"Well, Mr. Campbell, the caricature was done before I met you," I
said, jestingly. "Had I known you I couldn't have done such a cruel
thing." On parting he said, "If you ever caricature me again I shall
expect you to be kind, so I needn't feel frightened of you in future."
When I sketched the Very Rev. Hermann Adler (the Chief Rabbi) I
visited him at his house. While I was engrossed in my subject, his
daughters came to see how the caricature was progressing.
"Oh, father!" they exclaimed, "it's just like you."
"How dare you! I'll cut you both out of my will," threatened the
Rabbi, in mock anger.
Cardinal Vaughan I "stalked" and made many a note of before he sat to
me. He usually wore an Inverness cape, and his finely cut features I
found both attractive and impressive, but I could always see the
making of a caricature in them.
I had stalked and sketched Dr. Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury,
before he sat to me at Lambeth Palace. When I was drawing his son, Mr.
A. C. Benson (then a Master at Eton), I showed him a little portrait
sketch of his father, which pleased him so much that I gave it to him,
but I have always regretted that I did not make an equestrian picture
as he seems most familiar to me on horseback.
On many occasions my subjects have been particularly friendly and
delightful in aiding me in my work, and sometimes extending their
kindness across the boundary of professional moments. I remember a
very delightful hour spent with Dr. Armitage Robinson--a subject in a
thousand--when Dean of Westminster. He was astonishingly well up in
Abbey lore, and together we visited chapels and crypts and strange
hidden places which I feel sure must be practically unknown to the
majority of visitors. When I heard he was leaving Westminster for
Wells I felt an artist's regret that anything less imperative than
death should have been permitted to disturb the impression of this
picturesque Abbot in the peculiarly appropriate setting of old
Westminster.
[Illustration: _Studies from memory._
REV. R. J. CAMPBELL.
1904.]
The finest and handsomest young athlete I ever drew as an
undergraduate was R. B. Etherington-Smith, known to his intimates as
"Ethel." He was rapidly making his mark as a surgeon, and his sad and
untimely death was deplored by every one who knew him.
Among the cricketers I first caricatured F. R. Spofforth--the demon
bowler--followed by W. G. Grace and C. B. Fry, whom I portrayed as a
runner. John Loraine Baldwin, the veteran cricketer, I introduced into
the series in his self-propelling invalid chair; he was a very fine
old man, and the founder of the "Zingari," and also of the Baldwin
Club.
Philipson, the distinguished wicket-keeper, I induced to stand in his
rooms at the Temple as though keeping wicket; and Ranjitsinhji I
closely observed playing cricket at Brighton, after finding it very
difficult to keep him up to the mark with his appointments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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