us ones, of which we often see prints, are
"Portrait of my Mother" and the Scotch writer, "Carlyle." James
Whistler's mother lived to be an old woman, as one can guess from the
picture, and her son loved her just as dearly as he did when he beat the
prancing horses away from her, in Russia. The French nation bought this
portrait, and it hangs in the Luxembourg Museum, Paris. The Scotch
people wanted to own the portrait of Carlyle, and the city of Glasgow
was glad to pay five thousand dollars for it.
Mr. Whistler married a woman who was herself an artist, and she was very
proud of him. "The Duet", one of his pictures, shows his wife and her
sister at the piano. Two portraits by this American artist hang in the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, but most of them are owned in England.
James Whistler was always kind to young artists and liked to have them
sit by him while he worked. They were very proud to be noticed by him,
for long before he died he had received all kinds of honors and medals
from foreign academies; and France, Germany, and Italy made him an
Officer of the Legion of Honor, a Commander, and a Chevalier. He loved
art so well that he made water-colors, pastels, etchings, and
lithographs, as well as oil paintings. He did not get his fame without
much hard work. You remember how many times he copied his own foot when
he was a child. Well, he was just as patient and thorough when he was
older. For a long time he made a practice of drawing a picture of
himself every night before he went to bed. He traveled a great deal,
painting views in many countries and studying the pictures of other
artists. But Hogarth was his favorite, and it is interesting to know
that James McNeill Whistler lies buried very near Hogarth, in London,
for he had thought him a model ever since his boyhood days in St.
Petersburg.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
You can't think how hard fathers and mothers used to work and plan to
get their children educated in the old days when there were no public
schools. The Emersons did some planning, I can assure you.
All the pictures of Ralph Waldo Emerson that I have happened to see show
him as a man of middle age, with very smooth hair, and plain but very
nice-looking clothes. He looks in these pictures as nurse Richards used
to say of my father,--"as if he had just come out of the top bureau
drawer."
Well, Ralph Emerson did not always wear fine clothes, but I would not be
a bit surprised if he alwa
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