Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No.690

Although in back slums of these towns, and amongst the dissipated, the pallid father, wan mother, and emaciated child may, as elsewhere, be occasionally seen creeping home; amongst the thrifty and orderly, no such lugubrious picture is presented; but as a rule one sees healthy-looking men and women, and rosy-cheeked urchins of the true English type. Indeed the beauty of delicate features and intelligence of expression, combined with physical vigour, are marked characteristics of the whole district, and such as a stranger would not be led to expect. While my metaphorical tent was pitched near a pretty little rivulet at Dresden, my visits to the neighbouring towns and places of beauty or interest were frequent, both in winter and summer; and I had consequently the best opportunities of inspecting these busy hives of industry, which have so marvellously sprung up from the original germ-thought of one man, Josiah Wedgwood, whose brain-labour has set all these hands in motion.

It would be out of place to enter into a fully detailed account of the manufacture of the various wares known by the generic name of china; but a few particulars may not be unnecessary, as an introduction to the special process of embellishment. Most of us are familiar with the earlier difficulties in the plastic processes – from the potter's wheel to the mould – with which Wedgwood had to contend. We know the components of the superior wares, and have at length discovered the Chinese secret – that it is the ingredient of bone-dust which imparts the semi-transparent quality; while the properties of the shining surface are well understood; therefore it is with the bisque, or unglazed ware that we shall commence, after it has been withdrawn from the bottle-shaped oven to the dripping-house.

In this latter department, the fresh-baked ware is immersed in a silicious solution, and thence conveyed, in bandbox-shaped seggars, to the 'glost' (glaze) oven to be fired. But should it be desired to ornament it with printed paper patterns laid upon the surface, this is effected before it is dipped. The ware is now fired until the glaze becomes transparent; after which it is removed to the 'glost' warehouse, where the various articles are assorted by classification, and then transferred to female artists skilled in the 'stencilled ground-laying,' as the process is locally termed, of the metallic colours, each of which is brought to a perfectly uniform tint with a 'boss' or pad.

Passing from their hands to the kiln, the ware is again fired, after which it is transferred to the fair 'paintresses' (a local word), whose superior intelligence, or taste, qualifies them to embellish it with what they call 'enamel' paintings of birds, flowers, and other familiar objects. It is then fired for eight hours; and finally transferred to the gilders and burnishers, who, with their agate implements, bring the process of ornamentation to its last stage.

But before this has been arrived at, many busy heads have been at work in the selection of materials and in their manipulation; for in the work of ordinary painters and 'paintresses,' rapidity of execution, as well as artistic dexterity, is required in order to earn a livelihood. On an average, one penny is the price allowed for the central floral pattern of an ordinary plate – such as a pink-rose with buds and leaves, a convolvulus, or any other simple flower. Each colour must be laid on with firmness and precision; and where the light is to fall, as on the convex petal of a rose, the effect must be produced by a rapid touch of the finger removing the colour. With a convolvulus, however, it may be remarked, the colour is dashed on rapidly, and with each dash the hair-pencil is swept to a point, more or less fine, according to the style of flower; and with blue flowers especially, the rule well known to watercolourists in painting an azure sky is never departed from.

The bisque or unglazed ware is now but seldom embellished with painting, for colours are found to have little brilliancy on its porous surface; consequently, this kind of ware is chiefly used where form alone is the paramount consideration.

In the manipulation of metallic colours, the superior porcelain-painter has to calculate the ultimate effect with the same care as the fresco or destemper painter; and yet it is surprising how limited is the fame of those who decorate our drawing-room and dessert ware with their artistic work, in which a few masterly touches in birds and flowers, figures and landscapes, give life to the cold clay; for with certain exceptions these artists are not allowed even to add their initials to their work.

Considerable nicety, only to be acquired by practice, is requisite in mixing the metallic colours; and for this purpose spirit of turpentine, combined with a thick oil obtained from exposure to the air for a certain length of time, of ordinary turpentine (called fat), is used; but should more body be required, tar is added. The mixed colour is then applied to the porcelain in the same manner as in ordinary oil-painting, but with one marked and important difference, namely, that in porcelain painting the colour must never be worked, but must be applied with a full brush, carried with a clean and precise sweep to lighter gradations of tint. Thus, the greatest depth of colour indicates the first impact of the full charged brush. Inattention to this dominating rule would be productive of clogginess and opacity.

Lastly, the brush or hair-pencil does not seem to be regarded as of such importance as one would imagine by the ordinary artists of our 'pot-banks;'1 and it is not a little surprising, even to one long accustomed to the use of the pencil, to observe with what dexterity the most apparently intractable tuft of hair on the end of a quill can be brought into subjection by those who can get no better, and whose living depends upon their ingenuity.

Various kinds of brushes are used. Fine lines are expressed with a very long-haired thin camel-hair; while ordinary subjects are readily mastered with a medium size. But for more careful and minute work, such as heraldic-painting – as less liable to clog – the mounted sable (No. 1, 2, or 3) is the best.

Having satisfied myself that to a certain extent the art of painting on porcelain may be readily acquired by any one of ordinary intelligence; its niceties, like those of wood-engraving or any similar accomplishment, are nevertheless to be learned only by long practice. The mere application of colour within prepared outlines is often supposed to constitute 'the art of painting,' and there can be no doubt that, according to dictionary definition, it is painting; but as there is no art in it, so is there no credit due to the purely mechanical action of the painter's hand. As an amusement, where practised on artistic principles, porcelain-painting might, amongst amateurs, lead to pleasing results; but to 'take it up' merely as a fashion of the day is scarcely worth the trouble, and would be of comparatively little benefit to those who contribute materials.

THE STRONG-MINDED WOMAN.

'Do you mean to go to the Woman's Rights affair, Earle?' asked one young man of another from out a cloud of smoke. The two were sitting one evening in December in the smoking-room of Wilfred Earle, a rising young artist of the modern school of figure-painters.

'Yes, I do,' replied the one addressed, a fine-looking man of some five-and-thirty years, with thoughtful dark-blue eyes, a good forehead, from which the curly brown locks were departing fast, and a fine tawny beard and moustache. 'I shall go out of mere curiosity though, for of all offensive articles, to my taste a strong-minded woman is the worst. Just imagine the horrible bore of being tied for life to a woman who travelled about the country spouting on woman's rights! As if all women were not tyrants by nature, without developing the art into a system. Ugh!' and Earle shuddered.

'I should like to see your ideal woman, Earle,' said his companion. 'You are such a fastidious fellow.'

'Well, I suppose every man has some sort of ideal; mine is a very vague one. I should not like a heroine of romance, but a comfortable everyday wife.'

'To darn your stockings, let you smoke all over the house, give you good dinners; eh?'

'That's rather a low standard, my good fellow. If that were everything, why not take a good-tempered domestic servant? No, I should like my wife to be intelligent at least; if not intensely intellectual, well read, graceful, feminine. I don't mind so much about beauty. I can get paid models when I want them. One thing she must have – some sense of humour. That's what I complain of in these spouting females – they are so grimly in earnest! In short I want a jolly, unaffected, sensible girl, who will believe in me, make my friends welcome, my house comfortable, and be a pleasant companion to me after hard work. That's what my ideal comes to, Jack – not a very lofty one after all.'

'I don't know but that the clever women make the best housewives after all,' remarked Roberts, puffing thoughtfully away. 'My brother now – he married a girl just because she was a sweet, soft, amiable little thing; thinking that after knocking about the world a good deal, he should like a quiet comfortable home. He was not violently in love with Amy, but had a notion of settling down to domestic life. Well, she turned out the most incapable idiot; is given over to nerves, hysterics, all sorts of fancies; cries when he's out after ten, faints if he finds fault with her. It isn't her fault – there's no vice in her; she hasn't the stuff in her, that's all. My sister Maude, again – you remember her, Earle?'

'Yes. A fine girl; lots of go in her.'

'Rather too much, we thought. She was a bit of a flirt – but as clever as she could be. Well, she married a quiet, steady-going fellow we all said she would henpeck. I tell you, Will, they are a model couple! Maude makes a splendid wife, and it's the pleasantest house to stay in that I know. The husband always says the "clever women" are the cleverest all round.'

