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Wilde’s American Tour

Ellmann is giving in his book complete overview of Wilde’s American lectures, which were running from 9 January till 13 October 1882 (Ellman 187-191). “Since September 1881, Carte had had Patience running in New York with as much success as in London. Another part of his enterprise was to manage lecture tours, and he snatched at a suggestion, possibly from Sarah Bernhardt (who was credited by Wilde with having initiated this idea), to give Americans a chance to see and hear the leading exponent of aestheticism. Carte expected Patience to give a fillip to Wilde’s lectures, and the lectures to give a fillip to Patience.” (Ellmann 151) Ellmann further comments that Americans simply needed according Carte to see a model for the Bunthorne’s²⁷ character. Wilde had to come with lectures about ‘The Beautiful’.²⁸ Carte covered all expenses and the profit had to be shared. Wilde prepared very carefully for his tour also from the point of view what he will wear. (Ellmann 152-4)

Anderson further specifies that Wilde was in America lecturing about Pre-Raphaelits and also promoting James Whistler’s art. “During his tour Wilde corresponded with James by letter or telegram. The tone in some of his letters is that of an exasperated lover: ‘You dear good-for-nothing old Dry-Point! Why do you not write to me? Even an insult would be pleasant, and here I am lecturing on you, see penny rag enclosed, and trousing the rage of all American artists by so doing“²⁹ (Anderson 247)

Following Ellmann quote from one of Whistler’s letters to Wilde illustrates his artists preferences: “Whistler, probably informed that Wilde was going to tout Pre-Raphaelites, remarked to him, ‘If you get sea-sick, throw up Burne-Jones.’ ” (Ellman 155-6) ³⁰

During Wilde’s American tour there were published many articles in American newspapers about him, his notes and lectures. In one of them is mentioned his note about Whistler. Wilde “assured the company that Whistler was ‘the first painter in England, only it take England 300 years to take it out.’ ” (160)³¹

During his American Journey Wilde still believes in aestheticism and is lecturing on it. He mentions for Omaha Weekly Herald among his plans for future: “I want to write a great deal more poetry. I want to study painting more than I’ve been able to … I want to make this artistic movement the basis for a new civilisation” (Pearce 144)³² Wilde is strongly against machinery and defends the idea that a man (handicraftsman) cannot become machine but he must be using his hands, head and heart for his work. (144)

For San Francisco Daily Examiner, 27 March 1882, claims that “he belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite school that owed its origin to Keats more than to anyone else.” (145) ³³

Wilde and Whistler and their bon-mots

When back from America Wilde was still on good terms with Whistler. “In January 1883 Wilde, recently returned from his American tour, was a constant visitor to James’s studio.“ (Anderson 249)

It was so also according Pennels who quotes from the Rennell Rod’s letter:

“If Whistler liked always to have a companion, his pleasure was increased when he found someone as brilliant. Wilde spent hours in the studio, he came to Whistler's Sunday breakfasts, he assisted at Whistler's private views. Whistler went with him everywhere. There were few functions at which they were not present. At receptions the company divided into two groups, one round Whistler, the other round Wilde. It was the fashion to compare them. To the world that ran after them, that thought itself honored, or notorious, by their presence, they seemed inseparable.” (Pennel 227-8)

From this period of time are known short witty and sharp dialogues of Wilde and Whistler. As mentioned Whistler was twenty years older than Wilde. According Ellmann:

“Their relationship had always been nervous. ... Wilde liked to joke at his own expense, and Whistler was glad to joke at Wilde’s expense too. His advantage was that he talked to score, whereas Wilde talked merely to enthrall. A Whistler breakfast served generous helping of gall along with the coffee. Over the years there had been many humiliations. One day at the Lambs Club, Wilde showed Whistler a poem he had written, probably an impressionistic one such as ‘Le Panneau’ or ‘Les Ballons.’ Whistler returned it to him without a world. Wilde was obliged to ask ‘Well, do you perceive any worth?’ ‘It’s worth its weight in gold,’ said the artist. The poem was written on the thinnest of tissue paper. Than there had been meeting of Hoghart Club which they both attended in November 1883; Wilde was quoted in Punch as having compared Mary Anderson, whom he had seen again in Romeo and Juliet, with Sarah Bernhardt. … On reading this Wilde telegraphed to Whistler, “Punch too ridiculous. When you and I are together we never talk of anything else except ourselves.’ To this came the reply, also by wire, ‘No, no, Oscar, you forget, when you and I are together, we never talked about anything except me.’ The telegrams were published by mutual consent in The World of 14 November [1883]. A third one is said to have contained Wilde’s reply:’It is true, Jimmy, we were talking about you, but I was thinking of myself.’³⁴ The narcissists outdid each other. Whistler tended to come out on top in these exchanges, but that was because he was ready to kill as well as wound.” (Ellmann 270-1)

Also the following story is documenting the type of relationship Wilde and Whistler had. When Walter Sickert was in 1883 delivering Whistler’s painting The Painter’s Mother to the Salon, “he stayed at the Hotel du Quai Voltaire, as a quest of Oscar Wilde’s. James had written to Wilde in Paris, entrusting his disciple to his care. … The tone of the letter is one of pride, as James shows off his pupil to Wilde. The catalogue that Sickert delivered to Wilde was from James’s recent exhibition of etchings shown at the Fine Art Society.” (Andreson 251-2)

But it seems that already in this year there were some indications that not all goes well between them. “Both men being clever and eager to talk, a rivalry developed in which Wilde, the kinder-hearted, was usually worsted. Douglas Sladen describes a reception in 1883 at the house of Louise Jopling, in Beaufort Street. Wilde and Whistler arrived separately but early, and were obviously disconcerted to see almost no one else there.” (Ellmann 133) Ellmann also introduces from Sladen one of the most famous discussion Wilde and Whistler had: “Sladen claims it was at this party that Wilde remarked of something a woman had said. ‘How I wish I had said that.’ and Whistler replied, ‘ You will Oscar, you will’;³⁵ but a more likely accounts says it was a remark of Whistler to Humphry Ward, art critic of the Times, which aroused Wilde’s envy.” (133)

Obviously there were differenes in both men characters as Ellmann describes:

“The two men enjoyed each other’s company for somewhat different reasons. What Wilde did not know was that Whistler, the future author of The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, was temperamently inclined to make new enemies of old friends. There were many examples. When later on, the breach occurred, Wilde could not understand it. For if he had borrowed, he had also given. He had sung Whistler’s praises, had entertained him verbally and at the table, had been in every way generous and loyal. But Wilde had always had a measure of innocence, and never more so than when dealing with someone who was cruel, because cruelty was not in his own nature. He was prepared to believe that disciples might be treacherous to the master, but not that the master might pray on disciples.” (133-4)

Wilde’s wedding and A Rebours

On the end of 1883 began the preparation of Wilde‘s wedding with Constance. “News of the engagement soon roused the attention of the press. On 26 December 1883, The World announced that Whistler‘s last Sunday breakfeast of the year had been given in honor of two happy couples, Lord Garmyole and his fairy queen, and Oscar and the lady whom he has chosen to be the chatelaine of the House Beautiful.” (Pearce 171)

Descriptive for Whistler and Wilde’s relationship of this period is Wilde’s a letter “to the American sculptor Waldo Story on 22 January 1884 that Constance was ’quite perfect except that she does not think Jimmy [that is, Whistler] the only painter that ever really existed.” (Pearce 171, also Ellmann 247) ³⁶

Soon in 1884 it seems there are some discrepancies between Wilde and Whistler. Whistler writes on 20 or 25 May 1884 to the sculptor Thomas Waldo Story and mentions on the bottom of the letter that “Oscar is awfully fat and is to be married on Thursday”. (GUW)³⁷

Oscar Wilde and Constance married on 29 May 1884. Whistler was invited but did not attend. He only wrote to the couple. “A telegram arrived ‘From Whistler, Chelsea, to Oscar Wilde, St. James’s Church, Sussex Gardens: Fear I may not be able to reach you in time for ceremony. Don’t wait.’ ” (Ellmann 249)

After the wedding Oscar and Constance went to Paris for honeymoon.“The outward events of the wedding trip were entertaining enough. The young couple went except other things to the Salon to see Whistler’s paintings.” (252) Ellmann is further mentioning other places where they went. “An important element of the honeymoon was recorded in the Morning News interview. It was not an event, but a book, which was to be for Wilde in the eighties what Pater’s Studies in the History of Renaissance had been in the seventies. Joris Karl Huysmanns’s A Rebours had been published just two weeks before, in mid-May, and shook up the literary scene. Whistler rushed to congratulate Huysmans the next day on his ‘marvellous book.’” (252) A Rebours, sometimes called Bible of Decadence, might have been one of influences on Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde read it during his honeymoon. When being interviewed by the reporter from the Morning News³⁸ Wilde told him: “This last book of Huysmans is one of the best I have ever seen” (Pearce 175-6) Later in ninetieths during his trial Wilde comments the book differently, which was probably influenced by the situation: “Not well written, but it gave me an idea.” (“Art versus morality” 386)³⁹

Barbara Belford also mentions A Rebours in connection to Wilde. “In its hero, Des Esseintes, whose passions exceed Paterian extasy, Wilde found a nascent of Dorian Gray.” (Belford 132)

The main and sometimes only character of A Rebours is the aristocrat Des Essenties. He is interested in Latin books, religious questions, philosophy etc. Whole book is full of descriptions and decadent thoughts. It seems that The Picture of Dorian Gray was influenced by this book mainly in the descriptive chapter 11. Dorian is interested in himself and art and he has at least some friends and there is a clear story line in the novel.

Tite Street

Wilde and Constance moved after their marriage in 1884 to the new house - “The house beautiful” leased and furnished from the money from Constance’s grandfather. (Belford 130 and Ellmann 248) According Belford:

“The couple leased a four-storey house at 16 (now 34) Tite Street, at the opposite end from where Wilde and Frank Miles have lived.⁴⁰ Chelsea had become a popular area with the building of the Embankement in 1771 - sewage no longer washed up to the doorways. Carlyle, Rosseti and Whistler made Chelsea their home. Bram and Florence Stoker lived close by, at 17 St. Leonard’s Terrace. John Singer Sargent⁴¹ was a future neighbour. Edward William Godwin⁴², who renovated Chelsea houses for Miles and Whistler, was hired to refurbish the interior. The Victorian row-house exterior remained as monotonous as its neighbors.” (Belford 131)

As Ellmann describes Wilde intended to do the redecoration differently on the beginning. “The lease would begin on 24 June [1884]. Wilde asked Whistler to superintend the redecoration. ‘No, Oscar,’ came the reply, ‘you have been lecturing to us about The House Beautiful; now is your chance to show us one.’⁴³ Wilde then turned to Godwin, whom Beerbohm described as ‘the greatest aesthete of them all.’ and Godwin agreed to redo the house for them. ” (Ellmann 248)

After the return from Paris the newly wed couple had to wait couple of months till their house at Tite Street was redecorated -”they could not move in until January 1885. Godwin had ambitious plans, and the builders were slow and inept in carrying them out.” (256) Ellmann describes in details how the house looked like and mentions also the portrait of Wilde by Whistler’s pupil, American painter Harper Pennington⁴⁴ and that “The ceiling originally had two gold dragons at opposite corners painted by Whistler; these gave way at some point to large Japanese feathers inserted into plaster, also at Whistler’s suggestion.” (257-8)

Also Belford is giving the description of Wilde’s house “The House Beautiful”. There are no photos to know how it exactly looked like but there are descriptions of it. Walls were white painted. ”There were no Morris designs to be seen ...”Modern Wallpaper is so bad,” he said in a lecture, “that a boy brought up under its influence could alter it as a justification for turning to a life of crime” ” (Belford 133) And as further described: “In the all white drawing room, rare engrawings and etchings, including a Venetian scene by Whistler, formed a deep frieze along the walls.” (133)

The couple lived as Wilde wanted. “It was Wilde who determined how they should live, on the Whistlerian avenue and in what Godwinian style.” (Ellmann 255) At Tite Street, “as James [Whistler] had once predicted for himself, fashionable society flocked to have their portraits painted. Tite Street was a mecca of the artistic” (Anderson 246)

James Whistler lived in the Tite Street two times. Firstly in the seventies - in the ‘White house’⁴⁵ - before the trial with Ruskin. Second time in eighties - in the Tower House - when he returned from his Venice exile and later married the former wife of architect E. W. Godwin, Beatrice.⁴⁶ According Anderson for Whistler

“Living in Tite Street, despite its many advantages, presented two major problems. In the first place, Beatrice never really settled in Tower House because of this associations with her late husband, the architect E.W.Godwin, who had build it. Secondly, in the main Street, a hundred yards or so further along, at no.16, lived Oscar Wilde and his wife Constance. Beatrice had no arguments with Constance (no one ever had) but she loathed and despised Oscar with a vehemence only equaled by James. Her reason perhaps stemmed from Wilde’s close association with her late husband, who had decorated Wilde’s house for him in 1884. Both men had become close friends and Godwin had persisted in the friendship despite Beatrice’s protests. The mere thought of accidentally bumping into Wilde again now was abhorrent to her. Since moving into Tower House the year before, an uneasy peace had held and there had been no embarrassing incidents between the couples. Both kept their distance.“ (Anderson 313-4)

Wilde’s London lecturing and journalism

In 1883 Wilde was giving a series of lectures in England, one of them to students of Royal Academy of Arts.⁴⁷ James Whistler gave advices to Wilde⁴⁸ and also attended the lecture.

Wilde defended Whistler’s art:

“When it was objected that Whistler’s paintings ‘looked as well upside down as right side up, why shouldn’t they?’ he asked. ‘Either way they gave delight.’⁴⁹ The students were pleased, the press approbatory, and Whistler jealous. If the hostile Herbert Vivian can be trusted, Whistler checked Wilde’s gratification by asking what he had said, and, as Wilde reeled off the points, Whistler rose at each to take a bow as if he himself had originated everything⁵⁰. … Whistler could not have been too offended at the supposed borrowings since he went to Wilde’s second lecture, at the Prince’s Hall on 11 July 1883. The World said on 18 July that Whistler was seen there, ‘jumping about like a cricket.’” (Ellmann 239)

Anderson finds here the probable origin of Whistler‘s idea for his own lecture. “Seeing Oscar on stage, doing what James claimed he could do, only better, must have suddenly made him aware that he was in danger of losing his place at the forefront of the aesthetic avant-garde. Wary of Wilde’s ability to steal his thunder, James must have conceived the idea for his own lecture that would take place two years later at the same venue.” (Anderson 253)

In autumn 1884 Wilde was again lecturing across whole country about ‘The Value of Art in Modern Life’ (refurbished Americans lectures) and a new lecture on ‘Dress.’ Wilde doesn’t more “celebrate the Pre-Raphaelites, who had occupied a central place in his American lectures. … He bowed to Ruskin as one of the greatest men ever produced in England … [and] his greatest praise was reserved for Whistler as perhaps the first artist not just in England but in all Europe. Whistler ‘had rejected all literary titles for his pictures; indeed, none of his works bore any name but that which signified their tone, and colour, and method of treatment. This, of course, was what the painting ought to be; no man ought to show that he was merely the illustrator of history.’ ” (Ellmann 262) ⁵¹

Controversy about the initial lecture on dress began in Pall Mall Gazette. Wilde had to defend his original position there in autumn 1884. His letters there were unsigned. But as audience interest in dress was not so high he had to “supplement his lecturing with some ignoble journalism”. He also wrote signed articles to other journals. (263)

In 1885 Wilde stopped lecturing and began fully with journalism. “From 1886 on, but especially in 1887 and 1888, Wilde wrote a series of about a hundred reviews, many of them dealing with more than one book. After the profusion of reviews came to a virtual end, with almost the same abruptness as the lectures.” (284 and 286)

His first review was published in The Pall Mall Gazette on 7 March 1885, last one on 24 May 1890.

After “Bernard Shaw commented on the high quality of Wilde’s journalism” (291) Wilde was offered the post in the magazine The Lady’s World: A Magazine of Fashion and Society, where he began to work in May 1887 and which was in November 1887 on Wilde’s incentive renamed to Woman’s World. Wilde worked there till 1889. (291-2, 294)

Whistler reacts on Wilde's activities in Woman’s World in the letter to Edmund Yates: “Surely our Oscar has done this thing! Who so thoughtful in his refinement - who but our Oscar, the new Editor, - Our Oscar - Oscar or the Bourgeois, malgré lui!“ (GUW)⁵²

Whistler’s Ten O’Clock lecture

Whistler’s Ten O’Clock⁵³ lecture on 20 February 1885 in the Prince’s hall in London meant the beginning of the dispute between Whistler and Wilde. As Ellmann points out “A good deal of what became known as ‘Mr Whistler’s Ten o’Clock’ was devoted to scoffing at Wilde.” (Ellmann 271) Whistler is distancing from the aestheticism and attacking Wilde.⁵⁴ There were also introduced ‘nature x art’ and ‘painting x poetry’ subjects. “ ‘The voice of the aesthete is heard in the land’, he declared with distaste ... Without naming Wilde directly, Whistler attacked the position Wilde had taken out on his recent lecture tours. Beginning with the diletantism about dress reform, he said the aesthete wanted costume, but ‘costume is not a dress’.” (Pearce 190)

