The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Part 20

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_A Doc.u.ment_

Atlas--I have come upon the posthumous paper of 'Arry--his certificate of character, and printed pretension to the Professors.h.i.+p of Slade--and O! the shame of it--and the indiscretion of it!

Read, Atlas, and seek in your past for a parallel:

[Sidenote: _The World_, March 24, 1886.]

"To the Electors of the Slade Professor of Fine Art for the University of Cambridge.--My Lord and Gentlemen,--I beg to submit my name as a candidate for the Slade Professors.h.i.+p, and enclose herewith a few testimonials ... I have also received favourable letters from the following gentlemen ... Alma-Tadema, R.A., Marcus Stone, R.A., Briton Riviere, R.A., John Brett, A.R.A., ... and others."

What! is the Immaculate impure?--and shall the Academy have coquetted with the unclean?

Had Alma the cla.s.sic aught in common with this 'Arry of commerce?

Believe him not, Atlas!

O Alma! O Ichabod! forgive us the thought of it!

Surely also the pots of "the Forty" do boil before the Lord, and the flames of the chosen were unfanned by the feather of 'Arry's goose-quill.

Again:

"My experience in art matters has been briefly as follows:

"I have worked at the subject continually in Italy, having for that purpose travelled and stayed in that country--at least a dozen times.

I have also painted in France, Germany, and Belgium, in which last-mentioned country I was in a portrait painter's studio."--(A portrait by 'Arry!)

"There are several pictures of mine being exhibited in London at the present time." (!!!)

"I have also executed a good deal of distemper....

"I have also travelled for a year in the East." ('Arry in the East!!)

"I have had, as a lecturer upon Art, considerable experience--at working men's clubs-- ... and at the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke's College for men, women, and children.

"For the last ten years I have written _every article upon art_ which has appeared in the _Spectator_ newspaper"--a confession, Atlas, clearly a confession!

"In 1880, I wrote a critical life of Giotto"--he did indeed, Atlas!--I saw it--a book in blue--his own, and Reckitt's--all bold with brazen letters:

"GIOTTO BY 'ARRY"

--"of which two editions were published"--bless him--and then I killed him!

and, "I am, Gentlemen, "Your most obedient servant, "'ARRY, M.A.

"Trin. Coll. Camb., _Esquire_."

The pride of it!

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Sacrilege_

O Atlas! What of the "Society for the Preservation of Beautiful Buildings"?

[Sidenote: Upon the Alterations of the "White House."]

Where _is_ Ruskin? and what do Morris and Sir William Drake?

[Sidenote: _The World_, Oct. 17, 1883.]

For, behold! beside the Thames, the work of desecration continues, and the "White House" swarms with the mason of contract.

The architectural _galbe_ that was the joy of the few, and the bedazement of "the Board," crumbles beneath the pick, as did the north side of St. Mark's, and history is wiped from the face of Chelsea.

Shall no one interfere? Shall the interloper, even after his death, prevail?

Shall 'Arry, whom I have hewn down, still live among us by outrage of this kind, and impose his memory upon our pavement by the public perpetration of his posthumous philistinism?

Shall the birthplace of art become the tomb of its parasite in t.i.te Street?

See to it, Atlas! lest, when Time, the healer of all the wounds I have inflicted, shall for me have exacted those honours the prophet may not expect while alive, and the inevitable blue disc, imbedded in the walls, shall proclaim that "Here once dwelt" the gentle Master of all that is flippant and fine in Art, some anxious student, reading, fall out with Providence in his vain effort to reconcile such joyous reputation with the dank and hopeless appearance of this "model lodging," bequeathed to the people by the arrogance of 'Arry.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_The Red Rag_

[Sidenote: "_Mr. Whistler, Cheyne Walk._"]

[Sidenote: _The World_, May 22, 1878.]

Why should not I call my works "symphonies," "arrangements,"

"harmonies," and "nocturnes"? I know that many good people think my nomenclature funny and myself "eccentric." Yes, "eccentric" is the adjective they find for me.

The vast majority of English folk cannot and will not consider a picture as a picture, apart from any story which it may be supposed to tell.

My picture of a "Harmony in Grey and Gold" is an ill.u.s.tration of my meaning--a snow scene with a single black figure and a lighted tavern.