CHAPTER XLVI: IN SEARCH OF HEALTH. THE YEARS NINETEEN HUNDRED AND ONE

AND NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWO.

As soon as Whistler got away from London he was unhappy. At Tangier the wind was icy, at Algiers it rained, and everywhere when it was clear the sky was "hard" and the sea was "black." Snow was falling at Marseilles, and he was kept in his room for a couple of weeks, so ill he had to send for a doctor, and he was only comforted when he found the doctor delightful. Corsica was recommended and, as "Napoleon's Island," attracted Whistler. When he was well enough Mr. Birnie Philip left him, and he sailed alone for Ajaccio. Here he stayed at the Hôtel Schweizerhof. The weather at first was abominable, so cold and the wind so treacherous that he could not work out of doors, and he felt his loneliness acutely. Fortunately he made a friend of the Curator of the Museum, and Mr. Heinemann joined him for a time. They loitered about together in the quaint little town, went to see the house where Napoleon was born--"a great experience"--spent many rainy hours in the _café_ where Mr. Heinemann taught him to play dominoes, a resource not only then but the rest of his life. They played for the price of their coffee, and Whistler cheated with a brilliancy that made him easily a winner, but that horrified a German who sometimes took a hand, though the _naïveté_ of Whistler's "system" could not have deceived a child.

He was by no means idle, and he brought back a series of exquisite pen and pencil drawings begun at Tangier. A few water-colours were made, and when the weather gave him a chance he worked on his copper-plates. He bit one or two that J. had grounded in London, and the ground came off. He did not know how, or did not have the courage to prevent it. We can only wonder again that a man who made such wonderful plates did not know what to do, or did not dare do it, in difficulties of this sort, preferring to rely upon somebody else. He had drawn on some of the other plates before he began to bite any of them, and he may have done more than have as yet been seen. In Mr. Howard Mansfield's and the Grolier catalogues only one plate in Corsica is recorded, in both called _The Bohemians_. But as J. grounded ten or a dozen for Whistler, and as he spoke to us of more than once bitten, it is probable that the plates exist. "All my dainty work lost," he wrote to us from Corsica, and it looked as if the shadow had fallen upon our friendship. But he understood, and the shadow passed as quickly as it came. There were other schemes. One day, after his return, he told Mr. Clifford Addams that he had seen a great black-bearded shepherd, on a horse, carrying a long pole, coming down a hill-side, of whom he wanted to make a large equestrian portrait. But he never started it. He felt he was not able.

The closing of the school in Paris occupied and worried him, and he was arranging for a show of pastels and prints at the Luxembourg. One pleasure, of which he wrote to us, came from "new honours" in Dresden, where he was awarded a gold medal and elected "unanimously to the _Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts_." He was more tired than he admitted in his letters, dwelling little on his fatigue, and insisting that the doctor in Marseilles found nothing was the matter with him. But he was never strong after the autumn of 1900, and earlier than this the doctor in London warned his friends that he was failing.

He was more hopeful because at Ajaccio he said he had discovered what was the matter with him:

"At first, though I got through little, I never went out without a sketch-book or an etching-plate. I was always meaning to work, always thinking I must. Then the Curator offered me the use of his studio. The first day I was there he watched me, but said nothing until the afternoon. Then--'But, Mr. Whistler, I have looked at you, I have been watching. You are all nerves, you do nothing. You try to, but you cannot settle down to it. What you need is rest--to do nothing--not to try to do anything.' And all of a sudden, you know, it struck me that I had never rested, that I never had done nothing, that it was the one thing I needed. And I put myself down to doing nothing--amazing, you know. No more sketch-books, no more plates. I just sat in the sun and slept. I was cured. You know, Joseph must sit in the sun and sleep. Write and tell him so."

He was sufficiently recovered to take his old joy in the "Islanders," into the midst of whom he fell on the P. & O. steamer coming back from Marseilles:

"Nobody but English on board, and, after months of not seeing them, really they were amazing: there they all were at dinner, you know--the women in low gowns, the men in dinner jackets. They might look a trifle green, they might suddenly run when the ship rolled--but what matter? There they were--men in dinner jackets, stewards behind their chairs in dinner jackets--and so all's right with the country! And, do you know, it made the whole business clear to me down there in South Africa. At home every Englishman does his duty--appears in his dinner jacket at the dinner hour--and so, what difference what the Boers are doing? All is well with England! You know, you might just as well dress to ride in an omnibus!"

Whistler returned from Corsica at the beginning of May in excellent spirits. He came to us on the day of his arrival. We give one small incident that followed because it shows the simplicity he was careful to conceal from the world he liked to mystify. J. was in Italy and E., that afternoon, on her way back from the Continent. At our door he met our French maid, Augustine, starting for Charing Cross, and he walked with her to the station, where she was to meet E., while she gave him the news. Her account was that everybody stared, which was not surprising. He, always a conspicuous figure, was the more so in his long brown overcoat and round felt hat, _en voyage_, while she wore a big white apron and was _en cheveux_. Moreover, their conversation was animated. She invited him to dinner, promising him dishes which she knew would tempt him, and he accepted. He appeared a little before eight. "Positively shocking and no possible excuse for it," he said, "but, well, here I am!"

Work was taken up in the studio, our talks were resumed, his interest in the Boer War grew, the heat he had not found in the South was supplied by London in June and July, and from the heat he gained strength. He came and went, as of old, between Garlant's Hotel and Buckingham Street, until he declared that the cabbies in the Strand knew him as well as the cabbies in Chelsea. It had ever been his boast that he was known to almost every cabman in London, as, indeed, he was. The tales of his encounters with them were numerous, for, if lavish in big things, he could sometimes be "narrow" in small, and his drives occasionally ended in differences. The only time we knew the cabby to score was one day this year, when J. was walking from the studio with him. "Kibby, kibby," Whistler cried to a passing cab, not seeing the "fare" inside. The cabman drew up, looked down at him, looked him over, and said, "Where did yer buy yer 'at? Go, get yer 'air cut!" and drove off at a gallop. Whistler, safe inside an omnibus, laughed at the adventure.

But the summer was full of adventures. Another afternoon he and J. were walking in the Strand when a well-known English artist stopped him with, "Why, my dear old Jimmie, how are you? I haven't seen you or spoken to you for twenty years!" Whistler turned slowly to J. and said, "Joseph, do you know this person?" And the person fled. "H'm," said Whistler, "hasn't spoken to me for twenty years--guess it will be another twenty before he dares again." We were abroad a great part of the summer of 1901, and when we got back his weakness had returned with the cold and the damp and the fog. He had realised the uselessness of keeping up his apartment and studio in Paris, the state of his health making it impossible for him to live in the one or to climb to the other, and business in connection with closing them took him to Paris in October. Towards the beginning of the month he was ill in bed at Garlant's Hotel, and towards the end at Mr. Heinemann's in Norfolk Street. When well enough to go out he was afraid to come to us in the evening: "Buckingham Street at night, you know, a dangerous, if fascinating place!" He would not dine where he could not sleep, he said, "_J'y dîne, j'y dort_," and in our small flat he knew there was no corner for him. Early in November he moved to Tallant's Hotel, North Audley Street, and there he was very ill and more alarmed than ever. "This time I am very much bowled over, unable to think," he told E. when she went to see him, and, though he laughed, he was depressed by his landlady's recommendation of his room as the one where Lord ---- died. "I tried to make her understand," he said, "that what I wanted was a room to live in." He looked the worse because in illness, as in health, he had the faculty of inventing extraordinary costumes. E. remembers him there, after he was able to get up, in black trousers, a white silk night-shirt flowing loose, and a short black coat.

