MEN I HAVE PAINTED
fast as I could around the corner to Rumpelmeyer's tea-rooms and drink pints of tea so hot that it burnt the mouth. Portrait painting may become a dangerous pastime.
The long sittings with Lord Armitstead for the two portraits were extended to enable me to paint a third for Andrew Carnegie, one of his near friends; but by the time it was completed Mr. Carnegie was also stricken with the infirmities of age, and never saw it. It is the one reproduced.
Lord Armitstead was a willing and capable sitter, making every circumstance easy for the painter, and enlivening the hours with personal anecdotes and reminiscences. Although he had been educated in Germany, and had lived often in that country, he had not been misled into any feeling of sympathy with the people; and he condemned, in the strongest terms, their methods of warfare. He expressed a real sorrow for the loss of so many young men, and particularly for the death of young William Gladstone, of Hawarden. He censured unhesitatingly the War Office for having permitted this brilliant and useful young member of Parliament to enter the fighting line, maintaining, and with sound sense, I thought, that such a man should have been protected by a Staff appointment, because so few young men of his antecedents and capacity could be found to carry on the duties of civil service in times of peace, while there were other young warriors to be had in thousands. I had heard of his death while in America with a feeling of deep regret based upon similar grounds to those put forward by Lord Armitstead.
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