“Well, Mr. Whistler, how are you getting on?” said an undesirable acquaintance in a Paris restaurant.

“I’m not,” said Whistler, emptying his glass.  “I’m getting off.”

* * * * *

Miss Pamela Smith, a designer in black and white, while a crude draughtsman, had a fine imagination.  Whistler was asked to look over some of her work.  After careful examination he said: 

“She can’t draw.”

Another look and a gruff “She can’t paint” followed.

A third look and a long thought wound up with, “But she doesn’t need to.”

* * * * *

A lady who rejoiced in “temperament” once said gushingly to Whistler: 

“It is wonderful what a difference there is between people.”

“Yes,” he replied.  “There is a great deal of difference between matches, too, if you will only look closely enough, but they all make about the same blaze.”

* * * * *

A certain gentleman whose portrait Whistler had painted failed to appreciate the work, and finally remarked, “After all, Mr. Whistler, you can’t call that a great work of art.”

“Perhaps not,” replied the painter, “but then you can’t call yourself a great work of nature!”

* * * * *

The artist and a friend strolled along the Thames Embankment one wonderfully starry night.  Whistler was in a discontented mood and found fault with everything.  The houses were ugly, the river not what it might have been, the lights hard and glaring.  The friend pointed out several things that appealed to him as beautiful, but the master would not give in.

“No,” he said, “nature is only sometimes beautiful—­only sometimes—­very, very seldom indeed; and to-night she is, as so often, positively ugly.”

“But the stars!  Surely they are fine to-night,” urged the other.

Whistler looked up at the sky.

“Yes,” he drawled, “they’re not bad, perhaps, but, my dear fellow, there’s too many of them.”

A sitter asked him how it was possible to paint in the growing dusk, as he often did.  The reply was: 

“As the light fades and the shadows deepen, all the petty and exacting details vanish; everything trivial disappears, and I see things as they are, in great, strong masses; the buttons are lost, but the garment remains; the garment is lost, but the sitter remains; the sitter is lost, but the shadow remains; the shadow is lost, but the picture remains.  And that, night cannot efface from the painter’s imagination.”

* * * * *

Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema, of the classic brush, loved yellow, a color which Whistler had annexed unto himself.  Sir Laurence in employing the color in his decorations did not consider himself a plagiarist.  He had not seen Whistler’s.  This defense led to a war of words.  Whistler broke out: