RECOLLECTIONS AND IMPRESSIONS
OF
JAMES A. McNEILL WHISTLER

[Contents]
[Illustrations]
[Index]

RECOLLECTIONS AND
IMPRESSIONS
OF
James A. McNeill Whistler

BY
ARTHUR JEROME EDDY
AUTHOR OF “DELIGHT: THE
SOUL OF ART,” ETC.

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1903

Copyright, 1903
By J. B. Lippincott Company
Published November, 1903
Electrotyped and Printed by
J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U. S. A.

To L. O. E.
This Sixteenth Day of September
Nineteen Hundred and Three

FOREWORD

Most of what is contained herein has been collected from time to time within the past ten years and jotted down for use in certain lectures on Whistler and his art. The lectures were, as is this book, a tribute to the great painter.

The reminiscences are mostly personal. Many of the anecdotes—though perhaps equally familiar to others—were had from the artist’s own lips. The views concerning his art, whether right or wrong, were formed while watching him at work day after day, and after many interviews in which, now and then, he would speak plainly concerning art. At the same time not so much as a thought must be attributed to him unless expressly quoted.

The biographical data—just sufficient to furnish a connecting thread and aid in the appreciation—have been gathered from casual sources, and are, no doubt, subject to incidental corrections.

Only when a duly authorized “life and letters” is published by those who have access to the material that must exist will the great artist be known by the world as he really was—a profoundly earnest, serious, loving, and lovable man.

Meanwhile, those who believe in his art must—like the writer—speak their convictions for what they are worth.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

“This man, who took no joy in the ways of his brethren—who cared not for conquest, and fretted in the field—this designer of quaint patterns—this deviser of the beautiful—who perceived in Nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire—this dreamer apart, was the first artist.”—Whistler’s “Ten o’Clock.”

RECOLLECTIONS AND IMPRESSIONS
OF
JAMES A. McNEILL WHISTLER

I

Why he never Returned to America—Tariff on Art—South America—Valparaiso.

Now that the end has come and the master is no more, the scattered sheaves of stories and anecdotes, of facts and fancies, of recollections and impressions may be gathered together from the four quarters, and the story of his work be told,—not in detail, not in sequence, for some one will write his life, but in fragmentary fashion as the thoughts occur.

For the better part of his life Whistler fought the prejudices of all Europe and of his own country.

He once said, with a tinge of bitterness in his tone:

“The papers in America seem content to publish second-hand whatever they find about me in English journals that is mean and vindictive or that savors of ridicule. Aside from the hopeless want of originality displayed in echoing the stupidities of others, what has become of that boasted love of fair play? Even the phlegmatic Englishman takes the part of a fellow-countryman against many—quite regardless; but the American press—bully like—leans to the side of the bully and weakly cries, bravo! whenever the snarling pack on this side snaps at the heels of an American who mocks them at the doors of their own kennels.

“One would think the American people would back a countryman—right or wrong—who is fighting against odds; but for thirty years they laughed when the English laughed, sneered when they sneered, scoffed when they scoffed, lied when they lied, until,—well, until it has been necessary to reduce both nations to submission.”

For a time he worked without a word, then:

“But when France—in all things discerning—proclaimed the truth, America—still blind—hastened to shout that she, too, saw the light, and poured forth adulation ad nauseam.”

“But would you say that Americans are as dense as the English?”

“Heaven forbid that the Englishman’s one undeniable superiority be challenged; but an Englishman is so honest in his stupidity that one loves him for the—virtue; whereas the American is a ‘smart Aleck’ in his ignorance, and therefore intolerable.”

But that was years ago, when the unconverted were more numerous on this side,—there are still a number of stubborn dissenters, but in the chorus of praise their voices are scarce more than a few discordant notes.

Of late Whistler had but little cause to complain of lack of appreciation on this side,—for, while an art so subtle as his is bound to be more or less misunderstood, critics, amateurs, and a goodly portion of the public have for a long time acknowledged his greatness as an etcher, a lithographer, and a painter. In fact, for at least ten years past his works have been gradually coming to this country—where they belong. England and Scotland have been searched for prints and paintings until the great collections—much greater than the public know—of his works are here. Some day the American people will be made more fully acquainted with the beautiful things he has done, many of which have never been seen save by a few intimate friends.

The struggle for recognition was long and bitter,—so long and so bitter that it developed in him the habits of controversy and whimsical irritability by which he was for a generation more widely known than through his art.

When it was once reported that he was going to America, he said, “It has been suggested many times; but, you see, I find art so absolutely irritating to the people that, really, I hesitate before exasperating another nation.”

To another who asked him when he was coming, he answered, with emphasis, “When the duty on art is removed.”

The duty on art was a source of constant irritation to Whistler,—for, while the works of American artists residing abroad are admitted free, the artist is compelled to make oaths, invoices, and take out consular certificates, and pay the consular fees in line with the shipper of olive oil and cheese.

There was even a time, under the present law, when the works of American painters were not admitted free. The law reads, the works of American artists “residing temporarily abroad” shall be admitted free, etc.

Some department at Washington made an off-hand ruling that if an American artist had resided more than five years abroad his works would be subject to duty as those of a foreigner, thereby expatriating with a stroke of the pen four-fifths of the Americans who are working like dogs—but as artists—to make the world beautiful.

To Whistler, Sargent, and the many prosperous ones the ruling did not greatly matter, but to the younger men who could not earn money enough to get home it did matter, and for a time it looked as if American art in Europe would be obliterated,—for American art in Europe depends for its support and aggressiveness on the American artists over there. Drive these men home, or expatriate them, so as to compel them to cast their lots with France, or England, or Italy, and what would become of those American sections in foreign exhibitions which for at least a dozen years past have commanded the serious consideration of all thoughtful observers as containing elements of strength, sobriety, and promise found nowhere else in the entire world of art?

Happily an appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury—a man interested in art—resulted in an immediate reversal of the ruling, and the works of American artists come in free unless the artist declares his intention of residing abroad permanently.

But while the ban on American painting is lifted, sculpture is in a bad way. Under the law only sculpture “wrought by hand” from marble or metal by the sculptor is to be classed as art. Inasmuch as the sculptor never did work bronze by hand, and nowadays very rarely touches the marble, there is no sculpture which comes within the law. The federal courts of New York, high and low, have soberly held that unless it is shown that bronzes are “wrought by hand” by the sculptor, instead of cast from plaster, which in turn is made from the clay, they are commercial products and classed with bronze cooking utensils at forty-five per cent. duty. However, a federal judge in Chicago, somewhat more familiar with art processes, has held that the New York decisions are arrant nonsense, and original bronzes by Rodin, St. Gaudens, and other sculptors, made in the only known way of producing bronzes, should be classed as art. What other federal courts may hold—each, under our wonderful system, having the right to its opinion until the Supreme Court is called upon to finally end the differences—Heaven alone knows; but for the present it behooves lovers of art to bring in their original bronzes and marbles by way of Chicago.

