It was published by the University of the State of New York at Albany, and bore on its title-page the names of the joint authors. The sole motive of both the compilers and the Regents of the University was to do honor to Whistler, but it appears that in the little book the incense burned was not pungent enough to suit the nostrils of the illustrious subject. Three copies of the pamphlet were sent to me. One of them I kept and the remaining two I sent respectively to Mr. Joseph Pennell and Mr. Ernest Brown in London. If I had had a fourth I would have sent it to Whistler himself in the belief that it would have given him pleasure. Six months afterward I arrived in London and was told by Lady Seymour Haden (Whistler's half-sister) that "her brother Jimmie" had buried his wife that same day. I had known and esteemed the deceased lady, and so I at once wrote to Whistler telling him that his sister had just told me of his bereavement and assuring him of my deep sympathy. My letter made mention of this and of nothing else. Next day (the day after his wife's funeral) I received from him a registered letter, the envelope bordered in deepest black and sealed in black wax with his mystic emblem or device of a sort of Whistlerized butterfly. I had not expected so early a reply to my letter of condolence, but when I came to read what he had written to me I certainly stared at it in amazement. I do not think that in his published book there is a more brilliant specimen of characteristic abusive Whistlerism than this.

NOCTURNE: PALACES

Size of the original print, 118 by 7 inches.

From the etching by Whistler. A beautiful example of Whistler's printing, the effect being obtained by the most artistic wiping of the ink from the plate. The "Nocturnes" are substantially paintings on copper, in printer's ink.

Size of the original print, 12 by 9 inches.

This is one of the famous "Twenty-six etchings," of which thirty sets only were issued, the artist himself printing all the proofs.

Whistler wrote reproaching me for the "gratuitous zeal" which had led me to further the circulation of a pamphlet which was most offensive to him. I had distributed only two copies of it, and I had no more to do with the making of it than "the babe unborn." Moreover, the names of the two compilers were printed on the title page.

Whistler's letter went on to say, "I am grateful for this activity of yours," and he proceeded to denounce "the authorities of the American College, upon whose shelves is allowed to be officially catalogued this grotesque slander of a distinguished and absent countryman." He added that if I had sent to him direct, and to him alone, the "libelous little book," he would have thanked me for the kind courtesy, and would have recognized, in the warning given, the right impulse of an honorable man. The letter ended: "I am, Sir, Your obedient Servant, J. McNeill Whistler."

It might be said of Whistler's letters, as was said by an English writer on the subject of Dean Swift, that he would have been one of the greatest of humorists were it not that all his humor was ill-humor. These letters of his were biting and cutting in their wit, but none of them contained one drop of "the milk of human kindness."

When a man is conscious that he has done no wrong to another he resents a gratuitous and unfair attack, and Whistler, that same week, had laid himself open to a counter blow from me: Mr. T. R. Way's descriptive catalogue of Whistler's lithographs had just been published, and in a

conspicuous note, by way of preface, the author says: "The title-page was designed by Mr. Whistler. The frontispiece was drawn from a photograph supplied by Mr. Whistler, and has been worked upon by him." This frontispiece shows us nothing but the master's back as he stands in a garden. But it was in Whistler's wording of the title-page that he left himself vulnerable. Evidently his preoccupation was to parade his own name in large type at the top of the page, and so as to do this he deliberately misnames the catalogue. He had just been abusing me about a "libelous little book" which was highly obnoxious to him, though I had no more to do with the making of it than the man in the moon,

and now I sent him a letter complaining about another book which was equally obnoxious to me. Under these circumstances I was enabled to incorporate in the following epistle much of the identical language of his own letter written to me two days before:

To James McNeill Whistler, Esq.:

Sir: "I must not let the occasion of your being in town pass without acknowledging the gratuitous zeal with which you have done your best to further the circulation of one of the most curiously" misleading announcements "it has been my fate hitherto to meet."

I refer to the title-page of Mr. Way's newly published Catalogue of your lithographs.

I read in this catalogue that "the title-page was designed by Mr. Whistler." On turning to the title-page I read, in big type and on the first and main line

"Mr. Whistler's Lithographs"