he has seen, and which he unfolds to us--is always the character and
expression of the deepest insight. Just look at our bill for the week
which ends to-night: Monday, Vieuxtemps; Tuesday, Artot and Damoreau;
Wednesday, Ole Bull, Miss Sperty (the new pianist), and Madame Sphor Zahn;
Thursday, Castellan, Antoquin Brough and Sphor Zahn in the "Stabat Mater,"
followed by the "Battle of Waterloo Symphony," by Beethoven; Friday,
Vieuxtemps again! Monday evening I could not hear Vieuxtemps, but went on
Tuesday to hear C. Damoreau and Artot. The former, with the smallest
voice, sings pleasantly from her wonderful cultivation, of which, however,
the technicalities, so to say, are too much obtruded. She shakes through
all her songs, and this power, which would render her plain singing so
sure and pleasing, demands attention for itself, not because it improves
the tone of the singing. Artot is an elegant artist. He plays very finely,
wonderfully; but the greater his execution the more marked appeared to me
the difference between the highest cultivated talent and the supremacy of
Genius. He played difficult music, he shook and warbled and imitated, some
of his tones were very exquisite, but it was all lifeless, the passionless
semblance of beauty. I was as if walking in a Gorgon's ice-palace, with
magnificent, clear crystals, and noble, transparent pillars, and all the
artifice of beauty and comfort, but evermore a deep chill from the lavish
elegance. When he had done, I knew he had done his utmost, that he had
exhausted hope. In him I found none of that depthless background which
genius ever offers. He made sing in my ears the old text, "The things seen
are temporal; the things unseen are eternal." His performance is a thing
seen, not a dim beacon on the outskirts of an unexplored country, wherein
we hear birds singing and rivers flowing, and see the great cloud-shadows
fall upon the hills, where in the dim distance stately palaces are faintly
traced, and the depthless woods fringe unknown seas. Artot's playing
seemed to me like the full flower exhausting the plant; Ole Bull's like a
star shining out of the infinite space.
Flowers wither, but the stars do not fade. We gather the blossoms with joy
and hurry home; but the stars light us on our way and make our homes
beautiful. Talent has something familiar and social in its impression and
greeting; but Genius receives us with a calm dignity that transfigures
courtesy and complaisance, and makes our relations healthy and grand. The
whole tone of Artot's violin differs from Bull's. I felt they must not be
compared, and so listened delightedly, but with a pale, ghastly joy. When
I heard Ole, I could not sleep. It was like a fire shining out of heaven,
sudden and bright. It kindled within me flames which seek heaven,
disturbed the surface of my soul, evoking spirits out of that depth I did
not know were there, and it was as if a thousand hopes, which were the
substance and object of memory, rose out of their graves and held long
vigil with me in those silent hours. How few of us can keep our balance
when a regal soul dashes by. I presently recover myself, and serve with a
milder and firmer persistence my own nature. The way is made clearer by
these bright lights, universal nature shines fairer that there are so many
single stars; but they must only be stars in my heaven and fires upon my
hearth, nor burn out my heart by inserting themselves in my bosom.
The next night I went to hear Ole Bull again at the Tabernacle, which
holds 3000 persons. The doors were open at 6, the concert began at 8. At
quarter-past 6 the house was full, and at 7 was jammed, and hundreds went
away. I arrived too late, but was so satisfied at the triumph that I went
gladly home again, pleased to be one who could not hear.
Last evening I heard the "Stabat." Castellan has a magnificent voice. Does
she not lack passion? She certainly needs cultivation. The symphony was
merely a musical picture of the battle--a battle of Prague for the
orchestra! It begins with a drum, a bugle-call follows; a march--and what
march do you think? "Malbrook." Imagine me, a fervid worshipper of
Beethoven, rushing in the crowd to hear a symphony wherein, with all
orchestral force, the old song, L-a-w, Law, was banged into my ears. I sat
in motionless dismay, while there followed another trumpeting and drumming
and marching and imitations of musketry by some watchman's rattle. Then
came some good passages, which confounded me only the more. Then, "God
save the King," which announced the British victory. Anon followed some
marches, with the occasional bang of the bass drum to "disfigure or
present" the distant cannon; and then there was a pause, and the people
began to get up. I was confounded, looked towards the orchestra, and they
were moving away; and I discovered I had heard the whole--alas! the day.
What it meant, what Beethoven meant by writing it, how he could be so
purely external, how he could so use the orchestra, I cannot comprehend.
Perhaps it was a curious relaxation with him, as artists imitate other
instruments upon their own--perhaps it is a joke--but that it was a sad
disappointment to me admits no perhaps. Since the limitations of life
appear most forcibly to correspondents in limited sheets of paper, let me
bear away abruptly from music. My German progresses finely. I have read
Novalis's poetry, and am just now finishing the "Lehrjahre." I read three
or four hours daily, and am pleased at my progress. Burrill and I have
just finished Johnson's "Elements of Agricultural Chemistry" and Buel's
book. I read to him daily from Bunyan. I am also busy with Beaumont and
Fletcher, Paul's Epistles, and St. Augustine. You will easily imagine that
my whole day is devoted to literature. After dinner, at 5 o'clock, I sally
down Broadway for exercise; and in the evening, if I go to no concert,
usually seek my room and books. To-night, for the first time, I am going
out to a ball at a friend's, the girl of whom you have heard me speak as
singing so well. Cranch I meet very rarely. Have been only once to see
him. W.H. Channing do not yet know. At his meeting I see Isaac and C.P.
Cranch, and Rufus Dawes, and Parke Godwin, William Chace, and a host of
the unconverted and heretical. Him I do not yet know personally, nor
Vathek. His enthusiastic manner, and the tranquil fervor of his character,
charm me very much.
I find that I do not care to go after people. Perhaps I have been rather
too much with them; at all events, I will go to see none for curiosity.
Isaac is my good friend, and passed Sunday P.M. in my room. We spoke of
the church and society, and all topics that do so excite the youthful
mind. I must break short off to dress for my party. I shall speak to you
again before you know that I have been.
Saturday. To-day I have finished the "Lehrjahre." It is very calm and
wise. It is full of Goethe, and therefore leaves behind in its impression
that almost indefinite want which his character leaves, a want apparently
readily designated. Yet to say his intellect was disproportionately
developed leaves us in doubt whether a pure natural growth of the moral
nature would have harmonized with his peculiar manifestation of intellect.
He is to me as a blind God, made wise by laborious experience, not
perpetual sight. He is at least too large for the tip of a letter.
What do you read, or don't you read? Sunday. To-day I heard a fine sermon
from W.H. Channing. There I met Isaac and C.P. Cranch. Walked home with
the latter, who during the week had heard Ole Bull. I suppose he will
write you of it. Prof. Adam, from Northampton, was there. At our church, a
few Sundays since, I saw Mrs. Delano, late Kate Lyman, and her sister
Susan. The latter was beautiful. She seemed like a pure, passionless
saint. Had I been in a Catholic church I had imagined her to have been
some holy being, incarnated by her deep sympathy with the worshippers. I
hardly saw her, just enough to receive a poetic impression.
How little I have said! My life is very quiet, yet very full. Your letters
are very grateful to me. One dares trust so much more to paper than to
conversation. Friends living intimately learn of each other from tones and
glances, not by conversation. Friends meet intellectually in words, lovers
heartfully in words.
Macready has gone and I did not see him; he played nothing of Shakespeare.
Shall I direct to Brook Farm or Boston? More anon. Yrs ever,
G.W.C.
VII
NEW YORK, _Friday, Dec. 22, '43._
A merry Christmas to you, and to all Christian souls. How brave goes the
year to its setting! These calm, cold days impress me like the fine
characters of history and the elder time, inspired with a generous wisdom,
and prophesying what shall be the newest and best word of hope in our day.
The season embraces and surpasses those old men, even the finest. To-day,
as I walked, the magnificence of the closing year, so steadfast and sure,
sparing no sunshine nor rain, passing quietly out to be renewed nevermore,
quite reproved the solemn martyrdoms of men, upon which we hang our hopes.
Nature is great that she does not suffer us to define her influence upon
ourselves. Like all greatness, she suggests to us beauty and grace, not as
attributes of hers, but fair buds and flowers of the soul. Therefore, in
the full presence of nature, the grandest deeds seem harmonious and the
wisdom of Plato, and actions whose greatness is the centre, not the utmost
compression, of our life are harmonious and symmetrical. To the Greeks and
Jews the Gospel is blindness and a stumbling-block, but joy and peace to
the elect.
Nothing is so stern and lofty a cordial to me as this severe
inscrutability of nature. I must obey or die, and dying is no help to me,
for the spirit that rules now rules evermore. How like a god sits she
brooding over the world, announcing her laws by blows and knocks, by
agonies and convulsions, by the mouths of wise men, affirming that as the
sowing so also is the harvest. And there is no alleviation, no palliation.
She heeds no prayers, no sighs; those who fall must raise themselves; the
sick must of their own force recover or perish. When thus she has set us
upon our legs everything works for us, and the sun and moon are great
lamps for our enlightenment, and men and women leaves of a wondrous book.
Then, imperceptibly to us, in these snows and blossoms and fruits annually
all history is rewritten, and the honest man who knows nothing of Greece
and Rome derives from the swelling trees and the bending sky the same
subtle infusion of heroism and nobility that is the vitality of history.
The vice of our mode of education is that we do not regard life from an
eternal point. We want magnanimity and truth, not the names of those who
have been magnanimous and true; and I see not why nature to-day does not
offer to me all the grandeur of character that has illustrated any period.
Men and nature and art all seek to say the same thing. Could we search
deeply enough, I doubt not we should find all matter to be one substance;
and could we appreciate the worth of every art and every landscape and
man, they would be identical. As I am a better man, the more soluble is
the great outspreading riddle of nature, and the more distinct and full
the delicate grace of art. As an old, quaint divine said of fate and
free-will, they are two converging lines which of necessity must somewhere
unite, though our human vision does not see the point; so all mysteries
are radii, and could we follow one implicitly, then we have found the
centre of all. Therefore the best critic of art is the man whose life has
been hid with God in nature; and therefore the triumph of art is complete
when birds peck at the grapes.
I felt this yesterday while looking at Cole's paintings. Each picture of
"The Voyage of Life" impressed me somewhat as the voyage itself does.
Especially the cold, subdued tone of the last, which suggests infinity by
the tone merely. Perhaps you have not seen them, and will suffer a brief
account. The pictures are four. The first represents a boat of golden prow
and sides wrought into the images of the hours, bearing an infant in a bed
of roses, and issuing from a dim cave in a dark, indefinable mountain, and
hasting down a flower-crowned stream. The second shows the babe grown to
manhood, and, assuming himself the guidance, leaves the guardian spirit
upon the bank, and upon a wider stream, piercing a wider prospect, sails
away, allured by a dim cloud-castle which seems to hang over the river,
yet from which the stream turns. The next shows him dashing along amid
clouds and whirlpools and tempests, without rudder or compass, towards
threatening rocks, yet serenely, with clasped hands, abiding the issue. In
the last, grown to old age, he sails forth upon a fathomless, shoreless
sea, leaving behind all rocks and tempests, while the guardian angel again
at the helm points to regions of cloudless day. Though very beautiful of
themselves, they suggested to me grander pictures of this grandest theme,
and so interested me very much.
Truly there is nothing final; all is suggestive. When, entranced in summer
woods, we demand that nature lend our homes somewhat of her beauty, she
replies to us that beauty is so subtle, residing not in the green of this
leaf nor in the curve of that branch, and not in the whole, but in the
soul that contemplates it, that of herself she has none, and that we her
lovers have invested her with such golden charms. The universal wish to
realize is only typified by the grasping gain. Most men live to
acknowledge in heart the superiority of young dreams over old possessions;
and the world feels that in the unshrinking aspirations of the youth lies
the hope of the world. That is the lightning that purifies the dense
atmosphere, and, glancing for an instant, reveals the keenest light known
to men. So the old year sings to me as it goes crowned with crystals and
snow-drops to its end. Without shrinking, without sorrow, it folds its
white garment around unwithered limbs, and submits gracefully to the past.
Nature regards it with that calm face whereon no emotions are written, but
a wise serenity forever sits. This year, too, is to many lonely hearts a
redeemer; and no heavens will be darkly clouded when it is over, but still
stars will shine unsurprised. Pale scholars in midnight vigils, golden
gayety wreathing the hours with flowers and gems, unbending sorrow
pressing heavy seals upon yielding wretchedness, it will steal surely from
all these, and on the morrow be a colorless ghost in the distant past. Its
constancy will secure our immortality. The grandeur of the year may be the
strength of our character; and as the East receives it, we may enter the
inscrutable future reverently and with folded hands.
