CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Gift of 
 Howard B. Adelmann 
 
 MUSIC 
 
Cornell University Library 
 ML 390.H87 1916 
 
 Little ourneys to the homes of great mu 
 
 3 1924 017 805 585 
 
The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924017805585 
 
Jfourn^p 
 
 
 MADE INTO A BOOK BY 
 THE ROYCROFTERS AT 
 THEIR SHOPS WHICH ARE 
 IN EAST AURORA, N. Y. 
 
Copyright, 1916, 
 By The Roycrofters 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 RICHARD WAGNER . . . . 
 
 9 
 
 PAGANINI 
 
 47 
 
 FREDERIC CHOPIN . . . . 
 
 . 75 
 
 ROBERT SCHUMANN . 
 
 107 
 
 SEBASTIAN BACH . . . . 
 
 . 133 
 
 FELIX MENDELSSOHN . 
 
 161 
 
 FRANZ LISZT 
 
 . 185 
 
 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN . 
 
 221 
 
 GEORGE HANDEL . . . . 
 
 . 249 
 
 GIUSEPPE VERDI .... 
 
 273 
 
 
 . 297 
 
 JOHANNES BRAHMS . . . 
 
 331 
 
 INDEX 
 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
Was ever work like mine created for no purpose? Am 
 I a miserable egotist, possessed of stupid vanity? It 
 matters not, but of this I feel positive; yes, as positive 
 as that I live, and this is, my " Tristan and Isolde," 
 with which I am now consumed, does not find its equal 
 in the world's library of music. Oh, how I yearn to 
 hear it; I am feverish; I am worn. Perhaps that causes 
 me to be agitated and anxious, but my " Tristan " has 
 been finished now these three years and has not been 
 heard. When I think of this I wonder whether it will 
 be with this as with " Lohengrin," which now is thir- 
 teen years old, and is still dead to me. But the clouds 
 seem breaking, they are breaking — I am going to 
 Vienna soon. There they are going to give me.a surprise. 
 It is supposed to be kept a secret from me, but a friend 
 has informed me that they are going to bring out 
 " Lohengrin." 
 
 — Wagner in a Letter to Praeger 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 BSURD and silly i)eople make jokes 
 about mothers-in-law, stepmothers 
 and stepfathers — ^we will none of 
 this. My heart warms to the melan- 
 choly Jacques, who dedicated his 
 book to his mother-in-law, " my 
 best friend, who always came when 
 she was needed and never left 
 
 never lert so 
 
 long as there was work to do." Richard Wagner's step- 
 father was his patient, loving and loyal friend. 
 The father of Wagner died when the child was six 
 months old. The mother, scarcely turned thirty, had 
 a brood of seven, no money and many debts. There is 
 trouble for you — ^ye silken, perfumed throng, who 
 nibble cheese-straws, test the hyson when it is red, and 
 discuss the heartrending aspects of the servant-girl 
 problem to the lascivious pleasings of a lute! 
 But the widow Wagner was not cast down to earth — 
 she resolved on keeping her family together, caring for 
 them all as best she could. The suggestion from certain 
 kinsmen that the children should be given out for 
 adoption was quickly vetoed. The fine spirit of the 
 woman won the admiration of a worthy actor, in 
 slightly reduced circumstances, who had lodgings in 
 the house of the widow. This actor, Ludwig Geyer by 
 name, loved the widow and all of the brood, and he 
 
 n 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 proposed that they pool their poverty. ^ And so before 
 Mrs, Wagner had been a widow a twelvemonth they 
 were married. 
 
 In this marriage Geyer seemed to be moved to a degree 
 by the sentiment of friendship for his friend, the 
 deceased husband. Geyer was a man of many virtues — 
 amiable, hopeful, kind. He had the artistic tempera- 
 ment without its faults. To writers of novels, in search 
 of a very choice central character, Ludwig Geyer af- 
 fords great possibilities. He was as hopeful as Triplett 
 and a deal more versatile. The histrionic art afforded 
 him his income of eleven dollars a week; but painting 
 was his forte — if he only had time to devote to the 
 technique! Yet all the arts being one he had written a 
 play; he also modeled in clay and sang tenor parts as 
 understudy to the great Schudenfeldt. Hope, good- 
 cheer and a devotion to art were the distinguishing 
 features of Mein Herr Geyer. 
 
 All this was in the city of Leipzig; but Herr Geyer be- 
 coming a member of the Court Theater, the family 
 moved to Dresden, where at this time lived one Weber, 
 a composer, who used to walk by the Geyer home and 
 occasionally stop in for a little rest. At such times one 
 of the children would be sent out with a pitcher, and 
 the great composer and Herr Geyer would in fancy 
 roam the realm of art, and Herr Geyer would impart to 
 Herr Weber valuable ideas that had never been used. 
 The little boy, Richard, used to cherish these visits of 
 12 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 Weber, and would sit and watch for hours for the com- 
 ing of the queer old man in the long gray cloak. 
 The stork, one fine day, brought Richard a little sister. 
 He was scarce two years older than she. These two 
 sort of grew up together, and were ever the special 
 pets of Herr Geyer, who used to take them to the 
 theater and seat them on a bench in the wings where 
 they could watch him lead the assault in " The Pirate's 
 Revenge," 
 
 Richard regarded his stepfather with all the affection 
 that ever a child had for its own parent; and until he 
 was twenty-one was known to the world as Richard 
 Wilhelm Geyer. 
 
 The comparison of Ludwig Geyer with Triplett is 
 hardly fair, for Geyer's fine effervescence and hopeful, 
 rainbow-chasing qualities were confined to early life. 
 ^As the years passed Geyer settled down to earnest 
 work and achieved a considerable success both as an 
 actor and as a painter. The unselfish quality of the man 
 is shown in that his income was freely used to educate 
 the Wagner children. He was sure that Richard had 
 the germ of literary ability in his mental make-up, and 
 his ambition was that the boy should become a writer. 
 But alets! Geyer did not live long enough to know the 
 true greatness of this child he had fostered and be- 
 friended SS S& 
 
 Unlike so many musicians Richard was not precocious. 
 He weis slow, thoughtful and philosophic; and music 
 
 13 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 did not attract him so much as letters. Incidentedly he 
 took lessons in music with his other studies, and his 
 first teacher, Gottheb MuUer, has left on record the 
 statement that the boy was " self-willed and eccentric, 
 and not fluid enough in spirit to succeed in music," 
 The mother of Wagner seems to have been a woman 
 of marked mentality — not especially musical or poetic, 
 but possessing a fine appreciation of all good things, 
 and best of all, she had commonsense. She very early 
 came to regard Richard as her most promising child, 
 and before he was ten years of age, said to a friend, 
 " Richard will be able to succeed at anything he con- 
 centrates his mind upon," 
 
 The truth of the remark has often been reiterated. The 
 youth was superb in his mental equipment — strong, 
 capable, independent. Had he turned his attention to 
 any other profession, or any branch of art or science, 
 he could have probed the problem to its depths, and 
 made his mark upon the age in which he lived. 
 In height Wagner was a little under size, but his deep 
 chest, well-set neck, and large, shapely head gave him 
 a commanding look. In physique he resembled the 
 " big little men " like Columbus, Napoleon, Aaron Burr, 
 Alexander Hamilton and John Bright — men born to 
 command, with ability to do the thinking for a nation, 
 ^ It 's magnificent to be a great musician, and many 
 musicians are nothing else, but it is better to be a man 
 than a musician. Richard Wagner was a man. Envi- 
 14 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 i^nment forced literature upon his attention : he desired 
 to be a great poet. He wrote essays, stories, quatrains, 
 epics. Chance sent the work of Beethoven within his 
 radius, and he became filled with the melody of the 
 master. Young men of this tjqje, full of the pride of 
 youth, overflowing with energy, search for a some- 
 thing on which to try their steel. Wagner could write 
 poetry, that was sure, and more, he could prepare the 
 score and set his words to music. He fell upon the 
 work like one possessed — and he was. To his amsize- 
 ment the difficulties of music all faded away, and that 
 which before seemed like a hopeless task, now became 
 luminous before the heat of his spirit. 
 Nothing is difficult when you put your heart in it. 
 The obstacles to be overcome in setting words to 
 sounds were like a game of chess — a pleasing diversion. 
 In a month he knew as much of the science of music 
 as many men did who had grubbed at the work a life- 
 time. " The finances! Get your principles right and then 
 't is a mere matter of detail, requiring only concen- 
 tration — I will arrange it," said Napoleon. 
 Wagner focused on music, yet here seems a good place 
 to say that he never learned either to play the piano 
 or to sing. He had to trust the " details " to others. Yet 
 at twenty he led an orchestra. Soon after he became 
 conductor of the opera at Magdeburg. 
 In some months more he drifted to Konigsberg, and 
 there acted as conductor at the Royal Theater. 
 
 15 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 In the company of this theater was a young woman by 
 the name of Wilhelmina Planer. Wagner got acquaintedlj 
 with her across the footlights. She weis young, comely 
 and all that — they became engaged. Shortly afterwards, 
 one fine moonlight night, in response to her merry 
 challenge, they rang up the " Dom " and were married. 
 TTiey got better acquainted afterward. 
 
 16 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 T is a fact that Wagner's imprudent marriage 
 at the age of twenty-three has been much 
 regretted and oft lamented. " What," say the 
 Impressionable Ones, "Oh, what could he 
 not have accomplished with a proper mate! " 
 It is very true that Minna Planer had no comprehension 
 of the genius of her husband; that her two feet were 
 always flatly planted on earth, and her head never 
 reached the clouds; and true it is that she was a weary 
 weight to him for the twenty-five years they lived 
 together. Still men grow strong by carrjring burdens; 
 and we must remember that Wagner was what he was 
 on account of what he endured and suffered. 
 Wagner expressed himself in his art, and all great art 
 is simply the honest, spontaneous, individual expres- 
 sion of soul-emotion. Had Wagner's emotions been 
 different he would have produced a totally different 
 sort of art.. That is to say, if Wagner in his youth had 
 loved and wedded a woman who was capable of giving 
 his soul peace, we would have had no Wagner; we would 
 have had some one else, and therefore a totally difi^erent 
 expression, or no expression at all. Probably the man 
 would have been quite content to be a village Kapell- 
 meister. His life being reasonably complete, his spirit 
 would not have roamed the Universe crying for rest. 
 Tlie ideals of his wife were so low and commonplace 
 that she influenced his career by antithesis. His soul 
 was ahungered for the bread of life, and stones were 
 
 17 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 given him in way of the dull, the ugly, the affected, the 
 smug, the ridiculous. Wagner's life was a revolt from 
 the ossified commonplace, a struggle for right adjust- 
 ment—a heart tragedy. And all this reaching out of 
 the spirit, all the prayers, hopes, fears and travail of 
 his soul, are told and told again in his poetry and in 
 his music. 
 
 All art is autobiography. 
 
 Minna Planer was amiable and kind, but the frantic 
 effort she made at times, in public, to be profound or 
 chic must have touched the great man on the raw. He 
 sought, however, to protect her, and at public gather- 
 ings used to keep very near to her in order that she 
 should not fall into the clutches of some sharp-witted 
 enemy and be lead on into unseemliness of speech. The 
 scoffs of critics and the ready-made gibes and jeers of 
 the mob were to her gospel truth; her husband's genius 
 was a vagary to be stoutly endured. So for many years 
 she weis inclined to pose as one to be pitied — and so 
 she was. That she suffered at times can not be denied, 
 yet God is good, and so has put short limit on the 
 sensibilities of the vain. 
 
 But Wagner would never tolerate an unkind word 
 spoken of Minna in his presence, and once rebuked a 
 friend who sought to console him by saying, " Never 
 mind, Minna lives her life the best she can, and ex- 
 presses the thoughts that come to her — what more do 
 you and I do? " 
 18 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 And in his later years, when calm philosophy was his, 
 he realized that Minna Planer had supplied him a 
 stinging discontent, a continued unrest that formed 
 the sounding-board on which his sorrow and his hope 
 and his faith in the Ideal were echoed forth. 
 Love is the recurring motif in all of Wagner's plays. 
 A man and a woman, joined by God, but separated by 
 unkind condition, play their parts, and our hearts are 
 made by the Master to vibrate in sympathy with the 
 central idea. Only a broken-hearted man could have 
 conjured forth from his soul such couples as these: 
 Senta and the Dutchman, Elizabeth and Tannhauser, 
 Elsa and Lx)hengrin, Tristan and Isolde, Siegmund 
 and Sieglinde, Walter and Eva, Siegfried and Brunhilde. 
 ^ Wagner's unhappy marriage forms the keynote of 
 his art. Every op>era he wrote depicts a soul in bonds. 
 From " The Flying Dutchman " to " Parsifal " we are 
 shown the struggle of a strong man with cruel Fate; a 
 reaching out for liberty and light; the halting between 
 duty and inclination; and the endless search for a 
 woman who shall give deliverance through her abiding 
 love and faith. 
 
 19 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 LL art seems controlled by fad and fashion. 
 No fashion endures, else 't were not fashion, 
 and in its character the fad is essentially 
 transient. Still we need not rail at fashion; it 
 is k form of periodicity, and periodicity exists through 
 all Nature. There are day and night, winter and sum- 
 mer, equinox and solstice, work and rest, years of 
 plenty and years of famine. Comets return, and all 
 fashions come back. Keep your old raiment long enough 
 and it will be in style. 
 
 All things move in an orbit, even theories and religions. 
 Certain forms of fanaticism come with the centuries — 
 every new heresy is old. All extremes cure themselves, 
 for when matters get pushed to a point where the 
 balance of things is in danger of being disturbed, a 
 Reformer appears and utters his stentorian protest. 
 This man is always ridiculed, hooted, reviled, mobbed, 
 and very happy indeed is his fate if he is hanged, cru- 
 cified or made to drink of the deadly hemlock; for then 
 his place in the affection of men is made secure, sealed 
 with blood, and we proclaim him liberator or savior. 
 The Pieizza Signora is sacred soil because there it was 
 that Savonarola died; John Brown's body lies a- 
 moldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching 
 on; J. Wilkes Booth linked his own name with that of 
 Judas Iscariot and made his victim known to the Ages 
 as the Emancipator of Men. 
 
 These strong men, sent at the pivotal points in history, 
 20 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 are born out of a sore need — they are sent from God. 
 Yet strong men always exist, but it is the needs of the 
 hour that develop and bring them to our attention. 
 Not always have the Reformers been fortunate in 
 their takings off — many have lingered out lengthening, 
 living deaths in walled-up cells. The Bastile, Chillon, 
 London Tower, that prison joined to a palace by the 
 Bridge of Sighs, and all other such plague-spots of 
 blood are haunted by the ghosts of infamy. Before the 
 memory of all those who wrote immortal books behind 
 grated bars we stand uncovered. 
 
 Exile has been the lot of many who tried to live for 
 sanity, justice and truth when mad riot raged. Dante, 
 Victor Hugo, Prince Kropotkin and Wagner are types 
 to which we turn. Then there is an attenuated form of 
 persecution known as ostracism, which consists in being 
 exiled at home, but of this it is not worth while to 
 speak S& Si 
 
 Wagner was a strong, honest man who simply desired 
 to express his better self. The elements of caution and 
 expediency were singularly lacking in his character. 
 These qualities of independence and self-reliance 
 brought him into speedy collision with those who stood 
 in the front rank of the artistic world of his day, and 
 he became a marked man. His offense was that he 
 expressed his honest self. 
 
 In Eighteen Hundred Forty-three, when he appeared 
 upon the scene in Dresden as Hofkapellmeister of 
 
 21 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 the Royal Theater, matters musical were just about 
 where the stage now is in America. In this Year of 
 Grace, Nineteen Hundred One, the great Shakespeare 
 has been elbowed from the stage by the author of 
 "A Texas Steer"; and where once the haughty 
 Richard trod the boards, the skirt-dance assumes the 
 center of the stage and looms lurid like the spirit of 
 the Brocken. Recently a vaudeville " turn " of Hamlet 
 has been presented, where the gravediggers do their 
 gruesome tasks to ragtime; and on every hand we 
 behold the Lyceum giving way to the McClure Con- 
 tinuous, Lim. 
 
 Wagner abhorred the mere tune for the sake of tune. 
 " You can not produce art and leave man out," he said. 
 All art must suggest something. Mere verbal description 
 is not literature: it is only words, words, words; a 
 picture must be charged with soul, otherwise a photo- 
 graph would outrank " The Angelus." Music must be 
 more than jingling tunes and mincing sounds. And thus 
 we find Wagner at thirty years of age boldly putting 
 forth " The Flying Dutchman," with music not written 
 for the text, nor text written for the music, but words 
 and music created at the same time — the melody mir- 
 roring forth the soul of the words. 
 In this play Wagner for the first time sacrificed every 
 precedent of musical construction and all thought of 
 symmetrical form, in order to make the music tell the 
 tale. " The Flying Dutchman " is to opera what Walt 
 11 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 Whitman's " Leaves of Grass " is to poetry, or Millet's 
 " Sower " is to painting. There is strength, heroic 
 strength, in each of these masterpieces I have named, 
 but the " Dutchman " needs a listener, " Leaves of 
 Grass " requires a reader who has experienced, and the 
 " Sower " demands one who has eyes to see, before its 
 lesson of love and patience and the pathetic truth of 
 endless toil are bodied forth. 
 
 Whitman's book was well looked after by the local 
 Antonius Ash-Box inspector of the day, its publication 
 forbidden, and the author incidentally deprived of his 
 clerkship at Washington; Millet did service as the butt 
 for jokes of artistic Paris, and was dubbed " The Wild 
 Man "; Wagner's play was hooted off the stage. 
 
 23 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 [VERY man is but a type representing his 
 class. Of. course the class may be small and 
 one man may even be its sole living represen- 
 tative; but Wagner had his double in William 
 Morris. These men were brothers in temperament, 
 physique, habit of thought and occupation. 
 Wagner wrote largely on the subjects- of Art and 
 Sociology, and made his appeal for the toiler in that 
 the man should be allowed to share the joys of Art by 
 producing it. His argument is identical with that of 
 William Morris; and yet the essays of Wagner were not 
 translated into English until after Morris had written 
 his " Dream of John Ball," and Morris did not read 
 German S& 5S 
 
 Both men hark back to a time when Man and Nature 
 were on friendly terms; when the thought, best exem- 
 plified by the early Greeks, of the sacredness of the 
 human body was recognized; when the old medieval 
 feeling of helpful brotherhood yet lingered; and the 
 restless misery of competition and all the train of woe, 
 squalor and ugliness that " civilization " has brought 
 were unknown. 
 
 Wagner's music is made up of the sounds of Nature 
 conventionalized. You hear the sighing of the breeze, 
 the song of the birds, the cries of animals, the rush of 
 the storm. Wagner's essay, entitled, "Art and Revolu- 
 tion," is the twin to the lecture, "Art and Socialism," 
 by Morris; and in the "Art- Work of the Future," 
 24 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 Wagner works out at length the favorite recurring 
 theme of Morris: work is for the worker, and art is the 
 expression of man's joy in his work. 
 In Eighteen Hundred Forty-four, when Morris was ten 
 years of age, Wagner wrote: 
 
 " I compose for myself; it is just a question between me 
 and my Maker. I grow as I exercise my faculties, and 
 expression is a necessary form of spiritual exercise. How 
 shall I live? Express what I think or feel, or what you 
 feel? 5S 53 
 
 "No, I must be honest and sincere. I must, for the need 
 of myself, live my own life, for work is for the worker, 
 at the last. Each man must please himself, and Nature 
 has placed her approbation on this by supplying the 
 greatest pleasure men ever know as a reward for doing 
 good work. I hate this fast-growing tendency to chain 
 men to machines in big factories and deprive them of 
 all joy in their efforts — the plan will lead to cheap men 
 and cheap products. I set my face against it and plead 
 for the dignity and health of the open air, and the olden 
 time." 58 5S 
 
 This sort of talk led straight to Wagner's arrest in the 
 streets of Dresden on the charge of inciting a riot; and 
 it was the identical line of argument that caused the 
 arrest of Morris in Trafalgar Square, London, when he 
 was taken struggling to the station-house. 
 Wagner was exiled and Morris merely " cautioned," 
 placed under police surveillance and ostracized. The 
 
 25 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 difference in time explains the difference in punishment. 
 A century earlier and both men would have forfeited 
 their heads. 
 
 In all of Wagner's operas the scene is laid at a time 
 when the festivals, games and religious ceremonies were 
 touched with the thought of beauty. Men were strong, 
 plain, blunt and honest. Affectation, finesse, pretense 
 and veneer were unknown. Art had not resolved itself 
 into the possession of a class of idlers and dilettantes 
 who hired long-haired men and fussy girls in Greek 
 gowns to make pretty things for them. All worked with 
 their hands, through need, and when they made things 
 they worked for utility and beauty. They gave things 
 a beautiful form, because men and women worked 
 together, and for each other. And wherever men and 
 women work together we find Beauty. Men who live 
 only with other men are never beautiful in their work, 
 or speech, or lives, neither are women. But at this early 
 time life was largely communal, natural, and Art was 
 the possession of all, because all had a share in its pro- 
 duction. Observe the setting of any Wagner opera 
 where Walter Damrosch has his way and get that 
 flavor of bold, free, wholesome, honest Beauty. And 
 yet no stage was ever large enough to quite satisfy 
 Wagner, and all the properties, if he had had his way, 
 would have been works of Art, thought out in detail 
 and materialized for the purpose by human hands. 
 Now turn to " The Story of the Glittering Plain," 
 26 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 " Gertha's Lovers," " News From Nowhere " or " The 
 Hollow Land," by William Morris, and note the same 
 stage-setting, the same majesty, dignity and sense of 
 power. Observe the great underlying sense of joy in 
 life, the gladness of mere existence. A serenity and 
 peace pervades the work of both of these men ; they are 
 mystic, fond of folklore and legend; they live in the 
 open, are deeply religious without knowing it, have 
 nothing they wish to conceal, and are one with Nature 
 in all her many moods and manifestations — sons of God ! 
 
 27 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 N the history of letters there is a writer by the 
 name of Green, who exists simply because he 
 reviled a contemporary poet by the name of 
 Shakespeare. Green's name is embalmed in 
 immortal amber with that of Richard Quiney, who 
 wrote a letter to the author of " The Tempest " begging 
 the favor of a loan of forty pounds. 
 There are several ways of winning fame. Joseph Jef- 
 ferson has written in classic style of Count Johannes 
 and James Owen O'Connor, who played " Hamlet " to 
 large and enthusiastic audiences, behind a wire screen; 
 then there was John Doe, who fired the Alexandrian 
 Library, and Richard Roe, the man who struck Billy 
 Patterson. Besides these we have the Reverend Obadiah 
 Simmons of Nashville, Tennessee, who, in Eighteen 
 Hundred Sixty, produced a monograph proving that 
 negroes had no souls, the value of which work, to be 
 sure, is slightly vitiated when we remember that the 
 same arguments were used, in Seventeen Hundred 
 One, by Bishop Volberg, in showing that women were 
 in a like predicament. 
 
 And now Henry T, Finck has compiled a list of more 
 than one hundred names of musical critics who placed 
 themselves on record in opposition to Richard Wagner 
 and his music. Only such men as proved themselves 
 past masters in density and adepts in abuse are given 
 a place in this Academy of Immortals. 
 No writer, musician or artist who ever lived brought 
 28 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 down on his head an equal amount of contumely and 
 disparagement as did Richard Wagner. Turner, Millet 
 and Rodin have been let off lightly compared with the 
 fate that was Wagner's; and even the shrill outcry that 
 was raised in Boston at sight of MacMonnies' Bac- 
 chante was a passing zephyr to the storm that broke 
 over the head of Wagner in Paris, when, after one 
 hundred sixteen rehearsals, " Tannhauser " was pro- 
 duced 5S 5S 
 
 The derisive laughter, catcalls, shouts, hisses and uproar 
 that greeted the play were only the shadow of the 
 criticisms that filled the daily press, done by writers 
 who mistook their own anserine limitations for inanity on 
 the part of the composer. They scorned the melody they 
 could not appreciate, like men who deny the sounds 
 they can not hear; or those who might revile the colors 
 they could not distinguish. And worse than all this, the 
 aristocratic hoodlums refused to allow any one else to 
 enjoy, and would not tolerate the thought that that 
 which to them was " jumbling discord, seven times 
 confounded " might be a succession of harmonies to 
 one whose perceptions were more fully developed. 
 Wagner himself only escaped personal violence by dis- 
 creetly keeping out of sight. The result of the Paris 
 experiment was that the poor man lost nearly a year's 
 time, all of his modest savings were gone, creditors 
 dogged his footsteps, and the unanimous tone of the 
 critics, for a time, almost made him doubt his own 
 
 29 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 sanity. What if the critics were really right? ^ And this, 
 we must remember, was in Eighteen Hundred Sixty-| 
 one, when Wagner was forty-eight years of age SS 
 That even a strong man should doubt his value 
 when he finds a world of learned men arrayed against 
 him is not strange. Every man who works in a creative 
 way craves approbation. Some one must approve. After 
 the first fever of ecstasy there comes the reaction, when 
 the pulse beats slow and the mind is filled with doubt 
 and melancholy. This desire for approval is not a 
 weakness — it seems to stand as a natural need of every 
 human soul. When the great Peg Woffington played, 
 you remember, she begged Sir Henry Vane to stand in 
 the wings so as to meet her when she came off the stage, 
 take her in his arms just for an instant, kiss her on the 
 forehead and say, " Well done! " 
 
 Shallow people may smile at such a scene as this, but 
 those who have delved in the realm of creative art 
 know this fervent need of a word of encouragement 
 from One who Understands. 
 
 The one man who held the mirror up to Nature for 
 Wagner was Franz Liszt. Were it not for the steadfeist 
 love and faith of this noble soul, Wagner must surely 
 have fallen by the way. Wagner worked first to please 
 himself, and having pleased himself he knew it would 
 please Franz Liszt, and having pleased Franz Liszt he 
 knew it would please all those as great, noble, excellent 
 and pure in heart as Franz Liszt. To speak to an 
 30 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 audience made up of such as Liszt, and have them 
 approve, was the subUme dream and hope of Richard 
 Wagner SS SS 
 
 Some of the enemies of Wagner, having placed them- 
 selves on record against the man, have sought to make 
 out that Wagner and Liszt often quarreled, but this 
 canard has now all been exploded. Such another friend- 
 ship between two strong men I can not recall. That of 
 Goethe and Schiller seems a mere acquaintanceship, 
 and the friendship of Carlyle and Emerson a literary 
 corresF>ondence with an eye on posterity, as compared 
 with this bond of brotherhood that existed between 
 Wagner and Liszt. 
 
 During the ten years of Wagner's exile in Switzerland 
 he received barely enough from his work in music to 
 support him, and several times he would have been in 
 sore need were it not for the " loans " made him by 
 Liszt. He did not even own a piano, and never heard 
 his scores played, except when Liszt made a semi- 
 yearly visit. At such times a piano would be borrowed, 
 and the friends would revel in the new scores, and 
 occeisionally talk the entire night away. 
 When Liszt would go home after such visits, Wagner 
 would go off on long tramps, climbing the mountains, 
 lonely and bereft, sure that the mood for high and 
 splendid work would never come again. Then some 
 morning the mist would roll away, the old spirit would 
 come back, and he would apply himself with all the 
 
 31 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 intense fire and burning imagination of which his spirit 
 was capable. 
 
 When the score was done it was sent straight to Liszt, 
 before the ink was dry. 
 
 The " Lohengrin " manuscript was sent along in parts, 
 and Liszt was the first man to interpret it. On one such 
 occasion we find Liszt writing: "Your 'Walkure' 
 has arrived — and gladly would I sing to you with a 
 thousand voices your ' Lohengrin Chorus ' — a wonder, 
 a wonder! Dearest Richard, you are surely a divine 
 man, and my highest joy is to follow you in your flight 
 and be one with you in spirit! " 
 
 On this occasion, when the " Lohengrin Chorus " first 
 found voice, the only auditor was the Princess von 
 Wittgenstein, who added a postscript to Liszt's letter, 
 thus: " I wept bitter tears over the scene between 
 Siegmund and Sieglinde! This is beautiful — like heaven, 
 like earth — like eternity! " Was ever a woman so blest 
 in privilege — to be the near, dear friend of Franz Liszt 
 and hear him play the music of Richard Wagner from 
 the manuscript, and then add her precious word of 
 appreciation for the work of the weary exile ! The quota- 
 tion given is only a sample of the messages that Liszt 
 was constantly sending to his exiled friend. And we 
 must understand that at this time Liszt had a world- 
 wide reputation as a composer himself, and was the 
 foremost pianist of his time. And Wagner — ^Wagner 
 was only an obscure dreamer, with a penchant for 
 32 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 erratic music! ^TTie "Lohengrin" was produced at 
 Weimar under the leadership of Liszt, but even his 
 magic name could not make the people believe — the 
 critics had their way and wrote it down. 
 Yet Liszt lived to see the name of Wagner proclaimed 
 as the greatest contemporary name in music; and he 
 was too great and good to allow jealousy to enter his 
 great soul. Yet he knew that as a composer his own 
 work was quite lost in the shadow of the reputation of 
 his friend. At a banquet given in Munich in Eighteen 
 Hundred Eighty-one in honor of Wagner, Liszt said, 
 " I ask no remembrance for myself or my work beyond 
 this: Franz Liszt was the loved and loving friend of 
 Wagner, and played his scores with tear-filled eyes; 
 and knew the Heaven-born quality of the man when 
 all the world seemed filled with doubt." 
 
 33 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 MONG men of worth, no man of his time was 
 more thoroughly hated, detested and de- 
 nounced than Richard Wagner. Before he 
 became an anarch of art, he was singled out 
 for distinction by royalty and a price was placed upon 
 his head. He escaped, and for ten years lived in exile, 
 his sole offense being that he lifted up his voice for 
 liberty 5S 
 
 That is the only thing worth lifting up your voice, or 
 pen, or sword for. The men who live in history are the 
 men who have made freedom's fight — there is no other. 
 These men fought for us, and some of them died for 
 us — Socrates, Jesus, Savonarola, John Brown, Lincoln 
 — ^saviors all — they died that we might live. 
 Instead of dying for us, Wagner lived for us, but he 
 had to run away in order to do it. There, in exile — in 
 Switzerland — ^he wrote many of his most sublime 
 scores, and these he did not hear played till long years 
 after, for although the man could compose, he could 
 not execute. The music was in his brain and he could 
 not get it out at his finger-tips — for him the piano was 
 mute. So now and again Franz Liszt would come and 
 play for him the scores he had never heard, and tears 
 of joy would flow down his fine face; then he would 
 stand on his head, walk on his hands and shout for 
 pure gladness. 
 
 All this, I will admit, was not very dignified. 
 Ostracism, exile, hatred, and stupid misunderstanding 
 34 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 did not suppress Wagner. In his work he is often 
 severe, stern, tragic, but the man himself bubbled 
 with good-cheer. He made foolish puns, and routed 
 the serious ones of earth by turning their arguments 
 into airy jests. If in those early days he had been 
 caught and carried in the death-tumbrel to the Place 
 of the Skull, he would have remarked with Mercutio, 
 " This is a grave subject." 
 
 Finally, public opinion relaxed, and Wagner found his 
 way back to Germany. He settled at the town of Bay- 
 reuth, and very slowly it dawned upon the thinking 
 few that at Bayreuth there lived a Man. 
 Among the very first who made this discovery was 
 one Friedrich Nietzsche, an idealist, a dreamer, a 
 thinker, and a revolutionary. Nietzsche was an honest 
 man of marked intellect, whose nerves were worn to 
 the quick by the pretense of the times — the mad race 
 for place and power — the hypocrisy and phariseeism 
 that he saw sitting in high places. He longed to live a 
 life of genuineness — to be, not to seem. And so he had 
 wandered here and there, footsore, weary, searching 
 for peace, scourged forever by the world's displeasure. 
 ^ The trouble was, of course, that Nietzsche did n't 
 have anything the world wanted. In the time of the 
 Crusaders, the tired children would ask at night-time, 
 when the tents were pitched, "Is this Jerusalem? " 
 ^And the only answer was: "Jerusalem is not yet! 
 Jerusalem is not yet! " 
 
 35 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 In Wagner, Nietzsche felt that at last he had found 
 the Moses who would lead the people out of captivity, 
 into the Promised Land of Celestial Art. 
 Nietzsche came and heard the Wagnerian music and 
 was caught as flotsam in its whirling eddies. He read 
 everything that Wagner had written, and having come 
 within the gracious sunshine of the great man's pres- 
 ence, he rushed to his garret and in white heat wrote 
 the most appreciative criticism of Wagner and his 
 work that has ever, even yet, been penned. This book- 
 let, " Wagner at Bayreuth," is a masterpiece of insight 
 and erudition, written by a man of imagination, who 
 saw and felt, and knew how to mold his feelings into 
 words — ^words that burn. It is a rhapsody of appre- 
 ciation 53 S& 
 
 Art is more a matter of heart than of head. 
 The book had a wide circulation, helped on, they do 
 say, by the Master himself, who confessed that in the 
 main the work rang true. 
 
 The publication of the book sort of linked these two 
 men, Wagner and Nietzsche. The disciple sat at the 
 feet of the elder man, and vowed he would be in litera- 
 ture what Wagner was in music. He gazed on him, 
 fed on him, quoted him, waiting in patience for the 
 pearls of thought. 
 
 Now Wagner was a natural man — a natural son of 
 God. He had the desires, appetites and ambitions of 
 a man. If he voiced great thoughts and wrote great 
 36 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 scores, he did these things in a mood — and never knew 
 how. At times he was coarse, perverse, irritable. ^ The 
 awful, serious, sober ways of Nietzsche began to pall 
 on Wagner — he would run away when he saw him 
 coming, for Nietzsche had begun to give advice about 
 how Wagner should regenerate the race, and also con- 
 duct himself. Now Richard Wagner had no intention of 
 setting the world straight — ^he wanted to express him- 
 self, that was all, and to make enough money so he 
 could be free to come and go as he chose. 
 Once, at a picnic, Wagner climbed a tree and cawed 
 like a crow; then hooted like an owl; he ate tarts out 
 of a tin dish with a knife; a little later he stood on his 
 head and yelled like a Oango chief. When Nietzsche 
 tearfully interposed, Wagner told him to go and get 
 married — marry the first woman who was fool enough 
 to have him — ^she would relieve him of some of his 
 silliness 5S SS 
 
 Shortly after this, the great Wagner festival came on, 
 and Bayreuth was filled with visitors who had read 
 Nietzsche's book, and bought excursion-tickets to 
 Bayreuth 5S 5S 
 
 Wagner was over his ears in work — ^an orchestra of 
 three hundred players to manage, new music to arrange, 
 besides the humdrum, but necessary, work of feeding 
 and housing and caring for the throng. Of course he did 
 not do all the work, but the responsibility was his SS 
 In this rush of work, Nietzsche was dropped out of 
 
 37 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 sight — there was no time now for long conferences on 
 the Over-Soul and Music of the Future. ^ Nietzsche 
 was snubbed. He went off to his garret and wrote a 
 scathing criticism on the work of Richard Wagner. 
 This divine music was not for the intellectual few at all 
 — it was getting popular and it was getting bad. Wagner 
 was insincere — commercial — a charlatan, 
 Nietzsche was no longer interested in Wagner — he was 
 interested only in Nietzsche. 
 
 Literary men do not quarrel more than other men — it 
 only seems as if they did. This is because your writer 
 uses his kazoo in getting even with his supposed enemy 
 — he flings the rhetorical stinkpot with precision, and 
 his grievances come into a prominence all out of keeping 
 with their importance. 
 
 In Eighteen Hundred Eighty-eight, Nietzsche issued his 
 little book, " The Fall of Wagner." 
 After a person has greatly praised another, and wishes 
 to say something particularly unkind about him, one 
 horn of the dilemma must be taken. If you admit you 
 were wrong in the first conclusion, you lay yourself 
 open to the suspicion that you are also wrong in the 
 second — that you are one who makes snap judgments. 
 The safer way then is to cling close to the presump- 
 tion of your own infallibility, without, of course, actu- 
 ally stating it, and claim that your idol has changed, 
 backslidden— fallen. This then lends an aura of virtue 
 to your action, as it shows a wholesome desire on your 
 38 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 part not to associate with the base person, and also 
 an altruistic wish to warn the world so it shall not be 
 undone by him. 
 
 Of all the bitter, unkind and malicious things ever 
 uttered against Wagner, none contains more free alkali 
 than the booklet by Nietzsche. 
 
 Nietzsche, not being satisfied with an attack on Wag- 
 ner's art, also made a few flings at his pedigree, and 
 declared that the Master's real name was not Wagner: 
 this was his mother's name, he being a natural son 
 of Ludwig Geyer, the poet — the Jew. What this has 
 to do with Tannhauser, Tristan and Isolde, the Ring, 
 Lohengrin, and Parsifal, Nietzsche does not explain. 
 In any event, the information about Wagner's birth 
 comes with very bad grace from an avowed enemy, 
 who practically admits that he got the facts, in con- 
 fidence, from Wagner himself. Neither does Nietzsche, 
 the freethinking radical, recognize that good men 
 have long ceased taunting other men concerning their 
 parentage, or boasting of their own. 
 A man is what he is; and the word " illegitimate " is 
 not in God's vocabulary, since He smiles on love- 
 children as on none other. If you know history, you 
 know this: that into their keeping God has largely given 
 the beauty, talent, energy, strength, skill and power, 
 as well as that divinity which confuses its possessor 
 with Deity Incarnate. 
 
 Wagner might have replied to Nietzsche in kind, and 
 
 39 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 pointed him out as the product of " tired sheets," to 
 use the phrase of Shakespeare. Wagner might have 
 said, " Yes, I am a member of that elect class to which 
 belong William the Conqueror, Leonardo da Vinci, 
 Erasmus, the Empress Josephine, Alexander Hamilton 
 and Abraham Lincoln! " But he did n't — ^he did better 
 — ^he said nothing. Wagner had the pride that scorned 
 a defense — ^he realized his priceless birthright, and knew 
 that his mother and father had dowered him with a 
 divine genius. Let those talk who could do nothing else: 
 silence was his only answer. 
 
 In a year later, Nietzsche was taken to an asylum, dead 
 at the top. He lingered on until Nineteen Hundred, 
 when his body, too, died, died there at Weimar, the 
 home of Goethe and the home of Franz Liszt — anothei' 
 of life's little ironies. It is an obvious thing to say that 
 Friedrich Nietzsche was insane all the time. The fact is, 
 he was not. He was a great, sincere and honest soul, 
 intent on living the ideal life. He wrote thoughts that 
 have passed into the current coin of all the thinking 
 world. When he praised Wagner to the skies and 
 afterwards damned him to the lowest depths of perdi- 
 tion, he was sane, and did the thing that has been 
 done since Cain slew his brother Abel. Take it home to 
 yourself — have n't the best things and the worst that 
 have ever been said about you, been expressed by the 
 same person 7 
 
 The opinion of any one person concerning any man of 
 40 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 genius, or any product of art, is absolutely valueless. 
 Whim, prejudice, personal bias, and physical condition 
 color our view and tint our opinions, and when we 
 cease to love a man personally, to condemn his art is 
 an easy and natural step. What was before pleasing is 
 now preposterous. 
 
 Of course, it is all a point of view — a matter of per- 
 spective, and most of us are a trifle out of focus. When 
 we change our opinions we change our friends. 
 As a prescription for preserving a just and proper view, 
 and living a sane life, I would say, climb a tree occa- 
 sionally, and hoot like an owl and caw like a crow; 
 stand on your head and yell at times like a Comanche Si 
 Robert Louis Stevenson says, "A man who has not had 
 the courage to make a fool of himself has not lived." 5S 
 The man who does not relax and hoot a few hoots 
 voluntarily, now and then, is in great danger of hooting 
 hoots and standing on his head for the edification of the 
 pathologist and trained nurse, a little later on. 
 The madhouse yawns for the person who always does 
 the proper thing. Impropriety, in right proportion, 
 relieves congestion, and thus are the unities preserved. 
 And so here the great Law of Compensation, invented by 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, comes in : The sane, healthy man, 
 who occasionally strips off his dignity and hoots like 
 an owl, or rolls naked in the snow, will surely be called 
 insane by the self-nominated elect, but his personal 
 compensation lies in the fact that he knows he is not. 
 
 41 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 ND now look upon the face of this man ! Even 
 so, and upon every face is written the record 
 of the Ufe the man has led: the loves that 
 were his, the thoughts, the prayers, the aspira- 
 tions, the disappointments, all he hoped to be and was 
 not — all are written there — nothing is hidden, nor can 
 it be. Here was one born in poverty, nurtured in adver- 
 sity, and yet uplifted and sustained by homely friend- 
 ships and rugged companions who dumbly guessed the 
 latent greatness of their charge. 
 
 With soul athirst he sought for truth, and stubbornly 
 groped his way alone. Immediate precedent stood to 
 him for little, and his sincerity and honesty made him 
 the butt of mob and rabble. His ambition to be himself, 
 to live his life, the desire to express his honest thought, 
 led straight to deprivation of bread and shelter. He 
 had too much sympathy, his honesty was not tem- 
 pered by the graces of a diplomat — a price was 
 placed upon his head. By the help of that one noble 
 friend, whose love upheld him to the last, he escaped to 
 a country where freedom of speech is not a byword. 
 But misunderstanding followed close upon his foot- 
 steps, even his wife doubted his sanity, mistaking his 
 genius for folly, and died undeceived. Calumny, hate, 
 brutal criticism, the contempt of the so-called learned 
 class — and all the train of woe that want and debt can 
 bring to bear were his lot and portion. 
 Still he struggled on, refusing to compromise or parley 
 42 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 — ^he would live his life, expressing the divinity within, 
 and if fate decreed it so, die the death, misunderstood, 
 reviled, and be forgotten. 
 
 And so he lived, working, praying, hoping, toiling, 
 travailing — ^but with days, now and then, when rifts 
 broke the clouds and the sun shone through, his Other 
 Self giving approbation by saying, " Well done! the 
 work will live." 
 
 More than half a century had passed over his head, 
 and the frost of years had whitened his locks; his form 
 weis bowed from the many burdens it had borne; the 
 fine face furrowed with lines of care; his eyes grown 
 dim from weeping — ^when gradually the critics grew 
 less severe. 
 
 Advocates were coming to the front, demanding that 
 brutal hands should no longer mangle this man : grudg- 
 ingly pardon came for offenses never committed, and 
 he was permitted to return to his native land. Strong 
 men and women placed themselves on his side. They 
 declared their faith, and said his work was sublime; 
 and they boldly stated the patent fact that those who 
 had done most to cry Wagner down, had themselves 
 done nothing, nor added an iota to the wealth or the 
 harmony of the world. People began to listen, to inves- 
 tigate, and they said, " Why, yes, the music of Wagner 
 has a distinct style — it has individuality." 
 Individuality is a departure from a complete type, and 
 so is never perfect, any more than man is perfect. But 
 
 43 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 Wagner's music is honest and genuine emotion set to 
 sweet sounds, with words in keeping. It mirrors the 
 hopes, the disappointments, the aspirations and the 
 love of a great soul. 
 
 As men and women grew to cultivate the hospitable 
 mind and receptive heart, tears filled their eyes and as 
 they listened they came to understand. Honesty and 
 genuineness in souls are too rare to flout — when found 
 men really uncover before them. The people saw at 
 last that they had been deceived by the savants, blinded 
 by the dust of paid and prejudiced critics, fooled by 
 those who led the way for a consideration. They flocked 
 to see the great composer and listen to his matchless 
 music, and they gave the man and his work their ap- 
 proval. Such sums were paid to him as he had only read 
 of in books. Adulation, approbation and crowning fame 
 were his at last. 
 
 Then love came that way and gentle, trusting affection, 
 and sweet, spiritual comradeship, such as he had never 
 known except in dreams — all these were his. His fame 
 increased, and lavish offers from across the sea came, 
 proffering him such wealth and honor as were not for 
 any other living artist. 
 
 A theater was built for the presentation of his produc- 
 tions alone; the lovers of music from every nation made 
 Bayreuth a place of pilgrimage. 
 
 When the man died — passed peacefully away, supported 
 by the arms of the one woman he had loved — the 
 44 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 daughter of Liszt — the art-loving world paid his genius 
 all the tribute that men can offer to the worth of other 
 men 5S 53 
 
 And now the passing years have brought a confirmation 
 in belief of the statement made by Franz Liszt, " Rich- 
 ard Wagner is the one true musical genius of his age." 
 f Wagner's admirers should, for him, plead guilty to 
 the worst that can be said: he is everything that his 
 most bitter critics say, but he is so much more that his 
 faults and follies sink into ashes before the divine fire 
 of his genius, and we still have the gold. Inconsistent, 
 paradoxical, preposterous — why, yes, of course! Still 
 he is the greatest poet of passion the world has ever 
 seen — don't cavil — passion's consistency consists in 
 being inconsistent. 
 
 " Every sentence must have a man behind it," and so 
 we might say, " Every bar of music must have a man 
 behind it." That harmony only can live which once had 
 its dwelling-place in a great and tender heart. 
 The province of art is to impart a sublime emotion, and 
 that which affects to be an emotion, no matter how 
 subtly launched, can never live as classic art. Honesty 
 here, as elsewhere, must have its reward. Be yourself, 
 though all the world laugh. 
 
 I will not say that Wagner was — ^he is. The man himself 
 in life was often worn to the quick by the deprivations 
 he had to endure, or the stupid misunderstandings he 
 encountered, so at times he was impatient, erratic, 
 
 45 
 
RICHARD WAGNER 
 
 possibly perverse. But all that is gone — his mistakes 
 have been washed in the blood of Time — only the good 
 survives. The best that this great and godlike man ever 
 thought, or felt, or knew, is ours — ^he lives immortal in 
 his Art. 
 
 46 
 
PAGAN IN I 
 
For lo! creation's self is one great choir, 
 
 And what is Nature's order but the rhyme 
 
 Whereto the worlds keep time. 
 
 And all things move with all things from their prime? 
 
 Who shall expound the mystery of the lyre? 
 
 In far retreats of elemental mind 
 
 Obscurely comes and goes 
 
 The imperative breath of song, that as the wind 
 
 Is trackless, and oblivious whence it blows. 
 
 — William Watm 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 OME time ago, after my lecture one 
 night in Boston, I bethought me to 
 call on my old friend Bliss Carman. 
 I expected he woulti be sleeping the 
 sleep of the just, but I was prepared 
 to rout him out, for although my 
 errand was from a fair, frail young 
 thing, and trivial, yet I was bound 
 to deliver the message — for that is what one should 
 always do. 
 
 But the poet was not abed — he was pacing the room in a 
 fine burst of poetic fervor, composing " More Songs From 
 Vagabondia." The songs told of purling streams, hedge- 
 rows, bathers lolling on the river-bank, nodding wild 
 flowers, chirping pewees, and other such poetic proper- 
 ties, which the singer conjured forth from boyhood's 
 days, long since gone by. 
 