'Well, it's time we were off. Let's postpone the discussion sine die.'

Shortly after the foregoing dialogue, Wilfred Earle and his friend found themselves in the midst of a pretty considerable number of people entering the doors of a certain Literary Institute in one of the Surrey suburbs of London. The audience was mostly composed of well-dressed people; but there was also a tolerable gathering of trades-people and artisans in the back of the room. Earle and Roberts took their seat in a corner of one of the windows, intending to be unobserved; but they soon perceived a little lady, of a lively appearance, with bobbing gray curls and very small hands, which she kept in perpetual motion. One of these hands – incased in an exquisite glove – was waving and beckoning to them in an agitated manner. Simply bowing in return was no avail, the waving got more energetic, and Earle perceived he would have to obey the summons. The little lady was not going to lose the chance of catching even an incipient lion; and Earle was a rising man, and was beginning to be talked about.

'Bother it!' he murmured; 'there's that bore, Mrs De Lacy! I shall have to go to her. She is the most persistent woman I know, and the most crotchety. I believe woman's rights and wrongs are her latest craze. Come along, Roberts, and protect me.'

So the two men made their way to the front row, where sat Mrs De Lacy and her satellites. As for Mr De Lacy, no one ever thought about him. He was Mrs De Lacy's husband, and did very well at the foot of the table at dinner-parties, offering good wine to his guests. This, by the way, was the sole point where he dared act independently.

Mrs De Lacy was a rigid teetotaler, as well as a spiritualist, mesmerist, anti-vaccinationist, phrenologist, all the rest of it – a woman of theories; worked upon by every novelty, and the easy prey of any plausible adventurer. She had her virtues, shallow, conceited, egotistical as she was. She was kind-hearted and benevolent, only, unfortunately, her benefactions were generally wrongly directed.

'Here you are at last, naughty man!' she cried, giving Earle both her hands at once, to his no small embarrassment, as he did not know what to do with them, and would gladly have passed one on to Roberts, who was trying to hide a smile. 'What have you to say for yourself? I am very, very angry with you!'

'Indeed! I am deeply grieved! What have I done now, Mrs De Lacy?'

'Need you ask? Pray, how long is it since you were in Pembroke Terrace, sir?'

'You must really forgive me. I have been very much pushed with finishing a commission picture.'

'Well I will on two conditions, grant you pardon.'

'Pray name them.'

'One is that you dine with us to-morrow; to meet – but I won't tell you whom.'

'Is that a punishment? It is a very merciful one.'

'Ah, you have not heard the second condition. Mr De Lacy is foolish enough to want to have a portrait of my poor faded face, and I only agreed on condition that you painted it.'

It was as much as Earle could do to keep up an expression of complacency. He could not refuse; but it was no light penance to him – who disliked mere portrait-painting at the best – to be condemned to make a picture of Mrs De Lacy's little foolish face. However, he consented, as he could not well get out of it.

'Now that is settled,' continued the lady, 'sit down here and be charmed. Stay; I do believe you are one of the unconverted – of the old school in that respect, though your pictures are of the new. Well then, prepare to be converted. I shall give you up for ever if you are not enchanted with my Silvia.'

'Your Silvia! May I ask who she is?'

'Look at your prospectus, sir: "Miss Stirling will address the meeting."'

'And is Miss Stirling your Silvia?'

'Yes; to be sure. She is staying with me, and – Oh, I have let out the secret of whom you are to meet! She is the dearest, most delightful – Hush! It is time to begin. The chairman is rising. Now allow your stubborn soul to yield.'

Earle felt at once amused and annoyed. He savagely determined to detest Mrs De Lacy's 'Silvia.'

The chairman made a few introductory remarks; then another gentleman, who persisted in talking of 'females;' then a certain Mrs Leighton, who spoke well and pleasantly, as even Earle could not but acknowledge. She did not say anything strikingly new; but her manner was easy and ladylike, and she was sensible and straightforward.

When she had sat down, the chairman rose and announced that: 'Miss Stirling will now make some remarks on another aspect of the question – on the effects that the extension of the franchise to women might be expected to produce on the community.'

