Ole Bull: A Memoir

by Sara Chapman Thorp Bull

Ole Bull

OLE BULL
A MEMOIR

BY
SARA C. BULL

WITH OLE BULL’S “VIOLIN NOTES,” AND DR. A. B CROSBY’S “ANATOMY OF THE VIOLINIST”

BOSTON
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1883

[NOTE.]

In preparing this memoir my aim has been to use incidents, criticisms, and tributes which brought out characteristic traits, as recognized by others as well as myself, and to supply only what was needed to make the sequence clear. Many poems and tributes, and much musical criticism, have been necessarily omitted for want of space. So far as possible, writers have been credited when quoted, but I desire to make still further acknowledgment to Wergeland, Winter Hjelm, Goldschmidt, Mr. Henry Norman, and Professor R. B. Anderson, who prepared a sketch of Norwegian history, which has been given in a more condensed form.

Ole Bull was in Sweden years ago when the “union mark” was adopted, for use in the Norwegian and Swedish flags. He would himself never float any but the pure Norwegian colors, and, from the first, was most earnest and pronounced in his opinion that none but the naval and customs flags should have the union mark, as the two countries were politically united only in their relations to foreign powers. For years he was almost alone in this feeling, but the subject has recently given rise to much debate, and even heated controversy. I speak of this here, because a paragraph relating to the matter was omitted by mistake from the body of the book.

I cannot too warmly express my thanks for the help and encouragement given by friends. It is in especial recognition of the careful interest he has shown that I mention my obligation to Mr. Walter E. Colton. The admiration for his work and original research, united to a great personal regard and affection felt for him by my husband, made me desire to place in his hands the “Violin Notes,” and it should be added that Mr. Colton has filled out the Note on the varnish, as he alone could have done. In Dr. Crosby’s unfinished paper the bow arm and hand were not treated, and the Tartini letter is added because Ole Bull considered it the best instruction ever offered for the use of the bow. Mr. Fields’s tribute was sent from his sick–room, so constant and unfailing was he ever in his thought of others. Members of my husband’s family have given me anecdotes and helped to verify many incidents, and Mr. Alexander Bull kindly placed at my disposal the correspondence of his parents. To Mrs. Botta I owe the beautiful drawing made for her by Mr. Darley, at the time of Ole Bull’s first visit to the United States. The engraved portrait is by Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox, from a photograph by Mora, taken in 1878. The illustrations for the “Violin Notes,” from photographs by Mora, have necessarily lost in the reproduction something of their original beauty of outline and form, but they serve well the purpose for which they are inserted.

To all whose friendly services are mentioned in these pages, and to many not named, I make my grateful acknowledgment; and also to Mr. W. J. Rolfe, for kind assistance in seeing this memoir through the press.

Sara C. Bull.

OLE BULL.
A MEMOIR.

For Nature then
To me was all in all. I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colors and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, nor any interest
Unborrow’d from the eye.

The quaint, picturesque old city of Bergen, surrounded by its “seven mountains,” has been the birthplace of many famous Norsemen, among them Holberg and Welhaven, names that have a more than national repute. In no other city of the North has been preserved so much of the atmosphere of the olden time and history.

All who know Bergen think of its seven mountains as shrouded in mist most of the year; but where else can one find such brilliant, sunny summer days, such pure, sweet air, fragrant with the breath of field and fjeld? Or who can forget the harbor as seen from the deck of a vessel slowly gliding in of a summer evening, when every tint of sunset sky is caught and reflected by the sea and the rocky mountain tops, and it seems the entrance to an enchanted land?

Its climate, as Jonas Lie has said, illustrates its folk–type; doubtless because it has helped to form it. The people are animated, enthusiastic, and practical, a curious combination of the prosaic and ideal; and all this, it is claimed, has made the old town rich in men of genius. Her children have been loyal; and the old mother, with her thousand years’ history, has had no more devoted son than Ole Bull.

He was born February 5, 1810. His paternal grandmother, Gedsken Edvardine Storm, married to the apothecary and army surgeon, Ole Bornemann Bull, was sister to the poet, Edvard Storm. His father, Johan Storm Bull, like his father before him a physician and apothecary in Bergen, was an accomplished man, and a chemist of unusual ability. He had studied under Tromsdorf, and corresponded with the first German specialists of his day. His mother, Anna Dorothea Bull, was of the old Dutch family Geelmuyden. Her father, an able lawyer, died before the age of forty, leaving his widow with several children to rear alone; and of her four sons, two were captains in the army, one was a sea–captain, and one, “Uncle Jens,” for some years a merchant, and afterwards the publisher of the city’s first newspaper, which is still owned by the family. The three leading professions were all represented by members of the Bull and Geelmuyden families. Johan Randulf Bull, the brother of Ole’s grandfather, had, beside other offices, filled that of governor of the Bergen stift, or diocese, and had been noted for his generous hospitality.

Ole Bull was the eldest of ten children, seven sons and three daughters, nine of whom lived to the age of maturity, and six of whom survive him.

He was sent early to the Latin school, as the children of gentlemen usually were at that time; but the promise he gave can be inferred from the advice of his old rector, Mr. Winding, some years after: “Take to your fiddle in earnest, boy, and don’t waste your time here.”

Both of Ole’s parents, and several members of the family on the mother’s side, were musical. His father kept up the proverbial hospitality of the family, and no gatherings were more enjoyable than Uncle Jens’s Tuesday quartette evenings. Uncle Jens spent much time and money to gratify his passion for music. On the quartette evenings Ole was several times discovered, by an involuntary movement, under the table or sofa, or behind a curtain, where, having crept from his bed, he had concealed himself for hours, only to be ignominiously sent back again, after a whipping for disobedience. But, stern as was the discipline of that day, an exception was after a time made in his favor, through the intercession of Uncle Jens. He thus became familiar, while very young, with the quartettes of Krummer, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and, as he used to say, imbibed the rules of art unknowingly; for he did not conceive the music as produced by players, but as proceeding from the instruments played, jubilating, triumphing, quarreling, fighting, with a life of their own,—a conception arising, no doubt, partly from the tales his grandmother told him of the elves and gnomes, with which the popular myths peopled forest and mountain. When, in early childhood, playing alone in the meadow, he saw a delicate blue–bell gently moving in the breeze, he fancied he heard the bell ring, and the grass accompany it with most enrapturing fine voices; he fancied he heard nature sing, and thus music revealed itself, or came to his consciousness as something that might be reproduced.

The influence which the popular music and mythology must have had upon a sensitive and imaginative child like Ole can hardly be understood by those who have been born and bred in England and America, where folk–songs and folk–lore are now almost unknown. Mr. Goldschmidt, in an article on Ole Bull in “Macmillan’s Magazine,” remarks:—

When, on my visits to England, I had been some time in London, in the eastern counties, in Surrey, in Kent, and in the Isle of Wight, it struck me that in my strolls through streets and lanes, high–roads and woods, I had never heard the people sing. I certainly had heard, for instance, the black minstrels and such other bands; but I do not call that a singing of the people, but a more or less bad execution of individual compositions. The people’s song descends from the air; it rushes forth from the forests, the rivers, the mountains; it lives in tradition; it was never composed, never taught man by man. I remember when once, with a friend, passing over Tower Hill, hearing a plaintive sound proceeding from a crowd. I asked him what was the matter, and on being told, “A ballad singer,” I hastened to the spot to catch a musical sound, however coarse, from the people of England. Alas, it was only a poor, starving woman crying out for bread, and in false rhythms offering printed ballads for sale. My thoughts reverted to the time when I visited Norway, and when, having crossed the Farn Tinn Lake and entered Vestfiorddal, Aagot, the daughter of my host, at dusk took down the langeley and sang. Oh, for those sweet, simple lays of love and feuds, fragrant with naïve faith in a mysterious destiny, that selects the best hearts, the loveliest girl, and the bravest lad for the greatest joy and the deepest pain! As for the strain, the music itself, if you were to ask Aagot who made it, she would not tell it to a stranger; but perhaps later, when you had won her confidence and made her trust you were no unbeliever, no “scorner of simple folks,” she would tell you that her great–grandmother had the melody from a man whose great–grandfather had learnt it of the Fossekarl (the spirit of the waterfall), or from the Hulder, the mysterious, ever–young shepherdess, who had fallen in love with him! If, then, you asked Aagot whether she believed in the existence of Fossekarl and Hulder, she would answer, “The parson says such beings are not, but my grandmother knew a man who had seen them.”

I have learnt from the papers that very superstitious people are found in parts of England; so that, if superstition made music, you should be a singing people still. The question, however, is, Were you ever so? I feel assured you were; how else could your country have been called “Merry England”? But since that time more than two centuries have laid on you hard work and great cares; you have become an industrious, laborious people; you truly earn your bread in the sweat of your brow; the locomotive rattles on your rails, the steam–engine pants in your factories, the steam–hammer clangs. So when I see the people on a Saturday night pouring forth from these workshops, and going to lay in their stock of provisions for Sunday, I fully understand that song has left them, and that their children have no leisure to learn the strains of their great–grandmothers:—

“For they who kept us captives bade us sing;
But how could we sing?”

In Norway, at present, steam draws a broad furrow across the land. It whistles on the railroad; it plies on the lakes; it knocks thrice at the mountain, and the mountain–king, opening his gate, admits the broad light of day, in which, according to the legends of old, he must die. Already the lovers of song complain of its retreat, and, following it to remote valleys, watch its dying lips to set it down in notes. But meanwhile a great representative of Nature’s music, of the people’s song, had gone forth to the wide world,—Ole Bull.

Uncle Jens played the violoncello well, and had a collection of instruments. He loved to amuse himself with little Ole’s extreme susceptibility to music. When he was three years old, Jens often put him in the violoncello case, and hired him with sweetmeats to stay there while he played. But the candy could not keep him quiet long. The eyes kindled, and the little feet began to beat time. At last his nervous excitement prevented his staying longer in the case. The music was dancing all through him, and he must give it utterance. Running home, he would seize the yard–stick, and, with another small stick for a bow, endeavor to imitate what his uncle had played. He heard it with his inward ear; but, for fear his parents were not so pervaded with the tune as he was, he would explain as he went along, telling how beautifully the bass came in at such and such a place. Seeing the child play this rustic and soundless fiddle, his uncle bought him, when he was five years old, a violin “as yellow as a lemon.” He used to tell, later, how he felt carried up to the third heaven when his own little hand first brought out a tune from that yellow violin. He loved it and kissed it; it seemed to him so beautiful, that little fiddle! To the surprise of the family, he played well on it from the first, though he had received no instruction. He would stand by his mother’s knee while she turned the screws, which would not yield to his little hand; and the tuning was not easily accomplished, since his ear made him very critical even at that age. His uncle taught him his notes at the same time that he was learning his primer.

His father would not permit him to play till study hours were over, and he could not practice regularly, but made the violin rather his recreation. Sometimes, however, he disobeyed, playing too much and missing his lessons, for which his back had to smart both in school and at home. It was a paternal rule that a whipping at school had to be repeated at home. Still he managed to get through his elementary studies, and when he reached the higher branches of knowledge he surprised everybody by his remarkable quickness and penetration. In mythology he had no peer in the school, and his imaginative, dreamy soul reveled in all the weird stories about Odin, Thor, Balder, Frey, and the whole race of gods, giants, norns, elves, and dwarfs that fill the old Valhalla of the Norsemen. He was never happier than when he could persuade his grandmothers to tell him strange ghost stories, and sing the wild songs of the peasantry. The creative and imaginative cast of his mind also gave him a profound sympathy with nature, and he was fortunate in having a home in the midst of grand scenery.

Prof. R. B. Anderson thus writes of Ole’s boyhood:—

I once asked Ole Bull what had inspired his weird and original melodies. His answer was that from his earliest childhood he had taken the profoundest delight in Norway’s natural scenery. He grew eloquent in his poetic description of the grand and picturesque flower–clad valleys, filled with soughing groves and singing birds; of the silver–crested mountains, from which the summer sun never departs; of the melodious brooks, babbling streams, and thundering rivers; of the blinking lakes that sink their deep thoughts to starlit skies; of the far–penetrating fjords and the many thousand islands on the coast. He spoke with especial emphasis of the eagerness with which he had devoured all myths, folk–tales, ballads, and popular melodies; and all these things, he said, “have made my music.” And we would emphasize the fact that these things made his music, not alone by their influence upon his mind, but also by the impression they had made upon several generations of his ancestors who had contemplated them. Ole Bull’s ancestors have, on both sides, been people of culture and refinement for many generations. When we see a beautiful and thoughtful face, we do not always consider how much the ancestors of that man or woman must have suffered and labored and thought before that beauty and intelligence became possible.

It happened that the hospitality of Ole’s father was the means of bringing the boy his first teacher. Herr Paulsen was a Dane, a good artist, a man of solid musical acquirements and knowledge, who could play the fiddle “as long as there was a drop in the decanter before him.” He chanced to meet Ole one day at the house of a more humble colleague, with whom he would condescend to take his schnapps, and began to visit the apothecary’s house, “to educate the little artist,” as he said. And he would sit and play till he had drained the last drop from the decanter, which the hospitality of the time could not deny him. So thoroughly had he enjoyed the social, and we may say convivial, life of Bergen—for the suppers were often more than social at that time—that he had delayed his return home from month to month, and stayed on indefinitely. When his clothes grew threadbare, his friends would give him a new suit and a benefit concert, from which he often received some hundreds of dollars.

Ole’s parents were not pleased with the neglect of his studies, caused by his fondness for the violin, and their intention of entirely forbidding him the instrument was hanging like a thunder–cloud above his head, when, on his eighth birthday, he gained a decisive victory.

One Tuesday evening Paulsen played, as usual, the first violin in Uncle Jens’s quartette. But when they left the supper–table he was hopelessly hors de combat. In this unfortunate dilemma good–natured Uncle Jens shouted, “Now, Ole, you shall play in Paulsen’s stead! Come, my boy, do your best, and you shall have a stick of candy!” at the same time handing him Paulsen’s violin. The half–serious, half–joking command Ole accepted in earnest. A quartette of Pleyel, which he had heard several times, was chosen, and his memory served him faithfully; to the astonishment of all, he played each movement correctly. He not only executed the difficult passages, but marked the rests,—in short, gave it as an artist should.

This was his first triumph, with all its train of consequences. His delighted uncle immediately had him elected an active member of the Tuesday club, of whose performances he had before been but a clandestine and often ingeniously hidden listener; and, through his mother’s intercession, it was arranged that Paulsen should give him lessons regularly.

About this time a Frenchman arrived in Bergen with violins for sale. One of them, bright red in its color, gained the boy’s heart at first sight, and he pleaded with his father till he consented to buy it. It was purchased late in the afternoon, and put away in its case. Ole slept in a small bed in the same apartment with his parents, and the much–coveted instrument was in the adjoining room. Ole Bull, telling this incident in later years, said,[1]—

I could not sleep for thinking of my new violin. When I heard father and mother breathing deep, I rose softly, and lighted a candle, and in my night–clothes did go on tiptoe to open the case, and take one little peep. The violin was so red, and the pretty pearl screws did smile at me so! I pinched the strings just a little with my fingers. It smiled at me ever more and more. I took up the bow and looked at it. It said to me it would be pleasant to try it across the strings. So I did try it, just a very, very little; and it did sing to me so sweetly! Then I did creep farther away from the bedroom. At first, I did play very soft. I make very, very little noise. But presently I did begin a capriccio which I like very much; and it do go ever louder and louder; and I forgot that it was midnight and that everybody was asleep. Presently, I hear something go crack! and the next minute I feel my father’s whip across my shoulders. My little red violin dropped on the floor, and was broken. I weep much for it, but it did no good. They did have a doctor to it next day, but it never recovered its health.

The tears would always fill Ole Bull’s eyes when he spoke of this great childish sorrow.

The violin with which he now practiced was too large for him. When he placed it in the usual position for playing, it hurt his neck and fingers, and compelled him to hold his arm in the way which from that time became a habit with him. At ten years of age he could play passages which his teacher found it impossible to perform; but nothing would come to him by the mechanical process. His genius positively refused to go into the strait–jacket; and when father and teacher coaxed and scolded, the nervous child at last screamed with agony. This untamable freedom was his strongest characteristic. At school the confinement of four walls would sometimes become so oppressive that he would suddenly spring out of the window into God’s sunshine and air. His father often gave him permission to go to the woods of a holiday, and not seldom released him from the Sunday morning service, which was very tedious in the cold, dreary church with its close air, and where he must listen to the singing of the congregation so dreadfully out of tune to his ears. He realized in later years how his father must have sympathized with him in relaxing, as he did, the discipline which was much more strict then than nowadays. An indication that his father was yielding to a recognition of his son’s determination to study music, was the fact that, on his ninth birthday, he presented him Fiorillo’s “Studies,” which he had ordered from Copenhagen. During that year Waldemar Thrane, the violinist, visited Bergen, and Ole played one of the Studies for him.

We have heard from his own lips and from others that he was very fond of composing original melodies, and in these he took especial pains to imitate the voices of nature; the wind in the trees, the rustle of the leaves, the call of birds, the babble of brooks, the roar of waterfalls, and the weird sounds heard among his native mountains.

As a boy he became passionately fond of Lysekloster, a large estate to the south of Bergen, which he visited with his father when he was eight years old. His brothers relate how his glowing descriptions would tempt them to start out with him to take the twenty–mile walk from Bergen to Lysekloster, and how, one after another, they would fall behind, while he would run the whole distance with but one or two stops. Lysekloster is, indeed, one of the most charming spots in all Norway, and to Ole Bull was “the loveliest on earth.” In its noble forests and streams, its broad outlook upon sea and fjords with their many islands, upon mountains and glaciers glittering in the distance, will be found Ole Bull’s weird music transformed into landscape. Lysekloster was the chief delight of his boyhood, his manhood, and his age. A rock, which he climbed when a boy to get a splendid view, is still pointed out by the peasants, who called it at that early day “Ole Bull’s Lookout.”

Ole was exceedingly fond of beautiful cocks, and when eight or nine years old, after he had played in public, while walking home carrying his violin in a gingham bag, he discovered one of the finest specimens he had ever seen, and was so fascinated and bewitched that in watching it he forgot himself, stumbled, and fell into the muddy gutter. But a kind lady had watched the boy with amusement from her window, and came to his rescue. She took him into her house, washed and dried the bag, gave him apples, and sent him home happy, telling him not to let the cock lead him astray again. He adopted later for his crest a cock with the motto, “Bellum vita, vita bellum.”

Ole and his six brothers used to select sea–shells of different tones to blow upon, and under his direction they practiced until they produced some very musical and pleasant effects. At other times he and his brothers Jens and Randulf would improvise songs with accompaniments, taking turns in improvising and accompanying.

The mother took great pains in training her children in manners. They had to go out, rap at the door, and enter the room again and again until they acquired the desired bearing, and this exercise was often repeated. After they were grown up, one of the brothers was about to pay a visit to some friends in town one evening. He had said his “Farvel” and gone through the form of leave–taking, but on reaching the hall, he remembered that he had left something in the sitting–room. With his hat on his head he rushed back to get what he had forgotten; but his mother, who observed him, quietly crossed the room and gave him a box on the ear, saying: “That is the way he must be treated who has forgotten to show due respect to his mother!”

The family spent their summers at Valestrand, a country house about twenty miles east of Bergen, which had long been in the possession of the Bull family. The children always looked eagerly forward to the sojourn there, and there Ole was always very happy. He would seek out the most solitary places, where he could sit and play undisturbed. Occasional solitude was already in his childhood a necessity; so many thoughts and melodies crowded in upon him that he felt a desire to run away from everybody and wander off into the world of fancy, where no human being could disturb his quiet dreams. Soon alarming rumors about ghosts, hobgoblins, trolls, and other supernatural beings went abroad at Valestrand. It was whispered among the peasants that fiddle strains had been heard at most unseasonable hours from the very mountains. The Hulder had come back to take possession of them again. Old half–forgotten stories and traditions were revived and circulated; it was considered no longer safe to go abroad alone. But one of the men ventured at last to investigate the matter more closely. He cautiously approached the place whence the tones proceeded; trembling with fear he came nearer and nearer, and there, way down in the bottom of a “giant’s cauldron,” of which there are many at Valestrand, sat the goblin perfectly concealed playing the weirdest marches and dances on a little violin. The secret was out. There was the little Ole, utterly unconscious of all the excitement and terror he had caused in the neighborhood, and merely provoked that anybody should have discovered his secret chamber so well hidden by the bushes.

At Valestrand he was free, and the impressions he received were very vivid. The atmosphere was filled with music, and in music all he felt or experienced had to be expressed. If he could not make his instrument utter his thoughts to suit him, he would, after patient trials, at last fling it away and be angry with it for many days. He would not even look at it. Then he would perhaps suddenly get up in the middle of the night, seat himself at the open window in his night–dress, and play the strangest airs and melodies. He was frequently scolded for disturbing the peace of the night, but seemed not to hear when he was in this mood. At other times he would play almost incessantly for days together, hardly eating or sleeping in the mean time.

He was a mere boy when he began to study the nature and construction of the violin. Frequently he would take it all to pieces when he was dissatisfied with it, put each part by itself, dry them in the sun, and then put them together again, more or less pleased with the result.

No place could have been better fitted than Valestrand to give a healthful impulse and development to the lads, who scaled the cliffs and mountains, swam the lakes, and sailed their boats on the fjords. They used to pride themselves on living out–of–doors as woodsmen, and would have liked to sleep as well as eat in the woods. Ole led his younger brothers in all their games and sports, except fishing and shooting. He always had an aversion to these pursuits, which could not yield him pleasure enough to compensate for the pain inflicted; and he never overcame this feeling.

