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Whistler’s book, “The Gentle Art,” contains just one good thing, although the touch of genius is revealed in the title, which is as follows: “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, as pleasingly exemplified in many instances wherein the serious ones of this earth, carefully exasperated, have been prettily spurred on to unseemliness and indiscretion, while overcome by an undue sense of right.”

The dedication runs thus: “To the rare Few who early in life have rid themselves of the Friendship of the Many, these pathetic papers are inscribed.”

The one excellent thing in the book is the “Ten o’Clock” lecture. It is a classic, revealing such a distinct literary style that one is quite sure its author could have evolved symphonies in words, as well as color, had he chosen. However, this lecture is a sequence, leaping hot from the heart, and would not have been written had the author not been “carefully exasperated and prettily spurred on, while overcome by an undue sense of right.” Let us all give thanks to the enemy who exasperated him. There is a great temptation to produce the lecture entire, but this would be to invite a lawsuit, so we will have to be content with a few scrapings from the palette:

Listen! There never was an artistic period.

There never was an Art-Loving Nation.

In the beginning, men went forth each day–some to do battle, some to the chase; others, again, to dig and to delve in the field–all that they might gain and live, or lose and die. Until there was found among them one, differing from the rest, whose pursuits attracted him not, and so he stayed by the tents with the women, and traced strange devices with a burnt stick upon a gourd.

This man, who took no joy in the way of his brethren–who cared not for conquest, and fretted in the field–this designer of quaint patterns–this deviser of the beautiful–who perceived in Nature about him curious curvings, as faces are seen in the fire–this dreamer apart was the first artist.

And when, from the field and afar, there came back the people, they took the gourd–and drank from out of it.

And presently there came to this man another–and, in time, others– of like nature, chosen by the gods–and so they worked together; and soon they fashioned, from the moistened earth, forms resembling the gourd. And with the power of creation, the heirloom of the artist, presently they went beyond the slovenly suggestion of Nature, and the first vase was born, in beautiful proportion.

* * * * *

And the Amateur was unknown–and the Dilettante undreamed of.

And history wrote on, and conquest accompanied civilization, and Art spread, or rather its products were carried by the victors among the vanquished from one country to another. And the customs of cultivation covered the face of the earth, so that all peoples continued to use what the artist alone produced.

And centuries passed in this using, and the world was flooded with all that was beautiful, until there arose a new class, who discovered the cheap, and foresaw a fortune in the facture of the sham.

Then sprang into existence the tawdry, the common, the gewgaw.

The taste of the tradesman supplanted the science of the artist, and what was born of the million went back to them, and charmed them, for it was after their own heart; and the great and the small, the statesman and the slave, took to themselves the abomination that was tendered, and preferred it–and have lived with it ever since.

And the artist’s occupation was gone, and the manufacturer and the huckster took his place.

And now the heroes filled from the jugs and drank from the bowls– with understanding–noting the glare of their new bravery, and taking pride in its worth.

And the people–this time–had much to say in the matter–and all were satisfied. And Birmingham and Manchester arose in their might, and Art was relegated to the curiosity-shop.