Our Michaelmas Goose

The Speaker, 24 September 1892, pages 376-377, 1,605 words

"Goosey, goosey gander, where do you wander?" "Up-stairs, down-stairs, in the painter's study." All through August the esurient bird has wandered, qualifying himself, with crumbs caught under the table, for a place upon the table. Dear bird of the season! in thy gluttonous greed didst thou forget that the month was September, and hast thou met prematurely with the last fattening of thy kind? The fateful twenty-ninth is still some days distant, but roaming birds meet sometimes with ill-judged doses of grain. Is Sir John in his academic dotage, or did he put the finishing hand to thy corpulency unmindful of thy legitimate length of life?

That one or the other of these sad events has happened is certain when we read the interview with Sir John Millais, published in last week's Black and White. In the picture of Sir John, which introduces the interview, we see Sir John sitting, hale and hearty, in "the great studio," before his own hearth-stone – the typical Englishman who has built himself a house in London, and owns a place in Perthshire, where, bien entendu, he has been shooting grouse. We have Sir John in this picture, as he appears to us in his canvases – the broad-breasted Englishman, the squire, an eye always on "the main chance," enfin, l'homme de ses oeuvres – surtout les dernières. And the picture, we may say, sturdily and robustly repudiates the first possibility, that Sir John is getting old and no longer knows what he is talking about. We are glad that this is so; for we have not forgotten a certain John Millais, the painter of some exceedingly beautiful pictures. Only a week ago we stood before "The Eve of St. Agnes," and we said that no more beautiful picture was ever painted. And for the sake of John Millais, who lies buried under the heath of a Perthshire moor, we are glad to learn that the title which temporally survives him is in good health. But the happiest issue from a dilemma is never wholly happy; dilemmas have proverbially two horns, and the second horn of our dilemma is the supposition that Sir John mistook his interviewer for a certain seasonable bird, and has been stuffing him abundantly. Let it suffice for our purpose to know that we must affirm the mental unsoundness of an Academician's brain, or aver that the Academician has raised a goose to the highest honour attainable by geese, to the state of Michaelmas goose.

"Glad to see you," cried Sir John heartily, as the interviewer entered "the great studio." "Only just back from Scotland." Then Sir John "tipped on one side the shooting-cap that crowned the handsome forehead." Reference was made to the "ample" fireplace, to the " historic " old cabinet, to the place in Perthshire, to Mrs. Humphry Ward's novel, and eventually the interviewer responded to Sir John's invitation and settled himself, apparently unsuspiciously, before the "famous" fireplace. The topic first broached was, of course, the British Luxembourg, and in sibilant tones, his visitor told Sir John of the vehement opposition that a certain section of the press had offered to his cherished project, and the utter wreck into which it had drifted. "Then, according to his wont, Sir John spoke up with the enthusiasm which seems to inspire all his words and all his acts, and renders them instinct with healthful energy." "It was a perfect folly of the Government to reject Mr. Tate's offer, and a perfect folly of Mr. Tate to refuse the offer of the Government." In fact, there was nothing like offering unless accepting, and all the sites were declared to be admirable. Involve art in a complete network of protection, make as many R.A.'s as possible, raise all painters to the peerage, build Luxembourgs everywhere for the pictures, and then we shall know that British art is progressing. Even in this early stage of the interview Sir John seems to have begun to remember that the month was September, and as the interview drew out he commenced chopping the sage and onions. Even the unsuspicious bird seems to have noticed these operations, for he describes the Academician as knocking the ashes out of his pipe and refilling it with tobacco. Sir John seems to have proceeded very cautiously. Up to the present he has done no more than to decide that he will catch the bird if he can. He catches it in the next paragraph.

"The general flood of public opinion is always right. It is as certain as that you are sitting there," and Sir John nodded his head. The interviewer remarks, "significantly," "The best artists paint bad pictures sometimes, though they put their best efforts into them.'' Then, calculating his distance, Sir John approached the bird with an unmistakable handful of stuffing; "and the public knows what they are doing even when they (the artists) don't know themselves.'' Any bird except a Michaelmas bird would smell the spit in such a phrase; any other bird would remember that Alfred Stevens was kept designing fire-irons instead of being employed on decorative sculpture for our public streets and squares; that Millet lived in poverty and obscurity all his life; that Corot did not sell a picture till he was over forty; that our Academicians – men who, for the most part, are not known beyond the confines of the parishes they live in – combined with an art critic called Ruskin in a plot to ruin Mr. Whistler, the .one man of the Anglo-Saxon race whose genius is recognised and appreciated in every capital. "I'll tell you what it is," cried our country squire, "men think too much of technique and too little of the spirit. Technique is necessary and fine, as being the painter's craft, and the finer it is the better; but it musn't swamp the spirit." While talking this charming and quite fantastic nonsense, the unsuspicious bird continued to gaze into the famous fire, murmuring its usual phrases – "The claim and deserts of Englishmen to the glories of a National Gallery of Modern Art," etc. At last the sage and the onions were prepared, and the third act of our Michaelmas drama was ready to begin. Heavy and plump in the breast, the bird lay drowsing in Sir John's hands. The Academician seemed to hesitate, and instead of preparing it for the sage and onions, he fed it thereon and lent his ear to its cackle.

" Another subject," it began; "the black-and-white art of to-day and the status of the draughtsman, being in fact one of the burning questions of the day, is one that interests me deeply, so that I now broached it forthwith. Sir John was fired at once. He rose from his chair, and turning his back on the fireplace, he smiled a mysterious smile that was instinct with significance!"

He assured his interviewer that he was with him on every point. The social status of the draughtsman was a really momentous question, calling for the gravest consideration. John Leech ought to have been in the Academy, and John Tenniel ought to be in. Sir John did not quail before the name of Sambourne. Nothing was said about Charles Keene, of course, but Sir John agreed that all the others should be in. This will be good news for Harry Furniss, a certain facetious gentleman who in one of his most facetious moods offered, I hear, a collection of his caricatures to the National Gallery. His collection was, however, declined; whereupon Mr. Furniss joined Mr. Spielmann in the hue and cry, and they condemned that section of the press which had ventured to question the wisdom of a British Luxembourg. Good old British Luxembourg! I am beginning to regret it, for, one way and another, I fancy it would have exceeded all other wonders of civilisation – a mixture it would have been between the Crystal

Palace, Madame Tussaud's, and the shop-window of one of our illustrated papers. "The great influence that illustrated papers have on the minds of the people (surely the phrase here should have been educational influence?) cannot be considered unworthy of the notice of the Academy." "Ah," cried Sir John, taking his pipe from his lips and passing his hand rapidly across his mouth (rather a vulgar action for an Academician, and certainly not one worthy of the notice of a polite interviewer), "the developments in pencil and pen-and-ink in power of effect and character is marvellous; and the latter-day talent is enormous! What would the Great Masters of old have said about it, do you think – Michel Angelo, and Phidias, and those fellows? They'd have said, 'We could no more do it than fly.' And they couldn't.''

This is something more than astonishing. Nor is Sir John content to merely indicate vaguely the class of work which would fill the hearts of Michel Angelo and Phidias with envy and despair; he is careful to define his meaning by particular example. "Bernard Partridge, Caton Woodville, Ricketts, and – Parkinson, and – and – don't know how many others besides.''

More fantastic nonsense than comparison between Bernard Partridge and Phidias, Caton Woodville and Michel Angelo, never flowed from the mind of man. The joke was splendidly conceived, and Sir John carried it through to a quite triumphant conclusion. And the fattened bird I have plucked and spitted, and if the basting has not been properly done…. But, lo! the bird has been cooked to a turn, rich and succulent, with the gravy running out at both ends. I serve it up. G.M.