The passing of slavery from the land marked a new era in the life of
the nation. The war, too, had passed like a dream of horrors, and
over the resumption of normal conditions in business and living, the
whole country, as one man, rejoiced and heaved a deep sigh of absolute
content.
Under the spur of the excitement occasioned by the Proclamation of
Freedom, and the great need of schools for the blacks, thousands of
dollars were contributed at the North, and agents were sent to Great
Britain, where generosity towards the Negroes was boundless. Money
came from all directions, pouring into the hands of philanthropists,
who were anxious to prove that the country was able, not only to free
the slave, but to pay the great debt it owed him,--protection as he
embraced freedom, and a share in the great Government he had aided to
found by sweat and toil and blood. It was soon discovered that the
Negro possessed a phenomenal gift of music, and it was determined to
utilize this gift in helping to support educational institutions of
color in the Southland.
A band of students from Fisk University were touring the country, and
those who had been fortunate enough to listen once to their matchless
untrained voices singing their heartbreaking minor music with its grand
and impossible intervals and sound combinations, were eager to listen
again and yet again.
Wealthy and exclusive society women everywhere vied in showering
benefits and patronage upon the new prodigies who had suddenly become
the pets of the musical world. The Temple was a blaze of light, and
crowded from pit to dome. It was the first appearance of the troupe in
New England, therefore it was a gala night, and Boston culture was out
in force.
The two friends easily found their seats in the first balcony, and from
that position idly scanned the vast audience to beguile the tedious
waiting. Reuel’s thoughts were disturbed; he read over the program,
but it carried no meaning to his pre-occupied mind; he was uneasy; the
face he had seen outlined in the twilight haunted him. A great nervous
dread of he knew not what possessed him, and he actually suffered as
he sat there answering at random the running fire of comments made by
Livingston on the audience, and replying none too cordially to the
greetings of fellow-students, drawn to the affair, like himself, by
curiosity.
“Great crowd for such a night,” observed one. “The weather matches your
face, Briggs; why didn’t you leave it outside? Why do you look so down?”
Reuel shrugged his shoulders.
“They say there are some pretty girls in the troupe; one or two as
white as we,” continued the speaker unabashed by Reuel’s surliness.
“They range at home from alabaster to ebony,” replied Livingston. “The
results of amalgamation are worthy the careful attention of all medical
experts.”
“Don’t talk shop, Livingston,” said Briggs peevishly.
“You are really more disagreeable than usual,” replied Livingston,
pleasantly. “Do try to be like the other fellows, for once, Reuel.”
Silence ensued for a time, and then the irrepressible one of the party
remarked: “The soprano soloist is great; heard her in New York.” At
this there was a general laugh among the men. Good natured Charlie
Vance was generally “stuck” once a month with the “loveliest girl, by
jove, you know.”
“That explains your presence here, Vance; what’s her name?”
“Dianthe Lusk.”
“Great name. I hope she comes up to it,--the flower of Jove.”
“Flower of Jove, indeed! You’ll say so when you see her,” cried Charlie
with his usual enthusiasm.
“What! again, my son? ‘Like Dian’s kiss, unmasked, unsought, Love gives
itself,’” quoted Livingston, with a smile on his handsome face.
“Oh, stow it! Aubrey, even your cold blood will be stirred at sight
of her exquisite face; of her voice I will not speak; I cannot do it
justice.”
“If this is to be the result of emancipation, I for one vote that we
ask Congress to annul the Proclamation,” said Reuel, drily.
Now conversation ceased; a famous local organist began a concert on
the organ to occupy the moments of waiting. The music soothed Reuel’s
restlessness. He noticed that the platform usually occupied by the
speaker’s desk, now held a number of chairs and a piano. Certainly, the
assiduous advertising had brought large patronage for the new venture,
he thought as he idly calculated the financial result from the number
in the audience.
Soon the hot air, the glare of lights, the mingling of choice perfumes
emanating from the dainty forms of elegantly attired women, acted upon
him as an intoxicant. He began to feel the pervading excitement--the
flutter of expectation, and presently the haunting face left him.
The prelude drew to a close; the last chord fell from the fingers of
the artist; a line of figures--men and women--dark in hue, and neatly
dressed in quiet evening clothes, filed noiselessly from the anterooms
and filled the chairs upon the platform. The silence in the house was
painful. These were representatives of the people for whom God had sent
the terrible scourge of blood upon the land to free from bondage. The
old abolitionists in the vast audience felt the blood leave their faces
beneath the stress of emotion.
The opening number was “The Lord’s Prayer.” Stealing, rising, swelling,
gathering, as it thrilled the ear, all the delights of harmony in a
grand minor cadence that told of deliverance from bondage and homage
to God for his wonderful aid, sweeping the awed heart with an ecstasy
that was almost pain; breathing, hovering, soaring, they held the vast
multitude in speechless wonder.
Thunders of applause greeted the close of the hymn. Scarcely waiting
for a silence, a female figure rose and came slowly to the edge of the
platform and stood in the blaze of lights with hands modestly clasped
before her. She was not in any way the preconceived idea of a Negro.
Fair as the fairest woman in the hall, with wavy bands of chestnut
hair, and great, melting eyes of brown, soft as those of childhood;
a willowy figure of exquisite mould, clad in a sombre gown of black.
There fell a voice upon the listening ear, in celestial showers of
silver that passed all conceptions, all comparisons, all dreams; a
voice beyond belief--a great soprano of unimaginable beauty, soaring
heavenward in mighty intervals.
“Go down, Moses, way down in Egypt’s land,
Tell ol’ Pharaoh, let my people go.”
sang the woman in tones that awakened ringing harmonies in the heart of
every listener.
“By Jove!” Reuel heard Livingston exclaim. For himself he was dazed,
thrilled; never save among the great artists of the earth, was such a
voice heard alive with the divine fire.
Some of the women in the audience wept; there was the distinct echo of
a sob in the deathly quiet which gave tribute to the power of genius.
Spellbound they sat beneath the outpoured anguish of a suffering soul.
All the horror, the degradation from which a race had been delivered
were in the pleading strains of the singer’s voice. It strained the
senses almost beyond endurance. It pictured to that self-possessed,
highly-cultured New England assemblage as nothing else ever had, the
awfulness of the hell from which a people had been happily plucked.
Reuel was carried out of himself; he leaned forward in eager
contemplation of the artist; he grew cold with terror and fear.
Surely it could not be--he must be dreaming! It was incredible! Even
as he whispered the words to himself the hall seemed to grow dim and
shadowy; the sea of faces melted away; there before him in the blaze
of light--like a lovely phantom--stood a woman wearing the face of his
vision of the afternoon!