The catalogue which stirred the ire of the critics was an innocent little thing in brown-paper cover containing a list of the prints; but beneath each was a line or two from the critics, and they were all there in outspoken condemnation of the work of the man who is now placed, by even the critics, on a plane with Rembrandt. Some have since confessed their errors in print and begged for the mantle of charity. * * * * * On the title-page appeared: “Out of their own mouths shall ye judge them.” And here, as an example, is what he printed beneath “No. 51, Lagoon; Noon.” In mercy the names of the critics are omitted. “Years ago James Whistler was a person of high promise.” “What the art of Mr. Whistler yields is a _tertium quid_.” “All of which gems, I am sincerely thankful to say, I cannot appreciate.” “As we have hinted, the series does not represent any Venice that we much care to remember; for who wants to remember the degradation of what has been noble, the foulness of what has been fair?” “Disastrous failures.” “Failures that are complete and failures that are partial.” “A publicity rarely bestowed upon failures at all.” Whereupon Whistler brought the catalogue to a close with these scriptural sentences: “Therefore is judgment far from us, neither doth justice overtake us; we wait for light, but behold obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.” “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes; we stumble at noonday as in the night.” “We roar all, like bears.” Whistler’s manner of arraigning his critics was his own. No one else could compile such delightful bits of literature as were those catalogues he issued from time to time; but the idea of publishing adverse criticism with the work criticised was not new. To his first edition of “Sartor Resartus” Carlyle--Whistler’s neighbor in Chelsea--printed as an appendix the letter of condemnation which Murray the publisher received from his literary adviser and which led to the rejection of the manuscript. The scheme is not without advantages,--it amuses the reader and confounds the critic, to which ends books and paintings are created. * * * * * How the galled jades winced may be gathered from the following mild comments: