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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13973 ***
+
+BOOKS BY DON C. SEITZ
+
+
+  WHISTLER STORIES. 16mo. Cloth........_net_ $.75
+                              Leather, _net_ 1.00
+
+  EVERY-DAY EUROPE. Ill'd.............._net_ 1.25
+
+  ELBA AND ELSEWHERE. Ill'd. Post 8vo. _net_ 1.25
+
+  SURFACE JAPAN. Ill'd. 4to............_net_ 5.00
+
+  THE BUCCANEERS. Verses. Ill'd. 8vo..._net_ 1.00
+
+  HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JAMES M'NEILL WHISTLER
+From a sketch from life by Rajon. Courtesy of Frederick Keppel.]
+
+
+
+
+
+WHISTLER STORIES
+
+
+COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY DON C. SEITZ
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+  "WRITINGS BY AND ABOUT
+  JAMES ABBOTT McNEILL WHISTLER"
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+MCMXIII
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1913
+
+
+
+
+TO SHERIDAN FORD,
+
+DISCOVERER OF THE ART OF FOLLY AND OF MANY FOLLIES OF ART
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+Following the example set by Homer when he "smote his bloomin' lyre,"
+as cited by Mr. Kipling, who went "an' took what he'd admire," I have
+gleaned the vast volume of Whistler literature and helped myself in
+making this compilation. Some few of the anecdotes are first-hand.
+Others were garnered by Mr. Ford in the original version of _The
+Gentle Art of Making Enemies_. The rest have been published many
+times, perhaps. But it seemed desirable to put the tales together
+without the distraction of other matter. So here they are.
+
+D.C.S.
+Cos Cob, CONN., _July, 1913_.
+
+
+
+WHISTLER STORIES
+
+
+The studios of Chelsea are full of Whistler anecdotes. One tells of a
+female model to whom he owed some fifteen shillings for sittings. She
+was a Philistine of the Philistines who knew nothing of her patron's
+fame and was in no way impressed with his work. One day she told
+another artist that she had been sitting to a little Frenchman called
+Whistler, who jumped about his studio and was always complaining that
+people were swindling him, and that he was making very little money.
+The artist suggested that if she could get any piece of painting out
+of Whistler's studio he would give her ten pounds for it. Although
+skeptical, the model decided to tell her "little Frenchman" of this
+too generous offer, and selected one of the biggest and finest works
+in the studio. "What did he say?" asked the artist who had made the
+offer, when the model appeared in a state of great excitement and
+looking almost as if she had come second best out of a scrimmage. "He
+said, 'Ten pounds--Good heavens!--ten pounds!' and he got so
+mad--well, that's how I came in here like this."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. W.P. Frith, R.A., following the custom of artists, talked to a
+model one day to keep her expression animated. He asked the girl to
+whom she had been sitting of late, and received the answer:
+
+"Mr. Whistler."
+
+"And did he talk to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He asked me who I'd been sitting to, same as you do; and I told him
+I'd been sitting to Mr. Cope, sir."
+
+"Well, what else?"
+
+"He asked me who I'd been sitting to before that, and I said Mr.
+Horsley."
+
+"And what next?"
+
+"He asked me who I'd been sitting to before that, and I said I'd been
+sitting to you, sir."
+
+"What did he say then?"
+
+"He said, 'What a d----d crew!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler once came very near painting a portrait of Disraeli. He had
+the commission; he even went down to the country where Disraeli was;
+but the great man did not manage to get into the mood. Whistler
+departed disappointed, and shortly afterward took place a meeting in
+Whitehall which was the occasion of a well-known story: Disraeli put
+his arm in Whistler's for a little way on the street, bringing from
+the artist the exclamation, "If only my creditors could see!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler's ideas, the reverse of commercial, not infrequently placed
+him in want. He pawned his portrait of his mother, by many considered
+the best of his productions.
+
+Miss Marion Peck, a niece of Ferdinand Peck, United States
+Commissioner to the Paris Exposition, wanted her portrait done by
+Whistler. She sat for him nineteen times. Further, she requested, as
+the picture was nearing completion, that extra pains be taken with its
+finishing. Also, she inquired if it could, without danger of injury,
+be shipped.
+
+"Why?" asked Whistler.
+
+"Because I wish to send it to my home in Chicago," explained Miss
+Peck.
+
+Whistler threw down his brush, overturned the easel, and ran around
+the studio like a madman. "What!" he shrieked. "Send a Whistler to
+Chicago! Allow one of my paintings to enter Hog Town! Never!"
+
+Miss Peck didn't get the painting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once he met what seemed to be a crushing retort. He had scornfully
+called Balaam's ass the first great critic, and the inference was
+plain until a writer in _Vanity Fair_ called his attention to the fact
+that the ass was right.
+
+Whistler acknowledged the point. But the acknowledgment terminates in
+a way that is delicious. "I fancy you will admit that this is the only
+ass on record who ever did 'see the Angel of the Lord,' and that we
+are past the age of miracles."
+
+Even in defeat he was triumphant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler found that Mortimer Menpes, once his very dear friend,
+sketched in Chelsea. "How dare you sketch in my Chelsea?" he
+indignantly demanded.
+
+A vigorous attack on Mr. Menpes then followed in the press. One of the
+first articles began in this style, Menpes, of course, being an
+Australian: "I can only liken him to his native kangaroo--a robber by
+birth--born with a pocket!" "He is the claimant of lemon yellow"--a
+color to which Mr. Whistler deemed he had the sole right; and when he
+thought he had pulverized him in the press (it was soon after the
+Parnell Commission, when Pigott, the informer, had committed suicide
+in Spain), Whistler one evening thrust this pleasant note into Mr.
+Menpes's letter-box, scrawled on a half-sheet of paper, with the
+well-known butterfly cipher attached:
+
+"You will blow your brains out, of course. Pigott has shown you what
+to do under the circumstances, and you know the way to Spain.
+Good-by!"
+
+Speaking at a meeting held to complete the details of a movement for
+the erection of a memorial to Whistler, Lord Redesdale gave a
+remarkable account of the artist's methods of work. "One day when he
+was to begin a portrait of a lady," said Lord Redesdale, "the painter
+took up his position at one end of the room, with his sitter and
+canvas at the other. For a long time he stood looking at her, holding
+in his hand a huge brush as a man would use to whitewash a house.
+Suddenly he ran forward and smashed the brush full of color upon the
+canvas. Then he ran back, and forty or fifty times he repeated this.
+At the end of that time there stood out on the canvas a space which
+exactly indicated the figure and the expression of his sitter."
+
+This portrait was to have belonged to Lord Redesdale, but through
+circumstances nothing less than tragic it never came into his
+possession. There were bailiffs in the house when it was finished.
+This was no novelty to Whistler. He only laughed, and, laughing, made
+a circuit of his studio with a palette-knife, deliberately destroying
+all the pictures exposed there. The portrait of the lady was among
+them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Moncure D. Conway in his autobiography relates this:
+
+"At a dinner given to W.J. Stillman, at which Whistler (a Confederate)
+related with satisfaction his fisticuffs with a Yankee on shipboard,
+William Rossetti remarked: 'I must say, Whistler, that your conduct
+was scandalous.' Stillman and myself were silent. Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti promptly wrote:
+
+  "'There is a young artist called Whistler,
+    Who in every respect is a bristler;
+         A tube of white lead
+         Or a punch on the head
+    Come equally handy to Whistler.'"
+
+On one occasion a woman said to Whistler:
+
+"I just came up from the country this morning along the Thames, and
+there was an exquisite haze in the atmosphere which reminded me so
+much of some of your little things. It was really a perfect series of
+Whistlers."
+
+"Yes, madam," responded Whistler, gravely. "Nature is creeping up."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richard A. Canfield, who sat for the portrait now called "His
+Reverence," though Canfield was something quite unclerical, recites:
+
+"After I had my first sitting on New Year's Day, 1903, I saw Whistler
+every day until the day I sailed for New York, which was on May 16th.
+He was not able to work, however, on all those days. In fact, there
+were days at a time when he could do nothing but lie on a couch and
+talk, as only Whistler could talk, about those things which interested
+him. It was mostly of art and artists that he conversed, but now and
+again he would revert to his younger days at home, to the greatness to
+which the republic had attained, and to his years at West Point.
+
+"In spite of all that has been said of him, I know that James McNeill
+Whistler was one of the intensest Americans who ever lived. He was
+not what you call an enthusiastic man, but when he reverted to the old
+days at the Military Academy his enthusiasm was infectious. I think he
+was really prouder of the years he spent there--three, I think they
+were--than any other years of his life. He never tired of telling of
+the splendid men and soldiers his classmates turned out to be, and he
+has often said to me that the American army officer trained at West
+Point was the finest specimen of manhood and of honor in the world.
+
+"It was in this way that I spent every afternoon with Whistler from
+New Year's until May 15th, the day before I sailed. When he was able
+to work I would sit as I was told, and then he would paint, sometimes
+an hour, sometimes three. At other times he would lie on the couch and
+ask me to sit by and talk to him. On the morning of the day of the
+last sitting he sent me a note asking me to take luncheon with him,
+and Adding that he felt quite himself and up to plenty of work.
+
+"So I went around to his studio, and he painted until well into the
+late afternoon. When he was done he said that with a touch or two here
+and there the picture might be considered finished. Then he added:
+
+"'You are going home to-morrow, to my home as well as yours, and you
+won't be coming back till the autumn. I've just been thinking that
+maybe you had better take the picture along with you. His Reverence
+will do very well as he is, and maybe there won't be any work in me
+when you come back. I believe I would rather like to think of you
+having this clerical gentleman in your collection, for I have a notion
+that it's the best work I have done.'
+
+"Whistler had never talked that way before, and I have since thought
+that he was thinking that the end was not far away. I told him, more
+to get the notion, if he had it, out of his mind than anything else,
+that I would not think of taking the picture, and that if he didn't
+put on one of those finishing touches until I got back, so much the
+better, for then I could see him work. That seemed to bring him back
+to himself, and he said:
+
+"'So be it, your Reverence. Now we'll say _au revoir_ in a couple of
+mint-juleps.' He sent for the materials, made the cups, and, just as
+the sun was setting, we drank to each other and the homeland, and I
+was off to catch a train for Liverpool and the steamer. So it was that
+Whistler and his last subject parted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A group of American and English artists were discussing the manifold
+perfections of the late Lord Leighton, president of the Royal Academy.
+
+"Exquisite musician--played the violin like a professional," said one.
+
+"One of the best-dressed men in London," said another.
+
+"Danced divinely," remarked the third.
+
+"Ever read his essays?" asked a fourth. "In my opinion they're the
+best of the kind ever written."
+
+Whistler, who had remained silent, tapped the last speaker on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Painted, too, didn't he?" he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A patron of art asked Whistler to tell him where a friend lived on a
+certain street in London, to which the artist replied:
+
+"I can't tell you, but I know how you can find it. Just you ring up
+houses until you come across a caretaker who talks in B flat, and
+there you are."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A friend of Whistler's saw him on the street in London a few years ago
+talking to a very ragged little newsboy. As he approached to speak to
+the artist he noticed that the boy was as dirty a specimen of the
+London "newsy" as he had ever encountered--he seemed smeared all
+over--literally covered with dirt.
+
+Whistler had just asked him a question, and the boy answered:
+
+"Yes, sir; I've been selling papers three years."
+
+"How old are you?" inquired Whistler.
+
+"Seven, sir."
+
+"Oh, you must be more than that."
+
+"No, sir, I ain't."
+
+Then, turning to his friend, who had overheard the conversation,
+Whistler said: "I don't think he could get that dirty in seven years;
+do you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Benrimo, the dramatist, who wrote "The Yellow Jacket," relates that
+when he was a young writer, fresh from the breezy atmosphere of San
+Francisco, he visited London. Coming out of the Burlington Gallery one
+day, he saw a little man mincing toward him, carrying a cane held
+before him as he walked, whom he recognized as Whistler. With Western
+audacity he stopped the pedestrian, introduced himself, and broke into
+an elaborate outburst of acclamation for the works of the master, who
+"ate it up," as the saying goes.
+
+Waving his wand gently toward the famous gallery, Whistler queried:
+
+"Been in there?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"See anything worth while?"
+
+"Some splendid things, magnificent examples--"
+
+"I'm sorry you ever approved of me," observed the master,
+majestically, and on he went, leaving Benrimo withered under his
+disdain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler had a French poodle of which he was extravagantly fond. This
+poodle was seized with an affection of the throat, and Whistler had
+the audacity to send for the great throat specialist, Mackenzie. Sir
+Morell, when he saw that he had been called to treat a dog, didn't
+like it much, it was plain. But he said nothing. He prescribed,
+pocketed a big fee, and drove away. The next day he sent posthaste for
+Whistler. And Whistler, thinking he was summoned on some matter
+connected with his beloved dog, dropped his work and rushed like the
+wind to Mackenzie's. On his arrival Sir Morell said, gravely: "How do
+you do, Mr. Whistler? I wanted to see you about having my front door
+painted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler used to tell this story about Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his
+later years. The great Pre-Raphaelite had invited the painter of
+nocturnes and harmonies to dine with him at his house in Chelsea, and
+when Whistler arrived he was shown into a reception-room. Seating
+himself, he was soon disturbed by a noise which appeared to be made by
+a rat or a mouse in the wainscoting of the room. This surmise was
+wrong, as he found the noise was in the center of the apartment.
+Stooping, to his amazement he saw Rossetti lying at full length under
+the table.
+
+"Why, what on earth are you doing there, Rossetti?" exclaimed
+Whistler.
+
+"Don't speak to me! Don't speak to me!" cried Rossetti. "That fool
+Morris"--meaning the famous William--"has sent to say he can't dine
+here to-night, and I'm so mad I'm gnawing the leg of the table."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the affectations of Whistler was his apparent failure to
+recognize persons with whom he had been on the most friendly terms. An
+American artist once met the impressionist in Venice, where they spent
+several months together painting, and he was invited to call on
+Whistler if he should go to Paris. The painter remembered the
+invitation. The door of the Paris studio was opened by Whistler
+himself. A cold stare was the only reply to the visitor's effusive
+greeting.
+
+"Why, Mr. Whistler," cried the painter, "you surely haven't forgotten
+those days in Venice when you borrowed my colors and we painted
+together!"
+
+"I never saw you before in all my life," replied Whistler, and slammed
+the door.
+
+This habit of forgetting persons, or pretending to do so, for nobody
+ever knew when the lapses of recognition were due to intention or
+absent-mindedness, often tempted other artists to play pranks upon
+him. He was a man who resented a joke at his own expense, except on a
+few occasions, and this trait was often turned to good account.
+
+He was at Naples soon after the incident just related had gained wide
+circulation. A conspiracy was entered into whereby the Whistler
+worshipers there were to be unaware of his presence. He tried to play
+billiards with a company of young artists. They met his advance with a
+stony glare.
+
+"Oh, I say," persisted he, "I think I know something of that game. I'd
+like to play."
+
+A consultation was held, and the artists shook their heads, inquiring
+of one another, "Who is he?" Whistler retired crestfallen, and a roar
+of laughter which rang through the room added to his discomfiture.
+
+"Oh, well," he said, pulling nervously at his mustache, and his tone
+was petulant, "I don't care."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler had a great penchant for white hats, kept all those he had
+ever worn, and had a large collection. The flat-brimmed tall hat was a
+whim of his late years, imported from France, _via_ the head of
+William M. Chase.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Chase has contributed largely to the budget of Whistler anecdotes.
+One day when the two men were painting together in Whistler's studio
+in London, a wealthy woman visited them with the demand, which she had
+made many times before, that Whistler return to her a picture by
+himself which he had borrowed several years before to place on
+exhibition. The suave voice of Whistler was heard in argument, and he
+finally induced his patron to depart without the work of art.
+
+When she had gone he returned to his work, muttering something about
+the absurdity of some persons who believed that because they had paid
+two hundred pounds for a picture they thought they thereby owned it.
+
+"Besides," he said, "there is absolutely nothing else in her house to
+compare with it, and it would be out of place."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Chase," said Whistler one day, "how-is it now in America? Do you find
+there, as you do in London, that in houses filled with beautiful
+pictures and superb statuary, and other objects of artistic merit,
+there is invariably some damned little thing on the mantel that gives
+the whole thing away?" Mr. Chase replied, sadly: "It is even so, but
+you must remember, Whistler, that there are such things as birthdays.
+People are not always responsible."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Chase came up for discussion once at a little party, and
+Whistler's sister observed, "Mr. Chase amuses James, doesn't he,
+James?" James, tapping his finger-tips together lightly: "Not often,
+not often."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm going over to London," said he once to Chase, "and there I shall
+have a hansom made. It shall have a white body, yellow wheels, and
+I'll have it lined with canary-colored satin. I'll petition the city
+to let me carry one lamp on it, and on the lamp there will be a white
+plume. I shall then be the only one."
+
+He gave Mr. Chase some pretty hard digs. He said to him one time in
+the heat of a discussion on some technical point: "Chase, I am not
+arguing with you. I am telling you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reproved by Mr. Chase for antagonizing his friends, Whistler retorted:
+
+"It is commonplace, not to say vulgar, to quarrel with your enemies.
+Quarrel with your friends! That's the thing to do. Now be good!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The good Lord made one serious mistake," he rasped to Chase, in
+Holland.
+
+"What?"
+
+"When he made Dutchmen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had finished his portrait of Mr. Chase he stood off and
+admired the work. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" was his comment. Chase, who
+had irked under the queer companionship, retorted, "At least there's
+nothing mean or modest about you!"
+
+"Nothing mean and modest," he corrected. "I like that better! Nothing
+mean _and_ modest! What a splendid epitaph that would make for me!
+Stop a moment! I must put that down!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the Chase sittings, the creditors were always calling. Whistler
+divined their several missions with much nicety by the tone of the
+raps on the door.
+
+A loud, business-like bang brought, out this comment:
+
+"Psst! That's one and ten."
+
+Later came another, not quite so vehement.
+
+"Two and six," said Whistler. "Psst!"
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" asked Chase.
+
+"One pound ten shillings; two pounds six shillings! Vulgar tradesmen
+with their bills, Colonel. They want payment. Oh, well!"
+
+A gentle knock soon followed.
+
+"Dear me," said Whistler, "that must be all of twenty! Poor fellow! I
+really must do something for him. So sorry I'm not in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Riding one day in a hansom with Mr. Chase, Whistler's eye caught the
+fruit and vegetable display in a greengrocer's shop. Making the cabby
+maneuver the vehicle to various viewpoints, he finally observed:
+"Isn't it beautiful? I believe I'll have that crate of oranges moved
+over there--against that background of green. Yes, that's better!" And
+he settled back contentedly!
+
+A kindly friend told him of a pleasant spot near London for an
+artistic sojourn. "I'm sure you'll like it," he added,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"My dear fellow," replied Whistler, "the very fact that you like it is
+proof that it's nothing for me."
+
+He went, however, and liked the place, but on the way some of his
+canvases went astray. He made such a fuss that the station-master
+asked Mr. Chase who was his companion: "Who is that quarrelsome little
+man? He's really most disagreeable."
+
+"Whistler, the celebrated artist," Mr. Chase replied.
+
+At that the man approached Whistler and respectfully remarked:
+
+"I'm very sorry about your canvases. Are they valuable?"
+
+"Not yet!" screeched Whistler. "Not yet!"
+
+"I only know of two painters in the world," said a newly introduced
+feminine enthusiast to Whistler, "yourself and Velasquez."
+
+"Why," answered Whistler, in dulcet tones, "why drag in Velasquez?"
+
+Mr. Chase once asked him if he really said this seriously.
+
+"No, of course not," he replied. "You don't suppose I couple myself
+with Velasquez, do you? I simply wanted to take her down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir John E. Millais, walking through the Grosvenor Gallery with
+Archibald Stuart Wortley, stopped longer than usual before the
+shadowy, graceful portrait of a lady, "an arrangement in gray, rose,
+and silver," and then broke out: "It's damned clever! It's a damned
+sight too clever!"
+
+This was his verdict on Whistler's portrait of Lady Meux. Millais
+contended that Whistler "never learned the grammar of his art," that
+"his drawing is as faulty as it can be," and that "he thought nothing"
+of depicting "a woman all out of proportion, with impossible legs and
+arms!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1874 there was a suggestion that Whistler's portrait of Carlyle
+should be bought for the National Gallery. Sir George Scharf, then
+curator of that institution, came to Mr. Graves's show-rooms in Pall
+Mall to take a look at it.
+
+When Mr. Graves produced the painting he observed, icily:
+
+"Well, and has painting come to this?"
+
+"I told Mr. Graves," said Whistler, "that he should have said,' No, it
+hasn't."'
+
+It was nearly twenty years after when Glasgow finally bought the
+masterpiece. Indeed, Whistler had little market for his works until
+1892.
+
+He often found, as he said, "a long face and a short account at the
+bank." Complaining to Sidney Starr one day of the sums earned by a
+certain eminent "R.A.," while he received little or nothing, Starr
+reminded him that R.A.'s painted to please the public and so reaped
+their reward.
+
+"I don't think they do," demurred Whistler; "I think they paint as
+well as they can."
+
+Of Alma-Tadema's work he observed, "My only objection to Tadema's
+pictures is that they are unfinished."
+
+Starr spoke approvingly of the promising work of some of the younger
+artists. "They are all tarred with the same brush," said Whistler.
+"They are of the schools!" Of one particular rising star Whistler
+remarked: "He's clever, but there's something common in everything he
+does. So what's the use of it?"
+
+Starr indicated a distinguishing difference between the work of a
+certain R.A. and another. "Well," he replied, "it's a nasty
+difference."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+M.H. Spielmann, the art-critic, spoke of "Ten o'Clock " as "smart but
+misleading." Whistler retorted, "If the lecture had not seemed
+misleading to him, it surely would not have been worth uttering at
+all!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walter Sickert, then a pupil of Whistler's, praised Lord Leighton's
+"Harvest Moon" in an article on the Manchester Art Treasure
+Exhibition. Whistler telegraphed him at Hampstead:
+
+"The Harvest Moon rises at Hampstead and the cocks of Chelsea crow!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Apropos of his spats with Sickert he remarked, "Yes, we are always
+forgiving Walter."
+
+Another pupil, foreseeing the end of Whistler as president of the
+Royal Society of British Artists, resigned some months before the
+time. "The early rat," said Whistler, grimly, "the first to leave the
+sinking ship."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Fine Art Society's gallery one day he spoke to a knighted R.A.
+"Who was that?" Starr asked.
+
+"Really, now, I forget," was the reply. "But whoever it was it's some
+one of no importance, you know, no importance whatever."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At an exhibition of Doré's pictures Whistler asked an attendant if a
+certain academician's large religious picture was not on view.
+
+"No," said the man; "it's much lower down!"
+
+"Impossible!" replied Whistler, gleefully.
+
+Sidney Starr relates that Whistler was asked one year to "hang" the
+exhibits in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool. In the center of one
+wall he placed Luke Fildes's "Doctor," and surrounded it with all the
+pictures he could find of dying people, convalescents, still-life
+medicine bottles, and the like. This caused comment. "But," said
+Whistler, "I told them I wished to emphasize that particular school."
+
+"And what did you put on the opposite wall?" Starr asked.
+
+"Oh, Leighton's--I really forget what it was."
+
+"But that is different, you know," said Starr.
+
+"No," rejoined Whistler; "it's really the same thing!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having seen a picture of Starr's in Liverpool, which he amiably,
+termed "a picture among paint," he observed to him on the occasion of
+their first meeting: "Paint things exactly as they are. I always do.
