What of Bubbles?
by David Bittner
In Brideshead Revisited, Anthony Blanche tells Charles Ryder, at the restaurant in Thame, that Sebastian Flyte’s conversation is so superficial that it is forgettable: “Tell me, candidly,” Anthony asks Charles, as he “devilishly” tries in one of numerous ways to turn Charles against Sebastian (and perhaps thus to steal Charles from Sebastian), “have you ever heard Sebastian say anything you have remembered for five minutes?” He continues:
You know, when I hear him talk, I am reminded of that in some ways nauseating picture of ‘Bubbles.’ Conversation, as I know it, is like juggling; up go the balls and the balloons and the plates, up and over, in and out, spinning and leaping, good solid objects that glitter in the footlights and fall with a bang if you miss them. But when dear Sebastian speaks it is like a little sphere of soap-suds drifting off the end of an old clay pipe, anywhere, full of rainbow light for a moment and then—phut—vanished, with nothing left at all, nothing.
(Little, Brown, 56-7)
What exactly was this picture, Bubbles, that reminded Anthony of Sebastian, and what does Anthony find nauseating about it? It was painted by the English portrait and historical artist Sir John Everett Millais, who flourished in the second half of the nineteenth century. According to an article on the Internet, Millais was very popular in his day but has been criticized since for his “sickly sweet” portraits of children. Millais painted Bubbles in 1886, using his grandson, William James, as his model, and giving his old pipe to William to blow soap bubbles with. Frances Hodgson Burnett had just published her very successful novel, Little Lord Fauntleroy, about a poor little rich boy, whose grandfather, an English earl, has disinherited his son because he married an American. The popularity of the book on both sides of the Atlantic surely explains why Millais painted his grandson in a velvet suit with a lace collar and cuff, and ringlet curls, just like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Perhaps in the painting’s subject, Anthony saw a reflection of himself, thwarted and pitiable.
Bubbles became notorious when it was acquired by the Pears soap company for advertising purposes. Subsequently the picture was reproduced on dishes, candy boxes, and countless other commercial objects in England, which also explains why Anthony got sick of it. The ubiquity of Bubbles may have reminded Anthony of Sebastian’s “seeming to be everywhere,” or at least with Charles and Anthony that night at Thame. If Anthony’s association of Bubbles with Sebastian caused him to feel “sick,” maybe he was partly sick with jealousy. In the novel it is clearly suggested that Anthony is jealous not only of Sebastian’s looks, pedigree, and wealth, but also of his popularity wherever he goes. At Eton, Sebastian “never got into trouble” with the masters, whereas Anthony and the rest of the boys were “constantly being beaten in the most savage way on the most frivolous pretexts” (51). And you can bet that at Oxford Sebastian never got put in Mercury! Even Edward Ryder, Charles’s puckish father, likes Sebastian because he is “very amusing,” and he tells Charles to “ask him often” (128).
Bubbles continued to be associated with its subject, William James, throughout his long life. In fact, to James’s chagrin, “Bubbles” became his nickname. For a career officer in the Royal Navy, who rose to the rank of admiral and received the G.C.B., K.C.B., and C.B., the association may not have been nauseating, but one can imagine that it became tiresome. Admiral James wrote some ten books on naval life and history and died in 1973 at the age of 92.