WHISTLER
A familiar voice said, "Come!"
It was Whistler's voice. I turned and answered, "All right. Where?"
The slender, dapper figure halted; over the quizzical face a look of
astonishment flashed; the flat-brimmed silk hat lifted perceptibly by
the contortion of an eyebrow; and the immortal monocle dropped into the
right hand as was its habit when punctuating a sentence of its
controller. The monocle was Whistler's question mark, his exclamation
point, his full stop; it served even as parenthesis when occasion
demanded.
"Where," replied Whistler, "where should an honest Londoner go at this
hour but home to dine? Come, then! Escape the awful gaze of the rude
world. We 're blocking Bond Street. Let's call a worthy hansom."
A hansom worthy of its fare was found by searching,--varnished,
resplendent; it bore a striped awning, and its driver was smart and
wore a boutonniere; and its horse shone and arched a proud neck. We
were at Chelsea in ten minutes. We were {158} neighbours there.
Stopping the cab at the Tower House, in Tite Street, Whistler alighted,
exclaiming:
"And the painter and his bride said 'come.' We are not out of the
packing cases yet; but come in. I 've something to show you. You must
stay and dine, or I won't show you what it is."
And we mounted to his flat.
Mrs. Whistler knew that I was accustomed to "Jimmie's" ways, and so she
affected no surprise when she met us at the door and learned that I had
come to dinner. She merely said, as if it were all in the day's work:
"We 've just moved in. Pardon the chairs. Let's make a housewarming
of it."
It was easy to "pardon the chairs", for there were none to pardon,--in
the drawing-room to which I was shown. There were only unpacked
packing cases. And I sat on one. Whistler turned on the lights and
then darted into another room from which he returned speedily, showing
his roguish smile and carrying in his hands a bundle of printer's
proofs which he laid beside me on my packing case. Standing over them,
screwing his monocle into his eye, he said:
"There 's the thing I wanted to show you; my _magnum opus_: 'The Gentle
Art of Making Enemies.' Do you mind looking 'em over, with an eye to
correction, while you wait? My idea 's a brown paper cover like the
'Ten O'Clock.'"
And with that he darted out again, returning immediately with a box of
cigars and a case filled with cigarettes.
{159}
"Burnt offering to the High Gods," he said. "I go to prepare the
libations."
And he went.
Mrs. Whistler, after a few gracious words, went also, presumably to
give directions for the table. I was left to myself, the packing
cases, the proofs, and the cigars. My watch said seven thirty, and
presently seven forty-five, and, on the heels of that, eight o'clock.
I was interested, but I was also hungry. But neither of the Whistlers
had yet reappeared. Meantime I read on and on, admiring immensely and
chuckling every minute or two over the stupidities, the jealousies, the
ridiculous follies of mankind as revealed in "The Gentle Art." And it
was nine o'clock! Jimmie came in with a fat bundle of newspaper
clippings.
"Read!" he cried. "Some of these should be included, don't you think
so? Hope you are not hungry!" Then he disappeared again.
I was too hungry to smoke.
There were sounds occasionally from beyond the closed door. Although
noncommittal, they were encouraging; they at least indicated human
presence and the probability, in an uncertain future, of food. At nine
forty-five I had reached the end of the proofs, the press clippings,
and almost of patience, when Jimmie came tripping in with pantomimic
action which meant abasement and a plea for mercy. Then said he:
"I fear the Lord hath made me forgetful of time. But there 's
atonement toward. Have you read 'em? Oh, Sheridan, Sheridan Ford,
thou naughty {160} one, prepare for doom! Madame, I pray you do the
honours."
And Mrs. Whistler, who had appeared behind him, enchanted me by saying,
"Dinner is served."
It was ten o'clock! The Whistlerian hour.
I do not know what they had been doing. Had they been unpacking china
and linen and chairs, while the maid foraged the neighbouring shops?
Had an unpremeditated feast produced itself by Jimmie's conjuring? Had
Jimmie cooked the dinner while Mrs. Whistler arranged the table with
its dainty ware, and silver, and soft linen, and shaded lights? Or had
they reversed the parts? I shall never know. But there was the
daintiest, most delicious dinner, most charmingly served, and there
were two or three kindly wines, a coffee that the master himself had
prepared, and a soothing _liqueur_ from his beloved Paris. It was a
dinner that more than reconciled one to perishing on a packing case.
And through it all Whistler summed up his philosophy of life and art,
as previously and subsequently he had set it forth elsewhere. We sat
till long after midnight in high session, debating selections from
press clippings which had been showered upon him by his "excellent
Romeike." "Shall I put in this, or omit that? Here 's something too
good to lose!" And so, with what he called "infinite jerriment",
another portion of "The Gentle Art" began to take shape. In its
further progress I had no hand, as I was off to America in a day or
two, and Jimmie needed no aid in goading his solicitors to the pursuit
of Sheridan Ford who had, Whistler {161} said, infringed his literary
rights. The pursuit of Sheridan was an epic which aroused more than
nine days' wonder; it led from London to Antwerp, from Antwerp to
Paris, from Paris to New York and back to London again. The
"Extraordinary Piratical Plot" was defeated, the "piratical edition"
was suppressed, and, in the early summer of 1890, there appeared,
published by the graceful, sympathetic, and cordial aid of Mr. William
Heinemann _The Gentle Art of Making Enemies as Pleasingly Exemplified
in Many Instances, Wherein the Serious Ones of this Earth, Carefully
Exasperated, Have Been Prettily Spurred On to Unseemliness and
Indiscretion, While Overcome by an Undue Sense of Right_. The
dedication was no less characteristic:
"To the rare Few, who, early in Life, have rid Themselves of the
Friendship of the Many, these pathetic Papers are inscribed."
Upon my return from America I found the Whistlers established at Number
21 Cheyne Walk a few steps from my own door. It was not Whistler's
good fortune to live long in any house, at any rate in those years. He
had two years, or something less, at Tower House, and something less, I
think, at Cheyne Walk, and, in April or May, 1892, he removed to Paris.
After that I saw him but seldom, for my wanderings upon the face of the
planet were to increase and multiply. But during the '88-'92 period he
was often in my home. It was his peculiarity and privilege not to come
when he was asked, or expected, but invariably to arrive as a sudden
gift from the gods, and for the most part {162} he chose the
Sunday-evening "Smoke Talks" rather than the suppers, because at the
latter he would be more likely to encounter some of "the Serious Ones
of this Earth", already "carefully exasperated", in which case he would
be bored, while at the former he would be sure to meet the choicest
talkers at a late hour. He would drop in at eleven, or at midnight,
and stay till two in the morning with half a dozen congenial beings who
would not only relish his wit, but sparkle with their own, and who were
capable of appreciating him as an artist without requiring explanatory
charts and diagrams.
One such evening we had been talking of Carlyle, who had lived around
the corner in Cheyne Row. Whistler told some pleasant anecdote of him.
"There!" exclaimed Theodore Wores, a disciple of Whistler's, "I always
thought Carlyle was not so black as he 's painted."
Whistler sprang to his feet, and falling back in mock horror, cried, as
he stared at Wores, "_Et tu, Brute?_"
The room shook with laughter.
On another occasion a well-known critic was laying down the law about
somebody's "technique." He appealed to Whistler for confirmation.
"My dear fellow," said Whistler, "that's an opinion one would wish to
express _diffidently_." Among his hearers was an artist accustomed to
illustrate in Punch some of the "Things one would wish to express
differently."
You know what Whistler said to the Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward
VII) at an Exhibition {163} of the Royal Society of British Artists.
Whistler, recently elected president, was showing the Prince around the
galleries.
"What is the history of your Society?" asked the Prince.
"It has none, Sir; its history begins to-day," was the quick reply. It
fitted like a glove. There were sleepy years behind; and anything you
like later. Whistler stirred up the pools of somnolence. He did not
stir them long, for the British artists of those days, whether or not
they were interested in art, preferred Britons for presidents. I
daresay they were right.
One afternoon he came to my flat with the tall bamboo wand which he
often used, in Chelsea at any rate, instead of a walking stick. He was
of a phenomenal slenderness, which was emphasised by the long wand, and
the long, flat-brimmed hat, and the long, black, tight coat. He had
yellow gloves, and his little soft shoes--his feet were the smallest I
ever saw on a man--were the last word in daintiness. No London maker
could have produced them. Jimmie was always, at all points,
fastidious. He gesticulated more than any Briton, but his
gesticulations were not Parisian, they were Whistlerian. He pointed
dramatically to the ceiling and murmured, "White, all white."
"White." Then to the walls--"All white. And a white you can wash!
Londoners forget that they must live in their houses in winter. All
their colours are dismal, and there 's no sun."
"Apropos?" I was about to enquire.
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"Didn't you tell me, the other day, that you intended redecorating this
place?"
"Sometime, when my ship comes in."
"It doesn't need a ship. A navy wouldn't do for Cheyne Walk. May I
offer a suggestion?"
"The knowledge of a lifetime," said I, quoting his famous hit at the
Ruskin trial.
"Very well then; I 'll come in."
And he went all around the flat, pointing here and there with his
bamboo wand, and saying, "Such-and-such a colour here, and such a line
there. My dear boy, this is the whole secret,--tone and line. The
good colour--the right one--and the good line--the right one--cost no
more than the wrong. People overlook these things; they forget them,
they ignore them altogether, and then have the misfortune to live.
They don't go mad, because they 're British. And you 'll not, because
you 'll have the right colour and the right line. Come. Let's walk.
I 'm free for the evening. We 'll dine at the Club."
That was Whistler, Whistler the neighbour, the phase of him that I knew
quite as well as any other phase. Later on, when I "did up" my flat, I
remembered the details of his suggestions, and carried them out. The
result was that I had one of the most delightful flats in London.
The appreciation of those who understood warmed his heart. He had had
to fight his way from the beginning against the least imaginative, the
stodgiest, the narrowest, the most unsympathetic criticism, and the
most prejudiced, because the least {165} enlightened public (as to art)
in the world. But his fighting was not for his own hand merely; he was
the champion of art as against ignorance, complacent or aggressive.
It is difficult to believe now that for many years in the last century
Whistler's work was opposed with rancour, or bitterly derided. Now the
world salutes his memory as that of a master; then he was called a
coxcomb, a charlatan, an impostor, excepting by "the rare Few" who had
rid themselves of the blighting ignorances of the many. There were
many pigmies who, because they walked on stilts, were thought to be
giants in those days. Their stilts warped, or broke long ago, their
lights have dimmed with the passing years, or their names are
remembered merely as having been targets for Whistler's wit. Had he
not "killed" these men, their existence would have been forgotten.
As I have said already, it was not Whistler the fighter, nor Whistler
the "airy-incomprehensible" whom I saw most frequently in Carlyle
Mansions, but Whistler the neighbour. I do not remember that any one
has ever written of him in that character. He used to drop in on
dreary, rainy evenings when, he said, "the world depressed" him, or
when some happy stroke of fortune had gratified him. Or he would come
on moonlit nights and gaze from my high windows where the views of
Thames were quite remarkable, and drop his fighting mood, his satire,
his butterfly attributes. I had called him "the butterfly with the
sting." The phrase pleased him. "Yes, there you have me," he said.
{166} But he would drop the sting, and the monocle, and the air of the
sprite, and would be quite human, almost "One of the serious of this
Earth." One night he came jubilantly, and no sooner had he lost
himself in a grandfather's chair by the fireplace, than he said, with a
kind of moan:
"He's gone!"
"Who's gone?" I asked.
"My old friend Thomas Carlyle. He lived with me many a year, and I
sold him to-day for a base thousand pounds." This with a touch of
sadness, permitting the monocle to drop into his right hand, and gazing
reflectively at the fire. Then, with a sudden turn towards me: "The
Mun-eeee-ci-pal Corrrrporration o' Glasgie has purchased it for its
Arrt Museum." The monocle was thrust to the eye again where it seemed
to flash the question, "What do you think of that?"
I thought very well of it, and said something to the effect that it was
a wise city which knew enough to buy such a masterpiece.
"Surprising, is n't it?" said Whistler, and then he told me that a
committee of braw Scots had called at his studio to conduct the
negotiations for Glasgow. His mimicry of the baillies I will not try
to reproduce here. Type cannot present it. Action, expression,
accent, all are lost. It was a delightful imitation, and I shouted
with laughter when Whistler mounted the climax of his story:
"'But Mr. Wheestler,' said one of the baillies, by way of expostulation
over the price I had modestly suggested, 'but Mr. Wheestler, this is a
moderrn {167} paainting, an' I ken that moderrn paintings mostly faade.'
"Behold me there," continued Whistler, "the Butterfly Rampant, hotly
retorting, 'Gentlemen; you are mistaken. It is the damnation of modern
paintings that they do _not_ fade!'"
It was about the same time that France bought that other masterpiece,
the portrait of "The Artist's Mother." Whistler came to tell me a few
hours after the transfer to Paris had been arranged. He said quietly,
as if he were touched deeply,
"France gives me honour, and I accept the invitation for Mother.
Mother goes to the Luxembourg, and, after my death, to the Louvre.
They pay her expenses, for what more does the _honorarium_ amount to?
It's only one hundred and twenty pounds. But one cannot sell one's
Mother. She will be glad that I am represented in the Luxembourg, and
later in the Louvre. I am glad it is Mother who will represent me."
And then, probably because he feared that he was dropping into
sentiment, he broke off gaily with a jest about "another ghost who
haunted the pavements of Chelsea", a critic stung to death by the
Butterfly, "the late Harry Q--" still haunting Tite Street. "The late
Harry", it may be said to children of the present hour, was quite as
much alive as Whistler, and occupied--Whistler said "haunted"--the
house which Jimmie had built and which he had lost in bankruptcy.
I had received from a friend in Boston a letter asking if I would
"sound Whistler" about the {168} probability of his accepting a
commission for the decoration of some part of the Public Library. The
authorities hesitated about approaching him. They had an idea that his
attitude toward America was antagonistic, they knew he was "touchy";
they did not wish to submit a proposal, or to invite a suggestion, that
might, ninety-nine chances to one, evoke a scornful reply. He might
tell them he was not a housepainter. "You are a friend of his. Won't
you find out how he would receive a proposal, and advise us how best to
make an approach?"
One day when, like Rosalind, he was in "a coming-on disposition", I
asked, "What is your real attitude towards America?"
"I haven't any," said he. "How can a man have an attitude toward a
continent? Oh, there are the discerning; more of them, perhaps, over
there than here. But there 's no 'public taste' there nor here. There
never was 'public taste' anywhere. There's only the relation of beauty
to the discerning. That's all. But the American mind is not closed.
The English mind is closed and bound. England wants art that tells
stories. I want art that tells of beauty."
"If the discerning in America were to say, 'There's Whistler now, an
American; we wish him to do a great public work'--for instance, a room
in the Boston Library, or something like that,--well, would you accept?"
"Of course! It would be the evidence of discernment that I 've been
waiting for. But there's no chance of it."
{169}
"Yes, there is; I assure you there is."
"If that's true, I'd really like it. I'd like it immensely."
"Hand on heart?"
"Hand on heart!"
The offer came to him, but, as far as I know, he never carried out the
work.
He left Chelsea soon after that, going to Paris to live. But before
going to Paris he met, at my home, my dearest friend, of whom I shall
write later. My friend is dead now, but he had produced then two
excellent novels and a successful play. Whistler expressed an interest
in him, and he looked in one evening to ask me if he might borrow the
books. I lent them to him. Here is another aspect of his entertaining
character. After he had been some months in Paris, I wrote to him
reminding him of the volumes, which, for certain personal reasons, the
author never permitted to be reprinted.
Fatal error!
Whistler never replied. I never saw him again. But that was Travel's
fault, not mine. I never heard again from Whistler. And he never
returned the books!
{170}