While I was at Farnborough, on the bridge,
sketching, a respectably-dressed man came up and touched his hat. After
standing a minute or two, he said, 'So you are doing something in my
line, Sir?'--'What!' said I, 'are you an artist?'--'Well, Sir, I cannot
venture to call myself an artist, but I gets my living by making
drawings. I makes 'em in pencil.'--I asked him if he took portraits.--'I
does every line, portraits and all; but I don't get many portraits since
the daguerreotype came in. No, Sir, my drawings are principally in the
sporting line. I does portraits of gentlemen going over a fence or a
five-barred gate. I does 'em all in pencil, and puts a little color on
their faces, but all the rest in pencil,--d'ye see?'--'Yes; but do you
make a good living?'--'Well, not much of that; I used to earn a good
deal more money when I did portraits at sixpence each than I do now.'--I
said, 'I suppose you begin to see that you can do better, and it takes
you longer.'--'That's just it; you've hit it, Sir. I used to knock them
off in a quarter or half an hour, and now it takes me seven or eight
days to do a sporting piece.'--So I told the poor man that I would
willingly give him advice, but I was afraid it would ruin him
completely, for that afterwards he would have to take two or three
months.
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