Harry Furniss

“ He was a study as fascinating to the artist as to the politician, and no portrait ever drawn by pen or pencil can hand down to future generations the mysterious subtlety in the personality of the all-powerful leader.
He was as puzzling to the Parliamentary artist as he was to the politician: he never appeared just as one expected him. When I first made a sketch of him he had short hair, a well-trimmed moustache, shortly-cut side whiskers, a neat-fitting coat and trousers, and well-shaped boots. ”

“ I confess as a caricaturist, surely I need not caricature my confessions by any mock-modesty. Although I have illustrated novels, short stories, fairy tales, poems, parodies, satires, and jeux d'esprit, for the realistic, the fanciful, the weirdly imaginative and the broadly humorous, as my Punch colleague, E. T. Milliken, wrote, my more distinctive, natural and favourite métier is that of graphic art. This intimate friend, in publishing his "appreciation" of me, put in his own too highly-coloured opinion of my black and white work in this direction. ”

“ It is impossible to treat a strong political subject—such as the meeting of that particular Cabinet caricatured by me—without offending some readers by amusing others, unless, as I say, the subject is treated in a colourless manner. This particular cartoon hurt because it hit a strong situation in a truthful and straight-forward manner, and subsequent events proved it to be a correct conception. Yet at the time no name was too bad for me, and as these are my confessions, let me assure the public that had the Cabinet been a Conservative one I would have treated it in exactly the same way ”

“ I am told a Japanese artist who wishes to study a particular flower, for instance, travels to the part of the country where it is to be found; he takes no photographic camera, no superb sketching pad or box of paints, but he lives by the plant, watches day by day the flower grow, blossom, and decay, under every condition, and mentally notes every detail, so that ever afterwards he can paint that flower in every possible way with facility and knowledge. I have myself treated Mr. Gladstone as that Japanese artist treats the beautiful flower. ”

“ Gladstone unfolds the fateful document, and lo! it is a blank sheet. Paralysis and grim despair fall upon the spirits of the assembly; face to face with a nightmare reality, not a man amongst them has strength to say, 'This is a dream.' At the head of the table, his elbows resting on the parchment, and an undipped quill actually split upon it in his angry grasp, sits the Premier, a never-to-be-forgotten picture of impotent ill-humour. The task with which the Cabinet is confronted, for him as for the rest, is impossible and yet inexorable. ”

“ I am to draw political cartoons without being political; I am to draw caricatures without being personal; I am to be funny without holding my subject up to ridicule; I am to be effective without being strong—in fact, I am to be a caricaturist without caricature! On the other hand, no cartoon I ever drew for Punch was more popular. ”

“ Such was my introduction to this select little club in Parliament, in which, with the exception of the Professor, all forgot politics, and the best of the Tories, Home Rulers, Radicals, and officials were at peace. I was always on most friendly terms with my "Black Beetle," a proof that caricature leaves no unkind sting when the victim is really a man of the world and a jolly good fellow. Surely nothing could be more offensive to an official in high office than to be continually represented as a black beetle! ”

“ Punch required "funny little figures," and I supplied them; but my métier, I must confess, was work requiring more demand upon direct draughtsmanship and power. I am a funny man, a caricaturist, by force of circumstances; an artist, a satirist, and a cartoonist by nature and training. The one requires technical knowledge—in the other, "drawing doesn't count." The more amateurish the work, the funnier the public consider it. The serious confession I have to make is that I have been mistaken for a caricaturist in the accepted and limited meaning of the term. ”

“ I was fortunate, in the twelve years I represented Punch in Parliament with the pencil, in having the exceptional material for work upon Mr. Gladstone at his most interesting period, Parnell's rise and fall, Churchill's rise and fall, Bradlaugh's rise and fall, and a host of others strutting their brief hour on the political stage. Where are they now? Mr. Chamberlain alone interests the caricaturist. Parliament itself is dull, the public is apathetic, and everything appertaining to politics is flat and unprofitable. ”

