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B I but there is like ramble 778 _gJL -E...
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MUMOIB &NT> LETTERS OF THE LATE THOMAS S...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Actinologia Britannic A. Jlctinohgia Bri...
dry descriptions ; but there is nothing like a ramble on the coast with net and cau , or across the downs , hammer in hand , to enlist our best sympathies in the pursuit of those new pages of natural sciencethe geolbgr and the zoology of the deep .
B I But There Is Like Ramble 778 _Gjl -E...
778 _ gJL I-EAPER . [ No . 437 , Atkhjst 7 , 1858 .
Mumoib &Nt> Letters Of The Late Thomas S...
MUMOIB & NT > LETTERS OF THE LATE THOMAS SEDDON , AKTIST . 3 £ & noir and Letters of tfie . Late , Thomas Seddon , Artist . By his Brother .. James Nisbet and .. Go . Thomas Seddon -was born in 1821 , of a family long connected with , and now , we believe , very eminent in the trade of cabinet working . He was taken into his father's employ after leaving school , and the dryness of mere business being found utterl y uncongenial to him , he was sent in 1841 to Paris to study ornamental art . He returned after a twelvemonth
an unsettled oharacter . He liated work religiously , tit good natural instincts got the upper hand 3 and , ¦ until 1848 , he was the industrious art-designer for the factory , studying literature and art by night . In 1850 , he was at great pains to establish a school for the instruction of workmen in drawing . This was iiar & ly successful , and while preparing for an exposition of his pupils * work , he contracted severe rheumatic fever , which had an important bearing upon his future career . TJpon his recovery in 1851 , wlien he was in his thirtieth year , it was found that his ¦ continuous services could be dispensed with at the place of Lusiness , and he set up as a professional artist .
At the end of 1853 he landed at Alexandria , and "between Egypt and Palestine spent one year in the East . Fragments of his letters and journals during tKat perLool make up the Memoir before us ; and ib \ ongU they possess few points of interest not -cQmmoa to those of other travellers , and are deficient Tiriuere we most looked , for excellence , there are still soine nice "bits" of ¦ word-painting and some pleasant little travelling experiences among them . ' The fiaer quality of our artiste nature was brought out strongly on one sad-occasiou . He had accidentally met in the Desert with vmino'Rnor
a - . auuiucutouj lliw lu . me -L'CSdt WlUl . cl JOUUg JMlg ; 3 ishnian , who was near death , and in order to soothe iis last weeks of suffering , took up his abode with him in the true spirit of the good Samaritan . He encamped beside him with Holman Hunt , in full view of the Pyramids , of which he began a sunset view , and . never left him until he had closed his eyes in peace . There are several passages in the journal winch show that , though a religious man at heart , Seddon . was neither ascetic nor fanatic . TJhere are signs of both humour and geniality in the following : —
To-day my boy ' s mother came to me , and asked me "to -write a paper to prevent her husband ' s beating her . In vain I represented that it was a very delicate thing "to interfere in ; that , in fact , the beating was a very good thing , and would make her the better ; and , finally , ¦ tbat I could not write in Arabic , and that nobody in the village could -write English . She said that English would do just as well ; so , as it was no use insisting , she brought me some paper , and I wrote , " I hereby order Abdullah Ebu Kateen not to beat El biut esma Miriam biut l ' el Zobeid , his wife , under pain of my heavy displeasure ; and if . be persists , I shall send the Howager Hunt to settle
him . ( Signed ) Thomas Seddo-n . " The lady , was delighted , and blessed me , and knelt down and kissed my hand ; and her son and she called me all the grand names in the world . . After the death of the traveller , Seddon took possession of his quarters—a tomb at the Pyramidswhile Mr . Hunt lodged in Cairo . He stopped a month in his oven / ' and after a fortnight at Cairo started with his companion , Hunt , for the Holy liand on , the 10 th of May . At Damietta , her Majesty ' s consul , a Syrian , entertained the painters : — Ait «& dinner ( says the diary ) we bogan to smoke . The ifiwt
njpaa were six feet long , with amber mouth-pieces ; andfWwry ten minutes a set with longer stems and richer jnouthnpfeoea wwre introduced , till , after examining a ¦ whole anwml of guns and piatols and exterminating the lUusiuia several : Unaea , the pipee had become eighteen tfeet long , Mith amber , tops ae Urge as hen ' s eggs , weattied h > diamond * - and aa- nothing short of a small fpalm-tree ^ Didd « ome next , we took our leave . They awwedou the 3 rd of . Juno at Jerusalem , by way of Joppa , and Seddon soon pitched his tent upon Aceldama , in full view of the Holy City , looking over the King ' s gardens , up the valley of Jehoehaphat .
• Hero Seddon lived for more than four mouths , and really and truly devoted himself to painting tlio picture of Jerusalem now placed ia the national oollection . On June the 30 th , when , only three weeks ihad pasted over , bis head , he describes his oxiatenco «& follows : — -.
The perfect monotony of my daily life furnishes no materials at all for letter-writing . I never see a European except on . Sundays , unless Hunt or some one looks in , perhaps foe five minutes , during their morning or evening walk , or ride , to shalce hands and tell me that the report they gave me last week of a great defeat of the Russians is completely false . I get up before sunjise , breakfast and paint till eleven , then , read , darn dine , or sleep till two ; then paint till six ; then I have to returjjj put up my things , and go out for a walk , and just as I go out every one else is obliged to go in , for the gun fires at sunset—seven o'clock—and the gates are shut a quarter of an hour afterwards . Of the view from his plateau he says : —
The hills are of a light grey limestone , lying in strata , so that the hill-sides forma succession of terraces naturally . At present the colour varies singularly . Whenever the light shines directl y on them the hills look white , with lines of yellow running ; along them from the dry , parched herbage ; lnit when the sun is high , so that the sides of the rocky ledges are in shadow , the hill is of a glorious purple , mixed with , the golden and brown tints of tlie herbage . The white rock is also very susceptible of colour from the ra 3 's of the morning
or evening sun , and the little earth that is visible , being reddish . The Mount of . Olives - every evening is of a wonderfully beautiful rather red purple . The slopes of the Mount of Olives , opposite the temple , and the sides of Mount Zion , are covered , with tho flat stone tablets of theinodern Jewish graves . At a little distance it seems as if the whole hill-side were cohered with a flock of sheep . My tent is pitched in the midst of Aceldama . I am surrounded by the older sepulchres of the ancient Jews—large chambers hewn out of the solid rock in the face of the perpendicular side of the vallev of Hirmom .
"With the exception of a week ' s compulsory absence , from illness , and a three days' trip to Hebron and ' Bethlehem , Seddou painted at Aceldama until the 19 th of October . He had stuck to his easel to the exclusion of all else . IVe were surprised to -find tliat he had aot even reached the Dead Sea , though you may almost look into it from the " purple brows of Olivet . " . But his heart—and here is the secret of men's strength and weakness too—had been locked up all the . ' while at Dinan , and to Dinan be repaired , as soon as he could reasonably excuse luinself foit leaving' Palestine , He lost no time , for though he tarried a day in Paris to do commissions and buy some colours , he was in Diuan on the 4 th of November , and from Dinan he -wrote thus to his brother a week after : — -
Indeed I must appear very absurd and changeable , but I am not so . To feel a life'a happiness lianging on the result of my poor hands' work , ivith the thousand difficulties , with illness and-with the fear of it , to work on constantly , without seeing a soul—for at Jerusalem I never saw a Christian soul except on Sundays—is enough to make one anxious . Hunt could not understand my not sacrificing everything to art , and conceived a very mean opinion of me , when , after fruitlessly urging me to stay and entirely complete my picture , I told him that I would toss all my pictures into the fire rather than stay a moment after the time I had fixed .
Yes , the secret of the unfinished pictures , tlte inwisited Dead Sea , and the disappointed Hunt , was solved at Dinan , -where lie went to paint foregrounds but was sooa engaged to be married . In January , 1855 , he removed to London , took an exhibition studio in Bernors-stveet , and got Mr . Ruskin there in a propitious mood , and became a fashionable artist . Duchesses and great Lords went to his handsome rooms , -which were prettily arranged . So did the Honourable Arthur Uordon . Seddou was a man of business , too , and to an cxteut , we apprehend , which ouglit to be most shocking to your true P . R . B ., for when Mr . Gordon wanted " the small dromedary , " which Seddon was obliged to say was sold , he nevertheless offered to paint him a duplicate " with an alteration in the mail . " Oh !
