CHAPTER III.

IN LONDON, THE HARZ MOUNTAINS, ETC.

Early in the year 1872 Caldecott left Manchester for London, "bearing with him the well wishes of the Brazenose Club and of an extensive circle of friends." This great change was not decided upon without considerable hesitation; but, to quote again from a Manchester letter:--

"Caldecott was greatly encouraged to take this step by the sale of some small oil and water colour paintings at modest prices, and by the acceptance of drawings by London periodicals. The clinking of sovereigns and the rustling of bank-notes became sounds of the past--the fainter the pleasanter, so at least Caldecott thought at that time, with energy, ardour, and the world before him."

In February and March, 1872, he was still drawing for the magazines and illustrating short stories.

In March, 1872, he exhibited hunting sketches in oil at the Royal Institution, Manchester.

On the 16th April he went to the Slade School to attend the Life Class under E. J. Poynter, R.A., until the 29th June.

As this was the turning point in Caldecott's career, it should be recorded that at this time, and ever afterwards, Mr. Armstrong, the present Art Director at the South Kensington Museum, was his best friend and counsellor.[2] He had also the advantage of the friendship of George du Maurier, M. Dalou, the sculptor, Charles Keene, Albert Moore, and others.

On the 8th June he records, "A. urged me to prepare caricatures of people well known," probably with the view of making drawings for periodicals.

Several drawings of Caldecott's were under consideration by the proprietors of _Punch_, and on the 22nd June, 1872, the first appeared.

In the same month he exhibited a frame of four small sepia drawings at the Black and White Exhibition, Egyptian Hall, London.

On the 28th June his diary records, "in the gallery of the House of Commons attending the debate on the Ballot Bill;" and again on the 8th July. On the 9th he is "engaged on chalk caricatures all day."

A letter dated 21st July, 1872, to one of his Manchester friends is worth having for the ludicrous sketch accompanying it. He writes:--

"London is of course the proper place for a young man, for seeing the manners and customs of society, and for getting a living in some of the less frequented grooves of human labour, but for a residence give me a rural or marine retreat. I sigh for some 'cool sequestered spot, the world forgetting, by the world forgot.'"

About this time it was suggested to him to illustrate a book of summer travel, and on the 20th August 1872 he enters in his diary:--

"To Rotterdam, Harzburg, &c., to join Mr. and Mrs. B. in the _Harz Mountains_."

This was the first book that Caldecott illustrated;[3] the title suggested was "_A Tour in the Toy Country_," and before leaving London he made the drawing on the preceding page. Caldecott, being then twenty-six, started on this journey with great readiness. The idea was altogether delightful to him; and here, as in every country he visited in after years, his playful fancy and facility for seizing the grotesque side of things stood him in good stead.

In a strange land, amidst unfamiliar scenes and faces, he roamed "fancy free"; in a country so compact in size that the whole could be traversed in a month's walking tour.

With _Baedeker's Guide_ (English edition) in his pocket, and a dialogue book of sentences in German and English, he used to delight to interrogate the wondering natives; the necessary questions difficult to find, and "the elaborate and quite unnecessary" (as he expressed it), always turning up. Such little incidents gave opportunity to the observant artist to study the faces of the listeners; the interviews conducted slowly and gravely, and ending in a peal of laughter from the natives.

Life at a German watering-place, as seen on a small scale in summer in the Harz mountains, was Caldecott's first experience of scenes with which his name afterwards became familiar in the pages of the _Graphic_ newspaper. In looking at these early sketches we must bear in mind that they were made at a time when Caldecott, as an "artist," was scarcely two years old; that although his sense of humour was overflowing, his hand was comparatively untrained; that with his keen eye for the grotesque he turned his back upon much that was beautiful about him, that his sense of the fitness of things, of the requirements of composition and the like, were in embryo, so to speak.

Nevertheless, as indicated in the next few pages he has left us work which, if ever a more complete life of Caldecott should be written, would form an important chapter in his art career.

Although little fitted for a mountaineer, he could not resist excursions to the highest points, and with a will which surmounted all difficulties, reached one evening the summit of the famous "Brocken." What he saw is recorded in the sketch below.

There is a legend that when the deluge blotted out man from most parts of the earth, the waters of the northern seas penetrated far into Germany, and that the enormous rock which forms the top of the Brocken formed a shelter and resting-place.

There was no need of a romantic legend to suggest to the mind, at the first sight of the primitive hostelry on the top of the Brocken, its similitude to the "ark of refuge." The situation was delightful; we were in the "toy country" without doubt. There was the identical form of packing-case which the religious world has with one consent provided as a plaything for children; there were Noah and his family, people walking two and two, and horses, sheep, pigs, and goats stowed away at the great side door.

The resemblance was irresistible, and more attractive to Caldecott's mind than any of the legends and mysteries with which German imagination has peopled the district.

There is "no holding" Caldecott now; on the "Hexen Tanzplatz," the sacred ground of Goethe's poetic fancy, within sound almost of the songs of the spirit world that haunt this lonely summit, he sets to work.

The dance of witches, so weird and terrible, (as lately seen on the Lyceum stage in Henry Irving's production of _Faust_) took a different form in the young artist's eyes, whose fancy sketch from the Hexen Tanzplatz is reproduced opposite. He had been properly "posted," as he expressed it, he had read all that should be read about ghosts, witches, and spectres, and the result is before us. The last sketch from the dreary summit, showing the patient tourists waiting to see the view, was all we could get from him of spectres of the Brocken.

One or two sketches of the interior of his Noah's ark, when some sixty travellers had assembled to supper, completed his subjects.

