A common prejudice of that time, long dissipated now, but which found utterance then in the intemperate condemnation by Mr. Ruskin that afterwards formed the subject of the celebrated libel action, was to the effect that the results of Whistler’s painting, often so fragile and so slight in their final appearance upon the canvas, were due to a wilful neglect of the resources at his command. It was widely held among the public who loved him not, and even among brother artists who should have known better, that his painting revealed the lack of pains and labour. Nothing really could have been more unjust or more untrue. I have often sat in his studio while he was at work, and found ample reason to be convinced that not a touch was ever set upon the canvas that was not finely considered and fastidiously chosen. I think in himself he was hardly aware of the degree to which his painting lent itself to an opposite impression. He was so keenly concentrated upon the kind of truth he sought to render that he was half unconscious that the form in which he chose to present it was strange and repugnant to the taste of the time; but although genuinely modest in the presence of his task, he was often almost arrogant in his assertion of the excellence of the result when the task was ended. The picture once completed and set in its frame, Whistler became from that moment an ardent champion of his own genius. Combat was the delight of his life, and there was no violence of assertion he did not love to employ if he thought that by no other means could he encourage an opponent into the dangerous arena of controversy. As a matter of fact, I do not think he was ever quite happy unless one of these pretty little quarrels was on hand, and whenever he suspected that any particular dispute in which he was engaged showed signs of waning, he would, I think out of pure devilment, cast about to lay the foundations of a new quarrel. Something of the kind occurred in my own case. At his own earnest suggestion, while I was the English editor of _L’Art_, I invited him, with the concurrence of the proprietors in Paris, to furnish an etching for publication. Knowing well the amiable idiosyncrasies of my dear friend, I was very insistent that he should set down precisely and in writing all the terms and conditions which he thought it right to impose, and yet, when this had been done and the etching had been given to the world, with almost impish ingenuity he thought he had detected some breach in our contract, and wrote me thereupon a little letter of reproach which I saw plainly, when I received it, was destined for ultimate publication as the preface to a controversy into which he thought he could lure me.