The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 30, June 1893: An Illustrated MonthlyVarious
General
The Strand Magazine, Vol. 05, Issue 30, June 1893: An Illustrated Monthly
Various
English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
It is the proud boast of every married man, and more particularly so
when his quiver is fairly full, that he presides over the happiest home
in the land. But there is a corner of Regent's Park where stands a house
whose four walls contain an amount of fun and unadulterated merriment,
happiness, and downright pleasure that would want a lot of beating. The
fact is that Mr. Harry Furniss is not only a merry man with his pencil.
Humour with him may mean a very profitable thing--it unquestionably
does; fun and frolic as depicted on paper by "Lika Joko" brings in, as
Digby Grant would put it, many "a little cheque." But I venture to think
that the clever caricaturist would not have half as many merry ideas
running from the mind to the pencil if he sold all his humour outside
and forgot to scatter a goodly proportion of it amongst his quartette of
children.
[Illustration: "MY LITTLE MODEL."]
[Illustration: "LITTLE GUY--OR, A FIDGETY MODEL."]
I had not been in the house five minutes before they made their presence
known. I had not been there a quarter of an hour before the discovery
was made that they were small but impressive editions of their father.
Have you heard of Harry Furniss's little model--"My Little Model"? She
is Dorothy, who sits for all the little girls in her father's pictures.
A clever, bright young woman of thirteen, with glorious auburn tresses.
For two or three years past she has not forgotten to write her father a
story, illustrated it herself, and duly presented it on his birthday.
"Buzzy," for that is her pet name, is retained as a model at a modest
honorarium per sitting. Should she be indisposed, she must find a
substitute! Then there is Frank, the eldest, home for his holidays just
now from Cheltenham; young Lawrence, who also draws capitally; and
little Guy, the youngest, who creeps into the pictures occasionally. Guy
is a very fidgety model. "I have drawn him in twenty different moves,
when trying to bribe him with a penny to sit!" said Mr. Furniss. And it
seemed to me--and one had an excellent opportunity of judging during a
too-quickly-passed day spent at Regent's Park--that not a small amount
of Mr. Furniss's humour was caught from the children. He has brought
them up to live a laughing life, he ignores the standing-in-the-corner
theory, and believes that a penny discreetly bestowed on a youngster
during a troubled moment will teach him a better lesson than a
shilling's-worth of stick. It is also evident that the brightness and
jollity of the children are inherited, not only from father, but mother
as well; and it was easy to discern, from the remarks that fell from the
subject of my interview, that the touches of artistic taste to be seen
about the place were due to the "best of wives and mothers"--immaculate
housewife and capital hostess--Mrs. Furniss. And, as Mr. Furniss himself
acknowledges, half the battle of life is overcome for a hard-worked
professional man by the possession of a sympathetic and careful wife.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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