Into The Ten O'Clock Whistler put all he had learned of art, all he knew to be unchangeable and everlasting. Mr. W. C. Alexander has told us that when he listened to The Ten O'Clock at Prince's Hall, nothing in it was new to him; he had heard it for years from Whistler over the dinner-table. The only new thing was Whistler's determination to say in public what he had said in private. He was busy with this in the autumn and winter of 1884-85. He would come at strange hours and read a page to Mr. Cole, in whose diary, from October until February, note follows note of his visits:
"October 24 (1884). Whistler to dine. We passed the evening writing out his views on Ruskin, art, etc.
"October 27. Jimmy to dinner, continuing notes as to himself and art.
"October 28. Writing out Whistler's notes for him.
"October 29. Jimmy to dine. Writing notes as to his opinions on art matters, and discussing whether to offer them for publication to English Illustrated Magazine edited by Comyns Carr, or to whom?"
Mr. G. A. Holmes, in his Chelsea house, was often roused by the sharp ring and double-knock, followed by Whistler with a page or paragraph for his approval. Mr. Menpes writes that "scores of times—I might almost say hundreds of times—he paced up and down the Embankment at night, repeating to me sentences from the marvellous lecture." A marvellous story. During a few days' illness at his brother's in Wimpole Street, where, when ill, he went, Mrs. Whistler recalled him sitting, propped up by pillows, reading passages to the doctor and herself.
His plan for an article in the English Illustrated Magazine came to nothing. In November 1884 Lord Powerscourt, Mr. Ludovici says in the Art Journal (July 1906), invited Whistler to Ireland to distribute prizes at an art school and speak to the students, and nothing was more appropriate than the notes he had written down.
Mr. Cole records:
"November 19 (1884). Whistler called and told us how he was invited to Ireland, where he was sending some of his works, and would lecture in Dublin."
The invitation came from the Dublin Sketching Club, which held its exhibitions in Leinster Hall. Three other Americans—Sargent, Julian Story, and Ralph Curtis—were invited. No such collection of Whistler's work had been seen out of London. Mr. Booth Pearsall, the honorary secretary, sends us this account: