The Life of James McNeill Whistler. Joseph Pennell

"the Roman tradition almost as fine as the West Point tradition," and this was a concession. We never knew him to show the least desire to return to Lowell or Stonington, to Pomfret or Washington, but he said, "If I ever make the journey to America, I will go straight to Baltimore, then to West Point, and then sail for England again." One evening we asked him to meet an officer just from West Point. His interest could not have been keener, had he left the Academy the day before. He wanted to know about everything—the buildings, the life, the discipline. He deplored every innovation, always, above all, football: West Point to him was in danger when cadets could stoop to dispute "with college students for a dirty ball kicked round a muddy field." This was the shadow thrown over his pleasure when he heard of the pride the Academy took in claiming him, of his reputation there, of his drawings hanging in places of honour. It was the military side of the Academy, however, that stirred him to enthusiasm. His face fell when, asking the officer, who, like Major Whistler, was in the artillery, "Professor of Tactics, I suppose?" the officer answered, "No, of French." He showed his affection for the Military Academy by sending to the library a copy of Whistler v. Ruskin: Art and Art Critics, with autograph notes and on the title-page the inscription: "From an old cadet whose pride it is to remember his West Point days." This is signed with the butterfly, and newspaper cuttings about the trial are pasted at the end of the book. The authorities at West Point have honoured him by placing a memorial tablet, one of St. Gaudens' last works, in the library of the Academy, and at the suggestion of the late Major Zalinski, a number of American artists have given a series of works to the Academy in his honour. In this collection Whistler alone is not represented, we believe.

      But it needs more than respect and love for the Military Academy to make a soldier, and Whistler, like Poe before him, was an alien at West Point. It was no question of the number of his demerits, or of his ignorance of chemistry and history; he had something else to do in life.

      

CHAPTER V: THE COAST SURVEY.

       THE YEARS EIGHTEEN FIFTY-FOUR AND EIGHTEEN FIFTY-FIVE.

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      When Whistler left West Point in 1854 he had not only to face the disappointment of his mother, but to find another career. The plan now was to apprentice him to Mr. Winans, in the locomotive works at Baltimore.

      Mr. Frederick B. Miles writes us: "It was in 1854 that I first met Whistler in Baltimore, after he left West Point, at the house of Thomas Winans, who had returned from Russia. I was apprenticed to the loco. works of old Mr. Ross Winans, Thomas Winans' father. His elder brother, George Whistler, was a friend of my family; had been superintendent of the New York and New Haven Railroad, and had married Miss Julia Winans, sister of Thomas Winans, then came into the loco. works as partner and superintendent. I was in the drawing-room under him.

      "Whistler was staying with Tom Winans or his brother, George Whistler. They were perplexed at his 'flightiness'—wanted him to enter the loco. works. His younger brother William was an apprentice along with me. But Jem never really worked. He spent much of his several short stays and two long ones in Baltimore loitering about the drawing-office and shops, and at my drawing-desk in Tom Winans' house. We all had boards with paper, carefully stretched, which Jem would cover with sketches, to our great disgust, obliging us to stretch fresh ones, but we loved him all the same. He would also ruin all our best pencils, sketching not only on the paper, but also on the smoothly finished wooden backs of the drawing-boards, which, I think, he preferred to the paper side. We kept some of the sketches for a long time. I had a beauty—a cavalier in a dungeon cell, with one small window high up. In all his work at that time he was very Rembrandtesque, but, of course, only amateurish. Nevertheless he was studying and working out effects."

      Whistler saw enough of the locomotive works to know that he did not want to be an apprentice, and it was not long before he left Baltimore for Washington. To us he spoke as if he had gone to Washington straight from West Point. He was with us on the evening of September 15, 1900, after the news had come from the Transvaal of President Kruger's flight, and our talking of it led him back to West Point, and so to the story of his days in the service of the Government. He followed the Boer War with intense interest:

      "The Boers are as fine as the Southerners—their fighting would be no discredit to West Point," and he was indignant with us for looking upon Kruger's flight as diplomatically a blunder. "Diplomatically it was right, you know, the one thing Kruger should have done, just as, in that other amazing campaign, flight had been the one thing for Jefferson Davis, a Southern gentleman who had the code. I shall always remember the courtesy shown me by Jefferson Davis, through whom I got my appointment in the Coast Survey.

      "It was after my little difference with the Professor of Chemistry at West Point. The Professor would not agree with me that silicon was a gas, but declared it was a metal; and as we could come to no agreement in the matter, it was suggested—all in the most courteous and correct West Point way—that perhaps I had better leave the Academy. Well, you know, it was not a moment for the return of the prodigal to his family or for any slaying of fatted calves. I had to work, and I went to Washington. There I called at once on Jefferson Davis, who was Secretary of War—a West Point man like myself. He was most charming, and I—well, from my Russian cradle, I had an idea of things, and the interview was in every way correct, conducted on both sides with the utmost dignity and elegance. I explained my unfortunate difference with the Professor of Chemistry—represented that the question was one of no vital importance, while on all really important questions I had carried off more than the necessary marks. My explanation made, I suggested that I should be reinstated at West Point, in which case, as far as I was concerned, silicon should remain a metal. The Secretary, courteous to the end, promised to consider the matter, and named a day for a second interview.

      "Before I went back to the Secretary of War, I called on the Secretary of the Navy, also a Southerner, James C. Dobbin, of South Carolina, suggesting that I should have an appointment in the Navy. The Secretary objected that I was too young. In the confidence of youth, I said age should be no objection; I 'could be entered at the Naval Academy, and the three years at West Point could count at Annapolis.' The Secretary was interested, for he, too, had a sense of things. He regretted, with gravity, the impossibility. But something impressed him; for, later, he reserved one of six appointments he had to make in the marines and offered it to me. In the meantime, I had returned to the Secretary of War, who had decided that it was impossible to meet my wishes in the matter of West Point; West Point discipline had to be observed, and if one cadet were reinstated, a dozen others who had tumbled out after me would have to be reinstated too. But if I would call on Captain Benham, of the Coast Survey, a post might be waiting for me there."

      Captain Benham was a friend of his father, and Whistler was engaged in the drawing division of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, at the salary of a dollar and a half a day. This appointment he received on November 7, 1854, six months after he had left West Point. There was nothing to appeal to him in the routine of the office. What he had to do he did, but with no enthusiasm.

      "I was apt to be late, I was so busy socially. I lived in a small room, but it was amazing how I was asked and went everywhere—to balls, to the Legations, to all that was going on. Labouchere, an attaché at the British Legation, has never ceased to talk of me, so gay, and, when I had not a dress suit, pinning up the tails of my frock-coat, and turning it into a dress-coat for the occasion. Shocking!"

      Mr. Labouchere has told this story in a letter to us: "I did know Whistler very well in America about fifty years ago. But he was then a young man at Washington, who—if I remember rightly—had not been able to pass his examination at West Point and had given no indication of his future fame. He was rather hard up, I take it, for I remember that he pinned back the skirt of a frock-coat to make it pass as a dress-coat at evening parties. Washington was then a small place compared with what it is now, where everybody—so to say—knew everybody, and the social parties were of a simple character. This is really all that I remember of Whistler at that time, except that he was thought witty and paradoxically amusing!"

      But long before