Randolph Caldecott Part 2

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRST DRAWING IN "PUNCH," 22ND JUNE, 1872.]

On the 28th June his diary records, "in the gallery of the House of Commons attending the debate on the Ballot Bill;" and again on the 8th July. On the 9th he is "engaged on chalk caricatures all day."

A letter dated 21st July, 1872, to one of his Manchester friends is worth having for the ludicrous sketch accompanying it. He writes:--

"London is of course the proper place for a young man, for seeing the manners and customs of society, and for getting a living in some of the less frequented grooves of human labour, but for a residence give me a rural or marine retreat. I sigh for some 'cool sequestered spot, the world forgetting, by the world forgot.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A COOL SEQUESTERED SPOT."]

About this time it was suggested to him to ill.u.s.trate a book of summer travel, and on the 20th August 1872 he enters in his diary:--

"To Rotterdam, Harzburg, &c., to join Mr. and Mrs. B. in the _Harz Mountains_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A TOUR IN THE TOY COUNTRY."]

This was the first book that Caldecott ill.u.s.trated;[3] the t.i.tle suggested was "_A Tour in the Toy Country_," and before leaving London he made the drawing on the preceding page. Caldecott, being then twenty-six, started on this journey with great readiness. The idea was altogether delightful to him; and here, as in every country he visited in after years, his playful fancy and facility for seizing the grotesque side of things stood him in good stead.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MOUNTAIN "BEER GARDEN."]

In a strange land, amidst unfamiliar scenes and faces, he roamed "fancy free"; in a country so compact in size that the whole could be traversed in a month's walking tour.

With _Baedeker's Guide_ (English edition) in his pocket, and a dialogue book of sentences in German and English, he used to delight to interrogate the wondering natives; the necessary questions difficult to find, and "the elaborate and quite unnecessary" (as he expressed it), always turning up. Such little incidents gave opportunity to the observant artist to study the faces of the listeners; the interviews conducted slowly and gravely, and ending in a peal of laughter from the natives.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A "FRAULEIN."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MOUNTAIN PATH.]

Life at a German watering-place, as seen on a small scale in summer in the Harz mountains, was Caldecott's first experience of scenes with which his name afterwards became familiar in the pages of the _Graphic_ newspaper. In looking at these early sketches we must bear in mind that they were made at a time when Caldecott, as an "artist," was scarcely two years old; that although his sense of humour was overflowing, his hand was comparatively untrained; that with his keen eye for the grotesque he turned his back upon much that was beautiful about him, that his sense of the fitness of things, of the requirements of composition and the like, were in embryo, so to speak.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WARRIOR OF SEDAN IN A BEER GARDEN AT GOSLAR, 1872.]

Nevertheless, as indicated in the next few pages he has left us work which, if ever a more complete life of Caldecott should be written, would form an important chapter in his art career.

Although little fitted for a mountaineer, he could not resist excursions to the highest points, and with a will which surmounted all difficulties, reached one evening the summit of the famous "Brocken."

What he saw is recorded in the sketch below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE ARK OF REFUGE."]

There is a legend that when the deluge blotted out man from most parts of the earth, the waters of the northern seas penetrated far into Germany, and that the enormous rock which forms the top of the Brocken formed a shelter and resting-place.

There was no need of a romantic legend to suggest to the mind, at the first sight of the primitive hostelry on the top of the Brocken, its similitude to the "ark of refuge." The situation was delightful; we were in the "toy country" without doubt. There was the identical form of packing-case which the religious world has with one consent provided as a plaything for children; there were Noah and his family, people walking two and two, and horses, sheep, pigs, and goats stowed away at the great side door.

The resemblance was irresistible, and more attractive to Caldecott's mind than any of the legends and mysteries with which German imagination has peopled the district.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DANCE OF WITCHES.]

There is "no holding" Caldecott now; on the "Hexen Tanzplatz," the sacred ground of Goethe's poetic fancy, within sound almost of the songs of the spirit world that haunt this lonely summit, he sets to work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SPECTRES OF THE BROCKEN."]

The dance of witches, so weird and terrible, (as lately seen on the Lyceum stage in Henry Irving's production of _Faust_) took a different form in the young artist's eyes, whose fancy sketch from the Hexen Tanzplatz is reproduced opposite. He had been properly "posted," as he expressed it, he had read all that should be read about ghosts, witches, and spectres, and the result is before us. The last sketch from the dreary summit, showing the patient tourists waiting to see the view, was all we could get from him of spectres of the Brocken.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SKETCH AT SUPPER.]

