O.S.
PERFECTLY UNAUTHENTIC ANECDOTES.
which may be reproduced (with the permission of Mr. Punch) in any forthcoming volume of Anybody's Reminiscences.
"You do things so sketchily and casually," said FRITH to WHISTLER one day. "Now when I paint a picture I take pains. 'The Derby Day' cost me weeks and months of sleeplessness. I did nothing else; I gave my whole mind to it." "Oh," said WHISTLER, "that's where it's gone to, is it?"
When Mr. BERNARD SHAW made his tour of the ports in order to popularise Socialism in the Navy, he was courteously received at Portsmouth by Sir HEDWORTH MEUX. The talk happened to turn on the theatre, and the Admiral was candid enough to confess himself somewhat at sea with regard to the merits of contemporary writers. "Now, Mr. SHAW," he said in his breezy way, "I wish you would tell me who is the most eminent of the playwrights of to-day?" "Ay, ay, Sir," said Mr. SHAW promptly.
Dr. Brotherton told me that he was once with MATTHEW ARNOLD in an election crowd at Oxford, when the Professor of Poetry accidentally collided with a working-man flown with Radicalism and beer. "Go to blazes!" said the proletarian. "My friend," replied ARNOLD, "we are well met. In me you see the official representative of Literature, whereas you, I perceive, stand for Dogma."