Wilde’s reaction published immediately⁵⁵ the following day in The Pall Mall Gazette begins with words: "Last night at Prince's Hall, Mr. Whistler made his first public appearance as a lecturer on Art, and spoke for more than an hour with really marvellous eloquence on the absolute uselessness of all lectures of the kind.” (Wilde v Whistler 5) ⁵⁶ Further Wilde describes how Whistler went on with the instant history of Art and describes that

“The scene was in every way delightful; he stood there, a miniature Mephistopheles mocking the majority! ...nothing could have exceeded their enthusiasm when they were told by Mr Whistler that no matter how vulgar their dresses were, or how hideous their surroundings at home, still it was possible that a great painter ... by contemplating them in twilight, and half closing his eyes, see them under really picturesque conditions, and produce a picture which they were not attempt to understand, much less dare to enjoy….Having thus made a holocaust of humanity, Mr Whistler turned to Nature, and in a few minutes convicted her of the Crystal Palace, Bank holidays, and a general overcrowding of detail, both in omnibuses and in landscapes ...and then ... spoke of artistic value of dim dawns and dusks, when the mean facts of life are lost in evanescent and ecquisite effects, when common things are touched with mystery and transfigured with beauty: when the warehouses become as palaces, and the tall chimneys of the factory seem like campaniles in the silver air. Finally, after making a strong protest against anybody but a painter judging of painting, and a patetic appeal to the audience not to be lured by the aesthetic movement into having beautiful things about them, Mr Whistler concluded his lecture ... Of course, with regard to the value of beautiful surroundings I entirely differ from Mr.Whistler ... That an artist will find beauty in ugliness, le beau dans l'horrible, is now a commonplace of the schools, the argot of the atelier, but I strongly deny that charming people should be condemned to live with magenta ottomans ... Nor do I accept the dictum that only a painter is a judge of painting. I say that only an artist is a judge of art; there is a wide difference. As long as a painter is a painter merely, he should not be allowed to talk of anything but mediums and megilp, and on those subjects should be compelled to hold his tongue; it is only when he becomes an artist that the secret laws of artistic creations are revealed to him. For there are not many arts but one art merely: poem, picture and Parthenon, sonnet and statue-all are in their essence the same, and he who knows one knows all. But the poet is the supreme artist, for he is the master of the colour and of form, and the real musician besides, and is lord over all life and all arts; and so to the poet beyond all others are the mysteries known; to Edgar Alan Poe and to Baudelaire, not to Benjamin West and Paul Delaroche. However, I would not enjoy anybody else’s lectures unless in a few points I disagreed with them, and Mr Whistler’s lecture last night was, like everything he does, a masterpiece.“ (6-9)

As Anderson comments the Ten O’Clock lecture:

“In reality there was nothing new in the lecture. As many commentators at the time were to note, ‘they had heard it all before’ - if not from James, then from Wilde. Indeed, to understand the ‘Ten O’Clock’ and the motives behind it one must look at James’s own position at the time. He was desparate to be taken seriously by press, public and patrons alike. The lecture was an attempt to distance himself from the theatrical aestheticism of Oscar Wilde, and to counteract the comic association of the pair in the pages of Punch and the mind of the public. Jealousy of Wilde’s lecturing success was also a motive, but at the heart of the matter lay James’s concerns that the prevalent image was failing to impress patrons and collectors. It certainly did not help to sell paintings. Combined with his recent election to the Society of British Artists … it was a bid to re-establish himself as a serious artist.” (Anderson 268)

Whistler reply was published in The World on 25 February⁵⁷ “I have read your ecxquisite article in the Pall Mall. Nothing is more delicate, on the flattery of ‘the Poet’ to ‘the Painter’, than the naivite of the ‘Poet’ in the choice of his Painters-Benjamin West and Paul Delaroche! You have pointed out that ‘the Painter’s’ mission is to find ‘le beau dans l’horrible’, and have left to the Poet’ the discovery of ‘l’horrible’ dans ‘le beau’!” (Wilde v Whistler 10) ⁵⁸

Wilde’s reply was published this time together in the same issue with Whistler’s.⁵⁹

“By the aid of a biographical dictionary, I discovered that there were once two painters, called Benjamin West, and Paul Delaroche, who recklessly took to lecturing on Art. As of their works nothing at all remains, I conclude that they explained themselves away. Be warned in time, James; and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.” (Ellmann 273) ⁶⁰

Whole conversation finishes with short reflection from Whistler:

“I do know a bird, who like Oscar, with his head in the sand, still believes in the undiscovered! If to be misunderstood is to be great, it was rash in Oscar to reveal the source of his inspiration: the “Biographical dictionary”. ” (Wilde v Whistler 11)⁶¹

Anderson comments accurately how differently both protagonists understood their dispute and adds last note: “For Wilde it was an immensely game of wits, played for the benefit of London society. The young Irishman saw no harm in it. … For James it was very different. He was out to destroy a rival. So far he had failed; the lecture; the leters, had been to no avail. Tragically, within a few years Wilde would destroy himself.” (Anderson 271)

Wilde and Whistler dispute about painting versus poetry from 1885 is part of the long lasting debate from the Greek time to nowadays about the supremacy of one kind of art over the others. Here is only obvious what each of both artists can claim in such a debate.

Whole debate must have been one of reasons why Wilde wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray.

As Ellmann writes Wilde argued “that the supreme artist was the poet (not, as Whistler maintained, the painter), because the poet could make use of all experience rather than a part. He knew Lessing’s theory that painting was spatial and literature temporal, and ‘The Critic as Artist', written at the same time as Dorian Gray, insists that the time world is superior, since it involves a psychic response to one’s own history.”(Ellmann 312)

To the other crucial topic of the Ten O’Clock lecture - Nature versus Art - Wilde returns in “The Decay of Lying” in 1889 and also from other point of view later in The Picture of Dorian Gray. ⁶²

There was a silence from Ten O’Clock lecture till 1886 when the next attack came in the moment Whistler discovered that the Comittee of the National Art Exhibition dealing with possibility of art reform out of the Royal Academy nominated among its members also Harry Quilter⁶³ and Oscar Wilde. (Ellmann 273-4, Anderson 214) As Ellmann mentions Whistler wrote a letter to The World, published on 17 November 1886:

“ “Gentlemen, I am naturally interested in any effort made among Painters to prove that they are alive, but when I find, thrust in the van of your leaders, the body of my dead 'Arry, I know that putrefaction alone can result. When, following 'Arry, there comes on Oscar, you finish in farce, and bring upon yourselves the scorn and ridicule of your confrères in Europe. What has Oscar in common with Art? except that he dines at our tables and picks from our platters the plums for the pudding he peddles in the provinces. Oscar - the amiable, irresponsible, esurient Oscar - with no more sense of a picture than of the fit of a coat, has the courage of the opinions . . . of others! With 'Arry and Oscar you have avenged the Academy….. ^{” ” 64} (Ellmann 273-4)

According Ellmann

“The attack of the dandy’s cloth was injury enough; to link him with Quliter, whom Wilde had so recently reviewed with contempt in the Pall Mall Gazette, exacerbated injury … He also appeared to begrudge Wilde those Sunday-morning breakfasts where he had been his guest: in other words, if Whistler was short, as Wilde had said, than Wilde was fat. Still, no one ever outdid Wilde in Hospitality, as Whistler knew well enough. Whistler sent a copy of his letter to Wilde with a line, ‘Oscar you must really keep outside “the radius“!’ “⁶⁵ ... Wilde salvaged a little by replying on 24 November in The World, Atlas, this is very sad! With our James ‘vulgarity begins at home,’ and should be allowed to stay there⁶⁶ …Whistler replied privately, or claimed he had,’ “A poor thing”, Oscar-but, for once, I suppose, ‘your own”!’⁶⁷ Wilde swallowed this insult as well. We can be sure he did, because on 29 November of the following year, 1887, he helped Whistler receive visitors to the Suffolk Gallery, where Whistler was exhibiting some of his paintings; they were back on good terms, except that Wilde was drawing off some of Whistler’s admirers, a situation Whistler could not brook. It was a tribute to Wilde’s good company that Whistler waited so long before depriving himself of it. ” (Ellmann 274)

As we see the disputes among two artists were culminating and unpleasant atmosphere was becoming the standard between them.