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Philip Gilbert Hamerton

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There was also the additional trouble of unloading the goods on the side
of the road, of putting them into the boat, to be rowed across the bay;
then they must be carried to the house either by man or horse. Merely to
get the indispensable quantity of fuel in such a damp climate, when
fires have to be kept up for eight or oftener nine months in the year,
was a serious matter, and my husband complained that he was constantly
deprived of Thursday's services. He then decided to take as a gardener,
out-of-door workman, and occasional boatman, a Highlander of the name of
Dugald, whom he had employed sometimes in the latter capacity, for he
knew something of boats, having been formerly a fisherman.

There were some outbuildings on the island; one of them contained two
rooms, which Dugald and his wife found sufficient for them (they had no
children), and this became the gardener's cottage. Another was used as a
stable, and the smallest as a fowl-house and carpenter's shop, for now
we had come to the conclusion that we could not possibly live all the
year round on the island without a small farm, to provide us, at least,
with milk, cream, butter, and eggs; so we bought two cows, and also a
small flock of sheep, that we might always be sure of mutton--either
fresh or salted. This did not afford a great variety of _menus_, but it
was better than starvation.

Vegetables, other than potatoes and an occasional cabbage, being
unseen--and I believe unknown--at Loch Awe, and my husband's health
having suffered in consequence of the privation, we had the ambition of
growing our own vegetables, and a great variety of them too. Dugald was
set to dig and manure a large plot of ground, though he kept mumbling
that it was utterly useless, as nothing could or would grow where oats
did not ripen once in three years, and that Highlanders, who knew so
much better than foreigners, "would not be fashed" to attempt it.
However, as he was paid to do the work, he had to do it; and it was
simple enough, for he had no pretensions to being a gardener; the choice
of seeds and the sowing of them were left to Gilbert, who had never
given a thought to it before, and to me, who knew absolutely nothing of
the subject. In this emergency we got books to guide us, bought and
sowed an enormous quantity of seeds, and to our immense gratification
some actually sprouted. Our pride was great when the doctor came to
lunch with us for the first time, and we could offer him radishes and
lettuce, which he duly wondered at and appreciated. Of course we had to
put up with many failures, but still it was worth while to persevere,
as, in addition to carrots, onions, turnips,--which grew to
perfection,--potatoes and cabbages, we had salads of different kinds,
small pumpkins, and fine cauliflowers. I soon discovered that peat was
extremely favorable to them, so we had a trench made in peaty soil,
where they grew splendidly.

Although very well satisfied on the whole with our attempt, we thought
it absorbed too much of my husband's time, and he soon requested me to
go on with it by myself, and frankly avowed that he could not take any
interest in gardening, even in ornamental gardening. This lack of
interest seemed strange to me, because he liked to study nature in all
her phenomena, but it lasted to the end of his life; he did not care in
the least for a well-kept garden, but he liked flowers for their colors
and perfumes,--not individually,--and trees for their forms, either
noble or graceful, and especially for their shade. He could not bear to
see them pruned, and when it became imperative to cut some of their
branches, he used to complain quite sadly to his daughter--who shared
his feelings about trees--and he would say: "Now, Mary, you see they are
at it again, spoiling our poor trees." And if I replied, "But it is for
their health; the branches were trailing on the ground, and now the
trees will grow taller," he slowly shook his head, unconvinced. When we
took the small house at Pré-Charmoy, he was delighted by the wildness of
the tiny park sloping gently down to the cool, narrow, shaded river,
over which the bending trees met and arched, and he begged me not to
interfere with the trailing blackberry branches which crept about the
roots and stems of the superb wild-rose trees, making sweet but
impenetrable thickets interwoven with honeysuckle, even in the midst of
the alleys and lawns.

And now to return to the domestic arrangements arrived at by mutual
consent. Upon me devolved the housekeeping, provisioning, and care of
the garden, with the help of a maid, occasionally that of Dugald's wife
as charwoman, and pretty regularly that of Dugald himself for a certain
portion of the day; that is, when he was not required by my husband to
man the boat or to help in a camping-out expedition. It was agreed that
Thursday should be considered as his master's private servant.




CHAPTER II.


1858.

Money matters.--Difficulties about servants.--Expensiveness of our mode
of life.

My husband had a little fortune, sufficient for his wants as a bachelor,
which were modest; it would have been larger had his father nursed it
instead of diminishing it as he did by his reckless ways, and especially
by entrusting its management during his son's minority to a very kind
but incapable guardian in business matters, and to another competent but
dishonest trustee, who squandered, unchecked, many important sums of
money, and made agreements and leases profitable to himself, but almost
ruinous to his ward. As to the other trustee, he never troubled himself
so far as to read a deed or a document before signing it. Still, what
remained when my husband came of age was amply sufficient for the kind
of life he soon chose, that of an artist; and he hoped, moreover, to
increase it by the sale of his works.

He was, however, aware of the future risks of the situation when he
asked in marriage a girl without fortune, and he told me without reserve
what we had to expect.

An important portion of his income was to cease after fourteen
years--the end of the lease of a coal-mine; but he felt certain that he
would be able by that time to replace it by his own earnings, and
meanwhile we were to live so economically and so simply that, as we
thought, there was no need for anxiety; so we convinced my parents--with
the persuasion that love lent us--that after all we should not be badly
off.

Soon after the completion of our household organization, however, I
began to fear that a very simple way of living might, under peculiar
conditions, become expensive. A breakfast consisting of ham and eggs is
not extravagantly luxurious, but if the ham comes to thrice the original
price when carriage and spoilage are allowed for, and if to the sixpence
paid for half-a-dozen eggs you add the wages of a man for as many hours,
you find to your dismay that though your repast was simple, it was not
particularly cheap. Whichever way we turned we met with unavoidable and
unlooked-for expenses. Perhaps an English lady, accustomed to the
possibilities of such a place, and to the habits of the servants and the
customs of the country, might have managed better--though even to-day I
don't see clearly what she could have done; as for me, though I had been
brought up in the belief that Paris was one of the most expensive places
to live in, and though I was perfectly aware of its prices,--having kept
my father's house for some years, on account of my mother's weak state
of health,--I was entirely taken by surprise, and rather afraid of the
reckoning at the end of the year. No one who has not attempted that kind
of primitive existence has any idea of its complications. A mere change
of servant was expensive--and such changes were rather frequent, on
account of their disgust at the breach of orthodox habits, and the lack
of followers; or their dismissal was rendered inevitable by their
incapacity or unwillingness, or their contempt for everything out of
their own country. We had a capital instance of this characteristic in a
nurse who came from Greenock, and who thoroughly despised everything in
the Highlands. One night, my husband and myself were out of doors
admiring a splendid full moon, by the light of which it was quite easy
to read. The nurse Katharine was standing by us, holding baby in her
arms, and she heard me express my admiration: unable to put up with
praises of a Highland moon, she exclaimed deliberately, "Sure, ma'am,
then, you should see the Greenock moon; this is nothing to it."

This change of servants was of serious moment to us, both in the way of
time and money, for we had to go to Glasgow or Greenock to fetch new
ones, besides paying for their journeys to and fro, and a month's wages
if they did not give satisfaction, which was but too often the case.

Once it happened that a steamer, bringing over a small cargo of
much-needed provisions, foundered, and we were in consequence nearly
reduced to a state of starvation.

Also, after paying princely prices for laying hens, we only found empty
shells in the hen-coop, the rats having sucked the eggs before us.
Gilbert, to save our eggs, bought a vivacious little terrier, who killed
more fowls than rats; and as to the few little chickens that were
hatched--despite the cold and damp--they gradually disappeared, devoured
by the birds of prey, falcons and eagles, which carried them off under
my eyes, even whilst I was feeding them.

Another very important item of expense lay in the different materials
required for my husband's work of various kinds, and of which he ordered
such quantities that their remnants are still to be found in his
laboratory as I write. Papers of all sorts of quality and size--for
pen-and-ink, crayons, pastel, water-color, etching, tracing; colors dry
and moist, brushes, canvases, frames, boards, panels; also the
requisites for photography. It was one of my husband's lasting
peculiarities that, in his desire to do a great quantity of work, and in
the fear of running short of something, he always gave orders far
exceeding what he could possibly use. He also invariably allowed
himself, for the completion of any given work, an insufficiency of time,
because he did not, beforehand, take into account the numerous
corrections that he was sure to make; for he was constantly trying to do
better.

Our journeys also contributed to swell considerably the total of our
expenditure. Before we were married he promised my parents that he would
bring me over once a year, for about a month; for it was a great
sacrifice on their part to let their eldest child go so far away, and,
even as it was, to remain separated for so long at a time. My husband's
relations had also to be considered, and he decided that every time we
went to France we would stay a week at least with his maiden aunts, who
had brought him up, and a few days with the family of his kind uncle,
Thomas Hamerton of Todmorden; then a short time in London to see the
Exhibitions and his friends. The same itinerary was to be followed on
our return.

My parents living then in Paris, where even at that time rents were high
and space restricted, my husband's dislike to confinement did not allow
him to remain satisfied with the single room they could put at our
disposal; moreover, in order to work effectively, peace and perfect
quiet were absolutely indispensable to him; so he took lodgings close to
my parents', and whilst I spent as much of my time with them as I could
spare, he wrote or read in the noiseless rooms we had taken _entre cour
et jardin_. Of course the rent of the lodgings was an additional
expense. Altogether, when we summed up the accounts after the first
year, we were dismayed to see what was the cost of such an unpretentious
existence; but with youthful hope we counted upon the income that art
could not fail to bring shortly.




CHAPTER III.


1858.

Painting from nature.--Project of an exhibition.--Photography.--Plan of
the "Painter's Camp."--Topographic Art.--Charm of our life in the
Highlands.

Mr. Hamerton has himself explained in his autobiography what were his
artistic tendencies and aims: he meant to be topographically true in his
rendering of nature, and was unluckily greatly influenced by the
Pre-Raphaelites, who were, at the time of our marriage, attracting great
attention. I was totally unprepared for that kind of art, and the most
famous specimens of it which my husband took me to see in London only
awoke an apprehension as to what I might think of his own pictures when
they were shown to me. The old masters in the Louvre, even the yearly
Salons, where, under my father's guidance, I had learned to admire
Troyon, Corot, and Millet, had given me an education which fell short of
enabling me to recognize the merits of the new school. It was in vain
that my husband pointed out the veracity of the minutest detail, in vain
that he attempted to interest me in the subjects or praised the scheme
of color; I did not understand it as art, and I received an impression,
perfectly remembered to this day, and which I hardly hope to convey to
others in words: it was for my eyes what unripe fruit is for the teeth.

It was a long time before my husband completed a picture at
Innistrynich, because he had resolved, at first, to paint only from
nature, and was constantly interrupted by changes of effect. After many
attempts, he came to the conclusion that he would only paint local color
out-of-doors, and in order to study effects rapidly, he made hasty
sketches with copious notes written in pencil. Still, he was not
satisfied, the sketch, however quickly traced, retarding the taking of
notes, so that the effect had vanished before they were completed. After
giving mature consideration to another scheme of study, he decided to
make careful pen-and-ink topographical drawings of the most striking
features of the scenery, such as Ben Cruachan, Glen Etive, Ben Vorlich,
Glencoe, etc., and to have them reproduced in large quantities, so that,
when upon the scene represented by any of them, he would only have to
note the most impressive effects, the sketch having become unnecessary.
I wished him to take these memoranda in water-colors or pastels, for it
seemed to me very difficult, when the effect was out of the memory, to
revive it in its entirety by hundreds of minute observations covering
the whole sheet of paper. I had another reason for wishing to see him
work more in colors--it was his want of dexterity with them, which I
thought practice only could give; but he said it was too slow for
out-of-door study, and should be reserved for winter-time and bad
weather. Another point upon which we could not agree was the amount of
truth to which an artist ought to bind himself; he said "nothing less
than topographic truth," and he took infinite pains in the measurement
of mountain peaks, breadth of heather-patches, and length of running
streams. To his grievous disappointment, when the conscientious and
labored study was shown to me, I could not but repeat that if it were
true it did not look so to me, since it produced none of the sensations
of the natural scene. "You would like me to exaggerate, then?" he asked.
"Yes," I answered, "if that is the way to make it _look_ true." But he
persevered in his system. He used to camp out a week, sometimes a
fortnight, wherever he made choice of a subject, and returned to the
same spot several times afterwards, with his printed studies of outlines
to take notes of effects.

