All save Whistler were in raptures over the wondrous thing. He was silent. Then they went to the National Gallery, and he took them before one great portrait after another. “But we have seen these before,” chorused the voices. “Impossible!” exclaimed Whistler. “Oh, yes, many times,” sang the voices. “But you do not like them; you detest them.” “Oh, no! no! no----!” “But they are not at all like ‘Nana’; they haven’t ‘Nana’s’ wonderful flesh-tones, ‘Nana’s’ beautiful skin; are not so life-like as ‘Nana,’ and beside ‘Nana’ you must consider them as poor, wretched daubs.” And so he took them from one masterpiece to another, repeating before each one their raptures over “Nana” until they were silent. Then he said: “I have shown you some pictures that are considered good by those whose opinions are precious, and you have not found in one a single characteristic that you admired in ‘Nana,’ and you yourselves would not admit her to this glorious company; therefore, again I say, ‘Nana’ is--trash.” In the sense, therefore, that he presented a careless, trivial, or cynical side to the public and a serious side to his art, Whistler was a poser, and during his idle hours he had the habit of amusing himself at the expense of any one who crossed his path. And why not? Did not the world try so hard to amuse itself at his expense? Were his feelings spared? Was aught of ridicule or insult that human ingenuity could devise withheld? But his opponents were so clumsy that, save as he himself preserved their crude repartees, only his epigrammatic utterances are remembered; and therefore he has all the blame for the controversies, while the truth is that, considering the flood of opprobrium poured out upon him in print and in speech, he said very little, took but occasional notice of his assailants. All he said fills but a portion of a small book,--the “Gentle Art,”--while his opponents have the balance; and if all adverse personal comments of a despicable nature were gathered together from both sides of the Atlantic, they would make up many closely-printed volumes. For a man who could write so well, Whistler exercised great restraint in writing so little, but--that little! * * * * * And yet it is a pity, from one point of view, that he wrote at all; his art did not need it, and in the way of general estimation and recognition suffers not a little on account of it. For twenty-odd years the public has been amused, startled, and irritated by the letters and utterances which make up “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,” and it will be many a long day before they are so far forgotten that Whistler’s art will be judged wholly upon its merits.