+Young men think they should paint like this or that painter. Be quite
+simple; no fussy foolishness, you know; and don't try to be what they
+call 'strong.' When a picture 'smells of paint,'" he said slowly,
+"it's what they call 'strong.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Riding once with Starr to dine at the Café Royal, Whistler leaned
+forward in the hansom and looked at the green park in the dusk, fresh
+and sweet after the rain; at the long line of light reflected,
+shimmering, in the wet Piccadilly pavement, and said:
+
+"Starr, I have not dined, as you know, so you need not think I say
+this in anything but a cold and careful spirit: it is better to live
+on bread and cheese and paint beautiful things than to live like Dives
+and paint pot-boilers. But a painter really should not have to worry
+about--'various,' you know. Poverty may induce industry, but it does
+not produce the fine flower of painting. The test is not poverty; it's
+money. Give a painter money and see what he'll do. If he does not
+paint, his work is well lost to the world. If I had had, say, three
+thousand pounds a year, what beautiful things I could have done!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the portrait of little Miss Alexander went to the Grosvenor
+Gallery, Tom Taylor, the art-critic of the _Times_, called at the
+studio to see it. "Ah, yes--'um," he remarked, and added that an
+upright line in the paneling of the wall was wrong and that the
+picture would be better without it, adding, "Of course, it's a matter
+of taste."
+
+To which Whistler rejoined: "I thought that perhaps for once you were
+going to get away without having said anything foolish; but remember,
+so you may not make the mistake again, it's not a matter of taste at
+all; it is a matter of knowledge. Good-by!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a critic who remarked, "Your picture is not up to your mark; it is
+not good this time," Whistler replied: "You shouldn't say it is not
+good. You should say you do not like it, and then, you know, you're
+perfectly safe. Now come and have something you do like--have some
+whiskey."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stopped at an exhibition by an attendant who wished to check his cane,
+Whistler laughed: "Oh, no, my little man; I keep this for the
+critics."
+
+His troubles with the Royal Society of British Artists bred a round of
+biting remarks. When he and his following went out he said,
+consolingly: "Pish! It is very simple. The artists retired. The
+British remained!"
+
+Another shot at the same subject:
+
+"No longer can it be said that the right man is in the wrong place!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When an adverse vote ended his leadership of the Royal Society,
+Whistler said, philosophically, "Now I understand the feelings of all
+those who, since the world began, have tried to save their
+fellow-men."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Commenting on B.R. Haydon's autobiography, Whistler said: "Yes;
+Haydon, it seems, went into his studio, locked the door, and before
+beginning to work prayed God to enable him to paint for the glory of
+England. Then, seizing a large brush full of bitumen, he attacked his
+huge canvas, and, of course--God fled."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Starr once asked Whistler if the southern exposure of the room in
+which he was working troubled him.
+
+"Yes, it does," he answered. "But Ruskin lives in the North, you know,
+and a southern exposure troubled him, rather, eh?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Much that was characteristic of the artist's wit and temper came out
+during the famous libel suit he brought against Ruskin. The most
+amusing feature of it was the exhibition in court of some of the
+"nocturnes" and "arrangements" which were the subject of the suit. The
+jury of respectable citizens, whose knowledge of art was probably
+limited, was expected to pass judgment on these paintings. Whistler's
+counsel held up one of the pictures.
+
+"Here, gentlemen," he said, "is one of the works which have been
+maligned."
+
+"Pardon me," interposed Mr. Ruskin's lawyer; "you have that picture
+upside down."
+
+"No such thing!"
+
+"Oh, but it is so!" continued Ruskin's counsel. "I remember it in the
+Grosvenor Gallery, where it was hung the other way about."
+
+The altercation ended in the correctness of view of Ruskin's lawyer
+being sustained. This error of counsel helped to produce the
+celebrated farthing verdict. Ever after Whistler wore the farthing on
+his watch-chain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The suit had its origin in Ruskin's comment upon the "Nocturne in
+Black and Gold," described as "a distant view of Cremorne Garden, with
+a falling rocket and other fireworks." The picture is now the property
+of Mrs. Samuel Untermyer, of New York. On the opening of the Grosvenor
+Gallery, in 1877, Ruskin wrote in _Fors Clavigera_: "The ill-educated
+conceit of the artist nearly approached the aspect of wilful
+imposture. I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now,
+but never expected to have a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for
+flinging a pot of paint in the public's face."
+
+When Whistler was being examined during the trial, Sir John Holker,
+the Attorney-General, asked, "How long did it take you to knock off
+that 'Nocturne'?"
+
+"I beg your pardon?" said the witness.
+
+Sir John apologized for his flippancy, and Whistler replied: "About a
+day. I may have put a few touches to it the next day."
+
+"For two days' labor you ask two hundred guineas?"
+
+"No, I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime!"
+
+Then the "Nocturne in Blue and Silver," a moonlight view of Battersea
+Bridge, was submitted to the jury. Baron Huddleston, the presiding
+justice, asked Mr. Whistler to explain it.
+
+"Which part of the picture is the bridge?" he queried. "Do you say
+this is a correct representation?"
+
+"I did not intend it to be a correct portrait of the bridge."
+
+"Are the figures on the top intended for people?"
+
+"They are just what you like."
+
+"Is that a barge beneath?"
+
+"Yes," replied the witness, sarcastically. "I am much encouraged at
+your perceiving that! My whole scheme was only to bring out a certain
+harmony of color."
+
+"What is that gold-colored mark on the side, like a cascade?"
+
+"That is a firework."
+
+"Do you think now," said the Attorney-General, insinuatingly, "you
+could make me see the beauty of that picture?"
+
+"No," said Whistler, after closely scrutinizing his questioner's face.
+"Do you know, I fear it would be as hopeless as for the musician to
+pour his notes into a deaf man's ear."
+
+"What is that structure in the middle?" asked the irritated attorney.
+"Is it a telescope or a fire-escape? Is it like Battersea Bridge? What
+are the figures at the top? If they are horses and carts, how in the
+name of fortune are they to get off?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A friend who was in court when the farthing damages verdict was
+brought in relates that Whistler looked puzzled for a moment; then his
+face cleared. "That's a verdict for me, is it not?" he asked; and when
+his counsel said, "Yes, nominally," Whistler replied, "Well, I suppose
+a verdict is a verdict." Then he said, "It's a great triumph; tell
+everybody it's a great triumph." When the listener dissented, he
+condensed all his concentrated scorn of Philistine view into a
+sentence: "My dear S., you are just fit to serve on a British jury."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Whistler _vs._ Ruskin" cost the latter so much more than the farthing
+verdict that his friends sent out a circular soliciting funds in these
+terms:
+
+"Whistler _vs._ Ruskin. Mr. Ruskin's costs.
+
+"A considerable opinion prevailing that a lifelong, honest endeavor on
+the part of Mr. Ruskin to further the cause of Art should not be
+crowned by his being cast in costs to the amount of several hundreds
+of pounds, the Fine Art Society has agreed to set on foot a
+subscription to defray his expenses arising out of the late action of
+Whistler _vs._ Ruskin.
+
+"Persons willing to co-operate will oblige by communicating with the
+Society, 148, New Bond Street, London."
+
+Mr. Whistler received scant sympathy, the tone of the comment being
+well noted by this excerpt from the London _Standard_ of November
+30th, 1878:
+
+"Of course, Mr. Whistler has costs to pay too, and the amount he is to
+receive from Mr. Ruskin (one farthing), even if economically expended,
+will hardly go far to satisfy the claims of his legal advisers. But he
+has only to paint, or, as we believe he expresses it, 'knock off,'
+three or four 'symphonies' or 'harmonies'--or perhaps he might try his
+hand at a Set of Quadrilles in Peacock Blue?--and a week's labor will
+set all square."
+
+Arthur Lumley, a New York illustrator, met Whistler once at a costume
+ball at George H. Boughton's house in London. The artist appeared as
+Hamlet, but in anything but a melancholy mood. Next morning's papers
+related that the sheriff had sold the effects in the White House the
+day of the ball to satisfy the claims of his creditors!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Isaac N. Ford, when correspondent of the New York _Tribune_ in London,
+went with Frederick MacMonnies, the sculptor, to visit Whistler, who
+brought out a number of portraits for show. One was that of a woman,
+full figure.
+
+"What do you think of her?" he asked.
+
+The sculptor gave "a side glance and looked down."
+
+"Since you force me to speak,", he finally blurted out, "I must tell
+you that one leg is longer than the other."
+
+Instead of the expected outburst, Whistler scrutinized the portrait
+from several points, and then observed quietly:
+
+"You are quite right. I had not observed the fault, and I shall
+correct it in the morning."
+
+"What an eye for a line a sculptor has!" he said to Ford later.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He quarreled regularly with his brother-in-law, Sir F. Seymour Haden,
+the famous etcher.
+
+"A brother-in-law is not a connection calling for sentiment," he once
+remarked.
+
+Haden came into a gallery on one occasion and, seeing Whistler, who
+was there in company with Justice Day, left abruptly.
+
+"I see! Dropped in for his morning bitters," observed Whistler,
+cheerfully.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once in conversation Whistler said: "Yes, I have many friends, and am
+grateful to them; but those whom I most love are my enemies--not in a
+Biblical sense, oh, no, but because they keep one always busy, always
+up to the mark, either fighting them or proving them idiots."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler was very particular about the spelling of his rather long and
+complicated group of names. Careless people made the "Mc" "Mac," and
+others left the extra "l" off "McNeill." To one of the latter
+offenders he wrote:
+
+"McNeill, by the way, should have two l's.' I use them both, and in
+the midst of things cannot well do without them!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Tom Taylor, the critic, died, a friend asked Whistler why he
+looked so glum.
+
+"Me?" said Whistler. "Who else has such cause to mourn? Tommy's dead.
+I'm lonesome. They are all dying. I have hardly a warm personal enemy
+left!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While a draughtsman in the Coast Survey from November, 1854, to
+February, 1855, he boarded at the northeast corner of E and 12th
+Streets, Washington. He is remembered as being usually late for
+breakfast and always making sketches on the walls. To the
+remonstrating landlord he replied:
+
+"Now, now, never mind! I'll not charge you anything for the
+decorations."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among those with whom Whistler quarreled most joyously were the two
+Moores, the illustrious George and his less famous brother, Augustus.
+Both took Sir William Eden's side in the celebrated "Baronet _vs_.
+Butterfly" case, where Whistler was nonsuited in a French court of
+law. Augustus edited a sprightly but none too reputable weekly in
+London, called the _Hawk_, a series of unpalatable references in which
+so aroused Whistler that, meeting Moore in the Drury Lane Theater on
+the first night of "A Million of Money," he struck the editor across
+the face with his cane. A scrimmage followed, which contemporary
+history closed with the artist on the floor. Whistler's own account of
+the unseemly fracas was thuswise:
+
+"I started out to cane the fellow with as little emotion as I would
+prepare to kill a rat. I did cane him to the satisfaction of my many
+friends and his many enemies, and that was the end of it."
+
+Moore wrote: "I am sorry, but I have had to slap Mr. Whistler. My
+Irish blood got the better of me, and before I knew it the
+shriveled-up little monkey was knocked over and kicking about the
+floor."
+
+Whistler vigorously controverted this version as a "barefaced
+falsehood." He added: "I am sure he never touched me. I don't know
+why, for he is a much bigger man than I. My idea is that he was
+thoroughly cowed by the moral force of my attack. I had to turn him
+round in order to get at him. Then I cut him again and again as hard
+as I could, hissing out 'Hawk!' with each stroke. Oh, you can take my
+word for it, everything was done in the cleanest and most correct
+fashion possible. I always like to do things cleanly."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clash with George Moore came to a head with the challenge to fight
+a duel. In his own version of the event given in the London
+_Chronicle_ of March 29th, 1895, Mr. Moore laid his troubles to his
+efforts to aid the artist. Learning that Sir William Eden wished his
+wife's portrait painted, he "undertook a journey to Paris in the depth
+of winter, had two shocking passages across the Channel, and spent
+twenty-five pounds on Mr. Whistler's business." It was arranged, he
+thought, that Whistler was to receive one hundred pounds for a "small
+sketch." When the "sketch" materialized it was "small" indeed. The
+Baronet and Mr. Moore expected a little more area of canvas. "The
+picture in question," remarked Mr. Moore, "is only twelve inches long
+by six high. The figure of Lady Eden is represented sitting on a sofa;
+the face is about half an inch in length, about the size of a
+sixpence, and the features are barely indicated."
+
+But to the duel: In Paris, after the controversy arose, Mr. Moore told
+an interviewer he did not think the sketch was worth more than one
+hundred pounds. To this Whistler made a furious reply in the _Pall
+Mall Gazette_, alleging that Moore had "acquired a spurious reputation
+as an art-critic" by praising his pictures. Moore's reply in the
+journal produced this response, sent from the Hotel Chatham under date
+of March 12th, 1895:
+
+"Mr. Whistler begs to acknowledge Mr. Moore's letter of March 11.
+
+"If, in it, the literary incarnation of the 'eccentric' person, on the
+curbstone, is supposed to represent Mr. Moore at the present moment,
+Mr. Whistler thinks the likeness exaggerated--as it is absurd to
+suppose that Mr. Moore can really imagine that any one admires him in
+his late role before Interviewer, or in that of the Expert in the
+Council Chamber.
+
+"If, however, Mr. Moore means in his parable to indicate Mr. Whistler,
+the latter is willing to accept Mr. Moore's circuitous and coarse
+attempt to convey a gross insult--and, upon the whole, will perhaps
+think the better of him for an intention to make himself at last
+responsible.
+
+"In such case Mr. Whistler will ask a friend to meet any gentleman Mr.
+Moore may appoint to represent him; and, awaiting a reply, has the
+honor to remain Mr. Moore's," etc.
+
+To which Mr. Moore replied:
+
+"Mr. Moore begs to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Whistler's letter of
+the 12th inst. In Mr. Moore's opinion Mr. Whistler's conduct grows
+daily more absurd."
+
+"I hoped," explained Mr. Moore, "that Mr. Whistler's friends would
+intervene and persuade him of the strangeness of his action and the
+interpretation it would receive in England. But four days later I was
+flattered by the following communication:
+
+"PARIS, _le 15 Mars, 1895._
+
+
+"MONSIEUR:
+
+"A la réception de votre lettre (lettre d'ailleurs rendue publique
+dans la _Pall Mall Gazette_), M. Whistler nous a prié de vous demander
+soit une rétractation, soit une réparation par les armes.
+
+"Nous vous prions donc de vouloir bien nous mettre en rapport avec
+deux de vos amis.
+
+FRANCIS VIELÉ-GRIFFIN,
+
+122 Rue de la Pompe.
+OCTAVE MIRBEAU,
+Carrière-sous-Passy, Seine-et-Oise."
+
+
+Mr. Moore's interlocutor asked him if there was any fear of losing his
+interesting personality on account of Mr. Whistler's challenge.
+
+To this Mr. Moore said:
+
+"There are three most excellent reasons why I should not fight a duel
+with Mr. Whistler, as Mr. Whistler well knows. First, only under the
+very gravest circumstances, if under any at all, would an Englishman
+accept a challenge to a duel. The duel has been relegated to the
+realms of comic opera. As for inviting me to proceed to Belgium for
+the purpose of fighting him, he might as well ask me to strip myself
+naked and paint my face and stick feathers in my hair--dress myself as
+a Redskin, in fact, and walk down St. James's Street flourishing a
+tomahawk. Second, supposing I were a Frenchman, Mr. Whistler is
+sixty-five years of age, and it is against the custom of dueling for
+any one to accept a challenge from so old a gentleman. Moreover, Mr.
+Whistler is, unhappily, very short-sighted, and would be unable to see
+me at twenty paces. Third, the grounds of the quarrel are so
+infinitely trivial that, were we both Frenchmen, it is doubtful if any
+seconds would take upon themselves the responsibility of an armed
+encounter.
+
+"I have praised Mr. Whistler's pictures that he painted
+five-and-twenty years ago as much as it is possible to praise works of
+art. I hold the same opinions about them still. I only wish Mr.
+Whistler would apply himself to his art instead of wasting his time in
+quarreling with his friends."
+
+The outcome of the Eden suit kept Whistler in ill-humor for a long
+time, while Moore continued to be a special object of aversion. The
+two avoided each other. But, as some philosopher has said, if you
+remain long in Paris you will meet all your friends and all your
+enemies. So it fell out that the two foregathered at the same atelier
+one Sunday afternoon. They nearly collided in entering, but Moore was
+the first inside. The hostess heard sounds from the hall something
+between china-breaking and the stamping of hoofs. She went out, to
+find James in a mighty rage.
+
+"Dear me!" said the lady, "what is the matter, dear master?"
+
+"Whistler won't come in! Whistler won't stay under the same roof with
+that wild Irishman!"
+
+Moore, in the inside, remarked in his sweetly modulated voice:
+
+"Why drag in Whistler?"
+
+This play on his best _mot_, "Why drag in Velasquez?" was too much,
+and in screaming wrath the painter fled, leaving Moore in full
+possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An American millionaire, to whom wealth had come rather quickly from
+Western mines, called at the Paris studio with the idea of capturing
+something for his gallery. He glanced casually at the paintings on the
+walls, and then queried:
+
+"How much for the lot?"
+
+"Four millions," said Whistler.
+
+"What?"
+
+"My posthumous prices! Good morning!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dante Gabriel Rossetti once showed Whistler a sketch and asked his
+opinion of its merits.
+
+"It has good points, Rossetti," said Whistler. "Go ahead with it by
+all means."
+
+Later he inquired how it was getting along. "All right," answered
+Rossetti, cheerfully. "I've ordered a stunning frame for it."
+
+In due time the canvas appeared at Rossetti's house in Cheyne Walk,
+beautifully framed.
+
+"You've done nothing to it since I saw it, have you?" said Whistler.
+
+"No-o," replied Rossetti, "but I've written a sonnet on the subject,
+if you'd like to hear it."
+
+He recited some lines of peculiar tenderness.
+
+"Rossetti," said Whistler, as the recitation ended, "take out the
+picture and frame the sonnet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Scotch once raised a fund by subscription to buy the portrait of
+Carlyle, at a price of five hundred guineas, fixed by the painter.
+When the sum was nearly complete, he learned that the subscription
+paper contained a clause disclaiming any indorsement of his theory of
+art. He telegraphed to the committee:
+
+"The price of 'Carlyle' has advanced to one thousand guineas. Dinna ye
+hear the bagpipes?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A dilettante collector in London, after much angling, induced Whistler
+to view his variegated collection. As the several objects passed in
+review they provoked only a sober "H'm, h'm," that might have meant
+anything or nothing. When there was no more to see, the host paused
+for an aggregate opinion and got this:
+
+"My dear sir, there's really no excuse for it, no excuse for it at
+all!"
+
+To a lady who complained that the frequent sittings commanded for
+painting her portrait compelled her to sacrifice much personal
+convenience, Whistler replied: "But, my dear lady, that is nothing in
+comparison with the sacrifice I have to make on your account. Just
+look: since I have been painting your portrait I have not had time to
+attend to my correspondence."
+
+There was a mountain of unopened letters on his desk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frederick Wedmore, the patient cataloguer of Whistler's etchings, once
+appeared in print as saying that he had "no wish to understand
+Whistler's works." He wrote "understate," but the wretched compositor
+undid him. Whistler's response to the explanation was: "Yes, the
+mistake is indeed inexcusable, since not only I, but even the
+compositor, might have known that with Mr. Wedmore and his like it is
+always a question of understating and never of understanding
+anything."
+
+In his _Memories and Impressions_ Ford Madox Hueffer relates that
+Madox Brown, going to a tea-party at the White House at Chelsea, was
+met in the hall by Mrs. Whistler, who begged him to go to the
+poulterer's and purchase a pound of butter. The bread was cut, but
+there was nothing in the house to put upon it. There was no money in
+the house, the poulterer had cut off his credit, and Mrs. Whistler
+said she dared not send her husband, for he would certainly punch the
+tradesman's head!
+
+"To think of 'Arry [meaning Harry Quilter, the critic, with whom he
+fiercely quarreled] living in the temple I erected!" he said. "He has
+no use for it--doesn't know what to do with it. If he had any feeling
+for the sympathy of things he would come to me and say: 'Here's your
+house, Whistler; take it; you know its meaning, I don't. Take it and
+live in it.' But no, he hasn't sense enough to see that. He
+obstinately stays there in the way, while I am living in this absurd
+fashion, next door to myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the "secession" from the Royal Society, Whistler strolled into
+the gallery one evening with some friends. A group of admirers were
+gushing before a Leighton canvas.
+
+"Quite exquisite!"
+
+"A gem--really a gem!"
+
+"Yes," said Whistler. "Like a diamond in the sty."
+
+When elected president of the Society of British Artists, Whistler
+naturally felt exultant. "Carr," he said, jokingly, to Conryns Carr,
+the dramatist, "you haven't congratulated me yet."
+
+"No," was the retort. "I'm waiting till the correspondence begins!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Society did not possess a Royal Charter until Mr. Whistler became
+president. With some help from the Prince of Wales this was procured.
+When the Prince paid his first visit to the gallery, Whistler was
+there to welcome him.
+
+"I'm sure," said the Prince at the door, "I never heard of this place,
+Mr. Whistler, until you brought it to my notice. What is its history?"
+
+"It has none, your Highness," was the neat rejoinder. "Its history
+dates from to-day!"
+
+When Whistler left the White House, at Chelsea, he put this legend
+over the door:
+
+"'Unless the Lord build the house, their labor is but vain that build
+it.' E.W. Godwin, P.S.A., built this one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justin McCarthy, the journalist and historian of _Our Own Times_,
+stayed away from the Whistler dinner at the Criterion because his
+friend Mortimer Menpes had been slighted. He met Whistler a few
+evenings later at a dinner to Christie Murray. As they came together
+Whistler remarked darkly:
+
+"You're a bold man and a philanthropist; but remember, _Damien died_!"
+
+And he had, just before, among the lepers of Molokai! Rather rough on
+the claimant of Lemon Yellow!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Fine Art Society once billed Whistler for incidentals to one of
+his exhibitions, and thoughtfully included a pair of stockings worn by
+an attendant named Cox.
+
+"I shall pay for nothing of Cox's," said the artist, indignantly.
+"Neither his socks, nor his 'ose, nor anything that is his."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of his proofs, sold by Sotheby's in 1888--that of an early
+etching--brought a good price, not on its merits, but for this line by
+the artist, written on the margin: "Legs not by me, but a fatuous
+addition by a general practitioner."
+
+The "legs" were by Dr. Seymour Haden, Whistler's eminent
+brother-in-law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eccentric relationship between Whistler and that self-destroyed
+genius, Oscar Wilde, has been much portrayed. A characteristic meeting
+was thus described by a correspondent of the London _Literary World_:
+
+"Whistler and Wilde were to be the lions at a literary reception.
+Unfortunately, the lions came too early, when the few previous
+arrivals were altogether too insignificant to be introduced to them.
+So they had to talk to each other. It was on a very warm Sunday
+afternoon in the season, and Whistler, by the by, was wearing a white
+'duck' waistcoat and trousers, and a fabulously long frock-coat, made,
+I think, of black alpaca, and carrying a brass-tipped stick about four
+feet long in his right hand, and a wonderful new paint-box, of which
+he was proud, under his left arm. Neither of the lions took any notice
+of what the other said. Finally, Wilde, who had spent the previous
+summer in America, began: 'Jimmy, this time last year, when I was in
+New York, all we men were carrying fans. It should be done here.'
+Instead of replying, Whistler observed that he had just returned from
+Paris, and that he always came by the Dieppe route, because it gave
+you so much longer for painting sea effects. Whether Oscar thought he
+was going to have an opportunity of scoring or what, he was tempted to
+break through the contempt with which-he had treated Whistler's other
+remarks. 'And how many did you paint in four hours, Jimmy?' he asked,
+with his most magnificent air of patronage. 'I'm not sure,' said the
+irrepressible Jimmy, quite gravely, 'but I think four or five
+hundred."'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A London visitor at the Lambs Club recounted a new version of the
+notable enmity which followed the friendship that had existed between
+Whistler and Wilde. The latter one day asked the artist's opinion upon
+a poem which he had written, presenting a copy to be read. Whistler
+read it and was handing it back without comment.
+
+"Well," queried Wilde, "do you perceive any worth?"
+
+"It's worth its weight in gold," replied Whistler.
+
+The poem was written on the very thinnest tissue-paper, weighing
+practically nothing. The coolness between the two men is said to have
+dated from that moment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking up to Du Maurier and Wilde at the time the former was
+portraying the Postlethwaites in _Punch_, Whistler asked, whimsically,
+"I say, which of you invented the other, eh?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Oscar Wilde was married, this Whistler telegram met him at the
+door of St. James's Church, Sussex Gardens:
+
+"Fear I may not be able to reach you in time for ceremony--don't
+wait."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Heaven!" said Oscar once, when the two were together at
+Forbes-Robertson's and a pert flash fell from the artist's lips. "I
+wish I had said that!"
+
+"Never mind, dear Oscar--you will," retorted Whistler.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Lady Archibald Campbell sat for her portrait Lord Archibald was
+quite uncomfortable at the idea, and made certain that it was a
+condescension, not a commission. The painting was duly completed,
+received its due of scathing criticism, and became famous. At this the
+lady, meeting the artist, remarked:
+
+"I hear my portrait has been exhibited everywhere and become famous."
+
+"Sh-sh-sh!" he said. "So it has, my dear Lady Archibald, but every
+discretion has been exercised that Lord Archibald could desire. Your
+name is not mentioned. The portrait is known as 'The Yellow
+Buckskin.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carlyle told Whistler he liked his portrait because the painter had
+given him "clean linen." Watts had made his collar green in a previous
+portrait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sitting wearied Carlyle. One day as he left the studio he met little
+Miss Alexander tripping in for her turn, and asked her name.
+
+"I am Miss Alexander," she said, "and I am going to have my portrait
+painted."
+
+"Puir lassie, puir lassie," murmured the old philosopher, pityingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler's interest was aroused when the Cyclopeans were building the
+Savoy Hotel. "Hurry!" he said. "Where are my things? I must catch that
+now, for it will never again be so beautiful."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His model once asked him:
+
+"Where were you born?"
+
+"I never was born, my child; I came from on high."
+
+The model retorted:
+
+"Now that shows how easily we deceive ourselves in this world, for I
+should say you came from below!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Invited once to dine with some eminences, the dinner-hour found him
+busy with his brush and engrossed in his subject. A friend who was to
+accompany him to the feast urged that it was frightfully late. "Don't
+you think you had better stop?" he asked.
+
+"Stop?" shrieked Whistler. "Stop when everything is going so
+beautifully? Go and stuff myself with food when I can paint like this?
+Never! Never! Besides, they won't do anything until I get there. They
+never do."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler was in a London shop one day when a customer came in who
+mistook him for a clerk.
+
+"I say, this 'at doesn't fit!"
+
+"Neither does your coat," observed the painter, after eying him
+critically.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young woman student protested under criticism, "Mr. Whistler, is
+there any reason why I shouldn't paint things as I see them?"
+
+"Well, really, there is no statute against it; but the dreadful moment
+will be when you see things as you painted them!"
+
+"Britain's Realm," by John Brett, R.A., now in the National Gallery at
+Millbank, made a stir when first exhibited at the Academy. It shows
+the sea. Whistler walked into a wave of adulation one day during the
+exhibition, and, affecting to "knock" with his knuckles, said
+sardonically: "Ha! Ha! Tin! If you threw a stone on to this it would
+make a rumbling noise!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His early price for the use of one of his lithographs by a magazine
+was ten guineas. Later he charged twenty, either sum being petty
+enough. To one editor who tendered ten pounds he wrote:
+
+"Guineas, M. le Rédacteur; guineas, not pounds!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At a reception one evening in Prince's Hall he was introduced to
+Henrietta Rae, whose painting "Psyche Before the Throne of Venus" had
+made her notable. She had been described to him in advance as rather
+weighty in figure.
+
+"I don't think you're a bit too fat," was his encouraging greeting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Why have you withered people and stung them all your life?" asked a
+lady.
+
+"My dear," he said, "I will tell you a secret. Early in life I made
+the discovery that I was charming; and if one is delightful, one has
+to thrust the world away to keep from being bored to death."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the Boxer troubles, when Pekin was under siege to rescue the
+legations, he remarked:
+
+"Dear! dear! I hope they will save the palace. All the Englishmen in
+the world are not worth one blue china vase."
+
+One evening at Pennell's Miss Annulet Andrews mentioned attending the
+Royal Society soirée the evening before.
+
+"Poor thing!" he said. "Poor, misguided child! Did you come all the
+way to London to consort with such--well, what shall we call them?
+Why, there isn't a fellow among them who had his h's five years ago!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You should be grateful to me," said Whistler to Leyland, after he had
+painted the Peacock Room in the latter's house. "I have made you
+famous. My work will live when you are forgotten. Still, perchance in
+the dim ages to come you may be remembered as the proprietor of the
+Peacock Room."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler's butterfly was the moth of the silkworm borrowed from
+Hokusai. Otto H. Bacher thought the addition of a sting to the
+signature came from this incident at Venice: In 1880 he found a
+scorpion and impaled it on his etching needle. As the little creature
+writhed and struck, Whistler exclaimed: "Look at the beggar now! See
+him strike! Isn't he fine? Look at him! Look at him now! See how hard
+he hits! That's right--that's the way! Hit hard! And do you see the
+poison that comes out when he strikes? Isn't he superb?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Referring long after to his retirement from West Point, where he had
+been a cadet for three years, the artist explained his fall by saying:
+"If silicon had been a gas, I should have been a soldier!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was always proud of his West Point cadetship. "West Point is
+America," he would say. Julian Alden Weir, son of Whistler's
+instructor at the Academy, once dining with him in London, chanced to
+remark that football had been introduced at the school. "Good God!"
+cried Whistler. "A West Point cadet to be rolled in the mud by a
+Harvard junior!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a student at the Point he had the habit of combing his long hair
+in class with his fingers, which brought this frequent command from
+Lieutenant Caleb Huse:
+
+"Mr. Whistler, go to your room and comb your hair!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Examined on history at West Point, he failed to recall the date of the
+battle of Buena Vista. "Suppose," said the exasperated instructor,
+"you were to go out to dinner and the company began to talk of the
+Mexican War, and you, a West Point man, were asked the date of the
+battle; what would you do?"
+
+"Do?" was the reply. "Why, I should refuse to associate with people
+who could talk of such things at dinner!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He disliked the work of the riding class at West Point, and one day
+wished to exchange his heavy horse for a lighter animal. The dragoon
+in charge called out: "Oh, don't swap, don't you swap! Yours is a
+war-horse!"
+
+"A war-horse!" exclaimed the little cadet. "That settles it. I
+certainly don't want him!"
+
+"Yes, you do, sir," insisted the dragoon. "He's a war-horse, I tell
+you, for he'd rather die than run!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Of course you don't know what fear is," observed Mortimer Menpes.
+
+"Ah, yes, I do!" Whistler answered. "I should hate, for example, to be
+standing opposite a man who was a better shot than I, far away out in
+the forest, in the bleak, cold, early morning. Fancy me, the master,
+standing out in the open as a target to be shot at. Pshaw! It would be
+foolish and inartistic. I never mind calling a man out; but I always
+have the sense to know he is not likely to come."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Howard Mansfield relates that while in London in the summer of
+1900 with Mr. Whistler, reference was one day made to West Point. He
+broke at once into enthusiastic praise of that institution, declaring
+that there was no finer institution in the world, and adding that next
+to it came the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Then he went on to say:
+"What was it which really saved you in your late deplorable war with
+the politest nation of Europe but the bearing of your naval gentlemen?
+After the affair in that sea--what's its name?--off the island of
+Cuba, when dear old Admiral Cervera was fished up like a dollop of
+cotton out of an ink-pot and was received on one of your ships with
+all the honors due to his rank, the officers all saluting and the crew
+manning the yards, as it were--only they haven't any yards now--but
+lined up in quite the proper way--why, it was splendid, just
+splendid!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dining one night at a house where there were a number of his pictures
+about the room, he could give attention to nothing but his own work.
+When he left he begged that one painting be sent to his studio to be
+revarnished. The unsuspecting hostess complied. Once delivered, she
+could not get it back. Finally she wrote: "I can live no longer
+without my beautiful picture, and I am sending to have it taken away."
+
+"Isn't it appalling?" he cried to Menpes. "Just think of it! Ten years
+ago this woman bought my picture for a ridiculously small sum, a mere
+bagatelle, a few pounds; she has had the privilege of living with this
+masterpiece for ten whole years, and now she has the presumption to
+ask for it back again. Pshaw! The thing's unspeakable!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What a series of accidents!" was his comment on a row of Turners at
+the National Gallery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On another occasion, when he arrived at his host's house two hours
+after the time set for dining, he found the meal well under way. "How
+extraordinary!" he exclaimed to the amazed company.
+
+"Really, I should think you could have waited a bit. Why, you're just
+like a lot of pigs with your eating!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir John E. Millais said to Whistler one day: "Jimmy, why don't you
+paint more pictures? Put out more canvases!"
+
+"I know better," was the shrewd reply. "The fool!" he muttered, as he
+entered his studio. "He spreads himself on canvas on every possible
+occasion, and, do you know, he called me Jimmy! Mind you, I don't know
+the fellow well at all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His "Nocturne in Blue and Gold, Valparaiso," was in the Hill
+collection at Brighton. Whistler made Mr. Hill a visit which he thus
+described: "I was shown into the galleries, and, of course, took a
+chair and sat looking at my beautiful 'Nocturne'; then, as there was
+nothing else to do, I went to sleep."
+
+In this state Mr. Hill found him!
+
+This sleeping habit was common with him when the company or the
+goings-on failed to interest him. On one occasion his sweet snore
+alarmed his neighbor, who nudged him and whispered:
+
+"I say, Whistler, you must not sleep here!"
+
+"Leave me alone!" commanded the artist, crossly. "I've said all I
+wanted to. I've no interest at all in what you and your friends have
+to say."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He once slumbered through a dinner where Edwin A. Abbey was a
+fellow-guest. The next morning he blandly asked Mr. Chase:
+
+"What did Abbey have to say last night? Anything worth while?"
+
+When Dan Smith was at the beginning of his career as an illustrator he
+was employed by an important lithographing house. One day, while
+making a large picture of Antony and Cleopatra in the barge scene,
+which was to be used by Kyrle Bellew and Mrs. James Brown Potter as a
+poster for their joint starring tour, Whistler, accompanied by a
+friend, visited the studio:
+
+Whistler examined, with evident interest and approval, the canvas upon
+which the youthful artist was at work, holding his glass to his eyes;
+then, looking quizzically over it, remarked to his friend, "What a
+mercantile wretch it is!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler presented a copy of his edition of _The Gentle Art of Making
+Enemies_ to "Theodore Watts, the Worldling."
+
+Asked why he started the unlucky school in the Latin Quarter, he
+answered:
+
+"It was for Carmen Rossi [long his model], poor little Carmen, who is
+a mere child and has no money, and is saddled with the usual Italian
+burden of a large, disreputable family--banditti brothers, a trifling
+husband, and all the rest of it."
+
+"Carmen" was then thirty years old; weight, one hundred and ninety
+pounds. But she once had been his child-model.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Scotch student in the class had worked out the face of an old
+peasant woman illuminated by a candle. "How beautifully you have
+painted the candle!" Whistler commended. "Good morning, gentlemen!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day, when the pupils had been sketching from life, he came upon
+the work of one which, if it contained all of the truth, did not
+contain all of the beautiful.
+
+After gazing at it for some time Whistler observed to the student:
+
+"Ah, well! You can hardly expect me to teach you morals." And he
+walked away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A carelessly kept palette was an abhorrence to the painter. He would
+inspect those used by his class, and on the discovery of untidiness
+uttered a reproof like this: "My friends, have you noticed the way in
+which a musician cares for his violin? How beautiful it is? How well
+kept? How tenderly handled? Your palette is your instrument, its
+colors the notes, and upon it you play your symphonies!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The colloquies with the class were spirited, sarcastic, interesting.
+Here is a characteristic one:
+
+_Question:_ "Do you know what I mean when I say tone, value, light,
+shade, quality, movement, construction, etc.?"
+
+_Chorus:_ "Oh, yes, Mr. Whistler!"
+
+_Mr. Whistler:_ "I'm glad, for it's more than I do myself!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He objected to smoking in the atelier, partly because it obscured the
+light and partly because of its obfuscating qualities. In Paris a big
+Englishman clouded the class-room with a copious discharge of smoke.
+"My dear sir," said Whistler, gently, "I know you do not smoke to show
+disrespect for my request that students refrain from smoking on the
+days I come to them, nor would you desire to infringe upon the rules
+of the atelier, but--er--it seems to me--er--that when you are
+painting--er--you might possibly become so absorbed in your work as
+to--er--let your cigar go out!"
+
+Visiting Earl Stetson Crawford in his studio at Paris, he noted on the
+wall a photographic copy of the Nicholson portrait of himself.
+
+"Is that the best you have of me?" he asked. "Not that it is not very
+beautiful and artistic and so on--but I say, come now, you don't think
+it quite does me justice, do you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the class was formed, so runs the tale, Whistler inquired of each
+pupil with whom he had studied before.
+
+"With Julian," said one.
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir," Whistler answered.
+
+"With Chase," replied another.
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir."
+
+"With Mowbray," answered a third.
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir," and so on.
+
+He approached a student slightly deaf, who stammered in reply, "I beg
+pardon?"
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir," responded Whistler, placidly,
+passing on to the next.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It suffices not, Messieurs," he once observed to the class, "that a
+life spent among pictures makes a painter, else the policeman in the
+National Gallery might assert himself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A pupil told him proudly she had studied with Bouguereau.
+
+"Bouguereau! Bouguereau! Who is Bouguereau?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One young lady in the class offended him. She received a polite note,
+signed with a neat butterfly, requesting her not to attend further.
+"It was worth being expelled to get the note," she said. Whistler
+heard of the comment.
+
+"Well, they'll all have a note some day," he observed. His retirement
+soon followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+H. Villiers Barnett, editor of the _Continental Weekly_, when in the
+employ of the _Magazine of Art_ visited the Dowdeswell Gallery at a
+press view of the Venice pastels. He alone of the critics developed
+some interest, and soon found himself alone with Whistler.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the latter, "but do you represent a
+religious journal?"
+
+"No," Barnett replied, jokingly, "mine is an out-and-out sporting
+paper!"
+
+"Oh," said Whistler, "that accounts for it."
+
+"Accounts for what?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Whistler, with an exquisite sneer, "I have been
+watching you gentlemen of the press all morning. You are the only one
+in the whole lot who seems to find anything here worth looking at, and
+you have been taking such very serious interest that I was certain you
+must be representing some church paper."
+
+"Mr. Whistler," retorted Barnett, "make your mind easy. There is
+nothing ecclesiastical about me nor the publication I have the honor
+to represent; but all the same, for you this is the day of judgment!"
+
+"I wish you good morning," rejoined the painter, pertly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His "artistic" make-up of flat-brimmed hat, lemon-colored vest, curls,
+eyeglass, and beribboned cane sometimes upset the cockney crowd.
+R.A.M. Stevenson, cousin of Robert Louis, was working in his studio
+one day when the bell rang violently. He ran to the door just in time
+to rescue the symphony into which Whistler had turned himself from a
+growling mob.
+
+"For God's sake, Stevenson," said Whistler, "save me from these
+howling brutes!"
+
+He went home in a cab with all his trimmings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Harper Pennington has revealed to us the origin of the "standing-room
+only" joke. It appears that there was hardly ever any furniture in
+Whistler's house. He was peculiarly parsimonious in the matter of
+chairs. This led to a remark of Corny Grain's which became famous.
+
+"Ah, Jimmy! Glad to see you playing to such a full house!" said Dick
+(Corny) Grain when shaking hands before a Sunday luncheon, while
+glaring around the studio with his large, protruding eyes, in search
+of something to sit on.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Whistler.
+
+"Standing-room only," replied the actor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Henry Labouchere, who first met Whistler as a boy in Washington in the
+fifties, when he himself was an attaché of the British Legation, took
+the credit for bringing Whistler and his wife together. His story was
+denied by Mrs. Whistler's relatives, but is interesting enough to be
+recorded.
+
+"I believe," wrote Mr. Labouchere in _Truth_, "I was responsible for
+his marriage to the widow of Mr. Godwin, the architect. She was a
+remarkably pretty woman and very agreeable, and both she and he were
+thorough Bohemians.
+
+"I was dining with them and some others one evening at Earl's Court.
+They were obviously greatly attracted to each other, and in a vague
+sort of way they thought of marrying, so I took the matter in hand to
+bring things to a practical point.
+
+"'Jimmy,' I said, 'will you marry Mrs. Godwin?'
+
+"'Certainly.'
+
+"'Mrs. Godwin,' I said, 'will you marry Jimmy?'
+
+"'Certainly,' she replied.
+
+"'When?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, some day,' said Whistler.
+
+"'That won't do,' I said. 'We must have a date.'
+
+"So they both agreed that I should choose the day, tell them what
+church to come to for the ceremony, provide a clergyman, and give the
+bride away.
+
+"I fixed an early date and got them the chaplain of the House of
+Commons to perform the ceremony. It took place a few days later. After
+the ceremony was over we adjourned to Whistler's studio, where he had
+prepared a banquet. The banquet was on the table, but there were no
+chairs, so we sat on packing-cases. The happy pair, when I left, had
+not quite decided whether they would go that evening to Paris or
+remain in the studio.
+
+"How unpractical they were was shown when I happened to meet the bride
+the day before the marriage in the street.
+
+"'Don't forget to-morrow,' I said.
+
+"'No,' she replied; 'I am just going to buy my trousseau.'
+
+"'A little late for that, is it not?' I asked.
+
+"'No,' she answered, 'for I am only going to buy a tooth-brush and a
+new sponge, as one ought to have new ones when one marries.'
+
+"However, there never was a more successful marriage. They adored each
+other, and lived most happily together, and when she died he was
+broken-hearted indeed. He never recovered from the loss."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Frederick Keppel, the American print expert, first called upon
+the artist at the Tite Street studio, the famous portrait of Sarasate,
+"black on black," stood at the end of the long corridor that he used
+to form a vista for proper perspective of his work. Laying his hand on
+Keppel's shoulder, he said:
+
+"Now, isn't it beautiful?"
+
+"It certainly is," was the reply.
+
+"No," said he; "but isn't it _beautiful_?"
+
+"It is indeed," said Keppel.
+
+This was too mild a form of agreement. Whistler raised his voice to a
+scream:
+
+"D---n it, man!" he piped. "Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?"
+
+Adopting the emphasis and the exclamation, Mr. Keppel shouted:
+
+"D----n it, it is!"
+
+This was satisfactory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The proof-sheets of _The Gentle Art_, Whistler version, had just
+arrived as Mr. Keppel called. "Read them aloud," he commanded, "so I
+can hear how it sounds."
+
+Mr. Keppel started in, but his elocution was not satisfactory.
+
+"Stop!" Whistler cried. "You are murdering it! Let me read it to you!"
+
+He read about two hours to his own keen delight, but was finally
+interrupted by a servant announcing, "Lady ----."
+
+"Where is she?" asked the artist.
+
+"In her carriage at the door."
+
+He went on reading until Mr. Keppel suggested that he had forgotten
+the lady.
+
+"Oh," he said, carelessly, "let her wait! I'm mobbed with these
+people."
+
+After another quarter-hour he condescended to go down and greet her
+shivering ladyship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later during this visit a foreign artist called and was
+pleasantly received. Admiring a small painting, the visitor said:
+
+"Now, that is one of your good ones."
+
+"Don't look at it, dear boy," replied Whistler, airily; "it's not
+finished."
+
+"Finished!" said the visitor. "Why, it's the most carefully finished
+picture of yours I've seen."
+
+"Don't look at it," insisted Whistler. "You are doing an injustice to
+yourself, you are doing an injustice to the picture, and you're doing
+an injustice to me!"
+
+Then, theatrically:
+
+"Stop! I'll finish it now." With that he picked a very small brush,
+anointed, its delicate point with paint, and touched the picture in
+one spot with a speck of pigment.
+
+"Now it's finished!" he exclaimed. "Now you may look at it."
+
+Forgetting his umbrella, the foreign gentleman called at the studio
+the next day to get it. Whistler was out, but the visitor was much
+moved to find the "finishing touch" had been carefully wiped off!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Keppel's personal relations with Whistler ended when, by an idle
+chance, he sent a copy of _The University of the State of New York
+Bulletin, Bibliography, No. I, a Guide to the Study of James Abbott
+McNeill Whistler_, compiled by Walter Greenwood Forsyth and Joseph Le
+Roy Harrison, to Joseph Pennell, and another to Ernest Brown, in
+London. Mr. Keppel, arriving in London the day of Mrs. Whistler's
+funeral, sent a note of condolence, and, receiving a mourning envelope
+sealed with a black butterfly, opened it expecting a grateful
+acknowledgment. Instead, it was a fierce, rasping denunciation for the
+distribution of the pamphlet--a mere catalogue so far as it went.
+
+"I must not let the occasion of your being in town pass," he wrote,
+"without acknowledging the gratuitous zeal with which you have done
+your best to further the circulation of one of the most malignant
+innuendos, in the way of scurrilous half-assertions, it has been my
+fate hitherto to meet. Mr. Brown very properly sent on to me the
+pamphlet you had promptly posted to him. Mr. Pennell, also, I find,
+you had carefully supplied with a copy--and I have no doubt that, with
+the untiring energy of the 'busy' one, you have smartly placed the
+pretty work in the hands of many another before this."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Keppel replied in kind, but Whistler never wrote him directly
+again. Some business letter of the former requiring a reply, he
+summoned the house-porter, who wrote under dictation, beginning his
+crude epistle thus: "Sir:--Mr. Whistler, who is present, orders me to
+write as follows." Roiled by this beyond measure, Mr. Keppel resorted
+to verse to relieve his feelings, after which Whistler twice sent
+verbal messages through friends that if he ever saw him again he would
+kill him!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John M. Cauldwell, the United States Commissioner for the Department
+of Art at the Paris Exposition of 1900, sent a circular letter to
+American artists in the city announcing his arrival and making
+appointments to discuss the hanging of their work. Whistler received
+one, asking him to call at "precisely four-thirty" on the afternoon of
+the following Thursday.
+
+"I congratulate you," he replied.
+"Personally, I never have been able and never shall be able to be
+anywhere at precisely four-thirty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Parbleu!_ This is a nice get-up to come and see me in, to be sure!"
+was his greeting to a newspaper writer who called to tap him on art,
+clad in a brown jacket, blue trousers, and decked with a red necktie.
+"I must request you to leave this place instantly! These scribblers,
+rag-smudges, _incroyable_! Why, it is perfectly preposterous! Did you
+ever hear such dissonance? His tie is in G major, and I am painting
+this symphony in E minor. I will have to start it again. Take that
+roaring tie of yours off, you miserable wretch! Remove it instantly!"
+
+The visitor removed the "roar." "Thank goodness!" said Whistler. "My
+sight is perfectly deaf!"
+
+"I am so sorry, Mr. Whistler," apologized the scribe.
+
+"Whistler, sir? Whistler? That's not my name!" he cried, in a highly
+wrought voice.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"That is not my name. I say, you don't seem to know your own language.
