THE PUBLISHER
House, and said, "I do not like it—it's all lavender." In one thing the Publisher is conservative. His clothes are the colour of lavender; and this tint is enhanced by a yellow necktie that is perpetually renewed. In the second portrait I avoided lavender, and succeeded in pleasing Mrs. Cobden Unwin with tones of brown and gray.
The sittings at The Hermitage were enlivened by amusing talks about men and women who appear in books; and as the Publisher has had many opportunities for the study of authors, as well as of the people they write about, I have made mental notes for a volume of "Studio Causeries." These talks, whilst he sat for me, to pass the time, and perhaps keep him from going to sleep, led him to reveal some of the experiences of his profession; and it was interesting to me, as an American, to find his wide knowledge of American publishers and literary men, which he seems to have obtained during the last forty years or more. In the middle 'eighties he became the publisher of The Century and St. Nicholas magazines, which at that time, and for a good many years, were two of the best American periodicals; and they contained work by many of his and my friends, both artists and literary men. Joseph Pennell and his wife, both of whom I have painted, were great contributors to these magazines, and they were naturally acquainted with the Publisher; and I gathered they frequently met, and sometimes on the scenes of the artist's work. For instance, when Pennell was doing his English Cathedrals they spent week-ends together at Canterbury, Gloucester, and Ely; at the latter place, apparently, the Publisher had to go down to help the artist out of some copyright trouble with the local photographer, who was inclined to assume that the artist could not draw the
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