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 WHISTLERFrom 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 PUBLISHERSNEW YORK AND LONDONMCMXIII

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 havegleaned the vast volume of Whistler literature and helped myself inmaking this compilation. Some few of the anecdotes are first-hand. Others were garnered by Mr. Ford in the original version of _TheGentle Art of Making Enemies_. The rest have been published manytimes, perhaps. But it seemed desirable to put the tales togetherwithout 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 afemale model to whom he owed some fifteen shillings for sittings. Shewas a Philistine of the Philistines who knew nothing of her patron'sfame and was in no way impressed with his work. One day she toldanother artist that she had been sitting to a little Frenchman calledWhistler, who jumped about his studio and was always complaining thatpeople were swindling him, and that he was making very little money. The artist suggested that if she could get any piece of painting outof Whistler's studio he would give her ten pounds for it. Althoughskeptical, the model decided to tell her "little Frenchman" of thistoo generous offer, and selected one of the biggest and finest worksin the studio. "What did he say?" asked the artist who had made theoffer, when the model appeared in a state of great excitement andlooking almost as if she had come second best out of a scrimmage. "Hesaid, 'Ten pounds--Good heavens!--ten pounds!' and he got somad--well, that's how I came in here like this. "

 * * * * *

Mr. W. P. Frith, R. A. , following the custom of artists, talked to amodel one day to keep her expression animated. He asked the girl towhom 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 himI'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 beensitting 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 hadthe commission; he even went down to the country where Disraeli was;but the great man did not manage to get into the mood. Whistlerdeparted disappointed, and shortly afterward took place a meeting inWhitehall which was the occasion of a well-known story: Disraeli puthis arm in Whistler's for a little way on the street, bringing fromthe artist the exclamation, "If only my creditors could see!"

 * * * * *

Whistler's ideas, the reverse of commercial, not infrequently placedhim in want. He pawned his portrait of his mother, by many consideredthe best of his productions. 

Miss Marion Peck, a niece of Ferdinand Peck, United StatesCommissioner to the Paris Exposition, wanted her portrait done byWhistler. She sat for him nineteen times. Further, she requested, asthe picture was nearing completion, that extra pains be taken with itsfinishing. 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 MissPeck. 

Whistler threw down his brush, overturned the easel, and ran aroundthe studio like a madman. "What!" he shrieked. "Send a Whistler toChicago! 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 scornfullycalled Balaam's ass the first great critic, and the inference wasplain until a writer in _Vanity Fair_ called his attention to the factthat the ass was right. 

Whistler acknowledged the point. But the acknowledgment terminates ina way that is delicious. "I fancy you will admit that this is the onlyass on record who ever did 'see the Angel of the Lord, ' and that weare 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?" heindignantly demanded. 

A vigorous attack on Mr. Menpes then followed in the press. One of thefirst articles began in this style, Menpes, of course, being anAustralian: "I can only liken him to his native kangaroo--a robber bybirth--born with a pocket!" "He is the claimant of lemon yellow"--acolor to which Mr. Whistler deemed he had the sole right; and when hethought he had pulverized him in the press (it was soon after theParnell Commission, when Pigott, the informer, had committed suicidein Spain), Whistler one evening thrust this pleasant note into Mr. Menpes's letter-box, scrawled on a half-sheet of paper, with thewell-known butterfly cipher attached:

"You will blow your brains out, of course. Pigott has shown you whatto 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 forthe erection of a memorial to Whistler, Lord Redesdale gave aremarkable account of the artist's methods of work. "One day when hewas to begin a portrait of a lady, " said Lord Redesdale, "the paintertook up his position at one end of the room, with his sitter andcanvas at the other. For a long time he stood looking at her, holdingin 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 thecanvas. 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 whichexactly indicated the figure and the expression of his sitter. "

This portrait was to have belonged to Lord Redesdale, but throughcircumstances nothing less than tragic it never came into hispossession. There were bailiffs in the house when it was finished. This was no novelty to Whistler. He only laughed, and, laughing, madea circuit of his studio with a palette-knife, deliberately destroyingall the pictures exposed there. The portrait of the lady was amongthem. 

 * * * * *

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 conductwas scandalous. ' Stillman and myself were silent. Dante GabrielRossetti 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, andthere was an exquisite haze in the atmosphere which reminded me somuch of some of your little things. It was really a perfect series ofWhistlers. "

"Yes, madam, " responded Whistler, gravely. "Nature is creeping up. "

 * * * * *

Richard A. Canfield, who sat for the portrait now called "HisReverence, " though Canfield was something quite unclerical, recites:

"After I had my first sitting on New Year's Day, 1903, I saw Whistlerevery 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, therewere days at a time when he could do nothing but lie on a couch andtalk, as only Whistler could talk, about those things which interestedhim. It was mostly of art and artists that he conversed, but now andagain he would revert to his younger days at home, to the greatness towhich 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 McNeillWhistler was one of the intensest Americans who ever lived. He wasnot what you call an enthusiastic man, but when he reverted to the olddays at the Military Academy his enthusiasm was infectious. I think hewas really prouder of the years he spent there--three, I think theywere--than any other years of his life. He never tired of telling ofthe splendid men and soldiers his classmates turned out to be, and hehas often said to me that the American army officer trained at WestPoint was the finest specimen of manhood and of honor in the world. 

"It was in this way that I spent every afternoon with Whistler fromNew Year's until May 15th, the day before I sailed. When he was ableto work I would sit as I was told, and then he would paint, sometimesan hour, sometimes three. At other times he would lie on the couch andask me to sit by and talk to him. On the morning of the day of thelast 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 thelate afternoon. When he was done he said that with a touch or two hereand there the picture might be considered finished. Then he added:

"'You are going home to-morrow, to my home as well as yours, and youwon't be coming back till the autumn. I've just been thinking thatmaybe you had better take the picture along with you. His Reverencewill do very well as he is, and maybe there won't be any work in mewhen you come back. I believe I would rather like to think of youhaving this clerical gentleman in your collection, for I have a notionthat it's the best work I have done. '

"Whistler had never talked that way before, and I have since thoughtthat he was thinking that the end was not far away. I told him, moreto 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'tput on one of those finishing touches until I got back, so much thebetter, for then I could see him work. That seemed to bring him backto himself, and he said:

"'So be it, your Reverence. Now we'll say _au revoir_ in a couple ofmint-juleps. ' He sent for the materials, made the cups, and, just asthe sun was setting, we drank to each other and the homeland, and Iwas off to catch a train for Liverpool and the steamer. So it was thatWhistler and his last subject parted. "

 * * * * *

A group of American and English artists were discussing the manifoldperfections 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 thebest of the kind ever written. "

Whistler, who had remained silent, tapped the last speaker on theshoulder. 

"Painted, too, didn't he?" he said. 

 * * * * *

A patron of art asked Whistler to tell him where a friend lived on acertain street in London, to which the artist replied:

"I can't tell you, but I know how you can find it. Just you ring uphouses until you come across a caretaker who talks in B flat, andthere you are. "

 * * * * *

A friend of Whistler's saw him on the street in London a few years agotalking to a very ragged little newsboy. As he approached to speak tothe artist he noticed that the boy was as dirty a specimen of theLondon "newsy" as he had ever encountered--he seemed smeared allover--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 thatwhen he was a young writer, fresh from the breezy atmosphere of SanFrancisco, he visited London. Coming out of the Burlington Gallery oneday, he saw a little man mincing toward him, carrying a cane heldbefore him as he walked, whom he recognized as Whistler. With Westernaudacity he stopped the pedestrian, introduced himself, and broke intoan 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 hisdisdain. 

 * * * * *

Whistler had a French poodle of which he was extravagantly fond. Thispoodle was seized with an affection of the throat, and Whistler hadthe audacity to send for the great throat specialist, Mackenzie. SirMorell, when he saw that he had been called to treat a dog, didn'tlike it much, it was plain. But he said nothing. He prescribed, pocketed a big fee, and drove away. The next day he sent posthaste forWhistler. And Whistler, thinking he was summoned on some matterconnected with his beloved dog, dropped his work and rushed like thewind to Mackenzie's. On his arrival Sir Morell said, gravely: "How doyou do, Mr. Whistler? I wanted to see you about having my front doorpainted. "

 * * * * *

Whistler used to tell this story about Dante Gabriel Rossetti in hislater years. The great Pre-Raphaelite had invited the painter ofnocturnes and harmonies to dine with him at his house in Chelsea, andwhen Whistler arrived he was shown into a reception-room. Seatinghimself, he was soon disturbed by a noise which appeared to be made bya rat or a mouse in the wainscoting of the room. This surmise waswrong, as he found the noise was in the center of the apartment. Stooping, to his amazement he saw Rossetti lying at full length underthe table. 

"Why, what on earth are you doing there, Rossetti?" exclaimedWhistler. 

"Don't speak to me! Don't speak to me!" cried Rossetti. "That foolMorris"--meaning the famous William--"has sent to say he can't dinehere 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 torecognize persons with whom he had been on the most friendly terms. AnAmerican artist once met the impressionist in Venice, where they spentseveral months together painting, and he was invited to call onWhistler if he should go to Paris. The painter remembered theinvitation. The door of the Paris studio was opened by Whistlerhimself. A cold stare was the only reply to the visitor's effusivegreeting. 

"Why, Mr. Whistler, " cried the painter, "you surely haven't forgottenthose days in Venice when you borrowed my colors and we paintedtogether!"

"I never saw you before in all my life, " replied Whistler, and slammedthe door. 

This habit of forgetting persons, or pretending to do so, for nobodyever knew when the lapses of recognition were due to intention orabsent-mindedness, often tempted other artists to play pranks uponhim. He was a man who resented a joke at his own expense, except on afew occasions, and this trait was often turned to good account. 

He was at Naples soon after the incident just related had gained widecirculation. A conspiracy was entered into whereby the Whistlerworshipers there were to be unaware of his presence. He tried to playbilliards with a company of young artists. They met his advance with astony glare. 

"Oh, I say, " persisted he, "I think I know something of that game. I'dlike to play. "

A consultation was held, and the artists shook their heads, inquiringof one another, "Who is he?" Whistler retired crestfallen, and a roarof laughter which rang through the room added to his discomfiture. 

"Oh, well, " he said, pulling nervously at his mustache, and his tonewas petulant, "I don't care. "

 * * * * *

Whistler had a great penchant for white hats, kept all those he hadever worn, and had a large collection. The flat-brimmed tall hat was awhim of his late years, imported from France, _via_ the head ofWilliam 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 studioin London, a wealthy woman visited them with the demand, which she hadmade many times before, that Whistler return to her a picture byhimself which he had borrowed several years before to place onexhibition. The suave voice of Whistler was heard in argument, and hefinally induced his patron to depart without the work of art. 

When she had gone he returned to his work, muttering something aboutthe absurdity of some persons who believed that because they had paidtwo hundred pounds for a picture they thought they thereby owned it. 

"Besides, " he said, "there is absolutely nothing else in her house tocompare with it, and it would be out of place. "

 * * * * *

"Chase, " said Whistler one day, "how-is it now in America? Do you findthere, as you do in London, that in houses filled with beautifulpictures and superb statuary, and other objects of artistic merit, there is invariably some damned little thing on the mantel that givesthe whole thing away?" Mr. Chase replied, sadly: "It is even so, butyou 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, andWhistler'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 shallhave a hansom made. It shall have a white body, yellow wheels, andI'll have it lined with canary-colored satin. I'll petition the cityto let me carry one lamp on it, and on the lamp there will be a whiteplume. I shall then be the only one. "

He gave Mr. Chase some pretty hard digs. He said to him one time inthe heat of a discussion on some technical point: "Chase, I am notarguing 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, inHolland. 

"What?"

"When he made Dutchmen. "

 * * * * *

When he had finished his portrait of Mr. Chase he stood off andadmired the work. "Beautiful! Beautiful!" was his comment. Chase, whohad irked under the queer companionship, retorted, "At least there'snothing mean or modest about you!"

"Nothing mean and modest, " he corrected. "I like that better! Nothingmean _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. Whistlerdivined their several missions with much nicety by the tone of theraps 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 tradesmenwith 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! Ireally must do something for him. So sorry I'm not in. "

 * * * * *

Riding one day in a hansom with Mr. Chase, Whistler's eye caught thefruit and vegetable display in a greengrocer's shop. Making the cabbymaneuver the vehicle to various viewpoints, he finally observed:"Isn't it beautiful? I believe I'll have that crate of oranges movedover there--against that background of green. Yes, that's better!" Andhe settled back contentedly!

A kindly friend told him of a pleasant spot near London for anartistic sojourn. "I'm sure you'll like it, " he added, enthusiastically. 

"My dear fellow, " replied Whistler, "the very fact that you like it isproof that it's nothing for me. "

He went, however, and liked the place, but on the way some of hiscanvases went astray. He made such a fuss that the station-masterasked Mr. Chase who was his companion: "Who is that quarrelsome littleman? 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 introducedfeminine 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 myselfwith Velasquez, do you? I simply wanted to take her down. "

 * * * * *

Sir John E. Millais, walking through the Grosvenor Gallery withArchibald Stuart Wortley, stopped longer than usual before theshadowy, graceful portrait of a lady, "an arrangement in gray, rose, and silver, " and then broke out: "It's damned clever! It's a damnedsight too clever!"

This was his verdict on Whistler's portrait of Lady Meux. Millaiscontended 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 andarms!"

 * * * * *

In 1874 there was a suggestion that Whistler's portrait of Carlyleshould be bought for the National Gallery. Sir George Scharf, thencurator of that institution, came to Mr. Graves's show-rooms in PallMall 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, ithasn't. "'

It was nearly twenty years after when Glasgow finally bought themasterpiece. Indeed, Whistler had little market for his works until1892. 

He often found, as he said, "a long face and a short account at thebank. " Complaining to Sidney Starr one day of the sums earned by acertain eminent "R. A. , " while he received little or nothing, Starrreminded him that R. A. 's painted to please the public and so reapedtheir reward. 

"I don't think they do, " demurred Whistler; "I think they paint aswell as they can. "

Of Alma-Tadema's work he observed, "My only objection to Tadema'spictures is that they are unfinished. "

Starr spoke approvingly of the promising work of some of the youngerartists. "They are all tarred with the same brush, " said Whistler. "They are of the schools!" Of one particular rising star Whistlerremarked: "He's clever, but there's something common in everything hedoes. So what's the use of it?"

Starr indicated a distinguishing difference between the work of acertain R. A. And another. "Well, " he replied, "it's a nastydifference. "

 * * * * *

M. H. Spielmann, the art-critic, spoke of "Ten o'Clock " as "smart butmisleading. " Whistler retorted, "If the lecture had not seemedmisleading to him, it surely would not have been worth uttering atall!"

 * * * * *

Walter Sickert, then a pupil of Whistler's, praised Lord Leighton's"Harvest Moon" in an article on the Manchester Art TreasureExhibition. 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 alwaysforgiving Walter. "

Another pupil, foreseeing the end of Whistler as president of theRoyal Society of British Artists, resigned some months before thetime. "The early rat, " said Whistler, grimly, "the first to leave thesinking 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 someone of no importance, you know, no importance whatever. "

 * * * * *

At an exhibition of Doré's pictures Whistler asked an attendant if acertain 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" theexhibits in the Walker Art Gallery at Liverpool. In the center of onewall he placed Luke Fildes's "Doctor, " and surrounded it with all thepictures he could find of dying people, convalescents, still-lifemedicine bottles, and the like. This caused comment. "But, " saidWhistler, "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 oftheir first meeting: "Paint things exactly as they are. I always do. Young men think they should paint like this or that painter. Be quitesimple; no fussy foolishness, you know; and don't try to be what theycall '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 leanedforward in the hansom and looked at the green park in the dusk, freshand 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 saythis in anything but a cold and careful spirit: it is better to liveon bread and cheese and paint beautiful things than to live like Divesand paint pot-boilers. But a painter really should not have to worryabout--'various, ' you know. Poverty may induce industry, but it doesnot produce the fine flower of painting. The test is not poverty; it'smoney. Give a painter money and see what he'll do. If he does notpaint, his work is well lost to the world. If I had had, say, threethousand pounds a year, what beautiful things I could have done!"

 * * * * *

Before the portrait of little Miss Alexander went to the GrosvenorGallery, Tom Taylor, the art-critic of the _Times_, called at thestudio to see it. "Ah, yes--'um, " he remarked, and added that anupright line in the paneling of the wall was wrong and that thepicture would be better without it, adding, "Of course, it's a matterof taste. "

To which Whistler rejoined: "I thought that perhaps for once you weregoing 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 atall; it is a matter of knowledge. Good-by!"

