The Life of James McNeill WhistlerPennell, Elizabeth Robins
General
The Life of James McNeill Whistler
Pennell, Elizabeth Robins
Whistler, James McNeill, 1834-1903
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.
[Illustration: LA MÈRE GÉRARD
OIL
In the possession of William Heinemann, Esq.
(_See page 39_)]
[Illustration: HEAD OF AN OLD MAN SMOKING
OIL
In the Musée du Luxembourg
(_See page 52_)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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