trotted on. We got out of the carriage on the Campagna and strolled about on the brown grass, enjoying the sweet free breeze and the great sweep of country stretching away to the luminous horizon towards the sun, and to the lilac mountains in the other direction. These mountains became tender pink as we went Romewards, and when the city again appeared it was in a richly-coloured light, the Campagna beyond in warm shadow from large chocolate-coloured clouds which were rising heaped up into the sky. A superb effect.”

Here follow many days chiefly given up to studio hunting and “property” seeking for my work, soon to be set up. Models there were in plenty, of course, as Rome was then still the artists’ headquarters. How things have changed!

I began with a ciociara spinning with a distaff in the well-known and very much used-up costume, just for practice, and another peasant girl. Then I painted, at my dear mother’s earnest desire, “The Magnificat” – Mary’s visit to Elizabeth – and on off days my father and I “did” all the pictures contained in various palaces, the Vatican, and the Villa Borghese, filling pages and pages of notes in the old Diary. I felt the value of every day in Rome. Many people might think I ought not to have worked so much in a studio, but I think I divided the time well. I felt I must keep my hand in, and practise with the brush, though how often I was tempted to join the others on some fascinating ramble may be imagined. Soon, however, the rains of a Roman December set in, and Rome became very wet indeed. Our father read us Roman history every evening when there were no visitors. We had a good many, our mother and her music and brightness soon attracting all that was nice in the English and American colonies. Dear old Mr. Severn, he in whose arms Keats died, often took tea with us (we kept our way of having dinner early and tea in the evening), and there was an antiquarian who took interest in nothing whatever except the old Roman walls, and he used to come and hold forth about the “Agger of Servius Tullius” till my head went round. He kept his own on, it seemed to me, by pressing his hand on the bald top of it as he explained to us about that bit of “agger” which he had discovered, and the herring-bone brick of which it was built. Often as I have revisited Rome, I cannot become enthusiastic over the discovery of some old Roman sewer, or bit of hot-water pipe, or horrible stone basin with a hole in the bottom for draining off the blood of sacrificial oxen. I always long to get back into the sunshine and fresh air from the mouldy depths of Pagan Rome when I get caught in a party to whom the antiquarian enthusiasts like to hold forth below the surface of the earth. Alice listens, deferential and controlled, while I fidget, supporting myself on my umbrella, with such a face! Here is a little bit of Papal Rome impossible to-day:

“November 29th.– In the course of our long ramble after my work Papa and I, in the soft evening, came upon a scene which I shall not forget, made by a young priest preaching to a little crowd in the street before the side door of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a Rembrandtesque effect being produced by the two lamps held by a priest at either side of the platform on which the preacher stood. One of these held the large crucifix to which the preacher turned at times, with gestures of rapture such as only an Italian could use in so natural a way. To see him, lighted from below, in his black habit and hear his impassioned voice! All the men were bareheaded, and such as passed by took their hats off. Penetrating as the priest’s voice was, it was now and then quite drowned by the street noises, especially the rattling of wheels on the rough stones.”

The days that follow are filled with my work on “The Visitation,” with few intervals of sight-seeing. Then comes the great ecclesiastical event to be marked in history, which brought all the world to Rome.

“Opening of the Œcumenical Council, December 8th.– A memorable day, this! We got up by candlelight, as at a quarter past seven we were to drive to St. Peter’s. The dreary raining dawn was announced, just as it broke, by the heavy cannon of Castel Sant’ Angelo, the flash of which was reflected in the blue-grey sky long before the sound reached us, and the cannon on the Aventine echoed those of the Castel. How dreary it felt, yet how imposing for any one who has got into the right feeling about this solemn event. On our way we overtook scores of priests on foot, trying to walk clear of the puddles in those thin, buckled shoes of theirs. It must have been trying for the old ones. There were bishops amongst them, too poor to afford a cab. We have seen them day after day thus going to the Vatican meetings. One great blessing the rain brought: it kept hundreds of people from coming to the church, and thus saved many crushings to death, for it is terrible to contemplate, seeing what a crowd there actually was, what it might have been had the building been crammed. Entrance and egress were both at one end of the church. That thought must console me for the terrible toning down and darkening of what, otherwise, would have been a great pageant. So many thousands of wet feet brought something like a lake half way up the floor; so slippery was it that, had the crowd swayed in a panic, it wouldn’t have been very nice.

“Papa and I insinuated ourselves into the hedge of people kept back by Zouaves and Palatine Guards, as we came opposite the statue of St. Peter, and I eventually got fixed three rows back from the soldiers, and was lucky to get in so far. I was jammed between a monk and a short youth of the ‘horsey’ kind. The atmosphere in that warm, wet crowd was trying. I could see into the Council Hall opposite.

“The passage kept clear for the great procession was very wide. On the other side I could see rows of English and American girls and elderly females in the best places, as usual, right to the front, as bold as brass, and didn’t they eye the bishops over through their pince-nez! We must have been waiting two hours before the procession entered the church. I ought to have mentioned that the sacred dark bronze statue of St. Peter was robed in gorgeous golden vestments with a splendid triple crown on its head, making it look like a black Pope, and very life-like from where I saw it. It seemed very strange.

“At last there was a buzz as people perceived the slowly-moving silhouette of the procession as it passed along in a far-off gallery, veiled from us by pink curtains, against the light and very high up, over the entrance. We could see the prelates had all vested by the outlines of the mitres and the high-shouldered look of the figures in stiff copes. As the procession entered the church the ‘Veni Creator’ swelled up majestically and floated through the immense space. The effect of the procession to me was nil; all I could do was to catch a glimpse of each bishop as he passed between the bobbing heads of the men in front of me. All the European and United States Bishops were in white and silver, but now and then there passed Oriental Patriarchs in rich vestments, their picturesque dark faces (two were quite brown) telling so strikingly amongst the pale or rosy Europeans. Each had his solemn secretary, with imperturbable Eastern face, bearing his jewelled crown, something in shape like the dome of a mosque. One Oriental wore a jewel on his dusky forehead, another a black cowl over his head, shading his keen, dark face, the coarse cowl contrasting in a startling way with the delicate splendour of the gold and pink and amber vestments worn over the rough monk’s habit. Still, all this could not be imposing to me, having to squint and crane as I did, seldom being able to see with both eyes at once. I could at intervals see the silvery prelates, most of them with snowy heads, and the dark Easterns mount into their seats in the Council Chamber, our Archbishop Manning amongst them. I had a quite good glimpse of Cardinal Bonaparte, very like the great Napoleon. Of the Pope I saw nothing. He was closely surrounded, as he walked past, by the high-helmeted Noble Guard, and, of course, at that supreme moment every one in front of me strove to get a better sight of him. Then Papa and I gladly struggled our way out of the great crowd and went to seek Mamma, who, very wisely, had not attempted to get a place, but was meekly sitting on the steps of a confessional in a quiet chapel. Mamma then went home, and we went into the crowd again to try and see the Council from a point opposite. We saw it pretty well, the two white banks of mitred bishops on each side and, far back, the little red Pope in the middle. Mass was being sung, all Gregorian, but it was faintly heard from our great distance.

“No council business was being done to-day; it was only the Mass to open the meeting. The crowd was most interesting. Surely every nation was represented in it. An officer of the 42nd Highlanders had an excellent effect. What shall I do in London, with its dead level of monotony? Oh! dear, oh! dear. I was quite loth to go home. And so the council is opened. God speed!”

The Ghetto was in existence in those days, so I have even experienced the sight of that. Very horrible, packed with “red-haired, blear-eyed creatures, with loose lips and long, baggy noses.” Thus I describe them in this warren, during our drive one day. What a “sventramento” that must have been when the Italians cleared away and cleaned up all that congested horror. Wide, wind-swept spaces and a shining, though hideous, synagogue met my astonished gaze when next I went there and couldn’t find the Ghetto.

