either prints or paintings in the rooms of the Fine Arts Society.
He always occupied the place of honor with the International Society at Knightsbridge.
Occasionally he would use the galleries of dealers, but not often, and then only upon his own terms.
While living at Chelsea he had Carlyle as a near neighbor, and of his own notion he painted the portrait that now hangs in Glasgow.
These two extraordinary beings were quite congenial. The dogmatic old philosopher, then past seventy-five, sat day after day to the eccentric painter, who was nearly forty years his junior, as patiently as if he were a professional model, and the sittings were long and tedious.
One day, as he was leaving, quite exhausted, he met at the door a little girl in white, and he asked her name.
“I am Miss Alexander,” she said, primly, “and I am going to have my portrait painted.”
The sage shook his head in commiseration, and muttered, as he passed on:
“Puir lassie, puir lassie!”
If proof were required of the underlying sincerity and earnestness of Whistler in those days when the world refused to take him seriously, this long and intimate association with Carlyle would be more than sufficient.