With all their activity it was remarkable, the brothers have since said, that they escaped whole–limbed, and sometimes with their lives. When grandmother was questioned once by a friend as to how she could rest when the boys were with her at Valestrand, she answered: “Why, my dear, if we sent nurses after each one, what would their guardian angels have to do?” So for their summer vacation they were given their freedom. The sisters were, of course, kept more at home, but they, too, had a good time in the hay–field, and joined in some of their brothers’ frolics.

The death of a baby sister made a deep impression on Ole, and he told, in one of the last years of his life, how he had stolen into the room where the little one lay so still, but so beautiful, and alone kept watch while his heart seemed breaking. When he grieved he could seldom speak of his sorrow, and he passed through that experience alone, none of the family knowing then, or later, of the watch he had kept with the dead child.

At the age of nine years Ole played the first violin in the orchestra, when his father acted at the theatre; and it may be added that his father was one of the best amateur actors in Bergen, and knew all Holberg’s and Wessel’s dramas by heart.

From 1819 to 1822 Ole received no musical instruction whatever. He had outgrown his former teacher, Paulsen, who, to the astonishment of his friends, suddenly left Bergen. Mr. Goldschmidt says: “This act of his was variously interpreted; I prefer to explain it by an allusion to an old Danish tale of the elf king, who must vanish when a real king enters his dominions.”

In 1822 a Swedish violinist, Lundholm by name and a pupil of Baillot, settled in Bergen. From him Ole now received instruction; but a coldness soon sprang up between pupil and teacher. The latter was very strict, and insisted that no deviations from established rules should be permitted. He made the lad stand erect with his head and back against the wall while playing, and this, no doubt, gave him that repose and grace of bearing so noticeable in later years. But fortunately Mr. Lundholm did not succeed in making Ole hold his violin according to the accepted rule, as the boy would go almost frantic at times when this was attempted; and this independence of study and method developed later into an interesting episode, to be related after a slight digression.

One of his father’s assistants played the flute, and used to receive musical catalogues from Copenhagen. Ole devoured the names, and for the first time saw that of Paganini in connection with his famous twenty–four “Caprices.” One evening his father brought home two Italians, the first Ole had ever seen. He was then fourteen years of age, and their talk was a new revelation to him. They told him all they knew of Paganini, the very mention of whose name excited him. He afterwards related the story to a friend thus:—

I went to my sympathizer and said: “Dear grandmother, can’t I have some of Paganini’s music?” “Don’t tell any one,” said the dear old woman, “but I will try to buy a piece of his for you if you are a good child;” and she did try, and I was wild when I at last had the Paganini music. How difficult it was, but oh, how beautiful! The garden–house was more than ever my refuge, and perhaps the cats, who were still my only listeners, were not so frightened at my attempts as at my earlier efforts to play Fiorillo’s “Studies,” when I really drove them from their food.

On a Tuesday quartette evening, Herr Lundholm played Baillot’s “Caprizzi,” and I was greatly disappointed at the pedantic, phlegmatic manner in which he rendered the passionate passages. A concerto of Spohr’s lay on the leader’s stand, and while the company were at supper I tried the score. Carried away with the music, I forgot myself, and was discovered by Lundholm on his return, and scolded for my presumption.

“What impudence! Perhaps you think you could play this at sight, boy!” “Yes, I think I could.” And as I thought so, I don’t know why I should not have said so—do you? The rest of the company had now joined us, and insisted that I should try it. I played the allegro. All applauded save the leader, who looked angry. “You think you can play anything, then?” he asked, and taking a caprice of Paganini’s from the stand, he said: “Try this.” Now it happened that this very caprice was my favorite, as the cats well knew. I could play it by heart, and I polished it off. When I had finished they all shouted, and, instead of raving, as I thought he would, Lundholm was more polite and kind than he had ever been before, and told me that with practice I might hope to equal himself some day.

About this time Ole’s fiddle brought him his first gift. There lived an old man on the outskirts of the city who passed his life in solitude, occupying a house with a small garden around it. Ole had heard many stories of his miserly and eccentric ways, and magnified them till he felt a fear of him. When he took his walks in the country, he would always run as fast as he could past this lonely house, and he never breathed freely till he was well beyond the garden fence. One day the old man stood at the gate and called to Ole. The boy trembled, but his training made him instinctively greet the stranger with respect, though he would fain have taken to his heels.

“Are you the son of Johan Bull? Are you the boy that plays the fiddle?” “Yes, sir.” “Then come with me,” he said, as he turned and walked up the path to the door. Ole hesitated, but when his companion added, as he looked back and observed that Ole was still at the gate, “I have a fiddle I bought in England that I want to show you,” the boy bounded up the walk; and he soon found that the old man had a kind face, now that he dared to look at him.

The fiddle proved to be in need of bridge and sounding–post, but the boy was happy enough when told that he might whittle out the missing parts. After adjusting these as well as he could and tuning the strings, he tried the old bow, which was much the worse for wear and neglect. His new friend sat by interested, and kept time with his head and foot while Ole played the folk dances and songs. Then he asked the boy if he had ever heard “God save the King.” “Yes, I can play it for you if you like,” said Ole, who soon perceived by the old man’s brightening face and interested nods that he had hit upon his favorite tune. Many times he had to repeat it, and finally, when he improvised two or three variations on the air, his delighted listener made him promise that whenever he passed the house he would come in and play that tune for him. Ole was treated to cakes and milk, and felt himself a distinguished guest.

The following afternoon towards dusk the door–bell rang and a basket was found in the hall. On opening the basket Ole’s mother discovered four pair of doves, all rare and very beautiful. A card attached to a blue ribbon round the neck of one bore Ole’s name. The delighted boy recognized at once the choicest birds of the cote which his friend had shown him the day before, and he told his parents all about his visit. He did not forget his promise, but often went and played “God save the King” for the old man.

Ole’s father wished him to become a clergyman, and thinking that the boy would do better in his studies with a private tutor, who could have an eye to him constantly, engaged a Mr. Musæus (known later as the rector Musæus). This man, it is said, had great abilities, but afterwards, when appointed master of a public school, brought disgrace upon himself by his cruelty. At the slightest offense given by a boy he would summon the school together and, after offering a fervid prayer that the punishment he was about to inflict might benefit the culprit, he would fall on him like a savage. This tutor, declaring Ole’s musical tastes incompatible with his studies, forbade him to play the violin; and thus the boy could only indulge at night in an inclination that now, under this restraint, became a passion.

The boys had long and patiently borne both cross words and blows from Musæus, but at last they ceased to consider patience a virtue. A council of war was held, and they solemnly resolved that when occasion offered they would teach the tyrant a lesson. But this required courage. Ole had developed into an athletic fellow, even more robust than his brothers, and they naturally looked to him as leader in the bold enterprise.

One morning when at half past four their tormentor appeared and dragged out the youngest from his warm bed, Ole sprang upon him with a growl. A violent struggle followed, but Musæus was no match for the lithe and powerful lad. The younger brothers, who had promised to assist, uncovered their heads now and then to cry, “Don’t give up, Ole! Don’t give up! Give it to him with all your might!” In the midst of this excitement the maid came up to make the fire, and with the tongs in one hand and shovel of coals in the other she stood rooted to the spot with astonishment, though at the same time she was evidently not displeased at the schoolmaster’s plight. A moment later the mother came running up the stairs in her green wrapper and with nightcap on her head. She supposed the house had caught fire. But Ole neither heard nor saw anybody, till Musæus, all out of breath, collapsed on the floor and gave up beaten. “That will do now,” said the father, who had just appeared on the scene. Ole expected a storm, but felt a sense of relief when he saw his parents exchange an amused look as they left the room. From that day he felt that he could go to his father with any real grievance, and be listened to. He was more consulted, too, as to his inclination for certain studies and work. All this made him very happy and more desirous than ever of carrying out his father’s wishes.

After having spent three years in study with the private tutor, Ole Bull was sent in August, 1828, to the University in Christiania. His fame preceded him. His originality and the independent control he had gained over his instrument had secured for him a position far above that of the amateur, and his reputation as a remarkable player may be said to have been pretty well established at the capital before he came there to take his Examen Artium.

When restrained by his tutor from playing, Ole resorted to whistling and singing, and he soon found that he could do both at the same time. In this way he studied the laws of harmony. Ere long he was able to whistle and sing and accompany himself on two strings, and later he succeeded in playing on all four strings at once. These studies enabled him at length to combine six different themes at the same time, a sort of fugue study which he always enjoyed.

His father, aware of his passion for music, earnestly entreated him not to yield to it, and Ole’s way to Christiania was paved with the best intentions to obey. But on arriving there he was met by friends—students from Bergen—who invited him to play at a concert to be given that very night, for a charitable purpose. “But,” said Ole, “my father has forbidden me to play.” “Would your father prevent your doing an act of charity?” “Well, this alters the case a little; and I can write to him and claim his pardon.”

The performers at this concert were all dilettanti, and two of them became later ministers of state. The next evening a young professor of the University had a quartette at his home, and Ole, on being pressed to take a part, thought, “Well, my father himself would no doubt wish me to be on a good footing with one of the professors;” and he went. They played all night, until seven o’clock in the morning, and at nine o’clock Ole was to go up for his written examination. Scarcely able to keep his eyes open, he wrote a Latin exercise that could not pass, and according to the severe rules of the University, he was rejected for the year. In the deepest despair he went to his host the professor, who laughingly said: “My good fellow, this is the very best thing that could have happened to you! Do you believe yourself fitted for a curacy in Finmark or a mission among the Laps? certainly not! It is the opinion of your friends that you should travel abroad: meanwhile, old Thrane having been taken ill, you are appointed ad interim musical director of the Philharmonic and Dramatic Societies.” A month later, on the death of Thrane, Ole Bull was regularly installed in these offices, and thus at once attained independence, having gained a somewhat reluctant pardon from his father.

Henrik Wergeland writes:—

It was at this time I first became acquainted with him; a tall, somewhat overgrown, sickly–looking youth, with a splendidly developed bust, but with a nervous irritability of temperament; his open face was very pale, and the large, clear eyes were set deeply under the brow. He liked to talk of what he was going to write, and he actually did compose some bits, mere bagatelles, puffs of smoke, with a few glittering gleams from that fire which flamed behind the clouds. His ideas were as yet crude, but there was creative imagination in them. His plans were as yet forced, but they ran out into picturesque and grandly romantic effects. His state of mind was still chaotic, but it was that kind of chaos from which Schiller sent forth “The Robbers;” that kind of chaos which forebodes a brilliant revelation. He also liked to talk of politics and literature; but he was not always mindful of the talent most persons have for catching the words and dropping the thought. When gainsaid he might become provoked, not from egotism, or pride, or sensitiveness, but simply from the exaltation of his mood and the excitement of the moment.

There was that froth in him which belongs to all good and strong wine, and when others cautiously retired a step or two, I was tempted to throw myself on his neck, for I felt that he was a most modest, unpretentious man, childlike, trusting, and true. As yet, no memory of achieved triumphs had thrown its glare or its shadow about him; he stood there in the pure light of his great and noble hope. He was not, however, at rest in Christiania. His mind was in a state of restless agitation. He was like a balloon straining and tugging to get loose from its moorings and rise into the upper air. At last he determined to go to Cassel, to Louis Spohr. He wanted the verdict of a real master; he wanted the consecration of the true high–priest; and May 18, 1829, he hurried off for the land of promise. But he left behind his violin, and his friends had to send it after him. This may perhaps be explained by the fact that he left Norway when the excitement was at its height concerning the interdiction of the observance of Independence Day, the 17th of May, in which he had taken part.

This seems to be the best point at which to introduce a short sketch of Norwegian history, enough to show the relation which Ole Bull bore to his country and her men in his youth and manhood.

Norway had for four hundred and thirty–eight years, from 1376 to 1814, been united to Denmark; but the example of America and France in the second half of the 18th century had awakened the spirit of independence. During the war between England and Denmark, all communication between Norway and the latter country had been cut off, and the Norsemen were learning to rely on themselves.

The Swedes had, during the time of this union, made repeated attempts to conquer Norway, but without success. When, in 1809, they were compelled to cede Finland to Russia, they again turned to Norway, with a stronger determination than ever for the conquest of that country. This would indemnify them for the loss of Finland, and circumstances seemed to favor their ambition. The old king, Charles XIII., was a mere shadow of power, and the Swedes had chosen Bernadotte, the successful French general, to be the successor of their childless sovereign. England favored the designs of Sweden.

In 1813, Napoleon was beaten by his united opponents, and Karl Johan (Bernadotte) marched with a united Swedish and Russian army against Denmark, to invade Holstein. The Danes fought bravely, but were obliged to surrender. On the 14th of January, 1814, the union between Denmark and Norway was dissolved. The treaty of Kiel, signed on that day, provided that Sweden should have Norway, and in return should assume the payment of a part of the debt of Norway and Denmark. Norway’s old tributaries, Iceland, the Faroes, and Greenland, were to remain subject to Denmark. In accordance with this treaty, King Frederic VI. issued a proclamation to the Norwegians, and released them from the oath of fealty to him.

The Norwegians would not submit to this bargain and sale. There was but one sentiment among the people—the defense of their independence. All Europe was against them, and they were poor and few in numbers; still they dared to make resistance.

In 1814, the Danish Crown Prince, Christian Frederic, had been appointed governor of Norway. He went to Drontheim, intending to have himself proclaimed monarch, by virtue of his inherited right, but he found the sentiment in favor of a free constitution, and some were in favor of proclaiming a republic. Those who did not recognize his claims had already made a draft of a constitution. This was the celebrated Adler–Falsen constitution, from which many important paragraphs were embodied in the present Norse constitution. At Eidsvold, thirty miles north of Christiania, several of Norway’s most prominent men had assembled on the 10th of February to discuss the fate of their country. One of their number, Sverdrup, uncle of the present president of the Storthing, succeeded in convincing the Prince and making him acknowledge that the people had the right to frame their own constitution. Meanwhile, Prince Christian was to govern the country with the title of Prince Regent. A convention of delegates elected by the people was to be called at Eidsvold, for the purpose of preparing the constitution. In a letter dated the 19th of February, 1814, Christian Frederic agreed to this.

A day of fasting and prayer was appointed. The people were instructed in regard to the state of the country in their churches, and they were sworn to defend with their lives and blood the independence of their fatherland. Two men were to be chosen in each parish as delegates to the national convention. All this was carried out.

On the 17th of May, 1814, the constitution was adopted by the convention. It provided that the people should make the laws through their chosen representatives; that the people alone could impose taxes; that the press should be free, and that no hereditary rights should be acknowledged. Prince Christian Frederic was chosen King of Norway.

Karl Johan of Sweden, with thirty thousand men sent him from Russia in recognition of his services against Napoleon, and with the promised help of England, Prussia, and Austria, invaded Norway. Utterly abandoned, opposed by all the powers of Europe, the famished, poverty–stricken country had only its just cause to depend upon for its success. Delegates from Austria, Russia, Prussia, and England arrived in Christiania, and all expressed the desire of their respective governments that Norway should be united with Sweden. This was refused. War was proclaimed on the 30th of June.

A few unimportant battles were fought, and the advantage was on the side of the Norwegians with their small force of twenty thousand men, which could not be increased on account of the scarcity of food.

Karl Johan knew that Sweden was as much in need of peace as Norway; that the union was doubtful; that he would not be able to conquer Norway without help from his allies, who had not yet sent their forces. Should he delay, the monarchs might prefer to put a prince of the true Oldenburg blood on the throne of Norway, and his own position might be weakened by the re–instatement of the old monarchical families after the fall of Napoleon. He determined on a coup d’état. After a two weeks’ war he abandoned his claims under the treaty of Kiel and acknowledged Norway’s right to determine her own future. He suddenly proposed a treaty on the basis of her independence, and agreed to accept the constitution recently adopted at Eidsvold. In the course of a few months a parliament met, accepted the resignation of Christian Frederic, adopted the constitution of Eidsvold, organized the government, and elected Karl Johan king on November 4, 1814.

Norway was thus united to Sweden, and had secured for herself one of the most liberal constitutions in Europe; and the fruit of it was a new life in her industries, her literature, and her art.

With Iceland, Norway had enjoyed a golden literary epoch from the 11th to the middle of the 14th century. It was the epoch of the Eddas and Sagas. During the four centuries of union with Denmark the country had been more or less shrouded in intellectual darkness. The people preserved their ballads, their popular melodies, their folk–lore and legends, but the literary record of the period shows only here and there a name of any note.

In the 18th century, Norway produced several distinguished poets, among whom should be mentioned Holberg, the father of modern Danish literature, who was born in Bergen in 1684; Wessel, Vihe, J. N. Brun, Monrad, Fasting, the brothers Frimann, Zatlitz, Rein, and Edvard Storm. Ole Bull was related to Holberg and Storm. The distinguished naval officer Tordenskjöld was a Norwegian. Many of these men were members of a Norse Society organized at the Copenhagen University, and they, with their love for Norway and faith in her people, may be said to have laid the foundations of her independence. Some of them lived to see this independence accomplished.

With 1814 began a new epoch in the liberty of the country. It was soon demonstrated that the national spirit was not dead. Men appeared who were able to build up the literature, arts, and sciences of the country, and later Ole Bull led the van among the artists, and inspired those who came after him with courage. He convinced not only the outside world, but the Norsemen themselves, that they could foster sons worthy of their old renown.

The indirect influence of Ole Bull’s success upon the art and literature of Norway was very great. The ambition of many a youth was kindled by him, who afterward became widely known as musician, painter, sculptor, or poet.

In 1828, Ole Bull became acquainted with two young men in Christiania who were destined to wield a mighty influence on Norse literature and politics. The one was Johan S. C. Welhaven, born in Bergen in 1807, the other Henrik Arnold Wergeland, born in Christiansand in 1808. Both became very eminent poets, and about 1832 both were leaders of contending parties. Wergeland gave the first poetical expression to the glowing patriotic enthusiasm for liberty and independence. He desired to root out every vestige of Danish influence. Welhaven was the leader of the conservatives, and aimed to build the Norse culture on the basis of the Danish. The discussion, at first limited to the students of the University, soon became a national issue in which every thoughtful man and woman in the land took part.

Wergeland died at the age of thirty–six, but he lived long enough to see his cause victorious, and the fruits of his labors are felt to–day.

In the celebration of Independence Day commemorative of the Norse constitution, Wergeland saw a powerful means of waking the people from their political sleep to a patriotic fervor. He used all his influence to promote the celebration of this day, which was as unpopular as possible with the king. The latter had more than once attempted to bring about changes in the constitution, but the people had been true to it, refusing to amend it even at royal request.

On the 17th of May, 1829, a peaceful gathering of people in the Christiania market–place was attacked and dispersed by a troop of cavalry. Ole Bull was with Wergeland, who was severely wounded by one of the soldiers. This roused the people to preserve and defend their rights. The 17th of May has been celebrated with increasing enthusiasm ever since, and Wergeland’s name is never omitted from the orations of the day.

The day following the battle of the market–place and the first celebration of the 17th of May, Ole Bull, as we have said, left for Cassel to visit Spohr. His reception there was a cold one. “I have come more than five hundred miles to hear you,” Ole Bull said, politely, to which Spohr replied: “Very well, you can now go to Nordhausen; I am to attend a musical festival there.” To Nordhausen he accordingly went, where he heard a quartette by Maurer, performed by the composer himself, Spohr, Wiele, and the eldest of the brothers Müller. He was so overwhelmed with disappointment at the manner in which the composition was played by these four masters—a manner which differed so utterly from his own conception—that he left the concert with the crushing conviction that he was deceived in his aspirations, and had no true calling for music. He determined at once to give up art and to return to his academic studies.

Falling in with some lively Göttingen students, returning from a trip in the Hartz Mountains, he joined them and went to Göttingen. He stayed there some months, and a merry life his violin called forth. The burgomaster of the neighboring town, Münden, heard of the foreign student who played so marvelously well, and asked a friend to bring him with some other musical acquaintances to Münden, to give a concert for the poor. One fine summer morning, accordingly, eight young fellows set out for Münden, four playing in one carriage, four singing in another. In grand state the two carriages drew up before the door of the burgomaster, who in full dress received his guests, and immediately led them to the dinner–table. Ole Bull anxiously observed during the feast how one after another of his assistants dropped off into dreamland. He remonstrated, but was only laughed at; he was in despair, and at last angry. The toasts still kept up: “Long life to the burgomaster—his wife—his daughter—the good city of Münden,” etc., and when, at length, they rose from the board, with shaky knees and dizzy heads, the violinist knew not what to do. No rehearsal was held, and none was possible. The last piece on the programme was to be an improvisation, “The Storm,” in which the student Ziedler was to give the thunder on the piano in accompaniment to the violin; but he was fast losing himself. Ole Bull expostulated with him, and tried to rouse him, but in vain. At last, losing his temper in his despair, he called him Dummer junge (stupid fellow). This, as the reader familiar with the customs of the German students knows, is an offense that blood alone can redress. Ole Bull accepted the challenge which followed, practiced fencing for a week, acted on the suggestion of tiring out his adversary by dexterous parrying, and gave him at last a slight scratch. Then came a grand scene of reconciliation, and eternal friendship was sworn; but the director of the police gave the party a friendly hint to leave the town.[2]

September found Ole Bull again in Norway; and a friend wrote thus of his return:—

Feeling as if the very soil of Europe had repelled him, he returned to Christiania. It was a wet autumn evening, and he went to the theatre, the musical direction of which he had given up. While standing there in a dark corner, he was soon recognized, and it was whispered through the house, “Ole Bull has returned;” then, the whisper rising into a loud cry, the violinist was called to the direction of the orchestra; and on his taking the bâton the audience called for the national anthem, thus welcoming him as with the heart of the nation.

