HKB
of my own little lecture; he travelled over much the same ground; brought forward in some instances the very same examples as I, and deduced very much the same conclusions."
I happened to call in at the Garrick Club on my way to the Punch dinner, and there found a copy of the Daily Telegraph containing the leader, on the margin of which was written with the familiar purple ink, in Lewis Wingfield's handwriting, "G.A.S. on Hy. F." Wingfield was Sala's neighbour and friend, so this settled any doubt I had about the authorship of the article I have just referred to. When I showed it to du Maurier, who sat next to me at dinner, he said, "I say, old chap, I'll tell you a capital story about Sala which you might use. When he was an art student, he tried to get into the Art Schools of the Royal Academy, and for that purpose had to draw the usual head, hand, and foot. When the Examiners counted the toes on the foot Sala had drawn, they found six, so Sala didn't get in, don't you know!" Now, as other journalists had quoted Sala against me, and a Nottingham paper attacked me in a long and rather vulgar and offensive leader, I, finding myself shortly afterwards the guest of the Literary Club in Nottingham, seized the opportunity to reply. I regretted--though I supposed it was flattering to me--to find that quite recently, although I had been treated for many years with the greatest kindness in the Press, I had been rather attacked. "I was proud," I said, "to find that the first person to attack me in the Press was the greatest journalist the Press possessed--Mr. George Augustus Sala." What I really said after this I print side by side with what I was reported to have said:
"WHAT I SAID.
"I have not the pleasure of Mr. Sala's personal acquaintance, but no one has a greater admiration than I have for that great man in literature. Mr. Sala began life as an artist; not only so, but he began in that walk of art which I pursue, like another great man of the pen had done before him, for, of course, you all know the story of Thackeray going to Dickens and offering to illustrate his books. Dickens declined Thackeray's offer, and it is generally believed that that refusal so annoyed Thackeray that he became a writer and a rival to Dickens. It was a very good thing for him and for literature that Dickens gave him the refusal he did. Now, Mr. Sala, as I said, also began life as an artist, and I am informed that when an applicant for the Royal Academy he had to send in for examination the usual chalk drawings of a head, a hand, and a foot. The Examiners, however, discovered that Sala had drawn six toes on the foot. He was rejected, and no doubt this caused him, like Thackeray, to forsake the pencil for the pen, and he is now Art Critic of the Daily Telegraph.
"In 1851 Mr. Sala painted the pictures upon the walls of an eating saloon, and that probably had given him the taste for cooking which he had evinced ever since."
"HOW I WAS REPORTED.
"He (Mr. Furniss) had not the pleasure of Mr. Sala's personal acquaintance, but no one had a greater admiration for him than he had as being a great man in literature. Mr. Sala began life as an artist, and not only so, but he began in that walk of life which he (Mr. Furniss) pursued. He went to Dickens, and wanted to illustrate his books, but Dickens would not have the sketches; afterwards Mr. Sala went into literature, and it was a very good thing for him and for literature that Dickens gave him the refusal that he did. (Hear, hear.)