Listen, gentle maiden, and ye others of her sex, to the story of Xanthippe, the Athenian woman.
Very, very many years ago there dwelt in Athens a fruit-dealer of the name of Kimon, who was possessed of two daughters,—the one named Helen and the other Xanthippe. At the age of twenty, Helen was wed to Aristagoras the tinker, and went with him to abide in his humble dwelling in the suburbs of Athens, about one parasang's distance from the Acropolis.
Xanthippe, the younger sister, gave promise of singular beauty; and at an early age she developed a wit that was the marvel and the joy of her father's household, and of the society that was to be met with there. Prosperous in a worldly way, Kimon was enabled to give this favorite daughter the best educational advantages; and he was justly proud when at the age of nineteen Xanthippe was graduated from the Minerva Female College with all the highest honors of her class. There was but one thing that cast a shadow upon the old gentleman's happiness, and that was his pain at observing that among all Xanthippe's associates there was one upon whom she bestowed her sweetest smiles; namely, Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer.
"My daughter," said Kimon, "you are now of an age when it becomes a maiden to contemplate marriage as a serious and solemn probability: therefore I beseech you to practise the severest discrimination in the choice of your male associates, and I enjoin upon you to have naught to say or to do with any youth that might not be considered an eligible husband; for, by the dog! it is my wish to see you wed to one of good station."
Kimon thereupon proceeded to tell his daughter that his dearest ambition had been a desire to unite her in marriage with a literary man. He saw that the tendency of the times was in the direction of literature; schools of philosophy were springing up on every side, logic and poetry were prated in every household. Why should not the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Kimon the fruiterer become one of that group of geniuses who were contributing at that particular time to the glory of Athens as the literary centre of the world? The truth was that, having prospered in his trade, Kimon pined for social recognition; it grieved him that one of his daughters had wed a tinker, and he had registered a vow with Pallas that his other daughter should be given into the arms of a worthier man.
Xanthippe was a dutiful daughter; she had been taught to obey her parents; and although her heart inclined to Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer, she smothered all rebellious emotions, and said she would try to do her father's will. Accordingly, therefore, Kimon introduced into his home one evening a certain young Athenian philosopher,—a typical literary Bohemian of that time,—one Socrates, a creature of wondrous wisdom and ready wit.
The appearance of this suitor, presumptive if not apparent, did not particularly please Xanthippe. Socrates was an ill-favored young man. He was tall, raw-boned, and gangling. When he walked, he slouched; and when he sat down, he sprawled like a crab upon its back. His coarse hair rebelled upon his head and chin; and he had a broad, flat nose, that had been broken in two places by the kick of an Assyrian mule. Withal, Socrates talked delightfully; and it is not hard to imagine that Xanthippe's pretty face, plump figure, and vivacious manners served as an inspiration to the young philosopher's wit. So it was not long ere Xanthippe found herself entertaining a profound respect for Socrates.
At all events, Xanthippe, the Athenian beauty, was wed to Socrates the philosopher. Putting all thought of Gatippus, the son of Heliopharnes the plasterer, out of her mind, Xanthippe went to the temple of Aphrodite, and was wed to Socrates. Historians differ as to the details of the affair; but it seems generally agreed that Socrates was late at the ceremony, having been delayed on his way to the temple by one Diogenes, who asked to converse with him on the immortality of the soul. Socrates stopped to talk, and would perhaps have been stopping there still had not Kimon hunted him up, and fetched him to the wedding.
A great wedding it was. A complete report of it was written by one of Socrates' friends, another literary man, named Xenophon. The literary guild, including philosophers by the score, were there in full feather, and Xenophon put himself to the trouble of giving a complete list of these distinguished persons; and to the report, as it was penned for the "Athens Weekly Papyrus," he appended a fine puff of Socrates, which has led posterity to surmise that Socrates conferred a great compliment on Xanthippe in marrying her. Yet, what else could we expect of this man Xenophon? The only other thing he ever did was to conduct a retreat from a Persian battle-field.
And now began the trials of Xanthippe, the wife of the literary man. Ay, it was not long ere the young wife discovered that, of all husbands in the world, the literary husband was the hardest to get along with. Always late at his meals, always absorbed in his work, always indifferent to the comforts of home—what a trial this man Socrates must have been! Why, half the time, poor Xanthippe did n't know where the next month's rent was coming from; and as for the grocer's and butcher's bills—well, between this creditor and that creditor the tormented little wife's life fast became a burden to her. Had it not been for her father's convenient fruit-stall, Xanthippe must have starved; and, at best, fruit as a regular diet is hardly preferable to starvation. And while she scrimped and saved, and made her own gowns, and patched up the children's kilts as best she might, Socrates stood around the streets talking about the immortality of the soul and the vanity of human life!
