International studio (21.1903/1904(1904))

departed to " And out," with the farthing resuit
we all know so well. I often wonder if, in this
better informed period, the same resuit would
follow such an outrage on one's personal char-
acter: I fancy not. "Jimmie" survived it all
bravely, and wore his gold-mounted little coin with
hilarious defiance. My other vivid memory of
Whistler is of the time (and it was a long time)
that he was engaged on the famous Peacock room
for Mr. Leyland. He often asked me round to see
it; and I see him still, up on high, lying on his
back often, working in "gold on blue" and " blue
on gold " over the wide expanse of the ceiling—
and as far as I could see he let no hand touch it
but his own. There are many good stories about
that master-work of his—too long and too personal
to teil here. They will come in well when the ideal
biography of the 7w/ Whistler is written. There
was the little quarrel, of course, about little nothings
that ended a long, and to "Jimmie" a most profit-
able friendship of many years.
Down to the Peacock period he had been sending
to the Academy rather regularly, but the ceiling
took some two or three years of his almost entire
time, and that accounts for the interval which
some of his late friends attribute to his Anal sever-
ance with the Royal Academy in anger more than
sorrow. The last work he sent there was the
immortal AAA%^7*, and few who saw
it on the walls will forget the Impression that it
made.- The stories of how it had been rejected
and consigned to the " cellars " and only rescued
by one enthusiastic member, who threatened to
resign unless it were placed, etc., are all the dis-
torted emanations of an imagination that has been
over stimulated. In the Arst place there are no
"cellars" at the Academy : the works sent there
go in on the .sAwf level and to the galleries on a
great lift. The rejected do not all go back until
a thorough sifting has been gone through, and the
most likely of them are left up until the very last.
The portrait of the had gone to the place
one saw it in during the exhibiüon ; but during
the last look round one hanger thought that, as the
portrait was life-size, it would look as well a bit
higher, so that some smaller things could go
it. Upon this the hanger, Sir W. Boxall, who had
placed it, vowed he "wouldn't play" if it was
Aw/M, so it remained; and that was all the real
story as I had it from one of the Council of the
time.
My estimate of the picture may be judged from
this fact. Shortly after this exhibition an enthusiastic
American collector of good things asked my advice

about getting an important example of Whistler.
I immediately suggested that he should try to
get this splendid portrait of his mother. My friend
looked at me very curiously. and then said, " You
are not really serious." On my most solemn assevera-
tion that I was never more so,—" What the devil
do I want of his mother's portrait?" "Well," I
said, "you would be glad of Rembrandt's mother's,
or Vandyke's or Raphael's mother's portrait, or their
mistress' even, or any intimate relation; it is just as
good as any of 'em could paint, and will be thought
so, too, some day." But I could not rnove him to
try to get it. I did not even know if it were to be
had. I know Whistler looked upon it as a picture,
not merely as a farnily portrait j and in the after
resuit it proved its claim. My other memories of
" Jimmie," about this and later times, rnake charm-
ing pictures in my mind of certain Sunday break-
fasts (at noon) at the White House, or near by, in
Chelsea. Nothing exactly like them have ever
been seen in the world. They were as original as
himself or his work, and equally memorable.
It would take pages of description to give even
a faint idea of them. The unbridled tongue of
rurnour suggested that on one occasion we were
waited on by " the gentleman in possession,"
but this may be scorned as "a weak invention
of the enemy." The lovely old silver on
the table was still in " possession " of the
owner ; also his brightest and most silvery
laughter. So we may dismiss the suggested
" uninvited guest." To me, however, the memo-
ries of our after-breakfast visit to the big, plain
Studio stand out with the greatest clearness.
There was no sort of secrecy or pose or mystery
about his work or his methods, which struck me as
most methodical, and the most simple and direct
way of arriving at the very results that seern so
mysterious to many. At the time I allude to he
was at work on—or had about him—a number of
those life-size, full-length portraits that he was then
" enthusing " his rapidly increasing circle of admirers
with. They were on very light stretchers, and
seemed covered with raw-grey canvas, slightly
primed by his own process. He seemed to toss
them about in showing them as if they were but
sheets of paper. Many of them had been outdoors,
he said, exposed to the elements, "just to temper
them to rough winds of circumstance and change."
His palette was a large sort of butler's tray,
the four sides of it let down, and made a large,
oval, Aat surface that covered a small-sized table.
He painted with dry colours mostly, tempered with
his own mixture. There was no evidence of any
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