According to Colonel Larned, Whistler then appealed to General Lee, but Lee answered, "I can only regret that one so capable of doing well should so have neglected himself, and must suffer the penalty."
Another story is of an examination in history. "What!" said his examiner, "you do not know the date of the battle of Buena Vista? Suppose you were to go out to dinner, and the company began to talk of the Mexican War, and you, a West Point man, were asked the date of the battle, what would you do?" "Do," said Whistler, "why, I should refuse to associate with people who could talk of such things at dinner!"
Whistler's horsemanship was little better. It was not unusual, General Webb says, for him at cavalry drill to go sliding over his horse's head. Then Major Sackett, the commander, would call out: "Mr. Whistler, aren't you a little ahead of the squad?" Whistler said to us Major Sackett's remark was: "Mr. Whistler, I am pleased to see you for once at the head of your class!" "But I did it gracefully," he insisted. There are traditions of his fall when trotting in his first mounted drill, and the astonishment of the dragoon who ran to carry him off to hospital, when he rose unhurt with the complaint that he didn't "see how any man could keep a horse for amusement." Once Whistler had to ride a horse called "Quaker." "Dragoon, what horse is this?" "'Quaker,'" said the soldier "Well, he's no friend!" said Whistler.
His observance of the regulations was often as bad as his horsemanship, and his excuses worse. General Ruggles, a classmate, tells of the discovery of a pair of boots which were against the regulations, and of his writing a long explanation, winding up with the argument that, as this demerit added but a little to the whole number, "what boots it?"
General Langdon writes us: "The widow of a Colonel Thompson occupied a set of officer's quarters at the 'Point,' and, to eke out her pension, was allowed to take ten or twelve cadets to board. Very soon after his admission to the Academy Whistler discovered that the fare of the cadets was not of his taste, and he applied for permission to take his meals at Mrs. Thompson's. Now, though her house was in the row of officers' quarters and the nearest to the cadet barracks, it was 'off cadet limits,' except for the boarders at meals. One evening, long after supper, Whistler was discovered by Mrs. Thompson, leaning over her fence, talking with her pretty French maid. Mrs. Thompson inquired his business there. Whistler replied: 'I am looking for my cat!' It was well known that cadets were not allowed to keep cats, dogs, or other beasts. The old lady nearly had a fit. As soon as she could recover she gasped out: 'Young man, go 'way!' and sent her pretty maid indoors. Of course, Whistler took no more meals at Mrs. Thompson's, but in the mess hall, where the fare in those days was far from inviting."
Whistler told Sir Rennell Rodd another story: "The cadets were out early one morning, engaged in surveying. It was cold and raw, and Jimmy, finding a line of deep ditch through which he could make a retiring movement, got back into college and his warm quarters unperceived. By accident a roll-call was held that morning. Cadet Whistler not being present, a report was drawn up and his name was sent to the commanding officer as absent from parade without the knowledge or permission of his instructor. The report was shown him, and he said to the instructor: 'Have I your permission to speak?' 'Speak on, Cadet Whistler.' 'You have reported me, sir, for being absent from parade without the knowledge or permission of my instructor. Well, now, if I was absent without your knowledge or permission, how did you know I was absent?' They got into terms after that, and the incident closed."
The stories of Whistler at West Point might be multiplied. Many have been published. The few we tell show that at the Military Academy, as everywhere, he left his mark. We have a stronger proof in the letters written to us by officers who were his fellow cadets. It is half a century since they and Whistler were together, and, with one exception, they never saw him in later years, yet their memory of him is fresh. General D. McN. Gregg and General C. B. Comstock, his classmates, General Loomis L. Langdon, General Henry L. Abbott, General Oliver Otis Howard, General G. W. C. Lee, in the class before his, have sent us their recollections. These distinguished officers agree in their affection and their appreciation of him. He was "a vivacious and likeable little fellow," General Comstock says, and we get a picture of him, short and slight, not over military in his bearing, somewhat foreign in appearance, near-sighted, and with thick, black curls that won him the name of "Curly." Others remember his wit, his pranks, his fondness for cooking and the excellence of his dishes; his excursions "after taps," for buckwheat cakes and oysters or ice-cream and soda-water to Joe's, and, for heavier fare, to Benny Haven's a mile away, a serious offence; they remember his indifference to discipline, and the number of his demerits, which they excuse as "not indicating any moral obliquity," but due to such harmless faults as "lates," "absences," "clothing out of order"; most of all, they remember his drawings—his caricatures of the cadets, the Board of Visitors, the masters, his sketches scribbled over his text-books, his illustrations to Dickens, Dumas, Victor Hugo. General Langdon recalls a picture that he and Whistler painted together. Whistler gave these drawings away, and many have been preserved. Even the cover of a geometry book, on which he sketched and noted bets with General Webb, was kept by his room-mate, Frederick L. Childs—Les Enfants Whistler called him.
[Pg 24a]
LA MÈRE GÉRARD
OIL
In the possession of William Heinemann, Esq.
[Pg 24b]
HEAD OF AN OLD MAN SMOKING
OIL
In the Musée du Luxembourg
Whistler looked back to West Point with equal affection. He failed, but West Point was the basis of his code of conduct. As a "West Point man" he met every emergency, and his bearing, his carriage, showed the influence of those days when he liked to look back to himself "very dandy in grey." For the discipline, the tradition, the tone of the Academy he never lost his respect. He knew what it could do in making men of boys. "From the moment we came," he said to us, "we were United States officers, not schoolboys, not college students. We were ruled, not by little school or college rules, but by our honour, by our deference to the unwritten law of tradition." He resented the least innovation that threatened the hold of this tradition over the cadets. "To take a cadet into court was destruction to the morale of West Point; it was such a disgrace to offend against the unwritten laws that the offender's career was ruined." In the most trivial matters he deplored deviation from the old standard. That was the reason of his indignation when he heard that cadets were playing football, and, worse, playing against college teams; to put themselves on the level of students "was beneath the dignity of officers of the United States." During our war with Spain, and the Boers' struggle in South Africa, there was not an event, not a rumour, that he did not refer to West Point and its code. The Spanish War, though, "no doubt, we should never have gone into it, was the most wonderful, the most beautiful war since Louis XIV. Never in modern times has there been such a war; it was conducted on correct West Point principles, with the most perfect courtesy and dignity on both sides, and the greatest chivalry." When he came back to London from Corsica in 1901, and was telling us of the people and the way they clung to old custom and ceremonial,