Studio: international art (52.1911)

Mrs. Sydney Bristowe

I first met Mrs. Sydney Bristowe as if I were right. Each was decorative, stimulating, and
talking to a friend; how, on our second meeting, I pleasing to look at, and they harmonised. They
realised suddenly that she was a remarkable artist had unity. A hurried glance round the drawing-
working in the intervals of a full social and family room assured me that there too the pictures were
life, and how I learnt that she had taken her own decorative, delightful, and harmonious. So, when
line and arrived triumphantly at her goal. That I greeted my hostess after this quick two minutes of
should be easy, should it not ? At any rate it is busy appreciation my tongue tripped out with—■
pleasanter than composing a foggy article about "I've never been in a house before where every
Tintoretto, or trying to explain why the great picture is right and delightful." And Mrs. Bristowe
Antonio Pollaiuolo allowed his ineffectual brother answered, with a becoming droop of the eyes—
Piero to paint upon his pictures. "They're all by—me."

Where did we first meet ? Surely it was at the Such moments make life worth living. Who
house of a musician who lives by the Thames near would not give half a kingdom always to be able
Westminster. It was a musical afternoon, and I to say the right thing at the right moment to the
remember a youth sang "Break, Break, Break," right person, and to know that it was sincere and
and when he had finished I said to my neighbour, a unpremeditated.

charming young lady whom I had recognised as the Here indeed was a subject for luncheon talk,
author of two witty little plays produced at a private and obviously I could talk of nothing else. On
house a week before, " That's fine, and he's lucky in the walls of the dining-room were water-colours, all
his accompanist. She feels the music.
She's an artist. Do you know her ? "
"Yes," answered the damsel; "she's
my mother."

Then the afternoon went merrily.
We three, and our hostess, had a
confidential chat as the day waned,
and the lights peeped out on the
river, and the aura of Whistler rose
with the twilight, about Art in book
and play, and paint; but I did not
know then that Mrs. Bristowe had
ever touched a brush. We talked
chiefly about the symbolism of " The
Master Builder" and Miss Elliot's
music for "Atalanta in Calydon."
No, we are not prigs. The talk was
colloquial, and at least three jokes
were made and one poor pun.

It was delightful company, and,
well, naturally, when a week later I
received an invitation to luncli with
Mr. and Mrs. Bristowe in Portland
Place I accepted gladly.

Before I had been two minutes in
the house one of those things hap-
pened, unrehearsed, that give gusto
to life, and that are always so unex-
pected. I entered the hall, paused a
moment to disrobe, passed up the
stairs and into the drawing-room, just
the ordinary procedure, but on the
way, being absurdly interested in
pictures, I noticed, subconsciously,

that every picture on the walls was "myself and son" by mrs. Sydney bristowe

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