System Number: 05379
Date: [24/31 January 1889?][1]
Author: John Singer Sargent[2]
Place: London
Recipient: JW
Place: [London]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler S23
Document Type: ALS
33, TITE STREET,
CHELSEA. S. W.
My dear Whistler
Many thanks for Malla...[3]!'s translation[4] which I will add with pleasure to my collection of Whistleriana -
Not so the scalp[5] - take it away - I [p. 2] hate scalps -
Shake not[6] your gory locks at me! Will all the perfumes of Arabia sweeten that little hand? that little foot?
Pardon me. You know I am up to my ears [p. 3] in Macbeth.
Yours sincerely
John S. Sargent
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [24/31 January 1889?]
Dated by reference to JW's quarrel with Stott of Oldham (see below). This is in reply to a letter from JW, for which there are undated drafts (#05378). JW's reply, #05381, is also undated.
2. John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), artist [more].
3. Malla...
i.e. Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898), Symbolist writer and poet [more].
4. translation
Whistler, James McNeill, Le 'Ten O'Clock' de M. Whistler, Paris, 1888.
5. scalp
This relates to JW's quarrel with William Stott of Oldham (1857-1900), genre and landscape painter [more] (see #13189).
6. Shake not ... hand
Freely quoted speeches by Macbeth to Banquo's ghost ('Thou canst not say I did it; never shake Thy gory locks at me') and Lady Macbeth's soliloquy ('All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand') in Shakespeare's Macbeth Act III, Scene 4, and Act V, Scene 1.