frequenters of the theatre: Lord Lytton, Lady Shrewsbury, Lady Dorothy
Nevill, Lady de Grey and Mrs. Jeune; and, on the other hand, Hardy,
Meredith, Browning, Swinburne, and Matthew Arnold--all Bohemia, in
fact, and all that part of Mayfair which cares for the things of the
intellect.

But though he went out a great deal and met a great many distinguished
people, and won a certain popularity, his social success put no money
in his purse. It even forced him to spend money; for the constant
applause of his hearers gave him self-confidence. He began to talk
more and write less, and cabs and gloves and flowers cost money. He
was soon compelled to mortgage his little property in Ireland.

At the same time it must be admitted he was still indefatigably intent
on bettering his mind, and in London he found more original teachers
than in Oxford, notably Morris and Whistler. Morris, though greatly
overpraised during his life, had hardly any message for the men of his
time. He went for his ideals to an imaginary past and what he taught
and praised was often totally unsuited to modern conditions. Whistler
on the other hand was a modern of the moderns, and a great artist to
boot: he had not only assimilated all the newest thought of the day,
but with the alchemy of genius had transmuted it and made it his own.
Before even the de Goncourts he had admired Chinese porcelain and
Japanese prints and his own exquisite intuition strengthened by
Japanese example had shown that his impression of life was more
valuable than any mere transcript of it. Modern art he felt should be
an interpretation and not a representment of reality, and he taught
the golden rule of the artist that the half is usually more expressive
than the whole. He went about London preaching new schemes of
decoration and another Renaissance of art. Had he only been a painter