The military spirit clung to him through life, and he was ever in the habit of referring to his experience at West Point as if it were the one entirely satisfactory episode in his career. He called himself a “West-Pointer,” and insisted that the Academy was the one institution in the country the superiority of which to everything of its kind in the world was universally admitted.
“Why, you know, West Point is America.”
Though living in Paris at the time and the sympathy of all France was with Spain, he lost no opportunity for upholding the United States in the war. He could see no flaw in the attitude or the diplomacy of this country, and was especially eloquent over the treatment of Admiral Cervera after his defeat.
On the other hand, such was his ingrained dislike for England that he lost no opportunity for declaiming against her war in South Africa. He delighted in berating the English and in prodding any English sympathizer who happened in his way.
One day a friend from this side, of Irish birth, but who sided with England, was in his studio, and the discussion waxed warm until the visitor said:
“I’ll be dashed if I’ll talk with you, Whistler. What do you know about the matter? Nothing at all.”
After a short silence, Whistler said:
“But, I say, C——, do you remember how the Boers whipped the Dublin Fusileers?”
Whereupon the air became sulphurous.
The friend afterwards remarked: