Whistler used coloured paper for the pastels because it gave him,

without any work, the foundation of his colour-scheme in the simplest

manner, and because he could work straight away on it, and not ruin

the surface and tire himself getting the tone. Bacher describes him in

his gondola laden with pastels. But his materials were so few that he

could wander on foot in the narrow streets, the best way to work as

everyone who has worked in Venice knows. For it is difficult to find

again a place, and impossible to see again the effect, that fascinated

you. He carried only a little portfolio or drawing-board, some sheets

of tinted paper, black chalk, half a dozen pastels, and varnished

or silver-coated paper to cover the drawing when finished. Once he

found what he wanted, he made a sketch in black chalk and then with

pastel hinted the colour of the walls, the shutters, the spots of the

women's dresses, putting in the colour as in mosaic or stained glass

between the black lines, never painting, but noting the right touch

in the right place, keeping the colour pure. It looked so easy, "only

the doing it was the difficulty," he would say. When he finished the

drawings he showed them. Mr. Scott recalls that "the latest pastels

used to be brought out for inspection. Whistler would always show his

sketches in his own way or not at all. In the absence of a proper easel

and a proper light, they were usually laid on the floor."

[Illustration: WHISTLER IN HIS STUDIO

OIL

In the Chicago Art Institute

(_See page 130_)]

[Illustration: MAUD STANDING

ETCHING. G. 114

(_See page 125_)]

The "painter fellows" were startled by their brilliancy, Whistler told

his mother, and he thought rather well of them himself.

The pastels have been praised with the inconsequence characteristic of

so much praise of his work. The drawing often is either not good in

itself or so slight as to be of little importance. The beauty is in the

suggestion of colour or the arrangement of line. Though he passed the

spring, summer, winter, and part of two autumns in the city there is

no attempt, save in a few sunsets, to give atmospheric effect, or the

season, or the time of year. What he saw that pastel would do, what he

made it do, was to record certain lines and to suggest certain colours.

Critics and artists, having never studied pastel, were unaware of what

had been done with it. The revival did not come for some years after

Whistler showed his Venetian series, when there was a "boom" all over

the world, and pastel societies were started, most of which have since

collapsed.

The "boom" in etching commenced years before Whistler went to Venice.

There were standards: Whistler had already accomplished great things,

after a formula laid down by Dürer, Rembrandt, and Hollar. Therefore,

when he made etchings which struck the uncritical, and even those who

cared, as something new, the uncritical were shocked because their

preconceived notions were upset, and those who cared were astonished.

The difference between the Venetian and the London plates was so great

that the two series might be attributed to two men. This was due

partly to the difference between London and Venice seen by an artist

sensitive to the character of places, but more to the difference of

technique between the earlier and the later plates. Not so many years

ago, talking to him about this subject, we said that the Venetian

plates seemed to be done in a new way. It so happened that the _Adam

and Eve--Old Chelsea_ and _The Traghetto_ were, as they are now,

hanging almost side by side on our walls. In five minutes he proved

that one was the outgrowth of the other, and that there was a natural

development from the beginning of his work. Until the London Memorial

Exhibition it was impossible to trace this, because the prints had

never been hung together chronologically, not even at the Grolier Club,

in New York, where, for want of space, two separate shows were made.

Before Whistler exhibited his Venetian plates most people knew nothing

but the French Set and the Thames Set. The intermediate stages had not

been followed, and the Venetian plates seemed a new thing. But the

difference between them and the Thames series is one of development.

Whistler always spoke of the _Black Lion Wharf_ as boyish, though it

is impossible to conceive of anything of its kind more complete. His

estimate has been accepted by many. Mr. Bernhard Sickert, in writing

of it, thinks it misleading to say that every tile, every beam has

been drawn. "These details are merely filled in with a certain number

of strokes of a certain shape, accepted as indicating the materials

of which they are constructed." When an etching is in pure line and

owes little to the printer, as in this case, it is the wonderful

arrangement of lines, the wonderful lines themselves, which make you

feel that everything, every beam and every tile, has been drawn; that

every detail actually has been drawn we did not suppose anybody would

be so absurd as to imagine. The character of the lines gives you this

impression, which is exactly what the artist wanted, and this is what

proved Whistler an impressionist. Another critic has said that Whistler

exhausted all his blacks on the houses. He did nothing of the sort. He

concentrated them there, and did not take away from the interest of the

wharf he was drawing by an equal elaboration in the boats, the barges,

and the figures. As he learned more he gave up his literal, definite

method. Instead of drawing the panes of a window in firm outline, he

suggested them by drawing the shadows and the reflected lights with

short strokes, and scarcely any outline. In the London plates he

got the effect on his buildings by different bitings. In Venice he

suggested the shadows. In both, the figures in movement are nearly

the same, but there is a great advance in the drawing in the Venice

plates, where they give the feeling of life. In the _Millbank_ and the

_Lagoon_, the subjects, or the dominating lines in the subjects, are

the same, a series of posts carrying the eye from the foreground to

the extreme distance, but their treatment in the Venetian plate, as

well as the drawing of the figures, is more expressive. Simplicity

of expression has never been carried further. Probably the finest

plate, in its simplicity and directness, is _The Bridge_. Whistler now

obtained the quality of richness by suggesting detail, and also by

printing. In _The Traghetto_ there is the same scheme as in _The Miser_

and _The Kitchen_, but the Venice plate is more painter-like. Without

taking away from the etched line he has given a fullness of tone which

makes the background of _The Burgomaster Six_ weak in comparison. And

he knew this.

He was doing his own printing for the first time to any extent. There

were a hundred prints of the first Venice Set. All were not pulled

by him, and the difference between his printing and Goulding's, done

after his death, is unmistakable. In the hand of any professional

printer plates like _The Traghetto_ and _The Beggars_ would be a

mass of scratches, though scratches of interest to the artist; it

required Whistler's printing to bring out what he wanted. And it is

the more surprising that he could print in Venice, so primitive was

the press. Bacher had a portable press, but most was done on the old

press. Whistler protested against the professional printer, his pot of

treacle and his couches of ink. But no great artist ever carried the

printing of etchings so far or made such use of printer's ink as he did

in these plates. Without the wash of ink, they would be ghosts, and

he was justified in printing as he wanted to get what he wished. And

he used ink in all sorts of ways on the same plate, he tried endless

experiments with ever-varying results, even to cover up the weak lines

of an indifferent design, as in _Nocturne--Palaces_, prized highly by

collectors, but one of his poorest Venice plates. It, and _The Garden_,

_Nocturne--Shipping_, and one or two besides are by no means equal to

the others in line, though some of his prints of these are superb. But

there are no such perfect plates in the world as _The Beggars_, _The

Traghetto_, the two _Rivas_, _The Bridge_, and _Rialto_.

While printing Whistler continually worked on his plates, and instead

of there being--as the authorities say--half a dozen states there are

a hundred; only the authorities cannot see. A curious fact about _The

Traghetto_ is that there were two plates. He was displeased with the

first and etched it again. Bacher writes that _The Traghetto_ "troubled

him very much." He pulled one fine proof and then overworked the plate

so that he had to make a second. He got copper of the same size and

thickness made by the Venetian from whom they had their plates. When

this was ready, the first plate was inked with white paint instead of

black ink. This was placed on the second varnished plate, and they

were then run through the press. The result was "a replica in white

upon the black etching ground." Bacher says that on the new plate

Whistler worked for days and weeks with the first proof before him,

that he might find and etch only the original lines. When the second

was printed Whistler placed the two proofs side by side and minutely

compared them. And he was pleased, for the examination ended in the one

song he allowed himself in Venice:

"_We don't want to fight,

But, by jingo! if we do,

We've got the ships,

We've got the men,

And got the money too-oo-oo!_"

The early proofs of others plates were unsatisfactory. Each proof was a

trial, and, as each was pulled, he worked upon the plate, not generally

taking out large slabs or putting in new passages to make a new state

of it, but strengthening lines or lightening them, giving richness to

a shadow or modelling to a little figure. It would be impossible, if

the hundred proofs of each of these Venetian plates were not shown

together, to say how much he did or what he did to each, but the first

proof is quite different from the last and no two are alike. Some of

them, from ghosts, became solid facts.

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SIR HENRY IRVING AS PHILIP II OF SPAIN

ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK. NO. III

OIL

In the Metropolitan Museum, New York

(_See page 144_)]

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF SIR HENRY COLE

OIL (DESTROYED)

From a photograph lent by Pickford R. Waller, Esq.

(_See page 145_)]

In his Venice etchings Whistler also developed what he called the

Japanese method of drawing, Bacher calls his secret, and Mr. Menpes

the secret of drawing. Whistler always spoke frankly about it to us,

from the first time J. saw him etching, and he followed the same

method in his lithographs. In etching or lithography it is difficult

to make corrections, the surface of the plate or the stone should not

be disturbed, it is not easy, by the ordinary manner in which drawing

is taught, to put a complicated design on the plate without elaborate

spacing, tracing, or a preliminary sketch. Frequently, when the design

is half made in the usual fashion, the artist finds that the point of

greatest interest, the subject of his picture, will not come on the

plate where he wants it. The Japanese always seem to get the design

in their colour-prints in the right place, and yet their technique

adds to the difficulty of changing or altering a design, especially in

their wood blocks. But whether this is because they have the method

of drawing Whistler attributed to them, whether he got his idea from

their completed prints or evolved it, we do not know. We do know that

the idea was his long before he painted the Japanese pictures. You

can see the beginning of it in the _Isle de la Cité_. The system,

scientific as all his systems were, is to select the exact spot on

the canvas, the lithographic stone, the copper plate, or the piece of

paper, where the focus of interest is to be, and to draw this part of

the subject first. It might be near the side of a plate, though he

insisted that the composition should be placed well within the frame

or on the plate, contrary as such treatment is to Japanese methods

and his early practice. In the early paintings, sprays of flowers or

branches of trees run into the picture to give the impression that

it is carried beyond the frame, as the Japanese do. But his theory,

perfected before the Venetian period and adhered to as long as he

lived, was that everything should be well within the frame or plate

mark, as far within as the subject was from him. Having selected the

point of interest, he drew that, and drew it completely, and there, on

his canvas, plate, or stone, was a picture. It might be a distant view

of palaces or shipping beneath a bridge; in London, a shop window; in

Paris, a dark doorway; in portraits, the sitter's head. Once he put it

down, he drew in the objects next in importance, all the while carrying

out the work completely and making one harmonious whole. The result was

that the picture was finished--"finished from the beginning"--and there

was on the plate, paper, or stone a space which he could fill with less

important details or leave as he chose. With his painting it was a

different problem. When the subject was arranged, it grew together all

over, at the same time. In some of the earlier pictures, _Old Battersea

Bridge_ for example, a piece of canvas seems to have been added, though

he maintained that the artist should confine himself to the size of

the canvas he selected, and not get over his blunders, as many do, by

adding to or taking from the canvas. All this requires the greatest

care in just what Whistler considered most important, the placing of

the subject. Working in this manner, always with the completed picture

in his mind, he could return again, add further work if he thought

it was needed, knowing he had his subject drawn. It sounds simple,

so simple that one day, when he had been explaining it to Mr. E. A.

Walton, and the latter said, "But there is no secret!" Whistler's

answer was, "Yes, the secret is in doing it." It is just this, "in

doing it," that the excellence of his work lies. As a matter of fact

the difficulty is restraint in drawing the heart of a subject, while in

painting still more restraint is necessary, the restraint imposed by

colour and the medium.

Besides etchings and pastels Whistler made water-colours in Venice, but

as they were never shown together it is impossible to say how many.

There were also a few oils. The most important is _Nocturne, Blue and

Gold, St. Mark's_. Bacher speaks of one from the windows of the Casa

Jankovitz, "the Salute and a great deal of sky and water, with the

buildings very small," and of a scene at night from a _café_ near the

Royal Gardens. Then there is the upright sunset from the Riva referred

to by Mr. Pennington, and two others painted from Mr. Ross Turner's

terrace, one looking down the Riva to San Biagio, the other up to San

Marco, both full of little figures, and with boats and a suggestion of

the Lagoon, in the background; studies left hanging in sunlight after

he had done one day's work until he came to do the next. Mr. Forbes

recalls a _Nocturne of the Giudecca_, with shipping, on a panel, which

Whistler gave to Jobbins, who, as he told us, thought so little of

it that he painted a sketch on the back and then sold it to Forbes,

who still has it. Canfield was said to have another of S. Giorgio.

Doubtless there are more, but we know of none that were exhibited.

CHAPTER XXIII: BACK IN LONDON. THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY AND EIGHTEEN

EIGHTY-ONE.

At the end of November 1880 Whistler was back in London. "Years of

battle," M. Duret calls the period that followed, and Whistler was

ready to fight.

He arrived when the Fine Art Society had a show of "Twelve Great

Etchers," a press was in the gallery, Goulding was printing, etching

was upon the town.

"Well, you know, I was just home; nobody had seen me, and I drove up

in a hansom. Nobody expected me. In one hand I held my long cane; with

the other I led by a ribbon a beautiful little white Pomeranian dog;

it too had turned up suddenly. As I walked in I spoke to no one, but

putting up my glass I looked at the prints on the wall. 'Dear me! dear

me!' I said, 'still the same old sad work! Dear me!' And Haden was

there, talking hard to Brown, and laying down the law, and as he said

'Rembrandt,' I said 'Ha ha!' and he vanished, and then----!"