 * * * * *

To a critic who remarked, "Your picture is not up to your mark; it isnot good this time, " Whistler replied: "You shouldn't say it is notgood. You should say you do not like it, and then, you know, you'reperfectly safe. Now come and have something you do like--have somewhiskey. "

 * * * * *

Stopped at an exhibition by an attendant who wished to check his cane, Whistler laughed: "Oh, no, my little man; I keep this for thecritics. "

His troubles with the Royal Society of British Artists bred a round ofbiting remarks. When he and his following went out he said, consolingly: "Pish! It is very simple. The artists retired. TheBritish 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 allthose who, since the world began, have tried to save theirfellow-men. "

 * * * * *

Commenting on B. R. Haydon's autobiography, Whistler said: "Yes;Haydon, it seems, went into his studio, locked the door, and beforebeginning to work prayed God to enable him to paint for the glory ofEngland. Then, seizing a large brush full of bitumen, he attacked hishuge canvas, and, of course--God fled. "

 * * * * *

Starr once asked Whistler if the southern exposure of the room inwhich 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 outduring the famous libel suit he brought against Ruskin. The mostamusing feature of it was the exhibition in court of some of the"nocturnes" and "arrangements" which were the subject of the suit. Thejury of respectable citizens, whose knowledge of art was probablylimited, was expected to pass judgment on these paintings. Whistler'scounsel held up one of the pictures. 

"Here, gentlemen, " he said, "is one of the works which have beenmaligned. "

"Pardon me, " interposed Mr. Ruskin's lawyer; "you have that pictureupside down. "

"No such thing!"

"Oh, but it is so!" continued Ruskin's counsel. "I remember it in theGrosvenor Gallery, where it was hung the other way about. "

The altercation ended in the correctness of view of Ruskin's lawyerbeing sustained. This error of counsel helped to produce thecelebrated farthing verdict. Ever after Whistler wore the farthing onhis watch-chain. 

 * * * * *

The suit had its origin in Ruskin's comment upon the "Nocturne inBlack and Gold, " described as "a distant view of Cremorne Garden, witha falling rocket and other fireworks. " The picture is now the propertyof Mrs. Samuel Untermyer, of New York. On the opening of the GrosvenorGallery, in 1877, Ruskin wrote in _Fors Clavigera_: "The ill-educatedconceit of the artist nearly approached the aspect of wilfulimposture. I have seen and heard much of cockney impudence before now, but never expected to have a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas forflinging 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 offthat 'Nocturne'?"

"I beg your pardon?" said the witness. 

Sir John apologized for his flippancy, and Whistler replied: "About aday. 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 BatterseaBridge, was submitted to the jury. Baron Huddleston, the presidingjustice, asked Mr. Whistler to explain it. 

"Which part of the picture is the bridge?" he queried. "Do you saythis 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 atyour perceiving that! My whole scheme was only to bring out a certainharmony 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, "youcould 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 topour 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? Whatare the figures at the top? If they are horses and carts, how in thename of fortune are they to get off?"

 * * * * *

A friend who was in court when the farthing damages verdict wasbrought in relates that Whistler looked puzzled for a moment; then hisface cleared. "That's a verdict for me, is it not?" he asked; and whenhis counsel said, "Yes, nominally, " Whistler replied, "Well, I supposea verdict is a verdict. " Then he said, "It's a great triumph; telleverybody it's a great triumph. " When the listener dissented, hecondensed all his concentrated scorn of Philistine view into asentence: "My dear S. , you are just fit to serve on a British jury. "

 * * * * *

"Whistler _vs. _ Ruskin" cost the latter so much more than the farthingverdict that his friends sent out a circular soliciting funds in theseterms:

"Whistler _vs. _ Ruskin. Mr. Ruskin's costs. 

"A considerable opinion prevailing that a lifelong, honest endeavor onthe part of Mr. Ruskin to further the cause of Art should not becrowned by his being cast in costs to the amount of several hundredsof pounds, the Fine Art Society has agreed to set on foot asubscription to defray his expenses arising out of the late action ofWhistler _vs. _ Ruskin. 

"Persons willing to co-operate will oblige by communicating with theSociety, 148, New Bond Street, London. "

Mr. Whistler received scant sympathy, the tone of the comment beingwell noted by this excerpt from the London _Standard_ of November30th, 1878:

"Of course, Mr. Whistler has costs to pay too, and the amount he is toreceive from Mr. Ruskin (one farthing), even if economically expended, will hardly go far to satisfy the claims of his legal advisers. But hehas only to paint, or, as we believe he expresses it, 'knock off, 'three or four 'symphonies' or 'harmonies'--or perhaps he might try hishand at a Set of Quadrilles in Peacock Blue?--and a week's labor willset all square. "

Arthur Lumley, a New York illustrator, met Whistler once at a costumeball at George H. Boughton's house in London. The artist appeared asHamlet, but in anything but a melancholy mood. Next morning's papersrelated that the sheriff had sold the effects in the White House theday 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, whobrought 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 tellyou that one leg is longer than the other. "

Instead of the expected outburst, Whistler scrutinized the portraitfrom several points, and then observed quietly:

"You are quite right. I had not observed the fault, and I shallcorrect 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 onceremarked. 

Haden came into a gallery on one occasion and, seeing Whistler, whowas 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 amgrateful to them; but those whom I most love are my enemies--not in aBiblical sense, oh, no, but because they keep one always busy, alwaysup to the mark, either fighting them or proving them idiots. "

 * * * * *

Whistler was very particular about the spelling of his rather long andcomplicated group of names. Careless people made the "Mc" "Mac, " andothers left the extra "l" off "McNeill. " To one of the latteroffenders he wrote:

"McNeill, by the way, should have two l's. ' I use them both, and inthe midst of things cannot well do without them!"

 * * * * *

When Tom Taylor, the critic, died, a friend asked Whistler why helooked 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 enemyleft!"

 * * * * *

While a draughtsman in the Coast Survey from November, 1854, toFebruary, 1855, he boarded at the northeast corner of E and 12thStreets, Washington. He is remembered as being usually late forbreakfast and always making sketches on the walls. To theremonstrating landlord he replied:

"Now, now, never mind! I'll not charge you anything for thedecorations. "

 * * * * *

Among those with whom Whistler quarreled most joyously were the twoMoores, 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 oflaw. Augustus edited a sprightly but none too reputable weekly inLondon, called the _Hawk_, a series of unpalatable references in whichso aroused Whistler that, meeting Moore in the Drury Lane Theater onthe first night of "A Million of Money, " he struck the editor acrossthe face with his cane. A scrimmage followed, which contemporaryhistory closed with the artist on the floor. Whistler's own account ofthe unseemly fracas was thuswise:

"I started out to cane the fellow with as little emotion as I wouldprepare to kill a rat. I did cane him to the satisfaction of my manyfriends and his many enemies, and that was the end of it. "

Moore wrote: "I am sorry, but I have had to slap Mr. Whistler. MyIrish blood got the better of me, and before I knew it theshriveled-up little monkey was knocked over and kicking about thefloor. "

Whistler vigorously controverted this version as a "barefacedfalsehood. " He added: "I am sure he never touched me. I don't knowwhy, for he is a much bigger man than I. My idea is that he wasthoroughly cowed by the moral force of my attack. I had to turn himround in order to get at him. Then I cut him again and again as hardas I could, hissing out 'Hawk!' with each stroke. Oh, you can take myword for it, everything was done in the cleanest and most correctfashion possible. I always like to do things cleanly. "

 * * * * *

The clash with George Moore came to a head with the challenge to fighta duel. In his own version of the event given in the London_Chronicle_ of March 29th, 1895, Mr. Moore laid his troubles to hisefforts to aid the artist. Learning that Sir William Eden wished hiswife's portrait painted, he "undertook a journey to Paris in the depthof winter, had two shocking passages across the Channel, and spenttwenty-five pounds on Mr. Whistler's business. " It was arranged, hethought, that Whistler was to receive one hundred pounds for a "smallsketch. " When the "sketch" materialized it was "small" indeed. TheBaronet and Mr. Moore expected a little more area of canvas. "Thepicture in question, " remarked Mr. Moore, "is only twelve inches longby 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 asixpence, and the features are barely indicated. "

But to the duel: In Paris, after the controversy arose, Mr. Moore toldan interviewer he did not think the sketch was worth more than onehundred pounds. To this Whistler made a furious reply in the _PallMall Gazette_, alleging that Moore had "acquired a spurious reputationas an art-critic" by praising his pictures. Moore's reply in thejournal produced this response, sent from the Hotel Chatham under dateof 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 thecurbstone, is supposed to represent Mr. Moore at the present moment, Mr. Whistler thinks the likeness exaggerated--as it is absurd tosuppose that Mr. Moore can really imagine that any one admires him inhis late role before Interviewer, or in that of the Expert in theCouncil Chamber. 

