Aet. 43, to an American artist. This letter was published in the Pall Mall Gazette (12 March) below tGeorge Moore’s letter to the editor.
George’s metaphor in this letter echoes his brother Augustus, who wrote, “I have long prided myself on being the only editor who, out of respect for his art, has never helped Mr. Whistler to write himself down an ass, by publishing his silly letters, for there is, to my mind, something sorrowful in seeing a great artist in his declining years turning literary cartwheels in the gutter” (Hawk, 9 September 1890, page 293).
That first Moore-Whistler fracas had started the previous Saturday night, in the foyer of the Drury Lane Theatre. Between acts, Augustus was conversing with Lord Lurgan when suddenly, from behind, a man with a raised cane screeched “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk,” and rushed towards him. Augustus whirled and toppled the attacker, who was Whistler, with a blow to the head.
Words were exchanged and the painter was escorted from the theatre. His assault was prompted by a slanderous reference in the Hawk to the late E.W. Godwin, who was Mrs. Whistler’s first husband (and who was described by the painter as his “deceased relative”). Whistler was interviewed about the altercation in the New York Herald, London edition (11 September 1890).
Returning to the present, regarding codes of honor, mingled with Whistler’s disparagements of Sir WIlliam Eden as a “Bunko Baronet” were several severe remarks concerning his “hind, henchman, expert and go-between.” George Moore was said to have exploited his “spuricous reputation as advanced connoisseur and cultured critic” to rob and insult a Master.
In response to George’s letter (shown below), Whistler dispatched Francis Vielé-Griffin and Octave Mirbeau to demand “A formal retraction or reparation by arms.” They waited eight days for George’s reply, which wasn’t forthcoming.
Informed of this, Whistler wrote on 23 March 1895, “I deeply regret that I have placed you en rapport, even imperfectly, with Mr. George Moore, and you see me quite humbled at having wasted your precious time by the immoral contemplation of this poor personage, under the influence of a fit of panic. ‘Every man’, he said, ‘has his own code of honour.’ Surely the code of Mr. Moore is very much his own” (Pall Mall Gazette. 29 March 1895, page 3).
Leave a comment