+W-h is pronounced Wh-h-h--Wh-h-histler. Bah!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Max Beerbohm, the caricaturist, was rather clumsy with the Gallic
+tongue. Whistler used to term it "Max Beerbohm's Limburger French."
+
+The carefully cultivated and insistently displayed white lock played a
+part in many amusing incidents. Sir Coutts Lindsay's butler whispered
+to him excitedly one evening: "There's a gent downstairs says he's
+come to dinner, wot's forgot his necktie and stuck a feather in his
+'air."
+
+Another evening, at the theater, an usher said obligingly: "Beg
+pardon, sir, but there's a white feather in your hair, just on top."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Raging characteristically once when in Paris, he earned this rebuke
+from Degas, the matchless draughtsman: "Whistler, you talk as if you
+were a man without talent."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some one gave Henry Irving a Whistler etching for a Christmas gift.
+"Of course I was delighted," he said, "for I was a great admirer of
+the artist as well as a personal friend of the man, but when I started
+to hang the etching I was puzzled. I couldn't for the life of me tell
+which was the top and which the bottom. Finally, after reversing the
+picture half a dozen times and finding it looked equally well either
+way up, I decided to try an experiment.
+
+"I invited Whistler to dine with me and seated him opposite his
+picture. During dinner he glanced at it from time to time; between the
+soup and the fish he put up his eyeglass and squinted at it; between
+the roast and the dessert he got up and walked over to take a closer
+view of it; finally, by the time we reached the coffee, he had
+discovered what the trouble was.
+
+"'Why, Henry,' he said, reproachfully, 'you've hung my etching upside
+down.'
+
+"'Indeed!' I said. 'Well, my friend, it's taken you an hour to
+discover it!'" "The man in possession" furnishes an amusing incident
+in the artist's career.
+
+When the creditors at last landed a bailiff in the painter's Chelsea
+mansion, he tried to wear his hat in the drawing-room and smoke and
+spit all over the house. But Whistler, in his own airy way, soon
+settled that. He went out into the hall, and, selecting a stick from
+his collection of canes, he daintily knocked the man's hat off. The
+bailiff was so surprised that he forgot to be angry, and in a day or
+two he had been trained to wait at table. But though he was now in
+possession and a favored household servant, he could not obtain his
+money. So he declared that if he was not paid he would have to put
+bills up outside the house announcing a sale. And sure enough, a few
+days after great posters were stuck up all over the front of the house
+announcing so many tables and so many chairs and so much old Nankin
+China for sale on a given day. Whistler enjoyed the joke hugely, and
+hastened to send out invitations to all his friends to a
+luncheon-party, adding as a postscript: "You will know the house by
+the bills of sale stuck up outside." And the bailiff proved an
+admirable butler and the party one of the merriest ever known.
+
+As the guests were rising from the table a lady observed to the host:
+
+"Your servants seem to be extremely attentive, Mr. Whistler, and
+anxious to please you."
+
+"Oh, yes," replied he; "I assure you they wouldn't leave me!"
+
+But the bailiff stayed on, and the day of sale approached; so
+Whistler, having been educated at West Point, determined to practise
+strategy. Some one had told him that a mixture of snuff and beer had
+the property of sending people off to sleep. So he bought a big parcel
+of snuff and put the greater part of it into a gigantic tankard of
+beer, which he sent out to the bailiff in the garden. It was a very
+hot summer afternoon, and the man eagerly welcomed his refreshment.
+Whistler was in his studio painting and soon forgot all about him. In
+the evening he said to his servant, "Where's the man?" The servant
+replied: "I don't know, sir. I suppose he must have gone away."
+
+The next morning Whistler got up very late and went out into the
+garden, where he was astonished to see the bailiff sitting in
+precisely the same position as the day before. The empty tankard was
+on the table beside him and his pipe had fallen from his hand upon the
+grass. "Hello, my sleeping beauty!" said Whistler. "Have you been
+there all night?" But the man made no answer, and all the painter's
+efforts to rouse him were unavailing. Late in the afternoon, however,
+he awoke in the most natural way in the world, exclaiming that it was
+dreadfully hot weather and that he must have been asleep over an hour.
+Whistler's strategy had been even more successful than he anticipated;
+the bailiff had slept through the entire day appointed for the sale of
+the painter's household effects, and was induced to go away in a very
+bewildered state of mind and with a small payment on account in his
+pocket.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady de Grey went once to the Tite Street studio for luncheon and
+chided Whistler for his extravagance in having two man servants to
+wait on the table, when he was always complaining of being hard up.
+
+"Hush!" whispered Whistler. "One of them is the man in possession, and
+he has consented to act as footman for the day; but he asks me to
+please settle up as soon as possible, because he too has a man in
+possession at his own place and wants to get clear of him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once at a garden party the rapt hostess rushed up to the artist and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Whistler! Do help me out! I have just bought a magnificent
+Turner, but Lord----says it isn't genuine, merely a clever imitation.
+Now I want you to look at it, and if you say it is genuine, as I know
+you will, I shall be perfectly satisfied."
+
+"My dear lady," replied Whistler, "you expect a good deal of me. The
+distinction between a real Turner and an imitation Turner is so
+extremely subtle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A flippant reply to the secretary of a London club where Whistler's
+account was past due produced this retort--and the money was paid:
+
+"DEAR MR. WHISTLER:--It is not a Nocturne in Purple or a Symphony in
+Blue and Gray we are after, but an Arrangement in Gold and Silver."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At an exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts there was a portrait in
+subdued colors by Whistler, "The Little Lady of Soho." Before this
+picture Secretary Harrison S. Morris stood one day. "It is beautiful,"
+he observed, "and it reminds me of a story about Whistler--not a very
+appropriate or poetical one, perhaps. But here it is, anyhow. Whistler
+one summer day took a walk through the Downs with three or four young
+men. They stopped at an ale-house and called for beer. Tankards were
+set before them and they drank. Then Whistler said to the host:
+
+"'My man, would you like to sell a great deal more beer than you do?'
+
+"'Aye, sir, I would that!'
+
+"'Then don't sell so much froth!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a French magazine located his birthplace in Baltimore, and the
+error traveled far, Whistler took no pains to correct it. "My dear
+cousin Kate," he said to Mrs. Livermore, "if any one likes to think I
+was born in Baltimore, why should I deny it? It is of no consequence
+to me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A chance American introduced himself by saying: "You know, Mr.
+Whistler, we were born at Lowell, and at very much the same time. You
+are sixty-seven and I am sixty-eight."
+
+"Very charming," he replied. "And so you are sixty-eight and were born
+at Lowell. Most interesting, no doubt, and as you please! But I shall
+be born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born in
+Lowell and I refuse to be sixty-seven!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Don't be afraid," said Whistler to Howard Paul, who recoiled from the
+presence of a huge dog because he did not like the look in the
+animal's eyes. "Look at his tail--how it wags. When a dog wags his
+tail he's in good humor."
+
+"That may be," replied Paul, "but observe the wild glitter in his eye!
+I don't know which end to believe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Comyns Carr met a foreign painter who had been known to breakfast with
+Whistler at Chelsea and asked him if he had seen him lately.
+
+"Ah no, not now so much," was the reply. "He ask me a little while ago
+to breakfast, and I go. My cab-fare two shilling, 'arf crown. I
+arrive. Very nice. Goldfish in bowl. Very pretty. But breakfast! One
+egg, one toast, no more! Ah, no! My cab-fare back, two shilling, 'arf
+crown. For me no more!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A.G. Plowden, the London police magistrate, attended a private view at
+Grosvenor Gallery. The first person he met was Whistler. He took
+Plowden, very amiably, to his full-length portrait of Lady Archibald
+Campbell, where, after sufficiently expressing his admiration, Plowden
+asked if there were any other pictures he ought to see.
+
+"Other pictures!" cried Whistler, in a tone of horror. "Other
+pictures! There are no other pictures! You are through!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dining at a Paris restaurant in his early days, Mr. Whistler noted the
+struggle an elderly Englishman was having to make himself understood.
+He politely volunteered to interpret.
+
+"Sir," said the person addressed, "I assure you, sir, I can give my
+order without assistance!"
+
+"Can you indeed?" quoth Whistler, airily. "I fancied the contrary just
+now, when I heard you desire the waiter to bring you a pair of
+stairs."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dining, and dining well, at George H. Boughton's house in London,
+Whistler was obliged to leave the table and go up-stairs to indite a
+note. In a few moments a great noise revealed the fact that he had
+fallen down the flight.
+
+"Who is your architect?" he asked, when picked up.
+
+The host told him Norman Shaw.
+
+"I might have known it," said Whistler. "The d----d teetotaler!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young artist had brought Whistler to view his maiden effort. The two
+stood before the canvas for some moments in silence. Finally the
+junior asked, timidly:
+
+"Don't you think this painting of mine is a--er--a tolerable picture,
+sir?"
+
+Whistler's eyes twinkled.
+
+"What is your opinion of a tolerable egg?" he asked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Irish girls have the most beautiful hands," he once wrote, "with
+long, slender fingers and delightful articulations. American girls'
+hands come next; they are a little narrow and thin. The hands of the
+English girls are red and coarse. The German hand is broad and flat;
+the Spanish hand is full of big veins. I always use Irish models for
+the hands, and I think Irish eyes are also the most beautiful."
+
+An American artist studying in Paris, like many others, was too poor
+to have a perfect wardrobe. Strolling on the Boulevard, he heard a
+call and, turning, saw Whistler hastening toward him, waving his long
+black cane.
+
+Rather flattered, he said, "So you recognized me from behind, did you,
+master?"
+
+"Yes," said Whistler, with a wicked laugh; "I spied you through a hole
+in your coat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Do you think genius is hereditary?" asked an admiring lady one day.
+
+"I can't tell you, madam," Whistler replied. "Heaven has granted me no
+offspring."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler once took Horne, his framer, to look at one of his paintings
+at the exhibition.
+
+"Well, Horne," he asked, "what do you think of it?"
+
+"Think of it?" he cried, enthusiastically. "Why, sir, it's
+perfect--perfect. Mr. ---- has got one just like it."
+
+"What!" said the puzzled Whistler. "A picture like this?"
+
+"Oh," said Horne, "I wasn't talking about the picture; I was talking
+about the frame."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Mr. Whistler, how are you getting on?" said an undesirable
+acquaintance in a Paris restaurant.
+
+"I'm not," said Whistler, emptying his glass. "I'm getting off."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Pamela Smith, a designer in black and white, while a crude
+draughtsman, had a fine imagination. Whistler was asked to look over
+some of her work. After careful examination he said:
+
+"She can't draw."
+
+Another look and a gruff "She can't paint" followed.
+
+A third look and a long thought wound up with, "But she doesn't need
+to."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A lady who rejoiced in "temperament" once said gushingly to Whistler:
+
+"It is wonderful what a difference there is between people."
+
+"Yes," he replied. "There is a great deal of difference between
+matches, too, if you will only look closely enough, but they all make
+about the same blaze."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A certain gentleman whose portrait Whistler had painted failed to
+appreciate the work, and finally remarked, "After all, Mr. Whistler,
+you can't call that a great work of art."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied the painter, "but then you can't call yourself
+a great work of nature!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The artist and a friend strolled along the Thames Embankment one
+wonderfully starry night. Whistler was in a discontented mood and
+found fault with everything. The houses were ugly, the river not what
+it might have been, the lights hard and glaring. The friend pointed
+out several things that appealed to him as beautiful, but the master
+would not give in.
+
+"No," he said, "nature is only sometimes beautiful--only
+sometimes--very, very seldom indeed; and to-night she is, as so often,
+positively ugly."
+
+"But the stars! Surely they are fine to-night," urged the other.
+
+Whistler looked up at the sky.
+
+"Yes," he drawled, "they're not bad, perhaps, but, my dear fellow,
+there's too many of them."
+
+A sitter asked him how it was possible to paint in the growing dusk,
+as he often did. The reply was:
+
+"As the light fades and the shadows deepen, all the petty and exacting
+details vanish; everything trivial disappears, and I see things as
+they are, in great, strong masses; the buttons are lost, but the
+garment remains; the garment is lost, but the sitter remains; the
+sitter is lost, but the shadow remains; the shadow is lost, but the
+picture remains. And that, night cannot efface from the painter's
+imagination."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, of the classic brush, loved yellow, a color
+which Whistler had annexed unto himself. Sir Laurence in employing the
+color in his decorations did not consider himself a plagiarist. He had
+not seen Whistler's. This defense led to a war of words. Whistler
+broke out:
+
+"Sly Alma! His Romano-Dutch St. John's wooden eye has never looked
+upon them, and the fine jaundice of his flesh is none of the jaundice
+of my yellows. To-de-ma-boom-de-ay!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seated in a stall at the West End Theater one evening, he was
+constantly irritated by his next neighbor--a lady--who not only went
+out between the acts, but several times while the curtain was up. The
+space between the run of seats was narrow, and the annoyance as she
+squeezed past was considerable.
+
+"Madam," he said at last, "I trust I do not incommode you by keeping
+my seat!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He regarded the United States tariff on art as barbarous.
+
+"When are you coming to America?"
+he was asked.
+
+"When the tariff on art is removed."
+
+The Copley Society asked his aid in making up their exhibition in
+Boston. He refused, saying:
+
+"God bless me! Why should you hold an exhibition of pictures in
+America? The people do not care for art!"
+
+"How do you know? You have not been there for many years."
+
+"How do I know? Why, haven't you a law to keep out pictures and
+statues? Is it not in black and white that the works of the great
+masters must not enter America, that they are not wanted? A people
+that tolerate such a law have no love for art; their protestation is
+mere pretense."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Asked by a lady if a certain picture in a gallery was not indecent, he
+replied:
+
+"No, madam. But your question is!"
+
+Mark Twain visited the studio and, assuming an air of hopeless
+stupidity, approached a nearly completed painting and said:
+
+"Not at all bad, Mr. Whistler; not at all bad. Only here in this
+corner," he added, reflectively, with a motion as if to rub out a
+cloud effect, "if I were you I'd do away with that cloud!"
+
+"Gad, sir!" cried the painter. "Do be careful there! Don't you see the
+paint is not yet dry?"
+
+"Oh, don't mind that," said Mark, sweetly. "I am wearing gloves, you
+see!"
+
+They got on after that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Paris, Whistler and an English painter got into a turbulent talk
+over Velasquez at a studio tea. In the course of the argument Whistler
+praised himself extravagantly.
+
+"It's a good thing we can't see ourselves as others see us," sneered
+the Briton.
+
+"Isn't it, though?" rejoined Whistler, gently. "I know in my case I
+should grow intolerably conceited."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Financial necessities once caused the sale of Whistler's choice
+furnishings. Some of the family, returning to the house during his
+absence, found the floor covered with chalk diagrams, the largest of
+which was labeled: "This is the dining-table."
+
+Surrounding it were a number of small squares, each marked: "This is a
+chair."
+
+Another square: "This is the sideboard."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cope Whitehouse once described a boat-load of Egyptians "floating down
+the Nile with the thermometer one hundred and twenty degrees in the
+shade, and no shade."
+
+"And no thermometer," interjected Whistler.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A lady sitter brought a cat with her and placed it on her knee. The
+cat was nervous and yowled continuously.
+
+"Madam," said the vexed artist, "will you have the cat in the
+foreground or in the back yard?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While painting one of his famous nocturnes a critic of considerable
+pretensions called. "Good heavens, Whistler!" he cried, "what in the
+world are you splashing at?"
+
+"I am teaching art to posterity," Whistler replied, quietly.
+
+"Oh!" said the critic, visibly relieved. "I was afraid you were
+painting for the Royal Academy."
+
+"Oh, no," answered Whistler; "they do not want masterpieces there, but
+some of their picture-frames are exquisite and really worth bus-fare
+to look at."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking in the Champs-Elysées in Paris one morning, Whistler heard one
+Englishman say to another:
+
+"See that chap over there?"
+
+"What? That chap with the long hair and spindle legs?"
+
+"Yes, that's the one. That's Whistler, the American, who thinks he's
+the greatest painter on earth."
+
+Walking up to the pair, Whistler held out his hand and said gravely to
+the last speaker:
+
+"Sir, I beg your acceptance of these ten centimes. Go buy yourself a
+little hay!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sitting for a portrait was an ordeal. Many were quite upset after a
+siege in the studio. One man annoyed the artist by saying at each
+dismissal:
+
+"How-about that ear, Mr. Whistler? Don't forget to finish that." At
+the last session, all being finished but this ear, Whistler said,
+"Well, I think I'm through; now I'll sign it." This he did in a very
+solemn and important way.
+
+"But my ear!" exclaimed the victim. "You're not going to leave it that
+way?"
+
+"Oh," said Whistler, grimly, "you can put it in after you get home."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He occasionally contemplated visiting America in his late years, but
+the dread of the journey was too much for him to overcome. "If I
+escape the Atlantic," he said, "I shall be wrecked by some reporter at
+the pier." Finally, he definitely canceled his last proposed trip,
+observing airily: "One cannot continuously disappoint a continent."
+
+"America," he once said, lightly, "is a country where I never can be a
+prophet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir Rennell Rodd recalled that at a breakfast Waldo Story gave at
+Dieu-donné's in Paris there was a great company, including Whistler.
+Every one there was by the way of having written a book or painted a
+picture, or having in some way outraged the Philistine, with the
+exception of one young gentleman whose _raison d'être_ was not so
+apparent as his high collar and the glory of his attire. He
+nevertheless intruded boldly into the talk and laid down his opinions
+very flatly. He even went so far as to combat some dictum of the
+master's, whereat that gentleman adjusted his glasses and, looking
+pleasantly at the youth, queried:
+
+"And whose son are you?"
+
+When Dorothy Menpes was a babe in the cradle a white feather lay
+across her infant brow. The sight pleased Whistler. "That child is
+going to develop into something great," he prophesied, "for see, she
+begins with a feather, just like me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the last two years of his life Mr. Whistler's disputes grew less
+frequent and his public flashes were few. The _Morning Post_ of
+London, however, provoked an admirable specimen of his best style,
+which it printed under date of August 6th, 1902. In its "Art and
+Artists" column the paper had made the following statement:
+
+"Mr. Whistler is so young in spirit that his friends must have read
+with surprise the Dutch physician's announcement that the present
+illness is due to 'advanced age.' In England sixty-seven is not
+exactly regarded as 'advanced age,' but even for the gay 'butterfly'
+time does not stand still, and some who are unacquainted with the
+details of Mr. Whistler's career, though they know his work well, will
+be surprised to learn that he was exhibiting at the Academy
+forty-three years ago. His contributions to the exhibition of 1859
+were 'Two Etchings from Nature,' and at intervals during the following
+fourteen or fifteen years Mr. Whistler was represented at the Academy
+by a number of works, both paintings and etchings. In 1863 his
+contributions numbered seven in all, and in 1865 four. Among his
+Academy pictures of 1865 was the famous 'Little White Girl,' the
+painting that attracted so much attention at the Paris Exhibition of
+1900. This picture--rejected at the Salon of 1863--was inspired,
+though the fact seems to have been forgotten of late, by the following
+lines of Swinburne:
+
+  Come snow, come wind or thunder
+    High up in air,
+  I watch my face and wonder
+    At my bright hair, etc."
+
+Under date of August 3d Mr. Whistler sent from The Hague this brisk
+reply:
+
+I feel it no indiscretion to speak of my "convalescence," since you
+have given it official existence.
+
+May I, therefore, acknowledge the tender little glow of health induced
+by reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the flattering attention
+paid me by your gentleman of the ready wreath and quick biography?
+
+I cannot, as I look at my improving self with daily satisfaction,
+really believe it all--still it has helped to do me good!--and it is
+with almost sorrow that I must beg you, perhaps, to put back into its
+pigeonhole for later on this present summary and replace it with
+something preparatory, which, doubtless, you have also ready.
+
+This will give you time, however, for some correction--if really it be
+worth while--but certainly the "Little White Girl," which was not
+rejected at the Salon of '63, was, I am forced to say, not "inspired
+by the following lines of Swinburne," for the one simple reason that
+those lines were only written, in my studio, after the picture was
+painted. And the writing of them was a rare and graceful tribute from
+the poet to the painter--a noble recognition of work by the production
+of a nobler one!
+
+Again, of the many tales concerning the hanging at the Academy of the
+well-known portrait of the artist's mother, now at the Luxembourg, one
+is true--let us trust your gentleman may have time to find it
+out--that I may correct it. I surely may always hereafter rely on the
+_Morning Post_ to see that no vulgar Woking joke reach me?
+
+It is my marvelous privilege then to come back, as who should say,
+while the air is still warm with appreciation, affection, and regret,
+and to learn in how little I had offended. The continuing to wear my
+own hair and eyebrows, after distinguished confrères and eminent
+persons had long ceased their habit, has, I gather, clearly given
+pain. This, I see, is much remarked on. It is even found inconsiderate
+and unseemly in me, as hinting at affectation.
+
+I might beg you, sir, to find a pretty place for this, that I would
+make my apology, containing also promise, in years to come, to lose
+these outer signs of vexing presumption.
+
+Protesting, with full enjoyment of its unmerited eulogy, against your
+premature tablet, I ask you again to contradict it, and appeal to your
+own sense of kind sympathy when I tell you I learn that I have lurking
+in London still "a friend"--though for the life of me I cannot
+remember his name. And I have, sir, the honor to be,
+
+J. MCNEILL WHISTLER.
+
+
+The last dispute that found its way to print came through the New York
+_Sun_ and Will H. Low, to whom Mr. Whistler sought to convey a piece
+of his mind _via_ the newspaper channel, under date of May 8th, 1903,
+This grew out of a complication in which Mr. Low became involved with
+the Hanging Committee of the Society of American Artists over the
+placing in its exhibition of "Rosa Corder" and two marines by Whistler
+borrowed from Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, on the condition that they
+be hung "in a good position." The position selected did not suit Mr.
+Low, and he withdrew the pictures. Mr. Whistler sent his remonstrance
+to the _Sun's_ London office, from which it was cabled to New York and
+published on May 9th, as follows:
+
+"I had waited for Mr. Low to publish my reply to a letter from himself
+concerning the withdrawal of my pictures from the Society of American
+Artists.
+
+"This gentle opinion of my own upon the situation is, I understand,
+expert. I therefore inclose it to you for publication. I have the
+honor to be, dear sir, your obedient servant."
+
+The remarks to Mr. Low read:
+
+"I have just learned with distress that my canvases have been a
+trouble and a cause of thought to the gentlemen of the Hanging
+Committee!
+
+"Pray present to them my compliments and my deep regrets.
+
+"I fear also that this is not the first time of simple and
+good-natured intrusion--looking in, as who would say, with beaming
+fellowship and crass camaraderie upon the highly finished table and
+well-seated guests--to be kindly and swiftly shuffled into some
+further respectable place--that all be well and hospitality endure.
+
+"Promise, then, for me, that I have learned and that 'this shall not
+occur again.' And, above all, do not allow a matter of colossal
+importance to ever interfere with the afternoon habit of peace and
+good will, and the leaf of the mint so pleasantly associated with this
+society.
+
+"I could not be other than much affected by your warm and immediate
+demonstration, but I should never forgive myself were the consequence
+of lasting vexation to your distinguished confrères."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Whistler Stories, by Don C. Seitz
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13973 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #13973 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13973)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Whistler Stories, by Don C. Seitz
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Whistler Stories
+
+Author: Don C. Seitz
+
+Release Date: November 8, 2004 [EBook #13973]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHISTLER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Project Manager, Keith M. Eckrich,
+Post-Processor, the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading
+Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY DON C. SEITZ
+
+
+  WHISTLER STORIES. 16mo. Cloth........_net_ $.75
+                              Leather, _net_ 1.00
+
+  EVERY-DAY EUROPE. Ill'd.............._net_ 1.25
+
+  ELBA AND ELSEWHERE. Ill'd. Post 8vo. _net_ 1.25
+
+  SURFACE JAPAN. Ill'd. 4to............_net_ 5.00
+
+  THE BUCCANEERS. Verses. Ill'd. 8vo..._net_ 1.00
+
+  HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: JAMES M'NEILL WHISTLER
+From a sketch from life by Rajon. Courtesy of Frederick Keppel.]
