Bubbles Forever

'Tell me candidly, have you ever heard Sebastian say anything you have remembered for five minutes? You know, when I hear him talk, I am reminded of that in some ways nauseating picture of Bubbles. Conversation should be like juggling; up go the balls and the plates, up and over, in and out, 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 soapsud drifting off the end of an old clay pipe, anywhere, full of rainbow light for a second and then – phut! vanished, with nothing left at all, nothing.' 

[Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited]

Millais was of course one of Victorian England's most popular artists. He painted such well-known pictures as Ophelia and, of course, the famous portrait of Cardinal Newman. He sold the copyright of Bubbles to the Pears Soap company, which in turn was acquired by the Lever Brothers. The painting is now in the Lady Lever gallery in Port Sunlight. I saw it there the last time we visited my grandmother in Bootle.

The little boy in the painting is actually Millais's grandson, who was then five years old. He went on to enjoy a distinguished career in the Royal Navy, serving in naval intelligence in both world wars, as well as politics and literature. He was always known by his nickname "Bubbles".