To go to Paris, to hear De Beriot, Baillot, and Berlioz, now became his absorbing plan. In the summer of 1830 he visited Trondhjem and Bergen, and gave three concerts, from which he made five hundred dollars. In August, 1831, he went by sea to Ostend, and thence directly to Paris. Seven years passed before he saw Norway again, but good reports soon came from him, and these grew in number and frequency. When he finally came himself, his reputation was made.

His stay in Paris was a venture which brought him many hardships, but which ended like a fairy–tale in a piece of good fortune. His recommendations from home opened no serviceable doors to him, and to his violin no one seemed willing to listen. A passer–by might stop for a moment and ask, “Who lives here? He plays well.” A grisette might open her window across the street, and look at “le pauvre jeune homme la.” A melancholy acquaintance among the German musicians might sit down before him in unavailing admiration. But no lessons from Baillot, no engagement at the Grand Opéra, and every day the purse growing leaner and leaner. The cholera was raging terribly in Paris during that winter of 1831. The Revolution of the previous July was still a vivid memory, and under the feverish excitement of danger and death the pulse of life beat with double rapidity in the great city. Madame Malibran was singing at the Opéra, and the house was crowded nightly by the enthusiastic Parisians. In the topmost gallery, in one of the cheapest seats, might be seen a tall young man with feverish eyes, drinking in those tones with his whole soul.

He had still sufficient means to carry him through the winter; but an elderly gentleman who lived in the same house, and who, with a shrewd mingling of cordiality and dignity, played the part of a fatherly friend, contrived to win his confidence, and persuaded him that, in the disturbed state of financial affairs, his money was not safe where he had deposited it. He therefore drew it from the bank. The following morning found him robbed of everything but an old suit of clothes, and his paternal friend gone. He was now reduced to extreme want; but an acquaintance, accidentally meeting him, recommended him to Madame Charon, with whom he himself boarded, and who kept a house patronized chiefly by German music teachers and scholars. She offered to receive Ole Bull until he could hear from home, his friend giving security for sixty francs a month, which provided the young man with black bread for breakfast, and, towards evening, with a dinner of two slices of meat, the first course of soup being much like that which made the sailor boy exclaim, “This is very good; I have found one pea!”

As time went on Madame began to look suspicious, and his friend’s manner grew cold. One morning at breakfast, a stranger appeared, who at once attracted his attention. He had black, rough hair, his complexion was olive, his eyes black, large, and penetrating. His expression was cynical, but refined; his conversation cold and ironical; his figure thin and wasted; in short, he looked quite a Mephistopheles. He made a bad impression on young Bull. When told by his friend that the man was a detective, he said that he had suspected as much, which was overheard, and at first made the stranger very angry, but when Ole replied in a calm, manly way his bearing suddenly changed to one of kindly interest in the violinist. “May I trouble you a moment, sir?” Mephistopheles said; “I have something to tell you. Not far from here, in the Rue Vaugirard, is an estaminet where we shall be undisturbed;” and thither they went. It was one of those public houses where the lamp is kept burning all day, and young men, who look as if they had not slept at night, move round the billiard–tables in their shirt–sleeves, pipes in their mouths, and glasses filled with eau de vie on the window–seats and the chimney–pieces.

“Listen,” said the stranger. “I know you are in want; but follow my advice; you must try your luck at play.” “But I have no money.” “You must manage to get five francs; then go to–night, between ten and eleven o’clock, not earlier, to Frascati’s, in the Boulevard Montmartre. Mount the stairs, ring the bell, and give your hat boldly to the liveried servant in attendance; enter the hall, go straight to the table, put your five francs on the red, and let it remain there.”

The young man ran home, raised the five francs, and was on the spot at the appointed hour. He made his way to the green table, surrounded by ladies and gentlemen playing at trente et quarante. He placed his five francs on the red, but through his awkwardness it rolled over to the black, and was lost. He stood as if struck by lightning, without a sous in his pocket. He came to himself on hearing, “Messieurs, faites vos jeux.” He called, “Cinq francs,” but his foreign accent made it sound like “Cent francs,” and one hundred francs were shoved over to him as his winnings. He stands pale for a moment, unable to speak or move; then places his money on the red, and wins once, again, and yet again, until, at last, eight hundred francs in gold lie in a heap before him. “I was in a fever,” he said, when relating the adventure later; “I acted as if possessed by a spirit not my own. No one can understand my feelings who has not been so tried, left alone in the world, as if on the extreme verge of existence, with the abyss yawning beneath, and at the same time feeling something within that might merit a saving hand at the last moment.” Suddenly, from amid the crowd surrounding the table, a delicate hand, gleaming with diamonds, glided over the golden pile; but the iron hand of the Norwegian grasped the little white one. A woman’s shriek was heard; several voices called out, “À la porte! à la porte!” But a man near Ole Bull, in a calm, clear voice that seemed to command all in the room, said: “Madame, leave this gold alone;” and to Bull: “Monsieur, take your money, if you please.” It was his strange friend, who, as he afterwards learned, was none other than Vidocq, the famous Parisian chief of police. All give way, the lady turns pale, and Ole Bull mechanically seizes the gold, but, riveted to the spot, sees red winning till the end of the taille. Had he had the courage, and left his money there, he would that very night have won a small fortune. Meanwhile, he had the eight hundred francs in his pocket; but it was only on reaching his room and drawing them out, and hearing the metallic clink and seeing the glitter, that he convinced himself he was not dreaming. “What a hideous joy I felt,” he said; “what a horrid pleasure to hold in the hand one’s own soul saved by the spoil of others!” Singularly enough, he never saw Vidocq again. He soon learned that a man could not be true to his art or himself who yielded to the insane excitement of the then polite recreation of gambling.

The artist’s note–book, written in pencil, tells us that a house to which he removed through the aid of the Swedish ambassador, Count Lovenhjelm, was soon after invaded by cholera, which was then epidemic in Paris, and that he walked the deserted streets many a night, listening to the moans of the dying in the infected houses, hastening his steps past doors which opened for the egress of those bearing the dead.

He was again reduced to want and almost hopeless. The waters of the Seine had an alluring sound as they murmured between the stone piers of the bridges, while the noise and glare of the Parisian streets, muffled or diminished by the influence of the pest, seemed to him peculiarly repulsive and disheartening. The idea of suicide, however, it was easy to keep down; but how subdue the fever which, from the despair of the moment and the natural excitement of his nervous system, began to affect his brain?

One day, while roving about the streets, he stopped in front of No. 19 Rue des Martyrs. He could go no farther; he was exhausted. The house seemed to look kindly on him, and on a little ticket in one of the windows he read: “Furnished rooms to let.” The porter insisted that it was a mistake, but remembered, at last, that on the second floor lived an old lady who had recently lost her son, and who, perhaps, might have a vacant room. The young man ascended the stairs, rang the bell, and was received by an elderly and motherly–looking gentlewoman. But, no! there was no vacant room. “Grandmamma, look at him!” cried a young girl. The old lady put on her glasses, and as she looked at Ole Bull the tears filled her eyes; he resembled so strikingly the son she had just lost. He meantime stood with a questioning gaze. At last she said: “Very well, Monsieur, if you please, return to–morrow at noon” (à midi). “Oui, Madame, à douze heures.” A peal of laughter from the young girl greeted his reply, which only a foreigner would have made. This beautiful maiden was Alexandrine Félicie Villeminot, an orphan. She afterwards became the wife of Ole Bull.

The following day found him established in Madame Villeminot’s house. He was almost immediately attacked by brain fever. On regaining his consciousness he found the old lady sitting by his bedside, and her first words were of hope and encouragement. She assured him that he need not worry about his means of payment, and he felt the soothing influence of motherly care and affection.

He was attended by Dr. Dufours, a celebrated physician and an intimate friend of Thiers. His name occurs frequently in Ole Bull’s letters, for he was the friend and adviser of himself and his family for many years.

Shortly after the young man’s recovery, his friends in Christiania, learning of his misfortunes, sent him three thousand francs from the Musical Lyceum in that city. Matters now began to mend.

Paganini came to Paris the winter of 1831, and was heard for the first time by the young Norwegian, whose notes show how carefully he studied him.

About this time he tried again for a place in the orchestra of the Opéra Comique, but in vain. Applicants for the position were obliged to compete, and were given a piece of music to play at sight. To Ole Bull the piece selected seemed so simple that, in the arrogance of youth, he asked at which end he should begin. This offense caused him to be rejected without a hearing.

One day as he was examining an instrument at a dealer’s, he made the acquaintance of one Monsieur Lacour, who assured him that he had discovered a certain varnish by the use of which an ordinary violin would gain the sweetness and quality of a Cremona instrument. Ole Bull found that violins thus treated had really a fine tone, while Monsieur Lacour, on his side, amazed at the young man’s power, felt that he had come across the right man to give his instruments a reputation. He arranged with him to play on one of them at a soirée to be given by the Duke of Riario, Italian chargé d’affaires in Paris. There he met a very numerous and elegant company. He instinctively felt that Fortune was in the room, if he could but catch her. But, because of the intense heat, that mysterious varnish which Monsieur Lacour applied to his violins gave forth such an intolerable smell from the assafœtida it contained that he became first embarrassed, then excited, furious, wild,—and in this state he played. When he had finished and awakened as from a bad dream, Fortune stood before him with smiles, compliments, congratulations, and, as is not always her wont, with more substantial rewards.

The Duke of Montebello, Marshal Ney’s son, invited him to breakfast the next day, and shortly after, April 18, 1832, he gave his first concert under the duke’s patronage in the German Stoeppel’s Hall, Rue Neuve des Augustins, with the assistance of Ernst, Chopin, and other great artists. His share of the proceeds was fourteen hundred francs. He came to know Chopin intimately, and they played often together in public and private. George Sand, in her Malgrétout, has given a charming account of the effect of Ole Bull’s playing at that period of his life.

As the Grand Opéra was still closed to him, he soon made a concert tour through Switzerland and Italy. His first concert at Lausanne was a great success, and he assisted at a religious festival in Morges on Lake Geneva. From there he went to Milan, where he gave a concert in the Scala Theatre which brought him both money and fame. A few days afterwards he saw in one of the Milan journals a very severe criticism upon his playing. What struck him, however, was not so much its severity as its truth. It was to this effect:—

Monsieur Bull played compositions by Spohr, Mayseder, and Paganini without understanding the true character of the music, which he marred by adding something of his own. It is quite obvious, that what he adds comes from genuine and original talent, from his own musical individuality; but he is not master of himself; he has no style; he is an untrained musician. If he be a diamond, he is certainly in the rough and unpolished.

The artist went to the publisher and asked who had written the criticism. “If you want the responsible person, I am he,” was the answer. “No,” said the musician, “I have not come to call the writer to account, but to thank him. The man who wrote that article understands music; but it is not enough to tell me my faults, he must tell me how to rid myself of them.” “You have the spirit of a true artist,” replied the journalist. “It is a singing–master to whom I shall introduce you. It is in the art of song that you will find the key to the beauties of music in general, and the hidden capacities of the violin in particular; for the violin most resembles the human voice.” The same evening he took Ole Bull to one of the most famous of the repetitore, a man over seventy years of age, who knew the traditions of the great masters and artists. Ole Bull used to say that never in his life had he been so impressed as by this old singer whose voice was broken. He found in his delivery and style the clue to the power which he had admired in the great artists. Now to him also was the secret revealed. He at once became a pupil, devoting himself to continuous study and practice for six months under the guidance of able masters, throwing his whole heart and soul into his work.

From this ardent study, assisted by eminent teachers of Italian song, came his command of melody, which enabled him to reproduce with their true native character the most delicate and varied modifications of foreign music that he met with—Italian, Spanish, Irish, Arabian, Hungarian, as well as the national songs of his own country. But the chief result of these studies was, that he found himself; he learned to know the nature and limits of his own talent, and was able to give form to his musical feelings.

In a letter to a friend, at this time, he mentions a kind of vision which he had. Worn out and exhausted by the difficulties which he met in the work of a new composition, his “Concerto in A major,” his father seemed suddenly to stand before him as he was playing, and to speak, with his eyes rather than his lips, this warning: “The more you overwork the more wretched you make yourself; and the more wretched you are the harder you will have to struggle.” Ever afterwards he avoided over–practice, lest it should deaden the finer sensibilities which must be relied upon for inspiration.

In studying Italian music, he discovered how great was his need of schooling; but he found, too, that the rules taught for playing the violin were not sufficient to help him in developing the capacity of the instrument. He therefore kept up, at the same time, a course of independent study. Here again we may quote from Mr. Goldschmidt, who says of his studies at that time:—

We will endeavor to give an exposition of the musical principles upon which he acted, and of the means by which he strove to bring them into practice. What was his aim, and how did he endeavor to reach it? We have heard of his marvelous dexterity, of wonderful “tricks” he displayed on his violin, and of “stupendous effects” which he produced,—and the question arises, Were these tricks and effects the end, as some have fancied, or were they the means to an end? I answer, they were the means to an end, and this end was to reproduce the Hulder. You will ask me to give you an idea of what the Hulder is, not only as a popular fancy, but as a poetic symbol. In trying to do so, let me remind you that from the mountains, forests, and valleys of the North proceeded that race which has conquered half the world; from whose love, devotion, and aspirations chivalry sprang into existence under a more Southern sky; their yearning souls and powerful hands produced the wonders of Gothic architecture; their blood throbs in the veins of your proudest aristocracy; whilst the stern tribe, remaining at home, struggling against a severe climate, against the wild beasts of the forest, and in internal feuds among themselves, had no other organs for their longings, hopes, aspirations, triumphs, and woes, than song and music. As future purple–clad kings and emperors were hidden in the “Odelsbonde,”[3] who sent out his sons as “Vikings,” so an unspeakable majesty and delicacy is hidden in the simplicity of Northern strains. But there is more. Amid the subdued yet intense feeling of the glory and dignity of man, suddenly enters the foreboding of death: there is almost always beneath the highest mirth an under–current of melancholy,—the pictures are golden, on a black ground. But, at the same time, the foreboding of death augments the feeling of life. The waters, the trees, the mountains, live a life of their own, tempting you with the sweetest, the most potent and secret powers of nature, or crushing you with their colossal strength; no blind powers, no mere creations of superstitious terror, but always animated by a higher spirit, as behooves the fairy beings created by a big–brained race. And, amid all these sounds, terrible or mysterious, is heard the innocent bell–shaped flower, accompanied by the grass of the meadow. This may give you a faint idea of the Hulder—the spirit of the North. Southern music generally consists of sounds that please the ear, whilst Northern music strives to tell you secret tales of your own soul.

It was the Hulder which Ole Bull would reproduce on the violin; but when he came to feel what really moved itself within him—what musical soul it was that craved for a body, a frame, a voice—the violin put into his hand and the received rules for its use were but ill–fitted to assist him in solving the problem. Therefore, descending from the heights of enthusiasm, he began to study the rudiments, and, first of all, the principle on which the old violins—the old master–makers’ violins—were constructed. It has been said that those violins owe their excellence to their age alone. Why is it, then, that the Cremonese instruments are almost human in their temper and character of tone, while contemporary instruments from the Tyrol, etc., are now worth nothing? Whether the Italian masters worked with unconscious ingenuity, or acted upon the principles well known to their great musical epoch, certain it is that their violins, like the buried soul of the legend, challenge a searching question for the betrayal of their secret.

At the end of his six months’ study he went from Milan to Venice where his performances created an excitement, and he was made a member of the Philharmonic Society. There and in Trieste his improvisations awakened the liveliest interest, and the extremely enthusiastic criticisms of Dr. Jael made his name known in Vienna. But he could not then visit that city, as his thoughts and longings turned toward the South. He went first to Bologna, where, in the most extraordinary way, he won the great celebrity which followed him ever afterwards, by one of those happenings in human life, stranger than those which fancy creates, and making visible, as it were, the hand of Providence. It was from Bologna that his friends at home first received the news of his triumphs.

Bologna was, at that time, reputed the most musical city in Italy; and its Philharmonic Society, under the direction of the Marquis Zampieri, was recognized as one of the greatest authorities in the musical world. Madame Malibran had been engaged by the directors of the theatre for a series of nights; but she had made a condition which compelled them to give the use of the theatre without charge to De Beriot, with whom she was to appear in two concerts. Zampieri seized the opportunity of persuading these artists to appear in a Philharmonic concert. All was arranged and announced, when, by chance, Malibran heard that De Beriot was to receive in recognition of his services a smaller sum than had been stipulated for herself. Piqued at this, she sent word that she could not appear on account of indisposition, and De Beriot himself declared that he was suffering from a sprained thumb.

Ole Bull had now been a fortnight in Bologna. He occupied an upper room in a poor hotel, a sort of soldiers’ barracks, where he had been obliged to take temporary refuge, because of the neglect of a friend to send him a money–order. Secluded from society, he spent the days in writing on his concerto; and when evening came, and the wonderful tones of his violin sounded from the open windows, the people would assemble in the street below to listen. One evening the celebrated Colbran (Rossini’s first wife, and a native of Bologna) was passing Casa Soldati and heard those strains. She paused. The sounds seemed to come from an instrument she had never heard before. “It must be a violin,” she said, “but a divine one, which will be a substitute for De Beriot and Malibran. I must go and tell Zampieri.”

On the night of the concert, Ole Bull, having retired very early on account of weariness, had already been in bed two hours, when he was roused by a rap on the door, and the exclamation, “Cospetto di Bacco! What stairs!” It was Zampieri, the most eminent musician of the Italian nobility, a man known from Mont Cenis to Cape Spartivento. He asks Ole Bull to improvise for him; and then cries, “Malibran may now have her headaches!” He must off to the theatre at once with the young artist. There is no time even for change of dress, and the violinist is hurried before a disappointed but most distinguished audience. The Grand Duke of Tuscany was there, and De Beriot with his hand in a sling. It seemed to Ole Bull that he had been transported by magic, and at first that he could not meet the cold, critical exactions of the people before him; for he knew his appearance was against him, and his weariness had almost unnerved him. He chose his own composition, and the very desperation of the moment, which compelled him to shut his eyes and forget his surroundings, made him play with an abandon, an ecstasy of feeling, which charmed and captivated his audience. As the curtain fell and he almost swooned from exhaustion, the house shook with reiterated applause.

When, after taking food and wine, he appeared with renewed strength and courage, he asked three ladies, whose cold, critical manner had chilled him on his first entrance, for themes to improvise upon. The wife of Prince Poniatowsky gave him one from “Norma,” and the ladies at her side, one each from the “Siege of Corinth” and “Romeo and Juliet.” His improvisation, in which it occurred to him to unite all these melodies, renewed the excitement. The final piece was to be a violin solo. The director was doubtful of Ole Bull’s strength, but he stepped forth firmly, saying, “I will play! oh, you must let me play!” and again the same unrestrained enthusiasm followed. When he finished there was a rain of flowers, and he was congratulated by Zampieri, De Beriot, and the principal musicians present. He was at once engaged for the following concert, and the assistance of the society was offered for a concert of his own. One gentleman asked for sixty tickets, another for one hundred, and Emile Loup, the owner of a large theatre in Bologna, offered him his house and orchestra free of expense.

The wheel of fortune was turning in his favor; the Norns were now weaving bright threads in the web of his life. He played at both concerts, was accompanied to his hotel by a torch–light procession, made honorary member of the Philharmonic Society, and his carriage drawn home by the populace. This was Ole Bull’s real début.

Malibran was at first angry, and would neither see nor hear him. He had superseded the man she loved, and she possibly suspected some intrigue. At last she allowed him to be introduced, and civilly asked him to play something. After the first tones the blood rushed to her face, and when he had finished she exclaimed: “Signor Ole Bull, it is indeed your own fault that I did not treat you as you deserved. A man like you should step forth with head erect in the full light of day, that we may recognize his noble blood.” From that time she had for him not only a friendly but an affectionate interest. Another day when he was playing at her house, she said: “He has a much sweeter tone than you, De Beriot.” The latter thought that the superiority lay in the instrument, but failed on trial to satisfy her of this.

One night at the opera Ole Bull, who was standing at the side of the stage, was so completely overcome by the dramatic power and the glorious voice of the great artist, that, unconsciously to himself, the tears were streaming down his face. Suddenly Malibran caught sight of him, turned for a moment from the audience, and without interruption perceptible to them made a most absurd grimace. The discovery of her entire self–control while she moved others to the utmost was a disappointment which he could not afterward disguise, but she laughingly excused it by saying: “It would not do for both of us to blubber;” and when he thought what a comic sight his face must have been he could not help joining in the laugh.

Another evening, having invited him to supper after the performance, Malibran insisted on hurrying him off in her carriage, and, running up the stairs to her rooms before him, she threw over him as he entered a large cape, tied on his head an old–fashioned bonnet, and, pulling down a veil over his face, pushed him into a chair in the corner behind the table just as the rest of the party were heard outside. Putting her finger to her lips to warn him to be silent, she introduced each guest in turn to her “aunt just arrived from the country;” but after they had taken seats at the table a few cuts with her riding–whip sent bonnet and cape flying from the head and shoulders of her respectable relative.

Among the strangers who came to Bologna to attend Ole Bull’s concerts was Prince Carlo Poniatowsky, who invited the artist to visit Florence; and on the 2d of May, 1834, he gave a concert there in the Cocomero Theatre. His “Concerto in A major,” made the same sensation as in Bologna. He used to say that from that concert in Florence dated his confidence in his own powers.

He gave two more concerts there assisted by such artists as Duprez and Madame Ronzi de Begnis. At this time he composed his “Quartetto a Violino Solo,” and his “Adagio Religioso: Preghiera d’una Madre,” written for the friars of Santa Maria Novello at Florence. The circumstances attending its composition are pleasantly told by Mrs. Child.

