“One day on entering the class-room he discovered that a red background had been arranged behind the model. He was horrified, and directed the students to put up something duller in tone. “Then he scraped out the red paint on a pupil’s canvas and proceeded to mix and lay on a new background. Somehow the red would show through, and he found it difficult to satisfy himself with the effect he produced. He mixed and studied and scraped, working laboriously, surrounded by a group of admiring students. Finally, he remarked: “‘I suppose you know what I’m trying to do?’ “‘Oh, yes, sir,’ they chorused. “‘Well, it’s more than I know myself,’ he grimly replied.” It is to be hoped that his epigrammatic utterances which hung on the walls of the Carmen Rossi school have been preserved, for they would be valuable additions to the “Propositions” and “Ten o’Clock” already published. With none of the instincts of the teacher, he in time lost interest in the school. After a year or two his visits became infrequent, and upon leaving Paris his connection ceased. * * * * * The studio in Notre Dame des Champs and the home on the Rue du Bac were closed a few years after the death of Mrs. Whistler, and he made his home once more in Chelsea, at 74 Cheyne Walk, with frequent excursions to the Continent. In the winter of 1901 he was at Ajaccio, and he wrote to a friend: “You will be surprised at this present address. But it’s all right,--‘Napoleon and I, you know.’” In another letter to the same friend, speaking of a public official with whom he had some legal transactions, he remarks: “Say that I know how devotedly kind he has been in his care of me, but the care of the state overwhelms him. You cannot serve the republic ... and Whistler.” * * * * * For many years his heart had troubled him, and towards the last the warnings came more frequently and persistently. The year before his death he was quite ill at The Hague, and one of the London papers printed the following of a semi-obituary flavor: