CHAPTER XI.

"BRETON FOLK," ETC.

For Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson, the poet, Caldecott made in the years 1877-8, twelve drawings to illustrate _Bramble Rise_, _A Winter Phantasy_, _My Neighbour Rose_, and other verses. These illustrations, most delicately drawn in pen and ink, have not yet been published. One was used in 1881 in a privately printed edition of the _London Lyrics_, and three in 1883, in a little volume of the _Lyrics_ printed by the "Book Fellows Club" in New York. Caldecott afterwards made four illustrations for Mrs. Locker-Lampson's child's book, _What the Blackbird Said_, and two years afterwards, in 1882, an illustration to her _Greystoke Hall_. These two books are published by Messrs. Routledge.

In 1878 he exhibited his picture of "The Three Huntsmen" riding home in evening light. It was hung rather high in Gallery VII. at the Royal Academy Exhibition, and technically could hardly be pronounced a success; but it was a distinct advance on previous exhibited work, and drew the serious attention of critics to Caldecott as a painter. The sketch appeared in an article on the Academy in _L'Art_, vol. xx. p. 211. Of this oil painting, Mr. Mundella, the late President of the Board of Trade writes:--

"The picture was bought by me of poor Caldecott in 1878. I think it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in that year, but I bought it from his easel. It is an oil painting, 3 ft. 6 in. by 2 ft. 9 in., and the subject is the 'Three Huntsmen.' I remember his bringing the song to my house after the purchase, and reading the song with great enjoyment, pointing out to us how he had illustrated the verse, 'We hunted and we holloed till the setting of the sun.' My little granddaughter (Millais' 'Dorothy Thorpe') was his model for several of his Christmas books. She is the little girl in _Sing a Song of Sixpence_ and several others, and possesses copies sent by him with little sketches and dedications. He is indeed a national loss."

In the Grosvenor Gallery of the same year Caldecott exhibited a small metal bas-relief of "A Boar Hunt," of which he made the following sketch in _Grosvenor Notes_.

Special interest attaches to this design, also to "The Horse Fair in Brittany," reproduced on page 137, for the insight it gives of Caldecott's varied artistic powers, which, by force of circumstances, were always held in reserve. If, as a writer remarks, "The treatment of reliefs is a test of the state of a school of sculpture," these examples may help to "place" Caldecott amongst contemporary artists.

Early in 1878, Mr. Edmund Evans, the wood engraver, came to him with a proposal that he should illustrate some books for children to be printed in colours. The plan was soon decided upon, and the first of the _Picture Books_ was begun. In the summer of the same year, Caldecott went with the writer for a second time to Brittany.

It was at first intended to take a gig and drive through and through the country, giving an account of adventures from day to day, and Caldecott (who was more at home perhaps, in a gig than in any other position of life) favoured the idea; but time and other circumstances prevented.

The next proposal was to give a general description of the country and its people, its churches and ruined castles, as they exist to-day. But Caldecott did not take to this idea; he never in his lifetime drew buildings with the same facility as figures, and, at that time, to attempt to make drawings of chateaux, cathedrals and the like, would have been unsuccessful. So the book, _Brittany Picturesque_, which had already been partly written, was laid aside to give space for sketches of _Breton Folk_.[10]

"We obtained a trap in a few days"--not the gig, independent of a driver, which Caldecott always sighed for. His delight and high spirits on the first journey, in 1874, are seen in the sketch where he is waving farewell to some astonished peasantry. To be "on the road" was always a pleasure to Caldecott, from the "old Whitchurch days," which he often described to his friends--driving home in the dark at reckless speed after a late supper, in a dog-cart full of rather uproarious company--down to 1885 at Frensham, when as host, he would drive his friends in the lanes of Surrey.

At least 200 sketches must have been made in these journeys; besides jottings of heads, figures and the like, and several drawings in water colours.

The summer fêtes and "pardons," all through the country, furnished capital material for his pencil, the women's caps of different districts were each recorded, and here and there a solemn suggestive landscape noted for a picture which was never to be completed.

The circumstances under which some of the sketches were made is indicated on page 171.

One of the first drawings made in Brittany, both in colour and black and white (a scene of which Caldecott was always desirous of making a finished picture), was the buckwheat harvest, with the women at work in the fields. Many similar scenes were put down in note-books, many were the studies of clouds careering over the wind-blown land, which were never engraved or published.

Two of the principal events in these journeys were visits to a horse fair at Le Folgoet, and to a cattle fair at Carhaix, where Caldecott made the following sketches:--

"Le Folgoet is in the north of Finisterre, in the north-west corner of Brittany. The country is for the most part flat and dreary in aspect; a few fields of buckwheat, corn, and rye are passed on the road, protected by banked-up hedges, and skirted by pollard trees.

"On the road as we approach the fair, a mile and a half from the town, is a characteristic figure, a barefooted _gamin_ with red cap and grey jersey trotting out an old chestnut mare." As he stops and turns to look back, he is thus rapidly recorded in a sketch.

Apart from the artistic material so abundant everywhere, Caldecott's love for animals and knowledge of them, his interest in everything connected with farming, markets, country life and surroundings, roused him to exertions at Carhaix which none but the most hardy "special artist" would have attempted.

It was an exciting time for Caldecott, both on the road and at the fair; materials for his pencil were everywhere, and for three days there was little rest.

Carhaix being in the centre of Brittany, far remote from railways, had special attractions in the variety of character and costume. Here, weak in health as Caldecott then was, he stood and worked all day, being especially interested in the trotting out and sale of horses. Turning to our diary:--

"The horse fair was held in a large square or _place_. Under the trees was a crowd of men and women in the dust and heat; horses, cattle, pigs and dogs, in confused movement; with much drinking and shouting at the booths which lined one side of the enclosure."

It was in this year (1878) that he made some extraordinarily rapid sketches in colour with the brush direct, without a touch of the pencil or anything to guide him on the paper. Few sketches of this kind exist, excepting rough notes in books not intended for publication. In the evening the figures in the streets and at the inns had to be noted down.

The next day, which Caldecott called "a rest," was devoted to visiting two farms in the neighbourhood, seeing as much as possible of the interiors of the old houses near Carhaix, with their carved bedsteads, cabinets and clocks, old brasswork and embroideries. It was a rather anxious time for his travelling companion, for there was no restraining Caldecott with such material before him, and he was overworked.

It was in this district that he made one of his most successful sketches; a typical Breton (p. 177), in ancient costume with long hair and knee breeches; a figure rarely met with in these days.

In the south-west corner of Brittany, a few miles south of Quimperlé, at a point where the river spreads out into a narrow estuary four miles from the sea, is the primitive little village called appropriately Pont Aven.

Caldecott was much amused, and scandalised at the aspect of the village on our arrival one afternoon; a scene which he thus records on a letter, and afterwards drew for _Breton Folk_.

Writing from Pont Aven and recounting "the places which we have visited, done, sketched, interviewed and memorandumed"--he adds:--

"On this journey I have seen more pleasing types of Bretons (and Bretonnes, especially) than in my former rambles in the Côtes du Nord; but there is generally something wrong about each hotel. This particular inn is comfortable. Seven Americans, two or three of them ladies, and about four French people dined with us, mostly of the artist persuasion.

"The village and the river sides, the meadows and the valleys reek with artists. A large gang pensions at another inn here.

"On approaching Pont Aven the traveller notices a curious noise rising from the ground and from the woods around him. It is the flicking of the paint brushes on the canvasses of the hardworking painters who come into view seated in leafy nooks and shady corners. These artists go not far from the town where is cider, billiards and tobacco."

One of the best of Caldecott's sketches here was "Returning from Labour," a quiet spot on the banks of the Aven where he made several studies.

"Here we feel inclined for the first time to stay and sketch, wandering along the coast to the fishing villages, and visiting farms and homesteads."

From another inn, in an "out of the way" part of Finisterre, he writes:--

"The Hotel du Midi where we put up is conducted in a simple manner; ladies would not like its arrangements. Several inhabitants, and a visitor or two, dine at the table d'hôte, but all are unable to carve a duck excepting the English visitor, who is accordingly put down as a cook."

Many works, such as the frieze of a horse fair (p. 137), models in terra cotta and paintings, were the outcome of the Brittany journeys in 1874 and 1878; but Caldecott did not give himself a chance to do what he wished in France; other work crowded upon him in 1878, and before he had time to finish the sketches for _Breton Folk_, he had to return to London to complete drawings for his _Picture Books_, and other work in hand for the _Graphic_ newspaper.

In a letter from London, received at the Abbey of St. Jacut in Brittany on the 29th August, 1878, he says:--

"I have not been able to settle well down to work yet. Sitting about on hotel benches for a month with Mr. Blackburn is unhinging. * * * "I fancied somehow that, after the wild career of dissipation in other parts of Brittany, he might find the calm of a cloister insufficiently exciting, and consequently might drag you round to more lively places. I am glad that I am wrong."

The drawings of the "Family Horse," (of "Cleopatra" on page 165,) the sketch in Woburn Park, and several others, were made when on a visit in the neighbourhood in October 1878. A letter referring to his visit to Woburn says:--"On the last evening of Mr. Caldecott's visit here, he was sitting at the dining-room table with the two little boys on his knees, and the rest of the family standing round him. We asked him to draw us each something, and he made us choose our own subjects. The sketch of himself riding in the park is one of them; it amused him very much to see the deer standing gazing at us."

At another time there comes a coloured birthday card to a child in London who was fond of flowers; a dark red carnation the size of life, presented by a Lilliputian figure in old-fashioned green coat, with white frill and periwig.

Side by side with Caldecott's missives to little children might be printed many a kindly letter to a young author who had sent him manuscripts to read. These letters had to be read and answered always in the evenings. A long letter of this kind was written to a lady at Didsbury, near Manchester, in 1878, from which the following extracts are taken[11]:--

"DEAR MISS M.,--Your packet reached me safely, and as I call to mind very readily my feelings in times gone by, after I had posted a piece of literary or artistic composition to some friend acquainted with the dread editor of some magazine, or even to the dread editor himself, I think it only your due that I should write to you without delay about the sketches of country life which you have kindly allowed me to read, and my opinion of which you flatter me by desiring to know. You asked me for my candid opinion; in these cases I always try to be candid.... I think that your papers are, as they stand, hardly interesting enough for the mass of readers, though to me they draw out pictures which please, and also revive old associations.... Their fault, however, if I may speak of faults, is not so much in subject as in style. You have chosen simple subjects, in which is no harm of course; but simple subjects in all kinds of art require a masterly hand to delineate them. The slightest awkwardness of execution is noticed, and mars the simplicity of the whole. When a thrilling story is told, or a very interesting and novel operation described, faults of style are overlooked during the excitement of hearing or reading. Is it not so?...

"R. C."

In another letter some remarks on the misuse of old English words (a subject on which he says, "I am very ignorant") are worth recording.

"As regards the misuse of certain words, I consult the authorities when a doubt crosses my mind, and I find with sorrow, in which I am joined by other anxious spirits, that the English language is being ruined, chiefly by journalists, English and American. Words of good old nervous meaning, because common, are discarded for words of less force but finer sound, borrowed from other tongues. The use of these new words is often a difficulty to all but classical scholars, for the pronunciation, the accent, the quantities, are varied even amongst equally educated people.

"On the introduction of a new word there is always a halo of pedantry about it. Some admire the halo and adopt the word. The journalists cuddle it. The readers ask what it means, think it sounds rather fine--perhaps genteel--throw over the humble friend who has done them and their conservative forefathers such good service.

"The poor ill-used old fellow of a word then only finds friends amongst the lowly and the loyal; and if in course of time the usurping word, as he rolls by in his carriage and footmen, hears the former wearer of his honours come out from the passing pedestrians, he curls his proud lip, pulls up his haughty collar, distends his Grecian nose, and wonders where vulgar people will go to--albeit this vulgar word is better born, and has a higher instep than the carriage word."

In the late Autumn of 1878 Caldecott is again in the south of France, sending home letters--one with a portrait of himself (back view), seated next to a young lady, "whose father is rather deaf."

"I have come here," he says, "in order that rheumatism may forget me and not recognise me on return to Albion's shores. * * *

"I open my bag and take out your letter of 20th November, 1877, which has been ready at hand for reply ever since I received it with a welcome. Letters ought always to be replied to within the twelve months."