and its Future--An Interview with the New President"--a most appalling
volley of figures was fired off at _brûle-pour-point_ distance. Under
this deafening detonation I, having no habit, sat for days
incapable--dreaming vaguely that when a President should see fit to
wash his people's linen in the open, there must be indeed crime at
least on the part of the offender at whose instigation such official
sacrifice of dignity could come about. _I_ was the offender, and for a
while I sincerely believed that disaster had been brought upon this
Royal Society by my own casual self. But behold, upon closer
inspection, these threatening figures are meretricious and misleading,
as was the building account of the early Philanthropist who, in the
days of St. Paul, meant well, and was abruptly discouraged by that
clear-headed apostle.
Mr. Bayliss tells us that: "The sales of the Society during the
year 1881 were under," whatever that may mean, "£5000; 1882, under
£6000; 1883, under £7000; 1884, under £8000; in 1885 ('the first year
of Mr. Whistler's rule') they fell to under £4000; 1886, under £3000;
1887, under £2000; and the present year, under £1000."
But also Mr. Bayliss takes this rare occasion of attention, to assert
his various qualifications for his post as head of painters in the
street of Suffolk, and so we learn that he is:--
"Chairman of the Board-school in his own district," "Champion
chess-player of Surrey," "A member of the Diocesan Council of
Rochester," "Fellow of the Society of Cyclists," and "Public Orator of
Noviomagus."
As chess-player he may have intuitively bethought himself of a
move--possibly the happy one,--who knows?--which in the provinces
obtained him a cup; as Diocesan Councilman he may have supposed
Rochester indifferent to the means used for an end; but as Public
Cyclist of the Royal Society of Noviomagus his experience must be
opposed to any such bluff as going his entire pile on a left bower
only!
When I recovered my courage--what did I find?--first my unimpaired
intelligence, and then my memory.
Now, to my intelligence, it becomes patent that the chairman of a
Clapham School-board, proposes by his figures to prove, that the
income of the sacrificed Society had of late years steadily
increased:--"In 1881, under £5000; 1882, under £6000; 1883, under
£7000; 1884, under £8000," until, under the baneful reign of terror
and Whistler in 1885--"the first year" of the sacrilegious era--the
receipts fell to £4000--and have continued to decrease until, in this
present year, they fall to the miserable sum of under a thousand
pounds--a revelation! discreet, statesmanlike, and worthy the orator
at his best!
Unfortunately for the triumph of such audacious demonstration, my
revived memory points out that Mr. Whistler was only elected President
in June 1886, and, in conformity with the ancient rules and amusing
customs of the venerable body, only came into office six months
afterwards--that is, practically, in January 1887. Again, with this
last exhibition, he, as everybody knows, had nothing whatever to do.
Immediately, therefore, the conclusion is "quite other" than that put
forth by the Cyclist of his suburb, and we arrive at the, for once, not
unamusing "fact" that the disastrous and simple Painter Whistler only
took in hand the reins of government at least a year after the former
driver had been pitched from his box, and half the money-bags had
been already lost!--from £8000 to £4000 at one fatal swoop! and the
beginning of the end had set in! Indeed, this may have been one of the
strong reasons for his own election by an overwhelming minority of
hysterical and panic-stricken passengers.
Now, though he did his best, and cried aloud that the coach was safe,
and called it Royal, and proposed to carry the mail, confidence,
difficult to restore, waited for proof, and although fresh paint was
spread upon the panels, and the President coachman wore his hat with
knowing air, on one side and handled the ribbons lightly, and dandled
the drag, inviting jauntily the passer-by, the public recognized the
ramshackle old "conveyance," and scoffingly refused to trust
themselves in the hearse.
"Four thousand pounds!" down it went--£3000--£2000--the figures are
Wyke's--and this season, the ignominious "£1000 or under," is none of
my booking! and when last I saw the mad machine it was still cycling
down the hill.
[Illustration]
_The New Dynasty_
[Sidenote: _The Morning Post._]
Sir--Pray accept my compliments, and be good enough to inform me at
once by whose authority, and upon what pretence, the painting,
designed and executed by myself, upon the panel at the entrance of the
galleries of Suffolk Street, has been defaced. Tampering with the work
of an artist, however obscure, is held to be, in what might be called
the international laws of the whole Art world, so villainous an
offence, that I must at present decline to entertain the
responsibility of the very distinguished and Royal Society of British
Artists, for what must be due to the rash, and ill-considered, zeal of
some enthusiastic and untutored underling.
