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Life of James McNeil Whistler by Pennell is in Books.
Before the portrait was finished, Whistler (age 42) had begun to paint Miss Alexander, and another story, often told, is of a meeting at the door of No. 2 between the old man coming out and the little girl going in. "Who is that?" he asked the maid. Miss Alexander, who was sitting to Mr. Whistler, she said. Carlyle shook his head. "Puir lassie! Puir lassie!" and, without another word, he went out. Mrs. Leyland, whose portrait also was begun before Carlyle's was finished, remembered that he grumbled a good deal. Whistler, in the end, had to get Phil Morris (age 40) to sit for the coat. Mr. Greaves' memories are of much impatience in the studio, especially when Carlyle saw Whistler working with small brushes, so that Whistler, to quiet him, either always worked with big brushes or pretended to. William Allingham wrote in his diary of the sittings:
"Carlyle tells me he is sitting to Whistler. If C. makes signs of changing his position, W. screams out in an agonised tone: 'For God's sake, don't move!' C. afterwards said that all W.'s anxiety seemed to be to get the coat painted to ideal perfection; the face went for little. He had begun by asking two or three sittings, but managed to get a great many. At last C. flatly rebelled. He used to define W. as the most absurd creature on the face of the earth."