 This suite of rooms, where the poet worked, was in a 
 fine house on a fashionable street, and I noticed the 
 pla:ce bore every mark of elegant bachelor ease and 
 convenience that good taste could dictate. The best 
 "Songs From Vagabondia," I am told, are written in 
 comfortable apartments, where there are a bath and a 
 Whitely Exerciser; but patient, persistent effort and 
 work overtime are necessary to lick the lines into shape 
 so they will live. Good poets run their machinery in 
 
 49 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 double shifts. ^ " Go away! " cried Bliss Carman, when 
 he had opened the door in reply to my sprightly knock. 
 " Go away! I am giving to airy nothings a local habita- 
 tion and a name. This is my busy night — do you not 
 see? " And fully understanding the conditions, for 1 am 
 a poet myself, \ went away and left the author to his 
 labors 5S ^ 
 
 It is a mistake to assume that genius is the capacity for 
 evading hard work. " La Vie de Boheme " is a beautiful 
 myth that was first worked out with consummate labor 
 by a man of imagination named Murger, and told again 
 with variations by Balzac and Du Maurier, Boheme is 
 not down on the map, because it is not a money-order 
 post-office. It is only a Queen Mab fairy fabric of a 
 warm, transient desire; its walls being constructed of the 
 stuff that dreams are made of, and its little life is rounded 
 with a pipe and tabor, two empties and a brass tray. 
 Yet the semblance of the thing is there and this often 
 deceives the very elect. Around every art studio are 
 found the young men in velveteen who smoke infinite 
 cigarettes, and throw off opinions about this great man 
 and that, and prate prosaically in blase monotone of the 
 Beautiful. Sometimes these young persons give lectures 
 on "Art as I Have Found It "; but do not be deceived 
 by this — the art that lives is probably being produced 
 by small, shy, red-headed men who work on a top floor, 
 and whom you can only find with the help of a search- 
 warrant. One sort talks of art, the other kind produces 
 50 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 it. One tells of truth, the other is living it. ^ Edgar 
 Allan Poe wrote the most gruesome stories that have 
 ever been told, just to prove that life is a tragedy and 
 not worth living. But who ever lived fuller and applied 
 himself to hard work more conscientiously in order to 
 make his point? Poe wrote and rewrote, and changed 
 and added and interlined and balanced it all on his 
 actor's tongue, and read it aloud before the glass. Poe 
 shortened his days and flung away a valuable fag-end 
 of his life, trying to show that life is not worth living, 
 and thus proved it is. Gray spent thirteen years writing 
 his " Elegy," and so made clear the point that the man 
 who does good work does not at the last lay him down 
 and rest his head upon the lap of earth, a youth to 
 fortune and to fame unknown. Gray secured both fame 
 and fortune. He was so successful that he declined the 
 Laureateship, and had the felicity to die of gout. Gray's 
 immortality is based upon the fact that his life gave the 
 lie to his logic. The man who thinks out what he wants 
 to do, and then works and works hard, will win, and no 
 others do, or ever have, or can — God will not have it so. 
 
 51 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 S a violinist Paganini far surpEissed all other 
 players who ever lived; and when one follows 
 the story of his life, the fact is apparent that 
 he succeeded because he worked. 
 And yet behold the paradox ! The idea existed in his own 
 day, and is abroad yet, that " the devil guided his hand," 
 for the thought that the devil is more powerful than God 
 has ever been held by the majority of men — more 
 especially if a fiddle is concerned. 
 
 Such patience, such persistency, such painstaking effort 
 as the man put forth for a score of years would have 
 made him master at anything. The public knows 
 nothing of these long years of labor and preparation — it 
 sees only the result, and this result shows such consum- 
 mate ease and naturalness — all done without effort — 
 that it exclaims, "A genius — the devil guides his hand! " 
 The remark was made of Titian and his wonderful color 
 effects, and then again of Rembrandt with his mys- 
 terious limpid shadows — their competitors could not 
 understand it ! And so they disposed of the subject by 
 attributing it to a supernatural agency. 
 Things all men can do and explain are natural; things 
 we can not explain are " supernatural." Progress con- 
 sists in taking things out of the supernatural pigeonhole 
 and placing them in the natural. As soon as we compre- 
 hend the supernatural, we are a bit surprised to find it is 
 perfectly natural. 
 
 But the limitations of great men are seen in that when 
 52 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 they have acquired the skill to do a difficult thing well, 
 and the public cries, " Genius! " why the genius humors 
 the superstition and begins to allow the impression to 
 get out mysteriously that he " never had a lesson in his 
 life." 53 Si 
 
 Any man who caters to the public is to a great degree 
 spoiled by the public. Actors act off the stage as well as 
 on, falling victims to their trade: their lives are stained 
 by pretense and affectation, just as the dyer's hand is 
 subdued to the medium in which it works. The man of 
 talent who is much before the public poses because his 
 audience wishes him to; one step more and the pose 
 becomes natural — ^he can not divest himself of it. 
 Paganini by hard work became a consummate player; 
 and then so the dear public should receive its money's 
 worth, he evolved into a consummate poseur — but he 
 was still the Artist. 
 
 53 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 LARGE number of writers have described the 
 appearance and playing of Niccolo Paganini, 
 but none ever did the assignment with the 
 creepy vividness of Heinrich Heine. The jest 
 of this chapter is Heine's. I make the explanation 
 because the passage is so well known that ii would be 
 both indiscreet and inexpedient for me to bring my 
 literary jimmy to bear and claim it as my own — much as 
 I would like to. 
 Says Heinrich Heine: 
 
 I believe that only one man has succeeded in putting 
 Paganini's true physiognomy upon paper — a deaf 
 painter, Lyser by name, who, in a frenzy full of genius, 
 has with a few strokes of chalk so well hit the great 
 violinist's head that one is at the same time amused and 
 terrified at the truth of the drawing. " The devil guided 
 my hand," the deaf painter said to me, chuckling 
 mysteriously, and nodding his head with a good- 
 natured irony in the way he generally accompanied his 
 genial witticisms. This painter was, however, a wonder- 
 ful old fellow; in spite of his deafness he was enthusi- 
 astically fond of music, and he knew how, when near 
 enough to the orchestra, to read the music in the 
 musicians' faces, and to judge the more or less skilful 
 execution by the movements of their fingers ; indeed, he 
 wrote critiques on the opera for an excellent journal at 
 Hamburg. And yet is that peculiarly wonderful? In the 
 visible symbols of the performance the deaf painter 
 could see the sounds. There are men to whom the sounds 
 themselves are invisible symbols in which they hear 
 54 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 colors and forms. ^ I am sorry that I no longer possess 
 Lyser's little drawing; it would perhaps have given. you 
 an idea of Paganini's outward appearance. Only with 
 black and glaring strokes could those mysterious 
 features be seized, features which seemed to belong more 
 to the sulphurous kingdom of shades than to the sunny 
 world of life. " Indeed, the devil guided my hand," the 
 deaf painter assured me, as we stood before the pavilion 
 at Hamburg on the day when Paganini gave his first 
 concert there. " Yes, my friend, it is true that he has 
 sold himself to the devil, body and soul, in order to 
 become the best violinist, to fiddle millions of money, 
 and principally to esccipe the damnable galley where he 
 had already languished many years. For, you see, my 
 friend, when he was chapel-master at Lucca he fell in 
 love with a princess of the theater, was jealous of some 
 little abbate, was perhaps deceived by the faithless 
 amata, stabbed her in approved Italian fashion, came 
 in the galley to Genoa, and as I said, sold himself to the 
 devil to escape from it, became the .best violin-player, 
 and imposed upon us this evening a contribution of two 
 thalers each. But, you see, all good spirits praise God! 
 There in the avenue he comes himself, with his sus- 
 picious impresario." 
 
 It was Paganini himself whom I then saw for the first 
 time. He wore a dark gray overcoat, which reached to 
 his heels, and made his figure seem very tall. His long 
 black hair fell in neglected curls on his shoulders, and 
 formed a dark frame round the pale, cadaverous face, 
 on which sorrow, genius and hell had engraved their 
 lines. Near him danced along a little pleasing figure, 
 elegantly prosaic — ^with rosy, wrinkled face, bright gray 
 
 55 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 little coat with steel buttons, distributing greetings on 
 all sides in an insupportably friendly way, leering up, 
 nevertheless, with apprehensive air at the gloomy figure 
 who walked earnest and thoughtful at his side. It 
 reminded one of Retzsch's presentation of " Faust " 
 and Wagner walking before the gates of Leipzig. The 
 deaf painter made comments to me in his mad way, and 
 bade me observe especially the broad, measured walk 
 of Paganini. " Does it not seem," said he, " as if he had 
 the iron cross-pole still between his legs? He has 
 accustomed himself to that walk forever. See, too, in 
 what a contemptuous, ironical way he sometimes looks 
 at his guide when the latter wearies him with his prosaic 
 questions. But he can not separate himself from him; a 
 bloody contract binds him to that companion, who is 
 no other than Satan. The ignorant multitude, indeed, 
 believe that this guide is the writer of comedies and 
 anecdotes, Harris from Hanover, whom Paganini has 
 taken with him to manage the financial business of his 
 concerts. But they do not know that the devil has only 
 borrowed Herr George Harris' form, and that meanwhile 
 the poor soul of this poor man is shut up with other 
 rubbish in a trunk at Hanover, until the devil returns 
 its flesh-envelope, while he perhaps will guide his master 
 through the world in a worthier form — namely as a 
 black p>oodle." 
 
 But if Paganini seemed mysterious and strange enough 
 when I saw him walking in bright midday under the 
 green trees of the Hamburg Jungfernstieg, how his 
 awful bizarre appearance startled me at the concert in 
 the evening ! The Hamburg Opera House was the scene 
 of this concert, and the art-loving public had flocked 
 56 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 there so early, and in such numbers, that I only just 
 succeeded in obtaining a little place in the orchestra. 
 Although it was post-day, I saw in the first row of boxes 
 the whole educated commercial world, a whole Olympus 
 of bankers and other millionaires, the gods of coflFee and 
 sugar by the side of their fat goddesses, Junos of 
 Wandrahm and Aphrodites of Dreckwall. A religious 
 silence reigned through the assembly. Every eye was 
 directed towards the stage. Every ear was making ready 
 to listen. My neighbor, an old furrier, took the dirty 
 cotton out of his ears in order to drink in better the 
 costly sounds for which he had paid his two thalers 5S 
 At last a dark figure, which seemed to have arisen from 
 the underworld, appeared upon the stage. It was 
 Paganini in his black costume — the black dress-coat 
 and the black waistcoat of a horrible cut, such as is 
 prescribed by infernal etiquette at the court of Proser- 
 pine. The black trousers hung anxiously around the 
 thin legs. The long arms appeared to grow still longer, 
 as, holding the violin in one hand and the bow in the 
 other, he almost touched the floor with them, while 
 displaying to the public his unprecedented obeisances. 
 In the angular curves of his body there was a horrible 
 woodenness, and also something absurdly animal-like, 
 that during these bows one could not help feeling a 
 strange desire to laugh. But his face, that appeared still 
 more cadaverously pale in the glare of the orchestra 
 lights, had about it something so imploring, so simply 
 humble, that a sorrowful compassion repressed one's 
 desire to smile. Had he learnt these complimentary 
 bows from an automaton, or a dog ? Is that the entreating 
 gaze of one sick unto death, or is there lurking behind it 
 
 57 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 the mockery of a crafty miser? Is that a man brought 
 into the arena at the moment of death, Uke a dying 
 gladiator, to deHght the pubHc with his convulsions? 
 Or is it one risen from the dead, a vampire with a violin, 
 who, if not the blood out of our hearts, at any rate sucks 
 the gold out of our pockets? 
 
 Such questions crossed our minds while Paganini was 
 performing his strange bows, but all those thoughts 
 were at once still when the wonderful master placed his 
 violin under his chin and began to play. 
 As for me, you already know my musical second-sight, 
 my gift of seeing at each tone a figure equivalent to the 
 sound, and so Paganini with each stroke of his bow 
 brought visible forms and situations before my eyes; 
 he told me in melodious hieroglyphics all kinds of 
 brilliant tales; he, as it were, made a magic lantern play 
 its colored antics before me, he himself being chief 
 actor. At the first stroke of his bow the stage scenery 
 around him had changed; he suddenly stood with his 
 music-desk in a cheerful room, decorated in a gay, 
 irregular way after the Pompadour style; everywhere 
 httle mirrors, gilded Cupids, Chinese porcelain, a 
 delightful chaos of ribbons, garlands of flowers, white 
 gloves, torn lace, false pearls, powder-puffs, diamonds 
 of gold-leaf and spangles — such tinsel as one finds in the 
 room of a prima donna. Paganini's outward appearance 
 had also changed, and certainly most advantageously; 
 he wore short breeches of lily-colored satin, a white 
 waistcoat embroidered with silver, and a coat of bright 
 blue velvet with gold buttons; the hair in little carefully 
 curled locks bordered his face, which was young and 
 rosy, and gleamed with sweet tenderness as he ogled the 
 58 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 pretty young lady who stood near him at the music- 
 desk, while he played the violin. 
 
 Yes, I saw at his side a pretty young creature, dressed 
 in antique costume, the white satin swelled out above 
 the waist, making the figure still more charmingly 
 slender; the high raised hair was powdered and curled, 
 and the pretty round face shone out all the more openly 
 with its glancing eyes, its little rouged cheeks, its tiny 
 beauty-patches, and the sweet, impertinent little nose. 
 In her hand was a roll of white paper, and by the move- 
 ments of her lips as well as by the coquettish waving to 
 and fro of her little upper lip she seemed to be singing; 
 but none of her trills was audible to me, and only from 
 the violin with which young Paganini led the lovely 
 child could I discover what she sang, and what he hirii- 
 self during her song felt in his soul. 
 Oh, what melodies were those! Like the nightingale's 
 notes, when the fragrance of the rose intoxicates her 
 yearning young heart with desire, they floated in the 
 twilight. Oh, what melting, languid delight was that! 
 The sounds kissed each other, then fled away pouting, 
 and then, laughing, clasped each other and became one, 
 and died away in intoxicating harmony. Yes, the sounds 
 carried on their merry game like butterflies, when one, 
 in playful provocation, will escape from another, hide 
 behind a flower, be overtaken at last, and then, wantonly 
 joying with the other, fly away into the golden sunlight. 
 But a spider, a spider can prepare a sudden tragical fate 
 for such enamored butterflies ! 
 
 Did the young heart anticipate this? A melancholy 
 sighing tone, a sad foreboding of some slowly approach- 
 ing misfortune, glided softly through the enrapturing 
 
 59 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 melodies that were streaming from Paganini's violin. 
 His eyes became moist. Adoringly he knelt down before 
 his amata. But, alas! as he bowed down to kiss her feet, 
 he saw under the sofa a little abbate! I do not know 
 what he had against the poor man, but the Genoese 
 became pale as death. He seized the little fellow with 
 furious hands, drew a stiletto from its sheath, and 
 buried it in the young rogue's breast. 
 At this moment, however, a shout of " Bravo! Bravo! " 
 broke out from all sides. Hamburg's enthusiastic sons 
 and daughters were paying the tribute of their uproar- 
 ious applause to the great artist, who had just ended the 
 first of his concert, and was now bowing with even more 
 angles and contortions than before. And on his face the 
 abject humility seems to me to have become more 
 intense. From his eyes stared a sorrowful anxiety like 
 that of a poor malefactor. " Divine! " cried my neigh- 
 bor, the furrier, as he scratched his ears; " that piece 
 alone was worth two thalers." 
 
 When Paganini began to play again a gloom came before 
 my eyes. The sounds were not transformed into bright 
 forms and colors; the master's form was clothed in 
 gloomy shades, out of the darkness of which his music 
 moaned in the most piercing tones of lamentation. 
 Only at times, when a little lamp that hung above cast 
 its sorrowful light over him, could I catch a glimpse of 
 his pale countenance, on which the youth was not yet 
 extinguished. His costume -was singular, in two colors, 
 yellow and red. Heavy chains weighed upon his feet. 
 Behind him moved a face whose physiognomy indicated 
 a lusty goat-nature. And I saw at times long, hairy 
 hands seize assistingly the strings of the violin on which 
 60 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 Paganini was playing. They often guided the hand 
 which held the bow, and then a bleat-laugh of applause 
 accompanied the melody, which gushed from the violin 
 ever more full of sorrow and anguish. They were melo- 
 dies which were like the song of the fallen angels who 
 had loved the daughters of earth, and bieing exiled from 
 the kingdom of the blessed, sank into the underworld 
 with faces red with shame. They were melodies in whose 
 bottomless depths glimmered neither consolation nor 
 hope. When the saints in heaven hear such melodies, 
 the praise of God dies upon their paled lips, and they 
 cover their heads weeping. At times when the obligato 
 goat's laugh bleated in among the melodious pangs, I 
 caught a glimpse in the background of a crowd of small 
 women-figures who nodded their odious heads with 
 wicked wantonness. Then a rush of agonizing sounds 
 came from the violin, and a fearful groan and a sob, 
 such as was never heard upon earth before, nor will be 
 perhaps heard upon earth again, unless in the valley of 
 Jehoshaphat, when the colossal trumjiets of doom shall 
 ring out, and the naked corpses shall crawl forth from 
 the grave to abide their fate. But the agonized violinist 
 suddenly made one stroke of the bow, such a mad, 
 despairing stroke, that his chains fell rattling from him, 
 and his mysterious assistant and the other foul, mock- 
 ing forms vanished. 
 
 At this moment my neighbor, the furrier, said, "A pity, 
 a pity! a string has snapped — that comes from constant 
 pizzicato." JS Si 
 
 Had a string of the violin really snapped? I do not know. 
 I only observed the alternation in the sounds, and 
 Paganini and his surroundings seemed to me again 
 
 61 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 suddenly changed. I could scarcely recognize him in the 
 monk's brown dress, which concealed rather than 
 clothed him. With savage countenance half-hid by the 
 cowl, waist girt with a cord, and bare feet, Paganini 
 stood, a solitary defiant figure, on a rocky prominence 
 by the sea, and played his violin. But the sea became 
 red and redder, and the sky grew paler, till at last the 
 surging water looked like bright, scarlet blood, and the 
 sky above became of a ghastly corpse-like pallor, and 
 the stars came out large and threatening; and those 
 stars were black — black as glooming coal. But the tones 
 of the violin grew ever more stormy and defiant, and 
 the eyes of the terrible player sparkled with such a 
 scornful lust of destruction, and his thin lips moved 
 with such a horrible haste, that it seemed as if he mur- 
 mured some old accursed charms to conjure the storm 
 and loose the evil spirits that lie imprisoned in the 
 abysses of the sea. Often, when he stretched his long, 
 thin arm from the broad monk's sleeve, and swept the 
 air with his bow, he seemed like some sorcerer who 
 commands the elements with his magic wand; and then 
 there was a wild wailing from the depth of the sea, and 
 the horrible waves of blood sprang up so fiercely that 
 they almost besprinkled the pale sky and the black 
 stars with their red foam. There was a wailing and a 
 shrieking and a crashing, as if the world was falling 
 into fragments, and ever more stubbornly the monk 
 played his violin. He seemed as if by the power of 
 violent will he wished to break the seven seals where- 
 with Solomon sealed the iron vessels in which he had 
 shut up the vanquished demons. The wise king sank 
 those vessels in the sea and 1 seemed to hear the voices 
 62 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 of the imprisoned spirits while Paganini's violin growled 
 its most wrathful bass. 
 
 But at last I thought I heard the jubilee of deliverance, 
 and out of the red billows of blood emerged the heads of 
 the fettered demons: monsters of legendary horror, 
 crocodiles with bats' wings, snakes with stags' horns, 
 monkeys with shells on their heads, seals with long 
 patriarchal beards, women's faces with one eye, green 
 camels' heads, all staring with cold, crafty eyes, and 
 long, fin-like claws grasping at the fiddling monk. From 
 the latter, however, in the furious zeal of his conjura- 
 tion, the cowl fell back and the curly hair, fluttering in 
 the wind, fell round his head in ringlets, like black 
 snakes 53 5S * 
 
 So maddening was this vision that to keep my senses I 
 closed my ears and shut my eyes. When I again looked 
 up the specter had vanished, and 1 saw the poor Genoese 
 in his ordinary form, making his ordinary bows, while 
 the public applauded in the most rapturous manner 53 
 " That is the famous performance upon G," remarked 
 my neighbor. " I myself play the violin, and I know 
 what it is to master the instrument." Fortunately, the 
 pause was not considerable, or else the musical furrier 
 would certainly have engaged me in a long conversation 
 upon art. Paganini again quietly set his violin to his 
 chin, and with the first stroke of his bow the wonderful 
 transformation of melodies again began. 
 They no longer fashioned themselves so brightly and 
 corporeally. The melody gently developed itself, majes- 
 tically billowing and swelling like an organ chorale in a 
 cathedral, and everything around, stretching larger and 
 higher, had extended into a colossal space which, not 
 
 63 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 the bodily eye, but only the eye of the spirit could seize. 
 In the midst of this space hovered a shining sphere, 
 upon which, gigantic and sublimely haughty, stood a 
 man who played the violin. Was that sphere the sun? 
 I do not know. But in the man's features I recognized 
 Paganini, only ideally lovely, divinely glorious, with a 
 reconciling smile. His body was in the bloom of powerful 
 manhood, a bright blue garment enclosed his noble 
 limbs, his shoulders were covered by gleaming locks of 
 black hair; and as he stood there, sure and secure, a 
 sublime divinity, and played the violin, it seemed as if 
 the whole creation obeyed his melodies. He was the 
 man-planet about which the universe moved with 
 measured solerrfhity and ringing out beatific rhythms. 
 Those great lights, which so quietly gleaming swept 
 around, were they stars of heaven, and that melodious 
 harmony which arose from their movements, was it the 
 song of the spheres, of which poets and seers have 
 reported so many ravishing things? At times, when 1 
 endeavored to gaze out into the misty distance, 1 
 thought I saw pure white garments floating around, in 
 which colossal pilgrims passed mufHed along with white 
 staves in their hands, and singular to relate, the golden 
 knob of each staff was even one of those great lights 
 which I had taken for stars. These pilgrims moved in a 
 large orbit around the great performer, the golden 
 knobs of their staves shone even brighter at the tones 
 of the violin, and the chorale which resounded from 
 their lips, and which I had taken for the song of the. 
 spheres, was only the dying echo of those violin tones. 
 A holy, ineffable ardor dwelt in those sounds, which 
 often trembled scarce audibly, in mysterious whisper 
 64 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 on the water, then swelled out again with a shuddering 
 sweetness, like a bugle's notes heard by moonlight, and 
 then finally poured forth in unrestrained jubilee, as if 
 a thousand bards had struck their harps and raised 
 their voices in a song of victory. 
 
 ' 65 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 N Seventeen Hundred Eighty-four, Niccolo 
 Paganini was born at Genoa. His father was 
 a street-porter who eked out the scanty 
 exchequer by playing a vioUn at occasional 
 dances or concerts. That his playing was indifferent is 
 evident from the fact that he was very poor — his 
 services were not in demand. 
 
 The poverty of the family and the failure of the father 
 fired the ambition of the boy to do something worthy. 
 When he was ten years old he could play as well as his 
 father, and a year or so thereafter could play better. 
 The lad was tall, slender, delicate and dreamy-eyed. 
 But he had will plus, and his desire was to sound the 
 possibilities of the violin. And this reminds me that 
 Hugh Pentecost says there is no such thing as will — 
 it is all desire: when we desire a thing strongly enough, 
 we have the will to secure it — but no matter ! 
 Young Niccolo Paganini practised on his father's violin 
 for six hours a day; and now when the customers who 
 used to hire his father to play came, they would say, 
 " We just as lief have Niccolo." 
 
 Soon after this they said, "We prefer to have Niccolo." 
 And a little later they said, " We must have Niccolo." 
 Some one has written a book to show that plajang 
 second fiddle is just as worthy an office as playing first. 
 This doubtless is true, but there are so many more men 
 who can play second, that it behooves every player to 
 relieve the stress by playing first if he can. 
 66 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 Niccolo played first and then was called upon to play 
 solos. He was making twice as much money as his 
 father ever had, but the father took all the boy's earn- 
 ings, as was his legal right. The father's pride in the 
 success of the son, the young man always said, was 
 because he was proving a good financial investment. It 
 does not always pay to raise children — this time it did. 
 It was finally decided to take the boy to the celebrated 
 musician, RoUa, for advice as to what was best to do 
 about his education. Rolla was sick abed at the time the 
 boy called and could not see him; but while waiting in 
 the entry the lad took up a violin and began to play. 
 The invalid raised himself on one elbow and pantingly 
 inquired who the great master was that had thus 
 favored him with a visit. 
 
 " It 's the lad who wants you to give him lessons," 
 answered the attendant. 
 
 " Impossible! no lad could play like that — I can teach 
 that player nothing! " 
 
 Next the musician Paer was visited, and he passed the 
 boy along to Giretta, who gave him three lessons a 
 week in harmony and counterpoint. The boy had abrupt 
 mannerisms and tricks of his own in bringing out expres- 
 sions, and these were such a puzzle to the teacher that 
 he soon refused to go on. 
 
 Niccolo possessed a sort of haughty self-confidence that 
 aggravated the master; he believed in himself and was 
 fond of showing that he could play in a way no one else 
 
 67 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 could. Adolescence had turned his desire to play into a 
 fury of passion for his art: he practised on single pas- 
 sages for ten or twelve hours a day, and would often 
 sink in a swoon from sheer exhaustion. This deep, 
 torpor-like sleep saved him from complete collapse, just 
 eis it saved Mendelssohn, and he would arise to go on 
 with his work. 
 
 Paganini's wisdom was shown at this early age in that 
 he limited his work to a few compositions, and these he 
 made the most of, just as they say Bossuet secured his 
 reputation £is the greatest preacher of his time by a 
 single sermon that he had polished to the point of per- 
 fection si 5S 
 
 When fifteen years old Paganini contrived to escape 
 from his father and went to a musical festival at Lucca. 
 He managed to get a hearing, was engaged at once as 
 a soloist, and soon after gave a concert on his own 
 account. In a month he had accumulated a thousand 
 pounds in cash. 
 
 Very naturally, such a success turned the head of this 
 lad who never before had had the handling of money. 
 He began to gamble, and became the dupe of rogues — 
 male and female — who plunged him into an abyss of 
 wrong. He even gambled away the " Stradivarius " 
 that had been presented to him, and when his money, 
 watch and jewels were gone, his new-found friends of 
 course decamped, and this gave the young man time to 
 ponder on the vanities of life. 
 68 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 When he played again it was on a borrowed " Guar- 
 nerius," and after the rich owner, himself a violinist, 
 had heard him play, he said, " No fingers but yours shall 
 ever play that violin again! " 
 
 Paganini accepted the gift, and this was the violin he 
 played for full forty years, and which, on his death, was 
 willed to his native city of Genoa. There it can be seen 
 in its sealed-up glass case. 
 
 Up to his thirtieth year Paganini continued his severe 
 work of subduing the violin. By that time he had 
 sounded its possibilities, and thereafter no one heard 
 him play except in concert. It is told that one man, 
 anxious to know the secrets of Paganini's power, 
 followed him from city to city, watching him at his 
 concerts, dogging him through the streets, spying upon 
 him at hotels. At one inn this man of curiosity had the 
 felicity to secure a room next to the one occupied by 
 Paganini; and one morning as he watched through the 
 keyhole, he weis rewarded by seeing the master open the 
 case where reposed the precious " Guarnerius." Paga- 
 nini lifted the instrument, held it under his chin, took 
 up the bow and made a few passes in the air — ^not a 
 sound was heard. Then he kissed the back of the violin, 
 muttered a prayer, and locked the instrument in its 
 case 5S SS 
 
 At concert rehearsals he always played a mute instru- 
 ment; and Harris, his manager, records that for the 
 many years he weis with Paganini he never heard him 
 
 69 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 play a single note except before an audience. ^ I have a 
 full-length daguerreotype of Paganini taken when he 
 was forty years of age. No one ever asked this man, 
 " Kind sir, are you anybody in particular? " 
 Paganini was tall and wofuUy slim. His hands and feet 
 were large and bony, his arms long, his form bowed and 
 lacking in all that we call symmetry. But the long face 
 with its look of abject melancholy, the curved nose, the 
 thin lips and the sharp, protruding chin, made a combi- 
 nation that Fate has never duplicated. You could easily 
 believe that this man knew all the secrets of the Nether 
 World, and had tasted the joys of Paradise as well. 
 Women pitied and loved him, men feared him, and none 
 understood him. He lived in the midst of throngs and 
 multitudes — the loneliest man known in the history of 
 art 53 53 
 
 Paganini, when he had reached his height, played only 
 his own music ; he played divinely and incomprehensibly ; 
 next to his passion for music was his greed for gold. 
 These three facts sum up all we really know about the 
 master — the rest fades off into mist — mystery, fable 
 and legend. We do know, however, that he composed 
 several pieces of music so difficult that he could not play 
 them himself, and of course no one else can. Imagina- 
 tion can always outrun performance. Paganini had no 
 close friends; no confidants : he never mingled in society, 
 and he never married. 
 
 At times he would disappear from the public gaze for 
 70 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 several months, and not even his business associates 
 knew where he was. On one such occasion a traveler 
 discovered him in a monastic retreat in the Swiss 
 Mountains, wearing a horsehair robe and a rope girdle; 
 others saw him disguised as a mendicant; and still 
 another tells of finding him working as a day-laborer 
 with obscure and ignorant peasants. Then there are 
 tales told of how he was taken captive by a titled lady 
 of great wealth and beauty, who carried him away to 
 her bower, where he eschewed the violin and tinkled 
 only the guitar the livelong day. 
 
 Everywhere the report was current that Paganini had 
 killed a man, and been sentenced to prison for life. The 
 story ran that in prison he found an old violin, three 
 strings of which were broken, and so he played on one 
 string, producing such ravishing music that the keepers 
 feared he was " possessed." They decided they must 
 get rid of him, and so contrived to have him thrown 
 overboard from a galley; but he swam ashore, and 
 although he was everywhere known, no man dared 
 place a hand on him. 
 
 A late writer in a London magazine, however, has given 
 evidence of being a psychologist and man of sense; he 
 says, and produces proof, that after the concert season 
 WEis over Paganini withdrew to a monastery in the 
 mountains of Switzerland, and there the monks who 
 loved him well, guarded his retreat. There he found the 
 rest for which his soul craved, and there he practised on 
 
 71 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 his violin hour after hour, day sifter day. All this is 
 better understood when we remember that after each 
 retreat, Paganini appeared with brand-new effects 
 which electrified his hearers — " effects taught him by 
 the devil." 
 
 Constant appearing before vast multitudes and ceaseless 
 travel create a depletion that demands rest. Paganini 
 held the balance true by fleeing to the mountains; there 
 he worked and prayed. That Paganini had a soft heart, 
 in spite of the silent, cold and melancholy mood that 
 usually possessed him, is shown in his treatment of his 
 father and mother, who lived to know the greatness of 
 their son. He wrote his mother kind and affectionate 
 letters, some of which we have, and provided lavishly 
 for every want of both his parents. At times he gave 
 concerts for charity, and on these occasions vast sums 
 were realized. 
 
 Paganini died in Elighteen Hundred Forty, aged fifty- 
 six years. His will provided for legacies to various men 
 and women who had befriended him, and he also gave 
 to others with whom he had quarreled, thus proving he 
 was not all clay. 
 
 The bulk of his fortune, equal to half a million dollars, 
 was bequeathed to his son. Baron Achille Paganini. 
 And as if mystery should still enshroud his memory and 
 this, true to his nature, should be carried out in his last 
 will, there are those who maintain that Achille Paganini 
 was not his son at all — only a waif he had adopted. Yet 
 
 n 
 
PAGANINI 
 
 Achille always stoutly maintained the distinction — ^but 
 what boots it, since he could not play his father's 
 violin? S& SS 
 
 Yet this we know — Paganini, the man of mystery and 
 moods, once lived and produced music that. Orpheus- 
 like, transfixed the world. We are better for his having 
 been and this world is a nobler place in that he lived and 
 played, for listen closely and you can hear, even now, 
 the sweet, sad echoes of those vibrant strings, touched 
 by the hand of him who loved them well. 
 And when we remember the prodigious amount of 
 practise that Paganini schooled himself to in youth; and 
 join this to the recently discovered record of his long 
 monastic retreats, when for months he worked and 
 played and prayed, we can guess the secret of his power. 
 If you wish me to present you a recipe for doing a 
 deathless performance, I would give you this: Work, 
 travel, solitude, prayer, and yet again — work. 
 
 73 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
Nature does not design like art, however realistic she 
 may be. She has caprices, inconsequences, probably not 
 real, but very mysterious. Art only rectifies these 
 inconsequences, because it is too limited to reproduce 
 them. Chopin was a resume of these inconsequences 
 which God alone can allow Himself to create, and which 
 have their particular logic. He was modest on principle, 
 gentle by habit, but he was imperious by instinct and 
 full of a legitimate pride which was unconscious of 
 itself. Hence arose sufferings which he did not reason 
 and which did not fix themselves on a determined object. 
 
 — George Sand in " The Story of My Life'* 
 
t'f^ 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 AYBE I am all wrong about it, yet I 
 can not help believing that the 
 spirit of man will live again some- 
 where in a better world than ours. 
 Fenelon says, " Justice demands 
 another life in order to make good 
 the inequalities of this." Astron- 
 omers prophesy the existence of 
 
 stars long before they can see them. They know where 
 they ought to be, and training their telescopes in that 
 direction they wait, knowing they will find. 
 Materially, no one can imagine anything more beautiful 
 than this earth, for the simple reason that we can not 
 imagine anything we have not seen ; we may make new 
 combinations, but the whole is all made up of parts of 
 things with which we are familiar. This great green 
 earth out of which we have sprung, of which we are a 
 part, that supports our bodies, and to which our bodies 
 must return to repay the loan, is very, very beautiful. 
 f But the spirit of man is not fully at home here; as we 
 grow in soul and intellect, we hear, and hear again, a 
 voice which says, "Arise and get thee hence, for this is 
 not thy rest." And the greater and nobler and more 
 sublime the spirit, the more constant the discontent. 
 Discontent may come from various causes, so it will not 
 do to assume that the discontented are always the pure 
 
 77 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 in heart, but it is a fact that the wise and excellent have 
 all known the meaning of world-weariness. The more 
 you study and appreciate this life, the more sure you are 
 that this is not all. You pillow your head upon Mother 
 Earth, listen to her heart-throb, and even as your spirit 
 is filled with the love of her, your gladness is half-pain 
 and there comes to you a joy that hurts. 
 To look upon the most exalted forms of beauty, such as a 
 sunset at sea, the coming of a storm on the prairie, the 
 shadowy silence of the desert, or the sublime majesty 
 of the mountains, begets a sense of sadness, an incresis- 
 ing loneliness. 
 
 It is not enough to say that man encroaches on man 
 so that we are really deprived of our freedom, that 
 civilization is caused by a bacillus, and that from a 
 natural condition we have gotten into a hurly-burly 
 where rivalry is rife — all this may be true, but beyond 
 and outside of all this there is no physical environment 
 in way of plenty which earth can supply, that will give 
 the tired soul peace. They are the happiest who have 
 the least; and the fable of the stricken king and 
 the shirtless beggar contains the germ of truth. The 
 wise hold all earthly ties very lightly — they are stripping 
 for eternity. 
 
 World-weariness is only a desire for a better spirit- 
 ual condition. There is more to be written on this 
 subject of world-pain — to exhaust the theme would 
 require a book. And certain it is that I have no wish to 
 78 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 say the final word on any topic. The gentle reader has 
 certain rights, and among these is the privilege of 
 summing up the case. But the fact holds that world-pain 
 is a form of desire. All desires are just, proper and 
 right; and their gratification is the means by which 
 Nature supplies us that which we need. Desire not only 
 causes us to seek that which we need, but is a form of 
 attraction by which the good is brought to us, just as 
 the ameba creates a swirl in the waters that brings its 
 food within reach. Every desire in Nature has a 
 fixed, definite purpose in the Divine Economy, and 
 every desire has its proper gratification. If we desire the 
 friendship of a certain person, it is because that person 
 has certain soul-qualities that we do not possess, and 
 which complement our own. Through desire do we come 
 into possession of our own ; by submitting to its beckon- 
 ings we add cubits to our stature; and we also give out 
 to others our own attributes, without becoming poorer, 
 for soul is not limited. 
 
 All Nature is a symbol of spirit, so I believe that some- 
 where there must be a proper gratification for this mys- 
 terious nostalgia of the soul. The Eternal Unities require 
 a condition where men and women will live to love, and 
 not to sorrow; where the tyranny of things hated shall 
 not ever prevail, nor that for which the heart yearns 
 turn to ashes at our touch. 
 
 79 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 BELIEVE Stevie is not quite at home here— 
 he '11 not remain so very long," said a woman 
 to me in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five. 
 Five years have gone by, and recently the 
 cable flashed the news that Stephen Crane was deadsS 
 Dead at twenty-nine, with ten books to his credit, two 
 of them good, which is two good books more than most 
 of us scribblers will ever write. Yes, Stephen Crane 
 wrote two things that are immortal. " The Red Badge 
 of Courage " is the strongest, most vivid work of 
 imagination ever fished from an ink-pot by an American. 
 ^ " Men who write from the imagination are helpless 
 when in presence of the fact," said James Russell Lowell. 
 In answer to which I '11 point you "The Open Boat," 
 the sternest, creepiest bit of realism ever penned, and 
 Stevie was in the boat. 
 
 American critics honored Stephen Crane with more 
 ridicule, abuse and unkind comment than was bestowed 
 on any other writer of his time. Possibly the vagueness, 
 and the loose, unsleeked quality of his work invited the 
 gibes, jeers, and the loud laughter that tokens the vacant 
 mind; yet as half -apology for the critics we might say 
 that scathing criticism never killed good work; and this 
 is true, but it sometimes has killed the man. 
 Stephen Crane never answered back, nor made explana- 
 tion, but that he was stung by the continued efforts of 
 the press to laugh him down, I am very sure. 
 The lack of appreciation at home caused him to shake 
 80 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 the dust of America from his feet and take up his abode 
 across the sea, where his genius was being recognized, 
 and where strong men stretched out sinewy hands of 
 welcome, and words of appreciation were heard, instead 
 of silly, insulting parody. In passing, it is well to note 
 that the five strongest writers of America had their 
 passports to greatness viseed in England before they 
 were granted recognition at home. I refer to Walt Whit- 
 man, Thoreau, Emerson, Poe and Stephen Crane. 
 Stevie did not know he cared for approbation, but his 
 constant refusal to read what the newspapers said about 
 him was proof that he did. He boycotted the tribe of 
 Romeike, because he knew that nine clippings out of 
 every ten would be unkind, and his sensitive soul 
 shrank from the piin-pricks. 
 
 Contemporary estimates are usually wrong, and Crane 
 is only another of the long list of men of genius to whom 
 Fame brings a wreath and finds her poet dead. 
 Stephen Crane was a reincarnation of Frederic Chopin. 
 Both were small in stature, slight, fair-haired, and of 
 that sensitive, acute, receptive temperament — capable 
 of highest joy and keyed for exquisite pain. Haunted 
 with the prophetic vision of quick-coming death, and 
 with the hectic desire to get their work done, they often 
 toiled the night away and were surprised by the rays of 
 the rising sun. Both were shrinking yet proud, shy but 
 bold, with a tenderness and a feminine longing for love 
 that earth could not requite. At times mad gaiety, that 
 
 81 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 ill-masked a breaking heart, took the reins, and the spirits 
 of children just out of school seemed to hold the road. 
 At other times — and this was the prevailing mood — the 
 manner was one of placid, patient, calm and smooth, 
 unruffled hope; but back and behind all was a dynamo 
 of energy, a brooding melancholy of unrest, and the 
 crouching world-sorrow that would not down. 
 Chopin reached sublimity through sweet sounds; Crane 
 attained the same heights through the sense of sight 
 and words that symboled color, shapes and scenes. In 
 each the distinguishing feature is the intense imagina- 
 tion and active sympathy. Knowledge consists in a 
 sense of values — of distinguishing this from that, for 
 truth lies in the mass. The delicate nuances of Chopin's 
 music have never been equaled by another composer; 
 every note is cryptic, every sound a symbol. And yet 
 it is dance-music, too, but still it tells its story of 
 baffled hope and stifled desire — the tragedy of Poland 
 in sweet sounds. 
 
 Stephen Crane was an artist in his ability to convey the 
 feeling by just the right word, or a word misplaced, like 
 a lady's dress in disarray, or a hat askew. This daring 
 quality marks everything he wrote. The recognition 
 that language is fluid, and at best only an expedient, 
 flavors all his work. He makes no fetish of a grammar — 
 if grammar gets in the way, so much the worse for the 
 grammar. All is packed with color, and charged with 
 feeling, yet the work is usually quiet in quality and 
 82 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 modest in manner. ^Art is born of heart, not head; and 
 so it seems to me that the work of these men whose 
 names I have somewhat arbitrarily linked, will live. 
 Each sowed in sorrow and reaped in grief. They were 
 tender, kind, gentle, with a capacity for love that passes 
 the love of woman. They were each indifferent to the 
 proprieties, very much as children are. They lived in 
 cloister-like retirement, hidden from the public gcize, 
 or wandered unnoticed and unknown. They founded 
 no schools, delivered no public addresses, and in their 
 own day made small impress on the times. Both were 
 sublimely indifferent to what had been said and done 
 — the term precedent not being found within the covers 
 of their bright lexicon of words. In the nature of each 
 was a goodly trace of peroxide of iron that often mani- 
 fested itself in the man's work. 
 
 The faults in each spring from an intense personality, 
 uncolored by the surroundings, and such faults in such 
 men are virtues. 
 
 They belong to that elect few who have built for the 
 centuries. The influence of Chopin, beyond that of other 
 composers, is alive today, and moves unconsciously, but 
 profoundly, every music-maker; the seemingly careless 
 style of Crane is really lapidaric, and is helping to file 
 the fetters from every writer who has ideas plus, and 
 thoughts that burn. 
 
 Mother Nature in giving out energy gives each man 
 about an equal portion. But that ability to throw the 
 
 83 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 weight with the blow, to concentrate the soul in a 
 sonnet, to focus force in a single effort, is the possession 
 of God's Chosen Few. Chopin put his affection, his 
 patriotism, his wrath, his hope, and his heroism into his 
 music — as if the song of all the forest birds could be 
 secured, sealed and saved for us! 
 
 84 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 HE father of Chopin was a Frenchman who 
 went up to Poland seeking gain and adven- 
 ture. He became a soldier under Kosciusko 
 and arose to rank of Captain. He found such 
 avor with the nobility by his gracious ways that he 
 became a teacher of French in the family of Count 
 Frederic Skarbek. In the family group was a fair 
 young dependent of nervous temperament — slight, 
 active, gentle and intelligent. She was descendent from 
 a line of aristocrats, but in a country where revolutions 
 have been known to begin and end before breakfast, 
 titles stand for little. 
 
 Nicholas Chopin, ex-soldier, teacher of French and 
 Deportment, married this fine young girl, and they 
 lived in one of Count Skarbek's straw-thatched cottages 
 at the little village of Zeleizowa-Wola, twenty-nine miles 
 from Warsaw. Here it was that Frederic Chopin was 
 born, in Eighteen Hundred Nine — that memorable 
 year when Destiny sent a flight of great souls to the 
 planet Earth. 
 
 The country was bleak and battle-scarred; it had been 
 drained of its men and treasure, and served as a dueling- 
 ground and the place of skulls for kings and such riffraff 
 who have polluted this fair world with their boastings 
 of a divine power. 
 
 The struggle of Poland to free herself from the grip of 
 the imperial succubi has generated an atmosphere of 
 ultramarine, so we view the little land of patriots (and 
 
 85 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 fanatics) through a mist of melancholy. The history of 
 Poland is written in blood and tears. 
 Go ask John Sobieski, who saw his father hanged by 
 order of Ferdinand Maximilian, and child though he 
 was, realized that banishment was the fate of himself 
 and mother; and then ten years after, himself, stood 
 death-guard over this same Maximilian in Mexico, and 
 told that tyrant the story of his life, and shook hands 
 -with him, calling it quits, ere the bandage was tied over 
 the eyes of the ex-dictator and the sunlight shut out 
 forever SS 53 
 Go ask John Sobieski! 
 
 The woes of Poland have produced strange men. Under 
 such rule as she has known relentless hate springs up in 
 otherwise gracious hearts from the scattered dragons' 
 teeth; and in other natures, where there is not quite so 
 much of the motive temperament, a deep strain of 
 sorrow and religious melancholy finds expression. The 
 exquisite sensibility, delicate insight, proud reserve and 
 brooding world-sorrow of Frederic Chopin were the 
 inheritance of mother to son. This mother's mind was 
 saturated with the wrongs her people had endured: she 
 herself had suffered every contumely, for where chance 
 had caused fact to falter, imagination had filled the 
 void 5S 5S 
 
 It is easy to say that Chopin's was an abnormal nature, 
 and of course it was, but when disease divides this world 
 from another only by the thinnest veil, the mind has 
 86 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 been known to see things with a clearness and vividness 
 never before attained. With Chopin the strands of life 
 were often taut to the breaking-point, but ere they 
 snapped, their vibration gave forth to us some exquisite 
 harmonies Si SSt 
 
 Curiously enough, this power to see and do is often the 
 possession of dying men. The life flares up in a flame 
 before it goes out forever. The passion of the consump- 
 tive Camille, as portrayed by Dumas, is typical — no 
 healthy woman ever loved with that same intense, 
 eager and almost vindictive desire. It was a race with 
 Death 5S 3S 
 
 Perfect health brings unconsciousness of body, and 
 disease that almost relieves the spirit of this weight of 
 flesh produces the same results. Again we have the Law 
 of Antithesis. 
 
 That such a youth as Frederic Chopin should seek in 
 music a surcease from his world-sorrow is very natural. 
 A stricken people turns to music; it forms a necessary 
 part of all religious observance, and the dirge of mourn- 
 ers, the wail of the " keener," and the songs of the 
 banshee evolve naturally into being wherever the heart 
 is sore oppressed. It was the slave-songs that made 
 slavery bearable; and in the long ago, exiles in Babylon 
 found a solemn joy by singing the songs of Zion. Chopin 
 drank in the songs of Poland with his mother's milk, 
 and while yet a child began to give them voice in his 
 own way. 
 
 87 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 In the meantime his father's fortunes had mended a bit, 
 and the family had moved to Warsaw, where Nicholas 
 Chopin was Professor of Languages at the Lyceum. The 
 title of the office fills the mouth in a very satisfying way, 
 but the emoluments attached hardly afforded such a 
 gratification 53 53 
 
 In Warsaw there was much misery, for the plunderer had 
 worked conscription and seizure to its furthest limit. 
 Want and destitution were on every hand, but still this 
 brave people maintained their University and clung to 
 its traditions. The family of the Professor of Languages 
 consisted of himself, wife, three daughters and the son 
 Frederic. Their income for several years was not over 
 fifteen dollars a month, but still they managed to main- 
 tain an appearance of decency, and by the help of the 
 public library, the free museum and the open-air 
 concerts, they kept abreast of the times in literature, 
 art and music. 
 
 There was absolute economy required, every particle of 
 food was saved, and when cast-off dresses were sent 
 from the home of the Count it was a godsend for the 
 mother and girls, who measured and patched and 
 pieced, making garments for themselves, and for Fred- 
 eric as well; so while their raiment was not gaudy nor 
 expressed in fancy, it served. 
 
 Chopin once said to George Sand, " I never can think 
 of my mother without her Jcnitting-needles ! " And 
 George Sand has recorded, " Frederic never had but 
 88 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 one passion and that was his mother." ^ Into all of her 
 knitting this mother's flying needles worked much love. 
 The entire household weis one of mutual service, and 
 gentle, trusting affection. The weekly letters of Chopin 
 to his mother from Paris, and the cold sweat on his 
 forehead at the thought of his parents knowing of his 
 relationship with George Sand, are credit-marks to his 
 character. There is a sweet recompense in mutual 
 deprivation where trials and difficulties only serve to 
 cement the affections ; and who shall say how much the 
 wondrous blending of strength and delicacy in the music 
 of Chopin is due to the memory of those early days of 
 toil and trial, of strength and forbearance, of hope and 
 love? 33 jS 
 
 To be born into such a family is a great blessing. The 
 value of the environment is shown in that all three of 
 the sisters became distinguished in literature. Two of 
 them married men of intellect, wealth and worth, and 
 through the collaboration of these sisters, books were 
 produced that did for the plain people of Poland what 
 Harriet Martineau's books on sociology did for the 
 F>eople of England. Frederic played and practised at the 
 Lyceum where his father taught, and the ambition of 
 his parents was that he should grow up and take the 
 place of Professor of Music in the Lyceum. Adalbert 
 Zevyny, one of the leading pianists in the city, became 
 attracted to the boy and took him as a pupil, without 
 pay 5S 5S 
 
 89 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 The teacher soon became a little boastful of his pre- 
 cocious pupil, and when there came a public concert 
 for the benefit of the poor, we find reference made to 
 Chopin thus, "A child not yet eight years of age played, 
 and connoisseurs say he promises to replace Mozart." 
 In reality the boy was nearer twelve than eight, but 
 his size and looks suggested to the management the 
 idea of plagiarizing, in advance, our honored country- 
 man, Phineas T. Barnum. Hence the announcement on 
 the programs. 
 
 But now the nobility of the neighborhood began to send 
 carriages for the fair-haired lad, so he could play for 
 their invited guests. Then came snug little honorariums 
 that soon replaced his patched-up wardrobe for some- 
 thing more fashionable. 
 