Awaiting your reply, I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient,
humble servant,
[Illustration]
[Sidenote: _Telegram to Council of Royal Society of
British Artists:_
"Congratulations upon dignity maintained as Artists left
in charge of a brother Artist's work, and upon graceful
bearing as officers toward their late
President."--WHISTLER.]
TO THE HON. SECRETARY
OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF BRITISH ARTISTS.
March 30, 1889.
_An Embroidered Interview_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 3, 1889.]
"Well, Mr. Whistler, they say they only painted out your butterfly
from the signboard, and changed the date. What do you say?"
"What do I say? That they have been guilty of an act of villainous
Vandalism."
"Will you tell me the history of the Board?"
"When I was elected to the presidency of the Society I offered to
paint a signboard which should proclaim to the passer-by the name and
nature of the Society. My offer was accepted, and the Board was sent
down to my studio, where I treated it as I should a most distinguished
sitter--as a picture or an etching--throwing my artistic soul into the
Board, which gradually became a Board no longer, as it grew into a
picture. You say they say it was only a butterfly. Mendacity could go
no further. I painted a _lion_ and a butterfly. The lion lay with the
butterfly--a harmony in gold and red, with which I had taken as much
trouble as I did with the best picture I ever painted. And now
they have clothed my golden lion clumsily, awkwardly, and timorously
with a dirty coat of black. My butterfly has gone, the checks and
lines, which I had treated decoratively, have disappeared. Am I not
justified in calling it a piece of gross Vandalism?"
"What course would you have recommended? You had gone; the Board
remained: perhaps it was weather-beaten--what could they do?"
"They should have taken the Board down, sir, taken the Board down, not
dared to destroy my work--taken the Board down, returned it to me, and
got another Board of their own to practise on. Good heavens! You say
to my face it was only a Board. You say they _only_ painted out my
butterfly. It is as if you were condoling with a man who had been
robbed and stripped, and said to him, 'Never mind. It is well it is no
worse. You have escaped easily. Why, you might have had your throat
cut.'"
And Mr. Whistler's Mephistophelian form disappeared into the black of
the night.
_The "Pall Mall" Puzzled_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, April 4, 1889.]
Mr. Whistler begs me to insert the following note exactly as it
stands. I haven't the slightest idea what it means, but here it is
with "_mes compliments_":--
"TO THE INTERVIEWER OF THE _Pall Mall Gazette_:
"Good! very good! Prettily put, as becomes the _Pall Mall_, and yet
you cannot be reproached with being 'too fine for your audience!'
"I wish I _could_ say these things as you do for me, even at the risk
of, at last, being understood. _Mes Compliments!_"
[Illustration]
_Official Bumbledom_
[Sidenote: To the Editor of _The Morning Post_]
Sir--As you have considered Mr. Whistler's letter worthy of
publication, I ask you to complete the publication by inserting this
simple statement of the facts as they occurred. The notice board of
the Royal Society of British Artists bears on a red ground, in letters
of gold, the title of the Society. To this Mr. Whistler, during his
presidency, added with his own hand a decorative device of a lion and
a butterfly. On the eve of our private view it was found that, while
the title of the Society, being in pure gold, remained untarnished,
Mr. Whistler's designs, being executed in spurious metals, had nearly
disappeared, and what little remained of them was of a dirty brown.
The board could not be put up in that state. The lion, however, was
not so badly drawn as to make it necessary to do anything more than
restore it in permanent colour, and that has accordingly been done.
But as the notice board was no longer the actual work of Mr.
Whistler, it would manifestly have been improper to have left the
butterfly (his well-known signature) attached to it, even if it had
not appeared in so crushed a state. The soiled butterfly was therefore
effaced.
Yours, &c.,
WYKE BAYLISS,
CLAPHAM.
April 1, 1889.
"_Aussi que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?_"
[Sidenote: _The Morning Post._]
Sir--I have read Mr. Bayliss's letter, and am disarmed. I feel the
folly of kicking against the parish pricks. These things are right in
Clapham, by the common.
"_V'là ce que c'est, c'est bien fait--
Fallait pas qu'il y aille! fallait pas qu'il y aille!_"
And when, one of these days, all traces of history shall, by dint of
much turpentine, and more Bayliss, have been effaced from the board
that "belongs to us," I shall be justified, and it will be boldly
denied by some dainty student that the delicate butterfly was _ever_
"soiled" in Suffolk Street.
Yours, &c.,
[Illustration]
_The Royal Society of British Artists and their Signboard_
[Sidenote: _The Athenæum_, April 27, 1889.]
Sir--The moment has now arrived when, it seems to me proper that, in
your journal, one of the recognized Art organs of the country, should
be recorded the details of an incident in which the element of grave
offence is, not unnaturally, quite missed by the people in their
indignation at the insignificance of the object to which public
attention has so unwarrantably been drawn--a "notice board"!--the
common sign of commerce!
Now, however slight might be the value of the work in question
destroyed, it is surely of startling interest to know that _work may
be destroyed_, or worse still, defaced and tampered with, at the
present moment in full London, with the joyous approval of the major
part of the popular press.
I leave to your comment the fact that in this instance the act is
committed with the tacit consent of a body of gentlemen officially
styled "artists," at the instigation of their president, as he
unblushingly acknowledges, and will here distinctly state that the
"notice board of the Royal Society of British Artists" _did not_ "bear
on a red ground, in letters of gold, the title of the Society," and
that "to this Mr. Whistler, during his presidency," _did not_ "add
with his own hand a decorative device of a lion and a butterfly." This
damning evidence, though in principle irrelevant--for what becomes of
the soul of a "Diocesan member of the Council of Clapham" is,
artistically, a matter of small moment--I nevertheless bring forward
as the only one that will at present be at all considered or even
understood.
The "notice board" was of the familiar blue enamel, well known in
metropolitan use, with white lettering, announcing that the exhibition
of the Incorporated Society of British Artists was held above, and
that for the sum of one shilling the public might enter.
I myself mixed the "red ground," and myself placed, "in letters of
gold, the" _new_ "title" upon it--in proper relation to the decorative
scheme of the whole design, of which it formed naturally an
all-important feature. The date was that of the Society's Royal grant,
and in commemoration of its new birth. With the offending Butterfly,
it has now been effaced in one clean sweep of independence, while the
lion, "not so badly drawn," was differently dealt with--it was
found not "necessary to do anything more than restore it in permanent
colour, and that," with a bottle of Brunswick black, "has accordingly
been done;" and, as Mr. Bayliss adds, with unpremeditated truth, in
the thoughtless pride of achievement, "the notice board was no longer
the actual work of Mr. Whistler!"
This exposure of Mr. Bayliss's direct method I have wickedly withheld,
in order that the Philistine impulse of the country should declare
itself in all its freshness of execration before it could be checked
by awkward discovery of mere mendacity, and a timid sense of danger,
called justice.
Everything has taken place as I pleasantly foresaw, and there is by
this time, with the silent exception of one or two cautious dailies,
scarcely a lay paper in the land that has been able to refrain from
joining in the hearty yell of delight at the rare chance of coarsely,
publicly, and safely insulting an artist! In this eagerness to affront
the man they have irretrievably and ridiculously committed themselves
to open sympathy with the destruction of his work.
I wish coldly to chronicle this fact in the archives of the _Athenæum_
for the future consideration of the cultured New Zealander.
[Illustration]
_An Official Letter_
Sir,--I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, officially
informing me that the Committee award me a second-class gold medal.
Pray convey my sentiments of tempered and respectable joy to the
gentlemen of the Committee, and my complete appreciation of the
second-hand compliment paid me.
And I have, Sir,
The honour to be
Your most humble, obedient servant,
J. MCNEILL WHISTLER.
[Illustration]
TO THE 1ST SECRETARY,
CENTRAL COMMITTEE,
INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION, MUNICH.
_The Home of Taste_
_The Ideas of Mr. Blankety Blank on House Decoration_
[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, Dec. 1, 1888.]
The other day I happened to call on Mr. Blank,--Japanese Blank, you
know, whose house is in far Fulham. The garden door flew open at my
summons, and my eye was at once confronted with a house, the hue of
whose face reminded me of a Venetian palazzo, for it was of a subdued
pink.... If the exterior was Venetian, however, the interior was a
compound of Blank and Japan. Attracted by the curiously pretty hall, I
begged the artist to explain this--the newest style of house
decoration.
I need not say that Blank, being a man of an _original_ turn of mind,
with the decorative bump strongly developed, holds what are at present
peculiar views upon wall papers, room tones, and so on. The day is
dark and gloomy, yet once within the halls of Blank there is sweetness
and light.
You must look through the open door into a luminous little chamber
covered with a soft wash of lemon yellow.
From the antechamber we passed through the open door into a large
drawing-room, of the same soft lemon-yellow hue. The blinds were down,
the fog reigned without, and yet you would have thought that the sun
was in the room.
Here let me pause in my description, and put on record the gist of our
conversation concerning the Home of Taste.
"Now, Mr. Blank, would you tell me how you came to prefer tones to
papers?"
"Here the walls used to be covered with a paper of a sombre green,
which oppressed me and made me sad," said Blank. 'Why cannot I bring
the sun into the house,' I said to myself, 'even in this land of fog
and clouds?' Then I thought of my experiment and invoked the aid of
the British house-painter. He brought his colours and his buckets, and
I stood over him as he mixed his washes.
"One night, when the work was nearing completion, one of them caught
sight of himself in the mirror, and remarked with astonishment upon
the loveliness of his own features. It was the lemon-yellow
beautifying the British workman's flesh tones.
"I assure you the effect of a room full of people in evening dress
seen against the yellow ground is extraordinary, and," added Blank,
"perhaps flattering."
"Then do I understand that you would remove all wall papers?"
"A good ground for distemper," chuckled Mr. Blank.
"But you propose to inaugurate a revolution."
"I don't go so far as that, but I am glad to be able to introduce my
ideas of house furnishing and house decoration to the public," said
Blank, "and I may tell you that when I go to America with my Paris
pictures, I shall try and decorate a house according to my own ideas,
and ask the Americans to think about the matter."
_Another Poacher in the Chelsea Preserves_
[Sidenote: _The World_, Dec. 26, 1888.]
Atlas--Nothing matters but the unimportant; so, at the risk of
advertising an Australian immigrant of Fulham--who, like the Kangaroo
of his country, is born with a pocket and puts everything into
it--and, in spite of much wise advice, we ought not to resist the joy
of noticing how readily a hurried contemporary has fallen a prey to
its superficial knowledge of its various departments, and, culminating
in a "Special Edition" last week to embody a lengthy interview headed
"The Home of Taste," has discovered again the nest of the mare that
was foaled years ago!
How, by the way, so smart a paper should have printed its _naïf_
emotions of ecstasy before the false colours which the "Kangaroo" has
hoisted over his bush, defies all usual explanation, but clearly the
jaunty reporter whose impudent familiarity, on a former memorable
occasion, achieved my wondering admiration, must have been, in stress
of business, replaced by a novice who had never breakfasted with
you and me, Atlas, and the rest of the world, in the "lemon-yellow,"
of whose beautiful tone he now, for the first time, is so completely
convinced.
The "hue" on the "face" of the Fulham "Palazzo" he moreover calls
"Venetian," and is pleased with it--and so was I, Atlas--_for I mixed
it myself_!
And yet, O Atlas, they say that I cannot keep a friend--my dear, I
cannot afford it--and _you_ only keep for me their scalps!
"Many, when a thing was lent them, reckoned it to be found, and put
them to trouble that helped them."
[Illustration]
_A Suggestion_
[Sidenote: _Truth_, March 28, 1889.]
A certain painter has given himself away to an American journalist,
unless that gentleman has romanced, in the _Philadelphia Daily News_.
According to him this person explained how he managed the press, and
how he claimed to be the inventor of the system associated with the
name of Mr. Whistler. The Art clubs and the studios have been flooded
with the _Philadelphia Daily News_. Mr. Whistler sent on his own copy
to the pretender, with the following note:--
"You will blow your brains out, of course. Pigott has shown you
what to do under the circumstances, and you know your way to
Spain. Good-bye!"
[Illustration]
_The Habit of Second Natures_
[Sidenote: _Truth_, Jan. 2, 1890.]
Most Valiant _Truth_--Among your ruthless exposures of the shams of
to-day, nothing, I confess, have I enjoyed with keener relish than
your late tilt at that arch-impostor and pest of the period--the
all-pervading plagiarist!