These were some of the things Whistler—in common with many an ordinary man—could not understand.

A few years ago an effort was made to have an exhibition of his pictures in Boston. He was appealed to, but refused:

“God bless me, why should you hold an exhibition of pictures in America? The people do not care for art.”

“How do you know? You have not been there for many years.”

“How do I know! Why, haven’t you a law to keep out pictures and statues? Is it not in black and white that the works of the great masters must not enter America, that they are not wanted——”

“But——”

“There are no ‘buts’ about it except the fool who butts his head against the barrier you have erected. A people that tolerates such a law has no love for art,—their protestation is mere pretence.”

That a great nation should deliberately discourage the importation of beautiful things, should wallow in the mire of ugliness and refuse to be cleansed by art, was to him a mystery,—for what difference does it make whether painting, poetry, and music come out of the East or out of the West, so long as they add to the happiness of a people? And why should painting and sculpture find the gate closed when poetry and music are admitted?

He did not know the petty commercial considerations which control certain of the painters and sculptors and some of the institutions supposed to be devoted to art.

For is not art the most “infant” of all the “infant industries” of this great commercial nation? And should not the brush-worker at home be given his meed of protection against the pauper brush-workers of Europe—even against Rembrandt and Velasquez and all the glorious Italians?

Beethoven and Mendelssohn and Mozart, Shakespeare and Milton,—their works, even their original manuscripts, if in existence, though costly beyond many paintings, come in without let or hinderance; but the work of the painter, the original manuscript of the poet in line, of the composer of harmonies in color, may not cross the border without tribute.

A symphony in sound is welcomed; a symphony in color is rejected. Why this discrimination in favor of the ear and against the eye?

There is no reason, but an inordinate amount of selfishness, in it all. The wire-pulling painter at home, backed up by the commercially-managed art institution, makes himself felt in the chambers at Washington where tariffs are arranged, and painting and sculpture are removed from the free list and placed among the pots and kettles of commerce.

Where is the poet and where is the musician in this distribution of advantages? Why should American poetry and American music be left to compete with the whole world while American painting and American sculpture are suitably encouraged by a tariff of twenty per cent.?—a figure fixed, no doubt, as is the plea, to make good the difference in wages,—pauper labor of Europe,—pauper artists. Alas! too true; shut the vagabonds out that their aristocratic American confrères residing at home may maintain their “standard of living.”

Of all the peoples on the face of the globe, high and low, civilized and savage, there is just one that discourages the importation of the beautiful, and that one happens to be the youngest and the richest of all—the one most in need of what it wilfully excludes.

Notwithstanding all these reasons for not coming, he had a great desire to visit this country, and in letters to friends on this side he would again and again express his firm intention to come the following summer or winter, as the season might be. The death of Mrs. Whistler, some six years ago, and his own ill health prevented,—but there was no lack of desire.

Strangely enough, he did take a sailing-ship for South America, away back in the sixties, and while there painted the “Crepuscule in Flesh Color and Green; Valparaiso” and the “Nocturne Blue and Gold; Valparaiso.”

Speaking of the voyage, he said:

“I went out in a slow sailing-ship, the only passenger. During the voyage I made quite a number of sketches and painted one or two sea-views,—pretty good things I thought at the time. Arriving in port, I gave them to the purser to

take back to England for me. On my return, some time later, I did not find the package, and made inquiries for the purser. He had changed ships and disappeared entirely. Many years passed, when one day a friend, visiting my studio, said:

“‘By the way, I saw some marines by you in the oddest place you can imagine.’

“‘Where?’ I asked, amazed.

“‘I happened in the room of an old fellow who had once been a purser on a South American ship, and while talking with him saw tacked up on the wall several sketches which I recognized as yours. I looked at them closely, and asked the fellow where he got them.

“‘“Oh, these things,” he said; “why, a chap who went out with us once painted them on board, off-hand like, and gave them to me. Don’t amount to much, do they?”

“‘“Why, man, they are by Whistler.”

“‘“Whistler,” he said, blankly. “Who’s Whistler?”

“‘“Why, Whistler the artist,—the great painter.”

“‘“Whistler, Whistler. I believe that was his name. But that chap warn’t no painter. He was just a swell who went out with the captain; he thought he could paint some, and gave me those things when we got to Valparaiso. No, I don’t care to let them go,—for, somehow or other, they look more like the sea than real pictures.”’”

Whistler made several attempts to find these sketches, but without success.

As illustrating his facility of execution when time pressed, he painted the “Crepuscule in Flesh Color and Green,” which is a large canvas and one of his best things, at a single sitting, having prepared his colors in advance of the chosen hour.

He could paint with the greatest rapidity when out-of-doors and it was important to catch certain effects of light and color.

In 1894 he exhibited in Paris three small marines which were marvels of clearness, force, and precision; he had painted them in a few hours while in a small boat, which the boatman steadied against the waves as best he could. He placed the canvas against the seat in front of him and worked away direct from nature.

II

A Family of Soldiers—Grandfather founded Chicago—Birth—St. Petersburg—West Point—Coast Survey—His Military Spirit.

He came of a race of fighters. The family is found towards the end of the fifteenth century in Oxfordshire, at Goring and Whitechurch on the Thames; one branch was connected with the Websters of Battle-Abbey, and descendants still live in the vicinity; another branch is in Essex, and from this sprang Dr. Daniel Whistler, President of the College of Physicians in London in the time of Charles the Second, and described as “a quaint gentleman of rare humor,” and frequently mentioned in “Pepys’s Diary.”

From the Oxfordshire branch, one Ralph, a son of Hugh Whistler of Goring, went to Ireland and founded the Irish branch from which sprang Major John Whistler, the first representative of the family in America, and grandfather of the painter.

Major Whistler was a British soldier under Burgoyne, and was taken prisoner at the battle of Saratoga. At the close of the war he returned to England and made a runaway match with the daughter of a Sir Edward Bishop.

Returning to this country with his wife, he settled at Hagerstown, Maryland, and soon after enlisted in the American army.