Sunday. I am going to F. Rakemann's to pass the afternoon and give him
this for you. He proposes to pass a week in Boston. I have heard Wallace
during the week. He has great talent; but I had heard Ole Bull, and
Wallace's violin-playing was only good. What think you of Vieuxtemps, who,
I see, is in Boston? Shall you not send Knoop hither? So many things I
would say! It is wiser to say nothing. Remember me to my West Roxbury
friends, Mrs. Russell and Mrs. Shaw and their spouses.
Ever your friend,
G.W.C.
VIII
N.Y., _Thursday, January 18, '44._
I have not yet answered your letter by W.H. Channing in words, though I
have said a great deal to you that you have not heard. What an interrupter
of conversation is this absence! Neither have I told you of my Vieuxtemps
experience, nor shall I close my letter without speaking of Knoop, who by
the gods' favor concerts to-night. Your letter by W.H. Channing
crystallized a resolution which has been quiet in me for the winter, so
still that it needed only a powerful jerk to induce crystallization at
once. So the day or two succeeding its receipt found me busy in expressing
some thoughts about reform and association which I meant for _The
Present_. But the necessity for expression seems to have been satisfied
without publication. The essay remains as quietly in my portfolio as did
the idea in my mind. So it was with an article on Ole Bull that I wrote
some weeks since for the _Tribune_. The need seems to give the thought
expression and form, whether it then lay still or fly abroad upon paper
wings. Besides, printing does give a dignity to thoughts that the author
should feel that they deserve, a permanency too. The newspaper that
escapes the turmoil and tear and dust of years bears the same aspect as
all its fellows of the same date that were ushered into the morning
parlors with it; and so some commentator on Ole Bull and Vieuxtemps or
what not shall run down to the lower generations more noiselessly, yet as
certainly, as Shakespeare and Plato. There is a singular pleasure, too, in
publishing what nobody thinks is yours. It is addressing the world not as
Geo. Curtis, but as some distinguished messenger, the mystery of whom is a
charm, if nothing more. Yet unfortunate me! I could never maintain the
secret long. Is that from pride or because you cannot endure to see men go
wrong, if you can help them? When Charles Dana came running to me with
what he thought Emerson's poem, how could I help saying, "It is mine." In
that case, at least, it was sympathy for Emerson's reputation that
prompted the speech.
There is something that pleases me much in the united works of young
authors. Sands and who? in our country published "Yamoyden" and some other
poems together. C. Lamb and Lloyd (was not Coleridge one?) published some
small verses in company. There is a sort of meanness in it, too, as if
they should say, "Here we come, two scribblers, not worthy singly to
attract your attention, but together making out something worth your
money." After all, a single failure may be better than a double
respectability. Imagine the united literary works of Dwight and Curtis
rotting in an odd drawer of Ticknor's or James Munroe's; could we ever
look each other in the face again? What a still, perpetual suspicion there
would be that the one swamped the other.
Do you not mean some day to gather your musical essays together, like a
whorl of leaves, and suffer them to expand into a book, though not with
the cream--colored calyx that Ticknor affects, I beg. Nay, might you not
make some arrangements with Greeley to publish them here, in a cheap way,
if you would make money, for those who valued them would of course obtain
more durable copies. If not, and you would think dignity compromitted,
some of the regular publishers might be diplomatized with. They would make
an unique work. You know we have nothing similar in American literature,
no book of artistic criticism, have we? Why will you not think of it, if
you have not done so? And what so poor a man as Hamlet is may do, you
shall command. How recreant am I to this noble art, that listen only and
celebrate with feeble voice its charms.
Tuesday evening, at a small musical party, I heard Euphrasia Borghese
sing, whom you may have heard, and who is to be Prima Donna at the new
Opera-house, which opens on the 25th or 2eth of the present month. They
begin with the "Puritani." It will be altogether devoted to Italian music,
I suppose, from the tendency of the New York taste and the collection of
musicians.
