"Il sentait la forme, non seulement comme le font les bons peintres mais de la manière des bons sculpteurs. Il avait un sentiment extrêmement fin, qui a fait croire à quelques-uns que sa base n'était pas forte, mais elle était, au contraire, et forte et sûre.
"Il comprenait admirablement l'atmosphère, et un de ses tableaux qui m'a le plus vivement impressionné, 'La Tamise (barrage) à Chelsea,' est merveilleux au point de vue de la profondeur de l'espace. Le paysage en somme n'a rien; il n'y a que cette grande étendue d'atmosphère, rendue avec un art consommé.
"L'œuvre de Whistler ne perdra jamais par le temps; elle gagnera; car une de ses forces est l'énergie, une autre la délicatesse; mais la principale est l'étude du dessin."[13]
His visits to us were on Sundays, when he came for noonday breakfast, alone or with Miss Birnie Philip. If possible, we had people he liked or was interested in to meet him. One Sunday the late Mrs. Sarah Whitman, of Boston, and Miss Tuckerman were of the party, and Whistler, though he arrived tired and listless, recovered his animation before breakfast was over, and, for the new audience, described again the house in which he was so astonished to find himself, and again summed up the Boer campaign. Once he braved the night and dined, June 12—the last time he dined at our table—and was so wonderful we forgot how ill he was. We asked Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Morris and Professor Sauter, and Mr. Morris brought a message from General Wheeler, then in London and delighted to have news of Whistler, whom he remembered so well in the class above him at West Point. To be remembered by a distinguished West Point man was charming, but Whistler would not hear of General Wheeler being in the class below him; it was the class above; for Whistler did not choose to be older than anybody. We have spoken of his prejudices. He gave that evening an instance of one of the strongest. Something was said of the negro; he refused to see "any good in the nigger, he did not like the nigger," and that was the end of it. But Mr. Morris argued that it depended on the nigger; some he would be glad to invite to his house and to dinner. "Well, you know," said Whistler, "I should say that depends not on the nigger, but on the season of the year!" This reminds us of his argument another evening with Mrs. T. Fisher Unwin. But the negro had never had a chance, Mrs. Unwin protested. "Never had a chance!" said Whistler, "why, there, you know, there they all were starting out equal—the white man, the yellow man, the brown man, the red man, the black man—what better chance could the black man have? If he got left, well, it's because he couldn't keep up in the race."
THE CHELSEA GIRL
