bigot who denounces might learn a beautiful lesson from its calm, yet
earnest pages. It is free from the brilliant shallowness of Renan, and
the bitterness which sometimes marred the teachings of Parker. It is a
generous, tender, noble book,--enjoying, indeed, over most works of its
class a peculiar advantage; for, while its logic has everywhere a
masculine strength and clearness, there glows through all an element too
long wanting to our hard systems of theology,--an element which only
woman's heart can supply.
Yet, notwithstanding the lofty reason, the fine intuition, the
philanthropy and hope, which inspire its pages, we close the book with a
sense of something wanting. The author points out the danger there
always is of a faith which is intellectually demonstrable becoming, with
many, a faith of the intellect merely,--and frankly avows that "there is
a cause why Theism, even in warmer and better natures, too often fails
to draw out that fervent piety" which is characteristic of narrower and
intenser beliefs. This cause she traces to the neglect of prayer, and
the consequent removal afar off, to vague confines of consciousness, of
the Personality and Fatherhood of God. Her observations on this
important subject are worthy of serious consideration, from those
rationalists especially whose cold theories do not admit anything so
"unphilosophical" as prayer. Yet we find in the book itself a want. The
author--like nearly all writers from her point of view--ignores the
power of miracle. Because physical impossibilities, or what seem such,
have been so readily accepted as facts owing their origin to divine
interposition, they fall to the opposite extreme of denying the
occurrence of any events out of the common course of Nature's
operations. Of the positive and powerful ministration of angels in human
affairs they make no account whatever, or accept it as a pleasing dream;
and they forget that what we call a miracle may be as truly an offspring
of immutable law as the dew and the sunshine,--failing to learn of the
loadstone, which attracts to itself splinters of steel contrary to all
the commonly observed laws of gravitation, the simple truth that man
also may become a magnet, and, by the power of the divine currents
passing through him, do many things astonishing to every-day experience.
The feats of a vulgar thaumaturgy, designed to make the ignorant stare,
may well be dispensed with. But the fact that "spiritualism," with all
its crudities of doctrine and errors of practice, has spread over
Christendom with a rapidity to which the history of religious beliefs
affords no parallel, shows that the realization of supernatural
influences is an absolute need of the human heart. The soul of the
earlier forms of worship dies out of them, as this faith dies out, or
becomes merely traditional; and no new system can look to fill their
places without it.
_Letters of_ FELIX MENDELSSOHN BARTHOLDY _from 1833 to
1847._ Two Volumes. Philadelphia: F. Leypoldt.
There are many people who make very little discrimination between one
musician and another,--who discern no great gulf between Mendelssohn and
Meyerbeer, between Rossini and Romberg, between Spohr and Spontini: not
in respect of music, but of character; of character in itself, and not
as it may develop itself in chaste or florid, sentimental, gay,
devotional or dramatic musical forms. And as yet we have very little
help in our efforts to gain insight into the inner nature of our great
musical artists. Of Meyerbeer the world knows that he was vain, proud,
and fond of money,--but whether he had soul or not we do not know; the
profound religiousness of Handel, who spent his best years on
second-rate operas, and devoted his declining energies to oratorio, we
have to guess at rather than reach by direct disclosure; and till Mr.
Thayer shall take away the mantle which yet covers his Beethoven, we
shall know but little of the interior nature of that wonderful man. But
Mendelssohn now stands before us, disclosed by the most searching of all
processes, his own letters to his own friends. And how graceful, how
winning, how true, tender, noble is the man! We have not dared to write
a notice of these two volumes while we were fresh from their perusal,
lest the fascination of that genial, Christian presence should lead us
into the same frame which prompted not only the rhapsodies of "Charles
Auchester," but the same passionate admiration which all England felt,
while Mendelssohn lived, and which Elizabeth Sheppard shared, not led.
We lay down these volumes after the third perusal, blessing God for the
rich gift of such a life,--a life, sweet, gentle, calm, nowise intense
nor passionate, yet swift, stirring, and laborious even to the point of
morbidness. A Christian without cant; a friend, not clinging to a few
and rejecting the many, nor diffusing his love over the many with no
dominating affection for a few near ones, but loving his own with a
tenacity almost unparalleled, yet reaching out a free, generous sympathy
and kindly devotion even to the hundreds who could give him nothing but
their love. It is thought that his grief over his sister Fanny was the
occasion of the rupture of a blood-vessel in his head, and that it was
the proximate cause of his own death; and yet he who loved with this
idolatrous affection gave his hand to many whose names he hardly knew.
The reader will not overlook, in the second series of letters, the plea
in behalf of an old Swiss guide for remembrance in "Murray," nor that
long letter to Mr. Simrock, the music-publisher, enjoining the utmost
secrecy, and then urging the claims of a man whom he was most desirous
to help.
The letters from Italy and Switzerland were written during the two years
with which he prefaced his quarter-century of labor as composer,
director, and virtuoso. They relate much to Italian painting, the music
of Passion Week, Swiss scenery, his stay with Goethe, and his brilliant
reception in England on his return. They disclose a youth of glorious
promise.
The second series does not disappoint that promise. The man is the youth
a little less exuberant, a little more mature, but no less buoyant,
tender, and loving. The letters are as varied as the claims of one's
family differ from those of the outside world, but are always
Mendelssohnian,--free, pure, unworldly, yet deep and wise. They continue
down to the very close of his life. They are edited by his brother Paul,
and another near relative. Yet unauthorized publications of other
letters will follow, for Mendelssohn was a prolific letter-writer; and
Lampadius, a warm admirer of the composer, has recently announced such a
volume. The public may rejoice in this; for Mendelssohn was not only
purity, but good sense itself; he needs no critical editing; and if we
may yet have more strictly musical letters from his pen, the influence
of the two volumes now under notice will be largely increased.
It is not enough to say of these volumes that they are bright, piquant,
genial, affectionate; nor is it enough to speak of their artistic
worth, the subtile appreciation of painting in the first series, and of
music in the second; it is not enough to refer to the glimpses which
they give of eminent artists,--Chopin, Rossini, Donizetti, Hiller, and
Moscheles,--nor the side-glances at Thorwaldsen, Bunsen, the late
scholarly and art-loving King of Prussia, Schadow, Overbeck, Cornelius,
and the Duesseldorf painters; nor is it enough to dwell upon that
delightful homage to father and mother, that confiding trust in brother
and sisters, that loyalty to friends. The salient feature of these
charming books is the unswerving devotion to a great purpose; the
careless disregard, nay, the abrupt refusal, of fame, unless it came in
an honest channel; the naive modesty that made him wonder, even in the
very last years of his life, that _he_ could be the man whose entrance
into the crowded halls of London and Birmingham should be the signal of
ten minutes' protracted cheering; the refusal to set art over against
money; the unwillingness to undertake the mandates of a king, unless
with the cordial acquiescence of his artistic conscience; and the
immaculate purity, not alone of his life, but of his thought. How he
castigates Donizetti's love of money and his sloth! how his whip
scourges the immorality of the French opera, and his whole soul abhors
the sensuality of that stage! how steadfastly he refuses to undertake
the composition of an opera till the faultless libretto for which he
patiently waited year after year could be prepared! We wish our
religious societies would call out a few of the letters of this man and
scatter them broadcast over the land: they would indeed be "leaves for
the healing of the nations."
There is one lesson which may be learned from Mendelssohn's career,
which is exceptionably rare: it is that Providence does _sometimes_
bless a man every way,--giving him all good and no evil. Where shall we
look in actual or historic experience to find a parallel to Mendelssohn
in this? He had beauty: Chorley says he never looked upon a handsomer
face. He had grace and elegance. He spoke four languages with perfect
ease, read Greek and Latin with facility, drew skilfully, was familiar
with the sciences, and never found himself at a loss with professed
naturalists. He was a member of one of the most distinguished families
of Germany: his grandfather being Moses Mendelssohn, the philosopher;
his father, a leading banker; his uncle Bartholdy, a great patron of art
in Rome, while he was Prussian minister there; his brother-in-law
Hensel, Court painter; both his sisters and his brother Paul occupying
leading social positions. He was heir-apparent to a great estate. He was
greeted with the applause of England from the outset of his career;
"awoke famous," after the production of the "Midsummer Overture," while
almost a boy; never had a piece fall short of triumphant success; in
fact, so commanding prestige that he could find not one who would
rationally blame or criticize him,--a "most wearying" thing, he writes,
that every piece he brought out was always "wonderfully fine." He was
loved by all, and envied by none; the pet and joy of Goethe, who lived
to see his expectation of Mendelssohn on the road to ample fulfilment;
blessed entirely in his family, "the course of true love" running
"smooth" from beginning to end; well, agile, strong; and more than all
this, having a childlike religious faith in Christ, and as happy as a
child in his piety. His life was cloudless; those checks and
compensations with which Providence breaks up others' lot were wanting
to his. We never knew any one like him in this, but the childlike, sunny
Carl Ritter.
We still lack a biography of Mendelssohn which shall portray him from
without, as these volumes do from within. We learn that one is in
preparation; and when that is given to the public, one more rich life
will be embalmed in the memories of all good men.
We ought not to overlook the unique elegance of these two volumes. Like
all the publications of Mr. Leypoldt, they are printed in small, round
letter; and the whole appearance is creditable to the publisher's taste.
The American edition entirely eclipses the English in this regard.
Though not advertised profusely, the merit of these Letters has already
given them entrance and welcome into our most cultivated circles: but we
bespeak for them a larger audience still; for they are books which our
young men, our young women, our pastors, our whole thoughtful and
aspiring community, ought to read and circulate.
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