Page:Hamilton Men I Have Painted 048.jpg

MEN I HAVE PAINTED above all, to me, the ease and comfort of working before one who seemed to be absolutely unconscious of my presence. Had it not been for the momentary intrusion of an officious and self-appointed bodyguard, my contentment would have been complete. How many geniuses have had these body-guards, some permanent, some transitory! Johnson had his Boswell, Swinburne his Watts-Dunton, Ruskin his Severn, Whistler his Pennell.

I protected the little head with great care so that it should not be rubbed on its way to the inn. Taking my seat in the dog-cart that was waiting for me, I drove rapidly down the hill into the fields below, where ripening corn was waving in golden billows against the distant blue of the estuary of the Dee. My eyes saw what Tennyson made "The Lady of Shalott" see—

and I was filled with a vision of plenty and of gladness. The visit to Queen's Ferry had not been in vain. Memories of those happy days still linger but little dimmed by the more than thirty years that intervene between then and now, crowded as they have been by ever-changing acts and scenes of a long and full life.

II.—THE STORY OF THE PROPHETIC BUTTERFLY

HE rôle that the butterfly plays in nature had remained entirely unambiguous until that paradoxical genius, James McNeill Whistler, found in its innocent, gaudy, and harmless image a symbol to emphasize the malignant enmity of his enemies. When he descanted on the