Many times Xanthippe pined for the amusements and seductive gayeties of social life, but she got none. The only society she knew was the prosy men-folk whom Socrates used to fetch home with him occasionally. Xanthippe grew to hate them, and we don't blame her. Just imagine that dirty old Diogenes lolling around on the furniture, and expressing his preference for a tub; picking his teeth with his jack-knife, and smoking his wretched cob-pipe in the parlor!
"Socrates, dear," Xanthippe would say at times, "please take me to the theatre to-night; I do so want to see that new tragedy by Euclydides."
But Socrates would swear by Hercules, or by the dog, or by some other classic object, that he had an engagement with the rhetoricians, or with the sophists, or with Alcibiades, or with Crito, or with some of the rest of the boys—he called them philosophers, but we know what he meant by that.
So it was toil and disappointment, disappointment and toil, from one month's end to another's; and so the years went by.
Sometimes Xanthippe rebelled; but, with all her wit, how could she reason with Socrates, the most gifted and the wisest of all philosophers? He had a provoking way of practising upon her the exasperating methods of Socratic debate,—a system he had invented, and for which he still is revered. Never excited or angry himself, he would ply her with questions until she found herself entangled in a network of contradictions; and then she would be driven, willy-nilly, to that last argument of woman—"because." Then Socrates—the brute!—would laugh at her, and would go out and sit on the front door-steps, and look henpecked. This is positively the meanest thing a mancando!
"Look at that poor man," said the wife of Edippus the cobbler. "Idobelieve his wife is cruel to him: see how sad and lonesome he is."
"Don't play with those Socrates children," said another matron. "Their mother must be a dreadful shiftless creature to let her young ones run the streets in such patched-up clothes."
So up and down the street the neighbors gossiped—oh! it was very humiliating to Xanthippe.
Meanwhile Helen lived in peace with Aristagoras the tinker. Their little home was cosey and comfortable. Xanthippe used to go to see them sometimes, but the sight of their unpretentious happiness made her even more miserable. Meanwhile, too, Xanthippe's old beau, Gatippus, had married; and from Thessaly came reports of the beautiful vineyard and the many wine-presses he had acquired. So Xanthippe's life became somewhat more than a struggle; it became a martyrdom. And the wrinkles came into Xanthippe's face, and Xanthippe's hair grew gray, and Xanthippe's heart was filled with the bitterness of disappointment. And the years, full of grind and of poverty and of neglect, crept wearily on.
Time is the grim old collector who goes dunning for the abused wife, and Time finally forced a settlement with Socrates.
Having loafed around Athens for many years to the neglect of his family, and having obtruded his views touching the immortality of the soul upon certain folk who believed that the first duty of a man was to keep his family from starving to death, Socrates was apprehended on a bench-warrant, thrown into jail, tried by a jury, and sentenced to die.
It was in this emergency that the great, the divine nobility of the wife asserted itself. She had been neglected by this man, she had gone in rags for him, she had sacrificed her beauty and her hopes and her pride, she had endured the pity of her neighbors, she had heard her children cry with hunger—ay, all for him; yet, when a righteous fate o'ertook him, she forgot all the misery of his doing, and she went to him to be his comforter.
Well, she could not have done otherwise, for she was a woman.
Where was his philosophy now? where his wisdom, his logic, his wit? What had become of his disputatious and learned associates that not one of them stood up to plead for the life of Socrates now? Why, the first breath of adversity had blown them away as though they were but mist; and, with these false friends scattered like the coward chaff they were, grim old Socrates turned to Xanthippe for consolation.
She burdened his ears with no reproaches, she spoke not of herself. Her thoughts were of him only, and it was to his chilled spirit that she alone ministered. Not even the horrors of the hemlock draught could drive her from his side, or unloose her arms from about his neck; and when at last the philosopher lay stiff in death, it was Xanthippe that bore away his corpse, and, with spices moistened by her tears, made it ready for the grave.
The members of the Boston Commercial Club are charming gentlemen. They are now the guests of the Chicago Commercial Club, and are being shown every attention that our market affords. They are a fine-looking lot, well-dressed and well-mannered, with just enough whiskers to be impressive without being imposing.
"This is a darned likely village," said Seth Adams last evening. "Everybody is rushin' 'round an' doin' business as if his life depended on it. Should think they 'd git all tuckered out 'fore night, but I 'll be darned if there ain't just as many folks on the street after nightfall as afore. We 're stoppin' at the Palmer tavern; an' my chamber is up so all-fired high that I can count all your meetin'-house steeples from the winder."
Last night five or six of these Boston merchants sat around the office of the hotel, and discussed matters and things. Pretty soon they got to talking about beans; this was the subject which they dwelt on with evident pleasure.
"Waal, sir," said Ephraim Taft, a wholesale dealer in maple-sugar and flavored lozenges, "you kin talk 'bout your new-fashioned dishes an' high-falutin vittles; but, when you come right down to it, there ain't no better eatin' than a dish o' baked pork 'n' beans."
"That's so, b'gosh!" chorused the others.
"The truth o' the matter is," continued Mr. Taft, "that beans is good for everybody,—'t don't make no difference whether he 's well or sick. Why, I 've known a thousand folks—waal, mebbe not quite a thousand; but,—waal, now, jest to show, take the case of Bill Holbrook; you remember Bill, don't ye?"
"Bill Holbrook?" said Mr. Ezra Eastman; "why, of course I do! Used to live down to Brimfield, next to the Moses Howard farm."
"That 's the man," resumed Mr. Taft. "Waal, Bill fell sick,—kinder moped round, tired like, for a week or two, an' then tuck to his bed. His folks sent for Dock Smith,—ol' Dock Smith that used to carry round a pair o' leather saddlebags,—gosh, they don't have no sech doctors nowadays! Waal, the dock, he come; an' he looked at Bill's tongue, an' felt uv his pulse, an' said that Bill had typhus fever. Ol' Dock Smith was a very careful, conserv'tive man, an' he never said nothin' unless he knowed he was right.
"Bill began to git wuss, an' he kep' a-gittin' wuss every day. One mornin' ol' Dock Smith sez, 'Look a-here, Bill, I guess you 're a goner; as I figger it, you can't hol' out till nightfall.'
"Bill's mother insisted on a con-sul-tation bein' held; so ol' Dock Smith sent over for young Dock Brainerd. I calc'late that, next to ol' Dock Smith, young Dock Brainerd was the smartest doctor that ever lived.
"Waal, pretty soon along come Dock Brainerd; an' he an' Dock Smith went all over Bill, an' looked at his tongue, an felt uv his pulse, an' told him it was a gone case, an' that he had got to die. Then they went off into the spare chamber to hold their con-sul-tation.
"Waal, Bill he lay there in the front room a-pantin' an' a-gaspin' an' a-wond'rin' whether it wuz true. As he wuz thinkin', up comes the girl to get a clean tablecloth out of the clothes-press, an' she left the door ajar as she come in. Bill he gave a sniff, an' his eyes grew more natural-like; he gathered together all the strength he had, an' he raised himself up on one elbow, an' sniffed again."
"'Sary,' says he, 'wot's that a-cookin'?'
"'Beans,' says she, 'beans for dinner.'
"'Sary,' says the dyin' man, 'I must hev a plate uv them beans!'
"'Sakes alive, Mr. Holbrook!' says she; 'if you wuz to eat any o' them beans, it 'd kill ye!'
"'If I've got to die,'says he, 'I'm goin' to die happy; fetch me a plate uv them beans.'
"Waal, Sary, she pikes off to the doctors.
"'Look a-here,' says she. 'Mr. Holbrook smelt the beans cookin', an' he says he 's got to have a plate uv 'em. Now, what shall I do about it?'
"'Waal, doctor,' says Dock Smith, 'what do you think 'bout it?
"'He 's got to die anyhow,' says Dock Brainerd; 'an' I don't suppose the beans 'll make any diff'rence.'
"'That's the way I figger it,' says Dock Smith; 'in all my practice I never knew of beans hurtin' anybody.'
"So Sary went down to the kitchen, an' brought up a plateful of hot baked beans. Dock Smith raised Bill up in bed, an' Dock Brainerd put a piller under the small of Bill's back. Then Sary sat down by the bed, an' fed them beans into Bill until Bill could n't hold any more.
"'How air you feelin' now?' asked Dock Smith.
"Bill did n't say nuthin'; he jest smiled sort uv peaceful-like, an' closed his eyes.
"'The end hes come,' said Dock Brainerd sof'ly. 'Bill is dyin'.'
"Then Bill murmured kind o' far-away-like (as if he was dreamin'), 'I ain't dyin'; I 'm dead an' in heaven.'
"Next mornin' Bill got out uv bed, an' done a big day's work on the farm, an' he hain't hed a sick spell since. Them beans cured him! I tell you, sir, that beans is," etc.
WASHINGTON, D. C., Mai 3.
M. LE REDACTEUR: D'apres votre article dans la "New-York Tribune," copie du "Chicago News," je me figure que les habitants de Chicago ayant grand besoin d'un systeme de prononciation francaise, je prends la liberte de vous envoyer par la malle-poste le No. 2 d'un ouvrage que je viens de publier; si vous desirez les autres numeros, je me ferai un plaisir de vous les envoyer aussi. Les emballeurs de porc ayant peu de temps a consacrer a l'etude, vu l' omnipotent dollar, seront je crois enchantes et reconnaissants d'un systeme par lequel ils pourront apprendre et comprendre la langue de la fine Sara, au bout de trente lecons, si surtout Monsieur le redacteur veut bien au bout de sa plume spirituelle leur en indiquer le chemin. Sur ce l'auteur du systeme a bien l'honneur de le saluer.
V. PRUD'HOMME.
This is a copy of a pleasant letter we have received from a distinguished Washington lady; we do not print the accentuations, because the Chicago patwor admits of none. A literal rendering of the letter into English is as follows: "From after your article in 'The New York Tribune,' copied from 'The Chicago News,' I to myself have figured that the inhabitants of Chicago having great want of a system of pronunciation French, I take the liberty to you to send by the mail-post the number two of a work which I come from to publish; if you desire the other numbers, I to myself will make the pleasure of to you them to send also. The packers of porkers, having little of time to consecrate to the study (owing to the omnipotent dollar), will be, I believe, enchanted and grateful of a system by the which they may learn and understand the language of the clever Sara, at the end of thirty lessons, especially if Mister the editor will at the end of his pen witty to them thereof indicate the road. Whereupon the author of the system has much the honor of him to salute," etc.
We have not given Mdlle. Prud'homme's oovray that conscientious study and that careful research which we shall devote to it just as soon as the tremendous spring rush in local literature eases up a little. The recent opening up of the Straits of Mackinaw, and the prospect of a new railroad-line into the very heart of the dialectic region of Indiana, have given Chicago literature so vast an impetus, that we find our review-table groaning under the weight of oovrays that demand our scholarly consideration. Mdlle. Prud'homme must understand (for she appears to be exceedingly amiable) that the oovrays of local littérateurs have to be reviewed before the oovrays of outside littérateurs can be taken up. This may seem hard, but it cannot be helped.
Still, we will say that we appreciate, and are grateful for, the uncommon interest which Mdlle. Prud'homme seems to take in the advancement of the French language and French literature in the midst of us. We have heard many of our leading savants and scholiasts frequently express poignant regret that they were unable to read "La Fem de Fu," "Mamzel Zheero Mar Fem," and other noble old French classics whose fame has reached this modern Athens. With the romances of Alexandre Dumas, our public is thoroughly acquainted, having seen the talented James O'Neill in Monty Cristo, and the beautiful and accomplished Grace Hawthorne ("Only an American Girl") in Cameel; yet our more enterprising citizens are keenly aware that there are other French works worthy of perusal—intensely interesting works, too, if the steel engravings therein are to be accepted as a criterion.
We doubt not that Mdlle. Prud'homme is desirous of doing Chicago a distinct good; and why, we ask in all seriousness, should this gifted and amiable French scholar not entertain for Chicago somewhat more than a friendly spirit, merely? The first settlers of Chicago were Frenchmen; and, likely as not, some of Mdlle. Prud'homme's ancestors were of the number of those Spartan voyageurs who first sailed down Chicago River, pitched their tents on the spot where Kirk's soap-factory now stands, and captured and brought into the refining influences of civilization Long John Wentworth, who at that remote period was frisking about on our prairies, a crude, callow boy, only ten years old, and only seven feet tall.
Chicago was founded by Jeanne Pierre Renaud, one of the original two orphans immortalized by Claxton and Halevy's play in thirteen acts of the same name. At that distant date it was anything but promising; and its prominent industries were Indians, musk-rats, and scenery. The only crops harvested were those of malaria, twice per annum,—in October and in April,—but the yield was sufficient to keep the community well provided all the year round.
There is a general belief that the mistake made by the managers of the symphony concert in Central Music Hall night before last was in not opening the concert with Beethoven's "Eroica," instead of making it the last number on the programme. We incline to the opinion, however, that, in putting the symphony last, the managers complied with the very first requirement of dramatic composition. This requirement is to the effect that you must not kill all your people off in the first act.
There doubtless are a small number of worthy people who enjoy these old symphonies that are being dragged out of oblivion by glass-eyed Teutons from Boston. It may argue a very low grade of intellectuality, spirituality, or whatsoever you may be pleased to call it; but we must confess in all candor, that, much as we revere Mr. Beethoven's memory, we do not fancy having fifty-five-minute chunks of his musty opi hurled at us.
It is a marvel to us, that, in these progressive times, such leaders as Thomas and Gericke do not respond to the popular demand by providing the public with symphonies in the nutshell. We have condensations in every line except music. Even literature is being boiled down; because in these busy times, people demand a literature which they can read while they run. We have condensed milk, condensed meats, condensed wines,—condensed everything but music. What a joyous shout would go up if Thomas or Gericke would only prepare and announce
What Chicago demands, and what every enterprising and intelligent community needs, is the highest class of music on the "all-the-news-for-two-cents" principle. Blanket-sheet concertizing must go!
Now, here was this concert, night before last. Two hours and a half to five numbers! Suppose we figure a little on this subject:
EXHIBIT A—SYMPHONY.Total number of minutes . . . . . . . . . . 150Total number of pieces . . . . . . . . . . . 5Minutes to each piece . . . . . . . . . . . 30EXHIBIT B—TRADE.Total number of minutes . . . . . . . . . . 150Hog-slaughtering capacity per minute . . . . 3Total killing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Figures will not lie, because (as was the reason with George) they cannot. And figures prove to us, that, in the time consumed by five symphonic numbers, the startling number of four hundred and fifty hogs could be (and are daily) slaughtered, scraped, disembowelled, hewn, and packed. While forty or fifty able-bodied musicians are discoursing Beethoven's rambling "Eroica," it were possible to dispatch and to dress a carload of as fine beeves as ever hailed from Texas; and the performance of the "Sakuntala" overture might be regarded as a virtual loss of as much time as would be required for the beheading, skinning, and dismembering of two hundred head of sheep.
These comparisons have probably never occurred to Mr. Thomas or to Mr. Gericke; but they are urged by the patrons of music in Chicago, and therefore they must needs be recognized by the caterers to popular tastes. Chicago society has been founded upon industry, and the culture which she now boasts is conserved only by the strictest attention to business. Nothing is more criminal hereabouts than a waste of time; and it is no wonder, then, that the crême de la crême of our élite lift up their hands, and groan, when they discover that it takes as long to play a classic symphony as it does to slaughter a carload of Missouri razor-backs, or an invoice of prairie-racers from Kansas.
R. J. N. Whiting writes us from New Litchfield, Ill., asking if we can tell him the name of the author of the poem, of which the following is the first stanza:—
The weary heart is a pilgrimSeeking the Mecca of rest;Its burden is one of sorrows;And it wails a song as it drags along,—'Tis the song of a hopeless quest.
Mr. Whiting says that this poem has been attributed to James Channahon, a gentleman who flourished about the year 1652; "but," he adds, "its authorship has not as yet been established with any degree of certainty." Mr. Whiting has noticed that the "Daily News" is a "criterion on matters of literary interest," and he craves the boon of our valuable opinion, touching this important question.
Now, although it is true that we occasionally deal with obsolete topics, it is far from our desire to make a practice of so doing. It is natural that, once in a while, when an editor gets hold of a catalogue of unusual merit, and happens to have a line of encyclopaedias at hand—it is natural, we say, that, under such circumstances, an editor should take pleasure in letting his subscribers know how learnedly he can write about books and things. But an editor must be careful not to write above the comprehension of the majority of his readers. If we made a practice of writing as learnedly as we are capable of writing, the proprietors of this paper would soon have to raise its price from two cents to five cents per copy.
We say this in no spirit of egotism; it is simply our good fortune that we happen to possess extraordinary advantages. We have the best assortment of cyclopaedias in seven states, and the Public Library is only two blocks off. It is no wonder, therefore, that our erudition and our research are of the highest order.
Still it is not practicable that we, being now on earth, should devote much time to delving into, and wallowing among, the authors of past centuries. Ignatius Donnelly has been trying for the last three years to inveigle us into a discussion as to the authorship of Shakespeare's plays. We have declined to participate in any public brawl with the Minnesota gentleman, for the simple reason that no good could accrue therefrom to anybody. If there were an international copyright law, there would be some use in trying to find out who wrote these plays, in order that the author might claim royalties on his works; or, if not the author, his heirs or assigns forever.
Mr. Whiting will understand that we cannot take much interest in an anonymous hymn of the seventeenth century. It is enough for us to know that the hymn in question could not have been written by a Chicago man, for the very good reason that Chicago did not exist in the seventeenth century; that is to say, it existed merely as the haunt of the musquash and the mud-turtle, and not as the living, breathing metropolis of to-day. We have our hands full examining into, and criticising, the live topics of current times: if we were to spend our days and nights in hunting up the estray poets and authors of the seventeenth century, how long would it be before the sceptre of trade and culture would slip irrecoverably from Chicago's grasp?
Chicago has very little respect for the seventeenth century, because there is nothing in it. The seventeenth century has done nothing for Chicago: she does not even know that this is the greatest hog-market in the world, and she has never had any commercial dealings with us in any line. If Chicago does n't cut a wider swath in history than the seventeenth century has, we shall be very much ashamed of her.
There is a strange fascination about Herr Wagner's musical drama of "Die Walküre." A great many people have supposed that Herr Sullivan's opera of "Das Pinafore" was the most remarkable musical work extant, but we believe the mistake will become apparent as Herr Wagner's masterpiece grows in years.
We will not pretend to say that "Die Walküre" will ever be whistled about the streets, as the airs from "Das Pinafore" are whistled; the fact is, that no rendition of "Die Walküre" can be satisfactory without the accompaniment of weird flashes of fire; and it is hardly to be expected that our youth will carry packages of lycopodium, and boxes of matches, around with them, for the sole purpose of giving the desired effect to any snatches from Herr Wagner's work they may take the notion to whistle. But in the sanctity of our homes, around our firesides, in the front-parlor, where the melodeon or the newly hired piano has been set up, it is there that Herr Wagner's name will be revered, and his masterpiece repeated o'er and o'er. The libretto is not above criticism; it strikes us that there is not enough of it. The probability is that Herr Wagner ran out of libretto before he had got through with his music, and therefore had to spread out comparatively few words over a vast expanse of music. The result is that a great part of the time the performers are on the stage is devoted to thought, the orchestra doing a tremendous amount of fiddling, etc., while the actors wander drearily around, with their arms folded across their pulmonary departments, and their minds evidently absorbed in profound cogitation.
As for the music, the only criticism we have to pass upon it is that it changes its subject too often; in this particular it resembles the dictionary,—in fact, we believe "Die Walküre" can be termed the Webster's Unabridged of musical language. Herr Wagner has his own way of doing business. He goes at it on the principle of the twelfth man, who holds out against the eleven other jurors, and finally brings them around to his way of thinking.
For instance, in the midst of a pleasing strain in B natural, Herr Wagner has a habit of suddenly bringing out a small reed-instrument with a big voice (we do not know its name), piped in the key of F sharp. This small reed-instrument will not let go; it holds on to that F sharp like a mortgage. For a brief period the rest of the instruments—fiddles, bassoons, viols, flutes, flageolets, cymbals, drums, etc.—struggle along with an attempt to either drown the intruder, or bring it around to their way of doing business; but it is vain. Every last one of them has to slide around from B natural to F sharp, and they do it as best they can.
Having accomplished its incendiary and revolutionary purpose, the small reed-instrument subsides until it finds another chance to break out. It is a mugwump.
Die Walküren, as given us by the Damrosch Company, are nine stout, comely young women, attired in costumes somewhat similar to the armor worn by Herr Lawrence Barrett's Roman army in Herr Shakespeare's play of "Der Julius Caesar." Readers of Norse mythology may suppose that these weird sisters were dim, vague, shadowy creatures; but they are mistaken. Brunhilde has the embonpoint of a dowager, and her arms are as robust and red as a dairy-maid's.
As for Gerhilde, Waltraute, Helmwige, and the rest, they are well-fed, buxom ladies, evidently of middle age, whose very appearance exhales an aroma of kraut and garlic, which, by the way, we see by the libretto, was termed "mead" in the days of Wotan and his court. These Die Walküren are said to ride fiery, untamed steeds; but only one steed is exhibited in the drama as it is given at the Columbia. This steed, we regret to say, is a restless, noisy brute, and invariably has to be led off the stage by one of das supes, before his act concludes.
However, no one should doubt his heroic nature, inasmuch as the cabalistic letters "U. S." are distinctly branded upon his left flank.
The Sieglinde of the piece is Fräulein Slach, a young lady no bigger than a minute, but with wonderful powers of endurance. To say nothing of Hunding's persecutions, she has to shield Siegmund, elope with him, climb beetling precipices, ride Brunhilde's fiery, untamed steed, confront die Walküren, and look on her slain lover, and, in addition to these prodigies, participate in a Graeco-Roman wrestling-match with an orchestra of sixty-five pieces for three hours and a half.
Yet she is equal to the emergency. Up to the very last she is as fresh as a daisy; and, after recovering from her swooning-spell in the second act, she braces her shoulders back, and dances all around the top notes of the chromatic scale with the greatest of ease. She is a wonderful little woman, is Fräulein Slach! What a wee bit of humanity, yet what a volume of voice she has, and what endurance!
Down among the orchestra people sat a pale, sad man. His apparent lonesomeness interested us deeply. We could not imagine what he was there for. Every once in a while he would get up and leave the orchestra, and dive down under the stage, and appear behind the scenes, where we could catch glimpses of him practising with a pair of thirty-pound dumb-bells, and testing a spirometer. Then he would come back and re-occupy his old seat among the orchestra, and look paler and sadder than ever. What strange, mysterious being was he? Why did he inflict his pale, sad presence upon that galaxy of tuneful revellers?
What a cunning master the great Herr Wagner is! For what emergency does he not provide? It was half-past eleven when the third act began. Die Walküren had assembled in the dismal dell,—all but the den Walküre, Brunhilde. Wotan is approaching on appalling storm-clouds, composed of painted mosquito-bars and blue lights. The sheet-iron thunder crashes; and the orchestra is engaged in another mortal combat with that revolutionary mugwump, the small reed-instrument, that persists in reforming the tune of the opera.
Then the pale, sad man produces a large brass horn, big enough at the business end for a cow to walk into. It is a fearful, ponderous instrument, manufactured especially for "Die Walküre" at the Krupp Gun Factory in Essen. It has an appropriate name: the master himself christened it the boomerangelungen. It is the monarch, the Jumbo of all musical instruments. The cuspidor end of it protrudes into one of the proscenium-boxes. The fair occupants of the box are frightened, and timidly shrink back.
Wotan is at hand. He comes upon seven hundred yards of white tarletan, and fourteen pounds of hissing, blazing lycopodium! The pale, sad man at the other end of the boomerangelungen explains his wherefore. He applies his lips to the brazen monster. His eyeballs hang out upon his cheeks, the veins rise on his neck, and the lumpy cords and muscles stand out on his arms and hands. Boohoop, boohoop!—yes, six times boohoop does that brazen megatherium blare out, vivid and distinct, above all the other sixty instruments in the orchestra. Then the white tarletan clouds vanish, the blazing lycopodium goes out, and Wotan stands before the excited spectators.
Then the pale, sad man lays down the boomerangelungen, and goes home. That is all he has to do; the six sonorous boohoops, announcing the presence of Wotan, is all that is demanded of the boomerangelungen. But it is enough: it is marvellous, appalling, prodigious.
Whose genius but Herr Wagner's could have found employment for the boomerangelungen? We hear talk of the sword motive, the love motive, the Walhalla motive, and this motive, and that; but they all shrink into nothingness when compared with the motive of the boomerangelungen.
It would be hard to say whether Chicago society is more deeply interested in the circus which is exhibiting on the lake-front this week, than in the compilation of Sappho's complete works just published in London, and but this week given to the trade in Chicago. As we understand it, Sappho and the circus had their beginning about the same time: if any thing, the origin of the circus antedated Sappho's birth some years, and has achieved the more wide-spread popularity.
In the volume now before us, we learn that Sappho lived in the seventh century before Christ, and that she was at the zenith of her fame at the time when Tarquinius Priscus was king of Rome, and Nebuchadnezzar was subsisting on a hay-diet. It appears that, despite her wisdom, this talented lady did not know who her father was; seventeen hundred years after her demise, one Suidas claimed to have discovered that there were seven of her father; but Herodotus gives the name of the gentleman most justly suspected as Scamandronymus. Be this as it may, Sappho married a rich man, and subsequently fell in love with a dude who cared nothing for her; whereupon the unfortunate woman, without waiting to compile her writings, and without even indicating whom she preferred for her literary executor, committed suicide by hurling herself from a high precipice into the sea. Sappho was an exceedingly handsome person, as we see by the engraving which serves as the frontispiece of the work before us. This engraving, as we understand, was made from a portrait painted from life by a contemporaneous old Grecian artist, one Alma Tadema.
Still, we could not help wondering, as we saw the magnificent pageant of Forepaugh's circus sweep down our majestic boulevards and superb thoroughfares yesterday; as we witnessed this imposing spectacle, we say, we could not help wondering how many people in all the vast crowds of spectators knew that there ever was such a poetess as Sappho, or how many, knowing that there was such a party, have ever read her works. It has been nearly a year since a circus came to town; and in that time public taste has been elevated to a degree by theatrical and operatic performers, such as Sara Bernhardt, Emma Abbott, Murray and Murphy, Adele Patti, George C. Miln, Helena Modjeska, Fanny Davenport, and Denman Thompson.
Of course, therefore, our public has come to be able to appreciate with a nicer discrimination and a finer zest the intellectualmorceauxand the refined tidbits which Mr. Forepaugh's unparalleled aggregation offers. This was apparent in the vast numbers and in the unbridled enthusiasm of our best citizens gathered upon the housetops and at the street-corners along the line of the circus procession. So magnificent a display of silks, satins, and diamonds has seldom been seen: it truly seemed as if the fashion and wealth of our city were trying to vie with the splendors of the glittering circus pageant. In honor of the event, many of the stores, public buildings, and private dwellings displayed banners, mottoes, and congratulatory garlands. From the balcony of the palatial edifice occupied by one of our leading literary clubs was suspended a large banner of pink silk, upon which appeared the word "Welcome" in white; while beneath, upon a scroll, was an appropriate couplet from one of Robert Browning's poems.
When we asked one of the members of this club why the club made such a fuss over the circus, he looked very much astonished; and he answered, "Well, why not? Old Forepaugh is worth over a million dollars, and he always sends us complimentaries whenever he comes to town!"
We asked this same gentleman if he had read the new edition of Sappho's poems. We had a good deal of confidence in his literary judgment and taste, because he is our leading linseed-oil dealer; and no man in the West is possessed of more enterprise and sand than he.
"My daughter brought home a copy of the book Saturday," said he, "and I looked through it yesterday. Sappho may suit some cranks; but as for me, give me Ella Wheeler or Will Carleton. I love good poetry: I 've got the finest-bound copy of Shakespeare in Illinois, and my edition of Coleridge will knock the socks off any book in the country. My wife has painted all the Doray illustrations of the Ancient Marine, and I would n't swap that book for the costliest Mysonyay in all Paris!
"I can't see where the poetry comes in," he went on to say. "So far as I can make out, this man Sapolio—I mean Sappho—never did any sustained or consecutive work. His poems read to me a good deal like a diary. Some of them consist of one line only, and quite a number have only three words. Now, I will repeat five entire poems taken from this fool-book: I learned them on purpose to repeat at the club. Here is the first,—
"Me just now the golden-sandalled Dawn.
"That 's all there is to it. Here's the second:
"I yearn and seek.
"A third is complete in—
"Much whiter than an egg;
and the fourth is,—
"Stir not the shingle,
which, I take it, was one of Sapphire's juvenile poems addressed to his mother. The fifth poem is simply,—
"And thou thyself, Calliope,
which, by the way, reminds me that Forepaugh's calliope got smashed up in a railroad accident night before last,—a circumstance deeply to be regretted, since there is no instrument calculated to appeal more directly to one versed in mythological lore, or more likely to awaken a train of pleasing associations, than the steam-calliope."
A South-Side packer, who has the largest library in the city, told us that he had not seen Sappho's works yet, but that he intended to read them at an early date. "I 've got so sick of Howells and James," said he, "that I 'm darned glad to hear that some new fellow has come to the front."
Another prominent social light (a brewer) said that he had bought a "Sappho," and was having it bound in morocco, with turkey-red trimmings. "I do enjoy a handsome book," said he. "One of the most valuable volumes in my library I bought of a leading candy-manufacturer in this city. It is the original libretto and score of the 'Songs of Solomon,' bound in the tanned pelt of the fatted calf that was killed when the prodigal son came home."
"I have simply glanced through the Sappho book," said another distinguished representative of local culture; "and what surprised me, was the pains that has been taken in getting up the affair. Why, do you know, the editor has gone to the trouble of going through the book, and translating every darned poem into Greek! Of course, this strikes us business-men of Chicago as a queer bit of pedantry."
The scholarly and courtly editor of the "Weekly Lard Journal and Literary Companion," Professor A. J. Lyvely, criticised Sappho very freely as he stood at the corner of Clark and Madison Streets, waiting for the superb gold chariot drawn by twenty milk-white steeds, and containing fifty musicians, to come along. "Just because she lived in the dark ages," said he, "she is cracked up for a great poet; but she will never be as popular with the masses of Western readers as Ella Wheeler and Marion Harland are. All of her works that remain to us are a few fragments, and they are chestnuts; for they have been printed within the last ten years in the books of a great many poets I could name, and I have read them. We know very little of Sappho's life. If she had amounted to much, we would not be in such ignorance of her doings. The probability is that she was a society or fashion editor on one of the daily papers of her time,—a sort of Clara-Belle woman, whose naughtiness was mistaken for a species of intellectual brilliancy. Sappho was a gamey old girl, you know. Her life must have been a poem of passion, if there is any truth in the testimony of the authorities who wrote about her several centuries after her death. In fact, these verses of hers that are left indicate that she was addicted to late suppers, to loose morning-gowns, to perfumed stationery, and to hysterics. It is ten to one that she wore flaming bonnets and striking dresses; that she talked loud at the theatres and in public generally; and that she chewed gum, and smoked cigarettes, when she went to the races. If that woman had lived in Chicago, she would have been tabooed."
The amiable gentleman who reads manuscripts for Rand, McNally & Co. says that Sappho's manuscripts were submitted to him a year ago. "I looked them over, and satisfied myself that there was nothing in them; and I told the author so. He seemed inclined to dispute me, but I told him I reckoned I understood pretty well what would sell in our literary circles and on our railroad-trains."
But while there was a pretty general disposition to criticise Sappho, there was only one opinion as to the circus-parade; and that was complimentary. For the nonce, we may say, the cares and vexations of business, of literature, of art, and of science, were put aside; and our populace abandoned itself to a hearty enjoyment of the brilliant pageant which appealed to the higher instincts. And, as the cage containing the lions rolled by, the shouts of the enthusiastic spectators swelled above the guttural roars of the infuriate monarchs of the desert. Men waved their hats, and ladies fluttered their handkerchiefs. Altogether, the scene was so exciting as to be equalled only by the rapturous ovation which was tendered Mdlle. Hortense de Vere, queen of the air, when that sylph-like lady came out into the arena of Forepaugh's great circus-tent last evening, and poised herself upon one tiny toe on the back of an untamed and foaming Arabian barb that dashed round and round the sawdust ring. Talk about your Sapphos and your poetry! Would Chicago hesitate a moment in choosing between Sappho and Mdlle. Hortense de Vere, queen of the air? And what rhythm—be it Sapphic, or choriambic, or Ionic a minore—is to be compared with the symphonic poetry of a shapely female balanced upon one delicate toe on the bristling back of a fiery, untamed palfrey that whoops round and round to the music of the band, the plaudits of the public, and the still, small voice of the dyspeptic gent announcing a minstrel show "under this canvas after the performance, which is not yet half completed?"
If it makes us proud to go into our bookstores, and see thousands upon thousands of tomes waiting for customers; if our bosoms swell with delight to see the quiet and palatial homes of our cultured society overflowing with the most expensive wall-papers and the costliest articles of virtue; if we take an ineffable enjoyment in the thousand indications of a growing refinement in the midst of us,—vaster still must be the pride, the rapture, we feel when we behold our intellect and our culture paying the tribute of adoration to the circus. Viewing these enlivening scenes, why may we not cry in the words of Sappho, "Wealth without thee, Worth, is a shameless creature; but the mixture of both is the height of happiness"?