‘There is one thing I am thankful for,’ the young lord confessed, ‘and that is that I am not a painter. The bother and trouble are too great, they would make me an old man in a week. I should have gone into the army, but, I fear, I did not work very hard, and the examination papers came rather crossways. My father [Lord Annandale] was not in the least disappointed, and now I think he would not very well get on without me.’
Later, on her father’s return to London, her thoughts often wandered to Braidwood Court, and to the young man whose examinations had come unluckily, but who would have been, she thought, an ornament to any service.
When Jones, the huntsman, got home that evening of the hunt, he grumbled to his wife, ‘It is all through them pictures [purportedly Titians]. I can’t make out why his lordship has such a fellow [an unscrupulous art dealer) about him. Wants to persuade his lordship that they are worth mints of money, and that he ought to give or sell them to the nation! Why, bless my heart, this ’ere estate is big enough ain’t it? You might ride a horse to death and not go off the land; and as for giving them to the nation—what has the nation done for him? Gave our young lord examination papers he couldn’t make nothing of. Swindled him just; and mighty glad I am he did not make out them humbugging papers; only fit for [that art dealer] and them sort of chaps.’
Extracts from The Venetian Secret, a novel by Captain* Charles Lutyens (father of Edwin), 1893, an artist’s satire on London’s art dealers and the inscrutable proprieties of good breeding: the English aristocracy’s and their bloodstock’s.
Postscript: Good Breeding and Bad Breeding.
Jones, the huntsman, further observes: ‘All hounds are born pretty equal, same as men are; it is the training as makes them. One has advantages which brings out his character, another meets with a bad example and his character is injured. Good breeding, added to character, makes a good hound. So it does with men. Good breeding and good character gives a man a high position. But good breeding and bad character ain’t no good. Good character and bad breeding is far better. Indeed, good character will carry a man to the the highest point, same as it is with a hound.’
*‘20th Foot Lieutenant Lutyens to be Captain by purchase.’ London Gazette, 20 January 1855.
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Captain Charles Augustus Henry Lutyens, equestrian artist, in old age. |
Post-postscript: A foot soldier’s view of a gentleman’s breeding..
[I had been tacking] up sheets of draughting paper to conceal a small alcove in my bedroom, where I displayed my collection of miniature glass animals – my private passion.
In the first year of my father’s posting to the army base, our living quarters were frequently requisitioned for returning troops and, when given short notice, we were invariably ordered to decamp and leave our possessions behind us. I was terrified of finding my collection rifled on our return.
My fears were groundless.
As the Scots corporal billeted to my room assured me the next day, when I met him carrying his kit bag from our yard:
‘Honesty needs nae orders. A sojer’s wirrd is mair trowthfu’ then an offisher’s. Ye mind that, hen. Sojers arnae gintlemen, bit gintlemen arnae sojers.’
I was thinking of my little glass Papillon dog, my most prized possession.
‘Even butterflies have qualms, too, I suppose,’ I whispered to his departing back.
Extract from Listen Close to Me by Catherine Eisner (Salt, 2011).
