help us struggle against the pain of separation, we ought, so far as
circumstances permit, to make the most of it; for we cannot be sure,
alas! that what can be done to-day will be possible to-morrow. So we
have settled with grandmamma that we will write in turn, as long as you
are at Varangeville. My turn falls to-day.
I have just seen a French newspaper, dear Pi, which reports that the
Sous-Prefet of Dieppe has posted an order forbidding any Frenchman under
sixty years of age to leave the country. So that you are now interned in
France, not by your own will only, but by order of the authorities. But
as I am not in France, and as I left before any such prohibition was
published, I should like you to let me know whether this order is
accompanied by another, which seems to me its inevitable corollary, or
rather its cause, and its logical explanation--I mean the calling out of
all able-bodied men under sixty years of age. For I fail to understand
an order not to leave France, as applied to men who are not to be called
on to defend the country. So I beg you will send me the
best-authenticated information you can come by. I will not let you carry
a rifle without shouldering mine alongside of you; and though I am a
poor shot, you need not fear my being so clumsy as to shoot you by
accident. We _must_ be side by side, if there is any question of either
of us going under fire. I have already told you so, and my own
inaptitude for military duty has nothing to do or to say in the
question. I have looked on the steps I have taken, up to this, as an
absolute duty. That duty would become merely relative, consequently
less, and therefore null and void, if another and a greater should
appear to over-ride it.
Our poor beloved country is in a very serious position--worse, as far as
I can see, than in any previous trial. Never before have the two great
problems of external struggle and internal union loomed so urgent or so
huge. I feel certain that internal union, in the face of the common
enemy, does actually exist. Whether it is merely temporary, or whether
it will continue after the struggle is over--whatever may be its
issue--that's the question! Victor or vanquished, will France emerge a
republic? In any case--whatever the resistance Paris makes, and her
ultimate fate--it will be long, I think, before France is utterly
devoured. The mouthful is a large one, and it may not turn out
altogether easy to break up.
Well, we all send our affectionate love. All friendly messages to your
kind hosts, and my affectionate respects to M. le Cure, whom I shall
never forget.
IV
_October 19, 1870_, 12.30 P.M.
MY DEAR ONES,--We are just going out with Mrs. Brown, who is coming in
her carriage to take us to the Crystal Palace. The fountains play to-day
for the last time this season, and she has set her heart on our seeing
them. As you may fancy, dear Pigny, I shall hardly realise what is going
on before my eyes. I can see nothing but our country. I see it clearer,
more incessantly than when I was within its borders!
Ah! dear friend, will no one rise up and lead our brave-hearted
Frenchmen on some steady line of conduct? Failing that, even the most
heroic courage will avail us nothing. See how, one by one, one after the
other, as though by some strange unheard-of fate, they all fall into the
jaws of that huge automaton, that monstrous hydra-headed artillery!
Every one of them founders in that hostile ocean, dashing gallantly and
ceaselessly against that ever-growing mountain of cannon, and shot, and
shell, and strange engines of war, and battalions that seem to start
ready armed out of the earth wherever the enemy chances to need them!
and meanwhile our generals are being dismissed, or moved from one
command to another,--they are left without orders, and thrown on their
own resources, to take the chance of whatever their private or personal
inspiration may dictate. Three thousand men cut up, to the last man, in
a desperate hopeless defence of the Orleans railway station, all
unconscious that the opposing force numbers five-and-thirty thousand!!
Surely it is sheer madness thus to cast the blood, and bravery, and
downright heroism of these splendid fellows into the outer darkness of
what fate (or is it mere chance?) may bring!
We ought _all_ to be standing face to face with the Prussians at this
moment. Every one of us, or not a soul! And it astounds me that three
million Frenchmen and thirty thousand cannon were not summoned, over a
month ago, under one and the same flag (not that of France alone, but of
humanity in general), to repulse this invasion of machines rather than
of men! Here comes Mrs. Brown. Good-bye for awhile!
