the day, and, like the song of the swan, are the sweetest when the
day is done; which, like the Ranz des Vaches of Switzerland, call
man from his toil and hurry, to the night of repose, and into the
weird world of dreams; evening bells, like those which used to be
rung to direct the wanderer through the forests to his nightly home,
and which, as Jean Paul says, with his rare eloquence, have their
parallel in the voices within us and about us, which call us in
our straying, and make us calmer, and teach us to moderate our own
joys and conceive those of others; vesper bells, veiling all the
landscape with a holy hush, and calling man to prayer; bells wafting
the sweetest music over the water to the homeward-bound sailor,
and coming to him like voices from home, softened by the twilight;
bells to welcome him who has wandered the world over, with pilgrim's
staff and scallop-shell, seeking for rest--who, tired with life's
tumultuous pleasures, surfeited with its vain shows, and filled with
nameless, unutterable longings, turns his face homeward again, and
finds his heart leaping with joy at the familiar sound of the bells
in the distant city--peal upon peal vibrating in sweet music, and
telling him of home, and rest, and peace; bells to break the peaceful
silence of the Sabbath morning with the lingering cadences of their
sweet concord--to summon to worship, to rouse the ear, and to
kindle the heart with praise; bells to ring glad, jubilant peals of
triumph--to proclaim peace--to wail with sorrow in their voices--to
shriek, with warning alarum, the danger in the night.
And if I had my way again, there should be a bell in every steeple
to proclaim the birth, the wedding, and the death of man. When the
child enters upon the rosy morning of life, the bells should be the
first tones to strike upon his ear. Their music should greet him
as his little feet take hold upon the rough highway of life, from
which they must sometimes stray into forbidden fields, on which they
must become so begrimed, so weary and so tottering, and at the end
of which they will find rest after the long wandering, sooner or
later. When the child, grown into youth, enters upon marriage, the
bells should ring their harmonious concord, and their glad tones
should mingle with the orange flowers, and the mutual gifts and good
wishes. The same bells which welcomed him as he started alone upon
the journey, should welcome him now, as the way is made lighter by a
companion, and roses grow in the paths where before there were only
sharp pebbles and flint. And when the end of the road is reached, and
the eye dims, and the flowers fade, and the blue sky is all clouded
over, and the two companions must part, the same bells tolling sadly
and heavily from the steeples, should guide the weary traveller to
his last home with their dirge-like tones.
There are sorrow, music, joy and blessing in bells. The church tower
may point to Heaven with Gothic solemnity, but, if no bell is there,
no voice calls. Bells are sacred with associations. Year after year
they have marked the flight of the hours in their perch in mid air,
with no companions but the birds. They have looked down, year after
year, upon grandfather, father, and son, grandmother, mother, and
daughter, and followed them to their graves in the adjacent acre of
God with solemn toll. They have rung glad peals of ecstasy to those
who came before us, and have now gone, and they will ring the same
glad peals to those yet to come. They are ringing for you and for me
now, and they will ring on just the same when you and I are gone. It
is now Te Deum, and now Requiem; marriage bells of gladness, and
funeral bells of woe. But I would that she, who will come after me,
should hear the same bells that I hear, and that they should tell
her the same melodic tidings they tell to me, and teach her the same
lessons.
Don't build any more churches without bells. Place a bell in every
steeple. Consecrate it with joyful service. Bid it to ring for the
living, and toll for the dying. Raise it to its belfry with glad
acclamation, and then solemnly leave it there in the mid-heavens,
above the jargon of earth, companion of the birds and the lightnings,
to bring comfort, consolation, and repose forever to the weary--to
warn, to inspire, and to gladden.
At present the bells are confined to the pews in the church, and
their tongues are not always musical.
April 4, 1869.
_TENORS AND BASSOS._
The tenor, I take to be the happiest man in the world, or, at least,
he ought to be. He is the individual whom all the operatic Elviras
love. He loves them, also. He has all the serenades to sing. He
alone can indulge in the _ut de poitrine_. Almost invariably, he is
allowed to die for the heroine, when he isn't permitted to marry
her, and always has a _fortissimo_ death-song given to him, which,
like the swan's is the sweetest. What little stage business there
is, in the way of kneeling at the feet of the _inamoratas_, kissing
of hands, and embracing of languishing Leonoras, belongs exclusively
to him. He also can be the melancholy man, and drown susceptible
damsels with tears, over his chalky grief and cork-lined wrinkles of
woe. The women dote upon the tenor, send him little billets, look
at him through the lorgnettes, and adore him in secret, as Heine's
pine adored the palm. He finds bouquets upon his mantel, and little
perfumed notes upon his dressing-table. If he be a _tenor di grazia_,
lovely woman will sigh for him; if a _tenor robusto_, lovely woman
will die for him, or wish that Heaven had made her such a man. The
amateur tenor enjoys the same advantages as the operatic tenor, on a
small scale. He is privileged to sing all the pretty things, and he
may sing them as badly as may be, if he is only interesting. He is
the idol before which female bread-and-butterhood bends, both Grecian
and otherwise. He is usually fragile, _spirituel_ and delicate.
He sleeps on the underside of a rose-leaf, drinks Angelica, eats
caramels, and catches butterflies. He carries his voice in a lace
pocket-handkerchief, when in the open air, and does it up in amber
when he retires to sleep upon the rose-leaves. He alone is permitted
to wear white kids and vest, and otherwise array himself after the
manner of the festive hotel waiter. He knows the secret of immortal
youth, and never grows old. All tuneful lays set to the tinkling
of flutes, guitars and harps, belong to him. He alone can sing to
the moon and address the stars. In his _repertoire_ are all the
interesting brigands, the high-born cavaliers, the romantic lovers,
and the melancholy artists.
And he has nice legs, or, if he hasn't, he had better degenerate into
a baritone, and have done with it.
A tenor without nice legs is worse off than a soprano who can't sing
"With Verdure Clad," if there be such a _rara avis_, or an alto who
has to do _Siebel_ and _Maffeo Orsini_ with elephantine ankles, and
there never was an alto in the world with whom I wouldn't measure
feet, and give them the odds of one or two numbers.
The tenor lives in clover, chin deep, and never gets stung by the
bees. Sometimes he forgets to wrap up his voice in the handkerchief
when he goes out, or he sleeps in the direct line of a current
of air, which comes in under the door, and the result is an
indisposition. When he has an indisposition, he goes off hunting
ducks at Calumet, instead of dears in the audience, and the manager
forgives him and the audience pity him. He doesn't die like other
singers, but gradually fades away like the rose, and disappears in a
little cloud of perfume.
The basso, on the other hand, is the personification of vocal misery,
and he knows it. He feels that he is not interesting at all. He
knows the women don't adore him, and he takes a fiendish delight in
bellowing at them. He never has an opportunity to languish on the
stage, or to go round kneeling and sighing and kissing of hands.
He is never a lover. If a brigand, he is a dirty cut-throat. If a
cavalier, he is some dilapidated old duke, with a young and pretty
wife, just packing up preparatory to elopement with the tenor, and
requesting him not to interfere with her little arrangements. If a
sailor, he is a swaggering pirate. If an uncle, he is a miser. If a
mayor, he is a simpleton. If a father, he is a fool. The composers
never give him but one aria in an opera, and that is always written
an octave higher than he can sing, or an octave lower than his boot
heel. He is always in trouble with the orchestra. He knows he can
squelch the first fiddles and reeds, and come out even with the
bassoons and double basses, but the man with the trombone is his
mortal enemy, and the man with the kettle-drums his skeleton. He
feels in his heart of hearts that the one can blow him into ribbons,
and the other pound him to a jelly, and what is more, he knows they
are never happy, except when they are engaged in that pulverizing
process. What little singing he has to do is devoted to panegyrics
upon beer, dissertations upon cookery, and lugubrious screeds upon
the infidelity of woman and his own ponderous wretchedness. When
he is not confined to this, he is set up for a laughing stock in
_buffo_ work. He has no runs and trills and sky-rockets with which
to dazzle people. He knows that one of his long arias is like a
long sermon. He usually has so much voice in his copper-lined and
brass-riveted throat, that it invariably gets the better of him,
either running like molasses in cold weather, or coming out by fits
and starts, and leaking all round the edges. He must inevitably
sing false, and it makes him unhappy. He is not at all delicate,
being usually doubly blessed in chest and stomach, and the result
is, he can't get sick if he tries. The blessed indisposition which
so often gets into the velvet throat of the tenor, rarely gets into
his, consequently his opportunities for duck-hunting at the Calumet
are very limited. All of these afflictions make him misanthropical,
and he goes through the world with his little _repertoire_ of "The
Calf of Gold," "Infelice," "O mio Palermo," "The Last Man," and the
"Wanderer," a very Ishmael of wretchedness, and a howling Dervish
of despair. He drinks beer, and all sorts of fiery damnations, eats
sausage and kraut with impunity, and smokes villainous tobacco in
short clay pipes. He despises the razor and eschews the little
weaknesses of kids and patent leathers. The tenor is the nightingale;
he is the crow. The tenor is the beloved of women, but for him no
serenade, no face in the lattice shaming the moon with its brightness
and beauty. I pray, therefore, all gentlefolk to deal kindly with the
basso, and make his rough road as smooth as possible, for it is as
inevitable as fate that he will live to an hundred years of age, and
sing every blessed day of the century, and will finally be gathered
to his fathers, singing as he goes.
