[30] After reading Mr. Menpes’s Whistler as I knew Him, one discovers that ex­traor­di­nary phenomenon, a man who would rather destroy a friendship by what he considered a brilliant phrase than sacrifice the brilliant phrase and preserve the friendship. It is not wonderful that all Whistler’s friends did not prove so complaisant and generous as Mr. Menpes.

[31] The curious should refer to a delightful open Letter entitled Trilby from Mr. Whistler’s pen, which appeared in the initial number of Mr. Harry Furniss’s late lamented Lika Joko.

The whole episode is a nice commentary upon Mr. George Meredith’s distinction between Irony and Humour. “If,” says he, “instead of falling foul of the ridiculous person with a satiric rod, to make him writhe and shriek aloud, you prefer to sting him under a semi-caress, by which he shall in his anguish be rendered dubious whether indeed anything has hurt him, you are an engine of {171} Irony.” But “if you laugh all round him, tumble him, roll him about, deal him a smack, and drop a tear on him, own his likeness to you and yours to your neighbour, spare him as little as you shun him, pity him as much as you expose, it is a spirit of Humour that is moving you.”

In conclusion, it may be interesting to record the fact that no communication passed between du Maurier and Whistler upon the subject, other than that which appeared in print.

So much for the episode of the suppressed Trilby illus­tra­tion, which, as we have seen, was complicated by personal con­sid­er­ations.

Let us now turn our attention for a moment to a charming little tailpiece which has fallen a victim, not to the susceptibilities of an individual, but to an undue con­sid­er­ation for the feelings of that most living of Tom Morton’s creations, Mrs. Grundy. It is to be found in the first edition of the immortal Vicar of Wakefield as pictured by Mr. Hugh Thomson. And in, entering our protest against the deference which has in this instance been shown to prudishness, we must at the same time admiringly recognise the spirit by {172} which the action has been prompted. The “young person” no doubt succeeds on occasion in rendering us a little ridiculous. At the same time we must not forget that to her we largely owe our immunity from what would often shock even the moral olfactories of her elders.

Suppressed Illustration from The Vicar of Wakefield

Surely, however, the tender morals which could bear to read of Thornhill’s attempted seduction of Olivia could not logically find offence in the {173} charming little conceit, which by its sup­pres­sion has rendered a first edition of the Vicar, as il­lus­trat­ed by Mr. Hugh Thomson, an allurement to the modern Mæcenas.

Unlike Coaching Days and Coaching Ways, il­lus­trat­ed by the same artist, after the first edition of which certain drawings also disappeared, but without others being substituted in the later editions, the first edition of the Thomson Vicar of Wakefield, dated 1890, which was published both on small and large paper, contains the same number of illus­tra­tions as those which succeeded it. This, of course, is because in this instance the type was not reset, and so it was obligatory to substitute an illus­tra­tion for that which was suppressed.