“He was made a sergeant-major in a regiment that was called ‘the infantry regiment.’ Afterwards he was adjutant of Garther’s regiment of the levies of 1791, which brought him into General St. Glair’s command. He was severely wounded November 4, 1791, in a battle with the Indians on the Miami River. In 1792 ‘the regiment of infantry’ was, by Act of Congress, designated as the ‘First Regiment,’ and to this John Whistler was assigned as first lieutenant. In November, 1796, he was promoted to the adjutancy, and in July, 1797, he was commissioned a captain.”

While captain of the “First Regiment,” then stationed at Detroit, he was, in 1803, ordered to proceed to the present site of the city of Chicago and construct Fort Dearborn.

He and his command arrived on August 17, at two o’clock in the afternoon, and at once staked out the ground and began the erection of palisades for protection against the Indians.

The captain had with him at the time one son, William, who was a lieutenant in the army, and who was commander of Fort Dearborn in 1833, when the fort was finally abandoned as a military post. Another son, John, remained in the East.

On the completion of the fort the captain brought out the remaining members of his family,—his wife, five daughters, and his third son, George, then but three years old, and afterwards the father of the artist.

“The daughters were Sarah, who married James Abbott, of Detroit,—the ceremony took place in the fort, shortly after the family came; the wedding-trip was made to Detroit on horseback, over an Indian trail and the old territorial road; they had two nights of camping out; their effects were carried on pack-horses,—Ann, married Major Marsh, of the army; Catherine, married Major Hamilton, of the army; Harriet, married Captain Phelan, also of the army; Caroline—eight months old when her father built Fort Dearborn—was married in Detroit, in 1840, to William R. Wood, of Sandwich, Georgia.”

When the army was reduced in June, 1815, Major Whistler was retired, and in 1818 appointed military storekeeper at Jefferson Barracks, St. Louis. He died at Bellefontaine, Missouri, in 1827. “He was a brave officer and became the progenitor of a line of brave and efficient soldiers.”

To a visitor from Chicago the artist once said:

“Chicago, dear me, what a wonderful place! I really ought to visit it some day,—for, you know, my grandfather founded the city and my uncle was the last commander of Fort Dearborn.”

George Washington Whistler, the father of the painter, became an engineer of great reputation, rose to the rank of major, and in 1842 accepted the invitation of Czar Nicholas to superintend the construction of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railroad, and it is said that, with the exception of John Quincy Adams, no American in Russia was held in such high estimation.

Major Whistler has been described as a very handsome man; he had rather long curling hair which framed a most agreeable face. “He might have been taken for an artist, rather than for a military engineer. Yet he was, in every sense, a manly man, with most attractive expression and ways.”

Whistler’s mother—his father’s second wife—was Anna Mathilda McNeill, a daughter of Dr. C. D. McNeill, of Wilmington, North Carolina.

So much for the stock from which Whistler sprang, a line of able men and good fighters. In a roundabout way he must have inherited some of the traits of that “quaint gentleman of rare humor” so frequently mentioned by garrulous Samuel Pepys, who says in one place, “Dr. Whistler told a pretty story.... Their discourse was very fine; and if I should be put out of my office, I do take great content in the liberty I shall be at of frequenting these gentlemen’s company.”

It is reported that Whistler once stated he was born in St. Petersburg, and he certainly seemed to take delight in mystifying people as to the date and place of his birth,—part of his habitual indifference to the sober requirements of those solemn meta-physical entities Time and Space.

One friend has insisted in print upon Baltimore as his birthplace, another upon Stonington, Connecticut.

His model once asked him:

“Where were you born?”

“I never was born, my child; I came from on high.”

Quite unabashed, the model retorted:

“Now, that shows how easily we deceive ourselves in this world, for I should say you came from below.”

The Salon catalogue of 1882 referred to him as “McNeill Whistler, born in the United States.”

His aversion to discussing dates, the lapse of years, the time it would take to paint a portrait, or do anything else, amounted to a superstition.

For him time did not exist. He did not carry a watch, and no obtrusive clock was to be seen or heard anywhere about him. He did not believe in mechanical devices for nagging and prompting much-goaded humanity. If he were invited to dinner, it was always the better part of wisdom to order the dinner at least a half-hour later than the moment named in the invitation.

He once had an engagement to dine with some distinguished people in a distant part of London. A friend who wished to be on time was waiting for him in the studio. It was growing late, but Whistler kept on painting, more and more absorbed.

“My dear fellow,” his friend urged at last, “it is frightfully late, and you have to dine with Lady ——. Don’t you think you’d better stop?”

“Stop?” fairly shrieked Whistler. “Stop, when everything is going so beautifully? Go and stuff myself with food when I can paint like this? Never! Never! Besides, they won’t do anything until I get there,—they never do!”

An official connected with an international art exhibition was about to visit Paris to consult with the artists. To save time, he sent notes ahead making appointments at his hotel with the different men at different hours. To Whistler he sent a note fixing a day at “4.30 precisely,” whereupon Whistler regretfully replied:

“Dear Sir: I have received your letter announcing that you will arrive in Paris on the—th. I congratulate you. I never have been able, and never shall be able, to be anywhere at ‘4.30 precisely.’

“Yours most faithfully,
“J. McN. Whistler.”

To the stereotyped inquiry of the sitter:

“About how many sittings do you require, Mr. Whistler?”

“Dear me, how can I tell? Perhaps one, perhaps—more.”

“But—can’t you give me some idea, so I can arrange——”

“Bless me, but you must not permit the doing of so trivial a thing as a portrait to interfere with the important affairs of life. We will just paint in those odd moments when you have nothing better to do.”

“Suppose I am compelled to leave the city before it is finished?”

“You will return next summer, and we will resume where we left off, as the continued-story-teller says.”

And no amount of persuasion could get him to say when he expected to finish a work.

He would frequently say:

“We will just go ahead as if there were one long holiday before us, without thinking of the end, and some day, when we least expect it, the picture is finished; but if we keep thinking of the hours instead of the work, it may never come to an end.”

This indifference to time kept him young—to the very last. He persistently refused to note the flight of years.

There was once a very old Indian, how old no one knew, in Northern Michigan who, when asked his age by the pertinaciously curious, always replied, “I do not count the years; white people do—and die.”

His father went to Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1834 to take charge of the construction of the canals and locks. He resided in a house on Worthen Street, and there Whistler was born on July 10.

In a history of Lowell it is stated that Whistler was probably born in what was known as the Paul Moody house, a fine old house which stood on the site of the present city hall; but quite possibly the family occupied a house owned by the proprietors of the locks and canals, which still stands and is pointed out as the “Locks and Canal house.”

The old parish book of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church contains the following entry under 1834:

“Nov. 9, Baptized James Abbott, infant son of George Washington and Anna Mathilda Whistler. Sponsors, the parents. T. Edson.”