Illness made Whistler more of a wanderer, and for months he was denied the rest he knew he needed. From Tallant's, in November, he went to Mrs. Birnie Philip's in Tite Street, Chelsea. Here he never asked his friends, and we saw less of him. The first week in December he left London for Bath, where he took rooms in one of the big Crescents, and where he thought he could work. There were shops in which to hunt for "old silver and things," in a vague way people seemed to know him, and, on the whole, Bath pleased him. He lost few excuses, however, for coming to London, and was in town almost all of January. On some days he was surprisingly well. He went to the Old Masters Exhibition at the Royal Academy especially to see the Kingston Lacy _Las Meniñas_, and he told us the same day:

"It is full of things only Velasquez could have done--the heads a little weak perhaps--but so much, or everything, that no one else could have painted like that. And up in a strange place they call the Diploma Gallery I saw the Spanish Phillip's copy of Las Meniñas, full of atmosphere really, and dim understanding."

Ochtervelt's _Lady Standing at a Spinet_ interested him, suggesting a favourite theme:

"The Dutchmen knew how to paint--they had respect for the surface of a picture; the modern painter has no respect for anything but his own cleverness, and he is sometimes so clever that his work is like that of a bad boy, and I'm not sure that he ought not to be taken out and whipped for it. Cleverness!--well, cleverness has nothing to do with art; there can be the same sort of cleverness in painting as that of the popular officer who cuts an orange into fancy shapes after dinner."

He was severe on contemporary artists who forgot the standard of the Louvre, the only standard he recognised. Of Conder he said, "_Il est trop joli pour être beau!_" and of a follower of Rodin, "He makes a landscape out of a man." When he saw Watts' _Hope_ his comment was, "The hope that maketh the heart sick." Watts he always called "_ce faux Titien_." "Except in England, would anything short of perfection in art be praised?" he said. "Why approve the tolerable picture any more than the tolerable egg?" A sitter dissatisfied with his portrait told Whistler it was not good. "Do you call it a good piece of art?" he asked. "Well," said Whistler, "do you call yourself a good piece of Nature?"

One day a man rushed into a hat store and, as Whistler was hatless, being fitted, bellowed, "I say, this hat don't fit." "Your coat don't, either," Whistler answered.

One or two evenings he risked the night air to come to us and his talk was as gay and brilliant--reminiscent, critical, "wicked," as the mood took him, and at times serious. We remember his earnestness when he recalled the _séances_ and spiritual manifestations at Rossetti's, in which he believed. He could not understand the people who pretended to doubt the existence of another world and the hereafter. His faith was strong, though vague when there was question of analysing it. Probably he never tried to reduce it to dogma and doctrine, and, in that sense, he was "the amateur" he described himself in jest. If his inclination turned to any special creed it was to Catholicism. "The beauty of ritual is with the Catholics," he said. But his work left him no time to study these problems, and his belief perhaps was stimulated by the mystery in which it was lost. He would have been more amused and interested than anybody could he have foreseen the messages to be received from him by an artist, and the book to be written by him for an author, and the portrait to be made by him for a medium, after his death.

On other days London apparently was tiring him and he dozed off and on through his visits. He expended much energy in sending some old pieces of silver to the doctor at Marseilles and the Curator at Ajaccio, who had been kind to him. He was full of these little courtesies and never forgot kindness, just as he never failed to show it to those who appealed to him, whether it was to find a publisher for an unsuccessful illustrator, or a gallery for an unsuccessful painter, or even, as we know happened once, to support a morphomaniac for months.

A shorter visit to town was made solely to attend a meeting of the International Society because his presence was particularly desired. This was one of the occasions that proved the sincerity and activity of his devotion to the Society and its affairs. It is a satisfaction that this devotion was appreciated and that the loyalty of the Council was not shaken during his lifetime.

In March Whistler came back to Tite Street, but, as we have said, he asked no one while he stayed with "the Ladies," his name for his mother- and sisters-in-law. There was one almost clandestine meeting with Professor Sauter, Whistler's desire to hear about the Boers, to whom he "never referred, of course, in the presence of the Ladies," becoming too strong to be endured, and he could rely upon Sauter for sympathy and the latest news. It was an interval of mystery in the studio. No one was invited, few were admitted, nothing was heard of the work being done. Whistler liked to keep up an effect of mystery in his movements, but we have never known him to carry it so far as during the first month or so after his return from Bath. At last J. was summoned. Whistler would not let him come further than the ante-room, talking to him through the open door or the thin partition, but presently, probably forgetting, called him into the studio and went on painting, and he forgot the mystery. Whistler felt he had little strength and devoted that little to his work. But, even in ill-health, he could not live without people about him, and he soon fell back into his old ways. Miss Birnie Philip was now almost always in the studio with him. In April he showed us the portrait of Mr. Richard A. Canfield, whose acquaintance he made at this time, unfortunately, for he introduced Mr. Canfield to "the Ladies," and the introduction resulted in the loss of one of his friends. Miss Birnie Philip was sitting to him, he was working on the portrait of Miss Kinsella, the _Venus_, and the little heads, and he was adding to the series of pastels. He was bothered about the show of his prints and pastels which M. Bénédite wished to make at the Luxembourg, and he was anxious to hand over the details to J., who could not see to them as he was away constantly this year. Whistler looked forward to the show because of the official character it would have, though after recent purchases of pictures for the Luxembourg he said, "You know, really, I told Bénédite, if this goes on I am afraid I must take my 'Mummy' from his Hotel." He was worried also about a show at the Caxton Club in Chicago, where it was proposed to reproduce his etchings without his permission. But when the Club found he objected the matter dropped.

To avoid further wandering, for which he was no longer equal, he took a house in Chelsea, where he had lived almost thirty years: he had been absent hardly more than ten. Mrs. and Miss Birnie Philip went to live with him. The house, not many doors west of old Chelsea Church, was No. 74 Cheyne Walk, built by Mr. C. R. Ashbee, and it stood on the site of a fish-shop of which Whistler had made a lithograph. There was a spacious studio at the back in which, in his words, he returned to his "old scheme of grey." Its drawbacks were that it was on a lower level than the street, reached by a descent of two or three steps from the entrance hall, and that the rest of the house was sacrificed to it. Two flights of stairs led up to the drawing-room where, in glass cases running round the room, he placed his blue-and-white. The dining-room was on this floor, but another flight of stairs had to be climbed to get to the bedrooms in the garrets. Almost all the windows opening upon the river were placed so high, and filled with such small panes, that little could be seen from them of the beauty of the Thames and its banks so dear to Whistler. The street door was of beaten copper and the house was full of decorative touches, which, he said, "make me wonder what I am doing here anyhow--the whole, you know, a successful example of the disastrous effect of art upon the British middle classes." Into this house he moved in April.

He reserved his energy for his work and went out scarcely at all. He did not dare risk the dinner given in May by London artists to Rodin, who, however, breakfasted with him a day or two after. We mention a detail that shows how sensitive Whistler was on certain subjects. M. Lantéri and Mr. Tweed came with Rodin, and this is Whistler's account to us later on the same day:

"It was all very charming. Rodin distinguished in every way--the breakfast very elegant--but--well, you know, you will understand. Before they came, naturally, I put my work out of sight, canvases up against the wall with their backs turned. And you know, never once, not even after breakfast, did Rodin ask to see anything, not that I wanted to show anything to Rodin, I needn't tell you--but in a man so distinguished it seemed a want of--well, of what West Point would have demanded under the circumstances."

No doubt Rodin thought, from the careful manner in which work was put out of sight, that he was not expected to refer to it. His opinion of Whistler we know, for he wrote it to us:

"_Whistler était un peintre dont le dessin avait beaucoup de profondeurs, et celles-ci furent préparées par de bonnes études, car il a dû étudier assidument._

"_Il sentait la forme, non seulement comme le font les bons peintres mais de la manière des bons sculpteurs. Il avait un sentiment extrêmement fin, qui a fait croire à quelques-uns que sa base n'était pas forte, mais elle était, au contraire, et forte et sûre._

"_Il comprenait admirablement l'atmosphère, et un de ses tableaux qui m'a le plus vivement impressionné, 'La Tamise (barrage) à Chelsea,' est merveilleux au point de vue de la profondeur de l'espace. Le paysage en somme n'a rien; il n'y a que cette grande étendue d'atmosphère, rendue avec un art consommé._

"_L'oeuvre de Whistler ne perdra jamais par le temps; elle gagnera; car une de ses forces est l'énergie, une autre la délicatesse; mais la principale est l'étude du dessin._"[13]

His visits to us were on Sundays, when he came for noonday breakfast, alone or with Miss Birnie Philip. If possible, we had people he liked or was interested in to meet him. One Sunday the late Mrs. Sarah Whitman, of Boston, and Miss Tuckerman were of the party, and Whistler, though he arrived tired and listless, recovered his animation before breakfast was over, and, for the new audience, described again the house in which he was so astonished to find himself, and again summed up the Boer campaign. Once he braved the night and dined, June 12--the last time he dined at our table--and was so wonderful we forgot how ill he was. We asked Mr. and Mrs. Harrison Morris and Professor Sauter, and Mr. Morris brought a message from General Wheeler, then in London and delighted to have news of Whistler, whom he remembered so well in the class above him at West Point. To be remembered by a distinguished West Point man was charming, but Whistler would not hear of General Wheeler being in the class below him; it was the class above; for Whistler did not choose to be older than anybody. We have spoken of his prejudices. He gave that evening an instance of one of the strongest. Something was said of the negro; he refused to see "any good in the nigger, he did not like the nigger," and that was the end of it. But Mr. Morris argued that it depended on the nigger; some he would be glad to invite to his house and to dinner. "Well, you know," said Whistler, "I should say that depends not on the nigger, but on the season of the year!" This reminds us of his argument another evening with Mrs. T. Fisher Unwin. But the negro had never had a chance, Mrs. Unwin protested. "Never had a chance!" said Whistler, "why, there, you know, there they all were starting out equal--the white man, the yellow man, the brown man, the red man, the black man--what better chance could the black man have? If he got left, well, it's because he couldn't keep up in the race."

On these last visits there was another subject he could not keep long out of his thoughts and his talk. He had not been many days in his new house before building was begun by Mr. Ashbee on a vacant lot next door. "It is knock, knock, knock all day," Whistler said, and his resentment was unbounded. In his nervous state the perpetual irritation, the feeling that advantage had been taken of him and that he had not been informed of the nuisance beforehand, put him into a rage. Mr. Ashbee has written us that Whistler knew a building was to be put up. Those who took the house may have known, but Whistler told us he did not until the work began. Excitement, above all, the doctor said, must be avoided as it was bad for his heart. There was no mistaking the effect of this endless annoyance. He hoped for legal redress, and he referred the matter to Mr. Webb. But the knocking continued. On June 17 E. dined with him at Cheyne Walk, the one other guest Mr. Freer, recently arrived from Detroit, and it seemed to her as if Whistler was fast losing the good done by the winter's rest and quiet. Mrs. and Miss Birnie Philip were uneasy, and it came as no surprise to hear a few days later that he had left the house in search of repose and distraction in Holland, with Mr. Freer as his companion. It was too late. At The Hague, where he stayed in the Hôtel des Indes, he was dangerously ill, at death's door. Mr. Freer remained as long as he could, and Miss Birnie Philip and Mrs. Whibley hurried to take care of him. The period was critical. There was no suggestion of it in the first public sign he gave of convalescence. A stupid reporter telegraphed from The Hague that the trouble with Whistler "was old age, and it would take him a long time to get over it." The _Morning Post_ published an article that Whistler thought had been prepared in anticipation of death, which, sparing him for the time, spared also the old wit. He wrote to beg that the "ready wreath and quick biography might be put back into their pigeon-hole for later use"; in reference to the writer's description of him he apologised for "continuing to wear my own hair and eyebrows after distinguished _confrères_ and eminent persons have long ceased the habit"; and those who read the letter could not imagine that, a few days previously, his letter-writing seemed at an end. It contained his last word about Swinburne, and in it the bitterness with which he wrote _Et tu, Brute!_ in _The Gentle Art_ had disappeared. The _Morning Post_ stated that Swinburne's verses inspired _The Little White Girl_. Whistler explained that the lines "were only written in my studio after the picture was painted. And the writing of them was a rare and graceful tribute from the poet to the painter--a noble recognition of work by the production of a nobler one."

