Congress. He had, he said, had the privilege of addressing Glasgow audiences quite a number of times during the past five years, and on this occasion he wanted them to hear his comrades Walter Crane and Cobden-Sanderson.
Crane was hardly what is called a good lecturer. He had little flow of language, no vigour of statement, and spoke in rather a jerky fashion. But there was a certain archness and occasionally an epigrammatical flavour in his remarks which, together with much gracefulness of gesture, made it pleasant to listen to him. In appearance he was almost ideally the artist. His finely shaped head, beautiful face with clear, kindly eyes and handsome moustache and short, pointed beard, together with his finely proportioned and mobile figure, gave him the look of a troubadour who had stepped out of some medieval page. After a few introductory remarks he asked for the blackboard, which was thereupon shifted from the side of the platform to the front, Morris, Cobden-Sanderson, and Walker meanwhile leaving their seats on the platform in order to witness his sketching from the body of the hall.
Crane's facility as a draughtsman was a matter of public repute. Most artists of ability are able to draw off-hand familiar objects with ease and considerable precision; but Crane's facility was exceptional. The audience were delighted to see him take his chalk, and, beginning at the tail, with a few rapid sweeps of his arm, and without once breaking his stroke, evolve the outline of a cow. A few more strokes and a maid with a milkpail and a farmstead in the distance were brought in. Then came, interspersed with comments, the 'Crag Baron,' the 'Bag Baron' (with a forest of smoking chimney stalks in the background), and the Capitalist elephant on the tortoise of Labour. There were a number of ingenious 'ideographs' symbolising the evolution of plant and animal life. A series of sketches giving his idea of how much more attractive dress, houses, and cities might be made completed his illustrations. He was heartily cheered at the conclusion of his lecture.
