ortunately for Soames, the House of
Lords was violently attacked in 1909, and the noble owner became
alarmed and angry. "If," he said to himself, "they think they can have
it both ways they are very much mistaken. So long as they leave me in
quiet enjoyment the nation can have some of my pictures at my death.
But if the nation is going to bait me, and rob me like this, I'm damned
if I won't sell the--lot. They can't have my private property and my
public spirit--both." He brooded in this fashion for several months
till one morning, after reading the speech of a certain statesman, he
telegraphed to his agent to come down and bring Bodkin. On going over
the collection Bodkin, than whose opinion on market values none was
more sought, pronounced that with a free hand to sell to America,
Germany, and other places where there was an interest in art, a lot
more money could be made than by selling in England. The noble owner's
public spirit--he said--was well known but the pictures were unique.
The noble owner put this opinion in his pipe and smoked it for a year.
At the end of that time he read another speech by the same statesman,
and telegraphed to his agents: "Give Bodkin a free hand." It was at
this juncture that Bodkin conceived the idea which salved the Goya and
two other unique pictures for the native country of the noble owner.
With one hand Bodkin proffered the pictures to the foreign market, with
the other he formed a list of private British collectors. Having
obtained what he considered the highest possible bids from across the
seas, he submitted pictures and bids to the private British collectors,
and invited them, of their public spirit, to outbid. In three instances
(including the Goya) out of twenty-one he was successful. And why? One
of the private collectors made buttons--he had made so many that he
desired that his wife should be called Lady "Buttons." He therefore
bought an unique picture at great cost, and gave it to the nation. It
was "part," his friends said, "of his general game." The second of the
private collectors was an Americo-phobe, and bought a unique picture to
"spite the damned Yanks." The third of the private collectors was
Soames, who--more sober than either of the others--bought after a visit
to Madrid, because he was certain that Goya was still on the up grade.
Goya was not booming at the moment, but he would come again; and,
looking at that portrait, Hogarthian, Manetesque in its directness,