+
+
+
+
+
+WHISTLER STORIES
+
+
+COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY DON C. SEITZ
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+  "WRITINGS BY AND ABOUT
+  JAMES ABBOTT McNEILL WHISTLER"
+
+
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+NEW YORK AND LONDON
+MCMXIII
+
+
+
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1913
+
+
+
+
+TO SHERIDAN FORD,
+
+DISCOVERER OF THE ART OF FOLLY AND OF MANY FOLLIES OF ART
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+
+Following the example set by Homer when he "smote his bloomin' lyre,"
+as cited by Mr. Kipling, who went "an' took what he'd admire," I have
+gleaned the vast volume of Whistler literature and helped myself in
+making this compilation. Some few of the anecdotes are first-hand.
+Others were garnered by Mr. Ford in the original version of _The
+Gentle Art of Making Enemies_. The rest have been published many
+times, perhaps. But it seemed desirable to put the tales together
+without the distraction of other matter. So here they are.
+
+D.C.S.
+Cos Cob, CONN., _July, 1913_.
+
+
+
+WHISTLER STORIES
+
+
+The studios of Chelsea are full of Whistler anecdotes. One tells of a
+female model to whom he owed some fifteen shillings for sittings. She
+was a Philistine of the Philistines who knew nothing of her patron's
+fame and was in no way impressed with his work. One day she told
+another artist that she had been sitting to a little Frenchman called
+Whistler, who jumped about his studio and was always complaining that
+people were swindling him, and that he was making very little money.
+The artist suggested that if she could get any piece of painting out
+of Whistler's studio he would give her ten pounds for it. Although
+skeptical, the model decided to tell her "little Frenchman" of this
+too generous offer, and selected one of the biggest and finest works
+in the studio. "What did he say?" asked the artist who had made the
+offer, when the model appeared in a state of great excitement and
+looking almost as if she had come second best out of a scrimmage. "He
+said, 'Ten pounds--Good heavens!--ten pounds!' and he got so
+mad--well, that's how I came in here like this."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. W.P. Frith, R.A., following the custom of artists, talked to a
+model one day to keep her expression animated. He asked the girl to
+whom she had been sitting of late, and received the answer:
+
+"Mr. Whistler."
+
+"And did he talk to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He asked me who I'd been sitting to, same as you do; and I told him
+I'd been sitting to Mr. Cope, sir."
+
+"Well, what else?"
+
+"He asked me who I'd been sitting to before that, and I said Mr.
+Horsley."
+
+"And what next?"
+
+"He asked me who I'd been sitting to before that, and I said I'd been
+sitting to you, sir."
+
+"What did he say then?"
+
+"He said, 'What a d----d crew!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler once came very near painting a portrait of Disraeli. He had
+the commission; he even went down to the country where Disraeli was;
+but the great man did not manage to get into the mood. Whistler
+departed disappointed, and shortly afterward took place a meeting in
+Whitehall which was the occasion of a well-known story: Disraeli put
+his arm in Whistler's for a little way on the street, bringing from
+the artist the exclamation, "If only my creditors could see!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler's ideas, the reverse of commercial, not infrequently placed
+him in want. He pawned his portrait of his mother, by many considered
+the best of his productions.
+
+Miss Marion Peck, a niece of Ferdinand Peck, United States
+Commissioner to the Paris Exposition, wanted her portrait done by
+Whistler. She sat for him nineteen times. Further, she requested, as
+the picture was nearing completion, that extra pains be taken with its
+finishing. Also, she inquired if it could, without danger of injury,
+be shipped.
+
+"Why?" asked Whistler.
+
+"Because I wish to send it to my home in Chicago," explained Miss
+Peck.
+
+Whistler threw down his brush, overturned the easel, and ran around
+the studio like a madman. "What!" he shrieked. "Send a Whistler to
+Chicago! Allow one of my paintings to enter Hog Town! Never!"
+
+Miss Peck didn't get the painting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once he met what seemed to be a crushing retort. He had scornfully
+called Balaam's ass the first great critic, and the inference was
+plain until a writer in _Vanity Fair_ called his attention to the fact
+that the ass was right.
+
+Whistler acknowledged the point. But the acknowledgment terminates in
+a way that is delicious. "I fancy you will admit that this is the only
+ass on record who ever did 'see the Angel of the Lord,' and that we
+are past the age of miracles."
+
+Even in defeat he was triumphant.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler found that Mortimer Menpes, once his very dear friend,
+sketched in Chelsea. "How dare you sketch in my Chelsea?" he
+indignantly demanded.
+
+A vigorous attack on Mr. Menpes then followed in the press. One of the
+first articles began in this style, Menpes, of course, being an
+Australian: "I can only liken him to his native kangaroo--a robber by
+birth--born with a pocket!" "He is the claimant of lemon yellow"--a
+color to which Mr. Whistler deemed he had the sole right; and when he
+thought he had pulverized him in the press (it was soon after the
+Parnell Commission, when Pigott, the informer, had committed suicide
+in Spain), Whistler one evening thrust this pleasant note into Mr.
+Menpes's letter-box, scrawled on a half-sheet of paper, with the
+well-known butterfly cipher attached:
+
+"You will blow your brains out, of course. Pigott has shown you what
+to do under the circumstances, and you know the way to Spain.
+Good-by!"
+
+Speaking at a meeting held to complete the details of a movement for
+the erection of a memorial to Whistler, Lord Redesdale gave a
+remarkable account of the artist's methods of work. "One day when he
+was to begin a portrait of a lady," said Lord Redesdale, "the painter
+took up his position at one end of the room, with his sitter and
+canvas at the other. For a long time he stood looking at her, holding
+in his hand a huge brush as a man would use to whitewash a house.
+Suddenly he ran forward and smashed the brush full of color upon the
+canvas. Then he ran back, and forty or fifty times he repeated this.
+At the end of that time there stood out on the canvas a space which
+exactly indicated the figure and the expression of his sitter."
+
+This portrait was to have belonged to Lord Redesdale, but through
+circumstances nothing less than tragic it never came into his
+possession. There were bailiffs in the house when it was finished.
+This was no novelty to Whistler. He only laughed, and, laughing, made
+a circuit of his studio with a palette-knife, deliberately destroying
+all the pictures exposed there. The portrait of the lady was among
+them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Moncure D. Conway in his autobiography relates this:
+
+"At a dinner given to W.J. Stillman, at which Whistler (a Confederate)
+related with satisfaction his fisticuffs with a Yankee on shipboard,
+William Rossetti remarked: 'I must say, Whistler, that your conduct
+was scandalous.' Stillman and myself were silent. Dante Gabriel
+Rossetti promptly wrote:
+
+  "'There is a young artist called Whistler,
+    Who in every respect is a bristler;
+         A tube of white lead
+         Or a punch on the head
+    Come equally handy to Whistler.'"
+
+On one occasion a woman said to Whistler:
+
+"I just came up from the country this morning along the Thames, and
+there was an exquisite haze in the atmosphere which reminded me so
+much of some of your little things. It was really a perfect series of
+Whistlers."
+
+"Yes, madam," responded Whistler, gravely. "Nature is creeping up."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richard A. Canfield, who sat for the portrait now called "His
+Reverence," though Canfield was something quite unclerical, recites:
+
+"After I had my first sitting on New Year's Day, 1903, I saw Whistler
+every day until the day I sailed for New York, which was on May 16th.
+He was not able to work, however, on all those days. In fact, there
+were days at a time when he could do nothing but lie on a couch and
+talk, as only Whistler could talk, about those things which interested
+him. It was mostly of art and artists that he conversed, but now and
+again he would revert to his younger days at home, to the greatness to
+which the republic had attained, and to his years at West Point.
+
+"In spite of all that has been said of him, I know that James McNeill
+Whistler was one of the intensest Americans who ever lived. He was
+not what you call an enthusiastic man, but when he reverted to the old
+days at the Military Academy his enthusiasm was infectious. I think he
+was really prouder of the years he spent there--three, I think they
+were--than any other years of his life. He never tired of telling of
+the splendid men and soldiers his classmates turned out to be, and he
+has often said to me that the American army officer trained at West
+Point was the finest specimen of manhood and of honor in the world.
+
+"It was in this way that I spent every afternoon with Whistler from
+New Year's until May 15th, the day before I sailed. When he was able
+to work I would sit as I was told, and then he would paint, sometimes
+an hour, sometimes three. At other times he would lie on the couch and
+ask me to sit by and talk to him. On the morning of the day of the
+last sitting he sent me a note asking me to take luncheon with him,
+and Adding that he felt quite himself and up to plenty of work.
+
+"So I went around to his studio, and he painted until well into the
+late afternoon. When he was done he said that with a touch or two here
+and there the picture might be considered finished. Then he added:
+
+"'You are going home to-morrow, to my home as well as yours, and you
+won't be coming back till the autumn. I've just been thinking that
+maybe you had better take the picture along with you. His Reverence
+will do very well as he is, and maybe there won't be any work in me
+when you come back. I believe I would rather like to think of you
+having this clerical gentleman in your collection, for I have a notion
+that it's the best work I have done.'
+
+"Whistler had never talked that way before, and I have since thought
+that he was thinking that the end was not far away. I told him, more
+to get the notion, if he had it, out of his mind than anything else,
+that I would not think of taking the picture, and that if he didn't
+put on one of those finishing touches until I got back, so much the
+better, for then I could see him work. That seemed to bring him back
+to himself, and he said:
+
+"'So be it, your Reverence. Now we'll say _au revoir_ in a couple of
+mint-juleps.' He sent for the materials, made the cups, and, just as
+the sun was setting, we drank to each other and the homeland, and I
+was off to catch a train for Liverpool and the steamer. So it was that
+Whistler and his last subject parted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A group of American and English artists were discussing the manifold
+perfections of the late Lord Leighton, president of the Royal Academy.
+
+"Exquisite musician--played the violin like a professional," said one.
+
+"One of the best-dressed men in London," said another.
+
+"Danced divinely," remarked the third.
+
+"Ever read his essays?" asked a fourth. "In my opinion they're the
+best of the kind ever written."
+
+Whistler, who had remained silent, tapped the last speaker on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Painted, too, didn't he?" he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A patron of art asked Whistler to tell him where a friend lived on a
+certain street in London, to which the artist replied:
+
+"I can't tell you, but I know how you can find it. Just you ring up
+houses until you come across a caretaker who talks in B flat, and
+there you are."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A friend of Whistler's saw him on the street in London a few years ago
+talking to a very ragged little newsboy. As he approached to speak to
+the artist he noticed that the boy was as dirty a specimen of the
+London "newsy" as he had ever encountered--he seemed smeared all
+over--literally covered with dirt.
+
+Whistler had just asked him a question, and the boy answered:
+
+"Yes, sir; I've been selling papers three years."
+
+"How old are you?" inquired Whistler.
+
+"Seven, sir."
+
+"Oh, you must be more than that."
+
+"No, sir, I ain't."
+
+Then, turning to his friend, who had overheard the conversation,
+Whistler said: "I don't think he could get that dirty in seven years;
+do you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Benrimo, the dramatist, who wrote "The Yellow Jacket," relates that
+when he was a young writer, fresh from the breezy atmosphere of San
+Francisco, he visited London. Coming out of the Burlington Gallery one
+day, he saw a little man mincing toward him, carrying a cane held
+before him as he walked, whom he recognized as Whistler. With Western
+audacity he stopped the pedestrian, introduced himself, and broke into
+an elaborate outburst of acclamation for the works of the master, who
+"ate it up," as the saying goes.
+
+Waving his wand gently toward the famous gallery, Whistler queried:
+
+"Been in there?"
+
+"Oh, yes."
+
+"See anything worth while?"
+
+"Some splendid things, magnificent examples--"
+
+"I'm sorry you ever approved of me," observed the master,
+majestically, and on he went, leaving Benrimo withered under his
+disdain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler had a French poodle of which he was extravagantly fond. This
+poodle was seized with an affection of the throat, and Whistler had
+the audacity to send for the great throat specialist, Mackenzie. Sir
+Morell, when he saw that he had been called to treat a dog, didn't
+like it much, it was plain. But he said nothing. He prescribed,
+pocketed a big fee, and drove away. The next day he sent posthaste for
+Whistler. And Whistler, thinking he was summoned on some matter
+connected with his beloved dog, dropped his work and rushed like the
+wind to Mackenzie's. On his arrival Sir Morell said, gravely: "How do
+you do, Mr. Whistler? I wanted to see you about having my front door
+painted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler used to tell this story about Dante Gabriel Rossetti in his
+later years. The great Pre-Raphaelite had invited the painter of
+nocturnes and harmonies to dine with him at his house in Chelsea, and
+when Whistler arrived he was shown into a reception-room. Seating
+himself, he was soon disturbed by a noise which appeared to be made by
+a rat or a mouse in the wainscoting of the room. This surmise was
+wrong, as he found the noise was in the center of the apartment.
+Stooping, to his amazement he saw Rossetti lying at full length under
+the table.
+
+"Why, what on earth are you doing there, Rossetti?" exclaimed
+Whistler.
+
+"Don't speak to me! Don't speak to me!" cried Rossetti. "That fool
+Morris"--meaning the famous William--"has sent to say he can't dine
+here to-night, and I'm so mad I'm gnawing the leg of the table."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of the affectations of Whistler was his apparent failure to
+recognize persons with whom he had been on the most friendly terms. An
+American artist once met the impressionist in Venice, where they spent
+several months together painting, and he was invited to call on
+Whistler if he should go to Paris. The painter remembered the
+invitation. The door of the Paris studio was opened by Whistler
+himself. A cold stare was the only reply to the visitor's effusive
+greeting.
+
+"Why, Mr. Whistler," cried the painter, "you surely haven't forgotten
+those days in Venice when you borrowed my colors and we painted
+together!"
+
+"I never saw you before in all my life," replied Whistler, and slammed
+the door.
+
+This habit of forgetting persons, or pretending to do so, for nobody
+ever knew when the lapses of recognition were due to intention or
+absent-mindedness, often tempted other artists to play pranks upon
+him. He was a man who resented a joke at his own expense, except on a
+few occasions, and this trait was often turned to good account.
+
+He was at Naples soon after the incident just related had gained wide
+circulation. A conspiracy was entered into whereby the Whistler
+worshipers there were to be unaware of his presence. He tried to play
+billiards with a company of young artists. They met his advance with a
+stony glare.
+
+"Oh, I say," persisted he, "I think I know something of that game. I'd
+like to play."
+
+A consultation was held, and the artists shook their heads, inquiring
+of one another, "Who is he?" Whistler retired crestfallen, and a roar
+of laughter which rang through the room added to his discomfiture.
+
+"Oh, well," he said, pulling nervously at his mustache, and his tone
+was petulant, "I don't care."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler had a great penchant for white hats, kept all those he had
+ever worn, and had a large collection. The flat-brimmed tall hat was a
+whim of his late years, imported from France, _via_ the head of
+William M. Chase.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Chase has contributed largely to the budget of Whistler anecdotes.
+One day when the two men were painting together in Whistler's studio
+in London, a wealthy woman visited them with the demand, which she had
+made many times before, that Whistler return to her a picture by
+himself which he had borrowed several years before to place on
+exhibition. The suave voice of Whistler was heard in argument, and he
+finally induced his patron to depart without the work of art.
+
+When she had gone he returned to his work, muttering something about
+the absurdity of some persons who believed that because they had paid
+two hundred pounds for a picture they thought they thereby owned it.
+
+"Besides," he said, "there is absolutely nothing else in her house to
+compare with it, and it would be out of place."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Chase," said Whistler one day, "how-is it now in America? Do you find
+there, as you do in London, that in houses filled with beautiful
+pictures and superb statuary, and other objects of artistic merit,
+there is invariably some damned little thing on the mantel that gives
+the whole thing away?" Mr. Chase replied, sadly: "It is even so, but
+you must remember, Whistler, that there are such things as birthdays.
+People are not always responsible."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Chase came up for discussion once at a little party, and
+Whistler's sister observed, "Mr. Chase amuses James, doesn't he,
+James?" James, tapping his finger-tips together lightly: "Not often,
+not often."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I'm going over to London," said he once to Chase, "and there I shall
+have a hansom made. It shall have a white body, yellow wheels, and
+I'll have it lined with canary-colored satin. I'll petition the city
+to let me carry one lamp on it, and on the lamp there will be a white
+plume. I shall then be the only one."
+
+He gave Mr. Chase some pretty hard digs. He said to him one time in
+the heat of a discussion on some technical point: "Chase, I am not
+arguing with you. I am telling you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Reproved by Mr. Chase for antagonizing his friends, Whistler retorted:
+
+"It is commonplace, not to say vulgar, to quarrel with your enemies.
+Quarrel with your friends! That's the thing to do. Now be good!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"The good Lord made one serious mistake," he rasped to Chase, in
+Holland.
+
+"What?"
+
+"When he made Dutchmen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he had finished his portrait of Mr. Chase he stood off and
+admired the work. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" was his comment. Chase, who
+had irked under the queer companionship, retorted, "At least there's
+nothing mean or modest about you!"
+
+"Nothing mean and modest," he corrected. "I like that better! Nothing
+mean _and_ modest! What a splendid epitaph that would make for me!
+Stop a moment! I must put that down!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the Chase sittings, the creditors were always calling. Whistler
+divined their several missions with much nicety by the tone of the
+raps on the door.
+
+A loud, business-like bang brought, out this comment:
+
+"Psst! That's one and ten."
+
+Later came another, not quite so vehement.
+
+"Two and six," said Whistler. "Psst!"
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" asked Chase.
+
+"One pound ten shillings; two pounds six shillings! Vulgar tradesmen
+with their bills, Colonel. They want payment. Oh, well!"
+
+A gentle knock soon followed.
+
+"Dear me," said Whistler, "that must be all of twenty! Poor fellow! I
+really must do something for him. So sorry I'm not in."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Riding one day in a hansom with Mr. Chase, Whistler's eye caught the
+fruit and vegetable display in a greengrocer's shop. Making the cabby
+maneuver the vehicle to various viewpoints, he finally observed:
+"Isn't it beautiful? I believe I'll have that crate of oranges moved
+over there--against that background of green. Yes, that's better!" And
+he settled back contentedly!
+
+A kindly friend told him of a pleasant spot near London for an
+artistic sojourn. "I'm sure you'll like it," he added,
+enthusiastically.
+
+"My dear fellow," replied Whistler, "the very fact that you like it is
+proof that it's nothing for me."
+
+He went, however, and liked the place, but on the way some of his
+canvases went astray. He made such a fuss that the station-master
+asked Mr. Chase who was his companion: "Who is that quarrelsome little
+man? He's really most disagreeable."
+
+"Whistler, the celebrated artist," Mr. Chase replied.
+
+At that the man approached Whistler and respectfully remarked:
+
+"I'm very sorry about your canvases. Are they valuable?"
+
+"Not yet!" screeched Whistler. "Not yet!"
+
+"I only know of two painters in the world," said a newly introduced
+feminine enthusiast to Whistler, "yourself and Velasquez."
+
+"Why," answered Whistler, in dulcet tones, "why drag in Velasquez?"
+
+Mr. Chase once asked him if he really said this seriously.
+
+"No, of course not," he replied. "You don't suppose I couple myself
+with Velasquez, do you? I simply wanted to take her down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir John E. Millais, walking through the Grosvenor Gallery with
+Archibald Stuart Wortley, stopped longer than usual before the
+shadowy, graceful portrait of a lady, "an arrangement in gray, rose,
+and silver," and then broke out: "It's damned clever! It's a damned
+sight too clever!"
+
+This was his verdict on Whistler's portrait of Lady Meux. Millais
+contended that Whistler "never learned the grammar of his art," that
+"his drawing is as faulty as it can be," and that "he thought nothing"
+of depicting "a woman all out of proportion, with impossible legs and
+arms!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In 1874 there was a suggestion that Whistler's portrait of Carlyle
+should be bought for the National Gallery. Sir George Scharf, then
+curator of that institution, came to Mr. Graves's show-rooms in Pall
+Mall to take a look at it.
+
+When Mr. Graves produced the painting he observed, icily:
+
+"Well, and has painting come to this?"
+
+"I told Mr. Graves," said Whistler, "that he should have said,' No, it
+hasn't."'
+
+It was nearly twenty years after when Glasgow finally bought the
+masterpiece. Indeed, Whistler had little market for his works until
+1892.
+
+He often found, as he said, "a long face and a short account at the
+bank." Complaining to Sidney Starr one day of the sums earned by a
+certain eminent "R.A.," while he received little or nothing, Starr
+reminded him that R.A.'s painted to please the public and so reaped
+their reward.
+
+"I don't think they do," demurred Whistler; "I think they paint as
+well as they can."
+
+Of Alma-Tadema's work he observed, "My only objection to Tadema's
+pictures is that they are unfinished."
+
+Starr spoke approvingly of the promising work of some of the younger
+artists. "They are all tarred with the same brush," said Whistler.
+"They are of the schools!" Of one particular rising star Whistler
+remarked: "He's clever, but there's something common in everything he
+does. So what's the use of it?"
+
+Starr indicated a distinguishing difference between the work of a
+certain R.A. and another. "Well," he replied, "it's a nasty
+difference."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+M.H. Spielmann, the art-critic, spoke of "Ten o'Clock " as "smart but
+misleading." Whistler retorted, "If the lecture had not seemed
+misleading to him, it surely would not have been worth uttering at
+all!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walter Sickert, then a pupil of Whistler's, praised Lord Leighton's
+"Harvest Moon" in an article on the Manchester Art Treasure
+Exhibition. Whistler telegraphed him at Hampstead:
+
+"The Harvest Moon rises at Hampstead and the cocks of Chelsea crow!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Apropos of his spats with Sickert he remarked, "Yes, we are always
+forgiving Walter."
+
+Another pupil, foreseeing the end of Whistler as president of the
+Royal Society of British Artists, resigned some months before the
+time. "The early rat," said Whistler, grimly, "the first to leave the
+sinking ship."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the Fine Art Society's gallery one day he spoke to a knighted R.A.
+"Who was that?" Starr asked.
+
+"Really, now, I forget," was the reply. "But whoever it was it's some
+one of no importance, you know, no importance whatever."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At an exhibition of Doré's pictures Whistler asked an attendant if a
+certain academician's large religious picture was not on view.
+
+"No," said the man; "it's much lower down!"
+
+"Impossible!" replied Whistler, gleefully.
+
+Sidney Starr relates that Whistler was asked one year to "hang" the
+exhibits in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool. In the center of one
+wall he placed Luke Fildes's "Doctor," and surrounded it with all the
+pictures he could find of dying people, convalescents, still-life
+medicine bottles, and the like. This caused comment. "But," said
+Whistler, "I told them I wished to emphasize that particular school."
+
+"And what did you put on the opposite wall?" Starr asked.
+
+"Oh, Leighton's--I really forget what it was."
+
+"But that is different, you know," said Starr.
+
+"No," rejoined Whistler; "it's really the same thing!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having seen a picture of Starr's in Liverpool, which he amiably,
+termed "a picture among paint," he observed to him on the occasion of
+their first meeting: "Paint things exactly as they are. I always do.
+Young men think they should paint like this or that painter. Be quite
+simple; no fussy foolishness, you know; and don't try to be what they
+call 'strong.' When a picture 'smells of paint,'" he said slowly,
+"it's what they call 'strong.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Riding once with Starr to dine at the Café Royal, Whistler leaned
+forward in the hansom and looked at the green park in the dusk, fresh
+and sweet after the rain; at the long line of light reflected,
+shimmering, in the wet Piccadilly pavement, and said:
+
+"Starr, I have not dined, as you know, so you need not think I say
+this in anything but a cold and careful spirit: it is better to live
+on bread and cheese and paint beautiful things than to live like Dives
+and paint pot-boilers. But a painter really should not have to worry
+about--'various,' you know. Poverty may induce industry, but it does
+not produce the fine flower of painting. The test is not poverty; it's
+money. Give a painter money and see what he'll do. If he does not
+paint, his work is well lost to the world. If I had had, say, three
+thousand pounds a year, what beautiful things I could have done!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Before the portrait of little Miss Alexander went to the Grosvenor
+Gallery, Tom Taylor, the art-critic of the _Times_, called at the
+studio to see it. "Ah, yes--'um," he remarked, and added that an
+upright line in the paneling of the wall was wrong and that the
+picture would be better without it, adding, "Of course, it's a matter
+of taste."
+
+To which Whistler rejoined: "I thought that perhaps for once you were
+going to get away without having said anything foolish; but remember,
+so you may not make the mistake again, it's not a matter of taste at
+all; it is a matter of knowledge. Good-by!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a critic who remarked, "Your picture is not up to your mark; it is
+not good this time," Whistler replied: "You shouldn't say it is not
+good. You should say you do not like it, and then, you know, you're
+perfectly safe. Now come and have something you do like--have some
+whiskey."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Stopped at an exhibition by an attendant who wished to check his cane,
+Whistler laughed: "Oh, no, my little man; I keep this for the
+critics."
+
+His troubles with the Royal Society of British Artists bred a round of
+biting remarks. When he and his following went out he said,
+consolingly: "Pish! It is very simple. The artists retired. The
+British remained!"
+
+Another shot at the same subject:
+
+"No longer can it be said that the right man is in the wrong place!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When an adverse vote ended his leadership of the Royal Society,
+Whistler said, philosophically, "Now I understand the feelings of all
+those who, since the world began, have tried to save their
+fellow-men."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Commenting on B.R. Haydon's autobiography, Whistler said: "Yes;
+Haydon, it seems, went into his studio, locked the door, and before
+beginning to work prayed God to enable him to paint for the glory of
+England. Then, seizing a large brush full of bitumen, he attacked his
+huge canvas, and, of course--God fled."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Starr once asked Whistler if the southern exposure of the room in
+which he was working troubled him.
+
+"Yes, it does," he answered. "But Ruskin lives in the North, you know,
+and a southern exposure troubled him, rather, eh?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Much that was characteristic of the artist's wit and temper came out
+during the famous libel suit he brought against Ruskin. The most
+amusing feature of it was the exhibition in court of some of the
+"nocturnes" and "arrangements" which were the subject of the suit. The
+jury of respectable citizens, whose knowledge of art was probably
+limited, was expected to pass judgment on these paintings. Whistler's
+counsel held up one of the pictures.
+
+"Here, gentlemen," he said, "is one of the works which have been
+maligned."
+
+"Pardon me," interposed Mr. Ruskin's lawyer; "you have that picture
+upside down."
+
+"No such thing!"
+
+"Oh, but it is so!" continued Ruskin's counsel. "I remember it in the
+Grosvenor Gallery, where it was hung the other way about."
+
+The altercation ended in the correctness of view of Ruskin's lawyer
+being sustained. This error of counsel helped to produce the
+celebrated farthing verdict. Ever after Whistler wore the farthing on
+his watch-chain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The suit had its origin in Ruskin's comment upon the "Nocturne in
+Black and Gold," described as "a distant view of Cremorne Garden, with
+a falling rocket and other fireworks." The picture is now the property
+of Mrs. Samuel Untermyer, of New York. On the opening of the Grosvenor
+Gallery, in 1877, Ruskin wrote in _Fors Clavigera_: "The ill-educated
+conceit of the artist nearly approached the aspect of wilful
+imposture. I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now,
+but never expected to have a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for
+flinging a pot of paint in the public's face."
+
+When Whistler was being examined during the trial, Sir John Holker,
+the Attorney-General, asked, "How long did it take you to knock off
+that 'Nocturne'?"
+
+"I beg your pardon?" said the witness.
+
+Sir John apologized for his flippancy, and Whistler replied: "About a
+day. I may have put a few touches to it the next day."
+
+"For two days' labor you ask two hundred guineas?"
+
+"No, I ask it for the knowledge of a lifetime!"
+
+Then the "Nocturne in Blue and Silver," a moonlight view of Battersea
+Bridge, was submitted to the jury. Baron Huddleston, the presiding
+justice, asked Mr. Whistler to explain it.
+
+"Which part of the picture is the bridge?" he queried. "Do you say
+this is a correct representation?"
+
+"I did not intend it to be a correct portrait of the bridge."
+
+"Are the figures on the top intended for people?"
+
+"They are just what you like."
+
+"Is that a barge beneath?"
+
+"Yes," replied the witness, sarcastically. "I am much encouraged at
+your perceiving that! My whole scheme was only to bring out a certain
+harmony of color."
+
+"What is that gold-colored mark on the side, like a cascade?"
+
+"That is a firework."
+
+"Do you think now," said the Attorney-General, insinuatingly, "you
+could make me see the beauty of that picture?"
+
+"No," said Whistler, after closely scrutinizing his questioner's face.
+"Do you know, I fear it would be as hopeless as for the musician to
+pour his notes into a deaf man's ear."
+
+"What is that structure in the middle?" asked the irritated attorney.
+"Is it a telescope or a fire-escape? Is it like Battersea Bridge? What
+are the figures at the top? If they are horses and carts, how in the
+name of fortune are they to get off?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A friend who was in court when the farthing damages verdict was
+brought in relates that Whistler looked puzzled for a moment; then his
+face cleared. "That's a verdict for me, is it not?" he asked; and when
+his counsel said, "Yes, nominally," Whistler replied, "Well, I suppose
+a verdict is a verdict." Then he said, "It's a great triumph; tell
+everybody it's a great triumph." When the listener dissented, he
+condensed all his concentrated scorn of Philistine view into a
+sentence: "My dear S., you are just fit to serve on a British jury."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Whistler _vs._ Ruskin" cost the latter so much more than the farthing
+verdict that his friends sent out a circular soliciting funds in these
+terms:
+
+"Whistler _vs._ Ruskin. Mr. Ruskin's costs.
+
+"A considerable opinion prevailing that a lifelong, honest endeavor on
+the part of Mr. Ruskin to further the cause of Art should not be
+crowned by his being cast in costs to the amount of several hundreds
+of pounds, the Fine Art Society has agreed to set on foot a
+subscription to defray his expenses arising out of the late action of
+Whistler _vs._ Ruskin.
+
+"Persons willing to co-operate will oblige by communicating with the
+Society, 148, New Bond Street, London."
+
+Mr. Whistler received scant sympathy, the tone of the comment being
+well noted by this excerpt from the London _Standard_ of November
+30th, 1878:
+
+"Of course, Mr. Whistler has costs to pay too, and the amount he is to
+receive from Mr. Ruskin (one farthing), even if economically expended,
+will hardly go far to satisfy the claims of his legal advisers. But he
+has only to paint, or, as we believe he expresses it, 'knock off,'
+three or four 'symphonies' or 'harmonies'--or perhaps he might try his
+hand at a Set of Quadrilles in Peacock Blue?--and a week's labor will
+set all square."
+
+Arthur Lumley, a New York illustrator, met Whistler once at a costume
+ball at George H. Boughton's house in London. The artist appeared as
+Hamlet, but in anything but a melancholy mood. Next morning's papers
+related that the sheriff had sold the effects in the White House the
+day of the ball to satisfy the claims of his creditors!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Isaac N. Ford, when correspondent of the New York _Tribune_ in London,
+went with Frederick MacMonnies, the sculptor, to visit Whistler, who
+brought out a number of portraits for show. One was that of a woman,
+full figure.
+
+"What do you think of her?" he asked.
+
+The sculptor gave "a side glance and looked down."
+
+"Since you force me to speak,", he finally blurted out, "I must tell
+you that one leg is longer than the other."
+
+Instead of the expected outburst, Whistler scrutinized the portrait
+from several points, and then observed quietly:
+
+"You are quite right. I had not observed the fault, and I shall
+correct it in the morning."
+
+"What an eye for a line a sculptor has!" he said to Ford later.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He quarreled regularly with his brother-in-law, Sir F. Seymour Haden,
+the famous etcher.
+
+"A brother-in-law is not a connection calling for sentiment," he once
+remarked.
+
+Haden came into a gallery on one occasion and, seeing Whistler, who
+was there in company with Justice Day, left abruptly.
+
+"I see! Dropped in for his morning bitters," observed Whistler,
+cheerfully.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once in conversation Whistler said: "Yes, I have many friends, and am
+grateful to them; but those whom I most love are my enemies--not in a
+Biblical sense, oh, no, but because they keep one always busy, always
+up to the mark, either fighting them or proving them idiots."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler was very particular about the spelling of his rather long and
+complicated group of names. Careless people made the "Mc" "Mac," and
+others left the extra "l" off "McNeill." To one of the latter
+offenders he wrote:
+
+"McNeill, by the way, should have two l's.' I use them both, and in
+the midst of things cannot well do without them!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Tom Taylor, the critic, died, a friend asked Whistler why he
+looked so glum.
+
+"Me?" said Whistler. "Who else has such cause to mourn? Tommy's dead.
+I'm lonesome. They are all dying. I have hardly a warm personal enemy
+left!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While a draughtsman in the Coast Survey from November, 1854, to
+February, 1855, he boarded at the northeast corner of E and 12th
+Streets, Washington. He is remembered as being usually late for
+breakfast and always making sketches on the walls. To the
+remonstrating landlord he replied:
+
+"Now, now, never mind! I'll not charge you anything for the
+decorations."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Among those with whom Whistler quarreled most joyously were the two
+Moores, the illustrious George and his less famous brother, Augustus.
+Both took Sir William Eden's side in the celebrated "Baronet _vs_.
+Butterfly" case, where Whistler was nonsuited in a French court of
+law. Augustus edited a sprightly but none too reputable weekly in
+London, called the _Hawk_, a series of unpalatable references in which
+so aroused Whistler that, meeting Moore in the Drury Lane Theater on
+the first night of "A Million of Money," he struck the editor across
+the face with his cane. A scrimmage followed, which contemporary
+history closed with the artist on the floor. Whistler's own account of
+the unseemly fracas was thuswise:
+
+"I started out to cane the fellow with as little emotion as I would
+prepare to kill a rat. I did cane him to the satisfaction of my many
+friends and his many enemies, and that was the end of it."
+
+Moore wrote: "I am sorry, but I have had to slap Mr. Whistler. My
+Irish blood got the better of me, and before I knew it the
+shriveled-up little monkey was knocked over and kicking about the
+floor."
+
+Whistler vigorously controverted this version as a "barefaced
+falsehood." He added: "I am sure he never touched me. I don't know
+why, for he is a much bigger man than I. My idea is that he was
+thoroughly cowed by the moral force of my attack. I had to turn him
+round in order to get at him. Then I cut him again and again as hard
+as I could, hissing out 'Hawk!' with each stroke. Oh, you can take my
+word for it, everything was done in the cleanest and most correct
+fashion possible. I always like to do things cleanly."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The clash with George Moore came to a head with the challenge to fight
+a duel. In his own version of the event given in the London
+_Chronicle_ of March 29th, 1895, Mr. Moore laid his troubles to his
+efforts to aid the artist. Learning that Sir William Eden wished his
+wife's portrait painted, he "undertook a journey to Paris in the depth
+of winter, had two shocking passages across the Channel, and spent
+twenty-five pounds on Mr. Whistler's business." It was arranged, he
+thought, that Whistler was to receive one hundred pounds for a "small
+sketch." When the "sketch" materialized it was "small" indeed. The
+Baronet and Mr. Moore expected a little more area of canvas. "The
+picture in question," remarked Mr. Moore, "is only twelve inches long
+by six high. The figure of Lady Eden is represented sitting on a sofa;
+the face is about half an inch in length, about the size of a
+sixpence, and the features are barely indicated."
+
+But to the duel: In Paris, after the controversy arose, Mr. Moore told
+an interviewer he did not think the sketch was worth more than one
+hundred pounds. To this Whistler made a furious reply in the _Pall
+Mall Gazette_, alleging that Moore had "acquired a spurious reputation
+as an art-critic" by praising his pictures. Moore's reply in the
+journal produced this response, sent from the Hotel Chatham under date
+of March 12th, 1895:
+
+"Mr. Whistler begs to acknowledge Mr. Moore's letter of March 11.
+
+"If, in it, the literary incarnation of the 'eccentric' person, on the
+curbstone, is supposed to represent Mr. Moore at the present moment,
+Mr. Whistler thinks the likeness exaggerated--as it is absurd to
+suppose that Mr. Moore can really imagine that any one admires him in
+his late role before Interviewer, or in that of the Expert in the
+Council Chamber.
+
+"If, however, Mr. Moore means in his parable to indicate Mr. Whistler,
+the latter is willing to accept Mr. Moore's circuitous and coarse
+attempt to convey a gross insult--and, upon the whole, will perhaps
+think the better of him for an intention to make himself at last
+responsible.
+
+"In such case Mr. Whistler will ask a friend to meet any gentleman Mr.
+Moore may appoint to represent him; and, awaiting a reply, has the
+honor to remain Mr. Moore's," etc.
+
+To which Mr. Moore replied:
+
+"Mr. Moore begs to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Whistler's letter of
+the 12th inst. In Mr. Moore's opinion Mr. Whistler's conduct grows
+daily more absurd."
+
+"I hoped," explained Mr. Moore, "that Mr. Whistler's friends would
+intervene and persuade him of the strangeness of his action and the
+interpretation it would receive in England. But four days later I was
+flattered by the following communication:
+
+"PARIS, _le 15 Mars, 1895._
+
+
+"MONSIEUR:
+
+"A la réception de votre lettre (lettre d'ailleurs rendue publique
+dans la _Pall Mall Gazette_), M. Whistler nous a prié de vous demander
+soit une rétractation, soit une réparation par les armes.
+
+"Nous vous prions donc de vouloir bien nous mettre en rapport avec
+deux de vos amis.
+
+FRANCIS VIELÉ-GRIFFIN,
+
+122 Rue de la Pompe.
+OCTAVE MIRBEAU,
+Carrière-sous-Passy, Seine-et-Oise."
+
+
+Mr. Moore's interlocutor asked him if there was any fear of losing his
+interesting personality on account of Mr. Whistler's challenge.
+
+To this Mr. Moore said:
+
+"There are three most excellent reasons why I should not fight a duel
+with Mr. Whistler, as Mr. Whistler well knows. First, only under the
+very gravest circumstances, if under any at all, would an Englishman
+accept a challenge to a duel. The duel has been relegated to the
+realms of comic opera. As for inviting me to proceed to Belgium for
+the purpose of fighting him, he might as well ask me to strip myself
+naked and paint my face and stick feathers in my hair--dress myself as
+a Redskin, in fact, and walk down St. James's Street flourishing a
+tomahawk. Second, supposing I were a Frenchman, Mr. Whistler is
+sixty-five years of age, and it is against the custom of dueling for
+any one to accept a challenge from so old a gentleman. Moreover, Mr.
+Whistler is, unhappily, very short-sighted, and would be unable to see
+me at twenty paces. Third, the grounds of the quarrel are so
+infinitely trivial that, were we both Frenchmen, it is doubtful if any
+seconds would take upon themselves the responsibility of an armed
+encounter.
+
+"I have praised Mr. Whistler's pictures that he painted
+five-and-twenty years ago as much as it is possible to praise works of
+art. I hold the same opinions about them still. I only wish Mr.
+Whistler would apply himself to his art instead of wasting his time in
+quarreling with his friends."
+
+The outcome of the Eden suit kept Whistler in ill-humor for a long
+time, while Moore continued to be a special object of aversion. The
+two avoided each other. But, as some philosopher has said, if you
+remain long in Paris you will meet all your friends and all your
+enemies. So it fell out that the two foregathered at the same atelier
+one Sunday afternoon. They nearly collided in entering, but Moore was
+the first inside. The hostess heard sounds from the hall something
+between china-breaking and the stamping of hoofs. She went out, to
+find James in a mighty rage.
+
+"Dear me!" said the lady, "what is the matter, dear master?"
+
+"Whistler won't come in! Whistler won't stay under the same roof with
+that wild Irishman!"
+
+Moore, in the inside, remarked in his sweetly modulated voice:
+
+"Why drag in Whistler?"
+
+This play on his best _mot_, "Why drag in Velasquez?" was too much,
+and in screaming wrath the painter fled, leaving Moore in full
+possession.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An American millionaire, to whom wealth had come rather quickly from
+Western mines, called at the Paris studio with the idea of capturing
+something for his gallery. He glanced casually at the paintings on the
+walls, and then queried:
+
+"How much for the lot?"
+
+"Four millions," said Whistler.
+
+"What?"
+
+"My posthumous prices! Good morning!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dante Gabriel Rossetti once showed Whistler a sketch and asked his
+opinion of its merits.
+
+"It has good points, Rossetti," said Whistler. "Go ahead with it by
+all means."
+
+Later he inquired how it was getting along. "All right," answered
+Rossetti, cheerfully. "I've ordered a stunning frame for it."
+
+In due time the canvas appeared at Rossetti's house in Cheyne Walk,
+beautifully framed.
+
+"You've done nothing to it since I saw it, have you?" said Whistler.
+
+"No-o," replied Rossetti, "but I've written a sonnet on the subject,
+if you'd like to hear it."
+
+He recited some lines of peculiar tenderness.
+
+"Rossetti," said Whistler, as the recitation ended, "take out the
+picture and frame the sonnet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Scotch once raised a fund by subscription to buy the portrait of
+Carlyle, at a price of five hundred guineas, fixed by the painter.
+When the sum was nearly complete, he learned that the subscription
+paper contained a clause disclaiming any indorsement of his theory of
+art. He telegraphed to the committee:
+
+"The price of 'Carlyle' has advanced to one thousand guineas. Dinna ye
+hear the bagpipes?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A dilettante collector in London, after much angling, induced Whistler
+to view his variegated collection. As the several objects passed in
+review they provoked only a sober "H'm, h'm," that might have meant
+anything or nothing. When there was no more to see, the host paused
+for an aggregate opinion and got this:
+
+"My dear sir, there's really no excuse for it, no excuse for it at
+all!"
+
+To a lady who complained that the frequent sittings commanded for
+painting her portrait compelled her to sacrifice much personal
+convenience, Whistler replied: "But, my dear lady, that is nothing in
+comparison with the sacrifice I have to make on your account. Just
+look: since I have been painting your portrait I have not had time to
+attend to my correspondence."
+
+There was a mountain of unopened letters on his desk.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Frederick Wedmore, the patient cataloguer of Whistler's etchings, once
+appeared in print as saying that he had "no wish to understand
+Whistler's works." He wrote "understate," but the wretched compositor
+undid him. Whistler's response to the explanation was: "Yes, the
+mistake is indeed inexcusable, since not only I, but even the
+compositor, might have known that with Mr. Wedmore and his like it is
+always a question of understating and never of understanding
+anything."
+
+In his _Memories and Impressions_ Ford Madox Hueffer relates that
+Madox Brown, going to a tea-party at the White House at Chelsea, was
+met in the hall by Mrs. Whistler, who begged him to go to the
+poulterer's and purchase a pound of butter. The bread was cut, but
+there was nothing in the house to put upon it. There was no money in
+the house, the poulterer had cut off his credit, and Mrs. Whistler
+said she dared not send her husband, for he would certainly punch the
+tradesman's head!
+
+"To think of 'Arry [meaning Harry Quilter, the critic, with whom he
+fiercely quarreled] living in the temple I erected!" he said. "He has
+no use for it--doesn't know what to do with it. If he had any feeling
+for the sympathy of things he would come to me and say: 'Here's your
+house, Whistler; take it; you know its meaning, I don't. Take it and
+live in it.' But no, he hasn't sense enough to see that. He
+obstinately stays there in the way, while I am living in this absurd
+fashion, next door to myself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the "secession" from the Royal Society, Whistler strolled into
+the gallery one evening with some friends. A group of admirers were
+gushing before a Leighton canvas.
+
+"Quite exquisite!"
+
+"A gem--really a gem!"
+
+"Yes," said Whistler. "Like a diamond in the sty."
+
+When elected president of the Society of British Artists, Whistler
+naturally felt exultant. "Carr," he said, jokingly, to Conryns Carr,
+the dramatist, "you haven't congratulated me yet."
+
+"No," was the retort. "I'm waiting till the correspondence begins!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Society did not possess a Royal Charter until Mr. Whistler became
+president. With some help from the Prince of Wales this was procured.
+When the Prince paid his first visit to the gallery, Whistler was
+there to welcome him.
+
+"I'm sure," said the Prince at the door, "I never heard of this place,
+Mr. Whistler, until you brought it to my notice. What is its history?"
+
+"It has none, your Highness," was the neat rejoinder. "Its history
+dates from to-day!"
+
+When Whistler left the White House, at Chelsea, he put this legend
+over the door:
+
+"'Unless the Lord build the house, their labor is but vain that build
+it.' E.W. Godwin, P.S.A., built this one."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Justin McCarthy, the journalist and historian of _Our Own Times_,
+stayed away from the Whistler dinner at the Criterion because his
+friend Mortimer Menpes had been slighted. He met Whistler a few
+evenings later at a dinner to Christie Murray. As they came together
+Whistler remarked darkly:
+
+"You're a bold man and a philanthropist; but remember, _Damien died_!"
+
+And he had, just before, among the lepers of Molokai! Rather rough on
+the claimant of Lemon Yellow!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Fine Art Society once billed Whistler for incidentals to one of
+his exhibitions, and thoughtfully included a pair of stockings worn by
+an attendant named Cox.
+
+"I shall pay for nothing of Cox's," said the artist, indignantly.
+"Neither his socks, nor his 'ose, nor anything that is his."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One of his proofs, sold by Sotheby's in 1888--that of an early
+etching--brought a good price, not on its merits, but for this line by
+the artist, written on the margin: "Legs not by me, but a fatuous
+addition by a general practitioner."
+
+The "legs" were by Dr. Seymour Haden, Whistler's eminent
+brother-in-law.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The eccentric relationship between Whistler and that self-destroyed
+genius, Oscar Wilde, has been much portrayed. A characteristic meeting
+was thus described by a correspondent of the London _Literary World_:
+
+"Whistler and Wilde were to be the lions at a literary reception.
+Unfortunately, the lions came too early, when the few previous
+arrivals were altogether too insignificant to be introduced to them.
+So they had to talk to each other. It was on a very warm Sunday
+afternoon in the season, and Whistler, by the by, was wearing a white
+'duck' waistcoat and trousers, and a fabulously long frock-coat, made,
+I think, of black alpaca, and carrying a brass-tipped stick about four
+feet long in his right hand, and a wonderful new paint-box, of which
+he was proud, under his left arm. Neither of the lions took any notice
+of what the other said. Finally, Wilde, who had spent the previous
+summer in America, began: 'Jimmy, this time last year, when I was in
+New York, all we men were carrying fans. It should be done here.'
+Instead of replying, Whistler observed that he had just returned from
+Paris, and that he always came by the Dieppe route, because it gave
+you so much longer for painting sea effects. Whether Oscar thought he
+was going to have an opportunity of scoring or what, he was tempted to
+break through the contempt with which-he had treated Whistler's other
+remarks. 'And how many did you paint in four hours, Jimmy?' he asked,
+with his most magnificent air of patronage. 'I'm not sure,' said the
+irrepressible Jimmy, quite gravely, 'but I think four or five
+hundred."'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A London visitor at the Lambs Club recounted a new version of the
+notable enmity which followed the friendship that had existed between
+Whistler and Wilde. The latter one day asked the artist's opinion upon
+a poem which he had written, presenting a copy to be read. Whistler
+read it and was handing it back without comment.
+
+"Well," queried Wilde, "do you perceive any worth?"
+
+"It's worth its weight in gold," replied Whistler.
+
+The poem was written on the very thinnest tissue-paper, weighing
+practically nothing. The coolness between the two men is said to have
+dated from that moment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking up to Du Maurier and Wilde at the time the former was
+portraying the Postlethwaites in _Punch_, Whistler asked, whimsically,
+"I say, which of you invented the other, eh?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Oscar Wilde was married, this Whistler telegram met him at the
+door of St. James's Church, Sussex Gardens:
+
+"Fear I may not be able to reach you in time for ceremony--don't
+wait."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Heaven!" said Oscar once, when the two were together at
+Forbes-Robertson's and a pert flash fell from the artist's lips. "I
+wish I had said that!"
+
+"Never mind, dear Oscar--you will," retorted Whistler.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Lady Archibald Campbell sat for her portrait Lord Archibald was
+quite uncomfortable at the idea, and made certain that it was a
+condescension, not a commission. The painting was duly completed,
+received its due of scathing criticism, and became famous. At this the
+lady, meeting the artist, remarked:
+
+"I hear my portrait has been exhibited everywhere and become famous."
+
+"Sh-sh-sh!" he said. "So it has, my dear Lady Archibald, but every
+discretion has been exercised that Lord Archibald could desire. Your
+name is not mentioned. The portrait is known as 'The Yellow
+Buckskin.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carlyle told Whistler he liked his portrait because the painter had
+given him "clean linen." Watts had made his collar green in a previous
+portrait.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sitting wearied Carlyle. One day as he left the studio he met little
+Miss Alexander tripping in for her turn, and asked her name.
+
+"I am Miss Alexander," she said, "and I am going to have my portrait
+painted."
+
+"Puir lassie, puir lassie," murmured the old philosopher, pityingly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler's interest was aroused when the Cyclopeans were building the
+Savoy Hotel. "Hurry!" he said. "Where are my things? I must catch that
+now, for it will never again be so beautiful."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His model once asked him:
+
+"Where were you born?"
+
+"I never was born, my child; I came from on high."
+
+The model retorted:
+
+"Now that shows how easily we deceive ourselves in this world, for I
+should say you came from below!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Invited once to dine with some eminences, the dinner-hour found him
+busy with his brush and engrossed in his subject. A friend who was to
+accompany him to the feast urged that it was frightfully late. "Don't
+you think you had better stop?" he asked.
+
+"Stop?" shrieked Whistler. "Stop when everything is going so
+beautifully? Go and stuff myself with food when I can paint like this?
+Never! Never! Besides, they won't do anything until I get there. They
+never do."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler was in a London shop one day when a customer came in who
+mistook him for a clerk.
+
+"I say, this 'at doesn't fit!"
+
+"Neither does your coat," observed the painter, after eying him
+critically.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young woman student protested under criticism, "Mr. Whistler, is
+there any reason why I shouldn't paint things as I see them?"
+
+"Well, really, there is no statute against it; but the dreadful moment
+will be when you see things as you painted them!"
+
+"Britain's Realm," by John Brett, R.A., now in the National Gallery at
+Millbank, made a stir when first exhibited at the Academy. It shows
+the sea. Whistler walked into a wave of adulation one day during the
+exhibition, and, affecting to "knock" with his knuckles, said
+sardonically: "Ha! Ha! Tin! If you threw a stone on to this it would
+make a rumbling noise!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His early price for the use of one of his lithographs by a magazine
+was ten guineas. Later he charged twenty, either sum being petty
+enough. To one editor who tendered ten pounds he wrote:
+
+"Guineas, M. le Rédacteur; guineas, not pounds!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At a reception one evening in Prince's Hall he was introduced to
+Henrietta Rae, whose painting "Psyche Before the Throne of Venus" had
+made her notable. She had been described to him in advance as rather
+weighty in figure.
+
+"I don't think you're a bit too fat," was his encouraging greeting.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Why have you withered people and stung them all your life?" asked a
+lady.
+
+"My dear," he said, "I will tell you a secret. Early in life I made
+the discovery that I was charming; and if one is delightful, one has
+to thrust the world away to keep from being bored to death."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+During the Boxer troubles, when Pekin was under siege to rescue the
+legations, he remarked:
+
+"Dear! dear! I hope they will save the palace. All the Englishmen in
+the world are not worth one blue china vase."
+
+One evening at Pennell's Miss Annulet Andrews mentioned attending the
+Royal Society soirée the evening before.
+
+"Poor thing!" he said. "Poor, misguided child! Did you come all the
+way to London to consort with such--well, what shall we call them?
+Why, there isn't a fellow among them who had his h's five years ago!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"You should be grateful to me," said Whistler to Leyland, after he had
+painted the Peacock Room in the latter's house. "I have made you
+famous. My work will live when you are forgotten. Still, perchance in
+the dim ages to come you may be remembered as the proprietor of the
+Peacock Room."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler's butterfly was the moth of the silkworm borrowed from
+Hokusai. Otto H. Bacher thought the addition of a sting to the
+signature came from this incident at Venice: In 1880 he found a
+scorpion and impaled it on his etching needle. As the little creature
+writhed and struck, Whistler exclaimed: "Look at the beggar now! See
+him strike! Isn't he fine? Look at him! Look at him now! See how hard
+he hits! That's right--that's the way! Hit hard! And do you see the
+poison that comes out when he strikes? Isn't he superb?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Referring long after to his retirement from West Point, where he had
+been a cadet for three years, the artist explained his fall by saying:
+"If silicon had been a gas, I should have been a soldier!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was always proud of his West Point cadetship. "West Point is
+America," he would say. Julian Alden Weir, son of Whistler's
+instructor at the Academy, once dining with him in London, chanced to
+remark that football had been introduced at the school. "Good God!"
+cried Whistler. "A West Point cadet to be rolled in the mud by a
+Harvard junior!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a student at the Point he had the habit of combing his long hair
+in class with his fingers, which brought this frequent command from
+Lieutenant Caleb Huse:
+
+"Mr. Whistler, go to your room and comb your hair!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Examined on history at West Point, he failed to recall the date of the
+battle of Buena Vista. "Suppose," said the exasperated instructor,
+"you were to go out to dinner and the company began to talk of the
+Mexican War, and you, a West Point man, were asked the date of the
+battle; what would you do?"
+
+"Do?" was the reply. "Why, I should refuse to associate with people
+who could talk of such things at dinner!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He disliked the work of the riding class at West Point, and one day
+wished to exchange his heavy horse for a lighter animal. The dragoon
+in charge called out: "Oh, don't swap, don't you swap! Yours is a
+war-horse!"
+
+"A war-horse!" exclaimed the little cadet. "That settles it. I
+certainly don't want him!"
+
+"Yes, you do, sir," insisted the dragoon. "He's a war-horse, I tell
+you, for he'd rather die than run!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Of course you don't know what fear is," observed Mortimer Menpes.
+
+"Ah, yes, I do!" Whistler answered. "I should hate, for example, to be
+standing opposite a man who was a better shot than I, far away out in
+the forest, in the bleak, cold, early morning. Fancy me, the master,
+standing out in the open as a target to be shot at. Pshaw! It would be
+foolish and inartistic. I never mind calling a man out; but I always
+have the sense to know he is not likely to come."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Howard Mansfield relates that while in London in the summer of
+1900 with Mr. Whistler, reference was one day made to West Point. He
+broke at once into enthusiastic praise of that institution, declaring
+that there was no finer institution in the world, and adding that next
+to it came the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Then he went on to say:
+"What was it which really saved you in your late deplorable war with
+the politest nation of Europe but the bearing of your naval gentlemen?
+After the affair in that sea--what's its name?--off the island of
+Cuba, when dear old Admiral Cervera was fished up like a dollop of
+cotton out of an ink-pot and was received on one of your ships with
+all the honors due to his rank, the officers all saluting and the crew
+manning the yards, as it were--only they haven't any yards now--but
+lined up in quite the proper way--why, it was splendid, just
+splendid!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dining one night at a house where there were a number of his pictures
+about the room, he could give attention to nothing but his own work.
+When he left he begged that one painting be sent to his studio to be
+revarnished. The unsuspecting hostess complied. Once delivered, she
+could not get it back. Finally she wrote: "I can live no longer
+without my beautiful picture, and I am sending to have it taken away."
+
+"Isn't it appalling?" he cried to Menpes. "Just think of it! Ten years
+ago this woman bought my picture for a ridiculously small sum, a mere
+bagatelle, a few pounds; she has had the privilege of living with this
+masterpiece for ten whole years, and now she has the presumption to
+ask for it back again. Pshaw! The thing's unspeakable!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"What a series of accidents!" was his comment on a row of Turners at
+the National Gallery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On another occasion, when he arrived at his host's house two hours
+after the time set for dining, he found the meal well under way. "How
+extraordinary!" he exclaimed to the amazed company.
+
+"Really, I should think you could have waited a bit. Why, you're just
+like a lot of pigs with your eating!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir John E. Millais said to Whistler one day: "Jimmy, why don't you
+paint more pictures? Put out more canvases!"
+
+"I know better," was the shrewd reply. "The fool!" he muttered, as he
+entered his studio. "He spreads himself on canvas on every possible
+occasion, and, do you know, he called me Jimmy! Mind you, I don't know
+the fellow well at all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His "Nocturne in Blue and Gold, Valparaiso," was in the Hill
+collection at Brighton. Whistler made Mr. Hill a visit which he thus
+described: "I was shown into the galleries, and, of course, took a
+chair and sat looking at my beautiful 'Nocturne'; then, as there was
+nothing else to do, I went to sleep."
+
+In this state Mr. Hill found him!
+
+This sleeping habit was common with him when the company or the
+goings-on failed to interest him. On one occasion his sweet snore
+alarmed his neighbor, who nudged him and whispered:
+
+"I say, Whistler, you must not sleep here!"
+
+"Leave me alone!" commanded the artist, crossly. "I've said all I
+wanted to. I've no interest at all in what you and your friends have
+to say."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He once slumbered through a dinner where Edwin A. Abbey was a
+fellow-guest. The next morning he blandly asked Mr. Chase:
+
+"What did Abbey have to say last night? Anything worth while?"
+
+When Dan Smith was at the beginning of his career as an illustrator he
+was employed by an important lithographing house. One day, while
+making a large picture of Antony and Cleopatra in the barge scene,
+which was to be used by Kyrle Bellew and Mrs. James Brown Potter as a
+poster for their joint starring tour, Whistler, accompanied by a
+friend, visited the studio:
+
+Whistler examined, with evident interest and approval, the canvas upon
+which the youthful artist was at work, holding his glass to his eyes;
+then, looking quizzically over it, remarked to his friend, "What a
+mercantile wretch it is!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler presented a copy of his edition of _The Gentle Art of Making
+Enemies_ to "Theodore Watts, the Worldling."
+
+Asked why he started the unlucky school in the Latin Quarter, he
+answered:
+
+"It was for Carmen Rossi [long his model], poor little Carmen, who is
+a mere child and has no money, and is saddled with the usual Italian
+burden of a large, disreputable family--banditti brothers, a trifling
+husband, and all the rest of it."
+
+"Carmen" was then thirty years old; weight, one hundred and ninety
+pounds. But she once had been his child-model.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Scotch student in the class had worked out the face of an old
+peasant woman illuminated by a candle. "How beautifully you have
+painted the candle!" Whistler commended. "Good morning, gentlemen!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day, when the pupils had been sketching from life, he came upon
+the work of one which, if it contained all of the truth, did not
+contain all of the beautiful.
+
+After gazing at it for some time Whistler observed to the student:
+
+"Ah, well! You can hardly expect me to teach you morals." And he
+walked away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A carelessly kept palette was an abhorrence to the painter. He would
+inspect those used by his class, and on the discovery of untidiness
+uttered a reproof like this: "My friends, have you noticed the way in
+which a musician cares for his violin? How beautiful it is? How well
+kept? How tenderly handled? Your palette is your instrument, its
+colors the notes, and upon it you play your symphonies!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The colloquies with the class were spirited, sarcastic, interesting.
+Here is a characteristic one:
+
+_Question:_ "Do you know what I mean when I say tone, value, light,
+shade, quality, movement, construction, etc.?"
+
+_Chorus:_ "Oh, yes, Mr. Whistler!"
+
+_Mr. Whistler:_ "I'm glad, for it's more than I do myself!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He objected to smoking in the atelier, partly because it obscured the
+light and partly because of its obfuscating qualities. In Paris a big
+Englishman clouded the class-room with a copious discharge of smoke.
+"My dear sir," said Whistler, gently, "I know you do not smoke to show
+disrespect for my request that students refrain from smoking on the
+days I come to them, nor would you desire to infringe upon the rules
+of the atelier, but--er--it seems to me--er--that when you are
+painting--er--you might possibly become so absorbed in your work as
+to--er--let your cigar go out!"
+
+Visiting Earl Stetson Crawford in his studio at Paris, he noted on the
+wall a photographic copy of the Nicholson portrait of himself.
+
+"Is that the best you have of me?" he asked. "Not that it is not very
+beautiful and artistic and so on--but I say, come now, you don't think
+it quite does me justice, do you?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the class was formed, so runs the tale, Whistler inquired of each
+pupil with whom he had studied before.
+
+"With Julian," said one.
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir," Whistler answered.
+
+"With Chase," replied another.
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir."
+
+"With Mowbray," answered a third.
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir," and so on.
+
+He approached a student slightly deaf, who stammered in reply, "I beg
+pardon?"
+
+"Couldn't have done better, sir," responded Whistler, placidly,
+passing on to the next.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It suffices not, Messieurs," he once observed to the class, "that a
+life spent among pictures makes a painter, else the policeman in the
+National Gallery might assert himself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A pupil told him proudly she had studied with Bouguereau.
+
+"Bouguereau! Bouguereau! Who is Bouguereau?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One young lady in the class offended him. She received a polite note,
+signed with a neat butterfly, requesting her not to attend further.
+"It was worth being expelled to get the note," she said. Whistler
+heard of the comment.
+
+"Well, they'll all have a note some day," he observed. His retirement
+soon followed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+H. Villiers Barnett, editor of the _Continental Weekly_, when in the
+employ of the _Magazine of Art_ visited the Dowdeswell Gallery at a
+press view of the Venice pastels. He alone of the critics developed
+some interest, and soon found himself alone with Whistler.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said the latter, "but do you represent a
+religious journal?"
+
+"No," Barnett replied, jokingly, "mine is an out-and-out sporting
+paper!"
+
+"Oh," said Whistler, "that accounts for it."
+
+"Accounts for what?"
+
+"Well, you see," said Whistler, with an exquisite sneer, "I have been
+watching you gentlemen of the press all morning. You are the only one
+in the whole lot who seems to find anything here worth looking at, and
+you have been taking such very serious interest that I was certain you
+must be representing some church paper."
+
+"Mr. Whistler," retorted Barnett, "make your mind easy. There is
+nothing ecclesiastical about me nor the publication I have the honor
+to represent; but all the same, for you this is the day of judgment!"
+
+"I wish you good morning," rejoined the painter, pertly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+His "artistic" make-up of flat-brimmed hat, lemon-colored vest, curls,
+eyeglass, and beribboned cane sometimes upset the cockney crowd.
+R.A.M. Stevenson, cousin of Robert Louis, was working in his studio
+one day when the bell rang violently. He ran to the door just in time
+to rescue the symphony into which Whistler had turned himself from a
+growling mob.
+
+"For God's sake, Stevenson," said Whistler, "save me from these
+howling brutes!"
+
+He went home in a cab with all his trimmings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Harper Pennington has revealed to us the origin of the "standing-room
+only" joke. It appears that there was hardly ever any furniture in
+Whistler's house. He was peculiarly parsimonious in the matter of
+chairs. This led to a remark of Corny Grain's which became famous.
+
+"Ah, Jimmy! Glad to see you playing to such a full house!" said Dick
+(Corny) Grain when shaking hands before a Sunday luncheon, while
+glaring around the studio with his large, protruding eyes, in search
+of something to sit on.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Whistler.
+
+"Standing-room only," replied the actor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Henry Labouchere, who first met Whistler as a boy in Washington in the
+fifties, when he himself was an attaché of the British Legation, took
+the credit for bringing Whistler and his wife together. His story was
+denied by Mrs. Whistler's relatives, but is interesting enough to be
+recorded.
+
+"I believe," wrote Mr. Labouchere in _Truth_, "I was responsible for
+his marriage to the widow of Mr. Godwin, the architect. She was a
+remarkably pretty woman and very agreeable, and both she and he were
+thorough Bohemians.
+
+"I was dining with them and some others one evening at Earl's Court.
+They were obviously greatly attracted to each other, and in a vague
+sort of way they thought of marrying, so I took the matter in hand to
+bring things to a practical point.
+
+"'Jimmy,' I said, 'will you marry Mrs. Godwin?'
+
+"'Certainly.'
+
+"'Mrs. Godwin,' I said, 'will you marry Jimmy?'
+
+"'Certainly,' she replied.
+
+"'When?' I asked.
+
+"'Oh, some day,' said Whistler.
+
+"'That won't do,' I said. 'We must have a date.'
+
+"So they both agreed that I should choose the day, tell them what
+church to come to for the ceremony, provide a clergyman, and give the
+bride away.
+
+"I fixed an early date and got them the chaplain of the House of
+Commons to perform the ceremony. It took place a few days later. After
+the ceremony was over we adjourned to Whistler's studio, where he had
+prepared a banquet. The banquet was on the table, but there were no
+chairs, so we sat on packing-cases. The happy pair, when I left, had
+not quite decided whether they would go that evening to Paris or
+remain in the studio.
+
+"How unpractical they were was shown when I happened to meet the bride
+the day before the marriage in the street.
+
+"'Don't forget to-morrow,' I said.
+
+"'No,' she replied; 'I am just going to buy my trousseau.'
+
+"'A little late for that, is it not?' I asked.
+
+"'No,' she answered, 'for I am only going to buy a tooth-brush and a
+new sponge, as one ought to have new ones when one marries.'
+
+"However, there never was a more successful marriage. They adored each
+other, and lived most happily together, and when she died he was
+broken-hearted indeed. He never recovered from the loss."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Frederick Keppel, the American print expert, first called upon
+the artist at the Tite Street studio, the famous portrait of Sarasate,
+"black on black," stood at the end of the long corridor that he used
+to form a vista for proper perspective of his work. Laying his hand on
+Keppel's shoulder, he said:
+
+"Now, isn't it beautiful?"
+
+"It certainly is," was the reply.
+
+"No," said he; "but isn't it _beautiful_?"
+
+"It is indeed," said Keppel.
+
+This was too mild a form of agreement. Whistler raised his voice to a
+scream:
+
+"D---n it, man!" he piped. "Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?"
+
+Adopting the emphasis and the exclamation, Mr. Keppel shouted:
+
+"D----n it, it is!"
+
+This was satisfactory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The proof-sheets of _The Gentle Art_, Whistler version, had just
+arrived as Mr. Keppel called. "Read them aloud," he commanded, "so I
+can hear how it sounds."
+
+Mr. Keppel started in, but his elocution was not satisfactory.
+
+"Stop!" Whistler cried. "You are murdering it! Let me read it to you!"
+
+He read about two hours to his own keen delight, but was finally
+interrupted by a servant announcing, "Lady ----."
+
+"Where is she?" asked the artist.
+
+"In her carriage at the door."
+
+He went on reading until Mr. Keppel suggested that he had forgotten
+the lady.
+
+"Oh," he said, carelessly, "let her wait! I'm mobbed with these
+people."
+
+After another quarter-hour he condescended to go down and greet her
+shivering ladyship.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later during this visit a foreign artist called and was
+pleasantly received. Admiring a small painting, the visitor said:
+
+"Now, that is one of your good ones."
+
+"Don't look at it, dear boy," replied Whistler, airily; "it's not
+finished."
+
+"Finished!" said the visitor. "Why, it's the most carefully finished
+picture of yours I've seen."
+
+"Don't look at it," insisted Whistler. "You are doing an injustice to
+yourself, you are doing an injustice to the picture, and you're doing
+an injustice to me!"
+
+Then, theatrically:
+
+"Stop! I'll finish it now." With that he picked a very small brush,
+anointed, its delicate point with paint, and touched the picture in
+one spot with a speck of pigment.
+
+"Now it's finished!" he exclaimed. "Now you may look at it."
+
+Forgetting his umbrella, the foreign gentleman called at the studio
+the next day to get it. Whistler was out, but the visitor was much
+moved to find the "finishing touch" had been carefully wiped off!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Keppel's personal relations with Whistler ended when, by an idle
+chance, he sent a copy of _The University of the State of New York
+Bulletin, Bibliography, No. I, a Guide to the Study of James Abbott
+McNeill Whistler_, compiled by Walter Greenwood Forsyth and Joseph Le
+Roy Harrison, to Joseph Pennell, and another to Ernest Brown, in
+London. Mr. Keppel, arriving in London the day of Mrs. Whistler's
+funeral, sent a note of condolence, and, receiving a mourning envelope
+sealed with a black butterfly, opened it expecting a grateful
+acknowledgment. Instead, it was a fierce, rasping denunciation for the
+distribution of the pamphlet--a mere catalogue so far as it went.
+
+"I must not let the occasion of your being in town pass," he wrote,
+"without acknowledging the gratuitous zeal with which you have done
+your best to further the circulation of one of the most malignant
+innuendos, in the way of scurrilous half-assertions, it has been my
+fate hitherto to meet. Mr. Brown very properly sent on to me the
+pamphlet you had promptly posted to him. Mr. Pennell, also, I find,
+you had carefully supplied with a copy--and I have no doubt that, with
+the untiring energy of the 'busy' one, you have smartly placed the
+pretty work in the hands of many another before this."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Keppel replied in kind, but Whistler never wrote him directly
+again. Some business letter of the former requiring a reply, he
+summoned the house-porter, who wrote under dictation, beginning his
+crude epistle thus: "Sir:--Mr. Whistler, who is present, orders me to
+write as follows." Roiled by this beyond measure, Mr. Keppel resorted
+to verse to relieve his feelings, after which Whistler twice sent
+verbal messages through friends that if he ever saw him again he would
+kill him!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+John M. Cauldwell, the United States Commissioner for the Department
+of Art at the Paris Exposition of 1900, sent a circular letter to
+American artists in the city announcing his arrival and making
+appointments to discuss the hanging of their work. Whistler received
+one, asking him to call at "precisely four-thirty" on the afternoon of
+the following Thursday.
+
+"I congratulate you," he replied.
+"Personally, I never have been able and never shall be able to be
+anywhere at precisely four-thirty."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"_Parbleu!_ This is a nice get-up to come and see me in, to be sure!"
+was his greeting to a newspaper writer who called to tap him on art,
+clad in a brown jacket, blue trousers, and decked with a red necktie.
+"I must request you to leave this place instantly! These scribblers,
+rag-smudges, _incroyable_! Why, it is perfectly preposterous! Did you
+ever hear such dissonance? His tie is in G major, and I am painting
+this symphony in E minor. I will have to start it again. Take that
+roaring tie of yours off, you miserable wretch! Remove it instantly!"
+
+The visitor removed the "roar." "Thank goodness!" said Whistler. "My
+sight is perfectly deaf!"
+
+"I am so sorry, Mr. Whistler," apologized the scribe.
+
+"Whistler, sir? Whistler? That's not my name!" he cried, in a highly
+wrought voice.
+
+"I beg your pardon?"
+
+"That is not my name. I say, you don't seem to know your own language.
+W-h is pronounced Wh-h-h--Wh-h-histler. Bah!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Max Beerbohm, the caricaturist, was rather clumsy with the Gallic
+tongue. Whistler used to term it "Max Beerbohm's Limburger French."
+
+The carefully cultivated and insistently displayed white lock played a
+part in many amusing incidents. Sir Coutts Lindsay's butler whispered
+to him excitedly one evening: "There's a gent downstairs says he's
+come to dinner, wot's forgot his necktie and stuck a feather in his
+'air."
+
+Another evening, at the theater, an usher said obligingly: "Beg
+pardon, sir, but there's a white feather in your hair, just on top."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Raging characteristically once when in Paris, he earned this rebuke
+from Degas, the matchless draughtsman: "Whistler, you talk as if you
+were a man without talent."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some one gave Henry Irving a Whistler etching for a Christmas gift.
+"Of course I was delighted," he said, "for I was a great admirer of
+the artist as well as a personal friend of the man, but when I started
+to hang the etching I was puzzled. I couldn't for the life of me tell
+which was the top and which the bottom. Finally, after reversing the
+picture half a dozen times and finding it looked equally well either
+way up, I decided to try an experiment.
+
+"I invited Whistler to dine with me and seated him opposite his
+picture. During dinner he glanced at it from time to time; between the
+soup and the fish he put up his eyeglass and squinted at it; between
+the roast and the dessert he got up and walked over to take a closer
+view of it; finally, by the time we reached the coffee, he had
+discovered what the trouble was.
+
+"'Why, Henry,' he said, reproachfully, 'you've hung my etching upside
+down.'
+
+"'Indeed!' I said. 'Well, my friend, it's taken you an hour to
+discover it!'" "The man in possession" furnishes an amusing incident
+in the artist's career.
+
+When the creditors at last landed a bailiff in the painter's Chelsea
+mansion, he tried to wear his hat in the drawing-room and smoke and
+spit all over the house. But Whistler, in his own airy way, soon
+settled that. He went out into the hall, and, selecting a stick from
+his collection of canes, he daintily knocked the man's hat off. The
+bailiff was so surprised that he forgot to be angry, and in a day or
+two he had been trained to wait at table. But though he was now in
+possession and a favored household servant, he could not obtain his
+money. So he declared that if he was not paid he would have to put
+bills up outside the house announcing a sale. And sure enough, a few
+days after great posters were stuck up all over the front of the house
+announcing so many tables and so many chairs and so much old Nankin
+China for sale on a given day. Whistler enjoyed the joke hugely, and
+hastened to send out invitations to all his friends to a
+luncheon-party, adding as a postscript: "You will know the house by
+the bills of sale stuck up outside." And the bailiff proved an
+admirable butler and the party one of the merriest ever known.
+
+As the guests were rising from the table a lady observed to the host:
+
+"Your servants seem to be extremely attentive, Mr. Whistler, and
+anxious to please you."
+
+"Oh, yes," replied he; "I assure you they wouldn't leave me!"
+
+But the bailiff stayed on, and the day of sale approached; so
+Whistler, having been educated at West Point, determined to practise
+strategy. Some one had told him that a mixture of snuff and beer had
+the property of sending people off to sleep. So he bought a big parcel
+of snuff and put the greater part of it into a gigantic tankard of
+beer, which he sent out to the bailiff in the garden. It was a very
+hot summer afternoon, and the man eagerly welcomed his refreshment.
+Whistler was in his studio painting and soon forgot all about him. In
+the evening he said to his servant, "Where's the man?" The servant
+replied: "I don't know, sir. I suppose he must have gone away."
+
+The next morning Whistler got up very late and went out into the
+garden, where he was astonished to see the bailiff sitting in
+precisely the same position as the day before. The empty tankard was
+on the table beside him and his pipe had fallen from his hand upon the
+grass. "Hello, my sleeping beauty!" said Whistler. "Have you been
+there all night?" But the man made no answer, and all the painter's
+efforts to rouse him were unavailing. Late in the afternoon, however,
+he awoke in the most natural way in the world, exclaiming that it was
+dreadfully hot weather and that he must have been asleep over an hour.
+Whistler's strategy had been even more successful than he anticipated;
+the bailiff had slept through the entire day appointed for the sale of
+the painter's household effects, and was induced to go away in a very
+bewildered state of mind and with a small payment on account in his
+pocket.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Lady de Grey went once to the Tite Street studio for luncheon and
+chided Whistler for his extravagance in having two man servants to
+wait on the table, when he was always complaining of being hard up.
+
+"Hush!" whispered Whistler. "One of them is the man in possession, and
+he has consented to act as footman for the day; but he asks me to
+please settle up as soon as possible, because he too has a man in
+possession at his own place and wants to get clear of him."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once at a garden party the rapt hostess rushed up to the artist and
+exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Whistler! Do help me out! I have just bought a magnificent
+Turner, but Lord----says it isn't genuine, merely a clever imitation.
+Now I want you to look at it, and if you say it is genuine, as I know
+you will, I shall be perfectly satisfied."
+
+"My dear lady," replied Whistler, "you expect a good deal of me. The
+distinction between a real Turner and an imitation Turner is so
+extremely subtle."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A flippant reply to the secretary of a London club where Whistler's
+account was past due produced this retort--and the money was paid:
+
+"DEAR MR. WHISTLER:--It is not a Nocturne in Purple or a Symphony in
+Blue and Gray we are after, but an Arrangement in Gold and Silver."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At an exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts there was a portrait in
+subdued colors by Whistler, "The Little Lady of Soho." Before this
+picture Secretary Harrison S. Morris stood one day. "It is beautiful,"
+he observed, "and it reminds me of a story about Whistler--not a very
+appropriate or poetical one, perhaps. But here it is, anyhow. Whistler
+one summer day took a walk through the Downs with three or four young
+men. They stopped at an ale-house and called for beer. Tankards were
+set before them and they drank. Then Whistler said to the host:
+
+"'My man, would you like to sell a great deal more beer than you do?'
+
+"'Aye, sir, I would that!'
+
+"'Then don't sell so much froth!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When a French magazine located his birthplace in Baltimore, and the
+error traveled far, Whistler took no pains to correct it. "My dear
+cousin Kate," he said to Mrs. Livermore, "if any one likes to think I
+was born in Baltimore, why should I deny it? It is of no consequence
+to me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A chance American introduced himself by saying: "You know, Mr.
+Whistler, we were born at Lowell, and at very much the same time. You
+are sixty-seven and I am sixty-eight."
+
+"Very charming," he replied. "And so you are sixty-eight and were born
+at Lowell. Most interesting, no doubt, and as you please! But I shall
+be born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born in
+Lowell and I refuse to be sixty-seven!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Don't be afraid," said Whistler to Howard Paul, who recoiled from the
+presence of a huge dog because he did not like the look in the
+animal's eyes. "Look at his tail--how it wags. When a dog wags his
+tail he's in good humor."
+
+"That may be," replied Paul, "but observe the wild glitter in his eye!
+I don't know which end to believe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Comyns Carr met a foreign painter who had been known to breakfast with
+Whistler at Chelsea and asked him if he had seen him lately.
+
+"Ah no, not now so much," was the reply. "He ask me a little while ago
+to breakfast, and I go. My cab-fare two shilling, 'arf crown. I
+arrive. Very nice. Goldfish in bowl. Very pretty. But breakfast! One
+egg, one toast, no more! Ah, no! My cab-fare back, two shilling, 'arf
+crown. For me no more!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A.G. Plowden, the London police magistrate, attended a private view at
+Grosvenor Gallery. The first person he met was Whistler. He took
+Plowden, very amiably, to his full-length portrait of Lady Archibald
+Campbell, where, after sufficiently expressing his admiration, Plowden
+asked if there were any other pictures he ought to see.
+
+"Other pictures!" cried Whistler, in a tone of horror. "Other
+pictures! There are no other pictures! You are through!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dining at a Paris restaurant in his early days, Mr. Whistler noted the
+struggle an elderly Englishman was having to make himself understood.
+He politely volunteered to interpret.
+
+"Sir," said the person addressed, "I assure you, sir, I can give my
+order without assistance!"
+
+"Can you indeed?" quoth Whistler, airily. "I fancied the contrary just
+now, when I heard you desire the waiter to bring you a pair of
+stairs."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dining, and dining well, at George H. Boughton's house in London,
+Whistler was obliged to leave the table and go up-stairs to indite a
+note. In a few moments a great noise revealed the fact that he had
+fallen down the flight.
+
+"Who is your architect?" he asked, when picked up.
+
+The host told him Norman Shaw.
+
+"I might have known it," said Whistler. "The d----d teetotaler!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A young artist had brought Whistler to view his maiden effort. The two
+stood before the canvas for some moments in silence. Finally the
+junior asked, timidly:
+
+"Don't you think this painting of mine is a--er--a tolerable picture,
+sir?"
+
+Whistler's eyes twinkled.
+
+"What is your opinion of a tolerable egg?" he asked.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Irish girls have the most beautiful hands," he once wrote, "with
+long, slender fingers and delightful articulations. American girls'
+hands come next; they are a little narrow and thin. The hands of the
+English girls are red and coarse. The German hand is broad and flat;
+the Spanish hand is full of big veins. I always use Irish models for
+the hands, and I think Irish eyes are also the most beautiful."
+
+An American artist studying in Paris, like many others, was too poor
+to have a perfect wardrobe. Strolling on the Boulevard, he heard a
+call and, turning, saw Whistler hastening toward him, waving his long
+black cane.
+
+Rather flattered, he said, "So you recognized me from behind, did you,
+master?"
+
+"Yes," said Whistler, with a wicked laugh; "I spied you through a hole
+in your coat."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Do you think genius is hereditary?" asked an admiring lady one day.
+
+"I can't tell you, madam," Whistler replied. "Heaven has granted me no
+offspring."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whistler once took Horne, his framer, to look at one of his paintings
+at the exhibition.
+
+"Well, Horne," he asked, "what do you think of it?"
+
+"Think of it?" he cried, enthusiastically. "Why, sir, it's
+perfect--perfect. Mr. ---- has got one just like it."
+
+"What!" said the puzzled Whistler. "A picture like this?"
+
+"Oh," said Horne, "I wasn't talking about the picture; I was talking
+about the frame."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Well, Mr. Whistler, how are you getting on?" said an undesirable
+acquaintance in a Paris restaurant.
+
+"I'm not," said Whistler, emptying his glass. "I'm getting off."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Miss Pamela Smith, a designer in black and white, while a crude
+draughtsman, had a fine imagination. Whistler was asked to look over
+some of her work. After careful examination he said:
+
+"She can't draw."
+
+Another look and a gruff "She can't paint" followed.
+
+A third look and a long thought wound up with, "But she doesn't need
+to."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A lady who rejoiced in "temperament" once said gushingly to Whistler:
+
+"It is wonderful what a difference there is between people."
+
+"Yes," he replied. "There is a great deal of difference between
+matches, too, if you will only look closely enough, but they all make
+about the same blaze."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A certain gentleman whose portrait Whistler had painted failed to
+appreciate the work, and finally remarked, "After all, Mr. Whistler,
+you can't call that a great work of art."
+
+"Perhaps not," replied the painter, "but then you can't call yourself
+a great work of nature!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The artist and a friend strolled along the Thames Embankment one
+wonderfully starry night. Whistler was in a discontented mood and
+found fault with everything. The houses were ugly, the river not what
+it might have been, the lights hard and glaring. The friend pointed
+out several things that appealed to him as beautiful, but the master
+would not give in.
+
+"No," he said, "nature is only sometimes beautiful--only
+sometimes--very, very seldom indeed; and to-night she is, as so often,
+positively ugly."
+
+"But the stars! Surely they are fine to-night," urged the other.
+
+Whistler looked up at the sky.
+
+"Yes," he drawled, "they're not bad, perhaps, but, my dear fellow,
+there's too many of them."
+
+A sitter asked him how it was possible to paint in the growing dusk,
+as he often did. The reply was:
+
+"As the light fades and the shadows deepen, all the petty and exacting
+details vanish; everything trivial disappears, and I see things as
+they are, in great, strong masses; the buttons are lost, but the
+garment remains; the garment is lost, but the sitter remains; the
+sitter is lost, but the shadow remains; the shadow is lost, but the
+picture remains. And that, night cannot efface from the painter's
+imagination."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, of the classic brush, loved yellow, a color
+which Whistler had annexed unto himself. Sir Laurence in employing the
+color in his decorations did not consider himself a plagiarist. He had
+not seen Whistler's. This defense led to a war of words. Whistler
+broke out:
+
+"Sly Alma! His Romano-Dutch St. John's wooden eye has never looked
+upon them, and the fine jaundice of his flesh is none of the jaundice
+of my yellows. To-de-ma-boom-de-ay!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seated in a stall at the West End Theater one evening, he was
+constantly irritated by his next neighbor--a lady--who not only went
+out between the acts, but several times while the curtain was up. The
+space between the run of seats was narrow, and the annoyance as she
+squeezed past was considerable.
+
+"Madam," he said at last, "I trust I do not incommode you by keeping
+my seat!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He regarded the United States tariff on art as barbarous.
+
+"When are you coming to America?"
+he was asked.
+
+"When the tariff on art is removed."
+
+The Copley Society asked his aid in making up their exhibition in
+Boston. He refused, saying:
+
+"God bless me! Why should you hold an exhibition of pictures in
+America? The people do not care for art!"
+
+"How do you know? You have not been there for many years."
+
+"How do I know? Why, haven't you a law to keep out pictures and
+statues? Is it not in black and white that the works of the great
+masters must not enter America, that they are not wanted? A people
+that tolerate such a law have no love for art; their protestation is
+mere pretense."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Asked by a lady if a certain picture in a gallery was not indecent, he
+replied:
+
+"No, madam. But your question is!"
+
+Mark Twain visited the studio and, assuming an air of hopeless
+stupidity, approached a nearly completed painting and said:
+
+"Not at all bad, Mr. Whistler; not at all bad. Only here in this
+corner," he added, reflectively, with a motion as if to rub out a
+cloud effect, "if I were you I'd do away with that cloud!"
+
+"Gad, sir!" cried the painter. "Do be careful there! Don't you see the
+paint is not yet dry?"
+
+"Oh, don't mind that," said Mark, sweetly. "I am wearing gloves, you
+see!"
+
+They got on after that.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In Paris, Whistler and an English painter got into a turbulent talk
+over Velasquez at a studio tea. In the course of the argument Whistler
+praised himself extravagantly.
+
+"It's a good thing we can't see ourselves as others see us," sneered
+the Briton.
+
+"Isn't it, though?" rejoined Whistler, gently. "I know in my case I
+should grow intolerably conceited."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Financial necessities once caused the sale of Whistler's choice
+furnishings. Some of the family, returning to the house during his
+absence, found the floor covered with chalk diagrams, the largest of
+which was labeled: "This is the dining-table."
+
+Surrounding it were a number of small squares, each marked: "This is a
+chair."
+
+Another square: "This is the sideboard."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Cope Whitehouse once described a boat-load of Egyptians "floating down
+the Nile with the thermometer one hundred and twenty degrees in the
+shade, and no shade."
+
+"And no thermometer," interjected Whistler.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A lady sitter brought a cat with her and placed it on her knee. The
+cat was nervous and yowled continuously.
+
+"Madam," said the vexed artist, "will you have the cat in the
+foreground or in the back yard?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+While painting one of his famous nocturnes a critic of considerable
+pretensions called. "Good heavens, Whistler!" he cried, "what in the
+world are you splashing at?"
+
+"I am teaching art to posterity," Whistler replied, quietly.
+
+"Oh!" said the critic, visibly relieved. "I was afraid you were
+painting for the Royal Academy."
+
+"Oh, no," answered Whistler; "they do not want masterpieces there, but
+some of their picture-frames are exquisite and really worth bus-fare
+to look at."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Walking in the Champs-Elysées in Paris one morning, Whistler heard one
+Englishman say to another:
+
+"See that chap over there?"
+
+"What? That chap with the long hair and spindle legs?"
+
+"Yes, that's the one. That's Whistler, the American, who thinks he's
+the greatest painter on earth."
+
+Walking up to the pair, Whistler held out his hand and said gravely to
+the last speaker:
+
+"Sir, I beg your acceptance of these ten centimes. Go buy yourself a
+little hay!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sitting for a portrait was an ordeal. Many were quite upset after a
+siege in the studio. One man annoyed the artist by saying at each
+dismissal:
+
+"How-about that ear, Mr. Whistler? Don't forget to finish that." At
+the last session, all being finished but this ear, Whistler said,
+"Well, I think I'm through; now I'll sign it." This he did in a very
+solemn and important way.
+
+"But my ear!" exclaimed the victim. "You're not going to leave it that
+way?"
+
+"Oh," said Whistler, grimly, "you can put it in after you get home."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He occasionally contemplated visiting America in his late years, but
+the dread of the journey was too much for him to overcome. "If I
+escape the Atlantic," he said, "I shall be wrecked by some reporter at
+the pier." Finally, he definitely canceled his last proposed trip,
+observing airily: "One cannot continuously disappoint a continent."
+
+"America," he once said, lightly, "is a country where I never can be a
+prophet."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sir Rennell Rodd recalled that at a breakfast Waldo Story gave at
+Dieu-donné's in Paris there was a great company, including Whistler.
+Every one there was by the way of having written a book or painted a
+picture, or having in some way outraged the Philistine, with the
+exception of one young gentleman whose _raison d'être_ was not so
+apparent as his high collar and the glory of his attire. He
+nevertheless intruded boldly into the talk and laid down his opinions
+very flatly. He even went so far as to combat some dictum of the
+master's, whereat that gentleman adjusted his glasses and, looking
+pleasantly at the youth, queried:
+
+"And whose son are you?"
+
+When Dorothy Menpes was a babe in the cradle a white feather lay
+across her infant brow. The sight pleased Whistler. "That child is
+going to develop into something great," he prophesied, "for see, she
+begins with a feather, just like me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the last two years of his life Mr. Whistler's disputes grew less
+frequent and his public flashes were few. The _Morning Post_ of
+London, however, provoked an admirable specimen of his best style,
+which it printed under date of August 6th, 1902. In its "Art and
+Artists" column the paper had made the following statement:
+
+"Mr. Whistler is so young in spirit that his friends must have read
+with surprise the Dutch physician's announcement that the present
+illness is due to 'advanced age.' In England sixty-seven is not
+exactly regarded as 'advanced age,' but even for the gay 'butterfly'
+time does not stand still, and some who are unacquainted with the
+details of Mr. Whistler's career, though they know his work well, will
+be surprised to learn that he was exhibiting at the Academy
+forty-three years ago. His contributions to the exhibition of 1859
+were 'Two Etchings from Nature,' and at intervals during the following
+fourteen or fifteen years Mr. Whistler was represented at the Academy
+by a number of works, both paintings and etchings. In 1863 his
+contributions numbered seven in all, and in 1865 four. Among his
+Academy pictures of 1865 was the famous 'Little White Girl,' the
+painting that attracted so much attention at the Paris Exhibition of
+1900. This picture--rejected at the Salon of 1863--was inspired,
+though the fact seems to have been forgotten of late, by the following
+lines of Swinburne:
+
+  Come snow, come wind or thunder
+    High up in air,
+  I watch my face and wonder
+    At my bright hair, etc."
+
+Under date of August 3d Mr. Whistler sent from The Hague this brisk
+reply:
+
+I feel it no indiscretion to speak of my "convalescence," since you
+have given it official existence.
+
+May I, therefore, acknowledge the tender little glow of health induced
+by reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the flattering attention
+paid me by your gentleman of the ready wreath and quick biography?
+
+I cannot, as I look at my improving self with daily satisfaction,
+really believe it all--still it has helped to do me good!--and it is
+with almost sorrow that I must beg you, perhaps, to put back into its
+pigeonhole for later on this present summary and replace it with
+something preparatory, which, doubtless, you have also ready.
+
+This will give you time, however, for some correction--if really it be
+worth while--but certainly the "Little White Girl," which was not
+rejected at the Salon of '63, was, I am forced to say, not "inspired
+by the following lines of Swinburne," for the one simple reason that
+those lines were only written, in my studio, after the picture was
+painted. And the writing of them was a rare and graceful tribute from
+the poet to the painter--a noble recognition of work by the production
+of a nobler one!
+
+Again, of the many tales concerning the hanging at the Academy of the
+well-known portrait of the artist's mother, now at the Luxembourg, one
+is true--let us trust your gentleman may have time to find it
+out--that I may correct it. I surely may always hereafter rely on the
+_Morning Post_ to see that no vulgar Woking joke reach me?
+
+It is my marvelous privilege then to come back, as who should say,
+while the air is still warm with appreciation, affection, and regret,
+and to learn in how little I had offended. The continuing to wear my
+own hair and eyebrows, after distinguished confrères and eminent
+persons had long ceased their habit, has, I gather, clearly given
+pain. This, I see, is much remarked on. It is even found inconsiderate
+and unseemly in me, as hinting at affectation.
+
+I might beg you, sir, to find a pretty place for this, that I would
+make my apology, containing also promise, in years to come, to lose
+these outer signs of vexing presumption.
+
+Protesting, with full enjoyment of its unmerited eulogy, against your
+premature tablet, I ask you again to contradict it, and appeal to your
+own sense of kind sympathy when I tell you I learn that I have lurking
+in London still "a friend"--though for the life of me I cannot
+remember his name. And I have, sir, the honor to be,
+
+J. MCNEILL WHISTLER.
+
+
+The last dispute that found its way to print came through the New York
+_Sun_ and Will H. Low, to whom Mr. Whistler sought to convey a piece
+of his mind _via_ the newspaper channel, under date of May 8th, 1903,
+This grew out of a complication in which Mr. Low became involved with
+the Hanging Committee of the Society of American Artists over the
+placing in its exhibition of "Rosa Corder" and two marines by Whistler
+borrowed from Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, on the condition that they
+be hung "in a good position." The position selected did not suit Mr.
+Low, and he withdrew the pictures. Mr. Whistler sent his remonstrance
+to the _Sun's_ London office, from which it was cabled to New York and
+published on May 9th, as follows:
+
+"I had waited for Mr. Low to publish my reply to a letter from himself
+concerning the withdrawal of my pictures from the Society of American
+Artists.
+
+"This gentle opinion of my own upon the situation is, I understand,
+expert. I therefore inclose it to you for publication. I have the
+honor to be, dear sir, your obedient servant."
+
+The remarks to Mr. Low read:
+
+"I have just learned with distress that my canvases have been a
+trouble and a cause of thought to the gentlemen of the Hanging
+Committee!
+
+"Pray present to them my compliments and my deep regrets.
+
+"I fear also that this is not the first time of simple and
+good-natured intrusion--looking in, as who would say, with beaming
+fellowship and crass camaraderie upon the highly finished table and
+well-seated guests--to be kindly and swiftly shuffled into some
+further respectable place--that all be well and hospitality endure.
+
+"Promise, then, for me, that I have learned and that 'this shall not
+occur again.' And, above all, do not allow a matter of colossal
+importance to ever interfere with the afternoon habit of peace and
+good will, and the leaf of the mint so pleasantly associated with this
+society.
+
+"I could not be other than much affected by your warm and immediate
+demonstration, but I should never forgive myself were the consequence
+of lasting vexation to your distinguished confrères."
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Whistler Stories, by Don C. Seitz
+
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