System Number: 03769
Date: [21 June 1888?][1]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: Marion Henry Spielmann[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler M103
Document Type: ALdS[3]
BEEFSTEAK CLUB.
My dear Spielmann -
You are quite right - You have made your confession -
"A professional Journalist" -
You are "serious" you say - and it is true, the Gods alone laugh!
Take my word for it, mon cher, you were born for the 'Family Herald'! -
Meanwhile, I fear me, you have knocked the bottom out of the Wyke Bayliss[4] Interview? -
[p. 2] A propos of your outcry for "fairness", may I remind you of the work, "quaintly acquired", which you over 'criticized'? -
And what of the Agenda of the Society that you published in full? and how do you reconcile that with what you are pleased to call the dignity of the Press[5]? -
No my dear! with the small virtues at you command, you remind me of the sad creature who remembered, when too late, that "There is a right way of doing a thing - and a wrong way - and Begod! he was heard to mutter, I have missed them both!" -
[butterfly signature with tail and sting]
Adieu
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [21 June 1888?]
Dated from M. H. Spielmann to JW, #03768, #03770.
2. Marion Henry Spielmann
Marion Henry Alexander Spielmann (1858-1948), journalist and writer on art [more]. See Spielmann's letter of 20 June, #03768. There is also a copy of this letter in the hand of Charles James Whistler Hanson (1870-1935), engineer, son of JW and Louisa Fanny Hanson [more] (#03466, not transcribed).
3. ALdS
This is a draft for #10942. The letter is written at right-angles to the printed embossed address.
4. Wyke Bayliss
Wyke Bayliss (1835-1906), painter and architect [more], successor to JW as President of the Royal Society of British Artists. JW's version of the press reports about his resignation and quarrel with the Society was reproduced in Whistler, James McNeill, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, 2nd ed., London and New York, 1892, pp. 205-17.