He was fond of elaborating schemes, and I told him sometimes that I
wished he would allow things to go on more simply, that he would paint
his pictures straightforwardly, and try for their reception in the
Academy; but he answered that most certainly they would be rejected if
painted with so little care, and that he thought the best plan was to go
on patiently during the summer as he had begun, then to paint in winter
from his studies, and produce, not an odd picture now and then, but a
series of pictures illustrating the most remarkable characteristics of
Highland scenery, which he would put before the public in a private
exhibition of his own, under the title of "Pictures from the Highlands,
by P. G. Hamerton." And before one of the pictures was begun, he had
made the model of a die bearing this inscription, to be stamped on the
frames of the pictures, as well as on the studies. Mr. Hamerton had
taken lessons from a photographer in Paris, at the time of his first
visit there, thinking it might be a help in the prosecution of his
scheme, and now he was always trying to get some photographs of the
scenes among which he camped. They were generally very poor and feeble,
the weather being so often unpropitious, and the process (paper process)
so imperfect and tedious. Still, it was the means of giving pleasure to
our relations and friends by acquainting them with our surroundings.
Here is a passage from one of my father's letters in acknowledgment of
the photograph of our house: "J'ai reçu avec infiniment de plaisir votre
lettre et la photographie qui l'accompagnait. Cette petite image nous
met en communication plus directe, en nous identifiant pour ainsi dire,
à votre vie intérieure. Merci donc, et de bon coeur."

Although my husband firmly believed that nature had meant him to be an
artist, and helped nature as much as he could by his own exertions, the
literary talent which was in him would not be stifled altogether, and
under pretext of preparing a way for his artistic reputation, made him
undertake the "Painter's Camp."

It may be easily realized that with his elaborate system of study, which
required journeys and camping out, the taking of photographs, painting
indoors in wet weather, together with a course of reading for culture
and pleasure, and in addition literary composition, Gilbert's time was
fully occupied; still he was dissatisfied by the meagre result, and
fretted about it. He had, at the cost of much thought and money,
organized a perfect establishment, with wagons, tents, and boats, to go
and stay wherever he pleased; but wherever he went or stopped he almost
invariably met with rain and mist, and though he could draw or paint
inside the tent, he still required to see his subject, and how could he
possibly when the heavy rain-clouds enveloped the mountains as if in a
shroud, or when the mist threw a veil over all the landscape? I remember
going with him to camp out in Glencoe in delightful weather, which
lasted (for a wonder) throughout the journey and the day following it,
after which we were shut inside the tents by pouring or drizzling rain
for six consecutive days, when the only possible occupation was reading,
so that at last we were beaten back home with a few bad photographs and
incomplete sketches as the fruits of a week's expedition.

At first we did not attach much importance to the weather, even if it
wasted time. My husband had taken the island on a lease of four years,
and it seemed to us that almost anything might be achieved in the course
of four years; we were so young, both of us--he twenty-four, and I
nineteen--that we had not yet realized how rapidly time flows--and it
flowed so delightfully with us as to make everything promising in our
eyes. The rain might be troublesome and interfere with work, but were
not the splendid colors of the landscape due to it? The lake might be
stormy, and the white foam of its waves dash even upon the panes of our
windows, but the clouds, driven wildly over the crests of the hills, and
rent by peaks and crags, cast ever-hanging shadows along their swift
course, and the shafts of the sun darting between them clothed the
spaces between in dazzling splendor. Our enjoyment of natural beauty was
not marred by considerations about the elements which produced it:
whether the rich color of the shrivelled ferns on the hillside had been
given by the fierce heat of a sun which, at the same time, had dried up
the streams and parched the meadows, we did not inquire; and if the
grandeur of the stormy lake on a dark night, with the moaning of the
breakers on the rocky shore, and the piercing shrieks of the blast,
involved the fall and ruin of many a poor man's cottage and the
destruction of hundreds of uprooted trees, we were so entranced in
admiration as to give no thought to the consequences. We derived
pleasure from everything, study or contemplation, fair weather or foul;
a twilight ramble on the island by the magnificent northern lights, or a
quiet sail on the solitary lake perfumed with the fragrance of the
honeysuckle or of the blue hyacinths growing so profusely on Inishail
and the Black Isles.