Rev. Theodore Edson was the rector of the church.

The adoption of his mother’s maiden name, McNeill, as part of his own was apparently an afterthought.

He had two brothers, William and Kirke, a half-brother, George, and a half-sister, Deborah, who married Seymour Haden, the well-known physician and etcher, who figures in “Gentle Art” as the “Surgeon-etcher.” Of the brothers, Kirke died young, George remained in this country, William became a well-known physician in London, dying a few years ago.

The family afterwards spent a short time in Stonington, where Major Whistler had charge of the construction of the railroad to Providence. They used to drive to church in Westerly in a chaise fitted with railway wheels, so as to travel on the tracks. There were no Sunday trains in those days, so the track was clear. An ingenious device enabled the horse to cross the culverts.

A locomotive named “Whistler” after the distinguished engineer—a felicitous name—was in use until comparatively few years ago.

In the spring of 1840 Major Whistler was appointed consulting engineer for the Western Railroad, running from Springfield to Albany, and the family moved to Springfield and lived in what “is now known as Ethan Chapin homestead, on Chestnut Street, north of Edwards Street.”

Old residents of the vicinity claim to remember “well the curly locks and bright, animated countenance of the boy,” and that the three boys “were always full of mischief,”—not an uncommon trait in youngsters, probably still less uncommon in Whistlers.

Shortly after the railroad to Albany was opened a wreck occurred, and a niece of Major Whistler, who was on her way to visit him, was badly injured. She was taken to his house, and it was a long time before she recovered.

The accident made a strong impression on Whistler, and possibly accounts for some of the dislike he often showed towards travelling alone. It was only in crossing crowded streets and in the confusion and bustle of travel that he showed what might be called nervousness.

With characteristic gallantry he would offer a lady his arm to aid her in crossing the Strand or the Boulevard, but he made sure of the places of refuge and took no chances; if in a hurry, she would better cross alone.

Once, not many years ago, he was at Dieppe, and wrote a friend in Paris almost daily that he would be in the city to see him. A week passed, and the friend, fearing he would be obliged to leave without seeing Whistler, wrote him he would come to Dieppe and see the work he was doing there, to which suggestion Whistler replied most cordially by wire.

The friend packed and went, expecting to stay a night or two at least; but, lo! Whistler, bag in hand, met him in the village to take the next train back; whereupon the friend, much surprised, said:

“If you intended going to Paris to-day, why under the sun did you let me ride half a day to get here?”

“Well, you see, I don’t like to travel alone; happy thought yours to come down after me.”

And back they went, after a delightful luncheon in that little old restaurant near the cathedral, where there is an ancient stone trough filled with water for cooling and cleaning vegetables. The luncheon, the way it was ordered, and the running fire of comment and directions by Whistler to the stout old woman who did it all, were worth the journey to Dieppe.

Whistler will be mourned more by these lowly people who used to serve him with pleasure, because he took such a vital interest in what they did, than by many who own his works.

A diary kept by the artist’s mother contains this entry, under date of July 10, 1844:

“A poem selected by my darling Jamie, and put under my plate at the breakfast-table, as a surprise on his tenth birthday.”

The little poem of twelve lines was addressed “To My Mother,” and subscribed “Your Little James.”

When the boy was eleven years old, Sir William Allen, a Scotch painter, visited the family. Mrs. Whistler’s diary contains the following entry:

“The chat then turned upon the subject of Sir William Allen’s painting of Peter the Great teaching the majiks to make ships. This made Jimmie’s eyes express so much interest that his love for the art was discovered, and Sir William must needs see his attempts. When my boys had said good-night, the great artist remarked to me, ‘Your little boy has uncommon genius, but do not urge him beyond his inclination.’ I told him his gift had only been cultivated as an amusement, and that I was obliged to interfere, or his application would confine him more than we approved.”

The diary records the same year a visit to the old palace at Peterhoff, where “our Jimmie was so saucy as to laugh” at Peter’s own paintings.

When Major Whistler first went to Russia he left “Jamie” for a time in Stonington with his aunt, and the two older children, George and Deborah, in England.

After the death of Major Whistler, in St. Petersburg, in 1849, the wife and children returned to this country, and lived for a time in Connecticut.

Whistler wished to enter West Point, and he persuaded his half-brother to write Daniel Webster, to enlist his sympathy. The letter was dated February 19, 1851. It referred to the father’s career and services and asked that James be appointed to the Academy.

He was appointed by President Fillmore, and entered July 1, 1851, registering from Pomfret, Windham County, Connecticut, where his mother was then living.

Whistler was so small in stature and physique that it is surprising he was received; the military record of his family was no doubt the controlling consideration.

He possessed all the pugnacity and courage required for a soldier, and the military spirit was strong in him, yet such was his bent towards art that his career at the Academy was not one of glory; but he became very popular with his comrades and probably led in all their mischievous pranks.

The official records show that at the end of the first year, in 1852, he stood forty-one in a class of fifty-two,—his standing in the different studies being as follows: Mathematics 47, English studies 51, French 9. At the end of his second year he stood number one in drawing, but was not examined in other studies, being absent with leave on account of ill health. In 1854 his standing was as follows: Philosophy 39, Drawing 1, Chemistry deficient. For his deficiency in chemistry he was discharged from the Academy on June 16, 1854.

A lady once asked him why he left the Academy, and he replied:

“If silicon had been a gas, madame, I should have been a soldier.”

On leaving West Point he took it into his head that Fate had intended him for a sailor, and he tried to enter the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but he could not get the appointment.

Through an old friend of the family, Captain Benham, of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, he was employed as draughtsman in that department in Washington from November 7, 1854, to February 12, 1855, at one dollar and a half a day. In these days he signed himself James A. Whistler. His lodgings were in an old house still standing on the northeast corner of E and Twelfth Streets. He was always late to breakfast, and scribbled pictures on the unpapered walls. When the landlord objected, he said:

“Now, now, never mind; I’ll not charge you anything for the decoration.”

Neither time nor the rules of the department had any terrors for him. Even in those early days he was a law unto himself. In one instance the following entry appears against his name:

“Two days absent and two days deducted from monthly pay for time lost by coming late to office.”

To correct these dilatory habits Captain Benham conceived the brilliant idea of having a fellow-clerk of punctual habits call each morning for Whistler and bring him to the office on time. The captain believed that the example and influence of a more methodical companion would reform the erring one and get him to the office at nine o’clock; but it turned out quite otherwise, for Whistler proved so charming a host each morning that both were late.

At the end of a week the mentor reported that his efforts were wasted and unless relieved he, too, would acquire the obnoxious habit, for each morning Whistler managed to so interest him in the mysteries of coffee-making and the advantages of late breakfasts that it was impossible to get away.

Of him and his habits in those days a fellow-draughtsman,[1] who is still in the service, says:

“He was about one year younger than myself, and therefore about twenty years old at that time. He stayed but a little over three months, and I have not met him since, but retain a more vivid recollection of his sojourn than of that of many other draughtsmen who succeeded him and remained much longer. This may be partly for the reason that Captain Benham, who was then in charge of the office, told me that Whistler’s father had been a star graduate of West Point and a distinguished engineer, and requested me to be attentive to the new appointee; it may also be for the reason that there was something peculiar about Whistler’s person and actions quite at variance with the ordinary run of my experience.

“His style of dress indicated an indifference to fashion which, under circumstances, might be changed into emancipation when fashion, for instance, went into extremes and exacted personal discomforts. I certainly cannot remember Whistler with a high-standing collar and silk hat, which was then the universal custom. Classical models seemed to be his preference, a short circular cloak and broad-brimmed felt hat gave him a finish which reminded one of some of Rembrandt’s celebrated portraits. His tout ensemble had a strong tinge of Bohemianism which suggested that his tastes and habits had been acquired in Paris, or, more concisely speaking, in the Quartier Latin; indeed, he always spoke of Paris with enthusiasm. His manners were those of an easy self-reliance which conveyed the impression that he was a man who minded his own business, but that it would not be exactly safe to cross his paths.

“At the time of his engagement as draughtsman at the office not the slightest doubt was entertained of his skill and ability to fill his post, and it was the principal concern of Captain Benham to get him sufficiently interested in his work to engage his serious attention. It was, however, soon apparent that he considered topographical drawing as a tiresome drudgery, and when he was put on etching views on copper plate, this occupation, although more congenial to his tastes, was yet too monotonous and mechanical and did not afford sufficient scope to his peculiar talent for sketching off-hand figures and to make him feel contented. Any odd moment he could snatch from his work he was busy in throwing off his impromptu compositions on the margins of his drawings or plate; odd characters, such as monks, knights, beggars, seemed to be his favorites. He was equally skilful with pen and ink, pencil, brush and sepia after the Spanish style, or dry point in the English, and often I was struck by the facility and rapidity with which he evolved his inventions, there never was the shadow of a dilemma or even hesitancy.

“From the very start he never was punctual in attendance, and as time wore on he would absent himself for days and weeks without tendering any excuse. As far as I remember, nobody, except Captain Benham, cared to speak to Whistler about his irregularity, for the reason that it was certain that no thanks would be earned and that it would not have made the slightest difference in his habits. Howsoever that may have been, Colonel Porterfield, the clerk, was a strict accountant, and his monthly reports told the whole story. Thus in one month two days were deducted from Whistler’s pay for time lost in coming late to office, and in January, 1855, he was credited with but six and one-half days’ work, which reduced his scant pay to a mere pittance.

“Under these circumstances three months were quite sufficient length of time for Whistler and the office to realize that the employment of Whistler as a draughtsman was an experiment destined to be a failure, and I do not think that a trace of ill feeling was retained when it was concluded by both parties to effect a separation and let each one go his own way.”

At that time Edward de Stoeckl was charge d’affaires of the Russian embassy. He had known Major Whistler in St. Petersburg, and he took a great fancy to his son.

One day Whistler invited him to dinner, and this is the account of what happened:

“Whistler engaged a carriage and called for his distinguished friend. As they drove on, Whistler turned to the diplomat and asked him if he would object to their stopping at several places on the way. M. de Stoeckl, amused at the unconventionality of the request, assented, and his young host then directed the coachman to a greengrocer’s, a confectioner’s, a tobacconist’s, and to several other tradesmen.

“After visiting each of these he would reappear with his arms filled with packages, which he deposited on the vacant seat of the carriage. At last the two brought up at Whistler’s lodgings. After a climb up many stairs the representative of the Czar of all the Russias found himself in Whistler’s attic.

“Quite out of breath, he was obliged to sit down, too exhausted to speak, during which time Whistler flitted hither and thither, snipping a lettuce into shape for the salad, drying the oysters, browning the biscuit, preparing the cheese, and in an incredibly short time setting a sumptuous repast before his astonished guest, who was delighted with the unique hospitality of the host.”

A comrade in office describes Whistler’s appearance in those days:

“He was very handsome, graceful, dressed in good taste, with a leaning towards the style of the artist in the selection of his clothing. His hair was a blue-black and worn very long, and the bushy appearance seemed to give one the impression that each separate hair was curled. Always at this time he wore a large slouch hat and a loose coat, generally unbuttoned, and thrown back so that the waistcoat was plainly seen.”

He never changed very much from that description, save that his hair became slightly gray, and one lock directly over the forehead turned completely white very prematurely. To this white lock Whistler took a great fancy, and it is visible in the portraits and drawings he made of himself. His hair was naturally very curly,—an inheritance from his father,—and out of the mass of black curls the white lock would spring with almost uncanny effect.

To the very end he was extremely fastidious in his dress. In the days when threadbare coats were a luxury he wore them spotlessly clean, and carried old and worn garments in such a manner that they appeared as if made for the occasion.

In his studio and while at work he was never mussy or untidy; he had more than a woman’s notion of neatness.

He was not only very careful of his clothes, but they must be buttoned and adjusted just so before he would make his appearance. On him a frock coat was never stiff and ungraceful, and somehow he managed to dissipate the dreary formality of evening dress. It was always a pleasure to see him enter a room; while on the street he was, in his earlier London days, exceedingly picturesque.

He was very particular concerning his hats. In the latter Paris days he always wore a most carefully-brushed silk hat with flat brim,—the Quartier-Latin type. This, with his monocle—for on the street he wore a monocle—and his long overcoat, made him an exceedingly striking figure.

One day he was in a shop, trying on a hat, when a dissatisfied customer rushed in, and, mistaking him for some one in charge, said:

“I say, this ’at doesn’t fit.”

Eyeing him critically a moment, Whistler said:

“Neither does your coat.”

Whistler was thoroughly imbued with the military spirit; and if he had not been a great artist he would have made a good officer. He was born to command, and possessed physical courage of a high order.

In stature and physique he was short and very slight,—could not have weighed more than one hundred and thirty pounds; but he was so perfectly proportioned that one did not notice his size except when in sharp contrast with others. Notwithstanding his inferiority in size and strength, he never in his life had the slightest hesitation in striking a man—even at the risk of annihilation—if he deemed the occasion required it.

A good many years ago the editor of a gossipy sheet in London, called the Hawk, printed some items of a personal nature which Whistler resented. Not knowing the editor by sight, Whistler took a friend to point him out in the foyer of one of the London theatres. Although the man was a giant compared with Whistler, the latter, without a moment’s hesitation, went up to him and struck him across the face with a cane, saying with each blow, “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk.”

The editor afterwards boasted that he immediately knocked Whistler down. Whistler claimed he slipped and fell; but, he said:

“What difference does it make whether he knocked me down or whether I slipped? The fact is he was publicly caned, and what happened afterwards could not offset the publicity and nature of this chastisement. A gentleman lightly strikes another in the face with a glove; the bully thinks the insult is wiped out if he knocks some one down—the ethics of the prize ring; but according to the older notions the gentleman knows that the soft touch of the glove cannot be effaced by a blow of the fist,—for if it could, superiority in weight would render the cad and the bully immune. The historical fact is that I publicly drew my cane across his face; no one cares anything about his subsequent ragings, or whether I slipped and fell, or whether he trampled upon me.”

Again, when an artist went up to him in the Hogarth Club in London and called him a liar and a coward, Whistler promptly slapped his face.

So far as controversies with opponents were concerned, he was courageous to the point of indifference; but, as already noted, in crossing busy streets and making his way through the hurly-burly of city life he was as careful, not to say timid, as a woman; he had many superstitions which influenced his actions.

One afternoon he said to a sitter:

“To-morrow, you know, we won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“Well, you see, it’s Friday; and last Friday, you remember, what a bad time we had,—accomplished nothing. An unlucky day anyway. We’ll take a holiday to-morrow.”

The military spirit clung to him through life, and he was ever in the habit of referring to his experience at West Point as if it were the one entirely satisfactory episode in his career. He called himself a “West-Pointer,” and insisted that the Academy was the one institution in the country the superiority of which to everything of its kind in the world was universally admitted.

“Why, you know, West Point is America.”

Though living in Paris at the time and the sympathy of all France was with Spain, he lost no opportunity for upholding the United States in the war. He could see no flaw in the attitude or the diplomacy of this country, and was especially eloquent over the treatment of Admiral Cervera after his defeat.

On the other hand, such was his ingrained dislike for England that he lost no opportunity for declaiming against her war in South Africa. He delighted in berating the English and in prodding any English sympathizer who happened in his way.

One day a friend from this side, of Irish birth, but who sided with England, was in his studio, and the discussion waxed warm until the visitor said:

“I’ll be dashed if I’ll talk with you, Whistler. What do you know about the matter? Nothing at all.”

After a short silence, Whistler said:

“But, I say, C——, do you remember how the Boers whipped the Dublin Fusileers?”

Whereupon the air became sulphurous.

The friend afterwards remarked:

“There was nothing in the malicious innuendo anyway, for, you know, those regiments are recruited from all quarters, and there may not have been a single Irishman in the Fusileers at the time of the fight.”

Whistler held some extraordinary opinions concerning the Dreyfus case, the outcome of his strong military bias.

It did not matter to him whether the accused was guilty or not, the prestige of the army must be maintained, even at the sacrifice of the innocent,—the view which led the military section of France to such violent extremes against Dreyfus,—and Whistler resented the assaults upon the army as treachery to the most sacred institution of the state.

To the civilian this military bias which leads men in all countries to such extremes in judgments and actions is incomprehensible. The attitude of the military mind towards the ordinary problems of life, towards the faults and failings of men, towards petty transgressions and disobediences, towards rank, routine, and discipline, towards the courtesies and sympathies and affections which are the leavening influences of life, cannot be understood by the lay mind. The soldier’s training and occupation are such that he does not think, feel, and act as an ordinary man; his standards, convictions, and ethics are fundamentally different; so different that he requires his own territory, his own laws, and his own tribunals. With the soldier the maxim of ordinary justice that it is better that ten guilty should go free than one innocent be condemned is reversed.

By birth, by tradition, by association, Whistler was thoroughly saturated with this spirit; and it affected his conduct and his attitude towards people throughout his life. It accounts for much of the impatience, the arrogance, the intolerance, the combativeness, the indifference to the feelings of others with which he is charged, or rather overcharged, for much of what is said is exaggeration.

No man can be reared in an atmosphere of authority and blind obedience to authority without losing something of that give-and-take spirit which softens life’s asperities.

Therefore, in any estimate of Whistler’s character and of his conduct towards others, the influence of these very unusual early associations and conditions must be taken into account and due allowance made.

III

An American—The Puritan Element—Attitude of England and France—Racial and Universal Qualities in Art—Art-Loving Nations.

Of Whistler’s innate and aggressive Americanism this is the place to speak.

English in origin, the family became Irish and then American. In blood he was doubly removed from England, first by Irish progenitors, then by American, and in his entire make-up, physical and intellectual, he was so absolutely un-English that to the day of his death he was an object of curious observation and wondering comment wherever he went, in even so cosmopolitan a city as London.

There was nothing he loved better than to surprise, mystify, confuse, and confound the stolid Briton. And though he lived most of his life in Chelsea and came back there to spend his last days, he was from the very beginning and remained until the end a stranger in a strange land, a solitary soul in the midst of an uncongenial, unsympathetic, unappreciative, unloving people.

So little does England care for him or his art, or, more truly, so prejudiced is the nation against him as an impertinent interloper, who for more than a generation disturbed the serenity of her art household, that the National Museum has no example of his work. Needless to say, if he had been English, or had come from the remotest of England’s outlying possessions, English paperdom and English officialdom would have claimed him as their own, condoned his eccentricities, and bought his works with liberal hand.

During the days of his greatest poverty and distress, when even France turned stupidly aside from things she soon came to worship, and England was jeering clumsily, and all nations repudiated him,—our own the loudest of all,—he really seemed to be “a man without a country,” and, beyond question, the injustice, the bitterness of it all entered deep into his soul and remained. But whatever the folly, the blindness, the stupidity of a country, though it seek to cast off a child so brilliant he is not understood, the ties remain; however strained, they cannot be broken. Nothing that America can do suffices to make an Englishman or a Frenchman or a German out of an American,—the man himself may take on a foreign veneer, but beneath the surface he belongs where blood and birth have placed him.

He was infinitely more of an American than thousands who live at home and ape the manners of Europe. He came from a line of ancestors so distinctively and aggressively American that he could not have turned out otherwise had he tried.

