The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Part 30

"Permit me, therefore, to rectify inconsequent impressions, and tell your readers that there is nothing 'tentative' in the 'arrangement' of colour, walls, or drapery--that the battens should _not_ 'be removed'--that they are meant to remain, not only for their use, but as bringing parallel lines into play that subdivide charmingly the lower portion of the walls and add to their light appearance--that the whole 'combination' is complete--and that the 'plain man' is, as usual, 'out of it.'--I am, Sir, etc.,

"J. MCNEILL WHISTLER."

The question of fair dealing and good manners in this matter I could not leave in better hands than your own, and I will only add that hitherto I have always met with the utmost readiness on the part of the press to receive into their columns any reply, however opposed to a.s.sertions of their own.

Surely it is but poor policy this peremptory attempt to maintain in authority the weak and blundering one, that he may destroy himself and bring sorrow upon his people.

Rather let him be thrust from his post, that he may be "brayed in a mortar among wheat with a pestle"--that the Just be a.s.suaged and foolishness depart from among us.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_An Interview with an ex-President_

[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, June 11, 1888.]

The adverse vote by which the Royal Society of British Artists transferred its oath of allegiance from Mr. Whistler is for the time the chief topic of conversation in artistic circles.... We instructed our representative to visit Mr. Whistler to obtain his explanation of the affair.

"The state of affairs?" said Mr. Whistler, in his light and airy way, raising his eyebrows and twinkling his eyes, as if it were all the best possible fun in the world; "why, my dear sir, there's positively _no_ state of affairs at all. Contrary to public declaration, there's actually nothing chaotic in the whole business; on the contrary, everything is in order, and just as it should be. The survival of the fittest as regards the presidency, don't you see, and, well--Suffolk Street is itself again! A new government has come in, and, as I told the members the other night, I congratulate the Society on the result of their vote, for no longer can it be said that the right man is in the wrong place. No doubt their pristine sense of undisturbed somnolence will again settle upon them after the exasperated mental condition arising from the unnatural strain recently put upon the old ship. Eh? what? Ha! ha!"

"You do not then consider the Society as out of date? You do not think, as is sometimes said, that the establishment of the Grosvenor took away the _raison d'etre_ and original intention of the Society--that of being a foil to the Royal Academy?"

"I can hardly say what was originally intended, but I do know that it was originally full of hope, and even determination; shown in a manner by their getting a Royal Charter--the only art society in London, I believe, that has one.

"But by degrees it lapsed into a condition of incapacity--a sort of secondary state,--do you see, till it acknowledged itself a species of _creche_ for the Royal Academy. Certain it is that when I came into it the prevalent feeling among all the men was that their best work should go to 'another place.'

"I felt that this sense of inferiority was fatal to the well-being of the place.

"For that reason I attempted to bring about a sense of _esprit de corps_ and ambition, which culminated in what might be called 'my first offence'--by my proposition that members belonging to other societies should hold no official position in ours. I wanted to make it an art centre," continued Mr. Whistler, with a sudden vigour and an earnestness for which the public would hardly give credit to this Master of Badinage and Apostle of Persiflage; "they wanted it to remain a shop, although I said to them, 'Gentlemen, don't you perceive that as shopmen you have already failed, don't you see, eh?' But they were under the impression that the sales decreased under my methods and my _regime_, and ignored the fact that sales had declined all over the country from all sorts of causes, commercial, and so on.

Their only chance lay in the art tone of the place, for the old-fashioned pictures had ceased to become saleable wares--buyers simply wouldn't buy them. But members' work I _couldn't_, by the rules, eliminate--only the bad outsiders were choked off."

"Then how do you explain the bitterness of all the opposition?"

"A question of 'pull devil, pull baker,' and the devil has gone and the bakers remain in Suffolk Street! Ha! ha! Here is a list of the fiendish party who protested against the thrusting forth of their president in such an unceremonious way:--

"Alfred Stevens, Theodore Roussel, Nelson Maclean, Macnab, Waldo Story, A. Ludovici, jun., Sidney Starr, Francis James, W. A. Rixon, Aubrey Hunt, Moffatt P. Lindner, E. G. Girardot, Ludby, Arthur Hill, Llewellyn, W. Christian Symons, C. Wyllie, A. F. Grace, J. E. Grace, J. D. Watson, Jacomb Hood, Thornley, J. J. Shannon, and Charles Keen.

Why, the very flower of the Society! and whom have they left--_bon Dieu!_ whom have they left?"

"It was a hard fight then?"