“ We have long had with us the City Cannibal, the Fleet Street Cannibal, the Dramatic, Literary and Musical Cannibals. Latterly the Society Cannibal has come more distinctly to the front. Then why, I long ago asked myself, should there not be the Cannibal of the etching pen and the brush? Especially as the writhing victims of those mighty instruments appear to be so enamoured of their fate as to besiege that comic slaughter-house, the studio of the caricaturist, and with persistent cries of "Eat us! eat us! ”

“ His Press work he looked upon as mere bread and milk. His work was excellent, journalism which editors term "safe," neither too brilliant nor too dull, certainly having no trace whatever of eccentricity.
I may here offer an opinion, and make a suggestion to young journalists, and that is—safe, steady, dull mediocrity is what pays in the long run; to attempt to be brilliant when not a genius is fatal. To have the genius, brilliancy, pluck, and success means tremendous prosperity and favour for a time, but the editors and the public tire of your cleverness. You are too much in evidence. ”

“ Herbert Gladstone is no longer in his teens, that Mr. Gladstone was not always so wild-looking as H. F. usually represented him, and that perhaps Sir William Harcourt is not simply an elephantine mass of egotism."
"Then why did he draw them so?" enquired the Pen.
"Ah! that is the secret of the caricaturist," laughed the Pencil. "There is something more in politicians, you know, than meets the eye, and the caricaturist tries to record it. You're so captious, my dear Pen. It is not given to everyone to see a portrait properly, however true it may be. Some folks there are who are colour-blind. ”

“ Of course it was most interesting to me to study such a genius at such a time, and in recording my experiences and impressions of Lewis Carroll my object is not so much to deal with the actual illustration to those ill-conceived books "Sylvie and Bruno," but to deal with my impressions of the man obtained by working with him for so long, for to have known the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's books. ”

“ A sea of billows drifting across the sky, glittering, frosted—a symphony in metals—silver, aluminium, lead—rendered buoyant for the nonce, ethereal—as though the world were really gone Christmas mad, and, having a sudden attack of topsy-turvydom in its inside, had taken to showering its treasures about the firmament, instead of keeping them snugly put away in mines below ground. A sheet of snow, and bitter white rain driving still. A huge building looming black, its many eyes staring into the dark—lidless, bilious, vacant. ”

“ One frequently hears the remark, "Caricature is so ugly." Well, certainly pure caricature is the villain of art, and the popular draughtsman, like the popular actor, should, to remain popular in his work, always play the virtuous hero. If the leading actor must play the villain, he takes care to make up inoffensive and tame. So the villain caricaturist need not be [Pg 252] "ugly"—but then he cannot be strong. Nor is it left to an actor—unless he be the star or actor-manager—to remain popular by being tame and pretty in every part. ”

“ I confess I have a certain amount of pity, closely akin to contempt, for the artist who must have the actual character he wants to paint, who cannot use a model merely for reference, but paints in everything like a photograph. Some artists call such feebleness conscientiousness, but to me it seems mere weakness. ”

“ The present Sergeant-at-Arms is as unlike a black beetle as he is unlike the Bohemian Gosset. But I shall be surprised if, when the courteous and universally appreciated Sergeant-at-Arms retires, and the present Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Gosset, takes his place, we shall not see the old room again the most entertaining spot in the Houses of Parliament.
When Professor Rogers was escorting me to the famous room, he implored me to leave politics outside of it,—as if I ever talked politics in the House! "Rule is—no politics, so don't forget it." ”

“ The work of an amateur artist possessing a distinct vein of humour is, in my opinion, far more entertaining than that of the professional caricaturist, the former being absolutely spontaneous and untrammelled by the conscientiousness of subsequent publication, of correct draughtsmanship, made only from impressions of the moment, and not the effort (as in the case of many a professional humorist) of having to be funny to order. ”

“ Yet how much men who live on their wits owe to their domestic happiness! It is a pleasant fact to be able to chronicle that—I believe at all times—the domestic lives of the Punch staff have been most happy. It is rather curious that all of them have made the same kind of matrimonial selection—they have married "sensible wives," women who have all been sympathetic, devoted, bright, and domesticated. The wit at the dinner-table, the humorous writer or the caricaturist in the pages you read, is a very different dog at home. ”

“ I was writing in my sitting-room on the first floor, next to Parnell's room, when the strains of national music of approaching bands smote my ear, and soon the hotel was surrounded by a cheering, shouting crowd. Banners were flying, bands were playing, thousands of voices were shouting. Standing in a brake haranguing the surging mass of people was the familiar figure of Charles Stewart Parnell. ”

“ I can truly say, at all events, my recollection as a boy of sixteen of the great Times forger is by no means unfavourable, and he dwells in my memory as one of the most pleasant and genial of men. I ought, perhaps, to say that in feeling I was anything but a Nationalist, because in Ireland, generally speaking, you must be either black or white. ”

“ In reality, though, this charnel-house was the sculptors' studio, in which were modelled the gigantic figures which were to be placed on the buildings and about the grounds.
Now were I to design a model for a statue to be placed in the Exposition, it would certainly be one of my excellent and entertaining companion, who proved himself a model conductor, a model of an American gentleman, and one who is justly proud, as [Pg 81] all Americans must be, of the greatness and thoroughness of the most splendid and most interesting Exhibition ever recorded in the annals of their great country. ”

“ I have even known artists so anxious to be parodied that, if [Pg 290] they happened to have a vein of humour in their pencils, they would actually send me caricatures of their own pictures. Even poor Fred Barnard once sent me an admirable sketch, caricaturing an excellent portrait of his three children which he had painted for the Royal Academy, where it duly appeared. Others less humorously imaginative perhaps have written to me assuring me of the great pleasure which would have been theirs had they themselves conceived the idea which my caricature of their work supplied. ”

“ My own children have been my models, not only for Lewis Carroll's books, but for all my drawings of children. I have three boys and one girl. Dorothy is now a successful artist, and Lawrence is, at the age of eighteen, a professional draughtsman of mechanical subjects; my youngest is just out of his teens. Their portraits manifolded will be found in the page sketch from "Romps" Du Maurier wrote me a most graceful appreciation of these books, which, considering his delightful pictures of children in Punch, was most gratifying to me. ”

“ MY EASEL. DRAWING MR.
GLADSTONE AT A PUBLIC MEETING.
If there is one thing I dislike more than another it is a crowd, particularly an electioneering crowd. Political fever is a bad malady, even when one is impervious to it, if he has to fight his way through an infected mob. Quickly slipping round to the principal hotel, and finding there the carriages engaged for the celebrities of the meeting, I got into one and was driven rapidly up to the hall, cheered by the mob, who doubtless looked upon me as some active politician. ”

“ Furniss's powers to be substantially limited to political satire or Parliamentary caricature. Much of the work he has already given to the public, and perhaps more of that which he has not yet published, but of which his chosen familiars are aware, will prove that in more serious or imaginative work, in strong, vivid realism as well as in frolic fancy, in landscape as well as in life, in the picturesque as well as in the humorous, he can display a notable mastery. ”

“ I have really been so busy sketching Members of Parliament at St. Stephen's, that I had almost forgotten my promise."
"A poor Pen is out of place in an artist's studio, except to minister to the requirements of the autograph hunter. Well, you need not be jealous. My literary flight is not intended to be a very high one after all. Now you know more about the secrets of the studio than I do; so tell me, is it the custom of H. F. to have a regular sitting for a caricature, after the fashion of the portrait painters?" ”

“ It is impossible to please all tastes when catering for the large public, unless an editor is satisfied to be stereotyped and perfunctory; but Mr. Punch has made his name by his strength, not his weakness, and it may be safely inferred that no Tory thinks less of him for having used all his talent in attacking Benjamin Disraeli year after year as no man has been attacked before—or since—in his pages. ”

“ Caricature pure and simple is not the art I either care for or succeed in practising as well as I do in my less known more serious and more finished work. When I joined Punch, at the age of twenty-six, I had had nine-tenths of my time previous to that occupied (ever since I was fifteen years of age) in drawing far more elaborate and finished work than would be in keeping in a periodical such as Punch. ”