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Mr. Whistler Regrets. Even time stood still for father Sitwell. In the late '20s he suggested throwing an "Artists' Party," was vexed to hear that all his intended guests (Sargent, Rodin, Renoir, Whistler, Degas) were too dead to attend. As for his children's literary efforts, he either maddened them by rewriting their poems ("Two brains, dear boy, are better than one"), or warned them, against literary excess ("My cousin . . . had a friend who killed himself by writing a novel"). One paternal judgment on his gifted daughter: "Edith made a great mistake by not going in for lawn tennis."
Nothing really affected father Sitwell's innate dignity—not even his habit of crawling on all fours around his house, a Malacca cane clenched between his teeth, in order to observe his latest building schemes from a fresh angle. But once, as Osbert remembers it, he did demean his noble station—when his butler, whose wages were overdue, politely requested an accounting. Shocked to the core by this impudence, Sir George stalked the shrinking varlet slowly across the room, finally whispered in his ear the terrible words: "Shut your ugly mug, can't you?"