And I have, Sir,
the honour to be,
Your obedient servant,
Amsterdam, Oct. 6.
The Art-Critic's Friend
Mr. Whistler has many things to answer for, and not the least of them is the education of the British Art-Critic. That, at any rate, is the impression left by a little book made up—apparently against the writer's will—of certain of the master's letters and mots.... It is The Scots Observer, April 5, 1890. useful and pleasant reading; for not only does it prove the painter to have a certain literary talent—of aptness, unexpectedness, above all impertinence—but also it proves him never to have feared the face of art-critical man.... To him the art-critic is nothing if not a person to be educated, with or against the grain; and when he encounters him in the ways of error, he leaps upon him joyously, scalps him in print before the eyes of men, kicks him gaily back into the paths of truth and soberness, and resumes his avocation with that peculiar zest an act of virtue does undoubtedly impart. Indeed, Mr. Whistler, so far from being the critic's enemy, is on the contrary the best friend that tradesman has ever had. For his function is to make him ridiculous....
... Yes, Mr. Whistler is often "rowdy" and unpleasant; in his last combat with Mr. Oscar Wilde—("Oscar, you have been down the area again")—he comes off a palpable second; his treatment of 'Arry dead and "neglected by the parish" goes far to prove that his sense of smell is not so delicate nor so perfectly trained as his sense of sight....
A Question
TO THE EDITOR:
Sir—It is, I suppose, to your pleasant satisfaction in "The Critic's Friend" that I owe the early copy of the Scots Observer, pointed The Scots Observer, April 19, 1890. with proud mark, in the blue pencil of office, whereby the impatient author hastened to indicate the pithy personal paragraphs, that no time should be wasted upon other matter with which the periodical is ballasted.
Exhilarated by the belief that I had been remembered—for vanity's sake let me fancy that you have bestowed upon me your own thought and hand—I plunged forthwith into the underlined article, and read with much amusement your excellent appreciation.