He was without house or studio, and stopped in Wimpole Street with

his brother until he took lodgings in Langham Street and then in

Alderney Street. (The record of this is in the etching published in

the _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_, April 1881.) He set to work printing the

plates, for few had been pulled in Venice. The Fine Art Society moved

Goulding's press upstairs and friends came to see him, and here Mr.

Mortimer Menpes says he first met Whistler, and, dropping Poynter,

South Kensington, and his ambition, threw himself at the feet of "the

Master" and called himself pupil. It was not an ideal workshop, and

the Fine Art Society took two rooms for Whistler in Air Street, Regent

Street, on the first floor, with a bow window under the colonnade, now

the Piccadilly Hotel: the window from which he etched the plate of the

Quadrant.

T. Way and his son came to Air Street to help Whistler print. The press

was in the front room, and T. R. Way made a sketch of it in colour, his

father damping paper, Whistler inking a plate, the press between them:

an interesting document. The work was interrupted by excitement. One

day Whistler placed on the heater a bottle of acid tightly stopped up.

The stopper blew out, steaming acid fumes filled the room, and they ran

for their lives. Another time, they took caustic potash, or something

as deadly, to get the dried ink out of the lines of the plates, and

they dropped the bottle on the floor, and there was not much left of

the carpet. Why anything was left of the floor or of them is a mystery.

Then, Mr. Menpes says:

"Whistler drifted into a room in my house, which I had fitted up with

printing materials, and it was in this little printing-room of mine

that most of the series of Venetian etchings were printed."

The edition of a hundred sets was, however, not completed during

Whistler's lifetime. It was only after his death that Goulding finished

the work.

The first series of twelve Venetian plates was shown in December 1880

at the Fine Art Society's. The _Twelve_ were selected from the forty

plates Whistler brought back. The critics could see nothing in them.

They were dismissed as "another crop of Whistler's little jokes." One

after another the people's authorities repeated the Attorney-General's

decision that Whistler was amusing, and Burne-Jones' regret that he had

not fulfilled his early promise, and Whistler collected the criticisms

for future use.

Brown, of the Fine Art Society, took to New York a set of the proofs.

Whistler spent a Sunday pulling them. But the etchings were no more

appreciated in New York than in London. Only eight sets were ordered.

In the meanwhile Whistler was preparing his exhibition of pastels. Mr.

Cole notes in his diary:

"_January 2_ (1881). Jimmy called, as self-reliant and sure as ever,

full of confidence in the superlative merit of his pastels, which we

are to go and see."

This exhibition also was held at the Fine Art Society's. Whistler

designed the frames; he wrote the catalogue, which had the brown paper

cover, but not quite the form eventually adopted, and it was printed

by Way; he decorated the gallery, an arrangement in gold and brown,

which was enjoyed as another of his little jokes by the critics. Godwin

was one of the few who admitted the beauty, and his description in the

_British Architect_ (February 1881) is on record:

"First, a low skirting of yellow gold, then a high dado of dull

yellow-green cloth, then a moulding of green gold, and then a frieze

and ceiling of pale reddish brown. The frames are arranged on the line;

but here and there one is placed over another. Most of the frames and

mounts are of rich yellow gold, but a dozen out of the fifty-three are

in green gold, dotted about with a view of decoration, and eminently

successful in attaining it."

On the evening of the Press view Mr. Cole says:

"_January 28_ (1881). Whistler turned up for dinner very full of his

private view to-morrow. Later on, we concocted a letter inviting

Prince Teck to come to it. His last draft was all right, but he would

insist on beginning it 'Prince,' although I assured him 'Sir' was the

usual way of addressing him in a letter."

The private view (January 29) was a crush, Bond Street blocked with

carriages, the sidewalk crowded; nothing like it was ever known at

the Fine Art Society's. Millais, showing forgotten _machines_ in the

adjoining room, was one of the first to see the pastels. "Magnificent,

fine; very cheeky, but fine!" he bellowed, and afterwards said so to

Whistler, who was pleased. The crowd did not know what to say, and,

had they known, would have been afraid to say it. For Whistler was

there, his laugh louder, shriller than ever. He let no one forget

the trial. An admirer asked the price of a pastel: "Sixty guineas!

That's enormous!" Whistler heard, though he was not meant to; he heard

everything. "Ha ha! Enormous! Why, not at all! I can assure you it took

me quite half an hour to do it!"

People laughed at Whistler's work, because they thought they were

expected to. Because he was the gayest man they refused to see that he

was the most serious artist. When they laughed at his art, it hurt;

when they laughed at him, they suffered; and he had his revenge in

mystifying them:

"Well, you know, they thought it was an amiability to me for them to be

amused. One day, when I was on my way to the Fine Art Society's, while

the show was going on, I met Sir and Lady ---- face to face, at the

door, as they were coming out. Both looked very much bored, but they

couldn't escape me. So the old man grasped my hand and chuckled, 'We

have just been looking at your things, and have been so much amused!'

He had an idea that the drawings on the wall were drolleries of some

sort, though he could not understand why, and that it was his duty to

be amused. I laughed with him. I always did with people of that kind,

and then they said I was not serious."

The critics, too, laughed, but there was venom in their laughter.

They liked to take themselves, if they couldn't take Whistler,

seriously, and they hated work they could not understand. The pastels

were sensational, Whistler was clever with a sort of transatlantic

impudence. They objected to the brown paper, to the technique, to the

frames, to the decorations, to the subjects; they became unexpectedly

concerned for the past glory of Venice. Godwin, again, was an

exception "No one who has listened, as the writer of these notes has,

to Whistler's descriptions of the open-arcaded, winding staircase that

lifts its tall stem far into the blue sky, or of the façades, yet

unrestored, that speak of the power of the Venetian architect, can

doubt that he who can so remember and describe has failed to admire. It

is by reason of the strength of this admiration and appreciation that

he holds back in reverence, and exercises this reticence of the pencil,

the needle, and the brush."

A number of people showed their belief in the pastels by buying them,

and the exhibition was a success financially. The prices ranged from

twenty to sixty guineas, the total receipts amounted to eighteen

hundred pounds. Bacher quotes a letter written to him just after the

show opened signed "Maud Whistler": "The best of it is, all the pastels

are selling. Four hundred pounds' worth the first day; now over a

thousand pounds' worth are sold."

Before the show closed, at the end of January, Whistler was summoned

to Hastings. His mother had been there since her illness of 1876-77,

from which she never entirely recovered, though there were intervals

between the attacks when her family had no cause for anxiety. But her

death was sudden. Those who refused to see in Whistler any other good

quality could not deny his devotion to his mother; those to whom he

revealed the tenderness under the defiant masque with which he faced

the world knew what his love for her meant to him. She had lived with

him whenever it was possible. His visits and letters to Hastings had

been frequent. He never forgot her birthday. He told her of all his

success, all his hopes, and made as light as he could of his debts

and disappointments. But in the miserable week before the funeral at

Hastings he was full of remorse; he should have been kinder and more

considerate, he said; he had not written often enough from Venice. Dr.

Whistler was with him part of the time, and the Doctor's wife the rest.

In the afternoons they wandered on the windy cliffs above the town,

and there was one drear afternoon when he broke down: "It would have

been better had I been a parson as she wanted!" Yet he had nothing to

reproach himself with. The days in Chelsea were for her as happy as for

him, and she whose pride had been in his first childish promise at St.

Petersburg lived to see the development of his powers. She is buried at

Hastings.

It was fortunate that when he got back to town there were events to

distract his thoughts. The Society of Painter-Etchers opened their

first exhibition in April at the Hanover Gallery. American artists who

were just starting etching and had never shown prints in London were

invited. Frank Duveneck sent a series of Venetian proofs. This was the

occasion of "the storm in an æsthetic teapot," which, had not Whistler

thought it important as "history," would be forgotten. We quote, as he

did, from _The Cuckoo_ (April 11, 1881):

"Some etchings, exceedingly like Mr. Whistler's in manner, but signed

'Frank Duveneck,' were sent to the Painter-Etchers' Exhibition from

Venice. The Painter-Etchers appear to have suspected for a moment that

the works were really Mr. Whistler's, and, not desiring to be the

victims of an easy hoax on the part of that gentleman, three of their

members--Dr Seymour Haden, Dr. Hamilton, and Legros--went to the Fine

Art Society's Gallery in Bond Street, and asked one of the assistants

there to show them some of Mr. Whistler's Venetian plates. From this

assistant they learned that Mr. Whistler was under an arrangement to

exhibit and sell his Venetian etchings only at the Fine Art Society's

Gallery."

Whistler heard of this. He called on Mr. Cole, "highly incensed with

Haden and Legros conspiring to make out he was breaking his contract

with the Fine Art Society," and went at once to the Hanover Gallery,

Mr. Menpes with him. The three members fortunately were not there. Then

Haden wrote to the Fine Art Society that they had found out about Mr.

Duveneck and said they were delighted with his etchings, and expressed

regret. But it is incredible that Haden and Legros should have mistaken

the work of Duveneck for that of Whistler. The story was published by

Whistler in _The Piker Papers_. With its interest a little dulled by

time, the correspondence may be read in _The Gentle Art_.

Whistler had not forgotten the pictures left with Graves in Pall Mall.

By degrees he bought them back. When Mr. Algernon Graves consulted his

father about letting Whistler have the pictures upon which the full

amount was not paid, after Whistler had repaid a hundred pounds for

three, the father said, "Let him take the whole lot, and don't be a

fool; the pictures aren't worth twenty-five pounds apiece." The _Rosa

Corder_ was sold at Christie's with Howell's effects, Mr. Algernon

Graves agreeing that, if it brought more than Howell's debt to the

firm, Howell's executors could have the balance. The father maintained

the picture wouldn't fetch ten pounds, but it brought more than the

amount of their bill, some hundred and thirty pounds. The _Irving_ was

sold to Sir Henry for a hundred pounds--at Irving's sale it was bought

by Mr. Thomas of Philadelphia for five thousand guineas--and the _Miss

Franklin_ went to Messrs. Dowdeswell. Whistler continued to pay his

bills regularly as they came due, to Graves' astonishment; there was

only one exception, and then Whistler came to ask to have the payment

postponed, and this was not settled until long after the pictures were

in Whistler's possession. When Whistler paid the final instalment

Graves expressed his surprise. But Whistler said: "You have been a very

good friend to me; in fact, you have been my banker. You have acted

honourably to me in the whole matter. I meant to pay, and I have done

so."

These business details and his exhibitions left Whistler no time in

1881 for the _Salon_, where he had nothing, or for the Grosvenor, to

which he sent only _Miss Alexander_. In the autumn, borrowing the

_Mother_ from Graves, he lent it to the Academy in Philadelphia, the

arrangements being made by Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt, and this is her

account:

[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF MISS ROSA CORDER

ARRANGEMENT IN BLACK AND BROWN

OIL

In the possession of H. C. Finch, Esq.

(_See page 146_)]

[Illustration: THE PEACOCK ROOM

Photograph of the room at Prince's Gate, showing the _Princesse du Pays

de la Porcelaine_ in place

(_See page 147_)]

"In the autumn of 1881 I was asked by the Pennsylvania Academy of

Fine Arts to receive pictures by American artists, and have them

forwarded for exhibition, and especially they entreated me to persuade

Mr. Whistler to send a picture. He had never been represented in

any American exhibition. I obtained a chance when meeting him at a

dinner of pressing the subject more vigorously than I could have

done by writing, and he promised to send his mother's portrait. It

was collected in due course and deposited in my studio, then in the

Avenue. Mr. Whistler came immediately after, and as the canvas was

breaking away from the stretcher, he directed the packing agents,

who were skilful frame-makers, to restrain it, and then left me. As

soon as the canvas was made tight, spots of crushed varnish appeared

on the surface. The varnish, in fact, broke or crumbled and I feared

the canvas might have broken. I flew down the street, overtook him,

and brought him back, dreading that he would blame us and even that

some injury had been done. To my surprise, he took the misfortune

with perfect composure and kindness, and stippled the spots with some

solvent varnish that soon restored the even surface. And there was

never a word of suggestion that we had done any harm. Of course, I knew

the fault was not in anything that had been done, and it was by his

own order, but from all I had heard about him I trembled. The greatest

difficulty in connection with that exhibition was to persuade him to

journey to the American Consulate in St. Helen's Place and make his

affidavit for the invoice. It had to be done by himself; and it was not

pleasant, as we know, to waste a day, the very middle of the day, in

this dull declaration of American citizen sojourning in England. After

the cases were ready for shipment there was still delay to get his task

accomplished, and I think the Pennsylvania Academy hardly guess how

much persuading it took. What a pity they did not secure the beautiful

picture for his own country! Now that it hangs in the Luxembourg, they

envy it."

The _Mother_ was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1881, and, on

the suggestion of Mr. Alden Weir, at the Society of American Artists in

New York in 1882, and it could have been bought for a thousand dollars.

Although nobody wanted it, it made him known in his own country as a

painter. He was elected a member of the Society of American Artists

that year.

At this time, owing to the visit of Seymour Haden to the United States,

American artists became interested in etching, and societies were

formed and exhibitions held all over the country. There was a show in

the Boston Museum in 1881. Another, the first of a series, was given

by the New York Etching Club in 1882. And the Philadelphia Society

of Etchers organised in the same year an International Exhibition at

the Academy of Fine Arts. Articles in _Scribner's_ on Whistler and

Haden and American Etchers added to the interest. Messrs. Cassell and

others issued portfolios of prints, and every painter became an etcher.

The result was a boom, then a slump, out of which Whistler and Haden

almost alone emerged, for the reason that their work was not done to

please the public or the publishers. We remember the excitement made

by Haden's lectures which prepared America for Whistler, whose prints

were in both the New York and Philadelphia Exhibitions. Mr. James L.

Claghorn, almost the only Philadelphian who then cared for etchings,

had already many Whistlers. Mr. Avery, in New York, had some years

before begun his collection and secured for it many of the rarest

proofs, and he was followed by Mr. Howard Mansfield, who later on

interested Mr. Charles L. Freer. But in America more had been heard

of Whistler's eccentricities than his work. It could no longer remain

unknown, once his etchings and the portrait of the _Mother_ were seen

and _The White Girl_ was lent to the Metropolitan Museum in New York,

where it hung for some time. And the young men who had been with him in

Venice, coming back, spread his fame at home, and when Americans got to

know his work they became the keenest to possess it. Even at this time

Avery owned the _Whistler in the Big Hat_, Mr. Whittemore _The White

Girl_, and Mrs. Hutton the _Wapping_. That an American artist's works

should be bought at all by Americans at that date was extraordinary.

Tadema, Bouguereau, Meyer von Bremen were the standard, soon, however,

to be exchanged for Whistler, the Impressionists, and the Dutch and

Barbizon Schools.

CHAPTER XXIV: THE JOY OF LIFE. THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-ONE TO

EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-FOUR.

On May 26, 1881, Mr. Cole "met Jimmie, who is taking a new studio in

Tite Street, where he is going to paint all the fashionables; views of

crowds competing for sittings; carriages along the streets."

It was No. 13, close to the White House. Whistler decorated it in

yellow: one "felt in it as if standing inside an egg," Howell said.

He again picked up blue and white, and old silver; he again gave

Sunday breakfasts, and they again became the talk of the town and he

the fashion. If the town was determined to talk, Whistler was willing

it should. He was never so malicious, never so extravagant, never so

joyous. He wrapped himself "in a species of misunderstanding." He

filled the papers with letters. London echoed with his laugh. His white

lock stood up defiantly above his curls; his cane lengthened; a series

of collars sprang from his long overcoat; his hat had a curlier brim, a

lower tilt over his eyes; he invented amazing costumes: "in great form,

with a new fawn-coloured long-skirted frock-coat, and extraordinary

long cane," Mr. Cole found him one summer day in 1882. He was known

to pay calls with the long bamboo stick in his hand and pink bows on

his shoes. He allowed no break in the gossip. The carriages brought

crowds, but not sitters. Few would sit to him before the trial; after

it there were fewer. In the seventies it needed courage to be painted

by Whistler; now it was to risk notoriety and ridicule. Lady Meux was

the first to give him a commission. Two of his three large full-lengths

of her are amongst his most distinguished portraits. She was handsome,

of a luxuriant type, her full-blown beauty a contrast to the elusive

loveliness of Maud in the _Fur Jacket_, or Mrs. Leyland, or Mrs. Huth.

Whistler found appropriate harmonies. One was an _Arrangement in White

and Black_. There is a sumptuousness in the velvet gown and the long

cloak he never surpassed, and the firm modelling of the face, neck, and

arms gives to the regal figure more solidity than he ever got before.

Whistler was pleased with it, spoke of it as his "beautiful Black

Lady," and Lady Meux was so well pleased that she posed a second time.

In this, the _Harmony in Flesh Colour and Pink_, afterwards changed to

_Pink and Grey_, she wears a round hat low over her face, and a pink

bodice and skirt, and stands against a pink background, and the ugly

fashion of the day cannot conceal the beauty. The third portrait, as

far as we can find out, was never finished. Mr. Walter Dowdeswell has

a pen-and-ink drawing of it. She wears a fur cap, a sable coat, and

carries a muff. For this, it is said, after differences, a maid posed

and Whistler painted her face over the Lady's. Mr. Harper Pennington

says: "The only time I saw Jimmy stumped for a reply was at a sitting

of Lady Meux (for the portrait in sables). For some reason Jimmy

became nervous, exasperated, and impertinent. Touched by something he

had said, her ladyship turned softly towards him and remarked, quite

softly, 'See here, Jimmy Whistler! You keep a civil tongue in that head

of yours, or I will have in some one to _finish_ those portraits you

have made of me!' with the faintest emphasis on 'finish.' Jimmy fairly

danced with rage. He came up to Lady Meux, his long brush tightly

grasped, and actually quivering in his hand, held tight against his

side. He stammered, spluttered, and finally gasped out, 'How dare you?

How dare you?' but that, after all, was _not_ an answer, was it? Lady

Meux did not sit again. Jimmy never spoke of the incident afterwards,

and I was sorry to have witnessed it."

At the time of the London Memorial Exhibition Lady Meux offered the

Committee the two portraits in her possession on condition that the

third should be returned to her. This the Committee were unable to

do, and it was not until her will was published after her death, in

January 1911, in which she bequeathed the missing picture and the

correspondence relating to it to the National Gallery, that any more

was heard about it. Then a statement appeared in a New York paper that

the portrait was in the collection of Mr. Freer, and Miss Birnie Philip

stated in the _Times_ that Whistler had destroyed the picture which,

according to Lady Meux in her will, "was ordered and paid for by her

husband, but it had never come into his possession nor could it be

found."

Sir Henry Cole posed for a second portrait and Whistler got back from

Mr. Way the first, discovered in one of the rolls of canvases he bought

at the sale. Mr. Cole saw the second portrait in the studio:

"_February 26_ (1882). Found his commencement of my father, good but

slight, full length, evening clothes, long dark cloak thrown back, red

ribbon of Bath."

"_April 17_ (1882). In spite of his illness, my father to Whistler's,

who fretted him by not painting; my father thought that Jimmy had

merely touched the light on his shoes, and nothing else, although he

stood and sat for over an hour and a half."

This was the last sitting. The next day Sir Henry Cole died suddenly:

a distinguished official lost to England, a friend lost to Whistler.

Eldon, an artist much with Whistler at the time, was in the studio on

the 17th, and recalled afterwards that Sir Henry Cole's last words on

leaving were, "Death waits for no man!" Whistler meant to go on with

the portrait. On May 2 Mr. Cole went again to Tite Street: "After a

long delay, Jimmy showed me his painting of my father, which J. can

make into a very good thing."

It is said not to have been finished, but we possess a photograph of

it which shows no want of finish. This also, Mr. Cole was informed,

Whistler destroyed. Neither was a full-length of Eldon finished: a fine

thing, to judge from the photograph we have seen. It also has vanished,

though a small half-length, sent to the London Memorial Exhibition,

but not hung--it may be a copy--is now in New York. During the next few

years other portraits were begun, and of several we have photographs

which it is not possible to identify. An _Arrangement in Yellow_ was of

Mrs. Langtry. For a new version of his scheme of "blue upon blue" Miss

Maud Waller posed. Mrs. Marzetti, her sister, who went with her to the

studio, writes:

"The sittings commenced in the early part of 1882. We went two or

three times, and then Whistler painted the face out, as it was not to

his liking, although most people thought it excellent. In those days

Maud was very beautiful. The picture was started on a canvas that

already had a figure on it, and it was turned upside down, and the

_Blue Girl's_ head painted in between the legs. The dress was made

by Mme. Alias, the theatrical costumier, to Whistler's design, and I

believe cost a good deal. In the end the picture was finished from

another model (I do not know who), and was hung in one of Whistler's

exhibitions in Bond Street [_Notes, Harmonies, Nocturnes_, May 1884, at

Dowdeswell's]: it is No. 31 in the catalogue, and called _Scherzo in

Blue--The Blue Girl_. This was the same exhibition in which he hung the

picture he gave me, and which in the end I never got (No. 66, _Bravura

in Brown_). I should have treasured it for two reasons: Whistler's

painting, and also that it was a portrait of Mr. Ridley. The picture of

Maud was to have been at the Grosvenor Gallery, but was not finished.

However, it was sent in for the private view, and taken away again the

same night or next morning. We used thoroughly to enjoy our visits

to the studio--that is to say, I did, because I sat and looked on. I

can't say whether Maud enjoyed them as much; probably not, as we used

to get down there about eleven o'clock, have lunch, and stay all the

afternoon, most of which time she was standing.

"I cannot remember all the callers we used to see there, as there were

so many, but some of the more frequent visitors I remember well. There

was one man who was always there, all day long, and we just hated him;

I don't know why, as he seemed very harmless. He was Whistler's shadow.

I don't know who he was, but have an idea that he used to write a bit.

I think he was very poor, and that Whistler pretty well kept him. I

heard some few years ago that he died in a lunatic asylum. Oscar Wilde

was a frequent visitor, also Walter Sickert. Whistler used to say,

'Nice boy, Walter!' he was very fond of him then. Others I remember

were two brothers named Story, Frank Miles (who had a studio just

opposite Whistler's)--Renée Rodd as Whistler used to call him--Major

Templar, Lady Archie Campbell, and Mrs. Hungerford. Whistler was just

finishing the portrait of Lady Meux, and I stood for him one day for

about five minutes. It was a full-length portrait in black evening

dress, with a big white cloak over the shoulders.

"Whistler was a most entertaining companion; he was very fond of

telling us Edgar Allan Poe's stories, and also of reciting _The Lost

Lenore_, which he said was his favourite poem. He dined with us several

times in Lyall Street; he was always late for dinner, sometimes half

an hour, and I think on more than one occasion was sound asleep at the

table before the end of the dinner.

"Whistler's usual breakfast, which he often had after we arrived at the

studio, was two eggs in a tumbler, beaten up with pepper, salt, and

vinegar, bread and coffee....

"Whistler stood yards away from the picture with his brush, and would

move it as though he were painting; he would then jump across the room,

and put a dab of paint on the canvas; he also used to wet his finger

and gently rub portions of his picture. I have often seen him take

a sponge with soap and water and wash the Blue Girl's face (on the

canvas, I mean)."

Lady Archibald Campbell, also posing for Whistler, said: "He was a

great friend of ours. I think I sat to him during a year or so, off and

on, for a great many studies in different costumes and poses. His first

idea was to paint me in court dress. The dress was black velvet, the

train was silver satin with the Argyll arms embroidered in appliqué in

their proper colours. He made a sketch of me in the dress. The fatigue

of standing with the train was too great, and he abandoned the idea.

In all these studies he called my attention to his method of placing

his subject well within the frame, explaining that a portrait must be

more than a portrait, must be of value decoratively. He never patched

up defects, but, if dissatisfied with any portion of his work, covered

the canvas afresh with his first impression freshly recorded. The first

impression thrown on the canvas he often put away, often destroyed.

Among others, he made in oils an impression of me as Orlando, in

the forest scene of _As You Like It_, at Coombe. He considered this

successful. A picture he called _The Grey Lady_ was a harmony in silver

greys. I remember thinking it a masterpiece of drawing, giving the

impression of movement. I was descending a stair, the canvas was of a

great height, and the general effect striking. It was almost completed

when my absence from town prevented a continuance of the sittings.

When I returned he asked to make a study of me in the dress in which I

called upon him. This is the picture which he exhibited under the name

of _The Brodequin Jaune_, or _The Yellow Buskin_. As far as I remember

it was painted in a few sittings. When I saw him shortly before his

death I asked after _The Grey Lady_. He laughed and said he had

destroyed her."

Mr. Walter Sickert has recorded a number of interesting details about

these pictures, though his statements are vague. He says that the

canvases had a grey ground "made with black and white mixed with

turpentine," and that Whistler used a medium of oil and turpentine,

and "covered thinly the whole canvas with his prepared tones, using

house-painters' brushes for the surfaces, and drawing lines with round

hogshair brushes nearly a yard long.... His object was to cover the

whole canvas at one painting--either the first or the hundredth."

Lady Archibald asked him if he was going to touch up her portrait at

the last sitting. Whistler said, "Not touch it up, give it another

beautiful skin." Mr. Sickert also very aptly suggests the reason why

some of the portraits were never completed. Whistler did them all

over, again and again, till they were "finished--or wrecked, as often

happened, from the sitter getting tired, or growing up, or growing

old." Almost the only new fact in Mr. Frank Rutter's _Whistler_ is

given him by Mr. Sickert, who says he remembers once Whistler standing

on a chair with a candle at the end of a sitting from Lady Archibald

Campbell, looking at his work, but undecided whether he should take it

out or leave it. They started to dinner, and in the street he decided,

saying, "You go back. I shall only be nervous and begin to doubt again.

Go back and take it all out." This, Mr. Sickert says he did, with a rag

and benzoline.