The monks wanted some new music for their church. Ole Bull had promised it, but neglected from day to day to write it. At last, they waited upon him early in the morning, and told him it must be ready for rehearsal the next day. “I was in bed when they came,” said he; “I had been up all night with the moon, sympathizing with her. I had thought of Norway, of home, of many sad things. I said to the Dominicans that they should have the music the next morning. I took my violin, and it sang to me so sweetly the thoughts of the night! I wrote down its voice, and as this brought before me the image of a mother kneeling at the altar, entreating for her child, I called it ‘The Mother’s Prayer.’ The Dominicans complained that it was too plaintive. They said that they already had so much sad, solemn music, they wanted something cheerful. So I composed something in a more lively strain for them.” This was the motive to the “Polacca Guerriera,” which had occurred to him while looking at Vesuvius, and which he now wrote out for the monks on the spot, giving it an introduction and accompaniment for the organ.

These friars became very warmly attached to him, and tried hard to persuade him to join their fraternity. “A tame finale,” as Mrs. Child remarks, “this would have been to the life opera which began with swinging to the winds in the tops of Norwegian pines.”

During the hot months he retired to Pierro a Silve, a small village hanging high in the clefts of the Apennines. He carried a letter from the prior of Santa Maria to the prior of the cloister there. While in this mountain retreat he composed a trio, and wrote a “Grammar of the Violin” for his own use.

In the course of that season, he visited the famous baths of Lucca. Prince Poniatowsky was there, as also the Duke of Tuscany, the Duke of Lucca, and the Queen Dowager of Naples. Malibran, De Beriot, and Döhler, the pianist, had come all the way from Sinigaglia to hear him. The morning before the concert he was to play at the Duke of Lucca’s. After the introduction by the piano had been played, a buzz of conversation was kept up, in which the Queen Dowager was taking a prominent part. Döhler whispered to Ole Bull not to mind it, and begin his solo; but he quietly placed his violin under his arm in the attitude of waiting. The duke stepped forward and asked if he desired anything. “I am quite ready, your Grace, but fear to interrupt the conversation. The Queen Dowager has probably something of importance to impart, and I would not disturb her.” Saying he would speak to her, the duke crossed the room, and, after a whispered sentence, she lifted her eyeglass to scan the spirited young artist; but he was not again annoyed by conversation. The next morning, Ole Bull met on the promenade Mr. Schmucker, one of the gentlemen in attendance on the Queen. He said he had come from her Majesty, who desired to see him, and proposed that he should immediately present him. The Queen opened the conversation by remarking that she supposed they had a great many bears in Norway, to which Ole Bull replied that he had himself had the good fortune to be nursed by one, and that he should always hold in grateful remembrance its tender devotion to him. “But why,” she asked, “would you not play last evening?” “I did not wish to disturb your Majesty’s conversation.” “Oh! I understood that you were offended; but you must overcome that sensitiveness. In Neapolitan society, conversation always goes on during music.” “I should not think of visiting a city so barbarous, where music is considered a mere recreation to lighten the tedium of more important occupations, your Majesty.” “But you must come! I sent for you to ask you, and I assure you that you shall have none but silent listeners, for you deserve them.” The Queen continued to show her kindly interest, giving him most valuable letters of introduction, and she often used her influence in his behalf, as he found out later.

By way of Pisa, Leghorn, and Lucca,—where he once more met with Prince Poniatowsky,—he went in the autumn to Naples. The Neapolitans, like the Bolognese, were reputed for their highly cultivated musical taste; but in Naples it was vocal music which was especially appreciated, and the city, when Ole Bull arrived, was ringing with shouts and plaudits for Madame Malibran. He waited for the conclusion of her engagement, and then played in the Theatre of San Carlo. After he had finished his “Quartetto a Violino Solo,” and the audience were wild with enthusiasm, De Beriot exclaimed: “What sorcery must a violin possess to electrify the Neapolitans!” As Ole Bull left the stage after the last piece, De Beriot met him, and asked that he would wait until Malibran could come to him; he of course rushed to her box, where she received him with open arms, embracing him amid the plaudits of the vast audience.

He gave several concerts in Naples, but during his stay he met with a sad loss. His Santo Seraphino, his dear violin, which he had used in his first concert at Paris, which Chopin had helped him to procure, and with which he had won his first laurels, was stolen from him. He saw it again, many years later, in Moscow, in the possession of a Russian nobleman, to whom he told its history. To take its place, he bought in Naples a Nicholas Amati.

February 5, 1835, Ole Bull went to Rome. He led a merry life among the artists there during the Carnival. Several of these were Northmen, among whom were the Norse landscape artist, Fearnley, “the best fellow in the world,” and Thorwaldsen. It was at this time that Ole Bull completed his “Polacca Guerriera.” The circumstances of its composition are given as told by Mrs. Child.

The “Polacca Guerriera” was first conceived at Naples, alone at midnight, gazing on Mount Vesuvius flaming through the darkness. He went to Rome soon after, and carried the vague conception in his mind, intending to arrange it there, and bring it out at his last concert. At Rome, he shared the apartment of a talented young artist, who became warmly attached to him. The intimate relation between music and painting was a favorite theme with this young man, and, to the musician, the sounds of an orchestra had always suggested colors. When he slept late in the morning, the artist would often rouse him by saying, “Come, Ole, get up and play to me! I can’t paint unless you play to me.” Being urged and urged, he would at last shake off his drowsiness, and, half dressed, begin to play. The violin would soon absorb him, till an exclamation from the painter broke in upon his reverie: “Ah, dear Ole, give me that once more, it is such a brilliant red!” or, “Play that again, dear Ole, it is such a heavenly blue!”

Thorwaldsen, who was then at Rome, loved Ole Bull with most devoted affection, and delighted in his genius. These friends, of course, felt a deep interest in his success. From day to day they would ask whether he had done any thing toward completing the Polacca. His answer always was, “No, but I shall do it.” As the time for the concert drew nigh, they remonstrated against such dangerous delay. “How can you be so careless of your fame, Ole?” said Thorwaldsen; “do try to have this new piece done in season; if not for your own sake, at least for mine; for, independent of my affection for you, you know I claim you as a countryman, and my pride of country is at stake.”[4]

The concert was advertised, and the Polacca was in the programme; still it had no existence, except in the musician’s soul. “Have you written that music?” said Thorwaldsen. “Are you crazy?” inquired the painter. But he would throw his arms around them, and laugh and jest, as if his musical reputation concerned everybody more than it did himself. The day before the concert his friends were in despair when they saw him prepare to go out after breakfast. “Have you written any of that music?” said they, entreatingly. “No, my dear friends, but I have it all here,” replied he, playfully touching his forehead. They urged that the concert was to be the next day, and that the piece must be rehearsed. “I will do it this evening,” said he. “You are an imprudent man,” they replied; “the public of Rome will not bear such treatment even from a favorite like yourself; you will make a complete failure.” He laughed, and coaxed them caressingly not to be troubled on his account. The evening was far spent when he returned. The artist, in anxious tones, asked, “Dear Ole, have you done anything about that music?” “No, I have not had time.” “Well, do set about it this moment.” “Oh, I cannot; I am so tired that I must go directly to bed.” In vain the artist remonstrated and entreated. A spirit of mischief had taken possession of the wayward minstrel. He plunged into bed, and soon pretended to be sound asleep. The young man had the habit of talking to himself; and as he listened to the bass solo of the counterfeit sleeper, he muttered, “How can he go to sleep with nothing done about that music? It is more than I can comprehend. I wish I could feel as easy about it as he does.” He retired to rest early, and as soon as he was fairly asleep, Ole sprang out of bed, lighted a candle, and stepped softly into an adjoining room, where he began to write down his music with prestissimo speed. The outline had long been in his mind, and new thoughts for the filling up came with a rush of inspiration. He wrote as fast as the pen could fly. At four o’clock the score for all the orchestral parts was written out. For his violin part he trusted entirely to his own wonderful memory. Having arranged all, he crept quietly back into bed. The artist, who was an early riser, soon began to stir. Ole breathed sonorously, as if he were in a deep sleep. “Still asleep!” murmured his friend: “as quietly as if the music were all ready for the orchestra. I wish we were safely through this evening.” It was not long before his anxiety took a more active form. He began to shake the sleeper, saying, “Ole, do wake up, and try to do something about that music.” But he obtained only the drowsy answer, “Oh I cannot, I am so very sleepy.” Vexed and discouraged, the painter went to his easel, and said no more. At breakfast, Ole was full of fun and frolic; but Thorwaldsen and the artist were somewhat impatient with what they deemed such thoughtless trifling with public expectation. “You will come to my concert to–night, will you not?” said the mischievous musician. In dismal tones, they replied, “No, Ole, we love you too well to witness your disgrace. Take it as lightly as you please; but you may be assured the public of Rome will not bear such treatment.” “Oh, do come,” pleaded the musician coaxingly, “just a little, little within the door; and then when I am disgraced, you can easily slip away.” They would not promise, however, and he hurried off to keep his appointment with the orchestra. He had an excellent band of musicians, who could play the most difficult music with the slightest preparation. The rehearsal went off to his complete satisfaction, and he returned to his friends as gay as a lark. His apparent recklessness made them still more sad. The dreaded evening came. The house was crowded. Ole was full of that joyful confidence which genius is so apt to feel in effusions that have just burst freshly from its overflowing fountain. The orchestra delighted in the composition and played it with their hearts. The brilliancy of the theme and the uncommon beauty of the cantabile took the audience by surprise. The novelty and marvelous difficulty of the finale, in which the violin alone performs four distinct parts and keeps up a continuous shake through fifteen bars, completely electrified them. There was a perfect tempest of applause. In the midst of his triumph, the composer, looking as quiet and demure as possible, glanced toward the door. There stood Thorwaldsen and the artist. The latter had a trick of moving tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other when he was excited and pleased. It was now flying from cheek to cheek almost as rapidly as the violin bow through the continuous shake of fifteen bars.

The moment he left the stage his friends rushed into his arms, exclaiming, “When on earth did you do it? Only tell us that. Oh, it was too beautiful!” “Don’t be so gay, my dear friends,” replied he, with mock gravity; “you know the public of Rome won’t bear such trifling. Why did you come to witness my disgrace?”

The next day all Rome was ringing with praises of the Norwegian violinist. They knew not which to applaud most, his genius or his superhuman strength in performing the four distinct parts on the violin at once, and keeping up the motion of his bow with such lightning swiftness, for so long a time. No person who has not tried it can conceive of the extreme difficulty of playing at once distinct parts on each of the strings. It requires muscles strong as iron, and elastic as india–rubber. Paganini had sufficient elasticity, but not sufficient strength. Ole Bull is the only man in the world that ever did it. When the Parisians first heard him produce this wonderful effect of four violins, it seemed so incredible, that a story was circulated that it was all a deception; that some other musician was playing two of the parts behind the scenes. Thus originated the charge of “charlatanry,” so often and so unjustly repeated.

The Polacca brought its composer a brilliant reputation at once; and musical critics were obliged to content themselves with saying that it was not written in the right measure for a Polacca.

In May he went from Rome directly to Paris. The doors of the Grand Opéra were now open to him, and he gave several concerts there, making some provincial tours in the intervals. From his second appearance at the Grand Opéra dates Jules Janin’s criticism written for the Journal des Débats. Wergeland says:—

In spite of the half ludicrous self–assertion of its author, and the unnecessary prominence given to his own personality, it is a very happy piece of art criticism. Jules Janin had a wonderful power of making other people see, hear, and feel as he saw, heard, and felt. His opinions became the opinions of the world. As if with a wizard’s wand, he made a fame, and it was only when he tried to unmake one that his own vulnerable points were exposed. In the present case, he hit most happily upon just those features in Ole Bull’s genius and character, which were sure to win sympathy—the simplicity, the brightness, the sweet innocence, which in his music suddenly rises from the chaos of tumultuous passion, and the naïveté, generosity, and warm devotion, which in his personal intercourse with men were so singularly blended with his fierce hatred of all intrigue and malice.

In Norway we read this criticism with great delight. It was the legal rite duly performed. The last anxiety disappeared. Ole Bull was now in the eyes of all the world the great genius, the perfect artist.

Jules Janin’s criticism (which would only be marred by translation) was as follows:[5]—

M. OLE B. BULL.

Ce jeune sauvage, qui nous est venu l’an passé des glaces de la Norwège, son Stradivarius à la main, s’est fait entendre pour la seconde fois à l’opéra, lundi passé. C’est tout à fait le grand musicien que je vous avais prédit il y a six mois. Il y a tant de larmes et tant de mélancolie dans ce noble instrument! Il y a tant d’énergie et de vigeur et tant de grace sous cet archet de fer! Il chante, il pleure, il se passionne; tantôt il élève la voix au dessus des cors et des trombones; tantôt il soupire si doucement qu’on dirait une harpe éolienne! C’est un musicien qui n’a pas eu de maitre. C’est un violon qui n’appartient à aucune école. C’est quelque chose de naïf et d’inspiré et d’une puissance incroyable. On a beaucoup parlé de M. Paganini et de sa quatrième corde. Ils s’étaient fait annoncer, l’une portant l’autre, par toutes les voix de la renommée. Ils étaient venus, la quatrième corde tendue outre mesure, et celui qui en devait jouer, aussi mal peigné qu’on peut l’être quand on le fait exprès. Eh bien! je ne sais pas, si le succès de M. Bull, le Norwégien, n’eût pas été aussi grand que le succès de l’Italien et de sa quatrième corde, s’il avait pris soin de s’entourer du puissant charlatanisme de son confrère. Mais, que voulez vous? La Norwège est une bonne fille bien simple et bien honnête, qui ne met pas de fard. Elle arrive tout simplement et jette au dehors naturellement et sans efforts tout ce qu’elle a dans l’âme et dans le cœur! M. Ole B. Bull est un de ces artistes pleins d’ignorance, de naïveté, et de bonne foi, qui ne demandent pas mieux que de s’abandonner à leur belle et bonne nature en plein jour, en plein air et en toute liberté. C’est un honnête jeune homme sans charlatanisme, qui ignore le grand art Italien de préparer un succès de longue main. Depuis le premier jour ou je l’entendis à l’opéra, en toute admiration, je l’avoue, le hasard me l’a fait entendre souvent çà et là, sur toutes les grandes routes et sur tous les théâtres de province, et toujours cependant j’ai retrouvé le même talent, la même inspiration passionée et le même enthousiasme naïf et plein de cœur. Un jour dans une auberge de Rouen, j’ai été réveillé par un adagio melancolique et tendre, c’était le violon d’Ole Bull. Une autre fois dans un cabaret de grande route un plaintif andante m’est venu surprendre, assis au–devant de la porte, sous le bouchon qui servait d’en–seigne, c’était un andante de mon violon favori. Il a été toute ma providence poétique. L’été passé, dans cette ennuyeuse ville de Dieppe, pleine d’Anglais ennuyés et d’Anglaises d’antichambre couvertes d’un voile vert, Ole Bull m’a consolé de la mer de Dieppe, cette horrible mer qui rend malades les gens bien portants. Même je le vois encore, accompagné d’une façon si burlesque par la société dite philharmonique de cette honnête ville, à ce point, que Meyerbeer qui était là, ne pouvant supporter plus longtemps cet accompagnement barbare, est allé se jeter dans la mer en tenant ses oreilles à deux mains.

J’ai donc conservé un tendre souvenir pour ce grand artiste que j’ai trouvé ainsi sur ma route, pour en charmer les ennuis. Ce n’est pas celui–là qui s’enfermerait dans sa chambre comme un voleur, pour tirer de son violon les plus doux accords; au contraire, il jetait sa pensée à qui voulait l’entendre, comme on jette sa petite monnaie aux pauvres du chemin; ce n’est pas celui–là qui mettrait à son violon une avare sourdine; au contraire, il n’était jamais plus joyeux que lorsqu’il y avait foule autour de lui pour l’entendre, pour l’applaudir et pour pleurer gratis; aussi a–t–il recueillé partout sur son passage, sinon beaucoup d’or, du moins d’honorables sympathies. Les Anglais vagabonds n’ont pas été à son concert, mais les jeunes gens y sont venus, et les plus pauvres, car c’était ce pauvre musicien lui–même qui ouvrait sa porte et qui disait; entrez! sans exiger qu’on prit son billet à la porte. Voilà comment il faut soutenir la dignité de l’instrument que vous a departi le ciel. Il faut savoir donner quelques leçons de générosité à ces villes égoistes de la province qui ne savent pas que c’est un devoir pour elles d’encourager un grand musicien qui passe. Il faut savoir donner pour rien les nobles plaisirs que la foule ne sait pas acheter; on revient pauvre, il est vrai, de ces parages, mais qu’importe, puisqu’on revient honoré et honorable? On n’a pas le revenu et les sept millions de Paganini; mais qu’importe? M. Baillot à votre retour vous tend la main et vous dit: Mon frère! Et puis n’est ce donc rien que d’avoir le droit de revenir à Paris et de trouver toujours l’opéra ouvert, et d’avoir à ses ordres cet admirable orchestre de M. Habeneck, et de venir là sans saluer trop bas recueillir des marques unanimes d’estime et d’admiration?

Jules Janin always called Ole Bull “mon sauvage.” This was because, when making his first appearance at the Grand Opéra, his last step at the side of the stage, before coming in view of the public, was a misstep. He stumbled on a projecting piece of framework, and was thrown so violently forward that, to save himself from falling headlong, he was obliged to run out. It was as unconventional and awkward a manner of saluting the public as can be imagined, and especially unfortunate in that it was a Parisian audience, who have so keen a sense of the ridiculous. Nor was this all. In the midst of the finale of the “Polacca Guerriera,” the A string snapped. Ole Bull turned deathly pale. Monsieur Habeneck immediately offered his violin to the artist; but he dared not use any instrument but his own. With the courage of despair, he transposed the remainder of the piece, and finished it on three strings. The strain and tension necessary for the accomplishment of such a feat were appreciated by Meyerbeer, who occupied Jules Janin’s box and witnessed this incident, which others could not believe, although they heard the snap of the string, because of the brilliant and successful conclusion of the performance. As Meyerbeer’s voice rang out above the thunder of applause, Ole Bull said it seemed to him like a voice from heaven.

In 1879, while performing Paganini’s “Second Concerto,” in the midst of the Adagio the E string broke. The accompanists were startled, but the movement was finished without a change of reading, harmonics being substituted for the high notes of the E string. As they left the stage, Mr. Maurice Strakosch reminded Ole Bull, who stood over his violin–case in the dressing–room, that the audience were calling vociferously. “But I can’t go out, man, until I put on my E string!” “Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the impressario, “did it really break? I could not believe my ears.”

Ole Bull used to say, “If you have the audience under your spell, never break it by a change of instruments, even for a broken string;” and on no occasion was he unnerved, even when a wretched orchestral accompaniment ruined his effects, intentionally or otherwise; but, as he said, the tortures he suffered under such circumstances were “the tortures of the damned.”

In the summer of 1836 he was married. He had felt the most affectionate attachment for Madame Villeminot and her granddaughter from his first acquaintance with them. He was very sensible of the debt of gratitude which he owed this motherly friend, and felt that his life had been saved by her care when he had no one else to whom he could turn for help. She thus writes him in 1833:—

Try to be careful of yourself on this long journey, if not for your own sake, for the sake of us, who feel so deeply interested in your welfare. Shall I confess to you, sir, that, since the day of your departure, the hours seem years to us? I can hardly realize that it is but one month since you left us.

She goes on to assure him of her esteem and sincere attachment, begging him to remember her kindly advice that he should be economical. In May, 1834, he writes:—

Dear Félicie, I cannot write a letter to your grandmother without sending you a friendly word to thank you for your letter forwarded to me from Geneva.... I should have returned before this to Paris, but I would not go back until I had made my reputation and some money, to carry out my plans; but Fortune did not smile upon me at first. It is better with me now.... In Bologna I performed a concerto of mine with full orchestra, the execution of which seemed impossible to those who heard it. My style is much more animated and more refined than formerly.... Please write me at once, and tell me everything—how Mamma is, as I am in the greatest anxiety about you all. If I can be of any service to you, dispose of me, and you will give me the greatest pleasure. I will even leave Italy if your welfare requires it, and come to you.... I shall stay here one month longer. What a beautiful country Italy is! Speak sincerely to me, keep for me your esteem and friendship, and believe me always your true friend and obedient servant,

Ole Bull.

The letters following this were written after his engagement. During a serious illness of Madame Villeminot, he was called to her bedside. She told him how much she desired the protection of a loving friend for her grandchild, whom she feared she was soon to leave; that she believed them adapted to secure each other’s happiness, and desired to see them betrothed. His letters during his engagement and married life express his tender, passionate devotion to wife and children. Some time after their marriage he writes: “The word home has above all others the greatest charm for me.”

When a young man in the first flush of triumph and adulation, he suggested mutual study and work, that their heart and home life might year by year become the richer, more helpful to each other and those whom they influenced.

In speaking of his early ideal, we may also allude here to his later life; how he brought cheer and a tender thought of others ever to his home. He was generously appreciative of all practical helps. His strong, impulsive nature was balanced by a kindly readiness to yield to the desire and happiness of another. His spirit and sense of justice would not brook personal narrowness of feeling, but a direct and dispassionate opposition commanded his respect, often his approval, always his consideration.

A true, open–hearted friend might safely venture on severe criticism, and his love would bear the test even if this was sometimes cruel as regarded his motives. He readily forgave a wrong to himself, though an injury to a friend was not forgotten if forgiven. His faults and failings were always open and manifest, but his gentle courtesy in his most intimate relations, unfailing when most needed, cannot be told.

However trying or commonplace the circumstances of his life might be, his resources of thought, aspiration, and work gave him hours of experience in each day which transformed for him and those in sympathy with him the hard realities of life,

“Clothing the palpable and familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.”

After a series of six concerts in Lyons in the early part of the year of 1836, he had a severe illness, which nearly cost him his life. On his recovery he hastened back to Paris to play at the Italian Opera. He had been promised the theatre, but saw an announcement in the papers of Thalberg’s concerts to be given there. He hurried to Rossini, who was one of the directors, and asked him what it meant. “I am sorry that it is not in my power to help you,” said Rossini; “the government has the entire control in this matter. Have you a letter from Metternich?” Thalberg, by the by, had brought a letter from the great Austrian to the Paris authorities. “No,” was the reply. “Then follow my advice and go to England this very day. This will be a very favorable time for you there.”

It may be said here that Rossini’s kindness and courtesy were as constant as the charm of his ready repartee and wit in conversation. Ole Bull always delighted to recall reminiscences of him.

The violinist determined to follow Rossini’s advice and went to London. Mr. Laporte, the director of the Italian Opera, with whom he was soon on good terms, promised him the theatre, and the orchestra under the direction of Costa, for his concerts. This, however, stirred the bad blood of Mori, the first violin of the orchestra, who intrigued against Ole Bull, describing him to Costa and the critics as a mere charlatan, an impudent and stupid imitator of Paganini. He went even further. When the time for the first rehearsal was fixed, he contrived very adroitly that Ole Bull’s notice should read two o’clock, while the orchestra were called for twelve o’clock. His object was to give the orchestra the impression that Ole Bull was indifferent to their convenience, and by the long detention to arouse their indignation. This partially succeeded. Ole Bull felt that there were influences at work against him, and determined not to be wholly unprepared, although he did not know on whom to fix his suspicion. He invited a number of friends and musical critics to the rehearsal, and a considerable audience had assembled at the hour. When he himself arrived he found but a remnant of the orchestra left, and no leader. Where was Monsieur Costa? Where was Monsieur Laporte? The notification for rehearsal in his hand read distinctly two o’clock. The violinist rushed to the cashier’s office, and seizing the man in his strong arms, compelled him to go and announce to the audience that M. Costa had notified Monsieur Ole Bull that the hour of rehearsal was two o’clock. With violin in hand Ole Bull then said: “You must either think, gentlemen, that I do not need an accompaniment, or that you are unable to play one. I can only accept your intention as a compliment, and express my thanks in our mutual language—that of tone.”

Excited as he was, he played his “Quartetto a Violino Solo,” and won the hearty applause of those present. He then played “God save the King” on four strings, and the house resounded with shouts. Some persons in the street heard the noise and rushed in to learn what it all meant. Among them were Lord Burgesh and Moscheles. The members of the orchestra present now felt chagrined, and offered to accompany him, but there was no leader. Lord Burgesh urged Moscheles to take the bâton, which he did, applauded warmly by the audience; but only a few bars had been played when Costa rushed out upon him with bitter taunts and insults. Pale with anger Ole Bull approached the director, and expressed to him his indignation that he had failed to perceive the generous service Moscheles was rendering them both. M. Laporte, who understood that the young artist’s victory over this intrigue was sure to win him favor, now exerted himself to make peace. At the next rehearsal the orchestra did their duty, and the house was crowded at the concert, which was a brilliant success. Ole Bull writes to Madlle. Villeminot, May 20, 1836:—

To–morrow is the day for my first concert. I have to–day had the third rehearsal with full orchestra. It is impossible to tell you all the intrigues I have had to encounter. I had everybody against me, even the director; but the papers have spoken much about the base treatment I have received, and everybody who sees me, even at a distance, now raises his hat. Thalberg gives a morning concert in the King’s Theatre the same day; but few tickets are sold. He and De Beriot were surprised at the large sale for my concert.

Again, May 24, 1836, he writes:—

Dearest Félicie, Victoria!!! we have won! I never had a greater success, hardly so great, as that of last Saturday night. Wreaths, bouquets, and applause! Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache sang, but Grisi did not sing as promised.[6]

In spite of all intrigues the journals have pronounced me one of the first violinists of the world. To–morrow I play for the Duke of Devonshire.... I have also agreed to play for the Philharmonic Society. Fearnley goes to Christiania Tuesday next. He came to my concert, and was almost crazy at the furore I made.

Two days later, May 26, 1836, he writes:—

Yesterday I played for the Duke of Devonshire; Rubini also sang. The duke said that I had performed the miracle of endowing the violin with a soul. Many of the first nobility of England were present, and the ladies were much moved.

The Duke of Devonshire was especially fond of Rubini, and Ole Bull used to say that he had never received a more delicate compliment than that paid him by the duke when he turned to Rubini and said, as the last tones of the violin died away: “You never sang more delightfully, Rubini!” Mr. James T. Fields once asked in what respect Rubini excelled other tenors, to which Ole Bull replied: “He began where others ended.”

One of the chief triumphs which Ole Bull won in London, in 1836, was on the occasion of a Philharmonic concert in which he appeared with Malibran and Thalberg. So great was his success that his concerts afterward were crowded, one audience at the King’s Theatre numbering three thousand people, an unprecedented success that season. He writes in August, 1836:—

I have just presented some souvenirs of regard to Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, and Madame Assandri, who have assisted me gratuitously in my concerts here. They are the best people in the world, and immensely talented. They have told me to command them at all times, and as often as I please.

The following criticisms of his first appearance in London are taken from the Times, which said, in its issue of May 23, 1836:—

Mr. Ole B. Bull, the Norwegian violinist, made his first public essay in this country, on Saturday evening, at this theatre [King’s Theatre]. A more completely successful performance of the kind we have never attended. He played three pieces—a grand concerto in three movements, allegro, adagio, and rondo; a quartette for one violin; and a grand warlike Polish movement introduced by a recitative and adagio. His varieties of movement seem almost unlimited; and much as Paganini has done, this artist has certainly opened a new field on that instrument. His style is essentially different, and, like that of every truly great master, is of his own formation. Perhaps his most remarkable characteristic is the quiet and unpretending manner in which he produces all his great effects. There was no trick, no violent gesture, nor any approach to the ad captandum school. It seemed so easy, that to those not acquainted with the mechanical difficulties he mastered it was not easy to comprehend that anything extraordinary had been done. In long arpeggio passages and others made up of rapid and minute divisions, his bow scarcely seemed to move on the string; his hand, too, was almost motionless, yet our ear was charmed with a succession of distinct and sparkling notes, which kept the whole audience fixed in mute and almost breathless attention. His command of the instrument, from the top to the bottom of the scale—and he has a scale of his own of three complete octaves on each string—is absolutely perfect; in passing from one extreme of it to the other, however rapidly, he never missed a note. His tone on the fourth string is so beautiful, that even Nicholson’s flute, when a response occurred in the accompaniment, was thrown into the shade. His “Quartette,” in the ordinary mode of playing, would seem impossible; but he distinctly made out chords of three notes with the bow, and produced the fourth with his finger. This movement made such an impression on the audience that an encore was called for, instead of which Mr. Bull, as a mark of respect, which he probably thought appropriate, favored us with our National Anthem. With all our loyalty, we would have preferred hearing his “Quartette” once more. The applause he received was unbounded, as little forced, and as sincere, as any we have ever heard bestowed. Mr. Bull is still a young man, his age not being more than 26 or 27, and his appearance, on the whole, prepossessing. The performance of Saturday was, perhaps, as wonderful for the specimen afforded of the power of the instrument as for that of the player.... It should be mentioned that the audience included nearly all the distinguished members of the musical profession now in town, whose judgment, as they applauded most cordially, is the proper ordeal of a musical reputation....

The artists appearing with him were Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache, with Mdlle. Assandri.

The Times of Thursday, June 2, 1836, referring to Paganini’s variations to “Nel cor non più mi sento,” says:—

This air, with variations, is the first instance in which Ole Bull has challenged a direct comparison with Paganini, by playing a movement of his composition, every note of which, as delivered by that great master, is fresh in the recollection of the musical audiences of this metropolis. To say that he bore up manfully under the comparison is sterling praise, and he deserves it. His arpeggio passages had less tone than Paganini, but were equal to him in neatness, rapidity, and distinctness; and in his pizzicato, in alternate use of bow and finger, difference of effect, if any, was extremely small.... His second performance, on the whole, fully sustains his reputation....

The Times of Thursday, June 16, 1836, remarks:—

Ole Bull gave his third, announced also as his last, concert yesterday evening; but it was so good and so highly successful, that we are quite sure that more concerts will be called for, and that they must be granted. A more perfect performance can scarcely be imagined. To the confidence which, from the first, Ole Bull possessed in his own resources is now added a confidence also in the public—a persuasion that he is thoroughly understood and estimated, and that conviction has evidently enabled him to surpass all he hitherto has done. All pieces which he played last night were of his own composition, and have been heard before in public. They were his “Concerto,” in which he introduces his inimitable arpeggios; his “Adagio Religioso,” with the movement describing the “Lamentation of a Mother for the loss of her Child;” his “Polacca Guerriera,” a most stirring movement, which he played at the Philharmonic Society; and his “Fantasia Solo.” The great charm, perhaps, consisted in the purity of style with which the whole was given. It was all his own—new, and consistent, and beautiful; not an atom of charlatanism in it; nor was there any imitation of any other great master to be detected....

Ole Bull now went to Paris, married, as stated above, and returned with his bride to London. The little Alexandrine Félicie Villeminot had developed into a woman of rare beauty. Her oval face and fine features were thoroughly Parisian, while the sparkling brilliancy of her large black eyes betrayed her Spanish blood.

In September a series of musical festivals was to be given in the cities of York, Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool. The managers wished to engage Ole Bull, but his demand for £800 was thought too high. They therefore opened negotiations with Mesdames Malibran and Grisi, who asked £2,000. Falling back on Ole Bull, they came an hour too late. In connection with Bochsa, the celebrated harpist, he had engaged a company for a tour in the United Kingdom.

Nothing remained but to engage Malibran for the festival. She was not well, but one night in Manchester she determined to surpass herself. Singing a duet by Mercadante with Caradori Allan, a soprano who held a high trill for a long time with great effect, Malibran forced a tone two notes higher, holding it with so much strength and for so long a time that the audience were astonished. The desperate effort proved fatal to the great vocalist. Hemorrhage followed, and resulted in death a few days later.

The manager had called upon her the day after the concert, and expressed the hope that she would soon be well enough to sing again, to which she replied: “Do you think me like one of your English boxers, only to be put on my feet and go on again with my blows and knocks? Bête!” She once said to Ole Bull when he tried to persuade her to guard her health and strength: “The public will kill you, either by their neglect or their exactions.”

Feeling, as he did, an admiration approaching idolatry for Malibran, her death was a most painful shock to him. He writes:—

Yesterday the papers announced the death of Malibran. Poor woman! After having worked so hard for the public, which was often ungrateful, she dies the victim of her own success.... I cannot realize it. A woman gifted with a soul of fire, full of the highest passion, a ravishing singer, her dramatic talent and declamation—ah! I remember how I wept in Bologna when I saw her as Desdemona in “Othello.”

But the festival must go on, and the management sent for Ole Bull to fill Malibran’s place. His own concerts had to be postponed, and in consideration of this and their desire for his services he was offered £800 for one night in Liverpool, which he accepted.

But, as Wergeland says, it seemed as if Malibran had asked a chevalier to cross with her the river Styx, for he came near sharing her fate. The hall was large, the orchestral accompaniment too strong, and his violin could be heard only when he played fortissimo. In performing the “Polacca,” his exertion was so great that he burst a blood–vessel, and his coat had to be cut from him. The Duke of Devonshire, hearing of his illness, sent his carriage to fetch him to Chatsworth, where he spent some quiet days, and recovered sufficiently to continue his concert tour.

He thus writes of Chatsworth, under date of October 13, 1836:—

Dear Félicie, ... I arrived here Saturday evening, at nine o’clock. The duke insisted upon quiet and rest, that I should be quite at liberty; in short, he is as amiable and good as possible. But feeling that it would please him, I took my violin the same evening and played until midnight, in spite of my intense suffering. I was obliged the next day to write to Bochsa that I was so ill that the journey to Brighton would kill me.

The duke cares for me in a thousand ways, and has absolutely forbidden me to play. Many of the first aristocracy of England are here, and I might be taken for a prince, so much consideration and politeness do I receive. What magnificence! It is the most splendid place I know. Since my convalescence, the duke has shown me all about his domain. We went on foot. I spoke to him of our marriage.... He asked me if I had given you the ring which he had presented me, and wished me to do so.... My health is better, except that my chest feels worn out, but I hope to be well soon. How long does the time seem that deprives me of seeing you! I embrace you very tenderly....

At Chatsworth, at the duke’s town residence, and at Holland House, he met the famous men and women of the time. Among them was Thomas Moore, who not only sang for him his own songs, but also wrote out and sang for him the Irish popular melodies and ballads which he was to use in his concerts.

In sixteen months’ time, Ole Bull gave two hundred and seventy–four concerts in the United Kingdom. His exertions during those years often threatened to break down his health. He suffered from nervous attacks and great depression at such times. His success everywhere, however, was of the same character which he had achieved in the capitals, and which has already been told at length.

He now decided to visit Germany, and, stopping en route in Paris, made the acquaintance of Paganini. His delight at this was so great that even the recollection of it in later years made others feel his sensations as he recounted them, especially his first meeting with the great Italian. Walking on the Boulevard one morning, he met Sind, the banker, who had just proposed to introduce him to Paganini, when they saw in the distance a strange and striking figure, which could be no other than that of the great violinist himself. As they met, he greeted Ole Bull, without presentation, so familiarly and kindly that the latter at first thought that he must have been mistaken for some well–known friend. But, thrilled and awed as he was in the presence of the renowned maestro, he could not help gratefully accepting his gracious and hearty words. Paganini insisted upon their returning with him to his lodgings, and spoke much to Ole Bull of his illness and troubles, and the persecution of the critics; in short, he treated him as if he were an old and confidential friend. The surprise of Sind at this cordiality may be imagined; but Ole Bull could only tell him that it was really the first time he had spoken with Paganini, and hurry away to live over again in the solitude of his own thoughts this memorable meeting. He afterwards learned that Paganini knew more of him and his work than he supposed, as he spoke familiarly of Ole Bull’s performances to others, praising his individuality of style, and foretelling his brilliant career. When or where Paganini had heard him he never found out. The sympathy he felt was too sensitive to permit him to intrude his own thoughts upon the master, who was always inclined to unbosom himself of his troubles to him; nor could he bring himself to ask the one thing he most desired—a sight of the famous violin.

Paganini never had a more observant or critical listener. Those familiar with the usual rendering of his compositions must have marked the difference in Ole Bull’s performance of them. He strove to give the fine phrasing, the varied quality of tone, which he felt himself so fortunate in having heard from the composer. In Nice, in 1874, Count Cessole, the friend in whose arms Paganini died, gave Ole Bull a letter to Paganini’s son, requesting him to show him the manuscript of an unpublished concerto of his father’s, adding that he was the only person capable of doing it justice. Unfortunately, the opportunity of making the journey was denied Ole Bull that winter, and it never offered itself later.

After leaving Paris concerts were given in Brussels and Courtray. At the latter place the violinist was royally entertained by his host, Mons. Vermeulen, a passionate lover of music. A number of the principal citizens met him outside the town and escorted him to his destination. His coming was regarded as a fête, and he was received by the public at his concert with every expression of delighted admiration. His host gave him a magnificent banquet, and the citizens vied with each other in doing him honor.

Learning that Mons. Vermeulen, who was an amateur collector, was extremely desirous of obtaining one of his violins, Ole Bull made him happy by consenting to part with his Guarnerius. Tarisio, in Paris, supplied its place with another, a famous instrument, a Joseph Guarnerius labeled 1742, which Ole Bull used as his principal concert violin for the next twenty–five or thirty years. It is now in the possession of his son, Mr. Alexander Bull.

In December, and January, 1838, Ole Bull gave six concerts in the Stadt Theatre in Hamburg. When he left on the 7th of January, a deputation was sent to ask him to return. His reply, dated the 9th from Neumünster, stated that his route would be disarranged by his return, but that he could not hesitate for a moment as to his pleasure and duty; so, after one more concert in Neumünster, he returned to Hamburg and played in the great Apollo Hall. The large proceeds from this concert he gave to the charitable institutions of that city.

An extract from a letter to his wife (from Lübeck, January 23, 1838), will show how constant and fatiguing were his labors at this time:—

I have been traveling and giving concerts every day without interruption for some time. I have the satisfaction of feeling that the result was never better. I played six times in Hamburg (the last time for charity), and every seat was filled an hour before the concert. I left in the morning for Kiel, where I arrived early the next day. I started at once for the rehearsal, although I had had no sleep during the night, after which I went to my lodgings, dined, and dressed for the concert. After the concert I rode in the coach to Schleswig. On my arrival there in the morning—rehearsal and then concert. Left Schleswig about midnight and returned to Kiel, arriving the following morning, where a rehearsal and concert awaited me again. I then went to Neumünster and called on K.’s uncle.... I was so weary that I could not help sleeping the whole day. The next day I played for the poor at Neumünster....

I have bought an English traveling carriage. K. and I sleep like two kings in it.... We are to start in a moment, the postilion is impatient. I have to be in Schwerin to–night, as I have accepted an invitation from the court; the princess has promised me a letter of introduction to her sister, the Empress of Russia.

I have given one concert in Altona, and am to give two in Lübeck to–morrow, and two in Schwerin; then to Rostock, and Königsberg; and, in a month’s time, I shall be in St. Petersburg. Wherever I have given concerts I have played to large audiences and received double prices....

My dear, be patient! Two months only, and we shall be reunited.

Again, he writes from Berlin, January 31, 1838:—

You will undoubtedly have received my letter from Lübeck some days ago. I came almost against my will, and quite unexpectedly, to Berlin. It happened in this way: While in Kiel I received an invitation from the court of Mecklenburg–Schwerin (the Princess of Orleans is a sister of the grand duke), to play there; and knowing that I intended visiting Russia, the grand duchess promised me a letter of introduction to her sister the empress. After writing my last letter to you in Lübeck I started for Schwerin. Although the distance is short (we left at one o’clock in the morning), we did not arrive there until five o’clock the next morning, as we lost our way on account of the heavy snow–fall. But that did not tire me much. I lay on furs, made up comfortably as a bed.

After the rehearsal, and some hours after my arrival, the grand duke called and thanked me for coming to Schwerin. One could not meet a more charming person. At night the court was present. After the performance the duke came to my dressing–room with tears in his eyes. He invited me to the palace the following morning, and said, “My wife was much moved during your whole performance; she must see and talk with you.” The next day I had an audience that lasted three quarters of an hour.... The duchess told me she had just written to her father, the King of Prussia, of the sensation I had made, and asked me to go to Berlin and play there, suggesting that it might be of benefit to me in Russia.... She asked me what she could do for me.... Her husband was also exceedingly kind. After the concert I was awakened by a serenade. The next day the ducal family attended the rehearsal; in the evening the duchess gave me letters to Berlin and Russia, and at the conclusion of the performance the orchestra presented me with a laurel wreath.

He went to Berlin and made his visit to the intendant, who was offensively patronizing, and appointed an hour the day following for another call at the Opera House. Ole Bull came. “Where is your violin?” “In the case.” “And where is the case?” “At the hotel.” “But did I not ask you to play for me?” “Excuse me, sir, I could not think you were in earnest. I play either for honor or for money, and in this case neither is in question.” “But it is impossible for me to present you to his majesty without having heard you.” “If the request of the grand duchess is not a sufficient recommendation to his majesty her father, I am quite content to leave the city,”—and he did leave Berlin at once.

He next gave four concerts in four days in Königsberg, and, being crowned with laurel, which he tried to decline, he responded by playing “Heil dir ein Siegenkranz.” In Riga he gave four concerts in five days. In St. Petersburg he had some difficulties to encounter with another intendant; but shortly after his arrival he played at the Imperial Theatre. The empress, the imperial family, and the court, were present. On his entrance he was warmly received, and the “Polacca Guerriera” created the greatest enthusiasm. The applause constantly interrupted the orchestra, and the musicians were obliged to wait patiently the pleasure of the audience. This applause Ole Bull acknowledged, when called before the curtain, by playing the Russian National Hymn. This created another furor, and he was recalled again and again, the applause being led by the imperial family. A critic wrote:—

I never witnessed such a universal ovation; Ole Bull’s tones have the power of melting the hearts even of the envious. When he commenced, he played to both enemies and friends, but he ended by playing to friends only. He has, by his personal worth, made himself universally beloved here.

He gave three concerts in the Great Theatre to crowded houses, although the usual prices were quadrupled. He played also in private for the empress, who presented him with a ring—an emerald in a setting of one hundred and forty diamonds. The emperor sent him an autograph letter. Being invited to Moscow he gave five concerts there, and received many jewels from the nobility of the city, among them a valuable ring from the Princess Galizin.

Here the sad tidings of his father’s death reached him. He writes:—

A letter from my brother Edward describes most touchingly my poor father’s death! He says he spoke often of the anticipated delight of his dear Ole’s return, after so many years of separation. He read all the poems and criticisms, and knew that I was on my way home, with my dear Félicie. He constantly heard divine music that made him forget his sufferings. When dying, he spoke of me, and his face was beautiful to behold.

I am so sad! Such fears! Ever the thought haunts me that I may not see you and our child again....

To–morrow I play a quartette of Beethoven’s, a quartette of Mozart’s, a quintette of Gebel’s, and a composition of my own.... God protect you both!

His grand concerts in St. Petersburg were given in a hall that would seat five thousand people, and it was filled at every performance.

