vigorous, as decisive, and as easily accomplished as any by Velasquez
or Hals. But if Nature had willed him so, I do not think we should
have had the Nocturnes, which are clearly the outcome of a
highly-strung, bloodless nature whetted on the whetstone of its own
weakness to an exasperated sense of volatile colour and evanescent
light. It is hardly possible to doubt that this is so when we look on
these canvases, where, in all the stages of her repose, the night
dozes and dreams upon our river--a creole in Nocturne 34, upon whose
trembling eyelids the lustral moon is shining; a quadroon in Nocturne
17, who turns herself out of the light anhungered and set upon some
feast of dark slumber. And for the sake of these gem-like pictures,
whose blue serenities are comparable to the white perfections of
Athenian marbles, we should have done well to yield a littlestrength
in portraiture, if the distribution of Mr. Whistler's genius had been
left in our hands. So Nature has done her work well, and we have no
cause to regret the few pounds of flesh that she withheld. A few
pounds more of flesh and muscle, and we should have had another
Velasquez; but Nature shrinks from repetition, and at the last moment
she said, "The world has had Velasquez, another would be superfluous:
let there be Jimmy Whistler."

In the Nocturnes Mr. Whistler stands alone, withouta rival. In
portraits he is at his best when they are near to his Nocturnes in
intention, when the theme lends itself to an imaginative and
decorative treatment; for instance, as in the mother or Miss
Alexander. Mr. Whistler is at his worst when he is frankly realistic.
I have seen pictures by Mr. Henry Moore that I like better than "The
Blue Wave". Nor does Mr. Whistler seem to me to reach his highest
level in any one of the three portraits--Lady Archibald Campbell,
Miss Rose Corder, and "the lady in the fur jacket". I know that Mr.