“Where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is sublimely strong.”
Religion is not
asceticism, but a principle of love to God that beautifies and exalts
common life, and fills it with joy."
M. Belloc ended with a splendid panegyric upon the ancient Greeks, the
eloquence of which I will not mar by attempting to repeat.
Ever and anon H. was amused at the pathetic air, at once genuinely
French and thoroughly sincere, with which the master assured her, that
he was "_désolé_" to put her to so much trouble.
As to Christianity not making men happier, methinks M. Belloc forgets
that the old Greek tragedies are filled with despair and gloom, as
their prevailing characteristic, and that nearly all the music of the
world before Christ was in the minor scale, as since Christ it has
come to be in the major. The whole creation has, indeed, groaned and
travailed in pain together until now; but the mighty anthem has
modulated since the cross, and the requiem of Jesus has been the
world's birthsong of approaching jubilee.
Music is a far better test, moreover, on such a point, than painting,
for just where painting is weakest, namely, in the expression of the
highest moral and spiritual ideas, there music is most sublimely
strong.
Altogether this morning in the painter's studio was one of the most
agreeable we ever spent. But what shall I say then of the evening in a
_salon musicale_; with the first violoncello playing in the
world, and the Princess Czartoryski at the piano? We were invited at
eight, but it was nine before we entered our carriage. We arrived at
the hotel of Mrs. Erskine, a sister of Lord Dundalk, and found a very
select party. There were chairs and sofas enough for all without
crowding.
There was Frankomm of the Conservatoire, with his Stradivarius, an
instrument one hundred and fifty years old, which cost six thousand
dollars. There was his son, a little lad of twelve, who played almost
as well as his father. I wish F. and M. could have seen this. He was
but a year older than F., and yet played with the most astonishing
perfection. Among other things the little fellow performed a
_morceau_ of his own composition, which was full of pathos, and
gave tokens of uncommon ability.
“O, with what freshness, what solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate man, Behold! thou hast one more chance! Strive for immortal glory!”
He thought
he knew who it was; and shuddered, with creeping horror, though the
face was veiled. Then he thought he felt _that hair_ twining round his
fingers; and then, that it slid smoothly round his neck, and tightened
and tightened, and he could not draw his breath; and then he thought
voices _whispered_ to him,—whispers that chilled him with horror. Then
it seemed to him he was on the edge of a frightful abyss, holding on
and struggling in mortal fear, while dark hands stretched up, and were
pulling him over; and Cassy came behind him laughing, and pushed him.
And then rose up that solemn veiled figure, and drew aside the veil. It
was his mother; and she turned away from him, and he fell down, down,
down, amid a confused noise of shrieks, and groans, and shouts of demon
laughter,—and Legree awoke.
Calmly the rosy hue of dawn was stealing into the room. The morning
star stood, with its solemn, holy eye of light, looking down on the man
of sin, from out the brightening sky. O, with what freshness, what
solemnity and beauty, is each new day born; as if to say to insensate
man, “Behold! thou hast one more chance! _Strive_ for immortal glory!”
There is no speech nor language where this voice is not heard; but the
bold, bad man heard it not. He woke with an oath and a curse. What to
him was the gold and purple, the daily miracle of morning! What to him
the sanctity of the star which the Son of God has hallowed as his own
emblem? Brute-like, he saw without perceiving; and, stumbling forward,
poured out a tumbler of brandy, and drank half of it.
“I’ve had a h—l of a night!” he said to Cassy, who just then entered
from an opposite door.
“You’ll get plenty of the same sort, by and by,” said she, dryly.
“What do you mean, you minx?”
“You’ll find out, one of these days,” returned Cassy, in the same tone.
“Now Simon, I’ve one piece of advice to give you.”
“The devil, you have!”
“My advice is,” said Cassy, steadily, as she began adjusting some
things about the room, “that you let Tom alone.”
“What business is ’t of yours?”
“What? To be sure, I don’t know what it should be. If you want to pay
twelve hundred for a fellow, and use him right up in the press of the
season, just to serve your own spite, it’s no business of mine, I’ve
done what I could for him.
“The obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of folly and inanity.”
It is astonishing how much we think about ourselves, yet to how little
purpose,--how very clever people will talk and wonder about themselves
and each other, and yet go on year after year, not knowing how to use
either themselves or each other,--not having as much practical
philosophy in the matter of their own characters and that of their
friends as they have in respect of the screws of their gas-fixtures or
the management of their water-pipes.
“But _I_ won’t have any such scenes with _my_ wife,” says Don Positivo.
“I won’t marry one of your clever women; they are always positive and
disagreeable. _I_ look for a wife of a gentle and yielding nature, that
shall take her opinions from me, and accommodate her tastes to mine.”
And so Don Positivo goes and marries a pretty little pink-and-white
concern, so lisping and soft and delicate that he is quite sure she
cannot have a will of her own. She is the moon of his heavens, to shine
only by his reflected light.
We would advise our gentlemen friends who wish to enjoy the felicity of
having their own way not to try the experiment with a pretty fool; for
the obstinacy of cleverness and reason is nothing to the obstinacy of
folly and inanity.
Let our friend once get in the seat opposite to him at table a pretty
creature who cries for the moon, and insists that he don’t love her
because he doesn’t get it for her; and in vain may he display his
superior knowledge of astronomy, and prove to her that the moon is not
to be got. She listens with her head on one side, and after he has
talked himself quite out of breath, repeats the very same sentence she
began the discussion with, without variation or addition.
If she wants darling Johnny taken away from school, because cruel
teachers will not give up the rules of the institution for his pleasure,
in vain does Don Positivo, in the most select and superior English,
enlighten her on the necessity of habits of self-control and order for a
boy,--the impossibility that a teacher should make exceptions for their
particular darling,--the absolute, perishing need that the boy should
begin to do something. She hears him all through, and then says, “I
don’t know anything about that.
“The longest day must have its close -the gloomiest night will wear on to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to an eternal day.”
Ah, my good sir,
you’ll have to try the race again and again,—the game isn’t there.”
“O, don’t speak a word!” said Emmeline; “what if they should hear you?”
“If they do hear anything, it will make them very particular to keep
away,” said Cassy. “No danger; we may make any noise we please, and it
will only add to the effect.”
At length the stillness of midnight settled down over the house.
Legree, cursing his ill luck, and vowing dire vengeance on the morrow,
went to bed.
CHAPTER XL
The Martyr
“Deem not the just by Heaven forgot!
Though life its common gifts deny,—
Though, with a crushed and bleeding heart,
And spurned of man, he goes to die!
For God hath marked each sorrowing day,
And numbered every bitter tear,
And heaven’s long years of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.” BRYANT.[1]
[1] This poem does not appear in the collected works of William Cullen
Bryant, nor in the collected poems of his brother, John Howard Bryant.
It was probably copied from a newspaper or magazine.
The longest way must have its close,—the gloomiest night will wear on
to a morning. An eternal, inexorable lapse of moments is ever hurrying
the day of the evil to an eternal night, and the night of the just to
an eternal day. We have walked with our humble friend thus far in the
valley of slavery; first through flowery fields of ease and indulgence,
then through heart-breaking separations from all that man holds dear.
Again, we have waited with him in a sunny island, where generous hands
concealed his chains with flowers; and, lastly, we have followed him
when the last ray of earthly hope went out in night, and seen how, in
the blackness of earthly darkness, the firmament of the unseen has
blazed with stars of new and significant lustre.
The morning-star now stands over the tops of the mountains, and gales
and breezes, not of earth, show that the gates of day are unclosing.
The escape of Cassy and Emmeline irritated the before surly temper of
Legree to the last degree; and his fury, as was to be expected, fell
upon the defenceless head of Tom. When he hurriedly announced the
tidings among his hands, there was a sudden light in Tom’s eye, a
sudden upraising of his hands, that did not escape him.
The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.
"Well, yes, dear; she did begin jest so, and I gave her everything I
could think of; and we had doctors for her far and near; but _'twasn't
to be_,--that's all we could say; she was called, and her time was
come."
"Well, now, Aunt Roxy," said Mara, "at any rate, it's a relief to speak
out to some one. It's more than two months that I have felt every day
more and more that there was no hope,--life has hung on me like a
weight. I have had to _make_ myself keep up, and make myself do
everything, and no one knows how it has tried me. I am so tired all the
time, I could cry; and yet when I go to bed nights I can't sleep, I lie
in such a hot, restless way; and then before morning I am drenched with
cold sweat, and feel so weak and wretched. I force myself to eat, and I
force myself to talk and laugh, and it's all pretense; and it wears me
out,--it would be better if I stopped trying,--it would be better to
give up and act as weak as I feel; but how can I let them know?"
"My dear child," said Aunt Roxy, "the truth is the kindest thing we can
give folks in the end. When folks know jest where they are, why they can
walk; you'll all be supported; you must trust in the Lord. I have been
more'n forty years with sick rooms and dyin' beds, and I never knew it
fail that those that trusted in the Lord was brought through."
"Oh, Aunt Roxy, it is so hard for me to give up,--to give up hoping to
live. There were a good many years when I thought I should love to
depart,--not that I was really unhappy, but I longed to go to heaven,
though I knew it was selfish, when I knew how lonesome I should leave my
friends. But now, oh, life has looked so bright; I have clung to it so;
I do now. I lie awake nights and pray, and try to give it up and be
resigned, and I can't. Is it wicked?"
"Well, it's natur' to want to live," said Miss Roxy. "Life is sweet, and
in a gen'l way we was made to live. Don't worry; the Lord'll bring you
right when His time comes. Folks isn't always supported jest when they
want to be, nor _as_ they want to be; but yet they're supported fust and
last.
“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.”
“Of course if you like your kids, if you love them from the moment they begin, you yourself begin all over again, in them, with them, and so there is something more to the world again.”
“Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.”
“There are fathers who do not love their children; there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson”
“Home is where you can say anything you please, because nobody pays any attention to you anyway”
“The past, the present and the future are really one: they are today.”
“Its a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.”
“[And in] Uncle Toms Cabin, ... Good-by, Uncle Tom; keep a stiff upper lip.”
“I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did his dictation.”
“When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language.”
“Never injure a friend, even in jest.”
“Never count your friends on sunny days for they all will be around, count your friends on the rainy days when the clouds are grey and lightning shakes the ground. It is then you painfully see the type of friend they really are, when Life delivers a s”
“Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn”
“If it were admitted that the great object is to read and enjoy a language, and the stress of the teaching were placed on the few things absolutely essential to this result, all might in their own way arrive there, and rejoice in its flowers.”
“In all ranks of life the human heart yearns for the beautiful; and the beautiful things that God makes are his gift to all alike.”
