"Why have you withered people and stung them all your life?" asked a lady.
"My dear," he said, "I will tell you a secret. Early in life I made the discovery that I was charming; and if one is delightful, one has to thrust the world away to keep from being bored to death."
* * * * *
During the Boxer troubles, when Pekin was under siege to rescue the legations, he remarked:
"Dear! dear! I hope they will save the palace. All the Englishmen in the world are not worth one blue china vase."
One evening at Pennell's Miss Annulet Andrews mentioned attending the
Royal Society soirée the evening before.
"Poor thing!" he said. "Poor, misguided child! Did you come all the way to London to consort with such—well, what shall we call them? Why, there isn't a fellow among them who had his h's five years ago!"
* * * * *
"You should be grateful to me," said Whistler to Leyland, after he had painted the Peacock Room in the latter's house. "I have made you famous. My work will live when you are forgotten. Still, perchance in the dim ages to come you may be remembered as the proprietor of the Peacock Room."
* * * * *