He was not even an Anglo-American or a Franco-American, but of all the types and races which go to make the American people he was in blood, appearance, alertness, combativeness, wit, and a thousand and one traits, an exceedingly refined illustration of the Irish-American; and because of his Irish blood, with perhaps some Scotch on his mother’s side, he was never in sympathy with anything English, but was now and then somewhat in sympathy with many things French, though the points of sympathetic contact were so slight and superficial that he could not live contentedly for any length of time in Paris. In his art, his convictions, and his conventions he was altogether too profound, too serious, too earnest—one might with truth say, too puritanical—to find the atmosphere of Paris altogether congenial. His great portraits might have come from the studio of a Covenanter, but never from a typical Paris atelier.

The Puritan element which is to be found in every American achievement, whether in war, in art, or in literature, though often deeply hidden, is conspicuous in Whistler’s work, though he himself would probably have been the first to deny it; and it is this element of sobriety, of steadfastness, of undeviating adherence to convictions and ideals that constitutes the firm foundation of his art, of his many brilliant and beautiful superstructures of fancy.

Only a Puritan at heart could have painted the “Carlyle,” “His Mother,” and that wonderful child portrait, “Miss Alexander.”

Only a Puritan at heart could have painted the mystery of night with all his tender, loving, religious sympathy.

Only a Puritan at heart could have exhibited as he did in everything he touched those infinitely precious qualities of reserve, of delicacy, of refinement, which are the conspicuous characteristics of his work.

Concerning his refinement some one has very truly remarked:

“He so hated everything ugly or unclean that, even in the club smoking-rooms (where one may sometimes hear rather Rabelaisian tales), he never told a story which could not have been repeated in the presence of modest women. His personal daintiness was extreme. Threadbare coats on him were never shabby. He had to wear too many threadbare garments, poor fellow! for, inasmuch as he put the integrity of his art before everything else, he never stooped to make those ‘pretty’ things which would have brought him a fortune, without doubt. He was abstemious in his living, simple in all that he did,—his exquisite, sure taste preventing him from extremes, gaudiness, or untidiness.”

And when he lent his support, some eight years ago, to the school kept by Carmen Rossi, who as a child had been one of his models, he would not tolerate the study of the nude by mixed classes, and, in fact, introduced many rules and restrictions which were considered by even American pupils as “puritanical” in the extreme, and which the French could not understand at all.

He never painted any large and aggressive nudes, such as abound in French art, such as, in a way, may be said to characterize French art and mark its attitude towards life; but he made many drawings in water-color and pastel, and painted some oils, all, however, exquisitely refined, the element of the nude being in every instance subordinated to the artistic scheme and intention. Many of these drawings have never been exhibited. When seen they will go far towards demonstrating the puritanical element in Whistler.

In his intolerance towards the methods, convictions, and ideals of others he exhibited some of the spirit of the Puritan zealot who knows no creed but his own.

Concerning his Americanism, one who knew him says:[2]

“Upon the known facts of Whistler’s career I do not touch. I wish only to underline his Americanism, and to offer you one or two personal memories. He was ‘an American of the Americans,’ say the American papers, and who shall venture to dispute their dictum? Not I, certainly. Nor would anybody who knew Whistler personally. I knew him for many years in London and in Paris. I have many letters from him on art and other matters, some of which ought to be printed, for his letters to friends were not less works of art than those which he composed more carefully for print. I have books and drawings which he gave me. I mention these things as evidence that I may fairly say something about him, at least on the personal side. And I knew on what terms he lived with the so-called art world in England, and what his own view of the matter was.”

And an English writer said, some ten years ago:[3]

“It should not be forgotten in America that Mr. Whistler is an American of Americans. It may therefore be appropriately asked, What has America done for him? It has treated him with—if possible—even more ignorance than England; this, of course, coming from the desire of the Anglomaniac to out-English the English.”

And there are others whose testimony will be forthcoming some day to show how wholly and absolutely American he was to the very core and centre of his being, and in his attitude towards all countries and peoples of Europe.

It is true he said many harsh, bitter, and cutting things concerning the press and people of this country, that he frequently exhibited in the English sections of art exhibitions in preference to those of his own country; but for all these things there were many good reasons, and we have but ourselves to blame.

He was so much of an American that a single word of ridicule from this side cut deeper than pages of abuse from the other. To the scoffings of England he turned a careless ear, and replied with flippant, but pointed, tongue; while the utter lack of support and appreciation from his own country was ever referred to with a bitterness that betrayed his real feelings. He could not understand how the American people could desert a countryman battling alone against all England. As he frequently said:

“It did not matter whether I was in the right or in the wrong,—I was one against the mob. Why did America take the side of the mob,—and—and get whipped?”

America was blind to his merits until long after he achieved fame in every country of Europe; and it is undeniably true that the press here truculently echoed the slurs of the critics on the other side throughout that long period of controversy. It is a lamentable fact that up to the day of his death he was misunderstood, or accepted as an eccentric in many quarters of the land that now claims him as her bright particular star in the firmament of art. Notwithstanding all these things, he remained so conspicuously an American that every Englishman and every Frenchman with whom he came in contact recognized him as a foreigner; neither would have thought of mistaking him for a fellow-countryman; he was as un-English and un-French as an Italian, or a Spaniard, or—better—as an American.

The “White Girl” was rejected at the Salon in 1863; the “Portrait of my Mother” was accepted by the Royal Academy and obscurely hung in 1871, only after a bitter discussion, in which the one member of the committee who favored it, Sir William Boxall, a friend of Whistler’s family, threatened to resign unless it was accepted.

This same great portrait—it is said on good authority—was offered in New York for twelve hundred dollars and found no buyer.

When exhibited in London, language failed to express the full measure of the scorn and contempt the English press—from the ponderous Times down to the most insignificant fly-sheet—had for this wonderful picture; but no sooner had the French government purchased it for the Luxembourg than all was changed, and with delightful effrontery the Illustrated London News said:

“Modern British (!) art will now be represented in the National Gallery of the Luxembourg by one of the finest paintings due to the brush of an English (!) artist,—namely, Mr. Whistler’s portrait of his mother.”

The italics and exclamation marks are Whistler’s own, and his denial of British complicity is complete.

Aside from Whistler’s personality, his art finds its only congenial place in the midst of American art.

That his pictures will not hang in any conceivable exhibition of British art without the incongruity being painfully perceptible goes without saying, and none knows this better than English painters themselves.

Of all the various manifestations of art with which Whistler’s has come in sharp contrast, English painting has been the slowest and most stubborn in yielding to influences from the far East; whereas of all painters of the nineteenth century Whistler was the very first to recognize the wondrous qualities of Chinese and Japanese art and absorb what those countries had to teach concerning line and color; and in so far as the painters of England, and more conspicuously those of Scotland, have learned aught of the subtleties and refinements of the East, they have learned it through Whistler, and not direct.

