After the first few days he would place the canvas in its frame, and thereafter paint with it so. And his frames were designed by himself. All who have seen his pictures know them,--just simple, dignified lines, with no contortions of wood and gilt. * * * * * When a sitter was of congenial spirit and complacent mood they would lunch in the studio, and he would paint all day, from eleven in the morning until--well, until it was so dark that all was dim and shadowy and ghostly; and then together both would take their leave, always turning at the door for a last look at the canvas looming mysterious in the darkness; then grope their way down the winding oaken stairs, later to dine together at some unfrequented place where the proprietor watched the fire himself and had stored away in musty depths a few--just a few--relics of memorable vintages. “O my friends, when I am sped, appoint a meeting; and when ye have met together, be ye glad thereof; and when the cup-bearer holds in her hand a flagon of old wine, then think of old Khayyam and drink to his memory.” In a glass of ruby Margaux of the vintage of ’58, the last of its dusty bin, I drink to the memory of those glorious days when the vacant canvas assumed the hues of life and grew beneath the touch; and those fragrant nights when, with stately ceremony, the cob-webbed bottle came forth from its bed of long repose to subdue fatigue, banish all care, and leave but the thought of the beautiful.--Behold, far soul, the empty glass! _IX_ _Portrait-Painting--How he Differed from his Great Predecessors--The “Likeness”--Composition of Color--No Commercial Side--Baronet vs. Butterfly._ Whistler was not a “portrait-painter,” as the phrase goes nowadays; but he was, in certain respects, the greatest painter of portraits the world has known. As a “portrait-painter” he fell far short of Rembrandt, Velasquez, and a host of lesser men; but as a painter of portraits he rose superior to them all in certain refinements of the art. * * * * * There is a vast difference between the “portrait-painter” to whom the sitter is of first importance and the painter to whom his art is of first importance. The difference lies in the attitude of the artist towards his canvas, towards the work he is about to undertake. Is the inspiration wholly his own, or is he influenced by considerations quite foreign to the production of a pure work of art? The attitude of the “portrait-painter” may be likened unto that of the “poet laureate,” whose verse is at the command of conditions he does not control; who _may_, by accident, write a good thing,--but the rule is otherwise, with even the best. * * * * *