Moore wrote:  “I am sorry, but I have had to slap Mr. Whistler.  My Irish blood got the better of me, and before I knew it the shriveled-up little monkey was knocked over and kicking about the floor.”

Whistler vigorously controverted this version as a “barefaced falsehood.”  He added:  “I am sure he never touched me.  I don’t know why, for he is a much bigger man than I. My idea is that he was thoroughly cowed by the moral force of my attack.  I had to turn him round in order to get at him.  Then I cut him again and again as hard as I could, hissing out ‘Hawk!’ with each stroke.  Oh, you can take my word for it, everything was done in the cleanest and most correct fashion possible.  I always like to do things cleanly.”

* * * * *

The clash with George Moore came to a head with the challenge to fight a duel.  In his own version of the event given in the London Chronicle of March 29th, 1895, Mr. Moore laid his troubles to his efforts to aid the artist.  Learning that Sir William Eden wished his wife’s portrait painted, he “undertook a journey to Paris in the depth of winter, had two shocking passages across the Channel, and spent twenty-five pounds on Mr. Whistler’s business.”  It was arranged, he thought, that Whistler was to receive one hundred pounds for a “small sketch.”  When the “sketch” materialized it was “small” indeed.  The Baronet and Mr. Moore expected a little more area of canvas.  “The picture in question,” remarked Mr. Moore, “is only twelve inches long by six high.  The figure of Lady Eden is represented sitting on a sofa; the face is about half an inch in length, about the size of a sixpence, and the features are barely indicated.”

But to the duel:  In Paris, after the controversy arose, Mr. Moore told an interviewer he did not think the sketch was worth more than one hundred pounds.  To this Whistler made a furious reply in the Pall Mall Gazette, alleging that Moore had “acquired a spurious reputation as an art-critic” by praising his pictures.  Moore’s reply in the journal produced this response, sent from the Hotel Chatham under date of March 12th, 1895: 

“Mr. Whistler begs to acknowledge Mr. Moore’s letter of March 11.

“If, in it, the literary incarnation of the ‘eccentric’ person, on the curbstone, is supposed to represent Mr. Moore at the present moment, Mr. Whistler thinks the likeness exaggerated—­as it is absurd to suppose that Mr. Moore can really imagine that any one admires him in his late role before Interviewer, or in that of the Expert in the Council Chamber.

“If, however, Mr. Moore means in his parable to indicate Mr. Whistler, the latter is willing to accept Mr. Moore’s circuitous and coarse attempt to convey a gross insult—­and, upon the whole, will perhaps think the better of him for an intention to make himself at last responsible.

“In such case Mr. Whistler will ask a friend to meet any gentleman Mr. Moore may appoint to represent him; and, awaiting a reply, has the honor to remain Mr. Moore’s,” etc.