n forward and smashed the brush full of color upon the
canvas. Then he ran back, and forty or fifty times he repeated this.
At the end of that time there stood out on the canvas a space which
exactly indicated the figure and the expression of his sitter."

This portrait was to have belonged to Lord Redesdale, but through
circumstances nothing less than tragic it never came into his
possession. There were bailiffs in the house when it was finished.
This was no novelty to Whistler. He only laughed, and, laughing, made
a circuit of his studio with a palette-knife, deliberately destroying
all the pictures exposed there. The portrait of the lady was among
them.

* * * * *

Moncure D. Conway in his autobiography relates this:

"At a dinner given to W.J. Stillman, at which Whistler (a Confederate)
related with satisfaction his fisticuffs with a Yankee on shipboard,
William Rossetti remarked: 'I must say, Whistler, that your conduct
was scandalous.' Stillman and myself were silent. Dante Gabriel
Rossetti promptly wrote:

"'There is a young artist called Whistler,
Who in every respect is a bristler;
A tube of white lead
Or a punch on the head
Come equally handy to Whistler.'"

On one occasion a woman said to Whistler:

"I just came up from the country this morning along the Thames, and
there was an exquisite haze in the atmosphere which reminded me so
much of some of your little things. It was really a perfect series of
Whistlers."

"Yes, madam," responded Whistler, gravely. "Nature is creeping up."

* * * * *

Richard A. Canfield, who sat for the portrait now called "His
Reverence," though Canfield was something quite unclerical, recites:

"After I had my first sitting on New Year's Day, 1903, I saw Whistler
every day until the day I sailed for New York, which was on May 16th.
He was not able to work, however, on all those days. In fact, there
were days at a time when he could do nothing but lie on a couch and
talk, as only Whistler could talk, about those things which interested
him. It was mostly of art and artists that he conversed, but now and
again he would revert to his younger days at home, to the greatness to
which the republic had attained, and to his years at West Point.

"In spite of all that has been said of him, I know that James McNeill
Whistler was one of the intensest Americans who ever lived. He was
not wh