tell it not iu Gath—a duplicate I The campaign was very successful , and the artist was married at Paris on the 30 th of Juno . His exhibition of L 85 G was not so productive as the first , and lie determined to leavo wife and child and revisit the East . It was a right and truly business-like step . He had made bis mark as a painter of TDastcrn subjects , and while he chose so to continue , it was probable lie would bo valued by a public who might not receive him ia another groove . So \ vi fe ana child were left , and he s « t out again for Jerusalem on tlio 12 th of Ootober , never to return . Cairo was reached on the 23 rd , and a few days , after we find , in a letter to Hunt , still at Jerusalem , tho following ingenious confessional criticism upon hia lost , Eastern work a confession we cau fully appreciate : —
In tliia second visit , though tho zest of novelty is gono , yet all strikes mo with deeper intercut than before . I find that iny impressions of atmospheric effects had lost Uie wonderful delicacy , and glory of colour at tho
same time of the reality .. Tho greater amount " v .-ipour in the air at this time of the year eiVCs S . I distances of the utmost softness , ^ vlnle hali ^ an ! houTaS sunset , the black , black outline of the trees JS 5 against a sky of flume fcelow , going into the most tendi violet , and a little to tlie south the white slfm ' in- « £ of the moon glittered on the full-toned violet skv ° So Seddou found- out , we may suppose " on hi * second journey , that while he dreamed from month to month , poor soul , of intensely sharpened sense and feeling oil us isolated plateau of Aceldama and m his tomb-cell under the shadow of the Pyramid these had been , in fact and in trull ,, getting weaker
aud weaker from clay to day He became conscious tor the first time , when-lie returned to-the East how false had been the heretofore so welcome tes * timonies of his friends , to the -wondrous truth and " beauty of his work . Poor Seddou had glimpses of one of those rarest and greatest ' of- men ' s disco yeries—his ovvn shortcomings ; but it was written in the book tliat he was not to work out or profit by it . The shadow of the hand of death was on him when the passage just , quoted was -written , lhat was on the 3 rd of November ,, and in a week
the disease broke out . lie was missed from Ids accustomed place in church , and the Rev . Mr . Liedcr rode down after service , lie moved liim iii a state of extreme prostration to his own house where , in spite of all that medical skill and Christian kindness could do , lie . sank peacefully and . holily on the 23 rd , iu his thirty-sixth year . It might be by some esteemed more generous to the nipmovy of Thomas Scdilpn , as well as-to the surviving biographer , pardonably blinded bv
affection , that the present volume should be passed over in silence , than that we should take exception to its publication . . But . sonic allowance , must be made for the fretfulncss of the reviewer , who , honing for a kernel within the memoirs before us , discovered , after diligent perusal , nothing but a dry husk . It was well known during Mr . Seddon ' s lifetime that he was backed to be excellent and , in course of time , eminent , by an Influential' and talented cliquewell known , also , tliat . ; a feeling and well-written , though extravagant , eulogy had been pronounced upon him by the gifted autlior of " Modern Painters "
at a posthumous exhibition of his performances . A sum . of nearly 600 / . had been raised by public subscription for the purchase of his beloved chefd ' oeuvre , the " Jerusalem , " now hanging iii Marlborough House . Men knew that he had tracked the Kile , painted the "Pyramids ' on-the spot , and had camped , with Holmah Hunt for friend and fellow-traveller , in Palestine . One hoped to find , if not in the Memoir ,- ' at least in the Letters , some traces of the poet-painter ' s' mind , and of its progress
during the approximation aud after the fusion of religious and artistic devotion , which is the vaunted blazon of iho art-sect of Seddcn ' s adoption . One looked , at least , for some interesting references to the prc-llaphaelilc Gamaliel by the disciple who sat so long at nis feet beside the . great fount of inspiration . The . affectionate remarks of the editor , again , who , in his preface , lent yet farther stimulus to curiosity , still added to our 'disappointment , when , after careful perusal of the Memoir , we found the well-spring of our hopes an utter mirage .
1 ' or it is the belief and hope of the editor ( he says ) that the following pages will show to those who are now struggling in the arduous path of art how , with a nohle and unselfish aim , one lias toiled and trod iu the same before them ; that seeing sometimes his footprint * in the way , they may take heart again in tlieir discouragements ; and , above nil , that they may learn , with him , to hold art , and success , and all things , but secondary to tho one tiling needful .
Here was promise : and we were more than surprised , when hard upon it , in the very opening passage of the work , followed the more practical caution to the reader against hoping' for unything but an every-day sketch of an ordinary person , a , sketch free from startling incidents and dazzling traits . ISut , in truth , our whole notice of the work before us might well have been condensed into those few words . The heroism we were tempted by tho preface to scelc fov , if it existed in Thomas Seddon , has been suppressed in his memoirs . No abiuKiuivi
^ , > pui uuuy , iiuu uis nouie rogu " & " " *" " chill penury / ' No icy world " froze the genial current of his soul . " lie hud indulgent parents , troops of affectionate friends , position und easy circumstances at his buck , and ( it we tiro , wrong it is the fault of tho biographer ) rather drifted into nrj than took its difficult heights by diligent siege and perilous storm . Aa a sign , and an encouragement to the struggling artist hia Biography ^ 'ill ho 03 useless as would bo that of any roligioua
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 7, 1858, page 778, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/ldr_07081858/page/18/
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