Part 32

Between two long courses at South Kensington Elizabeth spent a summer in Florence and a winter at Rome, studying in both places. At Florence she entered the studio of Signor Guiseppe Bellucci, an eminent historical painter and consummate draughtsman, a fellow-student of Sir Frederick Leighton at the Academy.

Here the girlish student was intensely interested in her work. She rose early, before the other members of the family, taking her breakfast alone, that she might hasten to her beloved labor. "On the day when she did not work with him," says Mrs. Meynell, "she copied passages from the frescoes in the cloisters of the Annunziata, masterpieces of Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio, making a special study of the drapery of the last-named painter. The sacristans of the old church--the most popular church in Florence--knew and welcomed the young English girl, who sat for hours so intently at her work in the cloister, unheeding the coming and going of the long procession of congregations passing through the gates.

"Her studies in the galleries were also full of delight and profit, though she made no other copies, and she was wont to say that of all the influences of the Florentine school which stood her in good stead in her after-work, that of Andrea del Sarto was the most valuable and the most important. The intense heat of a midsummer, which, day after day, showed a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, could not make her relax work, and her master, Florentine as he was, was obliged to beg her to spare him, at least for a week, if she would not spare herself. It was toward the end of October that artist and pupil parted, his confidence in her future being as unbounded as her gratitude for his admirable skill and minute carefulness."

During her seven months in Rome she painted, in 1870, for an ecclesiastical art exhibition, opened by Pope Pius IX., in the cloisters of the Carthusian Monastery, the "Visitation of the Blessed Virgin to St. Elizabeth," and the picture gained honorable mention.

On her return to England the painting was offered to the Royal Academy and rejected. And what was worse still, a large hole had been torn in the canvas, in the sky of the picture. Had she not been very persevering, and believed in her heart that she had talent, perhaps she would not have dared to try again, but she had worked steadily for too many years to fail now. Those only win who can bear refusal a thousand times if need be.

The next year, being at the Isle of Wight, she sent another picture to the Academy, and it was rejected. Merit does not always win the first, nor the second, nor the third time. It must have been a little consolation to Elizabeth Thompson, to know that each year the judges were reminded that a person by that name lived, and was painting pictures!

The next year a subject from the Franco-Prussian War was taken, as that was fresh in the minds of the people. The title was "Missing." "Two French officers, old and young, both wounded, and with one wounded horse between them, have lost their way after a disastrous defeat; their names will appear in the sad roll as missing, and the manner of their death will never be known."

The picture was received, but was "skyed," that is, placed so high that nobody could well see it. During this year she received a commission from a wealthy art patron to paint a picture. What should it be? A battle scene, because into that she could put her heart.

A studio was taken in London, and the "Roll-Call" (calling the roll after an engagement,--Crimea) was begun. She put life into the faces and the attitudes of the men, as she worked with eager heart and careful labor. In the spring of 1874 it was sent to the Royal Academy, with, we may suppose, not very enthusiastic hopes.

The stirring battle piece pleased the committee, and they cheered when it was received. Then it began to be talked at the clubs that a woman had painted a battle scene! Some had even heard that it was a great picture. When the Academy banquet was held, prior to the opening, the speeches of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge, both gave high praise to the "Roll-Call."

Such an honor was unusual. Everybody was eager to see the painting. It was the talk at the clubs, on the railway trains, and on the crowded thoroughfares. All day long crowds gathered before it, a policeman keeping guard over the painting, that it be not injured by its eager admirers. The Queen sent for it, and it was carried, for a few hours, to Buckingham Palace, for her to gaze upon. So much was she pleased that she desired to purchase it, and the person who had ordered it gave way to Her Majesty. The copyright was bought for fifteen times the original sum agreed upon as its value, and a steel-plate engraving made from it at a cost of nearly ten thousand dollars. After thirty-five hundred impressions, the plate was destroyed, that there might be no inferior engravings of the picture. The "Roll-Call" was for some time retained by the Fine Art Society, where it was seen by a quarter of a million persons. Besides this, it was shown in all the large towns of England. It is now at Windsor Castle.

Elizabeth Thompson had become famous in a day, but she was not elated over it; for, young as she was, she did not forget that she had been working diligently for twenty years. The newspapers teemed with descriptions of her, and incidents of her life, many of which were, of course, purely imaginative. Whenever she appeared in society, people crowded to look at her.

Many a head would have been turned by all this praise; not so the well-bred student. She at once set to work on a more difficult subject, "The Twenty-eighth Regiment at Quatre Bras." When this appeared, in 1875, it drew an enormous crowd. The true critics praised heartily, but there were some persons who thought a woman could not possibly know about the smoke of a battle, or how men would act under fire. That she studied every detail of her work is shown by Mr. W. H. Davenport Adams, in his Woman's Work and Worth. "The choice of subject," he says, "though some people called it a 'very shocking one for a young lady,' engaged the sympathy of military men, and she was generously aided in obtaining material and all kinds of data for the work. Infantry officers sent her photographs of 'squares.' But these would not do, the men were not in earnest; they would kneel in such positions as they found easiest for themselves; indeed, but for the help of a worthy sergeant-major, who saw that each individual assumed and maintained the attitude proper for the situation at whatever inconvenience, the artist could not possibly have impressed upon her picture that verisimilitude which it now presents.

"Through the kindness of the authorities, an amount of gunpowder was expended at Chatham, to make her see, as she said, how 'the men's faces looked through the smoke,' that would have justified the criticisms of a rigid parliamentary economist. Not satisfied with seeing how men looked in square, she desired to secure some faint idea of how they felt in square while 'receiving cavalry.' And accordingly she repaired frequently to the Knightsbridge Barracks, where she would kneel to 'receive' the riding-master and a mounted sergeant of the Blues, while they thundered down upon her the full length of the riding-school, deftly pulling up, of course, to avoid accident. The fallen horse presented with such truth and vigor in 'Quatre Bras' was drawn from a Russian horse belonging to Hengler's Circus, the only one in England that could be trusted to remain for a sufficient time in the required position. A sore trial of patience was this to artist, to model, to Mr. Hengler, who held him down, and to the artist's father, who was present as spectator. Finally the rye,--the 'particularly tall rye' in which, as Colonel Siborne says, the action was fought,--was conscientiously sought for, and found, after much trouble, at Henly-on-Thames."

I saw this beautiful and stirring picture, as well as several others of Mrs. Butler's, while in England. Mr. Ruskin says of "Quatre Bras": "I never approached a picture with more iniquitous prejudice against it than I did Miss Thompson's; partly because I have always said that no woman could paint, and secondly, because I thought what the public made such a fuss about must be good for nothing. But it is Amazon's work, this, no doubt of it, and the first fine pre-raphaelite picture of battle we have had, profoundly interesting, and showing all manner of illustrative and realistic faculty. The sky is most tenderly painted, and with the truest outline of cloud of all in the exhibition; and the terrific piece of gallant wrath and ruin on the extreme left, where the cuirassier is catching round the neck of his horse as he falls, and the convulsed fallen horse, seen through the smoke below, is wrought through all the truth of its frantic passions with gradations of color and shade which I have not seen the like of since Turner's death."

This year, 1875, a figure from the picture, the "Tenth Bengal Lancers at Tent-pegging," was published as a supplement to the Christmas number of London Graphic, with the title "Missed." In 1876, "The Return from Balaklava" was painted, and in 1877, "The Return from Inkerman," for which latter work the Fine Art Society paid her fifteen thousand dollars.

This year, 1877, on June 11, Miss Thompson was married to Major, now Colonel, William Francis Butler, K.C.B. He was then thirty-nine years of age, born in Ireland, educated in Dublin, and had received many honors. He served on the Red River expedition, was sent on a special mission to the Saskatchewan territories in 1870-71, and served on the Ashantee expedition in 1873. He has been honorably mentioned several times in the House of Lords by the Field-Marshal-Commanding-in-Chief. He wrote The Great Lone Land in 1872, The Wild North Land in 1873, and A Kimfoo in 1875.

After the marriage they spent much time in Ireland, where Mrs. Butler painted "Listed for the Connaught Rangers" in 1879. Her later works are "The Remnant of an Army," showing the arrival at Jellalabad, in 1842, of Dr. Brydon, the sole survivor of the sixteen thousand men under General Elphinstone, in the unfortunate Afghan campaign; the "Scots Greys Advancing," "The Defence of Rorke's Drift," an incident of the Zulu War, painted at the desire of the Queen and some others.

Still a young and very attractive woman, she has before her a bright future. She will have exceptional opportunities for battle studies in her husband's army life. She will probably spend much time in Africa, India, and other places where the English army will be stationed. Her husband now holds a prominent position in Africa.

In her studio, says her sister, "the walls are hung with old uniforms--the tall shako, the little coatee, and the stiff stock--which the visitor's imagination may stuff out with the form of the British soldier as he fought in the days of Waterloo. These are objects of use, not ornament; so are the relics from the fields of France in 1871, and the assegais and spears and little sharp wooden maces from Zululand."

Mrs. Butler has perseverance, faithfulness in her work, and courage. She has won remarkable fame, but has proved herself deserving by her constant labor, and attention to details. Mrs. Butler's mother has also exhibited some fine paintings. The artist herself has illustrated a volume of poems, the work of her sister, Mrs. Meynell. A cultivated and artistic family have, of course, been an invaluable aid in Mrs. Butler's development.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

One of the most interesting places in the whole of London, is St. Thomas' Hospital, an immense four-story structure of brick with stone trimmings. Here is the Nightingale Training School for nurses, established through the gift to Miss Nightingale of $250,000 by the government, for her wonderful work in the Crimean War. She would not take a cent for herself, but was glad to have this institution opened, that girls through her training might become valuable to the world as nurses, as she has been.

Here is the "Nightingale Home." The dining-room, with its three long tables, is an inviting apartment. The colors of wall and ceiling are in red and light shades. Here is a Swiss clock presented by the Grand Duchess of Baden; here a harpsichord, also a gift. Here is the marble face and figure I have come especially to see, that of lovely Florence Nightingale. It is a face full of sweetness and refinement, having withal an earnest look, as though life were well worth living.

What better work than to direct these girls how to be useful? Some are here from the highest social circles. The "probationers," or nurse pupils, must remain three years before they can become Protestant "sisters." Each ward is in charge of a sister; now it is Leopold, because the ward bears that name; and now Victoria in respect to the Queen, who opened the institution.

The sisters look sunny and healthy, though they work hard. They have regular hours for being off duty, and exercise in the open air. The patients tell me how "homelike it seems to have women in the wards, and what a comfort it is in their agony, to be handled by their careful hands." Here are four hundred persons in all phases of suffering, in neat, cheerful wards, brightened by pots of flowers, and the faces of kind, devoted women.

And who is this woman to whom the government of Great Britain felt that it owed so much, and whom the whole world delights to honor?

Florence Nightingale, born in 1820, in the beautiful Italian city of that name, is the younger of two daughters of William Shore Nightingale, a wealthy land-owner, who inherited both the name and fortune of his granduncle, Peter Nightingale. The mother was the daughter of the eminent philanthropist and member of Parliament, William Smith.