seemed to me to have been written at inspired moments, became afterwards
flat and tedious; so that I let it alone.”
“You have done wrong: for the mere fact of your having made the attempt
is no small proof of your talent. We learn music when we are children,
because papa and mamma will have it so; now you go to work jingling and
fiddling, but imperceptibly the mind becomes susceptible to music.
Perhaps the half-forgotten theme of the little song, which you formerly
sang, was the first original thought, and from this embryo, nourished
laboriously by foreign powers, grows a giant, who consumes all within
his reach, and changes all into his own flesh and blood! Ah, how is it
possible to point out the innumerable influences which lead a man to
compose. There is a broad high-way, where all are hurrying round and
shouting and screaming; we are the initiated! we are at the goal! Only
through the ivory door is there entrance to the land of dreams; few ever
see the door and still fewer pass through it. All seems strange here.
Wild forms move hither and thither and each has a certain character—one
more than the others. They are never seen in the high-way; they only can
be found behind the ivory door. It is difficult to come out of this
kingdom. Monsters besiege the way as before the Castle of Alsinens—they
twirl—they twist. Many dream their dream in the Kingdom of
Dreams,—they dissolve in dreams,—they cast no more shadows—otherwise
by means of their shadows they would perceive the rays which pass
through this realm; only a few awakened out of this dream, walk about
and stride through the Kingdom of Dreams—they come to Truth. This is
the highest moment;—the union with the eternal and unspeakable! It is
the triple tone, from which the accords, like stars, shoot down and spin
around you with threads of fire. You lie there like a chrysalis in the
fire, until the Psyche soars up to the sun.”
As he spoke these last words, he sprang up, and raised his eyes, and
threw up his hand. Then he seated himself and quickly emptied the full
glass. A silence ensued, which I would not break, through a fear of
leading this extraordinary man out of his track. At last he continued in
a calmer manner—
“When I was in the kingdom of dreams a thousand pangs and sorrows
tormented me. It was night, and the grinning forms of monsters rushed in
upon me, now dragging me down into the abyss of the sea, and now lifting
me high into the air. Rays of light streamed through the night, and
these rays were tones which encircled me with delicious clearness. I
awoke out of my pain and saw a large clear eye, gazing into an organ,
and while it gazed, tones issued forth and sparkled and intervened in
chords more glorious than I had ever imagined. Up and down streamed
melodies, and as I swam in this stream, and was on the point of sinking,
the eye looked down upon me and raised me out of the roaring waves. It
was night again. Two colossi in glittering harnesses stepped up to
me—Tonic and fifth! they lifted me up but the eye smiled; I know what
fills thy breast with yearnings, the gentle tender third will step
between the colossi; you will hear his sweet voice, will see me again,
and my melodies shall become yours.”
He paused.
“And you saw the eye again?”
“Yes, I saw it again. Long years I sighed in the realms of
dreams—there—yes, there!—I sat in a beautiful valley, and listened to
the flowers as they sang together; only one sun-flower was silent and
sadly bent its closed chalice towards the earth. Invisible bonds bound
me to it—it raised its head. The chalice opened, and streaming out of
it again the eye met mine—The tones, like rays of light, drew my head
toward the flower which eagerly enclosed it. Larger and larger grew the
leaves—flames streamed forth from it—they flowed around me—the eye
had vanished and I was in the chalice.”
As he spoke these last words, he sprang up, and rushed out of the room
with rapid youthful strides. I awaited his return in vain; I concluded
at last to go down into the city.
As I approached the Brandenburg gates, I saw in the gloaming a tall
figure stride by me, which I immediately recognized as my strange
companion—I said to him—
“Why did you leave me so abruptly?”
“It was too late and the Euphon began to sound.”
“I don’t know what you mean!”
“So much the better!”
“So much the worse: for I should like to understand you.”
“Do you hear nothing?”
“No.”
“It is past! Let us go—I do not generally like company; but—you are
not a composer—you are not a Berliner?”
“I cannot conceive what so prejudices you against the Berliners. Here,
where art is so highly esteemed and practised by the people in the
highest degree—I should think that a man of your genius in art would
like to be.”
“You are mistaken. I am condemned for my torment to wander about here in
this deserted place like a departed spirit.”
“Here in Berlin—a deserted place?”
“Yes, it is deserted to me, for I can find no kindred spirit here. I am
alone.”
“But the artists!—the composers!”
“Away with them. They criticise and criticise, refining away everything
to find one poor little thought—but beyond their babble about art and
artistical taste, and I know not what—they can shape out nothing, and
as soon as they endeavor to bring out a few thoughts into
daylight—their fearful coldness shows their extreme distance from the
sun—it is Lapland work.”
“Your judgment seems to me too stern. At least you must allow that their
theatrical representations are magnificent.”
“I once resolved to go to the theatre to hear the opera of one of my
young friends—what is the name of it? The whole world is in this
opera—through the confused bustle of dressed up men, wander the spirits
of Orcus. All here has a voice and an almighty sound. The devil—I mean
Don Juan. But I could not endure it beyond the overture, through which
they blustered as fast as possible without perception or understanding.
And I had prepared myself for that by a course of fasting and prayer,
because I know that the Euphon is much too severely tried by this
measure and gives an indistinct utterance.”
“Though I must admit that Mozart’s masterpieces are generally slighted
here in a most inexplicable manner—yet Gluck’s works are very much
better represented.”
“Do you think so? I once was desirous of hearing the Iphigenia in
Tauris. As soon as I entered the theatre, I perceived they were playing
the Iphigenia in Aulis. Then—thought I, this is a mistake. Do they call
_this_ Iphigenia? I was amazed—for now the Andante came in, with which
the Iphigenia in Tauris opens, and the storm followed. There is an
interval of twenty years. All the effect, all the admirably arranged
exposition of the tragedy is lost. A still sea—a storm—the Greeks
wrecked on the land—this is the opera. How?—has the composer written
the overture at random, so that one may play it as he pleases and when
he will, like a trumpet-piece?”
“I confess that is a mistake. Yet in the meantime, they are doing all
they can to raise Gluck’s works in the general estimation.”
“Oh yes!” said he shortly—and then smiled more and more bitterly.
Suddenly he walked off, and nothing could detain him. In a moment he
disappeared, and for many successive days I sought him in vain in the
park.
* * * * *
Several months had elapsed, when one cold, rainy evening, having been
belated in a distant part of the city, I was going towards my house in
Friedrich street. It was necessary to pass by the theatre. The noisy
music of trumpets and kettle drums reminded me that Gluck’s Armida was
to be now performed, and I was on the point of going in, when a curious
soliloquy spoken from the window, where every note of the orchestra was
distinctly audible, arrested my attention.
“Now comes the king—they play the march—beat, beat away on your kettle
drums. That’s right, that’s lively. Yes, yes, you must do that eleven
times now—or else the procession won’t be long enough. Ha,
ha—Maestro—drag along, children. See there is a figurant with his
shoe-string caught. That’s right for the twelfth time!—Keep beating on
that dominant—Oh! ye eternal powers this will never cease. Now he
presents his compliments—Armida returns thanks. Still once more? Yes, I
see all’s right—there are two soldiers yet to come. What evil spirit
has banished me here?”
“The ban is loosed,” cried I—“come!”
I seized my curious friend by the arm (for the soliloquist was no other
than he,) and hurrying him out of the park, carried him away with me. He
seemed surprised, and followed me in silence. We had already arrived in
Friedrich street when he suddenly stopped.
“I know you,” said he.—“You were in the park. We talked together. I
drank your wine—grew heated by it. The Euphon sounded two days
afterwards—I suffered much—it is over.”
“I am rejoiced that accident has thrown you again in my way. Let us be
better acquainted. I live not far from here—suppose you—”
“I cannot, and dare not go with any one.”
“No, you shall not escape me thus—I will go with you.”
“Then you must go about two hundred steps. But you were just going into
the theatre?”
“I was going to hear Armida, but now—”
“You shall hear Armida _now_—come!”
In silence we went down Friedrich street. He turned quickly down a cross
street, running so fast that I could with difficulty follow him—until
he stopped at last before a common-looking house. After knocking for
some time the door was opened.—Groping in the dark, we ascended the
steps and entered a chamber in the upper story, the door of which my
guide carefully locked. I heard a door open; through this he led me with
a light, and the appearance of the curiously decorated apartment
surprised me not a little—old-fashioned, richly adorned chairs, a clock
fixed against the wall with a gilt case, and a heavy broad mirror gave
to the whole the gloomy appearance of antiquated splendor. In the middle
stood a little Piano Forte, upon which was placed a large inkstand; and
near it lay several sheets of music. A more attentive examination of
these arrangements for composition made it evident to me that for some
time nothing could have been written; for the paper was perfectly
yellow, and thick spider webs were woven over the inkstand—the man
stepped towards a press in the corner of a chamber which I had not
perceived before, and as soon as he drew aside the curtain I saw a row
of beautifully bound books with golden titles.
Orfeo—Armida—Alcesti—Iphigenia—&c.—in short a collection of Gluck’s
master pieces standing together.
“Do you own all Gluck’s works?” I cried.
He made no answer, but a spasmodic smile played across his mouth, and
the play of muscles in the hollow cheeks distorted his countenance to
the appearance of a hideous mask—He fixed his dark eyes sternly upon
me, seized one of the books—it was Armida—and stepped solemnly towards
the piano forte.—I opened it quickly and drew up the music rack; that
appeared to give him pleasure—He opened the book—I beheld ruled
leaves, but not a single note written upon them.
He began; “now I will play the overture—Do you turn over the leaves at
the proper time”—I promised—and now grasping the full chords,
gloriously and like a master, he played the majestic Tempo di Marcia
with which the overture begins, without deviating from the original; but
the Allegro was only interpenetrated by Gluck’s principal thought. He
brought out so many rich changes that my astonishment increased—His
modulations were particularly bold, without being startling, and so
great was his facility of hanging upon the principal idea of a thousand
melodious lyrics, that each one seemed a reproduction of it in a new and
renovated form—His countenance glowed—now he contracted his eyebrows
and a long suppressed wrath broke powerfully forth, and now his eyes
swam in tears of deep yearning melancholy. Sometimes with a pleasant
tenor voice he sang the Thema, while both hands were employed in
artist-like lyrics, and sometimes he imitated with his voice in an
entirely different manner the hollow tone of the beaten kettle drums. I
industriously turned over the leaves, as I followed his look. The
overture was finished and he fell back exhausted with closed eyes, upon
the arm chair. But soon he raised himself again and turning hastily over
a few blank leaves, said to me in a hollow tone—
“All this, sir, have I written when I came out of the kingdom of dreams,
but I betrayed the holy to unholy, and an ice-cold hand fastened upon
this glowing heart. It broke not. Yet was I condemned to wander among
the unholy like a departed spirit—formless, so that no one knew me
until the sun-flower again lifted me up to the eternal—Ha, now let us
sing Armida’s Scena.”
Then he sang the closing scene of the Armida with an expression which
penetrated my inmost heart—Here also he deviated perceptibly from the
original—but the substituted music was Gluck-like music in still higher
potency.—All that Hate, Love, Despair, Madness, can express in its
strongest traits—he united in his tones—His voice seemed that of a
young man, for from its deep hollowness swelled forth an irrepressible
strength—Every fibre trembled—I was beside myself—When he had
finished I threw myself into his arms, and cried with suppressed
voice—“What does this mean? Who are you?”
He stood up and gazed at me with earnest, penetrating look—but as I was
about to speak again he vanished with the light through a door and left
me in the darkness—He was absent a quarter of an hour—I despaired of
seeing him again and ascertaining my position from the situation of the
piano forte sought to open the door, when suddenly in an embroidered
dress coat, rich vest and with a sword at his side and a light in his
hand he entered—
I started—he came solemnly up to me, took me softly by the hand, and
said, softly smiling—
“I am the Chevalier Gluck!”
* * * * *
VENUS AND THE MODERN BELLE.
BY FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
Young Beauty looked over her gems one night,
And stole to her glass, with a petulant air:
She braided her hair, with their burning light,
Till they played like the gleam of a glowworm there.
Then she folded, over her form of grace,
A costly robe from an Indian loom
But a cloud overshadowed her exquisite face,
And Love’s sunny dimple was hid in the gloom.
“It is useless!” she murmured,—“my jewels have lost
All their lustre, since last they illumined my curls!”
And she snatched off the treasures, and haughtily tost,
Into brilliant confusion, gold, rubies and pearls.
Young Beauty was plainly provoked to a passion;
“And what?” she exclaimed, “shall the star of the ball
Be seen by the beaux, in a gown of this fashion?”—
Away went the robe,—ribbons, laces and all!
“Oh! Paphian goddess!” she sighed in despair,
“Could I borrow that mystic and magical zone,
Which Juno of old condescended to wear,
And which lent her a witchery sweet as your own!”—
She said and she started; for lo! in the glass,
Beside her a shape of rich loveliness came!
She turned,—it was Venus herself! and the lass
Stood blushing before her, in silence and shame.
“Fair girl!” said the goddess—“the girdle you seek,
Is one you can summon at once, if you will;
It will wake the soft dimple and bloom of your cheek,
And, with peerless enchantment, your flashing eyes, fill.
“No gem in your casket such lustre can lend,
No silk wrought in silver, such beauty, bestow,
With that talisman heed not, tho’ simply, my friend,
Your robe and your ringlets unjewelled may flow!”
“Oh! tell it me! give it me!”—Beauty exclaimed,—
As Hope’s happy smile, to her rosy mouth, stole,—
“Nay! you wear it e’en now, since your temper is tamed,
’Tis the light of Good Humour,—that gem of the soul.”
* * * * *
MY BARK IS OUT UPON THE SEA.
BY GEORGE P. MORRIS.
My bark is out upon the sea
The moon’s above;
Her light a presence seems to me
Like woman’s love.
My native land I’ve left behind;
Afar I roam;
In other climes no hearts I’ll find,
Like those at home.
Of all yon sisterhood of stars,
But one is true;
She paves my path with crystal spars,
And beams like you,
Whose purity the waves recall
In music’s flow,
As round my bark they rise and fall
In liquid snow.
The freshening breeze now swells the sails,
A storm is on;
The weary moon’s dim lustre fails,
The stars are gone.
Not so fades love’s eternal light
When storm-clouds weep;
I know one heart’s with me to-night
Upon the deep.
* * * * *
THE LATE SIR DAVID WILKIE.
BY LOUIS FITZGERALD TASISTRO.
Under the head of Painting, England undoubtedly at present stands
considerably above any of the continental nations; but they surpass her
perhaps in an equal degree, in the sister Art of Sculpture, and in
Music,—Italy in both of these, and Germany in the latter. France may
perhaps be said to have reached the same general point that England has
in all these Arts; but she cannot claim the same exceptions in favor of
individual instances, in either of them. In musical composers, on the
other hand, she surpasses England, and yet reaches to only a very
moderate degree of excellence.
Sir David Wilkie was one of the most distinguished Artists, in his
particular line, that England, or any other country ever possessed. He
has, to be sure, produced, comparatively speaking, but few pictures; but
in force and richness of expression, in truth and depth of character, in
subtlety of thought, and felicity of invention, I have seen none in the
same class that at all equal these few. In the above particulars, and in
a marvellous truth and simplicity of pencil in delineating what he sees
or remembers, Wilkie as far surpasses Teniers himself, as Teniers
surpasses him in freedom and felicity of touch, and freshness,
transparency, and beauty of coloring. And important as these latter
qualities are in a picture, those which spring from, and appeal to, the
intellect chiefly, must be allowed to be still more so.
The subject of Wilkie’s pictures are confined to what may be called the
higher classes of low life, where the habits and institutions of modern
society have hitherto, in a great measure, failed to diffuse that
artificial and conventional form of character, which, if it does not
altogether preclude the _action_ of the feelings, at least forbids all
outward manifestation of them. If Sir David had unfortunately devoted
his peculiar and unrivalled power of depicting what _is_, to scenes in
high, or even in middle life, he would have produced works altogether
feeble and worthless; because he could only represent what actually did
exist; and, in these classes of life, _this_, as far as regards its
outward attributes, is smoothed and polished down to a plane and
colorless surface, which will not admit the passage of any thing from
within, and from which every thing without slides off like water-drops
from the feathers of a bird.