At the end of the year La Signorina Elizabetta Thompson had to apply to his Eminenza Riverendissima Cardinal Berardi, Minister of Public Works, to announce her intention of sending the “Magnificat” to the Pope’s international exhibition. At that picture I worked hard, my mother being my model for Our Lady, and an old ciociara from the Trinità steps for St. Elizabeth. How it rained that December! But we had radiant sunshine in between the days when the streets were all running with red-brown rivulets, through which the horses splashed as if fording a stream.

“January 25th, 1870.– I finished my ‘Magnificat’ to-day. Yet ought I to say I ceased to paint at it, for ‘finish’ suggests something far beyond what this picture is. Well, I shall enjoy being on the loose now. To stroll about Rome after having passed through a picture is perfect enjoyment. I should feel very uncomfortable at the present time if I had, up till now, done nothing but lionise. I have no hope of my picture being accepted now, but still it is pleasant to think that I have worked hard.

“February 3rd.– I took my picture to the Calcografia place, as warned to do. There, in dusty horror, it awaits the selecting committee’s review, which takes place to-morrow. Mamma and I held it manfully in the little open carriage to keep it from tumbling out, our arms stretched to their utmost. Lots of men were shuffling about in that dusty place with pictures of all sizes. But, oh! what a scene of horror was that collection of daubs. Oh! mercy on us.

“February 5th.– My ‘Magnificat’ is accepted. First, off goes Mamma with Celestina to the Calcografia to learn the fate of the picture, and bring it back triumphant, she and the maid holding it steady in the little open carriage. Soon after, off we go to the Palazzo Poli to see nice Mr. Severn, who says he is so proud of me, and will do all he can to help me in art matters, to see whether he could make the exhibition people hang my picture well, as we were told the artists had to see to that themselves if they wanted it well done. I, for my part, would leave it to them and rather shirk a place on the line, for my picture is depressingly unsatisfactory to me, but Mamma, for whom I have painted it, loves it, and wants it well placed ‘so that the Pope may see it’! From thence off we go to the abode of the Minister of Commerce, Cardinal B., for my pass. We were there told, to our dismay, that we could not take the picture ourselves to the exhibition, as it was held in the cloisters of Sta. Maria degli Angeli, and no permission had yet been given to admit women before the opening. But I knew that between Papa and Mr. Severn the picture would be seen to inside the cloistered walls. After lunch, off goes Papa with my pass, we following in the little open carriage as before, holding the old picture before us with straining arms and knitted brows, very much jolted and bumped. We are stopped at the cloisters, and told to drive out again, and there we pull up, our faces turned in the opposite direction. The hood of the carriage suddenly collapses, and we are revealed, unable to let go the picture, with the soldiers collected about the place grinning. Papa arrives, and he and two facchini come to the rescue, and then disappear with the picture amongst the forbidden regions enclosed in the gloomy ruins of Diocletian’s Baths. Papa, on returning home, told me how charmed old Severn, who was there, was with the picture, and even Podesti, the judge, after some criticisms, and in no way ready to give it a good place, said to Severn he had expected the signorina’s picture to be rubbish (porcheria). I suppose because it was a woman’s work. He retracted, and said he would like to see me.

“February 14th.– I began another picture to-day, after all my resolutions to the contrary, the subject, two Roman shepherds playing at ‘Morra’, sitting on a fallen pillar, a third contadino, in a cloak, looking on. I posed my first model, putting a light background to him, the effect being capital, he coming rich and dusky against it. He soon understood I wanted energy thrown into the action. I shall delight in this subject, because the hands figure so conspicuously in the game.

“February 15th.– I went up alone to the Trinità to choose the other young man for my ‘Morra,’ and, after a little inspection of the group of lolling Romagnoli, gave the apple to one with a finely-cut profile and black hair, the other models, male and female, clustering round to hear, and many bystanders and the Zouave sentry, hard by, looking on.”

On one evening in this eventful Roman period I had the opportunity of seeing the famous race of the riderless horses (the barberi), which closed the Carnival doings. The impression remains with me quite vividly to this day. The colour, the movement; the fast-deepening twilight; the historic associations of that vast Piazza del Popolo, where I see the great obelisk retaining, on its upper part, the last flush from the west; the impetuous waters of the fountains at its base in cool shadow; St. Peter’s dome away to the left – this is the setting. Then I hear the clatter of the dragoon’s horses as the detachment forms up for clearing the course. The stands, at the foot of the obelisk, are full, some of the crowd in carnival costume and with masks. A sharp word of command rings out in the chilly air. Away go the dragoons, down the narrow Corso and back, at full gallop, splitting the surging crowd with theatrical effect. The line is clear. Now comes the moment of expectancy! At that unique starting post, the obelisk upon which Moses in Egypt may have looked as upon an interesting monument of antiquity in pre-Exodus days, there appear eleven highly-nervous barbs, tricked out with plumes and painted with white spots and stripes. The convicts who lead them in (each man, one may say, carrying his life in his hand) are trying, with iron grip, to keep their horses quiet, for the spiked balls and other irritants are now unfastened and dangling loose from the horses’ backs. But one terrified beast comes on “kicking against the pricks” already. The whole pack become wild. The more they plunge, the more the balls bang and prick. One furious creature, wrenching itself free, whirls round in the wrong direction. But there is no time to lose; the restraining rope must be cut. A gun booms; there is a shout and clapping of hands. Ten of the horses, with heads down, get off in a bunch, shooting straight as arrows for the Corso; the eleventh slips on the cobbles, rolls over and, recovering itself, tears after its pals, straining every nerve. I hear a voice shout “E capace di vincere!” (“He is fit to win!”) and in an instant the lot are engulfed in that dark, narrow street, the squibs on their backs going off like pistol shots, and the crackling bits of metallic tinsel, getting detached, fly back in a shower of light. The sparks from the iron heels splash out in red fire through the dusk. The course is just one mile – the whole length of the straight street. At the winning post a great sheet is stretched across the way, through which some of the horses burst, to be captured some days afterwards while roaming about the open spaces of the Campagna. It is the dense crowd, forming two walls along the course, that forces the horses to keep the centre. This was the last of the barberi. They were more frightened than hurt, yet I am not sorry that these races have been abolished.

Here follow records of expeditions in weather of spring freshness – to catacombs, along the Via Appia, to the wild Campagna, and all the delights of that Roman time when the lark inspires the poet. I got on well with my “Morra” picture, which wasn’t bad, and which has a niche in my art career, because it turned out to be the first picture I sold, which joyful event happened in London.

“March 25th. – A brilliant day, full of colour. This is a great feast, the Annunciation, and I gave up work to see the Pope come in grand procession to the Church of the Minerva with his Cross Bearer on a white mule, and all the cardinals, bishops, ambassadors and officials in carriages of antique magnificence, a spectacle of great pomp, and nowhere else to be seen. We did it in this wise. At nine we drove to the Minerva, the sun very brilliant and the air very cold, and soon posted ourselves on the steps of the church in the midst of a tight crowd, I quite helpless in a knot of French soldiers of the Legion, who chaffed each other good-humouredly over my head. The piazza, in the midst of which rises the funny little obelisk on the elephant’s back, swarmed with people, black being quite the exception in that motley crowd. Zouaves and the Legion formed a square to keep the piazza open, and dragoons pranced officiously about, as is their wont. Every balcony was thronged with gay ladies and full-dressed officers (some most gallant and smart Austrians were at a window near us), and crimson cloth and brocade flapped from every window, here in powerful sunshine, there in effective shadow. Some dark, Florentine-coloured houses opposite, mostly in shade, as they were between us and the sun, had a strong effect against the bright sky, their crimson cloths and gaily dressed ladies relieving their dark masses, and their beautiful roofs and chimneys making a lovely sky line.

“Presently the gilt and painted coaches of the cardinals began to arrive, huge, high-swung vehicles drawn by very fat black horses dressed out with gold and crimson trappings, but the servants and coachmen, in spite of their extra full get-up, having that inimitable shabby-genteel appearance which belongs exclusively to them. The Prior of the Dominicans, to which order this church belongs, stood outside the archway through which the Pope and all went into the church after alighting from their coaches. He was there to welcome them, and, oh! the number of bows he must have made, and his mouth must have ached again with all those wide smiles. Near him also stood the Noble Guards and all the general officers, plastered over with orders; and all these, too, saluted and salaamed as each ecclesiastical bigwig grandly and courteously swept by under the archway, glowing in his scarlet and shining in his purple. The carriages pulled up at the spot of all others best suited to us. Everything was filled with light, the cardinals glowing like rubies inside their coaches, even their faces all aglow with the red reflections thrown up from their ardent robes. But there presently came a sight which I could hardly stand; it was eloquent of the olden time and filled the mind with a strange feeling of awe and solemnity, as though long ages had rolled back and by a miracle the dead time had been revived and shown to us for a brief and precious moment. On a sleek white mule came a prelate, all in pure lilac, his grey head bare to the sunshine and carrying in his right hand the gold and jewelled Cross. The trappings of the mule were black and gold, a large black, square cloth thrown over its back in the mediæval fashion. The Cross, which was large and must have weighed considerably, was very conspicuous. The beauty of the colour of mule and rider, the black and gold housings of that white beast, the lilac of the rider’s robes, and the tender glory of the embossed Cross – how these things enchant me! An attendant took the Cross as the priest dismounted. Then a flourish of modern Zouave bugles and a sharp roll of the drum intruded the forgotten present day on our notice, and soon on came the gallant gendarmerie and dragoons, and then the coach of His Holiness, seeming to bubble over with molten gold in the sunshine. Its six black horses ambled fatly along, all but the wheelers trailing their long, red traces almost on the ground, as seems to be the ecclesiastical fashion in harness (only the wheelers really pull), and guided by bedizened postillions in wigs decidedly like those worn by English Q.C.’s. Flowers were showered down on this coach from the windows, and much cheering rang in the fresh, clear air. I see now in my mind’s eye the out-thrust chins and long, bare necks of a clump of enthusiastic Zouaves shouting with all their hearts under the Pope’s carriage windows in divers tongues. But the English ‘Long live the Pope King,’ though given with a will, did not travel as far as the open ‘Viva il Papa Rè’ or ‘Vive le Pape Roi.’ I put in my British ‘Hurrah!’ as did Papa, splendidly, just as three old and very fat cardinals had painfully got down from His Holiness’s high coach and he himself had begun to emerge. We could see him quite well in the coach, because the sides were more glass than gilding, and very assiduously did the kind-looking old man bless the people right and left as he drove up. He had on his head, not the skull cap I have hitherto seen him in, which allows his silver locks to be seen, but the old-lady-like headgear so familiar to me from pictures, notably several portraits of Leo X. at Florence, which covers the ears and is bound with ermine. It makes the lower part of the face look very large, and is not becoming. After getting down he stood a long time receiving homage from many grandees, and smiled and beamed with kindness on everybody. Then we all bundled into the church, but as every one there was standing on, instead of sitting on, the chairs, we could see nothing of the ceremonies. We struggled out, after listening a little to the singing, and Papa and I strolled delightedly to St. Peter’s, on whose great piazza we awaited the return of the procession. It was very beautiful, winding along towards us, with my white mule and all, over that vast space.”

Remember, Reader, that these things can never more be seen, and that is why I give these extracts in extenso. Merely as history they are precious. How we would like to have some word pictures of Rome in the seventeenth, sixteenth and fifteenth centuries, but we don’t get them. The chronicles tell us of magnificence, numbers, illustrious people, dress, and so forth; but, somehow, we would like something more intimate and descriptive of local colour – effects of weather, etc. – to help us to realise life as it was in the olden time. I think in this age of ugliness we prize the picturesque and the artistic all the more for their rarer charm.

After “Morra” I did a life-size oil study of the head of the celebrated model, Francesco, which was a great advance in freedom of brush work. But the walks were not abandoned, and many a delightful round we made with our father, who was very happy in Rome. The Colosseum was rich in flowers and trees, which clothed with colour its hideous stages of seats. The same abundant foliage beautified the brickwork of Caracalla’s Baths, but those beautiful veils were, unfortunately, slowly helping further to demolish the ruins, and had to be all cleared away later on. I have several times managed to wander over those eerie ruins in later years by full moon, but I have never again enjoyed the awe-inspiring sensation produced by the first visit, when those trees waved and sighed, and the owls hooted, as in Byron’s time. And then the loneliness of the Colosseum was more impressive, and helped one to detach oneself in thought from the present day more easily. Now the town is creeping out that way.

