La Farge had never been physically robust, and during his latter years he had known much illness. There were periods when he was totally incapacitated and could do no more than lie still. He took that calmly, too. He was a philosopher always and made the best of things. Perhaps that is the reason why with his frail body he lived on to seventy-four, not dying until November, 1910. He lived his character to the last, and when he died the painter-world, if no other, knew that a master mind as well as a master craftsman had passed out. In the arts he was our rst great scholar and spoke as one having authority. With his learning, his imagination, and his skill he gave rank to American art more than any other of the craft. For that reason he is to-day hailed as master and written down in our annals as belonging with the Olympians. He deserves the title and the separate niche. VII JAMES ABBOTT McNEILL WHISTLER

AFTER considering La Farge, it is difcult to think of Whistler other than in terms of contrast. They were of the same time, their tastes were not dissimilar, and many features of their theory and practice were in agreement; but Whistlers impetuosity and contentiousness seem magnied when set over against the gravity and reticence of La Farge. He had not the latters mental poise, nor philosophy, nor tenacity, nor patience. The seriousness of his art always suffered from the acrimony of his talk or the cleverness of his writing or the are of his conduct. He was a wit, to be sure, but not a wise one; a brilliant writer but not a profound one; an sthetic bravo but not a discreet one. His social activities gave his art a wide notoriety, but that rather harmed than helped its permanent fame. The mob enjoyed his caustic utterances but continued to look askance at his symphonies and nocturnes. What else could have been expected? Art explains itself or it falls. Talk may make it talked about but

And so one, at times, wishes that Whistler had said nothing, written nothing, explained nothing. His art standing alone would eventually have vindicated itself as did that of Hals and Rembrandt and Velasquez. There is not the least bit of ippancy or irritability or waspishness about it. If we knew naught of his life and had never read The Gentle Art of Making Enemies and the Ten OClock, we could not have derived the militant Whistler from his pictures. They are cast in a vein of decorative beauty and done not only with the greatest seriousness but with the greatest tranquillity. With their simplicity and largeness of vision, their fastidiousness of arrangement, their charm of mood and loveliness of color they would point to an Ariel-like creator who was in love with color renements, a devotee of natures minor chords, her shadowy manifestations, her evanescent harmonies. And that would have been the true Whistler the Whistler that fame will not allow to die. But his clarication is still

Appreciation is clouded by the presence of the egotist, the dandy, the bitter-tongued wit, the maker of paradoxespassing phases of temperament quite aside from his reckoning as an artist, mental poses forced upon him by circumstances which he doubtless felt he had to meet and overcome.