JOURNAL OF PAOLO LANGHETTI.
When Mrs. Thornton saw Despard next she showed him a short note which
she had just received from her brother, accompanying his journal. Nearly
two years had elapsed since she had last heard from him.
His journal was written as before at long intervals, and was as follows:
Halifax, April 10, 1847.--I exist here, but nothing more. Nothing is
offered by this small colonial town that can afford interest. Life goes
on monotonously. The officers and their families are what they are every
where. They are amiable and pleasant, and try to get the best out of
life. The townspeople are hospitable, and there is much refinement among
them.
But I live for the most part in a cottage outside of the town, where
I can be secluded and free from observation. Near my house is the
Northwest Arm. I cross it in a boat, and am at once in a savage
wilderness. From the summit of a hill, appropriately named Mount Misery,
I can look down upon this city which is bordered by such a wilderness.
The winter has passed since my last entry, and nothing has occurred. I
have learned to skate. I went out on a moose-hunt with Colonel Despard.
The gigantic horns of a moose which I killed are now over the door of my
studio. I have joined in some festivities, and have done the honors of
my house. It is an old-fashioned wooden structure which they call the
Priory.
So the winter has passed, and April is now here. In this country there
is no spring. Snow is yet on the ground. Winter is transformed gradually
till summer. I must keep up my fires till June, they say.
During the winter I have guarded my treasure well. I took a house on
purpose to have a home for her. But her melancholy continued, and the
state of mind in which I found her still endures. Will it ever change?
I gave out here that she was a relative who was in ill health. But the
winter has passed, and she remains precisely the same. Can she live on
long in this mood?
At length I have decided to try a change for her. The Holy Sisterhood
of Mercy have a convent here, where she may find a higher and purer
atmosphere than any where else. There I have placed her. I have told
nothing of her story. They think she is in grief for the death of
friends. They have received her with that warm sympathy and holy love
which it is the aim of their life to cherish.
O mater alma Christ! carissima,
Te nunc flagitant devota corda et ora,
Ora pro nobis!
August 5, 1847.--The summer goes on pleasantly. A bracing climate, a
cool sea-breeze, fishing and hunting in the forests, sailing in the
harbor--these are the amusements which one can find if he has the
leisure.
She has been among the Sisterhood of Mercy for some months. The deep
calm of that holy retreat has soothed her, but only this much, that her
melancholy has not lessened but grown more placid. She is in the midst
of those whose thoughts are habitually directed to that work which she
longs after. The home from which she has been exiled is the desire of
their hearts. They aim after that place for which she longs with so deep
a longing. There is sympathy in all those hearts with one another. She
hears in their chants and prayers those hopes and desires, and these are
but the utterances of what she feels.
Here they sing the matchless Rhythm of Bernard de Morlaix, and in these
words she finds the highest expression that human words can give of the
thoughts and desires of her soul. They tell me that the first time they
sang it, as they came to this passage she burst into tears and sank down
almost senseless:
O bona patria! lumina sobria te speculantur,
Ad tua nomina sobria lumina collacrimantur:
Et tua mentio pectoris unctis, cura doloris,
Concipientibus aethers mentibus ignis amoris.
November 17.--The winter must soon be here again.
My treasure is well guarded by the Holy Sisterhood. They revere her and
look upon her as a saint. They tell me wonderful things about her which
have sunk into my soul. They think that she is another Saint Cecilia, or
rather Saint Teresa, the Saint of Love and Longing.
She told them once that she was not a Catholic, but that any form of
worship was sweet and precious to her--most of all, the lofty utterances
of the prayers and hymns of the Church. She will not listen to dogmas,
but says that God wishes only love and praise. Yet she joins in all
their rites, and in this House, where Love is chiefly adored, she
surpasses all in the deep love of her heart.
January 2, 1848.--I have seen her for the first time in many months. She
smiled. I never saw her smile before, except once in the ship, when I
told my name and made her mother take my place in the cabin.
She smiled. It was as if an angel from heaven had smiled on me. Do I not
believe that she is one?