It may be noted that the feeling for landscape which Caldecott possessed in after years in such a high degree, if it touched him here, was not recorded in pencil. The magnificent scenery eastward through the valley of the River Bode, the grim iron foundries and ochre mines, and the wonderful view from the heights above Blankenberg, familiar to all travellers in the Harz, was recorded in only two sketches; one of a roadside inn, where we were invited to stay, the other of two tourists _en route_.

How, at the little wayside sheds and "drink gardens" scattered on the mountain paths, the tourists sat persistently back to the view which they had toiled miles to see, were depicted by the artist in pencil, and many little incidents on the road were dotted down for future use.

In the old tenth-century city of Goslar, Caldecott's pencil was never at rest. Taking a guide to save time (whose portrait he gives us, with a note of a curious sixteenth-century street door) he explores from morning to night, choosing as subjects always "the life of the place."

"Drinking the waters at Goslar" in 1872 was a crude effort artistically, which may be contrasted with his sketches of the same scenes at Buxton in 1876, but the humour is irresistible. An extract from our diaries is necessary here to explain the illustration.

"The figures are pilgrims, that have come from far and wide to combine the attractions of a summer holiday with the benefits of a wonderful 'cure' for which the city is celebrated. The promenades and walks on the ramparts lined with trees, are going through the routine of getting up early, taking regular exercise and drinking daily several pints of a dark mixture having the appearance, taste, and effect of taraxacum or senna. The bottles are supplied at the public gardens and cafés situated at convenient distances in the suburbs of Goslar."

On another day he encounters a school starting for two or three days on the mountains, the band making hideous noises as the procession passes out of Goslar. Everything is characteristic here and full of local colour; the order of march, the costumes and the boots of the boys, and the general gravity of the company are given exactly--making the usual allowance for exaggeration. In the background is seen one of the iron factories and an indication of a bit of Harz scenery; the sketch recalling the incident with wonderful vraisemblance. The "School on the March" in its humour and exaggeration may remind the reader of some drawings by Thackeray.

Here, as in Belgium, the harnessing of dogs to carts, drawing sometimes two people over the rough cobble stones of Goslar, excited Caldecott's pity and anger; he made several sketches of the animals and one portrait of their master who had just got down to enjoy a pipe at the corner of a street.

Sketches at various _table d'hôtes_ in hotels, public gardens and the like, were plentiful and perpetual. But the majority were destroyed or put away; out of fifty only one such as "A General in the Prussian Army" (see page 44) being selected for reproduction.[4]

At Clausthal we joined a party to explore one of the iron mines, and Caldecott gives a sketch of the preparations. A note from our diary will best explain the situation.

"In order to descend the mines at Clausthal, visitors have to divest themselves of their ordinary costumes and put on some cast-off suits of ill-fitting garments left at the entrance to the mine for the purpose. As we approach the mouth of the shaft where the miners are waiting with lanterns to commence the descent, our party,--consisting of four Englishmen--a professor of geology, a director of mines, an editor and an artist--present the somewhat undignified aspect in the sketch. This change of costume is necessary on account of the wet state of the mines, the thick caps being a protection against loose pieces of ore and the wet earth that falls from time to time in the galleries."

Caldecott gives the generally dismal and disreputable appearance of the party with great verve; his own portrait is presented in a few touches in the background, hurrying into garments much too big for him.

On one occasion the artist takes a solitary walk between Thale and Clausthal, a pathway lined in some parts by rows of trees with forbidden fruit, a novel and tempting experience. There being no mention of this route in the guide books, he writes as he says his "own _Baedeker_" in the familiar practical manner:--

"I start at 3.40 P.M. from the 'Tenpounds Hotel' at Thale to walk up the valley of the Bode, over a wooden bridge, then through a beer garden, round a rocky corner," &c. "The way next through woods of beech, birch and oak; a stream can be heard but not seen. Treseburg is reached at 5.40; a prettily situated village by the water side; homely inn, damp beds."

"Leave Treseburg at 9.40 A.M. over a bridge on the right bank of the Bode. Altenbrack at 10.50, Wendefurth at 11.50. Rubeland reached at 2.30 P.M., and so on to Elbingerode, where a halt is made for the night at the 'Blauer Engel,' a tolerable inn. Women of burden and foresters are the only wayfarers met with.

"The route hence south-west over high open land with fine views to the iron works of Rothehütte in an hour. Thence up a hill for half an hour and through dense fir woods, then out on the high road again, resting at the 'Brauner Hirsch' at Braunlage. From thence over hills commanding a vast extent of country with the familiar form of the Brocken continually in view. The road descends by easy stages through a district full of small reservoirs and leads the traveller in about two hours into the wide, clean, empty streets of Clausthal."

On the 19th September, 1872, Caldecott is at work again in his rooms at 46, Great Russell Street (opposite the British Museum) arranging with the writer for some of his Harz Mountain drawings to accompany an article in the London _Graphic_ newspaper. These appeared in the autumn of 1872.

On the 18th October, the following entry appears in Caldecott's diary: "Called at _Graphic_ office, saw Mr. W. L. Thomas, who took my address." This entry is interesting as the beginning of a long connection with the _Graphic_ newspaper which proved mutually advantageous.

In November, 1872, the present writer went to America, taking a scrap-book of proofs of the best of Caldecott's early drawings, a few of which were published in an article on the _Harz Mountains_ in _Harper's Monthly Magazine_ in the spring of 1873.[5] His drawings were also shown to the conductors of the _Daily Graphic_, of New York, which led to an engagement referred to in the next chapter.

During the latter part of 1872 numerous small illustrations were produced for _London Society_.