He now went through Finland, giving concerts in the chief towns, and thence to Stockholm. Being in haste to reach home, he resolved not to give any concert there. It was hoped, however, that he might be induced to change his mind by inviting him to play for the benefit of the sufferers from the fire in Wermeland, some of whom were then in Stockholm collecting subscriptions. He presented five hundred dollars to the sufferers, but declined to play. His presence at the palace was requested, and the king, during the interview, asked him to remain and play, saying that he made the request as King of Norway. He could not well refuse to comply with a request so put, and, notwithstanding his anxiety to hurry home, he consented to give five concerts, the last of which netted five thousand dollars. He played at the palace twice. The “Polacca Guerriera” so moved the old warrior king, to whose ears martial music was ever the sweetest, that he rose from his seat, and remained standing until the piece was finished.

The following incident occurred during Ole Bull’s first audience with Bernadotte. The king remarked that he had written to the Emperor of Russia, that he, too, had his Poles, the Norwegians; probably forgetting, for the moment, the nationality of his listener. Ole Bull replied with warmth: “Can your majesty mention a single instance in which my countrymen have not proved themselves law–abiding and loyal subjects?” “Your remark, sir, is out of place.” “If my remark is out of place, your majesty, I myself am out of place, and will take my leave.” “Remain, sir!” cried Bernadotte, extending his hand with a commanding gesture. “No, sire! I will see if a Norseman is free in the palace of the King of Sweden!” and the artist bowed low as he retired. Instantly the cloud lifted, and, with a winning smile and courteous words, the king said, “I pray you, sir, to remain; it is the duty of a prince to hear the opinions of all his people.”

Before Ole Bull left, Bernadotte offered him the Vasa order, which he declined, saying that a handkerchief or a button from his majesty’s coat would be a precious memento of this visit. When the king found that both order and jewels were firmly declined, in parting with Ole Bull he told him that at all times he would be admitted directly to his presence, and concluded, “You will not refuse an old man’s blessing”—which the violinist knelt to receive.

The order in brilliants was sent later to Ole Bull in Christiania, through his friend, Count Wedel–Jarlsberg, with a message from the king requesting the artist to accept the gift, that the world might know his king appreciated and honored genius.

The artist arrived with his family in Christiania, the capital of Norway, July 8, 1838, having gone directly there from Stockholm. The people were impatient to hear him, but he felt it necessary to take a fortnight’s rest after his long and fatiguing journey. The students hastened meantime to greet him before his public appearance, and on the 19th of July a dinner was given him by the foremost men of the country. Poems were written and read, his portrait was wreathed in flowers, and he himself was at last crowned with laurel. Wergeland says of his arrival and concert:—

Business even was dull while awaiting him. The talk was only of Ole Bull. The people had evidently thought of him as walking about with diamond buttons on his coat and surrounded by a sort of triumphal halo; and it was a surprise when he at last stood before us, exactly the same as of old, the same modest, unassuming man, with the same kindly smile and the piercing glance. Before his concert he made a visit to his old teacher, Paulsen, who had been unfortunate and now lay upon a sick–bed. He played for him until the old man was happy, and when he left he took care to insure his permanent comfort.

Of the first concert it is enough to say that the great expectations of the people were not disappointed. Wergeland continues:—

The greatest marvel of all was that he brought Norway home to the Norsemen. Most people knew the folk–songs and dances, but were ashamed to admire them. Lifted by him into their confidence and love, these homely melodies suddenly began to gleam like stars, and the people came to feel that they too had jewels of their own.

Ole Bull’s name was now known in every part of Norway. Among the strangers who came to Christiania to hear him was the giant, the engineer Engebret Soot. Wild and passionate as he was, music could subdue him like a child, and his family used to resort to this means of taming his Berserk nature. He had taken a short respite from his work and gone as fast as possible by carriole to Christiania, but arrived only at night after Ole Bull, weary from the first concert and its triumphs, had fallen fast asleep.

There is a knocking at his door, which, repeated, is at last answered: “Who’s there?” The door is already opened. “Good evening, Ole Bull! It is I—Engebret Soot. I am come too late for your concert, and I want you to get up and play for me now.” “I am really too tired. I—it is impossible,—besides”— But by the light of a candle which his unexpected visitor has succeeded in finding and lighting, the violinist sees before him a man of giant size grandly proportioned. “I have traveled ninety miles to–day to hear you.” “Yes, but to–morrow”— “I must be in Aremark. You must play for me now, Ole Bull.”

They exchange looks; they are physically the two best developed men in Norway; they understand each other, and Ole Bull takes his violin. Sitting on the edge of the bed he plays and, in his turn, subdues and controls his formidable friend, moving him at will to tears or laughter; but he himself is not permitted to sleep until he has given his one auditor more than the audience of the evening had heard.

One of the most beautiful of the Norwegian poems addressed to Ole Bull was written by the famous poet Welhaven under the following circumstances. Crushed by the death of his betrothed he was leading a life of entire seclusion, and his friends were fearful that his depression would seriously affect his mind. He was persuaded to hear Ole Bull; the music brought him the relief of tears, and moved him to write this grateful tribute to his friend.[7]

At the request of deputations Ole Bull now gave concerts in the principal towns along the coast and in Bergen. The people of his native city received him warmly, and festivities in his honor were the order of the day. During his visit there he composed “The Mountains of Norway,” the last piece played by him at his last concert in 1880. He received everywhere proofs of the fervent sympathy and affection of his own people. At his farewell concert in Bergen he was greeted with a very rain of flowers by the ladies, although the season was so far advanced that these were grown in their houses and not in their gardens.

In October, 1838, he left Norway for his third continental tour. He gave five concerts in Copenhagen, one of which was for the founding of a pension fund for the chorus of the Royal Opera. He was presented at court, and played for King Frederic, who gave him a gold snuff–box set with diamonds, saying, “As you have won the hearts of my people, it is fitting that I should present you the key to my kingdom.” On the cover of the box was a picture in enamel of the fortress by which the harbor of Copenhagen is defended.

The following letter from Hans Christian Andersen will be of interest here:—

Copenhagen, December 8, 1838.

My dear good Friend,—At this moment you are in my birthplace! I must bid you welcome there, and once more chat with you. It is only some days since we first met, but there are natures that need no longer time to become dear to each other, and ours, I think, are of them.

Thanks for the lyric strains of your violin,—if they could be rendered in words we should have a wonderful cycle of poems. Although you played to the world at large, and many felt deeply what a human heart spoke to them in melody, I was egotistic enough—or perhaps you will give my feeling a nobler name—to imagine and dream that it was singing for me alone; that I alone heard you tell in fragments the story of your artist life through your tones! Ah! long before I heard you, I had felt an interest in your genial personality; but now that we have met face to face, seen and understood each other, that sentiment has become friendship. I feel it will be a pleasure to know that you have won a soul; therefore I tell you, and am not ashamed. Every–day people would not understand me, and they would smile at this epistle, but I do not write to them in this strain—only to the friend Ole Bull.

One of these days I shall call on your uncle to see the dear little Ole,[8] kiss him, and think of his father and mother. The poor bonne, so suddenly dropped down in this corner of Europe, must be lonely. I send your lovely wife a whole bouquet of compliments. She cannot have forgotten me altogether—because of my wretched French, if for no other reason. Yesterday I dined with Thorwaldsen. We spoke of you, and when I told him that I should write to you, he asked to be remembered. He had tried to find you at the Hotel d’Angleterre, but they told him incorrectly, it seems, that you had gone to Roskilde, and he did not succeed in seeing you.

What an agreeable surprise would a few lines be from you! Ah, do let me know how your own bodily self is thriving. You were not well when we said good–by—write of yourself. But do so at once, while the feeling is warm; later—well, I fear that if you do not, others will absorb your time, and that you will not write. Send at least a few words—and now, God bless you! May you have all the success and happiness you deserve! Your name has a pleasant sound in Europe, your heart is known to your friends. I have many greetings for you from the C.’s, where I make my home. The spirituelle daughters think a great deal of you; they said they hardly knew you well enough to ask to be remembered, but why should I not tell you what must always be dear to you? Much, much love to you. Farewell! with fraternal heart. Yours,

H. C. Andersen.

By way of Odense, Flensborg, Schleswig, and Kiel, Ole Bull went to Hamburg, where he appeared three times; then to Bremen, Brunswick, and Hanover. He also went to Cassel, having received an invitation from the prince and Spohr, who now received him in the most kindly manner, and seemed anxious by his cordiality to blot out all memory of their former meeting. The following letter will show their friendly relations at this time:—

Cassel, den 19^ten Januar, 1839.

Wohlgeborener, Hochgeehrter Herr,—Gleich nach Empfang des Briefes von meinem Bruder habe ich Seine Hoheit den Prinz–Regent um das Theater für Ihr Concert gebeten und selbiges für den ersten freien Tag, nämlich nächsten Dienstag den 22^sten bewilligt erhalten. Sollte dieser Brief Sie nun noch in Hannover antreffen, so werden Sie freilich zum Dienstag nicht hier seyn können; dann würde die Bewilligung aber auch für Freitag den 25^sten oder Dienstag den 29^sten übertragen werden können. Da Sie nun jedenfals einen freien Tag und das Theater zu Ihrer Disposition finden werden, so lade ich Sie nochmals ein, uns mit Ihrer Hierherkunft zu erfreuen. Eine vorläufige Anzeige derselben in der hiesigen Zeitung werde ich sogleich veranstalten. Alle übrigen Veranstalten zum Concert lassen sich dann sehr bald besorgen. Da die Nachricht Ihrer Hierherkunft unter den Musikfreunden grossen Jubel erregen wird, so darf ich wohl hoffen, dass Sie auch mit dem pecuniären Erfolg des Concerts nicht unzufrieden sein werden. Mit vorzüglicher Hochachtung,

Ew. Wohlge., ergebenst,
Louis Spohr.

Ole Bull gave two concerts to crowded houses in Cassel, and then went to Berlin. There were some difficulties in making terms for the theatre here, the king himself being proprietor and supreme manager. The musicians, moreover, were not favorable to Ole Bull, because of certain one–sided reports of an intrigue against him in Stockholm, which he had wholly overcome, and which had resulted in making him more popular in Sweden than ever. Last of all came the attack of the critic Finck. When Ole Bull played in Berlin Herr Finck was ill, and unable to attend the concert. He sent and asked the artist to visit him. He went and played for him, and also explained his method, and the changes he had made in his bow. Shortly after he left Berlin the criticism appeared in the Leipsic Musical Gazette. Herr Finck said that the technique of the artist was indeed astonishing, and that he was not lacking in certain points in his execution, as some had said. He found his tone absolutely pure, and his staccato, pizzicato, etc., marvelous and incomparable, but claimed that his art, when before the public, was artifice, a kind of astounding legerdemain. His chief attack was directed against his compositions. It might well have been thought a criticism against Paganini revived, so similar was it to the charges made against that violinist.

Mendelssohn wrote to his sister Rebecca, from Berlin, February 15, 1844, as follows:—

The musical public here are just like Finck, editor of the old Musical Gazette; they are capital at finding out the weak points of what is good, and discovering merit in mediocrity, which annoys me more than anything.

In spite of the animadversions of the critic, the public crowded the concerts of Ole Bull, whose only answer was through his violin. He traveled closely on the heels of the celebrated violinist, Lapinsky, the idol of the Musical Gazette. Whenever they met, Lapinsky was sorely defeated, and at last he determined to keep altogether out of Ole Bull’s way. The latter next gave five concerts in Breslau, and sixteen in Vienna. His rendering of the clarionet adagio in Mozart’s “Quartette in D flat, transcribed for Violin,” was so much admired, that he was obliged to repeat it at all his concerts in Vienna.

Not a note of the score was changed, and the reverence for Mozart, revealed in his performance, made a very deep impression. It may be remarked here that those who have made the masterpieces of Mozart the study of a life–time, who have edited his works, and dwelt upon the perfection of their instrumentation, have also said that Ole Bull’s rendering of these, especially of the adagios, showed a deeper, more appreciative understanding of them than had ever been attained before by any instrumentalist. Ole Bull used to say that Mozart was his religion. To him, there could be no more beautiful, no loftier expression of human thought and aspiration than he found in the works of that master. He felt that no mortal could write Mozart’s “Requiem” and live.

From Vienna Ole Bull went to Hungary, giving concerts in Pesth, Raab, and Presburg. He purchased a rare violin in Pesth labeled “Antonius Stradivarius Cremonesius faciebat, anno 1687.” This instrument was unique, being the only one which the master had inlaid with ebony and ivory. It had been made to order for Philip the Sixth of Spain, and remained in the possession of the Kings of Spain until the reign of Charles the Fourth, when it was stolen by the French. Ole Bull bought it of Herr Rorats, an amateur, who had purchased it because of its beautiful appearance, its tone not recommending it. But in Ole Bull’s hands its noble and pure tone was soon restored.

He returned again to Vienna, giving five concerts to full houses. A critic remarked that his “Norway’s Mountains” and his playing of Mozart had conciliated his few obstinate opponents, and united all voices in his praise.

From Linz he went to Salzburg, the home of Mozart. He had the honor of proposing and giving the first concert for the Mozart fund, and the great satisfaction of having the wife of Mozart present at the performance.

Being engaged in Paris for January, 1839, for concerts at the Grand Opéra, he hastened there via Munich, Baden–Baden, and Strasburg, giving concerts in these places.

He returned to Germany soon after, giving one concert in Carlsruhe and two in Stuttgart. The King of Wurtemberg gave him a ring set in brilliants. He also visited Cassel again, where two concerts were given with great success; also others in Augsburg, Bonn, Mannheim, Landau, Carlsruhe, and Heidelberg, after which he returned to Paris in the autumn of 1839.

A few extracts from letters to his wife, during this season of 1839, may be added here:—

Presburg, April, 17, 1839.

Instead of arriving at five o’clock we did not reach this place until eight; the driver got asleep on his seat and fell down under the carriage wheels; the horses ran against a post, breaking the carriage, and finally got away, giving us a good deal of trouble to catch them. The weather is fine, and I have taken fresh horses in order to reach Raab this evening. To–morrow morning I shall reach Pesth.... The surrounding country here is most beautiful and the journey very interesting, many of the old monuments being well preserved....

Pesth, Sunday, April 21.

I arrived in Pesth yesterday evening: it seems that I was impatiently looked for. I waited a day and a half in Comorn for the steamer to Pesth, visiting the wonderful fortifications there.... I wanted a distraction from my suffering, God knows how much I have suffered! I still hope and work, not for myself, for you, my family, my country, my Norway, of which I am proud. Why should I dwell upon my sad thoughts? You indeed have more than enough yourself. You share with me the memory of our little Ole[9] waiting for us on the other side.... You must come as soon as possible.... God have you in his keeping.

Munich, October 19, 1839.

A letter just received from my mother, announcing the death of our dear, good grandmother.[10] It occurred the same time that they received the tidings of our child’s death. Mother tries to console me and sympathizes with you....

Munich, October 21, 1839.

My concert was a great success; it seems that the enthusiasm never reached such a pitch before in Munich. At Carlsruhe I called upon Baron Moltke; he offered to contract with the manager of the theatre for me. In Stuttgart I saw Madame Merlin and the Prince of Montfort, and expect the answer of the intendant....

November 4, 1839.

I have so much to tell you I don’t know where to begin. Mozart’s widow was invited to Munich by the king to hear the opera of “Don Giovanni” performed. She and her sister made me a visit, and she invited me to sit with her in her box, that we might hear the opera together. The director has been working against me, because I went the evening after my second concert to a festival given by the artists in honor of the celebrated Schwanthaler the sculptor, who now rivals Thorwaldsen, and played two pieces. Germany’s most gifted artists gave me their loudest plaudits, but the director, having been recently decorated by the king, thought I ought to have limited my performance to his establishment. He visited Madame Mozart in her box, turning his back upon me the whole time. I afterwards told him my candid opinion of his behavior, and added that I would play no more in his theatre.

The artists and their wives made an entertainment for me later, and as they regretted they were not to hear me more, I played for them. I also played at the house of the celebrated painter Cornelius. The literati of Munich were present, and it was a great honor and delight to me to be able to hold the attention of these men; but some of the aristocracy are not pleased with me, and think I have not bowed sufficiently low to the powers that be. Day after to–morrow I give my first concert in Augsburg, and hope to give a second one. I am very anxious about you....

Having received word of the birth of a second son, he writes from Augsburg, November 16, 1839:—

My dear, think of my surprise and delight when I received the happy news! Let us praise God for his goodness to us, and let us hope that He will preserve our son to us! I write a large hand that your eyes may not be tried. I received a letter yesterday from Dr. Dufours, just before my concert, but was so moved that I could not write. I had to go out and walk, to catch my breath. Be careful, my dearest friend. You must not worry or be disturbed, for both your dear sakes. Dr. Dufours is a rare man, and I am proud to call him my friend. So much self–denial, frankness, and honesty, allied to such force of character and originality, are gifts seldom to be found united in one person. Tell him how grateful I am to him, and that I can hardly wait until my return to Paris to express my thanks.

I give one more concert here on Saturday, and then go to Stuttgart....

Stuttgart, November 18, 1839.

Your last letter has given me the greatest joy, but I fear you are not prudent enough.... I arrived here last evening; concert next Tuesday. A warm invitation from Nuremberg and Frankfort. My route will be as follows: Nuremberg, Würzburg, Frankfort, Darmstadt, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Carlsruhe, Strasburg, and Paris. In Augsburg I received an invitation from the Queen Dowager of Bavaria to return to Munich. I played for her, and her manner at parting was most cordial. She gave me a pin set with brilliants as a souvenir of the visit....

Frankfort, December 1, 1839.

Now I am a moment alone! ... the whole day long one continuous reception of visitors! I dined with an old friend from Paris, Hiller, the composer....

December 7, 1839.

You will find many alterations in the finale of my Bravura Variations. I have still much to do as regards my compositions themselves, and my playing of them, before they are satisfactory to me. I find every day that there are improvements possible, and grave errors to be corrected, but I have a firm will, and am trying to do better and better. It is very fortunate that none of my compositions are published; I shall take good care not to have this done for some time.... I bought a fine Nicolaus Amati in Nuremberg, very much like the one I left in London.... Its tone thrills me. Vuillaume will be astonished at its beauty. He must put it in order for me according to my own method. Should it compare favorably with my large Guarnerius, it will be well worth the eighty louis d’or that I paid for it. This would be a high price for an Amati of ordinary size, but the large form increased its value.

Mayence, December 13, 1839.

I have so much to attend to that I have no time to eat or sleep except when in my traveling carriage, and you know that does not give real rest when over–fatigued from concerts....

I must correspond with the directors of the theatres; must obtain information regarding the people with whom I am to deal; I must make my appointments for concerts and rehearsals, have my music copied, correct the scores, compose, play, and travel nights. I am always cheated, and in everlasting trouble. I reproach myself when everything does not turn out for the best, and am consumed with grief. I really believe I should succumb to all these demands and fatigues if it were not for my drinking cold water and bathing in it every morning and evening.

The detailed account that has been given of the years 1836–1839, may afford the reader an insight into the life of the artist, his struggles, his labors, his inspiration, and his reward. Many, indeed most, of the seriously disheartening experiences which Ole Bull suffered, were the results of his lack of early training. No inexperienced woman could be more fearful of asking or accepting securities for business obligations lest it should be considered a lack of confidence on his part. He made no attempt to order his business in detail, but left to others what he could have readily mastered, always waiting for results to justify the enterprise; and this dependence was an unfortunate habit for a generous, sensitive, trustful man. It made him too unjustly suspicious after painful experiences. He was apt, when he found himself unfairly treated, to break off a business relation, without regard to the consequences, and thus often exposed himself to much annoyance and trouble.

His anger had no taint of narrow vindictiveness or revenge, but often served to free him from the toils of others. Then they might find him on the vantage ground of work or influence, to which his ready resources had led him, and where they could not follow him. He was not suspicious by nature, and lent too ready an ear to the suggestions or pretensions of others; his sympathetic nature and his needs making him an easy victim for designing persons, and giving rise to his chief troubles. Curiously enough, those who had grossly betrayed his confidence often found that they could not do without the charm of his presence after once having known it, however they might disregard his interests and happiness; and they knew that he could not but be generous to a vanquished foe. He used to say, “I will not, because one man has failed me, expect the like of another, until it comes.” His trust in the good impulses of human nature never failed him long. Leaving home at the age of seventeen, wholly untrained in practical affairs, he worked out many a problem of life, as of art, at the hardest—through bitter experience in poverty and tears; but the ideals and aspirations of his youth were those of his age.

On his return to Paris, in the winter of 1839, his engagement at the Grand Opéra was broken up, through an intrigue of Schlesinger, the publisher of La Revue Musicale, and he gave a few concerts at the Théâtre de la Renaissance. In the spring of 1840 he went to London, taking Mr. Morandi, a harpist, as his secretary; but finding him unreliable in some respects, he determined to break loose from the connection at the risk of losing twelve hundred francs, which he had already advanced to Morandi. The latter, knowing that he could hold him on his contract, acted accordingly.

One day when Ole Bull was playing with Franz Liszt, in the latter’s room, the manager of the hotel was announced, who told Ole Bull that a policeman was outside with a warrant obtained by Morandi, and that the latter himself was standing at the corner of the street to watch the arrest. The artist spent a pleasant afternoon and evening with Liszt, and returned quietly to his own hotel at midnight, the officer and Morandi having meanwhile become tired of watching for him. The following day he went to his ambassador, Count Bjornstjerna, and Morandi’s lawyer was sent for, who demanded sixty pounds, for breach of contract. Ole Bull was indignant, and refused to pay a penny; but what was to be done? It was two o’clock. At three he was to play at St. James for the queen, and at the corner of the street two policemen were waiting with the warrant for his arrest, if the claim of the lawyer should not be conceded. A cab was summoned, and one of Count Bjornstjerna’s footmen, wrapped in Ole Bull’s cloak, entered the vehicle and moved rapidly off, followed by the policemen; while five minutes later, the artist himself was driven quietly to the palace, in the count’s carriage. In the evening the matter was compromised, Ole Bull paying twenty pounds, in addition to the twelve hundred francs already advanced.

In a letter to his wife, dated in London, May 15, 1840, he writes of Liszt as follows:—

I have not spoken to you of Franz Liszt, with whom I have formed the warmest friendship in a very short time. We have played together and are mutually inspired with admiration and sympathy for each other. You will make his acquaintance....

Ole Bull used to tell an amusing incident concerning Liszt and himself. They had played a good deal together, often giving concerts without the aid of a manager. On one occasion when a manager had been employed, and many distinguished artists appeared, Ole Bull had been advertised with special prominence as the “eminent” violinist, but did not know of this. On going to his friend’s somewhat late to supper, Liszt remarked, in a cutting tone, “Ah, our eminent friend has arrived!” Ole Bull saw that the feeling of the company was not cordial, and that Liszt had only been the spokesman of their discontent. At last he arose and said: “I do not understand the drift of your conversation, but can readily see that my presence is not agreeable. I am pained in proportion as I have entertained the warmest admiration and friendship for you, Monsieur Liszt;” and he courteously took his leave. As he was walking rapidly away he heard his name shouted two or three times on the street, and, turning, saw Liszt running after him, hatless, and waving his napkin as he shouted, “My good friend, there must be some mistake. I beg you to come back, and let us discover who has played us this trick.” He then explained the cause of their irritation, and Ole Bull, in his turn, made it clear that he was not responsible for the offense. Cordiality was at once restored, and Liszt was the life of the evening. At its close he insisted that the company should breakfast with him the next morning. The invitation was accepted, and, after the breakfast and many pleasant topics had been discussed, Liszt suddenly turned to the manager, who was present, and said: “We have decided to have a trial. I am to be judge, and you shall be permitted to answer, if you can, the charges brought against you as to that announcement of yesterday.” After an examination and cross–examination, in which the man denied all responsibility in the matter, the judge pronounced sentence solemnly: “Ole Bull, I charge you to take this man, and hold him at arm’s length out of the window”—they were in the third story—“until he do confess.” So said, so done; and, dangling over the street, the man did confess a plot to breed jealousy and ill–will, in order to break up a combination of two names which, as already stated, had sometimes made the services of an impressario unnecessary. The torment of the culprit was heightened by an occasional query on the part of Ole Bull if he was not soon to be relieved, as his arms were too tired to hold out much longer; but Liszt kept the poor wretch hanging there until the last moment, when he released him only on the promise that he would never offend again.

During this season, Liszt and Ole Bull played the Beethoven “Kreutzer Sonata,” at one of the Philharmonic Concerts. There was a great diversity of opinion among the critics as to the performance. The Philharmonic Society themselves gave expression to their judgment by the presentation of a piece of silver plate to the violinist.

The following note from Liszt is a pleasant reminder of the engagements of that time:—

Mon cher Ole,—Arrivé hier à 3 heures; concert à 8 heures et demi. Leurs altesses le grand Duc de Bade et le prince de S. l’ont honoré de leur presence. Du reste assemblée très–choisie, aristocratique—mais non pas très–nombreuse.

Benazet pourtant m’a assuré qu’il y avait là toute la bonne compagnie de Baden.

D’apres cette épreuve, et quelques conversations, je crois pouvoir dire que vous ferez surement un ou deux bons concerts ici, et je vous engage beaucoup à ne pas rester d’avantage dans les environs sans vous faire entendre ici.

Mardi prochain je donnerai mon 2[^me] concert. Mercredi je partirai pour Mayence où mon concert est annoncé pour le lendemain, et vendredi je compte être à Ems.

Ce que vous auriez donc, à ce qu’il me semble, de meilleur à faire, ce serait de venir ici lundi ou mardi, de jouer votre concert dans la semaine (peut–être jeudi ou samedi); et ensuite de repartir pour Ems, où je vous annoncerai de mon mieux.

À revoir donc, probablement bientôt, mon cher prodigieux artiste; gardez–moi votre bonne amitié et comptez bien sur toute la mienne.

Tout à vous d’admiration et de sympathie,
F. Liszt.

Soyez assez bon pour faire mes plus affectueux compliments à M. Heinefetter et priez–le de ne pas annoncer mon concert pour lundi ainsi que nous en étions convenus. Lors de mon passage à Mannheim (mercredi soir) j’aurai soin de l’informer du jour que nous puissons choisir. Si par le plus grand des hazards on pouvait m’annoncer un concert mercredi, je crois que je pourrai être à temps à Mannheim—mais il vaut mieux, je crois, ne pas forcer ainsi la chose. En tout cas n’oubliez pas de prevenir Heinefetter que lundi il me sera impossible de tenir ma promesse.

Ole Bull now went over to Brussels, where he had a warm friend in Monsieur Fétis; thence to Antwerp, the Rhine towns, and Heidelberg, joining company with Liszt. He then returned to Paris, but was soon called to Berlin, where he had been specially invited to participate in the festivities of the coronation of King William (the present Emperor of Germany). He gave six concerts to the royal family and their visitors. In Leipsic he also gave six concerts, where the musical society, “Der Tunnel,” presented him with a silver vase, surmounted by a figure of Apollo with the lyre.

It was in Leipsic that the Cellini Caspar da Salo violin came to him. Mendelssohn and Liszt were dining with Ole Bull, when a servant placed by his master’s plate an envelope bearing a great seal. “Open your letter, Ole Bull! it may be important,” said Liszt. It was from the son of Rhaczek, the owner of the violin, and imparted the news of his father’s death, adding that a clause of his will directed that the instrument should be offered to Ole Bull. Delighted, he told the news to his friends, who, when they learned the value set upon the violin, advised him to be cautious as to its purchase. “If it is really worth the price you mean to pay for it,” said Mendelssohn, “we must dedicate it together by playing the ‘Kreutzer.’” When it came, and had been put in order, Mendelssohn’s suggestion was carried out. He and Ole Bull played Beethoven’s “Sonata,” which was the first work performed on that wonderful instrument. The following description of the violin, by Mrs. Childs, is entirely faithful and correct:—

The violin, now in possession of Ole Bull, was made to the order of Cardinal Aldobrandini, one of a noble family at Rome memorable for their patronage of the fine arts. He gave for it 3,000 Neapolitan ducats, and presented it to the treasury of Innsprück, where it became a celebrated curiosity, under the name of “The Treasury–Chamber Violin.” When that city was taken by the French, in 1809, it was carried to Vienna, and sold to Rhaczek, a wealthy Bohemian, whose splendid collection of rare and ancient stringed instruments had attracted universal attention in the musical world. The gem of his museum was the violin manufactured by Da Salo, and sculptured by Cellini. He was offered immense sums for it by English, Russian, and Polish noblemen, but to all such offers he answered, “Not for the price of half Vienna.”

A few years ago Ole Bull gave some fifteen concerts in Vienna, with the brilliant success which usually attends him. The Bohemian, who went with the crowd to hear him, was an enthusiastic admirer of his genius, and soon became personally acquainted with him. Until then he had considered himself the most learned man in Europe in the history of violins, the peculiar merits of all the most approved manufacturers, and the best methods of repairing deficiencies, or improving the tones. But with Ole Bull, love of the violin had been an absorbing passion from his earliest childhood. He never saw one of a novel shape, or heard one with a new tone, without studying into the causes of the tone, and the effects produced by the shape. Through every nook and corner of Italy he sought for new varieties of his favorite instrument, as eagerly as an Oriental merchant seeks for rare pearls. He had tried all manner of experiments; he knew at sight the tuneful qualities of every species of wood, and precisely how the slightest angle or curve in the fashion of an instrument would affect the sound. He imparted to the Bohemian amateur much information that was new and valuable; and this sympathy of tastes and pursuits produced a warm friendship between them. Of course, Ole looked with a longing eye on the oldest and best of his violins; but the musical antiquarian loved it like an only child. He could not bring himself to sell it at that time, but he promised that, if he ever did part with it, the minstrel of Norway should have the preference over every other man in the world. He died two years afterward, and a letter from his son informed Ole Bull that his dying father remembered the promise he had given. He purchased it forthwith, and it was sent to him at Leipsic.

On the head of this curious violin is carved and colored an angel’s face, surrounded by flowing curls of hair. Behind this figure, leaning against the shoulders, is a very beautiful little mermaid, the human form of which terminates in scales of green and gold. The neck of the instrument is ornamented with arabesques in blue, red, and gold. Below the bridge is a mermaid in bronze. Thorwaldsen took great delight in examining these figures, and bestowed enthusiastic praise on the gracefulness of the design, and the excellence of the workmanship. Ole Bull was born in February, and, by an odd coincidence, the bridge of his darling violin is delicately carved with two intertwining fishes, like the zodiacal sign of February. Two little Tritons, cut in ivory, are in one corner of the bow. Altogether, it is a very original and singularly beautiful instrument. It has the rich look of the Middle Ages, and would have been a right royal gift for some princely troubadour.... The wood is extremely soft, and very thick. The upper covering is of an exceedingly rare species of Swiss pine, celebrated in the manufacture of violins. It grows on the Italian side of the Alps; for sunshine and song seem inseparably connected, and the balmy atmosphere which makes Italy so rich in music, and imparts to her language such liquid melody, seems breathed into her trees. Those acquainted with music are well aware that the value of an instrument is prodigiously increased by the age of the wood, and that the purity of its tone depends very much on the skillfulness of the hand which has played upon it.

As the best and brightest human soul can never free itself entirely from the influence of base and vulgar associations in youth, so a violin never quite recovers from the effect of discordant vibrations. So perceptible is this to a delicate ear, that when Ole Bull first performed in Philadelphia, he at once perceived that the double bass–viol in the orchestra was a very old instrument, and had been well played on. Some time after, the horse and rider that represented General Putnam’s leap down the precipice, plunged into the orchestra of the theatre and crushed the old bass–viol. As soon as Ole Bull became aware of the accident he hastened to buy the fragments. The wood of his violin was so old, and so thoroughly vibrated, that he had never been able to obtain a sounding–post adapted to it.

This post is an extremely small piece of wood in the interior of the instrument, but the inharmonious vibration between the old and the new disturbed his sensitive ear, until he was enabled to remedy the slight defect by a fragment of the double–bass.

One of the most curious facts in connection with this memorable violin is, that it was probably never played upon by any other hand than Ole Bull’s, though it is three hundred years old. It had always been preserved as a curiosity, and when it came into his possession it had no bar inside, nor any indication that such a necessary appendage had ever been put into it. The inward spiritual carving has been entirely done by this “Amphion of the North,” as he is styled by Andersen, the celebrated Danish novelist. The interior is completely covered with indentations in ovals and circles produced by the vibration of his magic tones. Doubtless the angels could sing from them fragmentary melodies of the universe; but to us they reveal no more than wave–marks on the shores of the ever–rolling sea.

Some of the concerts on the Rhine had not been well announced and prepared, and the artist found himself just too early or late for royal visitors; but the feeling of disappointment expressed in his letters was only transient. In Dresden his wife and child joined him. He gave two concerts there, and then went to Prague.

February 9, 1841, he writes from that city:—

My time has been taken up by illness, parties, rehearsals, concerts; I have already played seven times in public here, five times on my own account, and twice for others. I play to–day and then rest until Sunday, when I play my new “Concerto in E minor” for the first time. It is not yet finished, but I have time enough. I have met with such enthusiasm here as I do not remember to have witnessed in any other country.

Again, on February 17, 1841, he writes:—

I seem to belong to the world here rather than myself. I am invited every day to dinners, suppers, balls, soirées, matinées, and the Lord knows what. If I decline, they come again, until I yield, and if I accept once I cannot refuse again without a plausible excuse.... My concerts are crowded and my own opinion (also expressed by others) is that I have played pretty well in Prague, especially at my concert last Sunday forenoon for the benefit of the widows of poor musicians. I played my new composition, the most difficult of all my pieces. It was finished Saturday morning at half–past eleven o’clock, the rehearsal took place at half–past three, and the next day at noon I played it in public. I shall play it again to–morrow, making some alterations.... I have had flowers, wreaths, and poems thrown me; one in German, as you can now read it, I send you. Some written in Bohemian and translated for me are very beautiful.

The following bears date, March 1, 1841:—

I have just given my eleventh and last concert here, and although nobody remembers so successful a concert in Prague, and all ask me to give one more, as many persons could not obtain seats for this, I am compelled to leave in order to reach Russia in due time. I played a new composition, “Grüss aus des Ferne.” It was finished only at half–past seven on the morning of the concert. It was a success.... My warmest greetings to Prof. Dahl.[11]

From Prague Ole Bull went via Breslau to Warsaw, where he played the “Polacca Guerriera.” The youth of the city requested its repetition, but many told him that it only revived in the Poles the memory of their lost liberty, and he did not play it again.

From Wilna he went to St. Petersburg, where a serious illness prostrated him. He writes from there May 4, 1841:—

You ask me to give you a detailed account of what you call my triumphs. On the road from Wilna to St. Petersburg my carriage broke down three times; the mud went over the wheels, and eight horses had the greatest difficulty in drawing it out and onward. There was no end of trouble at each station to get horses, although I had a podoroshna, or authorization from the government.... Thursday evening I played at the residence of the Countess Rossi (the celebrated Sontag), and you will like to know that I played well. I leave at once for Moscow....

Again, May 22d, he writes:—

I had some sea–captains from Bergen to dine and celebrate with me the 17th of May, at my hotel. They said we were expected in Bergen.... When it was known that I intended to leave the city without giving a concert, a deputation came from the orchestra, urging me to play.... I accepted on condition that they should arrange everything for me, that I need not be obliged to leave my room. This will detain me here longer than I had anticipated.... I have to build castles in the air to try and forget that I am a prisoner, but I have often been thankful that you were not here to share the hardships of this journey with me....

As soon as he was able he joined his wife in Dresden, and they went via Hamburg to Norway, to his mother’s house, at Valestrand, near Bergen. This was the summer home of his childhood. For generations it had been in the possession of his father’s family, and he afterwards purchased it, built a house, and lived there some ten or twelve years.

Ole Bull spent the summer of 1841 at Valestrand very quietly. In December he went to Christiania, whence he writes:—

For my encore last evening I gave them an improvisation on the National Hymn. I may decide to give a good number of concerts, as they are fighting like wolves for seats. The king is to come soon, and I should like to remain a little longer to see the good old man. Countess Wedel has invited me to spend Christmas week at Jarlsberg, and I am sorry that I cannot. Löwenskjold is extremely attentive to me.... The Egebergs are as affectionate and true friends as ever; glad when I come, and never complaining when I do not, which makes them still dearer to me, if possible. This family have ever had a great influence on my life; they helped me when I was in sore need, and gave me good advice; they encouraged and assisted me in every way in their power, and always without permitting my gratitude to become a burden.

January 11, 1842, he writes:—

It was three o’clock this morning before I got to bed, as the actors at the theatre and about a hundred of my friends had arranged a company for me, which really was delightful.... When I entered the hall a chorus sang a poem written by A. Munch, to a melody from the “Polacca.”... At supper your health and the children’s was proposed and drank, and I responded with my violin.... When am I to be permitted to lead a peaceful domestic life with you and our little ones?

His first concert in Christiania was given for the benefit of the theatre. The banquet which he mentioned took place just before his departure. The following is a quotation from one of the local papers:—

Many songs and poems were written in his honor, and the warmth and pathos of the melodies he played so thrilled all present that they believed they had never heard him play so well. The guests accompanied him en masse to his hotel, and cheered again and again.

The next incident of interest was his concert at Lund, where he went via Frederikshald and Gottenburg. The price of the tickets was very moderate,—one dollar,—but many were sold for ten. The people received him most cordially, and an address of welcome was made by the chancellor of the University, to which the artist replied with his violin. On his departure the students accompanied him in procession, and bade him farewell with songs and cheers. On the 19th of February he went to Copenhagen and Hamburg, where he gave six concerts to crowded houses; then to Amsterdam, where he gave six more concerts, and quite electrified the phlegmatic Dutch. His concerts were an artistic, and at last a financial, success, but it was a success which he conquered.

He writes May 2, 1842, from Amsterdam:—

What shall I say to you of my troubles and vexations! As I could confide them to no one, they have dwelt in my heart. Art is ever dearly bought, and the true artist easily deceived, for it is only by renouncing the material good that he may obtain the divine happiness of following the guidance of his imagination and creative power. To understand himself rightly, he must renounce all else, give himself wholly to his art, and fight ignorance and stupidity. I am not the man to give up the battle, but how many wounds and blows before one reaches the goal! The recompense art gives is a success even in failure. Last year Rubini and Madame Persiani at the same prices—it really seems impossible—gave concerts here to empty benches.

In June he returned to Bergen, via Hamburg. In September he went to Christiania to assist a Swedish artist, and in December gave his own concerts. In January, 1843, he visited Sweden, and Wergeland says:—

After giving concerts at Carlstad and Orebro, he arrived one night, at one o’clock, at Upsala, dragged in a huge old coach by six horses through the snow. Upsala, cosily nestled among forest–clad hills, is one of the oldest and most remarkable cities of Sweden. One thousand years ago it was the principal centre of heathen worship. In the low temple, on the rude altar, the Vikings came to offer up to Odin and Thor the customary Yule sacrifice. All the great movements in the Swedish history of those early days were inaugurated in this temple, and dim memories thickly shroud the place. Four hundred years ago the first Swedish university was founded. All the science, art, literature, and poetry the Swedish people have produced originated there; and many illustrious names, such as Linnæus and Berzelius, shed their radiant halo far beyond the boundaries of the country. Upsala now is only a student’s camp. Libraries, lecture halls, laboratories, museums, and dormitories cluster around the cathedral, and all the life of the place has been absorbed by the one institution—the University. Ole Bull came to Upsala not to give a concert, but to play for the students. It is true, as Jules Janin said of him, his violin is his love, his art his life. To express himself in tones and be understood is his one great joy, and he went to Upsala because the students have, and always have had, a great reputation for musical sensibility and musical education. But his entry was not very propitious. The night was dark, no inn was to be discovered, and the cold was biting. Suddenly a swarm of young students returning from a Christmas masquerade singing, dancing, and making merry, came along, and, of course, the large old coach and six became the butt of their frolic. It ended in Ole Bull’s ordering the coach to turn about and drive back to Stockholm.

This occurrence led to some misrepresentations and ill–natured comments in the local journals, to which Ole Bull replied in a letter published in the Aftenbladet, January 22, 1843. After explaining the circumstances, and reminding those who had accused him of failing to keep an engagement that no concert had been announced, and that he was therefore free to act as he thought best, he concludes thus:—

Although I do not recognize the right of any man to call me to account for my conduct when I have wronged nobody, although I believe I ought not to be excluded from the universal right of a man to determine his own actions, still, I am willing to state briefly my motives for leaving Upsala without playing, cherishing the hope that a cultured and impartial public will feel and agree with me that it was something quite other than a freakish temperament which led me to take that step.

I had laid my route by way of Upsala with the intention of inviting, as I had done in Lund, the students of the University to attend my concert, cherishing the fond hope that the cultivated young men at Sweden’s first University would kindly receive, through me, a musical greeting from the brother–land, and give me their approbation. Although the insignificant affair which took place on my arrival in Upsala of itself neither could so offend me that it should lead me to leave the town in “angry mood,” nor seduce me to such an act of injustice as to lay the fault of a few thoughtless young men at the door of a numerous and honorable corporation, still, every one who intelligently and impartially examines the matter will see that it brought me into a frame of mind not at all in harmony with the problem I was about to solve. Consequently, it was not anger on account of the wrong I had suffered, or ill–will toward Upsala town and the students, but despondency and dejected spirits which led me so quietly to leave a town which I both desire and expect to see again under more favorable circumstances, for no one recognizes more fully than I that it is the aim and object of art to unite, not to disunite.

Ole Bull.

The renowned historian, Professor Gustaf Geijer, now wrote to Ole Bull, urging him to come to Upsala. He cordially consented, and to his first concert he invited the whole body of students. Each selection played by the violinist was warmly applauded, and the excitement culminated in the wildest enthusiasm, when, at the request of Professor Geijer, he improvised variations on the popular Swedish melody, “Lille Karen.” At the close of the concert he was met in the vestibule by the students, who escorted him with songs and cheers to his hotel, where they finally dispersed after giving a hearty cheer in response to his few words of thanks. At six o’clock a “Sexa” was given in the large University Hall. A letter published at this time, said:—

The artist, whose frank, attractive manner won him all hearts, in responding to the toast proposed in his honor, dwelt especially on the good–will which in his person had been shown the brother kingdom and Norse people, and when lifted on the “golden chair,”[12] proposed from his elevated seat the toast, “Sweden for ever!” while from the same height Professor Geijer emptied his glass to “his boys.”

Sentiment after sentiment was given, and the guest of the evening at last expressed his happiness at the misadventure of his first visit, which had caused him to know better possibly than he would otherwise have done, the students of Upsala. After midnight the company followed him to his door, and he promised another concert in the University Hall, where he said he had received the greatest honor of his life. No other artist has been the recipient of such homage.

His second concert was, if possible, a greater success than the first, and both Bishop Faxe and Professor Geijer thanked him in behalf of the Upsala people.

