Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/117

from the ceiling are two quaint old-time Venetian lamps.

You pass beneath crimson plush curtains, and here is the light studio. Scattered about, with combined negligence and neatness, are countless tubes of colour; curious old pots are filled with brushes; oils, knives, frames, and what not, are all here. More unfinished canvases, mostly portraits, have their faces turned to the wall, for the sun is shooting its beams through the glass roof, and refusing you admission, so to speak, to the very inviting wicker chairs which suggest "sit down and make yourself comfortable."

The Studio.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.

But we selected a cosy nook, a little summer-house for two, at the bottom of the garden, and it was there I listened to the story—a story of intense interest—of the artist's life. It was told without the slightest suggestion of "see what I have become" about it. A huge fact was stated—a life led set forth—and from that statement made it was no difficult matter to discern the true cause of success. "Discreet independence" has always been the motto of the artist from the first moment he took his pencil in hand. Every man must make his own life, argues Luke Fildes, and he beat this thought into all his actions from his earliest youth. He, therefore, started on a good ground-work, and he has never looked back. His methods of working are practical. There are scores of cottages in the country where there is always a chair at the table and a cup of tea for him. He loves to paint the people—the country folk who live amongst the meadows and sleep beneath the thatch. He goes amongst them, becomes friends with them; he lives their life, and his brush chronicles it on the canvas. He strives to paint history—history in its most artistic up-to-date aspect. "The Doctor" is history. It is the medical man as he was at the end of 1890.

That doctor in the picture is no sentimental fellow. He is not thinking of the father and mother, though they be brokenhearted; the suffering child is his one thought. Perhaps he brought it into the world. He is wondering how science can meet the little one's wants. Still he keeps the cup on the table close at hand. It is the doctor of 1890. So with "The Casuals,"