They all say that she is unchanged. Her sadness has had no abatement. On
that meeting she made an effort for my sake to stoop to me. Perhaps
she saw how my very soul entreated her to speak. So she spoke of the
Sisterhood, and said she loved them all. I asked her if she was happier
here than at my house. She said “No.” I did not know whether to feel
rejoiced or sorrowful. Then she told me something which has filled me
with wonder ever since.
She asked me if I had been making inquiries about her family, for I had
said that I would. I told her that I had. She asked what I had heard. I
hesitated for a moment, and at last, seeing that she was superior to any
sorrow of bereavement; I told her all about the sad fate of her brother
Louis, which your old friend Courtenay Despard had communicated to his
uncle here. She listened without emotion, and at last, looking earnestly
at me, said,
“_He is not dead!_”
I stood amazed. I had seen the very newspapers which contained an
account of his death, I had read the letters of Courtenay Despard, which
showed how painstaking his search had been. Had he not traveled to every
place where he could hear any thing of the Brandons? Had he not written
at the very outset wherever he could hope to hear any thing? I did not
know what to say.
For Louis Brandon is known to have fallen overboard from the ship Java,
during a tremendous monsoon, several hundred miles away from any land.
How could he possibly have escaped death? The Captain, whom Courtenay
Despard found out and questioned, said he threw over a hen-coop and a
pail. These could not save him. Despard also inquired for months from
every ship that arrived from those parts, but could learn nothing. The
next ship that came from New South Wales foundered off the coast of
Africa. Three passengers escaped to Sierra Leone, and thence to England.
Despard learned their names, but they were not Brandon. The information
which one of them, named Wheeler, gave to the ship-owners afforded
no hope of his having been found by this ship, even if it had been
possible. It was simply impossible, however, for the _Falcon_ did not
pass the spot where poor Brandon fell overboard till months had elapsed.
All these things I knew, and they came to my mind. She did not notice
my emotion, but after a pause she looked at me again with the same
earnestness, and said,
“_My brother Frank is not dead._”
This surprised me as much as the other.
“Are you sure?” said I, reverently.
“I am.”
“How did you learn this? All who have inquired say that both of your
brothers are dead.”
“They told me,” said she, “many times. _They_ said that my brothers had
not come among them to their own place, as they would have had to come
if they had left the earth.”
She spoke solemnly and with mysterious emphasis. I said nothing, for I
knew not what to say.
On going home and thinking over this, I saw that she believed herself
to have the power of communicating with the departed. I did not know
whether this intelligence, which she believed she had received, had
been gained in her trance, or whether she thought that she had recent
interviews with those on high. I went to see her again, and asked this.
She told me that once since her recovery she had fallen into that state,
and had been, as she called it, “in her home.”
I ventured to ask her more about what she considered a communion with
the departed. She tried to speak, but looked like one who could not find
words. It was still the same as before. She has in her mind thoughts
which can not be expressed by any human language. She will not be able
to express them till such a language is obtained. Yet she gave me one
idea, which has been in my mind ever since.
She said that the language of those among whom she has been has nothing
on earth which is like it except music. If our music could be developed
to an indefinite extent it might at last begin to resemble it. Yet
she said that she sometimes heard strains here in the Holy Mass which
reminded her of that language, and might be intelligible to an immortal.
This is the idea which she imparted to me, and I have thought of it ever
since.
August 23--Great things have happened.
When I last wrote I had gained the idea of transforming music into a
language. The thought came to me that I, who thirst for music, and love
it and cherish it above all things--to whom it is an hourly comfort and
solace--that I might rise to utter forth to her sounds which she might
hear. I had already seen enough of her spiritual tone to know what
sympathies and emotions might best be acted upon. I saw her several
times, so as to stimulate myself to a higher and purer exercise of
whatever genius I may have.
I was encouraged by the thought that from my earliest childhood, as I
began to learn to speak so I began to learn to sing. As I learned to
read printed type so I read printed music. The thoughts of composers in
music thus became as legible to me as those of composers in words. So
all my life my knowledge has widened, and with that knowledge my love
has increased. This has been my one aim in life--my joy and my delight.
Thus it came to pass that at last, when alone with my Cremona, I could
utter all my own thoughts, and pour forth every feeling that was in my
heart. This was a language with me. I spoke it, yet there was no one who
could understand it fully. Only one had I ever met with to whom I told
this besides yourself--she could accompany me--she could understand and
follow me wherever I led. I could speak this language to her, and she
could hear and comprehend. This one was my Bice.
Now that she had told me this I grasped at the thought. Never before had
the idea entered my mind of trying upon her the effect of my music. I
had given it up for her sake while she was with me, not liking to cause
any sound to disturb her rapt and melancholy mood.
But now I began to understand how it was with her. She had learned the
language of the highest places and had heard the New Song. She stood far
above me, and if she could not understand my music it would be from the
same reason that a grown man can not comprehend the words of a lisping,
stammering child. She had that language in its fullness. I had it only
in its crudest rudiments.
Now Bice learned my words and followed me. She knew my utterance. I
was the master--she the disciple. But here was one who could lead me. I
would be the follower and disciple. From her I could learn more than in
all my life I could ever discover by my own unassisted efforts.
It was mine, therefore, to struggle to overcome the lisping, stammering
utterance of my purely earthly music; to gain from her some knowledge of
the mood of that holier, heavenly expression, so that at last I might
be able in some degree to speak to this exile the language of the home
which she loved; that we, by holding commune in this language, might
rise together to a higher spiritual realm, and that she in her solitude
might receive at least some associate.
So I proposed to her to come back and stay with me again. She consented
at once.
Before that memorable evening I purified my heart by fasting and prayer.
I was like one who was seeking to ascend into heaven to take part in
that celestial communion, to join in the New Song, the music of the
angels.
By fasting and prayer I sought so to ascend, and to find thoughts and
fit utterance for those thoughts. I looked upon my office as similar to
that of the holy prophets of old. I felt that I had a power of utterance
if the Divine One would only inspire.
I fasted and prayed that so I might reduce this grosser material frame,
and sharpen and quicken every nerve, and stimulate every fibre of the
brain. So alone could I most nearly approach to the commune of spirits.
Thus had those saints and prophets of old done when they had entered
upon the search after this communion, and they had received their
reward, even the visitation of angels and the vision of the blessed.
A prophet--yes--now, in these days, it is left for the prophet to utter
forth his inspiration by no other way than that of music.
So I fasted and prayed. I took up the words from the holy priesthood,
and I said, as they say:
Munda cor meum, ac labia mea, Omnipotens Deus, qui labia Isaiae
prophetae, calculo mundasti ignito!
For so Isaiah had been exalted till he heard the language of heaven, the
music of the seraphim.
She, my divinity, my adored, enshrined again in my house, bore herself
as before--kind to me and gentle beyond all expression, but with
thoughts of her own that placed between us a gulf as wide as that which
separates the mortal from the immortal.
On that evening she was with me in the parlor which looks out upon the
Northwest Arm. The moon shone down there, the dark, rocky hills on the
opposite side rose in heavy masses. The servants were away in the city.
We were alone.
Ah, my Cremona! if a material instrument were ever able to utter forth
sounds to which immortals might listen, thou, best gift of my father,
thou canst utter them!
“You are pale,” said she, for she was always kindly and affectionate as
a mother with a child, as a guardian angel with his ward. “You are pale.
You always forget yourself for others, and now you suffer anxiety for
me. Do not suffer. I have my consolations.”
I did not make any reply, but took my Cremona, and sought to lift up all
my soul to a level with hers, to that lofty realm where her spirit ever
wandered, that so I might not be comfortless. She started at the first
tone that I struck forth, and looked at me with her large, earnest eyes.
I found my own gaze fixed on hers, rapt and entranced. Now there came
at last the inspiration so longed for, so sought for. It came from where
her very soul looked forth into mine, out of the glory of her lustrous,
spiritual eyes. They grew brighter with an almost immortal radiance, and
all my heart rose up till it seemed ready to burst in the frenzy of that
inspired moment.
Now I felt the spirit of prophecy, I felt the afflatus of the inspired
sibyl or seer, and the voice of music which for a lifetime I had sought
to utter forth now at last sounded as I longed that it should sound.
I exulted in that sound. I knew that at last I had caught the tone, and
from her. I knew its meaning and exulted, as the poet or the musician
must always exult when some idea sublimer than any which he has ever
known is wafted over his upturned spiritual gaze.
She shared my exaltation. There came over her face swiftly, like the
lightning flash, an expression of surprise and joy. So the face of the
exile lightens up at the throbbing of his heart, when, in some foreign
land, he suddenly and unexpectedly hears the sound of his own language.
So his eyes light up, and his heart beats faster, and even amidst the
very longing of his soul after home, the desire after that home is
appeased by these its most hallowed associations.
And the full meaning of that eloquent gaze of hers as her soul looked
into mine became all apparent to me. “Speak on,” it said; “sound on, oh
strains of the language of my home! Unheard so long, now heard at last.”
I knew that I was comprehended. Now all the feelings of the melancholy
months came rushing over my heart, and all the holiest ideas which had
animated my life came thronging into my mind, bursting forth into tones,
as though of their own accord, involuntarily, as words come forth in a
dream.
“Oh thou,” I said, in that language which my own lips could not
utter--“oh thou whom I saved from the tomb, the life to which I restored
thee is irksome; but there remains a life to which at last thou shalt
attain.
“Oh thou,” I said, “whose spirit moves among the immortals, I am mortal
yet immortal! My soul seeks commune with them. I yearn after that
communion. Life here on earth is not more dear to me than to thee. Help
me to rise above it. Thou hast been on high, show me too the way.
“Oh thou,” I said, “who hast seen things ineffable, impart to me thy
confidence. Let me know thy secret. Receive me as the companion of thy
soul. Shut not thyself up in solitude. Listen, I can speak thy language.
“Attend,” I cried, “for it is not for nothing that the Divine One
has sent thee back. Live not these mortal days in loneliness and in
uselessness. Regard thy fellow-mortals and seek to bless them. Thou hast
learned the mystery of the highest. Let me be thine interpreter. All
that thou hast learned I will communicate to man.
“Rise up,” I cried, “to happiness and to labor. Behold! I give thee a
purpose in life. Blend thy soul with mine, and let me utter thy thoughts
so that men shall hear and understand. For I know that the highest truth
of highest Heaven means nothing more than love. Gather up all thy love,
let it flow forth to thy fellow-men. This shall be at once the labor and
the consolation of thy life.”
Now all this, and much more--far more--was expressed in the tones that
flowed from my Cremona. It was all in my heart. It came forth. It was
apprehended by her. I saw it, I knew it, and I exulted. Her eyes dilated
more widely--my words were not unworthy of her hearing. I then was able
to tell something which could rouse her from her stupor. Oh, Music!
Divine Music! What power thou hast over the soul!
There came over her face an expression which I never saw before; one of
peace ineffable--the peace that passeth understanding. Ah me! I seemed
to draw her to myself. For she rose and walked toward me. And a great
calm came over my own soul. My Cremona spoke of peace--soft, sweet, and
deep; the profound peace that dwelleth in the soul which has its hope
in fruition. The tone widened into sweet modulation--sweet beyond all
expression.
She was so close that she almost touched me. Her eyes were still fixed
on mine. Tears were there, but not tears of sorrow. Her face was so
close to mine that my strength left me. My arms dropped downward. The
music was over.
[Illustration: “I DID NOT MAKE ANY REPLY, BUT TOOK MY CREMONA, AND
SOUGHT TO LIFT UP ALL MY SOUL TO A LEVEL WITH HERS.”]
She held out her hand to me. I caught it in both of mine, and wet it
with my tears.
“Paolo,” said she, in a voice of musical tone; “Paolo, you are already
one of us. You speak our language.
“You have taught me something which flows from love--duty. Yes, we
will labor together; and they who live on high will learn even in their
radiant home to envy us poor mortals.”
I said not a word, but knelt; and holding her hand still, I looked up at
her in grateful adoration.
November 28.--For the last three months I have lived in heaven. She
is changed. Music has reconciled her to exile. She has found one who
speaks, though weakly, the language of that home.
We hold together through this divine medium a lofty spirited
intercourse. I learn from her of that starry world in which for a brief
time she was permitted to dwell. Her seraphic thoughts have become
communicated to me. I have made them my own, and all my spirit has risen
to a higher altitude.
So I have at last received that revelation for which I longed, and the
divine thoughts with which she has inspired me I will make known to the
world. How? Description is inadequate, but it is enough to say that I
have decided upon an Opera as the best mode of making known these ideas.
I have reported to one of those classical themes which, though as old as
civilization, are yet ever new, because they are truth.
My Opera is on the theme of Prometheus. It refers to Prometheus
Delivered. My idea is derived from her. Prometheus represents Divine
Love--since he is the god who suffers unendurable agonies through his
love for man. Zeus represents the old austere god of the sects and
creeds--the gloomy God of Vengeance--the stern--the inexorable--the
cruel.
Love endures through the ages, but at last triumphs. The chief agent
in his triumph is Athene. She represents Wisdom, which, by its life and
increase, at last dethrones the God of Vengeance and enthrones the God
of Love.
For so the world goes on; and thus it shall be that Human Understanding,
which I have personified under Athene, will at last exalt Divine Love
over all, and cast aside its olden adoration of Divine Vengeance.
I am trying to give to my Opera the severe simplicity of the classical
form, yet at the same time to pervade it all with the warm atmosphere of
love in its widest sense. It opens with a chorus of seraphim. Prometheus
laments; but the chief part is that of Athene. On that I have exhausted
myself.
But where can I get a voice that can adequately render my
thoughts--_our_ thoughts? Where is Bice? She alone has this voice; she
alone has the power of catching and absorbing into her own mind the
ideas which I form; and with it all, she alone could express them.
I would wander over the earth to find her. But perhaps she is in
a luxurious home, where her associates would not listen to such a
proposal.
Patience! perhaps Bice may at last bring her marvelous voice to my aid.
December 15.--Every day our communion has grown more exalted. She
breathes upon me the atmosphere of that radiant world, and fills my soul
with rapture. I live in a sublime enthusiasm. We hold intercourse by
means of music. We stand upon a higher plane than that of common
men. She has raised me there, and has made me to be a partaker in her
thoughts.
Now I begin to understand something of the radiant world to which she
was once for a brief time borne. I know her lost joys; I share in her
longings. In me, as in her, there is a deep, unquenchable thirst after
those glories that are present there. All here seems poor and mean. No
material pleasure can for a moment allure.
I live in a frenzy. My soul is on fire. Music is my sole thought and
utterance. Colonel Despard thinks that I am mad. My friends here pity
me. I smile within myself when I think of pity being given by them to
me. Kindly souls! could they but have one faint idea of the unspeakable
joys to which I have attained!
My Cremona is my voice. It expresses all things for me. Ah, sweet
companion of my soul’s flight! my Guide, my Guardian Angel, my Inspirer!
had ever before two mortals while on earth a lot like ours? Who
else besides us in this life ever learned the joys of pure spiritual
communion? We rise on high together. Our souls are borne up in company.
When we hold commune we cease to be mortals.
My Opera is finished. The radiancy of that Divine Love which has
inundated all the being of Edith has been imparted to me in some measure
sufficient to enable me to breathe forth to human ears tones which have
been caught from immortal voices. She has given me ideas. I have made
them audible and intelligible to men.
I have had one performance of my work, or rather our work, for it is all
hers. Hers are the thoughts, mine is only the expression.
I sought out a place of solitude in which I might perform undisturbed
and without interruption the theme which I have tried to unfold.
Opposite my house is a wild, rocky shore covered with the primeval
woods. Here in one place there rises a barren rock, perfectly bare of
verdure, which is called Mount Misery. I chose his place as the spot
where I might give my rehearsal.
She was the audience--I was the orchestra--we two were alone.
Mount Misery is one barren rock without a blade of grass on all its dark
iron-like surface. Around it is a vast accumulation of granite boulders
and vast rocky ledges. The trees are stunted, the very ferns can
scarcely find a place to grow.
It was night. There was not a cloud in the sky. The moon shone with
marvelous lustre.
Down in front of us lay the long arm of the sea that ran up between us
and the city. On the opposite side were woods, and beyond them rose the
citadel, on the other side of which the city lay nestling at its base
like those Rhenish towns which lie at the foot of feudal castles.
On the left hand all was a wilderness; on the right, close by, was a
small lake, which seemed like a sheet of silver in the moon’s rays.
Farther on lay the ocean, stretching in its boundless extent away to
the horizon. There lay islands and sand-banks with light-houses.
There, under the moon, lay a broad path of golden light--molten
gold--unruffled--undisturbed in that dead calm.
My Opera begins with an Alleluia Chorus. I have borrowed words from the
Angel Song at the opening of “Faust” for my score. But the music has an
expression of its own, and the words are feeble; and the only comfort
is, that these words will be lost in the triumph strain of the tones
that accompany them.
She was with me, exulting where I was exultant, sad where I was
sorrowful; still with her air of Guide and Teacher. She is my Egeria.
She is my Inspiring Muse. I invoke her when I sing.
But my song carried her away. Her own thoughts expressed by my utterance
were returned to her, and she yielded herself up altogether to their
power.
Ah me! there is one language common to all on earth, and to all in
heaven, and that is music.
I exulted then on that bare, blasted rock. I triumphed. She joined me in
it all. We exulted together. We triumphed. We mourned, we rejoiced, we
despaired, we hoped, we sung alleluias in our hearts. The very winds
were still. The very moon seemed to stay her course. All nature was
hushed.
She stood before me, white, slender, aerial, like a spirit from on high,
as pure, as holy, as stainless. Her soul and mine were blended. We moved
to one common impulse. We obeyed one common motive.
What is this? Is it love? Yes; but not as men call love. Ours is
heavenly love, ardent, but yet spiritual; intense, but without passion;
a burning love like that of the cherubim; all-consuming, all-engrossing,
and enduring for evermore.
Have I ever told her my admiration? Yes; but not in words. I have told
her so in music, in every tone, in every strain. She knows that I am
hers. She is my divinity, my muse, my better genius--the nobler half of
my soul.
I have laid all my spirit at her feet, as one prostrates himself before
a divinity. She has accepted that adoration and has been pleased.
We are blended. We are one, but not after an earthly fashion, for never
yet have I even touched her hand in love. It is our spirits, our real
selves--not our merely visible selves--that love; yet that love is so
intense that I would die for evermore if my death could make her life
more sweet.
She has heard all this from my Cremona.
Here, as we stood under the moon, I thought her a spirit with a mortal
lover. I recognized the full meaning of the sublime legend of Numa and
Egeria. The mortal aspires in purity of heart, and the immortal comes
down and assists and responds to his aspirations.
Our souls vibrated in unison to the expression of heavenly thoughts. We
threw ourselves into the rapture of the hour. We trembled, we thrilled,
till at last frail mortal nature could scarcely endure the intensity of
that perfect joy.
So we came to the end. The end is a chorus of angels. They sing the
divinest of songs that is written in Holy Revelation. All the glory of
that song reaches its climax in the last strain:
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes!”
We wept together. But we dried our tears and went home, musing on that
“tearless eternity” which lies before us.
Morning is dawning as I write, and all the feeling of my soul can be
expressed in one word, the sublimest of all words, which is intelligible
to many of different languages and different races. I will end with
this:
“Alleluia!”