"My dear sir, they brought up the maimed, the halt, the lame, and the blind--literally--like in Hogarth's 'Election;' they brought up everything but corpses, don't you know!--very well!"

"But all this hardly explains the bitterness of the feud and personal enmity to you."

"What? Don't you see? My presidential career had in a manner been a busy one. When I took charge of the ship I found her more or less water-logged. Well, I put the men to the pumps, and thoroughly shook up the old vessel; had her re-rigged re-cleaned, and painted--and finally I was graciously permitted to run up the Royal Standard to the masthead, and brought her fully to the fore, ready for action--as became a Royal flagship! And as a natural result mutiny at once set in!

"Don't you see," he continued, with one of his strident laughs, "what might be considered, by the thoughtless, as benefits, were resented, by the older and wiser of the crew, as innovations and intrusions of an impertinent and offensive nature. But the immediate result was that interest in the Society was undeniably developed, not only at home, but certainly abroad. Notably in Paris all the art circle was keenly alive to what was taking place in Suffolk Street; and, although their interest in other inst.i.tutions in this country had previously flagged, there was the strong willingness to take part in its exhibitions.

For example, there was Alfred Stevens, who showed his own sympathy with the progressive efforts by becoming a member. And look at the throngs of people that crowded our private views--eh? ha! ha! what!

But what will you!--the question is, after all, purely a parochial one--and here I would stop to wonder, if I do not seem pathetic and out of character, why the Artist is naturally an object of vituperation to the Vestryman?--Why am _I_--who, of course, as you know, am charming--why am I the pariah of my parish?

"Why should these people do other than delight in me?--Why should they perish rather than forgive the one who had thrust upon them honour and success?"

"And the moral of it all?"

Mr. Whistler became impressive--almost imposing--as he stroked his moustache, and tried to hide a smile behind his hand.

"The organisation of this 'Royal Society of British Artists' as shown by its very name, tended perforce to this final convulsion, resulting in the separation of the elements of which it was composed. They could not remain together, and so you see the 'Artists' have come out, and the 'British' remain--and peace and sweet obscurity are restored to Suffolk Street!--Eh? What? Ha! ha!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_Statistics_

[Sidenote: _Pall Mall Gazette_, July 6, 1888.]

Since our interview with Mr. Whistler curious statements have been set afloat concerning the question of finance ... giving circ.u.mstantial evidence of the disaster brought upon the Society by the enforcement of the Whistlerian policy:--

This evidence, which is very interesting, is as follows:--The sales of the Society during the year 1881 were under 5000; 1882, under 6000; 1883, under 7000; 1884, under 8000; 1885 (the first year of Mr.

Whistler's rule), they fell to under 4000; 1886, under 3000; 1887, under 2000; and the present year, under 1000.

On the other hand, the fact of the Society having made itself responsible to Mr. Whistler for a loan raised by him to meet a sudden expenditure for repairs, is also true; but the unwisdom of the president and members of any society having money transactions between them need hardly be commented upon here....

Mr. Wyke Bayliss, the new president, strikes one as being "a strong man"--shrewd, logical, and self-restrained. The author of several books and pamphlets on the more imaginative realm of art, he is, one would say, as much permeated by religion as he is by art; to both of these qualities, curiously enough, his canvases, which usually deal with cathedral interiors of cheery hue, bear witness.

The hero of three Bond Street "one-man exhibitions," a Board-school chairman, a lecturer, champion chess-player of Surrey, a member of the Rochester Diocesan Council, a Shaksperian student, a Fellow of the Society of Cyclists, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquarians, and public orator of Noviomagus ... he is surely one of the most versatile men who ever occupied a presidential chair....

_A Retrospect_

_TO THE EDITOR OF THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE:"_

Sir,--The Royal Society of British Artists is, perhaps, by this time again unknown to your agitated readers--but I would recall a brilliant number of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ (July 1888), in which mischievous amus.e.m.e.nt was sought, with statistics from a newly elected President--Mr. Bayliss (Wyke).

Believing it to be, in an official and dull way, more becoming that the appointed Council of this same Society should deal with the resulting chaos, I have, until now, waited for a slight washing of hands, as who should say, on their part as representing the gentle deprecation of, I a.s.sure you, the respectable body in Suffolk Street.

Well, no!--It was doubtless adjudged wiser, or milder, to "live it down," and now it, I really believe, behoves me, in a weary way, to remind you of the doc.u.ment in question, and, for the sake of commonplace, uninteresting, and foolish fact, to lift up my parable and declare fallacious that which was supposed to be true, and generally to bore myself, and perhaps even you, the all-patient one, with what, I fear, we others care but little for--parish matters.