V
8 MORDEN ROAD, BLACKHEATH PARK,
_Tuesday, November 8, 1870_.
DEAR EDOUARD,--We are just going to change houses again. We leave Morden
Road next Saturday for London, where my work and engagements render my
presence indispensable. I must get back to work--and to useful work. I
cannot let myself pine and dwindle any longer in endless, hopeless
sorrow. In another month I should be utterly incapable.
If I can write, and sell what I write, I will sell my work.
If I have to give lessons, I will teach: for the armistice is breaking
down, and nobody knows what winter may bring with it. So our poor
little flock is scattered, dear fellow! Not in heart indeed, but in
body; and "Je ne suis pas de ceux qui disent ce n'est rien!... Je dis
que c'est beaucoup!" as old La Fontaine has it.
Tell my dear little Guillaume how much his letters are treasured, not
only by the loving heart of his grandmother, but by his uncle, who
watches and follows every symptom of his tastes, every instinct of his
nature, everything that bears upon his future, every thought--all those
inner workings, in a word, which constitute the continuation of a
youth's mental evolution and ultimate development--with an affectionate
solicitude which I venture to call almost maternal. Everything I notice
in him is good, and augurs well; and I believe the serious and even
tragic events amid the tumult of which his young life has opened will
have endued all his good qualities with a maturity which peace might
only have brought them twenty years later.
Everybody here is well. Jean and Jeanne send their affectionate love to
their uncle and cousin.
VI
MY DEAR PI,--So our hopes are dashed again, by the final rupture of the
armistice, which, as it had seemed to me, was strengthened by all M.
Thiers' consummate powers as a negotiator, and for which the Government
was willing to make every concession to which a self-respecting nation
could condescend.
And what will happen now? Alas! the thought overwhelms me. But though I
cannot turn my heart and mind from the misfortunes of our beloved
country, I feel I must make a desperate appeal to my powers of work, to
my duty, to my _usefulness_. Useful I can be to my near and dear ones
(for I must support them), and useful, too, to myself--for I must shake
free of the slow agony which has been on me ever since we got here, and
which would utterly consume me if I did not call together all my
remaining strength, to make a struggle against the _invasion of my own
morale_.
I shall therefore, as events seem likely, for some time to come, to
render our return to France impossible, spend the winter in finishing,
or at all events in carrying on my present work,[19] so that when the
waters go back I may open the window of my ark and let my dove (which
may perhaps turn out to be a raven!) fly out. In any case, it will mean
that the rainbow has come back, and with it peace among the nations.
Would you were with us, my dear ones! How we are scattered this winter!
VII
LONDON, _December 24, 1870_.
DEAR FRIENDS,--This is the eve of a great day here, which English people
keep as we do New Year's Day. And I must confess that to me Christmas,
which brings back the greatest of all dates to our memory, opens the
year much more appropriately than our "Jour de l'An." Alas! whichever
way we take it, what a year of pain this which is just about to close
has been, to each and all of us, parted as we are, after so many
misfortunes endured, in anxieties such as still beset us, and amid the
dread of what may yet befall us. Our very hearts have groaned and
suffered for the last five months, unceasingly. For five whole months
humanity has gazed on a horrid sight--the most merciless work of
destruction, carried on in a century which proudly arrogates to itself
the title of "Progress," but the memory of which will go down to
posterity stained with the most revolting atrocities. What is progress,
forsooth, but the onward march of intelligence, in the light of love?
And what has this century done, I will not say for the pleasure, but for
the happiness of the human race?
Napoleon I.! Napoleon III.! William of Prussia! Waterloo! mitrailleuses!
Krupp guns!...
In what a scene of ruin shall we meet! We have been physically parted,
but our hearts have never been severed! far from it! It seems as though
this hard and cruel apprenticeship must knit us closer to everything
that makes life real, and sure, and steadfast. So my heart yearns to
yours now, in absence, more tenderly, more clingingly, than it ever did
in happier times! We shall all feel our meeting even more than we should
have if we had never been so far apart. Fondest love to each and all of
you--to Berthe, to you, dear Pi, to all our friends.
