The day had come and gone when Clara, for the first time, dressed in
white. The sun-grain of August had kissed the corn, the
golden-drooping sheaves waved through the land fresh cut, and the
latest roses mixed pale amidst the lilies beneath the bounteous
harvest-moon when she left us,--but not alone. It was like dying twice
over to part with them that once, and therefore it will not be
believed how soon I could recover the farewell and feed upon Clara's
letters, which never failed me once a month. For a year they more
sustained me than anything else could have done; for they told of a
life secluded as any who loved _him_ could desire for him, and not
more free from pain than care. Of herself she never spoke, except to
breathe sweet wishes for her friends; but her whole soul seemed bent
upon his existence, and her descriptions were almost a diary. I could
not be astonished at her influence, for it had governed my best days;
but that she should be able to secure such a boon to us as a year of
unmitigated repose for him, was precisely what I had not anticipated,
nor dared to expect. Meanwhile, and during that year, our work was
harder than ever. Davy and I were quite unconscious of progressing,
yet were perfectly happy, and as ever determined,--indeed, nothing
like a slight contumacy on the part of the pupils kept Davy up to the
mark. From Starwood, who had returned to Germany, I also received
accounts; but he was no letter-writer, except when there was anything
very particular to say. He was still a student, and still under
Seraphael's roof. Strange and Arabian dreams were those I had of that
house in the heart of a country so far away, for the Chevalier had
moved nearer the Rhine, and nothing in his idiosyncrasy so betokened
the Oriental tincture of his blood as his restless fondness for making
many homes while he was actually at home in none.
We lived very happily, as I said. It was, perhaps, not extraordinary
that to my violin I grew more infinitely attached, was one with it,
and could scarcely divide myself from it. I lived at home still,--that
is, I slept at home, and usually ate there; but Davy's house was also
home,--it had grown dearer to me than ever, and was now fairer. The
summer after our friends had left us was brilliant as the last, and
now the shell was almost hidden by the clinging of the loveliest
creepers; the dahlias in the garden had given place to standard
rose-trees, and though Carlotta could not reach them, she had learned
to say, "Rose!" and to put up her pretty hand for me to pluck her one.
With a flower she would sit and play an entire morning, and we never
had any trouble with her. Millicent worked and studied as conveniently
as though she had never been born; for it was Davy's supreme wish to
educate his daughter at home, and her mamma had very elaborate ideas
of self-culture in anticipation. During that autumn we found ourselves
making some slight way. Davy took it into his head to give utterance,
for the first time, to a public concert; and I will not say I was
myself averse. We had a great deal of conversation and a great many
sessions on the subject, not exactly able to settle whether we would
undertake a selection or some entire work. Our people were rather
revived out of utter darkness concerning music; but its light was
little diffused, and seemed condensed in our class-room as a focus.
The band and chorus, of course, made great demonstrations in favor of
the "Messiah;" and my mother, who had taken an extraordinary interest
in the affair, said, innocently enough,--
"Then why, my dears, not represent the 'Messiah'? It will be at
Christmas time, and very suitable."
This was not the point, for Davy had reminded me of the fact that the
festival for the approaching year at the centre of the town would open
with that work,--unless, indeed, the committee departed from their
precedent on all former occasions. My idea would have been a
performance all Bach, Beethoven, and Seraphael, with Handel's Ode for
a commencement, on the 22d of November; but Davy shook his head at
me,--"That would be for Germany, not for England;" and I obliged
myself to believe him. At length we accepted the "Messiah,"--to the
great delight of the chorus and band.
It was a pressing time all through that autumn. I do not suppose I
ever thought of anything but fiddles, fiddles, fiddles, from morning
till night. They edged my dreams with music, and sometimes with that
which was very much the reverse of music; for we had our difficulties.
Prejudice is best destroyed by passion, which as yet we had not
kindled. Davy met with little support, and no sympathy, except from
his own,--this mattered little either, so long as his own were
concerned; but now, in prospect of our illustration, it was necessary
to secure certain instrumental assistance.
I undertook to do this. Besides my own strings, we had brass and wind,
but not sufficient. I shall not forget the difficulty of thawing the
players I visited--I will not call them artists--into anything like
genial participation. Their engagement was not sufficiently formal,
nor did they like me,--I suppose they owed a grudge against my youth;
for youth is unpardonable and inadmissible, except in the case of
genius. Neither did they thaw, any more than the weather, on Christmas
Eve,--it was on Christmas Eve we were to perform. It was an eve of
ice, not snow,--the blue sky silvery, the earth bound fast in sleep.
We had hired a ball-room at the chief hotel,--an elegant and rather
rare room; it was warmed by three wide fire-places; and the crimson
curtains closed, with the chairs instead of benches, gave a social and
unusual charm to the whole proceeding.
If our audience entered aghast, looked frozen, rolled in furs and
contempts, they could not help smiling upon the fires, the roseate
glow; though they also could not help being disconcerted to find
themselves treated all alike, for Davy would have no roseate seats,
nor any exclusiveness on this occasion. As he intended, besides, to
restore the work exactly as it was first written, we expected a little
cold and a few black looks. No modern listeners can receive an
oratorio as orthodox without an organ of Titan-build in the very
middle that takes care to sound.
The overture, beautifully played, was taken down with chill
politeness; but my own party were so pleased with themselves, and made
such ecstatic motions with their features that it was quite enough for
me. The first chorus was lightly, delicately shown up, not
extinguished by the orchestra--and, indeed, chorus after chorus found
no more favor; still, no one could help feeling the perfect training
here. I knew as well as Davy envy or pride alone kept back the free
confession. The exquisite shading in the chorus, the public's
darling, "Unto us a child is born," and the grandeur of the final
effect, subdued them a little. They cheered, and Davy gave me a glance
over his shoulder which I understood to say, "One must come in for
certain disadvantages if one is well received;" for Davy abhorred a
noise as much as I did. When we waited between the parts, some one
fetched Davy away in an immense hurry; he did not return immediately,
and I grew alarmed. I peeped into the concert-room: there sat
Millicent most composedly, and Lydia with her lord, and Clo in her
dove-colored silk and spectacles, and my mother in her black satin and
white-kid gloves, looking crowned with happiness; it was evident that
nothing was the matter at home. But having a few minutes, I went to
speak to them; and then my mother, in her surmises about Davy, whom
she loved as her own son--and Clo, whose principles were flattered,
not shocked, in her approval--took up so much time that I was at last
obliged to fly to my little band, who were assembled again, and tuning
by fits. Still, Davy was not there. But presently, and just at the
moment when it was necessary to begin, he appeared, so looking that I
was sure either something very dread or very joyous had befallen him.
His eye gazed brightly out to the whole room as he faced instead of
turning from it. He could not help smiling, and his voice quivered as
he spoke. He said in those fond accents,--
"I have the pleasure to announce that the Chevalier Seraphael, having
just arrived from Germany on a visit to myself, has consented to
conduct the second part himself."
I had been sure the Chevalier was in him before he spoke, but I little
thought how it would come about. Immediately he finished speaking,
the curtain above us divided, and that heavenly inspired one stood
before us.
There was that in his apparition which stirred the slowest and burned
upon the coldest pulses. All rose and shouted with an enthusiasm, when
elicited from English hearts perhaps more real and touching than any
other; a quickening change, like sudden summer, swept the room; the
music became infinitely at home there; we all felt as if, watching
over the dead, we had seen the dead alive again; the "old familiar
strains" untired us, and none either wearied among the listeners. I
could not, in the trances of my own playing, forbear to worship the
gentle knowledge that had led the hierarch to that humble shrine, to
consecrate and ennoble it forever. But the event told even sooner than
I expected; for lo! at the end, when the Chevalier turned his kingly
head and bowed to the reiterated applaudings, and had passed out,
those plaudits continued, and would not cease till Davy was recalled
himself; the pent-up reverence, restored to its proper channel, eddied
in streams around him.
What an evening we spent, or rather what a night we made that
night!--in that little parlor of Davy's the little green-house thrown
open, and lighted by Millicent with Carlotta's Christmas-candles; the
supper, where there was hardly room for us all at the table, and
hardly room upon the table for all the good things my mother sent for
from her pantry and larder and store-closet; the decoration of the
house with green wreaths and holly-bunches, the swept and garnished
air of the entire tiny premises standing us in such good stead to
welcome the Christmas visitant with Christmas festivity; the punch
Davy mixed in Carlotta's christening-bowl, my mother's present, she
perfectly radiant, and staring with satisfaction in the arm-chair,
where Seraphael himself had placed her as we closed around the fire;
the Christmas music never wanting, for in the midst of our joyous talk
a sudden celestial serenade, a deep-voiced carol, burst from beyond
the garden, and looking out there, we beheld, through rimed and
frost-glazed windows, a clustered throng, whose voices were not
uncultured,--the warmest-hearted members of Davy's own. They were
still singing when Carlotta awoke and cried, had to be brought down
stairs, and was hushed, listening, in Seraphael's arms.
So, after all, we did not go to bed that night, for it was quite two
o'clock when I escorted my mother and sisters home, having left the
little room I usually occupied when I slept at my brother's house for
Seraphael, whom no one would suffer to sleep at the hotel. I might
remind myself of the next day, too, and I surely may,--of our all
going to church together after a night of snow, over the sheeted white
beneath a cloudless heaven; of our all sitting together in that large
pew of ours, and the excitement prevailing among the congregation
afterwards as they assured themselves of our guest; of the chimes
swelling high from the tower as we returned, and my walk alone with
Seraphael to show him where Clara's house had stood. When we were,
indeed, alone together, I asked more especially after her, and
listened to his tender voice when it told of her that she was not then
strong enough to cross the sea, but that though he could only leave
her for a week, it was her latest request that he would come to see us
all himself, nor return without having done so. And then he spoke of
the affairs that had brought him over,--an entreaty from the committee
of our own town festival that he would direct that of the coming year,
and compose exclusively for it.
It made me very indignant at first that they should have kept Davy so
entirely in the dark as to their intentions, because he had been
forewarned on all previous occasions, before his influence was so
strong in his own circle. But when I expressed a little my
indignation, Seraphael only laughed, and said,--
"It was what every one must expect who was such a purist, unless he
would also condescend to amuse the people at times and seasons, or
unless he were not _poor_."
My obligation to accede here made me yet more indignant, until I
remembered how Seraphael had introduced himself, and so taken Davy by
the hand that it would not be likely for him ever again to be thrust
back into obscurity afterwards, were it only because Seraphael himself
was _rich_.
"And will you come to us, sir?" I asked, scarcely able to frame a wish
upon the subject.
"If I live, Carlomein. And I do hope to live--till then, at least. I
have also been rather idle lately, and must work. Indeed, I have
brought nothing with me, except a psalm or two for your brother. We
may write music to psalms, I suppose, Carlomein?"
"You may, sir, and, indeed, anybody may; for whatever is worthless
will be forgotten, and whatever is worthy will live forever."
"It is not that anything we offer can be worthy of the feet at which
we lay it, it is not that anything is sweet or sufficient for our
love's expression, but every little word of love and smile of love is
precious to us, and must be so to Love itself, I think. Only in music
now does God reveal himself as in the days of old; and I do believe,
Carlomein, that he, dwelling not in temples made with hands, yet
dwelleth there. I suppose it may be that as we make the music that
issues from the orchestra, or from the organ where all musics mingle,
so he makes the love that religion burns to utter, but that music, for
the musical, alone makes manifest. All worship is sacred, but that is
unutterably holy. How holy should the heart of the musician be!"
"Dearest sir, forgive me! If you had not spoken so, I could not have
presumed to ask you. But do you, therefore, object to write for the
stage, in its present promiscuous position among the arts?"
"Carlomein, the drama is my greatest delight. The dramatic genius I
would ever accept as a guide and standard; but from youth upwards, I
have ever abstained from writing for the stage. It does not suit me;
it is in some respects beyond me,--that is, as it ought to exist. But
my days are numbered,--I have lately known it; and to give forth opera
after opera would reduce my short span to a mere holiday task. I am
too happy, Carlomein, and to you I will say it,--too blest in that I
feel I can best express what others left to me because expression
failed them."
"Oh, dearest sir, it is so, and not alone in music, but in everything
you touch or tell us! Yet you are ours for years and years. I feel
it,--there is so much to be done, and you only can do it; so much to
learn yet of what you only can teach us. You cannot, you will not, and
are not going to leave us! I know it; I could not be so if I did not
know and feel it. You are looking better than when even first I saw
you--all those years ago."
"I am well, Carlomein,--I have never been ill. I do not know sickness,
though I have known sorrow,--thank God for that inexpressible mystery
in which his light is hidden! But, Carlomein, you speak as if it were
of all things the saddest thing to die! I know not that sensation; I
believe it to be mere sensation. Neither is this earth a
wilderness,--no weariness! There is not an air of spring that does not
make me long for death; the burdening gladness is too much for life,
and summer and winter call me. Eternity without years is ever present
with me, and the poor music they love so well, they love because it
comes to me from beyond the grave."
I could not hear him speak so; it killed me to all but a ravishment of
fear. I could not help saying, though I fear it was out of place,--
"There is one you must not leave; she cannot live without you."
"Carlomein, any one can live who is to live, and whoever is decreed
must die. There is no death for me,--I do not call it so; nor do I
believe that death could touch me. I mean I should not know it, for I
could not bear it; and I fear it not, for nothing we cannot bear is
given us to endure."
"Sir, if I did not revere too much every word you utter, I should say
that a morbid presentiment clouds your enthusiasm, and that you know
not what you say."
"Do I look morbid, Carlomein? That is an ugly word, and you deserve it
as much as I do, pale-face."
He laughed out joyously. I looked at him again. How his eyes radiated
their splendors, as an eastern starlight in a northern sky! How the
blossom-blushes rose upon his cheek! Health, joy, vitality, all the
flowers of manhood, the fairest laurels of an unsullied fame, shone
visionary about him. He seemed no earthling "born to die." I could not
but smile; still, it was at his beauty, not his mirth.
"Sir, you don't look much like a martyr now."
"Carlomein. I should rather be a martyr than a saint. The saints are
robed in glory, but the glory streams from heaven upon the martyr's
face." (Oh, he could feel no pain, with that light there; I know he
felt none.) "The saints wear lilies, or they dream so; and dream they
not the martyrs wear the roses,--have not the thorns pierced through
them? They are thornless roses there, for passion is made perfect."
"Sir, but I do think that the musician, if duteous, is meet for a
starry crown."
"And I could only think, when I saw that picture, that the crown was
not mine own; but I dreamed within myself that it should not be in
vain I desire to deserve the crown which I should wear, but not that
star-crown. Poetry may be forgiven for hiding sorrow in bliss, but it
is only music that hides bliss with sorrow. And see, Carlomein (for we
are in a tale of dreams just now, and both alone), there have been
martyrs for all faiths,--for love, for poetry, for patriotism, for
religion. Oh! for what cause, where passion strikes and stirs, have
there not been martyrs? But I think music has not many, and those were
discrowned of that glory by the other crown of Fame. Shall I die
young, and not be believed to have died for music? For that end must
the music be rapt and purified,--stolen from itself; its pleasures
must be strong to pain, its exercises sharper than agony. I know of
none other choice for myself than to press forwards to fulfil the call
I have heard since music spoke to me, and was as the voice of God.
There is so much to undo in very doing, while those who were not
called, but have only chosen music, defile her mysteries, that the few
who are called must surely witness for her. We will not speak again
so, Carlomein. I have made your young face careful, and I would rather
see scorn work upon it than such woe. I am now going to a shop. Are
there any shops here, Carlomein?"
"Plenty, sir, but they are closed; still, I am certain you can get
anything you want, no matter what."
"I have something to make to-night which is most important, and I must
have nuts, apples, and sugar-plums."
We went to a large confectioner's whose windows were but
semi-shuttered. Here the Chevalier quite lost himself in the treasures
of those glass magazines. I should scarcely have known him as he had
been. He chose very selectly, nathless, securing only the most
delicate and rare of the wonders spread about him, and which excited
his _naïveté_ to the utmost. His choice comprised all crisp white
comfits and red-rose ones, almond-eggs, the most ravishing French
bonbons, all sorts of chocolate, myriad sugar millions, like rain from
fairy rainbows, twisted green angelica, golden strips of crystallized
orange-peal, not to speak of rout-cakes like fish and frogs and mice
and birds' nests. Nor did these suffice; off we walked to the
toy-shop. Our town was of world renown for its toys. Here it was not
so easy to effect an entrance; but it _was_ effected the moment the
Chevalier showed his face. To this hour I believe they took him in
there for some extraordinary little boy,--he certainly behaved like
nothing else. He bought now beads of all colors, and spangles and
shining leaf, and of all things the most exquisite doll,
small-featured, waxen, dressed already in long white robes, and lying
in a cradle about a foot long, perfectly finished. And next, besides
this baby's baby, he snatched at a box of letters, then at a gilt
watch, and finally at a magic-lantern. We so loaded ourselves with all
these baubles that we could scarcely get along; for, with his wonted
impetuosity on the least occasions, he would not suffer anything to be
sent, lest it should not arrive in time. And then, though I reminded
him of the dinner-hour at hand, there was to be no rest yet, but I
must take him to some garden or nursery of winter-plants. Fortunately,
a great friend of Davy's in that line lived very near him; for Davy
was a great flower-fancier. This was convenient; for had it been two
miles off, Seraphael would have run there, being in his uttermost
wayward mood. He chose a gem of a fir-tree, and though both the
florist and I remonstrated with our whole hearts, would carry it
himself,--happily not very far. I was reminded of dear old Aronach's
story about his child-days as I saw him clasp it in his delicate arms
so nerved with power, and caught his brilliant face through the spires
of the foliage. Thus we approached Davy's house, and I reminded the
Chevalier that we were expected to dine at my mother's, not there. In
fact, poor Millicent, in her bonnet, looked out anxiously from the
door; the Chevalier called to her as she ran to open the gate, "See,
Mrs. Davy, see! Here's 'Birnam Wood come to Dunisnane.' Make way!"
"You are very naughty," said Davy, stepping forth. "Our beloved mamma
will be coming after us."
"It is very rude, I know; but I am going to dine with your daughter."
"My daughter is coming too. Did you think we should leave her behind?"
Millicent was about, in fact, to mount the stairs for the baby; but
Seraphael rushed past her.
"Pardon! but I don't wish to be seen at present;" and we both bore our
burdens into the parlor, and laid them on the table.
"Now, Carlomein, the moment dinner is over, we two shall come back and
lock ourselves in here."
"I should like it of all things, sir, selfish wretch that I am! but I
don't think they will."
"Oh, yes, I will make them!"
When at last we descended ready, Carlotta, in her white beaver bonnet,
my own present, looked as soft as any snowdrop,--too soft almost to be
kissed. She held out her arms to Seraphael so very pertinaciously that
he was obliged to carry her; nor would he give her up until we reached
my mother's door. It was quite the same at dinner also; she would sit
next him, would stick her tiny fork into his face, with a morsel of
turkey at the end of it, would poke crumbs into his mouth with her
finger, would put up her lips to kiss him, would say, every moment, "I
like you much-much!" with all Davy's earnestness, though with just so
much of her mother's modesty as made her turn pink and shy, and put
herself completely over her chair into Seraphael's lap, when he
laughed at her. He was in ecstasies, and every now and then a shade so
tender stole upon his air that I knew he could only be adverting to
the tenderest of all human probabilities,--the dream of his next
year's offspring.
