st in admiration of Henry's face, and
expressed a strong desire to paint him. The Bastien-Lepage portrait
originated that evening, and is certainly a Beefsteak Room portrait,
although Henry gave two sittings for it afterwards at Grafton Street. At
the supper itself Bastien-Lepage drew on a half-sheet of paper for me
two little sketches, one of Sarah Bernhardt and the other of Henry,
which are among my most precious relics.

My portrait as Lady Macbeth by Sargent used to hang in the alcove in the
Beefsteak Room when it was not away at some exhibition, and the artist
and I have often supped under it--to me no infliction, for I have
always loved the picture, and think it is far more like me than any
other. Mr. Sargent first of all thought that he would paint me at the
moment when Lady Macbeth comes out of the castle to welcome Duncan. He
liked the swirl of the dress, and the torches and the women bowing down
on either side. He used to make me walk up and down his studio until I
nearly dropped in my heavy dress, saying suddenly as I got the
swirl:--"That's it, that's it!" and rushing off to his canvas to throw
on some paint in his wonderful inimitable fashion!

But he had to give up _that_ idea of the Lady Macbeth picture all the
same. I was the gainer, for he gave me the unfinished sketch, and it is
certainly very beautiful.

By this sketch hangs a tale of Mr. Sargent's great-heartedness. When the
details of my jubilee performance at Drury Lane were being arranged, the
Committee decided to ask certain distinguished artists to contribute to
the programme. They were all delighted about it, and such busy men as
Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, Mr. Abbey, Mr. Byam Shaw, Mr. Walter Crane,
Mr. Bernard Partridge, Mr. James Pryde, Mr. Orpen, and Mr. William
Nicholson all gave some of their work to me. Mr. Sargent was asked if he
would allow the first Lady Macbeth study to be reproduced. He found that
it would not reproduce well, so in the height of the season and of his
work with fashionable sitters, he did an entirely new painting of the
same subject, which _would_ reproduce! This act of kind friendship I
could never forget even if the picture were not in front of me at this
minute to remind me of it. "You must think of me as one of the people
bowing down to you in the picture," he wrote to me when he sent the new
version for the programme. Nothing during my jubilee celebrations
touched me more than this wonderful kindness of Mr. Sarg