CHICAGO (SECOND VISIT)--VASSILI VERESCHAGIN'S EXHIBITION--THE
"ANGELUS"--WAGNER AND WAGNERITES--WANDERINGS ABOUT THE BIG CITY--I SIT
ON THE TRIBUNAL.
_Chicago, March 15._
Arrived here this morning and put up at the Grand Pacific Hotel. My
lecture to-night at the Central Music Hall is advertised as a
_causerie_. My local manager informs me that many people have inquired
at the box-office what the meaning of that French word is. As he does
not know himself, he could not enlighten them, but he thinks that
curiosity will draw a good crowd to-night.
This puts me in mind of a little incident which took place about a year
ago. I was to make my appearance before an afternoon audience in the
fashionable town of Eastbourne. Not wishing to convey the idea of a
serious and prosy discourse, I advised my manager to call the
entertainment "_A causerie_." The room was full and the affair passed
off very well. But an old lady, who was a well-known patroness of such
entertainments, did not put in an appearance. On being asked the next
day why she was not present, she replied: "Well, to tell you the truth,
when I saw that they had given the entertainment a French name, I was
afraid it might be something not quite fit for me to hear." Dear soul!
* * * * *
_March 16._
My manager's predictions were realized last night. I had a large
audience, one of the keenest and the most responsive and appreciative I
have ever had. I was introduced by Judge Elliott Anthony, of the
Superior Court, in a short, witty, and graceful little speech. He spoke
of Lafayette and of the debt of gratitude America owes to France for the
help she received at her hands during the War of Independence. Before
taking leave of me, Judge Anthony kindly invited me to pay a visit to
the Superior Court next Wednesday.
* * * * *
_March 17._
Dined yesterday with Mr. James W. Scott, proprietor of the Chicago
_Herald_, one of the most flourishing newspapers in the United States,
and in the evening went to see Richard Mansfield in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde." The play is a repulsive one, but the double impersonation gives
the great actor a magnificent opportunity for the display of his
histrionic powers. The house was crowded, though it was Sunday. The pick
of Chicago society was not there, of course. Some years ago, I was told,
a Sunday audience was mainly composed of men. To-day the women go as
freely as the men. The "horrible" always has a great fascination for the
masses, and Mansfield held his popular audience in a state of breathless
suspense. There was a great deal of disappointment written on the faces
when the light was turned down on the appearance of "Mr. Hyde," with his
horribly distorted features. A woman, sitting in a box next to the one I
occupied, exclaimed, as "Hyde" came to explain his terrible secret to
the doctor, in the fourth act, "What a shame, they are turning down the
light again!"
* * * * *
[Illustration: "DEAR SOUL!"]
_March 18._
Spent yesterday in recreation intellectual--and otherwise. I like to see
everything, and I have no objection to entering a dime museum. I went to
one yesterday morning, and saw a bearded lady, a calf with two heads, a
gorilla (stuffed), a girl with no arms, and other freaks of nature. The
bearded lady had very, very masculine features, but _honi soit qui mal y
pense_. I could not help thinking of one of General Horace Porter's good
stories. A school-master asks a little boy what his father is.
"Please, sir, papa told me not to tell."
"Oh, never mind, it's all right with me."
"Please, sir, he is the bearded lady at the dime museum."
From the museum I went to the free library in the City Hall. Dime
museums and free libraries--such is America. The attendance at the free
libraries increases rapidly every day, and the till at the dime museums
diminishes with proportionate rapidity.
[Illustration: "THE BEARDED LADY."]
After lunch I paid a visit to the exhibition of Vassili Vereschagin's
pictures. What on earth could possess the talented Russian artist, whose
coloring is so lovely, to expend his labor on such subjects! Pictures
like those, which show the horrors of a campaign in all their
hideousness, may serve a good purpose in creating a detestation of war
in all who see them. Nothing short of such a motive in the artist could
excuse the portrayal of such infamies. These pictures are so many
nightmares which will certainly haunt my eyes and brain for days and
nights to come. Battle scenes portrayed with a realism that is
revolting, because, alas, only too true. The execution of nihilists in a
dim, dreary, snow-covered waste. An execution of sepoys, the doomed
rebels tied to the mouths of cannon about to be fired off. Scenes of
torture, illustrative of the extent to which human suffering can be
carried, give you cold shudders in every fiber of your body. One horrid
canvas shows a deserted battlefield, the snow-covered ground littered
with corpses that ravens are tearing and fighting for. But, perhaps
worst of all, is a picture of a field, where, in the snow, lie the human
remains of a company of Russian soldiers who have been surprised and
slain by Turks. Among the bodies, outraged by horrible and nameless
mutilations, walks a priest, swinging a censer. One seems to be pursued
by, and impregnated with, a smell of cadaverous putrefaction. This
collection of pictures is installed in a place which has been used for
stabling horses in, and is reeking with stable odors and the carbolic
acid that has been employed to neutralize them. Your sense of smell is
in full sympathy with your horrified sense of sight: both are revolted.
* * * * *
Now, behind the three large rooms devoted to the Russian artist's works
was a small one, in which hung a single picture. You little guess that
that picture was no other than Jean Francois Millet's "Angelus."
Millet's dear little "Angelus," that hymn of resignation and peace,
alongside of all this roar and carnage of battle! The exhibitor thought,
perhaps, that a sedative might be needed after the strong dose of
Vassili Vereschagin, but I imagine that no one who went into that little
room after the others was in a mood to listen to Millet's message.
* * * * *
_March 19._
Yesterday morning I went to see the Richmond Libby Prison, a four-story,
huge brick building which has been removed here from Richmond, over a
distance of more than a thousand miles, across the mountains of
Pennsylvania. This is, perhaps, as the circular says, an unparalleled
feat in the history of the world. The prison has been converted into a
museum, illustrating the Civil War and African Slavery in America. The
visit proved very interesting. In the afternoon I had a drive through
the beautiful parks of the city.
In the evening I went to see "Tannhaeuser" at the Auditorium. Outside,
the building looks more like a penitentiary than a place of amusement--a
huge pile of masonry, built of great, rough, black-looking blocks of
stone. Inside, it is magnificent. I do not know anything to compare with
it for comfort, grandeur, and beauty. It can hold seven thousand people.
The decorations are white and gold. The lighting is done by means of arc
electric lights in the enormously lofty roof--lights which can be
lowered at will. Mr. Peck kindly took me to see the inner workings of
the stage. I should say "stages," for there are three. The hydraulic
machinery for raising and lowering them cost $200,000.
Madame Lehmann sang grandly. I imagine that she is the finest lady
exponent of Wagner's music alive. She not only sings the parts, but
looks them. Built on grand lines and crowned with masses of blond hair,
she seems, when she gives forth those volumes of clear tones, a Norse
goddess strayed into the nineteenth century.
M. Gounod describes Wagner as an astounding prodigy, an aberration of
genius, a dreamer haunted by the colossal. For years I had listened to
Wagner's music, and, like most of my compatriots, brought up on the
tuneful airs of Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, Verdi, Auber, etc., I
entirely failed to appreciate the music of the future. All I could say
in its favor was some variation of the sentiment once expressed by Mr.
Edgar W. Nye ("Bill Nye") who, after giving the subject his mature
consideration, said he came to the conclusion that Wagner's music was
not so bad as it sounded. But I own that since I went to Bayreuth and
heard and saw the operas as there given, I began not only to see that
they are beautiful, but why they are beautiful.
Wagnerian opera is a poetical and musical idealization of speech.
The fault that I, like many others, have fallen into, was that of
listening to the voices instead of listening to the orchestra. The fact
is, the voices could almost be dispensed with altogether. The orchestra
gives you the beautiful poem in music, and the personages on the stage
are really little more than illustrative puppets. They play about the
same part in the work that pictures play in a book. Wagner's method was
something so new, so different to all we had been accustomed to, that it
naturally provoked much indignation and enmity--not because it was bad,
but because it was new. It was the old story of the Classicists and
Romanticists over again.
If you wanted to write a symphony, illustrative of the pangs and
miseries of a sufferer from toothache, you would, if you were a disciple
of Wagner, write your orchestral score so that the instruments should
convey to the listener the whole gamut of groans--the temporary relief,
the return of the pain, the sudden disappearance of it on ringing the
bell at the dentist's door, the final wrench of extraction gone through
by the poor patient. On the boards you would put a personage who, with
voice and contortions, should help you, as pictorial illustrations help
an author. Such is the Wagnerian method.
[Illustration: "A TERRIBLE WAGNERITE."]
After the play I met a terrible Wagnerite. Most Wagnerites are terrible.
They will not admit that anything can be discussed, much less
criticised, in the works of the master. They are not admirers,
disciples; they are worshipers. To them Wagner's music is as perfect as
America is to many a good-humored American. They will tell you that
never have horses neighed so realistically as they do in the "Walkuere."
Answer that this is almost lowering music to the level of ventriloquism,
and they will declare you a profane, unworthy to live. My Wagnerite
friend told me last night that Wagner's work constantly improved till it
reached perfection in "Parsifal." "There," he said, quite seriously,
"the music has reached such a state of perfection that, in the garden
scene, you can smell the violets and the roses."
"Well," I interrupted, "I heard 'Parsifal' in Bayreuth, and I must
confess that it is, perhaps, the only work of Wagner's that I cannot
understand."
"I have heard it thirty-four times," he said, "and enjoyed it more the
thirty-fourth time than I did the thirty-third."
"Then," I remarked, "perhaps it has to be heard fifty times before it
can be thoroughly appreciated. In which case, you must own that life is
too short to enable one to see an opera fifty times in order to enjoy it
as it should really be enjoyed. I don't care what science there is about
music, or what labors a musician should have to go through. As one of
the public, I say that music is a recreation, and should be understood
at once. Auber, for example, with his delightful airs, that three
generations of men have sung on their way home from the opera house, has
been a greater benefactor of the human race than Wagner. I prefer music
written for the heart to music written for the mind."
On hearing me mention Auber's name in one breath with Wagner's, the
Wagnerite threw a glance of contempt at me that I shall never forget.
"Well," said I, to regain his good graces, "I may improve yet--I will
try again."
As a rule, the Wagnerite is a man utterly destitute of humor.
* * * * *
_March 20._
Yesterday morning I called on Judge Elliott Anthony, at the Superior
Court. The Judge invited me to sit by his side on the tribunal, and
kindly explained to me the procedure, as the cases went on. Certainly
kindness is not rare in Europe, but such simplicity in a high official
is only to be met with in America.
[Illustration]