And, as he goes singing to his fathers, I have another topic of which
he reminds me. As I sit here writing, some poor fellow, who has got
through with the troubles of the world, is going home to sleep under
the turf, which is now so restless with all the quick impulses of
spring-life, and which will soon weave a green and flower-embroidered
counterpane above him. A band is playing a dirge, the wail and
melancholy rhythm of which fall unheeded upon his ears, forever
closed to the sweet sounds of the earth. To me, there is something
ineffably sad in the playing of a dirge in the open air. The funereal
solemnity of the music contrasts so strangely with the beauty of
the clear heavens and the joyous life of nature, and interweaves an
_Andante_ so unexpectedly in the _Scherzo_ of the din and jargon of
the busy street life, that I cannot keep the tears out of my eyes,
and I cannot but pause for a minute, on my journey, to think. And
I think of the day when I shall drop out of the comedy of life and
some one else will take up my part and go on with it, as if I had
never been in the play at all. I think that, some bright morning,
A will meet B on the street and say: "Did you know that ---- died
yesterday?" "No! Is that so? What was the matter with him?" And then
the two will talk of grain and corner lots, for it was only a bubble
that disappeared on the great tide of humanity, ever flowing from one
eternity to another. I wonder if anyone will remember me from one
spring-birth of flowers to another. And I think of those standing
about me, with their hearts beating to the time of the dirges, and
with each pulsation approaching a step nearer to the long sleep. And,
somehow, although the dirge saddens me, by sending a shadow across
the brightness of the sunny day, I think I feel the better for having
heard it.
But this will not be the last I shall see or hear of this procession.
I know that, an hour later, the mourners will have dried their
tears, and that they who went to the grave, marching slowly and with
sober countenances, to the movement of the Dead March, will return
to the quick tempo of "Champagne Charlie," or some other musical
abomination. Have we no respect for the dead! Is it creditable to
common humanity to go through the streets uttering a funereal lie--to
shovel a man into his grave, and, while the grave-maker is patting
the turf with his shovel, to come trotting home to the music of a
ribald Casino song? Is human life of no more account than this? Is
the life of our friend of so little consequence, when compared with
the nonsense and delusions of this world, that we leave him and
all recollections of him with the grave-maker? Is there no sober,
serious thought for us in the new-made grave? If there is not--if,
when a man dies, he dies like a horse, only to be shoved out of
sight, the quicker the better, that we may not be delayed any longer
than possible from the exactions of business and distractions of
pleasure--I pray that those who have these public funerals in charge,
may at least consult the feelings of some, to whom such inconsiderate
and irreverent unconcern for the dead is a fearful shock.
April 17, 1869.
_A CHILD'S STORY--THE THREE ROSES._
I write to you to-day with a certain sort of sadness, and yet not
mourning as one without hope.
I think one can become strongly attached to inanimate things, and,
after associating with them for years, come to invest them with
certain human attributes, and even to love them. They grow to be
part of one's self, and reflect, in some degree, the individuality
of the possessor. I have now sat for nearly three years at the old
desk before me, in the same old corner, with the same blank prospect
of brick walls and the little patch of blue sky no bigger than the
lace handkerchief which swings from your finger, my dear Madame,
and discoursed each week upon all sorts of pleasant topics in my
careless way, always satisfied if here and there you might find a
little flower worth laying away in your memory as a souvenir. Many
of you who started on our journey through the World of Amusement are
with me still, but some have left and gone up higher to the Beautiful
Country; and one cruel summer which killed so many birds and blighted
so many flowers, we all travelled with heavier hearts, thinking of
the little ones whom the jealous angels enticed away, and some of
us could hardly see the way for a time for the black shadow of the
valley and the mists which were in our eyes.
I shall write to you no more from the old desk in the old corner,
for, when next Saturday comes, I shall be at the new desk, in a new
corner of the new building, and yet I cannot part from it without
regret, for I have learned to love it, ink-begrimed, scratched and
cut as it is. There are pleasant memories indelibly connected with
it, and the next owner who possesses it will be richer than he knows,
for he will buy some priceless associations. I frankly confess that
I look forward to the new desk with some suspicions. It will be a
better desk, a handsomer desk. The old, tried friend, whom you have
grappled to yourself, as with hooks of steel, through storms and
shine, it is hard to give up for the new comer, whom you have to
learn before you can love, and who may deceive you, when it is all
too late. And yet it is cheerful to know that when I say good-bye to
the old desk next week, you will accompany me to the new desk, and
that I shall continue to talk to you so long as it shall please you
to listen. Aurelia, and the baby and husband, Celeste, Fitz-Herbert,
Mignon and Blanche, and Old Blobbs and Mrs. Blobbs, will all go with
me, and Old Blobbs has promised me that he will have something to say
next Sunday from the new desk.
In this, my last letter from the old desk, I frankly state that I am
going to say something to the children. You know that I thoroughly
believe in children. I think they represent nearly all the love,
and innocence, and purity there is in the world, and I want to
tell them a story which may lead them to preserve that love, and
innocence, and purity, until the end. I therefore warn all the
grown up children, that this story is for the little ones, so that
those desiring to leave, can go now, without disturbing us after we
have commenced. Should any desire to remain, I hope they will keep
as still as possible. Perhaps they will hear something which will
benefit them. We will therefore wait a few minutes, after which the
doors will be closed.
* * * * * * * * *
The story is a simple one, but it has its lesson for you. Some of
those older ones, who have just gone out, if they were here, would
tell you, even with tears in their eyes, that it is true. It is the
story of the Three Roses. One of them was a
WHITE ROSE.
This white rose grew in a large garden, where there were many other
flowers: great, coarse, vulgar dahlias, always dressing in gaudy
colors, without any regard to taste; delicate little anemones, who
would drop their petals off in fright, if even a bee went buzzing
by them; tulips, in whose breast the butterflies used to sleep;
blue-bells, who rang the matins for the other flowers to wake, and
the vespers for them to drop their little heads and fold up their
petals in sleep; azaleas, who were very jealous of the fuschias,
because the latter had a graceful way of hanging from their stalks,
which the former could not get, although they tried until they
were pink in the face; heliotropes, and their little cousins, the
mignonettes, whom all the flowers loved for their sweetness, and
never could see that it was because they were so humble that their
lives were so full of perfume; passion-flowers, whose lives were
full of pain; and those sensitive little flowers who were so nervous,
that if you even pointed your finger at them, they would shiver all
over, and draw themselves up in a heap. The White Rose was a very
proud flower. She always dressed in pure white, with a beautiful
gold ornament on her breast, and devoted most of her time to lazily
swinging in the wind, admiring her beautiful garments. She never
recognized other flowers in the garden. She never even condescended
to notice the butterflies and the bees, who were great friends
with the rest of the flowers. She would now and then nod to the
green-and-gold humming-birds, who took good care, however, to keep
out of her way, because they were afraid of her thorns. She had set
her cap very high, and would marry nothing short of a prince, and
thus she slighted some of her friends, and wounded others with her
cruel thorns.