Earle had identified Miss Stirling with a tall slight figure sitting in the background. 'Now for a display of extraordinary self-possession,' he thought.

The lady came forward simply, but not with that air of coolness which he looked for. Miss Stirling might be six or seven and twenty. She was handsomely and becomingly dressed in rather a picturesque style, though not in the least outré, in black velvet trimmed with gray fur, made very plainly, and falling in heavy graceful folds round her slender figure. A black velvet hat and long gray plume suited her face to perfection; and that face, Earle could not but acknowledge, was a striking one. It was perhaps not actually beautiful, though the deep soft brown eyes and the sweet curved mouth were undeniably so; but full of character, and womanly withal. What struck Earle most, as being least expected, was the perfect simple unconsciousness of her manner. She was nervous; that was plain enough; her hands trembled, her colour was high, and she spoke rather falteringly at first; but there was a noble directness in her honest open glance that said volumes for the simplicity of her motive. She evidently spoke not to display her powers nor to impress herself upon her audience, but because she had a love for and belief in the cause she was advocating. After speaking a minute or two, Miss Stirling threw off her nervousness. Her voice – a singularly pleasant one, with the intonation of a well-bred lady – strengthened and grew animated; her words were well chosen and to the purpose. Each one told, and yet there was not the slightest oratorical display or straining after effect.

'Very well done. Yes; very well,' thought Earle. 'But I should like to see her at home, if such an exploded word forms part of a strong-minded woman's vocabulary.'

There was a slight good-humoured sarcasm and irony underlying the seriousness of Miss Stirling's speech, if speech it could be called, which prevented it from becoming wearisome, and no one was anxious for her to bring what she had to say to a close. She ended amidst quite a storm of applause.

Mrs De Lacy turned to Earle in a high state of delight: 'Now, Mr Earle, what do you say to her? Surely, surely you are converted now.'

'To what, Mrs De Lacy?'

'Oh! to – to – woman's right to the suffrage.'

'I did not doubt before that she had a right to the suffrage.'

'Did not you? Well, now, I thought you were an enemy to woman's progress.'

'I assure you, you thought quite wrong.'

'Really! Well, then, what is it you object to?'

'I have an objection – a very decided objection – I own, to women speaking in public,' said Earle emphatically.

'Hush, hush!' breathed Mrs De Lacy; and turning round, he saw Miss Stirling close behind him. She must have heard him; and indeed a slight arch smile told him she had.

'Mrs De Lacy,' she said quietly, 'are you ready? If you are, would you be so kind as to let me go now? I have such a headache.'

'To be sure, dear one! – Good-night, you bad prejudiced man!' she whispered to Wilfred. 'Remember to-morrow.'

Earle watched the velvet dress out of the doorway, admiring the graceful walk of its wearer, and then he and his friend returned through the cold foggy streets to their respective homes.

The next evening, when Wilfred entered the De Lacy's drawing-room, he found a party of about twenty persons assembled. The room was furnished, as might be expected from the character of its mistress, in a heterogeneous and peculiar manner – a little of every style, marking different periods of taste. Mrs De Lacy herself was bobbing about in the excited way that always reminded Earle of a canary-bird hopping from perch to perch – a resemblance heightened by the cap with yellow ribbons and feathers she wore, perched jauntily on one side. After having paid his addresses to the host and hostess, his eye involuntarily sought for Miss Stirling; she sat rather behind the rest, and was well dressed as on the previous evening. Her costume was of silk, of a cloudy aquamarine colour, with square-cut bodice. Her hair, coiled up in a large knot, was adorned with natural flowers; the bracelet and necklet she wore were of plain dead gold.

'She looks uncommonly well in evening dress,' thought Earle; 'not much of the coat-and-waistcoat style there! What finely formed arms and shoulders. I should like to paint her.'

Ponderous, stiff-looking Mr De Lacy bore down upon him and whispered mysteriously: 'You are to take Miss Stirling in to dinner. Come and be introduced.'

'But isn't she rather formidable?' remonstrated the artist.

'Formidable! Dear no; one of the pleasantest girls I know.'