“April 3rd.– Our goal was Santa Croce to-day, beyond the Lateran, for there the Pope was to come to bless the ‘Agnus Dei.’ This ceremony takes place only once in seven years. Everything was en petite tenue, the quietest carriages, the seediest servants, but oh! how glorious it all was in that fervent sunlight. We stood outside the church, I greatly enjoying the amusing crowd, full of such varied types. The effect of the Pope’s two carriages and the horsemen coming trotting along the straight, long road from St. John’s to this church, the luminous dust rising in clouds in the wind, was very pretty. The shouting and cheering and waving of handkerchiefs were quite frantic, more hearty even than at the Minerva. People seemed to feel more easy and jolly here, with no grandeur to awe them. His Holiness looked much more spry than when I last saw him. We lost poor little Mamma and, in despair, returned without her, and she didn’t turn up till 7 o’clock!”

The Roman Diary of 1870 must end with the last Easter Benediction given under the temporal power, Urbi et Orbi.

“Easter Sunday, April 17th. – What a day, brimming over with rich eye-feasts, with pomp and splendour! What can the eye see nowadays to come anywhere near what I saw to-day, except on this anniversary here in unique Rome? Of course, all the world knows that the splendour of this great ceremony outshines that of any other here or in the whole world. Mamma and I reserved ourselves for the benediction alone, so did not start for St. Peter’s till ten o’clock, and got there long before the troops. On getting out of the carriage we strolled leisurely to the steps leading up to the church, where we took up our stand, enjoying the delicious sunshine and fresh, clear air, and also the interesting people that were gradually filling the piazza, amongst whom were pilgrims with long staves, many being Neapolitans, the women in new costumes of the brightest dyes and with snowy tovaglie artistically folded. Some of these women carried the family luggage on their heads, this luggage being great bundles wrapped in rugs of red, black, and yellow stripes, some with the big coloured umbrella passed through and cleverly balanced. All these people had trudged on foot all the way. Their shoes hung at their waists, and also their water flasks. As the troops came pouring in we were requested by the sappers to range ourselves and not to encroach beyond the bottom step. Here was a position to see from! We watched the different corps forming to the stirring bugle and trumpet sounds, the officers mounting their horses, all splendid in velvet housings, the officers in the fullest of full dress. There was no pushing in the crowd, and we were as comfortable as possible. But there was a scene to our left, up on the terrace that runs along the upper part of the piazza and is part of the Vatican, which was worth to me all the rest; it was, pictorially, the most beautiful sight of all. Along this terrace, the balustrade of which was hung with mellow old faded tapestry, and bears those dark-toned, effective statues standing out so well against the blue sky, were collected in a long line, I should say, nearly all the bishops who are gathered here in Rome for the Council, in their white and silver vestments, and wearing their snowy mitres, a few dark-dressed ladies in veils and an officer in bright colour here and there supporting most artistically those long masses of white. Above the heads of this assembly stretched the long white awning, through which the strong sun sent a glowing shade, and above that the clear sky, with the Papal white and yellow flags and standards in great quantities fluttering in the breeze! My delighted eyes kept wandering up to that terrace away from the coarser military picturesqueness in front. Up there was a real bit of the olden time. There was a feeling as of lilies about those white-robed pontiffs. At last a sign from a little balcony high up on the façade was given, and all the troops sprang to attention, and then the gentle-faced old Pope glided into view there, borne on his chair and wearing the triple crown. Clang go the rifles and sabres in a general salute, and a few ‘evvivas’ burst from the crowd, which are immediately suppressed by a general ‘sh-sh-sh,’ and amidst a most imposing silence, the silence of a great multitude, the Pope begins to read from a crimson book held before him with the voice of a strong young man. Curiously enough, in this stillness all the horses began to neigh, but their voices could not drown the single one of Pio Nono. After the reading the Pope rose, and down went, on their knees, the mass of people and soldiers, ‘like one man,’ and the old Pope pressed his hands together a moment and then flung open his arms upwards with an action full of electrifying fervour as he pronounced the grand words of the blessing which rang out, it seemed, to the ends of the Earth.