Well, we were happy; we did not stop to consider if we were _perfectly_
happy; but it was, without a doubt, the happiest time of our lives, for
we have always turned back to it with deep regret, and, as my husband
has expressed it in the "Painter's Camp"--"It is so full of
associations and memories which are so infinitely dear and sweet and
sacred, that the very word 'Highlands' will lay a sudden charm on my
heart forever."

Although we made no dissection of our happiness to know what it was made
of, there was a powerful element in it which I discern clearly now: we
were satisfied with ourselves, thinking we were fulfilling our duty to
the best of our understanding; if we erred, it was unconsciously. Since
then we have not been so positive, and sometimes have questioned the
wisdom of those days. But who can tell?... If my husband had not lived
those four years of Highland life he would not have been the man he
became, and his literary gift, though perhaps developed in some other
way, would never have acquired the charm which influenced afterwards so
many minds and hearts.




CHAPTER IV.


1858.

English and French manners.--My husband's relatives.--First journey to
France after our marriage.--Friends in London.--Miss Susan Hamerton.

The summer of 1858 had been unusually warm and pleasant in the
Highlands, and my husband had put many a study in his portfolios, in
spite of the interruptions to his work caused by a series of boils,
which, though of no importance, were exceedingly painful and irritating,
being accompanied by fever and sleeplessness: they were the result of a
regimen of salted meat and an insufficiency of fresh vegetables; for of
course those we succeeded in growing the first year were only fit for
the table towards the end of summer.

We had not been so solitary as I had expected, for with the warm weather
a few families had come back to their residences on the shores of the
lake, and had called upon us. I had felt rather timid and awkward, as I
could not speak English; but the ladies being kindly disposed, and
generally knowing a little French, we managed to get on friendly terms,
particularly when left to ourselves, for I was very much afraid of
Gilbert's strictures--I will explain for what reasons in particular. He
was, as I have said before, a very good and competent teacher, but very
exacting, and he had repeatedly said that he could put up better with my
faults were they the usual recognized mistakes of a foreigner, but that
unluckily mine were vulgarisms. This was very humiliating, as I must
confess I took a little pride in my French, which had been often praised
as elegant and pure, and this had fostered in me a taste for
conversation such as was still to be enjoyed in intelligent French
society at that time, and of which I had never been deprived at home, my
father being an excellent conversationalist, and receiving political
friends of great talent as orators and debaters, such as Michel de
Bourges, Baudin, Madier-de-Montjau, Boysset, and many others, as well as
literary people.

On the other hand, it must be explained that I was unknown to my
husband's relations, and aware of some prejudices against me among them,
particularly on the part of his Aunt Susan,--the younger of the two
sisters who had brought him up. She only knew that I was French, a Roman
Catholic, and without fortune; all these defects were the very opposite
of what she had dreamt of for her nephew, and her disappointment had
been so bitter when she had heard of his engagement that, to excuse it
in her own eyes, she had convinced herself that a French girl could only
be flippant, extravagantly fond of amusement, and neglectful of homely
duties; a Roman Catholic must of necessity be narrow-minded and bigoted,
and the want of fortune betrayed low birth and lack of education. These
views had been expressed at length to my betrothed, together with severe
reproaches and admonitions, and it was in vain that he had attempted to
justify his choice; his aunt persisted in attributing it solely to a
passion he had been too weak to master. At last our marriage drawing
near, Gilbert wrote to his aunt that if her next letter contained
anything disrespectful to me he would return it, and do the same for the
following ones, without opening them; and the correspondence had ceased.

It was quite different with his aunt Mary, who must also have been
disappointed by his marriage, for with her aristocratic tastes and
notions she had desired for her nephew a bride of rank, and an heiress
to put him again in the station befitting the family name, to which his
education and talents seemed to entitle him. But she had confidence in
his judgment, and loved him with so generous a love that she
congratulated him warmly when he was accepted, and wrote me an
affectionate letter of thanks, and a welcome as a new member of the
family.

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