One day the prince came by that way, and his name was Zephyr. He was
a gay, careless young fellow, without any heart in him. He came from
a far country, and in his travels had flirted with every one. He had
ruined many flowers in other gardens. He had even dallied with the
tender leaves in the tree tops, of an evening, until the stern old
trees angrily kept him away. Troops of the ghosts of the dandelions
and pink thistles and young gossamers, whom he had deceived, followed
in his train, and even the blue-birds, and robins, and orioles,
were enamored of him, and kept the air full of melody, singing to
him. Prince Zephyr came gaily dancing over the garden, and all the
little flowers nodded their heads to him. The White Rose looked her
prettiest, and at once beckoned him to come to her, and hid all her
thorns. The two were long together, even until the sun went down,
and the blue-bell had rung her vespers. It would have been well for
the White Rose to have gone to sleep too; but Prince Zephyr dallied
with her, and whispered all sorts of pretty nothings to her, and the
foolish flower listened to him, and believed all he said. He promised
to be true to her, and to return in the morning; and when they kissed
good night, he stole away her perfume, which was her life. When the
morning came, however, Prince Zephyr did not return. Many mornings
came, but Prince Zephyr was far away, whispering that same sweet
story to other roses, in other gardens. And the White Rose waited in
vain, and withered and died, and was buried by the larch-tree in the
corner of the garden, the cypress, and rue, and rosemary being the
mourners at the funeral, the birds singing the hymns, and the little
many-legged bugs in the grass, making the orchestra, with the bee at
the baton.
And the name of the White Rose was Pride, which must always have a
fall, my dear children.
But there was another rose. It was the
RED ROSE.
The Red Rose grew by the side of a tiny little brook, which had
nothing to do the livelong day but to dance over its pebbles, and
sing pretty songs, and laugh in the sunshine. The Red Rose was very
discontented with her lot, for there was no one around with whom
she could associate, but white and red clovers, dandelions and
butter-cups. The Brook, who was a garrulous little fellow, made
her still more discontented, by telling her what fine things there
were out in the world, and how she would enjoy them if she would
go with him and see them. One day, tired of looking into the Brook
and seeing only herself, she dropped into his arms, and he tenderly
carried her along. She floated very lazily and pleasantly along for
a time, for the heavens were all blue, and the sunshine was bright,
and the Brook was smooth, and so they rode along merrily together.
The wild laurels, and red Betties, and Jack-in-the-pulpit, and starry
asters, crowded together on the marges of the Brook to see her pass,
and nodded to her. The white lilies who grew in the Brook rippled
the water with their mocking laughter, for they knew her fate. The
sober ferns warned her, but she paid no heed to the warning, and
sailed down the meadow as proudly as Cleopatra under her silken
sails on the turbid Nile. By and bye she got out of the meadow and
it was not so pleasant. The flowers disappeared, and she had hard
work to avoid the flags and rushes, and old gnarled stumps, and the
sun was hidden by the interlaced tree-tops, and there were all sorts
of water-spiders and little glossy black bugs which she disliked.
After a time, the frogs and the water-snakes terrified her, and one
day she found herself in a little whirlpool which made her dizzy.
When she recovered, she was in the foam of a water-fall, and the
foam-bells dazzled her so with their sheen that she plunged about
among the rocks very wildly and before she emerged from them, some of
her petals were badly damaged. It was now too late to return. She had
made the first fall and she must go on. She no longer recognized the
little Brook in the brawling, muddy waters which carried her through
the rank swamps, where she met all kinds of noxious, ill-favored
flowers, the hemlock, and nightshade, and belladonna, and poisonous
ivies, which mocked her. The Brook was now a river, and too wide for
her to escape. On she must go, ever on, bruised and weary as she was,
and presently the river swept her through a great city, rank with
corruption and filth; swept her past the vessels at the wharves,
loading and unloading, and noisy with the curses and cries of the
sailors; under the wheels of steamboats; now sunk into the corrupt
depths, and now rising to the surface again, but so changed that none
of the flowers in the country, who nodded to her that bright morning,
would ever have known her; under the arches of the bridges and close
by slimy mouldering piers; and one evening, so close to the dead
body of a woman, who had hurled herself out of the world and out of
misery, that she almost got tangled in the streaming black hair which
rose and fell in the turbid current; and so on, until one morning
she found herself out of the river and into the mighty surges of the
ocean, when it was all too late.
And the name of the Brook was Pleasure and the name of the Red Rose,
Folly.
I have now to tell you of the third rose, the
WILD ROSE.