System Number: 10942
Date: [21 June 1888?][1]
Author: JW
Place: London
Recipient: Marion Henry Spielmann[2]
Place: [London]
Repository: Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
Call Number: 7 bMS Eng. 1352 (18)
Credit Line: Published by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University
Document Type: ALS
BEEFSTEAK CLUB,
KING WILLIAM STREET,
STRAND, W. C.
My dear Spielmann -
You are quite right - You have made your confession -
"A professional Journalist" -
You are "serious" you say - and it is true! - 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[3] 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[4]? -
No my dear! with the small virtues at your 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]
Adieu! -
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [21 June 1888?]
This is a response to Spielmann's letter of 20 June 1888, #03768; see also #03770.
2. Marion Henry Spielmann
Marion Henry Alexander Spielmann (1858-1948), journalist and writer on art [more]. A copy of this letter in the hand of Charles James Whistler Hanson (1870-1935), engineer, son of JW and Louisa Fanny Hanson [more], has not been transcribed, # 03466.
3. Wyke Bayliss
Wyke Bayliss (1835-1906), painter and architect [more]. 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.
4. dignity of the Press
See Spielmann's letter of 20 June 1888, referred to above.