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And I may as well get the thing done now. In the Summer Term of '93 a bolt from the blue flashed down on Oxford. It drove deep, it hurtlingly embedded itself in the soil. Dons and undergraduates stood around, rather pale, discussing nothing but it. Whence came it, this meteorite? From Paris. Its name? Will Rothenstein. Its aim? To do a series of twenty-four portraits in lithograph.
Rothenstein tells us, the portrait was finished and is now at Strathfieldsaye. A sanguine is in the British Museum. His exploits in Rome may have been exaggerated, though he was quite capable of eloping with a nun from a convent, as is related, or going around the top of the Cecilia Metella tomb supported only by his thumbs.
The dim man was now again approaching our table, and this time he made up his mind to pause in front of it. 'You don't remember me, he said in a toneless voice. Rothenstein brightly focussed him. 'Yes, I do, he replied after a moment, with pride rather than effusion pride in a retentive memory. 'Edwin Soames. 'Enoch Soames, said Enoch.
It was a proud day for me when I I was included. I liked Rothenstein not less than I feared him; and there arose between us a friendship that has grown ever warmer, and been more and more valued by me, with every passing year. At the end of term he settled in, or, rather, meteoritically into, London.
They vigorously assented, and rushed on, and when she inquired whether there was any news of Helen, her hostess was too much occupied in placing Rothenstein to answer. The question was repeated: "I hope that your sister is safe in Germany by now." Margaret checked herself and said, "Yes, thank you; I heard on Tuesday."
He had twice passed our table, with a hesitating look; but Rothenstein, in the thick of a disquisition on Puvis de Chavannes, had not seen him. He was a stooping, shambling person, rather tall, very pale, with longish and brownish hair. He had a thin, vague beard, or, rather, he had a chin on which a large number of hairs weakly curled and clustered to cover its retreat.
I was sorry for him; and Rothenstein, though he had not invited him to Chelsea, did ask him to sit down and have something to drink. Seated, he was more self-assertive. He flung back the wings of his cape with a gesture which had not those wings been waterproof might have seemed to hurl defiance at things in general. And he ordered an absinthe.
It was lovely at Whistler's and such a contrast to the other American salon I went to last Sunday. It was so quiet, and green and pretty and everybody was so unobtrusively polite. Rothenstein wore my rosette and made a great sensation and I was congratulated by Whistler and Abbey and Pennell.
I was young, and had not the clarity of judgment that Rothenstein already had. Soames was quite five or six years older than either of us. Also, he had written a book. It was wonderful to have written a book. If Rothenstein had not been there, I should have revered Soames. Even as it was, I respected him. And I was very near indeed to reverence when he said he had another book coming out soon.
After these were done Coquelin told him by letter that he would give him half what they had agreed upon for the big picture for the two sketches and begged the big picture as a gift. So Rothenstein cut the head and shoulders out of the big one and sent him the arms and legs. It is the head he cut out that I have. When Rothenstein and I and Coquelin become famous, that will make a good story.
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