Take a different case altogether, the Belt case, where all the Academicians went into the witness box, and asserted honestly enough that Belt was an impostor, yet the jury gave him a verdict of L5,000, though a year later he was sent to penal servitude for the very frauds which the jury in the first trial had declared by their verdict he had not committed.

An English law court is all very well for two average men, who are fighting an ordinary business dispute.
That's what it's made for, but to judge a Whistler or the ability or the immorality of an artist is to ask the court to do what it is wholly unfit to do.

There is not a judge on the bench whose opinion on such a matter is worth a moment's consideration, and the jury are a thousand years behind the judge." "That may be true, Frank; but I cannot help it." "Don't forget," I persisted, "all British prejudices will be against you.

Here is a father, the fools will say, trying to protect his young son.

If he has made a mistake, it is only through excess of laudable zeal; you would have to prove yourself a religious maniac in order to have any chance against him in England." "How terrible you are, Frank.