I heard Vieuxtemps both times he played after his return. I was very much
delighted; he was so modest and composed and refined. His playing is as
wonderful as Ole Bull's, but not so fascinating; his compositions more
contemplative and regular, not so wild and throbbing with the irregular
pulsations of unsatisfied genius, as are Ole Bull's. I felt no disposition
to compare, feeling how different they were. I thanked God when I came
away that no one man has sole power, but that many may serve in this
boundless temple, each in its various offices. Yet in my memory is Ole
Bull the only man who has stirred me up as genius always must. When I
heard Vieuxtemps, I knew what to anticipate; the grandeur of the
instrumental and the human possibility upon it had been revealed to me,
therefore he could not surprise me, and for that revelation I am indebted
to Ole Bull. Vieuxtemps prolonged the echo of the deep tone that had been
sounded into my spiritual ear. I must say that the first was grandest to
me, and remains so.
I passed Sunday P.M. with Rakemann; he played all the time, told me of you
and Boston and his love for it, asked me if I had heard more of the
concerts you mentioned. Timm on Monday played me the "Invitation to the
W." very beautifully, beside some Mazurkas of Chopin, also the "Egmont"
overture grandly. Saturday evening the second Philharmonic, the "Jupiter
Symphony," and some Septuats, etc. It was not a good concert. Castellan
sang for the last time. Not a note of Beethoven! Yesterday afternoon and
evening I passed with Josephine Maman, who plays and sings finely. We had
some of Beethoven, the "Pathetique," etc., and some songs of Schubert,
which I had never heard. A singular girl, but delightful to me. My musical
appetite has been well appeased; can it ever be satisfied? To-night,
Knoop, for whom I have left little space, especially as I find my paper is
torn.
Evening. Have just come from Knoop's. It was beautiful to see the worthy
mate of such men as Ole Bull and Vieuxtemps. From what you and others had
told me, I knew I should like him. So calm and grand. Yet when I left the
room a mournful feeling came over me, that so he must leave and be heard
no more. Beethoven is not done when he is dead, nor Raphael nor
Shakespeare; but for him whose glory is action, which leaves no trace but
upon the heart, what shall remain? The notes he may transcribe for others,
but the charm of the musical artist lies not therein; it is a personal
effluence; how shall we measure it? I felt to-night that he played not for
an audience, but to the private heart. He was singing to me his deep
searching thought, his star-lost aspiration. Indeed, he is worthy to close
the brilliant winter; a calm planet fading from us, but with a mild,
steady lustre that condemns sorrow. How invisible, insensibly proceeds his
fame! My character must needs be strengthened and mellowed by such men,
and so my influence upon others is moulded, till perhaps it meets him
again. Surrounded by these intimate relations, we cannot touch one but all
thrill. In such a subtle shrine is the influence of genius fitly embalmed
and there worshipped. How grand an era in my life, when through a winter I
may justly use the word genius many times!
Good-night!
G.W.C.
I am 24! Will you write me the numbers of the "Tempest" sonata, and some
others that I liked particularly? The op. 14, No. 2, I have got, and Timm
played it to me on Monday. How inexorable is this space, that will not let
me crowd in that I am ever your friend,
G.W.C.
IX
N.Y., _Sunday evening, Feb. 25, '44._
Do you remember ever to have read a novel called "The Collegians?" A work
of great interest, and displaying great dramatic power. I was always
anxious to know the author, and chance has thrown his name and history in
my way. It was Gerald Griffin, an Irishman of genius, who lived the varied
life of a professed literary man. Desirous of having his dramas accepted
at the London theatres, and finding no one to favor him. Too noble to be
dependent, and going days without food. In 183ty something he published,
"Gisippus," a tragedy, famed of the greatest merit. Finally he became
weary of his literary life, and entered an Irish convent, where, within
two or three years, he died. His father's family in greater part have
removed to America, and his elder brother, a physician of note, has
recently published his memoirs, the reviews of which I have happened to
meet. The reviews say the usual thing of genius, that his writings were
full of promise, and that he might have achieved greatly had he lived.
Must not this be always a complaint of genius? Its being, not its
expression, has the charm which captivates. The dramas are the least part
of Shakespeare, and one would give more to have known him than to study
them forever. It must seem to us promising, till we have entered into the
fulness of its spirit. The necessity of expressing compromises the dignity
of being. God is more pleasing to thought as self-contemplation, rather
than creation. Expression is degradation to us, not to the genius. That
informs everything with its complete Loveliness. But we who must seek in
the expression for it, miss its beauty. Critics complain of Tennyson that
he writes no epic, as if all poets must do the same thing. "Comus" is as
Miltonic as the "Paradise Lost;" and the little songs of Shakespeare as
wide and fresh as the dramas. The diamond is no less wonderful than the
world.