In another minute Earle found himself part of the procession filing down to dinner, with a shapely hand upon his arm. After his remark of last night he felt unaccountably ill at ease, and was racking his brain for something to say; for 'I daren't talk weather to a strong-minded woman,' he thought; but when they were seated at table she relieved him by saying in her straightforward way: 'Are you Mr Earle the artist? Mrs De Lacy runs on so fast one does not carry away clear ideas from her.'

'Yes, I am. You did not hear then that I am pledged to paint her portrait?'

As he spoke he made so rueful a face that Miss Stirling laughed outright, but checked herself, saying with compunction: 'It is not nice of me to laugh at my hostess! And she really has been very kind to me.'

'O yes, she is good-natured enough! Still – in this instance allow me to say – the obligation is more on her side than yours.'

'Why? I don't see that.'

'Have you not found out then, yet, that our friend has a weakness for collecting celebrities at her house?'

'But then I am not one; so that does not apply. I suppose,' she added, looking up at him with an arch expression, he was quite ashamed of finding most winning, 'that accounts for you being here!'

'Do you really mean you do not consider yourself a celebrity?' he asked rather sarcastically.

'I don't say what I don't mean,' she answered coldly. 'You think, I suppose, whenever a woman "speaks in public" it is to shew herself off?'

'So you bear me a grudge for the unlucky speech you heard last night?'

Miss Stirling coloured. 'It is small of me to be vexed, I know,' she said, after a moment's pause, in her frank direct way; 'but we get a good many snubs, you must know, and we – or I, rather – are stupid enough to feel somewhat sensitive.'

'Well, please to forgive me. I spoke principally out of contradiction to Mrs De Lacy.'

'But you did disapprove. I saw it in your face. I believe most of your countrymen share your prejudice.'

'My countrymen? What! are you not my countrywoman?'

'I was born and bred in America. My mother is an Englishwoman; and we came over seven years ago, when my father died. So you did not detect the Yankee twang, then?'

Earle was taken aback. This young lady seemed determined to unsettle his old prejudices. If there were one thing he disliked more even than a strong-minded woman, it was an American. She was both, and yet he found it hard to dislike Silvia Stirling.

'An American!' he said.

'Yes;' and she smiled at his expression. 'Isn't that dreadful? Almost worse than public speaking! I see I am lost in your good opinion.'

'Miss Stirling,' Earle said honestly, 'I won't conceal from you, even if I could, that I have a prejudice against women taking part in public affairs; but I am quite willing to have it dispelled. I must tell you too, that though I came last night to scoff, I ended by admiring.'

'You are not flattering me?'

'Indeed I am not. You are the last woman I should dare to flatter!'

The beautiful clear eyes fell under his earnest gaze, and the colour rose into her face, which Earle thought at that moment almost a perfect one.

After a pause she said: 'Now, I think that both men and women would get on better if they helped each other more on common ground. The sense of superiority on your side produces aggressiveness and self-assertion on ours. Why not leave off quarrelling about who is the best, and agree to be different and yet friends?'

'People say friendship is incompatible between men and women.'

'People talk a great deal of nonsense,' she said a little positively: 'I have several men-friends.'

Somehow Earle felt nettled at this assertion, and would gladly have done battle with all these disagreeable men-friends at once. He only said, however: 'I hope one day to be happy enough to make one of them; but meanwhile, how am I to see you again?'

'Are you not coming to paint Mrs De Lacy?' said Silvia, with her eyes on her plate, but the faint trace of a smile on her lip. 'I am staying here, you know!'

'To be sure!' he cried eagerly; 'I forgot that. I'll come to-morrow and begin. But after you leave here?'

'We live at Eaglemore Gardens,' she said simply. 'I will be glad to see you, if you like to call.'

This calm invitation slightly astonished Earle; he forgot that in America young ladies receive visitors in their father's house.

'Thank you,' he got out in some confusion.

Silvia seemed to read his thought. 'My mother too, I daresay, will be glad to see you; but I suppose you have very little time for calls,' she said haughtily.

He recovered himself. 'You are very, very good,' he replied. 'It would be the greatest pleasure to me.'

For a few minutes there was a trace of stiffness in her manner, but it soon passed away; and the rest of the time they spent at the table was taken up with animated talk on all sorts of subjects.