Official Bumbledom
Sir—As you have considered Mr. Whistler's letter worthy of publication, I ask you to complete the publication by inserting this simple statement of the facts as they occurred. The notice board of the Royal Society of British Artists bears on a red ground, in letters To the Editor of The Morning Post of gold, the title of the Society. To this Mr. Whistler, during his presidency, added with his own hand a decorative device of a lion and a butterfly. On the eve of our private view it was found that, while the title of the Society, being in pure gold, remained untarnished, Mr. Whistler's designs, being executed in spurious metals, had nearly disappeared, and what little remained of them was of a dirty brown. The board could not be put up in that state. The lion, however, was not so badly drawn as to make it necessary to do anything more than restore it in permanent colour, and that has accordingly been done. But as the notice board was no longer the actual work of Mr. Whistler, it would manifestly have been improper to have left the butterfly (his well-known signature) attached to it, even if it had not appeared in so crushed a state. The soiled butterfly was therefore effaced.
Yours, &c.,
WYKE BAYLISS,
Clapham.
April 1, 1889.
"Aussi que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?"
Sir—I have read Mr. Bayliss's letter, and am disarmed. I feel the folly of kicking against the parish pricks. These things are right in The Morning Post. Clapham, by the common.
"V'là ce que c'est, c'est bien fait—
Fallait pas qu'il y aille! fallait pas qu'il y aille!"
And when, one of these days, all traces of history shall, by dint of much turpentine, and more Bayliss, have been effaced from the board that "belongs to us," I shall be justified, and it will be boldly denied by some dainty student that the delicate butterfly was ever "soiled" in Suffolk Street.
Yours, &c.,
