It is quite a mistaken idea to suppose that sitting for a portrait necessitates sitting still. Far from it. Artists like one to talk and be amused, otherwise the sitter gets bored and the picture reflects the boredom. Few painters can work with a third person in the room, although Sir William Orchardson always preferred to have his wife reading aloud to him, or talking to his sitter while he was at the easel. It may seem strange that so many people have painted my head, but please do not think it was the outcome of vanity on my part. I did not ask them; they asked me. Dozens have asked me to sit, and the baker’s dozen to whom I have sat have started off full of enthusiasm, found me difficult, and ended by thinking me horrid. Yes, horrid, I know. They have not said so in so many words, they have been too polite for that, but they have owned I was “very difficult, especially about the mouth.” That is why I have thirteen different mouths in thirteen different pictures. A mouth is the most expressive and the most characteristic feature of a face, and therefore the most elusive for the artist’s brush. When I am not talking, my face is as dull as London on a Bank Holiday. Some painters make too much of a portrait and too little of a picture. Others, on the other hand, make too much of a picture and too little of a portrait. Really, the picture is of most consequence, because the good picture with its impression of the sitter remains, while the fleeting expression of the face and age of the sitter passes away. Joy is only a flash, sorrow is an abiding pain. We women have lines of figure when young, but we must all expect lines of wrinkles when old. Artists and writers are generally poor, but we are often happy. The greater the artist, the less he seems to be able to push his wares. It is the mediocre who ring the muffin-bell, or whose wives sell their cakes. A certain clever woman is said never to stop in a country house without returning home with an order for a new ship in her husband’s wallet. Well, why not? If a woman is smart enough to find purchasers for her husband’s pictures, his horses, or his ships, all honour to her. We all want agents, even literary agents—poor, dear, abused things—and if we can get our own flesh and blood to do the work without demanding a commission, so much the better, but we might give them a little acknowledgment sometimes. The poor want to be rich, and the rich want seats in the House of Lords, while a Duchess wants to write books and be poor. The simple want to be great, while the great know the futility of fame. It is a world of struggle and discontent. The moment _any_body can get seats for a first night, or tickets for a private view, _no_body wants them. That sounds rather Gilbertian.