I shall not weary you, my dear Edward, by recounting similar experiences
which occurred on nearly every occasion that the young men met in the
evenings for music. The repetition of the phenomenon had accustomed them
to expect it. Both professed to be quite satisfied that it was to be
attributed to acoustical affinities of vibration between the wicker-work
and certain of the piano wires, and indeed this seemed the only
explanation possible. But, at the same time, the resemblance of the
noises to those caused by a person sitting down in or rising from a
chair was so marked, that even their frequent recurrence never failed to
make a strange impression on them. They felt a reluctance to mention the
matter to their friends, partly from a fear of being themselves laughed
at, and partly to spare from ridicule a circumstance to which each
perhaps, in spite of himself, attached some degree of importance.
Experience soon convinced them that the first noise as of one sitting
down never occurred unless the _Gagliarda_ of the "Areopagita" was
played, and that this noise being once heard, the second only followed
it when they ceased playing for the evening. They met every night,
sitting later with the lengthening summer evenings, and every night,
as by some tacit understanding, played the "Areopagita" suite before
parting. At the opening bars of the _Gagliarda_ the creaking of the
chair occurred spontaneously with the utmost regularity. They seldom
spoke even to one another of the subject; but one night, when John was
putting away his violin after a long evening's music without having
played the "Areopagita," Mr. Gaskell, who had risen from the pianoforte,
sat down again as by a sudden impulse and said--
"Johnnie, do not put away your violin yet. It is near twelve o'clock
and I shall get shut out, but I cannot stop to-night without playing the
_Gagliarda_. Suppose that all our theories of vibration and affinity are
wrong, suppose that there really comes here night by night some strange
visitant to hear us, some poor creature whose heart is bound up in that
tune; would it not be unkind to send him away without the hearing of
that piece which he seems most to relish? Let us not be ill-mannered,
but humour his whim; let us play the _Gagliarda_."
They played it with more vigour and precision than usual, and the now
customary sound of one taking his seat at once ensued. It was that night
that my brother, looking steadfastly at the chair, saw, or thought he
saw, there some slight obscuration, some penumbra, mist, or subtle
vapour which, as he gazed, seemed to struggle to take human form. He
ceased playing for a moment and rubbed his eyes, but as he did so all
dimness vanished and he saw the chair perfectly empty. The pianist
stopped also at the cessation of the violin, and asked what ailed him.
"It is only that my eyes were dim," he answered.
"We have had enough for to-night," said Mr. Gaskell; "let us stop.
I shall be locked out." He shut the piano, and as he did so the clock
in New College tower struck twelve. He left the room running, but was
late enough at his college door to be reported, admonished with a fine
against such late hours, and confined for a week to college; for being
out after midnight was considered, at that time at least, a somewhat
serious offence.
Thus for some days the musical practice was compulsorily intermitted,
but resumed on the first evening after Mr. Gaskell's term of confinement
was expired. After they had performed several suites of Graziani, and
finished as usual with the "Areopagita," Mr. Gaskell sat for a time
silent at the instrument, as though thinking with himself, and then
said--
"I cannot say how deeply this old-fashioned music affects me. Some would
try to persuade us that these suites, of which the airs bear the names
of different dances, were always written rather as a musical essay and
for purposes of performance than for persons to dance to, as their names
would more naturally imply. But I think these critics are wrong at least
in some instances. It is to me impossible to believe that such a melody,
for instance, as the _Giga_ of Corelli which we have played, was not
written for actual purposes of dancing. One can almost hear the beat
of feet upon the floor, and I imagine that in the time of Corelli the
practice of dancing, while not a whit inferior in grace, had more of the
tripudistic or beating character than is now esteemed consistent with a
correct ball-room performance. The _Gagliarda_ too, which we play now so
constantly, possesses a singular power of assisting the imagination to
picture or reproduce such scenes as those which it no doubt formerly
enlivened. I know not why, but it is constantly identified in my mind
with some revel which I have perhaps seen in a picture, where several
couples are dancing a licentious measure in a long room lit by a number
of silver sconces of the debased model common at the end of the
seventeenth century. It is probably a reminiscence of my late excursion
that gives to these dancers in my fancy the olive skin, dark hair, and
bright eyes of the Italian type; and they wear dresses of exceedingly
rich fabric and elaborate design. Imagination is whimsical enough to
paint for me the character of the room itself, as having an arcade of
arches running down one side alone, of the fantastic and paganised
Gothic of the Renaissance. At the end is a gallery or balcony for the
musicians, which on its coved front has a florid coat of arms of foreign
heraldry. The shield bears, on a field _or_, a cherub's head blowing on
three lilies--a blazon I have no doubt seen somewhere in my travels,
though I cannot recollect where. This scene, I say, is so nearly
connected in my brain with the _Gagliarda_, that scarcely are its first
notes sounded ere it presents itself to my eyes with a vividness which
increases every day. The couples advance, set, and recede, using free
and licentious gestures which my imagination should be ashamed to
recall. Amongst so many foreigners, fancy pictures, I know not in the
least why, the presence of a young man of an English type of face, whose
features, however, always elude my mind's attempt to fix them. I think
that the opening subject of this _Gagliarda_ is a superior composition
to the rest of it, for it is only during the first sixteen bars that the
vision of bygone revelry presents itself to me. With the last note of
the sixteenth bar a veil is drawn suddenly across the scene, and with a
sense almost of some catastrophe it vanishes. This I attribute to the
fact that the second subject must be inferior in conception to the
first, and by some sense of incongruity destroys the fabric which the
fascination of the preceding one built up."
My brother, though he had listened with interest to what Mr. Gaskell had
said, did not reply, and the subject was allowed to drop.