In other words, Whistler has been absolutely immune to English influences; there is not the faintest trace in any of his works, etchings, lithographs, or paintings. In temperament, mood, fancy, and imagination, in what he saw and the manner that he painted it, he was as far removed from any “English School” as Hokusai himself.

On the other hand, England for some time has not been immune to his influence, and things after—a long way after—Whistler appear at every exhibition. What is known as the “Glasgow School”—that body of able and progressive painters—long ago frankly accepted him as master.

Of English painters dead and living he had a poor—possibly too poor—opinion. He frequently said, “England never produced but one painter, and that was Hogarth.” In mellower moments he would say not unkind things of certain qualities in other men; towards the living painters who appreciated his art he was oftentimes generous in the bestowal of praise. But it was impossible for Whistler to say a thing was good if he did not think so; and he would exercise all his ingenuity to get out of expressing an opinion when he knew his real opinion would hurt the feelings of a friend. Towards strangers and enemies he was often almost brutal in condemning what was bad,—as when a rich man took him over his new house, dwelling with pride and enthusiasm on this extraordinary feature and that, at each of which Whistler would exclaim, “Amazing, amazing!” until at the end of their tour of the rooms and halls, he at last said, “Amazing,—and there’s no excuse for it!”

Of his attitude towards others a friendly writer said:[4]

“He was not a devotee of Turner, but he yielded to no man in appreciation of certain of the works of that painter. He was not lavish of praise where his contemporaries were concerned. Though he could say pleasant things about them in a rather vague way,—calling some young painter ‘a good fellow,’ and so on,—words of explicit admiration he did not promiscuously bestow. The truth is, there was an immense amount of stuff which he saw in the exhibitions which he frankly detested. Yet conversation with him did not leave the impression that he was a man grudging of praise. It was rather that a picture had to be exceptionally good to excite his emotions. One point is significant. It was not the flashy and popular painter that he invited to share in the gatherings for which his Paris studio was noted: it was the painter like Puvis de Chavannes, the man who had greatness in him.”

That he had nothing in common with English art, the English were quick to assert, until his fame made him a desirable acquisition, when on this side, and that within the last few years, a disposition to claim him—very much as the business-like empire seizes desirable territory here and there about the globe—has begun to show itself; and, unless America is alert, Whistler will yet appear in the National Gallery as—to quote again the words of the Illustrated News—“An English artist.”

As regards the French, they are disposed to claim Whistler on three grounds:

First. That he was a student there,—with a master who taught him nothing.

Second. That France acknowledged his genius by the purchase of the portrait of his mother,—twenty years after it was painted, and seven after it was exhibited in Paris.

Third. That he lived for a time in Paris.

Three reasons which would annex to France about every American artist of note, for most of them (1) studied in France, (2) are represented in the Luxembourg, and (3) have lived in Paris much longer than Whistler.

As for those first few years in Paris, even the French concede that Gleyre was entirely without influence upon Whistler’s subsequent career.

As regards the recognition of his genius, France was exceedingly slow. The portrait of his mother was exhibited in London in 1871, and purchased for the Luxembourg in 1891, though it had been awarded a medal at the Salon some seven years before.

France no more taught Whistler to paint than it taught him to etch. His masters were older and greater than the art of France. Before he was twenty-five he had absorbed all and rejected most that France had to teach. At twenty-eight he painted a picture which, scorned by the Salon, startled all who visited the “Salon des Refusés,” and then—still under thirty—he shook the dust of France from his feet, obliterated every vestige of her influence from his art, and started out to make his way alone and unaided in the domain of the beautiful.

In 1865 he again stirred the critics with that novel creation of color “The Princess of the Land of Porcelain.” Nothing of the kind had ever been seen in either French or any other art. It was the application of Western methods to Eastern motives; it was plainly a study primarily in color, secondarily in line, not at all in character. It was the first great step taken by the Western world towards abstract art.

“The Princess of the Land of Porcelain,” the “Lange Leizen,” the “Gold Screen,” the “Balcony”—all early pictures—are all one and the same in motive; they are his first attempts in a large way to produce color harmonies, to subordinate everything to the color composition.

Of Whistler and American art in those days an unnamed correspondent has written from Paris:[5]

“It would puzzle the analysis of a competent critic to find what Whistler owed to Gleyre; and the young American openly professed to have profited by the counter example of Gustave Courbet, who was the realist of that day. From the first triumph of Courbet in 1849, Gleyre had shrunk back into his shell and no longer exhibited at the annual salons.

“From the start Whistler was an independent; and when, after six years of work in the studios, he offered a picture for the judgment of the official Salon, the jury promptly refused it. Whistler was not discouraged, and hung the painting in the outlaws’ Salon des Refusés. It created a stir that was almost enthusiasm, and the name of his ‘Fille Blanche’—White Maiden—was still remembered when four years later a few American painters demanded a section for their work at the Universal Exposition of 1867. I have looked up a criticism of the time, and imagine it will be found more interesting now than when it was written.

“‘The United States of America are surely a great country and the North Americans a great people, but what little artists they are! The big daubs which they exhibit, under pretence of “Blue Mountains,” “Niagara Falls,” “Genesee Plain,” or “Rain in the Tropics,” show as much childish arrogance as boyish ignorance. People say that these loud placards are sold for crazy prices in Philadelphia or Boston. I am willing to believe it, but I cannot rejoice at it.’

“This is laid on with no light brush, and some of us can recall the American painters of that remote age who were so mishandled. But the remaining paragraph of the lines given to American art may surprise those who look on Whistler as only a contemporary.

“‘M. Whistler seems to me the only American artist really worthy of attention; he is our old acquaintance of the Salon des Refusés of 1863, where his “Fille Blanche” had a suces d’engouement (a success of infatuation!). He is truly an American, as understood by the motto, “time is money.” M. Whistler so well knows the value of time that he scarcely stops at the small points of execution; the impression seized as it flies and fixed as soon as possible in swift strokes, with a galloping brush—such is the artist and such, too, is the man.’

“Velasquez was already in the air, but Japanese art, to which Whistler afterwards allowed himself to be thought indebted, was not yet spoken of. Thus the young American artist was the precursor of movements which years afterwards came to a head, and which for the most part he has outlived. In view of this, the closing verdict of the official critic of 1867 is worth noting, the more so as it shows the reward already attributed to the American’s industry in another branch of art. ‘While waiting for M. Whistler to become a painter in the sense which old Europe still attaches to the word, he is already an etcher (aquafortiste), all fire and color, and very worthy of attention, even if he had only this claim to it.’”