M. Duret suggests that the ridicule of her friends had an effect on

Lady Archibald Campbell, or perhaps her beauty made her critical;

anyhow, she suggested changes to Whistler, who, though he seldom

accepted suggestions from his sitters, did his best to meet her, until

it seemed as if, to please her, he must repaint the picture, and he

was discouraged. We have heard of a scene outside the studio: Lady

Archibald in a hansom on the point of driving away never to return;

M. Duret springing on the step and representing the loss to the world

of the masterpiece, and arguing so well that she came back, and _The

Yellow Buskin_ was saved from the fate of _The Grey Lady_ and _The

Lady in Court Dress_. Some think the portrait that was finished is

Whistler's greatest. It has distinction and character. It is another

_Arrangement in Black_ in which critics could then discover but

dinginess and dirt. One wit described it as a portrait of a lady

pursuing the last train through the smoke of the Underground. People

have learned to see, or at least to think they should see, beauty, and

to-day they hardly dare deny it is a masterpiece. Whistler called it

first the _Portrait of Lady Archibald Campbell_, but afterwards _The

Yellow Buskin_, the title in the Wilstach Collection, Philadelphia,

where it now hangs.

Mr. Walter Sickert tells an amusing story of Whistler's way sometimes

of meeting the suggestions of sitters:

"I remember an occasion when Whistler, yielding to persuasion, allowed

himself to introduce, step by step, certain modifications in the scheme

of a portrait that he was painting. As time went on he saw his own

conception overlaid with an image that he had never intended. At last

he stopped and put his brushes slowly down. Taking off his spectacles,

he said, 'Very well, that will do. This is your portrait. We will put

it aside and finish it another day.' 'Now, if you please,' he added,

dragging out a new grey canvas, 'we will begin mine.'"

M. Duret posed to Whistler at the same time as Lady Archibald Campbell.

When she could not come Whistler would telegraph him, and day by day he

watched the progress of her portrait while his was growing. Business

brought M. Duret to London. He had always been much with artists

in Paris, had been intimate with Courbet, was still with Fantin,

Manet, and Bracquemond. He recognised the genius of men at whom the

world scoffed, and it was he who by an article in the _Gazette des

Beaux-Arts_ (April 1881) made the French realise their mistake of

years, and again give Whistler the place so long denied him.

[Illustration: DRAWING IN WASH FOR A CATALOGUE OF BLUE AND WHITE NANKIN

PORCELAIN

In the possession of Pickford R. Waller, Esq.

(_See page 157_)]

[Illustration: STUDY

LITHOTINT. W. 2

From a print lent by T. R. Way, Esq.

(_See page 157_)]

One evening in 1883, after a private view, Whistler and Duret were

talking over the pictures they had seen, and in discussing the portrait

of the President of some society, Whistler declared that red robes

of office were not in character with modern heads, and that a man

should be painted in the costume of his time, and he asked Duret to

pose to him that he might show what could be done with evening dress,

the despair of painters. The experiment was not so original as Duret

seemed to think. Leyland was painted in this way ten years before, when

Whistler proved the truth of Baudelaire's assertion that the great

colourist can get colour from a black coat, a white shirt, against a

dark background. Sir Henry Cole also posed in evening dress. Whistler

did not rely entirely upon so simple a scheme in his portrait of Duret,

who has a pink domino over his arm, a red fan in his hand. His portrait

is called _Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Black_.

M. Duret describes Whistler at work. He marked slightly with chalk the

place for the figure on the canvas, and began at once to put it in, in

colour; at the end of the first sitting the scheme was there. This was

the method that delighted Whistler. The difficulty with him was not to

begin a portrait, but to finish it. The painting was brought almost to

completion, rubbed out, begun again, and repainted ten times. Duret saw

that it was a question not only of drawing, but of colour, of tone,

and understood Whistler's theory that to bring the whole into harmony

and preserve it the whole must be repainted as a whole, if there was

any repainting to be done. There are finer portraits, but not many

that show so well Whistler's meaning when he said that colour is "the

arrangement of colour." The rose of the domino, the fan, and the flesh

is so managed that the cold grey of the background seems to be flushed

with rose. Duret, when he showed the picture, took a sheet of paper,

cut a hole in it, and placed it against the background, to prove that

the grey, when surrounded by white, is pure and cold without a touch of

rose, and that Whistler got his effect by his knowledge of the relation

of colour and his mastery of tone.

The _Lady Meux--Black and White_ went to the _Salon_ of 1882,

catalogued as _Portrait de M. Harry--Men_, to the confusion of

commentators. The _Harmony in Flesh Colour and Pink_ was shown at the

Grosvenor with _Nocturne in Blue and Silver_, _Scherzo in Blue--The

Blue Girl_, _Nocturne in Black and Gold--Southampton Water_,

_Harmony in Black and Red_, _Note in Black and Opal--Jersey_, _Blue and

Brown--San Brelade's Bay_. The _Times_ was unable to decide whether

Whistler was making fun of them or whether something was wrong with

his eyes. The _Pall Mall_ regretted that "if the _Lady Meux_ was full

of fine and subtle qualities of drawing, the _Scherzo in Blue_ [Miss

Waller] was the sketch of a scarecrow in a blue dress without form

and void. It is very difficult to believe that Mr. Whistler is not

openly laughing at us when he holds up before us such a piece as this.

His counterpart in Paris, the eccentric M. Manet, has at least more

sincerity than to exhibit his work in such an imperfect condition."

But Whistler now had defenders. An "Art Student" wrote the next day

to the _Pall Mall_ to point out that "at the private, and therefore,

presumably, the Press, view, _The Blue Girl_ was seen in an unfinished

state, having been sent there merely to take up its space on the wall.

It was removed immediately, and has been since finished. Had the critic

seen it since he would hardly have called it without form and void. The

want of artistic sincerity is certainly the last charge that can be

brought against a man who has followed his artistic intention with such

admirable and unswerving singleness of purpose."

From this time onward Whistler no longer fought his battles alone.

Eighteen eighty-two was the year of _The Paddon Papers_. Mr. Cole

noted in his diary: "_September 24._ To Jimmy's. He lent me proof of

his Paddon and Howell correspondence. Amusing, but too personal for

general interest." We agree with Mr. Cole. There were complications

of no importance with Howell, in which Paddon, a diamond merchant,

figured, and complications over a Chinese cabinet which Mr. Morse

bought from Whistler when he moved from No. 2 Lindsey Row. For long Mr.

Morse had only the lower part, while Howell kept the top. Whistler, who

thought nothing concerning him trivial, published this correspondence

in a pamphlet, called _The Paddon Papers: The Owl and the Cabinet_,

interesting now only because it is rare and because it was the end of

all relations between himself and Howell.

In the early winter of 1883 Whistler gave the second exhibition of his

Venetian etchings at the Fine Art Society's. The prints, fifty-one in

number, included several London subjects. He decorated the gallery in

white and yellow. The wall was white with yellow hangings, the floor

was covered with pale yellow matting and the couches with pale yellow

serge. The cane-bottomed chairs were painted yellow. There were yellow

flowers in yellow pots, a white and yellow livery for the attendant,

and white and yellow Butterflies for his friends. At the private view

Whistler wore yellow socks just showing above his shoes, and the

assistants wore yellow neckties. He prepared the catalogue; the brown

paper cover, form, and size now established. He printed after each

number a quotation from the critics of the past, and on the title-page,

"Out of their own mouths shall ye judge them." A friend who looked over

the proofs for him writes us:

"We came to 'there is merit in them, and I do not wish to understand

it.' [A quotation from the article in the _Nineteenth Century_ which

Sir Frederick Wedmore must wish could be forgotten.] Jimmy yelled

with joy, and thanked the printer for his intelligent misreading of

_understate_. 'I think we will let that stand as it is,' he said. I

was amused at the private view to see him discussing the question with

Wedmore, who, naturally, did not think it quite fair."

Before the show opened it was, Whistler told us, "Well, you know,

a source of constant anxiety to everybody and of fun to me. On the

ladder, when I was hanging the prints, I could hear whispers: no one

would be able to see the etchings! And then I would laugh, 'Dear me,

of course not! that's all right. In an exhibition of etchings the

etchings are the last things people come to see!' And then there was

the private view, and I had my box of wonderful little Butterflies,

and I distributed them only among the select few, so that, naturally,

everybody was eager to be decorated. And when the crowd was greatest

Royalty appeared, quite unprecedented at a private view, and the crowd

was hustled into another room while the Prince and Princess of Wales

went round the gallery, looking at everything, the Prince chuckling

over the catalogue. 'I say, Mr. Whistler, what is this?' he asked

when he came to the _Nocturne--Palaces_. 'I am afraid you are very

malicious, Mr. Whistler,' the Princess said."

Those who received the little Butterflies thought them charming. Mrs.

Marzetti writes us:

"I have a few treasures which I guard most jealously; one is the golden

Butterfly that he made us wear at the private view of his exhibition

in Bond Street, in the original little card box in which he sent them

(three I think) to mother, with a message written on the lid, and

signed with his Butterfly."

The public laughed. They thought the Butterflies added to the screaming

farce, the foppery of the whole thing. The attendant in yellow and

white livery was called the poached egg. The catalogue was worse. Poor

Wedmore and the others could hardly like to have their blunders and

blindness immortalised. Most of them made the best of it by refusing

to see in him anything but the jester. His humour was compared to Mark

Twain's, and he to Barnum, and the show was "excruciatingly agreeable."

Some honestly thought his work rubbish, and found his last little

joke dull without being cheap. Their ridicule has become ridiculous.

As for Whistler's etchings, the price of the series of _Twelve_,

as of the _Twenty-Six_ issued a year or so later in which many of

these prints were published, was fifty guineas; on May 27, 1908, the

single print _Nocturne--Palaces_ sold in Paris for one hundred and

sixty-eight guineas, and we have been offered two hundred pounds for

our _Traghetto_. The etchings were also shown in decorated rooms in

Boston and Philadelphia.

For the exhibitions of 1883 he had no new work, but sent two earlier

Nocturnes to the Grosvenor and to the _Salon_ the _Mother_, and was

awarded a third-class medal, the only recompense he ever received at

the _Salon_. In the winter of 1883-84 he worked a great deal out of

doors, spending many weeks at St. Ives, Cornwall. He took no interest

in landscape; "there were too many trees in the country," he said. But

he loved the sea, from the days of _The Blue Wave_ at Biarritz and

_The Shores of Brittany_ until one of the last summers when he painted

at Domburg, in Holland. The Cornish sketches were sent to his show of

_Notes, Harmonies, Nocturnes_, at Dowdeswell's Gallery in May 1884, the

first exhibition in which he included many water-colours. The medium

had been difficult to him; now he was its master. He used it to record

subjects as characteristic of London as the subject of his pastels were

of Venice. There were also studies and sketches in Holland, for he

was always running about again. The interest of the catalogue was in

the preface, _L'Envoie_ he called it, and was so laughed at not only

for the place he gave it, but for the spelling, that he searched the

dictionaries, and then declared, we cannot say with what authority,

that _envoie_ means some sort of snake. "Ha ha! that's it! Venom!" he

said. The _Envoie_, without his explanation, is interesting, for it

consists of the _Propositions No. 2_, which have become famous: that

a picture is finished when all traces of the means that produced it

have disappeared; that industry in art is a necessity, not a virtue;

that the work of the master reeks not of the sweat of the brow; that

the masterpiece should appear as the flower of the painter, perfect in

its bud as in its bloom. He decorated the gallery: delicate rose on

the walls, white dado, white chairs, and pale azaleas in rose-flushed

jars. The Butterfly, tinted in rose, was on the card of invitation. The

_Arrangement in Flesh Colour and Grey_ was as little appreciated as the

_Yellow and White_ in 1883; to the critics it was a new affectation.

There were signs of appreciation when, in 1884, Whistler sent the

_Carlyle_ to the Loan Exhibition of Scottish National Portraits at

Edinburgh, where it created an impression. There had been attempts

to sell the picture. M. Duret tried to interest an Irish collector,

who, however, did not dare to buy it. It was offered to Mr. Scharfe,

director of the British National Portrait Gallery, who not only refused

to consider the offer, but laughed at the idea that "such work should

pass for painting." The first endeavour to secure it for a national

collection came from George R. Halkett, who urged its purchase for the

Scottish National Gallery in the _Scotsman_ (October 6, 1884). He was

supported by Mr. William Hole in a letter published the following day.

Unfortunately, the subscription paper disclaimed approval of Whistler's

art and theories on the part of subscribers. Whistler, indignant,

telegraphed to Edinburgh: "The price of the _Carlyle_ has advanced to

one thousand guineas. Dinna ye hear the bagpipes?" The price he had

asked was four hundred, and this ended the negotiations.

Why about this time Whistler should have become involved in a Church

Congress in the Lake Country, unless he was coming from or going to

Scotland, we never have been able to explain. He told us about it years

later, and he seemed no less amazed than we. J. was just about to

start for the Lakes, and Whistler was reminded of his excursion there.

We give the note made at the time:

"_Sunday_, _September_ 16 (1900). Whistler dined, and Agnes

Repplier--not a successful combination. The dinner dragged until E.

J. Sullivan happened to come in, and Whistler woke up, and, all of a

sudden, we hardly know how, he was plunged into the midst of the Lake

Country and a Church Congress, travelling third class with the clergy

and their families, eating jam and strange meals with quantities of

tea, and visiting the Rev. Mr. Green in his prison, shut up by his

bishop for burning candles, and altogether the hero and important

person he would never be on coming out. An amazing story, but what

Whistler was doing in the Lakes with the clergy he did not appear to

know; the story was enough."

The only result of the expedition was the etching done in Cumberland,

and his impression of the unpicturesqueness of the Lakes: the mountains

"were all little round hills with little round trees out of a Noah's

Ark." What he thought of great mountain forms we do not know for, save

on the trip to Valparaiso and going to Italy, he never saw them. Yet

the lines of the coast in the _Crépuscule_ show that he could render

mountains. But, as he said, the mountains of Cumberland are only little

round hills. At the end of his life he saw the mountains of Corsica,

Gibraltar, and Tangier, but there is no record.

CHAPTER XXV: AMONG FRIENDS. THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-ONE TO EIGHTEEN

EIGHTY-SEVEN.

It was in the summer of 1884 that J. met Whistler. Up to this time we

have had to rely upon what Whistler and those who knew him have told

us. Henceforward we write from our own knowledge.

This is J.'s story of the meeting: "I first saw Whistler July 13, 1884.

I had been asked by Mr. Gilder, editor of the _Century Magazine_, to

make the illustrations for a series of articles on _Old Chelsea_ by

Dr. B. E. Martin, and Mr. Drake, the art editor, suggested that if

I could get Whistler to etch, draw, or paint something in Chelsea

for the _Century_, the _Century_ would be very glad to have it. His

water-colours and pastels were being shown at Dowdeswell's--_Notes_,

_Harmonies_, _Nocturnes_--and there his address was given me: No. 13

Tite Street.

"The house did not strike me, I only remember the man and his work. I

knocked, the door was slightly opened, and I handed in my letter from

Mr. Gilder. I was left in the street. Then the door was opened wide,

and Whistler asked me in. He was all in white, his waistcoat had long

sleeves, and every minute it seemed as if he must begin to juggle with

glasses. For to be honest, my first impression was of a bar-keeper

strayed from a Philadelphia saloon into a Chelsea studio. Never had I

seen such thick, black, curling hair. But in the midst was the white

lock, and keen, brilliant eyes flashed at me from under the thick,

bushy eyebrows.

"At the end of the hall into which he took me was a shadowy passage,

then some steps, a light room beyond, and on an easel the portrait of

a little man with a violin, the _Sarasate_, that had never been seen

outside the studio. Whistler stopped me in the passage and asked me

what I thought of the picture. I cannot recall his words. I was too

overwhelmed by the dignity of the portrait to remember what he said.

"Later on he brought out _The Falling Rocket_. 'Well now, what do you

think of that? What is it?'

"I said fireworks, and I supposed one of the Cremorne pictures.

"'Oh, you do, do you? Isn't it amazing? Bring tots, idiots, imbeciles,

blind men, children, anything but the Islander, and they know; even

you, who stole the name of my _Little Venice_.'

"This referred to an etching of mine which had been published under

the title of _Little Venice_. Why Whistler did not resent this always

or let it interfere with our friendship later, I do not know, for Mr.

Keppel has told me he felt bitterly about it at the time.

"Whistler also showed me some of his pastels. And he talked, and I

forget completely what he said until, finally, I suggested why I

had come, for I did not think there was any greater honour than to

see one's work in the pages of the _Century_. There was some excuse

delightfully made. Then he called to someone who appeared from a

corner. And Whistler said to him, 'Here's a chance for you. But you

will do these things.' And that was my introduction to Mr. Mortimer

Menpes.

"This was not what I had bargained for, and I said promptly, 'Mr.

Whistler, I came here to ask you to let us have some drawings of

Chelsea. If you cannot, why, I'll do them myself.'

"'Stay and lunch,' Whistler said, and there was lunch, a wonderful

curry, in a bright dining-room--a yellow and blue room. Later on he

took me down to the Embankment, and, though it seemed so little like

him, showed me the Carlyle statue and Turner's house. He pointed out

his own houses in Lindsey Row, and told me of a photographer who had

reproduced all his pictures and photographed old Chelsea. I remember,

too, asking Whistler about the Thames plates, and his telling me they

were all done on the spot. And then he drove me in a cab to Piccadilly,

and asked me to come and see him again.

"The next Sunday I went with Mr. Stephen Parrish to Haden's, in

Hertford Street. We were taken to the top storey, where Haden was

working on the mezzotint of the _Breaking up of the Agamemnon_. I asked

him--I must have almost paralysed him--what he thought of Whistler,

and he told me that if ever he had to sell either his collection of

Whistlers or of Rembrandts, the Rembrandts should go first. He told

that story often--and later they both went.--Downstairs, in a sort of

conservatory at the back of the dining-room, was a printing press. Lady

Haden joined us at lunch. So also did Mr. Hopkinson Smith, resurrecting

vast numbers of American 'chestnuts.' I can recall that both Parrish

and I found him in the way, and I can also recall his getting us into

such a state that, as we came down a street leading into Piccadilly,

Parrish vented his irritation on one of the public goats which in those

days acted both as scavengers and police for London. As the goat put

down his head to defend himself, Parrish put up his umbrella, and the

goat fled into the open door of a club. What happened after that we did

not wait to see.

"I saw Whistler only once again that summer. He was in Charing Cross

Station, in front of the bookstall. He wore a black frock-coat, white

trousers, patent leather shoes, top hat, and he was carrying, the only

time I ever saw it, the long cane. I did not want to speak to him, and

I liked his looks less than when I first met him.

"Early in the autumn of 1884 we went to Italy, and it was several years

after our return before I got really to know him, and to understand

that his appearance was to him merely a part of the 'joke of life.'"

[Illustration: TALL BRIDGE

LITHOGRAPH. W. 9

From a print lent by T. R. Way, Esq.

(_See page 157_)]

[Illustration: NOCTURNE

LITHOTINT. W. 5

From a print lent by T. R. Way, Esq.

(_See page 157_)]

CHAPTER XXVI: AMONG FRIENDS. THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-ONE TO EIGHTEEN

EIGHTY-SEVEN CONTINUED.

Whistler said he could not afford to keep a friend, but he was never

without many. A photograph taken in his studio in 1881 shows him the

centre of a group, of whom the others are Julian and Waldo Story,

sons of W. W. Story; Frank Miles, a painter from whom great things

were expected; and the Hon. Frederick Lawless, a sculptor. In the

background is a little statuette everybody wanted to know the merit of,

explained one day by Whistler, "Well, you know--why, you can take it up

and--well, you can set it down!" Mr. Lawless writes us that Whistler

modelled the little figure, though we never heard that he modelled

anything, and Professor Lantéri says he never worked in the round. Mr.

Pennington suggests that the statuette was by Mr. Waldo Story, but Mr.

Lawless says:

"When Whistler lived in his London studio he often modelled graceful

statuettes, and one day he put up one on a vase, asking me to

photograph it. I said he must stand beside it. He said, 'But we must

make a group and all be photographed,' and that I was to call out to

his servant when to take the lid off the camera, and when to put it

back. I then developed the negative in his studio."

Mr. Francis James, often at 13 Tite Street, has many memories,

specially of one summer evening when Coquelin _aîné_ and a large party

came to supper and Whistler kept them until dawn and then took them to

see the sun rise over the Thames, a play few had ever performed in.

For two or three years no one was more with Whistler than Sir Rennell

Rodd. He writes us:

"It was in '82, '83 that I saw most of him. Frank Miles, Waldo and

Julian Story, Walter Sickert, Harper Pennington, and, at one time,

Oscar Wilde, were constantly there. Jimmy, unlike many artists, liked a

_camarade_ about the place while he was working, and talked and laughed

and raced about all the time, putting in the touches delicately, after

matured thought, with long brushes. There was a poor fellow who had

been a designer for Minton--but his head had given way and he was

already quite mad--used to be there day after day for months and

draw innumerable sketches on scraps of brown paper, cartridge boards,

anything--often full of talent, but always mad. Well, Jimmy humoured

him and made his last weeks of liberty happy. Eventually he had to be

removed to an asylum, and died raving mad. I used to help Whistler

often in printing his etchings. It was very laborious work. He would

manipulate a plate for hours with the ball of the thumb and the flat

of the palm to get just the right superficial ink left on it, while

I damped the paper, which came out of old folio volumes, the first

and last sheets, with a fairly stiff brush. And often, for a whole

morning's work, only one or two prints were achieved which satisfied

his critical eye, and the rest would be destroyed. There was a Venetian

one which gave him infinite trouble in the printing.

"He was the kindest of men, though he was handy with his cane. In any

financial transaction he was scrupulously honourable, though he never

had much money at his disposal.

"We had great fun over the many correspondences and the catalogues

elaborated in those days in Tite Street.... He was demoniacal in

controversy, and the spirit of elfin mischief was developed in him to

the point of genius.... Pellegrini was much at Whistler's in those

days, and in a way the influence of Whistler was fatal to him. His

admiration was unbounded and he abandoned his art, in which, as Jimmy

used to say, 'he had taught all the others what none of them had been

able to learn,' and took to trying to paint portraits in Whistler's

manner without any success.

"One of the few modern painters I have ever heard him praise was Albert

Moore, and I am not sure that was not to some extent due to a personal

liking for the man. It always struck me his literary judgments, if he

ever happened to express any, were extraordinarily sound and brilliant

in summing up the merits or demerits of a writer.

"He had an extraordinary power of putting a man in his place. I

remember a breakfast which Waldo Story gave at Dieudonné's. Everyone

there had painted a picture, or written a book, or in some way outraged

the Philistine, with the exception of one young gentleman, whose

_raison d'être_ there was not so apparent as were the height of his

collars and the glory of his attire. He nevertheless ventured to lay

down the law on certain matters which seemed beyond his province,

and even went so far as to combat some dictum of the master's, who,

readjusting his eye-glass, looked pleasantly at him, and said, 'And

whose son are you?'"

For two or three years Oscar Wilde was so much with Whistler that

everyone who went to the studio found him there, just as everyone who

went into society saw them together. Wilde had come up from Oxford

not long before the Ruskin trial, with a reputation as a brilliant

undergraduate, winner of the Newdigate prize, and he now posed as the

apostle of "Beauty." Many a reputation is lost between Oxford and

London, but his was strengthened. Oscar's witty sayings were repeated

and his youth seemed to excuse his pose. Whistler impressed him. At

Oxford Wilde had followed Ruskin, and broken stones on the road which

was to lead the young to art; he had read with Pater, he had accepted

the teaching of Morris and Burne-Jones, and their master Rossetti. But

Ruskin was impossible to follow, Pater was a recluse, Rossetti's health

was broken, the prehistoric Fabians, Morris and Burne-Jones, were the

foci of a little group of their own. When Wilde came to London Whistler

was the focus of the world. Whistler was sought out, Wilde tried to

play up. In Tite Street blue and white was used, not as a symbol of

faith, but every day; flowers bloomed, not as a pledge of "culture,"

but for their colour and form; beauty was accepted as no discovery, but

as the aim of art since the first artist drew a line and saw that it

was beautiful. Whistler knew all this. Wilde fumbled with it.

Whistler was flattered by Wilde. He was looked upon as the world's

jester when Wilde fawned upon him. Other young men gathered about

Whistler had name and reputation to make. But Wilde's name was in every

man's mouth; he glittered with the glory of the work he was to do. He

was the most promising poet of his generation and he was amusing. There

was a charm in his personality. We remember when we met him on his

lecture tour in America, and hardly knew whether the magnificence on

the platform where, in velvet knickerbockers, he faced with calmness

rows of college boys each bearing a lily, and stood with composure

their collective emotion as he sipped a glass of water, was more

wonderful than his gaiety when we talked with him afterwards. It has

been said that he gave the best of himself in his talk. If Whistler

liked always to have a companion, his pleasure was increased when he

found someone as brilliant. Wilde spent hours in the studio, he came

to Whistler's Sunday breakfasts, he assisted at Whistler's private

views. Whistler went with him everywhere. There were few functions at

which they were not present. At receptions the company divided into two

groups, one round Whistler, the other round Wilde. It was the fashion

to compare them. To the world that ran after them, that thought itself

honoured, or notorious, by their presence, they seemed inseparable.

The trouble began when Whistler discovered how small was Wilde's

knowledge of art; he could never endure anybody in the studio who did

not understand. Whistler wrote of Wilde as a man "with no more sense

of a picture than of the fit of a coat." _The Gentle Art_ shows that

Whistler was furious with Wilde's borrowing from him. That Wilde took

his good where he found it is neither more nor less than what has

always been done--what Whistler did. But the genius, from the good

thus taken, evolves something of his own. Wilde was content to shine

personally and let the great things expected of him wait. When it was

a question of wit, there was no one to whom Wilde could go except

Whistler. It is all expressed in the old story: "I wish I had said

that, Whistler." "You will, Oscar, you will." In matters of art Wilde

had everything to learn from Whistler, who, though ever generous,

resented Wilde's preaching in the provinces the truths which he had

taught for years. This is all in _The Gentle Art_. "Oscar" had "the

courage of the opinions ... of others!" and again: "Oscar went forth

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. Cole, in 1884, noted in his diary that Whistler "was strong on

Oscar Wilde's notions of art which he derived from him (Jimmy)." Mr.

Herbert Vivian tells the story of a dinner given by Whistler after

Wilde had been lecturing:

"'Now, Oscar, tell us what you said to them,' Whistler kept insisting,

and Wilde had to repeat all the phrases, while Whistler rose and made

solemn bows, with his hand across his breast, in mock acceptance of his

guests' applause.... The cruel part of the plagiarism lay in the fact

that, when Whistler published his _Ten O'Clock_, many people thought it

had all been taken from Wilde's lecture."

Whistler grew more and more exasperated by the use Wilde made of him.

Their intimacy was closest in the early eighties when Whistler was

bewildering the world deliberately; Wilde copied him clumsily. The

world, that did not know them, mistook one for the other and thought

Whistler as much an æsthete as Wilde. When _Patience_ was produced, and

when it was revived a few years ago, Bunthorne, who was Wilde, appeared

with Whistler's black curls and white lock, moustache, tuft, eye-glass,

and laughed with Whistler's "Ha ha!" Whistler, seeing Wilde in a Polish

cap and "green overcoat befrogged and wonderfully befurred," desired

him to "restore those things to Nathan's, and never again let me find

you masquerading the streets of my Chelsea in the combined costumes

of Kossuth and Mr. Mantalini!" To be in danger of losing his pose

before the world was bad enough, but to be mistaken for another man who

rendered him ridiculous was worse. No one has summed up the position

better than the _Times_ in a notice of Wilde's _Collected Works_:

"With a mind not a jot less keen than Whistler's, he had none of the

conviction, the high faith, for which Whistler found it worth while

to defy the crowd. Wilde had poses to attract the crowd. And the

difference was this, that while Whistler was a prophet who liked to

play Pierrot, Wilde grew into a Pierrot who liked to play the prophet."

If Whistler ever played Pierrot, it was with a purpose. Where art was

concerned he was serious. Wilde was serious about nothing. His two

topics were "self and art," and his interest in both was part of his

bid for notoriety. He might jest about himself, but flippancy, if art

was his subject, was to Whistler a crime. The only way he showed his

resentment was by refusing to take Wilde seriously about anything. Even

when Wilde was married, he was not allowed to forget, for Whistler

telegraphed to the church, "Fear I may not be able to reach you in time

for the ceremony. Don't wait." Later, in Paris, he called Wilde "Oscar,

_bourgeois malgré lui_," a witticism none could appreciate better than

the Parisians. As soon as he began to make a jest of Wilde he ended

the companionship to which, while it lasted, London society owed much

gaiety.

The relation between Whistler and artists now coming to the studio was

less that of friends than of Master and Followers, as they called

themselves. He was forty-six when he returned from Venice, and there

were few men of the new generation who shared none of the doubts of his

contemporaries, but believed in him. The devotion of this group became

infatuation. They were ready to do anything for him. Families became

estranged and engagements were broken off because of him. They fought

his battles; ran his errands, spied out the land for him; published

his letters, and read them to everybody. They formed a court about

him. They exaggerated everything, even their devotion, and became

caricatures of him, as excessive in imitation as in devotion. He denied

the right of any, save the artist, to speak authoritatively of art;

they started a club to train the classes--Princes, Prime Ministers,

Patrons, Ambassadors, Members of Parliament--to blind faith in Master

and Followers. Whistler mixed masses of colours on the palette, keeping

them under water in saucers. The Followers mixed theirs in vegetable

dishes and kept them in milk-cans, labelled Floor, Face, Hair, Lips.

He had a table-palette; they adopted it, but added hooks to hang their

cans of paint on. He used his paint very liquid--the "sauce" of the

Nocturnes; they used such quantities of medium that as much went on the

floor as on the canvas, and, before a picture was blocked in, they were

wading in liquid masterpieces. Many of his brushes were large; they

worked with whitewash brushes. They copied his personal peculiarities.

One evening at a dinner when he wore a white waistcoat and all the

buttons, because of the laundress, came out, a Follower, seeing it

buttonless, hurried from the room, and returned with his bulging, sure

that he was in the movement.

Whistler accepted their devotion, and, finding them willing to squander

their time, monopolised it. There was plenty for everybody to do in the

studio. If they complained that he took advantage of them, he proved to

them that the fault was theirs. Mr. Menpes writes:

"We seldom asked Whistler questions about his work.... If we had, he

would have been sure to say, 'Pshaw! You must be occupied with the

Master, not with yourselves. There is plenty to be done.' If there was

not, Whistler would always make a task for you--a picture to be taken

into Dowdeswells', or a copper plate to have a ground put on."

No one respected the work of others more than Whistler. But if others

did not respect it themselves and made him a present of their time

he did not refuse. If he allowed the Followers to accompany him in

his little journeys, it was because they were so eager. When he went

with Walter Sickert and Mortimer Menpes to St. Ives, in the winter

of 1883-84, they were up at six o'clock because it pleased him; they

dared not eat till he rang the bell. They prepared his panels, mixed

his colours, cleaned his brushes, taking a day off for fishing if

Whistler chose, abjuring sentiment if he objected. Whistler saw the

humour in their attitude and was the more exacting. The Followers were

not allowed their own opinions. Once, when Walter Sickert ventured

to praise Leighton's _Harvest Moon_ at the Manchester Art Treasures

Exhibition, Whistler, hearing of it, telegraphed: "The Harvest Moon

rises over Hampstead [where Sickert lived], and the cocks of Chelsea

crow." The Followers, however, knew that if they were of use to

Whistler, he was of infinitely more use to them, and that submission to

his rule and exposure to his wit were a small price to pay. Mr. Sickert

tells another story. He and Whistler were once printing etchings

together, when the former dropped a copper plate. "How like you!" said

Whistler. Five minutes afterwards the improbable happened. Whistler,

who was never clumsy, dropped one himself. There was a pause. "How

unlike me!" was his remark.

Mr. Menpes, who, in _Whistler as I Knew Him_, makes more of the follies

than the privileges of the Followers, cannot ignore their debt. They

worked for him not only in the studio, but in the street, hunting with

him for little shops, corners and models, painting at his side, walking

home with him after dinner or supper at the club, learning from him

to observe and memorise the night. To them he was full of kindliness,

when to the world he often seemed insolent and audacious, and after

his death--even before--some denied him. Later Whistler said that the

Followers were there in the studio; yes, but they never painted there;

they were kept well in the background.

American artists, in London or passing through, began to make their way

to the studio. Otto Bacher records in 1883 Whistler's friendliness, the

pictures in the studio, their dinners together. In 1885 Mr. John W.

Alexander came, commissioned by the _Century_ to make a drawing of him

for a series of portraits. Whistler posed for a little while, though

unwillingly, and criticised the drawing so severely that Mr. Alexander

tore it up. After that, he says, Whistler posed like a lamb. Mr. Harper

Pennington has written for us his reminiscences of those years:

"... Whistler was more than kind to me. Through him came everything.

He introduced me right and left, and called me 'pupil'; took me about

to picture shows and pointed out the good and bad. I remember my

astonishment the first occasion of his giving unstinted praise to

modern work, on which he seldom lavished positives. It was at the Royal

Academy before one of those interiors of Orchardson's. Well, he stood

in front of the canvas, his hat almost on his nose, his 'tuft' sticking

straight out as it did when he would catch his nether lip between his

teeth, and, presently, a long forefinger went out and circled round a

bit of yellow drapery, 'It would have been nice to have painted that,'

he said, as if he thought aloud.

"Another day we rushed to the National Gallery--'just to get the taste

out of our mouths,' he said--after a couple of hours' wandering in the

Royal Academy wilderness of Hardy Annual Horrors. Whistler went at once

to almost _smell_ the Canalettos, while I went across the Gallery,

attracted by the _Marriage à la Mode_. It was my first sight of them.

Up to that day I had supposed that what I was told and had read of

Hogarth was the truth--the silly rubbish about his being _only_ a

caricaturist, so that when confronted with those marvels of technical

quality, I fairly gasped for breath, and then hurried over to where

Whistler had his nose against the largest Canaletto, seized his arm,

and said hurriedly, 'Come over here.' 'What's the matter?' said he,

turning round. 'Why! Hogarth! He was a great painter!' 'Sh--sh!' said

he (pretending he was afraid that someone would overhear us). 'Sh--sh!

Yes, I _know_ it, ... _but don't you tell 'em_!' Later, Hogarth was

thoroughly discussed and his qualities pointed out with that incisive

manner which one had to be familiar with to understand.

"Whistler was reasonable enough and preferred a joke to a battle any

day. Often he came to me in the King's Road, breathing vengeance

against this or that person, but when he went away it was _invariably_

with a _fin sourire_ and one of his little notes. His clairvoyance

in the matter of two notes to Leighton was made manifest at my

writing-table. The P.R.A. wrote a lame explanation to Whistler's first

query as to why he had not been invited to the Academy _soirée_, as

President of the R.S.B.A., _ex-officio_, or as Whistler. He came

into my room one morning early--before I, sluggard, was awake!--and

read to me an outline of a note he meant to write, and then wrote it

with grace of diction and dainty composition, and the pretty balanced

Butterfly for signature. When that was done, he turned to me (I was

dressing then) and said: 'Now, Har-r-rpur-r-r.' (He liked to burr those

r's in 'down-east' fashion.) 'Now, Har-r-rpur-r-r, I know Leighton, he

will _fumble_ this. He will answer so-and-so' (describing the answer

Leighton actually sent), 'and then I've got him!' He chuckled, wrote

another note--the retort to Leighton's unwritten answer to Whistler's

not yet posted first note--which he read to me. That retort was sent

almost verbatim, only one slight change made necessary by a turn of

phrase in Leighton's weak apology! That _was_ 'Amazing.' His anger soon

burnt out--the jest _would_ come--and the whole thing boiled itself

down in the _World_, or a line to 'Labby.'"

[Illustration: NOCTURNE IN BLUE AND GOLD

OLD BATTERSEA BRIDGE

OIL

In the National Gallery of British Art, Tate Gallery

(_See page 172_)]

[Illustration: THE FALLING ROCKET

NOCTURNE IN BLACK AND GOLD

OIL

In the possession of Mrs. S. Untermeyer

(_See page 170_)]

CHAPTER XXVII: THE STUDIO IN THE FULHAM ROAD. THE YEARS EIGHTEEN

EIGHTY-FIVE TO EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-SEVEN.

In 1885 Whistler moved from Tite Street to 454 Fulham Road. A shabby

gate opened on a shabby lane leading to studios, one of which was his.

Here Lady Archibald Campbell's and M. Duret's portraits were finished.

Whistler was living at the time with Maud in a little house close by,

since pulled down, which he called the "Pink Palace," having painted

it himself. He was again hard up, and M. Duret, coming to dinner,

would buy a good part of it on the way down and arrive, his pockets

bulging with bottles and fruit and cake. Before long Whistler left the

"Pink Palace" for the Vale, Chelsea--"an amazing place, you might be

in the heart of the country, and there, two steps away, is the King's

Road." It was the first house on the right beyond the iron gates, now

demolished. But the whole place has gone.

In the _Court and Society Review_ (July 1, 1886) Mr. Malcolm C. Salaman

described the Fulham Road studio and the work in progress:

"The whitewashed walls, the wooden rafters, which partly form a loft

for the stowing away of canvases, the vast space unencumbered by

furniture, and the large table-palette, all give the appearance of the

working place.... Mr. Whistler is not so feeble as to aim at theatrical

effects in his costume. In the black clothes of ordinary wear, straight

from the street, he stands at his easel. To those accustomed to studios

the completeness of the arrangement ... in accordance with the scheme

of the picture that is in progress is striking, as striking indeed

as the personality of the artist. His whole body seems instinct with

energy and enthusiasm, his face lit up with flashes of quick and strong

thought, as that of a man who sees with his brains as well as with his

eyes....

"A word, by the way, about Mr. Whistler's palette. As I saw it the

other day, the colours were arranged almost with the appearance of a

picture. In the centre was white and on one side were the various reds

leading up to black, while on the other side were the yellows leading

up to blue....

"And now a few words about some of the pictures which the master had

almost ready for exhibition: A full-length figure of a girl in out-door

black dress, with a fur cape and a hat trimmed with flowers. She stands

against a dark background, and she _lives_ in her frame. A full-length

portrait of Mr. Walter Sickert, a favourite pupil of Mr. Whistler's

and one of his cleverest disciples. He is in evening dress, and stands

against a dark wall. This is a picture that Velasquez himself would

have delighted in. [It has vanished.] A full-length portrait of a man

with a Spanish-looking head, painted in a manner that is surely of

the greatest. [Perhaps the portrait of Chase or of Eldon; both have

disappeared.]... A superb portrait of Mrs. Godwin will rank among Mr.

Whistler's _chefs d'oeuvre_. The lady stands in an ample red cloak over

a black dress, against red draperies, and in her bonnet is a red plume.