“In the evening we saw the famous illumination of the dome of St. Peter’s from the Pincian. The wind rather spoiled the first or silver one, but the next, the golden, was a grand sight, beginning with the cross at the top and running down in streams over the dome. As I looked, I heard a funny bit of Latin from an English tourist, who asked a priest ‘Quis est illuminatio, olio o gas?’ ‘Olio, olio,’ answered the priest good-naturedly.”

And so our Papal Rome on May 2nd, 1870, retreated into my very appreciative memory, and we returned for a few days to Florence, and thence to Padua and Venice and Verona on our way to England through the Tyrol and Bavaria. What a downward slope in art it is from Italy into Germany! We girls felt a great irritation at the change, and were too recalcitrant to attend to the German sights properly.

But I filled the Diary with very searching notes of the wonderful things I saw in Venice, thanks to Veronese, Titian, Tintoretto, Palma Vecchio and others, who filled me with all that an artist can desire in the way of colour. I was anxious to improve my weak point, and here was a lesson!

It is curious, however, to watch through the succeeding years how I was gradually inducted by circumstances into that line of painting which is so far removed from what inspired me just then. It was the Franco-German War and a return to the Isle of Wight that sent me back on the military road with ever diminishing digressions. Well, perhaps my father’s fear, which I have already mentioned in my early ‘teens, that I was joining in a “tremendous ruck” in taking the field would have been justified had I not taken up a line of painting almost non-exploited by English artists. The statement of a French art critic when writing of one of my war pictures, “L’Angleterre n’a guère qu’un peintre militaire, c’est une femme,” shows the position. I wish I could have another life here below to share the joys of those who paint what I studied in Italy, if only for the love of such work, though I am very certain I should be quite indistinguishable in that “ruck.”

CHAPTER VII

WAR. BATTLE PAINTINGS

PADUA I greatly enjoyed – its academic quiet, its Shakespearean atmosphere; and still more did Shakespearean Verona enchant me. I had a good study of the modern French school at the Paris Salon, and on getting back to London rejoined the South Kensington schools till the end of the summer session. Then a studio and practice from the living model. In July we were all absorbed in the great Franco-German War, declared in the middle of that month. It seems so absurd to us to-day that we should have been pro-German in England. This little entry in the Diary shows how Bismarck’s dishonest manœuvres had hoodwinked the world. “France will fight, so Prussia must, and all for nothing but jealousy – a pretty spectacle!” We all believed it was France that was the guilty party. I call to mind how some one came running upstairs to find me and, subsiding on the top step with The Times in her hand, announced the surrender of MacMahon’s army and the Emperor. I wrote “the Germans are pro-di-gious!” and I have lived to see them prostrate. Such is history.

I was asked, as the war developed, if I had been inspired by it, and this caused me to turn my attention pictorially that way. Once I began on that line I went at a gallop, in water-colour at first, and many a subject did I send to the “Dudley Gallery” and to Manchester, all the drawings selling quickly, but I never relaxed that serious practice in oil painting which was my solid foundation. I sent the poor “Magnificat” to the Royal Academy in the spring of 1871. It was rejected, and returned to me with a large hole in it.

That summer, which we spent at well-loved Henley-on-Thames, was marred by the awful doings of the Commune in Paris. The Times had a stereotyped heading for a long time: “The Destruction of Paris.” What horrible suspense there was while we feared the destruction of the Louvre and Notre Dame. I see in the Diary: “May 28th, 1871. – Oh! that to-morrow’s papers may bring a decided contradiction of the oft-repeated report that the great Louvre pictures are lost and that Notre Dame no longer stands intact. As yet all is confusion and dismay, and one clings, therefore, to the hope that little by little we may hear that some fragments, at least, may be spared to bereaved humanity and that all that beauty is not annihilated.”