Only think of making a picture of a party of _ladies and gentlemen_,
assembled to hear a piece of political news read; or of the same persons
listening to a solo on the violin by an eminent professor! And yet these
are the subjects of Wilkie’s Village Politicians, and his Blind Fiddler;
two of the most interesting and perfect works that ever proceeded from
the pencil; and which at once evince in the artist, and excite in the
spectator, more activity of thought, and play of sentiment, than are
called forth at all the fashionable parties of London and Paris for a
whole season.
Wilkie’s power was confined, as I have said, to the representation of
what he saw; but he selected and combined this with such admirable
judgment, and represented it with such unrivalled truth and precision,
that his pictures impress themselves on the memory with all the force
and reality of facts. We remember, and recur to, the scenes he places
before us, just as we should to the real scenes if we had been present
at them; and can hardly think of, and refer to them as any thing _but_
real scenes. They seem to become part of our experience—to increase the
stores of our actual knowledge of life and human nature; and the actors
in them take their places among the persons we have seen and known in
our intercourse with the living world.
Wilkie’s pictures are, in one sense of the term, the most _national_
that were ever painted; and will carry down to posterity the face,
character, habits, costume, etc. of the period and class which they
represent, in a way that nothing else ever did or could; for they are
literally the things themselves—the truth, and nothing but the truth.
The painter allows himself no liberty or licence in the minutest
particulars. He seems to have a superstitious reverence for the truth;
and he would no more _paint_ a lie than he would tell one. I suppose he
has never introduced an article of dress or furniture into any one of
his pictures, that he had not actually seen worn or used under the
circumstances he was representing. If he had occasion to paint a peasant
who had just entered a cottage on a rainy day, he would, as a matter of
conscience, leave the marks of his dirty footsteps on the threshold of
the door! This scrupulous minuteness of detail, which would be the bane
of some class of art, is the beauty of his, coupled, and made
subservient, as it was, to the most curious, natural, and interesting
development of character, sentiment and thought.
But the most extraordinary examples of this artist’s professional skill,
are those in which he has depicted some peculiar _expression_ in the
face and action of some one of his characters. The quantity and degree
of expression that he has, in several of these instances, thrown into
the compass of a face and figure of less than the common miniature size,
is not to be conceived without being seen, and has certainly never
before been equalled in the Art. His most extraordinary efforts of this
kind are two, in which the expressions are not very agreeable, but which
become highly interesting, on account of the extreme difficulty that is
felt to have been overcome in the production of them. One of these is an
old man, in the act of coughing violently; and the other is a child, who
has cut his fingers.
But if this is the most extraordinary part of Wilkie’s pictures, and the
part most likely to attract vulgar attention and curiosity, it is far
from being the most valuable and characteristic. If it were, I should
not regard him as the really great artist which I now do. The mere
overcoming of difficulty, for the sake of overcoming it, and without
producing any other ulterior effect, would be a mere idle waste of time
and skill, and quite unworthy either of praise or attention. It is in
these particular instances which I have noticed above, as in numerous
others in different lines of art, a mere sleight of hand, exceedingly
curious, as exhibiting the possible extent of human skill, but no more.
In Wilkie’s pictures, this exhibition of mere manual skill is used very
sparingly, and is almost always kept in subjection to, or brought in aid
of, other infinitely more valuable ends. With the single exception of
the “Cut Finger,” which is a mere gratuitous effort of this manual
dexterity, all his pictures are moral tales, more or less interesting,
from their perfectly true delineation of habits and manners, or
impressive, from their development of character, passion, and sentiment.
The “Opening of the Will” is as fine in this way, as any of Sir Walter
Scott’s novels; and the “Rent Day” includes a whole series of national
tales of English pastoral life in the nineteenth century.
It is a great mistake to consider Wilkie as a comic painter, in which
light he is generally regarded by the public on both sides of the
Atlantic. When they are standing before his pictures, they seem to feel
themselves bound to be moved to laughter by them, as they would by a
comedy or a farce; and without this, they do not show their taste;
whereas laughter seems to me to be the very last sensation these works
are adapted to call forth.