Whistler's ideas, the reverse of commercial, not infrequently placed him in want. He pawned his portrait of his mother, by many considered the best of his productions.
Miss Marion Peck, a niece of Ferdinand Peck, United States Commissioner to the Paris Exposition, wanted her portrait done by Whistler. She sat for him nineteen times. Further, she requested, as the picture was nearing completion, that extra pains be taken with its finishing. Also, she inquired if it could, without danger of injury, be shipped.
"Why?" asked Whistler.
"Because I wish to send it to my home in Chicago," explained Miss
Peck.
Whistler threw down his brush, overturned the easel, and ran around the studio like a madman. "What!" he shrieked. "Send a Whistler to Chicago! Allow one of my paintings to enter Hog Town! Never!"
Miss Peck didn't get the painting.
* * * * *
Once he met what seemed to be a crushing retort. He had scornfully called Balaam's ass the first great critic, and the inference was plain until a writer in Vanity Fair called his attention to the fact that the ass was right.
Whistler acknowledged the point. But the acknowledgment terminates in a way that is delicious. "I fancy you will admit that this is the only ass on record who ever did 'see the Angel of the Lord,' and that we are past the age of miracles."
Even in defeat he was triumphant.