“Persons who do not admire his pictures are rather disposed to regard them in the light of a personal insult, and to behave as though the painter had deliberately intended to cause annoyance. The consequence is that Mr. Whistler receives more abuse than any other painter, and abuse of a kind that implies something also of pity; for when he is not regarded in the light of a wilful wrong-doer, his work is accepted as the expression of a defective intelligence.” These sentences, I think fairly enough, represent Mr. Whistler’s position at that time, nor had the public estimate of his powers greatly changed when the Grosvenor Gallery was established in 1877. It is not necessary now to fight over again that battle that was waged by some of us on his behalf. To me it was never difficult to appreciate at their true value the distinguished qualities of his art; and at this time of day his claims are so widely and so loudly announced, that it is sometimes difficult for those who admired him first to keep pace with his later worshippers. About the year 1876 I had written a notice of the exhibition of his work held in Pall Mall which had greatly pleased him, and when he was decorating the late Mr. Leyland’s house in Prince’s Gate I used often to go down while he was at work, and during the luncheon hour--which was an improvised meal daintily set out under Whistler’s order in the empty house--our talk used to roam widely over things of Art and Life, for Whistler was as acute in his perception of the foibles of character as he was fastidious and exacting in the execution of even the lightest of his designs. Whistler’s public attitude was one of uncompromising hostility to all critics. For him Art was always a thing exclusively for the expert, and he regarded the intrusion of any comment, unless it proceeded from a brother craftsman, as not only futile but mischievous. This was a very natural attitude in view of the special gifts he possessed, for he was above all things a man of the “métier,” conceiving Art as a thing isolated and detached from thoughts that found expression in other mediums, a thing only to be judged by its own exclusive laws which he deemed could not be fully interpreted save by the artist himself.