Whistler is an artist, and the soul of the man is revealed in his work—not in his hat, nor yet his bamboo cane, nor his long black coat, much less the language which he uses, Talleyrand-like, to conceal his thought. Art has been his wife, his children and his religion. Art has said to him, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and he has obeyed the mandate.
That picture of his mother in the Luxembourg is the most serious thing in the whole collection—so gentle, so modest, so appealing, so charged with tenderness. It is classed by the most competent critics of today along with the greatest works of the old masters. We find upon the official roster of the fine arts of France this tribute opposite the name of Whistler, "Portrait of the mother of the author, a masterpiece destined for the eternal admiration of future generations, combining in its tone-power and magnificence the qualities of a Rembrandt, a Titian, a Velasquez." The picture does not challenge you—you have to hunt it out, and you have to bring something to it, else 't will not reveal itself. There is no decrepitude in the woman's face and form, but someway you read into the picture the story of a great and tender love and a long life of useful effort. And now as the evening shadows gather, about to fade off into gloom, the old mother sits there alone, poised, serene: husband gone, children gone—her work is done. Twilight comes. She thinks of the past in gratitude, and gazes wistfully out into the future, unafraid. It is the tribute that every well-born son would like to pay to the mother who loved him into being, whose body nourished him, whose loving arms sustained him, whose unfaltering faith and appreciation encouraged him to do and to become. She was his wisest critic, his best friend—his mother!
The father of Whistler the artist, Major George Washington Whistler, was a graduate of West Point, and a member of the United States Corps of Engineers. He was an active, practical and useful man—a skilful draftsman and mathematician, and a man of affairs who could undertake a difficult task and carry it through to completion.
Such men are always needed, in the army and out of it. Responsibility gravitates to the man who can shoulder it. Such men as Major Whistler are not tied to a post—they go where they are needed.
When George Washington Whistler was a cadet at West Point, there came to visit the place Doctor Swift and his beautiful young daughter, Mary. She took the Military School by storm; at least, she held captive the hearts of all the young men there—so they said. And in very truth the heart of one young man was prisoner, for Major Whistler married Miss Swift soon after.
To them were born Deborah, the Major's only daughter, who married Doctor Seymour Hayden of London, a famous surgeon and still more famous etcher; George, who became an engineer and railway manager; and two years later, Joseph.
And when Joe was two years old, this beautiful wife, aged twenty- three, passed away, and young Major Whistler and his three babies were left alone.
At West Point Whistler had a friend named McNeill, son of Doctor C. D. McNeill, of Wilmington, North Carolina—a classmate—with whom he had been closely associated since graduation. McNeill had a sister, Anna Matilda, a great soul, serious and strong. At length Whistler took his motherless brood—including himself—to her and she accepted them all. I bow my head to the stepmother who loves into manhood and womanhood children whom another has loved into life. She must have a great heart already expanded by love to do this. Naturally the mother-love grows with the child—that is what children are for, to enlarge the souls of the parents. But at the beginning of womanhood, Anna Matilda McNeill was great enough to enfold in her heart and arms the children of the man she loved and make them hers.
In the year Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four, Major Whistler and his wife were living in Lowell, Massachusetts, where the Major was superintending the construction of the first of those wonderful waterways that tirelessly turn ten thousand spindles.
And Fate would have it so, that here at Lowell, in a little house on Worthing Street, was born the first of the five sons of Major Whistler and his wife, Anna Matilda. And they called the name of the child James Abbott McNeill Whistler—an awful big name for a very small baby.