“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!”