One or two sketches of the interior of his Noah's ark, when some sixty travellers had a.s.sembled to supper, completed his subjects.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "BACK TO THE VIEW."]

It may be noted that the feeling for landscape which Caldecott possessed in after years in such a high degree, if it touched him here, was not recorded in pencil. The magnificent scenery eastward through the valley of the River Bode, the grim iron foundries and ochre mines, and the wonderful view from the heights above Blankenberg, familiar to all travellers in the Harz, was recorded in only two sketches; one of a roadside inn, where we were invited to stay, the other of two tourists _en route_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GUIDE AT GOSLAR.]

How, at the little wayside sheds and "drink gardens" scattered on the mountain paths, the tourists sat persistently back to the view which they had toiled miles to see, were depicted by the artist in pencil, and many little incidents on the road were dotted down for future use.

In the old tenth-century city of Goslar, Caldecott's pencil was never at rest. Taking a guide to save time (whose portrait he gives us, with a note of a curious sixteenth-century street door) he explores from morning to night, choosing as subjects always "the life of the place."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PROCESSION OF THE SICK.]

"Drinking the waters at Goslar" in 1872 was a crude effort artistically, which may be contrasted with his sketches of the same scenes at Buxton in 1876, but the humour is irresistible. An extract from our diaries is necessary here to explain the ill.u.s.tration.

"The figures are pilgrims, that have come from far and wide to combine the attractions of a summer holiday with the benefits of a wonderful 'cure' for which the city is celebrated. The promenades and walks on the ramparts lined with trees, are going through the routine of getting up early, taking regular exercise and drinking daily several pints of a dark mixture having the appearance, taste, and effect of taraxac.u.m or senna. The bottles are supplied at the public gardens and cafes situated at convenient distances in the suburbs of Goslar."

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRINKING THE WATERS AT GOSLAR.]

On another day he encounters a school starting for two or three days on the mountains, the band making hideous noises as the procession pa.s.ses out of Goslar. Everything is characteristic here and full of local colour; the order of march, the costumes and the boots of the boys, and the general gravity of the company are given exactly--making the usual allowance for exaggeration. In the background is seen one of the iron factories and an indication of a bit of Harz scenery; the sketch recalling the incident with wonderful vraisemblance. The "School on the March" in its humour and exaggeration may remind the reader of some drawings by Thackeray.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GENERAL IN THE PRUSSIAN ARMY.]

Here, as in Belgium, the harnessing of dogs to carts, drawing sometimes two people over the rough cobble stones of Goslar, excited Caldecott's pity and anger; he made several sketches of the animals and one portrait of their master who had just got down to enjoy a pipe at the corner of a street.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A SCHOOL ON THE MARCH"--HARZ MOUNTAINS, 1872.]

Sketches at various _table d'hotes_ in hotels, public gardens and the like, were plentiful and perpetual. But the majority were destroyed or put away; out of fifty only one such as "A General in the Prussian Army" (see page 44) being selected for reproduction.[4]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At Clausthal we joined a party to explore one of the iron mines, and Caldecott gives a sketch of the preparations. A note from our diary will best explain the situation.

"In order to descend the mines at Clausthal, visitors have to divest themselves of their ordinary costumes and put on some cast-off suits of ill-fitting garments left at the entrance to the mine for the purpose.

As we approach the mouth of the shaft where the miners are waiting with lanterns to commence the descent, our party,--consisting of four Englishmen--a professor of geology, a director of mines, an editor and an artist--present the somewhat undignified aspect in the sketch. This change of costume is necessary on account of the wet state of the mines, the thick caps being a protection against loose pieces of ore and the wet earth that falls from time to time in the galleries."

Caldecott gives the generally dismal and disreputable appearance of the party with great verve; his own portrait is presented in a few touches in the background, hurrying into garments much too big for him.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

On one occasion the artist takes a solitary walk between Thale and Clausthal, a pathway lined in some parts by rows of trees with forbidden fruit, a novel and tempting experience. There being no mention of this route in the guide books, he writes as he says his "own _Baedeker_" in the familiar practical manner:--

"I start at 3.40 P.M. from the 'Tenpounds Hotel' at Thale to walk up the valley of the Bode, over a wooden bridge, then through a beer garden, round a rocky corner," &c. "The way next through woods of beech, birch and oak; a stream can be heard but not seen. Treseburg is reached at 5.40; a prettily situated village by the water side; homely inn, damp beds."