five numbers! Suppose we figure a little on this subject:
EXHIBIT A--SYMPHONY.
Total number of minutes . . . . . . . . . . 150
Total number of pieces . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Minutes to each piece . . . . . . . . . . . 30
EXHIBIT B--TRADE.
Total number of minutes . . . . . . . . . . 150
Hog-slaughtering capacity per minute . . . . 3
Total killing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Figures will not lie, because (as was the reason with George) they
cannot. And figures prove to us, that, in the time consumed by five
symphonic numbers, the startling number of four hundred and fifty hogs
could be (and are daily) slaughtered, scraped, disembowelled, hewn, and
packed. While forty or fifty able-bodied musicians are discoursing
Beethoven's rambling "Eroica," it were possible to dispatch and to
dress a carload of as fine beeves as ever hailed from Texas; and the
performance of the "Sakuntala" overture might be regarded as a virtual
loss of as much time as would be required for the beheading, skinning,
and dismembering of two hundred head of sheep.
These comparisons have probably never occurred to Mr. Thomas or to Mr.
Gericke; but they are urged by the patrons of music in Chicago, and
therefore they must needs be recognized by the caterers to popular
tastes. Chicago society has been founded upon industry, and the
culture which she now boasts is conserved only by the strictest
attention to business. Nothing is more criminal hereabouts than a
waste of time; and it is no wonder, then, that the creme de la creme of
our elite lift up their hands, and groan, when they discover that it
takes as long to play a classic symphony as it does to slaughter a
carload of Missouri razor-backs, or an invoice of prairie-racers from
Kansas.
LEARNING AND LITERATURE
R. J. N. Whiting writes us from New Litchfield, Ill., asking if we can
tell him the name of the author of the poem, of which the following is
the first stanza:--
The weary heart is a pilgrim
Seeking the Mecca of rest;
Its burden is one of sorrows;
And it wails a song as it drags along,--
'Tis the song of a hopeless quest.
Mr. Whiting says that this poem has been attributed to James Channahon,
a gentleman who flourished about the year 1652; "but," he adds, "its
authorship has not as yet been established with any degree of
certainty." Mr. Whiting has noticed that the "Daily News" is a
"criterion on matters of literary interest," and he craves the boon of
our valuable opinion, touching this important question.
Now, although it is true that we occasionally deal with obsolete
topics, it is far from our desire to make a practice of so doing. It
is natural that, once in a while, when an editor gets hold of a
catalogue of unusual merit, and happens to have a line of
encyclopaedias at hand--it is natural, we say, that, under such
circumstances, an editor should take pleasure in letting his
subscribers know how learnedly he can write about books and things.
But an editor must be careful not to write above the comprehension of
the majority of his readers. If we made a practice of writing as
learnedly as we are capable of writing, the proprietors of this paper
would soon have to raise its price from two cents to five cents per
copy.
We say this in no spirit of egotism; it is simply our good fortune that
we happen to possess extraordinary advantages. We have the best
assortment of cyclopaedias in seven states, and the Public Library is
only two blocks off. It is no wonder, therefore, that our erudition
and our research are of the highest order.
Still it is not practicable that we, being now on earth, should devote
much time to delving into, and wallowing among, the authors of past
centuries. Ignatius Donnelly has been trying for the last three years
to inveigle us into a discussion as to the authorship of Shakespeare's
plays. We have declined to participate in any public brawl with the
Minnesota gentleman, for the simple reason that no good could accrue
therefrom to anybody. If there were an international copyright law,
there would be some use in trying to find out who wrote these plays, in
order that the author might claim royalties on his works; or, if not
the author, his heirs or assigns forever.
Mr. Whiting will understand that we cannot take much interest in an
anonymous hymn of the seventeenth century. It is enough for us to know
that the hymn in question could not have been written by a Chicago man,
for the very good reason that Chicago did not exist in the seventeenth
century; that is to say, it existed merely as the haunt of the musquash
and the mud-turtle, and not as the living, breathing metropolis of
to-day. We have our hands full examining into, and criticising, the
live topics of current times: if we were to spend our days and nights
in hunting up the estray poets and authors of the seventeenth century,
how long would it be before the sceptre of trade and culture would slip
irrecoverably from Chicago's grasp?
Chicago has very little respect for the seventeenth century, because
there is nothing in it. The seventeenth century has done nothing for
Chicago: she does not even know that this is the greatest hog-market in
the world, and she has never had any commercial dealings with us in any
line. If Chicago does n't cut a wider swath in history than the
seventeenth century has, we shall be very much ashamed of her.
"DIE WALKUeRE" UND DER BOOMERANGELUNGEN
There is a strange fascination about Herr Wagner's musical drama of
"Die Walkuere." A great many people have supposed that Herr Sullivan's
opera of "Das Pinafore" was the most remarkable musical work extant,
but we believe the mistake will become apparent as Herr Wagner's
masterpiece grows in years.
We will not pretend to say that "Die Walkuere" will ever be whistled
about the streets, as the airs from "Das Pinafore" are whistled; the
fact is, that no rendition of "Die Walkuere" can be satisfactory without
the accompaniment of weird flashes of fire; and it is hardly to be
expected that our youth will carry packages of lycopodium, and boxes of
matches, around with them, for the sole purpose of giving the desired
effect to any snatches from Herr Wagner's work they may take the notion
to whistle. But in the sanctity of our homes, around our firesides, in
the front-parlor, where the melodeon or the newly hired piano has been
set up, it is there that Herr Wagner's name will be revered, and his
masterpiece repeated o'er and o'er. The libretto is not above
criticism; it strikes us that there is not enough of it. The
probability is that Herr Wagner ran out of libretto before he had got
through with his music, and therefore had to spread out comparatively
few words over a vast expanse of music. The result is that a great
part of the time the performers are on the stage is devoted to thought,
the orchestra doing a tremendous amount of fiddling, etc., while the
actors wander drearily around, with their arms folded across their
pulmonary departments, and their minds evidently absorbed in profound
cogitation.
As for the music, the only criticism we have to pass upon it is that it
changes its subject too often; in this particular it resembles the
dictionary,--in fact, we believe "Die Walkuere" can be termed the
Webster's Unabridged of musical language. Herr Wagner has his own way
of doing business. He goes at it on the principle of the twelfth man,
who holds out against the eleven other jurors, and finally brings them
around to his way of thinking.
For instance, in the midst of a pleasing strain in B natural, Herr
Wagner has a habit of suddenly bringing out a small reed-instrument
with a big voice (we do not know its name), piped in the key of F
sharp. This small reed-instrument will not let go; it holds on to that
F sharp like a mortgage. For a brief period the rest of the
instruments--fiddles, bassoons, viols, flutes, flageolets, cymbals,
drums, etc.--struggle along with an attempt to either drown the
intruder, or bring it around to their way of doing business; but it is
vain. Every last one of them has to slide around from B natural to F
sharp, and they do it as best they can.
Having accomplished its incendiary and revolutionary purpose, the small
reed-instrument subsides until it finds another chance to break out.
It is a mugwump.
Die Walkueren, as given us by the Damrosch Company, are nine stout,
comely young women, attired in costumes somewhat similar to the armor
worn by Herr Lawrence Barrett's Roman army in Herr Shakespeare's play
of "Der Julius Caesar." Readers of Norse mythology may suppose that
these weird sisters were dim, vague, shadowy creatures; but they are
mistaken. Brunhilde has the embonpoint of a dowager, and her arms are
as robust and red as a dairy-maid's.
As for Gerhilde, Waltraute, Helmwige, and the rest, they are well-fed,
buxom ladies, evidently of middle age, whose very appearance exhales an
aroma of kraut and garlic, which, by the way, we see by the libretto,
was termed "mead" in the days of Wotan and his court. These Die
Walkueren are said to ride fiery, untamed steeds; but only one steed is
exhibited in the drama as it is given at the Columbia. This steed, we
regret to say, is a restless, noisy brute, and invariably has to be led
off the stage by one of das supes, before his act concludes.
However, no one should doubt his heroic nature, inasmuch as the
cabalistic letters "U. S." are distinctly branded upon his left flank.
The Sieglinde of the piece is Fraeulein Slach, a young lady no bigger
than a minute, but with wonderful powers of endurance. To say nothing
of Hunding's persecutions, she has to shield Siegmund, elope with him,
climb beetling precipices, ride Brunhilde's fiery, untamed steed,
confront die Walkueren, and look on her slain lover, and, in addition to
these prodigies, participate in a Graeco-Roman wrestling-match with an
orchestra of sixty-five pieces for three hours and a half.
Yet she is equal to the emergency. Up to the very last she is as fresh
as a daisy; and, after recovering from her swooning-spell in the second
act, she braces her shoulders back, and dances all around the top notes
of the chromatic scale with the greatest of ease. She is a wonderful
little woman, is Fraeulein Slach! What a wee bit of humanity, yet what
a volume of voice she has, and what endurance!
Down among the orchestra people sat a pale, sad man. His apparent
lonesomeness interested us deeply. We could not imagine what he was
there for. Every once in a while he would get up and leave the
orchestra, and dive down under the stage, and appear behind the scenes,
where we could catch glimpses of him practising with a pair of
thirty-pound dumb-bells, and testing a spirometer. Then he would come
back and re-occupy his old seat among the orchestra, and look paler and
sadder than ever. What strange, mysterious being was he? Why did he
inflict his pale, sad presence upon that galaxy of tuneful revellers?
What a cunning master the great Herr Wagner is! For what emergency
does he not provide? It was half-past eleven when the third act began.
Die Walkueren had assembled in the dismal dell,--all but the den
Walkuere, Brunhilde. Wotan is approaching on appalling storm-clouds,
composed of painted mosquito-bars and blue lights. The sheet-iron
thunder crashes; and the orchestra is engaged in another mortal combat
with that revolutionary mugwump, the small reed-instrument, that
persists in reforming the tune of the opera.
Then the pale, sad man produces a large brass horn, big enough at the
business end for a cow to walk into. It is a fearful, ponderous
instrument, manufactured especially for "Die Walkuere" at the Krupp Gun
Factory in Essen. It has an appropriate name: the master himself
christened it the boomerangelungen. It is the monarch, the Jumbo of
all musical instruments. The cuspidor end of it protrudes into one of
the proscenium-boxes. The fair occupants of the box are frightened,
and timidly shrink back.
Wotan is at hand. He comes upon seven hundred yards of white tarletan,
and fourteen pounds of hissing, blazing lycopodium! The pale, sad man
at the other end of the boomerangelungen explains his wherefore. He
applies his lips to the brazen monster. His eyeballs hang out upon his
cheeks, the veins rise on his neck, and the lumpy cords and muscles
stand out on his arms and hands. Boohoop, boohoop!--yes, six times
boohoop does that brazen megatherium blare out, vivid and distinct,
above all the other sixty instruments in the orchestra. Then the white
tarletan clouds vanish, the blazing lycopodium goes out, and Wotan
stands before the excited spectators.
Then the pale, sad man lays down the boomerangelungen, and goes home.
That is all he has to do; the six sonorous boohoops, announcing the
presence of Wotan, is all that is demanded of the boomerangelungen.
But it is enough: it is marvellous, appalling, prodigious.
Whose genius but Herr Wagner's could have found employment for the
boomerangelungen? We hear talk of the sword motive, the love motive,
the Walhalla motive, and this motive, and that; but they all shrink
into nothingness when compared with the motive of the boomerangelungen.
THE WORKS OF SAPPHO
It would be hard to say whether Chicago society is more deeply
interested in the circus which is exhibiting on the lake-front this
week, than in the compilation of Sappho's complete works just published
in London, and but this week given to the trade in Chicago. As we
understand it, Sappho and the circus had their beginning about the same
time: if any thing, the origin of the circus antedated Sappho's birth
some years, and has achieved the more wide-spread popularity.
In the volume now before us, we learn that Sappho lived in the seventh
century before Christ, and that she was at the zenith of her fame at
the time when Tarquinius Priscus was king of Rome, and Nebuchadnezzar
was subsisting on a hay-diet. It appears that, despite her wisdom,
this talented lady did not know who her father was; seventeen hundred
years after her demise, one Suidas claimed to have discovered that
there were seven of her father; but Herodotus gives the name of the
gentleman most justly suspected as Scamandronymus. Be this as it may,
Sappho married a rich man, and subsequently fell in love with a dude
who cared nothing for her; whereupon the unfortunate woman, without
waiting to compile her writings, and without even indicating whom she
preferred for her literary executor, committed suicide by hurling
herself from a high precipice into the sea. Sappho was an exceedingly
handsome person, as we see by the engraving which serves as the
frontispiece of the work before us. This engraving, as we understand,
was made from a portrait painted from life by a contemporaneous old
Grecian artist, one Alma Tadema.
Still, we could not help wondering, as we saw the magnificent pageant
of Forepaugh's circus sweep down our majestic boulevards and superb
thoroughfares yesterday; as we witnessed this imposing spectacle, we
say, we could not help wondering how many people in all the vast crowds
of spectators knew that there ever was such a poetess as Sappho, or how
many, knowing that there was such a party, have ever read her works.
It has been nearly a year since a circus came to town; and in that time
public taste has been elevated to a degree by theatrical and operatic
performers, such as Sara Bernhardt, Emma Abbott, Murray and Murphy,
Adele Patti, George C. Miln, Helena Modjeska, Fanny Davenport, and
Denman Thompson.
Of course, therefore, our public has come to be able to appreciate with
a nicer discrimination and a finer zest the intellectual _morceaux_ and
the refined tidbits which Mr. Forepaugh's unparalleled aggregation
offers. This was apparent in the vast numbers and in the unbridled
enthusiasm of our best citizens gathered upon the housetops and at the
street-corners along the line of the circus procession. So magnificent
a display of silks, satins, and diamonds has seldom been seen: it truly
seemed as if the fashion and wealth of our city were trying to vie with
the splendors of the glittering circus pageant. In honor of the event,
many of the stores, public buildings, and private dwellings displayed
banners, mottoes, and congratulatory garlands. From the balcony of the
palatial edifice occupied by one of our leading literary clubs was
suspended a large banner of pink silk, upon which appeared the word
"Welcome" in white; while beneath, upon a scroll, was an appropriate
couplet from one of Robert Browning's poems.
When we asked one of the members of this club why the club made such a
fuss over the circus, he looked very much astonished; and he answered,
"Well, why not? Old Forepaugh is worth over a million dollars, and he
always sends us complimentaries whenever he comes to town!"
We asked this same gentleman if he had read the new edition of Sappho's
poems. We had a good deal of confidence in his literary judgment and
taste, because he is our leading linseed-oil dealer; and no man in the
West is possessed of more enterprise and sand than he.
"My daughter brought home a copy of the book Saturday," said he, "and I
looked through it yesterday. Sappho may suit some cranks; but as for
me, give me Ella Wheeler or Will Carleton. I love good poetry: I 've
got the finest-bound copy of Shakespeare in Illinois, and my edition of
Coleridge will knock the socks off any book in the country. My wife
has painted all the Doray illustrations of the Ancient Marine, and I
would n't swap that book for the costliest Mysonyay in all Paris!
"I can't see where the poetry comes in," he went on to say. "So far as
I can make out, this man Sapolio--I mean Sappho--never did any
sustained or consecutive work. His poems read to me a good deal like a
diary. Some of them consist of one line only, and quite a number have
only three words. Now, I will repeat five entire poems taken from this
fool-book: I learned them on purpose to repeat at the club. Here is
the first,--
"Me just now the golden-sandalled Dawn.
"That 's all there is to it. Here's the second:
"I yearn and seek.
"A third is complete in--
"Much whiter than an egg;
and the fourth is,--
"Stir not the shingle,
which, I take it, was one of Sapphire's juvenile poems addressed to his
mother. The fifth poem is simply,--
"And thou thyself, Calliope,
which, by the way, reminds me that Forepaugh's calliope got smashed up
in a railroad accident night before last,--a circumstance deeply to be
regretted, since there is no instrument calculated to appeal more
directly to one versed in mythological lore, or more likely to awaken a
train of pleasing associations, than the steam-calliope."
A South-Side packer, who has the largest library in the city, told us
that he had not seen Sappho's works yet, but that he intended to read
them at an early date. "I 've got so sick of Howells and James," said
he, "that I 'm darned glad to hear that some new fellow has come to the
front."
Another prominent social light (a brewer) said that he had bought a
"Sappho," and was having it bound in morocco, with turkey-red
trimmings. "I do enjoy a handsome book," said he. "One of the most
valuable volumes in my library I bought of a leading candy-manufacturer
in this city. It is the original libretto and score of the 'Songs of
Solomon,' bound in the tanned pelt of the fatted calf that was killed
when the prodigal son came home."
"I have simply glanced through the Sappho book," said another
distinguished representative of local culture; "and what surprised me,
was the pains that has been taken in getting up the affair. Why, do
you know, the editor has gone to the trouble of going through the book,
and translating every darned poem into Greek! Of course, this strikes
us business-men of Chicago as a queer bit of pedantry."
The scholarly and courtly editor of the "Weekly Lard Journal and
Literary Companion," Professor A. J. Lyvely, criticised Sappho very
freely as he stood at the corner of Clark and Madison Streets, waiting
for the superb gold chariot drawn by twenty milk-white steeds, and
containing fifty musicians, to come along. "Just because she lived in
the dark ages," said he, "she is cracked up for a great poet; but she
will never be as popular with the masses of Western readers as Ella
Wheeler and Marion Harland are. All of her works that remain to us are
a few fragments, and they are chestnuts; for they have been printed
within the last ten years in the books of a great many poets I could
name, and I have read them. We know very little of Sappho's life. If
she had amounted to much, we would not be in such ignorance of her
doings. The probability is that she was a society or fashion editor on
one of the daily papers of her time,--a sort of Clara-Belle woman,
whose naughtiness was mistaken for a species of intellectual
brilliancy. Sappho was a gamey old girl, you know. Her life must have
been a poem of passion, if there is any truth in the testimony of the
authorities who wrote about her several centuries after her death. In
fact, these verses of hers that are left indicate that she was addicted
to late suppers, to loose morning-gowns, to perfumed stationery, and to
hysterics. It is ten to one that she wore flaming bonnets and striking
dresses; that she talked loud at the theatres and in public generally;
and that she chewed gum, and smoked cigarettes, when she went to the
races. If that woman had lived in Chicago, she would have been
tabooed."
The amiable gentleman who reads manuscripts for Rand, McNally & Co.
says that Sappho's manuscripts were submitted to him a year ago. "I
looked them over, and satisfied myself that there was nothing in them;
and I told the author so. He seemed inclined to dispute me, but I told
him I reckoned I understood pretty well what would sell in our literary
circles and on our railroad-trains."
But while there was a pretty general disposition to criticise Sappho,
there was only one opinion as to the circus-parade; and that was
complimentary. For the nonce, we may say, the cares and vexations of
business, of literature, of art, and of science, were put aside; and
our populace abandoned itself to a hearty enjoyment of the brilliant
pageant which appealed to the higher instincts. And, as the cage
containing the lions rolled by, the shouts of the enthusiastic
spectators swelled above the guttural roars of the infuriate monarchs
of the desert. Men waved their hats, and ladies fluttered their
handkerchiefs. Altogether, the scene was so exciting as to be equalled
only by the rapturous ovation which was tendered Mdlle. Hortense de
Vere, queen of the air, when that sylph-like lady came out into the
arena of Forepaugh's great circus-tent last evening, and poised herself
upon one tiny toe on the back of an untamed and foaming Arabian barb
that dashed round and round the sawdust ring. Talk about your Sapphos
and your poetry! Would Chicago hesitate a moment in choosing between
Sappho and Mdlle. Hortense de Vere, queen of the air? And what
rhythm--be it Sapphic, or choriambic, or Ionic a minore--is to be
compared with the symphonic poetry of a shapely female balanced upon
one delicate toe on the bristling back of a fiery, untamed palfrey that
whoops round and round to the music of the band, the plaudits of the
public, and the still, small voice of the dyspeptic gent announcing a
minstrel show "under this canvas after the performance, which is not
yet half completed?"
If it makes us proud to go into our bookstores, and see thousands upon
thousands of tomes waiting for customers; if our bosoms swell with
delight to see the quiet and palatial homes of our cultured society
overflowing with the most expensive wall-papers and the costliest
articles of virtue; if we take an ineffable enjoyment in the thousand
indications of a growing refinement in the midst of us,--vaster still
must be the pride, the rapture, we feel when we behold our intellect
and our culture paying the tribute of adoration to the circus. Viewing
these enlivening scenes, why may we not cry in the words of Sappho,
"Wealth without thee, Worth, is a shameless creature; but the mixture
of both is the height of happiness"?