MEN I HAVE PAINTED
Here was an opportunity that could not be lightly put aside. My regular work had been interrupted by several years of travel in Italy and in America, and having once more settled down in London, as I thought, permanently, in a comfortable house, surrounded by a garden of unusual size and beauty, I saw, in this proposal to paint the foremost statesman in Europe, the beginning of a prosperous and interesting career. After a little discussion and some subsequent correspondence, these young ladies engaged rooms in the inn at Queen's Ferry, where the most momentous month of my life, in some respects, was passed. The morning after our arrival we visited "Taffy" and Mrs. Rowley at Dee Bank, and were introduced to the other daughters. There I was interested to find a complete set of Whistler's first etchings, subscribed for in Paris by "Taffy" when the master was entering upon that turbulent and eventful life-struggle that bore him—but alas! only after his death—to the most exalted position among the few men of genius in Art.
The ladies drove me, as they had promised, to Hawarden Castle and introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone and Mrs. Drew. Mr. Gladstone received me affably, and listened with great good nature to my request for a sitting. It was immediately arranged that I should make a drawing next day. It is needless to describe the amount of gladness that filled me to overflowing as we drove merrily back to Dee Bank, and subsequently to the inn, to impart the good news to delighted audiences.
The next morning I prepared my papers and pastels and started to walk to the castle. There are times when the mind dominates the body so completely as practically to annihilate it. The senses respond to impressions from
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