System Number: 07452
Date: 20 August [1892][1]
Author: JW
Place: Paris
Recipient: [unknown]
Repository: Glasgow University Library
Call Number: MS Whistler X26
Document Type: ALS[2]
110. Rue du Bac. Paris.
Aug. 20.
Dear Sir -
Your letter has been forwarded to me here - I enclose copy of correspondence - in which my letter[3] is correctly reproduced. -
I have my self noticed that one or two highly respectable prints[4] have relied boldly upon their own intelligence - and published the letter according to their own understanding!
They have, as you say, substituted[5] shy for sky, which for them was the error - and so they have solemnly corrected my misquotation -
Your question about the McNeills of Colonsay, I am sorry not to be able at this moment to answer -
Our McNeills are of those of Bar[r]a - the Highland McNeills of [their?] skye & Tynnish[6] [sic] - though I fear I have rather neglected my cousinships having lived much away from my own people -
I cannot easily [p. 2] make out your address & so paste it on to the envelope -
This you must forgive - and write it out more clearly -
Very faithfully
J McN. Whistler
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. 20 August [1892]
Dated from reference to letter (see below).
2. ALS
Another version of this letter (without the McNeill discussion) is at #07517.
3. my letter
JW's letter to John W. Beck, published 13 August 1892, #02705.
4. prints
The letter was published in Whistler, James McNeill, [Letter to J. W. Beck], The National Observer: A Record and Review, no. 195, (new series), vol. 8, 13 August 1892, p. 326 and in the Daily Chronicle, 13 August 1892.
5. substituted
The Pennells point out that the original word was 'shy' but that JW was delighted with the misprint. See Pennell, Elizabeth Robins, and Joseph Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler, 2 vols, London and Philadelphia, 1908, vol. 2., p. 131.
6. t
A misspelling of Taynish