ho
knows the picture would, in essentials, subscribe to.

God help the artists if ever the criticism of pictures falls into the
hands of painters! It would be a case of vivisection all round.

Your pamphlet is a very natural result of your late disagreeable
legal experiences, though not a very wise one.

If the critics are not better qualified to deal with the painters than
the painter in your pamphlet shows himself qualified to deal with the
critics, it will be a bad day for art when the hands that have been
trained to the brush lay it aside for the pen.[19]

[Note 19:!?]

If you had read my article on Velasquez, I cannot but say that you
have made an unfair use of it, in quoting a detached sentence, which,
read with the context, bears exactly the opposite sense from that you
have quoted it as bearing.

This is a bad "throw-off" in the critical line; whether it affect "_le
premier litterateur venu_" or yours always,

TOM TAYLOR.

P.S.--_As your attack on my article is public, I reserve to myself the
right of giving equal publicity to this letter._

LAVENDER SWEEP,
Jan, 6, 1879.

_The Position_

Dead for a ducat, dead! my dear Tom: and the rattle has reached me by
post.

[Sidenote: _The World_, Jan. 15, 1879.]

"_Sans rancune_," say you? Bah! you scream unkind threats and die
badly.

Why squabble over your little article? You _did_ print what I quote,
you know, Tom; and it is surely unimportant what more you may have
written of the Master. That you should have written anything at all is
your crime.

No; shrive your naughty soul, and give up Velasquez, and pass your
last days properly in the Home Office.

Set your house in order with the Government for arrears of time and
paper, and leave vengeance to the Lord, who will forgive my "garbling"
Tom Taylor's writing.

THE WHITE HOUSE,
Jan. 8, 1879.

[Illustration]

_Serious Sarcasm_

Pardon me, my dear Whistler, for having taken you _au serieux_ even
for a moment.

I ought to have remembered that your penning, like your painting,
belongs to the region of "chaff." I will not forget it again; and
meantime remain yours always,

TOM TAYLOR.

LAVENDER SWEEP,
Jan. 9, 1879.

_Final_

Why, my dear old Tom, I never _was_ serious w