Documents associated with: Collins, Mabel
Record 1 of 4
System Number: 08089
Date: [August/December 1888?][1]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: May Morris[2]
Place: [London?]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC 2/31/2
Document Type: ALS
For the last time sweet Flower o' the May, who kindly introduce me [sic] to Mabel Collins[3], permit me to beseech your good will! - Believe me Julian Hawthorne[4] is right, I am charming - and for worlds I would not seem to enter upon a tilt with a lady! -
Men are pigmies, and I am born to collect their scalps, but think you I have not sufficient wit to know that one brilliant woman against me, and I am lost? -
No - I am of course incorrect - [p. 2] I would not have the illbreeding to be other - and my little note[5] to you was a very small venture at lightness to be forgiven by the joyousness of the season, and by your clear sense of pleasantry -
The pinks and yellows of Fulham[6] do not really exist, and you were quite right in not going to see them - and if I put away my Masterpieces in corners, it is in the vague hope that curiosity, which is a quality in the dainty ones of this earth, may one of these days induce you to come and look at them. -
Your devoted admirer
[butterfly signature]
Tower House -
Tite Street - Chelsea -
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [August/December 1888?]
Dated from reference to Fulham (see note below).
2. May Morris
Mary ('May') Morris (1862-1938), designer and embroiderer [more].
3. Mabel Collins
Mabel Collins (1851-1927), journalist and theosophist [more].
4. Julian Hawthorne
Julian Hawthorne (1846-1934), novelist [more].
5. note
Perhaps a reference to JW to M. Morris, #09314.
6. pinks and yellows of Fulham
A reference to JW's recent spat with Mortimer Luddington Menpes (1860-1938), artist [more]. It concerned the decoration of Menpes' house in Fulham (see JW to E. Yates, #07121, #11434 and JW to M. Morris, #09314; see also Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, 2nd ed., London and New York, 1892, pp. 230-35).