I learn, by the way, that in America he may, under the "Law of '84,"
as it is called, be criminally prosecuted, incarcerated, and made to
pick oakum, as he has hitherto picked brains--and pockets!
How was it that, in your list of culprits, you omitted that fattest of
offenders--our own Oscar?
His methods are brought again freshly to my mind, by the indefatigable
and tardy Romeike, who sends me newspaper cuttings of "Mr. Herbert
Vivian's Reminiscences," in which, among other entertaining anecdotes,
is told at length, the story of Oscar simulating the becoming pride of
author, upon a certain evening, in the club of the Academy students,
and arrogating to himself the responsibility of the lecture,
with which, at his earnest prayer, I had, in good fellowship, crammed
him, that he might not add deplorable failure to foolish appearance,
in his anomalous position, as art expounder, before his clear-headed
audience.
He went forth, on that occasion, as my St. John--but, forgetting that
humility should be his chief characteristic, and unable to withstand
the unaccustomed respect with which his utterances were received, he
not only trifled with my shoe, but bolted with the latchet!
Mr. Vivian, in his book, tells us, further on, that lately, in an
article in the _Nineteenth Century_ on the "Decay of Lying," Mr. Wilde
has deliberately and incautiously incorporated, "without a word of
comment," a portion of the well-remembered letter in which, after
admitting his rare appreciation and amazing memory, I acknowledge that
"Oscar has the courage of the opinions ... of others!"
My recognition of this, his latest proof of open admiration, I send
him in the following little note, which I fancy you may think _à
propos_ to publish, as an example to your readers, in similar
circumstances, of noble generosity in sweet reproof, tempered, as it
should be, to the lamb in his condition:--
"Oscar, you have been down the area again, I see!
"I had forgotten you, and so allowed your hair to grow over the sore
place. And now, while I looked the other way, you have stolen _your
own scalp_! and potted it in more of your pudding.
"Labby has pointed out that, for the detected plagiarist, there is
still one way to self-respect (besides hanging himself, of course),
and that is for him boldly to declare, 'Je prends mon bien là où je le
trouve.'
"You, Oscar, can go further, and with fresh effrontery, that will
bring you the envy of all criminal _confrères_, unblushingly boast,
'Moi, je prends _son_ bien là où je le trouve!'"
Chelsea.
[Illustration]
_In the Market Place_
[Sidenote: _Truth_, Jan. 9, 1890.]
Sir--I can hardly imagine that the public are in the very smallest
degree interested in the shrill shrieks of "Plagiarism" that proceed
from time to time out of the lips of silly vanity or incompetent
mediocrity.
However, as Mr. James Whistler has had the impertinence to attack me
with both venom and vulgarity in your columns, I hope you will allow
me to state that the assertions contained in his letters are as
deliberately untrue as they are deliberately offensive.
The definition of a disciple as one who has the courage of the
opinions of his master is really too old even for Mr. Whistler to be
allowed to claim it, and as for borrowing Mr. Whistler's ideas about
art, the only thoroughly original ideas I have ever heard him express
have had reference to his own superiority as a painter over painters
greater than himself.
It is a trouble for any gentleman to have to notice the
lucubrations of so ill-bred and ignorant a person as Mr. Whistler, but
your publication of his insolent letter left me no option in the
matter.--I remain, Sir, faithfully yours,
OSCAR WILDE.
_Panic_
[Sidenote: _Truth_, Jan. 16, 1890.]
O truth!--Cowed and humiliated, I acknowledge that our Oscar is at
last original. At bay, and sublime in his agony, he certainly has, for
once, borrowed from no living author, and comes out in his own true
colours--as his own "gentleman."
How shall I stand against his just anger, and his damning allegations!
for it must be clear to your readers, that, beside his clean polish,
as prettily set forth in his epistle, I, alas! am but the "ill-bred
and ignorant person," whose "lucubrations" "it is a trouble" for him
"to notice."
Still will I, desperate as is my condition, point out that though
"impertinent," "venomous," and "vulgar," he claims me as his
"master"--and, in the dock, bases his innocence upon such relation
between us.
In all humility, therefore, I admit that the outcome of my "silly
vanity and incompetent mediocrity," must be the incarnation: "Oscar
Wilde." _Mea culpa!_ the Gods may perhaps forgive and forget.