In August, 1871, we were off again. From London back to Ventnor! There I kept my hand in by painting in oils life-sized portraits of friends and relations and some Italian ecclesiastical subjects, such as young Franciscan monks, disciples of him who loved the birds, feeding their doves in a cloister; an old friar teaching schoolboys, al fresco, outside a church, as I had seen one doing in Rome. For this friar I commandeered our landlord as a model, for he had just the white beard and portly figure I required. Yet he was one of the most furibond dissenters I ever met – a Congregationalist – but very obliging. Also a candlelight effect in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome; a large altar-piece for our little Church of St. Wilfrid, and so on, a mixture of the ecclesiastical and the military. The dances, theatricals, croquet parties, rides – all the old ways were linked up again at Ventnor, and I have a very bright memory of our second dwelling there and reunion with our old friends. In the spring of 1872 I sent one of the many Roman subjects I was painting to the Academy, a water-colour of a Papal Zouave saluting two bishops in a Roman street. It was rejected, but this time without a hole. This year was full of promise, and I very nearly reached the top of my long hill climb, for in it I began what proved to be my first Academy picture.

What proved of great importance to me, this year of 1872, was my introduction, if I may put it so, to the British Army! I then saw the British soldier as I never had had the opportunity of seeing him before. My father took me to see something of the autumn manœuvres near Southampton. Subjects for water-colour drawings appeared in abundance to my delighted observation. One of the generals who was to be an umpire at these manœuvres, Sir F. C., had become greatly interested in me, as a mutual friend had described my battle scenes to him, and said he would speak about me to Sir Charles Staveley, one of the commanders in the impending “war,” so that I might have facilities for seeing the interesting movements. He hoped that, if I saw the manœuvres, I would “give the British soldiers a turn,” which I did with alacrity. I sent some of the sketches to Manchester and to my old friend the “Dudley.” One of them, “Soldiers Watering Horses,” found a purchaser in a Mr. Galloway, of Manchester, who asked through an agent if I would paint him an oil picture. I said “Yes,” and in time painted him “The Roll Call.” Meanwhile, in the spring of 1873, I sent my first really large war picture in oils to the Academy. It was accepted, but “skyed,” well noticed in the Press and, to my great delight, sold. The subject was, of course, from the war which was still uppermost in our thoughts: a wounded French colonel (for whom my father sat), riding a spent horse, and a young subaltern of Cuirassiers, walking alongside (studied from a young Irish officer friend), “missing” after one of the French defeats, making their way over a forlorn landscape. The Cameron Highlanders were quartered at Parkhurst, near Ventnor, about this time, and I was able to make a good many sketches of these splendid troops, so essentially pictorial. I have ever since then liked to make Highlanders subjects for my brush.

In this same year of 1873 my sister and I, now both belonging to the old faith, whither our mother had preceded us, joined the first pilgrimage to leave the shores of England since the Reformation. I had arranged with the Graphic to make pen-and-ink sketches of the pilgrimage, which was arousing an extraordinary amount of public interest. Our goal was the primitive little town of Paray-le-Monial, deep in the heart of France, where Margaret Mary Alacoque received our Lord’s message. I cannot convey to my readers who are not “of us” the fresh and exultant impressions we received on that visit. There was a mixture of religious and national patriotism in our minds which produced feelings of the purest happiness. The steamer that took us English pilgrims from Newhaven to Dieppe on September 2nd flew the standard of the Sacred Heart at the main and the Union Jack at the peak, seeming thus to symbolise the whole character of the enterprise. Those Graphic sketches proved a very great burden to me. Nowadays one of the pilgrims would have done all by “snapshots.” I tried to sketch as I walked in the processions at Paray and to sing the hymn at the same time. There was hardly a moment’s rest for us, except for a few intervals of sleep. The long ceremonies and prescribed devotions, the processions, the stirring hymns and the journey there and back, all crowded into a week from start to finish, called for all one’s strength. But how joyfully given!