ONE DAY WITH WHISTLER

Reprinted from "The Reader," by permission of the Bobbs-Merrill Company, and of Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons.

THEN Whistler died in London on the

WHEN

17th of July, 1903, the considerable stream of literature, already printed about him, suddenly increased to a torrent; and this unprecedented output of authorship on the artist and his works has hardly abated in the ensuing seven years - while Whistler's renown has steadily grown from great to greater.

In the excellent catalogue issued in March, 1910, by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in connection with their exhibition of Whistler's paintings and pastels, there is a bibliography which mentions no fewer than sixty-seven books on Whistler. This formidable list is not complete, nor does it pretend to include the great number of magazine articles and serious newspaper articles on the subject.

But among this mass of literature on Whistler there is one work which, I think, must outshine and outlast any of the others: it is the master's Biography written by Elizabeth Robins Pennell and her husband, Joseph Pennell, and the joint authors were par excellence the ones to write the

Life of Whistler. Published in 1908, the work has already gone through several editions.

If the old-time author's apologia for the appearance of some new book or treatise were still the fashion, I could make mine by simply stating that the present article contains nothing on the subject which has been printed before; seeing that it is the "unvarnished tale" (also the hitherto unpublished tale) of Whistler's intercourse with me and mine with him.

Our first meeting, long years ago, took place at his rooms in Tite Street, Chelsea. My errand did not concern myself at all: I simply undertook to deliver to him a picture entrusted to me at Whistler's request by an absent friend of his who told me in French parlance the master would be visible from nine to ten o'clock every morning. I reached his house at about half past nine and was admitted by a servant who showed me into a reception room in which the prevailing color scheme was a pale and delicate yellow. The room at first looked bare and empty, yet its general effect was both novel and pleasing. Having sent up my card, upon which I had written a memorandum stating the cause of my visit, I soon heard a light step, and a moment later I set eyes on Whistler for the first time. It was his humor not to enter his own reception room, but to remain at the threshold glaring at me through his monocle and holding his watch open in his hand. There he was the Whistler of so many portraits and so many caricatures

a

slender, alert little man, but so gracefully proportioned that, as he stood framed in his own doorway, it was not easy to determine whether he was big, middle-sized, or small. All the external attributes or trade-marks were in evidence: the white lock above the middle of his forehead, carefully segregated from the black curls around it; the monocle stuck in his right eye and protected from breakage by a thin black cord which ran through a hole drilled near the edge of the crystal; the aggressive cravat and the very long black coat. Suddenly, with a disconcerting little detonation caused by the abrupt parting of his closed lips and with a simultaneous grimace, he caused the eyeglass to bounce outward from his eye, and having, like the patriarch Job, "opened his mouth," he said: "Now, I have just four minutes to spare: what is it that you want?" Let me here confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this unexpected reception-seeing that I had come long miles out of my way solely to oblige an absent friend of his and, incidentally, to oblige Whistler himself — and so I set myself to break down the repellent pose which he saw fit to assume. Having delivered to him the little picture which I had brought I gave him no immediate opening to snub me further. With this intent I talked about the friend who had sent me to him; I described to him the fine position in which his own contribution to the Paris Salon had been hung; I told him some flattering things which had been said by the right sort of people about it; I gave him

news, which I knew would interest him, of other friends of his, and, like Browning's hero, I kept up "any noise bad or good," until he so far unbent as to enter the room where I was. Abruptly he then put the question to me: "Are you fond of pictures?" To this I made answer: "Such pictures as may be seen here, yes." "Come to the studio," said he; and thus began a memorable day which only ended when he had to go out to dine at eight in the evening, and even then he delayed calmly remarking that people always waited dinner for him, no matter how late he came. This long day was passed in the studio except when we adjourned to the dining-room for lunch, where I remember that the table was decorated with yellow flowers and that the dishes were hollow, the hollow space being filled with boiling water for the purpose of keeping the eatables hot.

But it was in his studio that Whistler was at his brightest and best. Surely never was a man so far removed from being commonplace. His alert wit kept flashing like summer lightning, and the pronouncement which Dr. Samuel Johnson delivered on his friend David Garrick might with equal force be applied to Whistler: "Sir, for sprightly conversation he is the foremost man in the world." Much of his talk that day was of a denunciatory character. Some eminent personages were severely castigated, but the vials of his bitterest wrath were poured on the devoted heads of certain prominent artists and more

especially on those who painted portraits. While speaking on this subject he gave expression to one opinion which seems to be so sound and right that it should be recorded here: "To paint what is called a great portrait in England," said he, "the artist must overload everything with strong contrasts of violent colors. His success with the rich ignorant public is assured if only he succeeds in setting his colors shouting against each other. Go to the exhibition at the Royal Academy and see what is called the picture of the year Mr. A's portrait of Mr. B. You can easily find it by seeing the crowd that stands staring at it all day long. Mix with this crowd and get near to the picture; fill your eye with it; then turn round and look at the faces of the living spectators, how quiet in tone they are! If A's portrait is right, surely every living man and woman you see in the crowd must be wrong!"

From all this depressing pessimism he rapidly turned to another subject which he proceeded to treat with enthusiastic optimism; for he began to talk of his own works. His delight in these was as frank and complete as the delight of some little boy who has triumphantly constructed a satisfactory mud pie.

There was standing on a perpendicular easel in the studio his superb portrait of the violinist, Sarasate the same picture which afterward created such a sensation at the Paris Salon, and which is now the pride of the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh. The delighted artist conducted me