The Contributors' Club

I FIND my prejudice in favor of summer greatly diminished at the coming of weather sufficiently cold to recommend the kindling of fires in grate and stove. With what readiness we obey the Horatian injunction: —

A long-banished, familiar friend returns when once more the fire smiles and beckons from behind its mica windows, or, better yet, in full view, mounts its invisible ladder in an open grate. This malicious demon of the South Sea islander’s superstition, spitting flame out of the wood, is, in our more intimate experience, a very powerful genius, whom we are able to invoke to friendly alliance by means of friction and a little phosphorus at the point of a pine sliver. Hail, mighty magician, patient bond slave, acute companion, live kaleidoscope of wonderful colors and changes ! Only those who possess the knack of “ building a fire ” are genuine fire-worshipers ; to those only the genius deigns to exhibit its cunningest sorceries. When the trains of kindlings have been laid, with all the proper nooks and crannies planned to secure a draught and invite ambuscade, and when the match has been applied, and the nimble flames rush out to reconnoitre, the successful fire-builder may well look upon himself as a sorcerer, not of the black but of the bright art. How mysterious is this fugitive element, now here upon the hearth, and now gone—none knows whither! “ The unknown cause of the sensation of heat ” almost savors of poetic mysticism ; yet it is a mere phrase of the dictionary-maker, who is at loss how to give us an absolute definition.

Fire, though commonly accounted a mute, is not without a certain degree of vocality and semi-articulate speech. It has its soft and rough breathings, its undertones, and its notes of triumph, as it drives a lambent wedge between the bark and the body of the wood, or makes a spiral escalade up through some knot-hole. Often it gives out a fine staccato click, not unlike the snapping of frost on the panes in a still winter night.

I am impressed with the secretive virtue of the fire. It alone, among the elements, never tells tales, never renders up aught committed to its charge. Whether it burn ordinary wood or a Meleager’s brand, the ashes give no hint. Let one lodge his treasure with the earth, but in a convulsive fit she may some time lay it bare. Nor is the sea always a safe custodian: witness how it sent a fish ashore with the king’s ring, cast as a votive offering to the gods forever ! But the fire has a deep past the reach of lead and line. It is therefore the best preservative from moth and rust, which make such sad havoc among the precious things in our reliquaries; it is also the only known preventive against the curious or careless hands of strangers in the after-time. The best “ fire-proof safe,” perhaps, is the fire itself. Besides, the more we consign to this royal conservator, the greater the credit and confidence it yields us. What does Vesta write to me ? A glowing résumé of my friends’ sparkling letters, which I resolutely sacrificed a short time ago. The paper on which they were traced has fallen into ashes, but the subject matter reappears in a magnificent red-line and redletter edition. Sometimes, as I watch the burning of such offerings, I read a ghostly leaf of the original manuscript, charred or wholly consumed, yet buoyed up by the breath of the fire for an instant, while my glance runs over the unviolated charactery.

If the hunter or explorer, encamped in some “ lion-haunted island,” owes to fire his preservation from wild beasts, the solitary by his own hearth has the same charmed defense against the jungle inhabitants of his thought. If fire warm the body, shall it not also warm the spirit, which is by nature akin, being an authentic spark of Promethean heat? May I be forgiven if I let go the doctrine of hell fire, and adopt that of heaven fire! What flame burns, and burns not to the refining of that which was committed for ordeal ? This immortal symbol of purgation let me celebrate in terms of the ancient Gueber hymn, recently brought to light in redletter text:—

