Arthur Rackham: Wind in the Willows (Pt. 2)

An illustration for "Wind in the Willows"
by Arthur Rackham

"By the spring of 1938, Arthur Rackham could report only limited progress on the illustrations for 'Wind in the Willows.' In the autumn of that year he went into the Oxted and Limpsfield Cottage Hospital for an operation for cancer. On 22nd November 1938, he wrote a pencilled note from the hospital to Mrs. E. Williams Bailey, an admirer and collector of his work:

‘I wish I could give a good account of either my wife or myself. My wife has borne up amid great disturbances astonishingly well, but I fear it cannot be said that she is better. And I – well the less said the better. Henceforth life will only be possible for me with the aid of a surgical nurse – whether at home or at the hospital as at present. I wish I could stop losing weight – but I eat with difficulty & haemorrhage is frequent & severe. So I am very weak.’

And on 28th November he wrote to the same correspondent:

‘…I am told I must not expect to be able to gauge the future possibilities for my life in less than about a year. It turns on unknown conditions that cannot be got at – due to the capricious behaviour of a gland, that may get tired of its misbehaviour, or the reverse – in which case my difficulties will be very great. However, we must wait & see. My best hope is to feed as well as I can (at present a very poor effort) & never tire myself.’

He returned home to Stilegate with no illusions; his London studio was abandoned; and as time showed that he was not to recover he became very low and depressed. He spent much of the time in bed, but there were days when he still felt strong enough to work and deal with his affairs.

In June an old friend, the poet and wood-engraver T. Sturge Moore, sent him a kindly letter full of gossip about mutual acquaintances of their student days, and telling him the latest news of the Art-Workers’ Guild. ‘I was very glad to learn that you enjoy respites from exhaustion sometimes long enough to let you get on with the work you have on hand,’ wrote Sturge Moore; ‘I hope you can enjoy the light and heat and that they will help you to stave off exhaustion.’ It was a fine summer, and once, while he was lying in the garden, Rackham said to his nurse: ‘How nice it would be if I could die here under the trees!’

Slowly, the drawings for The Wind in the Willows neared completion. The last drawing of all to be finished was that of Rat and Mole loading their boat for the picnic. Rackham’s daughter remembers his great exhaustion and the extreme difficulty he had in getting it done. When he had, as he thought, finished it, he suddenly discovered that there were no oars in the boat. Barbara tried to persuade him that this was a detail that did not matter, but he insisted that everything must be right, and with great labour he altered the drawing and put in the oars. After he had done this, he lay back in bed and said: ‘Thank goodness, that is the last one.’ And so it proved in every sense.

Arthur Rackham died on 6th September 1939, a few days before his seventy-second birthday. His ending, like his whole life and the strong clear strokes of his pen, had been gallant and true. He had finished his work, and he had made ready his boat for a journey."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Arthur Rackham: His Life and Work" by Derek Hudson.)