"If, however, Mr. Moore means in his parable to indicate Mr. Whistler, the latter is willing to accept Mr. Moore's circuitous and coarseattempt to convey a gross insult--and, upon the whole, will perhapsthink the better of him for an intention to make himself at lastresponsible. 

"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 thehonor to remain Mr. Moore's, " etc. 

To which Mr. Moore replied:

"Mr. Moore begs to acknowledge the receipt of Mr. Whistler's letter ofthe 12th inst. In Mr. Moore's opinion Mr. Whistler's conduct growsdaily more absurd. "

"I hoped, " explained Mr. Moore, "that Mr. Whistler's friends wouldintervene and persuade him of the strangeness of his action and theinterpretation it would receive in England. But four days later I wasflattered by the following communication:

"PARIS, _le 15 Mars, 1895. _

"MONSIEUR:

"A la réception de votre lettre (lettre d'ailleurs rendue publiquedans la _Pall Mall Gazette_), M. Whistler nous a prié de vous demandersoit une rétractation, soit une réparation par les armes. 

"Nous vous prions donc de vouloir bien nous mettre en rapport avecdeux 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 hisinteresting 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 duelwith Mr. Whistler, as Mr. Whistler well knows. First, only under thevery gravest circumstances, if under any at all, would an Englishmanaccept a challenge to a duel. The duel has been relegated to therealms of comic opera. As for inviting me to proceed to Belgium forthe purpose of fighting him, he might as well ask me to strip myselfnaked and paint my face and stick feathers in my hair--dress myself asa Redskin, in fact, and walk down St. James's Street flourishing atomahawk. Second, supposing I were a Frenchman, Mr. Whistler issixty-five years of age, and it is against the custom of dueling forany one to accept a challenge from so old a gentleman. Moreover, Mr. Whistler is, unhappily, very short-sighted, and would be unable to seeme at twenty paces. Third, the grounds of the quarrel are soinfinitely trivial that, were we both Frenchmen, it is doubtful if anyseconds would take upon themselves the responsibility of an armedencounter. 

"I have praised Mr. Whistler's pictures that he paintedfive-and-twenty years ago as much as it is possible to praise works ofart. I hold the same opinions about them still. I only wish Mr. Whistler would apply himself to his art instead of wasting his time inquarreling with his friends. "

The outcome of the Eden suit kept Whistler in ill-humor for a longtime, while Moore continued to be a special object of aversion. Thetwo avoided each other. But, as some philosopher has said, if youremain long in Paris you will meet all your friends and all yourenemies. So it fell out that the two foregathered at the same atelierone Sunday afternoon. They nearly collided in entering, but Moore wasthe first inside. The hostess heard sounds from the hall somethingbetween china-breaking and the stamping of hoofs. She went out, tofind 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 withthat 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 fullpossession. 

 * * * * *

An American millionaire, to whom wealth had come rather quickly fromWestern mines, called at the Paris studio with the idea of capturingsomething for his gallery. He glanced casually at the paintings on thewalls, 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 hisopinion of its merits. 

"It has good points, Rossetti, " said Whistler. "Go ahead with it byall means. "

Later he inquired how it was getting along. "All right, " answeredRossetti, 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 thepicture and frame the sonnet. "

 * * * * *

The Scotch once raised a fund by subscription to buy the portrait ofCarlyle, at a price of five hundred guineas, fixed by the painter. When the sum was nearly complete, he learned that the subscriptionpaper contained a clause disclaiming any indorsement of his theory ofart. He telegraphed to the committee:

"The price of 'Carlyle' has advanced to one thousand guineas. Dinna yehear the bagpipes?"

 * * * * *

A dilettante collector in London, after much angling, induced Whistlerto view his variegated collection. As the several objects passed inreview they provoked only a sober "H'm, h'm, " that might have meantanything or nothing. When there was no more to see, the host pausedfor an aggregate opinion and got this:

"My dear sir, there's really no excuse for it, no excuse for it atall!"

To a lady who complained that the frequent sittings commanded forpainting her portrait compelled her to sacrifice much personalconvenience, Whistler replied: "But, my dear lady, that is nothing incomparison with the sacrifice I have to make on your account. Justlook: since I have been painting your portrait I have not had time toattend to my correspondence. "

There was a mountain of unopened letters on his desk. 

 * * * * *

Frederick Wedmore, the patient cataloguer of Whistler's etchings, onceappeared in print as saying that he had "no wish to understandWhistler's works. " He wrote "understate, " but the wretched compositorundid him. Whistler's response to the explanation was: "Yes, themistake is indeed inexcusable, since not only I, but even thecompositor, might have known that with Mr. Wedmore and his like it isalways a question of understating and never of understandinganything. "

In his _Memories and Impressions_ Ford Madox Hueffer relates thatMadox Brown, going to a tea-party at the White House at Chelsea, wasmet in the hall by Mrs. Whistler, who begged him to go to thepoulterer's and purchase a pound of butter. The bread was cut, butthere was nothing in the house to put upon it. There was no money inthe house, the poulterer had cut off his credit, and Mrs. Whistlersaid she dared not send her husband, for he would certainly punch thetradesman's head!

"To think of 'Arry [meaning Harry Quilter, the critic, with whom hefiercely quarreled] living in the temple I erected!" he said. "He hasno use for it--doesn't know what to do with it. If he had any feelingfor the sympathy of things he would come to me and say: 'Here's yourhouse, Whistler; take it; you know its meaning, I don't. Take it andlive in it. ' But no, he hasn't sense enough to see that. Heobstinately stays there in the way, while I am living in this absurdfashion, next door to myself. "

 * * * * *

After the "secession" from the Royal Society, Whistler strolled intothe gallery one evening with some friends. A group of admirers weregushing 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, Whistlernaturally 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 becamepresident. With some help from the Prince of Wales this was procured. When the Prince paid his first visit to the gallery, Whistler wasthere 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 historydates from to-day!"

When Whistler left the White House, at Chelsea, he put this legendover the door:

"'Unless the Lord build the house, their labor is but vain that buildit. ' 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 hisfriend Mortimer Menpes had been slighted. He met Whistler a fewevenings later at a dinner to Christie Murray. As they came togetherWhistler 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 onthe claimant of Lemon Yellow!

 * * * * *

The Fine Art Society once billed Whistler for incidentals to one ofhis exhibitions, and thoughtfully included a pair of stockings worn byan 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 earlyetching--brought a good price, not on its merits, but for this line bythe artist, written on the margin: "Legs not by me, but a fatuousaddition by a general practitioner. "

The "legs" were by Dr. Seymour Haden, Whistler's eminentbrother-in-law. 

 * * * * *

The eccentric relationship between Whistler and that self-destroyedgenius, Oscar Wilde, has been much portrayed. A characteristic meetingwas 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 previousarrivals were altogether too insignificant to be introduced to them. So they had to talk to each other. It was on a very warm Sundayafternoon 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 fourfeet long in his right hand, and a wonderful new paint-box, of whichhe was proud, under his left arm. Neither of the lions took any noticeof what the other said. Finally, Wilde, who had spent the previoussummer in America, began: 'Jimmy, this time last year, when I was inNew York, all we men were carrying fans. It should be done here. 'Instead of replying, Whistler observed that he had just returned fromParis, and that he always came by the Dieppe route, because it gaveyou so much longer for painting sea effects. Whether Oscar thought hewas going to have an opportunity of scoring or what, he was tempted tobreak through the contempt with which-he had treated Whistler's otherremarks. 'And how many did you paint in four hours, Jimmy?' he asked, with his most magnificent air of patronage. 'I'm not sure, ' said theirrepressible Jimmy, quite gravely, 'but I think four or fivehundred. "'

 * * * * *

A London visitor at the Lambs Club recounted a new version of thenotable enmity which followed the friendship that had existed betweenWhistler and Wilde. The latter one day asked the artist's opinion upona poem which he had written, presenting a copy to be read. Whistlerread 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, weighingpractically nothing. The coolness between the two men is said to havedated from that moment. 

 * * * * *

Walking up to Du Maurier and Wilde at the time the former wasportraying 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 thedoor of St. James's Church, Sussex Gardens:

"Fear I may not be able to reach you in time for ceremony--don'twait. "

 * * * * *

"Heaven!" said Oscar once, when the two were together atForbes-Robertson's and a pert flash fell from the artist's lips. "Iwish I had said that!"

"Never mind, dear Oscar--you will, " retorted Whistler. 

 * * * * *

When Lady Archibald Campbell sat for her portrait Lord Archibald wasquite uncomfortable at the idea, and made certain that it was acondescension, not a commission. The painting was duly completed, received its due of scathing criticism, and became famous. At this thelady, 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 everydiscretion has been exercised that Lord Archibald could desire. Yourname is not mentioned. The portrait is known as 'The YellowBuckskin. '"

 * * * * *

Carlyle told Whistler he liked his portrait because the painter hadgiven him "clean linen. " Watts had made his collar green in a previousportrait. 

 * * * * *

Sitting wearied Carlyle. One day as he left the studio he met littleMiss Alexander tripping in for her turn, and asked her name. 

"I am Miss Alexander, " she said, "and I am going to have my portraitpainted. "

"Puir lassie, puir lassie, " murmured the old philosopher, pityingly. 

 * * * * *

Whistler's interest was aroused when the Cyclopeans were building theSavoy Hotel. "Hurry!" he said. "Where are my things? I must catch thatnow, 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 Ishould say you came from below!"

 * * * * *

Invited once to dine with some eminences, the dinner-hour found himbusy with his brush and engrossed in his subject. A friend who was toaccompany him to the feast urged that it was frightfully late. "Don'tyou think you had better stop?" he asked. 

"Stop?" shrieked Whistler. "Stop when everything is going sobeautifully? Go and stuff myself with food when I can paint like this?Never! Never! Besides, they won't do anything until I get there. Theynever do. "

 * * * * *

Whistler was in a London shop one day when a customer came in whomistook him for a clerk. 

"I say, this 'at doesn't fit!"

"Neither does your coat, " observed the painter, after eying himcritically. 

 * * * * *

A young woman student protested under criticism, "Mr. Whistler, isthere any reason why I shouldn't paint things as I see them?"

"Well, really, there is no statute against it; but the dreadful momentwill be when you see things as you painted them!"

"Britain's Realm, " by John Brett, R. A. , now in the National Gallery atMillbank, made a stir when first exhibited at the Academy. It showsthe sea. Whistler walked into a wave of adulation one day during theexhibition, and, affecting to "knock" with his knuckles, saidsardonically: "Ha! Ha! Tin! If you threw a stone on to this it wouldmake a rumbling noise!"

 * * * * *

His early price for the use of one of his lithographs by a magazinewas ten guineas. Later he charged twenty, either sum being pettyenough. 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 toHenrietta Rae, whose painting "Psyche Before the Throne of Venus" hadmade her notable. She had been described to him in advance as ratherweighty 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 alady. 

"My dear, " he said, "I will tell you a secret. Early in life I madethe discovery that I was charming; and if one is delightful, one hasto thrust the world away to keep from being bored to death. "

 * * * * *

During the Boxer troubles, when Pekin was under siege to rescue thelegations, he remarked:

"Dear! dear! I hope they will save the palace. All the Englishmen inthe world are not worth one blue china vase. "

One evening at Pennell's Miss Annulet Andrews mentioned attending theRoyal Society soirée the evening before. 

"Poor thing!" he said. "Poor, misguided child! Did you come all theway 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 hadpainted the Peacock Room in the latter's house. "I have made youfamous. My work will live when you are forgotten. Still, perchance inthe dim ages to come you may be remembered as the proprietor of thePeacock Room. "

 * * * * *

Whistler's butterfly was the moth of the silkworm borrowed fromHokusai. Otto H. Bacher thought the addition of a sting to thesignature came from this incident at Venice: In 1880 he found ascorpion and impaled it on his etching needle. As the little creaturewrithed and struck, Whistler exclaimed: "Look at the beggar now! Seehim strike! Isn't he fine? Look at him! Look at him now! See how hardhe hits! That's right--that's the way! Hit hard! And do you see thepoison that comes out when he strikes? Isn't he superb?"

 * * * * *

Referring long after to his retirement from West Point, where he hadbeen 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 isAmerica, " he would say. Julian Alden Weir, son of Whistler'sinstructor at the Academy, once dining with him in London, chanced toremark that football had been introduced at the school. "Good God!"cried Whistler. "A West Point cadet to be rolled in the mud by aHarvard junior!"

 * * * * *

When a student at the Point he had the habit of combing his long hairin class with his fingers, which brought this frequent command fromLieutenant 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 thebattle of Buena Vista. "Suppose, " said the exasperated instructor, "you were to go out to dinner and the company began to talk of theMexican War, and you, a West Point man, were asked the date of thebattle; what would you do?"

"Do?" was the reply. "Why, I should refuse to associate with peoplewho could talk of such things at dinner!"

 * * * * *

He disliked the work of the riding class at West Point, and one daywished to exchange his heavy horse for a lighter animal. The dragoonin charge called out: "Oh, don't swap, don't you swap! Yours is awar-horse!"

"A war-horse!" exclaimed the little cadet. "That settles it. Icertainly don't want him!"

"Yes, you do, sir, " insisted the dragoon. "He's a war-horse, I tellyou, 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 bestanding opposite a man who was a better shot than I, far away out inthe 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 befoolish and inartistic. I never mind calling a man out; but I alwayshave the sense to know he is not likely to come. "

 * * * * *

Mr. Howard Mansfield relates that while in London in the summer of1900 with Mr. Whistler, reference was one day made to West Point. Hebroke at once into enthusiastic praise of that institution, declaringthat there was no finer institution in the world, and adding that nextto 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 withthe politest nation of Europe but the bearing of your naval gentlemen?After the affair in that sea--what's its name?--off the island ofCuba, when dear old Admiral Cervera was fished up like a dollop ofcotton out of an ink-pot and was received on one of your ships withall the honors due to his rank, the officers all saluting and the crewmanning the yards, as it were--only they haven't any yards now--butlined up in quite the proper way--why, it was splendid, justsplendid!"

 * * * * *

Dining one night at a house where there were a number of his picturesabout 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 berevarnished. The unsuspecting hostess complied. Once delivered, shecould not get it back. Finally she wrote: "I can live no longerwithout 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 yearsago this woman bought my picture for a ridiculously small sum, a merebagatelle, a few pounds; she has had the privilege of living with thismasterpiece for ten whole years, and now she has the presumption toask for it back again. Pshaw! The thing's unspeakable!"

 * * * * *

"What a series of accidents!" was his comment on a row of Turners atthe National Gallery. 

 * * * * *

On another occasion, when he arrived at his host's house two hoursafter the time set for dining, he found the meal well under way. "Howextraordinary!" he exclaimed to the amazed company. 

"Really, I should think you could have waited a bit. Why, you're justlike a lot of pigs with your eating!"

 * * * * *

Sir John E. Millais said to Whistler one day: "Jimmy, why don't youpaint more pictures? Put out more canvases!"

"I know better, " was the shrewd reply. "The fool!" he muttered, as heentered his studio. "He spreads himself on canvas on every possibleoccasion, and, do you know, he called me Jimmy! Mind you, I don't knowthe fellow well at all. "

 * * * * *

His "Nocturne in Blue and Gold, Valparaiso, " was in the Hillcollection at Brighton. Whistler made Mr. Hill a visit which he thusdescribed: "I was shown into the galleries, and, of course, took achair and sat looking at my beautiful 'Nocturne'; then, as there wasnothing 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 thegoings-on failed to interest him. On one occasion his sweet snorealarmed 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 Iwanted to. I've no interest at all in what you and your friends haveto say. "

 * * * * *

He once slumbered through a dinner where Edwin A. Abbey was afellow-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 hewas employed by an important lithographing house. One day, whilemaking 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 aposter for their joint starring tour, Whistler, accompanied by afriend, visited the studio:

Whistler examined, with evident interest and approval, the canvas uponwhich the youthful artist was at work, holding his glass to his eyes;then, looking quizzically over it, remarked to his friend, "What amercantile wretch it is!"

 * * * * *

Whistler presented a copy of his edition of _The Gentle Art of MakingEnemies_ to "Theodore Watts, the Worldling. "

Asked why he started the unlucky school in the Latin Quarter, heanswered:

"It was for Carmen Rossi [long his model], poor little Carmen, who isa mere child and has no money, and is saddled with the usual Italianburden of a large, disreputable family--banditti brothers, a triflinghusband, and all the rest of it. "

"Carmen" was then thirty years old; weight, one hundred and ninetypounds. But she once had been his child-model. 

 * * * * *

A Scotch student in the class had worked out the face of an oldpeasant woman illuminated by a candle. "How beautifully you havepainted the candle!" Whistler commended. "Good morning, gentlemen!"

 * * * * *

One day, when the pupils had been sketching from life, he came uponthe work of one which, if it contained all of the truth, did notcontain 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 hewalked away. 

 * * * * *

A carelessly kept palette was an abhorrence to the painter. He wouldinspect those used by his class, and on the discovery of untidinessuttered a reproof like this: "My friends, have you noticed the way inwhich a musician cares for his violin? How beautiful it is? How wellkept? How tenderly handled? Your palette is your instrument, itscolors 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 thelight and partly because of its obfuscating qualities. In Paris a bigEnglishman clouded the class-room with a copious discharge of smoke. "My dear sir, " said Whistler, gently, "I know you do not smoke to showdisrespect for my request that students refrain from smoking on thedays I come to them, nor would you desire to infringe upon the rulesof the atelier, but--er--it seems to me--er--that when you arepainting--er--you might possibly become so absorbed in your work asto--er--let your cigar go out!"

Visiting Earl Stetson Crawford in his studio at Paris, he noted on thewall a photographic copy of the Nicholson portrait of himself. 

"Is that the best you have of me?" he asked. "Not that it is not verybeautiful and artistic and so on--but I say, come now, you don't thinkit quite does me justice, do you?"

 * * * * *

When the class was formed, so runs the tale, Whistler inquired of eachpupil 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 begpardon?"

"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 alife spent among pictures makes a painter, else the policeman in theNational 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. Whistlerheard of the comment. 

"Well, they'll all have a note some day, " he observed. His retirementsoon followed. 

 * * * * *

H. Villiers Barnett, editor of the _Continental Weekly_, when in theemploy of the _Magazine of Art_ visited the Dowdeswell Gallery at apress view of the Venice pastels. He alone of the critics developedsome interest, and soon found himself alone with Whistler. 

"I beg your pardon, " said the latter, "but do you represent areligious journal?"

"No, " Barnett replied, jokingly, "mine is an out-and-out sportingpaper!"

"Oh, " said Whistler, "that accounts for it. "

"Accounts for what?"

"Well, you see, " said Whistler, with an exquisite sneer, "I have beenwatching you gentlemen of the press all morning. You are the only onein the whole lot who seems to find anything here worth looking at, andyou have been taking such very serious interest that I was certain youmust be representing some church paper. "

"Mr. Whistler, " retorted Barnett, "make your mind easy. There isnothing ecclesiastical about me nor the publication I have the honorto 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 studioone day when the bell rang violently. He ran to the door just in timeto rescue the symphony into which Whistler had turned himself from agrowling mob. 

"For God's sake, Stevenson, " said Whistler, "save me from thesehowling brutes!"

He went home in a cab with all his trimmings. 

 * * * * *

Harper Pennington has revealed to us the origin of the "standing-roomonly" joke. It appears that there was hardly ever any furniture inWhistler's house. He was peculiarly parsimonious in the matter ofchairs. 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, whileglaring around the studio with his large, protruding eyes, in searchof 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 thefifties, when he himself was an attaché of the British Legation, tookthe credit for bringing Whistler and his wife together. His story wasdenied by Mrs. Whistler's relatives, but is interesting enough to berecorded. 

"I believe, " wrote Mr. Labouchere in _Truth_, "I was responsible forhis marriage to the widow of Mr. Godwin, the architect. She was aremarkably pretty woman and very agreeable, and both she and he werethorough 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 vaguesort of way they thought of marrying, so I took the matter in hand tobring 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 whatchurch to come to for the ceremony, provide a clergyman, and give thebride away. 

"I fixed an early date and got them the chaplain of the House ofCommons to perform the ceremony. It took place a few days later. Afterthe ceremony was over we adjourned to Whistler's studio, where he hadprepared a banquet. The banquet was on the table, but there were nochairs, so we sat on packing-cases. The happy pair, when I left, hadnot quite decided whether they would go that evening to Paris orremain in the studio. 

"How unpractical they were was shown when I happened to meet the bridethe 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 anew sponge, as one ought to have new ones when one marries. '

"However, there never was a more successful marriage. They adored eachother, and lived most happily together, and when she died he wasbroken-hearted indeed. He never recovered from the loss. "

 * * * * *

When Frederick Keppel, the American print expert, first called uponthe artist at the Tite Street studio, the famous portrait of Sarasate, "black on black, " stood at the end of the long corridor that he usedto form a vista for proper perspective of his work. Laying his hand onKeppel'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 ascream:

"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 justarrived as Mr. Keppel called. "Read them aloud, " he commanded, "so Ican 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 finallyinterrupted 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 forgottenthe lady. 

"Oh, " he said, carelessly, "let her wait! I'm mobbed with thesepeople. "

After another quarter-hour he condescended to go down and greet hershivering ladyship. 

 * * * * *

A little later during this visit a foreign artist called and waspleasantly 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 notfinished. "

"Finished!" said the visitor. "Why, it's the most carefully finishedpicture of yours I've seen. "

"Don't look at it, " insisted Whistler. "You are doing an injustice toyourself, you are doing an injustice to the picture, and you're doingan 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 inone 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 studiothe next day to get it. Whistler was out, but the visitor was muchmoved to find the "finishing touch" had been carefully wiped off!

 * * * * *

Mr. Keppel's personal relations with Whistler ended when, by an idlechance, he sent a copy of _The University of the State of New YorkBulletin, Bibliography, No. I, a Guide to the Study of James AbbottMcNeill Whistler_, compiled by Walter Greenwood Forsyth and Joseph LeRoy Harrison, to Joseph Pennell, and another to Ernest Brown, inLondon. Mr. Keppel, arriving in London the day of Mrs. Whistler'sfuneral, sent a note of condolence, and, receiving a mourning envelopesealed with a black butterfly, opened it expecting a gratefulacknowledgment. Instead, it was a fierce, rasping denunciation for thedistribution 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 doneyour best to further the circulation of one of the most malignantinnuendos, in the way of scurrilous half-assertions, it has been myfate hitherto to meet. Mr. Brown very properly sent on to me thepamphlet you had promptly posted to him. Mr. Pennell, also, I find, you had carefully supplied with a copy--and I have no doubt that, withthe untiring energy of the 'busy' one, you have smartly placed thepretty work in the hands of many another before this. "

 * * * * *

Mr. Keppel replied in kind, but Whistler never wrote him directlyagain. Some business letter of the former requiring a reply, hesummoned the house-porter, who wrote under dictation, beginning hiscrude epistle thus: "Sir:--Mr. Whistler, who is present, orders me towrite as follows. " Roiled by this beyond measure, Mr. Keppel resortedto verse to relieve his feelings, after which Whistler twice sentverbal messages through friends that if he ever saw him again he wouldkill him!

 * * * * *

John M. Cauldwell, the United States Commissioner for the Departmentof Art at the Paris Exposition of 1900, sent a circular letter toAmerican artists in the city announcing his arrival and makingappointments to discuss the hanging of their work. Whistler receivedone, asking him to call at "precisely four-thirty" on the afternoon ofthe following Thursday. 

"I congratulate you, " he replied. "Personally, I never have been able and never shall be able to beanywhere 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 youever hear such dissonance? His tie is in G major, and I am paintingthis symphony in E minor. I will have to start it again. Take thatroaring tie of yours off, you miserable wretch! Remove it instantly!"

The visitor removed the "roar. " "Thank goodness!" said Whistler. "Mysight is perfectly deaf!"

"I am so sorry, Mr. Whistler, " apologized the scribe. 

"Whistler, sir? Whistler? That's not my name!" he cried, in a highlywrought 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 Gallictongue. Whistler used to term it "Max Beerbohm's Limburger French. "

The carefully cultivated and insistently displayed white lock played apart in many amusing incidents. Sir Coutts Lindsay's butler whisperedto him excitedly one evening: "There's a gent downstairs says he'scome to dinner, wot's forgot his necktie and stuck a feather in his'air. "

Another evening, at the theater, an usher said obligingly: "Begpardon, sir, but there's a white feather in your hair, just on top. "

 * * * * *

Raging characteristically once when in Paris, he earned this rebukefrom Degas, the matchless draughtsman: "Whistler, you talk as if youwere 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 ofthe artist as well as a personal friend of the man, but when I startedto hang the etching I was puzzled. I couldn't for the life of me tellwhich was the top and which the bottom. Finally, after reversing thepicture half a dozen times and finding it looked equally well eitherway up, I decided to try an experiment. 

"I invited Whistler to dine with me and seated him opposite hispicture. During dinner he glanced at it from time to time; between thesoup and the fish he put up his eyeglass and squinted at it; betweenthe roast and the dessert he got up and walked over to take a closerview of it; finally, by the time we reached the coffee, he haddiscovered what the trouble was. 

"'Why, Henry, ' he said, reproachfully, 'you've hung my etching upsidedown. '

"'Indeed!' I said. 'Well, my friend, it's taken you an hour todiscover it!'" "The man in possession" furnishes an amusing incidentin the artist's career. 

When the creditors at last landed a bailiff in the painter's Chelseamansion, he tried to wear his hat in the drawing-room and smoke andspit all over the house. But Whistler, in his own airy way, soonsettled that. He went out into the hall, and, selecting a stick fromhis collection of canes, he daintily knocked the man's hat off. Thebailiff was so surprised that he forgot to be angry, and in a day ortwo he had been trained to wait at table. But though he was now inpossession and a favored household servant, he could not obtain hismoney. So he declared that if he was not paid he would have to putbills up outside the house announcing a sale. And sure enough, a fewdays after great posters were stuck up all over the front of the houseannouncing so many tables and so many chairs and so much old NankinChina for sale on a given day. Whistler enjoyed the joke hugely, andhastened to send out invitations to all his friends to aluncheon-party, adding as a postscript: "You will know the house bythe bills of sale stuck up outside. " And the bailiff proved anadmirable 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, andanxious 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; soWhistler, having been educated at West Point, determined to practisestrategy. Some one had told him that a mixture of snuff and beer hadthe property of sending people off to sleep. So he bought a big parcelof snuff and put the greater part of it into a gigantic tankard ofbeer, which he sent out to the bailiff in the garden. It was a veryhot summer afternoon, and the man eagerly welcomed his refreshment. Whistler was in his studio painting and soon forgot all about him. Inthe evening he said to his servant, "Where's the man?" The servantreplied: "I don't know, sir. I suppose he must have gone away. "

The next morning Whistler got up very late and went out into thegarden, where he was astonished to see the bailiff sitting inprecisely the same position as the day before. The empty tankard wason the table beside him and his pipe had fallen from his hand upon thegrass. "Hello, my sleeping beauty!" said Whistler. "Have you beenthere all night?" But the man made no answer, and all the painter'sefforts to rouse him were unavailing. Late in the afternoon, however, he awoke in the most natural way in the world, exclaiming that it wasdreadfully 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 ofthe painter's household effects, and was induced to go away in a verybewildered state of mind and with a small payment on account in hispocket. 

 * * * * *

Lady de Grey went once to the Tite Street studio for luncheon andchided Whistler for his extravagance in having two man servants towait on the table, when he was always complaining of being hard up. 

"Hush!" whispered Whistler. "One of them is the man in possession, andhe has consented to act as footman for the day; but he asks me toplease settle up as soon as possible, because he too has a man inpossession at his own place and wants to get clear of him. "

 * * * * *

Once at a garden party the rapt hostess rushed up to the artist andexclaimed:

"Oh, Mr. Whistler! Do help me out! I have just bought a magnificentTurner, 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 knowyou will, I shall be perfectly satisfied. "

"My dear lady, " replied Whistler, "you expect a good deal of me. Thedistinction between a real Turner and an imitation Turner is soextremely subtle. "

 * * * * *

A flippant reply to the secretary of a London club where Whistler'saccount was past due produced this retort--and the money was paid:

"DEAR MR. WHISTLER:--It is not a Nocturne in Purple or a Symphony inBlue 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 insubdued colors by Whistler, "The Little Lady of Soho. " Before thispicture Secretary Harrison S. Morris stood one day. "It is beautiful, "he observed, "and it reminds me of a story about Whistler--not a veryappropriate or poetical one, perhaps. But here it is, anyhow. Whistlerone summer day took a walk through the Downs with three or four youngmen. They stopped at an ale-house and called for beer. Tankards wereset 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 theerror traveled far, Whistler took no pains to correct it. "My dearcousin Kate, " he said to Mrs. Livermore, "if any one likes to think Iwas born in Baltimore, why should I deny it? It is of no consequenceto me. "

 * * * * *

A chance American introduced himself by saying: "You know, Mr. Whistler, we were born at Lowell, and at very much the same time. Youare sixty-seven and I am sixty-eight. "

"Very charming, " he replied. "And so you are sixty-eight and were bornat Lowell. Most interesting, no doubt, and as you please! But I shallbe born when and where I want, and I do not choose to be born inLowell and I refuse to be sixty-seven!"

 * * * * *

"Don't be afraid, " said Whistler to Howard Paul, who recoiled from thepresence of a huge dog because he did not like the look in theanimal's eyes. "Look at his tail--how it wags. When a dog wags histail 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 withWhistler 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 agoto breakfast, and I go. My cab-fare two shilling, 'arf crown. Iarrive. Very nice. Goldfish in bowl. Very pretty. But breakfast! Oneegg, one toast, no more! Ah, no! My cab-fare back, two shilling, 'arfcrown. For me no more!"

 * * * * *

A. G. Plowden, the London police magistrate, attended a private view atGrosvenor Gallery. The first person he met was Whistler. He tookPlowden, very amiably, to his full-length portrait of Lady ArchibaldCampbell, where, after sufficiently expressing his admiration, Plowdenasked if there were any other pictures he ought to see. 

"Other pictures!" cried Whistler, in a tone of horror. "Otherpictures! There are no other pictures! You are through!"

 * * * * *

Dining at a Paris restaurant in his early days, Mr. Whistler noted thestruggle 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 myorder without assistance!"

"Can you indeed?" quoth Whistler, airily. "I fancied the contrary justnow, when I heard you desire the waiter to bring you a pair ofstairs. "

 * * * * *

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 anote. In a few moments a great noise revealed the fact that he hadfallen 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 twostood before the canvas for some moments in silence. Finally thejunior 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, "withlong, slender fingers and delightful articulations. American girls'hands come next; they are a little narrow and thin. The hands of theEnglish 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 forthe hands, and I think Irish eyes are also the most beautiful. "

An American artist studying in Paris, like many others, was too poorto have a perfect wardrobe. Strolling on the Boulevard, he heard acall and, turning, saw Whistler hastening toward him, waving his longblack 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 holein 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 nooffspring. "

 * * * * *

Whistler once took Horne, his framer, to look at one of his paintingsat the exhibition. 

"Well, Horne, " he asked, "what do you think of it?"

"Think of it?" he cried, enthusiastically. "Why, sir, it'sperfect--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 talkingabout the frame. "

 * * * * *

"Well, Mr. Whistler, how are you getting on?" said an undesirableacquaintance 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 crudedraughtsman, had a fine imagination. Whistler was asked to look oversome 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 needto. "

 * * * * *

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 betweenmatches, too, if you will only look closely enough, but they all makeabout the same blaze. "

 * * * * *

A certain gentleman whose portrait Whistler had painted failed toappreciate 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 yourselfa great work of nature!"

 * * * * *

The artist and a friend strolled along the Thames Embankment onewonderfully starry night. Whistler was in a discontented mood andfound fault with everything. The houses were ugly, the river not whatit might have been, the lights hard and glaring. The friend pointedout several things that appealed to him as beautiful, but the masterwould not give in. 

"No, " he said, "nature is only sometimes beautiful--onlysometimes--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 exactingdetails vanish; everything trivial disappears, and I see things asthey are, in great, strong masses; the buttons are lost, but thegarment remains; the garment is lost, but the sitter remains; thesitter is lost, but the shadow remains; the shadow is lost, but thepicture remains. And that, night cannot efface from the painter'simagination. "

 * * * * *

Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, of the classic brush, loved yellow, a colorwhich Whistler had annexed unto himself. Sir Laurence in employing thecolor in his decorations did not consider himself a plagiarist. He hadnot seen Whistler's. This defense led to a war of words. Whistlerbroke out:

"Sly Alma! His Romano-Dutch St. John's wooden eye has never lookedupon them, and the fine jaundice of his flesh is none of the jaundiceof my yellows. To-de-ma-boom-de-ay!"

 * * * * *

Seated in a stall at the West End Theater one evening, he wasconstantly irritated by his next neighbor--a lady--who not only wentout between the acts, but several times while the curtain was up. Thespace between the run of seats was narrow, and the annoyance as shesqueezed past was considerable. 

"Madam, " he said at last, "I trust I do not incommode you by keepingmy 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 inBoston. He refused, saying:

"God bless me! Why should you hold an exhibition of pictures inAmerica? 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 andstatues? Is it not in black and white that the works of the greatmasters must not enter America, that they are not wanted? A peoplethat tolerate such a law have no love for art; their protestation ismere pretense. "

 * * * * *

Asked by a lady if a certain picture in a gallery was not indecent, hereplied:

"No, madam. But your question is!"

Mark Twain visited the studio and, assuming an air of hopelessstupidity, approached a nearly completed painting and said:

"Not at all bad, Mr. Whistler; not at all bad. Only here in thiscorner, " he added, reflectively, with a motion as if to rub out acloud 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 thepaint is not yet dry?"

"Oh, don't mind that, " said Mark, sweetly. "I am wearing gloves, yousee!"

They got on after that. 

 * * * * *

In Paris, Whistler and an English painter got into a turbulent talkover Velasquez at a studio tea. In the course of the argument Whistlerpraised himself extravagantly. 

"It's a good thing we can't see ourselves as others see us, " sneeredthe Briton. 

"Isn't it, though?" rejoined Whistler, gently. "I know in my case Ishould grow intolerably conceited. "

 * * * * *

Financial necessities once caused the sale of Whistler's choicefurnishings. Some of the family, returning to the house during hisabsence, found the floor covered with chalk diagrams, the largest ofwhich was labeled: "This is the dining-table. "

Surrounding it were a number of small squares, each marked: "This is achair. "

Another square: "This is the sideboard. "

 * * * * *

Cope Whitehouse once described a boat-load of Egyptians "floating downthe Nile with the thermometer one hundred and twenty degrees in theshade, and no shade. "

"And no thermometer, " interjected Whistler. 

 * * * * *

A lady sitter brought a cat with her and placed it on her knee. Thecat was nervous and yowled continuously. 

"Madam, " said the vexed artist, "will you have the cat in theforeground or in the back yard?"

 * * * * *

While painting one of his famous nocturnes a critic of considerablepretensions called. "Good heavens, Whistler!" he cried, "what in theworld are you splashing at?"

"I am teaching art to posterity, " Whistler replied, quietly. 

"Oh!" said the critic, visibly relieved. "I was afraid you werepainting for the Royal Academy. "

"Oh, no, " answered Whistler; "they do not want masterpieces there, butsome of their picture-frames are exquisite and really worth bus-fareto look at. "

 * * * * *

Walking in the Champs-Elysées in Paris one morning, Whistler heard oneEnglishman 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'sthe greatest painter on earth. "

Walking up to the pair, Whistler held out his hand and said gravely tothe last speaker:

"Sir, I beg your acceptance of these ten centimes. Go buy yourself alittle hay!"

 * * * * *

Sitting for a portrait was an ordeal. Many were quite upset after asiege in the studio. One man annoyed the artist by saying at eachdismissal:

"How-about that ear, Mr. Whistler? Don't forget to finish that. " Atthe 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 verysolemn and important way. 

"But my ear!" exclaimed the victim. "You're not going to leave it thatway?"

"Oh, " said Whistler, grimly, "you can put it in after you get home. "

 * * * * *

He occasionally contemplated visiting America in his late years, butthe dread of the journey was too much for him to overcome. "If Iescape the Atlantic, " he said, "I shall be wrecked by some reporter atthe 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 aprophet. "

 * * * * *

Sir Rennell Rodd recalled that at a breakfast Waldo Story gave atDieu-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 apicture, or having in some way outraged the Philistine, with theexception of one young gentleman whose _raison d'être_ was not soapparent as his high collar and the glory of his attire. Henevertheless intruded boldly into the talk and laid down his opinionsvery flatly. He even went so far as to combat some dictum of themaster's, whereat that gentleman adjusted his glasses and, lookingpleasantly at the youth, queried:

"And whose son are you?"

When Dorothy Menpes was a babe in the cradle a white feather layacross her infant brow. The sight pleased Whistler. "That child isgoing to develop into something great, " he prophesied, "for see, shebegins with a feather, just like me. "

 * * * * *

In the last two years of his life Mr. Whistler's disputes grew lessfrequent and his public flashes were few. The _Morning Post_ ofLondon, however, provoked an admirable specimen of his best style, which it printed under date of August 6th, 1902. In its "Art andArtists" column the paper had made the following statement:

"Mr. Whistler is so young in spirit that his friends must have readwith surprise the Dutch physician's announcement that the presentillness is due to 'advanced age. ' In England sixty-seven is notexactly regarded as 'advanced age, ' but even for the gay 'butterfly'time does not stand still, and some who are unacquainted with thedetails of Mr. Whistler's career, though they know his work well, willbe surprised to learn that he was exhibiting at the Academyforty-three years ago. His contributions to the exhibition of 1859were 'Two Etchings from Nature, ' and at intervals during the followingfourteen or fifteen years Mr. Whistler was represented at the Academyby a number of works, both paintings and etchings. In 1863 hiscontributions numbered seven in all, and in 1865 four. Among hisAcademy pictures of 1865 was the famous 'Little White Girl, ' thepainting that attracted so much attention at the Paris Exhibition of1900. This picture--rejected at the Salon of 1863--was inspired, though the fact seems to have been forgotten of late, by the followinglines 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 briskreply:

I feel it no indiscretion to speak of my "convalescence, " since youhave given it official existence. 

May I, therefore, acknowledge the tender little glow of health inducedby reading, as I sat here in the morning sun, the flattering attentionpaid 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 iswith almost sorrow that I must beg you, perhaps, to put back into itspigeonhole for later on this present summary and replace it withsomething preparatory, which, doubtless, you have also ready. 

This will give you time, however, for some correction--if really it beworth while--but certainly the "Little White Girl, " which was notrejected at the Salon of '63, was, I am forced to say, not "inspiredby the following lines of Swinburne, " for the one simple reason thatthose lines were only written, in my studio, after the picture waspainted. And the writing of them was a rare and graceful tribute fromthe poet to the painter--a noble recognition of work by the productionof a nobler one!

Again, of the many tales concerning the hanging at the Academy of thewell-known portrait of the artist's mother, now at the Luxembourg, oneis true--let us trust your gentleman may have time to find itout--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 myown hair and eyebrows, after distinguished confrères and eminentpersons had long ceased their habit, has, I gather, clearly givenpain. This, I see, is much remarked on. It is even found inconsiderateand unseemly in me, as hinting at affectation. 

I might beg you, sir, to find a pretty place for this, that I wouldmake my apology, containing also promise, in years to come, to losethese outer signs of vexing presumption. 

Protesting, with full enjoyment of its unmerited eulogy, against yourpremature tablet, I ask you again to contradict it, and appeal to yourown sense of kind sympathy when I tell you I learn that I have lurkingin London still "a friend"--though for the life of me I cannotremember 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 pieceof his mind _via_ the newspaper channel, under date of May 8th, 1903, This grew out of a complication in which Mr. Low became involved withthe Hanging Committee of the Society of American Artists over theplacing in its exhibition of "Rosa Corder" and two marines by Whistlerborrowed from Charles L. Freer, of Detroit, on the condition that theybe hung "in a good position. " The position selected did not suit Mr. Low, and he withdrew the pictures. Mr. Whistler sent his remonstranceto the _Sun's_ London office, from which it was cabled to New York andpublished on May 9th, as follows:

"I had waited for Mr. Low to publish my reply to a letter from himselfconcerning the withdrawal of my pictures from the Society of AmericanArtists. 

"This gentle opinion of my own upon the situation is, I understand, expert. I therefore inclose it to you for publication. I have thehonor to be, dear sir, your obedient servant. "

The remarks to Mr. Low read:

"I have just learned with distress that my canvases have been atrouble and a cause of thought to the gentlemen of the HangingCommittee!

"Pray present to them my compliments and my deep regrets. 

"I fear also that this is not the first time of simple andgood-natured intrusion--looking in, as who would say, with beamingfellowship and crass camaraderie upon the highly finished table andwell-seated guests--to be kindly and swiftly shuffled into somefurther respectable place--that all be well and hospitality endure. 

"Promise, then, for me, that I have learned and that 'this shall notoccur again. ' And, above all, do not allow a matter of colossalimportance to ever interfere with the afternoon habit of peace andgood will, and the leaf of the mint so pleasantly associated with thissociety. 

"I could not be other than much affected by your warm and immediatedemonstration, but I should never forgive myself were the consequenceof lasting vexation to your distinguished confrères. "

THE END