— There is a deal of rich suggestion in that crisp Preface by Messrs. Heminge and Condell, found in their edition of Shakespeare (1623), addressed To The Great Variety of Readers. What nimble gibing at the Philistines of the day! What sharp allocution to the general public and tweaking of its dull ear! In particular, what significant intimation to the “magistrate of wit,” accustomed to “ arraign playes dailie,” that the critical function is here at a discount ! “ Know these playes have had their trial alreadie, and stood out all appeals.” Heminge and Condell could scarcely have foreseen at how many petty assizes the works of their old “ Friend and Fellow ” were destined to be tried. Some experience they had had of the “ frauds and stealths of injurious impostors,” and their “ surreptitious copies ; ” but worse was to follow when the exquisite literary journeymen of the Restoration took in hand the Shakespearean drama, snipping and cutting away, here and there, patching with tawdry rags, till the original fabric could hardly be recognized. Heminge and Condell could not have foreseen how the “ Immortal Spring of Wycherly ” would for a time be patronized by misguided pilgrims, while the way to true Helicon lay overgrown with coarse weeds. Whatever amazement and fine wrath they would have felt at noting these fluctuations in the poet’s fame, it is quite possible they would have been more profoundly perplexed at the turn his fortunes are taking in this age, — the age of Shakespearean criticism, let us call it. “Judge your sixe-pen’orth, your shilling’s worth, your five shillings’ worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome,” jauntily observes this brace of Elizabethan editors, urging their public to buy first, and censure afterwards. Are there not all these various fractional values in the aggregate of current Shakespearean criticism? It strikes us that there are too many sixpenny investments in etymological investigation and discussion, the results of which, though occasionally interesting and suggestive, are oftener tedious and inconclusive. The great poet is a sort of inexhaustible Mykenæ, mined by a troop of industrious Schliemanns ; these being armed with philological picks and spades, and marvelously zealous in the work, — marvelously successful, too, for the old cabinet of literature has scarcely shelf room enough for all their “ finds.” There are, also, pen’orth and shilling’s worth judgments, of a sentimental, speculative, or analytic order; sundry ingenious interpretations of Shakespearean characters, and theories anent the conduct of each. The madness (?) of Hamlet, the jealousy of Othello, the diabolism of Iago, the stuff of Lady Macbeth’s temper and resolve, — these are all moot questions, differentiating and doctrinal points in the various schools of opinion. One is expected, almost required, to hold positive views of these subjects ; he knows not how soon he may be called upon to repeat his confession of faith. There are, to be sure, some crown and pound values in this currency of criticism: such are the large judgments of the ripe scholar and the philosopher, and the intuitions of the poet. Yet, the best thing they do for us is to send us to read once more, and more joyfully and heartily, the chief of poets and philosophers. Have we not had something too much of criticism and diagnosis, and do we not, with regard to Shakespeare, love not too well, but too wisely ? It is a positive relief, in the midst of so much frigid scientific characterization, to hear of “ poor Berlioz ” and his Shakespeare craze.

As to the authorship of the Shakespearean drama, one is quite ignorant where so much speculation will land us. While the Baconian theory has perhaps dropped into port to freight with new proof, along sails a fancy-rigged craft, carrying the theory of a multiplex authorship. It has somehow been discovered that an odd number of Elizabethan geniuses laid their glorious heads together, and wrote these plays as a pastime. (Perhaps it was “ done at the Mermaid.”) Then, with a view to hoodwinking the public, they hid their identities under a little nominis umbra, — that of an obscure “ utility man.” So there was no William Shakespeare, — at least, none to speak of ! It turns out that what we call Shakespeare (like what we once called Homer) is a complex star, at last resolved, by research and perspicacity, into a group of sparklers ! The “ myriaded-minded ” is now cleverly accounted for. A whole junto of the choicest sixteenth-century wit, wisdom, pathos, and imagination went to the creation of Lear, Hamlet, The Tempest, and Cymbeline. The universal man no longer remains, but in his place is a certain composite quantity. This bold theory steps smartly on, in company with other leveling and disillusioning doctrines of the day. Let those who will entertain it, but for ourselves,— we kiss our hands to thee, O sublime shade of William Shakespeare !

— That music can, per se, be sacred or profane will not be urged even by a devotee. That verbal or circumstantial associations can cast a distinctively devotional or secular color over an air forever is quite another matter ; and in this hypothesis lies the sole moral separation between Coronation or Windham and The Widow Nolan’s Goat or an adagio of Beethoven’s. It is strictly a matter of vigorous sentiment. People with retentive ears, who sedulously attend church, the opera, and the concert, have a right to dissent from listening on Sunday to the same melodies the week has associated with warbling Manricos and Lucrezias. (In nine cases out of ten, the maceration and disharmonization of these same melodies by the “arranger” introduce a side-question of artistic morality.) The evil started in the choir-book of “set pieces,” — save the mark! How far it has now vitiated the hymn-book down-stairs, let us see.

Before the writer lies a book of “ hymns and tunes,” a well-known collection, adopted by several of the most important Protestant denominations in the country, and the music in which purports to be the selection of three experienced musicians. To each of them the entire galaxy of ecclesiastical composers ought to be, probably is, familiar. First to catch the eye is the fine old hymn, “Oh, could I speak the matchless worth,” and below it another, “ O Love Divine, how sweet thou art,” united to a mangled “ arrangement ” of the duet in Mozart’s opera Die Zauberflöte, wherein Pamina and the bird-catcher, Papageno, extol “ The manly heart, with love o’erflowing,” posing in seriocomic attitudes before the foot-lights. To the three hymns “ Eternal Father, strong to save,” “ Jesus, my Lord, my God, my All,” and “ Thou art, O God, the Life and Light,” is wedded, in three several places, a tune entitled Prince, at once discovered to be Mendelssohn’s sentimental Song without Words, Consolation, note for note. On a fresh page, “ By faith I viewed my Saviour dying ” appears. One is asked to sing it to a badly-garbled version of the barcarolle and pas seul opening the last act of Auber’s opera Massaniello. A further felicity treads upon its frisky heels. To the words “ Hail, my ever-blessed Jesus, only Thee I wish to sing,” has been appended a tune called Ludwig. Is it, then, one of Beethoven’s beautiful hymn tunes, such as “ I love my God,” or “ God is my song ” ? By no means ! It is the well-known first choral strain of the finale to the Ninth Symphony, “ Freude, Freude, Gotterfunken ! ”

James Montgomery’s hymn, “ Call Jehovah thy salvation,” is set to the introductory air in the overture to Von Flotow’s opera of Martha (the same movement afterwards turned into a quintet in the second act), christened Vesper. That ancient offense, the utilizing of the languishing love duet, “ Solo, profugo, rejetto,” with “ Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,” is condoned in the pews, thanks to these compilers. One looks about him for Lionel and Plunkett, to tender them the inevitable encore. “ Saviour, when in dust to Thee ” should have inspired any composer, directed any selectors to good resuits. It is here linked to the first melody in Jacques Blumenthal’s morceau de salon, Les Deux Anges (once a cherished drawing-room friend), under the frank name Blumenthal.

A sharp scrutiny of the notes prefixed to another hymn by Montgomery, “ The Lord is my shepherd,” discovers the popular air “ Scenes that are brightest,” from Wallace’s opera Maritana. Six pages further, lo, “Angels from the realms of glory ” is encountered, to be sung to Von Weber’s “ Einsam bin ich,” in Wolff’s play of Preciosa. Von Weber’s flowing periods, indeed, seem to have been quite irresistible to our three friends. They have plucked up by the roots the opening slow melody in his Der Freischutz overture, labeled it St. Jude (!), and tacked it upon Schmolke’s “ My Jesus, as Thou wilt ” and Dr. Bonar’s “ I did thee wrong, my God.” The melody in Agathe’s seen a, later in the same opera, is turned over to “ Softly now the light of day.” I have also seen in another book the familiar “ Fading, still fading,” set to the cavatina “ Glöcklein im Thale,” in Euryanthe; and not long ago, in yet another, “ arrangements ” of Balfe’s “ Then you ’ll remember me,” and of the waltz-tempo in his Satanella, as music to a couple of standard hymns.

The air “ Nearer, my God, to Thee ” has now become so associated with the celebrated hymn itself that one may forgive its reappearance between these covers, graceless plagiarism that it is from “ Oft in the stilly night.” The application of the secular airs Home, Sweet Home and The Last Rose of Summer is, at least, too lackadaisical to be tolerated. Nor does this book of sacred song refuse to countenance a march in Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words alongside the hymn “ Behold, the Bridegroom cometh,” nor the “ Prayer ” from Herold’s opera Zampa doing irksome duty with “ Softly fades the twilight ray,” nor an air from the same composer’s Prè aux Clercs as music to “ Hark, the herald angels sing.”

The writer is not disposed to go further. This volume of canticles is not unique. Let the reader seek it out and examine it at leisure, and then let him lay hold of another and a third, to find the trail of the “ adapter ” and “ arranger ” over them all. The Salvation Army can fling a tu guoque argument in the teeth of their critics, upon musical grounds. The choir-books are crowded with operatic quartets from Donizetti and Rossini. The organist’s compendium is an outrage upon propriety. In the Roman Catholic churches the ear is insulted with masses by modern Italian and other composers for the stage; men of genius, who, in writing for the sacred offices of that church, ignored every law and tradition concerning its ecclesiastical music. In provincial Roman Catholic and Protestant churches the state of affairs is naturally far worse than in large cities. Not a year ago a country organist assured the writer that “ he had been waiting till it should n’t seem so common,” to set his choir to singing “ I heard the voice of Jesus say ” to the sextet in the Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience. He added smilingly that “ it went perfectly.” One thing is sure : that, unless the moral sentiment of all denominations awakes, somewhat as the moral sentiment of the Roman Catholic church did in the time of Palestrina and the Council of Trent (when the situation was very similar), psalmody and church music in general will become precisely as devout as those " sacred concerts ” announced in the Sunday press during our opera seasons.