human
Whistler was extremely frugal and abstemious. He ate and drank most moderately the plainest fare. He liked dainty dishes and rare old wine, but had a horror of the 'groaning board' at huge set feasts and formal banquets. He could cook quite decently himself, and sometimes made an omelet or scrambled eggs, but these culinary feats I never saw performed; as to the Master's knowledge of wine, it was very limited indeed. I have seen him mistake a heavy vintage of champagne for 'Tisane.' I never saw him cook anything, even in his poorest days, in Venice, but I know that he liked a good dinner at a club even when it was punctually served and consisted of quite ordinary delicacies such as other men delight in.
gpt
And at some other place, when they had watched some parade with the Empress passing:
human
He behaved like a man. With one compassing arm he guarded me, and with the other kept people at a proper distance, and I must confer, brilliant as the spectacle was, the greatest pleasure was derived by the conduct of my dear and manly boy. Miss Emma Palmer, his cousin, describes Whistler at this period as
gpt
Whistler, as a boy, was exactly what those who knew him as a man would expect: gay and bright, absorbed in his work when that work was in any way related to art, brave and fearless, selfish, if selfishness is another word for ambition, considerate and kindly above all to his mother. The boy, like the man, was delightful to those who knew and understood him, 'startling' and 'alarming' to those who did not.