After Mr. Freer had gone, Mr. Heinemann, at Whistler's urgent appeal, joined him in The Hague, a fortunate circumstance, as two charming spinster cousins, the Misses Norman, were able to find for the patient comforts out of reach of a stranger. They took rooms for him near the Hôtel des Indes, suggested a nurse, prepared dishes for him, and interested The Hague artists in his presence. Mesdag, Israels, and Van 's Gravesande were attentive. Afterwards, Van 's Gravesande wrote:

"_Je l'ai beaucoup aimé. Whistler, malgré tout son quarrelling avec tout le monde, c'était un 'très bon garçon' tout à fait charmant entre camarades. J'ai passé quelques jours avec lui, il y déjà une vingtaine d'années, à Dordrecht nous y avons fait des croquis, des promenades sur l'eau, etc. etc. J'en garde toujours un excellent souvenir. On ne peut pas s'imaginer un compagnon plus gentil que lui, enjoué, aimable, sans aucune prétention, enthousiaste, et avec cela travailleur comme pas un._"

Whistler enjoyed the society of his doctor--"the Court Doctor, quite the most distinguished in Holland." Mr. Clifford Addams came for a while from Dieppe, and in September E. went to Holland. Whistler was so much better that he made the short journey from The Hague to Amsterdam, where she was staying, to ask her to go with him to the Rijks Museum and look at the _Effie Deans_, which he had not seen in the gallery, and the Rembrandts. It is not easy for her to forgive the chance that took her away from the hotel before the telegram announcing his visit was delivered. She heard of him afterwards at Müller's book-shop, where he had been in search of old paper, for which they said his demand in Amsterdam had been so great and constant that dealers placed a fabulous price upon it. E. the next day went to The Hague, where she found him in rooms that in the last hours of packing looked bare and comfortless, for he had decided to start at once for London. He had promised to lunch with his doctor, so that she saw only enough of him to realise how frail and depressed and irritable illness had left him. His sisters-in-law told her that the doctor said he could keep well only by the greatest care and constant watchfulness, that he must not be excited, that he must not walk up many stairs.

Professor Sauter was more fortunate than E., and we have his notes of Whistler at The Hague when, with the first cheerful days of his recovery, his interest in life seemed to revive:

"Realising the difficulty of conveying my vivid impressions, I have hesitated for so long to give you an account of our experiences with Whistler during the last days of August and the beginning of September 1902, in Holland, soon after the severe illness which he suffered.

"A letter which I received in the beginning of August was sufficient proof that he was convalescent, and that he had regained his interest in many affairs, and that he was enjoying The Hague and the Hôtel des Indes, but also that he was longing for the society of friends from London. Towards the end of August our journey to Belgium and Holland brought us to The Hague, and of course our first visit was to him.

"It was indeed a pleasure to hear his gay voice, after he had received our card, calling down from the top of the stairs,'Are you there? Just wait a bit--I will be down in a moment.' In a few minutes his thin, delicately dressed figure appeared, in his face delight, gay as a schoolboy released from school and determined to have an outing.

"He had then removed to apartments a few doors from the hotel, but to the latter he invited us to lunch. With intense appreciation Whistler spoke of the attention and consideration shown to him by the hotel people during his illness. All was sun, like the beautiful sunny warm August day, and as if to give proof of his statements about the cooking, management, and everything in the hotel, he ordered lunch with great care.

"He was full of gaiety, and his amusement over the obituary and his own reply to it was convincing enough that neither his spirit nor his memory had suffered.

"After lunch, Whistler insisted on taking us for a drive to show us the 'charming surroundings' of The Hague and the Bosch. We drove also to Scheveningen. He was full of admiration and love for The Hague.

"On the way to Scheveningen the real state of his health became alarmingly evident. He looked very ill and fell asleep in the carriage, but to my suggestion to drive home and have a rest he would not listen.

"It was a glorious afternoon, and the calm sea with the little white breakers, the sand with hundreds of figures moving on it, and children playing in gay dresses, made a wonderful picture to enjoy in his company.

"About 5 P.M. we brought him to his rooms after arranging to visit the Mauritshuis together next day.

"About 11.30 next morning we met in the gallery, and wandered from room to room. He was all alive and bright again, and there he showed particular interest in and affection for Rembrandt's _Father_, and spoke of it as a fine example of the mental development of the artist, which, he said, should be continuous from work to work up to the end.

"I mentioned that we were going to the Vieux Doelen to lunch to meet General De Wet; his interest in this announcement was intense, and I had to promise to tell him all about it in the afternoon.

"On coming to the two portraits by Franz Hals he examined the work with undisguised delight, but the full disclosure of feeling towards the Master of Haarlem was reserved to us for the next day.

"On my saying, 'We are going to Haarlem to-morrow,' Whistler promptly replied, 'Oh, I might come along with you.'

"In his delicate state of health this reply was startling indeed, and realising the responsibility of allowing him to undertake even the small journey away from his rooms and doctor, I replied, 'But we are leaving by an early train.' 'Oh, then I might follow later on,' he finished.

"Thus we parted, he to his rooms, we to the Vieux Doelen.

"About 4 P.M. I went round to give him an account of my meeting with De Wet, which aroused the greatest curiosity, and many questions I had to face.

"When I asked him whether he had seen the Generals, he said, 'You see, I just drove round and left my cards on their Excellencies.'

"But still the journey of Haarlem occupied his mind, and before I left him it came out: 'Well, you are going to Haarlem early to-morrow? Perhaps I will see you there.'

"I certainly would never have dreamt for a moment that he would carry out what I took for passing fancy, and intense was my astonishment when next day about noon at the Haarlem Gallery I saw Whistler in the doorway, smilingly looking towards me, saying, 'Ah, I just wanted to see what you are doing.'

"From this moment until we took the train at the Haarlem Station back to The Hague a nature revealed itself in its force and subtlety, its worship for the real and its humility before the great, combining the experience of age with the enthusiasm of youth.

"Hardly could I get Whistler away for a small lunch.

"We wandered along the line from the early _St. George's Shooting Guild_ of 1616 down to the old women of 1664.

"Certainly no collection would give stronger support to Whistler's theory that a master grows in his art, from picture to picture, till the end, than that at Haarlem.

"We went through the life with Hals the people portrayed on the canvases, his relations with, and attitude towards, his sitters; he entered in his mind into the studio to examine the canvas before the picture was started and the sitters arrived, how Hals placed the men in the canvas in the positions appropriate to their ranks, how he divined the character, from the responsible colonel down to the youthful dandy lieutenant, and how he revelled in the colours of their garments!

"As time went on Whistler's enthusiasm increased, and even the distance between the railing and the picture was too great for this intimate discourse. All of a sudden, he crept under the railing close up to the picture, but lo! this pleasure could not last for long.

"The attendant arrived and gave him in unmistakable words to understand that this was not the place from which to view the pictures.

"And Whistler crawled obediently back from his position, but not discouraged, saying, 'Wait--we will stay after they are gone,' pointing to the other visitors.

"Matters were soon arranged with the courteous little chief attendant down in the hall, who, pointing to the signature in the visitors' book, asked, '_Is dat de groote Schilder?_' (Is that the great painter?) and on my confirming it, pressed his hands together, bent a little on one side, opened his eyes and mouth wide, and exclaimed under his breath, 'Ach!' He was a rare little man.

"We were soon free from fellow visitors and watchful attendants, and no more restrictions were in the way for Whistler's outburst of enthusiasm.

"We were indeed alone with Franz Hals.

"Now nothing could keep him away from the canvases; particularly the groups of old men and women got their full share of appreciation.

"He went under the railing again, turning round towards me, saying, 'Now, _do_ get me a chair.' And after it was pushed under the railing, he went on, '_And now, do_ help me on the top of it.' From that moment there was no holding him back. He went absolutely into raptures over the old women, admiring everything; his exclamation of joy came out now at the top of his voice, now in the most tender, almost caressing whisper: 'Look at it--just look; look at the beautiful colour--the flesh--look at the white--that black--look how those ribbons are put in. Oh, what a swell he was--can you see it all?--and the character--how he realised it.' Moving with his hand so near the picture as if he wanted to caress it in every detail, he screamed with joy: 'Oh, I must touch it--just for the fun of it,' and he moved tenderly with his fingers over the face of one of the old women.

"There was the real Whistler--the man, the artist, the painter--there was no 'Why drag in Velasquez?' spirit--but the spirit of a youth, full of ardour, full of plans, on the threshold of his work, oblivious of the achievements of a lifetime.

"He went on to analyse the picture in its detail.

"'You see, _she_ is a grand person'--pointing to the centre figure--'she wears a fine collar, and look at her two little black bows--she is the treasurer--she is the secretary--she keeps the records'--pointing at each in turn with his finger.

"With a fierce look in his eye, as though he would repulse an attack on Hals, and in contemptuous tone, he burst out, 'They say he was a drunkard, a coarse fellow; don't you believe it--they are the coarse fellows. Just imagine a drunkard doing these beautiful things!'

"'Just look how tenderly this mouth is put in--you must see the portrait of himself and his wife at the Rijks Museum. He was a swagger fellow. He was a cavalier--see the fine clothes he wears. That is a fine portrait, and his lady--she is charming, she is lovely.' In time, however, the excitement proved too much for him in his weak state, and it was high time to take him away into the fresh air. He appeared exhausted, and I feared a collapse after such emotions.

"During my absence in looking for a carriage he went on talking to Mrs. Sauter. 'This is what I would like to do, of course, you know, in my own way'--meaning the continual progress of his work to the last. 'Oh, I would have done anything for my art.' It was a great relief to have him safely seated in the carriage with us.

"Once there he soon regained his spirits, and, as we had expected to meet Mrs. Pennell at the Gallery, but looked in vain for her, we now drove from hotel to hotel in search of her, and on this expedition a truly Whistlerian incident happened. Stopping before one of the hotels, he requested to see the proprietor, who appeared immediately at the side of the carriage, a tall, solemn-looking gentleman, with a long reddish beard, bowing courteously, but the gentleman could give no information about Mrs. Pennell's arrival at his hotel. After minute inquiries about the place, Whistler turned to him, asking, '_Monsieur_, what hotel would you recommend in Haarlem if you would recommend any?' to which he promptly and seriously replied, '_Monsieur_, if I would recommend an hotel in Haarlem I would recommend my own.' 'Thank you, _Monsieur_, thank you,' responded Whistler, touching his hat, bowing slightly. And we drove on soon, to arrive at the hotel where we intended to take tea, and rest.

"Soon we were happily settled on our return journey, in a special compartment, which he was, in his chivalrous consideration towards ladies, most anxious to reserve, as he put it, 'to make Mrs. Sauter comfortable--she is tired.'

"With it, a day full of emotions, amusement, and anxieties came to an end--and, as it proved to Whistler, the last pilgrimage to Franz Hals.

"It needed no persuasion to keep Whistler at home after so fatiguing a day.

"But on our return to the hotel late the next afternoon we were told that he had called three times, and finally left a note asking us to come round in the morning and also to bring him news of Mrs. Pennell.

"Monday was a fête day for Holland--the Queen's birthday, and the town gay with flags and orange streamers and happy holiday crowds.

"I went round early to keep him company and bring him the news he wished for.

"We sat at his window overlooking merry-go-rounds, little toy and sweet stalls, and throngs of little children in their loyal smart frocks.

"'What a pretty sight! If I only had my water-colours here I could do a nice little picture,' he remarked.

"Dr. Bisschop had kindly arranged to take us and Mr. Bruckmann to the Gallery of Mesdag, and Whistler accepted an invitation to join us.

"There the Canalettos were of chief interest to him. Lunch at a _café_, another visit to the Mauritshuis, and tea at his rooms brought our stay to an end."

[Footnote 13: See Appendix at end of volume.]