MEN I HAVE PAINTED
myself down again on the stool, I began to draw, and inwardly to bless Sir William Carrington and the clock, and time itself, for having robbed me of my independence and my self-reliance. The King chatted on until I found the drawing could not be redeemed because of the bad beginning, and then I rose again. At this His Majesty came quietly to me, glanced at it, and began to talk about lithography. He was interested in hearing that any paper could be used, as well as that prepared by a sort of size, and forgot all about the time, for he continued to listen and to talk for another half-hour, taking me at last around the galleries and corridors where the portraits are hung, and calling my attention to this one by Angèle and that one by Winterhalter. At last we came to that delightful study of his father, King Edward VII, by Bastien-Lepage, and there I lingered to wonder at its great charm, its technique and colour, and mentally to contrast that art with the coarse and vulgar work of the modern school.
The King was positive in his views upon painting, and freely expressed them. He wondered if he would ever get a satisfactory portrait of himself, that Cope had done the best portrait of his father, but that nearly all portraits were unsatisfactory in one way or another. The conversation between us was easy and unrestrained, and the King seemed to be in no hurry to break it off. In the room where he posed there were several full-length portraits, among them one of the Tsar of Russia, the ill-fated Nicholas. In this portrait the stars and decorations on the breast were irregularly placed and out of their true order, and this His Majesty pointed out to me, with the comment that painters were very careless about these matters, which were as important as precedence in ceremonial.
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