“There was nothing in the malicious innuendo anyway, for, you know, those regiments are recruited from all quarters, and there may not have been a single Irishman in the Fusileers at the time of the fight.”
Whistler held some extraordinary opinions concerning the Dreyfus case, the outcome of his strong military bias.
It did not matter to him whether the accused was guilty or not, the prestige of the army must be maintained, even at the sacrifice of the innocent,—the view which led the military section of France to such violent extremes against Dreyfus,—and Whistler resented the assaults upon the army as treachery to the most sacred institution of the state.
To the civilian this military bias which leads men in all countries to such extremes in judgments and actions is incomprehensible. The attitude of the military mind towards the ordinary problems of life, towards the faults and failings of men, towards petty transgressions and disobediences, towards rank, routine, and discipline, towards the courtesies and sympathies and affections which are the leavening influences of life, cannot be understood by the lay mind. The soldier’s training and occupation are such that he does not think, feel, and act as an ordinary man; his standards, convictions, and ethics are fundamentally different; so different that he requires his own territory, his own laws, and his own tribunals. With the soldier the maxim of ordinary justice that it is better that ten guilty should go free than one innocent be condemned is reversed.
By birth, by tradition, by association, Whistler was thoroughly saturated with this spirit; and it affected his conduct and his attitude towards people throughout his life. It accounts for much of the impatience, the arrogance, the intolerance, the combativeness, the indifference to the feelings of others with which he is charged, or rather overcharged, for much of what is said is exaggeration.
No man can be reared in an atmosphere of authority and blind obedience to authority without losing something of that give-and-take spirit which softens life’s asperities.
Therefore, in any estimate of Whistler’s character and of his conduct towards others, the influence of these very unusual early associations and conditions must be taken into account and due allowance made.
III
An American—The Puritan Element—Attitude of England and France—Racial and Universal Qualities in Art—Art-Loving Nations.
Of Whistler’s innate and aggressive Americanism this is the place to speak.