Varangeville,Sunday, September 4.
My Dears,—As you may well imagine, our dear grandmother is very uncertain as to what she should do. You know kind Louisa Brown has written pressingly and repeatedly to offer grandmamma a home at Blackheath until she can settle down, and the invitation is specifically extended toyouas well as toourselves.
My own responsibility weighs heavy on me at this juncture. Persuasion or dissuasion strike me as being equally serious in their results. I should like to know dear Pigny's mind on the subject. As to my own ideas, here they are.
If cruel fortune gives Prussia the victory (no easy matter, as it seems to me), and if France is to be humiliated under a foreign conqueror, I should never have courage, I confess, to go on living under the enemy's yoke.
Well, granting the Emperor's captivity, MacMahon's defeat, and our loss of eighty thousand men to be undoubted and accomplished facts, my first duty, as it strikes me, is to convey our mother, my wife, and my two children to London, as aprovisional arrangement. Speak, then, good Pigny! I hearken with all my ears!
8 Morden Road, Blackheath, London.
Yes, my dear fellow, you are perfectly right! The peace proposals Prussia dreams of are a crying shame. But the shame, thank God, lies wholly with the proposing party. They bring glory to those who reject them.
Like you I feel, I will not say humiliated, but cut to the very heart by the horrible misfortunes which have befallen our poor unhappy France. So much so, that I keep wondering, every hour of the day, whether the duty of those who arecalled to the honour and happiness of defending our country is not less heavy than that you and I have to perform, and which no man would choose if he felt he must blush for the performance of it. Alas! dear friend, this once, at all events, in history, Frenchmen in general have spilt their noble blood so gallantly, that the shame of those who only think of their own personal safety clings to themselves alone. But the glory of victory nowadays (for the first time, perhaps, in this world's history) is won by machinery rather than by men, and disasters will be weighed in the same balance. The Prussians have not been braver than we. We have been less fortunate than they.
You know already, and I say it again, if you decide to re-enter any gate of Paris, I will not let you go alone. Family life means something more than mere family dinner!
Well, here we are at last, dear friend, in our new dwelling, after eighteen days spent in the enjoyment of the simplest and sincerest hospitality. Some Englishmen there are who will not let us Frenchmen feel we are in England. The manner in which our good and kind friend Brown has shared our trouble proves it.
But the external peace we have found here gives us no inward calm. The longer this horrible bloody war of pride and extermination lasts, the more do I feel my very heart-strings wrung with grief for my unhappy country; and anything that seems to rouse me from my sad contemplation of our beloved France, far from comforting me, as with kindness, stings like an insult.
Oh, most unhappy earth! wretched home of the human race! where barbarism not only still exists, but is taken for glory, and permitted to obscure the pure and beneficent rays of the only true glory in existence, the glory of love, of science, and of genius! Humanity yet lingers, it would seem, under the grim shadows of chaos, amidst the monstrosities of the iron age; and instead of driving their weapons into the earth to benefit their fellow-creatures, men plunge them into each other's hearts to decide the ownership of the actual soil. Barbarians! savages!
Ah, dear fellow, let me make an end, or I shall go on for ever, for very sorrow!
The dear ones near me, who are dear to you too, are well. Would we could have hidden them a little less far off—in Paris!
8 Morden Road, Blackheath Park, London,Wednesday, October 12, 1870.
Dear Friends,—As our correspondence is the only thing we have left to help us struggle against the pain of separation, we ought, so far as circumstances permit, to make the most of it; for we cannot be sure, alas! that what can be done to-day will be possible to-morrow. So we have settled with grandmamma that we will write in turn, as long as you are at Varangeville. My turn falls to-day.
I have just seen a French newspaper, dear Pi, which reports that the Sous-Préfet of Dieppe has posted an order forbidding any Frenchman under sixty years of age to leave the country. So that you are now interned in France, not by your own will only, but by order of the authorities. But as I am not in France, and as I left before any such prohibition was published, I should like you to let me know whether this order is accompanied by another, which seems to me its inevitable corollary, or rather its cause, and its logical explanation—I mean the calling out of all able-bodiedmen under sixty years of age. For I fail to understand an order not to leave France, as applied to men who are not to be called on to defend the country. So I beg you will send me the best-authenticated information you can come by. I will not let you carry a rifle without shouldering mine alongside of you; and though I am a poor shot, you need not fear my being so clumsy as to shoot you by accident. Wemustbe side by side, if there is any question of either of us going under fire. I have already told you so, and my own inaptitude for military duty has nothing to do or to say in the question. I have looked on the steps I have taken, up to this, as an absolute duty. That duty would become merely relative, consequently less, and therefore null and void, if another and a greater should appear to over-ride it.
Our poor beloved country is in a very serious position—worse, as far as I can see, than in any previous trial. Never before have the two great problems of external struggle and internal union loomed so urgent or so huge. I feel certain that internal union, in the face of the common enemy, does actually exist. Whether it is merely temporary, or whether it will continue after thestruggle is over—whatever may be its issue—that's the question! Victor or vanquished, will France emerge a republic? In any case—whatever the resistance Paris makes, and her ultimate fate—it will be long, I think, before France is utterly devoured. The mouthful is a large one, and it may not turn out altogether easy to break up.
Well, we all send our affectionate love. All friendly messages to your kind hosts, and my affectionate respects to M. le Curé, whom I shall never forget.
October 19, 1870, 12.30P.M.
My Dear Ones,—We are just going out with Mrs. Brown, who is coming in her carriage to take us to the Crystal Palace. The fountains play to-day for the last time this season, and she has set her heart on our seeing them. As you may fancy, dear Pigny, I shall hardly realise what is going on before my eyes. I can see nothing but our country. I see it clearer, more incessantly than when I was within its borders!
Ah! dear friend, will no one rise up and lead our brave-hearted Frenchmen on some steadyline of conduct? Failing that, even the most heroic courage will avail us nothing. See how, one by one, one after the other, as though by some strange unheard-of fate, they all fall into the jaws of that huge automaton, that monstrous hydra-headed artillery! Every one of them founders in that hostile ocean, dashing gallantly and ceaselessly against that ever-growing mountain of cannon, and shot, and shell, and strange engines of war, and battalions that seem to start ready armed out of the earth wherever the enemy chances to need them! and meanwhile our generals are being dismissed, or moved from one command to another,—they are left without orders, and thrown on their own resources, to take the chance of whatever their private or personal inspiration may dictate. Three thousand men cut up, to the last man, in a desperate hopeless defence of the Orléans railway station, all unconscious that the opposing force numbers five-and-thirty thousand!! Surely it is sheer madness thus to cast the blood, and bravery, and downright heroism of these splendid fellows into the outer darkness of what fate (or is it mere chance?) may bring!
We oughtallto be standing face to face withthe Prussians at this moment. Every one of us, or not a soul! And it astounds me that three million Frenchmen and thirty thousand cannon were not summoned, over a month ago, under one and the same flag (not that of France alone, but of humanity in general), to repulse this invasion of machines rather than of men! Here comes Mrs. Brown. Good-bye for awhile!
8 Morden Road, Blackheath Park,Tuesday, November 8, 1870.
Dear Edouard,—We are just going to change houses again. We leave Morden Road next Saturday for London, where my work and engagements render my presence indispensable. I must get back to work—and to useful work. I cannot let myself pine and dwindle any longer in endless, hopeless sorrow. In another month I should be utterly incapable.
If I can write, and sell what I write, I will sell my work.
If I have to give lessons, I will teach: for the armistice is breaking down, and nobody knows what winter may bring with it. So our poorlittle flock is scattered, dear fellow! Not in heart indeed, but in body; and "Je ne suis pas de ceux qui disent ce n'est rien!... Je dis que c'est beaucoup!" as old La Fontaine has it.
Tell my dear little Guillaume how much his letters are treasured, not only by the loving heart of his grandmother, but by his uncle, who watches and follows every symptom of his tastes, every instinct of his nature, everything that bears upon his future, every thought—all those inner workings, in a word, which constitute the continuation of a youth's mental evolution and ultimate development—with an affectionate solicitude which I venture to call almost maternal. Everything I notice in him is good, and augurs well; and I believe the serious and even tragic events amid the tumult of which his young life has opened will have endued all his good qualities with a maturity which peace might only have brought them twenty years later.
Everybody here is well. Jean and Jeanne send their affectionate love to their uncle and cousin.
My dear Pi,—So our hopes are dashed again, by the final rupture of the armistice, which, as it had seemed to me, was strengthened by all M. Thiers' consummate powers as a negotiator, and for which the Government was willing to make every concession to which a self-respecting nation could condescend.
And what will happen now? Alas! the thought overwhelms me. But though I cannot turn my heart and mind from the misfortunes of our beloved country, I feel I must make a desperate appeal to my powers of work, to my duty, to myusefulness. Useful I can be to my near and dear ones (for I must support them), and useful, too, to myself—for I must shake free of the slow agony which has been on me ever since we got here, and which would utterly consume me if I did not call together all my remaining strength, to make a struggle against theinvasion of my own morale.
I shall therefore, as events seem likely, for some time to come, to render our return to France impossible, spend the winter in finishing,or at all events in carrying on my present work,[19]so that when the waters go back I may open the window of my ark and let my dove (which may perhaps turn out to be a raven!) fly out. In any case, it will mean that the rainbow has come back, and with it peace among the nations.
Would you were with us, my dear ones! How we are scattered this winter!
London,December 24, 1870.
Dear Friends,—This is the eve of a great day here, which English people keep as we do New Year's Day. And I must confess that to me Christmas, which brings back the greatest of all dates to our memory, opens the year much more appropriately than our "Jour de l'An." Alas! whichever way we take it, what a year of pain this which is just about to close has been, to each and all of us, parted as we are, after so many misfortunes endured, in anxieties such as still beset us, and amid the dread of what may yet befall us. Our very hearts have groaned and suffered for the last five months, unceasingly.For five whole months humanity has gazed on a horrid sight—the most merciless work of destruction, carried on in a century which proudly arrogates to itself the title of "Progress," but the memory of which will go down to posterity stained with the most revolting atrocities. What is progress, forsooth, but the onward march of intelligence, in the light of love? And what has this century done, I will not say for the pleasure, but for the happiness of the human race?
Napoleon I.! Napoleon III.! William of Prussia! Waterloo! mitrailleuses! Krupp guns!...
In what a scene of ruin shall we meet! We have been physically parted, but our hearts have never been severed! far from it! It seems as though this hard and cruel apprenticeship must knit us closer to everything that makes life real, and sure, and steadfast. So my heart yearns to yours now, in absence, more tenderly, more clingingly, than it ever did in happier times! We shall all feel our meeting even more than we should have if we had never been so far apart. Fondest love to each and all of you—to Berthe, to you, dear Pi, to all our friends.
December 28, 1870.
My dear Edouard,—A sad New Year's Day we shall all have, scattered as we are, and have been for so long! Homeless, parted from our nearest and dearest, our friends all gone or scattered too, in constant anxiety about the wellbeing, the health, the very existence of those we love, thousands of lives cut off, and careers destroyed, or checked, or hampered—of families brought to ruin, provinces ravaged and harried, and nothing decisive to show at the end of it all. There you have the sum total, the last will and testament of this dying year, which has devoured countless victims, and spread disaster far and wide—the result at this present moment of "Human Progress." If the tree should be judged by its fruits, and if, as undoubtedly is the case, the value of a cause is to be measured by that of its effect, we must admit, considering what it has brought us to, that human wisdom has gone sadly astray, and that human reason, for the emancipation of which we have been so jealous, does no great credit either to its independence or its own teachings. If all our misfortunesend by giving us a lesson, by bringing us back to the simplicity of truth, and the truth of simplicity, they will not be utterly wasted, and we shall have gained a somewhat both precious and beneficent. For all things proceed from each other, here below; truth and falsehood each have their inevitable consequences. According to the tree, so shall its fruit be. What will the year 1871 bring us? I know not; but it seems to me it must be a decisive year, for good or for evil, not for us only, but for Europe—for what is known as the civilised world. Wemustlearn at lastwherewe really are. It is high time that the nations should make sure wherein their life lies, and their death—what their strength is, and their weakness—whence they may look for light, or darkness—how they may escape all temporary shifts, and settle down on firm and durable foundations. This is the method in all sciences; and politics is a science, which must have a basis and constructive system of its own.
Well, well! Best love to Anna and to grandmamma.
Thursday, March 16, 1871.
Dearest Berthe,—Your letter of the 13th only reached us this morning. It has grieved us sorely. Our dreary winter will close sadly indeed, what with our dear mother's departure, the reasons which make that step wise and even necessary, the thought of how all she will see must wring her heart, and our own disappointment at not having you here for a while, as we had hoped.
If I was not bound until the 1st of May by the engagements I have made in London for that date, I should have started, and so would Anna and her children, with my mother. Duty, in the shape of earning a few crusts, forbids my moving yet, but we shall be on our way to join you before the first week in May is over. In spite of the very favourable welcome, and the artistic position my work has earned me here, I feel this country is not my France, and I believe, being a particularly human person, that my French nature and habits are too old to be modified by transplanting; I shall live and die essentiallya Frenchman. The day is yet far distant when the sense of the whole earth being his fatherland will predominate in the heart of man over love for the soil of his country.
My tenderest greeting to you both.
London, April 14, 1871.
Dear Friend,—Your letter of the 12th has just reached me, and I reply at once, in the hope that my answer may be at Versailles in time to welcome you on your return to the dear fraternal roof, and that thus your two brothers may each greet you after his fashion—one in his peaceful garden, the other by these few lines from the other side of the sea; one opening his door to you, the other stretching out his arms; both taking you to their hearts. How large the place you hold there, you know right well! Alas! dear friend, dear brother, I too hear the terrible guns whose booming grieves your soul and breaks your heart, as well it may! As step by step I follow the progress of events, and the various phases of this conflict, or rather of the utter bedlam which causes and maintains it, I watch thegradual disappearance—I will not say of my illusions (the word is not worthy to express my meaning, nor should I mourn over it as I do), but of my hopes, present or near, at all events, of the approaching erection of a newstoryin the building of the moral habitation men call "Liberty," the only dwelling, after all, worthy of the human race. No, again I say it, these are no illusions which are fading from our sight! Liberty is no dream; it is our Canaan, a true land of promise. But, like the Jews, we shall only see it afar off. To enter it, we must become God's own people. Liberty is as real as heaven. It is a heaven on earth—the country of the elect; but it must be earned, and conquered, not by oppression, but by self-devotion; not by pillage, but by generosity; not by taking life, but by bestowing it, in the moral as well as the material sense. Morally, above all; for once that is well understood and ascertained, the material side of the question will take care of itself. Theman'shygiene must come first, his animal welfare second—that is the just, and therefore the logical course.
When I consider the outcome (so far at least) of all the moral gifts, all the advances on trust, asit were, of which humanity, political and social, has been the recipient, up till this present day, I cannot help observing that it has been treated like a spoilt child. I feel inclined to doubt whether a wise and opportune distribution of all those gifts which cannot be appreciated and utilised till the human race comes of age, has not been anticipated with reckless and imprudent prodigality. We still stand in need ofoverseers. Well, master for master, take it all in all, I would rather haveonethantwo hundred thousand. You can always get rid of one tyrant (natural death, what we callla belle mort, will do that for you); but a collective tyranny, compact, endlessly reproductive, feeding and fattening perpetually on its own victims!—I can never believe that is God's chosen model of human evolution. Now, if we carry the argument to its conclusion, we come to this: "Liberty is merely the voluntary and conscious accomplishment of justice." And as justice is obedience to eternal and unchanging laws, it follows that where there is freedom there must be submission. This is the end of the argument, and the basis of all life. I should go on twaddling for ever (and so would you), but I must notforget mine is not the only letter this envelope is to hold.
So I will send my affectionate love to you and Berthe.—Your brother,
CH. GOUNOD.
INthe ranks of human nature certain peculiarly sensitive beings are to be found, whom circumstances affect after a fashion utterly distinct, both in nature and degree, from the results they produce on other men. These individuals form the inevitable exception to an otherwise invariable rule. Their natural idiosyncrasies explain the peculiar features of their various lives, and to these lives again their ultimate fate may fairly be ascribed.
Now the exceptional men and women lead the world. This is inevitable, for their struggle and their suffering is the price of the enlightenment and progress of humanity at large. Once these intellectual pioneers have dropped on the road they have hewed out—oh! then troops up the flock of imitators, full of the pride of breaking down the already opened door; every separate sheep of them, as vainglorious as the legendary fly on the coach-wheel, loudly claiming the honourand glory of having won triumph for the Revolution. "J'ai tant fait que nos gens sont enfin dans la plaine!" Like Beethoven, Berlioz was one of the illustrious sufferers from that painful privilege of being an exceptional man. Dearly did he pay for the heavy responsibility! The exceptional man must suffer. Fate wills it thus, and, as invariably, he must bring suffering on others. How can the common herd (thatprofanum vulgusso execrated by the poet Horace) be expected to acknowledge its own incompetence and bow down before any insignificant though audacious person who dares stand out boldly against inveterate custom and the sovereign rule of old-established routine? Did not Voltaire (a clever man, if ever there was one) declare that no one person was as clever as all the rest put together? And is not universal suffrage, the great achievement of these modern days, the irrevocable verdict of the sovereign populace? Does not the voice of the people equal the voice divine?
History, meanwhile, with its steady onward march, which from time to time exposes many a counterfeit—history, I say, teaches us that everywhere, and invariably, light proceeds from the individual to the multitude, and never fromthe multitude to the individual; from the wise to the ignorant, never from the ignorant to the wise; from the sun to the planet, never from the planet to the sun. You cannot expect thirty-six millions of blind men to do the work of one telescope, or thirty-six millions of sheep that of one shepherd! Was it the world at large that formed Raphael and Michael Angelo, Mozart and Beethoven, Newton and Galileo? The world!—which spends its life making and unmaking its own judgments, in a perpetual alternate condemnation of its own infatuations and prejudices. How can the world judge anything? Would you erect such wavering contradictory decrees into an infallible jurisdiction? The very thought is laughable. The world's first impulse is to scourge and crucify. Long afterwards, in the next generation oftener than not, or a still later one, a tardy repentance reverses the judgment, and the laurels denied to the living genius fall like rain upon his tomb. The only true and definite sentence, that of posterity, is but the accumulated judgment of successive minorities. Majorities are the "preservers of thestatu quo." I do not blame them. They probably fulfil their true function in the general order of things. They may keep the chariotback. They certainly do not help it onwards. They act as a drag, when they do not play the part of ruts upon the path. Immediate success is often enough a mere question of fashion. It proves a work to be on a level with the age; it by no means argues any long survival. There is no great reason, then, for being proud of it.
Berlioz was a very single-minded man, ignorant of all arts of concession or compromise. Belonging, as he did, to the race ofAlcestis, naturally enough the hand of everyOronteswas against him. And how many "Orontes" there are in this world! People called him crotchety, surly, quarrelsome, what not! But surely those who complained of this extreme sensitiveness, often amounting to excessive irritability, should have made some allowance for the annoyances, the personal suffering, the innumerable rebuffs endured by a proud-hearted man, to whom any mean compliance or cringing servility was utterly impossible. Though his opinions may have seemed hard and severe to those concerning whom they were expressed, they never, at all events, can be attributed to any shameful or jealous motive. Such feelings were quite incompatible with the nobility of that great andgenerous and loyal nature. The trials endured by Berlioz when competing for the Grand Prix de Rome were the faithful image, and, as it were, the prophetic prelude to those he was to face all through his career. He actually competed four times over, and he was twenty-seven when, by dint of his own perseverance, and in spite of the innumerable difficulties he had to overcome, he won the prize, in the year 1830.
The very year which saw him carry off the prize with his cantata "Sardanapale" also saw the execution of a work which demonstrated the point his artistic development (so far as musical conception, colour, and experience are concerned) had reached. His "Symphonic Fantastique" ("episode dans la vie d'un artiste") was a real event in the musical world, the importance of which may be gauged by the fanatical admiration and the violent opposition it aroused. Admitting that a work of such a nature may be open to much discussion, the fact that its composer possessed most remarkable inventive power, and a powerful poetic sentiment (which reappears in all his subsequent compositions), still remains evident.
Berlioz has put into musical circulation, so tospeak, a large number of orchestral effects and combinations which were unknown before his time, and which have been adopted by very illustrious musicians indeed. He has revolutionised the art of instrumentation, and in that respect, at all events, may be said to have "founded a school." And yet, in spite of certain brilliant successes both in France and elsewhere, his whole life was a struggle. In spite of performances to which his personal guidance as an orchestral conductor of great eminence and his indefatigable energy added many chances of success and many elements of brilliance, his personal public was always a limited one. The great public, that "everybody" which turnssuccessintopopularity, never knew him. Popularity was so slow in coming to Berlioz that he died of the delay. The end came at last, with the "Troyens," a work which, as he foresaw, caused him a world of sorrow. Like his namesake and his hero, he may be said to have perished before the walls of Troy. Every impression, every sensation Berlioz underwent was carried to an extreme. He knew no joy or sorrow short of downright delirium. As he himself would say, he was a "volcano." Extremesensibility carries one as far in suffering as in delight. Tabor and Golgotha are not far apart. Happiness no more consists in the absence of suffering than genius implies freedom from all faults.
Men of genius must and do suffer, but they need no pity. They know raptures which are a sealed book to others, and if they have wept for sadness, they have shed tears of ineffable joy as well. That in itself constitutes a heaven that can never be too dearly bought.
Berlioz was one of the greatest emotional influences of my youth. Older than myself by fifteen years, he was a man of four-and-thirty when I, a lad of nineteen, studied composition under Halévy at the Conservatoire. I recollect the impression his person and his works (which he often rehearsed in the concert-room of the Conservatoire) produced on me. The moment Halévy had corrected my work I used to fly from the class-room, and lie low in some corner of the concert-hall, and there remain, intoxicated by the weird, passionate, tumultuous strains, which seemed to open new and brilliant worlds to me. One day, I remember, I had been listening to a rehearsal of his "Romeo and Juliet" Symphony,then unpublished, and which was shortly to be given in public for the first time. I was so struck by the grandeur and breadth of the great finale of the "Reconciliation des Montaigus et des Capulets," that when I left the hall my memory retained the whole of Friar Lawrence's splendid phrase, "Jurez tous par l'auguste symbole." A few days afterwards I went to see Berlioz, and sitting down to the piano, I played the whole passage over to him. He opened his eyes very wide, and looking hard at me, he asked—
"Where the devil did you hear that?"
"At one of your rehearsals," I replied. He could hardly believe his ears.
The sum total of Berlioz' work is very considerable. Thanks to the initiative of two courageous orchestral leaders (M. Jules Pasdeloup and M. Édouard Colonne), the present public has already become acquainted with several of the great composer's vast conceptions—the "Symphonic Fantastique," the "Romeo and Juliet" Symphony, the "Harold Symphony," the "Enfance du Christ," three or four great overtures, and, above all, that magnificent work the "Damnation de Faust," which in the course ofthe last two years has roused such transports of enthusiasm as would have stirred the artist's very ashes, if the dead could stir. But what a mine remains yet unexplored! Shall we never hear his "Te Deum," in all its grandeur of conception? And will no director produce that charming opera, "Beatrix et Bénédict?" Such an attempt nowadays, when opinion has so veered round to Berlioz' side, would have every chance of success. Though no particular merit on the score of risk encountered could be claimed, it might be wise to seize the favourable opportunity. The following letters have a double charm. They are all unpublished hitherto, and every one of them has been written in the spirit of absolute sincerity, which is the eternally indispensable condition of true friendship. Some may deplore the lack of deference they betray with respect to men whose talents should apparently shield them from irreverent and unjust description. People will say, and not unreasonably, that Berlioz would have done better not to style Bellini a "little blackguard," and that the appellation of "illustrious old gentleman" as applied to Cherubini, with evidently ill-natured intent, was very inappropriate to the eminent composerwhom Beethoven considered the greatest of his age, and to whom he, Beethoven, the mighty symphonist, paid the signal honour of humbly submitting the MS. of the "Messe Solennelle" (Op. 123), with the request that he would freely express his opinion concerning it. Be that as it may, and in spite of blots for which the writer's cross-grained temper is alone responsible, the letters are most deeply interesting. Berlioz bares his heart in them, as it were. He lets himself go; he enters into the most intimate details of his private and artistic life. In a word, he opens his whole heart to his friend, and that in terms of such effusive warmth and affection as prove how worthy each was of the other's friendship, and how complete the mutual understanding was. To understand each other! How the word calls up that immortal fable of our heaven-sent La Fontaine, "Les deux Amis."
To understand! to enter into that perfect communion of heart and thought and interest to which we give the two fairest names in human language—friendship and love. Therein lies life's whole charm, and the most powerful attraction, too, in thatwritten life, that conversationbetwixt parted friends which is so appropriately known as "correspondence."
The musical works of Berlioz may earn him glory. The published letters will do more. They will earn him love, and that is the most precious of all earthly things.
CHARLESGOUNOD.
WHEN, after years of perseverance and struggle, a highly gifted artist gains the exalted place in public opinion to which he is justly entitled, everybody, even his most obstinate opponent, exclaims, "Didn't I always say people would end by coming round?"
Five and twenty years ago, or more (for he came out as an infant prodigy), M. Saint-Saëns made his first appearance in the musical world. How many times since then have I been told: "Saint-Saëns? Eh? Now really? Oh, as a pianist or an organist, I dare say. But as a composer! Do you really and truly think?..." And all the rest of the usual stereotyped phrases. Well, Ididthink so, really and truly; and I was not the only person who did. Now everybody else thinks so too. Misgivings have all faded away, prejudices are all dispelled—M. Saint-Saëns has won. He has only to say, "J'y suis,j'y reste," and he will be one of the glories of his time and of his art.
According to admitted opinion among certain artists, if a man speaks well of a brother artist's work, the natural inference is that he thinks ill of it, andvice versâ. But why? Must you refuse to admit other men's talent or genius in order to prove your own? Did Beethoven slay Mozart? Will Rossini prevent Mendelssohn from living on? Do you believe that, as Celimène says in the play, "C'est être savant que trouver à redire"?
Are you afraid there will not be room enough for you? Pray calm that fear! There will always be room and to spare in the Temple of Fame. If your place is marked there, it awaits you. The great point is that you should come and take it.
No; the real dread is that of not being foremost Alack! this fretful, nervous preoccupation concerning relative value is the very antithesis of real merit. It is the same shabby old story—love of self usurping the place and duty of love in the true sense. Let us love our art. Let us fight, in all honesty and boldness, for any man or woman who serves it bravely and nobly. Letus not hold truth "captive in the hand of injustice." That which we strive to conceal to-day will surely be in public knowledge on the morrow. The only honourable course is to prepare that judgment of posterity, thevox populi, vox Dei, which ranks no man by favour, or, what is worse, by interest, but gives sentence in true justice, infallible and eternal.
To keep back the truth, proves that we do not love it. To grieve because some other man serves truth better than ourselves, proves that we would have the honour due to truth alone paid to our own persons.
Let us rather do all we can to diffuse the light of truth. We never can have too much of it.
M. Saint-Saëns is one of the most astonishingly gifted men, as regards musical powers, I have ever met with. He is armed at all points. He knows his business thoroughly. I need only remark that he uses his orchestra, and plays with it, just as he plays on and with his piano.
He possesses the gift of description in the highest and rarest degree. He has an enormous power of assimilation. He can write you a work in any style you choose—Rossini's, Verdi's, Schumann's, Wagner's. He knows them all thoroughly—the surest safeguard, it may be, against his imitating any. He never suffers from that bugbear of the chicken-hearted, the dread of not making his effect. He never exaggerates; thus he is never far-fetched, nor violent, nor over-emphatic. He uses every combination and every resource without abuse, and without being enslaved by any one of them.
He is no pedant. There is no solemnity, notranscendentalismabout him. He is too childish still, and has grown far too wise, for that. He has no special system; he belongs to no party or clique. He does not set up to be a reformer of any sort. He writes as hefeelsandknows. Mozart was no reformer either, and, as far as I am aware, that fact has not prevented his reaching the highest pinnacle of his art.
Another virtue (and one I desire to emphasise in these days), M. Saint-Saëns writes musicthat keeps time, without perpetually dragging out over those silly and detestable pauses which make any proper musical construction impossible, and which are a mere maudlin affectation. He is simply a thoroughbred musician, who draws and paints with all the freedom of a master-hand; and iforiginality consists in never imitating another, there can be no doubt about it in his case.
I do not propose in this place to go into all the details of the libretto of "Henri VIII." The various newspaper reports of the first performance have already performed that duty; and besides, the story (I had almost said of that crowned hog!) of that practised Bluebeard and conceited and contemptible theologian is known to everybody. Nothing less than the triple crown sufficed his ambition, and the thought of the Pope disturbed his mind as much, at all events, as any woman, or strong drink, even.
But storm and threats availed him nothing. The Papacy has been blustered at in every key, but it still slumbers on peacefully in its bark, which no tempest seems able to submerge.
M. Saint-Saëns has given us no overture to this opera. This is certainly not because he lacked symphonic skill. Of that he has already given us superabundant proof. The work opens with a prelude based on an English theme, which will reappear as the principal one in the finale of the third act.
This prelude introduces us to the actual drama. In the very first scene, between Norfolk and DonGomez, the Spanish Ambassador to Henry VIII.'s Court, a charming air occurs, "La beauté que je sers." It has a ring of youth about it, and the close, on the words, "Bien que je ne la nomme pas," is quite exquisitely simple.
In the first act the most remarkable numbers are a chorus of gentlemen discussing Buckingham's sentence; the King's air, "Qui donc commande quand il aime?" wonderfully truthful in expression; Anne Boleyn'sentrée—a gracefulritournelle, leading up to a charming chorus for female voices, "Salut à toi qui nous viens de la France," which is followed by a passage quite out of the common both as regards the music itself and the scenic effect. I refer to the funeral march, when Buckingham is borne to his last home, in which theDe Profundisis interwoven in a superlatively talented manner with the asides of the King and of Anne Boleyn in front; while the orchestra, as well as the monarch, whispers the caressing phrase which is to reappear in the course of the opera, "Si tu savais comme je t'aime!" in the young maid-of-honour's ear. This fine scene closes with a masterly ensemble, treated with great dramatic breadth, and which fitly and nobly crowns the first act.
The second act is laid in Richmond Park. It opens with a charming prelude—exquisitely dainty and clear in instrumentation—introducing a delightful theme which reappears later on in the duet between the King and Anne Boleyn, one of the most remarkable passages in the whole score.
After a soliloquy for Don Gomez, offering some fine opportunities for declamation, Anne Boleyn appears, with the ladies of the Court, who offer her flowers. This scene is full of charm and refinement. Then comes a short scene for Anne and Don Gomez, and then her great duet with the King. This duet is a very remarkable piece of writing. It throbs with impatient sensuality, concealed by an instrumentation full of the suggestion of feline caresses. The last ensemble is exquisite—well-nigh unapproachable in sonority and charm. The next air, "Reine! je serai reine!" gives a fine impression of a woman's intoxicated pride. In the duet between Anne Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon the expression given to the feelings of that noble-minded, unhappy Queen, alternately proud and tenderly forgiving, is very striking.
The third act represents the Council Chamber. It opens with a stately march, accompanying theentrance of the Court and the Judges. Then commences a superb full chorus, "Toi qui veilles sur l'Angleterre," after which Henry VIII. addresses the Synod, "Vous tous qui m'écoutez, gens d'Eglise et de loi!" Katherine, sorely agitated, scarcely able to speak, advances, and beseeches the King to have pity on her. This passage, in which the chorus occasionally joins, is most true and touching in feeling. In the face of the King's cruel scorn of his unhappy Queen, Don Gomez rises, and declares that as a Spaniard he undertakes the defence of his mistress. In his rage, Henry VIII. appeals to his subjects, "les fils de la noble Angleterre," who proclaim themselves ready to accept the decree of Heaven, about to be delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury: "Nous déclarons nul et contraire aux lois, l'hymen à nous soumis."
Katherine rebels, and in a transport of indignant pride she cries, "Peuple que de ton roi déshonore le crime—tu ne te lèves pas!"
This passage is very striking and impressive. Katherine appeals to posterity, and goes out with Don Gomez.
The Legate enters, and then comes the great scene with which the third act closes.
In his hand the Legate holds the Papal Bull—
"Au nom de Clément VII. pontife souverain."
The King, driven to extremities, commands that the Palace gates shall be thrown open, and the populace admitted.
And the King proclaims himself Head of the English Church, and takes Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke, to wife!
This splendidly managed scene winds up with a stirring chorus, "C'en est donc fait! il a brisé sa chaine," worked out on the theme of the national air already appearing in the prelude which takes the place of overture to the opera.
The fourth act is also divided into two parts. The first is laid in Anne Boleyn's chamber. The curtain rises on a graceful song and dance, during which Norfolk and Surrey carry on an aside conversation very ingeniously interwoven with the dance-music. The next scene, between Anne and Don Gomez, has a charming air, sung with muchexpression by M. Dereims. A dialogue between the King and Don Gomez closes this first part.
The second shows us a huge apartment in the banished Queen Katherine's lodging at Kimbolton Castle. The touch of a master-hand is evident all through these closing scenes of M. Saint-Saëns' opera. They are instinct with incomparable power.
There is an admirable truth and sincerity in the Queen's soliloquy, full of tender and mournful expression. She presently distributes some of her belongings as keepsakes to her waiting-women. This little scene, almost domestic in its familiarity, is ennobled by the deep feeling with which the author has inspired it. Thus does truth elevate everything it touches!
Next comes the magnificent scene between Queen Katherine and Anne Boleyn. Mdlle. Krauss's comprehension and rendering of the Queen's superb note of indignation marked the consummate tragedian; her acting of the part rose to a striking level both of expression and of power.
The final numbers of this second and closing part form what is known in theatrical parlance as theclouof the drama. It is overwhelming.Never did curtain fall on anything more thrilling. Situation, music, singing, acting, all contribute to the powerful impression caused by this splendid scene—which called forth thunders of applause.
Such, as far as so hasty a description can give any idea of it, is M. Camille Saint-Saëns' new work.
As for the performers—every one of them fully equal to their task—we must first mention those who played the three principal parts: Mdlle. Krauss (Katharine of Aragon), Mdlle. Richard (Anne Boleyn), and M. Lassalle (Henry VIII.). Next come M. Boudouresque (the Papal Legate), M. Dereims (Don Gomez), M. Lorrain (Norfolk), M. Sapin (Surrey), and M. Gaspard (Archbishop of Canterbury).
Mdlle. Krauss was full of grandeur, nobility, and royal dignity. Both as actress and as singer, she proved her wonderful power of pathos. In the final scene especially, she sang, acted,suffered, with a truthfulness and intensity of expression which literally overwhelmed the onlookers with the sense of its reality. What a splendid artiste! What numberless parts she has identified with herself! How gallantly she plays them all! What a place she holds on our stage! What a void her absence would leave!
The part of Anne Boleyn gave Mdlle. Richard the opportunity of displaying all the charm of her full and beautiful voice, the rich tone of which is never strained by the wisely and well written music of her part.
M. Lassalle gave that of Henry VIII. all the interest of his clear diction and articulation; of a play that was sometimes gloomy and forbidding and sometimes impassioned; and of that rare voice of his, equally gifted in every shade of strength and softness.
M. Boudouresque would seem to have been born to be a Cardinal (pacethe diabolic Bertram and the Huguenot Marcel, whom he represents so skilfully)! He looks as if he had been sent into the world to play Princes of the Church—videBrogni in "La Juive," and this Papal Legate in "Henri VIII.," whom he invests with most imposing dignity.
M. Dereims, as Don Gomez, was remarkable for elegance and charm.
The orchestra, under M. Altès, was admirable; as was also the chorus, carefully taught and led by M. Jules Cohen.
M. Vaucorbeil, too, deserves a place of honour. He believed in M. Saint-Saëns, and as soon ashe became Director of the Opera, he expressed a desire to see his work on our chief lyric stage. As is his custom, the truly artistic Director devoted all his intelligent care and attention to producing this noble and serious work; while yet another true artist, M. Régnier, gave it the benefit of all the scenic experience his long and brilliant theatrical career has brought him.
So, dear Saint-Saëns, you now behold your name linked with a work which has earned most signal honour for French art and for our National Academy of Music. To those who knew you as a child (myself among the number) your destiny was never doubtful. Musically speaking, you never had any childhood. Watchfully cherished as you were by your wise and noble-hearted mother, your earliest years were nourished by the great masters of your art. They set your feet boldly and firmly on your onward path. Your reputation has long since outstripped that order of popularity which is apparently the special privilege of the dramatic stage. The only thing lacking to give it weight was a brilliant theatrical success. That is now yours.
Forward then, dear and great musician! You have won all along the line. Posterity will befaithful to your work, because you are true to your art! God has gifted you with the master's knowledge and the master-hand! May they long be preserved to you, for your sake and for ours!
Paper read byM. CHARLES GOUNOD,Member of the Académie des Beaux Arts, at the Annual Public Meeting of the Five Académies, October23, 1886.
GENTLEMEN,—The successive transformations of which this earth has been the scene, and which form its history—I had almost said its education—since it dropped from its place amongst the solar nebulæ to take up a more distinct position in space, are so many chapters, as it were, in that great law of progress, that perpetualtending, which seems to draw all creation towards some mysterious goal, and whose various phases have been summed up in three general orders which have been designatedages, and which denote the three hitherto most evident phases of existence on our globe. But the book was not closed here, and earth's history was not to end with these three earliest forms of life. A fourth, the Human Age (for thus science permits me to call it), was to reign in this unconscious kingdom. Thehuge travail of evolution, the tremendous effort of parturition in which the plan of the Creator is unfolded, was to be taken up by man at the point to which his forerunners had carried it, and to be brought, by the exercise of nobler functions, to a yet higher destiny. The law of life, of which earth's creatures had so far been the more or less passive but utterly irresponsible depositaries, was to beconfidedto man's care, he being raised to the supreme honour of voluntarily accomplishing its known behest—an honour constituting the essential idea of liberty, and which instantly transforms instinctive activity into rational or conscious action. In a word, Morality (or the definition of what is good), Science (or the definition of what is true), Art (or the definition of what is beautiful), were all lacking until the advent of Man. And Man, in his quality of high priest of a temple, thenceforward dedicated to Goodness, Beauty, and Truth, was destined to dower and glorify the world by their bestowal.
What, then, is an artist? What is his function with regard to this conception of Nature, and, as I may almost say, this investment of her capital?
Man's sublime function is literally and positivelythat of anew earthly Creator. His duty is tomakeall things what they ought tobecome. Not merely in the matter of the cultivation of the soil of our earth, but also as regards intellectual and moral culture—justice, love, science, arts, trade and manufactures—no consummation nor true conclusion is possible save through Man, to whom creation was confided that he mighttill it—"ut operatur terram," as the old text of the Book of Genesis runs. An artist, then, is not simply a sort of mechanical apparatus which receives or reflects the image of exterior and visible objects; he is a sensitive and living instrument, which wakes to consciousness and vibrates at the touch of Nature. And this vibration it is which at once indicates the artistic vocation, and is the primary cause of any work of art.
Necessarily called into existence, in the first place, by the fostering rays of a personal sentiment, a true work of art must reach its perfect form in the full and impersonal light of reason. Art is concrete and visible reality, glorified by that other abstract and intelligible reality which the artist bears within himself, and which is his ideal; that is to say, the inner revelation, the supreme tribunal, the ever-growing vision of ultimatepossibility after which the whole fervour of his being strives.
If it were possible for the artist to lay hands on his ideal—to gaze on it face to face, in all its complete reality—its reproduction would be reduced to a mere matter of copying. This would amount to downright realism, superlative of its kind no doubt, but positive; and thus the two factors of the artist's work—the personal function, which constitutes itsoriginality, and the æsthetic one, which constitutes itsrationality—are at once eliminated. This is not the true relation between the work of art and the artist's ideal conception. The ideal can never be adequately reproduced. It is the loadstar, the motive force. The artist feels it, he is ruled by it, it is his undefined "excelsior," the imperiousdesideratumimposed on him by the law of Beauty, and the very persistence of its inner prompting proves its truth and the impossibility of its attainment.
To draw from an imperfect and lower reality the elements which shall measure and determine the extent to which the said reality agrees or disagrees with Nature's reasonable law, herein lies the artist's highest function. And this verification of Nature as it is, by Nature's own laws, is whatis known as "Æsthetics." "Æsthetics" are the argument ofBeauty.
In art, as elsewhere, reason must counter-balance passion, and thence it follows that all artistic work of the very highest class leaves an impress of calm—that sign of real power, which "rules its art even to the checking point."
As we have already observed, it is thepersonalemotion, in the artist's collaboration with Nature, which gives the stamp oforiginalityto his work. Originality is often confounded with peculiarity or oddity. Yet they are absolutely distinct qualities. Oddity is something abnormal, even unhealthy. It is a mitigated form of mental alienation, and belongs to the region of pathology. As the synonymous word eccentricity so well denotes, it is a deviation, a running off at a tangent.
Originality, on the other hand, is the distinctly evident link which binds the individual to the common intellectual centre. The work of art is the progeny of the common mother—Nature; and of a distinct father—the artist. Its originality is simply an asseveration of paternity. It is the proper name linked to the family appellation, an individual recommendation approved by the community at large.
But the artist's work does not consist merely in his personal expression, though that indeed gives it its distinctive quality, its individual features, even while it thereby confines them within certain limits.
As a matter of fact, while his artistic sensitiveness brings him into touch with actual nature, his reason brings him into equal contact with ideal nature, and this in virtue of that law of transfiguration which must be applied to all existent realities, so as to draw them ever closer to those whichare—in other words, to their perfect prototype.
Let me here quote a sentence which seems to me, at all events, a somewhat striking formulation, even if it be not a proof, of the truth of the foregoing remarks. St. Theresa, that pious woman whose brilliant wisdom has earned her a place amongst the most famous teachers of the Church, used to say she did not remember ever to have heard a bad sermon. I ask no better than to believe this, seeing she said it. But it must be admitted that unless the saint deceived herself, she herself at least, if not the period in which she lived, must have been blessed with some special favour, by no means the lightest, in allconscience, which God has been pleased to bestow upon His faithful servants. However that may have been, and without desiring to cast the slightest doubt on the faithfulness of her witness, it may be explained—translated, let us say; and we may arrive at some comprehension of how, and to what an occasionally astounding extent, the inaccurate relation of a fact may co-exist with the absolute veracity of the person who bears the testimony.
Why did St. Theresa never recollect having heard a bad sermon? Because every sermon she heard with her outward ears was spontaneously transfigured, and literallyrecreatedby reason of the sublimity of that which sounded ever within her own soul. Because the words of the preacher, void though they might be of literary power or oratorical artifice, spoke to her of that which she loved best in the world, and once her spirit was borne in that direction, or to that level, she felt and heard nothing but God—concerning whom the preacher spoke.
"Use my eyes," said a famous painter, when an acquaintance complained of the hideousness of his model; "use my eyes, sir, and you willsee he is sublime!"
Thus, at the mere sight of even a second-rate work, so that it suffice to kindle that divine spark, the hall-mark of genius, in his soul, the truly great artist will suddenly grasp his idea, and fathom the very depths of his art in one swift piercing glance.
Who can tell whether the "Barbier de Seville" and "Guillaume Tell" were not cradled on the paternal trestle stage on which Rossini's musical training first began?
To pass from exterior tangible realities to emotion, from emotion onwards to reason, this is the progressive order of true intellectual development. And this it is which St Augustine sums up so admirably in one of those clear and perspicuous maxims constantly to be met with in his works: "Ab exterioribus ad interiora, ab interioribus ad superiora"—From without, within; from within, above.
Art is one of the three incarnations of the ideal in the real; one of the three operations of that spirit which is to "renew the face of the earth;" one of the three revivals of Nature in man; one of the three forms, in a word, of that principle of separate immortality which constitutes the perpetual resurrection of humanity at large,by virtue of its three creative powers, distinct in function, though substantially identical—viz., Love, the essence of human life; Science, the essence of truth; and Art, the essence of beauty.
Having thus endeavoured to show how the law which governs the progress of the human mind resides in the union of the ideal with the real, it now remains for me to give the counter-proof, by demonstrating the result of the separation and isolation of these two factors.
In art, mere realism is another word for slavish imitation. Utter idealism is the madness of fancy. In science, reality, by itself, is the enigma of fact unenlightened by its laws. Idealism alone is a ghostly conjecture, devoid of the confirmation of actualities.
In morality, realism unadulterated means the egotism of self-interest—in other words, a lack ofrationalsanction in the field of human will. Unmixed idealism is mere Utopia, or the absence of the sanction of experience in all that is governed by human maxims.
In each and every case there must be either a soulless body or a disembodied soul; a denial of the law of existence by one who belongs at once,by virtue of his double nature, to the tangible and to the intellectual order of life, and whose being is only normal and complete inasmuch as it gives expression to these two orders of reality. If there be one peculiarity specially characteristic of these three high human vocations, the service of Goodness, of Beauty, and of Truth—if there be a bond between them, which marks the divinity of their common origin, and raises them to truly Apostolic dignity—it is that they are disinterested, gratuitous,freely given.
The functions oflifeare so closely knit to those ofexistencethat the divine freedom of a man's vocation must perforce submit to the human necessities of his profession. And the most passionate and eagerliversoften understand little, and fare ill, when it comes to matters ofsubsistence. But all the superior functions of mankind are necessarily and intrinsicallygratuitous.
Neither Love, nor Science, nor Art can be venally appraised. They are the divine three persons of the human conscience. Only finite things can be sold. Immortal things must bestow themselves freely.
Therefore it is that the handiwork of Goodness, of Beauty, and of Truth defies the centuries;the very eternity of their first causes gives them life.
"NEW HEAVENS AND A NEW EARTH."
Thus did the mighty captive of Patmos, the prince of evangelists, foretell the end of time, in the twenty-first chapter of the Apocalypse; a stately vision, culminating in the hosannah of the "New Jerusalem, the Holy City, coming down from God out of heaven prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." What mighty seers they were! those great Hebrew poets! those diviners of the growth and destinies of the human race!—Job, David, Solomon, the Prophets, St. Paul, and the Apostle John, who was permitted to learn the secrets of eternity and to peer into the unfathomable depths of infinite generations!
That New Jerusalem, that chosen country, ishuman selection, the victorious solver of all enigmas, bearing, like some glorious trophy, all the sacramental veils the world has dropped one by one along the centuries—"the faithful steward entering into the joy of his Lord," who, under the glorious light of the "New Heaven," lays the "New Earth" regenerated,recreated, accordingto the law expressed in the supreme formula: "Verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again he can in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven"—at the feet of his Father and his God.
ATa juncture like the present, when, under the mask of so-callednaturalismin Art, an effort is being made to cast disfavour upon that noble and beneficent institution, the Academy of France in Rome, it appears to me a duty to enter a protest against the destructive tendencies, which, could they aspire to the dignity of being called doctrines, would end in nothing short of the utter obliteration of the Fine Arts, in their highest sense, and which, moreover, have no foundation save in the very emptiest and most frivolous of arguments. The advocates of whattheydenominate "Modern Art" (as if Art did not belong to all times) make an unconditional attack on the École de Rome; and their ultimatum is that the Villa Medicis, being a hotbed of artistic infection, must be forthwith done away with. This constitutes the "delenda Carthago" of the Anti-Roman party.
I shall not here undertake to pleadex professoin favour of the painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers whom the State sends year by year to Rome, thus ensuring them, in return for the hopes their talent has excited, constant and assiduous communion with the immortal teachers of the past, known as "the Masters." Myself a musician, I will confine myself to the points affecting the interests of musical composers, the more so as in their case especially a residence in Rome is looked on as being utterly useless and meaningless. But, seeing the cause of one art is the cause of Art in general, anything I may say about musicians will naturally apply to all other artists.
The first thing that strikes me is the fact that this bitterness against the Roman school is the mere outcome of a desire, more or less frankly expressed, which sums up in itself the whole of the opposition programme. "Down with the teachers! Let us use our own wings!" There is no doubt this is what is meant by "Modern Art."
No more education, then; no more acquired and transmissible ideas. That means no capital, and therefore no more patrimony nor inheritance.No past, therefore, no more traditions, no more intellectual paternity. In other words, the reign of spontaneous generation. For there is nothing between the two. We must have either teaching or intuitive knowledge. And note well that those who hug this system are the very men who are always talking about "the School of the Future." By what right, I ask, do they invoke the Future, when within a few days they must have become in its eyes that very Past they will have none of? A wonderfully absurd self-contradiction, this "kingdom divided against itself!" Show me any single method of employing human faculties which rests on such a theory! Law? Physical science? Chemistry? Astronomy? Mechanics? Is not man primarily aneducatedbeing? Does not his whole existence depend on an amassed capital of knowledge? Is he not taught to read, and write, and ride, and walk, and use weapons, and play on various instruments? Has not each department its own special form of gymnastics? And what is a school, after all, but a gymnasium?
Well, you say, let us grant all that, as far as science is concerned, and handicraft. But how about genius? No one can learn to be a genius. You either have that gift or have it not, and itcan no more be bestowed on him who has it not than it can be taken from him who has it. That is a true and uncontested fact. But it is no less true that, as a great artist,[20]well qualified to speak, once said, "Art without science does not exist."
Genius, indeed, is incommunicable, for it is an essentially personalgift. But that which is communicable and transmissible is the language whereby genius is formulated and expressed, and failing which it must e'en remain dumb and impotent. Were not Raphael, Mozart, Beethoven, all men of genius? Did they conceive that fact authorised their scornful rejection of the traditional masters, who not only initiated them into thepracticeof their art, but also pointed them the surestroadto follow, thus saving the immense waste of time involved in seeking a certainty already assured to them by the experience of past centuries? This claim to upset historical truths by dint of sheer sophistry is a downright mockery of common-sense. It amounts to asserting that no orator nor author need learn his language nor study his syntax and his dictionary. Théophile Gautier was right when he said, "If I write better than other people, it isbecause I havelearnt my business, and I have a greater number of words at my command."
But, say the objectors, there are numbers of eminent artists who never studied at Rome at all.
This is perfectly true, and I hasten to add a fact, on which the opposition has no particular reason to plume itself so very proudly—that it by no means necessarily follows that a student at the École de Rome should emerge from it a very superior artist. But what does this prove? That Rome cannot perform a miracle and bestow what Nature has withheld. This is clear as daylight. It really would be too much to expect genius to be obtained at the price of a journey which anybody is free to make. But that is not the question at all. The question really is, whether, granted the possession of an artistic organisation, the influence Rome exercises thereon is not incontestable and unrivalled, in the matter of intellectual elevation and artistic development.
This view leads me to consider the utility of a residence in Rome as regards musical composers.
We will admit, the opposition say, that painters, sculptors, architects, and engravers should be sent to Italy. They will there find a considerablenumber of masterpieces, deeply interesting at all events, in connection with the different arts they practise. But what is a musician to do at Rome? What music is he to listen to? Whatartisticbenefit can he gain there?
The fact is, that the people who make such objections must have given very little thought to the subject of what an artist is. Do they really believe he is given over utterly totechnique, as though mechanical proficiency constituted his whole art? As if a man might not be a clever mechanical performer and yet a commonplace artist; a consummate rhetorician, and a poor writer, or a cold speaker!
What! are eloquence and virtuosity one and the same thing? Is there no difference betwixt the man and the instrument he uses? Have men forgotten that theartisanis but part of theartist, that is, theman—that it is themanwho must be touched, enlightened, carried away, nay, transfigured, so that he shall be lost in passionate adoration of that immortal beauty which ensures not momentary success alone, but the never-ending empire of those masterpieces which have been the light and guide of human art from the ancients down through the Renaissance toour own time, and will endure after it, and for ever!
Is this a real or merely a feigned ignorance of those immutable laws of nutrition and assimilation which govern the growth and perfect development of every organism? If music is the only thing necessary to the development and maturity of a musician's talent, I would not only ask why he should be sent to Rome, since there is no object in his gazing on the frescoes of Raphael and Michael Angelo on the Vatican hill, the home of all the oracles? I would fain know why he should read Homer, Virgil, Tacitus, Juvenal, Dante and Shakespeare, Molière and La Fontaine, Bossuet and Pascal—all, in a word, of the great nurturers of formulated human thought? What is the use? Literature is not music.... No! in good truth. But it is Art, which is ancient and modern too. Art, universal and eternal. And in Art the artist (not the artisan) must find his food, his health, his power, his very life. After all, what is this so-callednaturalismin Art? I confess I should be glad to be informed as to the sense attached to the word by those who seem inclined to make it the banner of a grievance, and the symbol of a claim to a right denied by despoticroutine. Does it mean that Nature should be the foundation and starting point in all art? In that sense all the Masters are agreed. But Art cannot stop there, and Raphael, whom I suppose I may take to have known Nature well, gives us the following definition, as admirable as it is perhaps over-spontaneous: "Art does not consist in representing things as Naturemadethem, but as sheshouldhave made them!" Sublime words, telling us clearly that Art is above all a preference, a trueselection, and thus presupposing a training of the artist's understanding to a special standard of appreciation.
If Nature is everything, and education counts for nothing—if the common herd knows as much as the Masters, then how comes it that time so constantly reverses those ephemeral judgments which have so often showered transports of applause on works soon to be forgotten, or looked askance on masterpieces which have since been hailed with admiration by the infallible verdict of posterity?
I freely admit that the general public may be competent to judge aplay—and even this may be contested when one remembers what an immense number of works held our fathers spell-bound, andleave us cold and indifferent. But even allowing for these ups and downs of popularity, it cannot be said that Art resides in the drama only. There is not the faintest analogy between the violent shock caused by some striking theatrical situation and the calm and noble delight to be derived from an exquisite and perfect work of art. Nobody could think of comparing the feelings produced by a melodrama to the emotion roused by a contemplation of the Frieze of the Parthenon, or the "Dispute du St Sacrement." A whole abyss lies betwixt the domain of mere sensation and that of intellectual feeling.
And what shall I say concerning the incalculable benefits to be found in the quietness and security of such a retreat, far from the feverish roar and constant anxiety of daily life? What of the silence, which teaches a man to listen to what is passing within his own soul? What of the deep solitudes, the distant horizons whose majestic lines seem never to lose their magic power of raising the mind to the level of the great deeds they saw performed? What of the Tiber, with its stern waters, eloquent of the crimes they have engulphed, and the calm of that Roman Campagna through which they roll?