An Autobiography

I was born at the pretty “Villa Claremont,” just outside Lausanne and overlooking Lake Leman. I made a good start with the parents Providence gave me. My father, cultured, good,...

In December we migrated back to London, and shortly before Christmas our dear, faithful nurse died. That was Alice’s and my first sense of sorrow, and, even now, I can’t bear to...

“Alas! for railway travellers one approach to a place is like another. Fancy arriving at Cologne through ragged factory outskirts and being deposited under a glazed shed from wh...

After tarrying in Brussels, doing the galleries thoroughly, we went to Dover. I had been anything but in love with the exuberant Rubenses gathered together in one surfeited room...

Italy once more! Again the old palazzo at Albaro and the old friends surrounding us! My work never relaxed, for I set up a little studio and went in for life-size heads, and got...

That was a memorable journey to Rome by Perugia. I have travelled more than once by that line, and the more direct one as well, since then, and I feel as though I could never ha...

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...

I had quite a large number of commissions for military water-colours to get through on my return home, and an oil of French artillery on the march to paint, in my little glass s...

On May 14th I lunched at Lady Raglan’s. Kinglake was there to meet me, and we talked Crimea. I had read and re-read his much too prolix history, which I thought overburdened wit...

So I worked steadily at the big picture, finding the red coats very trying. What would I have thought, when studying at Florence, if I had been told to paint a mass of men in on...

We started on our most delightful journey to Florence early in September of that year to assist at the Michael Angelo fêtes as the guests of dear Mrs. Janet Ross and the Marches...

My sister and I tarried at Genoa on our way to Castagnolo where we were to have again the joys of a Tuscan vintage. But between Genoa and Florence lay our well-loved Porto Fino...

Though the London winter was gloomy, on the whole, and I was handicapped in the middle of my work by a cold which retarded the picture so much that, to my deep disappointment, I...

It must have been at Villa de’ Franchi that my father related to me a tragedy which had profoundly moved England in the year 1842, and he laughingly encouraged me to paint it wh...

In 1880 my husband was offered the post of Adjutant-General at Plymouth, and thither we went in time, with the pretty little infant Elizabeth Frances, who came to fill the place...

I followed my husband to Egypt, where he had returned, in command at Wady Halfa on the expiration of his leave, on November 14th, 1885. I went with our eldest little boy and gir...

pretty little wife received us with native politeness, and gave us coffee and sweets. Our return journey was most pleasant, and we got to Alexandria at 8 p.m. Twelve charming ho...

My return voyage was made on board the Messageries boat to Marseilles. This gave me the Straits of Messina as well as those of Bonifacio. On passing Ajaccio I don’t think a sing...

Here at Verona was Italy in her richest dress, her abundant and varied crops filling the landscape, one might say, to overflowing; not a space of soil left untilled, and, all th...

And now our Irish home under the glorious Wicklow Mountains broke up, and I was to become acquainted with life in the great English camp. The huts for officers were still standi...

In January, 1896, we left Aldershot on a raw foggy day, with the usual winter brown-paper sky, the essence of dreariness, on leave for the land I love best. At Turin our train f...

And now Dover Castle rises into prominence above the horizon as I travel onward. My husband was offered Colchester or Dover. He left the choice to me. How could there be a doubt...

On November 12th, 1898, my husband sailed for South Africa, there to take up the military command, and to act as High Commissioner in place of Sir Alfred Milner, home on leave....

Sir William was asked by Lord Wolseley to take up the Aldershot command in the absence of Sir Redvers Buller, who was struggling very desperately to retrieve our fortunes in the...

Palm Sunday, 1911, found me in Rome, on the eve of my son’s ordination as priest. One of those extraordinary occurrences which have happened in my life took place that day. Four...

I was very busy with oil brush and water-colour brush during the summer of 1913, and the succeeding winter, in Ireland, accomplishing a large oil, “The Cuirassier’s Last _Reveil...