Whistler answered with "one of the little things that Providence sometimes sent him": "Horsley soit qui mal y pense," he wrote on a label, and fastened it to the Note in Green and Violet. The British Artists were alarmed, for to enter Suffolk Street was not to abandon hope of the Academy. The label was removed, not before it had been seen. The critic of the Pall Mall referred to it as Whistler's "indignant protest against the idea that there is any immorality in the nude." Whistler, who knew when ridicule served better than indignation, wrote: "Art certainly requires no 'indignant protest' against the unseemliness of senility. Horsley soit qui mal y pense is meanwhile a sweet sentiment—why more—and why 'morality'?" But the critic could not understand, and he was discovered one day "walking in Pall Mall with the nude on his arm."
The revenue of the Society had been rapidly decreasing, a deficit of five hundred pounds had to be faced. To meet it Whistler proposed that the luncheon to the Press be discontinued. It was an almost general custom then to feast the critics at press views of picture exhibitions. But in few was the cloth more lavishly spread than at the British Artists', in few were boxes of cigars and whiskies-and-sodas placed so conveniently. The younger critics resented it, the old ones lived for it. Press day, the dreariest in the year at the Royal Academy, was the most delightful at the British Artists', they said. Mr. Sidney Starr tells a story of one, when Whistler had not hung his picture, but only the frame:
"Telegrams were sent imploring the placing of the canvas. But the only answer that came was, 'The Press have ye always with you; feed my lambs.' A smoking-concert followed during the exhibition. At this, one critic said to the Master, 'Your picture is not up to your mark, it is not good this time.' 'You should not say it isn't good; you should say you don't like it, and then, you know, you're perfectly safe; now come and have something you do like, have some whisky,' said Whistler."
PORTRAITS OF MAUD
OIL (DESTROYED)
From photographs lent by Pickford R. Waller, Esq.