MEN I HAVE PAINTED
the King did not come, I passed a few minutes sketching the view from the window looking down towards the Admiralty Arch in Trafalgar Square.
Some time before, I had witnessed the King proceeding in State to open Parliament from the platform of this monument, at the base of the Queen Victoria throne, and looked down upon the coach and horses as the King drove by, and upon the magnificent military guard and the vast concourse of people stretching along the avenues in all directions and over the grass of the Green Park. No better position for seeing this display of pomp and power could be imagined, and it was one of my lucky moments when I met the sculptor at the entrance door of the temporary studio that had been erected around the monument, and received a kind invitation for myself and Mrs. Hamilton to a place on the elevated platform. Few people realize how beautiful London is, but fewer still obtain the opportunity for observing from points of vantage the pageants and spectacles for which the great city forms so perfect a setting. I had time to reflect upon the spectacular character of life, and the peculiar part it plays in the economy of a nation, while I waited for the King to come. Presently Sir William Carrington returned to tell me that His Majesty had been called unexpectedly to a council meeting, and would not sit until after lunch; that I must have some, and he had ordered it up, so that I might be on hand should the King come in by chance. I told him I did not require lunch, and should work better without it. To this he hardly listened, hurrying away to his duties.
Time had fled rapidly—it was long after one o'clock, as I could see by the clock on the mantel, the clock that was to be almost my undoing a little later. Suddenly the two
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