"You must feel that, for me, it is no easy task to reply under conditions of which I have so little habit. We are all even too conscious that mine has hitherto, I fear, been the gentle answer that sometimes turneth not away wrath.... It has before now been borne in upon me that in surroundings of antagonism I may have wrapped myself for protection in a species of misunderstanding, as that other traveller drew closer about him the folds of his cloak the more bitterly the winds and the storm assailed him on his way. But, as with him, when the sun shone upon him in his path, his cloak fell from his shoulders, so I, in the warm glow of your friendship, throw from me all former disguise, and, making no further attempt to hide my true feeling, disclose to you my deep emotion at such unwonted testimony of affection and faith."
This was the only public testimonial he ever received in England, and one of the few public functions at which he assisted. He seldom attended public dinners, those solemn feasts of funeral baked meats by which "the Islander soothes his conscience and purchases public approval." We remember that he did not appear at the first dinner of the Society of Authors, where his place was beside ours—a dinner given to American authors, at which Lowell presided. J. recalls an artists' dinner at which Whistler was seated on one side of the chairman and Charles Keene on the other. Some brilliant person had placed Sir Frederick Wedmore next to Whistler, who had more fun at the dinner than the critic. He rarely was seen in the City, and rarely was asked in Paris. As an outsider, he was never invited to the Academy. Even little private functions, like the Johnson Club, to which J. has taken him, he did not care for. It is so easy to be bored, so difficult to be amused, on such occasions. He preferred not to run the risk.
Of gentle answers that turn not away wrath there were plenty in 1889. At the Universal Exhibition in Paris, Whistler, an American, naturally proposed to show with Americans. The Yellow Buskin and The Balcony were the pictures he selected; he sent twenty-seven etchings, knowing that, in a big exhibition, a few prints make no effect. The official acknowledgment was a printed notice from General Rush C. Hawkins, "Cavalry Officer," Commissioner for the American Art Department: "Sir,—Ten of your exhibits have not received the approval of the jury. Will you kindly remove them?"
Whistler's answer was an immediate journey to Paris, a call on General Hawkins, the withdrawal of all his prints and pictures, to the General's embarrassment. Whistler wrote afterwards to the New York Herald, Paris edition: "Had I been properly advised that the room was less than the demand for place, I would, of course, have instantly begged the gentlemen of the jury to choose, from among the number, what etchings they pleased."
Twenty-seven etchings, unless specially invited, were rather a large number to send to any exhibition. He had been already asked to contribute to the British Section, and to it he now took the two pictures and ten prints. Though General Hawkins' action is as incomprehensible as his appointment to such a post, Whistler made a mistake. There is no doubt that, had his seventeen accepted prints remained in the American Section, he would have had a much better show than in the English, where only ten were hung and where, for etching, Seymour Haden, and not Whistler, was awarded a Grand Prix. "Whistler's Grievance" got into the papers, and the letters and interviews remain in The Gentle Art. If in 1889 he identified himself with the British, it was due solely to the discourtesy, as he considered it, of his countrymen. There was no denial of his nationality, and, though later always invited to show in the British Section of International Exhibitions, he always refused when there was an American Section.
In 1888 the New Gallery took over the played-out traditions of the Grosvenor, but Whistler did not follow to Regent Street. His Carlyle, several drawings, and many etchings went to the Glasgow International Exhibition that year, and he was well represented at the first show of the Pastel Society at the Grosvenor. He was more in sympathy with the New English Art Club than any other group of artists. It was then youthful and enthusiastic, most of the younger men of promise or talent belonged, and it might have accomplished great things had its founders been faithful to their original ambition. Whistler was never a member, but he sent a White Note and the etching of the Grande Place, Brussels, to the exhibition in 1888, and Rose and Red, a pastel, in 1889, when he was elected by the votes of the exhibitors to the jury. To the infinite loss of the club he never showed again. In the same year (1889), at the Institute of the Fine Arts at Glasgow, the Mother strengthened the impression made by the Carlyle the year before; there was a show of his work in May at the College of Working Women in Queen Square, London; and The Grey Lady was included in an exhibition at the Art Institution, Chicago, in the fall.
The show at Queen Square was remarkable. It is said to have been "organised by Mr. Walter Sickert, by permission of Miss Goold (head of the College), and opened by Lord Halsbury." There had not been such a representative collection of his work since his exhibition of 1874. The Mother, Carlyle, Rosa Corder, Irving were there, many pastels and water-colours, and many etchings of all periods from the Thames Series to the last in Touraine and Belgium. We have never seen a catalogue. We remember how it impressed us when we came to the fine Queen Anne house in the quiet, out-of-the-way square, how indignant we were to find nobody but a solitary man and a young lady at the desk, and how urgently we wrote in the Star that, "if there were as many as half a dozen people who cared for good work, they should go at once to see this exhibition of the man who has done more to influence artists than any modern." There is a legend of Whistler's coming one day, taking a picture from the wall and walking away with it, despite the protest of the attendant and the Principal of the College, wishing, so the legend goes, to carry out the theory he was soon to assert that pictures were only "kindly lent their owners." But the story of his making off with it across the square, followed by the college staff screaming "Stop thief!" and being nearly run in by a policeman, is a poor invention. His desire, however, to keep his pictures in his possession, his hope that those who bought them would not dispose of them, was growing, and his disgust when they were sold, especially at increased prices, was expressed in his answer to some one who said, "Staats Forbes tells me that that picture of yours he has will be the last picture he will ever part with." "H'm," said Whistler, who had had later news, "it is the last picture he has."
In March 1890 Whistler moved to No. 21 Cheyne Walk, an old house with a garden at the back, farther down the Embankment, close to Rossetti's Tudor House. It was panelled from the street door to the top. A cool scheme of blue and white decorated the dining-room, where there was one perfect painting over the mantel, and, Mr. Francis James has told us, the Six Projects hung for a while on the walls. The drawing-room on the first floor was turned into a studio, there was a bedroom above, but the rest of the house was empty and bare. From M. Gérard Harry we have an explanation of this bareness:
"I remember a striking remark of Whistler's at a garden-party in his Chelsea house. As he caught me observing some incompletely furnished rooms and questioning within myself whether he had occupied the house more than a fortnight or so: 'You see,' he said, with his short laugh, 'I do not care for definitely settling down anywhere. Where there is no more space for improvement, or dreaming about improvement, where mystery is in perfect shape, it is finis—the end—death. There is no hope, nor outlook left.' I do not vouch for the words, but that was certainly the sense of a remark which struck me as offering a key to much of Whistler's philosophy, and to one aspect of his original art."