"but what caused my
merriment, though not surprise, is that anyone would have thought for a
moment that I had written it. But then, it was in England, and in
England anything is possible!" That the parody was a clever one will be
seen from the following extract:--

"In the fascinating numbers of 'Trilby,' as they appeared in _Harper's
Magazine_, I read with delight of one Joe Sibley, idle apprentice, king
of Bohemia, _roi des truands_, always in debt, vain, witty, exquisite
and original in art, eccentric in dress, genial, caressing, scrupulously
clean, sympathetic, charming; an irresistible but unreliable friend, a
jester of infinite humor, a man now perched upon a pinnacle of fame (and
notoriety), a worshipper of himself; a white-haired, tall, slim,
graceful person with pretty manners and an unimpeachable moral tone. My
only regret was that too little was said about so charming a creation. I
looked to see more of him in the published three volumes. But no! I
found the addition of some thoughtful excursuses by Mr. du Maurier upon
nudity, agnosticism, and other more hazardous subjects, which had,
presumably, been judged too strong for the ice-watered, ice-creamed
constitution of the American Philistine; but I looked in vain for the
delightful Joseph Sibley. In his place I find a yellow-haired Switzer,
one Antony, son of a respectable burgher of Lausanne, who is now tall,
stout, strikingly handsome and rather bald, but who in his youth had all
the characteristics of the lost Joseph Sibley--his idleness, his debts,
his humor, his art, his eccentricity, his charm. I rubbed my eye-glass.
_Je me suis demande pourquoi._"

Displeased with _The Speaker's_ comments on his connection with
"Trilby," Mr. Whistler compelled that paper to print a letter from his
solicitors, from which it appears that the revised MS. of the novel was
sent to him to be passed. And apropos of this, he remarks in a letter to
the editor:--"I question if it be not without precedent that a writer
ever before so abjectly regorged his spleen as to submit his Bowdlerized
work to his victim for his approval."

In the Chicago _Tribune_ of Sunday, 2 Dec., 1894, were reprinted from
_Harper's_ the pictures of, and passages about, Joe Sibley which
provoked Mr. Whistler's threatened libel-suit. The revised passages, as
they appear in the book, were also given.

"Trilby" Entertainments

OF ENTERTAINMENTS founded upon Mr. du Maurier's book, the name is
le