1856.

Specialities in painting.—Wyld's practice.—Projected voyage on the Loire.—Birth of the Prince Imperial.—Scepticism about his inheritance of the crown.—The Imperial family.—I return home.—Value of the French language to me.

Being entirely absorbed in the study of French during my first visit to Paris, I did little in the practice of art. My Lancashire neighbor, who was studying in Paris, worked in Colin's atelier, and I have since regretted that I did not at that time get myself entered there, the more so that it was a decent and quiet place kept under the eye of the master himself, who had long been accustomed to teaching. My friend had certainly made good progress there. I was unfortunately influenced by two erroneous ideas, one of them being that the studies of a figure-painter could be of no use in landscape, [Footnote: This idea had been strongly confirmed by Mr. Pettitt.] and the other that it was wiser to be a specialist, and devote myself to landscape exclusively. It is surprising that the notion of a limited speciality in painting should have taken possession of me then, as in other matters I have never been a narrow specialist, or had any tendency to become one.

The choice of a narrow speciality may be good in the industrial arts, but it is not good in painting, for the reason that a painter may at any time desire to include something in his picture which a specialist could not deal with. To feel as if the world belonged to him a painter ought to be able to paint everything he sees. There is another sense in which speciality may be good: it may be good to keep to one of the graphic arts in order to effect that intimate union between the man and his instrument which is hardly possible on any other terms.

Wyld would have taught me landscape-painting if I had asked him, and I did at a later period study water-color with him; but his practice in oil did not suit me, for this reason: it was entirely tentative, he was constantly demolishing his work, so that it was hard to see how a pupil could possibly follow him. The advantage in working under his eye would have been in receiving a great variety of sound artistic ideas; for few painters know more about art as distinguished from nature. However, by mere conversation, Wyld has communicated to me a great deal of this knowledge; and with regard to the practical advantages of painting like him they would probably not have ensured me any better commercial success, as his style of painting has now for a long time been completely out of fashion.

My scheme in 1856 was to make a great slow boat voyage on the Loire, with the purpose of collecting a quantity of sketches and studies in illustration of that river; and my ardor in learning to speak French had for an immediate motive the desire to make that voyage without an interpreter. I have often regretted that this scheme was never carried out. I have since done something of the same kind for the SaÔne, but my situation is now entirely different. I am now obliged to make all my undertakings pay, which limits them terribly, and almost entirely prevents me from doing anything on a great scale. For example, these pages are written within a few miles of Loire side; the river that flows near my home is a tributary of the Loire; I have all the material outfit necessary for a great boating expedition, and still keep the strength and the will; but no publisher could prudently undertake the illustration of a river so long as the Loire and so rich in material, on the scale that I contemplated in 1856.

It is unnecessary to trouble the reader with my crude impressions of European painting in the Universal Exhibition of that year. I no more understood French art at that time than a Frenchman newly transplanted to London can understand English art. The two schools require, in fact, different mental adjustments. Our National Gallery had sufficiently prepared me for the Louvre, which I visited very frequently; and there I laid the foundations of a sort of knowledge which became of great use many years afterwards, though for a long time there was nothing to show for it.

No historical event of importance occurred during my stay in Paris, except the birth of the Prince Imperial. I was awakened by the cannon at the Invalides, and having been told that if there were more than twenty-one guns the child would be a boy, I counted till the twenty-second, and then fell asleep again. There existed, even then, the most complete scepticism as to the transmission of the crown. Neither M. Gindriez, nor any other intelligent Frenchman that I met, believed that the newly born infant had the faintest chance of ever occupying the throne of France. Before the child's birth I had seen his father and mother and all his relations at the closing ceremony of the Universal Exhibition, and thought them, with the exception of the Empress, a common-looking set of people. They walked round the oblong arena in the Palais de l'Industrie exactly as circus people do round the track at the Hippodrome. The most interesting figure was old Jerome—interesting, not for himself, as he was a nonentity, but as the brother of the most famous conqueror since Caesar.

Being called back to England on a matter of business, I cut short my stay in Paris, and arrived at Hollins without having advanced much as an artist, but with an important linguistic acquirement. The value of French to me from a professional point of view is quite incalculable. The best French criticism on the fine arts is the most discriminating and the most accurate in the world, at least when it is not turned aside from truth by the national jealousy of England and the consequent antipathy to English art. At the same time, there are qualities of delicacy and precision in French prose which it was good for me to appreciate, even imperfectly.