After dinner, Miss was to retire. She was carried upstairs by
Margareth, of whom I can only say she loved Carlotta better than she
had loved Carl. Seraphael then arose, and gracefully, gleefully,
despite the solicitations on all hands exhibited, declared he must
also go, that he had to meet the Lord Chancellor, and could not keep
him waiting. There was no more prayer wasted after this announcement,
everybody laughed too much. Taking a handful of nuts from a dish, and
throwing a glance of inexpressible elfishness at my mother, he said,
"Carl and the Lord Chancellor and I are going to crack them in a
corner. Come, Carlomein! we must not keep so grand a person waiting."
I know not what blank he left behind him, but I know what a world he
carried with him. We had such an afternoon! But we had to be really
very busy; I never worked so hard in a small way. When all was
finished, the guilt fruit hung, the necklaces festooned, the glitter
ordered with that miraculous rapidity in which he surpassed all
others, and that fairy craft of his by which he was enabled to
re-create all Arabian, mystical, he placed the cradle in the shade.
"You see, Carlomein, I could not have a Christ-child up there at the
top, because your brother is rather particular, and might not choose
to approve. It will never occur to him about the manger, if we don't
tell him; but you perceive all the same that it is here, being made of
straw, and very orthodox."
"It appears to me, sir, that you have learned English customs to some
purpose, as well as German."
He replied by dancing round the tree, and twisting in the tapers red
and green.
"Now, you go, Carlomein, and fetch them all, and when I hear your
voices, I will light the candles. Begone, Carlomeinus!" and he snapped
his fingers.
They came immediately, all rather mystified, but very curious. I
carried Carlotta, who talked the whole way home about the stars. But
after clustering a few moments in the dark passage, and her little
whispered "ohs!" and wondering sighs, when the door was opened, and
the arch musician for all ages, seated at the piano, played a measure
only meet for child or fairy ears, her ecstasy became quite painful.
She shuddered and shivered, and at last screamed outright; and then,
even then, only Seraphael had power to soothe her, leading her to the
fairy earth-lights as he led us to the lights of heaven.
* * * * *
Glorious hours that dye deep our memories in beauty, music that passes
into echo and is silent, alike are conserved forever. Often and often
in the months that passed when he had left us, after a visit so
exquisite that it might have been diffused millenniums and yet have
kept its fragrance, did my thoughts take such a form as this
enunciation bears; I was so unutterably grateful for what had happened
that it helped me to bear what was yet before me. The growing, glowing
fame, heralded from land to land, in praise of that young genius and
purest youth, had certainly reached its culmination; neither envy
withered nor scandal darkened the spell of his perfect name. All
grades of artists, all ranks of critics,--the old and calm, the
impertinent but impetuous young,--bowed as in heart before him. It was
so in every city, I believe; but in ours it was peculiar, as well as
universal. An odor of heavenly altars had swept our temple; we were
fitter to receive him than we had been. In no instance was this shown
more clearly than on the fortunate occasion when Davy was treated
with, and requested very humbly to add his vocal regiment to the
festival chorus. One day just afterwards, in early April, he came
running to me with a letter, anxious for me to open it, as he was in a
fit of fright about the parts which ought to have arrived, and had
not. It was only a line or two, addressed to me by Seraphael's hand,
to tell us that Clara had borne him twin sons.
Davy's astonishment amused me; it appeared that he had formed no idea
of their having been likely to come at all, until this moment. I was
glad, indeed, to be alone, to think of that fairest friend of mine,
now so singularly blest. I thought of her in bed with her babies, I
thought of the babies being his, and she no less his own, until I was
not fit company for any one,--and it was long before I became so. I
could hardly believe it, and more especially because they were all
four so far away; for I am not of the opinion of those fortunate
transcendentalists, who aver we can better realize that which is away
from us than that which is at hand. Time and space must remain to us
our eternity and our freedom, till freedom and eternity shall be our
own.