will bow the knee only to his own image and likeness. The deeper the
humanity, the deeper the adoration; and from this law not even divinity
is excepted. All we adore is human, and through knowledge of the flesh
that grovels we may catch sight of the soul ascending towards the
divine stars.

And so the contemplation of Mr. Whistler, the author of the "Butterfly
Letters", the defender of his little jokes against the plagiarising
tongue, should stimulate rather than interrupt our prostrations. I
said that Nature had dowered Mr. Whistler with every gift except that
of physical strength. If Mr. Whistler had the bull-like health of
Michael Angelo, Rubens, and Hals, the Letters would never have been
written. They were the safety-valve by which his strained nerves found
relief from the intolerable tension of the masterpiece. He has not the
bodily strength to pass from masterpiece to masterpiece, as did the
great ones of old time. In the completed picture slight traces of his
agony remain. But painting is the most indiscreet of all the arts, and
here and there an omission or a feeble indication reveal the painter
to us in moments of exasperated impotence. To understand Mr.
Whistler's art you must understand his body. I do not mean that Mr.
Whistler has suffered from bad health--his health has always been
excellent; all great artists have excellent health, but his
constitution is more nervous than robust. He is even a strong man, but
he is lacking in weight. Were he six inches taller, and his bulk
proportionately increased, his art would be different. Instead of
having painted a dozen portraits, every one--even the mother and Miss
Alexander, which I personally take to be the two best--a little
febrile in its extreme beauty, whilst some, masterpieces though they
be, are clearly touched with weakness, and marked with hysteria--Mr.
Whistler would have painted a hundred portraits, as strong, as