Mr. Cleveland listened with that interest which every good sitter is expected to display whilst under treatment, and sympathetically agreed with me thatit was wise not to begin a thing till it was finished. Then he said, "Have you given me a name, too; and if so, what is it?"
Now that was rather a poser, for Ihadgiven him a name, and it at once struck me that he might not like it. I admitted as much, and prefacing that he must take one of the two words used in the good sense, I said that I had labelled him "Solid and Stolid"; the "stolid," I explained, meaning that he was a man who wasn't going to move unless he saw good cause why. He seemed to think I wasn't far wrong there. As for the "solid," that needed no apology. Physically, any weighing machine would prove his substantial solidity; and intellectually, even a slight acquaintance with him would show him to be a powerful man.
All this little by-play did not prevent my getting on with my picture; nor was I much disturbed by the business that occasionally claimed the President-elect's attention. He took things with characteristic coolness, and gave his instructions without moving a muscle. Only once he got up, more freely to indulge in his habit of thinking before speaking. He was to decide where he would take up his quarters on his visit to New York; that was a burning question, warmly discussed in the press. Why, I don't quite recollect, but anyway his decision was eagerly awaited by two contending groups of his followers. His Secretary had handed him a telegram, and was waiting for instructions what to answer. I thought it proper to be unmistakably minding my own business, and became deeply interested in the background of mypicture. But I could not help hearing Cleveland's answer:—
"Say the governor has not decided; he seems inclined to select his own hotel." This in a drowsy undertone. Then, turning to me with a sudden outburst of energy he said:—
"They'll have to find it out sooner or later, and the sooner they find it out the better, that I'm not a figure-head to be put in front of a tobacconist's store."
After the second sitting my portrait was finished, and my kind model asked me to stop and take luncheon with him. I accepted with pleasure, and this littletête-à-têtewith Cleveland is one of my pleasantest transatlantic recollections. Democratic simplicity ruled supreme. We shared four cutlets and a dish of potatoes, and wound up with some stewed fruit; with that we drank our bumpers of ice water in true American fashion. It was quite a relief to get from Lucullus to Cincinnatus. I had had ample opportunity of appreciating American hospitality, fêted and "received" as I had been by my new friends, but now, it was really refreshing to sit down for once in a way to a meal without having constantly to say "No, thank you," to the bearers of dish or bottle, and without being uncomfortably reminded that you were feasting whilst others were starving within easy reach perhaps of your table, laden with all the luxuries that wealth commands.
The servant disappeared, we helped ourselves, and in answer to a question of mine, Cleveland chatted freely about himself and his antecedents.
"I really do not know how it has all come about," he said. "I began in the smallest of ways as clerk in a store; then I got into a law office" (I think he said at four dollars a week), "and one thing leading up to another, I set up as a lawyer myself. For a while I was Mayor of Buffalo, and then an unexpected opportunity sent me as Governor to Albany. I can hardly tell you why I am President; I was not anxious to be Governor, and not ambitious to be President. When my term is ended, I think, on the whole, that I should like best to be Mayor of Buffalo again."
I answered that I could well understand that desire, as he might not find quite so much left to veto there as in other places. This in allusion to the byname of "the vetoing Mayor of Buffalo" the people had given him on account of his systematic opposition to all extravagant expenditure when Governor of the State. It was said he had saved the taxpayer a million dollars during the first year of his administration.
Then the conversation turned on the responsibilities of statesmen, and I hazarded the remark that they must weigh heavily on them, especially in cases where perhaps the fate of nations depended on their decision. What were Mr. Gladstone's feelings, and how did he sleep, I wondered, after he had signed the paper authorising the bombardment of Alexandria?
"Well," said the President, "I think he would have slept well. When a man has fully and carefully considered all facts and arguments that can help him to a conclusion, and when he has decidedto do what he considers right, according to the best of his judgment, there is no reason why he should not sleep as soundly as ever he did before."
Such were the characteristic words meditatively and slowly spoken by the man who was going to be inaugurated, a few days later, in Washington, as President of the United States, and who henceforth was to take many a momentous decision, that would affect the weal and woe of millions of his compatriots—decisions, too, so weighty and far-reaching that on them might depend the fate of nations, the peace of the world.
Iwell remembersome great and good men whom it has been my privilege and my good fortune to know, but none do I see so plainly before me as Giuseppe Mazzini. His features, his expression, and his every gesture, all are indelibly engraven on my memory. Is it because thirty-four years ago I painted a portrait of him that hangs here just opposite me, and I reverently look up at it as I am about to speak of him? Or is it not rather that to have known Mazzini means ever to remember him—to hear his voice, to feel his influence, and to recall his outward form?
The portrait was painted in the little studio of my bachelor days, which measured about twenty feet by ten, and had no other appendage but a good-sized cupboard, by courtesy called a bedroom. But it was situated right in the middle of six or eight acres of ground in the heart of London, which for many years went by the name of "Cadogan Gardens," till one day it was "improved" away, and its good name was transferred to a new row of Philistine stone houses. Such as it was in 1862, Mazzini liked it,and would often look in on me and my brother-in-law, Antonin Roche, the only other occupant of those Square gardens.
Portrait of MazziniPortrait of Mazzini
Roche, who is now of a ripe old age, and is enjoying a well-earned rest, was an old friend of Mazzini. The two took very opposite views in politics, for Roche was a "Légitimiste," warmly attached to the direct line of the Bourbons, and true to their white flag; whilst in the eyes of Mazzini, as we know, all kings were pretty equally black, and no flag acceptable but the white, green, and red one of a united Italy. A long experience had taught him to place no faith in princes, but to centre his hopes in the people, and in the ultimate triumph of Republican institutions. So he and Roche had right royal word-fights when they met, and they were not badly matched; for Roche was quite a living encyclopædia of knowledge, and had the history of mankind, from the days of Adam up to date, at his fingers' ends. And he had every opportunity of keeping his knowledge fresh, for during a period of forty-five years he regularly held his French "cours" on history, literature, and a variety of other subjects, and before he retired he had educated three generations of England's fairest and most aristocratic daughters.
Mazzini and he, then, would often discuss politics and political economy of the past, present, and future, and I sometimes ventured to join in their conversation. To-day I see the presumption of my ways, but then I was younger, and whilst reverencing the master-mind, and feeling infinitesimally small next to the great man, I yet was bold enough to advancewhere many besides angels would have feared to tread. I had lived in France for some years under the second Empire, and had, perhaps, more respect for the successful than I have now. I had witnessed the rebuilding of Paris, the revival of art, and many evidences of increasing prosperity, and—always allowing for the needs of France and the French of that day—I looked upon Louis Napoleon as rather the right man in the right place.
But Mazzini reviled him, and at the mention of his name would burst forth into a passionate philippic, crushing "the adventurer, the perjurer, the tyrant" with all the weight of his glowing indignation. "But apart from all that," he would say, "we hate each other personally."
He was certainly the most uncompromising enemy of royalty, disdaining threats and blandishments alike, and preferring exile to the acceptance of such favours as the amnesty which at a later period recalled him and his friends to their native land. "He who can debase himself," he said, "by accepting the royal clemency will some day stand in need of the people's clemency."
If he was grand in his wrath, he was grand also in his ideal aspirations; whether he thundered with the withering eloquence of a Cicero, or pleaded for the Brotherhood of Man with the accents of love; whether he bowed his head humbly before the power of one great God, or rose fanatically to preach the new Gospel: "Dio e il popolo," God the first cause, the People sole legitimate interpreter of His law of eternal progress.
The conviction that spoke from that man's lips was so intense, that it kindled conviction; his soul so stirred that one's soul could not but vibrate responsively. To be sure, at the time I am speaking of, every conversation seemed to lead up to the one all-absorbing topic, the unification of Italy. She must be freed from the yoke of the Austrian or the Frenchman; the dungeons of King Bomba must be opened and the fetters forged at the Vatican shaken off. His eyes sparkled as he spoke, and reflected the ever-glowing and illuminating fire within; he held you magnetically. He would penetrate into some innermost recess of your conscience and kindle a spark where all had been darkness. Whilst under the influence of that eye, that voice, you felt as if you could leave father and mother and follow him, the elect of Providence, who had come to overthrow the whole wretched fabric of falsehoods holding mankind in bondage. He gave you eyes to see, and ears to hear, and you too were stirred to rise and go forth to propagate the new Gospel, "The Duties of Man."
What he wrote, what he spoke, was something beyond revealed religion, the outcome of a faith that looked upwards to gather a new revelation of the eternal law that governs the universe. Gospel, Koran, Talmud, merged in his mind in the new faith, rising over the horizon to illuminate humanity.
There was another side of his nature that many a time deeply impressed me. The enthusiast, the conspirator, would give way to the poet, the dreamer, as he would speak of God's nature, and of its loveliestcreation, Woman; of innocent childhood, of sunshine and flowers.
I have heard much said about Woman and Woman's Rights since the days of Mazzini, from pulpit and platform, from easy-chair and office-stool. It often seemed to me to be said in beautiful prose; but still in prose. Mazzini spoke the language of poetry; not in hexameters or blank verse, but still it was poetry. We of to-day look forward, create a new ideal, a new woman; he looked backward to the days of his childhood, and conjured up a vision of Maria Mazzini, his mother.
He loved children, too, and they him. There were boys and girls of all ages in the Roche family, clever and active, and, consequently, what wise and sapient parents call naughty. Some of these now ex-children tell me they have a distinct recollection of having been on more than one occasion turned out and sent to bed prematurely. "We often got into trouble," they say, "when Louis Blanc was there, but we were always good for Mazzini; that was because he was so kind, and never failed to inquire after the dolls; and then we loved to sit and listen to him. To be sure we sometimes didn't understand a word of the conversation going on, but his voice was so beautiful that it fascinated us."
Overawed, I think, would frequently have been more correct, when I remember how they must have heard him denouncing the Austrian rule, or holding up to execration his crowned enemies. I always looked upon him, as I certainly believe he did upon himself, as the ordained champion of the oppressed,and as a menacing tool in the hands of an unflinching Providence. He was as unflinching as the Fates themselves, and, regarding himself as the embodiment of a good cause, he cared little for the obloquy his opponents ever heaped upon his head. To name but one instance: When Orsini attempted the life of Napoleon III., throwing a bomb at the imperial carriage as it was approaching the Opera House in the Rue Drouot, killing, not the object of his hatred, but so many innocent people, a cry of horror went through the civilised world, and Mazzini got his full share of execration. Nobody entertained a doubt that he was at the bottom of the plot. It could only be he who had organised it; he had supplied the bombs, and Orsini was but a tool sent to the post of danger, whilst he himself remained on the safe side of the water that separated hospitable England from the realm of the French Emperor and his ever-watchful police.
The world was mistaken. Mazzini may have hatched plots and preparedcoups; indeed, to do so was his daily task, and sometimes when I asked him: "Eh bien, comment ça va? Qu'est ce que vous faites?" he would pleasantly answer: "Je conspire"; but in this case we knew that he could not have had any communication with Orsini. What had happened between them had led to an irreparable breach. During one of Mazzini's secret visits to the Continent, his friend Sir James Stansfeld, then Mr. Stansfeld, had undertaken to open his letters for him, and to forward what he deemed desirable. Among others a letter from Orsini thuscame into his hands, which contained the vilest accusations against two most deservedly respected ladies, friends both of Mr. Stansfeld and of Mazzini. The indignant answer with which the former met the slander led in true Continental fashion to a challenge from Orsini, which, it is needless to say, was treated with contempt. Mazzini, to whom woman was ever an ideal to be looked up to and revered, was deeply incensed. He never met Orsini after the incident, and he never forgave him the libels he had penned.
Alluding to these circumstances, I asked him why he did not publicly contradict the reports that accused him of complicity; knowing, as I did, that they were untrue, I wondered that he did not repudiate the charge. To that he answered: "It matters nothing, or rather it is well the world should believe me implicated. I never protest. Europe needs a bugbear, a watchword that threatens, a name that makes itself feared. The few syllables that go to make up my name will serve the purpose as well as any others."
Mr. Stansfeld was one of his earliest friends. He has often told me how great was the personal influence Mazzini exercised over him. "What could be loftier," he writes, "than his conception of duty as the standard of life for nations and individuals alike, and of right as a consequence of duty fulfilled. His earnestness and eloquence fascinated me from the first, and many young men of that time have had their after-lives elevated by his living example."
There were two associations of which all themost active members were young men, Mr. Stansfeld amongst the number: "The People's International League," and "The Society of the Friends of Italy;" the latter especially exercising considerable influence in accentuating and bringing to the front the expression of British public opinion in favour of the emancipation and unification of Italy. At the close of the revolution that in 1848 shook the very foundations on which rested European thrones, many of the most prominent leaders and revolutionary personalities of the period sought shelter in the sanctuary of the British Islands, and it was at this time that Mazzini's more intimate friends found a hospitable and cordial reception at Mr. Stansfeld's house. Mazzini himself had come to London when he was obliged to leave Switzerland in 1841. One or two of the incidents that arose out of his presence in England are worth recalling.
In 1844 a petition from Mazzini and others was presented to the House of Commons, complaining that their letters had been opened in the Post Office. Sir James Graham, under whose instructions as Secretary of State this had been done, defended his action, and roundly abused Mazzini, as did Lord Aberdeen in the House of Lords. They, however, afterwards apologised for their words. A Bill was introduced to put a stop to the power of opening letters by the Secretary of State, but was dropped. It was on this occasion that Carlyle wrote toThe Timeshis famous defence of Mazzini "I have had the honour to know Mr. Mazzini for a series of years, and, whatever I may think of his practicalinsight and skill in worldly affairs, I can with great freedom testify to all men that he, if ever I have seen one such, is a man of genius and virtue, a man of sterling veracity, humanity, and nobleness of mind, one of those rare men, numerable unfortunately but as units in this world, who are worthy to be called martyr souls."
Twenty years later the subject of Mazzini's letters once more led to heated controversy in the House of Commons. At that time Mr. Stansfeld was a Junior Lord of the Admiralty. His friendship for the champion of Italy's rights had ripened as years went on, and he was ever ready to serve him and the good cause. It happened that the French Procureur-Impérial, while engaged in prosecuting a State conspiracy, discovered that one of the accused persons had been found in possession of a letter telling him to write for money to Mr. Flowers, at 35 Thurloe Square, S.W. This was Mr. Stansfeld's address, and he did not hesitate to admit that he had allowed Mazzini to have his letters addressed there, under the name of M. Fiori (Anglicè, Flowers), to prevent those letters from being opened, while at the same time he knew nothing of their contents. The incident was used by Disraeli to make an attack on the Palmerston Government, for containing in its ranks so dangerous a man as Stansfeld—a man actually engaged in sheltering a conspirator, and "the great promoter of assassination," as he was pleased to call Mazzini. Bright made a strong speech, defending Stansfeld and Mazzini, and declaring that Disraeli himself had justified regicide, as he had in the "Revolutionary Epic."Stansfeld also spoke, saying that he was proud of the intimate friendship of Mazzini, and denying that the great patriot could be properly described in the scurrilous language Disraeli had used.
It was in consequence of this incident that Mr. Stansfeld resigned office, "perfectly satisfied," he says in a letter on the subject, "in being able by so doing, to reconcile the duties of private friendship with my obligations to the Government, of which I was the youngest member." In his long and honourable career, whether as Mr. or Sir James, Stansfeld was always a good knight and true, labouring with the zeal of the reformer and the foresight of the statesman. In Mazzini he admired not only the patriot who served his own country with passionate devotion, but the teacher who, seeing far beyond the narrow limits of each separate nation, could realise the ideal of international unity, and foreshadow a future, in which the aim of statesmanship among free nations would no longer be to perpetuate the weakness of others, but "to secure the amelioration of all, and the progress of each, for the benefit of all the others."
Thus impressed with the solidarity of nations, and the community of their interests, Stansfeld at all times advocated the cause of international unity and the establishment of tribunals of arbitration; and, if a powerful figure-head was wanted to represent those causes, be it to preside over a meeting or to introduce a deputation to the prime minister, we looked to Sir James as the man round whom the best and most influential politicians would rally,and whom they would cordially support, confident as they were both of his strength and of his discretion.
From the arena of politics, national and international, to the four walls of my little studio is an abrupt transition; but with the name of Mazzini as a connecting link, it needs no apology. So I make straight for Cadogan Gardens, in order to mention a pleasant recollection I have of a certain October evening in 1862, when Mazzini unexpectedly dropped in. My cousin, Ernst Jaques, and two friends, Felix Simon and Herr von Keudell, had met there on a short visit to London to "make music." Mazzini and myself formed an appreciative audience, as well we might, for they played Mendelssohn's D Minor Trio in masterly fashion, von Keudell at the piano, Simon taking the violin, and my cousin the violoncello part. Mazzini loved music and was in full sympathy with the performers, so naturally the conversation first turned on the beauties of Mendelssohn's work and on the excellence of its interpretation; but it soon gravitated to the subjects always uppermost in his mind. Herr von Keudell was particularly successful in drawing him out, perhaps because he held views opposed to those of the great patriot, and was well prepared to discuss them. He was soon to become Bismarck's confidential secretary, and as such to take an active and influential part in the chapter of history that was ere long to be enacted. In later years he rose to occupy the post of ambassador to Italy. There was much in his aspirations that interested Mazzini, and when presently my cousin asked him for hisautograph, he wrote, "Ah, si l'Allemagne agissait comme elle pense." Then it was on matters revolutionary that he talked, on the organisation of secret societies, on his clandestine visits to countries in which a price had been set upon his head, and finally, as he got up to leave us, on the detectives he would not keep waiting any longer. They had shadowed him as usual from his house, and would not fail to shadow him back. Very sensational stories were current in reference to those clandestine visits and the disguises under which Mazzini was supposed to have travelled, but they were mere inventions, he told us. To keep his counsel about the end of his journey and the time of his leaving, to shave off his moustache, sometimes to wear spectacles, and to travel quickly, were his sole precautions.
He always carried a certain walking-stick with a carved ivory handle, a most innocent-looking thing, but in reality a scabbard holding a sharply pointed blade. This is now in the possession of Mr. Joseph Stansfeld, to whom it was given by Mr. Peter Taylor, the old and trusted friend of Mazzini. He also preserves a volume of "The Duties of Man" with the dedication in his godfather's hand: "To Joseph, in memoriam of Joseph Mazzini." There is too a portrait of Maria Mazzini (Giuseppe's mother). It is a very poor production, and whilst it may, perhaps, give us some idea of her features, it certainly in no way reflects her lovable nature. When I knew Mazzini he was living in the simplest of lodgings, at 2 Onslow Terrace, Brompton. His room was littered with papers and pamphlets. Birds were his constantcompanions; the room was their cage, wire netting being stretched across the windows. They flew around and hopped about most unceremoniously on the writing-table amongst the conspirator's voluminous correspondence. He had a curious way of holding his pen, the thumb not closing upon it as he wrote, a peculiarity which accounts for the crabbed character of his handwriting. Being an inveterate smoker, he and the birds were mostly enveloped in a cloud. Smoking cheap, but many, Swiss cigars was the only luxury he allowed himself. He was the austerest of Republicans, had few wants, and but slender means with which to satisfy them. Whatever he may have possessed in early life he had spent for the cause he was devoted to; afterwards he lived on a small annuity which his mother had settled on him.
When he sat for me I always took good care to place a box of cigars, and wherewith to light one after the other, on a little table by his side. Thus equipped he proved an admirable model; he sat, or rather stood, with untiring energy, dictating, as it were, the character of the picture, and enabling me to put every touch from nature; posing for those nervous, sensitive hands of his, for the coat and the black velvet waistcoat buttoned up to the chin—he never showed a trace of white collar or cuff—and for the long Venetian gold chain, the only slender line of light I could introduce in the sombre figure. He was indeed, I felt, a subject to stir up an artist, and to sharpen whatever of wits he might have at the end of his brush.
From Mazzini I first heard of the new enterpriseGaribaldi had embarked on in August 1862. He had once more left Caprera, and had crossed over to Calabria with the avowed intention of driving the French garrison from Rome. Mazzini was most emphatic in his condemnation of the scheme, and used strong and uncomplimentary language in censuring the action of his colleague. "But the die is cast," he said, "and under the circumstances I cannot do otherwise than give instructions to all our groups and societies to support him."
How disastrously the expedition ended we all remember. It was denounced as treasonable by the Italian Government in a royal proclamation, and Garibaldi was wounded at Aspromonte in an encounter with troops sent to stop his advance. Great and spontaneous was the outburst of sympathy in England for the hero of Marsala. A small group of his friends arranged, at a cost of £1000, to send out an English surgeon, Mr. Partridge, to attend him. It was not by him, however, but by the eminent French surgeon Nélaton that the bullet was found and extracted.
More than once Mazzini's impulsiveness, not to say naïveté, struck me. Thus one day he rushed breathlessly into my studio, with the words, "Have you heard the news? We are going to have Rome and Venice." I forget what particular news he alluded to, but remember pulling him up with unwarrantable audacity. "At what o'clock?" I asked. "Ah," he answered, "go on, go on. I am too well accustomed to jeers and epigrams to mind." I humbly apologised for my disrespectful retort,uttered on the spur of the moment; but to do so seemed scarcely necessary, for the lion evidently did not mind my taking liberties with his tail; and presently, when I said, "Well, if not at what o'clock, tell me in how much time you will have Rome and Venice," he answered, "Within a twelvemonth. You will see." I made a note of this date, but never reminded him of the incident. In his enthusiasm he had been over-sanguine. "Id fere credunt quod volunt," says Cæsar in his "De Bello Gallico" ("they readily believe what they wish"), and Mazzini was the man of faith and aspirations. Four years were yet to elapse before Venice was liberated, and eight before the Italians gained possession of Rome.
One of the subjects on which he felt strongly was that of compulsory insurance. I cannot remember that he favoured any particular scheme, but he was wedded to the principle that no man has a right to become a pauper, and that he should be compelled by law to save a fraction of his earnings, to be entrusted to the State. In old age he should be able to draw upon a fund thus constituted, and in doing so he would be under no greater obligation to the State than any man is to the banker with whom he has opened an account.
Some little notes which I received from him mostly refer to the sittings for his portrait. On one occasion I must have written that I was again conspiring against his peace, and wanted him to make an appointment. In allusion to this he answers, addressing me as "Mon cher conspirateur." On another occasion I had put that I was one ofthe several tyrants who were clamouring for his head, to which his answer commenced, "Mon cher tyran." That autograph I always particularly prized, the juxtaposition of the words "Dear" and "Tyrant" in Mazzini's handwriting being, I believe, unique. In my album he quotes Goethe, "Im Ganzen, Guten, Wahren resolut zu leben," words that strike one as the appropriate motto for the man who ever sought to live resolutely for all that is good and true. His quotation, however, was not quite correct, for he had substituted, characteristically perhaps, the "True" for the "Beautiful."
Some letters addressed to his friend, Allessandro Cicognani, which have recently come into my possession, are characteristic. He writes:—
"Fratello mio,—La vostra lettera mi è giunta carissima; ora tanto più che io sento il bisogno di riannodare intelligenze coi buoni della città di Romagna e stava cercandone i modi; dopo tre anni d'agitazione nelle quali abbiamo lasciato fare perchè l'esperimento fosse intero e i fatti parlassero, noi ci troviamo a un dipresso là donde eravamo partiti, colla Lombardia rioccupata, coi principi più o meno proclivi a retrocedere."È tempo che ci dichiariamo in faccia all'Europa inetti a essere liberi, o che cominciamo ad agire da per noi. Noi vogliamocacciare lo straniero d' Italia, e vogliamoche il paese intero decida liberamente delle proprie sorti. Guerra dunque e costituente. Se vi è chi dissenta da quegli due punti, merita condanna da ogni Italiano che ama il Paese. Non sitratta più di un partito o dell' altro, si tratta di esistere come nazione e di riconoscere nella nazione la sovranità. In questi limiti noi vogliamo stare, al di qua noi non diamo ormai più tregua ad alcuno."Questa posizione che noi repubblicani abbiamo presa io la esprimerò nettamente in un opuscolo, che escirà fra cinque o sei giorni e che vorrei mandarvi; vogliate indicarmi il modo più conveniente e se io debba via via scrivere al vostro o ad altro indirizzo. Su quel terreno intanto è necessario che rapidamente ci organizziamo per l'azione concentrata a raggiungere il doppio intento. Io vi manderò tra due giorni una circolare della nostra Giunta centrale contenente appunto le norme d'organizzazione generale che dovremmo dare uniforme a quanti consentano in quella bandiera. Voi farete il meglio che potrete."Vi suppongo in contatto con Malioni ed amici. Fra qualche giorno giungerà tra voi un amico mio, Lauri di Forli col quale desidero vi teniate in perfetto accordo."Addio, possiam noi far davvero un ultimo sforzo che levi il Paese da questa vergognosissima via di ciarle di progetti impossibili e di transazione fra il fianciullesco ed il gesuitico, che ci fanno parere decrepiti all' Europa quando si tratta di ringiovanire ed iniziare una nuova era di vita!—Amate il vostro,"Giuseppe Mazzini."Frontiera Lombarda,15 Novembre 1849."
"Fratello mio,—La vostra lettera mi è giunta carissima; ora tanto più che io sento il bisogno di riannodare intelligenze coi buoni della città di Romagna e stava cercandone i modi; dopo tre anni d'agitazione nelle quali abbiamo lasciato fare perchè l'esperimento fosse intero e i fatti parlassero, noi ci troviamo a un dipresso là donde eravamo partiti, colla Lombardia rioccupata, coi principi più o meno proclivi a retrocedere.
"È tempo che ci dichiariamo in faccia all'Europa inetti a essere liberi, o che cominciamo ad agire da per noi. Noi vogliamocacciare lo straniero d' Italia, e vogliamoche il paese intero decida liberamente delle proprie sorti. Guerra dunque e costituente. Se vi è chi dissenta da quegli due punti, merita condanna da ogni Italiano che ama il Paese. Non sitratta più di un partito o dell' altro, si tratta di esistere come nazione e di riconoscere nella nazione la sovranità. In questi limiti noi vogliamo stare, al di qua noi non diamo ormai più tregua ad alcuno.
"Questa posizione che noi repubblicani abbiamo presa io la esprimerò nettamente in un opuscolo, che escirà fra cinque o sei giorni e che vorrei mandarvi; vogliate indicarmi il modo più conveniente e se io debba via via scrivere al vostro o ad altro indirizzo. Su quel terreno intanto è necessario che rapidamente ci organizziamo per l'azione concentrata a raggiungere il doppio intento. Io vi manderò tra due giorni una circolare della nostra Giunta centrale contenente appunto le norme d'organizzazione generale che dovremmo dare uniforme a quanti consentano in quella bandiera. Voi farete il meglio che potrete.
"Vi suppongo in contatto con Malioni ed amici. Fra qualche giorno giungerà tra voi un amico mio, Lauri di Forli col quale desidero vi teniate in perfetto accordo.
"Addio, possiam noi far davvero un ultimo sforzo che levi il Paese da questa vergognosissima via di ciarle di progetti impossibili e di transazione fra il fianciullesco ed il gesuitico, che ci fanno parere decrepiti all' Europa quando si tratta di ringiovanire ed iniziare una nuova era di vita!—Amate il vostro,
"Giuseppe Mazzini.
"Frontiera Lombarda,15 Novembre 1849."
Translation.
"My Brother,—Your letter received was most welcome, all the more so, as I feel the want of putting myself once more in communication with the good friends of the cities of the Romagna, and I was seeking for the best means of doing so. After three years of agitation, during which we have let things take their course in order to allow the experiment to be complete, and facts to speak for themselves, we find ourselves about at the point from which we started, with Lombardy re-occupied and the princes more or less inclined to retrogression. It is time that in the sight of Europe we should either openly avow ourselves incapable of being free, or that we should begin to act for ourselves. We are resolved todrive the foreigner from Italy, and to let the whole country be the free arbiter of its own destiny."This means war. If there is any one who dissents from these two points he deserves the condemnation of every Italian who loves his country. It is no longer a question of one party or another; it is a question of existing as a nation, and of recognising the sovereignty of the nation. Within these limits we will stand; beyond them we will henceforth concede no truce to any one."The position which we Republicans have thus taken I shall define in unequivocal terms in a pamphlet which will appear in five or six days, and which I should like to send you. Please let me know which is the best way of doing so, and whetherI should for the present write to your address or to another. In the meanwhile it is, however, necessary that we should rapidly organise in order to attain by concentrated action the two objects in view. I shall send you in two days a circular issued by our Central Giunta, containing definite instructions for general organisation, which must be made uniform for all those who rally round this banner. You will do the best you can."I take it that you are in touch with Melioni and friends. In a few days you will receive the visit of a friend of mine, Lauri di Forli, with whom I wish you to hold yourself in perfect agreement."Good-bye. May we in full earnest make a final effort that shall lead the country out of that most disgraceful rut of useless chatter of impossible schemes and of compromises between the childish and the jesuitical, that make us appear decrepit in the eyes of Europe when we speak of regeneration and of the introduction of a new era in our lives. Love me.—Yours,Giuseppe Mazzini."Lombard Frontier,Nov. 15, 1849."
"My Brother,—Your letter received was most welcome, all the more so, as I feel the want of putting myself once more in communication with the good friends of the cities of the Romagna, and I was seeking for the best means of doing so. After three years of agitation, during which we have let things take their course in order to allow the experiment to be complete, and facts to speak for themselves, we find ourselves about at the point from which we started, with Lombardy re-occupied and the princes more or less inclined to retrogression. It is time that in the sight of Europe we should either openly avow ourselves incapable of being free, or that we should begin to act for ourselves. We are resolved todrive the foreigner from Italy, and to let the whole country be the free arbiter of its own destiny.
"This means war. If there is any one who dissents from these two points he deserves the condemnation of every Italian who loves his country. It is no longer a question of one party or another; it is a question of existing as a nation, and of recognising the sovereignty of the nation. Within these limits we will stand; beyond them we will henceforth concede no truce to any one.
"The position which we Republicans have thus taken I shall define in unequivocal terms in a pamphlet which will appear in five or six days, and which I should like to send you. Please let me know which is the best way of doing so, and whetherI should for the present write to your address or to another. In the meanwhile it is, however, necessary that we should rapidly organise in order to attain by concentrated action the two objects in view. I shall send you in two days a circular issued by our Central Giunta, containing definite instructions for general organisation, which must be made uniform for all those who rally round this banner. You will do the best you can.
"I take it that you are in touch with Melioni and friends. In a few days you will receive the visit of a friend of mine, Lauri di Forli, with whom I wish you to hold yourself in perfect agreement.
"Good-bye. May we in full earnest make a final effort that shall lead the country out of that most disgraceful rut of useless chatter of impossible schemes and of compromises between the childish and the jesuitical, that make us appear decrepit in the eyes of Europe when we speak of regeneration and of the introduction of a new era in our lives. Love me.—Yours,
Giuseppe Mazzini.
"Lombard Frontier,Nov. 15, 1849."
I have two short letters written to the same friend and dated 1869 and 1871, not of general interest, but the latter concluding with the characteristic sentence:
"Il meglio sarebbe che si aprisse la via cercata per lunghi anni da noi; e s'aprirà; ma siamo corrotti e privi di coraggio morale.
"Persisto nondimeno e persisterò finchè vivo."
"The best would be, that the road should openwhich we have sought for many years, and open it will; but we are corrupt and devoid of moral courage. I persist nevertheless, and shall persist as long as I live."
The epistles he received he sometimes showed me as curiosities. Some came from his admirers, other from his detractors, either frequently total strangers to him. There were letters couched in terms of most eccentric adulation, others that unceremoniously relegated him to the regions of perdition. One merely requested him to go to the antipodes, in order that he might be well out of the way of regenerated Italy. Another, less urbane, addressed him as "Uomo aborrito!" ("abhorred man"), and continued in a similar strain of abuse. Mazzini took it all pleasantly; the lion's tail was once for all proof against any amount of pulling.
The patriotic dreams of Mazzini were gradually to be realised, in a measure, at least; for although his ideal—a Republic in place of a Monarchy—seemed hopeless of attainment, the hated foreigner was expelled, or had retired from Italian soil, and a united people joined hands from the Alps to the Adriatic.
He had returned to his native land, and there, active and uncompromising to the last, he died at Pisa, on March 10, 1872, in the Casa Rosselli. A private letter in the possession of Mr. Stansfeld gives some particulars of his last hours. He was perfectly tranquil, and free from suffering, but sank into a gradual stupor. During the day, at times, his hands moved mechanically, as if he were holding and smoking a cigar. Madame Rosselli asked him why he didthat; but his mind was wandering, he did not understand her, and answered an imaginary question. He roused himself, and looking straight at her, he said, with great animation and intenseness, "Believe in God? Yes, indeed I do believe in God." These were his last words of consciousness.
A friend of his, writing a few days after the fatal 10th of March, tells how the mystery which surrounded him all his life continued to envelop him to the moment when death broke the seals of secrecy. Then, for the first time, the good people of Pisa learnt that the mild and retiring Mr. Francis Braun, who had long lived within their walls, was no other than the redoubtable Mazzini. He had come to their city in the February of the preceding year, and had remained till August, returning from Switzerland with the first frosts of November. The authorities doubtless knew perfectly well who the supposed Englishman was, who spent all his days in study and all his evenings in the company of the self-same small family circle. But they were to let him alone. It was not for the first time that they wisely ignored his presence. The chief difficulty of the Italian Government had been, not to find him and seize him, but to find and not to molest him. On one occasion the Neapolitan police put the Government into much perturbation by telegraphing that it was "impossible to avoid arresting Mazzini."
On another occasion—it was in 1857—the house of the Marchese Pareto, where Mazzini was staying, was surrounded by the police, and a large military force in attendance made a portentous show. TheQuæstor, an old schoolfellow of Mazzini, formally demands admittance in the King's name, when the door is opened by Mazzini himself, disguised as a servant. The Quæstor asks to speak to the Marquis, and is forthwith introduced by the obsequious flunkey. Did the Quæstor recognise his old friend? Our informant believes he did. He tells us that diligent search was made throughout the house; that nothing was found but a stove full of ashes, the remains of papers just burnt; that the Marquis was carried off by the police in his carriage, to make certain depositions, which meant nothing; and that the servant was left behind.
In like manner Mazzini was suffered to remain undisturbed in Pisa. Dangerous though some timorous officials deemed him to be, the Government knew full well that he would be far more dangerous as a captive than as a free man.
To the citizens of Pisa hisincognitowas so complete, that even the doctor who attended him in his last illness did not know his patient.
On the Wednesday before his death he wrote an article for theUnità Italianaon Renan's book, "La Réforme Intellectuelle et Morale de la France." He talked rarely about politics even to his intimate friends. Occasionally he would, however, break out into anathemas against the "International"; his eyes would then flash fire, and he would use strong language against Ledru Rollin, Quinet, "e tutti quanti," who, he would say, "might have saved France, but who, by mere inaction, had abandoned her to the most pernicious of impossible delusions."
The news that his remains had been embalmed by Professor Zorini and placed in a metal coffin, into which a glass had been inserted, with a view to exhibiting them on the anniversary of his death, raised an indignant protest from some of his nearest friends in England. They wrote warmly denouncing what they declared would most have wounded and outraged him. "His whole life," says Madame Venturi, in a letter to an Italian friend, "was one long protest against materialism, and they make of his sacred corpse a lasting statue of materialism, and of his monument an altar to the idolatry of matter. Write to the people and tell them that he expressed a wish to lie by the side of his mother."
The truth concerning the matter which led to so warm a protest, is this: Mazzini was only partially embalmed, and lay in state in a small room on the ground floor of the Casa Rosselli. A tricolour flag covered his breast, and a laurel wreath crowned his head. A plaster cast and a photograph had been taken by Alinari. On the birthday of the King of Italy and of his son the remains of their potent adversary were carried on a simple car to the railway station outside the Porta Nuova. The pall-bearers were six of his nearest friends, besides a student and a working-man; deputations from neighbouring cities, and crowds of sympathisers, formed a procession and lined the streets. Conspicuous on the coffin was a wreath with the inscription, "The Americans to Mazzini"; it had been placed there by the consular representatives of the United States. On its arrival in Genoa, the remains lay in stateagain, but for one day only. Then better counsels, more in harmony with the patriot's wishes, prevailed, and his body was placed in the sepulchre, where no human eye has seen it since. His burial-place was selected next to that of his mother, and now her tomb is enclosed with his.
It was after his death only that the great agitator's life-work began to be fully recognised by his countrymen. A reaction set in in his favour; the Parliament of Rome passed a resolution expressing the grief of the nation at the death of "The Apostle of Italian Unity"; public meetings were held, and many were the marks of respect paid to him throughout Italy.
This seemed to me an opportune moment to add my small tribute to his memory, so I called on the Marquis d'Azeglio, then Italian ambassador to England, and offered to present my portrait of Mazzini to the Italian nation, that it might be placed in one of their public galleries. But I was to be disappointed, for the marquis bowed me out, very politely, I must say, but fully giving me to understand that it was one thing to tolerate the demonstrations in favour of Mazzini, and another to do honour to him and his portrait. The picture has since gone through one or two similar experiences. What will become of it eventually I do not know, but I am happy to have it with me still.
On the second of November, some ten years ago, I happened to be in Genoa. It was the day of "Tutti Morti" (All Souls' Day), the great holiday, tearful and cheerful, on which all good Catholics make theirpilgrimage to the cemeteries where rest their departed friends. A steady stream of visitors was flowing towards the "Cimetéro di Staglieno." I joined it, and was soon wandering through arcades filled with marble tributes to the memory of the dead, some of the sculptors' work being very beautiful. Then, across the Campo Santo—the consecrated field—all bedecked with flowers and garlands, I came to where the path winds upwards to the graves and monuments that dot the hills above. There stands Mazzini's tomb, a mausoleum worthy of the man, severe and solemn. Two short, thick-set columns mark the entrance and carry a massive stone, on which is inscribed in plain large characters the name "Giuseppe Mazzini." That day the monument and the surroundings seemed doubly impressive, for a guard of honour had been placed to hold watch by the great liberator's tomb. It was here, then, that the exile and the outlaw had at last found rest in the land he loved so well—in Genoa, the city of his birth.
I sought out a place from which I could make a water-colour sketch, and, as I sat painting, my thoughts reverted with reverence and with love to the master and to the friend.
Iwell remembermy first introduction to Madame Rossini in April 1854. I was sitting with the Maestro in his study one morning whilst he was finishing his toilet; his valet had selected one of two brown wigs, and adjusted it on his illustrious master's head, leaving the other, placed on a little stand, to ornament the mantelpiece. Next he brought him a silver bowl full of milk and one or two of those cunningly-twisted rolls or crescents, the very thought of which conveys to the appetite's memory a whiff of dainty Paris.
Rossini liked to be informed of the latest news, meaning the up-to-date incidents in Paris society, and to be told what the wicked world was saying, and whatbons-motsthe clever ones had made; so we young fellows were expected to drop in occasionally at an early hour in the morning and keep him posted up. His comments on our news were always much morespirituelsthan the best ofbons-motswe could impart, and frequently a good deal more spicy than our versions of Parisian doings. I dare say then I was carrying coals to Newcastle, and he was making them blaze, when the door was abruptlythrust open, and a bejewelled hand—it was Madame Rossini's—triumphantly appeared, flourishing a ham of unusual dimensions, that she had brought for the master to see and to rejoice over.
A pair of piercing dark eyes next swept the room to see who might be there. Finding there was nobody—a young man like myself not counting—the hand and the eyes were followed by the rest of her. She struck me as every inch a queen—a tragedy queen, off duty. Her black hair hung dishevelled over her shoulders, and she was clad in the style the French call "neglected." The upper part of her classical figure was more or less concealed beneath a loose white garment, which I have since learnt to associate with hair-combing. Her lower limbs showed off to great advantage under a heavy striped petticoat; that at least I think it must have been; if it was meant for a dress, it was certainly cut several inches too short.
Whilst I was contemplating her, she and her husband were examining the ham, and commenting upon iten amateurs. I was called upon to admire it, and incidentally introduced to Madame. Disgracefully ignorant as I was of pork-flesh, and being of those honest youths who call a pig a pig, I found nothing better to say than, "Voilà ce que j'appelle un cochon." That seemed about as much as they expected, and I was allowed to pat it on the hip.
And here I cannot help leaping at a bound from 1854 to 1896, and from Paris to Venice. Just as I was sitting, pen in hand, and trying to conjure up a correct image of Madame Rossini, a livingbiographical dictionary, in the shape of an elderly lady, walked in, who had been sent round to show me some valuable old lace she had to dispose of. The grand race of thedecaduti(the come-down in the world) is by no means extinct, and Signora Baldazzi was a pleasant representative of it. I welcomed her, and, having made the acquisition of some of her lace, I chanced to elicit, in further friendly conversation, that she was a teacher of music, and had studied for years at the Liceo Bologna, when Rossini was director there.
She had plenty of "I well remembers" to start with, so she was soon telling me how good and kind he was, and how brusque and rude, and how he spared neither teachers nor pupils. Evenil maestro Cappeletti, il professore di timpani, she said, speaking of him with the greatest respect, came in for his share, when, in a rehearsal under Rossini, he made some blunder. "Asino," cried Rossini, "That sort of thing was not unusual," added my informant; "one always expected something hot from him." "Do I remember Madame Rossini, la Pelissier? Ma che! I see her now in her red corsage and many-coloured petticoat, leading her dog by a string. I knew la Collbran, too; his first wife, you know. They had been married a good many years, when he got tired of her; he told her so, and said he wanted a change. She did not mind the change, but she would not leave the house for him or for anybody else; so she lived in one apartment whilst la Pelissier and Rossini occupied another; but they all took their meals together, and la Collbran did the housekeeping."This lady, it will be remembered, was the famous singer who created some of the principal parts in Rossini's opera. I thought the story of the jointménageso peculiar, that I subjected the good lady, my informant, to a severe cross-examination, but I did not succeed in shaking her evidence. Future biographers may further look into the matter if they care.
I return to that corner house of the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin, where the maestro lived. One morning I was there with my cousin, Ernst Jaques, when Rossini's old friend Scitivaux came in.
"There," said Rossini, "there is what I promised you, and I have written all you want to know inside." With that he handed a copy of the "Barbiere" to Scitivaux, who, at the sight of the gift and its precious dedication, broke into raptures of gratitude; I am not sure whether he wept or laughed on the other's shoulder; but I distinctly recollect he was immediately turned out. "Take it, but go," he was ordered; "I don't want you here. Mr. Jaques is just going to play to me. No; you can read that afterwards." A final continental hug, and he and the book were outside. So was I, for I thought it prudent not to await definite instructions, and I was dying to know what was the purport of the exciting inscription.
So we stood in the hall reading it, and I was treated to the after-glow of Monsieur Scitivaux's raptures.
The dedication was in Italian, and related how Rossini had composed the "Barbiere" for the DukeCesarini, the director of the Teatro Argentina in Rome, to retrieve for him the fortunes of a bad season. Rossini went on to say that he had written to Paisiello, who had previously treated the same subject, to assure him that he in no way sought to compete with that master, well aware as he was of his own inferiority, and that he had avoided as much as possible to use the same incidents in his libretto. "I thought," he worded it, "that, having taken this precaution, I might consider myself safe from the censure of his friends and his legitimate admirers. I was mistaken! On the appearance of my opera, they precipitated themselves like wild beasts upon the beardless maestrino, and the first performance was a most stormy one. I, however, remained unconcerned; and, whilst the public hissed, I applauded my performers. Once the storm blown over, at the second performance, my 'Barbiere' had an excellent razor, and shaved the Romans so well that, to use theatrical language, I was carried home in triumph. There, my good friend, I have done what you desired. Be happy, and believe me, yours affectionately,
Giacomo Rossini.
"Paris,22 Apr. 1860."
The facts related were well known, but here they were confirmed by the master's own narrative, and the recipient's happiness was unbounded.
The Jaques who was going to play to Rossini was my cousin, a partner in one of the old banking firms of Hamburg, and, besides, a thorough artist and virtuoso on that soul-stirring instrument, the violoncello.But it was not to have his soul stirred that Rossini gathered young musicians around him at that early hour of the day. They came to play his last compositions to him, and they remained to practise them at his house. You could often hear the sounds of various instruments proceeding from as many various rooms. The piano predominated, for at that time of his life Rossini was most assiduously composing for that instrument, labouring, as it seemed to me, under the fond delusion that he had discovered a new vein in the old mine which had produced such a fund of musical wealth. Sometimes he reminded one of Hummel's style, sometimes I thought I traced a Weber idea as it would be if filtered through the pen of a Mendelssohn. He would on no account allow his MSS. to leave the house. "Jamais," he said when my cousin expressed the wish to give the violoncello piece a day's practising at home, "Jamais; je ne veux pas dépendre du public." So the performers had to go to the Chaussée d'Antin, and prepare themselves there for the Saturday evenings at which the latest works of the master were produced.
Amongst those privileged young musicians was the pianist, Georges Pfeiffer, who has since become so popular a composer. Rossini would give him such curiously named productions to study as "Cornichons," "Radis," and the like. There was also a "Boléro tartare," and a certain Rondo in the style of Offenbach, the famous composer of "La belle Hélène," "Orfée aux Enfers," and other operettas that for years drew all Paris to the"Bouffes." He was universally credited with exercising the baneful influence of the evil eye, and Rossini, being superstitious, had headed his manuscript with a drawing of agettatura, which should act as a charm to protect him. Georges Pfeiffer, no less superstitious—he always asserted he had good reason to be so—had managed to play the opening theme of the Rondo with the two fingers which in thegettaturaare supposed to lay the evil spirit; and Rossini so fully entered into this serio-comic solution of the difficulty, that he expressed his warm approval, and added Pfeiffer's fingering to the manuscript.
Henri Wieniawski, the violinist, and his brother Joseph, the pianist, were also great friends of Rossini's. He was present at Henri's wedding. The bride, Miss Hampton, was lovely, the guests distinguished, and the wedding breakfast sumptuous, and all would have gone well if the best man—or the next best—had not unfortunately made an eloquent speech to propose the health of a near and dear relative of the bride's who had been buried not so very long ago.
On those famous Saturday evenings I was a frequent visitor and attentive listener, but my own performances were reserved for those occasions when I was alone with the master.
He knew me to be the unworthy bearer of an honoured musical name, but he had by chance discovered that, however great my deficiencies, there was a little musical vein in me which he thought I might exploit. It is regrettable that one cannot write one's reminiscences without mentioning one'sself. Things go so smoothly as long as one records the doings of others, but become so puzzling when one has to introduce theEgo. Between self-laudation and mock modesty there is not much to choose, and if you try to steer clear of the one, you are sure to fall into the other. I must take my chance though, and say that that vein of music, encouraged by the kind maestro, has many a time been a source of infinite delight to me, and to my friends too, or they would not have dragged me to the piano whenever they felt that they had had enough good music and now wanted the other thing. I would show them how easy it is to compose a masterpiece if you only know the secrets of the trade, and I would notably convince them that, if they would follow some very simple directions of mine, they could then and there write an Italian opera.
Singing-masters, it is well known, never agree as to the best way of cultivating a voice entrusted to their care. One will work a mezzo-soprano downwards to a contralto, the other upwards to a high soprano. With me the wiseacres never could settle which of my voices I ought to have developed—my bass voice, my tenor, or my soprano. In the meanwhile I alternately used each, distributing them according to the dramatic needs of the situation created, the story, to be sure, being made up to suit the madness of the hour. In the front line came the love duets between tenor and soprano, with moon-light accompaniment; then peasants' dances interrupted by thunder-storms, and drinking songs for the baritone, backed by an approving chorus. Andso on and on till the tragedy business was reached: "Ye padre furioso e figlia infelice," as Du Maurier calls them, when he relates his performance at Blankenberghe "in imitation of his illustrious friend, Felix Bobtailo."
I must have been endowed with an extraordinary amount of boldness and recklessness in those days, or I never could have given the great maestro an insight into these my accomplishments. It came about in this way:—
Conversation had turned on the curious practice which prevailed formerly, to write the principal men's part in opera for an artificial male soprano, and that led to my remarking that Rossini and his contemporaries had done good service in banishing that incongruous personage from the stage, but that they had still left undisturbed some puzzling anomalies in the distribution of parts. There remained the fact that a man has a tenor voice as long as he is a bachelor and a lover, but, when he becomes a father, he develops into a basso profundo; and, by way of pointing to another anomaly, I wanted to know why, when the prim'uomo and the primadonna, with whose affections we so warmly sympathised, have clandestinely met and resolved to fly from a tyrannic parent, they should compromise their safety by singing a duet of inordinate length: first warbling tender melodies, then shouting stern resolves, practising scales, shakes, and dangerous runs to illustrate the course of true love, and finally proclaiming their immutable determination to live and die together, in strains so wild and sopowerfully backed by all the brass instruments of the orchestra, that the irate father is invariably brought on to the stage, naturally to wreck the lovers' fondest hopes.
By way of illustrating my meaning, I struck a chord or two, and did my worst in imitation of the lovers' cadenza, and more specially of the effect produced by overpowering brass instruments. That led to further developments, my brass gained me the maestro's sympathies, and of these he gave me a tangible proof in the shape of a composition.
I never much cared to make a collection of autographs, but I treasure the album I have previously spoken of, which Mendelssohn gave me as a godfather's first present. It took me upwards of fifty years to fill the little book, its pages being devoted only to those celebrities who were also personal friends of mine. So I had not asked Rossini for his autograph, as most people did on first acquaintance, and I had no reason to regret the delay. "I must compose something for your horn," he said one day; "I will write the notes; that is easy enough, but I can't draw the staves, you must do that." I answered that I was proud to collaborate, and so two pages of my album were filled. He composed an allegretto-moderato of about thirty bars for the "Cor en mi," heading it: "Thème de Rossini, suivi de deux Variations et Coda par Moscheles père," and signing it "Offert à mon jeune ami Felix Moscheles, G. Rossini, Passy, ce 20 Aôut 1860."
He sat down to the piano and spared no pains to teach me how to perform it on the imaginary Frenchhorn—my vibrating lips. I introduced one of those little hitches, not infrequent when moisture accumulates in the tubes of the real instrument, a hiatus which the master graciously approved of. "But," he said, "stand so that the audience cannot see how it is done; you must keep up the illusion, and besides, remember this, you must never show yourself at a disadvantage to the ladies." I have never blown that horn of mine without thinking of his advice, however little I have succeeded in acting up to it.
My father, responding to Rossini's invitation, wrote two brilliant variations and coda of considerable length, which it cost me not a little trouble to learn. Once that I had mastered their difficulties, the piece became mycheval de bataille, and whenever I performed it, accompanied by one of the two composers, I invariably made a.... But enough! Happily this is not a place where I am expected to blow my own trumpet.
I called one day to take leave of Rossini, when I was about to leave Paris for a short time on a visit to my parents in Leipsic. This was before Rossini had become personally acquainted with my father, and he enjoined me to deliver a message to him. "Tell him," he said, "that I am a pianist. I daresay he knows that I have written operas, but I particularly want him to understand that I am a pianist too, not, to be sure, of the first class as he is, but of the fourth."
"Très bien, Maestro," I answered. "Je ne manquerai pas."
"Yes; but mind you deliver my message correctly," he insisted. "My ear is exceptionally good, and I manage to hear what is said at a considerable distance. I was not at all satisfied with the way Rosenhain delivered a similar message I had entrusted him with."
I promised that I would scrupulously repeat what he had said, but I added that I could not take the responsibility of stating that he really was a fourth-rate one; he might be a third or a fifth rate pianist for aught I knew.
"Oh, if that is all," he said, "I will play you something, and you can judge for yourself." And with that he opened the small upright piano in his study and began improvising, whilst I settled down comfortably to listen to my own special fourth-class pianist. It was indeed interesting. His plump little hands moved over the keys with a delicate touch, suitable to the simple melodious vein in which he began. When presently he broke into a rapid movement, and the pianoforte player asserted himself, it was still with the touch of the good old legato school. His execution was masterly, but not brilliant; whenever he introduced passages or figures for the pianist as such, these seemed commonplace and hackneyed. But when, on the other hand, the musical thought sought expression, it flowed as from an inexhaustible store, and took the dramatic shape, reminding one of his best operatic style and his most brilliant orchestral effects.
His manner throughout was simple and unaffected. There was nothing showy or self-consciousabout him, no by-play of any kind, no sudden pouncing on someben marcatonote, or triumphant rebounding from it. In fact, there was nothing to see but a benignant old gentleman playing the piano; one wouldn't have been surprised if he had worn a pigtail like those pianists his predecessors, who were not in a hurry, and treated their little set of crowquills with loving care.
Rossini came into the world three months after Mozart's death, a fact perhaps worthy to be considered by those who believe in re-incarnation. It would be interesting to learn what may have been the temporary abode of Mozart's spirit during those intervening three months. Perhaps it crossed the Alps and found its way to Rossini, for the Maestro, imbued as he certainly was with the spirit of his great predecessor, never lost an opportunity of acknowledging his indebtedness to him, and was always ready to talk of his favourite master.
"Beethoven," he said to me one day when conversation had turned on German music, "I take twice a week, Haydn four times, but Mozart I take every day of the week. Beethoven, to be sure, is a Colossus, and one who often gives you a tremendous dig in the ribs. Mozart is always adorable. But then he had the good fortune to go to Italy at a time when singers still knew how to sing."
In answer to my question what he thought of Weber, he said, "Oh, il a du talent à revendre celui là!" ("He has talent enough and to spare"). And then he went on to tell me that when the part of Tancred was sung in Berlin by a bass voice, Weberhad written some violent articles, not only against the management, but against the composer, and that consequently Weber, when he came to Paris, did not venture to call on the Maestro; he, however, let him know that he bore him no grudge, and that led to their soon becoming acquainted.
I asked if he had met Byron in Venice. "Only in a restaurant," he said, "where I was introduced to him; our acquaintance, therefore, was very slight; it seems he has spoken of me, but I don't know what he says." I translated in a somewhat milder form Byron's words, which happened to be fresh in my memory: "They have been crucifying 'Othello' into an opera; the music good but lugubrious, but, as for the words, all the real scenes with Iago cut out, and the greatest nonsense put in instead; the handkerchief turned into abillet doux, and the first singer would not black his face. Singing, music, and dresses very good."
The Maestro regretted his ignorance of the English language. He had been in London in his early days, had given concerts there, and had even taught aristocratic ladies, but nothing, he said, would ever induce him to cross the Channel again, and, for the matter of that, to trust himself to a railway. When he migrated from Italy to Paris, he made the journey in his carriage. He told me he had given much time to the study of Italian literature in his day. Dante was the man he owed most to; he had taught him more music than all his music-masters put together; and when he wrote his "Otello" he insisted on introducing the song of the Gondolier.His librettist would have it that gondoliers never sang Dante, but he would not give in.
"I know that better than you," he said, "for I have lived in Venice, and you haven't. Dante I must and will have."
A companion picture to the crucified "Othello" was the performance of "Fidelio," which all Paris was talking about at that time. One Sunday morning I spent an hour alone with Rossini, and I had to give him full particulars of the proceedings at the opera. These were characteristic of the taste of the day. The libretto of Beethoven's opera was completely changed, Florestan being replaced by Jean Galéas, Pizarro by Duke Sforza. The Minister becomes Charles VIII., and Fidelio the Countess Isabelle; the whole story turned into a political intrigue, and Fidelio, the devoted wife, changed into a plotting and ambitious spouse.
A story in which a woman, actuated by her affection alone, nobly worked for her husband's deliverance, must have been thought too tame to put before a Parisian public, and so the stronger motives were introduced.
The press was unanimous in its condemnation of the work itself, not of the garbled version. "Cette musique est très ennuyeuse," said one; "Enfin c'est symphonique!" wrote another. "Si Beethoven n'avait pas senti la faiblesse de sa production, il aurait écrit un deuxième opéra."
"Yes," said Rossini, remarking on the press and the public, "that is just what I should have expected. Do you know what I owe my success to? To mycrescendos. Ah, my crescendos! What an impression they made on them. Afterwards, to be sure, when I thought it well to give up that little trick, they said, 'He's no longer what he was; he's beginning to decline.'
"You know what happened to my friend T—— i, the tenor. He went to F—— o, and asked him how much he would take for a good notice in his paper.
"'Un billet de mille,'[11]said F.
"'Ah! I'm afraid I can't afford that,' sighed T.; 'couldn't you do it for 500 frcs.?'
"'Impossible, mon cher monsieur,' replied F. 'J'y perdrais!'"[12]
Who was responsible for the irreverent production of "Fidelio"? I am afraid it was, to a great extent, Berlioz and Madame Viardot. That I say with bated breath, for nothing could exceed my respect for those heaven-born musicians. But I wonder to-day, as I wondered then, why they should ever have planned this adaptation of "Fidelio" to the French stage. It was an unfortunate selection, if only because many numbers of the chief part had to be transposed to suit Madame Viardot's voice. She had but lately achieved one of her greatest triumphs in the character of Orpheus. A grander or a more beautiful rendering of Gluck's masterpiece cannot be imagined; the grave full-toned quality of her voice seemed to suit the part of the bereaved husband, who goes forth, lute in hand, to seek his spouse in the shades of Hades. From the first scenes, where she laments and implores, to the last, whereshe succumbs to despair, she held her audience spell-bound. How she had fitted herself for her task I well remember. Classical scholar as she was, she read her Orpheus in the Greek original, and the costume she wore was of her own designing.
I was much at her house in the Rue de Douai in those days, and it was made doubly attractive to me by Monsieur Viardot, who himself was a man of great artistic and literary attainments. His book on the "Galeries de l'Europe" is a standard work; he had formed a collection of pictures by the best Dutch masters, and he was devoted to them as only the true connoisseur can be. Amongst the many celebrities that I met there were Ary Scheffer, Tourgenieff, Saint Saens, and, on one occasion, Richard Wagner. He had come with his manuscript score of "Tristan and Isolde." Madame Viardot was at the piano reading it at sight, and mastering its intricacies with the grasp of the true musician; whilst Wagner stood by her side, turning the leaves and occasionally breaking in with a word or two.
"N'est ce pas, Matame," he said, carried away by the grandeur of his own creation. "N'est ce pas, Matame, que c'est suplime?"
I chanced to be the only one privileged to be present on that occasion. Close at hand stood a casket in which a treasure was preserved, the original score of "Don Giovanni." No wonder I was fully impressed by the situation, actually in touch as I felt myself with the master of the past and the master of the present. If what I was listening to was wellnamed the Music of the Future, might not the score enshrined in that casket be called the Music of Eternity?
An event that was looked forward to with the greatest interest by the privileged group which enjoyed Rossini's hospitality, was the performance of the "Stabat Mater" at his own house. Those who wanted to be on the list of the invited did well to conciliate Madame; but that was not always an easy matter. She knew her own mind, and would give one a piece of it when she felt so inclined. The following is characteristic of her little ways:—I called one day to introduce a Mr. Mertke, a young musician just arrived from Leipsic, to Rossini. The master was busy conducting a rehearsal of that "Stabat," and so, remembering it was Madame's reception day, I thought I would improve the occasion by paying my respects to her and introducing my friend. She received us politely, but I noticed at once that she was not in the best of tempers and that a squall might be expected at any moment.
My friend and I seated ourselves cautiously on the edges of our chairs and awaited further developments. Happily the clouds gathering round her dark brow were not to burst over our heads; the danger was averted by the appearance of a very handsome and elegant woman. She was a well-known operatic star, and swept into the room with all the assurance that success and an up-to-date Parisian toilette can give. With charming grace and affability she greeted Madame Rossini and beamed kindly on one or two friends. "I have come, chère amie," she said, "tooffer my services to the Maestro. I hear he is going to perform his 'Stabat Mater,' and, if he wants a good voice to join in the chorus, I am at his disposal."
"There you are," answered Madame Rossini in her sternest manner; "we have refused more than one of that kind. It's an age one hasn't seen anything of you, and now there's something going on, and you want to be in it, you vouchsafe to reappear."
"Mais chère amie," answered the other, "you don't for a moment believe what you say; you know what has prevented my seeing my dearest friends. Empêchement de force majeure, n'est ce pas?" And therewith she proceeded to give us some interesting details connected with her first experiences as a mother, and with her consequent inability to make afternoon calls—details so minute that they did not fail to convince everybody present excepting the obdurate Madame Rossini, who was about to retort, when the primadonna managed, with marvellous skill, to change the conversation. We soon found ourselves talking of the latest scandal; of a phaeton which a certain lady had no business to show herself in at the Bois, so soon after a certain duel which that particular phaeton had led to. From that we got quite naturally to the chapter ofrobes et chiffons, and all went so smoothly that my friend and I soon made ourselves more at home on our chairs. But there was to be another brush between the ladies. As the brilliant one rose to leave, she said with a winning smile, "Adieu, très-chère; vous êtes bien la plus excellente des créatures, but really," she added sadly, "just now you were notgentille."
"I did not mean to be," answered madame, "and I did mean every word of what I said." That was her parting shaft. But for all that the operatic star was not to be frozen out. She managed to get an invitation to the Easter performance, or came without, for aught I know; she told that chère Madame Rossini that she positively adored her, and that she was captivated by herfranchiseand herverve intarissable(her plain speaking and her inexhaustible verve), sentiments which presently she translated for my benefit with the words: "Ah mais, cette chère Madame Rossini, elle est vraiment impossible" (That dear Madame Rossini, she is really impossible).
The "Stabat Mater," as we heard it on that evening, was the revised and remodelled work, very different from the one Rossini had written in his early days. The score of this he had given to a friend, a monk, after whose death it passed into the hands of some musician, who published it much to Rossini's annoyance. "On ne saute pas d'un coup du théâtre à l'église" (One does not bound at a leap from the theatre to the church), he said one day to Kuhe the gifted musician and impresario, as he was alluding to the shortcomings of that early version and the necessity of revising it.
Madame Rossini could, when she chose, be an excellent hostess, and she was usually at her best on those Saturday evenings when she and the Maestro received, and when naturally all that was prominent in the musical world gravitated towards the salons of the veteran composer. On one of these occasions, I nearly got into trouble with her. A lamp wasslowly but surely going out, and any one else in my place, just by the tail of the grand piano, would have been prompted, as I was, to remove it. I looked across the room at my hostess, my eyes respectfully putting the question, "Hadn't I better take that lamp out?" From beneath her dark Italian eyebrows shot an annihilating glance that made me tremble in my dress shoes, and that plainly said, "Move if you dare, young man—but if you do, you will repent it." I didnotdare, but the situation was painful. The select circle of friends gathered around that grand piano were one and all listening in religious silence, impressed by the music and the presence of the Maestro; that irreverent lamp alone showed unmistakable signs of collapse, and soon attracted general attention. Would it or would it not hold out to the end? It would not; Madame Rossini had to get up, cross the room and carry out the offender. She did it defiantly, majestically; I should have done it meekly, apologetically.