 Frederic took all the applause quite as a matter of 
 course, and on one occasion, after he had played divinely, 
 he asked a proud lady this question, " How do you like 
 my new collar? " 
 
 He was to the manner born, and the gentle blood of his 
 mother formed him as a fit companion for aristocrats 5S 
 These occasional musicales at the houses of the great 
 made money matters easier, and Frederic began to take 
 lessons from Joseph Eisner, who taught him the science 
 of composition, and introduced him into the deeper 
 mysteries of music-making. Eisner, it was, more than 
 any other man, who forced the truth upon Chopin that 
 he must play to satisfy himself, and in composition be 
 90 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 his own most exacting critic. In other words, Eisner 
 developed and strengthened in Chopin the artistic 
 conscience — that impulse which causes an artist to 
 scorn doing anything save his best. 
 From little excursions to neighboring towns and country 
 houses about Warsaw, Chopin now ventured farther 
 away from home, chaperoned by his friend, Prince 
 Radziwill. He visited Berlin, Venice, Prague, Heidel- 
 berg, and mingled on an absolute equality with the 
 nobility. If they had titles, he had talents. And his 
 talents often made their decorations sing small. 
 His modesty was witching, and while in public concerts 
 his playing was not pronounced enough to capture the 
 gallery, yet in small gatherings he won all hearts, and 
 the fact that he played his own compositions made him 
 an added object of enthusiasm to the elect. Chopin 
 arrived in Paris when he was twenty-two years of age. 
 It was not his intention to remain more than a few 
 weeks, but Paris was to be his home for eighteen years — 
 and then Pere la Chaise. 
 
 91 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 WOMAN who beholds her thirtieth birthday 
 in sight, and girlhood gone, is approaching a 
 climacteric in her career. Flaubert has named 
 twenty-nine as the eventful year in the life of 
 woman, and thirty-three for men. Every normal woman 
 craves love and tenderness — these are her God-given 
 right. If they have not come to her by the time the 
 bloom is fading from her cheeks, there is danger of her 
 reaching out and clutching for them. The strongest 
 instinct in young girls is self-protection — they fight on 
 the defensive. But at thirty, women have been known to 
 grow a trifle anxious, just as did the Sabine women who 
 dispatched a messenger to the Romans asking this 
 question, " How soon does the program begin? " 
 And thus are conditions reversed, for it is the youth of 
 twenty or so who seeks conquest with fiery soul. Alex- 
 ander was only nineteen when he sighed for more worlds 
 to conquer. He did n't have to wait long before he found 
 that this one had conquered him. Youth considers itself 
 immortal, and its powers without limit, but as a man 
 approaches thirty he grows economical of his resources 
 and parsimonious of his emotions. Men of thirty, or so, 
 are apt to be coy. 
 
 And so one might say that it is around thirty that for the 
 first time the man and the woman meet on an equality, 
 without sham, shame or pretense. Before that time the 
 average woman abounds in affectation and untruth; 
 the man is absurdly aggressive and full of foolish flattery. 
 92 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 ^ As to the question, " Should women propose? " the 
 answer is, " Yes, certainly, and they do when they are 
 twenty-nine." 
 
 Aurore Dudevant saw her thirtieth birthday looming on 
 the horizon of her life. Nine years before she had been 
 married to an ex-army-ofl&cer, who dyed his whiskers 
 purple. Aurore had been a dutiful wife, intent for the 
 first few years on filling her husband's heart and home 
 with joy. She had failed in this, and the proof of failure 
 lay in that he much preferred his dogs, guns and horses 
 to her society. For days he would absent himself on his 
 hunting excursions, and at home he did not have the 
 tact to hide the fact that he was awfully bored. 
 Thackeray, once for all, has given us a picture of the 
 heavy dragoon with a soul for dogs — one to whom all 
 music, save the bay of a fox-hound, makes its appeal in 
 vain. Aurore detested dogs for dogs' sake, yet she 
 rode horses astride with a daring that made her hus- 
 band's bloodshot eyes bulge in alarm. He did n't much 
 care how fast and hard she rode at the fences and over 
 the ditches, but he was supposed to follow her, and this 
 he did not care to do. He had reached an age when a 
 man is mindful of the lime in his bones, and his 'cross- 
 country riding was mostly a matter of memory and 
 imagination, and best done around the convivial table. 
 ^ Aurore was putting him to a test, that 's all. She was 
 proving to him that she could meet him on his own 
 preserve, give him choice of weapons, and make him 
 
 93 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 cry for mercy. ^ Her bent was literature, with music, 
 science and art as side-lines. She read Montaigne, 
 Rochefoucald, Racine and Moliere, and a modern by 
 the name of Alfred de Musset, and quoted her authors 
 at inconvenient times. She flashed quotations and epi- 
 grams upon the doughty dragoon in a way he could 
 neither fend nor parry. At other times she was deeply 
 religious and tearfully penitent. 
 
 In fact, she was living on a skimped allowance of love, 
 and had never received the attention that a good 
 woman deserves. Her chains were galling her. She sighed 
 for Paris — forty miles away — Paris and a career. 
 The epigrams were coming faster, shot in a sort of 
 frenzy and fever. And when she asked her liege for leave 
 to go to Paris, he granted her prayer, and agreed to give 
 her ten dollars a week allowance. 
 
 She grabbed at the offer, and he bade her Godspeed and 
 good riddance. 
 
 So leaving her two children behind, until such a time as 
 she could provide a home for them, with scanty luggage 
 and light heart and purse, she started away. 
 Other women have gone up to Paris from country 
 towns, too, and the chances are as one to ten thousand 
 that the maelstrom will sweep them into hades. 
 But Madame Dudevant was different — in two years 
 she had won her way to literary fame, and was com- 
 manding the jealous admiration of the best writers of 
 Paris. Her first work was a collaboration with Jules 
 94 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 Sandeau in a novel. Every woman who ever wrote well 
 began by collaborating with a man, Sandeau had 
 formerly come from Nohant, and how much he had to 
 do with Madame Dudevant's breaking loose from her 
 homes-ties no one knows. Anyway, the second novel was 
 written by the Madame alone, and as a tribute to her 
 friend the name " George Sand " was placed upon the 
 title-page as author. Jules Sandeau, all-'round hack- 
 writer and critic, was greatly pleased by the compli- 
 ment of having his name anglicized and printed on the 
 title-page of " Indiana," but later he was not so proud 
 of it. George Sand soon proved herself to be a bigger 
 man than Sandeau. 
 
 She was not handsome, either in face or in form. She was 
 inclined to be stout — ^was rather short — ^and her com- 
 plexion olive. But she lured with her eyes — great 
 sphinx-like eyes of hazel-brown — that looked men 
 through and through. Liszt has told us that " she had 
 eyes like a cow," which is not so bad as Thomas 
 Carlyle's remark that George Eliot had a face like a 
 horse. George Sand was silent when other women talked, 
 and her look told in a half-proud, half-sad way that 
 she knew all they knew, and all she herself knew beside. 
 ^ Without going into the issue as to what George Sand 
 was not, let us frankly admit that pain, deprivation, 
 misunderstanding and maternity had taught her many 
 things not found in books, and that she looked at Fate 
 out of her wide-open eyes with a gaze that did not blink. 
 
 95 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 She was wise beyond the lot of women. I was just going 
 to say she was a genius, but I remember the remark of the 
 De Goncourts to the effect that, " There are no women 
 of genius — ^women of genius are men." Possibly the 
 point could be covered by saying George Sand had a 
 man's head and a woman's heart. 
 Women did not like her, yet what other woman was ever 
 so honored by woman as was George Sand in those two 
 matchless sonnets addressed to her by Elizabeth Barrett 
 Browning ? 
 
 The amazing energy of George Sand, her finely flowing 
 sentences — all charged with daring satire and insight 
 into the heart of things — made her work sought by 
 readers and publishers. Her pen brought her all the 
 money she needed; and she had secured a divorce from 
 " That Man," and now had her two children with her 
 in Paris. That she could do her literary work and still 
 attend to her manifold social duties must ever mark her 
 as a phenomenon. She was no mere adventuress. That 
 she was systematic, orderly and abstemious in her 
 habits must go without saying, otherwise her vitality 
 would not have held out and allowed her to attend the 
 funerals of nearly all her retainers. 
 In throwing overboard the Grub Street Sandeau for 
 Franz Liszt, Madame Dudevant certainly showed dis- 
 crimination; but in retaining the name of " Sand," she 
 paid a delicate compliment to the man who first intro- 
 duced her to the world of art. Liszt was too strong a 
 96 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 man to remain long captive — ^he refused to supply the 
 doglike and abject devotion which Aurore always 
 demanded. Then came Michael de Bourges the learned 
 counsel, Calmatto the mezzotinter, Delacroix the artist, 
 De Musset the poet, and Chopin the musician. 
 It was in the year Eighteen Hundred Thirty-nine, that 
 Chopin and Sand first met at a parlor musicale, where 
 Chopin was taken by Liszt, half against his will, simply 
 because George Sand was to be there. 
 ' Chopin did not want to meet her. 
 All Paris had rung with the story of how she and 
 De Musset had gone together to Venice, and then in 
 less than a year had quarreled and separated. Both 
 made good copy of the " poetic interval," as George 
 Sand called it. Chopin was not a stickler for conven- 
 tionalities, but George Sand's history, for him, proved 
 her to be coarse and devoid of all the finer feeling that 
 we prize in women. 
 
 Chopin had no fear of her — not he — only he did not 
 care to add to his circle of acquaintances one so lacking 
 in inward grace and delicacy. 
 
 He played at the musicale — it was all very informal — 
 and George Sand pushed her way up through the 
 throng that stood about the piano and looked at the 
 handsome boy as he played — ^she looked at him with her 
 big, hazel, cow eyes, steadfastly, yearningly, and he 
 glancing up, saw the eyes were filled with tears. 
 When the playing ceased, she still stood looking at the 
 
 97 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 great musician, and then she leaned over the piano and 
 whispered, " Your playing makes me live over again 
 every pain that has ever wrung my heart; and every 
 joy, too, that I have ever known is mine again." 5S 
 
 98 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 FTER their first meeting, when Chopin played 
 at a musicale, George Sand was apt to be 
 there too — they often came together. She 
 was five years older than he, and looked fif- 
 teen, for his slight figure and delicate, boyish face gave 
 him the appearance of youth unto the very last. 
 In letters to Madame Mariana, George Sand often 
 refers to Chopin as " My Little One," and when some 
 one spoke of him as " The Chopinetto," the name 
 seemed to stick. 
 
 That she was the man in the partnership is very evident. 
 He really needed some one to look after him, provide 
 mustard-plasters and run for the camphor and hot-water 
 bottle. He was the one who did the weeping and pouting, 
 and had the " nerves " and made the scenes; while she, 
 on sUch occasions, would viciously roll a cigarette, swear 
 under her breath, console and pooh-pooh. 
 Liszt has told us how, on one occasion, she had gone out 
 at night for a storm-walk, and Chopin, being too ill, or 
 disinclined to go, remained at home. Upon her return 
 she found him in a conniption, he having composed a 
 prelude to ward off an attack of cold feet, and was now 
 ready to scream through fear that something had 
 happened to her. As she entered the door he arose, 
 staggered and fell before her in a fainting fit. 
 A whole literature has grown up around the relations of 
 Chopin and George Sand, and the lady in the case has, 
 herself, set forth her brief with painstaking detail in her 
 
 99 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 " Histoire de Ma Vie." With De Musset, George Sand 
 had to reckon on dealing with a writing man, and his 
 accounts of " The Little White Blackbird " had taught 
 her caution. Thereafter she abjured the litterateurs, 
 excepting when in her old age she allowed Gustave 
 Flaubert to come within her sacred circle — but her 
 friendship with Flaubert was placidly platonic, as all 
 the world knows. And so were her relations with Chopin, 
 provided we accept her version as gospel fact. 
 George Sand lacked the frankness of Rousseau; but I 
 think we should be willing to accept the lady's state- 
 ments, for she was present and really the only one in 
 possession of the facts, excepting, of course, Chopin, 
 and he was not a writer. He could express himself only 
 at the keyboard, and the piano is no graphophone, for 
 which let us all be duly thankful. So we are without 
 Chopin's side of the story. We, however, have some 
 vigorous writing by a man by the name of Hadow SS 
 Mr. Hadow enters the lists panoplied with facts, and 
 declares that the friendship was strictly platonic, being 
 on the woman's side of a purely maternal order. Chopin 
 was sick and friendless, and Madame Dudevant, know- 
 ing his worth to the art world, succored him — nursing 
 him as a Sister of Charity might, sacrificing herself, and 
 even risking her reputation in order to restore him to 
 life and health. 
 
 And this view of the case I am quite willing to accept. 
 Mr. Hadow is no joker, like that man who has recently 
 100 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 written an appreciation of Xantippe, showing that the 
 wife of Socrates was one of the most patient women who 
 ever Uved, and only at times resorted to heroic means 
 in order to drive her husband out into the world of 
 thought. She willingly sacrificed her own good name 
 that another might have literary life. 
 Hadow has gotten all the facts together and then dis- 
 passionately drawn his conclusions; and these con- 
 clusions are eminently complimentary to all parties 
 concerned S& 5S 
 
 It was only a few months after Chopin met George Sand 
 that he was attacked with a peculiar hacking cough. 
 His friends were sure it was consumption, and a leading 
 physician gave it as his opinion that if the patient spent 
 the approaching Winter in Paris, it would be death in 
 March 5S 5S 
 
 The facts being brought to the notice of George Sand, 
 she had but one thought — to save the life of this young 
 man. He was too ill to decide what was best to do, and 
 was never able by temperament to take the initiative, 
 anyway, so this strong and capable woman, forgetful of 
 self and her own interests, made all the arrangements 
 and took him to the Isle of Majorca in the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. There she cared for him alone as she might 
 for a babe, for six long, weary months. They lived in the 
 cells of an old monastery at Valdemosa, away up on the 
 mountainside overlooking the sea. Here where the roses 
 bloomed the whole year through, surrounded by groves 
 
 101 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 of orange-trees, shut in by vines and flowers, with no 
 society save that of the sacristan and an aged woman 
 servant, she nursed the death-stricken man back to life 
 and hope. 
 
 To better encourage him she sent for and surprised him 
 with his piano, which had to be carried up the mountain 
 on the backs of mules. In the quiet cloisters she cared 
 for him with motherly tenderness, and there he learned 
 again to awake the slumbering echoes with divine music. 
 Several of his best pieces were composed at Majorca 
 during his convalescence, where the soft semi-tropical 
 breeze laved his cheek, the birds warbled him their 
 sweetest carols, and away down below, the sea, mother 
 of all, sang her ceaseless lullaby. When they returned to 
 France the following Spring, M. Dudevant had accom- 
 modatingly vacated the family residence at Nohant in 
 favor of his wife. It was here she took the convalescent 
 Chopin. He was charmed with the rambling old house, 
 its walled-in gardens with their arbors of clustering 
 grapes, and the green meadows stretching down to the 
 water's edge, where the little river ran its way to the 
 ocean 33 5S 
 
 Back of the house was a great forest of mighty trees, 
 beneath whose thick shade the sun's rays never entered, 
 and a half-mile away arose the spire of the village 
 church. There were no neighbors, save a cheery old 
 priest, and the simple villagers who made respectful 
 obeisance as they passed. 
 102 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 Here it was that Matthew Arnold came to pay his 
 tribute to genius, also Liszt and the fair Countess 
 d'Agoult, Delacroix, Renan, Lamennais, Lamartine, and 
 so many others of the great and excellent. Chopin was 
 enchanted with the place, and refused to go back to 
 Paris. Madame Dudevant insisted, and explained to him 
 that she took him to Majorca to spend the Winter, but 
 she had no intention or thought of caring for him 
 longer than the few months that might be required to 
 restore him to health. But he cried and clung to her 
 with such half -childish fright that she had not the heart 
 to send him away. 
 
 The summer months passed and the leaves began to 
 turn scarlet and gold, and he only consented to return 
 to Paris on her agreeing to go with him. So they returned 
 together, and had rooms not so very far apart. 
 He went back sturdily to his music-teaching, with an 
 occasional musicale, yet gave but one public concert in 
 the space of ten years. 
 
 The exquisite quality of Chopin's playing appealed only 
 to the sacred few, but his piano scores were slowly find- 
 ing sale, through the advertisement they received by 
 being played by Liszt, Tausig and others. Yet the 
 critics almost uniformly condemned his work as bizarre 
 and erratic. 
 
 Each Summer he spent at lovely Nohant, and there 
 found the rest and quiet which got nerves back to the 
 norm and allowed him to go on with his work. So passed 
 
 103 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 the years away. Of this we are very sure — no taint 
 exists on the record of Chopin excepting possibly his 
 relationship with George Sand. That he endeavored to 
 win her full heart's love, for the purpose of honorable 
 marriage, Mr. Hadow is fully convinced. But when his 
 suit failed, after an eight years' courtship, and the 
 lover was discarded, he ceased to work. His heart was 
 broken; he lingered on for two years, and then death 
 claimed him at the early age of forty years. 
 
 104 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 HERE is a tendency to judge a work of art by- 
 its size. Thus the sculptor who does a 
 " heroic figure " is the man who looms large 
 to the average visitor at the art-gallery SS 
 Chopin wrote no lengthy symphonies, oratorios or 
 operas. His music is poetry set to exquisite sounds. 
 Poetry is an ecstasy of the spirit, and ecstasies in their 
 very nature are not sustained moods. 
 The poetic mood is transient. A composition by Chopin 
 is a soul-ecstasy, like unto the singing of a lark. 
 No other man but Chopin should have been allowed to 
 set the songs of Shelley to music. With such names as 
 Shelley, Keats, Poe and Crane must Chopin's name be 
 linked 5S SS 
 
 In Chopin's music there is much loose texture; there are 
 wide-meshed chords, daring leaps and abrupt arpeggios. 
 These have often been pointed out as faults, but such 
 harmonious discords are now properly valued, and we 
 see that Chopin's lapses all had meaning and purpose, 
 in that they impart a feeling — making their appeal to 
 souls that have suffered — ^souls that know. 
 More of Chopin's music is sold in America every year 
 than was sold altogether during the lifetime of the 
 composer. His name and fame grow with each year. 
 Everj^where — wherever a piano is played — on concert 
 platform, in studio or private parlor, there you will find 
 the work of Frederic Chopin. That such a widespread 
 distribution must have a potent and powerful effect 
 
 105 
 
FREDERIC CHOPIN 
 
 upon the race goes without argument, although the 
 furthest limit of that influence no man can mark. It is 
 registered with Infinity alone. And thus does that 
 modest, mild and gentle revolutionist Frederic Chopin 
 live again in minds made better. 
 
 106 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
Beneath these flowers I dream, a silent chord. I can not 
 wake my own strings to music ; but under the hands of 
 those who comprehend me, I become an eloquent friend. 
 Wanderer, ere thou goest, try me! The more trouble 
 thou takest with me, the more lovely will be the tones 
 with which I shall reward thee. 
 
 — Robert Schumann 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 HAT any man should ever write His 
 thoughts for other men to read, 
 seems the very height of egoism 53 
 Literature never dies, and so the 
 person who writes constitutes him- 
 self a rival of Shakespeare and seeks 
 to lure us from Montaigne, Milton, 
 Emerson and Carlyle. To write 
 nothing better than grammatical English, to punctuate 
 properly, and repeat thoughts in the same sequence that 
 have been repeated a thousand times, is to do something 
 icily regular, splendidly null. 
 
 To down the demons of syntax and epithet is not 
 enough. To compose blameless sonatas and produce 
 symphonies in the accepted style, is not adding an iota 
 to the world's worth. 
 
 The individual who tries to compose either ideas or 
 harmonious sounds, and hopes for success, must com- 
 pose because he can not help it. He must place the thing 
 in a way it has never before been placed; on the subject 
 he must throw a new light ; he must carry the standard 
 forward, and plant it one degree nearer the uncaptured 
 citadel of the Ideal. And he must remember this: the 
 very prominence of his position will cause him to be the 
 target of contumely, abuse and much stupid misunder- 
 standing. If he complains of these things (as he 
 
 109 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 probably will), he reveals a rift in the lute and proves 
 that he is only a half-god, after all. 
 Men of the highest type of culture — those of masterly 
 talent — are not gregarious in their nature. The " jiner " 
 instinct goes with a man who is a little doubtful, and 
 so he attaches himself to this society, club or church. 
 ^ The very tendency to " jine " is an admission of 
 weakness — it is a getting under cover, a combining 
 against the supposed enemy. The " jiner " is an ameba 
 that clings to flotsam, instead of floating free in the 
 great ocean of life. The lion loves his mate, but prefers 
 to flock by himself. 
 
 The pioneer in art, as in any other field, must be willing 
 to face deprivations and loneliness and heart-hunger. 
 He must find companionship with birds and animals, 
 and be brother to the trees and swift-flying clouds. 
 When men meet on the desert or in the forest wilds, 
 how grateful and how gracious is their hand-clasp! 
 When love and understanding come to those who live 
 on the border-land of two worlds, how precious and 
 priceless the boon! 
 
 110 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 PBERT SCHUMANN was the son of a book- 
 publisher of Zwickau. He was a handsome 
 lad with the flash of genius in his luminous 
 eyes, and an independence like that of an 
 Alpine goat. When very young they say he used to 
 have tantrums. If your child has a tantrum, it is bad 
 policy for you to imitate him and have one, too. 
 A tantrum is only one of the little whirlwinds of God — 
 it is misdirected energy, power not yet controlled. When 
 Robert had a tantrum, his father would shake him 
 violently to improve his temper, or fall upon him with a 
 strap that hung handy behind the kitchen-door. Then 
 the mother, when the father was out of the way, would 
 take the lad and cry over him, and coddle him, and undo 
 the discipline. 
 
 The best treatment for tantrums is — nothing. The more 
 you let a nervous, impressionable child alone, the better. 
 ^ When the lad was fourteen years old, we find him 
 setting tjrpe in his father's printery. He was working on 
 a book called, " The World's Celebrities," and his share 
 of the work dealt with Jean Paul Richter. He grew 
 interested in the copy and stopped setting type and 
 read ahead, as printers sometimes will. The more he 
 read, the more he was fascinated. He fell under the spell 
 of Jean Paul the Only. 
 
 Jean Paul, inspired by Jean Jacques, was the inspirer of 
 the whole brood of young writers of his time. To him 
 they looked as to a Deliverer. 
 
 Ill 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 Jean Paul the Only ! The largest, gentlest, most generous 
 heart in all literature! The peculiar mark of Richter's 
 style is analogy and comparison; everything he saw 
 reminded him of something else, and then he tells you 
 of things of which both remind him. He leads and lures 
 you on, and takes you far from home, but always brings 
 you safely back. Yet comparison proves us false when 
 we deal with Richter himself. He stands alone, like 
 Adam's recollection of his fall, which according to Jean 
 Paul was the one sweet, unforgetable thing in all the life 
 of the First Citizen of his time. 
 
 Jean Paul seems to have combined in that mighty brain 
 all feminine as well as masculine attributes. The soul in 
 which the feminine does not mingle is ripe for wrong, 
 strife and unreason. "It was mother-love, carried one 
 step further, that enabled the Savior to embrace a 
 world," says Carlyle. 
 
 The sweep of tender emotion that murmurs and rustles 
 through the writing of Jean Paul is like the echo of a 
 lullaby heard in a dream. Perhaps it came from that 
 long partnership when mother and son held the siege 
 against poverty, and the kitchen-table served them as a 
 writing-desk, and the patient old mother was his sole 
 reviewer, critic, reader and public. 
 For shams, hypocrisy and pretense Jean Paul had a 
 cyclone of sarcasm, and the blows he struck were such 
 as only a son of Anak could give; but in his heart there 
 was no hate. He could despise a man's bad habits and 
 112 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 still love the man behind the veneer of folly. So his arms 
 seem ever extended, welcoming the wanderer home 58 
 Dear Jean Paul, big and homely, what an insight you 
 had into the heart of things, and what a flying-machine 
 your imagination was! Room for many passengers? Yes, 
 and children especially, for these you loved most of all, 
 because you were ever only just a big overgrown boy 
 yourself. You cried your eyes out before your hair grew 
 white, and then a child or a woman led you about; and 
 thus did you supply Victor Hugo a saying that can not 
 die: " To be blind and to be loved — ^what happier 
 fate! " SS 33 
 
 Yes, Jean Paul used to cry at his work when he wrote 
 well, and I do, too. I always know when I write par- 
 ticularly well, for at such times I mop furiously. How- 
 ever, I seldom mop. 
 
 Robert Schumann began to write little essays, and the 
 essays were as near like Jean Paul's as he could make 
 them. He read them to his mother, just as Jean Paul 
 used to write for his mother and call her " my Gentle 
 Reader " — ^he had but one. 
 
 Robert's mother believed in her boy — ^what mother does 
 not? But her love was not tempered by reason, and in it 
 there was a sentimental flavor akin to the maudlin 3S 
 The father wanted the lad to take up his own business, 
 as German fathers do, but the mother filled the lad's 
 head with the thought that he was fit for something 
 higher and better. She was not willing to let the seed 
 
 113 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 ripen in Nature's way — she thought hothouse methods 
 were an improvement. 
 
 Such a mother's ambition centers in her son. She wants 
 him to do the thing she has never been able to do. She 
 thirsts for honors, applause, publicity, and all those 
 things that bring trouble and distress and make men old 
 before their time. 
 
 So we find the boy at eighteen packed off to Heidelberg 
 to study law, with no special preparation in knowledge 
 of the world, of men or books. But old father antic, the 
 law, was not to his taste. Robert liked music and poetry 
 better. His fine, sensitive, emotional spirit found its 
 best exercise in music; and at the house of Professor 
 Carus he used to sing with the professor's wife. This 
 Professor Carus, by the way, is, I believe, directly related 
 to our own Doctor Paul Carus, of whom all thinking 
 people in America have reason to be proud. I am told 
 that when a boy of eighteen or nineteen mingles his 
 voice several evenings a week with that of a married 
 lady aged, say, thirty-five, and they also play "four 
 hands " an hour or so a day, that the boy is apt to 
 surprise the married lady by falling very much in love 
 with her. Boys are quite given to this thing, anj^way, of 
 falling in love with women old enough to be their 
 mothers — I don't know why it is. Sometimes I am rather 
 inclined to commend the scheme, since it often brings 
 good results. The fact that the woman's emotions are 
 well tempered with a sort of maternal regard for her 
 114 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 charge holds folly in check, dispels that tired feeling, 
 promotes digestion, and stimulates the action of the 
 ganglionic cells. 
 
 It was surely so in this instance, for Madame Carus 
 taught the youth how to compose, and fired his mind to 
 excel as a pianist. He wrote and dedicated small songs 
 to her, and their relationship added cubits to the boy's 
 stature 5S S& 
 
 From a boy he became a man at a bound. Just as one 
 single April day, with its showers and sunshine, will 
 transform the seemingly lifeless twigs into leafy 
 branches, so did this young man's intellect ripen in the 
 sunshine of love. 
 
 As for Professor Carus, he was too busy with his 
 theorems and biological experiments to trouble himself 
 about so trivial a matter as a youngster falling in love 
 with his accomplished wife — here the Professor's good 
 sense was shown. 
 
 Jean Paul Richter lighted his torch at the Hame of Jean 
 Jacques Rousseau. In a letter to Agnes Carus, Schu- 
 mann has acknowledged his obligation to Richter, in a 
 style that is truly Richteresque. 
 Says Robert: 
 
 Dear Lady: — I read from Jean Paul last night until I 
 fell asleep and then I dreamed of you. It was at the 
 torch of Jean Paul that I lighted my tallow dip, and 
 now he is dead and these eyes shall never look into his, 
 nor will his voice fall upon my ears. I cry salt tears to 
 
 115 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 think that Jean Paul never knew you. If I could only 
 have brought you two together and then looked upon 
 you, realizing, as I would, that you had both come from 
 High Olympus! Blissful are the days since I knew you, 
 for you have brought within my range of vision new 
 constellations, and into my soul has come the clear, 
 white light of peace and truth. With you I am purified, 
 freed from sin, and harmony fills my tired heart. With- 
 out you — ^why, really I have never dared think about it, 
 for fear that reason would topple, and my mind forget 
 its 'customed way — ^let 's talk of music * * * 
 
 Professor Carus kept his ear close to the ground for a 
 higher call, and when the call came from Leipzig, he 
 moved there with his family. 
 
 It was not many weeks before Robert was writing home, 
 explaining that lawyers were men who get good people 
 into trouble, and bad folks out; and as for himself he 
 had decided to cut the business and fling himself into 
 the arms of the Muse. 
 
 This letter brought his mother down upon him with 
 tears and pleadings that he would not fail to redeem the 
 Schumanns by becoming a Great Man. Poetry was 
 foolishness and all musicians were poor — there were a 
 hundred of them in Zwickau who lived on rye-bread and 
 Wienerwurst 3S SS 
 
 The boy promised and the mother went home pacified. 
 But not many weeks had passed before Robert set out 
 on a pilgrimage to Bayreuth, to visit the scene of Jean 
 Paul's romances. On this same tour he went to Munich, 
 116 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 and there met Heinrich Heine, who was from that day 
 to enter into his heart and jostle Jean Paul for first 
 place. He was accompanied on this memorable trip by 
 Gisbert Rosen, who proved his lifelong friend and 
 confidant. Very naturally Leipzig was the ardently 
 desired goal of his wanderings. At once on arriving 
 there, he sought out the home of Professor and Madame 
 Carus. That his greeting (and mayhap hers) did not 
 contain all the warmth the boy lover had anticipated is 
 shown in a letter to Rosen, wherein he says : " This world 
 is only a huge graveyard of buried dreams, a garden of 
 cj^ress and weeping willows, a silent peep-show with 
 tearful puppets. Alas for our high faith — I wonder if 
 Jean Paul was n't right when he said that love lessens 
 woman's delicacy, and time and distance dissipate it 
 like morning dew? " 
 
 Yet Madame Carus was kind, for Robert played at 
 little informal concerts at her house, and she urged him 
 to abandon law for music; and he refers the matter to 
 Rosen, asking Rosen's advice and explaining how he 
 wants to be advised, just as we usually do. Rosen tells 
 him that no man can succeed at an undertaking unless 
 his heart is in the work, and so he shifts the responsibility 
 of deciding on Professor Carus, whom Robert ' ' respects, 
 but does not exactly admire enough to follow his advice. 
 ^ Robert does not consider the Professor a practical 
 man, and so leaves the matter to his wife. In the mean- 
 time songs are written similar to Heine's, and essays 
 
 117 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 turned off, pinned with the precise synonym, the phrase 
 exquisite, just like Jean Paul's. Progress in piano-play- 
 ing goes steadily forward, with practise on the violin, 
 all under the tutelage of Madame Carus, who one fine 
 day takes the young man to play for Frederick Wieck, 
 the best music-teacher in Leipzig. 
 
 118 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 USICIANS? " said Wieck. " I raise them! " 
 ^ And so he did. He proved the value of his 
 theories by making great performers of Maria 
 and Clara, his daughters — two sisters more 
 gifted in a musical way have never been born. Germany 
 excels in philosophy and music — a seeming paVadox. 
 Music is supposed to be a compound of the stuff that 
 dreams are made of — ^hazy, misty, dim, intangible feel- 
 ings set to sounds — we close our eyes and they take us 
 captive and carry us away oh the wings of melody. And 
 so it may be true that music is born of moonshine, and 
 fragrant memories, and hopes too great for earth, and 
 loves unrealized; yet its expression is the most exacting 
 of sciences. A Great Musician has not only to be a poet 
 and a dreamer, but he must also be a mathematician, 
 cold as chilled steel, and a philosopher who can follow a 
 reason to its lair and grapple it to the death. And that 
 is why Great Musicians are so rare, and that is also why, 
 perhaps, there are no great women composers. " Women 
 of genius are men," said the De Goncourts. A Great 
 Musician is a paradox, a miracle, a multiple-sided man 
 — stern, firm, selfish, proud and unyielding; yet sen- 
 suous as the ether, tender as a woman, innocent as a 
 child, and as plastic as potters' clay. And with most of 
 them, let us frankly admit it, the hand of the Potter 
 shook. When people write about musicians, they seldom 
 write moderately. The man is either a selfish rogue or an 
 angel of light — it all depends upon your point of view. 
 
 119 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 And the curious part is, both sides are right. ^ Wieck 
 was very fond of his daughters, and like good house- 
 wives who are proud of their biscuit, he apologized for 
 them. " He never quite forgave our mother because we 
 were girls," said Clara once, to Kalkbrenner. Wieck, 
 the good man, was a philosopher, and he had a notion 
 that the blood of woman is thinner than that of man — 
 that it contains more white serum and fewer red 
 corpuscles, and that Nature has designed the body of a 
 woman to nourish her offspring, but that man's energy 
 goes to feed his brain. Yet his girls were so much beyond 
 average mortals that they would set men a pace in spite 
 of the handicap. 
 
 Fortunate it is for me that I do not have to act as the 
 court of last appeal on this genius business. The man 
 who decides against woman will forfeit his popularity, 
 have his reputation ripped into carpet-rags, and his 
 good name worked up into crazy-quilts by a thousand 
 Woman's Clubs. 
 
 But certain it is that women are the inspirers of music. 
 As critics they are more judicial and more appreciative. 
 Without women there would be no Symphony Concerts, 
 any more than there would be churches. 
 Women take men to the Grand Opera and to Musical 
 Festivals — and I am glad. 
 
 120 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 ]LARA WIECK was only ten years old, with 
 dresses that came to her knees, when Robert 
 Schumann first began to take lessons of her 
 father. She was tall for her age, and had a 
 habit of brushing her hair from her eyes as she played, 
 that impressed the young man as very funny. She could 
 not remember a time when she did not play: and she 
 showed such ease and abandon that her father used to 
 call her in and have her illustrate his ideas on the key- 
 board 53 5S 
 
 Robert did n't like the child — she was needlessly 
 talented. She could do, just as a matter of course, the 
 things that he could scarcely accomplish with great 
 effort. He did n't like her. 
 
 Already Clara had played in various concerts, and was 
 a great favorite with the local public. Soon her father 
 planned little tours, when he gave performances assisted 
 by his two daughters, who could play both violin and 
 piano. Their fame grew and fortune smiled. Wieck took 
 a larger house and raised his prices for pupils. 
 Robert Schumann wandered over to Zwickau to visit his 
 folks, then went on down the Rhine to Heidelberg to see 
 Rosen. It was nearly a year before he got back to 
 Leipzig, resolved to continue his music studies. Wieck 
 had a front room vacant, and so the young man took 
 lodgings with his teacher. 
 
 It was not so very long before Clara was wearing her 
 dresses a little longer. She now dressed her hair in two 
 
 121 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 braids instead of one, and these braids were tied with 
 ribbons instead of a shoe-string. More concerts were 
 being arranged, and the attendance was larger — ^people 
 were saying that Clara Wieck was an Infant Phe- 
 nomenon 53 53 
 
 Robert was progressing, but not so rapidly as he wished. 
 To aid matters a bit, he invented a brace and extension 
 to his middle finger. It gave him a farther reach and a 
 stronger stroke, he thought. In secret he practised for 
 hours with this " corset " on his finger; he did n't know 
 that a corset means weakness, not strength. After three 
 straight hours of practise one day, he took the machine 
 from his hand and was astonished to see the finger curl 
 up like a pretzel. He hurried to a physician and was told 
 that the member was paralyzed. Various forms of treat- 
 ment were tried, but the tendons were injured, and at 
 last the doctors told him his brain could never again 
 telegraph to that hand so it would perfectly obey orders. 
 He begged that they would cut the finger off, but this 
 they refused to do, claiming that, even though the 
 finger was in the way, piano-playing in any event was 
 not the chief end of man — he might try a pick and 
 shovel 53 53 
 
 Clara, who now wore her dress to her shoe-tops, 
 sympathized with the young man in his distress. She 
 said, " Never mind, I will play for you — ^you write the 
 music and I will play it! " 
 
 Gradually he became resigned to this, and spent much 
 122 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 of his time composing music for Heine's songs and his 
 own. Wieck did n't much like these songs, and forbade 
 his daughter plajdng such trashy things — only a para- 
 phrase of Schubert's work, ansrway, goodness me! 53 
 The girl pouted and rebelled, and erelong Robert 
 Schumann was requested to take lodgings elsewhere. 
 Moodily he obeyed, but he managed to keep up a secret 
 correspondence with Clara, through the help of her 
 sister. Whenever Clara played in public, Robert was 
 sure to be there, even though the distance were a hun- 
 dred miles. He had given up plajdng, and now swung 
 between composing and literature, having assumed the 
 editorship of a musical mageizine. 
 
 When Clara now played in concert, she wore a train, 
 and her hair was done up on the top of her head. 
 Schumann's musical magazine was winning its way — the 
 young man had a literary style. Mendelssohn com- 
 mended the magazine, and its editor in turn commended 
 Mendelssohn. A new star had been discovered on the 
 horizon — a Pole, Chopin by name. And whenever Clara 
 Wieck appeared, there were extended notices, lavish in 
 praise, profuse in prophecy. 
 
 Herz had written an article for a rival journal about 
 Clara Wieck, wherein the statement was made that no 
 woman trained on, that her playing was intuitive, and 
 the limit quickly reached — marriage was death to a 
 woman's art, etc. 
 
 To this Schumann replied with needless heat, and his 
 
 123 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 friends began to joke him about his " disinterested- 
 ness." He was getting moody, and there were times 
 when he was silent for days. His passion for Clara 
 Wieck was consuming his Hfe. He resolved to go direct 
 to Frederick Wieck and have it out. 
 
 124 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 HEY are always called " the Schumanns " — 
 Robert and Clara. You can not separate 
 them, any more than you can separate the 
 great Robert Browning and ElizabethBarrett. 
 " Whomsoever God hath joined together, let no man 
 put asunder," seems rather a needless injunction, since 
 we know that man's efforts in the line of separation 
 have ever but one result: opposition fans the flame 58 
 Just as Elizabeth Barrett's father forcibly opposed the 
 mating of his daughter, so did Frederick Wieck oppose 
 the love of his daughter Clara for Robert Schumann 3S 
 And one can not blame the man so very much — ^he knew 
 the young man and he knew the girl; and deducting 
 fifty per cent for paternal pride, he saw that the girl was 
 much the stronger character of the two. Clara had 
 already a recognized reputation as a performer; her 
 pla3ang had made her father rich, and he was sure that 
 greater things were to come. Beside that, she was only 
 seventeen years old — a mere child. 
 Robert was twenty-six, with most of his future before 
 him — ^he was advised to win a name and place for 
 himself before aspiring to the hand of a great artist: and 
 so he was bowed out. 
 
 He took the matter into the courts, and the decision 
 was that, as she was now eighteen years old, she had the 
 right to wed, if she were so minded. 
 And so they were married; but Frederick Wieck was not 
 present at the ceremony to give the bride away. 
 
 125 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 CHUM ANN was essentially feminine in many 
 ways, as the best men always are. In spite 
 of his mental independence, he did his best 
 work when shielded in the shadow of a 
 stronger personality. Without Clara, Robert would 
 probably be unknown to us. She gave him the courage 
 and the confidence that he lacked; and she it was who 
 interpreted his work to the world. 
 Heine characterized Meyerbeer's " Les Huguenots " as 
 " like a Gothic cathedral whose heaven-soaring spire 
 and colossal cupolas seem to have been planted there 
 by the sure hand of a giant; whereas the innumerable 
 features, the rosettes and arabesques that are spread 
 over it everywhere like a lacework of stone, witness to 
 the indefatigable patience of a dwarf." 
 Very different is the work of Robert Schumann, who, 
 like his master Schubert, knew little of the architectonics 
 of the Art Divine. But Schubert seems to have been the 
 first to give us the " lyric cry " — the prayer of a heart 
 bowed down, or the ecstasy of a soul enrapt. 
 Schumann built on Schubert. Music was to Schumann 
 the expression of an emotion. He saw in pictures, then 
 he told in tones, what his inward eye beheld. He even 
 went so far as to give the names of persons, their 
 peculiarities and experiences on the keyboard. It is 
 needless to say that the tension of mind in such experi- 
 ments is apt to reach the breaking strain. We are under 
 bonds for the moderate use of every faculty, and he who 
 126 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 lisuses any of God's gifts may not hope to go unscathed. 
 The exquisite quality of Robert Schumann's imagi- 
 ation served to make him shun the society of vulgar 
 eople. The inability to grasp things intuitively harassed 
 im, and he acquired a habit of keeping silence, except 
 ith the elect. He lived within himself, unless Clara 
 'ere by, and then he leaned on her. 
 nd what a strong, brave and beautiful soul she was! 
 1 a sense she sacrificed her own career for the man she 
 ived. And by giving all, she won all. 
 lost descriptions of women begin by telling how the 
 idividual looked and what she wore. No pen-portraits 
 f Clara Schumann have come down to us, for the 
 :ason that she was too great, too elusive in spirit, for 
 ny snapshot artist to attempt her. She never looked 
 vice the same. In feature she was commonplace, her 
 >rm lacked the classic touch, and her raiment was as 
 lain as the plumage of a brown thrush in an autumn 
 edgerow. She was as homely as George Eliot, Mary 
 f^oUstonecraf t, Rosa Bonheur, George Sand, or Madame 
 ►e Stael. No two of the women named looked alike, but 
 once saw a composite photograph of their portraits 
 id the picture sent no thrills along my keel. TTieir 
 )Iendor was a matter of spirit. Have you ever seen the 
 •use? — there is but one. In repose this woman's face 
 absolute nullity. She starts with a blank — you would 
 ;ver take a second glance at her at a pink tea. Her 
 ■ess is bargain day, her form so-so, her features clay. 
 
 127 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 ^ But mayhap she will lift her hand and resting her 
 chin upon it will look at you out of half-closed eyes 
 that never are twice alike. If you are speaking you will 
 suddenly become aware that she is listening, and then 
 you will become uncomfortable and try to stop, but 
 can not ; for you will realize that you have been talking 
 at random, and you want to redeem yourself. 
 The presence of this plain woman is a challenge — she 
 knows ! Yet she never contradicts, and when she wills it, 
 she will lead you out of the maze and make you at peace 
 with yourself; for our quarrel with the world is only a 
 quarrel with self. When we are at peace with self we 
 are at peace with God. 
 
 The Duse is a surprise, in that her homeliness of face 
 masks an intellect that is a revelation. Her body is an 
 exasperation to the tribe of Worth, but it houses a soul 
 that has lived every life, died every death, known every 
 sorrow, tasted every joy, and been one with the outcast, 
 the despised, the forsaken; and has stood, too, clothed 
 in shining raiment by the side of the great, the noble, 
 the powerful. Knowing all, she forgives all. And across 
 the face and out of the eyes, and even from her silence, 
 come messages of sympathy — messages of strength, 
 messages of a faith that is dauntless. Great people are 
 simply those who have sympathy plus. Clara Schumann 
 knew the excellence of her chosen mate, and through her 
 sympathy made it possible for him to express himself 
 at his highest and best. She also guessed his limitations 
 128 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 and sought to hold him 'gainst the calamity she saw 
 looming on the horizon, no bigger than a man's hand SS 
 When he was moody and there came times of melan- 
 choly, she invited young people to the house; and so 
 Robert mingled his life with theirs, and in their aspira- 
 tions he shook off the demons of doubt. 
 It was in this way that he became interested in various 
 rising stars, and although in some instances we are 
 aware that his prophecies went astray, we know that he 
 hailed Chopin and Brahms long before they had come 
 within the ken of the musical world, that so often looks 
 through the large end of the telescope. And this kindly 
 encouragement, this fostering welcome that the Schu- 
 manns gave to all aspiring young artists, is not the least 
 of their virtues. We love them because they were kind. 
 
 129 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 LARA SCHUMANN was wise beyond the lot 
 of woman. She knew this fact which very few 
 mortals ever realize : The triumphs of yester- 
 day belong to yesterday, with all of yesterday's 
 defeats and sorrows — the day is Here, the time is Now. 
 She did not drag her troubles behind her with a rope, 
 nor wax vain over achievements done. When the light 
 of her husband's intellect went out in darkness and he 
 lived for a space a lingering death, she faced the dawn 
 each morning, resolved to do her work and do it the 
 best she could. 
 
 When death came to Robert's relief, her one ambition, 
 like that of Mary Shelley, was to write her husband's 
 name indelibly on history's page. 
 
 The professedly and professionally cheerful person is 
 very depressing. The pessimist always has wit, for wit 
 reveals itself in the knowledge of values. And the' indi- 
 vidual who accepts what Fate sends, and undoes 
 Calamity by drinking all of it, is sure to have a place in 
 our calendar of saints. 
 
 Clara Schumann, a widow at thirty-seven, with a goodly 
 brood of babies, and no income to speak of, lived one 
 day at a time, did her work as well as she could, and 
 always had a little time and energy over to use for others 
 less fortuijate. 
 
 Such fortitude is sure to bear fruit, and friends flocked to 
 her as never before. The way to secure friends is to be 
 one 53 33 
 130 
 
ROBERT SCHUMANN 
 
 Madame Schumann made concert tours throughout the 
 Continent and England, meeting on absolute equality 
 the music-loving people, as well as the Kings of Art. She 
 played her husband's pieces with such a wealth of 
 expression that folks wondered why they had never 
 heard of them. And so today, wherever hearts are sad, 
 or glad, and songs are sung, and strings vibrate, and 
 keys respond to love's caress, there is in hearts that 
 know and feel, a shrine; and on this shrine in letters 
 of gold two words are carved, and they are these: 
 THE SCHUMANNS. 
 
 131 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
The name of Bach would have been feunous in musical 
 history without Johann Sebastian, but with his name 
 added it becomes the most illustrious that the world has 
 ever known. Bach had many pupils, but none surpassed 
 his own sons, six of whom became great musicians, but 
 with these the musical faculty died. 
 
 — Sir Hubert Parry 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 HE art of today is imitative. Once 
 men had convictions, but we have 
 only opinions, and these are usually 
 borrowed. The artificiality of life, 
 and the rush and the worry afford 
 no time for great desires to possess 
 our souls. 
 
 We average well, but no Colossus 
 looms large above the crowd and goes his solitary way 
 unmindful of the throng: we look alike, act alike, think 
 alike, and in order that the likeness may be complete, 
 we dress alike. 
 
 To wear a hat of your own selection or voice thoughts 
 of your own thinking is to invite unseemly mirth, and 
 finally scorn and contumely. 
 
 The great creators were solitary, rural in their instincts, 
 ignorant and heedless of what the world was saying and 
 doing. They were men of deep convictions and enthu- 
 siasms, unmindful of laughter or ridicule, caring little 
 even for approbation. 
 
 No " boom town " can possibly produce a genius: it only 
 fosters sundry small Napoleons of finance. America is a 
 nation of boomers — financial, political, social and 
 theological Si S& 
 
 We have sarcasm and cynicism, and we possess much 
 that is clever, all produced by snatches of success, well 
 
 135 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 mixed with disappointment and the bitterness which 
 much contact with the world is sure to evolve. Our age 
 that goes everjrwhere, knows everybody's business, and 
 religiously reads only " the last edition," produces a Bill 
 Nye, a Sam Jones, a Teddy Roosevelt, a DeWitt 
 Talmage, a Hopkinson Smith, a Sam Walter Foss, a 
 Victor Herbert; but it is not at all likely to produce a 
 Praxiteles, a Michelangelo, a Rembrandt, an Imman- 
 uel Kant or a Johann Sebastian Bach. 
 
 136 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 HAT Shakespeare is to literature, Michel- 
 angelo to sculpture, and Rembrandt to 
 portrait-painting, Johann Sebastian Bach is 
 to organ-music. He was the greatest organist 
 of his time, and his equal has not yet been produced, 
 though nearly three hundred years have passed since 
 his death. " The organ reached perfection at the hands 
 of Bach," says Haweis. As a composer for the organ. 
 Bach stands secure — ^his position is at the head, and is 
 absolutely unassailable. 
 
 In point of temperament and disposition Bach bears a 
 closer resemblance to Michelangelo than to either of the 
 others whose names I have mentioned. He was stern, 
 strong, self-contained, and so deeply religious that he 
 was not only a Christian but a good deal of a pagan as 
 well. A homely man was Bach — quiet, simple in tastes 
 and blunt in speech. 
 
 The earnest way in which this plain, unpretentious man 
 focused upon his life-work and raised organ-music to the 
 highest point of art must command the sincere admi- 
 ration of every lover of honest endeavor. 
 Bach was so great that he had no artistic jealousy, no 
 whim, and when harshly and unjustly criticized he did 
 not concern himself enough with the quibblers to reply. 
 He made neither apologies nor explanations. The man 
 who thus allows his life to justify itself, and lets his work 
 speak, and who, when reviled, reviles not again, must be 
 a very great and lofty soul. 
 
 137 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 I Bach was a villager and a rustic, and, like Jean Francois 
 Millet, used to hoe in his garden, trim the vines, play 
 with his children, putting them to bed at night, or in 
 the day cease from his work to cut slices of brown bread 
 which he spread with honey for the heedless little 
 importuner, who had interrupted him in the making of 
 a chorale that was to charm the centuries. At times he 
 would leave his composing to help his wife with her 
 household duties — to wash dishes, sweep the room or 
 care for a peevish, fretful child. After the evening 
 prayer, like Millet, again, when his household were all 
 abed, he would often walk out into the night alone, and 
 traverse his solitary way along a wintry road, through 
 the woods or by the winding river, a dim, misty, 
 shadowy figure, spectral as the " Sower," lonely as the 
 " Fagot-Gatherer," talking to himself, mayhap, and 
 communing with his Maker, 
 
 In his later years, when he traveled from one village or 
 city to another to attend musical gatherings, he was 
 always accompanied by one or more of his sons. His 
 ambition was centered on his children, and his hope was 
 in them. Yet nothing has been added to either organ- 
 building, organ-playing or composition for the organ 
 since his time. 
 
 He never knew, any more than Shakespeare knew, that 
 he had set a pace that would never be equaled. He would 
 have stood aghast with incredulity had he been told 
 that centuries would come and go and his name be 
 138 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 acclaimed as Master. ^ Such was Sebastian Bach — 
 simple, polite, modest, unaffected, generous, almost 
 shy — doing his work and doing it as well as he could, 
 living one day at a time, loving his friends, forgetting 
 his enemies. His heart was filled with such melodies that 
 their echo is a blessing and a benediction to us yet. 
 Art lives! 5S 3S 
 
 139 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 ilREDITY is that law of our being which 
 provides that a man shall resemble his 
 grandfather — or not. The Bach family has 
 supplied the believers in heredity more good 
 raw material in way of argument than any dozen other 
 families known to history, combined. 
 The Herschels with three eminent astronomers to their 
 credit, or the Beechers with half a dozen great preachers, 
 are scarcely worth mentioning when we remember the 
 Bachs, who for two hundred fifty years sounded the "A" 
 for nearly all Germany. 
 
 The earliest known member of this musical family was 
 Vert Bach, who was born about Fifteen Hundred Fifty. 
 He was a miller and baker by trade, but devoted so much 
 time to playing at dances, rehearsing at church festivals, 
 and attending gipsy musical performances, that in his 
 milling business he never prospered and nobody called 
 him " Pillsbury." 
 
 This man had a son by the name of Hans, a weaver 
 and a right merry wight, who traveled over the 
 country attending weddings, christenings and such Uke 
 festivals, playing upon a fiddle of his own construction. 
 So famous was Hans Bach that his name lives in legend 
 and folklore, wherein it is related that often betimes 
 when he arrived at a village, the word would be passed 
 and the whole population would quit work and caper 
 on the green. So luring was his fiddle, and so potent his 
 voice in song and story, that in a few instances preachers 
 140 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 with long faces warned their flocks against him; and 
 once we find a country Dogberry had his minions lay 
 the innocent Hans by the heels and give him a taste of 
 the stocks, simply because he seduced a party of hay- 
 makers into following him off to a dance at a tavern, and 
 in the meantime a storm coming up, the hay got wet. 
 Poor Hans protested that he had nothing to do with the 
 storm, but his excuses were construed as proof of guilt 
 and went for naught. 
 
 At last in his wanderings, Hans found a buxom lass who 
 was willing to take him for better or worse. 
 And they were married and lived happily ever after, or 
 fairly so. 
 
 This marriage quite sobered the fun-loving fiddler, so 
 that he settled down and worked at his weaving ; and at 
 odd hours made himself a bass viol that looked to be 
 father of all the fiddles. In Eisenach I was told that this 
 viol was ten feet high. Hans used to play this instrument 
 at the village church, and his plajdng drew such crowds 
 that the preacher had just cause for jealousy, and 
 improved the opportunity, yet stifling his rage he 
 ordered the verger to lock the doors and allow no one to 
 depart until after the sermon and collection. 
 A goodly family was born to Hans and his worthy wife, 
 and all were trained in music, so that an orchestra was 
 formed, made up of the father, mother, and boys and 
 girls. All the instruments used were made by Hans, and 
 these included marvelous fiddles, some with one string 
 
 141 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 and others with twenty; wooden wind-instruments like 
 flutes, and drums to match the players, some of whom 
 were wee toddlers. It is said that the music this orchestra 
 made was more or less unique. 
 
 The best part of all this musical exploitation of Hans 
 was that one of his boys, Heinrich by name, applied 
 himself so diligently to the art that he became the 
 organist in the village church, and then he was called to 
 play the great organ at Arnstadt. Heinrich was not a 
 roisterer like his father: he was a man of education and 
 dignity. He composed many pieces, and trained his 
 choruses so well that his fame went abroad as the chief 
 musician of all Thuringia. He held his position at 
 Arnstadt for fifty years, and died in Sixteen Hundred 
 Ninety-two, at which time Johann Sebastian Bach, his 
 nephew, was seven years old. 
 
 In his day Heinrich Bach was known as the " Great 
 Bach," and he had two sons who were nearly as famous 
 as himself, and would have been quite so, were it not 
 for the fact that they had a cousin by the name of 
 Johann Sebastian. 
 
 Johann Sebastian was a son of Johann Ambrosius, a 
 brother of Heinrich, and Johann Ambrosius, of course, 
 a son of the merry Hans. Johann Ambrosius was a 
 musician, too, but did not distinguish himself especially 
 in this line. His distinction lies in the fact that he was 
 the father of Johann Sebastian, and this is quite enough 
 for any one man, even if Gail Hamilton did once protest 
 142 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 that the office of male parent was insignificant and 
 devoid of honor. 
 
 Johann Ambrosius wjis a shiftless kind of fellow who 
 drank much beer out of an earthen pot, and whittled out 
 fiddles, sitting on a bench in the sun. He sort of let his 
 family shift for themselves. Heinrich Bach, his brother, 
 used to speak of him as one of his " poor relations," but 
 at the annual Bach family festival, when a full hundred 
 Bachs gathered to sing and play, Johann Ambrosius 
 would attend and play on a flute or fiddle and prove 
 that he was worthy of the name. 
 
 On one such annual reunion he took his little boy, 
 Johann Sebastian, eight years old. The boy's mother 
 had died a year or so before, and after the mother's 
 death the father seemed to think more of his children 
 than ever before — ^which is often the case, I 'm told 3S 
 They walked the distance, about forty miles, in two 
 days, to where the festival occurred. It was one of the 
 white milestones in the boy's life — that trip with its 
 revelation of sleeping in barns, singing, and playing on 
 many instruments, dining by the wayside, all winding 
 up with a solemn service at a great stone church, where 
 the preacher gave them his benediction, and the great 
 company separated with handshakings, embracings and 
 tears, to meet again in a year. Johann Ambrosius did not 
 attend the next reunion. Before the Spring had come 
 and birds sang blithely, a band composed of twenty-five 
 played funeral-dirges at his grave — and little Johann 
 
 143 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 Sebastian weis an orphan. ^ Johann Sebastian's elder 
 
 brother, Christoph, who had married a few years before 
 
 and moved away, attended the funeral, and when he 
 
 went back home he took Uttle Johann Sebastian with 
 
 him — there was no other place to go. The lad was 
 
 allowed to take one thing with him as a remembrance of 
 
 the home that he was now leaving forever — his father's 
 
 violin in a green bag, with a leathern drawstring. On the 
 
 bag were his father's initials, woven into the cloth by 
 
 the boy's mother — a present from sweetheart to lover 
 
 before their marriage. 
 
 Christoph was a musician, too, and a prosperous fellow 
 
 — quite the antithesis of his father. It takes a lot of 
 
 love to bring up a child, and the miracle of mother-love 
 
 is a constant wonder to every thinking person. Without 
 
 mother-love how would the cross-grained, perverse little 
 
 tyrant ever survive the buffets which the world is sure 
 
 to give? It is love that makes existence possible. 
 
 Christoph wished to be kind to his little brother, but it 
 
 was a kindness of the head and not of the heart. Only an 
 
 hour a day was allowed the boy for playing on the violin 
 
 he had brought in the green bag, because Christoph and 
 
 his wife " did not want to hear the noise." Then when 
 
 the boy stole off to the forest and played there, he was 
 
 waylaid on the way home and well cuffed for disobeying 
 
 orders. All this seems very much like the Goneril and 
 
 Cordelia business, or the history of Cinderella, but as 
 
 Johann Sebastian told it himself in the after-years, we 
 144 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 have reason to believe it was not fiction. ^ Little 
 Johann Sebastian had been his father's favorite, and 
 this fact perhaps made Christoph fear the boy was 
 going to tread in his father's lazy footsteps. So he set 
 about to discipline the lad. 
 
 It must be admitted that Johann Ambrosius Bach, who 
 whittled out fiddles in the sun, and who drank much 
 beer out of an earthen pot, was shiftless, but it further 
 seems that he was tender-hearted and kind and took 
 much interest in teaching Sebastian to play the violin, 
 even while the child wore dresses. And sometimes I 
 think it is really better, if you have to choose, to drink 
 beer out of an earthen pot and be kind and gentle, than 
 to have a sharp nose for other folks' faults and be con- 
 tinually trying to pinch and prod the old world into the 
 straight and narrow path of virtue. Yet there is wisdom 
 in all folly, and I can see that the prohibition concerning 
 little Sebastian's playing the violin only an hour a day — 
 mind you! was not without its benefits. Surely it would 
 often be a wise bit of diplomacy on the part of the 
 teacher to order the pupil not to study his arithmetic 
 lesson but an hour a day, on penalty. Of course it might 
 happen occasionally that the pupil in an earnest desire 
 to please, might not study at all, yet there are excep- 
 tions to all rules, and we must remember that when 
 Tom Sawyer forbade the boys using his whitewash- 
 brush, the scheme worked well. 
 
 One instance, however, might be cited where the law 
 
 145 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 of compensation seems really to have stood no chance. 
 Christoph had a goodly musical library and a collection 
 of the best organ-music that had been produced up to 
 that time. He kept this music in a case, and carried the 
 key to the case in his pocket. On rare occasions he had 
 shown bits of this music to Sebastian, who read music 
 like print when it is easy. The boy devoured all the 
 music he could lay his hands on, and hummed it over to 
 himself until every note and accent was fixed in his 
 memory. He dearly wanted to examine that music in 
 the locked-up case, but his brother declared his ambition 
 nonsense — ^he was too young. But the boy contrived a 
 way to pick the lock — for a music-lover laughs at lock- 
 smiths — and at night when all the household were 
 safely in bed, he would steal downstairs in his bare 
 feet and get a sheet of the music and copy it off by 
 moonlight, sitting in the deep ledge^of the window. Thus 
 did he work for six months, whenever the moon shone 
 bright enough to read the lines and signs and marks. 
 But alas! one day the elder brother was rummaging 
 around the boy's room in search of things contraband 
 and he pounced upon the portfolio of copied music. He 
 summoned the offender into his presence. The facts were 
 admitted, and Johann Sebastian had his bare legs well 
 tingled with an apple-sprout. Then the portfolio was 
 confiscated and carried away, despite pleadings, promises 
 and tears. And the question still remains whether 
 " discipline " is not a matter of gratification to the 
 146 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 person in power rather than a sincere and honest 
 attempt to benefit the person disciplined. 
 Nevertheless, Johann Sebastian Bach was working out 
 his own education: he belonged to the boys' chorus at 
 Ohrdi-uf , as all boys in the vicinity did. Music in every 
 German village was an important item, and the best 
 singers and best behaved members of the village choir 
 were set apart ais a sort of select choir — a choir within a 
 choir — and were often gathered together to sing on 
 special occasions at weddings and festivals. Johann 
 Sebastian had a sweet, well-modulated voice, and when- 
 ever he was to sing, he carried his violin in the green bag, 
 so he could play, too, if needed. Thus he played and 
 sang at serenades, just as did Martin Luther, many 
 years before, in Johann Sebastian's own native town of 
 Eisenach S& Si 
 
 Johann Sebastian's fame grew until it reached to Lune- 
 burg, twelve miles away, and he was invited there to 
 sing in the choir of Saint Michael's. The pay he received 
 was very slight, but that was not to be considered. An 
 occasional bowl of soup and piece of rye-bread, and the 
 privilege of sleeping in the organ-loft, all combined with 
 freedom, made his paradise complete. He played on the 
 harpsichord in the peistor's study sometimes; and 
 occasionally the organist, who could not help loving 
 such a music-loving boy, would allow him to try the big 
 organ, and at every service he was present to play his 
 violin, or if any of the other players were absent he 
 
 147 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 would just fill in and play any instrument desired. 
 ^Then we hear of him trudging off to Hamburg, a 
 hundred miles away, with only a few coppers in his 
 pocket, to hear the great organist Reinke. He slept in 
 cattle-sheds by the way, played his violin at taverns for 
 something to eat, or plainly stated his case to sympa- 
 thetic cooks at backdoors. One instance he has recorded 
 when all the world seemed to frown. He had trudged all 
 day, with nothing to eat, and at evening had sat down 
 near the open window of an inn, from which came 
 savory smells of supper. As he sat there, suddenly there 
 were thrown out a couple of small dried herrings. The 
 hungry boy eagerly seized upon them, just as a dog 
 would. But what was his surprise to find, as he gnawed, 
 in the mouth of each fish a piece of silver! Some one had 
 read the story of Saint Peter to a purpose. Young Bach 
 looked in vain for a person to thank, but perceiving no 
 one he took it as the act of God and an omen that his 
 pilgrimage to hear the great organist should not be in 
 vain 53 53 
 
 The wonders of Reinke's playing and the marvel of the 
 mighty music filled his soul with awe, and fired his 
 ambition to do a like performance. 
 Did the great Reinke know as he played that bright 
 Sabbath morning, filling the cathedral with thunders of 
 echoing bass, or sounds of sweet, subtle melody — did he 
 know that away back in the throng stood a dusty, 
 tawny-haired boy who had tramped a hundred miles 
 148 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 just for this event? And did the organist guess as he 
 played that he was inspiring a human soul to do a grand 
 and wondrous work, and live a life whose influence 
 should be deathless? Probably not — few men indeed 
 know when virtue has gone out of them. 
 Perhaps Reinke was playing just to suit himself, and 
 had purposely put the unappreciative, lazy, sleepy 
 occupants of the pews out of his thought, all unmindful 
 that there was one among a thousand, back behind a 
 pillar, dusty and worn, but now unconsciously refreshed 
 and oblivious to all save the playing of the great organ. 
 There stood the boy bathed in sweet sounds, withstream- 
 ing eyes and responsive heart. 
 
 His inward emotions supplemented the outward melody, 
 for music demands a listener, and at the last is a matter 
 of soul, not sound: its appeal being a harmony that 
 dwells within. So played Reinke, and back by the door, 
 peering from behind a pillar, stood the boy. 
 
 149 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 
 EBASTIAN BACH was such a useful member 
 
 of the choir at Luneburg that the town 
 
 musician from Weimar, who happened to be 
 
 going that way, induced him to go home with 
 
 him as assistant organist. 
 
 TTiis was a definite move in the direction of fame and 
 fortune. Men who can make themselves useful are 
 needed — there is ever a search for such. They wanted 
 Bach at Weimar. Johann Sebastian Bach, aged eighteen, 
 was wanted because he did his work well. 
 After three or four months at Weimar he made a visit 
 to Arnstadt, where his uncle had so long been organist. 
 His name at Arnstadt was a name to conjure with, and 
 in fact throughout all that part of the country, whenever 
 a man proved to be a musician of worth and power the 
 people out of compliment called him a " Bach." 
 Johann Sebastian was invited to play for the people, 
 and all were so delighted that they insisted he should 
 come and fill the place made vacant by the death of the 
 " Great Bach." 
 
 So he came and was duly installed. 
 And the young man drilled his chorus, wrote cantatas, 
 and arranged chants and hymns. But he was far from 
 contented. He was being pushed on by a noble unrest. 
 It was not so very long before we find him packing off 
 to Denmark, with little ceremony, to listen to the play- 
 ing of Buxtehude, the greatest player of his age. 
 Bach had been quite content to tiptoe into the church 
 150 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 when Reinke played, grateful for the privilege of 
 listening, half-expecting to be thrust out as an inter- 
 loper. He had gained confidence since then, and now 
 introduced himself to Buxtehude and was greeted by 
 the octogenarian as a brother and an equal, although 
 sixty years divided them. His visit extended itself from 
 one week to two, and then to a month or more, and a 
 message came from his employers that if he expected to 
 hold his place he had better return. 
 Bach's visit to Buxtehude formed another white mile- 
 stone in his career. He came back filled with enthusiasm 
 and overflowing with ideas and plans that a single life- 
 time could not materialize. Those who have analyzed 
 the work of Buxtehude and Bach tell us that there is a 
 richness of counterpoint, a vigor of style, a fulness of 
 harmony, and a strong, glowing, daring quality that in 
 some pieces is identical with both composers. In other 
 words. Bach admired Buxtehude so much that for a 
 time he wrote and played just like him, very much as 
 Turner began by painting as near like Claude Lorraine 
 as he possibly could. Genius has its prototype, and in all 
 art there is to be found this apostolic succession. Bach 
 first built on Reinke; next he transferred his allegiance 
 to Buxtehude; from this he gradually developed courage 
 and self-reliance until he fearlessly trusted himself in 
 deep water, heedless of danger. And it is this fearless, 
 self-relijint and self-sufficient quality that marks the 
 work of every exceptional man in every line of art. 
 
 151 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 " Here 's to the man wh9 dares," said Disraeli. All 
 strong men begin by worshiping at a shrine, and if they 
 continue to grow they shift their allegiance until they 
 know only one altar and that is the Ideal which dwells 
 in their own heart. 
 
 152 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 ND now behold how Heinrich Bach had edu- 
 cated his people into the belief that there was 
 only one way to play, and that was as he did 
 it. It is not at all probable that Heinrich put 
 forward any claims of perfection, but the people 
 regarded his playing as high-water mark, and any 
 variation from his standards was considered fantastic 
 and absurd. 
 
 In all of the old German Protestant churches are records 
 kept giving the exact history of the church. You can tell 
 for two hundred years back just when an organist was 
 hired or dismissed; when a preacher came and when he 
 went away, with minute mention as to reasons. 
 And so we find in the records of the Church at Arnstadt 
 that the organist, Johann Sebastian Bach, took a vaca- 
 tion without leave in the year Seventeen Hundred Five, 
 and further, when he returned his playing was " fan- 
 tastical." si 5S 
 
 With the young man's compositions the Consistory 
 expressed echoing groans of dissatisfaction. A list of 
 charges was drawn up against him, one of which runs 
 as follows: " We charge him with a habit of making 
 surprising variations in the chorales, and intermixing 
 divers strange sounds, so that thereby the congregation 
 was confounded." 
 
 Bach's answers are filed with the original charges, and 
 are all very brief and submissive. In some instances he 
 pleads guilty, not thinking it worth his while, strong 
 
 153 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 man that he was, to either apologize or explain. ^ But 
 the most damning count brought against him was this: 
 " We further charge him with introducing into the 
 choir-loft a Stranger Maiden, who made music." To 
 this, young Bach makes no reply. Brave boy! 
 The sequel is shown that in a few weeks he weis married 
 to this " Stranger Maiden," who was his cousin. She was 
 a Bach, too, a descendant of the merry Hans, and she, 
 also, played the organ. But great was the horror of the 
 Arnstadites that a woman should play a church organ. 
 Mein Gott im Himmel — a. woman might be occupying 
 the pulpit next ! 
 
 Johann Sebastian's indifference to criticism is partially 
 explained by the fact that he was in correspondence with 
 the Consistory at Mulhausen, and also with the Duke 
 Wilhelm Ernest, of Saxe- Weimar. Both Mulhausen and 
 Weimar wanted his services. Under such conditions men 
 have ever been known to invite a rupture — let us hope 
 that Johann Sebastian Bach was not quite so human. 
 
 154 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 ICHELANGELO never married, but Bach 
 held the average good by marrying twice SS 
 He was the jFather of just twenty children. His 
 first wife was a woman with well-defined mu- 
 sical tastes, as was meet in one with such an illustrious 
 musical pedigree. It was n't fashion then to educate 
 women, and one biographer expresses. a doubt as to 
 whether Bach's first wife was able to read and write. 
 To read and write are rather cheap accomplishments, 
 though. Last year I met several excellent specimens of 
 manhood in the Tennessee Mountains who could do 
 neither, yet these men had a goodly hold on the eternal 
 verities SS 5S 
 
 We know that Bach's wife had a thorough sympathy 
 with his work, and that he used to sing or play his 
 compositions to her, and when the children got big 
 enough, they tried the new-made hymn tunes, too. 
 These children sang before they could talk plain, and 
 the result was that the two elder sons, Wilhelm Friede- 
 mann and Phillip Emmanuel, became musicians of 
 marked ability. Half a dozen other sons became 
 musicians also, but the two named above made some 
 valuable additions to the music fund of the world. 
 Haydn has paid personal tribute to Emmanuel Bach, 
 acknowledging his obligation, and expressing to him the 
 belief that he was a greater man than his father. 
 The nine years Bach spent at Weimar, under the 
 patronage of the Duke Wilhelm Ernest, were years rich 
 
 155 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 in results. His ofl&ce was that of Concert Master, and 
 Leader of the Choir at Ducal Chap>el. TTie duties not 
 being very exacting, he had plenty of time to foster his 
 bent. Freed from all apprehension along the line of the 
 bread-and-butter question he devoted himself untiringly 
 to his work. It was here he developed that style of 
 fingering that was to be followed by the players on the 
 harpsichord, and which further serves as the basis for 
 our present manner of piano-playing. Bach was the 
 first man to make use of the thumb in organ-playing, 
 and I believe it was James Huneker who once said that 
 " Bach discovered the human hand." 
 Bach made a complete study of the mechanism of the 
 organ, invented various arrangements for the better 
 use of the pedals, and gave his ideas without stint to 
 the makers, who, it seems, were glad to profit by them. 
 Even then Weimar was a place of pilgrimage, although 
 Goethe had not yet come to illumine it with his presence. 
 But the traditions of Weimar have been musical and 
 artistic for four hundred years, and this had its weight 
 with Goethe when he decided to make it his home 58 
 In Bach's day, pilgrims from afar used to come to attend 
 the musical festivals given by the Duke of Saxe- Weimar ; 
 and these pilgrims would go home and spread the name 
 of Johann Sebastian Bach. Many invitations used to 
 come for him to go and play at the installation of a new 
 organ, or to superintend the construction of an organ, or 
 to lead a chorus. Gradually his fame grew, and although 
 156 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 he might have lived his life and ended his days there in 
 the rural and peaceful quiet of Weimar, yet he harkened 
 to the voice and arose and went forth with his family 
 into a place that afforded a wider scope for his powers. 
 ^ As Kapellmeister to the Court at Kothen he had the 
 direction of a large orchestra, and it seems also super- 
 vised a school of music. 
 
 When the Court moved about from place to place it was 
 the custom to take the orchestra, too, in order to reveal 
 to the natives along the way what good music really 
 was. This was all quite on the order of the Duke of 
 Mantua, who used to travel with a retinue of two hun- 
 dred servants and attendants. 
 
 On one such occasion the Kothen Court went to Carls- 
 bad. The visit extended itself to six months, when Bach 
 became impatient to return to his family, and was 
 allowed to go in advance of the rest of the company. On 
 reaching home he found his wife had died and been 
 buried several weeks before. 
 
 It was a severe shock to the poor man, but fortunately 
 there was more philosophy to his nature than romance, 
 which is a marked trait in the German character. All 
 this is plainly evidenced by the fact that in many 
 German churches when a good wife dies, the pastor, at 
 the funeral, as the best friend of the stricken husband, 
 casts his eyes over the congregation for a suitable 
 successor to the deceased. And very often the funeral 
 baked meats do coldly furnish forth the marriage feast. 
 
 157 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 Man is made to mourn, but most widowers say but a 
 year 5S 5S 
 
 The prompt second marriage of Bach was certainly a 
 compliment to the memory of his first wife, who was a 
 most amiable helpmeet and friend. No soft sentiment 
 disturbed the deep immersement of this man in his work. 
 He was as businesslike a man as Ralph Waldo Emerson, 
 who arranged his second marriage by correspondence, 
 and then drove over in a buggy one afternoon to bring 
 home the promised bride, making notes by the way on 
 the Over-Soul and man's place in the Universal 
 Cosmos SS 53 
 
 Events proved the wisdom of Johann Sebastian Bach's 
 choice. His first wife filled his heart, but this one was not 
 only to do as much, but often to guide his hand and 
 brain. He was thirty-eight with a brood of nine. Anna 
 Magdalena was twenty-three, strong, fancy-free, and by 
 a dozen, lacking one, w£is to increeise the limit. 
 As the years went by. Bach occeisionally would arise in 
 public places, and with uncovered head thank God for 
 the blessings He had bestowed upon him, especially in 
 sending him such a wife. 
 
 Anna Magdalena Wulken was a singer of merit, a player 
 on the harp, and a person of education. She certainly had 
 no seraglio notions of wanting to be petted and pam- 
 pered and taken care of, or she would not have eissumed 
 the office of stepmother to that big family and married a 
 poor man. Bach never had time to make money. Very 
 158 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 soon after their marriage Bach began to dictate music to 
 his wife, A great many pieces can be seen in Leipzig and 
 Berlin copied out in her fine, painstaking hand, with an 
 occasional interUning by the Master. Other pieces 
 written by him are amended by her, showing plainly 
 that they worked together. 
 
 As proof that this was no honeymoon whim, the col- 
 laboration continued for over a score of years, in spite of 
 increasing domestic responsibilities. 
 From Kothen, Bach was called to Leipzig and electedby 
 the municipal authorities the Musical Director and 
 Cantor of the Thomas School. For twenty-seven years 
 he labored here, doing the work he liked best, and doing 
 it in his own way. He escaped the pitfalls of petty 
 jealousies, into which most men of artistic natures fall, 
 by rising above them all. He accepted no insults; he had 
 no grievances against either man or fate; earnest, 
 religious, simple — he filled the days with useful effort. 
 ^ He was so well poised that when summoned by 
 Frederick the Great to come and play before him, 
 he took a year to finish certain work he had on hand 
 before he went. Then he would have forgotten the 
 engagement, had not his son, who was Chamber 
 Musician to the King, insisted that he come. In the 
 presence of Frederick it was the King who was abashed, 
 not he. He knew his kinship to Divinity so well that he 
 did not even think to assert it. And surely he was one 
 fit to stand in the presence of kings. 
 
 159 
 
SEBASTIAN BACH 
 
 For number, variety and excellence, only two men can 
 be nsuned as his competitors: these are Mozart and 
 Handel. But in point of performance, simplicity and 
 sterling manhood. Bach stands alone. 
 
 160 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
The correspondence of Goethe and Zelter displeases me. 
 I always feel out of sorts when I have been reading it. 
 Do you know that I am making great strides in water- 
 colors? Schirmer comes to me every Saturday at eleven, 
 and paints for two hours at a landscape, which he is 
 going to make me a present of, because the subject 
 occurred to him whilst I was playing the little " Flivu- 
 let " (which you know). It represents a fellow who 
 saunters out of a dark forest into a sunny little nook; 
 trees all about, with stems thick and thin; one has 
 fallen across the rivulet; the ground is carpeted with 
 soft, deep moss, full of ferns; there are stones garlanded 
 with blackberry-bushes; it is fine warm weather; the 
 whole will be charming. 
 
 — Mendeissohn to Devrient 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 HIRTY-EIGHT years is not a long 
 life, but still it is long enough to do 
 great things. Felix Mendelssohn- 
 Bartholdy was born in the year 
 Eighteen Hundred Nine, at Ham- 
 burg, and died at Leipzig in the year 
 Eighteen Hundred Forty-seven. His 
 career was a triumphal march. TTie 
 road to success with him was no zigzag journey — from 
 the first he went straight to the front. Whether as a 
 baby he crowed in key, and cried to a one-two-three 
 melody, as his old nurse used to aver, is a little doubtful, 
 possibly. But all agree that he was the most precocious 
 musical genius that ever lived, excepting Mozart; and 
 Goethe, who knew them both, declared that Mendels- 
 sohn's music bore the same relationship to Mozart's as 
 the talk of a grown-up cultured person to the prattle of 
 a child 53 SS 
 
 But then Goethe was not a musician, and sixty years 
 had peissed from the time Goethe saw Mozart before he 
 met Mendelssohn. Goethe loved the brown-curled 
 Jewish boy at sight; and whether on meeting Mozart 
 he ever recovered from the taint of prejudice that most 
 people feel when a prodigy is introduced, is a question. 
 f But who can wonder that the old poet's heart went 
 out to the youthful Mendelssohn as soon as he saw him! 
 
 163 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 He was a being to fill a poet's dream — such a youth as 
 the Old Masters used to picture as the Christ when He 
 confounded the wise men. And then the painters posed 
 this same type of boy as Daniel in the lions' den; and 
 back in the days of Pericles, the Greeks were fond of 
 showing the beautiful youth, just approaching adoles- 
 cence, in the nude, as the god of Love. When the face 
 has all the soft beauty of a woman, and the figure, slight, 
 slender, lithe and graceful, carries only a suggestion of 
 the masculine strength to come — then beauty is at 
 perihelion. The " Eros " of Phidias was not the helpless, 
 dumpy cherub " Cupid " — ^he was a slender-limbed boy 
 of twelve years who showed collar-bone and revealed 
 every rib. 
 
 Beauty and strength of the highest type are never 
 complete — their lure lies in a certain reserve, and 
 behind all is a suggestion of unfoldment. Maturity is not 
 the acme of beauty, because in maturity there is nothing 
 more to hope for — only the uncompleted fills the heart, 
 for from it we construct the Ideal. 
 Goethe looked out of his window and seeing Felix 
 Mendelssohn plasdng with the children, exclaimed to 
 Zelter, "He is a Greek god in the germ, and I here 
 solemnly protest against his wearing clothes." 
 TTie words sound singularly like the remark of Doctor 
 Schneider, made ten years later, when Herr Doctor 
 removed the sheet that' covered the dead body of 
 Goethe, and gazing upon the fulUrounded limbs, the 
 164 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 mighty chest, the columnar neck and the Jove-like head, 
 exclaimed, " It is the body of a Greek god! " And the 
 surgeons stood there in silent awe, forgetful of their 
 task 5S 5S 
 
 Zelter, who introduced Mendelssohn to Goethe, was a 
 fine old character, nearly as fine a type as Goethe him- 
 self. Heine once said, " Musicians constitute a third 
 sex." And that there have been some unsexed, or at 
 least unmanly men, who were great musicians, need not 
 be denied.' The art of music borders more closely upon 
 the dim and mystic realms of the inspirational than any 
 of the other arts. Music refuses to give up its secrets in a 
 formula and at last eludes the sciolist with his ever- 
 ready theorem. But still, all musicians are not dreamers. 
 Zelter, for instance, wsls a most hard-headed, practical 
 man: a positivist and mathematician with a turn for 
 economics, and a Gradgrind for facts. He was a stone- 
 mason, and worked at his trade at odd times all 
 through his life, just because he felt it was every man's 
 duty to work with his hands. Imagine Tolstoy playing 
 the piano and composing instead of making shoes, and 
 you have Zelter. 
 
 This curious character was bound to the Mendelssohn 
 family by his love for Moses Mendelssohn, the grand- 
 father of Felix. Moses Mendel added the " sohn " in 
 loving recognition of his father, just as " Bartholdy " 
 was added by the father of Felix in loving token to his 
 wife. It was the grandfather of Felix who first gave 
 
 165 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 glory to the name. We sometimes forget that Moses 
 Mendelssohn was one of the greatest thinkers Germany 
 has produced — the man who summed up in his own 
 head all the philosophy of the time and gave Spinoza to 
 the world. This was the man to whom the erratic Zelter 
 was bound in admiration, and when it was suggested 
 that he teach musical composition to the grandchild of 
 his idol, he accepted the post with zest. 
 But there came a shade of disappointment to the grim 
 and bearded Zelter when he failed to find a trace of 
 resemblance between the child and the child's grand- 
 father. The boy was sprightly, emotional, loving; and 
 could play the piano from his tenth year better than 
 Zelter himself. When Goethe teasingly suggested this 
 fact, Zelter replied, " You mean he plays different, not 
 better." Goethe apologized. 
 
 Yet the boy was not a philosopher, and this grieved 
 Zelter, who wanted him to be the grandson of his grand- 
 father, and a musician besides. 
 
 The lad's skill in composition, however, soon turned the 
 old teacher's fears into joy. Such a pupil he had never 
 had before! And he did not reason it out that no one 
 else had ever had, either. The child, like Chopin, read 
 music before he read print, and improvised, merging one 
 tune with another, bringing harmony out of hopeless 
 chaos. Zelter followed, fearing success would turn the 
 boy's head — berating, scolding, chiding, encouraging — 
 and all the time admiring and loving. The pretty boy 
 166 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 was not much frightened by the old man's rough ways, 
 but seized upon such of the instruction as he needed and 
 filled in the rest with his own peerless soul. 
 The parents were astounded at such progress. At first 
 they had wished merely to round out the boy's education 
 with a proper amount of musical instruction, and now 
 they reluctantly allowed the old teacher to have his 
 way — the lad must make his career a musical one. The 
 boy composed a cantata, which was given in the parlors 
 of his parents' home, with an orchestra secured for the 
 occasion. Felix stood on a chair and led his band of 
 musicians with that solemn dignity which was his 
 through life. Zelter grumbled, ridiculed and criticized — 
 that was the way he showed his interest. The old 
 musician declared they were making a " Miss Nancy " 
 of his pupil — saturating him with flattery, and he 
 threatened to resign his office — most certainly not 
 intending to do so. 
 
 It was about this time that Zelter threw out the hint 
 that he was going down to Weimar to see his friend 
 Goethe — ^would Felix like to go? Felix would be 
 delighted, and when the boy's father and mother were 
 interviewed, they were pleased, too, at the prospect of 
 their boy's making the acquaintance of the greatest poet 
 of Germany. Felix was duly cautioned about how he 
 should conduct himself. He promised, of course, and also 
 agreed to write a letter home every day, recording the 
 exact language that the author of " Werther " used in 
 
 167 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 his presence. ^ Goethe and the Carlylian Zelter had 
 been cronies for many years. The poet delighted in the 
 company of the gruif old stone-mason musician, and 
 together they laughed at the world over their pipes 
 and mugs. And sometimes, alas, they hotly argued 
 and raised their voices in donner-und-blitzen style, as 
 Germans have been known to do. Yet they were friends, 
 and the honest Zelter's yearly visits were as a godsend 
 to the old poet, who was often p>estered to distraction by 
 visitors who only voiced the conventional, the inconse- 
 quential and absurd. Here was a man who tried his steel. 
 ^ Now, Zelter had his theories about teaching harmony 
 — theories too finely spun for any one but himself to 
 grasp. Possibly he himself did not seize them very 
 firmly, but only argued them in a vain attempt to clear 
 the matter up in his own mind. The things we are not 
 quite sure of are those upon which we insist. 
 Goethe had pooh-poohed and smitten the table with his 
 " stein " in denial. 
 
 And now Zelter, the frank and bold, stealthily and by 
 concocted plot and plan took his pupil, Felix Mendels- 
 sohn, with him on a visit to Weimar. He wanted to 
 confound his antagonist and to reveal by actual proof 
 the success that could be achieved where correct 
 methods of instruction were followed. 
 Jean Jacques had written a novel showing what right 
 theories, properly followed up, could do for his hero. 
 Zelter had done better — he exhibited the youth. 
 168 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 "A girl in boy's clothes, I do believe," said Goethe, with 
 his usual banter, in the evening when a little company 
 had gathered in the parlors. Felix sat on his teacher's 
 knee, with his arms around the old man's neck, girl-like. 
 " Does he play? " continued Goethe, going over and 
 opening the piano. 
 
 " Oh, a little! " answered Zelter indifferently. 
 The ladies insisted — they always had music when 
 Zelter made them a visit. 
 
 " Come, make some noise and awaken the spirits that 
 have so long lain slumbering! " ordered the old poet SS 
 Zelter advanced to the piano and played a stiff, formal 
 little tune of his own. 
 He arose and motioned to Felix. 
 " Play that! " said the teacher. 
 
 Tlie child sat down, and with an impatient little gesture 
 and half-smile at the audience, played the piece exactly 
 as Zelter had played it, with a certain drawling style 
 that was all Zelter's own. It was so funny that the 
 listeners burst into shouts of laughter. But the boy 
 instantly restored order by striking the bass a strong 
 stroke with both hands, running the scale, and weaving 
 that simple little air into the most curious variations Si 
 For ten minutes he played, bringing in Zelter's little 
 tune again and again, and then 2^1ter in a voice of 
 pretended wrath cried, " Cease that tin-pan drumming 
 and play something worth while." 
 Goethe arose, stroked the boy's pretty brown curls, 
 
 169 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 kissed him on the forehead and said: " Yes, play some- 
 thing worth while. I know you two rogues — you have 
 been practising on that piece for a year or more, and now 
 you pretend to be improvising — I '11 see whether you 
 can play! " 
 
 And going to a portfolio he took out a manuscript piece 
 of music written out in the fine, delicate hand of 
 Mozart, and placed it on the music-rack of the piano. 
 Felix played the piece as if it were his own; and then 
 laying it aside, went back and played it through from 
 memory 33 53 
 
 Then piece after piece was brought out for him to play, 
 and Zelter leaned back and by his manner said, " Oh, 
 it is nothing! " 
 
 And certainly it was nothing to the boy — he played with 
 such ease that his talent was quite unknown to himself. 
 He had not yet discovered that every one could not 
 produce music just as they could talk. 
 Goethe's admiration for the boy was unbounded. The 
 two weeks of Mendelssohn's prescribed visit had expired 
 and Goethe begged for an extension of two weeks more. 
 Every evening there was the little impromptu concert. 
 After that Felix paid various visits to Weimar. Goethe's 
 house was his home, and the affection between the old 
 poet and the young musician was very gentle and very 
 firm. " All souls are of one age," says Swedenborg. 
 Goethe was seventy-three and Mendelssohn thirteen 
 when they first met, but very soon they were as equals — 
 170 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 boys together. ^ Goethe was a learner to the day of his 
 passing: he wanted to know. In the presence of those 
 who had followed certain themes further than he had, 
 he was as an eager, curious child. When Goethe was 
 seventy-eight and. Mendelssohn eighteen, they spent 
 another month together; and a regular program of 
 instruction was laid out. Each morning at precisely nine, 
 they met for the poet's " music lesson," as Goethe called 
 it, and the boy would play from some certain composer, 
 showing the man's peculiar style, and the features that 
 dijfferentiated him from others. Goethe himself has 
 recorded in his correspondence that it was Felix Men- 
 delssohn who taught him of Hengstenberg and Spontini, 
 introduced him to Hegel's "i^sthetics," and revealed 
 to him for the first time the wonders of Beethoven SS 
 Can you not close your eyes and see them — the mighty 
 giant of fourscore, with his whitened locks, and the 
 slight, slender, handsome boy? 
 
 The old man is seated in his armchair near the window 
 that opens on the garden. The youth is at the piano and 
 plays from time to time to illustrate his thought, then 
 turns and talks, and the old man nods in recognition. 
 The boy sings and the old man chords in with a deep, 
 mellow bass which the years have not subdued. 
 When there are others present these two may romp, 
 joke and talk much — masking their hearts by frivolity — 
 but together they sit in silence, or speak only in lowered 
 voices as all true lovers always do. Their conversation is 
 
 171 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 sparse and to the point; each is mindful of the dignity 
 and worth that the other possesses: each recognizes the 
 respect that is due to the mind that knows and the 
 heart that feels. "All souls are of one age." 
 
 172 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 ITH one exception. Felix Mendelssohn wzis 
 unlike all the great composers who lived 
 before him — ^he was born in affluence; during 
 his life all the money he could use was his. 
 No struggle for recognition marked his growth. He 
 never knew the pang of being misunderstood by the 
 pubHc he sought to serve. Whether these things were to 
 his lasting disadvantage, ecs many aver, will forever 
 remain a question of opinion. 
 
 Felix Mendelssohn was the culminating flower of a long 
 line of exquisite culture. He was an orchid that does not 
 reproduce itself. With him died the race. All that 
 beauty of soul, vivacity, candor and sparkling gaiety, 
 with the nerved-up capacity for work, were but the 
 flaring up of life ere it goes out in the night of death. 
 Such men never found either a race or a school. They 
 are the comets that dstsh across the plane of our vision, 
 obeying no orbit, leaving behind only a memory of 
 blinding light. 
 
 The character of Mendelssohn was distinctly feminine, 
 and it follows that his music should be played by men 
 and not by women, otherwise we get a suggestion of 
 softness and tameness that is apt to pall. Man, like 
 Deity, creates in his own image. 
 Sorrow had never pierced the heart of this prosperous 
 and very respectable person. 
 
 He wsis never guilty of indiscretion or excess, and no 
 demon of discontent haunted his dreams. 
 
 173 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 In Mendelssohn's music we get no sense of Titanic 
 power such £is we feel when " Wagner " is being played; 
 no world problems vex us. The delicate, plaintive, 
 spiritual seductions of Chopin, who swept the keys with 
 an insinuating gossamer touch, are not there. The 
 brilliant extravaganzas of Liszt — ^passages illumined by 
 living lightning — are wholly wanting. But in it all you 
 feel the deep, meeisured pulse of a religious conviction 
 that never halts nor doubts. There are grace, ease, 
 beauty, sweetness and exquisite harmony everj^where. 
 In the " Saint Paul," as in his other oratorios, are such 
 arias for the contralto as, " But the Lord is mindful of 
 His own "; for the bass, " God have mercy upon us," 
 arid for the tenor, " Be thou faithful unto death." TTiese 
 reveal pure and exalted melody of highest type. It 
 uplifts but does not intoxicate. Spontaneity is sacrificed 
 to perfection, and the lack of self-eissertion allows us to 
 keep our wits and admire sanely. 
 
 Heinrich Heine, the pagan Jew, once taunted Mendels- 
 sohn with being a Jew and yet conducting a " Passion 
 Play." The gibe was a home-thrust and a cruel one, 
 since Mendelssohn had neither the wit nor the mental 
 acuteness to avoid the pink of the man who was hated 
 by Jew and Christian alike. Towards the exiled Heine, 
 Mendelssohn had only a patronizing pity — " Why 
 should any man offend the people in power? " he once 
 asked 5S 53 
 
 Only the exiled can sympathize with the exile — only 
 174 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 the downtrodden and the sore-oppressed understand the 
 outcast. Golgotha never came to Mendelssohn, and this 
 was at once his blessing and his misfortune. 
 And the grim fact still remains that world-poets have 
 never been " respectable," and that the saviors of the 
 world are usually crucified between thieves. 
 In life Mendelssohn received every token of approba- 
 tion that men can pay to other men. For him wealth 
 waited, kings uncovered, laurel bloomed and blossomed, 
 and love crowned all. His popularity was greater than 
 ■ that of any other man of his time. He had no enemies, 
 no detractors, no rivals — his pathway was literally and 
 poetically strewn with roses. What more can any man 
 desire? Leisting fame and a name that never dies? 
 Avaunt! but first know this, that immortality is reserved 
 alone for those who have been despised and rejected of 
 men. 
 
 175 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 lAINTSHIP is the exclusive possession of those 
 who have either worn out, or never had, the 
 capacity to sin. 
 
 Fortunately for Felix Mendelssohn he never 
 had it — he was ever the bright, joyous, gracious, beauti- 
 ful being that all his friends describe, and every one who 
 met him was his friend thereafter. The character of "Se- 
 raphael" in the novel of "Charles Auchester," by Miss 
 Sheppard, portrays Mendelssohn in a glowing, seraphic 
 light. The bookreveals the emotionalqualitiesof awoman 
 given over to her idol, and yet the man is Mendelssohn ■ 
 — ^he was equal to the best that could be said of him 5S 
 The weakness of Miss Sheppard's book lies in the fact 
 that she is so true to life that we tire of the goodness and 
 beauty, and long for a rogue to keep us company and 
 break the pall of a sweetness that cloys. 
 The bitterest thing Mendelssohn ever said of a public 
 performer was to describe a certain prima donna as 
 acting like an " arrogant cook." All the good orchestra 
 leaders are supposed to have fine fits of frenzy when they 
 tear their hair in wrath at the discordant braying of 
 careless players. But Mendelssohn never lost his temper. 
 When his men played well, as soon as the piece was done 
 he went among them shaking hands, congratulating and 
 thanking them. This would have been a great stroke of 
 policy in the eyes of a groundling, for the action never 
 failed to catch the audience, and then the applause wsis 
 uproarious. At such times Mendelssohn seemed to fail 
 176 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 in knowing the applause was for him, and appeared as 
 one half-djized or embarrassed, when suddenly remem- 
 bering where he was, he would seize the nearest 'cello, 
 violin or oboe, and drag the astonished man to the front 
 to share the honors and bouquets. If this was artistry 
 it was of a high order and should be ranked as art. 
 I once heard Henry Irving make a speech at Harvard 
 University, and shall never forget the tremor in his ' 
 voice and the half-embarrassment of his manner. What 
 could have been more complimentary to college strip- 
 lings? And then, as usual, he looked helplessly about for 
 Ellen Terry, and having located her, held out his hand 
 toward her and led her to the front to receive the homage. 
 ^ Tears filled my eyes. Was Irving's action art? Ods- 
 bodldns! I never thought of it: I was hypnotized and all 
 swallowed up in loving admiration for Sir Henry and the 
 beautiful Lady Ellen. 
 
 Felix Mendelssohn was beloved by his players. First, 
 because he never wrote parts that only seraphs of light 
 could play. In this he was unlike Wagner, who could 
 think such music as no brass, no wood nor strings could 
 perform, and so was ever in torments of doubt and dis- 
 appointment. Second, he was always grateful when his 
 players did the best they could. Third, he was graciously 
 polite, even at rehearsals. The extent of his inclination 
 to rebuke was shown once when he abruptly rapped for 
 silence, and when quiet came said to his orchestra: " I 
 am sure that any one of the gentlemen present could 
 
 177 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 write a symphony. I think, too, that you can all 
 improve on the music of the past — even that of Bee- 
 thoven. But this afternoon we are plajdng Beethoven's 
 music — ^will you oblige me? " And every man awoke to 
 the necessity of putting the sweet, subtile, strong 
 quality of the master into the work, instead of absent- 
 mindedly sounding the note, fighting bluebottles, and 
 taking care merely not to get off the key too much SS 
 At the great Birmingham Festival several hundred 
 ladies in the audience contrived at a given signal to 
 shower the great conductor with bouquets. And 
 Mendelssohn, entering into the spirit of the fun, 
 dexterously caught the blossoms and tossed them to his 
 players, not even forgetting the triangles and the boys 
 who played the kettledrums. 
 
 Bayard Taylor has described the lustrous brown eyes of 
 Mendelssohn, that seemed to send rays of light into 
 your own: " Such eyes are the possession of men who 
 have seen heavenly visions. Genius shows itself in the 
 eye. Those who looked into the eyes of Sir Walter Scott, 
 Robert Burns or Lord Byron, always came away and 
 told of it as an epoch in their lives. This was what 1 
 thought when I sat vis-a-vis with Felix Mendelssohn 
 and looked into his eyes. I did not hear his voice, for 1 
 was too intent on gazing into the fathomless depths of 
 those splendid eyes — eyes that mirrored infinity, eyes 
 that had beheld celestial glory. Little did I think then 
 that in two years those eyes would close forever." S& 
 178 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 N a letter to Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn's sex- 
 quality is finely revealed, when he says that 
 his friends are advising him to marry, and he 
 is on the lookout for a wife. 
 Ye gods! there is something strangely creepy about the 
 thought of a man going out in cold blood to seek a wife. 
 Only two kinds of men search for a wife ; one is the Turk, 
 and the other is his antithesis, who is advised to marry 
 for hygienic, prudential or sociologic reasons. John 
 Ruskin was " advised " to marry and the matter was 
 duly arranged for him. In a week he awoke to the 
 hideousness of the condition. Six years elapsed before 
 John Millais and Chief Justice Coleridge collaborated to 
 set him free, but the cicatrix remained. 
 The great books are those the authors had to write to 
 get rid of; the only immortal songs are those sung 
 because the singers could not help it. The best-loved 
 wife is the woman who married because her lover 
 had to marry her to get rid of her; the children that 
 are born because they had to be are the ones that stock 
 the race; and the love that can not help itself is the only 
 love that uplifts and inspires. 
 
 Felix Mendelssohn, the sUght, joyous, girlish youth, 
 should have preserved his Cecilia-like virginity. He 
 should have left marriage to those who were capable of 
 nothing else ; this would not have meant that he turn 
 ascetic, for the ascetic is a voluptuary in disguise. He 
 should simply have been married to his work. The 
 
 179 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 wonder is, though, that once the thought of marriage 
 was forced upon him, he did not marry a Hittite who 
 delighted in pork-chops and tomato-sauce, ordered 
 Guinness Stout in pubHc places, and disciplined him as 
 a genius should be disciplined. 
 
 Fate was kind, however, and the lady of his choice was 
 nearly as esthetic in face and form, as gentle and 
 spirituelle as himself. She never humiliated him by 
 cackle, nor led him a merry cheise after society's baubles. 
 Her only wish wEis to please him and to do her wifely 
 duty. They pooled their weaknesses, and it need not be 
 stated that this, the only love in the life of Mendelssohn, 
 made not the slightest impress on his art, save to sub- 
 due it. The passing years brought domestic responsi- 
 bilities, and the every-day trials of life chafed his soul, 
 until the wasted body, grown tired before its time, 
 refused to go on, and death set the spirit free. 
 
 180 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 ENDELSSOHN made five visits to England, 
 where his success was even greater than it was 
 at home. He learned to express himself well in 
 English, but always spoke with the precision 
 and care that marks the educated foreigner. So the 
 result was that he spoke really better " English " than 
 the English. The ease with which the Hebrew learns a 
 language has often been noted and commented upon. 
 Mendelssohn preferred German, but was not at a loss 
 to carry on a conversation in French, Italian or Elnglish. 
 ^ His nature was especially cosmopolitan, and like the 
 true aristocrat that he was, he was also a democrat, and 
 at home in any society. 
 
 When he was invited by the Queen to call upon her at 
 Buckingham Palace, he went alone, in his afternoon 
 dress, and sent in his card as every gentleman does 
 when he calls upon a lady. Her Majesty greeted him at 
 the door of her sitting-room, and dismissed the servants. 
 They met as equals. In compliment to her guest 
 Victoria spoke only in German. The Queen, seeing the 
 music-rack was not in order, apologized, womanlike, 
 for the appearance of the room and began to dust things 
 in the usual housewifely fashion. 
 
 Mendelssohn, with that fine grace which never forsook 
 him, assisted her in putting things to rights, and when 
 the piano was opened, he proceeded to carry out two 
 pet parrots, laughingly explaining that if they were to 
 have music, it was well to insure against competition. 
 
 181 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 He sat down at the piano and played, without being 
 asked, and sang a Httle song in EngHsh in graceful but 
 unobtrusive compliment to the hostess. Then the 
 Queen sang in German, he playing the accompaniment. 
 And in his letter to his sister Fanny, telling her of all 
 this, in his easy, gossipy, brotherly way, Felix adds that 
 the Queen has a charming soprano voice, that only 
 needs a little cultivation and practise to make her fit 
 to take the leading part in " Elijah." 
 This was no joke to Felix — ^he only regretted that Queen 
 Victoria's official position was such that she could not 
 spare enough time for music. 
 
 Albert did not appear upon the scene until Mendelssohn 
 had extended his call to an hour, and was just ready to 
 leave. The Prince Consort was too perfect a gentleman 
 to ever obtrude when his wife was entertaining callers, 
 but now he apologized for not knowing the Meister had 
 honored them — which we hope was a white lie. But, 
 anyway, Felix consented to remain and play a few bars 
 of the oratorio they had heard him conduct the night 
 before. Then Albert sang a little, and Victoria insisted 
 on making a cup of tea for the guest before they 
 parted. When he went away, Albert and Victoria both 
 walked with him down the hall, and as he bade them 
 good-by, Victoria spoke the kindly "Auf wiedersehen." 
 ^ In the story of her life, Victoria has in spirit corrobo- 
 rated this account of her meeting with Mendelssohn. 
 She refers to him as her dear friend and the friend of her 
 182 
 
FELIX MENDELSSOHN 
 
 husband, and pays incidentally a gentle tribute to his 
 memory 53 53 
 
 The universal quality of Mendelssohn's knowledge, his 
 fine forbearance and diplomatic skill in leading a con- 
 versation into safe and peaceful waters, were very 
 marked. He was recognized by the King of Sjixony as 
 a king of art, and so was received into the household as 
 an equal; and surely no man ever had a more kingly 
 countenance. His body, however, seemed to lag behind, 
 and was no match for his sublime spirit. But when fired 
 by his position as Conductor, or when at the piano, the 
 slender body was nerved to a point where it seemed all 
 suppleness and sinewy strength. 
 
 In his " Songs Without Words," the spirit of the Master 
 is best shown. There the grace, the gentleness and the 
 sublimity of his soul are best mirrored. And if at twilight 
 you should hear his " On the Wings of Song," played by 
 one who understands, perhaps you will feel his spirit 
 near, and divine the purity, kindliness and excellence 
 of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. 
 
 183 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
Were I to tell you what my feelings were on carefully 
 perusing and reperusing this essay, I could hardly find 
 terms to express myself. Let this suffice : 1 feel more than 
 fully rewarded for my trials, my sacrifices and artistic 
 struggles, on noting the impression I have made on you 
 in particular. To be thus completely understood was my 
 only ambition ; and to have been understood is the most 
 ravishing gratification of my longing. 
 
 — Liszt in a Letter to Wagner 
 

 / ^„ 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 N writing of Liszt there is a strong 
 temptation to work the superlative 
 to its limit. In this instance it is well 
 to overcome temptation by suc- 
 cumbing to it. 
 
 That word "genius" is much ban- 
 died, andof ten used without warrant ; 
 but for those rare beings who leap 
 from the brain of Jove, full-armed, it is the only appella- 
 tion. No finespun theory of pedagogics or heredity can 
 account for the marvelous talent of Franz Liszt — he was 
 one sent from God. 
 
 Yet we find a few fortuitous circumstances that favored 
 his evolution. Possibly, on the other hand, there are 
 those who might say the boy attracted to himself the 
 human elements that he required, and thus worked out 
 his freedom, acquiring that wondrous ability to express 
 his inmost emotions. Art is the beautiful way of doing 
 things. All art is the expression of sublime emotions; and 
 there seems a strong necessity in every soul to impart 
 the joy and the aspiration that it feels. And further, art 
 is for the artist first, just as work is for the worker — it 
 is all just a matter of self -development. And how blessed 
 is it to think that every soul that works out its own 
 freedom gives freedom to others! Liszt is the inspirer of 
 musicians, just as Shakespeare is the inspirer of writers. 
 
 187 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 Strong men make it possible for others to be strong. No 
 man of the century gave the science of music such an 
 impulse for good as this man. To go no further in way of 
 proof, let the truth be stated yet once again, that it was 
 Franz Liszt who threw a rope to the drowning Wagner. 
 ^On October Twenty-second, in the year Eighteen 
 Hundred Eleven, when a man-child was born at the 
 village of Raiding, Hungary, the heavens gave no sign, 
 and no signal-flags nor couriers proclaimed the event, all 
 as had been done a week before when a babe was born 
 to the Prince and Princess Esterhazy at the same place. 
 Now the child born last was the son of obscure parents, 
 the father being an underling secretary of the Prince, 
 known as Liszt. The child was very weak and frail, and 
 for some months it was thought hardly possible it could 
 live; but Destiny decreed that the boy should not 
 perish 5S 52 
 
 TTie first recollections of Liszt take in, in a happy view, 
 four men playing cards at a square table. One of these 
 men was the boy's father, another was Mein Herr 
 Joseph Haydn, and the other two players are lost in the 
 fog of obscurity. Did they ever know what a wonderful 
 game they played, as little Franz Liszt, sitting on a 
 comer of the table, listened to their talk and admired the 
 buttons on the coat of the Kappellmeister? After the 
 card-game Haydn sat at the piano and played, and the 
 boy, just three years old, thought he could do that, too. 
 Then there was another Kappellmeister in the employ of 
 188 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 Prince Nicholas Elsterhazy at Eisenstadt, and his name 
 was Hummel. He was a pupil of Mozart, and used to tell 
 of it quite often when he came up to Raiding on little 
 visits, after the wine had been sampled. Liszt the Elder 
 used to help Hummel straighten out his accounts, and 
 where went Uszt the Elder, there, too, went little Franz 
 Liszt, who was n't very strong and banked on it, and 
 had to be babied. And so little Franz became acquainted 
 with Hummel and used to sit on his knee at the piano, 
 and together they played funny duets that set the 
 company in a roar — two tunes at a time, harmonious 
 discords and counterpoint, such as no one ever heard 
 before, or since. 
 
 At this time there was no piano at the Liszt cottage, but 
 the boy learned to play at the neighbors', and practised 
 at the palace of the Prince. His father and mother once 
 took him there to hear Hummel. On this occasion 
 Hummel played the Concerto by Reis in C minor. At the 
 close of the performance, little Franz climbed up on the 
 piano-stool and very solemnly played the same thing 
 himself, to the immense delight of the listeners. 
 The father of Liszt has recorded that at this time the 
 child was but three years old, but after taking off 
 the proper per cent for the pride of a fond parent, the 
 probabilities are the boy wsis five. This is the better 
 attested when we remember that it was only a few weeks 
 later that, on the request of Prince Esterhazy, the boy 
 played at a concert in Oedenburg. 
 
 189 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 This launched the boy on that public career which was 
 to continue for just seventy years. There is good evi- 
 dence that the boy could read music before he could read 
 writing, and that he threw into his playing such feeling 
 and expression as Ferdinand Reis, who merely imitated 
 his master, Beethoven, had never anticipated. That is 
 to say, when he played " Reis," he improved on him, 
 with variations all his own — attempts often made with 
 the work of great composers, but which incur risks not 
 advised S& Si 
 
 It will be seen that Liszt, although born in poverty, was 
 from the very first in a distinctly musical environment. 
 He could not remember a time when he did not attend 
 the band-concerts — his parents wanted to go, and took 
 the baby because there were no servants to take charge 
 of him at home. Music was in the air, and everybody 
 discussed it, just as in Italy you may hear the beggars 
 in the streets criticizing art. 
 
 The delightful insouciance of this child-pianist won the 
 heart of every hearer, and his success quite turned the 
 head of his father, the worthy bookkeeper. 
 To give the child the advantages of an education was 
 now his parents' one ambition. Having no money of his 
 own, the father importuned his employer, the Prince, 
 who rather smiled at the thought of spending time and 
 money on such an elfin-like child. His playing was, of 
 course, phenomenal, unaccountable, a sort of bursting 
 out of the sun's rays, and, like the rainbow, a thing not 
 190 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 to be seized upon and kept. It was mere precocity, and 
 precocity is a rareripe fruit, with a worm at the core. 
 This discouragement of the over-ambitious father was 
 probably wise, for it gave the boy a chance to play 
 I-Spy and leapfrog in the streets of the village, and to 
 roam the fields. The lad became strong and well, and 
 when ten years of age he had grown into a handsome 
 youngster with already those marks of will and purpose 
 on his beautiful face that were to be his credentials to 
 place and power. 
 
 He had often played at concerts in the towns and vil- 
 lages about, and when there were visitors at the palace 
 this fine, slim son of the bookkeeper was sent for to 
 entertain them. 
 
 This attention kept ambition alive in the hearts of his 
 parents, and after many misgivings they decided to 
 heizard all and move to Vienna to give their boy the 
 opportunities they felt he deserved. 
 The entire household effects being sold, the bookkeeper 
 found he had nearly six hundred francs — one hundred 
 fifty dollars. To this amount Prince Esterhazy added 
 fifty dollars, and Hummel gave his mite, and with 
 tears of regret at breaking up the home-nest, but with 
 high hope, flavored by chill intervals of fear, the father, 
 mother and boy started for Vienna. 
 Arriving in that city the distinguished Carl Czerny, 
 pupil of Beethoven, was importuned to take the lad. 
 Only the letter from Hummel secured the boy an 
 
 191 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 audience, for Czerny was already overburdened with 
 pupils. But when he had listened to the lad's playing, he 
 consented to take him as a pupil, merely saying that he 
 showed a certain degree of promise. It is sternly true 
 that Czerny did not fully come into the Liszt faith until 
 after that concert of April Thirteenth, Elighteen Hun- 
 dred Twenty-three, when Beethoven, ripe with years, 
 crowded his way to the front and kissed the player on 
 both cheeks, calling him " my son." Such a greeting 
 from the great Master spoke volumes when we consider 
 the lifelong aversion that Beethoven held toward 
 " prodigies," and his disinclination to attend all con- 
 certs but his own. 
 
 And thus did Franz Liszt begin his professional pilgrim- 
 age, consecrated by the kiss of the Master. 
 Paris was the next step — to Paris,- the musical and 
 artistic center of the world. To win in Paris meant fame 
 and fortune wherever he wished to exhibit his powers. 
 The way the name "of Franz Liszt swept through the 
 fashionable salons of Paris is too well known to recount. 
 Scarcely thirteen years of age, he played the most 
 difficult pieces with peculiar precision and power. And 
 his simple, boyish, unaffected manner — ^his total lack 
 of self-consciousness — ^won him the affection of every 
 mother-heart. He was fondled, feted, caressed, and took 
 it all as a matter of course. He had not yet reached the 
 age of indiscretion. 
 
 192 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 USIC is a secondary sexual manifestation, just 
 as are the songs of birds, their gay and gaudy 
 plumage, the color and perfume of flowers 
 that so delight us, and the luscious fruits that 
 nourish us — all is sex. And then, do you not remember 
 that expression of Renan's, " The unconscious coquetry 
 of the flowers" ? Without love there would be no poetry 
 and no music. All the manifest beauty of earth is only 
 Nature's nuptial decoration. 
 
 James Huneker, not always judicious, but a trifle more 
 judicied than others that might be named, declares that 
 two women, making a simultaneous attack upon the 
 great composer, caused him to cut for sanctuary, and 
 hence we have the Abbe Liszt, thus proving again that 
 love and religion are twin sisters. 
 
 The old-time biographers can eeisily be placed in two 
 classes: those who sought to pillory their man, and those 
 who sought to protect him. Neither one told the truth; 
 but each gave a picture, more or less blurred, of a being 
 conjured forth from their own inner consciousness. 
 Franz Liszt was naturalized in the Faubourg Saint 
 Germain. It was here that he was first hailed as the 
 infant prodigy, and proud ladies, at his performances, 
 pressed to the front and struggled for the privilege of 
 imprinting on his fair forehead a chaste and motherly 
 kiss Si 5S 
 
 193 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 IGHT years had passed: years of work and 
 travel and constant growing fame. The youth 
 had grown into a man, and his return to the 
 scene of his former triumphs was the signal 
 for a regathering of the clans to note his progress — or 
 decline. The verdict was that from " Le Petit Prodige," 
 he had evolved into something far more interesting — 
 "Le Grand Prodige." Tall, handsome, strong, and with 
 a becoming diffidence and a half -shy manner, his name 
 went abroad, and he became the rage of the salons. His 
 marvelous playing told of his hopes, longings, fears and 
 aspirations — ^proud, melancholy, imploring, sad, sullen 
 — ^his tones told all. 
 
 Fair votaries followed him from one performance to 
 another. Leaving out of the equation such mild incidents 
 as the friendship for George Sand, which began with a 
 brave avowal of platonics, and speedily drifted into 
 something more complex; also the equally interesting 
 incident of his being invited to visit the Chateau of the 
 lovely Adele Laprunarede, and the Alpine winter catch- 
 ing the couple and holding them willing captives for 
 three months, blocked there in a castle, with nothing 
 worse than a conscience and an elderly husband to 
 appease, we reach the one, supreme love-passion in the 
 life of Liszt. The Countess d'Agoult is worthy of much 
 more than a passing note. 
 
 At twenty years of age she had been married to a man 
 twenty-one years her senior. It was a " mariage de 
 194 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 convenance" — arranged by her parents and a notary 
 in a powdered wig. It is somewhat curious to find how 
 many great women have contracted jiist such mar- 
 riages. Grim disillusionment following, true love holding 
 nothing in store for them, they turn to books, politics 
 or art, and endeavor to stifle their woman's nature with 
 the husks of philosophy. 
 
 Gjunt d'Agoult was a hard-headed man of affairs — 
 stern, sensible and reasonably amiable — that is to say, 
 he never smashed the furniture, nor beat his wife. She 
 submitted to his will, and all the fine, girlish, bubbling 
 qualities of her mind and soul were soon held in check 
 through that law of self-protection which causes a 
 woman to give herself unreservedly only to the One who 
 Understands. Yet the Countess was not miserable — only 
 at rare intervals did there come moods of a sort of 
 dread longing, homesickness and unrest; but calm 
 philosophy soon put these moods to rout. She had 
 focused her mind on sociology and had written a short 
 history of the Revolution, a volume that yet commands 
 the respect of students. At intervals she read her 
 essays aloud to invited guests. She studied art, delved 
 a little in music, became acquainted with the leading 
 thinking men and women of her time, and opened 
 her salon for their entertainment. 
 
 Three children had been born to her in six years. 
 Maternity is a very necessary part of every good 
 woman's education — " this woman's flesh demands its 
 
 195 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 natural pains," says a great writer in a certain play. 
 A staid, sensible woman was the Countess d'Agoult — 
 tall, handsome, graceful, and with a flavor of melancholy, 
 reserve and disinterestedness in her make-up that made 
 her friendship sought by men of maturity. She talked 
 but little, and won through the fine art of listening 53 
 She was neither happy nor unhappy, and if the gaiety 
 of girlhood had given way to subdued philosophy, there 
 were still wit, smiles and gentle irony to take the place 
 of laughter. "Life," she said, "consists in molting one's 
 illusions." 5S 5S 
 
 The Countess was twenty-nine years of age when " Le 
 Grand Prodige," aged twenty-three, arrived in Paris, 
 She had known him when he was " Le Petit Prodige " — 
 when she was a girl with dreams and he but a child. She 
 wished to see how he had changed, and so went to hear 
 him play. He was insincere, affected and artificial, she 
 said — his mannerisms absurd and his playing acrobatic. 
 At the next concert where he played she sought him out 
 and half -laughingly told him her opinion of his work. He 
 gravely thanked her, with his hand upon his heart, and 
 said that such honesty and frankness were refreshing. 
 After the concert Liszt remembered this woman — she 
 was the only one he did remember — she had made her 
 impression SS SS 
 He did not like her. 
 
 Soon Liszt was invited to the salon of the Countess 
 d'Agoult, and he, the plebeian, proudly repulsed the 
 196 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 fair aristocrat when her attentions took on the note of 
 patronage. They mildly tiffed — a very good way to 
 begin a friendship, once said Chateaubriand. 
 The feminine qualities in the heart of Liszt made a lure 
 of the person who dared affront him. He needed the 
 flint on which his mind could strike fire — nothing is so 
 depressing as continual, mushy adulation. He sought out 
 the Gjuntess, and together they traversed the border- 
 land of metaphysics, and surveyed, as the days passed, 
 all that intellectual realm which the dawn of the 
 Twentieth Century thinks it has just discovered. 
 She taunted him into a defense of George Sand, who 
 had but recently returned from her escapade to Venice 
 with Alfred de Musset. Liszt defended the author of 
 " Leone Leoni," and read to the Countess from her 
 books to prove his case. 
 
 When haughty, proud and religious ladies mix mentali- 
 ties with sensitive youths of twenty-four, the danger-line 
 is being approached. The Grand Passions that live in 
 history, such as that of Abelard and Heloise, Petrarch 
 and Laura, Dante and Beatrice, swing in their orbit 
 around world-weariness. Love does not concern itself 
 with this earth alone — it demands a universe for its free 
 expression. And the only woman who is capable of the 
 Grand Passion — who stakes all on one throw of the 
 dice — ^is the melancholy woman, with this fine, religious 
 reserve. No one suspected the Countess d'Agoult of in- 
 discretion — she was too cold and self-contained for that! 
 
 197 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 And so is the world deceived by the Eternal Paradox of 
 things — that law of antithesis which makes opposites 
 look alike. Beneath the calm dignity of matronly 
 demeanor the fires of love were banked. Probably even 
 the Gauntess herself did not know of the volcano that 
 was smoldering in her heart. But there came a day 
 when the flames burst forth, and all the reserve, poise, 
 quiet dignity, caution and discretion were dissolved 
 into nothingness in love's alembic. 
 Poor Franz Liszt! 
 Poor Countess d'Agoult! 
 
 They were powerless in the coils of such a passion. It 
 was a mad tumult of wild intoxication, of delicious pain, 
 of burning fears, and vain, tossing unrest. The woman's 
 nature, stifled by its six years of coaxing marital repres- 
 sion, was asserting itself. Liszt did not know that a 
 woman could love like this — neither did the woman. 
 Once they parted, after talking the matter over solemnly 
 and deciding on what was best for both — they parted 
 coldly — ^with a mere touching of the lips in a last 
 good-by 5S SS 
 
 The next week they were together again. 
 Then Liszt fled to the Abbe Lamennais, and in tears 
 sought, at the confessional and in dim retirement, a 
 surcease from the passion that was devouring him. Here 
 was a pivotal point in the life of Liszt, and the Church 
 came near then, claiming him for her own. And such 
 would have been the case, were it not for the fact that 
 198 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 one of the children of the Countess d'Agoult was sick 
 unto death. He knew of the sleepless vigils — the weary 
 watching of the fond mother. 
 
 The child died, and Franz Liszt went to the parent in 
 her bereavement, to offer the solace of religion and bid 
 her a decent, respectful farewell, ere he left Paris forever. 
 He thought grief was a cure for passion, and that in the 
 presence of death, love itself was dumb. How could he 
 understand that, in most strong natures, tears and pain, 
 and hope and love are kin, and that each is in turn the 
 manifestation of a great and welling heart! 
 Liszt stood by the side of the Countess as the grave 
 closed over the body of her firstborn child. And as they 
 stood there, under the darkening sky, her hand went 
 groping blindly for his. She wrote of this, years and 
 years after, when seventy winters had silvered her hair 
 and her steps were feeble — she wrote of this, in her 
 book called, " Souvenirs," and tells how, in that 
 moment of supreme grief, when her life was whitened 
 and purified by the fires of pain, her hand sought his. 
 The deep current of her love swept the ashes of grief 
 away, and she reached blindly for the hands — those 
 wonderful music-making hands of Liszt — that they 
 might support her. And standing there, side by side, as 
 the priest intoned the burial service, he whispered fo 
 her, " Death shall not divide us, nor is eternity long 
 enough to separate thee from me!" 
 
 199 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 r was only a few days after that Liszt left 
 
 Paris — but not for a monastery. He journeyed 
 
 to Switzerland, and stopping at Basle he was 
 
 soon joined by the Countess, her two children, 
 
 and her mother. 
 
 All Paris was set in an uproar by the " abduction." The 
 George Sand school approved and loudly applauded the 
 " eclat "; but it was condemned and execrated by the 
 majority. As for the injured husband, it is said he gave a 
 banquet in honor of the event; his feelings, no doubt, 
 being eased by the fact that the goodly dot his wife had 
 brought him at her marriage was now his exclusive pos- 
 session. He had never gauged her character, ans^way, 
 and he inwardly acknowledged that her mind was of a 
 sort with which he could not parry. 
 And now she had wronged him; yet in his grief he took 
 much satisfaction, and in his martyrdom there was 
 sweet solace. 
 
 The chief blame fell on Liszt, and the accusation that he 
 had " broken up a happy home " came to his ears from 
 many sources. " They blame you and you alone," a 
 friend said to him. 
 
 " Good! good! " said Liszt, " I gladly bear it all." 
 George Sand, plain in feature, quiet in manner, soft and 
 feminine when she wished to be,, yet possessing the mind 
 of a man, went to Switzerland to visit the runaway 
 Liszt and the " Lady Arabella." At first thought, one 
 might suppose that such a visit, after the former 
 200 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 relationship, might have been a trifle embarrassing for 
 both. But the fact that in the interval George Sand had 
 been crunching the soul of Chopin formed an estoppel 
 on the memory of all the soft sentiment that had gone 
 before. George Sand brought her two children, Maurice 
 and Solange, and the " Lady Arabella " had two of her 
 own to keep them company. A little family party was 
 made up, and with a couple of servants and a guide, a 
 little journey was taken through the mountain villages, 
 all in genuine gipsy style. George Sand, who worked up 
 all life, its sensations and emotions, into good copy, has 
 given us an account of the trip, that throws some very 
 interesting side-lights on the dramatis personae. 
 The recounter and her children were all clothed in 
 peasant costume — man-style, with blouses and trou- 
 sers. Gipsy garbs were worn by the servants, and Liszt 
 was arrayed like a mountaineer, and carried a reed pipe, 
 upon which he, from time to time, awoke the echoes. 
 When the dusty, unkempt crew arrived at a village inn, 
 the landlord usually made hot haste to secrete his silver- 
 ware. Once when a sudden rainstorm drove the way- 
 farers into a church, Liszt took his seat at the organ and 
 played — played with such power and feeling that the 
 village priest ran out and called for the neighbors to 
 come quickly, as the Angel Gabriel, in the guise of a 
 mountaineer, wais playing the organ. Anthem, oratorio, 
 and sweet, subtle, soulful improvisation followed, and 
 the villagers knelt, and eyes were filled with tears. 
 
 201 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 George Sand records that she never heard such plajang 
 by the Master before; she herself wept, and yet through 
 her tears she managed to see a few things, and here is one 
 picture which she gives us: " The Lady Arabella sat on 
 the balustrade, swinging one foot, and cast her proud 
 and melancholy gaze over the lower nave, and waited 
 in vain for the celestial voices that were supposed to 
 vibrate in her bosom 5S Her abundant light hair, 
 disheveled by the wind and rain, fell in bewildering 
 disorder, and her eyes, reflecting the finest hue of the 
 firmament, seemed to be wandering over the realm of 
 God's creation after each sigh of the huge organ, played 
 by the divine Liszt. 
 
 This is not what I expected,' said she to me languidly. 
 ^ " 'Ah, that is what you said of the mountain peaks 
 and the glacier, yesterday,' said I." 
 It will be seen, by those who have read between the 
 lines, that George Sand did not much like " the fair 
 Lady Arabella of the wondrous length of limb." In 
 passing, it is well to note, in way of apology for this 
 allusion as to "length of limb," that George Sand was 
 once spoken of by Heine as " a dumpy-duodecimo." 
 It is to be regretted that we have no description of 
 George Sand by the Lady Arabella. 
 Years passed in study and writing, with occasional 
 concert tours, wherein the public flocked to hear the 
 greatest pianist of hiis time. The power, grasp and 
 insight of the man increeised with the years, and 
 202 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 wherever he deigned to play, the public was not slow in 
 giving him that approbation which his masterly work 
 deserved. Liszt was one of the Elect Few who train on. 
 On these short concert trips his wife (for such she must 
 certainly be regarded) seldom accompanied him — this 
 in deference to his wish, and this, it seems, was the first 
 and last and only cause of dissension between them SS 
 The Countess was born for a career and her spirit chafed 
 at the forced retirement in which she lived. 
 Ten years had gone by and three children had been born 
 to her and Liszt. One of these, a boy, died in youth, but 
 one of the daughters became, as we know, the wife of 
 Richard Wagner, and the other daughter married 
 Oliver Emile OUivier, the eminent statesman and man of 
 letters — ^member of the Cabinet in that memorable year, 
 Elighteen Hundred Seventy, when France declared war 
 on Germany. Both of these daughters of Liszt were 
 women of rare mentality and splendid worth, true 
 daughters of their father. 
 
 Position is a pillory; sometimes the populace will pelt 
 you with rose-leaves — at others, with ancient vegetables. 
 Uszt believed that for his wife's peace of mind, and his 
 own, she should not crowd herself too much to the 
 front — ^he feared what the mob might say or do. We 
 ^an not say that she was jealous of his fame, nor he of 
 hers. However, as a writer she was winning her way. 
 But the fateful day came when the wife said, " From 
 this day on I must everywhere stand by your side, your 
 
 203 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 wife and your equal, or we must part." ^ TTiey parted. 
 ^ Liszt made princely provision for her welfare, and the 
 support of their children, as well as those that had come 
 to her before they met. 
 
 She went south to Italy, and he began that most wonder- 
 ful concert tour, where, in Saint Petersburg, sums equal 
 to ten thousand dollars were taken at the door for single 
 entertainments. 
 
 Countess d'Agoult was the respected friend of King 
 Emmanuel, and her salon at Turin weis the meeting- 
 place of such men as Renan, Meyerbeer, Chopin, 
 Berlioz and Rossini. She carried on a correspondence 
 with Heinrich Heine, was the trusted friend of Prince 
 Jerome Bonaparte, Lamartine and Lamennais, and was 
 on a footing of equality with the greatest and best minds 
 of her age. She wrote several plays, one of which, 
 " Jeanne d'Arc," was presented at the Court Theater of 
 Turin, with the Royal Family present, and vfas a 
 marked success. Her criticism on the work of Ingres 
 made that artist's reputation, just as surely eis Ruskin 
 made the fame of Turner. But one special reason why 
 Americans should remember this woman is because she 
 first translated Emerson's " Elssays " and caused them 
 to be published in Italian and French. 
 I am not sure that Liszt ever quite forgave her for not 
 dying of broken heart, when they parted there at Lake 
 Maggiore. He thought she would take to opium or 
 strong drink, or both. She did neither, but proved, by 
 204 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 her after-life, that she was sufficient unto herself. She 
 was worthy of the love of Liszt, because she was able to 
 do without it. She was no parasitic, clinging vine that 
 strangles the sturdy oak. 
 
 The Abbe Lamennais, the close friend of Liszt, once 
 said, " Liszt is a great musician, the greatest the world 
 has ever seen, but his wife can easily take a mental 
 octave which he can not quite span." 
 The Countess d'Agoult died March Fifth, in Eighteen 
 Hundred Seventy-six, at the age of seventy years. When 
 tidings of her passing reached the Abbe Liszt, he caused 
 all of his immediate engagements to be canceled and 
 went into monastic retirement, wearing the robe of 
 horsehair and a rope girdle at his waist. He filled the 
 hours for the space of a month with silent reverie and 
 prayer 5S 53 
 
 And even in that cloister-cell, with its stone floor and 
 cold, bare walls, the leaden hours brought the soundless 
 presence of a tall and stately woman. Through the 
 desolate bastions of his brain she glided in sweet dis- 
 array, looked into his tear-dimmed eyes, smoothing 
 softly the coarse pillow where rested that head with its 
 lion's mane which we know so well — a head now 
 whitened by the frost of years. No sound came to him 
 there, save a soft voice which Fate refused to silence, and 
 this voice whispered and whispered yet again to him: 
 " Death shall not divide us, nor is eternity long enough 
 to separate thee from me! " 
 
 205 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 ELIGION is not the cure of love. Perhaps 
 religion is love and love is religion — anyway, 
 we know that they are often fused. For a 
 time after Liszt had parted from the Countess, 
 fortune smiled. Then came various loans to friends, 
 managerial experiments, the backing of an ill-starred 
 opera, and a season of overwrought nerves. 
 Luck had turned against the supposed invincible Uszt. 
 TTien it was that the Princess Wittgenstein appears on 
 the scene. This fine woman, earnest, strong in character, 
 intellectual, had tried ten years of marital hard times 
 and quit the partnership with a daughter and a goodly 
 dot 5S5S 
 
 The Princess had secretly loved Liszt from afar, and 
 iTid followed him from town to town, glorying in his 
 triumphs, feeding on his personality. 
 When trouble came she managed to have a message 
 conveyed to him that an unknown woman would 
 advance, without interest or security, enough money for 
 him to pay all his debts and secure him two years of 
 leisure in which he might regain his health and do such 
 work as his taste might dictate. 
 
 Of course Liszt declined the offer, begging his unknown 
 friend to divulge her identity that he might thank her 
 for her disinterested faith in the cause of Art. 
 A meeting was brought about and the result was as 
 usual. The Grand Duchess of Saxe- Weimar, in the face 
 of scandal, took the Abbe and Princess under protection, 
 206 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 giving them the Chateau of Altenburg, near Weimar, for 
 a retreat. TTiere Liszt, guarded from all intrusion, 
 composed the symphonies of " Dante " and " Faust," 
 sonatsis, masses and parts of " Saint Elizabeth." For 
 thirteen years they lived an idyllic existence. Then, 
 having married her daughter by her first husband to 
 Prince Hohenlohe, the Princess set out for Rome to 
 obtain a dispensation from the Pope, so she and. the 
 Abbe could be married. Her husband, who was a Prot- 
 estant, had long before secured a divorce and married 
 again. Pope Pius the Ninth granted her wish, and she 
 hastened home and prepared for the wedding. It was 
 said that flowers were already placed on the altar, the 
 marriage feast was prepared, the guests invited, when 
 news came that the Pope had changed his mind on the 
 argument of one of the lady's kinsmen. We now have 
 every reason to believe, though, that the Pope changed 
 his mind on the earnest request of Liszt. 
 On the death of the Princess Wittgenstein, the Pope 
 dispensed Liszt from his priestly ties, but he was called 
 the Abbe until his death. 
 
 Whenever I find any one who can write better on a 
 subject than I can, I refuse to go on. 
 There is a book called, " Music Study in Germany," 
 written by my friend Amy Fay, and published by The 
 Macmillan Company, from which 1 quote. 
 If Amy Fay had not chosen to be the sui)erb pianist that 
 she is, she might have struck thirteen in literature. 
 
 207 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 There are a dozen biographies of Liszt, but none of them 
 has ever given us such a vivid picture of the man as heis 
 this American girl. TTie simple, unpretentious little 
 touches that she introduces are art so subtile and true 
 that it is the art which conceals art. TTie topmost turret 
 of my ambition would be to have Amy Fay Boswellize 
 my memory. 
 Says Amy Fay: 
 
 Liszt is the most interesting and striking-looking man 
 imaginable, tall and slight, with deep-set eyes, long iron- 
 gray hair, and shaggy eyebrows. His mouth turns up 
 at the corners, which gives him a most crafty and 
 Mephistophelian expression when he smiles, and his 
 whole appearance and manner have a sort of Jesuitical 
 elegance and ease. His hands are very narrow, with long 
 £ind slender fingers that look as if they had twice as 
 many joints as other people's. They are so flexible and 
 supple that it makes you nervous to look at them. Any- 
 thing like the polish of his manner I never saw. When 
 he got up to leave the box, for instance, after his adieux 
 to the ladies, he laid his hand on his heart and made his 
 final bow — not with affectation, or in mere gallantry, 
 but with a quiet courtliness which made you feel that 
 no other way of bowing to a lady was right or proper 3S 
 But the most extraordinary thing about Liszt is his 
 wonderful variety of expression and play of feature. 
 One moment his face will look dreamy, shadowy, tragic; 
 the next he will be insinuating, amiable, ironical, 
 sardonic; but always the same captivating grace of 
 manner. He is a perfect study. He is all spirit, but half 
 the time, at least, a mocking spirit, I should say. All 
 208 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 Weimar adores him, and people say that women still go 
 perfectly crazy over him. When he walks out, he bows 
 to everybody jvist like a king! The Grand Duke has 
 presented him with a beautiful house situated on the 
 Park, and here he lives elegantly, free of expense. 
 Liszt gives no paid lessons whatever, as he is much too 
 grand for that, but if one has talent enough, or pleases 
 him, he lets one come to him and play to him. I go to 
 him every other day, but I don't play more than twice 
 a week, as I can not prepare so much, but I listen to 
 others. Up to this point there have been only four in the 
 class beside myself, and I am the only new one. From 
 four to six o'clock in the afternoon is the time when he 
 receives his scholars. The first time I went I did not play 
 to him, but listened to the rest. Urspruch and Leitert, 
 two young men whom I met the other night, have 
 studied with Liszt a long time, and both play superbly. 
 §As I entered the salon, Urspruch was performing 
 Schumann's " Symphonic Studies " — an immense com- 
 p>osition, and one that it took at least half an hour to 
 get through. He played so splendidly that my heart 
 sank down into the very depths. I thought I should 
 never get on there! Liszt came forward and greeted me 
 in a very friendly manner as 1 entered. He was in a very 
 good humor that day, and made some little witticisms. 
 Urspruch asked him what title he should give to a piece 
 he was composing. " Per eispera ad eistra," said Liszt. 
 This was such a good hit that I began to laugh, and he 
 seemed to enjoy my appreciation of his little sarcasm. I 
 did not play that time as my piano had only just come, 
 and I was not prepared to do so, but I went home and 
 practised tremendously for several days on Chopin's 
 
 209 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 " B minor sonata." It is a great composition and one 
 of his last works. When I thought I could play it, I 
 went to Liszt, though with a trembling heart. I can not 
 tell you what it has cost me every time I have ascended 
 his stairs. I can scarcely summon up courage to go 
 there, and generally stand on the steps a few moments 
 before I can make up my mind to open the door and 
 go in 5S SS 
 
 Well, on this day the artists Leitert and Urspruch, and 
 the young composer Metzdorf , were in the room when 
 I came. They had probably been playing. At first Liszt 
 took no notice of me beyond a greeting, till Metzdorf 
 said to him, " Herr Doctor, Miss Fay has brought a 
 sonata." "Ah, well, let us hear it," said Liszt. Just then 
 he left the room for a minute, and I told the three 
 gentlemen they ought to go away and let me play to 
 Liszt alone, for I felt nervous about playing before 
 them. They all laughed at me and said they would not 
 budge an inch. When Liszt came back they said to him, 
 " Only think, Herr Doctor, Miss Fay proposes to send 
 us all home." I said I could not play before such artists. 
 " Oh, that is healthy for you," said Liszt with a smile, 
 and added, " you have a very choice audience now." 1 
 don't know whether he appreciated how nervous I was, 
 but instead of walking up and down the room, as he 
 often does, he sat down by me like any other teacher, 
 and heard me play the first movement. It was fright- 
 fully hard, but I had studied it so much that I managed 
 to get through with it pretty successfully. Nothing 
 could exceed Liszt's amiability, or the trouble he gave 
 himself, and instead of frightening me, he inspired me. 
 Never was there such a delightful teacher! and he is the 
 210 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 most sympathetic one I 've had. You feel so free with 
 him, and he develops the very spirit of music in you. 
 He does n't keep nagging at you all the time, but he 
 leaves you your own conception. Now and then he will 
 make a criticism or play a passage, and with a few 
 words give you enough to think of all the rest of your 
 life. There is a delicate point to everything he says as 
 subtle as he is himself. He does n't tell you anything 
 about the technique; that you must work out for your- 
 self. When I had finished the first movement of the 
 sonata, Liszt, as he always does, said "Bravo!" 
 Taking my seat he made some little criticisms, and then 
 he told me to go on and play the rest of it. 
 Now, I only half-knew the other movements, for the 
 first one was so extremely difficult that it cost me all the 
 labor I could give to prepare that. But playing to Liszt 
 reminds me of trying to feed the elephant in the Zoo- 
 logical Garden with lumps of sugar. He disposes of 
 whole movements eis if they were nothing, and stretches 
 out gravely for more! One of my fingers fortunately 
 began to bleed, for I had practised the skin o£F, and that 
 gave me a good excuse for stopping. Whether he was 
 pleased at this proof of industry, I know not; but after 
 looking at my finger and saying, " Oh! " very compas- 
 sionately, he sat down and played the whole three last 
 movements himself. That weis a great deal and showed 
 off his powers. It was the first time I had heard him, 
 and I don't know which was the most extraordinary — 
 the Scherzo, with its wonderful lightness and swiftness, 
 the Adagio with its depth and pathos, or the last move- 
 ment, where the whole keyboard seemed to " donnern 
 und blitzen." There is such a vividness about everything 
 
 2ir 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 bronze — ^inkstand, jjaper-weight, match-box, etc. — and 
 there is always a lighted candle standing on it by which 
 he and the gentlemen can light their cigars. There is a 
 carpet on the floor, a rarity in Germany, and Liszt 
 generally walks about and smokes and mutters, and 
 calls upon one or the other of us to play. From time to 
 time he will sit down and himself play where a peissage 
 does not suit him, and when he is in good spirits he 
 makes little jests all the time. His playing was a com- 
 plete revelation to me, and has given me an entirely 
 new insight into music. You can not conceive, without 
 hearing him, how poetic he is, or the thousand nuances 
 that he can throw into the simplest thing, and he is 
 equally great on all sides. From the zephyr to the 
 tempest, the whole scale is equally at his command SS 
 Liszt is not at all like a master, and can not be treated 
 as one. He is a monarch, and when he extends" his royal 
 scepter you can sit down and play to him. You never 
 can ask him to play anything for you, no matter how 
 much you 're dying to hear it. If he is in the mood he 
 will play: if not, you must content yourself with a few 
 remarks. You can not even offer to play yourself. 
 You lay your notes on the table, so he can see that you 
 want to play, and sit down. He takes a turn up and 
 down the room, looks at the music, and if the piece 
 interests him he will call upon you. We bring the same 
 piece to him but once, and but once play it through 5S 
 Yesterday I had prepared for him his "Au Bord d'une 
 Source." I was nervous and played badly. He was not 
 to be put out, however, but acted as if he thought I had 
 played charmingly, and then he sat down and played 
 the whole thing himself, oh, so exquisitely! It made me 
 
 213 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 feel like a wood-chopper. The notes just seemed to 
 ripple off his fingers' ends with scarce any perceptible 
 motion. As he neared the close I noticed that funny 
 little expression come over his face, which he always 
 has when he means to surprise you, and he then 
 suddenly took an unexpected chord and extemporized a 
 poetical little end, quite different from the written one. 
 Do you wonder that people go distracted over him? 
 ^ One day this week, when we were with Liszt, he was 
 in such high spirits that it was as if he had suddenly 
 become twenty years younger. A student from the 
 Stuttgart conservatory played a Liszt concerto. His 
 name is V., and he is dreadfully nervous. Liszt kept up a 
 running fire of satire all the time he was playing, but 
 in a good-natured way. I should n't have minded it if 
 it had been L In fact, I think it would have inspired 
 me ; but poor V. hardly knew whether he was on his head 
 or on his feet. It was too funny. Everything that Liszt 
 says is so striking. For instance, in one place where V. 
 was playing the melody rather feebly, Liszt suddenly 
 took his seat at the piano and said, " When I play, I 
 always play for the people in the gallery, so that those 
 people who pay only five groschens for their seats also 
 hear something." Then he began, and I wish you could 
 have heard him! The sound didn't seem to be very 
 loud, but it was penetrating and farrreaching. When he 
 had finished, he raised one hand in the air, and you 
 seemed to see all the people in the gallery drinking in 
 the sound. That is the way Liszt teaches you. He 
 presents an idea to you, and it takes fast hold of your 
 mind and sticks there. Music is such a real, visible thing 
 to him that he always has a symbol, instantly, in the 
 214 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 material world to express his idea. One day, when I was 
 playing, I made too much movement with my hand in 
 a rotary sort of a passage where it was difficult to avoid 
 it. "Keep your hand still, Fraulein," said Liszt; "don't 
 make omelet," I couldn't help laughing — it hit me on 
 the head so nicely. He is far too sparing of his playing, 
 unfortunately, and like Tausig, sits down and plays 
 only a few bars at a time generally. It is dreadful when 
 he stops, just as you are at the height of your enjoy- 
 ment, but he is so thoroughly blase that he doesn't 
 care to show off before people and does n't like to have 
 any one pay him a compliment about his playing. In 
 Liszt I can at least say that my ideal in something has 
 been realized. He goes far beyond all that I expected. 
 Anything so perfectly beautiful as he looks when he sits 
 at the piano I never saw, and yet he is almost an old 
 man now. I enjoy him as I would an exquisite work of 
 art. His personal magnetism is immense, and I can 
 scarcely bear it when he plays. He can make me cry all 
 he chooses, and that is saying a good deal, because I 've 
 heard so much music, and never have been a£Fected 
 by it. Even Joachim, whom I think divine, never moved 
 me. When Liszt plays anything pathetic, it sounds as if 
 he had been through everything, and opens all one's 
 wounds afresh. All that one has ever suffered comes 
 before one again. Who was it that I heard say once, that 
 years ago he saw Clara Schumann sitting in tears near 
 the platform during one of Liszt's performances? Liszt 
 knows well the influence he has on people, for he always 
 fixes his eyes on some one of us when he plays, and I 
 believe he tries to wring our hearts. When he plays a 
 pEissage and goes pearling down the keyboard, he often 
 
 215 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 looks over at me and smiles, to see whether I air 
 appreciating it. 
 
 But 1 doubt if he feels any particular emotion himself 
 when he is piercing you through with his rendering. He 
 is simply hearing every tone, knowing exactly what 
 effect he wishes to produce and just how to do it. In 
 fact, he is practically two persons in one — the listener 
 and the performer. But what immense self-command 
 that implies! No matter how fast he plays you al- 
 ways feel that there is "plenty of time" — no need to 
 be anxious! You might as well try to move one of the 
 pyramids as fluster him. Tausig possessed this repose 
 in a technical way, and his touch was marvelous; but he 
 never drew the tears to your eyes. He could not wind 
 himself through all the subtle labyrinths of the heart as 
 Liszt does. Liszt does such bewitching little things! The 
 other day, for instance, Fraulein Gaul was playing 
 something to him, and in it were two runs, and after 
 each run two staccato chords. She did them most 
 beautifully and struck the chords immediately after. 
 " No, no," said Liszt; " after you make a run you must 
 wait a minute before you strike the chords, as if in 
 admiration of your own performance. You must pause, 
 as if to say, 'How nicely I did that!'" Then he sat 
 down and made a run himself, waited a second, and 
 then struck the two chords in the treble, saying as he 
 did so, " Bravo! " and then he played again, struck the 
 other chord and said again, " Bravo! " and positively, it 
 was as if the piano had softly applauded. 
 Liszt has n't the nervous irritability common to artists, 
 but on the contrary his disposition is the most exquisite 
 and tranquil intheworld. We have been there incessantly 
 216 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 and I 've never seen him ruffled except two or three 
 times, and then he vfas tired and not himself, and it -was 
 a most transient thing. When I think what a little 
 savage Tausig often was, and how cuttingly sarcastic 
 KuUak could be at times, I am astonished that Liszt 
 so rarely lost his temper. He has the power of turning 
 the best side of every one outward, also the most 
 marvelous and instant appreciation of what that side is. 
 If there is anything in you, you may be sure that Liszt 
 will know it. On Monday I had a most delightful 
 tete-a-tete with Liszt, quite by chance. I had occasion 
 to call upon him for something, and strange to say, he 
 was alone, sitting by his table writing. Generally all 
 sorts of people are up there. He insisted upon my stay- 
 ing for a while, and we had the most amusing and 
 entertaining conversation imaginable. It was the first 
 time I ever heard Liszt really talk, for he contents 
 himself mostly with making little jests. He is full of 
 esprit. Another evening I was there about twilight and 
 Liszt sat at the piano looking through a new oratorio 
 which had just come out in Paris, upon " Christus." 
 He asked me to turn for him, and evidently was not 
 interested, for he would skip whole pages and begin 
 again, here and there. There was only a single lamp, 
 and that a rather dim one, so that the room was all in 
 shadow, and Liszt wore his Merlin-like eispect. I asked 
 him to tell me how he produced a certain effect he 
 makes in his arrangement of the ballad in Wagner's 
 " Flying Dutchman." He looked very " fin " as the 
 French say, but did not reply. He never gives a direct 
 answer to a direct question. "Ah," said I, " you won't 
 tell." He smiled and then immediately played the 
 
 217 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 passage. It weis a long arpeggio, and the effect he made 
 was, as I had supposed, a pedal effect. He kept the 
 pedal down throughout, and played the beginning of the 
 passage in a grand sort of manner, and then all the rest 
 of it with a very pianissimo touch, and so lightly, that 
 the continuity of the arpeggios was destroyed, and the 
 notes seemed to be just strewn in, as if you broke a 
 wreath of flowers and scattered them according to your 
 fancy. It is a most striking and beautiful effect, and I 
 told him 1 did n't see how he ever thought of it. " Oh, 
 I 've invented a great many things," said he, indif- 
 ferently' — " this, for instance " — and he began plajdng 
 a double roll of octaves in chromatics in the bass of the 
 piano. It was very grand and made the room reverberate. 
 ^ " Magnificent," said 1. 
 " Did you ever hear me do a storm? " said he. 
 
 ;; No." 
 
 "Ah, you ought to hear me do a storm! Storms are my 
 forte! " S&Si 
 
 Then to himself between his teeth, while a weird look 
 came into his eyes as if he could indeed rule the blast, 
 " Then crash the trees! " 
 
 How ardently 1 wished that he would " play a storm," 
 but of course he did n't, and he presently began to 
 trifle over the keys in a blase style. I suppose he could n't 
 quite work himself up to the effort, but that look and 
 tone told how Liszt would do it. Alas, that we poor 
 mortals here below should share so often the fate of 
 Moses, and have only a glimpse of the Promised Land, 
 and that without the consolation of being Moses! But 
 perhaps, after all, the vision is better than the reality. 
 We see the whole land, even if but from afar, instead 
 218 
 
FRANZ LISZT 
 
 of being limited merely to the spot where our foot 
 treads S& S& 
 
 Once again I saw Liszt in a similar mood, though his 
 expression was this time comfortably rather than wildly 
 destructive. It Wcis when Fraulein Remmertz was 
 playing his " E flat concerto " to him. There were two 
 grand pianos in the room; she was sitting at one, and 
 he at the other, accompanying and interpolating as he 
 felt disposed. Finally they came to a place where there 
 was a series of passages beginning with both hands in 
 the middle of the piano, and going in opposite directions 
 to the ends of the keyboard, ending each time with a 
 short, sharp chord. " Pitch everything out of the 
 window! " cried he, and began playing these passages 
 and giving every chord a whack as if he were splitting 
 everything up and flinging it out, and that with such 
 enjoyment that you felt as if you 'd like to bear a hand, 
 too, in the work of demolition! But I never shall forget 
 Liszt's look as he so lazily proposed to " pitch every- 
 thing out of the window." It reminded me of the expres- 
 sion of a big tabby-cat as it sits by the fire and purrs 
 away, blinking its eyes and seemingly half-asleep, when 
 suddenly — ! — ! out it strikes with both its claws, and 
 woe to whatever is within its reach! 
 
 219 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
Melody has by Beethoven been freed from the influence 
 of Fashion and changing Teiste, and raised to an ever- 
 valid, purely human type. Beethoven's music will be 
 understood to all time, while that of his predecessors 
 will, for the most part, only remain intelligible to us 
 through the medium of reflection on the history of Art. 
 
 — Richard Wagner 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 USIC is the youngest of the arts. 
 Modern music dates back about 
 four hundred years. It is not so old 
 as the invention of printing. As an 
 art it began with the work of the 
 priests of the Roman CathoHc 
 Church in endeavoring to arrange 
 a liturgy. 
 
 The medieval chant and the popular folk-song came 
 together, and the science of music was born. Sculpture 
 reached perfection in Greece, painting in Italy, por- 
 traiture in Holland; but Germany, the land of thought, 
 has given us nearly all the great musicians and nine- 
 tenths of all our valuable musical compositions, 
 Holland has taken a very important part in every Hne 
 of art and handicraft, and in way of all-round develop- 
 ment has set the pace for civilization. 
 Art follows in the wake of commerce, for without com- 
 merce there is neither surplus wealth nor leisure. The 
 artist is paid from what is left after men have bought 
 food and clothing; and the time to enjoy comes only 
 after the struggle for existence. 
 
 When Venice was not only Queen of the Adriatic but of 
 the maritime world as well. Art came and established 
 there her Court of Beauty, It was Venice that moth- 
 ered Giorgione, Titian, the Bellinis, and the men who 
 
 223 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 wrought in iron and silver and gold, and those masterful 
 bookmakers; it was beautiful Venice that gave sus- 
 tenance and encouragement to Stradivari (who made 
 violins as well as he could) up at Cremona, only a few 
 miles away. 
 
 But there came a day when all those seventy book- 
 makers of Venice ceeised to print, and the music of the 
 anvils was stilled, and all the painters were dead, and 
 Venice became but a monument of things that were, as 
 she is today; for Commerce is King, and his capital has 
 been moved far away. 
 
 So Venice sits sad and solitary — a pale and beautiful 
 ruin, pathetic beyond speech, infested by noisy shop- 
 keepers and petty pilferers, the degenerate sons of the 
 robbers who once roamed the sea and enthroned her on 
 her hundred isles. 
 
 All that Venice knew was absorbed by Holland. The 
 Elzevirs and the Plantins took over the business of the 
 seventy bookmakers, and the art-schools of Amsterdam, 
 Leyden and Antwerp reproduced every picture of note 
 that had been done in Venice. The great churches of 
 Holland are replicas of the churches of Venice. And the 
 Cathedral at Antwerp, where the sweet bells have 
 chimed each quarter of an hour for three centuries, 
 through peace and plenty, through lurid war and 
 sudden death — there where hangs Rubens' masterpiece 
 — that Cathedral is but an enlarged " Santa Maria de' 
 Frari," where for two hundred years hung " The 
 224 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 Assumption," by Titian. ^ In these churches of Holland 
 were placed splendid organs, and the priests formed 
 choirs, and offered prizes for the best singing and the 
 best compositions. Music and painting developed hand 
 in hand; for at the last, all of the arts are one — each 
 being but a division of labor. 
 
 The world owes a great debt to the Dutch. It was Hol- 
 land taught England how to paint and how to print, and 
 Elngland taught us: so our knowledge of printing and 
 painting came to us by way of the apostolic succession 
 of the Dutch. 
 
 The march of civilization follows a simple trail, well 
 defined beyond dispute. Viewed in retrospect it begins 
 in a heizy thread stretching from Assyria into Egypt, 
 from Egypt into Greece, from Greece to Rome — 
 widening throughout Italy and Spain, then centering in 
 Venice, and tracing clear and deep to Amsterdam — 
 widening again into Germany and across to England, 
 thence carried in " Mayflowers " to America. 
 That remark of Charles Dudley Warner, once near 
 neighbor to Mark Twain, that there is no culture west 
 of Buffalo, wEis indelicate if not unkind; and residents of 
 Omaha aver that it is open to argument. But the fact 
 stands beyond cavil that what art we possess is traceable 
 to our masters, the Dutch. 
 
 It must be admitted that the art of printing was first 
 practised at Mayence on the Rhine, leaving the Chinese 
 out of the equation; but it had to travel around down 
 
 225 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 through Italy before it reached perfection. And its 
 universality and usefulness were not fully developed 
 until it had swung around to Holland and vfas given by 
 the Dutch back to Germany and the world. And as with 
 printing, so with music. Germany has sjiecialized on 
 music. She hsis succeeded, but it is because Holland 
 gave her lessons. 
 
 226 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 URING the fore part of the Seventeenth 
 Century, there lived in Antwerp, Ludvig van 
 Biethofen, grandfather of the genius known 
 as Beethoven. A life-size portrait of him can 
 be seen in the Plantin Musee, and if you did not know 
 that the picture was peunted before Beethoven was born, 
 you would say at once, " Beethoven! " There is a look 
 of stern endurance, as if the artist had admired Rem- 
 brandt's " Burgomaster " a little too well, yet that 
 sturdiness belonged to the Master, too; and there are 
 the abstracted far-away look, the touch of proud 
 melancholy, and the becoming unkemptness that we 
 know so well. 
 
 The child is grandfather to the man. Beethoven bore 
 slight resemblance to his immediate parents, but in his 
 talent, habits and all of his mental traits, he closely 
 resembled this sturdy Dutchman who composed, sang, 
 led the military band, and played the organ at the 
 Church of Saint Jacques in Antwerp. 
 Being ambitious, Ludvig van Biethofen, while yet a 
 young man, moved to Bonn, the home of Clement 
 Augustus, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne. 
 The chief business of elector was, in case of necessity, to 
 elect a King. America borrowed the elector idea from 
 Germany. But our " electoral college " is a degenerate 
 political appendicle that is continued, because, in 
 borrowing plans of government, we took good and bad 
 alike, not knowing there was a difference. The elector 
 
 227 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 scheme in the United States is occasionally valuable for 
 defeating the will of the people in case of a popular 
 majority S& 53 
 
 In justice, however, let me say that the original argu- 
 ment of the Colonists was that the people should not 
 vote directly for President, because the candidate might 
 live a long way off, and the voter could not know 
 whether he was fit or not. So they let the citizen vote 
 for a wise and honest elector he knew. 
 The result is that we all now know the candidates for 
 President, but we do not know the electors. The 
 electoral college in America is just about as useful as the 
 two buttons on the back of a man's coat, put there 
 originally to support a sword-belt. We have discarded 
 the sword, yet we cling to our buttons. 
 But the electors of Germany, in days agone, had a well- 
 defined use. The people were not, at first, troubled to 
 elect them — the King did that himself, and then as one 
 good turn deserves another, the electors agreed to elect 
 the successor the King designated, when death should 
 compel him to abdicate. Then to fill in the time between 
 elections, the electors did the business of the King. It 
 will thus be seen that every elector was really a sort of 
 King himself, governing his little State, amenable to no 
 one but the King. 
 
 And so the chief business of the elector was to keep the 
 people in his diocese loyal to the King. 
 There have always existed three ways of keeping the 
 228 
 
LUPWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 people loving and loyal. One is to leave them alone, to 
 trust them and not to interfere. This plan, however, heis 
 very seldom been practised, because the politicians 
 regard the public as a cow to be milked, and something 
 must be done to make it stand quiet. 
 So they try Plan Number Two, which consists in hypno- 
 tizing the public by means of shows, festivals, parades, 
 prizes and many paid speeches, sermons and editorials, 
 wherein and whereby the public is told how much is 
 being done for it, and how fortunate it is in being pro- 
 tected and wisely cared for by its divinely appointed 
 guardians. Then the band strikes up, the flags are 
 waved, three passes are made, one to the right and two 
 to the left; and we, being completely under the hypno- 
 sis, hurrah ourselves hoarse. 
 
 Plan Number Three is a very ancient one and is always 
 held back to be used in case Number Two fails. It is 
 for the benefit of the people who do not peiss readily 
 under hypnotic control. If there are too many of these, 
 they have been known to pluck up courage and answer 
 back to the speeches, sermons and editorials. Sometimes 
 they refuse to hurrah when the bass-drum plays, in 
 which case they have occasionally been arrested for 
 contumacy and contravention by stocky men, in wide- 
 awake hats, who lead the strenuous life. This Plan 
 Number Three provides for an armed force that shall 
 overawe, if necessary, all who are not hypnotized. The 
 army is used for two purposes — to coerce disturbers at 
 
 229 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 home, and to get up a war at a distance, and thus 
 distract attention from the troubles near at hand. 
 Napoleon used to say that the only sure cure for internal 
 dissension was a foreign war: this would draw the 
 disturbers away, on the plea of patriotism, so they 
 would win enough outside loot to satisfy them, or else 
 they would all get killed, it really did n't matter much; 
 and as for loot, if it was taken from foreigners, there was 
 no sin 3S Si 
 
 A careful analyst might here say that Plan Number 
 Three is only a variation of Plan Number Two — the 
 end being gained by hs^notic effects in either event, for 
 the army is conscripted from the people to use against 
 the people, just as you turn steam from a boiler into the 
 fire-box to increase the draft. Possibly this is true, but I 
 have introduced this digression, anyway, only to show 
 that the original office of elector was a wise and benefi- 
 cent function of the Government, and could be revived 
 with profit in America, to replace the outworn and 
 useless vermiformis that we now possess in way of an 
 electoral college. 
 
 230 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 ^|HEN Kings allowed Church and State to 
 separate they made a grave mistake. With the 
 two united, as they were until a more recent 
 time, they held a cinch on both the souls and 
 the bodies of their subjects. 
 
 In the good old days in Germany the elector was always 
 an archbishop; Our bishops now are a weakling lot. With 
 no army to back their edicts the people smile at their 
 proclamations, try on their shovel hats, and laugh at 
 their gaiters. Or if they be Methodist bishops, who are 
 only make-believe bishops, having slipped the cable 
 that bound them to the past, we pound them familiarly 
 on the back and address them as " Bish." 
 Clement Augustus, Elector of Cologne, maintained a 
 court that vied with royalty itself. In his household were 
 two hundred servants. He had coachmen, footmen, 
 cooks, messengers, a bodyguard, musicians, p>oets and 
 artists who hastened to do his bidding. He patronized 
 all the arts, made a pet of science, offered a reward for 
 the transmutation of metals, dabbled in astrology and 
 practised palmistry. 
 
 Into this brilliant court came the strong and masterful 
 Ludvig van Biethofen. 
 
 In a year his gracious presence, superb voice and rare 
 skill as a musician, pushed him to the front and into 
 favor with the powers, with a yearly salary of four 
 hundred guilders. The history of this man is a deal better 
 raw stock for a romance than the Hfe of his grandson. 
 
 231 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 From Seventeen Hundred Thirty-two, when he entered 
 the court as an unknown and ordinary musician with an 
 acceptable tenor voice, to Seventeen Hundred Sixty-one, 
 when he was Kapellmeister and a member of the private 
 council of the Elector, his life was a steady march 
 successward. Strong men were needed then as now, and 
 his promotion was deserved. Various accounts and 
 mention of this man are to be found, and one contempo- 
 rary described him as he appeared at sixty. The only 
 mark of age he carried was his flowing white hair. His 
 smoothly shaven face showed the strong features of a 
 man of thirty-five; and his carriage, actions and superb 
 grace as an orchestra-leader made him a conspicuous 
 figure in any company. 
 
 Ludvig van Biethofen had one son, Johann by name. 
 TTiis boy resembled his gifted father very little, and his 
 training was such that he early fell a victim to arrested 
 development 33 SS 
 
 If a parent does everything for a child, the child 
 probably will never do anything for himself. It is 
 Nature's plan — she seems to think that no one needs 
 strength excepting the struggler, and being kind she 
 comes to his rescue; but the man who puts forth no 
 effort remains a weakling to the end. 
 Johann placed success beyond his reach very early in 
 life by putting an enemy into his mouth to steal away 
 his brains. His marriage to a daughter of a cook in 
 Ehrenbreitstein Castle did not stop his waywardness, or 
 232 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 give him decision as was hoped. Marriage as a scheme of 
 reformation is not always a success, and women who 
 lend themselves to it take great chances. 
 Mary Magdalena was a widow, and some say possessed 
 of wiles. That she was beneath Johann in social station, 
 but beyond him in actual worth, there is no doubt. And 
 whether she snared the incautious man, or whether the 
 marriage was arranged by the elder Biethofen as a 
 diplomatic move in the interests of morality, matters 
 little. The end justifies the means; and as a net result of 
 this mating, without putting forward the circumstance 
 as a precedent to be religiously followed, the world has 
 Beethoven and his work. 
 
 233 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 PLATE affixed to Number Five Hundred 
 Fifteen Bonngasse, Bonn, gives the birth of 
 Ludwig van Beethoven as December Seven- 
 teenth, Seventeen Hundred Seventy. He was 
 the second-born child of his mother, and after him came 
 a goodly assortment of boys and girls. Two of his 
 brothers lived to exercise a sinister influence over the 
 life of the Master, and to darken days that should have 
 been luminous with love. Little Ludwig was the pet and 
 pride of the grandfather. The grandfather had even 
 insisted that the baby should bear his name. Disap- 
 pointment in *his own child caused him to center his 
 love in the grandchild. This instinct that makes men 
 long to live again in the lives of their children — is it 
 reaching out for immortality? And as the grandfather 
 virtually supported the household, he w£is allowed to 
 have his own way, and indeed that strong, yet cheery 
 Avill was not to be opposed. The old man prophesied 
 what the boy would do, just as love ever does, and has 
 done, since the world began. 
 
 But only in his dreams was Ludvig van Biethofen to 
 know of the success of his namesake. When the boy was 
 scarce four years old, the old man passed away. The 
 place in the orchestra that Johann held through favor 
 was soon forfeited, and times of pinching poverty 
 followed, and sorrows came like the gathering of a 
 winter night. 
 
 Have you never shared the mocking shame and biting 
 234 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 pain of a drunkard's household? Then God grant you 
 never may. When the world withdraws its faith from a 
 man through his own imbecility, and employment is 
 denied; when promises are unkept; when order and 
 system are gone, and foresight fled, and loud accusation, 
 threat and contumely vary their strident tones with 
 maudlin protestations of affection, and vows made to be 
 broken, easily change to curses; when the fire dies on the 
 hearth, and children huddle in bed in the daytime for 
 warmth; when the scanty food that is found is eaten 
 ravenously, and blanching fear comes when a heavy 
 tread and fumbling at the lock are heard in the hall — 
 these things challenge language for fit expression and 
 cause words to falter. 
 
 The moody and dispirited Johann one day conceived a 
 bright thought — & thought so vivid that for the moment 
 it cleared the cobwebs from his mind and sobered his 
 boozy brain — the genius of his five-year-old boy should 
 be exploited to retrieve his battered fortunes! 
 The child was already showing signs of musical talent; 
 and diligent practise was now begun. Several chums at 
 the beer-gardens were interviewed and great plans 
 unfolded in beery enthusiasm. The services of several of 
 these men were secured as tutors, and one of them, 
 Pfeiffer, took lodgings with the Biethofens, and paid for 
 bed and board in music-lessons. 
 
 A new thought is purifying, ideas are hygienic; and 
 already things had begun to look brighter for the 
 
 235 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 household. It was n't exactly prosperity, but Johann 
 had found a place in the band, and was earning as much 
 as three dollars a week, which amount for two weeks 
 running he brought home and placed in his wife's lap. 
 ^ But things were grievous for young Beethoven : he 
 had two taskmasters, his father and Pfeiffer. One gave 
 him lessons on the violin in the morning, and the other 
 took him to a tavern where there weis a clavichord and 
 made him play all the afternoon. 
 
 Then occasionally Johann and Pfeiffer would come 
 home at two o'clock in the morning from a concert 
 where they had been playing and where the wine was 
 red and also free, and they would drag the poor child 
 from his bed to make him play. TTiis was followed 
 up until the boy's mother rebelled, and on one occasion 
 Pfeiffer and Johann were sent to the military hospital 
 and dry-docked for repairs. 
 
 On the whole, this man Pfeiffer was kindly and usually 
 capable. In after-years Beethoven testified to the valu- 
 able assistance he had received from him; and when 
 Pfeiffer had grown old and helpless, Beethoven sent 
 funds to him by the publishers, Simrock. 
 Young Ludwig was a stocky, sturdy youth, decidedly 
 Dutch in his characteristics, with no nerves to speak of, 
 else he would have laid him down and died of heart-chill 
 and neglect, as did four of his little brothers and sisters. 
 But he stood the ordeals, and at parlor, tavern and beer- 
 garden entertainments where he played, although his 
 236 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 cheeks were often stained with tears, he took a sort of 
 secret pride in being able to do things which even his 
 father could not. And then he was always introduced as 
 " Ludvig Biethofen, the grandchild of Ludvig van 
 Biethofen," and this was no mean introduction. His 
 appearance, even then, bore strong resemblance to the 
 lost and lamented grandfather; and Van den Eeden, the 
 Court Organist, in loving remembrance of his Antwerp 
 friend, took the lad into his keeping and gave him lessons. 
 When Van den Efiden retired, Neefe, his successor, took 
 a kindly interest in the boy and even protected him from 
 his father and the zealous Pfeiffer. So well was the boy 
 thought of that when he was twelve years of age Neefe 
 established him as his deputy at the chapel organ. 
 Shortly after this, the new Elector, Max Friedrich, 
 bestowed on " Louis van Beethoven, my well-beloved 
 player upon the organ and clavichord, a stipend of one 
 hundred fifty florins a year, and if his talent doth 
 increase with his years the amount is to be also in- 
 creeised." Si 5S 
 
 In token of the Elector's recognition Beethoven wrote 
 three sonatas, the earliest of his compositions, and 
 dedicated them to Max Friedrich in Seventeen Hundred 
 Eighty-two. 
 
 In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-four, Elector Max 
 Friedrich died, and Max Franz was appointed to take 
 his place. His inauguration was the signal for a renewal 
 of musical and artistic activity. Concerts, shows and 
 
 237 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 military pageants followed the installation. In a list of 
 court appointments we find that Louis van Beethoven is 
 put down as " second organist " with a salary of forty- 
 five pounds a year. Below this is Johann Beethoven 
 with a salary of thirty pounds a year. And in one of the 
 court journals mention is made of Johann Beethoven 
 with the added line, " father of Ludwig Beethoven," 
 showing even then the man's source of distinction. 
 In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-seven, when in his 
 eighteenth year, Beethoven made a visit to Vienna in 
 company with several musicians from the Elector's 
 court at Bonn. This visit was a memorable event in the 
 life of the Master, every detail of which was deeply 
 etched upon his memory, to be elffaced only by death 5S 
 It was on this visit to Vienna that he met Mozart, and 
 played for him. Mozart gave due attention, and when 
 the player had ceased he turned to the company and 
 said, " Keep your eye on this youth — ^he will yet make 
 a noise in the world! " 
 
 The remark, if closely analyzed, reveals itself as non- 
 committal; and although it has been bruited as praise 
 the round world over, it was probably an electrots^ied 
 expression, used daily; for great musicians are called 
 upon at every turn to listen to prodigies. I once attended 
 " rhetoricals " where the Honorable Chauncey M. 
 Depewwas present. Being called upon to" make a few 
 remarks," the Senator from New York arose and 
 referred to one of the speeches given by a certain 
 238 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 sophomore as " unlike anything I ever heard before! " 
 Genius very seldom recognizes genius, fl Beethoven had 
 a self-sufficiency, even at that early time, that stood him 
 in good stead. He felt his power, and knew his worth. 
 That steadfast, obstinate quality in his make-up was 
 not in VEun. He let others quote Mozart's remark; but 
 he had matched himself against the Master, and was not 
 abashed Si Si , 
 
 239 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 INSHIP is a question of spirit and not a 
 matter of blood. How often do we find persons 
 who, in feeling, are absolutely strangers to 
 their own brothers and sisters! Occasionally 
 even parents fail to understand their children. The 
 child may hunger for sympathy and love that the 
 mother knows nothing of, and cry itself to sleep for a 
 tenderness withheld. Later this same child may evolve 
 aspirations and ambitions that seem to the other 
 members of the family mere whims and vagaries to be 
 laughed down, or stoutly endured, as the mood prompts. 
 ^ Knowing these things, do we wonder at the question 
 of long ago, " Who is my mother, and who are my 
 brethren " ? Beethoven was a beautiful brown thrush in 
 a nest of cuckoos. He could sing and sing divinely, and 
 the members of his household were glad because it 
 brought an income in which they all shared. 
 About the year Seventeen Hundred Ninety-five, Bee- 
 thoven went to Vienna, and as he had been heralded by 
 several persons of influence, his reception was gracious. 
 Charity has its periods of evolving into a fad, and at 
 this time the fashion was musical entertainments in aid 
 of this or that. Slight suspicions exist that these numer- 
 ous entertainments were devised by fledgling musicians 
 for their own aggrandizement, and possibly patrons 
 fanned the philanthropic flame to help on their proteges. 
 Beethoven was of too simple and guileless a nature to 
 aid his fortunes with the help of any social jimmy, but 
 240 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 we see he was soon in the full tide of local popularity. 
 His ability as a composer, his virile presence, and his 
 skill as a player, made his company desired. From play- 
 ing first for charity, then at the houses of nobility, and 
 next as a professional musician, he gradually mounted 
 to the place to which his genius entitled him. 
 Then we find his brothers, Carl and Johann, appearing 
 on the scene, with a fussy yet earnest intent to take care 
 of the business affairs of their eccentric and absent- 
 minded brother. Ludwig let himself fall into their way 
 of thinking — it was easier than to oppose them — and 
 they began to drive bargains with publishers and 
 managers. Their intent was to sell for cash and in the 
 highest market; and their strenuous effort after the 
 Main Chance put their gifted brother in a bad plight 
 before the world of art. Beethoven's brothers seized his 
 very early and immature compositions and sold them 
 without his consent or knowledge. So humiliated wets 
 Beethoven by seeing these productions of his childhood 
 hawked about that he even instituted lawsuits to get 
 them back that he might destroy them. To boom a 
 genius and cash his spiritual assets is a grave and 
 delicate task — ^perhaps it is one of those things that 
 should be left undone. Much anguish did these rapacious 
 brothers cause the divinely gifted brown thrush, and 
 when they began to quarrel over the receipts between 
 themselves, he begged them to go away and leave him 
 in peace. He finally had to adopt the ruse of going back 
 
 241 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 to Bonn with them, where he got them established in 
 the apothecary business, before he dared manage his 
 own affairs. But they were bad angels, £uid the wind of 
 their wings withered the great man as they hovered 
 around him down to the day of his death. 
 
 242 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 ]HEN silence settled down upon Beethoven, 
 and every piano was for him mute, and he, 
 the maker of sweet sounds, could not hear his 
 own voice, or catch the words that fell from 
 the lips of those he loved. Fate seemed to have done her 
 worst si si 
 
 And so he wrote: " Forgive me then if you see me turn 
 away when I would gladly mix with you. For me there is 
 no recreation in human intercourse, no conversation, no 
 sweet interchange of thought. In solitary exile I am 
 compelled to live. When I approach strangers a feverish 
 fear takes possession of me, for I know that I will be 
 misunderstood. * * * But O God, Thou lookest down 
 upon my inward soul ! Thou knowest, and Thou seest 
 that love for my fellowmen, and all kindly feeling have 
 their abode here. Patience! I may get better — I may 
 not — but I will endure all until Death shall claim me, 
 and then joyously will I go! " 
 
 The man who could so express himself at twenty-eight 
 years of age must have been a right brave and manly 
 man. But art w£is his solace, as it should be to every 
 soul that Eispires to become. 
 
 Great genius and great love can never be separated — ^in 
 fact I am not sure but that they are one and the same 
 thing. But the object of his love separated herself from 
 Beethoven when calamity lowered. What woman, 
 young, bright, vigorous and fresh, with her face to the 
 sunrising, would care to link her fair fate with that of a 
 
 243 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 man sore-stricken by the hand of God! ^ And then 
 there is always a doubt about the genius — ^isn't he 
 only a fool after all! 
 
 Art was Beethoven's solace. Art is harmony, beauty and 
 excellence. The province of art is to impart a sublime 
 emotion. Beethoven's heart was filled with divine love — 
 and all love is divine — and through his art he sought to 
 express his love to others. 
 
 But his physical calamity made him the butt and 
 byword of the heedless wherever he went. Within the 
 sealed-up casements of his soul Beethoven heard the 
 Heavenly Choir; and as he walked, bareheaded, upon 
 the street, oblivious to all, centered in his own silent 
 world, he would sometimes suddenly burst into song. 
 At other times he would beat time, talk to himself and 
 laugh aloud. His strange actions would often attract a 
 crowd, and rude persons, ignorant of the man they 
 mocked, would imitate him or make mirth for the 
 bystanders, as they sought to engage him in conversa- 
 tion. At such times the Master might be dragged back 
 to earth, and seeing the coarse faces and knowing the 
 hopelessness of trying to make himself understood, he 
 would retreat in terror. 
 
 Six months or more of each year were spent in the 
 country in some obscure village about Vienna. There he 
 could walk the woods and traverse the fields alone and 
 unnoticed, and there, out under the open sky, much of 
 his best work was done. The famous " Moonlight 
 244 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 Sonata " wais shaped on one of these lonely wedks by 
 night across the fields when the Maister could shake his 
 shaggy head, lift up his face to the sky, and cry aloud, 
 all undisturbed. In the recesses of his imagination he 
 saw the sounds. There are men to whom sounds are 
 invisible symbols of forms and colors. 
 The law of compensation never rests. Everything con- 
 spired to drive Beethoven in upon his art — it was his 
 refuge and retreat. When love spurned him, and mis- 
 understandings with kinsmen came, and lawsuits and 
 poverty added their weight of woe, he fell back upon 
 music, and out under the stars he listened to the sonatas 
 of God. Next day he wrote them out as best he could, 
 always regretting that his translations were not quite 
 perfect. He was ever stung with a noble discontent, 
 and in times of exaltation there ran in his deaf ears the 
 words, "Arise and get thee hence, for this is not thy 
 rest! " 33 5S 
 
 And so his work was in a constant ascending scale. 
 Richard Wagner has acknowledged his indebtedness to 
 Beethoven in several essays, and in many ways. In 
 fact it is not too much to say that Beethoven was the 
 spiritual parent of Wagner. From his admiration of 
 Beethoven, Wagner developed the strong, sturdy, inde- 
 pendent quality of his nature that led to his exile — and 
 his success. 
 
 Behold the face of Ludwig Beethoven — ^is there not 
 something Titanic about it? What selfness, what will, 
 
 245 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 what resolve, what power! And those tear-stained eyes 
 — ^have they not seen sights of which no tongue can 
 tell, nor tongue make plain? 
 
 His life of solitude helped foster the independence of his 
 nature, and kept his mind clear and free from all the 
 idle gossip of the rabble. He went his way alone, and 
 played court fool to no titled and alleged nobility. The 
 democracy of the man is not our least excuse for honor- 
 ing him. He was one with the plain people of earth, and 
 the only aristocracy he acknowledged was the aristoc- 
 racy of intellect. 
 
 In the work done after his fortieth year there is greater 
 freedom, an ease and an increased strength, with a 
 daring quality which uplifts and gives you courage. The 
 tragic interest and intense emotionalism are gone, and 
 you behold a resignation and the success that wins by 
 yielding. The man is no longer at war with destiny. 
 There is no struggle. 
 
 We pay for everything we receive — ^nay, all things can 
 be obtained if we but pay the price. One of the very few 
 Emancipated Men in America bought redemption from 
 the bondage of selfish ambition at a terrible price. Years 
 and years ago he was in the Rocky Mountains, rough, 
 uneducated, heedless of all that makes for righteousness. 
 This man was caught in a snowstorm, on the mountain- 
 side. He lost his way, became dazed with cold and fell 
 exhausted in the snow. When found by his companions 
 the next day, death had nearly claimed him. But skilful 
 246 
 
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN 
 
 help brought him back to life, yet the frost had killed 
 the circulation in his feet. Both legs were amputated 
 just below the knees. 
 
 This changed the current of the man's life. Footraces, 
 boxing-matches and hunting of big game were out of the 
 question. The man turned to books and art and ques- 
 tions of science and sociology. 
 
 Thirty summers have come and gone. This gentle, 
 S3nmpathetic and loving man now walks with a cane, 
 and few know of his disability and of his artificial feet. 
 Speaking of his spiritual rebirth, this mzm of splendid 
 intellect said to me, with a smile, "It cost me my feet, 
 but it was worth the price." 
 
 I shed no maudlin tears over the misfortunes of Bee- 
 thoven. He w£is what he was because of what he endured. 
 He grew strong by bearing burdens. All things are 
 equalized. By the Cross is the world redeemed. God be 
 praised, it is all good! 
 
 247 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
When generations have been melted into tears, or 
 raised to religious fervor — ^when courses of sermons have 
 been preached, volumes of criticisms been written, and 
 thousands of afflicted and p>oor people supported by the 
 oratorio of " The Messiah " — it becomes exceedingly 
 difficult to say anything new. Yet no notice of Handel, 
 however sketchy, should be written without some spe- 
 cial tribute of reverence to this sublime treatment of a 
 sublime subject. Bach, Graun, Beethoven, Spohr, 
 Rossini and Mendelssohn have all composed on the 
 same theme. But no one in completeness, in range of 
 effect, in elevation and variety of conception, heis ever 
 approached Handel's music upon this one subject. 
 
 — Rev. H. R. Haweis 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 ID you meet Michelangelo while you 
 were in Rome?" asked a good Roy- 
 croft girl of me the other day. 
 " No, my dear, no," I answered, 
 and then I gulped hard to keep back 
 some very foolish tears. " No, I did 
 not meet Michelangelo," I said, " I 
 expected to, and was always looking 
 for him; but these eyes never looked into his, for he died 
 just three hundred years before, I was born." But how 
 natural wets this question from this bright, country 
 girl! She had been examining a lot of photographs of the 
 Sistine Chap>el, and had seen pictures of " Il^Penseroso," 
 the " Night " and " Morning," the " Moses "; and then 
 she had seen on my desk a bronze cast of the hand of the 
 " David " — that imperial hand with the gently curved 
 wrist SS 53 
 
 These things lured her — the splendid strength and sug- 
 gestion of power in it all, had caught her fancy, and the 
 heroic spirit of the Master seemed very near to her. It 
 all meant pulsating life and hope that was deathless: 
 and the thought that the man who did the work had 
 turned to dust three centuries ago, never occurred to 
 this naive, budding soul. 
 
 "Did you see Michelangelo while you were in Rome? " 
 No, dear girl, no. But I saw Saint Peter's that he 
 
 251 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 planned, and I saw the result of his efforts — things 
 worked out and materialized by his hands — ^hands that 
 surely were just like this hand of the " David." 
 The artist gives us his best — gives it to us forever, for 
 our very own. He grows aweary and lies down to sleep — 
 to sleep and wake no more, deeding to us the mintage of 
 his love. And as love does not grow old, neither does 
 Art. Fashions change, but hope, aspiration and love 
 are as old as Fate who sits and spins the web of life. The 
 Artist is one who is educated in the three H's — head 
 heart and hand. He is God's child — no less are we — and 
 he has done for us the things we would have liked to do 
 ourselves 5S SS 
 
 The classic is that which does not grow old — the classic 
 is the eternally true. 
 
 " Did you meet Michelangelo in Rome? " Why, it is 
 the most natural question in the world! At Stratford 1 
 expected to see Shakespeare; at Weimar I was sure to 
 meet Goethe; Rubens just eluded me at Antwerp; at 
 Amsterdam I caught a glimpse of Rembrandt; in the 
 dim cloisters of Saint Mark's at Florence I saw Savona- 
 rola in cowl and robe; over Whitehall in London 1 
 beheld the hovering smoke of martyr-fires, and knew 
 that just beyond the walls Ridley and Latimer were 
 burned; and only a little way outside of Jerusalem a 
 sign greets the disappointed traveler, thus: "He is 
 risen — He is not here! " 
 
 252 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 N one of his delightful talks — talks that are 
 as fine as his feats of leadership — Walter 
 Damrosch has referred to Handel as a con- 
 temporary. Surely the expression is fitting, 
 for in the realm of truth time is an illusion and the days 
 are shadows. 
 
 George Frederick Handel was born in Sixteen Hundred 
 Eighty-five, and died in Seventeen Hundred Fifty-nine. 
 His dust rests in Westminster Abbey, and above the 
 tomb towers his form cut in enduring marble. There he 
 stands, serene and poised, accepting benignly the 
 homage of the swift-passing generations. For over a 
 hundred years this figure has stood there in its colossal 
 calm, and through the cathedral shrines, the aisles, and 
 winding ways of dome and tower, Handel's music still 
 peals its solemn harmonies. 
 
 At Elxeter Hall is another statue of Handel, seated, 
 holding in his hand a lyre. At the Foundling Hospital 
 (which he endowed) is a bust of the Master, done in 
 Seventeen Hundred Fifty-eight; and at Windsor is the 
 original of still another bust that has served for a copy 
 of the very many casts in plaster and clay that are in all 
 the shops. 
 
 There are at le£ist fifty different pictures of Handel, and 
 nearly this number were brought together, on the 
 occasion of a recent Handel and Haydn Festival, at 
 South Kensington. 
 
 When Gladstone once referred to Handel as our greatest 
 
 253 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 English Composer, he refused to take it back even when 
 a capricious critic carped and sneezed. 
 Handel essentially belongs to England, for there his 
 first battles were fought, and there he won his final 
 victory. To be sure, he did some preliminary skirmish- 
 ing in Germany and Italy; but that w£is only getting his 
 arms ready for that conflict which was to last for half a 
 century — a conflict with friends, foes and fools. 
 But Handel was too big a man to be undermined by 
 either the fulsome flattery of friends, or the malice of 
 enemies, who were such only because they did not 
 understand. And so always to the fore he marched, 
 zigzagging occasionally, but the Voice said to him, as it 
 did to Columbus, " Sail on, and on, and on." Like the 
 soul of John Brown, the spirit of Handel goes meirching 
 on. And Sir Arthur Sullivan was right when he said, 
 " Musical England owes more to Father Handel than 
 to any other ten men who can be named — ^he led the 
 way for us all, and cut out a score that we can only 
 imitate." 3S Si 
 
 254 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 [|T the Gaurt of George of Brunswick, at 
 Hanover, in Seventeen Hundred Nine, was 
 George Frederick Handel, six feet one, weight 
 one hundred eighty, rubicund, rosy, and full 
 of romp, aged twenty-four. George of Brunswick was 
 to have the felicity of being King George the First of 
 England, and already he was straining his gaze across 
 the Channel. 
 
 At his Court were divers and sundry English noblemen. 
 Handel was a prime favorite with every one in the 
 merry company. The ladies doted on him. A few 
 gentlemen, possibly, were slightly jealous of his social 
 prowess, and yet none pooh-poohed him openly, for 
 only a short time before he had broken a sword in a 
 street duel with a brother musician, and once had 
 thrown a basso profundo, who sang off key, through a 
 closed window — all this to the advantage of a passing 
 glsizier. who, being called in, was paid his fee three times 
 over for repeiiring the sash. It 's an ill wind, etc. 
 Handel played the harpsichord well, but the organ 
 better. In fact, he played the organ in such a masterly 
 way that he had no competitor, save a phenomenal 
 yokel by the name of Johann Sebastian Bach. These 
 men were born just a month apart. Saint Cecilia used to 
 whisper to them when they were wee babies. For several 
 years they lived near each other, but in this life they 
 never met. 
 
 Handel was an aristocrat by nature, even if not exactly 
 
 255 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 so by birth, and so had nothing to do with the modest 
 and bucoUc Bach — even going so far, they do say, as to 
 leave, temporarily, the City of Halle, his native place, 
 when a contest was suggested between them. Bach was 
 the supreme culminating flower of two hundred fifty 
 years of musical ancestors — servants to this Grand 
 Duke or that. But in the tribe of Handel there was not a 
 single musical trace. George Frederick succeeded to the 
 art, and at it, in spite of his parents. But never mind 
 that! He had been offered the post as successor to 
 Buxtehude, and Buxtehude was the greatest organist of 
 his time. He accepted the invitation to play for the 
 Buxtehude contingent. A musical jury sat on the case, 
 and decided to accept the young man, with the proviso 
 that Handel (taught by Orpheus) should take to wife 
 the daughter of Buxtehude — this in order that the 
 traditions might be preserved. 
 
 Young Handel declined the proposition with thanks, 
 declaring he was unworthy of the honor. 
 Young Handel had spent two years in Italy, had visited 
 most of the capitals of Europe, had composed several 
 operas and numerous songs. He was handsome, gracious 
 and talented. Money may use its jimmy to break into 
 the Upper Circles; but to Beauty, Grace and Talent that 
 does not shiver nor shrink, all doors fly open. And now 
 the English noblemen requested — nay, insisted — that 
 Handel should accompany them back to Merry 
 England 5S S& 
 256 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 He went, and being introduced as Signore Handello, he 
 was received with salvos of welcome. There is a time to 
 plant, and a time to reap. There is a time for everything 
 —launch your boat only at full of tide. London was ripe 
 for Italian Opera. Discovery had recently been made 
 in England that Art was born in Italy. It had traveled 
 as far as Holland, and so Dutch artists were hard at 
 work in English manor-houses, painting portraits of 
 ancestors, dead and living. Music, one branch of Art, 
 had made its way up to Germany, and here was an 
 Italian who spoke English with a German accent, or a 
 German who spoke Italian — ^what boots it, he was a 
 great musician! 
 
 Handel's Italian opera, " Rinaldo," was given at a 
 theater that stood on the site of the present Haymarket. 
 The production was an immense success. All educated 
 people knew Latin (or were supposed to know it), and 
 Signore HandfeUo announced that his Italian was an 
 improvement on the Latin. And so all the scholars 
 flocked to see the play, and those who were not educated 
 came too, and looked knowing. In order to hold interest, 
 there were English syncopated songs between the acts — 
 ragtime is a new word, but not a new thing. 
 Handel was very wise in this world's affairs. He assured 
 England that it was the most artistic country on the 
 globe. He wrote melodies that everybody could whistle. 
 Airs from " Rinaldo " were thrummed on the harpsi- 
 chord from Land's End to John O'Groat's. The grand 
 
 257 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 march was adopted by the Life Guards, and at least one 
 air from that far-off opera has come down to us — the 
 " Tascie Ch'io Pianga," which is still listened to with 
 emotion unfeigned. The opera being uncopyrighted, W2is 
 published entire by an enterprising Englishman from 
 Dublin by the name of Walsh. At two o'clock one morn- 
 ing at the " Turk's Head," he boasted he had cleared 
 over two thousand pounds on the sale of it. Handel was 
 present and responded, " My friend, the next time you 
 will please write the opera and I will sell it." Walsh took 
 the hint, they say, and sent his check on the morrow to 
 the author for five hundred pounds. And the good sense 
 of both parties is shown in the fact that they worked 
 together for many years, and both reaped a yellow 
 harvest of golden guineas. 
 
 On the birthday of Queen Anne, Handel inscribed to 
 her an ode, which we are told was played with a full 
 band. The performance brought the diplomatic Handel 
 a pension of two hundred pounds a year. 
 Next, to celebrate the peace of Utrecht, the famous 
 " Te Deum " and " Jubilate " were produced, with a 
 golden garter as a slight token of recognition. 
 But Good Queen Anne passed away, as even good 
 queens do, and the fuzzy-witted George of Hanover 
 came over to be King of England, and transmit his 
 fuzzy-wuzzy wit to all the Georges. About his first act 
 was to cut off Handel's pension, "Because," he said, 
 " Handel ran away from me at Hanover." 
 258 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 A time of obscurity followed for Handel, but after some 
 months, when the Royal Barge went up the Thames, a 
 band of one hundred pieces boomed alongside, playing a 
 deafening racket, with horse-pistol accompaniments. 
 The King made inquiries and found it was " Water- 
 Music," composed by Herr Handel, and dedicated in 
 loving homage to King George the First. 
 When the Royal Barge came back down the river, 
 Herr Handel was aboard, and accompanied by a great 
 popping of corks was proclaimed Court Musician, and 
 his back-pension ordered paid. 
 
 The low ebb of art is seen in that, in the various operas 
 given about this time by Handel, great stress is made in 
 the bills about costumes, scenery and gorgeous stage- 
 fittings. When accessories become more than the play — 
 illustrations more than the text — millinery more than 
 the mind — ^it is unfailing proof that the age is frivolous. 
 Art, like commerce and everything else, obeys the law 
 of periodicity. Handel saw the tendency of the times, 
 and advertised, " The fountain to be seen in 'Amadigi ' 
 is a genuine one, the pump real and the dog alive." 
 Three hours before the doors opened, the throng stood 
 in line, waiting. 
 
 259 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 UT London is making head. Other good men 
 and true are coming to town. Handel does not 
 know much about them, or care, perhaps. His 
 wonderful energy is now manifesting itself in 
 the work df managing 'theaters and concerts, giving 
 lessons and composing songs, arias, operas, and attend- 
 ing receptions where " the ladies refrain from hoops for 
 fear of the crush," to use the language of Samuel 
 Pepys 33 5S 
 
 In shirt-sleeves, in a cheap seat in the pit, at one of 
 Handel's performances, is a big lout of a fellow, with 
 scars of scrofula on his neck and cheek. Next to him is a 
 little man, and these two, so chummy and confidential, 
 suggest the long and short of it. They are countrymen, 
 recently arrived, empty of pocket, but full of hope. 
 They have a selfish eye on the stage, for the big 'un 
 has written a play and wants to get it produced. 
 The little man's name is David Garrick; the other is 
 Samuel Johnson. 
 
 They listen to the singing, and" finally Samuel turns to 
 his friend and says, " I say, Davy, music is nothing but 
 a noise that is less disagreeable than some others." 
 They would go away, would these two, but they have 
 paid good money to get in, and so sit it out disgustedly, 
 watching the audience and the play alternately. 
 In one of the boxes is a weazened little man, all out of 
 drawing, in a black velvet doublet, satin breeches and 
 silk stockings. At his side is a rudimentary sword. The 
 260 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 man's face is sallow, and shrewdness and selfishness are 
 shown in every line. He looks like a baby suddenly 
 grown old. The two friends in the pit have seen this man 
 before, but they have never met him face to face, 
 because they do not belong to his set. 
 " Do you think God is proud of a work like that? " at 
 last asked Davy, jerking his thumb toward the bad 
 modeling in courtly black. 
 
 " God never made him." The big man swayed in his 
 seat, and added. " God had nothing to do with him — he 
 is the child of Beelzebub." 
 
 " Think 'ee so?" asks Davy. "Why, Mephisto has 
 some pretty good traits; but Alexander Pope is as 
 crooked as an interrogation-point, inside and out." SS 
 " I hear he wears five pairs of stockings to fill out his 
 shanks, and sole-leather stays to keep him from flat- 
 tening out like a devilfish," said Doctor Johnson. 
 " But he makes a lot o' money! " 
 
 " Well, he has to, for he pays an old woman a hundred 
 guineas a year to dress and undress him." 
 " 1 know, but she writes his heroic couplets, too! " SS 
 " Davy, I fear you are getting cynical — let 's change 
 the subject." 
 
 It surely is a case of artistic jealousy. Our friends locate 
 the poet Gay, a fat little man, who is with his publisher. 
 Rich 53 53 
 
 " They say," says Samuel, again rolling in his seat 
 as if about to have an apoplectic fit, " they say that 
 
 261 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 Gay has become rich, and Rich heis become gay since 
 they got out that last book." There comes an inter- 
 lude in the play, and our friends get up to stretch their 
 legs 5S 5S 
 
 " How now, Dick Savage? " calls Samuel, as he pushes 
 three men over like ninepins, to seize a shabby fellow 
 whose neckcloth and hair-cut betray him as being a 
 poet, " How now, Dick, you said that Italian music was 
 damnably bad! Why do you come to hear it? " 
 " I came to find out how bad it is," replied the literary 
 man. " Eh! your reverence?" he adds to his companion, 
 a sharp-nosed man with china-blue eyes, in Church- 
 of-England knee-breeches, high-cut vest, and shovel- 
 hat Si S& 
 
 Dean Swift replies with a knowing smirk, which is the 
 nearest approach to a laugh in which he ever indulged. 
 Then he takes out his snufFbox and taps it, which is a 
 sign that he is going to say something worth while. 
 " Yes, one must go everywhere, and do everything, 
 just to find out how bad things are. By this means we 
 clergymen are able to intelligently warn our flocks. 
 But I came tonight to hear that rogue Bononcini — 
 you know he is from County Down — I used to go to 
 school with him," and the Dean solemnly passes, the 
 snuffbox S& SS 
 
 Garrick here bursts into a laugh, which is broken off 
 short by a reproving look from the Dean, who has gotten 
 the snuffbox back and is meditatively tapping it 
 262 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 again. The friends listen and hear from the muttering 
 lips of the Dean, this: 
 
 Some say that Signore Bononcini. 
 Coriipared to Handel is a ninny; 
 Whilst others vow that to him Handel, 
 Is hardly fit to hold a candle. 
 Strange all this difference should be 
 'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee. 
 
 The people are tumbling back to their seats as the 
 musicians come stringing in. Soon there is a general 
 tuning up — scrapings, toots, snorts, subdued screeches, 
 raspings, and all that busy buzz-fuzz business of getting 
 ready to play. 
 
 " The first time we came to the opera Doctor Johnson 
 thought this was all a part of the play, and applauded 
 with unction for an encore," says Garrick. 
 "And I heard nothing finer the whole evening," answers 
 Doctor Johnson, accepting the defi, and winning by 
 yielding 53 5S 
 
 " Why don't they tune up at home, or behind the 
 scenes? " disks some one. 
 
 " I '11 tell you why," says Savage, and he relates this: 
 " Handel is a great man for system — ^he is a strict 
 disciplinarian, as any man must be to manage musicians, 
 who are neither men nor women, but a third sex. Often 
 Handel has to knock their heads together, and once he 
 shook the Cuzzoni until her teeth chattered." 
 " That 's the way you have to treat any woman before 
 
 263 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 she will respect you," interrupts the Dean. Nothing else 
 being forthcoming. Savage continues: " Handel is abso- 
 lute master of everything but Death and Destiny. Now 
 he did n't like all this tuning up before the audience; 
 he said you might as well expect the prima donna to 
 
 make her toilet in front of the curtain " 
 
 " I like the idea," says Johnson. 
 
 Savage praises the interruption and continues: "And so 
 ordered every man to tune up his artillery a half-hour 
 before the performance, and carry his instrument in 
 and lay it on his chair. Then when it came time to com- 
 mence, every musician would walk in, take up his 
 instrument, and begin. TTie order was given, and all 
 tuned up. Then the players all adjourned for their 
 refreshments SS S& 
 
 " In the interval a wag entered and threw every 
 instrument out of key. 
 
 "It came time to begin — the players marched in like 
 soldiers. Handel was in his place. He rapped once — 
 every player seized his instrument as though it were a 
 musket. At the second rap the music began — and such 
 music ! Some of the strings were drawn so tight that they 
 snapped at the first touch; others merely flapped; some 
 growled; and others groaned and moaned or squealed. 
 Handel thought the orchestra was just playing him a 
 scurvy trick. He leaped upon the stage, kicked a hole in 
 the bass-viol, and smashed the kettledrum around the 
 neck of the nearest performer. The players fled before 
 264 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 the assault, and he bombarded them with cornets and 
 
 French horns as they tumbled down the stairs. 
 
 " The audience roared with delight, and not one in 
 
 forty guessed that it was not a specially arranged 
 
 Italian feature. But since that evening all tuning-up is 
 
 done on the stage, and no man lets his instrument get 
 
 out of his hands after he gets it right." 
 
 " It 's a moving tale, invented as an excuse for a man 
 
 who writes music so bad that he gets disgusted with it 
 
 himself, and flies into wrath when he hears it," says 
 
 Johnson 53 Si 
 
 A subdued buzz is heard, and the master comes forth, 
 
 gorgeous in a suit of purple velvet. His powdered wig 
 
 and the enormous silver buckles on his shoes set off his 
 
 figure with the proper accent. His florid face is smiling, 
 
 and Garrick expresses a regret that there are to be no 
 
 impromptu tragic events in way of chasing players from 
 
 the stage. 
 
 " Would you like to meet him? " asks the sharp-nosed 
 
 Dean Si Si 
 
 Garrick and Johnson have enough of the rustic in them 
 
 to be lion-hunters, and they reply to the question as one 
 
 man, " Yes, indeed! " 
 
 " I '11 arrange it," was the answer. The leader raps for 
 
 attention. Johnson closes his eyes, sighs, and leans back 
 
 resignedly. 
 
 The others look and listen with interest as the play 
 
 proceeds Si Si 
 
 265 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 HE other day I read a book by Madame 
 Columbier entitled, " Sara Barnum." Only a 
 person of worth could draw forth such a fire of 
 hot invective, biting sarcasm and frenzied 
 vituperation as this volume contains. When I closed the 
 volume it was with the feeling that Sara Bernhardt is 
 surely the greatest woman of the age; and I was fully 
 resolved that I must see her play at the first opportunity, 
 no matter what the cost. And as for Madame Columbier, 
 why she is n't so bad, either! The flashes of lightning in 
 her swordplay are highly interesting. The book was 
 born, as all good books, because its mother could not 
 help it. Behind every page and between the lines you 
 see the fevered toss of human emotion and hot ambition 
 — these women were rivals. There were digs and 
 scratches, bandied epithets in falsetto, and sounds like a 
 piccolo played by a man in distress, before all this; and 
 these are not explained, so you have to fill them in with 
 your imagination. But the Bernhardt is the bigger 
 woman of the two. She goes her splendid pace alone, 
 and all the other woman can do is to bombard her with 
 a book 53 3S 
 
 TTie excellence of Handel is shown in that he achieved 
 the enmity of some very good men. Read the " Spec- 
 tator," and you will find its pages well peppered with 
 thrusts at " foreigners," and sweeping cross-strokes at 
 Italian Opera and all " bombastic beaters of the air, 
 who smother harmony with bursts of discord in the 
 266 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 name of music." f These battles royal between the 
 kings of art are not so far removed from the battles of 
 the beasts. Rosa Bonheur has pictured a duel to the 
 death between stallions; and that battle of the stags — 
 horn-locked — with the morning sun revealing Death as 
 victor, by Landseer, is familiar to us all. Then Landseer 
 has another picture which he called " The Monarch," 
 showing a splendid stag, solitary and alone, standing on 
 a cliff, overlooking the valley. There is history behind 
 this stag. Before he could command the scene alone, he 
 had to vanquish foes; but in the main, in some way, you 
 feel that most of his battles have been bloodless and he 
 commands by divine right. The Divine Right of a King, 
 if he be a King, has its root in truth. 
 One mark of the genius of Handel is shown in the fact 
 that he has achieved a split and created a ruction in the 
 Society of Scribblers. He once cut Dean Swift dead at a 
 fashionable gathering — the doughty Dean, who de- 
 lighted in making men and women alike crawl to him — 
 and this won him the admiration of CoUey Gibber, who 
 immortalized the scene in a sonnet. People liked Handel, 
 or they did not, and among the Old Guard who stood by 
 him, let these names, among others, be remembered: 
 G)lley Gibber, Gay, Arbuthnot, Pope, Hogarth, Fielding 
 and Smollett. 
 
 People who through incapacity are unable to compre- 
 hend or appreciate music, are prone to wax facetious 
 over it — the feeble joke is the last resort of the man who 
 
 267 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 does not understand. ^ The noisy denizens of Grub 
 Street, drinking perdition to that which they can not 
 comprehend, always getting ready to do great things, 
 seem Uke fussy pigmies beside a giant Hke Handel. See 
 the fifth act ere the curtain falls on the lives of Oliver 
 Goldsmith, Doctor Johnson, Steele, Addison and Dean 
 Swift (dead at the top, the last), and the others un- 
 happily sent into Night; and then behold George Fred- 
 erick Handel, in his seventy-fifth year, blind, but with 
 inward vision all aflame, conducting the oratorio of 
 " Elijah " before an audience of five thousand people! 
 ^ The life of Handel was packed with work and projects 
 too vast for one man to realize. That he deferred to the 
 London populace and wrote down to them at first, is 
 true; but the greatness of the man is seen in this — he 
 never deceived himself. He knew just what he was doing, 
 and in his heart was ever a shrine to the Ideal, and upon 
 this altar the fires never died. 
 
 Handel was a man of affairs as well as a musician, and 
 if he had loved money more than Art, he could have 
 withdrawn from the fray at thirty years of age, passing 
 rich 53 53 
 
 Three times in his life he risked all in the production of 
 Grand Opera, and once saw a sum equal to fifty thou- 
 sand dollars disappear in a week, through the treachery 
 of Italian artists who were pledged to help him. At 
 great expense and trouble he had gone abroad and 
 searched Europe for talent, and, regardless of outlay, 
 268 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 had brought singers and performers across the sea to 
 England. In several notable instances these singers 
 had, in a short time, been bought up by rivals, and had 
 turned upon their benefactor. 
 
 But Handel was not crushed by these things. He was 
 philosopher enough to know that ingratitude is often 
 the portion of the man who does well, and a fight with a 
 fox you have warmed into life is ever imminent. At 
 fifty-five, a bankrupt, he makes terms with his creditors 
 and in a few years pays off every shilling with interest, 
 and celebrates the event by the production of " Saul," 
 the " Dead March " from which will never die. 
 The man had been gaining ground, making head, and at 
 the same time educating the taste of the English people. 
 But still they lagged behind, and when the oratorio of 
 " Joshua " was performed, the Master decided he would 
 present his next and best piece outside of England. 
 Jealousy, a dangerous weapon, has its use in the diplo- 
 matic world. 
 
 Handel set out for Dublin with a hundred musicians, 
 there to present the " Messiah," written for and 
 dedicated to the Irish people. The oratorio had been 
 turned off in just twenty-one days, in one of those 
 titanic bursts of power, of which this man was capable. 
 Its production was a feat worthy of the Frohmans at 
 their best. The performance was to be for charity — to 
 give freedom to those languishing in debtors' prisons at 
 Ehiblin. What finer than that the " Messiah " should 
 
 269 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 give deliverance? ^ The Irish heart was touched. A 
 fierce scramble ensued for seats, precedence being 
 emphasized in several cases with blackthorns deftly 
 wielded. The price of seats was a guinea each. Handel's 
 carriage was drawn through the streets by two hundred 
 students. He was crowned with shamrock, and given the 
 freedom of the city in a gold box. Freedom even then, 
 in Ireland, was a word to conjure with. Long before the 
 performance, notices that no more tickets would be 
 sold were posted. The doors of the Debtors' Prison were 
 thrown open, and the prisoners given seats so they could 
 hear the music — thus overdoing the matter in true Irish 
 style 53 SS 
 
 The performance was the supreme crowning event in 
 the life of Handel up to that time. 
 Couriers were dispatched to London to convey the news 
 of Handel's great triumph to the newspapers; bulletins 
 were posted at the clubs — the infection caught! On the 
 return of the master a welcome was given him such as 
 he had never before known — Dublin should not outdo 
 London! When the " Messiah " was given in London, 
 the scene of furore in Dublin was repeated. The wild 
 tumult at times drowned the orchestra, and when the 
 " Hallelujah Chorus " was sung, the audience arose as 
 one man and joined in the song of praise. And from that 
 day the custom has continued: whenever in England the 
 " Messiah " is given, the audience arises and sings in 
 the " Chorus," as its privilege and right. The proceeds 
 270 
 
GEORGE HANDEL 
 
 of the first performance of the " Messiah " in England 
 were given to charity, as in Dublin. This act, with the 
 splendor of the work, subdued the last lingering touch of 
 obdurate criticism. The man was canonized by popular 
 acclaim. Many of his concerts were now for charity — 
 " The Foundlings' Home," " The Seamen's Fund," 
 " Home for the Aged," hospitals and imprisoned 
 debtors — all came in for their share. 
 Handel never married. That remark of Dean Swift's, 
 " I admire Handel — ^principally because he conceals his 
 petticoat peccadilloes with such perfection," does not 
 go. Handel considered himself a priest of art, and his 
 passion spent itself in his work. 
 
 The closing years of his life were a time of peace and 
 honor. His bark, after a fitful voyage, had glided into 
 safe and peaceful waters. The calamity of blindness did 
 not much depress him — " What matters it so long as I 
 can hear? " he said. And good it is to know that the 
 capacity to listen and enjoy, to think and feel, to 
 sympathize and love — to live his Ideals — were his, even 
 to the night of his passing Hence. 
 
 271 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
Of all the operas that Verdi wrote. 
 
 The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore; 
 
 And Mario can soothe, with a tenor note. 
 The souls in purgatory. 
 
 The moon on the tower slept soft as snow; 
 
 And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, 
 As we heard him sing while the lights burned low, 
 
 " Non ti scordar di me " ? 
 
 But O, the smell of that jasmine-flower! 
 
 And 0, the music! and O, the way 
 That voice rang out from the donjon tower, 
 " Non ti scordar di me, 
 Non ti scordar di me! " 
 
 — Btdwer-Lytlon 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 E sort of clung to the iron pickets, 
 did the boy, and pressed his face 
 through the fence and listened. 
 Some one was playing the piano in 
 the big house, and the windows 
 with their little diamond panes were 
 flung open to catch the evening 
 breeze. He listened. 
 His big gray eyes were open wide, the pupils dilated — 
 he was trying to see the music as well as hear it. 
 The boy's hair matched the yellow of his face, being one 
 shade lighter, sun-bleached from going hatless. His 
 clothes were as yellow as the yellow of his face, and 
 shaded off into the dust that strewed the street. He was 
 like a quail in a stubble-field — you might have stepped 
 over him and never seen him at all. He listened. Almost 
 every evening some one played the piano in the big 
 house. He had discovered the fact a week before, and 
 now, when the dusk was gathering, he would watch his 
 chance and slide away from the hut where his parents 
 lived, and run fast up the hill, and along the shelving 
 roadway to the tall iron fence that marked the residence 
 of Signore Barezzi. He would creep along under the 
 stone wall, and crouching there would wait and listen 
 for the music. Several evenings he had come and waited, 
 and waited, and waited — and not a note or a voice did 
 
 275 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 he hear. ^ Once it had rained and he did n't mind it 
 much, for he expected every moment the music would 
 strike up, you know — and who cares for cold, or wet, or 
 even hunger, if one can hear good music! The air grew 
 chill and the boy's threadbare jacket stuck to his bony 
 form like a postage-stamp to a letter. Little rivulets of 
 water ran down his hair and streamed off his nose and 
 cheeks. He waited — ^he was waiting for the music 53 
 He might have waited until the water dissolved his 
 insignificant cosmos into just plain, yellow mud, and 
 then he would have been simply distributed all along 
 the gutter down to the stream, and down the stream to 
 the river, and down the river to the ocean ; and no one 
 would ever have heard of him again. 
 But Signore Barezzi's coachman came along that night, 
 keeping close to the fence under the trees to avoid the 
 wet; and the coachman fell over the boy. 
 Now, when we fall over anything we always want to 
 kick it — no matter what it is, be it cat, dog, stump, 
 stick, stone or human. The coachman being but clay 
 (undissolved) turned and kicked the boy. Then he 
 seized him by the collar, and accused him of being a 
 thief. The lad acknowledged the indictment, and 
 stammeringly tried to explain that it was only music he 
 was trying to steal; and that it really made no difference 
 because even if one did fill himself full of the music, 
 there was just as much left for other people, since music 
 was different from most things. 
 276 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 The thought was not very well expressed, although the 
 idea was all right, but the coachman failed to grasp it. 
 So he tingled the boy's bare legs with the whip he 
 carried, by way of answer, duly cautioning him never to 
 let it occur again, and released the prisoner on parole 3S 
 But the boy forgot and came back the next night. He 
 sat on the ground below the wall, intending to keep out 
 of sight; but when the music began he stood up, and 
 now, with face pressed between the pickets, he listened. 
 f The wind sighed softly through the orange-trees; the 
 air was heavy with the perfume of flowers; the low of 
 cattle came from across the valley, and on the evening 
 breeze from an open casement rose the strong, vibrant, 
 yet tender, strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." 
 The lad listened. 
 
 " Do you like music? " came a voice from behind. The 
 boy awoke with a start, and tried to butt his head 
 through the pickets to escape in that direction. He 
 thought it was the coachman. He turned and saw the 
 kindly face of Signore Barezzi himself. 
 " Do I like music? Me! No, I mean yes, when it is like 
 that! " he exclaimed, beginning his reply with a 
 tremolo and finishing bravura. 
 
 " That is my daughter playing; come inside with me." 
 The hand of the great man reached out, and the urchin 
 clutched at it as if it were something he had been long- 
 ing for. 
 
 They walked through the big gates where a stone lion 
 
 277 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 kept guard on each side. The lions never moved. They 
 walked up the steps, and entering the parlor saw a young 
 woman seated at the piano. 
 
 " Grazia, dear, here is the little boy we saw the other 
 day — ^you remember? I thought I would bring him in." 
 The young woman came forward and touched the lad 
 on his tawny head with one of her beautiful hands — the 
 beautiful hands that had just been playing the "Sonata." 
 ^ " That 's right, little boy, we have seen you outside 
 there before, and if I had known you were there tonight, 
 I would have gone out and brought you in ; but Papa has 
 done the service for me. Now, you must sit down right 
 over there where I can see you, and I will play for you. 
 But won't you tell us your name? " 
 " Me? " replied the little boy, " why — ^why my name is 
 Giuseppe Verdi — I am ten years old now — going on 
 'leven — ^you see, I like to hear you play because I play 
 myself, a little bit! " 
 
 278 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 OR over a hundred years three-fourths of 
 Italy's population had been on reduced 
 rations. Starvation even yet crouches just 
 around the corner. 
 In his childhood young Verdi used to wear a bit of rope 
 for a girdle, and when hunger gnawed importunately, he 
 would simply pull his belt one knot tighter, and pray 
 that the ravens would come and treat him as well as 
 they did EHjah. His parents were so poor that the 
 question of education never came to them; but desire 
 has its way, so we find the boy at ten years of age run- 
 ning errands for a grocer with a musical attachment. 
 This grocer, at Busseto, Jasquith by name, hung upon 
 the fringe of art, and made the dire mistake of mixing 
 business with his fad, for he sold his wares to sundry 
 gentlemen who played in bands. This led the good man 
 to moralize at times, and he would say to Giuseppe, who 
 had been promoted from errand-boy to clerk: " You can 
 trust a first violin, and a 'cello usually pays, but never 
 say yes to a trombone nor an oboe; and as for a kettle- 
 drum, I wouldn't believe one on a stack of Bibles! " 
 ^ Over the grocer's shop was a little parlor, and in it was 
 a spinet that young Giuseppe had the use of four even- 
 ings a week. In his later years Verdi used to tell of this, 
 and once said that the idea of, prohibition and limit 
 should be put on every piano — then the pupil would 
 make the best of his privileges. In those days there was a 
 tax on spinets, and I believe that this tax has never been 
 
 279 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 rescinded, for you are taxed if you keep a piano, now, 
 in any part of Italy. Several times the poor grocer's 
 spinet stood in sore peril from the publicans and sinners, 
 but the bailiffs were bought off by Signore Barezzi, who 
 came to the rescue. 
 
 The note of thrift was even then in Verdi's score, for he 
 himself has told how he induced the Barezzi household 
 to patronize the honest grocer with musical proclivities. 
 ^ When twelve years of age Verdi occasionally played 
 the organ in the village church at Busseto. It will be 
 seen from this that he had courage, and even then 
 possessed a trace of that pride and self-will that was to 
 be his disadvantage and then his blessing. Signore 
 Barezzi's attachment to the boy was very great, and 
 we find the youngster was on friendly terms with the 
 family, having free use of their piano, with valuable 
 help and instruction from Signorina Grazia. When 
 he was seventeen he was easily the first musician in the 
 place, and Busseto had nothing more to offer in the way 
 of advantages. He thirsted for a wider career, and cast 
 longing looks out into the great outside world. He had 
 played at Parma, only a few miles away, and the Bishop 
 there, after hearing him improvise on the organ, had 
 paid him a doubtful compliment by saying, " Your 
 playing is surely unlike anything ever before heard in 
 Parma." Fair fortune smiled when Signore Barezzi 
 secured for young Verdi a free scholarship at the Con- 
 servatory at Milan. 
 280 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 The youth went gaily forth, attended by the blessings 
 of the whole village, to claim his honors. 
 Arriving at the Conservatory, the directors put him 
 through his paces, after the usual custom, to prove his 
 fitness for the honor that had been thrust upon him. He 
 played first upon the piano, and the committee advised 
 together in whispered monotone. Then they asked him 
 to play on the organ, and there was more consultation, 
 with argument which was punctuated by rolling 
 adjectives and many picturesque gesticulations. Then 
 they asked him to play the piano again. He did so, and 
 the great men retired to deliberate and vote on the 
 issue S& 5S 
 
 Their decision was that the youth was self-willed, 
 erratic, and that he had some absurd mannerisms and 
 tricks of performance that forbade his ever making a 
 musician. And therefore, they ruled that his admission 
 to the Conservatory was impossible. 
 Barezzi, who was present with his protege, stormed in 
 wrath, and declared that Verdi was the peer of any of 
 his judges ; in fact, was so much beyond them that they 
 could not comprehend him. 
 
 This only confirmed the powers in the stand they had 
 taken, and they intimated that a great musician in 
 Busseto was something different in Milan — Signore 
 Barezzi had better take his young man home and be 
 content to astonish the villagers with noisy acrobatics. 
 There being nothing else to do, the advice was first 
 
 281 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 flouted and then followed. They arrived home, and 
 Greizia and the grocer were informed that the Con- 
 servatory at Milan was a delusion and a snare — " a 
 place where pebbles were polished and diamonds were 
 dimmed." Shortly after, the townspeople, to show faith 
 in the home product, had Verdi duly installed as organ- 
 ist of the village church at a salary equal to forty dollars 
 a year SS S& 
 
 Under the spell of this good fortune, Verdi proposed 
 marriage to the daughter of Jasquith, the grocer, his 
 friend and benefactor. Gratitude to the man who had 
 first assisted him had much to do with the alliance; and 
 in wedding the daughter, Verdi simply complied with 
 what he knew to be the one ardent desire of the father. 
 ^ The girl was a frail creature, of fine instincts, but her 
 intellect had been starved just as her body had been. 
 Her chief virtue seems to have been that she believed 
 absolutely in the genius of Verdi. 
 The ambition of Verdi began to show itself. He wrote 
 an opera, and offered it to Merelli, the impresario of 
 " La Scala " at Milan. The impresario had heard of 
 Verdi, through the fact that the Conservatory had 
 blackballed him. This of itself would have been no 
 passport to fame, but the Committee saw fit to defend 
 themselves in the matter by making a public report of 
 the considerations which had moved them to shut the 
 doors on the young man from Busseto. This gave the 
 subject a weight and prominence that simple admission 
 282 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 never would have given. ^ Merelli, the Major Pond of 
 Milan, saw the expressions " bizarre," " erratic," 
 " peculiar," " unprecedented," and kept his eye on 
 Verdi. And so when the opera was written he pounced 
 upon it, thinking possibly a new star had appeared on 
 the horizon. The opera was accepted. Verdi, feverish 
 with hope, moved his scanty effects to Milan, and there, 
 with his frail and beautiful girl-wife and their baby-boy, 
 lived in a garret just across from the theater. 
 Preparations for the performance were going on apace. 
 The night of November Seventeenth, Eighteen Hundred 
 Thirty-nine came, and the play was presented. The 
 critics voted it a failure. Merelli, the manager, saw that 
 it was not strong enough with which to storm the town, 
 and so decided to abandon it. He liked the young com- 
 poser, though, and admired his work; and inasmuch as 
 he had brought him to Milan, he felt a sort of obligation 
 to help him along. So Verdi was given an order for an 
 opera bouffe. That 's it! Opera bouffe! — the people 
 want comedy — they must be amused. Even Verdi's 
 serious work ran dangerously close to farce — bouffe is 
 the thing! 
 
 MerelU's hope was infectious. Verdi began work on the 
 new play that was to be presented in the Spring. The 
 winter rains began. There was no fire in the garret where 
 the composer and his frail girl-wife lived. They were so 
 proud that they did not let the folks at Busseto know 
 where they were: even MereUi did not know their place 
 
 283 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 of abode. Under an assumed name Verdi got occasional 
 work as an underling in one of the theaters, and also 
 played the piano at a restaurant. The wages thus earned 
 were a pittance, but he managed to take home soup- 
 bones that the baby-boy sucked on as though they 
 were nectar 5S 33 
 
 Another baby was born that winter. The mother was 
 unattended, save by her husband — no other woman was 
 near. Verdi managed to bring home scraps of food by 
 stealth from the restaurant where he played, but it was 
 not the kind that was needed. There was no money to 
 buy goat's milk for the new-born babe, and the famish- 
 ing mother, ever hopeful, assured the husband it was n't 
 necessary — that the babe was doing well. The child 
 grew aweary of this world before a month had passed, 
 and slept to wake no more. 
 
 But the opera bouffe was taking shape. It was rehearsed 
 and hummed by husband and wife together. They went 
 over it all again and again, and struck out and added to. 
 It was splendid work — subtle, excruciatingly funny, and 
 possessed a dash and go that would sweep all carping 
 and criticism before it. 
 
 Food was still scarce, and there was no fuel even to cook 
 things; but as there was nothing to cook, it really made 
 no difference. Spring was coming — it was cold, to be 
 sure, but the buds were swelling on the trees in the park. 
 Verdi had seen them with his own eyes, and he hastened 
 home to tell his wife — Spring was coming! 
 284 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 The two-year-old boy did n't seem to thrive on soup- 
 bones. The father used to hold him in his arms at night 
 to warm the little form against his own body. He 
 awoke one morning to find the child cold and stiff. The 
 boy was dead. 
 
 The mother used to lie abed all day now. She was n't ill 
 she said — just tired! She never looked so beautiful to her 
 husband. Two bright pink spots marked her cheeks, and 
 set off the alabaster of her complexion. Her eyes glowed 
 with such a light as Verdi had never before seen. No, 
 she was not ill — she protested this again and again. She 
 kept to her bed merely to be warm; and then if one 
 did n't move around much, less food was required — 
 don't you see? 
 
 Spring had come. The opera was being rehearsed. The 
 title of the play weis " Un Giorno di Regno." Merelli 
 said he thought it would be a success; Verdi was sure 
 oi'it Si S$ 
 
 The night of presentation came. After the first act 
 Verdi ran across the street, leaped up the stairs three 
 steps at a time, and reached the garret. The play was a 
 success. The worn woman there on her pallet, the pale 
 moonlight streaming in on her face, knew it would be. 
 She raised herself on her elbow and tried to call, " Viva 
 Verdi!" But the cough cut her words short. Verdi 
 kissed her forehead, her hands, her hair, and hurried 
 back in time to see the curtain ascend on the second act. 
 This act went without either applause or disapproval. 
 
 285 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 Verdi ran home to say that the audience was a trifle 
 
 critical, but the play was all right — it was a success! 
 
 He said he would remain at home now, he would not go 
 
 to hear the third and last act. He would attend his wife 
 
 until she got well and strong. The play was a success! 53 
 
 She prevailed upon him to leave her and then come back 
 
 at the finale and tell her all about it. 
 
 He went away. 
 
 When he returned he stumbled up the stairway and 
 
 slowly entered the door. 
 
 The last act had not been completed — the audience had 
 
 hissed the players from the stage! 
 
 Upon the ashen face of her husband, the stricken woman 
 
 read all. She tried to smile. She reached out one thin 
 
 hand on which loosely hung a marriage-ring. The hand 
 
 dropped before he could reach it. The eyes of the 
 
 woman were closed, but upon the long, black lashes 
 
 glistened two big tears. The spirit was brave, but the 
 
 body had given up the great struggle. 
 
 286 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 HE calamities that had come sweeping over 
 Verdi well-nigh broke his proud heart. He was 
 only twenty-six, but he had had a taste of life 
 and found it bitter. 
 He lost interest in everything. All his musical studies 
 were abandoned, his excursions into science went by 
 default, and he was quite content to bang the piano in a 
 concert saloon for enough to secure the bare necessaries 
 of life. Suicide seemed to present the best method of 
 solving the problem, and the various ways of shufHing 
 off this mortal coil were duly considered. Meanwhile he 
 filled in the time reading trashy novels — anything to 
 forget time and place, and lose self in poppy-dreams of 
 nothingness 5S SS 
 
 Two years of such blankness and blackness followed. 
 He was sure that the desire to create, to be, to do, would 
 never come again — these were all of the past. One day 
 on an idle stroll through the park he met Merelli. As 
 they walked along together, Merelli took from his 
 pocket a book, the story of " Nabucco," and handing it 
 to Verdi, asked him to look it over, and see if he thought 
 there was a chance to make an opera out of it. Verdi 
 responded that he was not in the business of writing 
 operas — ^he had quit all such follies. He took the volume, 
 however, but neglected to look at it for several days. 
 At last he read the pages. He laid the book down and 
 began to pace the floor. Possibilities of creation were 
 looming large before him — a rush of thought was upon 
 
 287 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 him. His soul was not dead — ^it had only been lying 
 fallow SS 53 
 
 He secured the loan of a piano and set to work. In a 
 month the opera was completed. Merelli hesitated about 
 accepting it — twice he had lost money on Verdi. Finally 
 he decided he would put the play on, if Verdi would 
 waive all royalties for the first three performances, if it 
 were a success, and then sell the opera outright " at a 
 reasonable price," if Merelli should chance to want it. 
 The " reasonable price " was assumed to be about a 
 thousand francs — two hundred dollars — ^pretty good 
 pay for a month's work. 
 
 Verdi took no interest in the production of the piece. He 
 had come to the conclusion that the public was a fickle, 
 foolish thing, and no one could tell what it would hiss 
 or applaud. Then he remembered the blackness of the 
 night when only two years before his other opera was 
 produced SS 53 
 
 He made his way to his dingy little room and went to 
 bed 53 53 
 
 Very early the next morning there was a loud pound- 
 ing on his door. It was Merelli. "How much for your 
 opera?" asked the impresario, pushing his way into the 
 room 53 53 
 
 " Thirty thousand francs," came a voice, loud and clear 
 out of the bedclothes. 
 
 " Don't be a fool," returned Merelli — " why do you ask 
 such a sum! " 
 288 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 " Because you are here at five o'clock in the morning — 
 the price will be fifty thousand this eifternoon." ^ Ten 
 minutes of parley followed, and then Merelli drew his 
 check for twenty thousand francs, and Verdi gave his 
 quitclaim, turned over in bed, and went to sleep again. 
 
 289 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 IHE success of "Nabucodonosor" was com- 
 plete. Its author had his twenty thousand 
 francs, but Merelli made more than that. From 
 Eighteen Hundred Forty-two to ELighteen Hun- 
 dred Fifty-one may be called the First Verdi Period. A 
 dozen successful operas were produced, and simultane- 
 ously atRome,Naples,Venice,Milan,Genoa and Florence, 
 Verdi's compositions were being presented. TTie meister 
 was a businessman, as well as an artist — the combina- 
 tion is not so unusual as was long believed — ^and knew 
 how to get the most for the mintage of his mind. 
 Money fairly flowed his way. 
 
 Verdi married again in Eighteen Hundred Fifty. His'life 
 now turns into what may be called the Second Verdi 
 Period. After this we shall see no more such curious 
 exhibitions of bad taste as a ballet of forty witches in 
 " Macbeth," capering nimbly to a sjnicopated melody, 
 with " Lady Macbeth " in a needlessly abbreviated 
 skirt singing a drinking-song to an absent lover. In 
 strenuous efforts to avoid coarseness Verdi may occasion- 
 ally give us soft sentimentality, but the change is for the 
 best SS 5S 
 
 His mate was a woman of mind as well as heart. She 
 was his intellectual companion, his friend, his wife. For 
 nearly fifty years they lived together. Her dust now lies 
 in the " House of Rest," at Milan, a home for aged 
 artists, founded by Verdi. This " House of Rest " was 
 a Love-Offering, dedicated to the woman who had 
 290 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 given him, without stint, of the richness of her nature; 
 who had bestowed rest, and peace, and hope and gentle 
 love. She had no feverish ambitions and petty plans and 
 schemes for secretly corralling pleasure, power, place, 
 attention, or selfish admiration. By giving all, she won 
 all. She devoted herself to this man in whom she had 
 perfect faith, and he had perfect faith in her. She 
 ministered to him. They grew great together. When 
 each was over eighty years of age, Henry James met 
 them at Cremona, at a musical festival in honor of the 
 birthday of Stradivari. And thus wrote Henry James: 
 " Verdi and his wife were there, admired above all 
 others. And why not? Think of whom they are, and 
 what they stand for — nearly a century of music, and a 
 century of life! The master is tall, straight, proud, com- 
 manding. He has a courtly old-time grace of bearing; 
 and he kissed his wife's hand when he took leave of her 
 for an hour's stroll. And the Madame surely is not old 
 in spirit; she is as sprightly as our own Mrs. John 
 Sherwood, who translated 'Carcassonne' so well that 
 she improved on the original, because in her heart 
 spring fresh and fragrant every day the flowers of 
 tender, human. Godlike sympathy." 
 
 291 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 IGOLETTO," produced in the year Eighteen 
 Hundred Fifty-one at Venice, is founded on 
 Victor Hugo's " Le Roi s' Amuse "; and the 
 music has all the dramatic fire that matches 
 the Hugo plot. Verdi's devotion to Victor Hugo is seen 
 again in the use of " Hernani " for operatic purposes. 
 ■" II Trovatore " and " La Traviata " followed " Rigo- 
 letto," and these three operas are usually put forward 
 as the Verdi meisterpieces. Tlie composer himself 
 regarded them with a favor that may well be pardoned, 
 since he used to say that he and his wife collaborated in 
 their production — she writing the music and he looking 
 on. The proportion of truth and poetry in this statement 
 is not on record. But the simple fact remains that 
 "II Trovatore " was always a favorite with Verdi, and 
 even down to his death he would travel long distances 
 to hear it played. A correspondent of the " Musical 
 Couner." writing from Paris in Eighteen Hundred 
 Eighty-seven, says: " Verdi and his wife occupied a box 
 Isist evening at the Grand Opera House. The piece was 
 ' II Trovatore,' and many smiles were caused by the 
 sight of the author and his sp>ouse seemingly leading the 
 claque as if they would split their gloves." 
 The flaming forth of creative genius that produced the 
 " Rigoletto," " II Trovatore," and " La Traviata," 
 subsided into a placid calm. 
 
 The serene happiness of Verdi's married life, the fortune 
 that had come to him, and the consciousness of having 
 292 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 won In spite of great obstacles, led him to the thought of 
 quiet and well-earned rest. The master interested him- 
 self in politics, and was elected to represent the district 
 of Parma in the Italian Parliament. He proved himself 
 a man of power — ^practical, self-centered and business- 
 like — and as such served his country well. 
 TTie sentiment of the man is shown in his buying the 
 property at Busseto, his old home, which was owned by 
 Signore Barezzi. He removed the high picket fence, 
 replacing it with a low stone wall ; remodeled the house 
 and turned the conservatory into a small theater, where 
 free concerts were often given with the help of the 
 villagers. The adjoining grounds and splendid park were 
 free to the public. 
 
 The meister's attention to music was now limited to 
 enjoying it. So passed the days. 
 
 Ten years of the life of a country gentleman went by, 
 and the Shah of Persia, who had been on a visit to Italy 
 and met Verdi, sent a command for an opera. TTie plot 
 must be laid in the Rast, the characters Moorish, and 
 the whole to be dedicated to the immortal Son of the 
 Sun — the Shah. 
 
 It is a little doubtful whether the Shah knew that 
 operas are produced only in certain moods and can not 
 be done to order as a carpenter builds a fence. But it 
 was the way that Eastern Royalty had of showing its 
 high esteem. 
 
 Verdi smiled, and his wife smiled, and they had quite a 
 
 293 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 merry little time over the matter, calling in the neigh- 
 bors and friends, and drinking to the health of a real live 
 Shah who knew a great musical genius when he found 
 bile. But suddenly the matter began to take form in the 
 master's mind. He set to work, and the result was that 
 in a few weeks "Aida " wsis completed. TTie stories 
 often told of the long preparation for composing this 
 c^jera reveal the fine imagination of the men who write 
 for the newspapers. Verdi seized upon knowledge as a 
 devilfish absorbs its prey — ^he learned in the mass 5S 
 "Aida " was first produced at Cairo in Elighteen Hun- 
 dred Seventy-one, with a grand setting and the best 
 cast procurable. A new Verdi opera was an event, and 
 critics went from London. Paris, and other capitals to 
 see the performance. 
 
 The first thing the knowing ones said was that Verdi 
 was touched with Wagnerism, and that he had studied 
 " Lohengrin " with painstaking care. If Verdi was 
 influenced by Wagner it was for good; but there was no 
 servile imitation in it. The " Aida " is rich in melody, 
 reveals a fine balance between singers and orchestra, 
 and the " local color " is correct even to the chorus of 
 Congo slaves that was introduced at the performance in 
 Cairo 53 53 
 
 All agreed that the rest had done the master good, and 
 the correspondents wrote, " We will look anxiously for 
 his next." They thought the stream had started and 
 there would be an overflow. 
 294 
 
GIUSEPPE VERDI 
 
 But they were mistaken. Sixteen years of quiet farming 
 followed. Verdi was more interested in his flowers than 
 his music, and told Philip Hale, who made a pious 
 pilgrimage to Busseto in Eighteen Hundred Eighty- 
 three, that he loved his horses more than all the prima 
 donnas on earth. 
 
 But in Eighteen Hundred Eighty-seven, the artistic 
 and music-loving world was surprised and delighted 
 with "Otello." This grand performance made amends for 
 the mangling of "Macbeth." James Huneker says: 
 " The character-drawing in ' Otello ' is done with the 
 burin of a master; the plot moves in processional splen- 
 dor; the musical psychology is subtle and inevitable. 
 At last the genius of Verdi has flowered. The work is 
 consummate and complete." 
 
 " Falsteiff " came next, written by a graybeard of eighty 
 as if just to prove that the heart does not grow old. 
 It is the work of an octogenarian who loved life and had 
 seen the world of show and sense from every side. Old 
 men usually moralize and live in the past — ^not so here. 
 The play flows with a laughing, joyous, rippling quality 
 that disarmed the critics and they apologized for what 
 they had said about Wagnerian motives. There were no 
 sad, solemn, recurring themes in the full-ripened fruit of 
 Verdi's genius. When he died, at the age of eighty-seven, 
 the curtain fell on the career of a great and potent per- 
 sonality — the one unique singer of the Nineteenth 
 Century. 
 
 295 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
Mozart composed nine hundred twenty-two pieces 
 of which we know. He is considered the greatest com- 
 poser the world has ever seen, judged by the versatility 
 and power of his genius. In every kind of composition 
 he was equally excellent. Beside being a great composer 
 he was a great performer, being the most accomplished 
 pianist of his day. He was also an excellent player on 
 the violin. 
 
 —Dudley Buck 
 
^' Ml Py 
 
 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 POLOGY: The Mozart " Little 
 Journey " was written, and as over 
 a month had been taken to do the 
 task, the result was something of 
 which I wets justly proud. It was 
 quite unlike anything ever before 
 written. The printers were ready to 
 take the work in hand, but I begged 
 them to allow me two more days for careful revision; 
 and as I was just starting away to give a lecture at 
 Janesville, Wisconsin, I took the manuscript with me, 
 intending to do the final work of revision on the train, 
 f All went well on the journey, the lecture had been 
 ^iven with no special tokens of disapproval on part of 
 the audience, and I was on board the early morning 
 train that leaves for Chicago. And as my mind is usually 
 iairly clear in the early hours, I began work retouch- 
 ing the good manuscript. We were nearing Beloit when 
 I bethought me to go into the Buffet-Car for a moment. 
 f When I returned the manuscript was not to be seen. 
 I looked in various seats, and under the seats, asked my 
 neighbors, inquired of the brakeman, and then hunted 
 up the porter and asked him if he had seen my manu- 
 script. He did not at first understand what 1 meant by 
 the term " manuscript," but finally inquired if I re- 
 ferred to a pile of dirty, dog-eared sheets of paper, all 
 
 299 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 marked up and down and over and crisscross, ev'ry- 
 which-way. 
 
 I assured him that he understood the case. 
 He then informed me that he had " chucked the stuff," 
 that is to say, he had tossed it out of the window, as he 
 was cleaning up his car, just as he always did before 
 reaching Chicago. 
 
 I made a frantic reach for the bell-cord, but wets 
 restrained. A sympathetic passenger came forward and 
 explained that five miles back he had seen the sheets of 
 my precious manuscript sailing across the prairie. We 
 were going at the rate of a mile a minute and the wind 
 was blowing fiercely, so there was really no need of 
 backing up the train to regain the lost goods. 
 " I hope dem scribbled papers was no 'count, boss! " 
 said the porter humbly, as I stood sort of dazed, gazing 
 into vacancy. 
 
 I shook myself into partial sanity. " Oh, they were of 
 no value — I wets looking for them so as to throw them 
 out of the window myself," I answered. 
 " Brush? " said he. 
 " Yes," said I. 
 
 I placed the expected quarter in his dusky palm, still 
 pondering on what I should do. 
 
 To reproduce the matter wjis impossible, for I have no 
 verbal memory — something must be written, though. 
 I decided to leave Chicago in an hour by the Lake Shore 
 Railroad, and have the copy ready for the Roycroft 
 300 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 boys when I reached home, f This I did, and as I had 
 no reference-books, maps or memoranda to guide me, 
 the matter seems to lack synthesis. I say seems to lack — 
 but it really does n't, for the facts will all be found to. 
 be as stated. Still the form may be said to be slightly 
 colored by the environment, so some explemation is in 
 order — ^hence this apology to the Gentle Reader. And 
 further, if the Reader should find in these pages that, 
 at rare intervals, I use the personal pronoun, he must 
 bear in mind that I live in the country, and that it is 
 the privilege and right, established by long precedent 
 and custom of country folk, to talk about themselves 
 and their own a£Fairs if they are so minded. 
 
 301 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 HICAGO: Talent is usually purcheised at 
 a high price, and if the gods give you a 
 generous supply of this, they probably will be 
 niggardly when it comes to that. But one 
 thing the artist is usually long on, and that is whim. Let 
 us all pray to be delivered from whim — it is the poisoner 
 of our joys, the corrupter of our peace, and Dead-Sea 
 fruit for all those about us. 
 Heaven deliver us from whim! 
 
 I am told by a famous impresario, who gained some 
 valuable experience by marrying a prima donna, and 
 therefore should know, that whim is purely a feminine 
 attribute. This, though, is surely a mistake, for there 
 have lived men, as well as women, who had such an 
 exaggerated sense of their own worth, that they lost 
 sight, entirely, of the rights and feelings of everybody 
 else. All through life they kept the stage waiting without 
 punctilio. These men thought dogs were made to kick, 
 servants to rail at, the public to be first crawled to and 
 then damned, and all rivals to be pooh-poohed, cursed 
 or feared, as the mood might prompt. Further than this 
 they considered all landlords robbers, every railroad- 
 manager a rogue, and businessmen they bunched as 
 greedy, grasping Shylocks. They always used the word 
 " commercial " as an epithet. 
 
 Devotees of the histrionic art can lay just claim to 
 having more than their share of whim, but the musical 
 profession has no reason to be abashed, for it is a good 
 302 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 second. However, the actor's and the musician's art 
 are often not far separated. In speaking to James 
 McNeil Whistler of a certain versatile musician, a lady 
 once said, " I believe he also acts! " 
 " Madame, he does nothing else," replied Mr. Whistler. 
 f Art is not a thing separate and apart — art is only the 
 beautiful way of doing things. And is it not most absurd 
 to think, because a man has the faculty of doing a 
 thing well, that on this account he should assume airs 
 and declare himself exempt along the line of morals and 
 manners? The expression "artistic temperament" is 
 often an af>ologetic term, like " literary sensitiveness," 
 which means that the man has stuck to one task so long 
 that he is unable to meet his brother men on a respectful 
 equality 38 58 
 
 The artist is the voluptuary of labor, and his fantastic 
 tricks often seem to be only Nature's way of equalizing 
 matters, and showing the world that he is very common 
 clay, after all. To be modest and gentle and kind, as we 
 all can be, is just as much to God as to be learned and 
 talented, and yet be a cad. 
 
 Still, instances of great talent and becoming modesty 
 are sometimes found; and in no great musician was the 
 balance of virtues held more gracefully than with 
 Mozart. He had humor. 
 
 Ah! that is it — ^he knew values — had a sense of propor- 
 tion, and realized that there is a time to laugh. And a 
 good time to laugh is when you see a mighty bundle of 
 
 303 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 pretense and a^ectation coming down the street. 
 Dignity is the metsk behind which we hide our ignorance ; 
 and our forced dignity is what makes the imps of 
 comedy, who sit aloft in the sky, hold their sides in 
 merriment when they behold us demanding obeisance 
 because we have fallen heir to tuppence worth of talent. 
 
 304 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 APORTE: Mozart had a sense of humor. He 
 knew a big thing from a Uttle one. When yet a. 
 child the tendency to comedy was strong 
 upon him. When nine years of age he once 
 played at a private musicale where the Empress, Maria 
 Theresa, was present. The lad even then was a con- 
 summate violinist. He had just played a piece that con- 
 tained such a tender, mournful, minor strain that several 
 of the ladies were in tears. The boy seeing this, relent- 
 ingly dashed off into a " barnyard symphony," where 
 donkeys brayed, hens cackled, pigs squealed and cows 
 mooed, all ending with a terrific cat-fight on a wood-shed 
 roof. This done, the boy threw his violin down, ran 
 across the room, climbed into the lap of the Empress 
 and throwing his arms around the neck of the good 
 lady, kissed her a resounding smack first on one cheek, 
 then on the other. It was all very much like that per- 
 formance of Liszt, who one day. when he was playing the 
 piano, suddenly shouted, " Pitch everything out of the 
 windows! " and then proceeded to do it — on the key- 
 board, of course. 
 
 On the same visit to the palace, when Mozart saluted 
 Maria Theresa in his playful way, he had the mis- 
 fortune to slip and fall on the waxed floor. 
 Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, just 
 budding into womanhood, ran and picked him up and 
 rubbed his knee where it was hurt. " You are a dear, 
 good lady," said the boy in gratitude, " and when I 
 
 305 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 grow up I am going to marry you." Liszt never made 
 any such promise as that. Liszt never offered to marry 
 anybody. But it is too bad that Marie Antoinette did 
 not hold the lad to his promise. It would have probably 
 proved a valuable factor for her in the line of longevity; 
 and her husband's circumstances would have saved her 
 from making that silly inquiry as to why poor people 
 don't eat cake when they run short of bread. These 
 moods of merriment continued with Mozart, as they 
 did with Liszt, all his life — not always manifesting them- 
 selves, though, in the way just described. 
 As a companion I would choose Mozart — generous, 
 unafi-ected, kind — rather than any other musician who 
 ever played, danced, sang or composed — excepting, well, 
 say Brahms. 
 
 306 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 PUTH BEND: We take an interest in the 
 lives of others because we always, when we 
 think of another, imagine our relationship to 
 him. " Had I met Shakespeare on the stairs I 
 would have fainted dead away," said Thackeray. 
 Another reason why we are interested in biography is 
 because, to a degree, it is a repetition of our own life S& 
 There are certain things that happen to every one, and 
 others we think might have happened to us, and may 
 yet. So as we read, we unconsciously slip into the life 
 of the other man and confuse our identity with his. To 
 put yourself in his place is the only way to understand 
 and appreciate him. It is imagination that gives us this 
 faculty of transmigration of souls; and to have imagi- 
 nation is to be universal ; not to have it is to be provincial. 
 Let me see — would n't you rather be a citizen of the 
 Universe than a citizen of Peoria, Illinois, which modest 
 town the actors always speak of as being one of the 
 provinces? SS 5S 
 
 As I read biography I always keep thinking what I 
 would have done in certain described circumstances, 
 and so not only £un I living the other man's life, but I 
 am comparing my nature with his. Everything is 
 comparative; that is the only way we realize anything — 
 by comparing it with something else. As you read of the 
 great man he seems very near to you. You reach out 
 across the years and touch hands with him, and with 
 him you hope, suffer, strive and enjoy: your existence is 
 
 307 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 all blurred and fused with his. ^And through this 
 oneness you come to know and comprehend a character 
 that has once existed, very much better than the people 
 did who lived in his day and were blind to his true worth 
 by being ensnared in cliques that were in competition 
 with him. 
 
 308 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 LKHART: I intimated a few pages back that 
 I would have liked to have Mozart for a 
 friend and companion. Mozart needed me no 
 less than I need him. " Genius needs a 
 keejjer," once said I. Zangwill, probably with him- 
 self in mind. We all need friends — and to be your 
 brother's keeper is very excellent if you do not cease 
 being his friend. And poor Mozart did so need a friend 
 who could stand between him and the rapacious wolf 
 that scratched and sniffed at his door as long as he 
 lived. I do not know why the wolf sniffed, for Mozart 
 really never had anything worth carrying away. He was 
 so generous that his purse was always open, and so full 
 of unmixed pity that the beggars passed his name along 
 and made cabalistic marks on his gateposts. Every 
 seedy, needy, thirsty and ill-appreciated musician in 
 Germany regarded him as lawful prey. They used to 
 say to Mozart, " I can not beg and to dig I am ashamed 
 — so grant me a small loan, I pray thee." 
 Yes, Mozart needed me to plan his tours and market his 
 wares. I 'm no genius, and although they sa;y I was an 
 infant terrible, I never was an infant prodigy. At the 
 tender age of six, Mozart was giving concerts and 
 astonishing Europe with his subtle skill. At a like age I 
 could catch a horse with a nubbin, climb his back, and 
 without a saddle or bridle drive him wherever I listed 
 by the judicious use of a tattered hat. Of course I took 
 pains to mount only a horse that had arrived at years 
 
 309 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 of discretion, matronly brood-mares or run-down plow- 
 horses; but this is only proof of my practical turn of 
 mind. Mozart never learned how to control either horse 
 or man by means of a tattered hat or diplomacy: music 
 was his hobby, and it was long years after his death 
 before the world discovered that his hobby was no 
 hobby at all, but a genuine automobile that carried him 
 miles and miles, clear beyond all his competitors: so far 
 ahead that he was really out of shouting distance. 
 Indeed, Mozart took such an early start in life and drove 
 his machinery so steadily, not to say so furiously, that 
 at thirty-five all the bearings grew hot for lack of 
 rebabbitting, and the vehicle went the way of the one- 
 horse shay — all at once and nothing first, just as bubbles 
 do when they burst. 
 
 At the age which Mozart died I had seen all I wanted to 
 of business life, in fact I had made a fortune, being the 
 only man in America who had all the money he wanted, 
 and so just turned about and went to college. This 1 
 firmly hold is a better way than to be sent to college and 
 then go into trade later and forget all you ever learned 
 at school. I had rather go to college than be sent. Every 
 man should get rich, that he might know the worthless- 
 ness of riches; and every man should have a college 
 education, just to realize how little the thing is 
 worth 53 Si 
 
 Yes, Mozart needed a good friend whose abilities could 
 have rounded out and made good his deficiencies. Most 
 310 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 certainly I could not do the things that he did, but I 
 should have been his helper, and might, too, had not a 
 century, one wide ocean, and a foreign language sepa- 
 rated us. 
 
 311 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 ATERLOO: Friendship is better than love for 
 a steady diet. Suspicion, jealousy, prejudice 
 and strife follow in the wake of love; and dis- 
 grace, murder and suicide lurk just around 
 the corner from where love coos. Love is a matter of 
 propinquity ; it makes demands, asks for proofs, requires 
 a token. But friendship seeks no ownership — ^it only 
 hopes to serve, and it grows by giving. Do not say, 
 please, that this applies also to love. Love bestows only 
 that it may receive, and a one-sided passion turns to 
 hate in a night, and then demands vengeance as its 
 right and portion. 
 
 Friendship asks no rash promises, demands no foolish 
 vows, is strongest in absence, and most loyal when 
 needed. It lends ballast to life, and gives steadily to 
 every venture. Through our friends we are made 
 brothers to all who live. 
 
 I think I would rather have had Mozart for a friend 
 than to love and be loved by the greatest prima donna 
 who ever warbled in high C. Friendship is better than 
 love. Friendship means calm, sweet sleep, clear brain 
 and a strong hold on sanity. Love I am told is only 
 friendship, plus something else. But that something else 
 is a great disturber of the peace, not to say digestion. 
 It sometimes racks the brain until the world reels. Love 
 is such a tax on the emotions that this way madness lies. 
 Friendship never yet led to suicide. 
 
 312 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 jOLEDO: Yes, just at the age when Mozart 
 wrote and played his " Requiem," getting 
 ready to die, I was going to school and inci- 
 dentally falling in love. I was thirty-four and 
 shaved clean because there were gray hairs coming in 
 my beard. Love has its advantages, of course, and the 
 benefits of passionate love consist in scarifying one's 
 sensibiUties until they are raw, thus making one able to 
 sympathize with those who suffer. Love sounds the 
 feelings with a leaden plummet that sinks to the very 
 depths of one's soul. This once done the emotions can 
 return with ease, and so this is why no singer can sing, 
 or painter paint, or sculptor model, or writer write, until 
 love or calamity, often the same thing, has sounded the 
 depths of his soul. Love makes us wise because it makes 
 room inside the soul for thoughts and feelings to germi- 
 nate; but passionate love as a lasting mood would be 
 hell. Henry Finck says that is why Nature has fixed a 
 two-year limit on romantic or passionate love. " War is 
 hell," said General Sherman. "All is fair in Love and 
 War," says the old proverb. Love and War are one, say 
 I. Love is mad, raging unrest and a vain, hot, reaching 
 out for nobody knows what. Of course the kind which 
 I am talking about is the Grand Passion, not the sort of 
 sentiment that one entertains towards his grandmother. 
 f " But it is good to fall in love, just as it is well to have 
 the measles," to quote Schopenhauer. Still, there is this 
 difference: one only has the measles once, but the man 
 
 313 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 who has loved is never immune, and no amount of 
 pledges or resolves can ere avail. 
 
 Just here seems a good place to express a regret that the 
 English language is such a crude affair that we use the 
 same word to express a man's regard for roast-beef, his 
 dog, child, wife and Deity. There are those who speedily 
 cry, " Hold! " when one attempts to improve on the 
 language, but I now give notice that on the first rainy 
 day I am going to create some distinctions and differen- 
 tiate for posterity along the line just mentioned Si 
 
 314 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 LYRIA: As intimated in a former chapter, I 
 wjis a successful farmer before I went to col- 
 lege. I was also a manufacturer, and made a 
 success in this business, too. 1 made a fortune 
 of a hundred thousand dollars before I was thirty, and 
 should have it yet had I sat down and watched it. If you 
 go into a railroad-car and sit down by the side of your 
 valise (or manuscript), in an hour your valuables will 
 probably be there all right. 
 
 But if you leave the valise (or the manuscript) in a seat 
 and go into another car, when you come back the goods 
 may be there and they may not. That is the only way to 
 keep money — fasten your eye right on it. If you leave 
 it in the hands of others, and go away to delve in books, 
 the probabilities are that, when you get back, certain 
 obese attorneys have divided your substance among 
 them 5S 33 
 
 However, there is good in every exigency of life, and to 
 know that your fortune is gone is a great relief. When the 
 trial is ended and the prisoner has received his sentence, 
 he feels a great relief, for it is only the unknown that 
 fills our souls with apprehension. 
 
 315 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 LEVELAND: In all the realm of artistic 
 history no record of such extremes can be 
 found in one life as those seen in the life of 
 Mozart. The nearest approach to it is found 
 in the career of Rembrandt, who won fame and fortune 
 at thirty, and then holding the pennant high for ten 
 years, his powers began to decline. It took twenty-six 
 years of steady down grade to ditch his destinies in a 
 pauper's grave. 
 
 But Rembrandt, during his lifetime, was scarcely known 
 out of Holland, whereas Mozart not only won the nod 
 of nobility, and the favor of the highest in his own land, 
 but he went into the enemy's country and captured 
 Italy. Mozart's art never languished: he held a firm grip 
 on sublime verities right to the day of his death. The 
 high-water mark in Mozart's career was reached in 
 those two years in Italy, when in his thirteenth and 
 fourteenth years. The arts all go hand in hand, for the 
 reason that strong men inspire strong men, and each 
 does what he can do best. In painting, sculpture and 
 music (not to mention Antonio Stradivari of Cremona) 
 Italy has led the world. A hundred years ago no musician 
 could hope for the world's acclaiim until Italy had placed 
 its stamp of approval up>on him. 
 
 Savants in Milan, Florence, Padua, Rome, Verona, 
 Venice and Naples, tested the powers of young Mozart 
 to their fullest; and although he had to overcome doubt 
 and the prejudice arising from being " a beirbaric 
 316 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 Germaui," yet the highest honors were at the last 
 ungrudgingly paid him. He was enrolled as an honorary 
 member of numerous musical societies, old musicians 
 gave their blessings, proud ladies craved the privilege of 
 kissing his fair forehead, and the Pope conferred upon 
 the gifted boy the Order of the Golden Spur, which gave 
 him the right to have his mail come directed to " The 
 Signor Cavaliere Mozarti." 
 
 At Naples the result of his marvelous playing was 
 ascribed to enchantment, and this was thought to be 
 centered in a diamond ring that had been presented to 
 the lad by a fair lady in a mood of ecstasy. To convince 
 the Neapolitans of their error Mozart was obliged to 
 accept their challenge aiid remove the ring. He wrote 
 home to his mother that he had no time to practise, as 
 in every city where he went artists insisted on his sitting 
 for his portrait. 
 
 The acme of attention and applause was reached at 
 Milan, where he was commissioned to write an opera for 
 the Christmeis festivities. The production of this opera 
 at La Scala was the most glorious item in the life of 
 Mozart. A boy of fourteen conducting an opera of his 
 own composition before enraptured multitudes is an 
 event that stands to the credit of Mozart, and Mozart 
 alone. " Ewiva the Little Master — Evviva the Little 
 Master! " cried the audience. " It is music for the stars," 
 and against all precedent aria after aria had to be 
 repeated. The boy, always rather small for his age, 
 
 317 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 stood on a chair to wield his baton, and the flowers 
 that were rained upon him nearly covered the lad 
 from view. 
 
 318 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 SHTABULA: The place of a man's birth does 
 not honor him until after he is dead, and 
 every man of genius has been distrusted by 
 his intimate kinsmen. If he is granted recog- 
 nition by the outside world, those who have known 
 him from childhood wink slyly and repeat Phineeis T. 
 Barnum's aphorism, a free paraphrase of which the 
 Germans have used since the days of the Vandals. 
 Leopold Mozart returned home with his wonderful boy 
 not much richer than when he went away. He had left 
 the management of finances to others, and was quite 
 content to travel in a special carriage, stop at the best 
 hotels, and have any " label " he might order, just for 
 the asking. 
 
 Reports had reached Germany of the wonderful success 
 of the youthful Mozart in Italy, but Vienna smiled and 
 Salzburg sneezed. 
 
 319 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 pRTH ElAST: It is not so very long ago that 
 all the beautiful things of earth were sup- 
 posed to belong to the Superior Class. That 
 is to say, all the toilers, all the workers in 
 metals, all the bookmakers, authors, poets, painters, 
 sculptors and musicians, did their work to pleEise this 
 noble or that. All bands of singers were singers to His 
 Lordship, and if a man wrote a book he dedicated it to 
 His Royal Highness. At first these thinkers and doers 
 were veritable slaves, and no court was complete that 
 did not have its wise man who wore the cap and bells, 
 and made puns, epigrams and quoted wise saws and 
 modern instances for his board and keep. This man 
 usually served as a clerk or overseer, during, his odd 
 hours, and only appeared to give a taste of his quality 
 when he was sent for. 
 
 It was the same with the musicians and singers — they 
 were cooks, waiters and valets, and when there were 
 guests these performers were notified to be in readiness 
 to " do something " if called upon. It was the same with 
 painters — every court had its own. Rubens, as we know, 
 was looked upon by the Duke of Mantua as his private 
 property, and the artist had to run away, when the time 
 was ripe, to save his soul alive. Van Dyck was court 
 painter to Charles the First, and married when he was 
 told to do so. 
 
 There is no such office as " Poet Laureate of England " 
 — the Laureate is poet to the King, and used to dine 
 320 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 with the Master of the Hounds. Later he was allowed 
 to choose his domicile and live in his own house, like 
 Saint Paul, the prisoner at Rome. His yearly stipend is 
 yet that tierce of Canary. 
 
 321 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 ILVER CREEK: Leopold Mozart, and the 
 son who caused his name to endure, were in 
 the employ of the Archbishop of Salzburg. 
 TTie Archbishop was a veritable prince, with 
 short breath and a double chin, and no shade of doubt 
 ever came to him concerning the divinity of his suc- 
 cession. He ruled by divine right, and everybody and 
 everything were made to minister to the well-being of 
 his person and estate. The Mozarts were too poor to 
 escape from the employ of the Archbishop, and he took 
 pains to warn all interested persons not to harbor, 
 encourage or entice his servants away on penalty of 
 dire displeasure. Mozart ate with the servants, and we 
 have his letters written to his sister showing how his 
 seat was next below that of the coachman. When he 
 was to play before invited guests he was made to wait 
 in the entry until the footman called him, and there he 
 often stood for hours, first on one foot, then on t' other. 
 ^ It is easy to ask why a man of such sublime talent 
 should endure such treatment, but the simple fact is 
 Mozart was gentle, yielding, kind — immersed in his 
 music — with no power to set his will against the tide of 
 tendency that 'compassed him round. The Archbishop 
 forbade his playing at concerts or entertainments, and 
 blocked the way to all advancement. The Archbishop 
 did n't have a diplomat like Rubens to cope with, or a 
 fighter like Wagner, or a plotter like Liszt, or a stiletto- 
 bearing man like Paganini, and so Mozart wrote his 
 322 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 music on a table in one corner of a beer-garden, and 
 waltzed with his wife, Constance, to keep warm when 
 there was no fire and the weather was cold, and all the 
 time danced attendance on the Archbishop of Salzburg. 
 All of his feeble, spasmodic efforts at freedom came to 
 naught, because there was no persistency behind 
 them 53 5S 
 
 Gladly would he have sold his services for three 
 hundred gulden a year, but even this sum, equal to one 
 hundred fifty dollars a year, was denied him. He 
 was always composing, always making plans, always 
 seeing the silver tint in the clouds, but all of his music 
 was taken by this one or that in whom he foolishly 
 trusted, and only debt and humiliation followed 
 him 3S 5S 
 
 When at long intervals a sum would come his way from 
 a generous admirer touched with pity, all the beggars in 
 the neighborhood seemed to know it at once. Then it 
 was that music filled the air at the beer-garden, carking 
 care and unkind fate were for the time forgot, and all 
 went merry as a wedding-bell. 
 
 Finally the position of Court Musician to the Emperor 
 of Austria fell vacant, and certain good friends of 
 Mozart secured him the place. But the Emperor was not 
 like Frederick the Great, for he could not distinguish 
 one tune from another, and did not consider it any 
 special virtue so to do. Tlie result was that his musicians 
 were looked after by his veJet, and Mozart found that 
 
 323 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 his position was really no better than it had been with 
 the Archbishop of Salzburg. 
 
 And still his mind proved infirm of purpose, and he had 
 not the courage to demand his right, for fear he might 
 lose even the little that he had. 
 
 324 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 UFFALO: Mozart was in his twentieth year 
 when he met Aloysia Weber. She was a 
 gifted singer, surely, and was needlessly 
 healthy. She was of that peculiar, heartless 
 type that finds digression in leading men a merry chase 
 and then flaunting and flouting them. Young Mozart, 
 the impressionable, Mozart the delicate and sensitive, 
 Mozart the y^olian harp, played upon by every passing 
 breeze, loved this bouncing bundle of pink-and-white 
 tyranny 5S 53 
 
 She encouraged the passion, and it gradually grew until 
 it absorbed the boy and he grew oblivious to all else. He 
 lived in her smile, bathed in the sunshine of her presence, 
 fed on her words, and as for her singing in opera it was 
 not so much what her voice was now but what he was 
 sure it would be. 
 
 His glowing imagination made good her every deficiency. 
 He thought he loved the girl. It was not the girl at all 
 he loved : he only loved the ideal that existed in his own 
 heart. His father opposed the mating and hastily 
 transferred the youth from Vienna to Paris; but who 
 ever heard of opposition and argument and forced 
 separation curing love ? So matters ran on and letters 
 and messages passed, and finally Mozart made his way 
 back to Vienna and with breathless haste sought out the 
 object of his whole heart's love. 
 
 She had recently met a man she liked better, and as she 
 could not hold them both, treated Mozart as a stranger, 
 
 325 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 and froze him to the marrow. ^ He was crushed, undone, 
 and a fit of sickness followed. In his illness, Constance, a 
 younger sister of Aloysia,came to him in pity and nursed 
 him as a child. Very naturally, all the love he had felt 
 for Aloysia was easily and readily transferred to 
 Constance. The tendrils of the heart ruthlessly uprooted 
 cling to the first object that presents itself. 
 And so Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Constance 
 Weber were married. And they were happy ever after- 
 ward. It would have been much better if they had 
 quarreled, but Mozart's gentle, yielding character 
 readily adapted itself to the weaker nature of his wife. 
 In his music she took a sort of blind and deaf delight 
 and guessed its greatness because she loved the man. 
 But when two weak wills combine, the net result is 
 increased weakness^ — ^never strength. 
 Constance was as beautiful a specimen of the slipshod 
 housekeeper as ever piled away breakfast dishes 
 unwashed, or swept dirt under a settee. If they had money 
 she bought things they did not need, and if there was no 
 money she borrowed provisions and forgot to return the 
 loan. Irregularity of living, deprivation and hope 
 deferred, made the woman ill and she became a chronic 
 sufferer. But she was ever tended with loving, patient 
 care by the overburdened and underfed husband. 
 A biographer tells how Mozart would often arise early 
 in the morning to set down some melody in music that 
 he had dreamed out during the night. On such occasions 
 326 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 he would leave a little love-letter for his wife on the 
 stand at the head of the bed, where she would find it on 
 first awakening. One such note, freely translated, runs 
 as follows: " Good-morning, Dear Little Wife. I hope 
 you rested well and had sweet dreams. You were sleep- 
 ing so peacefully that I dare not kiss your cheek for fear 
 of disturbing you. It is a beautiful morning and a bird 
 outside is singing a song that is in my heart. I am going 
 out to catch the strain and write it down as my own 
 and yours. I shall be back in an hour." 
 
 327 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 AST AURORA: Aloysia married the man of 
 her choice — ^an actor by the name of Lange. 
 They quarreled right shortly, and soon he 
 used to beat her. This was endured for a year 
 or more, then she left him. For a while she lived with 
 Wolfgang and Constance, and Mozart, true to his 
 nature, gave her from his own scanty store and deprived 
 himself for her benefit. He stood godfather to one of her 
 children and was a true friend to her to the last. 
 After Aloysia lived to be an old woman, and long after 
 Mozart had passed out, and the world had begun to 
 utter his praises, she said: " I never for a moment 
 thought he was a genius — I always considered him just 
 a nice little man." 
 
 Mozart's soul was filled with melody, and all of his 
 music is faultless and complete. He possessed the 
 artistic conscience to a degree that is unique. Careless 
 and heedless in all else, if his mood was not right and 
 the product was halting, he straightway destroyed the 
 score. He was always at work, always hearing sweet 
 sounds, always weighing and balancing them in the 
 delicate scales of his judgment. 
 
 So ab£,orbed was he in his art that he fell an easy victim 
 to the designing, and never stopped his work long enough 
 to strike off the shackles that bound him to a vain, 
 selfish and unappreciative court. 
 
 Worn by constant work, worried by his wife's continued 
 illness, dogged by creditors, and unable to get justice 
 328 
 
WOLFGANG MOZART 
 
 from those who owed it to him, his nerves at the early 
 age of thirty-five gave way. 
 
 His vitality rapidly declined and at last went out as a 
 candle does when blown upon by a sudden gust from an 
 open door. 
 
 It was a blustering winter day in December, Seventeen 
 Hundred Ninety-one, when his burial occurred. A little 
 company of friends assembled, but no funeral-dirge was 
 played for him, save the blast blown through the naked 
 branches of the trees, as they hurried the plain pine 
 coffin to its final resting-place. At the gate of the ceme- 
 tery the few friends turned back and left the lifeless clay 
 to the old gravedigger, who never guessed the honor 
 thus done him. 
 
 It was a pauper's grave that closed over the body of 
 Mozart — cofHn piled on coffin, and no one marked the 
 spot. All we know is, that somewhere in Saint Mark's 
 Cemetery, Vienna, was buried in a trench the most 
 accomplished composer and performer the world has 
 ever known. It was a hundred years afterward before 
 the city made tardy amends by erecting a fitting 
 monument to his memory. 
 
 His best monument is his work. The melody that once 
 filled his soul is yours and mine; for by his art he made 
 us heirs to all that wealth of love that was never 
 requited, and the dreams, that for him never came true, 
 are our precious and priceless legacy. 
 
 329 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
What is music? This question occupied my mind for 
 hours last night before I fell asleep. The very existence 
 of music is wonderful, I might even say miraculous. Its 
 domain is between thought and phenomena. Like a 
 twilight mediator, it hovers between spirit and matter, 
 related to both, yet differing from each. It is spirit, but 
 spirit subject to the measurement of time: it is matter, 
 but matter that can dispense with space. 
 
 — Heine 
 
>^ V I \ 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 MERSON has said that, next to the 
 man who first voices a great truth, 
 is the one who quotes it. 
 Truth is in the air; it belongs to all 
 who can appreciate it; and. the dif- 
 ference between the man who gives 
 a truth expression and the listener 
 who at once comprehends and 
 repeats it, is very slight. If you understand what I say, 
 it is because you have thought the same thoughts your- 
 self — I merely express for you that which you already 
 know. And so you approve and applaud, not stopping to 
 think that you are applauding your own thought; and 
 your heart beats fast and you say, " Yes, yes, why 
 did n't I say that myself! " 
 
 All conversation is a sort of communion — ^an echoing 
 back and forth of thoughts, feelings and emotions. We 
 clarify our thoughts by expressing them — no idea is 
 quite your own until you tell it to another. 
 Music is simply one form of expression. Its province is to 
 impart a sublime emotion. To give himself is the con- 
 trolling impulse in the heart of every artist — to impart 
 to others the joy he feels — this is the dominant motive 
 in his life. 
 
 Hence the poet writes, the artist paints, the sculptor 
 models, the singer sings, the musician plays — all is 
 
 333 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 expression — a giving voice to the Silence. But it is all 
 done for others. In ministering to others the artist 
 ministers to himself. In helping others we help ourselves. 
 We grow strong through exercise, and only the faculties 
 that are exercised — that is to say, expressed — become 
 strong. Those not in use atrophy and fall victims to 
 arrested development. 
 
 Man is the instrument of Deity — through man does 
 Deity create. And the artist is one who expresses for 
 others their best thoughts and feelings. He may arouse 
 in men emotions that were dormant, and so were un- 
 guessed; but under the spell of the artist-spirit, these 
 dormant faculties are awakened from letfeargy — they 
 are exercised, and once the thrill of life is felt through 
 them, they will probably be exercised again and again SS 
 All art is collaboration between the performer and the 
 partaker — music is especially a collaboration. It is a 
 oneness of feeling: action and reaction, an intermittent 
 current of emotion that plays backward and forward 
 between the player and his audience. The player is the 
 positive pole, or masculine principle; and the audience 
 the negative pole, or feminine principle. 
 In great oratory the same transposition takes place. 
 Almost every one can recall occasions when there was 
 an absolute fusion of thought, feeling and emotion 
 between the speaker and the audience — ^when one mind 
 dominated all, and every heart beat in unison with his. 
 The great musician is the one who feels intensely, and is 
 334 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 able to express vividly, and thus impart his emotion to 
 others SS 53 
 
 Robert Schumann was such a man. In his youth, when 
 he played at parlor gatherings he could fuse the listen- 
 ers into an absolute oneness of spirit. You can not make 
 others feel unless you yourself feel; you can not make 
 others see unless you yourself see. Robert Schumann 
 saw. He beheld the moving pictures, and as they passed 
 before him he expressed what he saw in harmonious 
 sounds. His many admirers say he gave " portraits " on 
 the piano, and by sounds would describe certain persons, 
 so others who knew these persons would recognize them 
 and call their ^mes. 
 
 Sterndale Bennett has told of Schumann's playing 
 Weber's " Invitation to the Dance," and accompanying 
 it with little verbal explanations of what he saw, thus : 
 " There," said the player as he struck the opening 
 chords, " there, he bows, and so does she — ^he speaks — 
 she speaks, and oh! what a voice — how liquid! listen — 
 hear the rustle of her gown — he speaks, a little deeper, 
 you notice — you can not hear the words, only their 
 voices blending in with the music — now they speak 
 together — they are lovers, surely — see, they understand 
 — oh! the waltz — see them take those first steps — they 
 are swaying into time — away! — there they go — look! — 
 you can not hear their voices now — only see them! " 
 ^Schumann studied law, and had he followed that 
 profession he would have made a master before a jury. 
 
 335 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 He saw so clearly and felt so deeply, and was so full of 
 generosity and bubbling good-cheer, that he was irresist- 
 ible. As we know, he proved so to Clara Wieck, who left 
 father and mother and home to cleave to this unknown 
 composer 53 53 
 
 This splendid young woman was nine years younger 
 than Robert, but she had already made a name and 
 fortune for herself before they were married. 
 In pEissing it is well enough to call attention to the fact 
 that this is one of the great loves of history. It ranks 
 with the mating of Robert Browning and Elizabeth 
 Barrett. How strange that such things are so excep- 
 tional that the world takes note of them! 
 Yet for quite a number of years after their marriage, 
 Madame Schumann was at times asked this question: 
 "Is your husband musical? " 
 
 But Robert Schumann, like Robert Browning, was too 
 big a man to be jealous of his wife. Jealousy is an 
 acknowledgment of weakness and insecurity. " Robert 
 and Clara," their many dear friends always called them. 
 They worked together — composed, sang, played, and 
 grew great together. And as if to refute the carping 
 critics who cry that domesticity and genius are incom- 
 patible, Clara Schumann became the happy mother of 
 eight children, and not a year passed but she appeared 
 upon the concert stage, while a nurse held the baby in 
 the wings. Schumann was very proud of his wife. He 
 was grateful to her for interpreting his songs in a way 
 336 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 he could not. His lavish heart went out to every one 
 who expressed the happiness and harmony which he 
 felt singing in his soul. 
 
 And so he welcomed all players and all singers, and all 
 who felt the influence of an upward gravitation. 
 Especially was he afriend of the young and the unknown. 
 His home at Dusseldorf was a Mecca for the aspiring — 
 worthy and unworthy — and to these he gave his time, 
 money and influence. " Genius must have recognition — 
 we will discover and bring forth these beautiful souls; 
 we will liberate and give them to the world," he used 
 to say. Not only did he himself express great things, but 
 he quoted others. 
 
 Among those who had reverenced the Schumanns from 
 afar, came a young man of twenty, small and fair- 
 haired, from Hamburg. He was received at the regular 
 " Thursday Night " with various other strangers. These 
 meetings were quite informal, and everybody was asked 
 to play or sing. On being invited to play, our young man 
 declined. But on a second visit he sat down at the piano 
 and played. It was several minutes before the company 
 ceased the little buzz of conversation and listened — the 
 fledglings were never taken seriously except by the host 
 and hostess. The youth leaned over the keyboard, and 
 seemed to gather confidence from the sympathetic 
 attitude of the listeners, and especially Clara Schumann, 
 who had come forward and stood at his elbow. 
 He played from Schumann's " Carnival," and as he 
 
 337 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 played, freedom came to him. He surprised himself. 
 When he ceeised playing, Robert kissed his cheek, and 
 the company were vehement in their applause. Next day 
 Schumann met Albert Dietrich, another disciple who 
 had come from a distance to bask in the Schumann sun- 
 shine, and said with an air of mystery: "One has come 
 of whom we shall yet hear great things. His name is 
 Johannes Brahms." SS S$ 
 
 338 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 E have at least four separate accounts of 
 Brahms' first appearance and behavior when 
 he arrived at the city of Dusseldorf. These 
 descriptions are by Robert and Clara Schu- 
 mann, Doctor Dieters and Albert Dietrich. All agree 
 that Johannes Brahms was a most fascinating personal- 
 ity. Dieters and Dietrich were about the age of Brahms, 
 and were lesser satellites swinging just outside the 
 Schumann orbit. Very naturally when a new devotee 
 appeared, they gaized at him askance. Many visitors 
 were coming and going, and from most of them there 
 was nothing to fear, but when this short, deep-chested 
 boy with fleixen hair appeared, Dietrich felt there was 
 danger of losing his place at the right hand of the 
 Master S& 53 
 
 Brahms carried his chin in, and the crown of his head 
 high. He was infinitely good-natured, met everybody 
 on an equality, without abasement or condescension. 
 He was modest, never pushed himself to the front, and 
 was always ready to listen. A talented performer who 
 can listen well, is sure to be loved. And yet when 
 Brahms went forward to play, there was just a sugges- 
 tion of indifference to his hearers in his manner, and a 
 half-haughty self-confidence that won before he had 
 sounded a note. We always believe in people who 
 believe in themselves. 
 
 Young Brahms brought a letter of introduction from 
 Joachim. But that was nothing — Joachim was always 
 
 339 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 giving letters to everybody. He was like the men who 
 agn every petition that is presented; or those other 
 good men who give certificates of character to people 
 they do not know, and recommendation letters to those 
 for whom they have no use. 
 
 So the letter went for little with Robert Schumann — ^it 
 was the way Brahms approached the piano, and settled 
 his hands and great shock-head over the keyboard, that 
 won 5S 5S 
 
 " He is no beginner," whispered Clara to Robert before 
 Johannes had touched a key. 
 
 It did n't take Brahms long to get acquainted — ^he 
 mixed well. In a few days he dropped into that half- 
 affectionate way of calling his host and hostess by their 
 first names, and they in turn called him " Johannes." 
 And to me this is very beautiful, for, at the last, souls 
 are all of one age. More and more we are realizing that 
 getting old is only a bad habit. The only man who is old 
 is the one who thinks he is. Of course these remarks 
 about age do not exactly apply just here, for no member 
 of the trinity we are discussing was advanced in years. 
 Robert was forty-three, Clara was thirty-four, and 
 Johannes was twenty. 
 
 Johannes Brahms was thrice well blest in being well 
 born. His parents were middle-class people, fairly 
 well-to-do. They proved themselves certainly more than 
 middle-class in intellect, when they adopted the plan of 
 being the companions and comrades of their children. 
 340 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 Johannes grew up with no slavish fear of " old folks." 
 He had worked with his father, studied with him; 
 learned lessons from books with his mother, and played 
 " four hands " with her at the piano, by the hour, just 
 for fun. 
 
 Then when Remenyi came that way with his violin, and 
 wanted a pianist, he took young Brahms. When their 
 lines crossed the line of Liszt, they played for him at his 
 inn; and then Liszt played for them. 
 This Remenyi was our own " 01' Man Remenyi," who 
 passed over only a year or so ago. I wonder if he was 
 or Man Remenyi then! He never really was an old 
 man, and that appellation was more a mark of esteem 
 than anything else — a sort of diminutive of good- will. 
 I met Remenyi at Chautauqua, where he spent a month 
 or more in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three. He gave 
 me my first introduction to the music of Brahms, of 
 whom he never tired of talking. He considered Brahms 
 without a rival — the culminating flower of modern 
 music ; and if the 01* Man slightly exaggerated his own 
 influence in bringing Brahms out and presenting him to 
 the world, I am not the one to charge it up against his 
 memory 53 SS 
 
 In explaining Brahms and his music, Remenyi used to 
 grow animated, and when words failed he would say, 
 " Here, it was just like this" — and then he would seize 
 his vioHn, the bow would wave through the air, and the 
 notes would tell you how Brahms transposed Beethoven's 
 
 341 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 " Kreutzer Sonata " from A to B flat — a feat he never 
 could have performed if Remenyi had not told him how. 
 It was Remenyi who introduced Brahms to Joachim, and 
 it was Joachim who introduced Brahms to Schumann, 
 and it was Schumann's article, " New Paths," in the 
 " Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik," that placed Brahms on a 
 pedestal before the world. Brahms wais not the great 
 man that Schumann painted, Remenyi thought, but 
 the idealization caused him to put forth a heroic effort 
 to be what Clara and Robert considered him. So it was 
 really these two who compelled him to push on: other- 
 wise he might have relaxed into a mere concert per- 
 former or a leader of some subsidized band. 
 Remenyi always seemed to me like a choice antique 
 mosaic, a trifle weather-worn, set into the present. He 
 used to quote Liszt as if he lived around the corner, and 
 would criticize Wagner, and tell of Moescheles, Haertel, 
 the Mendelssohns and the Schumanns, as if they might 
 all gather tomorrow and play for us at the Hall in the 
 Grove 5S JS 
 
 Recently I met dear old Herr Kapp>es, eighty years 
 young, who knew the Mendelssohns, and admired 
 Brahms, loved Clara Schumann, and liked Remenyi — 
 sometimes. They were too much alike, I fear, to like 
 each other all the time. But the harmony is still in the 
 heart of Herr Kappes. He gives music-lessons, and 
 lectures, and will explain to you just how and where 
 Brahms differs from Schumann, and where Schubert 
 342 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 separates from both. ^ Herr Kappes can speak five 
 languages, but even with them all he finds difficulty in 
 making his meaning clear, and at times adopts the 
 Remenyi plan, and will just turn to the piano and cry, 
 " It 's like this, see! Schumann wrote it in this way" — 
 and then the strong hands will chase the keys down and 
 back and over and up. " But Brahms took the motif and 
 set it like this " — and Herr Kappes will strike the bass a 
 thunderous stroke — pause, look at you, glide back and 
 down, up and over, and you are carried away in a swirl 
 of sweet sounds, and see a pink face framed in its 
 beautiful aureole of white hair. You listen but you do 
 not " see " the fine distinctions, because you do not 
 care — ^Herr Kappes is all there is of it, so animated, so 
 gentle, so true, so lovable — because he used to pay 
 court to Fanny Mendelssohn and then transferred 
 his affections to Clara Schumann, and now just loves 
 his art, and everybody. 
 
 343 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 pCHUMANN'S article. " New Paths." at once 
 determined Brahms' career. He must either 
 Hve up to the mark that had been set for 
 him — or else run away. 
 
 I give below an extract from Robert's estimate of 
 
 Brahms and his work: 
 
 Ten years have passed away, as many as I formerly 
 devoted to the publication of this paper — since I have 
 allowed myself to commit my opinions to this soil so 
 rich in memories. Often in spite of an overstrained 
 productive activity. I have felt moved to do so; many 
 newand remarkable talents have made their appearance, 
 and a fresh musical power seemed about to reveal itself 
 among the many aspiring artists of the day, even if 
 their compositions were only known to the few. 
 I thought to follow with interest the pathways of these 
 elect; there would — -there must — after such a promise, 
 suddenly appear one who should utter the highest ideal 
 expression of the times, who should claim the master- 
 ship by no gradual development, but burst upon us 
 fully equipped, as Minerva sprang from the brain of 
 Jupiter. And he has come, this chosen youth, over 
 whose cradle the Graces and Heroes seem to have kept 
 watch 33 33 
 
 His name is Johannes Brahms ; becomes from Hamburg, 
 where he has been working in quiet obscurity, instructed 
 by an excellent, enthusiastic teacher in the most 
 difficult principles of his art, and lately introduced to 
 me by an honored and well-known master. His mere 
 outward appearance assures us that he is one of the 
 elect 33 33 
 
 344 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 Seated at the piano, he disclosed wondrous regions. We 
 were drawn into an enchanted circle. Then came a 
 moment of inspiration which transformed the piano 
 into an orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices. There 
 were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies, songs whose 
 poetry revealed itself without the aid of words, while 
 throughout them all ran a vein of deep song-melody, 
 several pieces of a half-demoniacal character, but of 
 charming form; then sonatas for piano and violin, string 
 quartets, and each of these creations so different from 
 the last that they appeared to flow from so many 
 different sources. Then, like an impetuous torrent, he 
 seemed to unite these streams into a foaming waterfall ; 
 over the tossing waves the rainbow presently stretches 
 its peaceful arch, while on the banks butterflies flit to 
 and fro, and the nightingale warbles her song. 
 Whenever he bends his magic wand towards great 
 works, and the powers of orchestra and chorus lend 
 him their aid, still more wonderful glimpses of the 
 ideal world will be revealed to us. 
 
 May the Highest Genius help him onward! Mean- 
 while another genius — that of modesty — seems to 
 dwell within him. His comrades greet him at his first 
 step in the world, where wounds may, perhaps, await 
 him, but the bay and the laurel also; we welcome this 
 valiant warrior! 
 
 Robert Schumann had been before the public as essay- 
 ist, poet, pianist and composer for twenty years. He had 
 given himself without stint to almost every musical 
 enterprise of Germany, and his sympathy was ever on 
 tap for every needy and aspiring genius. You may give 
 
 345 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 your purse — ^he who takes it takes trash — ^but to give 
 your life's blood and then hope for a renewal of life's 
 lease, is vain. 
 
 The public man owes to himself and to his Maker the 
 duty of reserve. 
 
 The desert and mountain are very necessary to the 
 individual who gives himself to the public. That any 
 man should so bestride the narrow world like a colossus 
 that the multitude must stop to gaze, and thousands 
 feed upon his words, is an abnormal condition. The only 
 thing that can hold the balance true is solitude. Releixa- 
 tion is the first requirement of strength. Watch the 
 cat, the tiger or the lion asleep. See what complete 
 absence of intensity — ^what perfect relaxation! It is all 
 a preparation for the spring, 
 
 Schumann had not sought the mountain, nor abandoned 
 himself to the woods in old shoes, corduroys and a 
 flannel shirt. Now he was pasdng the penalty of public- 
 ity. Virtue. had gone out of him; and in the article just 
 quoted, there are signs that he is clutching for something. 
 He hails this new star and proclaims him, because in 
 some way he feels that the ruddy, valiant and youthful 
 Brahms is to consummate his work. Brahms is an 
 extension of himself. It is a part of that longing for 
 immortality — ^we perpetuate ourselves in our children 
 and look for them to accomplish what we have been 
 unable to do. 
 
 Johannes Brahms was the spiritual son of Robert 
 346 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 Schumann. ^ In less than a year after Brahms and 
 Schumann first met, there were ominous signs and evil 
 portents in the air. " Why do you play so fast, dear 
 Johannes? 1 beg of you, be moderate!" cried Robert 
 on one occasion. Brahms turned, and his quick glance 
 caught the ashy face and bloodshot eyes of a sick 
 man. His reply was a tear and a hand-grasp. 
 Soon, to Schumann, all music was going at a gallop, 
 and in his ears forever rang the sound of A. He could 
 hear naught else. Tenderness, patience, and even love 
 were of no avail. Indeed, love is not exempt from 
 penalty — the law of compensation never rests. Nature 
 forever strives for a right adjustment. 
 The richness and intensity of Schumann's life were 
 bought with a price. The first year e^fter his mar- 
 riage he composed one hundred thirty-eight songs. 
 Sonatas, scherzos, symphonies and ballads followed 
 fast, and in it all his gifted wife had gloried. 
 But when, in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-four, Robert 
 had, after sleepless nights, in a fit of frenzy thrown him- 
 self into the Rhine, and had been rescued, shattered, 
 unable to recognize even his nearest friends — the loyal 
 and devoted wife saw where she herself had erred SS 
 Writing to Brahms she says: " I encouraged him in his 
 work, and this fired his ambition to do and to become. 
 Oh! why did I not restrain that intensity and send him 
 away into the solitude to be a boy; to do nothing but 
 frolic and play and bathe in the sunshine, and eat and 
 
 347 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 sleep? The life of an artist is death. Kill ambition, my 
 Brother! " 
 
 Activity and rest— both are needed. The idea of the 
 " retreat " in the Catholic Church is founded on stern, 
 hygienic science. Wagner's forced exile was not without 
 its advantages, and the " retreats " of Paganini and the 
 " retirements " of Liszt were very useful factors in the 
 devolution of their art. 
 
 348 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 OR the malady that beset Robert Schumann, 
 there was no cure save death; his only rest, 
 the grave. When his spirit passed away in 
 Eighteen Hundred Fifty-six, his devoted wife 
 and the loyal Brahms attended him. Owing to the 
 insidious creeping of the disease, Schumann's affairs had 
 got into bad shape; and it was now left to Brahms, 
 more than all others, to smooth the way of life for the 
 stricken wife and her fatherless brood. 
 The versatility and sturdy commonsense of Brahms 
 were now in evidence. In business affairs he was ready, 
 decisive and systematic. And the delicacy, tact and 
 charming good-nature he ever showed, reveal the man 
 as a most extraordinary figure. Great talent is often 
 bought at a price — how well we know this, especially 
 with musicians! But Brahms was sane on all subjects. 
 He could take care of his own affairs, lend a needed 
 hand with others, but never meddle — smile with that 
 half-sardonic grimace at all foolish little things, weep 
 with the stricken when calamity came; yet above it all 
 the little man towered, carrying himself like the giant 
 that he was. And yet he never made the mistake of 
 taking himself too seriously. " I am trying to run 
 opposition to Michelangelo's ' Moses,' " he once called 
 to Dietrich, as he leaned out of the window in the sun- 
 shine, and stroked his flowing beard. In his later years 
 many have testified to this Jovelike quality that 
 Brahms diffused by his presence. No one could come 
 
 349 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 into his aura and fail to feel his sense of power. Around 
 such souls is a sacred circle — if you are allowed to come 
 within this boundary, it is only by sufferance; within 
 this space only the pure in heart can dwell. 
 
 350 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 OLSTOY in "Anna Karenina " speaks of that 
 
 quiet and constant light to be seen on the 
 
 faces of those who are successful — those who 
 
 know that their success is acknowledged by 
 
 the world 3S SS 
 
 Brahms was a successful man by temperament, for 
 success (like East Aurora) is a condition of mind. 
 There is no tragedy for those who do not accept 
 tragedy; and the treatment we receive from others is 
 only our own reflected thought. 
 
 Brahms thought well of everybody, if he thought of any 
 one at all. He reveled in the sunshine, and everywhere 
 made friends of children. " We saw Brahms on the 
 hotel veranda at Domodossola," wrote a young woman 
 to me in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-five, " and what do 
 you think ? — ^he was on all-fours, with three children on 
 his back, riding him for a horse! " 
 For many years Brahms used to make an annual 
 pilgrimage to Italy, and often on these tours at fairs he 
 would fall in with Gipsy bands. At such times he would 
 always stop and listen, and would lustily applaud the 
 performance. On one such occasion, Dietrich tells, the ' 
 leader recognized Brahms, and instantly rapped for 
 silence. He was seen to pass the whispered word along, 
 and then the band struck up one of Brahms' pieces, 
 greatly to the delight of the composer. 
 He was a man of the people, and 1 am glad to know that 
 he hated a table d' bote, smiled a smile of derision at all 
 
 351 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 dress-coats, had small sympathy with pink teas, loved 
 his friends, doted on babies, and was never so happy as 
 when in the country walking along grass-grovm lanes in 
 the early summer morning, when the dew was on and 
 the air was melodious with the song of birds. He had a 
 habit of going bareheaded, carrying his hat in his hand; 
 and on these country walks, always with bared head, 
 he would sing or whistle, and unconsciously in his mind 
 the music would be taking shap>e that was to be written 
 out later in the quiet of his study. 
 Brahms knew the world — ^not simply one little part of 
 it — ^he knew it as thoroughly as any man can, and wels 
 interested in it all. He knew the world of workers — the 
 toilers and bearers of burdens. He knew the weak and 
 the vicious, and his heart went out to them in sympathy; 
 for he knew his own heart and realized the narrow 
 margin that separates the so-called " good " -from the 
 alleged " bad." He knew that sin is only a wrong 
 expression of life, and reacts to the terrible disadvantage 
 of the sinner. 
 
 He was interested in mechanics — bookbinding, printing, 
 iron-working, carpentry, and was well acquainted with 
 all new inventions and labor-saving devices. He knew 
 the methods of farming, the different breeds of cattle; 
 he knew what soil would produce best a certain crop, 
 and understood " rotation." He could call the wild 
 birds by name and imitate their notes, and studied long 
 their haunts and habits. That excellent man and 
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JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 talented, George Herschel, in a letter to a friend speaks 
 of walking with Johannes Brahms along the highway, 
 and Brahms suddenly calling in alarm, " Look out! 
 look out! you may kill it! " 
 
 It was only a tumblebug, but he shrank from putting 
 foot on any living thing. Brahms reverenced all life, and 
 felt in his heart that he was brother to that bug in the 
 dust, to the birds that chirruped in the hedgerows, and 
 to the trees that lifted their outstretching branches to 
 the sun. 
 
 He was deeply religious — although he never knew it. 
 All music is a hymn of praise, a song of thanksgiving, a 
 chant of faith. Music is a making manifest to our dull 
 ears the divine harmony of the universe, and thus all 
 music is sacred music, and all true musicians are priests, 
 for by their ministrations we are made to realize our 
 Oneness with the Whole. Through music we read the 
 Universal JS 3S 
 
 Music is the only one of the arts that can not be prosti- 
 tuted to a base use. We hear of bad books, of the 
 " Index Expurgatorius," and in every State there are 
 laws against the publication of immoral books and 
 indecent pictures. We also hear of orders issued by the 
 courts requiring certain statues to be removed or veiled, 
 but no indictment can be brought against music. It is 
 the only one of the arts that is always pure. 
 Brahms realized this and felt the dignity of his office, 
 holding high the standard; and yet he knew that the 
 
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JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 toilers in the fields were doing a service to humanity, 
 just as necessary as his own. And possibly this is why he 
 uncovered, walking with bared head. All is holy, all is 
 good — it is all God's world, and all the men and women 
 in it are His children. 
 
 354 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 OR forty-two years Brahms was the devoted 
 friend of Clara Schumann. She was thirteen 
 years his senior, yet their spirits were as 
 children together. From the first he was to 
 her, " Johannes," and she was " Clara " to him. A few 
 of their letters have been published in the " Revue des 
 deux Mondes," and this woman, who was a great- 
 grandmother, and had sixty years before captured a 
 world, then in her seventy-fifth year, wrote to^ her 
 " Dear Johannes " with all the gentle fervor of a girl of 
 twenty, congratulating him on some recent success. In 
 reply he writes back to his "Dear Clara" in gracious 
 banter; mentions rheumatism in his legs sis an excuse for 
 bad penmanship; hopes she is keeping up her practise; 
 tells of a " Steinway Grand " that some one has sent 
 him, and regrets that she does not come to try it " four 
 hands," as he has failed utterly to get out of it alone 
 the melody that he knows is there. 
 Brahms never married — the bond between himself and 
 Clara was too sacred to allow another to sever or share 
 it. And yet the relationship was so high, so frank, so 
 openly avowed, that no breath of scandal has ever 
 smirched it. 
 
 The purity and excellence of it all has been its own 
 apology, as love ever should be its own excuse for being. 
 ^ For about three months every year these two friends 
 dwelt near each other. Together they worked, compbsed, 
 sang, read, wrote and roamed the woods. " None of 
 
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JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 Madame Schumann's children is as young as she is," 
 wrote Doctor Hanslick, when Clara was sixty and 
 Johannes was forty-seven. " With the hope of passing 
 for her father, Brahms is cultivating a patriarchal 
 feeard," continues Hanslick. 
 
 In his essay on " Friendship," Emerson speaks of the 
 folly of forcing our personal presence on the friend we 
 love best, and of the faith that ideality brings. Some- 
 thing of this thought is shown in the letters of Madame 
 Schumann to Brahms, and in his to her. 
 Often for six months they would not meet, he doing his 
 work in his own way, she doing hers, but each ever 
 conscious of the life and love of the other — feeding on 
 the ideal — ^writing or not writing, but glorying in each 
 other's triumphs — lives linked first by the love of a 
 third person, cemented by dire calamity, and then 
 ifused by a oneness of hope and aspiration. 
 Brahms' nature was too decidedly masculine, that is to 
 say, one-sided, to exist without the love of woman; 
 Clara Schumann, gentle, generous, motherly, plastic, 
 needed Johannes no less than he needed her. 
 When Clara's spirit passed away, in May, Eighteen 
 Hundred Ninety-six, Brahms attended her funeral at 
 Frankfort. Hero that he was in body and spirit, the 
 shock unnerved him. No rebound came — every bodily 
 faculty seemed to have lost its buoyancy. The doctors 
 tried to cheer him by telling him that he had no organic 
 ailment, and that twenty years of life and work were 
 356 
 
JOHANNES BRAHMS 
 
 before him. He knew better, and told them so. Men do 
 not Uve any longer than they wish to. " Shall I live to 
 see the anniversary of her death ? " asked Brahms of the 
 doctor in March, Eighteen Hundred Ninety-seven. 
 " Oh, undoubtedly — ^you can live many years if you 
 only will to," was the answer. Three weeks later — on 
 April Third — Meix Kalbrech telegraphed to Widmann, 
 this message, " Brahms fell £isleep early this morning." 
 
 357 
 
so HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES 
 OF GREAT MUSICIANS." BEING VOLUME FOURTEEN OF 
 THE SERIES. AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED 
 AND ARRANGED BY JOHN T. HOYLE; TYPOGRAPHY 
 BY CHARLES J. ROSEN AND AXEL EDWARD SAHLIN; 
 PRESSWORK BY JOHN HALL AND PETER ZIMMER; 
 BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS AND 
 BINDING BY CHARLES YOUNGERS m. PRODUCED BY 
 THE ROYCROFTERS. THEIR SHOPS, WHICH ARE IN 
 EAST AURORA. ERIE COUNTY. NEW YORK. MCMXVI.