Documents associated with: auction
Record 24 of 25
System Number: 08526
Date: [31 October 1899?][1]
Author: JW
Place: Paris
Recipient: William Heinemann[2]
Place: [London?]
Repository: Library of Congress
Call Number: Manuscript Division, Pennell-Whistler Collection, PWC
Document Type: ALS
ADRESSE TÉLÉGRAPHIQUE - CHATHAMEL-PARIS
NO TÉLÉPHONIQUE : 247-53
[Chatham coat of arms with motto:] BENIGNO NUMINE
HOTEL CHATHAM
PARIS
Catalogue[3] arrived! - most excellent prompt and immediate friend!! -
My very best compliments acknowledgements and regrets to Madame Magda[4]! for how shall I excuse this trouble I have given!
She can never forgive - though she has greatly flattered me - and touched me by her intended welcome -
[p. 2] At the last moment my plans were altered and I staid [sic] on at Dieppe and then was obliged to rush up to Paris - where, now that the ladies[5] are absent, for a while, I am stopping of course at the Hotel -
You will have guessed - or rather you dont seem to have done this - from my wanting the Eden[6] Sale - that the case is shortly coming on at the Cour de Cassation[7]! and so I shall have to be at hand -
Do write me some news! The place must be teeming with it!! You must see people now - and at this moment I am very dull with a bit of neuralgia, picked up at some street corner in Dieppe, and working itself off here! - the pain of it simply awful for one who like myself never knows a headache!
Otherwise I am supposed to have brought back a beautiful condition of health! -
But what of our stocks & scrips & things in the City!! - ? These amazing British "Victories"! must be playing the old scratch with the genial expression of the Financier[8]!! - Have you seen the seal I sent him? - I wonder, by the way, has he got it yet - You ask him - I dont think I shall write to him just yet until some of those missing Regiments, and the batteries that bolted with our own mules!!!! have turned up again! -
It is very nice of you to think out the Butterfly Secretary[9] for me - Who are you [p. 3] getting? - Tell me more - And Mr Gilmer[10] is very kind about it all -
Miss Simmonds[11] wrote to me the other day - but I have been crazy with this agony in the head -
Well well well! these here British Victories!!!
Now mind you write - You have been very slack for an age! - and there are lots of things set aside -
With kindest regards to you both and in the usual hurry
Always
[butterfly signature]
'Oct. '99'
This document is protected by copyright.
Notes:
1. [31 October 1899?]
Dated 'Oct. '99' in another hand. The reference to 'neuralgia' shows that it dates from the end of the month, or possibly early November; see JW's letter to R. Birnie Philip, [30 October 1899], #04755.
2. William Heinemann
William Heinemann (1863-1920), publisher [more].
3. Catalogue
An auction catalogue of work belonging to Sir William Eden (1849-1915), painter and collector [more].
4. Madame Magda
Magda Stuart Heinemann (m. 1899), née Sindici, pseudonym 'Kassandra Vivaria', writer [more].
5. ladies
Frances Philip (1824-1917), née Black, JW's mother-in-law [more]; and Rosalind Birnie Philip (1873-1958), JW's sister-in-law [more].
6. Eden
Sir William Eden (1849-1915), painter and collector [more].
7. Cour de Cassation
The Eden v. Whistler case over possession of Brown and Gold: Portrait of Lady Eden (YMSM 408).
8. Financier
Edmund Heinemann (b. ca 1866), stockbroker [more].
9. Butterfly Secretary
Christine Anderson had recently left the post of manager of the Company of the Butterfly.
10. Mr Gilmer
J. W. Gilmer, employee or associate of William Heinemann [more].
11. Miss Simmonds
Miss Simonds, a translator employed by William Heinemann.