VIII
_December 28, 1870._
MY DEAR EDOUARD,--A sad New Year's Day we shall all have, scattered as
we are, and have been for so long! Homeless, parted from our nearest and
dearest, our friends all gone or scattered too, in constant anxiety
about the wellbeing, the health, the very existence of those we love,
thousands of lives cut off, and careers destroyed, or checked, or
hampered--of families brought to ruin, provinces ravaged and harried,
and nothing decisive to show at the end of it all. There you have the
sum total, the last will and testament of this dying year, which has
devoured countless victims, and spread disaster far and wide--the result
at this present moment of "Human Progress." If the tree should be judged
by its fruits, and if, as undoubtedly is the case, the value of a cause
is to be measured by that of its effect, we must admit, considering what
it has brought us to, that human wisdom has gone sadly astray, and that
human reason, for the emancipation of which we have been so jealous,
does no great credit either to its independence or its own teachings. If
all our misfortunes end by giving us a lesson, by bringing us back to
the simplicity of truth, and the truth of simplicity, they will not be
utterly wasted, and we shall have gained a somewhat both precious and
beneficent. For all things proceed from each other, here below; truth
and falsehood each have their inevitable consequences. According to the
tree, so shall its fruit be. What will the year 1871 bring us? I know
not; but it seems to me it must be a decisive year, for good or for
evil, not for us only, but for Europe--for what is known as the
civilised world. We _must_ learn at last _where_ we really are. It is
high time that the nations should make sure wherein their life lies, and
their death--what their strength is, and their weakness--whence they may
look for light, or darkness--how they may escape all temporary shifts,
and settle down on firm and durable foundations. This is the method in
all sciences; and politics is a science, which must have a basis and
constructive system of its own.
Well, well! Best love to Anna and to grandmamma.
IX
_Thursday, March 16, 1871._
DEAREST BERTHE,--Your letter of the 13th only reached us this morning.
It has grieved us sorely. Our dreary winter will close sadly indeed,
what with our dear mother's departure, the reasons which make that step
wise and even necessary, the thought of how all she will see must wring
her heart, and our own disappointment at not having you here for a
while, as we had hoped.
If I was not bound until the 1st of May by the engagements I have made
in London for that date, I should have started, and so would Anna and
her children, with my mother. Duty, in the shape of earning a few
crusts, forbids my moving yet, but we shall be on our way to join you
before the first week in May is over. In spite of the very favourable
welcome, and the artistic position my work has earned me here, I feel
this country is not my France, and I believe, being a particularly human
person, that my French nature and habits are too old to be modified by
transplanting; I shall live and die essentially _a Frenchman_. The day
is yet far distant when the sense of the whole earth being his
fatherland will predominate in the heart of man over love for the soil
of his country.
My tenderest greeting to you both.
X
LONDON, April 14, 1871.
DEAR FRIEND,--Your letter of the 12th has just reached me, and I reply
at once, in the hope that my answer may be at Versailles in time to
welcome you on your return to the dear fraternal roof, and that thus
your two brothers may each greet you after his fashion--one in his
peaceful garden, the other by these few lines from the other side of the
sea; one opening his door to you, the other stretching out his arms;
both taking you to their hearts. How large the place you hold there, you
know right well! Alas! dear friend, dear brother, I too hear the
terrible guns whose booming grieves your soul and breaks your heart, as
well it may! As step by step I follow the progress of events, and the
various phases of this conflict, or rather of the utter bedlam which
causes and maintains it, I watch the gradual disappearance--I will not
say of my illusions (the word is not worthy to express my meaning, nor
should I mourn over it as I do), but of my hopes, present or near, at
all events, of the approaching erection of a new _story_ in the building
of the moral habitation men call "Liberty," the only dwelling, after
all, worthy of the human race. No, again I say it, these are no
illusions which are fading from our sight! Liberty is no dream; it is
our Canaan, a true land of promise. But, like the Jews, we shall only
see it afar off. To enter it, we must become God's own people. Liberty
is as real as heaven. It is a heaven on earth--the country of the elect;
but it must be earned, and conquered, not by oppression, but by
self-devotion; not by pillage, but by generosity; not by taking life,
but by bestowing it, in the moral as well as the material sense.
Morally, above all; for once that is well understood and ascertained,
the material side of the question will take care of itself. The _man's_
hygiene must come first, his animal welfare second--that is the just,
and therefore the logical course.
When I consider the outcome (so far at least) of all the moral gifts,
all the advances on trust, as it were, of which humanity, political and
social, has been the recipient, up till this present day, I cannot help
observing that it has been treated like a spoilt child. I feel inclined
to doubt whether a wise and opportune distribution of all those gifts
which cannot be appreciated and utilised till the human race comes of
age, has not been anticipated with reckless and imprudent prodigality.
We still stand in need of _overseers_. Well, master for master, take it
all in all, I would rather have _one_ than _two hundred thousand_. You
can always get rid of one tyrant (natural death, what we call _la belle
mort_, will do that for you); but a collective tyranny, compact,
endlessly reproductive, feeding and fattening perpetually on its own
victims!--I can never believe that is God's chosen model of human
evolution. Now, if we carry the argument to its conclusion, we come to
this: "Liberty is merely the voluntary and conscious accomplishment of
justice." And as justice is obedience to eternal and unchanging laws, it
follows that where there is freedom there must be submission. This is
the end of the argument, and the basis of all life. I should go on
twaddling for ever (and so would you), but I must not forget mine is
not the only letter this envelope is to hold.
So I will send my affectionate love to you and Berthe.--Your brother,
CH. GOUNOD.
BERLIOZ
In the ranks of human nature certain peculiarly sensitive beings are to
be found, whom circumstances affect after a fashion utterly distinct,
both in nature and degree, from the results they produce on other men.
These individuals form the inevitable exception to an otherwise
invariable rule. Their natural idiosyncrasies explain the peculiar
features of their various lives, and to these lives again their ultimate
fate may fairly be ascribed.
Now the exceptional men and women lead the world. This is inevitable,
for their struggle and their suffering is the price of the enlightenment
and progress of humanity at large. Once these intellectual pioneers have
dropped on the road they have hewed out--oh! then troops up the flock of
imitators, full of the pride of breaking down the already opened door;
every separate sheep of them, as vainglorious as the legendary fly on
the coach-wheel, loudly claiming the honour and glory of having won
triumph for the Revolution. "J'ai tant fait que nos gens sont enfin dans
la plaine!" Like Beethoven, Berlioz was one of the illustrious sufferers
from that painful privilege of being an exceptional man. Dearly did he
pay for the heavy responsibility! The exceptional man must suffer. Fate
wills it thus, and, as invariably, he must bring suffering on others.
How can the common herd (that _profanum vulgus_ so execrated by the poet
Horace) be expected to acknowledge its own incompetence and bow down
before any insignificant though audacious person who dares stand out
boldly against inveterate custom and the sovereign rule of
old-established routine? Did not Voltaire (a clever man, if ever there
was one) declare that no one person was as clever as all the rest put
together? And is not universal suffrage, the great achievement of these
modern days, the irrevocable verdict of the sovereign populace? Does not
the voice of the people equal the voice divine?
History, meanwhile, with its steady onward march, which from time to
time exposes many a counterfeit--history, I say, teaches us that
everywhere, and invariably, light proceeds from the individual to the
multitude, and never from the multitude to the individual; from the
wise to the ignorant, never from the ignorant to the wise; from the sun
to the planet, never from the planet to the sun. You cannot expect
thirty-six millions of blind men to do the work of one telescope, or
thirty-six millions of sheep that of one shepherd! Was it the world at
large that formed Raphael and Michael Angelo, Mozart and Beethoven,
Newton and Galileo? The world!--which spends its life making and
unmaking its own judgments, in a perpetual alternate condemnation of its
own infatuations and prejudices. How can the world judge anything? Would
you erect such wavering contradictory decrees into an infallible
jurisdiction? The very thought is laughable. The world's first impulse
is to scourge and crucify. Long afterwards, in the next generation
oftener than not, or a still later one, a tardy repentance reverses the
judgment, and the laurels denied to the living genius fall like rain
upon his tomb. The only true and definite sentence, that of posterity,
is but the accumulated judgment of successive minorities. Majorities are
the "preservers of the _statu quo_." I do not blame them. They probably
fulfil their true function in the general order of things. They may keep
the chariot back. They certainly do not help it onwards. They act as a
drag, when they do not play the part of ruts upon the path. Immediate
success is often enough a mere question of fashion. It proves a work to
be on a level with the age; it by no means argues any long survival.
There is no great reason, then, for being proud of it.
Berlioz was a very single-minded man, ignorant of all arts of concession
or compromise. Belonging, as he did, to the race of _Alcestis_,
naturally enough the hand of every _Orontes_ was against him. And how
many "Orontes" there are in this world! People called him crotchety,
surly, quarrelsome, what not! But surely those who complained of this
extreme sensitiveness, often amounting to excessive irritability, should
have made some allowance for the annoyances, the personal suffering, the
innumerable rebuffs endured by a proud-hearted man, to whom any mean
compliance or cringing servility was utterly impossible. Though his
opinions may have seemed hard and severe to those concerning whom they
were expressed, they never, at all events, can be attributed to any
shameful or jealous motive. Such feelings were quite incompatible with
the nobility of that great and generous and loyal nature. The trials
endured by Berlioz when competing for the Grand Prix de Rome were the
faithful image, and, as it were, the prophetic prelude to those he was
to face all through his career. He actually competed four times over,
and he was twenty-seven when, by dint of his own perseverance, and in
spite of the innumerable difficulties he had to overcome, he won the
prize, in the year 1830.
The very year which saw him carry off the prize with his cantata
"Sardanapale" also saw the execution of a work which demonstrated the
point his artistic development (so far as musical conception, colour,
and experience are concerned) had reached. His "Symphonic Fantastique"
("episode dans la vie d'un artiste") was a real event in the musical
world, the importance of which may be gauged by the fanatical admiration
and the violent opposition it aroused. Admitting that a work of such a
nature may be open to much discussion, the fact that its composer
possessed most remarkable inventive power, and a powerful poetic
sentiment (which reappears in all his subsequent compositions), still
remains evident.
Berlioz has put into musical circulation, so to speak, a large number
of orchestral effects and combinations which were unknown before his
time, and which have been adopted by very illustrious musicians indeed.
He has revolutionised the art of instrumentation, and in that respect,
at all events, may be said to have "founded a school." And yet, in spite
of certain brilliant successes both in France and elsewhere, his whole
life was a struggle. In spite of performances to which his personal
guidance as an orchestral conductor of great eminence and his
indefatigable energy added many chances of success and many elements of
brilliance, his personal public was always a limited one. The great
public, that "everybody" which turns _success_ into _popularity_, never
knew him. Popularity was so slow in coming to Berlioz that he died of
the delay. The end came at last, with the "Troyens," a work which, as he
foresaw, caused him a world of sorrow. Like his namesake and his hero,
he may be said to have perished before the walls of Troy. Every
impression, every sensation Berlioz underwent was carried to an extreme.
He knew no joy or sorrow short of downright delirium. As he himself
would say, he was a "volcano." Extreme sensibility carries one as far
in suffering as in delight. Tabor and Golgotha are not far apart.
Happiness no more consists in the absence of suffering than genius
implies freedom from all faults.
Men of genius must and do suffer, but they need no pity. They know
raptures which are a sealed book to others, and if they have wept for
sadness, they have shed tears of ineffable joy as well. That in itself
constitutes a heaven that can never be too dearly bought.