MEN I HAVE PAINTED
I first met the Publisher at No. 14, Buckingham Street, Strand, long the residence of Joseph and Mrs. Pennell, whose hospitality to fellow-craftsmen and to publishers and Pressmen was proverbial. I found in the Publisher a pronounced Free Trader, a warm disciple of his father-in-law, Richard Cobden; and as he was also a member of various Liberal Clubs, I thought him a trifle distant, and that he no doubt suspected me of being a Protectionist and a Conservative.
Old parties have been riven asunder by the war, and old names have given place to new ones. "Unionist" is no more, and if "Conservative" and "Labour" still remain like embers of dying causes, "Profiteer" and "Proletaire" are more popular. The things themselves still exist as faculties of government, but the names, as expressions of theories or doctrines, have been discarded for Internationalism, Proletariat, the World State, and other glorified denominations that are intended first to dress out human nature in a garb of common mediocrity, and then gradually to reduce man to the condition of the ants and the bees.
These advanced doctrines have both alarmed us and drawn us closer together, as, happily, most men of integrity and goodwill have been gathered into a solid phalanx to defend themselves from the complots of schemers, who have conjured up a mirage of illusions to tempt the foolish and covetous. In addition to the weaknesses of human nature, the variable climate of this planet makes the realization of every Utopian idea impossible.
Two portraits of the Publisher were painted—one in his old-fashioned Adam room, at No. 1, Adelphi Terrace, and the other at The Hermitage. When Mrs. Cobden Unwin saw the first portrait, she was as frank as Mrs. "Colonel"
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