"Well as I knew and loved his works, I had but a passing glimpse of his person.
"Here are two interesting traits connected with it.
"Some few years ago, he was very much disturbed about a piracy committed in Belgium by a foreigner living at Antwerp, of his curious book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies. One day he appeared in my study, and said to me with a sarcastic smile: 'I should like you to be my counsel in this little affair, because I have been told that you, like myself, practice the gentle art of making enemies.'
"The case was won at Antwerp with the collaboration of my confrère, M. Maeterlinck, a relative of the poet who is such an honour to our country. The victory was celebrated at his house. When Whistler, the hero of the festivity, arrived at this hospitable abode, he was a long time in the ante-room. The maid who had let him in came, very much amazed, to the drawing-room where we were awaiting him, and said in Flemish: 'Madame, there is an actor in the ante-room; he is doing his hair before the looking-glass, he is putting on pomade, painting and powdering his face.' After a long interval, Whistler appeared, courteous, correct, waxed and anointed, resplendent as the butterfly which his name recalls, and with which he signed some of the notes he used to write to his counsel.
"This is all I can offer you.
"I have asked M. Maeterlinck for any documents connected with this episode he might have. All his researches have been in vain. Although so many insignificant papers have been preserved, Fate the perverse has allowed these precious fragments to disappear."
Page 415, line 6.—"Whistler was a painter whose drawing had great depth, and this was prepared for by good studies, for he must have studied assiduously.
"His feeling for form was not only that of a good painter, it was that of a sculptor. He had an extraordinary delicacy of sentiment, which made some people think that his basis was not very strong, whereas it was, on the contrary, both strong and firm.
"He understood atmosphere most admirably, and one of his pictures which made a very deep impression on me, The Thames at Chelsea, is a marvel of depth and space. The landscape in itself is nothing; there is merely this great extent of atmosphere, rendered with consummate art.