PORTRAIT OF E. G. KENNEDY
In the Metropolitan Museum, New York
On these last visits there was another subject he could not keep long out of his thoughts and his talk. He had not been many days in his new house before building was begun by Mr. Ashbee on a vacant lot next door. "It is knock, knock, knock all day," Whistler said, and his resentment was unbounded. In his nervous state the perpetual irritation, the feeling that advantage had been taken of him and that he had not been informed of the nuisance beforehand, put him into a rage. Mr. Ashbee has written us that Whistler knew a building was to be put up. Those who took the house may have known, but Whistler told us he did not until the work began. Excitement, above all, the doctor said, must be avoided as it was bad for his heart. There was no mistaking the effect of this endless annoyance. He hoped for legal redress, and he referred the matter to Mr. Webb. But the knocking continued. On June 17 E. dined with him at Cheyne Walk, the one other guest Mr. Freer, recently arrived from Detroit, and it seemed to her as if Whistler was fast losing the good done by the winter's rest and quiet. Mrs. and Miss Birnie Philip were uneasy, and it came as no surprise to hear a few days later that he had left the house in search of repose and distraction in Holland, with Mr. Freer as his companion. It was too late. At The Hague, where he stayed in the Hôtel des Indes, he was dangerously ill, at death's door. Mr. Freer remained as long as he could, and Miss Birnie Philip and Mrs. Whibley hurried to take care of him. The period was critical. There was no suggestion of it in the first public sign he gave of convalescence. A stupid reporter telegraphed from The Hague that the trouble with Whistler "was old age, and it would take him a long time to get over it." The Morning Post published an article that Whistler thought had been prepared in anticipation of death, which, sparing him for the time, spared also the old wit. He wrote to beg that the "ready wreath and quick biography might be put back into their pigeon-hole for later use"; in reference to the writer's description of him he apologised for "continuing to wear my own hair and eyebrows after distinguished confrères and eminent persons have long ceased the habit"; and those who read the letter could not imagine that, a few days previously, his letter-writing seemed at an end. It contained his last word about Swinburne, and in it the bitterness with which he wrote Et tu, Brute! in The Gentle Art had disappeared. The Morning Post stated that Swinburne's verses inspired The Little White Girl. Whistler explained that the lines "were only written in my studio after the picture was painted. And the writing of them was a rare and graceful tribute from the poet to the painter—a noble recognition of work by the production of a nobler one."
After Mr. Freer had gone, Mr. Heinemann, at Whistler's urgent appeal, joined him in The Hague, a fortunate circumstance, as two charming spinster cousins, the Misses Norman, were able to find for the patient comforts out of reach of a stranger. They took rooms for him near the Hôtel des Indes, suggested a nurse, prepared dishes for him, and interested The Hague artists in his presence. Mesdag, Israels, and Van 's Gravesande were attentive. Afterwards, Van 's Gravesande wrote:
"Je l'ai beaucoup aimé. Whistler, malgré tout son quarrelling avec tout le monde, c'était un 'très bon garçon' tout à fait charmant entre camarades. J'ai passé quelques jours avec lui, il y déjà une vingtaine d'années, à Dordrecht nous y avons fait des croquis, des promenades sur l'eau, etc. etc. J'en garde toujours un excellent souvenir. On ne peut pas s'imaginer un compagnon plus gentil que lui, enjoué, aimable, sans aucune prétention, enthousiaste, et avec cela travailleur comme pas un."
Whistler enjoyed the society of his doctor—"the Court Doctor, quite the most distinguished in Holland." Mr. Clifford Addams came for a while from Dieppe, and in September E. went to Holland. Whistler was so much better that he made the short journey from The Hague to Amsterdam, where she was staying, to ask her to go with him to the Rijks Museum and look at the Effie Deans, which he had not seen in the gallery, and the Rembrandts. It is not easy for her to forgive the chance that took her away from the hotel before the telegram announcing his visit was delivered. She heard of him afterwards at Müller's book-shop, where he had been in search of old paper, for which they said his demand in Amsterdam had been so great and constant that dealers placed a fabulous price upon it. E. the next day went to The Hague, where she found him in rooms that in the last hours of packing looked bare and comfortless, for he had decided to start at once for London. He had promised to lunch with his doctor, so that she saw only enough of him to realise how frail and depressed and irritable illness had left him. His sisters-in-law told her that the doctor said he could keep well only by the greatest care and constant watchfulness, that he must not be excited, that he must not walk up many stairs.
Professor Sauter was more fortunate than E., and we have his notes of Whistler at The Hague when, with the first cheerful days of his recovery, his interest in life seemed to revive:
"Realising the difficulty of conveying my vivid impressions, I have hesitated for so long to give you an account of our experiences with Whistler during the last days of August and the beginning of September 1902, in Holland, soon after the severe illness which he suffered.