Her hands rest on her hips, and her attitude is singularly vivacious.

This picture has been painted in artificial light, as has also another

of a lady seated in a graceful attitude, with one hand leaning over the

back of a chair, while the other holds a fan. She wears a white evening

dress, and is seen against a light background. [A picture we cannot

identify.] Besides these Mr. Whistler showed me sketches of various

groups of several girls on the seashore ... [_The Six Projects_] and

a sketch of _Venus_, lovely in colour and design, the nude figure

standing close to the sea, with delicate gauze draperies lightly lifted

by the breeze. The studio is full of canvases and pictures in more or

less advanced stages, and on one of the walls hang a number of pastel

studies of nude and partially draped female figures. A portrait-sketch

in black chalk of Mr. Whistler by M. Rajon also hangs on the wall."

The _Further Proposition_, which was quoted by Mr. Salaman, can be read

in _The Gentle Art_. It is Whistler's statement that a figure should

keep well within the frame, and that flesh should be painted according

to the light in which it is seen: the answer to the objection often

made to his portraits because the "flesh was low in tone." A year

later it was reprinted in the _Art Journal_ (April 1887) by Mr. Walter

Dowdeswell, whose article was the first appreciation of Whistler in

an important English magazine. Whistler, knowing the value of what he

wrote, meant that his writings should be preserved, and he gave to Mr.

Dowdeswell for publication the reply which he had made twenty years

earlier to Hamerton's criticism of the _Symphony in White, No. III._,

but which was not then printed because the _Saturday Review_, where the

criticism appeared, did not publish correspondence. Mr. Dowdeswell,

describing the studio, adds a few details omitted by Mr. Salaman: "The

_soupçon_ of yellow in the rugs and matting; a table covered with old

Nankin china; a crowd of canvases at the further end, and, pinned upon

the wall on the right, a number of exquisite little notes of colour,

and drawings of figures from life, in pastels, on brown paper."

Mr. E. J. Horniman, who had a studio near by, tells us that he often

saw on the roof of the omnibus stable, just behind it, pictures put out

to dry.

Many who visited the studio were surprised to find Whistler working

in white. He sometimes wore a white jacket; sometimes took off his

coat and waistcoat. He was as fastidious with his work as with his

dress. He could not endure a slovenly palette, or brushes and colours

in disorder, though the palette had a raised edge to keep the colour

off his sleeve. Unfortunately, after his wife's death he ruined the

two portraits of himself in the white painting jacket, which he never

exhibited, by changing the white jacket to a black coat.

Other reminiscences of Fulham Road we have from William M. Chase,

who came to London in 1885, with a suggestion that he and Whistler

should paint each other; also, that Whistler should go back to

America and open a school. "Well, you know, that anyway will be all

right, Colonel," as Whistler called Chase. "Of course, everybody will

receive me; tug-boats will come down the Bay; it will be perfect!" He

thought so seriously of going, that he hesitated to send to the London

galleries work he would want for America.

The two portraits were begun. Whistler painted a full-length of Chase,

in frock-coat and top-hat, a cane held jauntily across his legs. As he

wrote afterwards, in a letter included in _The Gentle Art_, "I, who was

charming, made him beautiful on canvas, the Masher of the Avenues."

Whistler was delighted with what he had done:

"Look at this, Colonel! Look at this; did you ever see anything finer?"

"It's meek or modest, they'll have to put on your tombstone!"

"Say 'and' not 'or'--meek and modest! H'm!--well, you know, splendid,

Chase!"

Chase remembers an evening when they were to dine out, and Whistler had

to go home to dress, and it was almost the hour before he ventured to

remind him. Then Whistler was astonished:

"What, Chase, you can think of dinner and time when we are doing such

beautiful things? Stay where you are, and they will be glad to see me

whenever I come."

Everybody who has been with him in the studio knows how difficult it

was for him to stop when he was absorbed in his work. Mr. Pennington

says: "Whistler's habit of painting long after the hour when anybody

could distinguish gradations of light and colour was the cause of much

unnecessary repainting and many disappointments, for after leaving

a canvas that seemed exquisite in the dusk of the falling night, he

would return to it in the glare of the next morning and find unexpected

effects that had been concealed by the twilight. Whistler never learned

to hold his hand when daylight waned. The fascination of _seeming_ to

have caught the values led him far into the deceiving shades of night

with often disastrous results."

Whistler's portrait of Chase has vanished with many another. Chase

painted Whistler also in frock-coat, without a hat, holding the long

cane, against a yellow wall, and his portrait remains. Chase intended

stopping a short time in London as he passed on to Madrid. But he found

Whistler so delightful that his visit to Spain was put off. He has

told many incidents of these months spent with Whistler in a lecture

delivered in the United States, and in an article in the _Century_. A

lecturer, no doubt, must adapt himself to his audience, and Chase has

dwelt principally on Whistler, the man--Whistler, the dandy; Whistler,

the fantastic, designing, for the tour in America, a white hansom with

yellow reins and a white and yellow livery for the nigger driver;

Whistler, the traveller. They went together to Belgium and Holland.

They stopped at Antwerp and saw the International Exhibition. Whistler

said to us once that he could never be ill-natured, only wicked, and

this was one of the occasions when he was wicked. In the gallery he

refused to look at any pictures except those that told stories, asking

Chase if the mouse would really scare the cat or the baby swallow the

mustard-pot. The first interest he showed was in the work of Alfred

Stevens. Before it he stood long; at last, with his little finger

pointing to a passage in the small canvas, "H'm, Colonel! you know

one would not mind having painted that!" Chase grew nervous as they

approached the wall devoted to Bastien-Lepage, whom he admired, and he

decided to leave Whistler. But Whistler would not hear of it. "I'll say

only one word, Chase," he promised. Then they came to the Bastiens,

"H'm, h'm, Colonel, the one word--School!" On the journey from Antwerp

to Amsterdam two Germans were in the train: "Well, you know, Colonel,

if the Almighty ever made a mistake it was when he created the German!"

Whistler said at the end of a few minutes. Chase told him that if he

could speak German he might understand their interesting talk. Whistler

answered in fluent German and talked nothing else, until, at Haarlem,

Chase could endure it no longer and left. Whistler leaned out of the

window as the train started, "Think it over, Chase, and to-morrow

morning you will come on to Amsterdam, and you'll tell me that I'm

right about the Germans!"

One incident not told in print by Chase is that while in London he

was the owner of the _Mother_. An American had given him money to buy

pictures, and when he found that the _Mother_ was to be had from Mr.

Graves for one hundred pounds he bought it, but first was referred to

Whistler by Mr. Graves. Whistler, delighted to learn that he could

control the pictures deposited with the Pall Mall firm, agreed to

everything, but the agreement, was settled the day before starting for

Antwerp, and when Chase got the money from his bankers and hurried to

the Graves Gallery it was closed, and he gave the cheque to Whistler.

The picture was his, but only during the time of Whistler's absence

from London, for on his return Whistler could not bear to part with it

and promptly sent the cheque back to Chase--or it may be that the trip

with Chase helped him to change his mind.

All this is characteristic, but it would be interesting to hear less

of his play and more of his work from Chase, who gives only a glimpse

of Whistler the artist, and then in lighter moods. He tells of one

occasion when an American wanted to buy some etchings, and they were

to lunch with him in the City to arrange the matter. Taking a hansom,

late of course, they passed a grocer's where Whistler stopped the

driver: "Well, Chase, what do you think? If I get him to move the box

of oranges? What?" And then, still later, they drove on. Another time,

Chase expressed surprise at Whistler's refusing to deliver a picture to

the lady who had bought it. But Whistler explained:

"You know, Chase, the people don't really want anything beautiful. They

fill a room by chance with beautiful things, and some little trumpery

something over the mantelpiece gives the whole damned show away. And if

they pay a hundred pounds or so for a picture, they think it belongs to

them. Well--why--it should only be theirs for a while; hung on their

walls that they may rejoice in it and then returned." Once, it is said,

a lady drove up to the studio and told him: "I have bought one of your

pictures, it is beautiful, but as it is always at exhibitions I never

see it. But I'm told you have it." "Dear lady," said Whistler, "you

have been misinformed, it is not here." And she drove away. Later he

found it: "H'm, she was right about one thing, it is beautiful. But

because she's paid hundreds of pounds for it, she thinks she ought to

have it all the time. She's lucky if she gets it now and then."

It must be admitted that it is not easy from any standpoint to write

of Whistler during the years that followed his return from Venice. The

decade between 1880 and 1890 is the fullest of his full life. It was

during these ten years that he opened his "one man" shows amidst jeers,

and closed them with success. It was during these ten years that he

conquered society, though society never realised it. It was during

these ten years that, to make himself known, he became in the streets

of London the observed of all observers, developing extraordinary

costumes, attracting to himself the attention he wanted to attract. It

was during these ten years that he began to wrap himself in mystery,

as Degas said of him, and then go off and get photographed, when, as

Degas also said, he acted as if he had no genius: but mystery and pose

were part of the armour he put on to protect himself from, and draw

to himself, a foolish public. It was during these ten years that he

invented the Followers--and got rid of them; that he flitted from house

to house, from studio to studio, and through England, France, Belgium,

and Holland, until it is impossible to keep pace with him; that he

captured the Press, though it is still unconscious of its capture; that

he concentrated the interest of England, of the whole world upon him,

with one object in view--that is, to make England, the whole world,

look at his work. For, as he said, if he had not made people look at

it they never would have done so. They never understood it, they hated

it. They do not understand it to-day, and they hate it the more because

he has succeeded and they have failed in their endeavours to ignore or

ruin him. Even now that it is too late, they are crawling from their

graves and spitting at him, flinging mud at his memory.

In these crowded years two events stand out with special prominence,

his _Ten O'Clock_ and his invasion of the British Artists. One states

definitely his views on art; the other shows as definitely the position

he had attained among artists.

CHAPTER XXVIII: THE TEN O'CLOCK. THE YEARS EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-FOUR TO

EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-EIGHT.

Into _The Ten O'Clock_ Whistler put all he had learned of art, all he

knew to be unchangeable and everlasting. Mr. W. C. Alexander has told

us that when he listened to _The Ten O'Clock_ at Prince's Hall, nothing

in it was new to him; he had heard it for years from Whistler over the

dinner-table. The only new thing was Whistler's determination to say

in public what he had said in private. He was busy with this in the

autumn and winter of 1884-85. He would come at strange hours and read

a page to Mr. Cole, in whose diary, from October until February, note

follows note of his visits:

"_October 24_ (1884). Whistler to dine. We passed the evening writing

out his views on Ruskin, art, etc.

"_October 27._ Jimmy to dinner, continuing notes as to himself and art.

"_October 28._ Writing out Whistler's notes for him.

"_October 29._ Jimmy to dine. Writing notes as to his opinions on

art matters, and discussing whether to offer them for publication to

_English Illustrated Magazine_ edited by Comyns Carr, or to whom?"

Mr. G. A. Holmes, in his Chelsea house, was often roused by the sharp

ring and double-knock, followed by Whistler with a page or paragraph

for his approval. Mr. Menpes writes that "scores of times--I might

almost say hundreds of times--he paced up and down the Embankment

at night, repeating to me sentences from the marvellous lecture."

A marvellous story. During a few days' illness at his brother's in

Wimpole Street, where, when ill, he went, Mrs. Whistler recalled him

sitting, propped up by pillows, reading passages to the doctor and

herself.

His plan for an article in the _English Illustrated Magazine_ came to

nothing. In November 1884 Lord Powerscourt, Mr. Ludovici says in the

_Art Journal_ (July 1906), invited Whistler to Ireland to distribute

prizes at an art school and speak to the students, and nothing was more

appropriate than the notes he had written down.

Mr. Cole records:

"_November 19_ (1884). Whistler called and told us how he was invited

to Ireland, where he was sending some of his works, and would lecture

in Dublin."

The invitation came from the Dublin Sketching Club, which held its

exhibitions in Leinster Hall. Three other Americans--Sargent, Julian

Story, and Ralph Curtis--were invited. No such collection of Whistler's

work had been seen out of London. Mr. Booth Pearsall, the honorary

secretary, sends us this account:

"He was exceedingly generous to a club of strangers, lending them

twenty-five of his works. This collection included the _Mother_,

_Lady Meux_, _Carlyle_, a number of Nocturnes, and other oils,

water-colours, and pastels. The pictures had to be hung together in a

group. As I was so interested in them, with Mr. Whistler's permission,

I had them photographed. He never asked for rights or commission, but,

in the most gracious, generous way, gave us the permission to use the

negatives as we liked. The exhibition was hardly opened before the

critical music began, and in the papers and in conversation, a regular

tempest arose that was highly diverting to Mr. Whistler. He begged me

to send him everything said about the exhibition, and his letters show

he quite enjoyed all the ferment. The whole of Dublin was convulsed,

and many went to Molesworth Street to see the exhibition who rarely

went to see anything of the kind. Then a terrible convulsion took place

in the club: a group of members we had admitted, who photographed,

got together, and drew up resolutions, that never again should such

pictures be exhibited. None of these men could even paint. The talent

of the club replied by having Mr. Whistler elected as hon. member, and

it was carried, despite intense resistance. I took an active part in

all this. It was with a view to helping Mr. Whistler that I did my best

to have his _Ten O'Clock_ given in Dublin. He was at first disposed

to come over, but other matters prevented, and the matter dropped.

During the time of the exhibition, I tried my utmost to sell the

pictures, and an offer was made by a friend to purchase the _Mother_

and the _Carlyle_, which seemed to promise well, but ultimately

stopped. I did induce the friend to purchase _Piccadilly_, which had

been No. 9, _Nocturne in Grey and Gold--Piccadilly_ (water-colour),

in his exhibition in Bond Street that May [Dowdeswell's]. He was very

much pleased indeed, and sent the Right Hon. Jonathan Hogg, P.C., a

receipt, greatly to Mr. Hogg's amusement, for an impression was rife

that he never did attend to business. I know from friends, who knew Mr.

Whistler, how much pleased he was, not only with the purchase of his

pictures, but with the commotion that the exhibition caused."

Whistler did not give up the idea of a lecture. Archibald Forbes heard

him read, was impressed, and introduced him to Mrs. D'Oyly Carte. She

had managed a lecture tour for Forbes, now she agreed to arrange an

evening for Whistler. She told us of his attention to detail. "The

idea was absolutely his," she wrote us, "and all I did was to see to

the business arrangements. You can imagine how enthusiastic he was

over it all, and how he made one enthusiastic too." She was about to

produce _The Mikado_, and, sure that he would find her in her office

at the Savoy Theatre, he would appear there every evening to talk

things over, or would send Mr. Walter Sickert with a message. Whistler

delighted in her office, a tiny room lit by a lamp on her desk, making

strange effects, but his only records of his many visits are in the

etchings, _Savoy Scaffolding_ and _Miss Lenoir_, Mrs. D'Oyly Carte's

name before her marriage. Prince's Hall was taken. Whistler suggested

the hour. People were not to rush to him from dinner as to the theatre;

therefore ten was as early as one could expect them, and the hour gave

the name--_The Ten O'Clock_. He designed the ticket, he had it enlarged

into a poster, he chose the offices where tickets should be sold. There

was a rehearsal at Prince's Hall on February 19 (1885), Mrs. D'Oyly

Carte and some of the Followers sitting in front to tell him if his

voice carried. Whistler had his lecture by heart, his delivery was

excellent, he needed no coaching, only an occasional warning to raise

his voice. It was because he feared his voice would not carry that he

gave his nightly rehearsals on the Embankment, Mr. Menpes says.

[Illustration: _M^r. Whistler's_

"_Ten o'clock._" _Prince's Hall, Piccadilly._

_On the evening of Feb. 20._

_Carriages at 11._

_Tickets can be obtained at all The Libraries._]

On February 20, 1885, the hall was crowded. Reporters expressed the

general feeling when they wondered whether "the eccentric artist was

going to sketch, to pose, to sing, or to rhapsodise," and were frankly

astonished when the "amiable eccentric" chose to appear simply as "a

jaunty, unabashed, composed, and self-satisfied gentleman, armed with

an opera hat and an eye-glass." Others were amazed to see him "attired

in faultless evening dress." The Followers compared the figure in black

against the black background to the _Sarasate_, and they recall his

hat carefully placed on the table and the long cane as carefully stood

against the wall. Oscar Wilde called him "a miniature Mephistopheles

mocking the majority." The unprejudiced saw the dignity of his presence

and felt the truth and beauty of his words. Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt

writes us:

"It is always a delight to remember that actually once Mr. Whistler

was really shy. Those who had the pleasure of hearing the first

_Ten O'Clock_ remember that when he came before his puzzled and

distinguished audience there were a few minutes of very palpable

stage-fright."

He had notes, but he seldom referred to them. He held his audience

from the first, and Mrs. D'Oyly Carte recalled the hush in the hall

when he came to his description of London transfigured, a fairyland

in the night. "I went to laugh and I stayed to praise," is the late

Lewis F. Day's account to us, and others were generous enough to make

the same admission. Whistler forced his audience to listen because he

spoke with conviction. _The Ten O'Clock_ was the statement of truths

which his contemporaries were doing their best to forget. When we read

it to-day, our surprise is that things so obvious needed saying. Yet

the need exists to-day more than ever. Almost every one of Whistler's

propositions and statements has been traduced or ignored by critics,

who are incapable of leading thought or are dealers in disguise, and

painters compare their puny selves and petty financial scrapes to

Whistler's magnificent efforts and complete success in his battles for

art and his reputation.

To this lecture we owe the most interesting profession of artistic

faith ever made by an artist. At the time it was given there was a

reaction, outside the Academy, against the anecdote and sentiment of

Victorian art. Ruskin through his books, the Pre-Raphaelites through

their pictures, had spread the doctrine that art was a question of

ethics and industry. Pater preached that it belonged to the past,

William Morris taught that it sprang from the people and to the people

must return. Strange, sad-coloured creatures clad themselves in

strange, sad-coloured garments and admired each other. Many besides

Oscar Wilde profitably peddled in the provinces what they prigged or

picked up; artists proclaimed the political importance of art; parsons

discovered in it a new salvation. "Art was upon the town," as Whistler

said. But ethics and business, fashion and socialism had captured

it. _The Ten O'Clock_ was a protest against the crimes committed in

the name of art, against the belief that art belonged to the past or

concerned the people, that its object was to teach or to elevate.

"Art and Joy go together," he said, the world's masters were never

reformers, never missionaries, but, content with their surroundings,

found beauty everywhere. There was no great past, no mean present, for

art, no drawing of lines between the marbles of the Greek and the fans

and broideries of Japan. There was no artistic period, no art-loving

people. Art happened, and, in a few eloquent words, he told the history

of its happening and the coming of the cheap and tawdry, when the

taste of the tradesman supplanted the science of the artist, and the

multitude rejoiced. Art is a science--the science by which the artist

picks and chooses and groups the elements contained in Nature, that

beauty may result. For "Nature is very rarely right, to such an extent

even, that it might almost be said that Nature is usually wrong." He

has been so frequently misunderstood that it may be well to emphasise

the meaning of these two assertions, the rock upon which his faith

was founded. Art happens because the artist may happen anywhere at

any time; art is a science not because painters maintain that it is

concerned with laws of light or chemistry of colours or scientific

problems, but because it is exact in its methods and in its results.

The artist can leave no more to chance than the chemist or the botanist

or the biologist. Knowledge may and does increase and develop, but the

laws of art are unalterable. Because art is a science the critic who

is not an artist speaks without authority and would prize a picture as

a "hieroglyph or symbol of story," or for anything save the painter's

poetry which is the reason for its existence, "the amazing invention

that shall have put form and colour into such perfect harmony, that

exquisiteness is the result." The conditions of art are degraded by

these "middlemen," the critics, and by the foolish who would go back

because the thumb of the mountebank jerked the other way. He laughed

at the pretence of the State as fosterer of art--art that roams as

she will, from the builders of the Parthenon to the opium-eaters of

Nankin, from the Master at Madrid to Hokusai at the foot of Fusiyama.

His denial of an artistic period or an art-loving people was his

defence of art against those who would bound it by dates and confine

it within topographical limits. He meant, not that a certain period

might not produce artists and people to appreciate them, but that art

is independent of time and place, "seeking and finding the beautiful

in all conditions and in all times, as did her high priest, Rembrandt,

when he saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in the Jews' quarter

of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its inhabitants were not Greeks.

[Illustration: THE BRIDGE

ETCHING. G. 204

By permission of Messrs. Dowdeswell

(_See page 199_)]

[Illustration: THE DOORWAY

ETCHING. G. 188

By permission of the Fine Art Society

(_See page 192_)]

"As did Tintoret and Paul Veronese, among the Venetians, while not

halting to change the brocaded silks for the classic draperies of

Athens.

"As did, at the Court of Philip, Velasquez, whose Infantas, clad in

inæsthetic hoops, are, as works of Art, of the same quality as the

Elgin Marbles."

As did, he might have added, Whistler, during the reign of Victoria, in

his portraits and Nocturnes which have carried on the art of the world.

His argument was clear and his facts, misunderstood, are becoming

the _clichés_ of this generation. Critics, photographers, even Royal

Academicians have appropriated the truths of _The Ten O'Clock_, for

strange things are happening to the memory of the Idle Apprentice. He

made his points wittily; he chose his words and rounded his sentences

with the feeling for the beautiful that ruled his painting. _The Ten

O'Clock_ has passed into literature. Those Sunday wrestlings with

Scripture in Lowell, that getting of the Psalms by heart at Stonington

developed a style the literary artist may envy. This style in _Art

and Art Critics_ had its roughness. He pruned and chastened it in his

letters to the papers, devoting infinite thought and trouble to them,

for he, more than most men, believed that whatever he had to do was

worth doing with all his might. He would write and rewrite them, and

drive editors mad by coming at the busiest hour to correct the proof,

working over it an hour or more, and then returning to change a word or

a comma, while press and printers waited, and he got so excited once

he forgot his eye-glass--and the editor stole it, and, of course, later

lost it. In his correspondence he was as scrupulous, and we have known

him make a rough draft of a letter to his bootmaker in Paris, and ask

us to dictate it to him while he wrote his fair copy, as a final touch

addressing it to M. ----, _Maître Bottier_. In _The Ten O'Clock_ he

brought his style to perfection. His philosophy, based on the eternal

truths of art, was expressed with the beauty that endures for all time.

The critics treated Whistler's lecture as they treated his exhibitions.

The _Daily News_ was almost alone in owning that its quality was a

surprise. The _Times_ had the country with it when it said that "the

audience, hoping for an hour's amusement from the eccentric genius of

the artist, were not disappointed." "The eccentric freak of an amiable,

humorous, and accomplished gentleman," was the _Daily Telegraph's_

opinion. Oscar Wilde, in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, was shocked that

an artist should talk of art, and was unwilling to accept the fact

that only a painter is a judge of painting. This was natural, for as

an authority on art Wilde had made himself ridiculous. Nor could he

assent to much that Whistler said, for, as a lecturer, he had been a

perambulating advertisement for the æsthetic movement, against which

_The Ten O'Clock_ was a protest. But he was more generous than other

critics in acknowledging the beauty of the lecture and the earnestness

of the lecturer, though he could not finish his notice without one

parting shot at the man whose target he had often been: "that he is

indeed one of the very greatest masters of painting is my opinion.

And I may add that, in this opinion, Mr. Whistler himself entirely

concurs." This was not the sort of thing Whistler could pass over.

His answer led to a correspondence which made another chapter in _The

Gentle Art_.

Whistler repeated _The Ten O'Clock_ several times; early in March

before the British Artists, and later in the same month (the 24th)

before the University Art Society at Cambridge, where he spent the

night with Sir Sidney Colvin, who writes us, "beyond the mere fact that

Whistler dined with me in Hall and had some chat there with Prince

Edward--an amiable youth who was a little scared at the idea of having

to talk art (of which he was blankly ignorant) but whom Whistler soon

put at his ease; I have no precise recollection of what passed." What a

pity!

On April 30 he gave his lecture at Oxford. Mr. Sidney Starr "went down

with Whistler and his brother, 'Doctor Willie,' to the Mitre. The

lecture hall was small, with primitive benches, and the audience was

small. The lecture was delivered impressively, but lacking the original

emphasis and sparkle. Whistler hated to do anything twice over, and

this was the fourth time."

The fifth time was about the same date, at the Royal Academy Students'

Club in Golden Square, an unexplained accident, and the sixth at the

Fine Art Society's. Dr. Moncure Conway wrote us a year before his

death that he heard _The Ten O'Clock_ at Lady Jeune's, but Lady Jeune

does not recollect it. Whistler we are sure would have remembered and

recorded it. There was a suggestion, which came to nothing, of taking

it on an American tour and to Paris. It was heard twice more in London,

once at the Grosvenor Gallery in February 1888. Val Prinsep recalled

Whistler's "pressing invitation" for him and Leighton to attend:

"During the time he was president of the British Artists, he and the

other heads of art sometimes were asked to dine by our President

(Leighton). 'Rather late to ask _me_, don't you think?' Whistler

remarked. After dinner, he pressed Leighton and me to come to his

lecture, which was to be delivered a few days after. 'What's the use of

me coming?' Leighton said sadly. 'You know I should not agree with what

you said, my dear Whistler!' 'Oh,' cried Whistler, 'come all the same;

nobody takes me seriously, don't you know!'"

It was heard for the last time three years later (1891) at the Chelsea

Arts Club, which had just started and proposed to hold lectures and

discussions; it now gives fancy-dress balls and boxing matches. Before

the club found a home it was suggested that the first of these meetings

should be at the Cadogan Pier Hotel, and Whistler was invited to read

_The Ten O'Clock_, but his answer was, "No, gentlemen, let us go to no

beer hotel," and _The Ten O'Clock_ was put off until the clubhouse in

the King's Road was opened.

_The Ten O'Clock_, originally set up by Mr. Way, was published by

Messrs. Chatto and Windus in the spring of 1888. It had much the same

reception when it was printed as when it was delivered. The only

criticism Whistler took seriously was an article by Swinburne in the

_Fortnightly Review_ for June 1888.