FIRELIGHT. JOSEPH PENNELL. NO. 1
LITHOGRAPH. W. 104
By permission of T. Fisher Unwin, Esq.
At the end of the cross-examination Whistler adjusted his eye-glass, put his hat on the rail of the witness-box, slowly pulled off one glove after the other. He turned to the judge and said:
"And now, my Lord, may I tell you why we are all here?"
"No, Mr. Whistler," said his Lordship; "we are all here because we cannot help it."
Whistler left the box. What he meant to say no one will ever know. We asked him later. He shook his head. The moment for saying it had passed.
Sir Sidney Colvin, Keeper of the Print Room of the British Museum; Mr. Strange, of the Art Library, South Kensington; Mr. Way and Mr. Goulding, professional lithographic printers; and Mr. Alfred Gilbert were our witnesses.
Mr. Bigham said that the case was a storm in a teacup blown up by Whistler, and that the article could do no harm to anybody.
Mr. Sickert protested that he was familiar with all the processes of lithography; that the plaintiff's lithographs were not lithographs, but, as a matter of fact, mere transfers. He had submitted the article to another paper, which refused it before it was accepted by the Saturday Review. He had been under the impression that the plaintiff would like a newspaper correspondence. He was actuated by a pedantic purism. Cross-examined by Sir Edward Clarke, he had to admit by implication that he intended to charge the plaintiff with dishonest practices, and that he had caught Mr. Pennell, the purist, tripping. He had to admit that the only lithograph he ever published was made in the same way, and he had called it, or allowed it to be called, a lithograph.
Mr. Sickert's witnesses scarcely helped him. Mr. C. H. Shannon's testimony was more favourable to us than to him. Mr. Rothenstein testified that all the lithographs he had published were done exactly as Whistler and J. had done theirs, and as he came out of the box fell into his hat. Mr. George Moore solemnly proclaimed that he knew nothing about lithographs, but that he knew Degas. "What's Degas?" roared the judge, thinking some new process was being sprung on him, and Mr. Moore vanished. The editor of the Saturday Review acknowledged that he had published an illustrated supplement full of lithographs done on transfer-paper and advertised by him as lithographs; that he had not known what was in Mr. Sickert's article until it appeared.
The judge, in summing up, said that a critic might express a most disparaging opinion on an artist's work and might refer to him in the most disagreeable terms, but he must not attribute to the artist discreditable conduct, unless he could prove that his charge was true. If the jury thought the criticism merely sharp and exaggerated, they would find a verdict for the defendant, but if not—that is, if it was more than this—they should consider to what damages the plaintiff was entitled. The verdict was for the plaintiff—damages fifty pounds, not a high estimate of the value of artistic morality on the part of the British jury, but at least, in so far as it carried costs, higher than the estimate put upon Whistler's work in the Ruskin trial.
So convinced were the other side of a verdict in their favour that a rumour reached us of a luncheon ordered beforehand at the Savoy, on the second day, by the editor of the Saturday Review to celebrate our defeat. We waited to be sure. Then we carried off Whistler, Mr. Reginald Poole, who had conducted the case for us, and Mr. Jonathan Sturges to the Café Royal for our breakfast. Whistler was jubilant, and nothing pleased him more than the deference of the foreman of the jury, who waylaid him to shake hands at the close of the trial. And since then no incautious British artists or critics have dared to tamper with Senefelder's definition of lithography.
CHAPTER XLI: THE END OF THE EDEN CASE.
THE YEARS EIGHTEEN NINETY-SEVEN TO EIGHTEEN NINETY-NINE.
After our triumph Whistler went to Paris and Boldini painted his portrait, shown in the International Exhibition of 1900. It was done in a very few sittings. Mr. Kennedy, who went with Whistler, says that Boldini worked rapidly, that Whistler got tired of doing what he had made other people do all his life—pose—and took naps. During one of these Boldini made a dry-point on a zinc plate. Whistler did not like it, nor did he like any better Helleu's done at the same time. Of the painting Whistler said to us, "They say that looks like me, but I hope I don't look like that!" It is, however, a presentment of him in his worst mood, and Mr. Kennedy remembers that he was in his worst mood all the while. It is the Whistler whom the world knew and feared.
When Whistler came back to London, in May or June, he went to Garlant's Hotel, where Kennedy was staying. Mr. Kennedy's relations with Whistler commenced by his selling Whistler's prints and pictures in New York, and then developed into an intimate friendship, which continued until almost the end of Whistler's life. Kennedy was one of Whistler's champions in America, devoted and loyal, though the friendship ended rather abruptly through a regrettable misunderstanding. After Whistler's death, Kennedy was mainly responsible for the Grolier Club exhibition and catalogue.
This summer Whistler went to Hampton, where Mr. Heinemann had taken a cottage. Whistler never liked the country, but, he said, "I suppose now we'll have to fish for the little gudgeon together from a chair, with painted corks, like the other Britons."
He took part in the fun. He went to regattas, picnicked, and was rowed and punted about. At Hampton he met Mr. William Nicholson, whom Mr. Heinemann had asked down with the idea of his adding a portrait of Whistler to the series that began with his woodcut of Queen Victoria in the New Review. Later Mr. Nicholson, in the Fitzroy Street studio, made a study of Whistler in evening dress, recalling the Sarasate, and it appeared in the Review.
It was the summer of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. Whistler could not come to us from Garlant's without passing through streets hung with tawdry wreaths and draggled festoons; Trafalgar Square buried in platforms, seats, and advertisements, Nelson on his column peering above. The decorations were an unfailing amusement to him, an excuse for an estimate of "the Island and the Islander," and the talk about the British, an annoyance, we are afraid, to some of his friends and more of his enemies. One evening he sketched for us his impression of the Square, with Nelson "boarded at last." "You see," he said, "England expects every Englishman to be ridiculous," and the sketch appeared in the Daily Chronicle.
He again went to the Naval Review, and this time saw it from Mr. George Vanderbilt's yacht. No etchings were made, though we believe he did a water-colour or pastel. Instead, he wrote some of his saddest letters, yet he said with a gleam of glee: "It was wonderful, just like Spain, just like Velasquez at some great function, for there was Philip," whom Mr. Vanderbilt resembled, as the portrait proved till he changed and ruined it. "There was the Queen, Mrs. Vanderbilt; there was I, the Court Painter, and, why, even the dwarfs," as he described appropriately two well-known Americans on board.
In July we proposed to cycle across France to Switzerland, and the night before we started Whistler, M. Boldini, and Mr. Kennedy dined with us to say good-bye. Boldini was leaving London the next day, and by the end of the evening Whistler made up his mind to come as far as Dieppe, and as he would never, if he could help it, go alone, he decided that Mr. Kennedy must come too. Next morning we all arrived at the station save Whistler. Even his baggage came, but not till we were reduced almost to nervous collapse, not till the train was starting, did he saunter unmoved—his straw hat over his eyes—down the platform, followed humbly by the pompous station-master and amazed porters, looking for our carriage. No sooner had we started than he was in the best of spirits and enjoyed every minute of the journey, most when on the boat he found a camp of enemies also on the way to Dieppe, to his delight and their discomfort. At Dieppe we had to get our bicycles through the customs, the others took a cab, and when we reached the hotel we were received regally and given a whole suite, Boldini having hinted to the patron we were royalty travelling incognito, they in attendance. Almost at once Whistler got out his little colour-box and started for a shop front in a narrow street he knew. But first he had to find another kind of shop where he could buy a rosette of the Legion of Honour, for his had been lost or forgotten, and he would have thought it wanting in respect to appear without it in France. The shopkeeper, to whom he explained, said, "All right, monsieur, here is the rosette, but I have heard that story before." Whistler was furious, but in the end had to laugh. His dread of illness was again shown, for Beardsley, dying, was in the town, and without knowing it we passed his window and Beardsley saw us. When afterwards we called, Whistler refused to come, and it was well he did. Beardsley, however, was not the only person in Dieppe Whistler would not meet.
We had only our cycling costumes, we were staying at the Hôtel Royal. When he came down to dinner, very late of course, he was correct in evening dress, the rosette in place, and we thought there was a suggestion of hesitation, but it was only a suggestion. He gave his arm to E., who was in short cycling skirt, J. in knickerbockers, and as we went into the dining-room he turned to her, and, to a question that had never been asked, answered clearly, "Mais oui, Princesse," and after that he had all the attention he wanted. Every tourist stared, and we were escorted to our seats by the patron, and for the rest of the evening, when he was not talking to the Princesse, he was giving good advice to the head waiter. The evening and the night were diversified periodically by Boldini's practical jokes, which did not keep Whistler from being down early in the morning to see us off. "Well, you know, can't I hold something?" he offered, as E. mounted her bicycle, and as he watched us wheel along the sea-front, he told Mr. Kennedy, "After all, O'K., ... there's something in it!" We asked Mr. Kennedy to pay our bill, and M. Boldini had some trouble with his. The result was that when Whistler and Kennedy counted up their joint funds, they found they had just about enough money to get back to London, and they left.
In the autumn Whistler was in Paris, the Eden case in the Cour de Cassation being fixed for November 17. It was heard before Président Périvier, Maître Beurdeley for the second time defending Whistler. Mr. Heinemann came from London, and was with him in court. Judgment was given on December 2. The affair had been talked about, and the court was crowded. The judgment went as entirely in Whistler's favour as, in the Lower Court, it had gone against him. He was to keep the picture, on condition that he made it unrecognisable as a portrait of Lady Eden, which had been done; Sir William Eden was to have the hundred guineas back, which already had been returned and 5 per cent. interest; Whistler was to pay one thousand francs damages with interest and the cost of the first trial, and "the Baronet" to pay the costs of appeal. Mr. MacMonnies, who also was with Whistler in court, remembers that "it was decided by the judges that the picture should be produced when needed. Mr. Whistler whispered in my ear, 'MacMonnies, take the picture and get out with it.' As we sat under the judges' noses, and the court-room was packed with admirers and enemies and court officials, I made a distinct spot as I walked down the aisle with the picture under my arm. And Whistler showed his admirable generalship in the case, as not one of the gendarmes could stop me. So all anybody could do was to watch it disappear out of the door."
Whistler said to us that the Procureur de la République was splendid; that the whole affair was a public recognition of his position; that the trial made history, established a precedent, proving the right of the artist to his own work; that a new clause had been added to the Code Napoléon; that he had "wiped up the floor" with "the Baronet" before all Paris, his intention from the first. He wished it to be known that in the law of France he would go down with Napoleon:
"Well, you know, take my word for it, Joseph, the first duty of a good general when he has won his battle is to say so, otherwise the people, always dull—the Briton especially—fail to understand, and it is an unsettled point in history for ever. Victory is not complete until the wounded are looked after and the dead counted."
The trial over, he wanted immediately to make a beautiful little book of it, and he began to arrange the report with his "Reflections" for publication. During many months proofs of The Baronet and the Butterfly filled his pockets. As he had read pages of The Ten O'Clock to Mr. Alan S. Cole, so he read pages of The Baronet and the Butterfly to us, and sometimes to the Council of the International after the meetings, a mistake, for there were members who had not the intelligence to understand it or him. His care was no less than with The Gentle Art. Every note, every Butterfly, was thought out and placed properly. "Beautiful, you know. Isn't it beautiful?" he would say, when a page or a paragraph pleased him, and nothing pleased him more than the Butterfly following the "Reflection" on page 43. There he quotes George Moore: "I undertook a journey to Paris in the depth of winter, had two shocking passages across the Channel and spent twenty-five pounds. All this worry is the commission I received for my trouble in the matter."
Whistler's "Reflection" was: "Why, damme, sir! he must have had a Valentine himself—the sea-saddened expert." This was followed by the Butterfly, "splendid—actually rolling back with laughter, you know!"
A new feature was the toad printed over the Dedication: "To those confrères across the Channel who, refraining from intrusive demonstration, with a pluck and delicacy all their own 'sat tight' during the struggle, these decrees of the judges are affectionately dedicated."
Below, a Butterfly bows and sends its sting to England. The tiny toad is the only realistic drawing in his books, and to make it realistic he needed a model. He thought of applying at the Zoological Gardens, was promised one by Mr. Wimbush, a painter in the same house, and finally his stepson, Mr. E. Godwin, found one. He put the toad in a paper box, forgot all about it, and was shocked when he heard it was dead.
"You know, they say I starved it. Well, it must have caught a fly or two, and I thought toads lived in stone or amber—or something—for hundreds of years—don't you know the stories? Perhaps it was because I hadn't the amber!"
The Baronet and the Butterfly was published in Paris by Henry May, May 13, 1899. Whistler objected to the date, but on the 13th it appeared, and the result justified his superstition. It did not attract much attention. When we saw him in Paris that month he seemed to think the fault was with the critics who were keeping up the played-out business of "misunderstanding and misrepresentation." But the interest in the Eden trial had never been as great as he fancied, and the report is dull reading, because there were no witnesses and so no cross-examination which would in England have given him the opportunity of "scalping" his victim. The Ruskin trial in The Gentle Art is full of Whistler's answers in court; The Baronet and the Butterfly is made up of the speeches of advocates and judges. In the marginal notes, the Dedication, the Argument, he is brilliant and witty, and the Butterfly as gay as ever. There is no Whistler in the speeches, that is the trouble.
The book was one of many schemes that occupied him during these years. The International Society of Sculptors, Painters, and Gravers was organised, and the Atelier Carmen in Paris was planned, both so important that their history is reserved for other chapters. A venture from which he hoped great things was his endeavour to dispense with the middleman in art. Hitherto he had been glad to trust his affairs to dealers. "I will lay the golden eggs, you will supply the incubator," he told one, whose version of the arrangement was that when the incubator was ready Whistler would not give up the golden eggs. He could not reconcile himself to the large sums gained by buying and selling his work since 1892. Over the sale of old work he had no control; the sale of new he determined to keep in his hands. He would be his own agent, set up his own shop, form a trust in Whistlers. We think it was in 1896 he first spoke to us about it, delighted, sure he was to succeed financially at last. In 1897 rumours were spread of a "Whistler Syndicate." In 1898 advertisements of the "Company of the Butterfly" appeared in the Athenæum—the Company composed, as far as we knew, of James McNeill Whistler. Two rooms were taken on the first floor at No. 2 Hinde Street, Manchester Square, close to the Wallace Gallery. They were charming. A few prints were hung. A picture or two stood on easels. To go to Whistler in the studio for his work was one thing; it was quite another to go to a shop run by no one knew who, half the time shut, and deserted when open. We doubt if anything was ever sold there, we never saw a visitor in the place. Soon the rooms were turned over to Mr. Heinemann for a show of Mr. Nicholson's colour-prints, and after that no more was heard of the "Company of the Butterfly."
There was another reason for starting it. So many people came to the studio for so many reasons that he had to keep them out, and his idea was that those who wanted to buy pictures should go to the "Company of the Butterfly," and buy them there without interrupting him. But no shop could dispose of the constant visits from the curious, from photographers asking for his portrait, journalists begging for an interview, literary people anxious to make articles or books about him. They would write to arrange a certain hour and appear without waiting for a reply. One, who had written to say he was coming with a letter of introduction, on his arrival found the door fastened and heard Whistler whistling inside, and that was all the indignant visitor heard or saw of him. There is a story of an American collector who, calling one day when not wanted, and after wasting much time, asked:
"How much for the whole lot, Mr. Whistler?"
"Five millions."
"What?"
"My posthumous prices!"