From Upsala Ole Bull returned to Stockholm. There he had very serious trouble, to which he refers in a letter to his wife, January 26, 1843, as follows:—

Pratté wrote his dear friend Mr. R., who five years since published that pamphlet against me in Copenhagen, and told him that I had spoken ill of the king and royal family, of the royal orchestra and its leader, of the Swedes in general, and of Stockholm in particular. He also sent a criticism to be published in the papers. Mr. R. circulated these rumors, and succeeded in making many enemies for me everywhere; but the affair in Upsala, where I showed much moderation, has already disarmed many people, and the public begin to know how matters stand. To R.’s published attacks I have made no reply. Qui s’excuse s’accuse—and he is getting to be too well known to lead people astray longer. Pratté wrote to R. that Henrik Wergeland was the author of the critique. It is simply absurd to impute to him such meanness. We must hope that all will turn out for the best.

February 6, 1843, he writes:—

Intrigue against me has exhausted itself; but he who endures slavery deserves to live a slave. I have thus far been able to turn circumstances that seemed against me to my advantage.

Ole Bull was deeply hurt and put to great inconvenience by the ill–will of the musicians of Stockholm, and had been obliged to call in an orchestra from a neighboring town; but in the end his vindication was complete, and the weapons of his assailants recoiled upon themselves. He gave a concert at the palace, arranged by the queen in honor of the king’s birthday, and was received more warmly than ever. His detractors had only helped to establish him more firmly in the esteem of the people of the Swedish capital.

The twenty–fifth anniversary of Karl Johan’s accession to the throne was also Ole Bull’s birthday, and he invited the Norwegians in Stockholm to celebrate the royal festivities, and played the national melodies.

He soon received letters from Henrik Wergeland, in whose house Pratté lived, and who was indignant to find that his name should have been used against his friend. It was to destroy this vexatious fabrication that he determined to write the sketch of Ole Bull’s life which is quoted so often in the present memoir.

On his way from Upsala to Stockholm, Ole Bull met at Jönköping his old teacher Lundholm, who, it will be remembered, had prophesied that his pupil would in time become as good a fiddler as himself. It was at the close of a snowy day, and the northern lights were shooting up the sky. Lundholm, muffled in a bear skin, came along in a sleigh, and unwrapping his face called out to Ole Bull’s driver to stop. Then he shouted to the artist: “Now that you are a celebrated violinist remember that, when I heard you play Paganini, I predicted your career would be a remarkable one.” “You were mistaken,” cried Ole Bull, jumping up; “I did not read Paganini at sight; I had played it before.” “It makes no difference—good–by,” and Lundholm urged on his horse and in a moment was out of sight.

We must pass by pleasant incidents at various cities and hurry on to Copenhagen, where he gave three concerts to audiences numbering several thousands. At the last concert he played his new composition, “Siciliano e Tarantella,” which he was obliged to repeat, and then to acknowledge the ringing plaudits by playing a Norse and Danish national song. He was so happy in uniting these melodies, that the audience, when he had finished, rose to their feet with cries of “Viva Ole Bull!” While in Copenhagen he visited the Students’ Union, and on his entrance was greeted by a song set to one of his own melodies:—

“Thanks for thy giving
Our spirits their freedom;
Thanks for thy greeting
From Sigtuna town.

Bend but thy bow and
Send forth thy arrows,
Bleeds not the bosom
With lovelier wound.”

Here too the students escorted him to his hotel; and the king gave him a handsome ring in brilliants.

The celebrated violinist Ernst and the pianist Döhler were in Copenhagen at this time, and all three artists were living at the same hotel. They were old friends and heartily enjoyed the reunion. Ole Bull used to relate an amusing story of his early acquaintance with Ernst in Paris in 1836. He had been engaged by the Princess Damerond to arrange and take part in some quartette music at one of her soirées, and had secured the aid of Ernst and the brothers Boucher. As the musicians descended the stairs some white Polish dogs followed them, snarling and barking, to the salon. Ernst, who had on silk stockings and low shoes, began to retreat, thus encouraging one of the little brutes to bite him. The cur then rushed at Ole Bull, who deliberately lifted it on his toe and sent it up among the lights of the great chandelier. The attendant found on picking it up that the fall had killed it. The princess, raised on a sort of dais at the end of the apartment, had seen her pet’s mishap, and in her agitation sent a messenger to request the musicians to leave immediately. Ole Bull expressed his willingness to comply with the gracious request, so soon as the compensation of the artists he had engaged should be handed him. Her feelings were somewhat mollified at this suggestion, but as three of the quartette had already left, there was no other course but to pay him the twenty–five louis d’or, which the four friends spent in a supper at the Palais–Royal.

In April Ole Bull left Copenhagen, and gave concerts in Kiel, Hamburg, Bremen, and Oldenburg, returning to Hamburg. He there met Fanny Elssler, who had just returned from the United States. She urged him to try a season in that country, and he decided to make the trip at the earliest moment possible. Just at this time, he saw a malicious attack upon himself written by the secretary of Ernst and Döhler, but, as he discovered, without their knowledge. To meet this attack, so far as it denounced his compositions, he gave Schubert three of his pieces for publication—the first and last he ever published. These were, “Variazioni di Bravoura,” “La Preghiera d’una Madre” (Adagio Religioso), and “Il Notturno.” They were all received with great favor by the critics at the time.

On the 19th of May, he wrote his wife from Hamburg of his happiness that a daughter had been born to them. He also referred to the attack made upon him by Ernst’s secretary. “If artists will make light of and ignore calumny and censure,” he said, “they are sure to repent it in the end. They may keep their nobility of soul, but they will lose the respect of the public, and confidence in their own merits will be weakened. As I am about to go abroad I desire to leave behind some remembrance of myself, and have given Schubert certain pieces to publish.”

In June he returned again to Copenhagen, and the enthusiasm then was, if possible, greater than ever. Ole Bull and his compositions became the universal topic of the newspaper paragraphers and of the people. Before the end of the month he went again to Christiania, and the illustrious Danish poet, Adam Öhlenschläger, happened to be a fellow–passenger on the steamer. In his “Reminiscences” the latter says:—

In 1843 I went with my youngest son, William, to Norway. One of our fellow–travelers was the violinist, Ole Bull, who, because of his own talent, has acquired not only a European but a world–wide celebrity. He had often awakened my admiration as well as my astonishment. His life is remarkable. He came as a poor unknown musician to Paris, and had suffered the most extreme want, when he was recognized, heard, appreciated, loved, married, and soon acquired by his concerts a considerable fortune. His musical performances were an expression of his own character, a peculiar combination of a charming, childlike good–nature and tenderness, often interrupted by a restless excitement. Thus the most beautiful, ravishing tones and most genial fancies alternated with sudden piercing shrieks. It seemed as if Ole Bull with capricious fickleness delighted in destroying the tenderest and loftiest sentiment which he had evoked, and in offending those whom he had charmed, with oddities which did not control himself, but which he in a proud mood called forth whenever he pleased. He frequently appeared to me like a painter, who shows us a beautiful picture which he has just finished, and just as we are about to examine it more closely he draws his brush over it and blots it all out again. Still, justice must be done him. We heard many a charming piece that was not thus interrupted, and it is quite probable that this manner of his has been entirely abandoned in his riper years. No one ever played so charmingly as he an adagio of Mozart. In it he was able to subdue completely those grating features of a too violent individuality. I say he was precisely thus in his life. He sometimes spoiled the good he had done, but, with a childlike nature that was most becoming to the strong, fair young Norseman, it cost him no effort, on the other hand, to make amends for the harm he had done.

When he at one time, on board the steamer, had caused my displeasure by a too severe criticism of the Swedes and I had taken my seat on a bench, he came leaping toward me on his hands and feet and barked at me like a dog. This was a no less original than amiable manner of bringing about a reconciliation. He often visited me in Copenhagen. In Christiania, where his young and beautiful wife resided, who as a Parisian did not find life in the North very agreeable, we dined with him, and on leaving he was kind enough to offer us one of his carriages for the journey to Bergen, his native town, whither he also soon was going. He was very strong, his arms were like steel, and it is very possible that it was his excessive physical strength which occasionally interrupted the tender tones, while he shook his head so that his hair fell down into his beautiful brown eyes.... When he played for the king in Copenhagen, and Frederick VI. asked him who had taught him to play, he answered “The Mountains of Norway, your majesty.”

From Christiania Ole Bull went to Trondhjem, and at his concerts there, and in all the Norse towns the enthusiasm was unbounded. On the 12th of July, 1843, he writes:—

I have been on the Dovrefjeld since yesterday evening. It commands a splendid view, being the highest mountain in Norway, eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. As we ascended it began to rain, then to snow and hail very hard. The thunder and lightning had a weird effect. I was from the noon of one day until four the next morning ascending and descending the mountain from Jerkind. G., who was unused to mountain climbing, failed to reach the summit; he was almost buried in the snow. Some Englishmen were of the party. I outwalked the guide, and reached the top before the others. A passing traveler does me the kindness to forward this to you.

From Trondhjem he writes:—

Gertner will remain here to paint the cathedral, which is a splendid structure and eight hundred years old. I gave a concert without any assistance, playing nearly two hours without cessation. It was very fatiguing, but, at least, nothing was ruined by a bad accompaniment, and the audience was pleased.

On the way from Bergen to Christiania, he stopped at several points to play for the peasants. Especially memorable to him was the scene in Sogn. He found many of the people in their Sunday dress, assembled in the quaint Borgund church, which has stood there some eight hundred years; and, with a driving storm outside, he played for them the folk–songs, as old, probably, as the edifice which sheltered them. Ole Bull visited this church again in 1879. On this, his last trip over the mountains, knots of working–men had assembled to greet him. Every hat was lifted and hearty cheers were given as the carriage rolled past. Wergeland says:—

Ole Bull’s power, exercised through his violin over an audience, was truly wonderful. Once, on a journey in Norway, he played for a number of peasants whom he incidentally found gathered in an inn. When he finished playing the deepest silence prevailed. Only the ticking of the big watches in their pockets was heard, when suddenly one of the men struck out his hand, and with great emphasis cried aloud, “This is a lie.” If true mental power consists in lifting the unconscious forces of life into the light of the conscious, giving them form and shape, converting them into thought and will, Ole Bull’s playing was not a lie. His tones fell on his hearers, like the first warm rain of spring, with a blessing.

His last months in Norway were spent in making preparations for the great journey to America. August found him again in Christiania. On the 11th of September he gave his farewell concert, and left with his wife and three children on the 16th, for Copenhagen. Wergeland, writing of his departure, says: “He left for America, preceded by his fame, and followed by thousands and thousands of grateful farewells from his countrymen.”

On the 3d of October he gave a concert in Luneburg, which was attended by the King of Hanover and other royal personages; and, sending his family to Paris, he went himself, by way of Amsterdam and London, to Liverpool, where he took passage. He wrote his wife from Liverpool, November 4, 1843:—

Schubert has published the “Adagio Religioso,” which will be sent you at Paris. You will find your name on the title–page. The “Bravura Variations” are dedicated to King Karl Johan (Bernadotte) as follows: “Variazioni di Bravoura, Fantasy on a theme of Bellini, dedicated to Karl Johan, King and Benefactor of my native land, Norway.” It will be sent you, too....

I am well now, but in a fever of anxiety concerning you and our children, whom I am about to leave. I must have patience. With a firm will, talent, and God’s blessing, all will be well.... I embrace you very tenderly. Kiss our children for me.

Wergeland’s celebrated poems to Ole Bull were published at this time, and, like Welhaven’s, are valued as among the finest lyrics in the Norse literature.[13]

Ole Bull landed in Boston, in November, 1843, and went directly on to New York. His belief in the sturdy common people of his own country and his love of freedom made him anticipate with great interest an acquaintance with a people who governed for themselves, and this acquaintance resulted in giving him greater hopes for his own land, which he proudly felt was able to show already the most liberal constitution of all the European monarchical governments. He was then and ever zealous to the utmost, that every precedent which had been favorable to the growing power of the Norse people, through their constitution, should be jealously guarded. He insisted that their only safety and good lay in a demand for a fuller sovereignty of the people, and in their better education for such power. To him, therefore, the interest of his first visit and sojourn in the American Republic was not confined to his profession. He was from the first, and to the last, an earnest student of republican government and institutions.

His friend R. B. Anderson writes of him:—

Extremes meet. Ole Bull was at once the most perfect cosmopolitan and the most zealous patriot. Having spent much of his time abroad in the various European countries and in America, he had thoroughly learned the peculiarities of all nationalities. He was a keen observer. Mastering quickly the various European vernaculars, and winning easily the hearts of the people, he became conversant with the political and social questions that agitate the different nations. He was earnest in proclaiming their merits, but usually silent as to their faults. His face would brighten at every evidence he found of progress toward freedom of thought and the establishment of liberal governments in the various monarchical countries of Europe.

Ole Bull’s best thoughts were given to his own country, to Norway. During all the years of conquest in his profession, and all the honors bestowed upon him in foreign lands, he never forgot his dear “Gamle Norge.” He ever talked with loving tenderness of Norway’s gray mountains. He was but four years old when the young Norway was born. When he went out into the world the names Norway and Norwegian were scarcely to be found in the European vocabularies, these terms having previously been absorbed by Denmark and Dane. With his fame and name, attention was everywhere called to the fact that Norway had cast off the yoke of Denmark, and asserted her right to exist as an independent nation; and when people saw Ole Bull they said, “A land that can foster such sons has an inalienable right to its independence.”

His name was now to become a household word through the length and breadth of the United States. At first circumstances seemed unfavorable. There were already two violinists in New York—Vieuxtemps, who was assisted by the famous singer Madame Damoreau, and Artot. The French, loyal to their countrymen, made a formidable opposition, and many difficulties had to be encountered. Ole Bull gave his first concert as early as the 23d of November. The contest between the parties continued with much vigor; the fact that not a Frenchman was present at the Norwegian’s first concert made it now a question between the French and Americans. The papers were filled with contributions in prose and in verse, witty epigrams, and cartoons. Victory soon inclined to Ole Bull. With his first concert, he won the good–will of the Americans, and ever afterwards held it. His audiences kept growing, until he was obliged to play in larger halls than were intended for concert purposes, and oftentimes many were unable to gain admission. The rapidity with which he traveled, and the frequency of his performances, were also remarkable. As an illustration of this, we will give a list of his concerts for the month of December, 1843. After appearing in New York again on the 29th of November, he gave the following concerts in December:—

December 1.	Philadelphia.
„ 3.	New York.
„ 5.	New York.
„ 7.	Philadelphia.
„ 9.	Philadelphia.
„ 12.	New York.
„ 15.	Philadelphia.
„ 16.	Philadelphia.
„ 18.	New York.
„ 19.	New York.
„ 21.	Baltimore.
„ 23.	Baltimore.
„ 25.	Washington.
„ 26.	Baltimore.
„ 27.	Washington.
„ 28.	Richmond.
„ 29.	Petersburg.
„ 30.	Richmond.

And up to 1879 many months of winter and spring, and sometimes nine months of a year, would show similar records of travel and work. It was not his fine physique alone that enabled him to bear the strain, but a rigid adherence to simple diet and habits, with an almost total abstinence from stimulants during the season of work, and constant exercise in the open air during the summer vacation in Norway. He doubtless traveled more miles and was heard by a larger number of people than any other man among his contemporaries.

Mrs. Child’s account of his New York concerts written for the Boston Courier, and published later in her “Letters from New York,” will be of interest. She did not speak from the judgment of a cultivated musical ear. She analyzed and expressed the effects of Ole Bull’s performance on the multitude.

In Mrs. Child’s first letter, she says:—

I have twice heard Ole Bull. I scarcely dare to tell the impression his music made upon me. But, casting aside all fear of ridicule for excessive enthusiasm, I will say that it expressed to me more of the infinite than I ever saw, or heard, or dreamed of, in the realms of Nature, Art, or Imagination.

They tell me his performance is wonderfully skillful; but I have not enough of scientific knowledge to judge of the difficulties he overcomes. I can readily believe of him, what Bettina says of Beethoven, that “his spirit creates the inconceivable, and his fingers perform the impossible.” He played on four strings at once, and produced the rich harmony of four instruments. His bow touched the strings as if in sport, and brought forth light leaps of sound, with electric rapidity, yet clear in their distinctness. He made his violin sing with flute–like voice, and accompany itself with a guitar, which came in ever and anon like big drops of musical rain. All this I felt as well as heard without the slightest knowledge of quartetto or staccato. How he did it, I know as little as I know how the sun shines, or the spring brings forth its blossoms. I only know that music came from his soul into mine, and carried it upward to worship with the angels.

Oh, the exquisite delicacy of those notes! Now tripping and fairy–like as the song of Ariel; now soft and low as the breath of a sleeping babe, yet clear as a fine–toned bell; now high as a lark soaring upward, till lost among the stars!

Noble families sometimes double their names, to distinguish themselves from collateral branches of inferior rank. I have doubled his, and in memory of the Persian nightingale have named him Ole Bulbul....

When urged to join the throng who are following this star of the North, I coolly replied: “I never like lions; moreover I am too ignorant of musical science to appreciate his skill!” But when I heard this man, I at once recognized a power that transcends science, and which mere skill may toil after in vain. I had no need of knowledge to feel this subtle influence, any more than I needed to study optics to perceive the beauty of the rainbow. It overcame me like a miracle, I felt that my soul was for the first time baptized in music; that my spiritual relations were somehow changed by it, and that I should henceforth be otherwise than I had been. I was so oppressed with “the exceeding weight of glory” that I drew my breath with difficulty.

As I came out of the building, the street sounds hurt me with their harshness. The sight of ragged boys and importunate coachmen jarred more than ever on my feelings. I wanted that the angels that had ministered to my spirit should attune theirs also. It seemed to me as if such music should bring all the world into the harmonious beauty of divine order. I passed by my earthly home and knew it not. My spirit seemed to be floating through infinite space. The next day I felt like a person who had been in a trance, seen heaven opened, and then returned to earth again.

This doubtless appears very excessive in one who has passed the enthusiasm of youth, with a frame too healthy and substantial to be conscious of nerves, and with a mind instinctively opposed to lion–worship. In truth it seems wonderful to myself; but so it was. Like a romantic girl of sixteen, I would pick up the broken string of his violin and wear it as a relic, with a half superstitious feeling that some mysterious magic of melody lay hidden therein.

I know not whether others were as powerfully wrought upon as myself; for my whole being passed into my ear, and the faces around me were invisible. But the exceeding stillness showed that the spirits of the multitude bowed down before the magician. While he was playing, the rustling of a leaf might have been heard; and when he closed, the tremendous bursts of applause told how the hearts of thousands leaped up like one.

His personal appearance increases the charm. He looks pure, natural, and vigorous, as I imagine Adam in Paradise. His inspired soul dwells in a strong frame, of admirable proportions, and looks out intensely from his earnest eyes. Whatever may be his theological opinions, the religious sentiment must be strong in his nature; for Teutonic reverence, mingled with impassioned inspiration, shines through his honest Northern face and runs through all his music. I speak of him as he appears while he and his violin converse together. When not playing there is nothing observable in his appearance, except genuine health, the unconscious calmness of strength in repose, and the most unaffected simplicity in dress and in manner. But when he takes his violin and holds it so caressingly to his ear to catch the faint vibration of its strings, it seems as if “the angels were whispering to him.” As his fingers sweep across the strings, the angels pass into his soul, give him their tones, and look out from his eyes, with the wondrous beauty of inspiration. His motions sway to the music like a tree in the winds; for soul and body chord. In fact “his soul is but a harp, which an infinite breath modulates; his senses are but strings, which weave the passing air into rhythm and cadence.”

If it be true, as has been said, that a person ignorant of the rules of music, who gives himself up to its influence, without knowing whence it comes or whither it goes, experiences, more than the scientific, the passionate joy of the composer himself in his moments of inspiration, then was I blest in my ignorance. While I listened, music was to my soul what the atmosphere is to my body; it was the breath of my inward life. I felt more deeply than ever that music is the highest symbol of the infinite and holy. I heard it moan plaintively over the discords of society, and the dimmed beauty of humanity. It filled me with inexpressible longing to see man at one with Nature and with God; and it thrilled me with joyful prophecy that the hope would pass into glorious fulfillment.

With renewed force I felt what I have often said, that the secret of creation lay in music. “A voice to light gave being.” Sound led the stars into their places and taught chemical affinities to waltz into each others’ arms.

“By one pervading spirit
Of tones and numbers all things are controlled;
As sages taught, where faith was found, to merit
Initiation in that mystery old.”

Some who never like to admit that the greatest stands before them say that Paganini played the “Carnival of Venice” better than his Norwegian rival. I know not. But if ever laughter ran along the chords of musical instrument with a wilder joy, if ever tones quarreled with more delightful dissonance, if ever violin frolicked with more capricious grace than Ole Bulbul’s in that fantastic whirl of melody, I envy the ears that heard it....

His reception in New York has exceeded all preceding stars. His first audience were beside themselves with delight, and the orchestra threw down their instruments in ecstatic wonder. Familiarity with his performance brings less excitement, but I think more pleasure.

From Richmond Ole Bull went to Charleston, and thence to New Orleans. He gave five concerts in that city at the same time that Vieuxtemps and Madame Damoreau were giving a series of soireés. The Spanish, English, and German papers rivaled the American in their friendly criticisms of his performances. After three concerts in Mobile, he returned again to New Orleans for two final concerts there.

An anecdote of one of his first Southern visits, told by the late Mr. Thomas R. Gould, the sculptor, is illustrative of his many curious adventures at that time. A large diamond in his violin bow, which had been given him by the Duke of Devonshire with the request that he should use it, had attracted the attention of a man, who came to him and told him that he wanted the stone. The violinist replied, that, as it was a gift, it had associations, and he could neither give it away nor sell it. “But I am going to have that stone!” said the man, as he began to draw his bowie knife from the collar of his coat; but the movement was parried by the musician’s muscular arm, and the fellow was felled to the floor by a blow with the edge of the hand across his throat. “The next time I would kill you,” said Ole Bull, with his foot on the man’s chest, “but you may go now.” On his release the fellow expressed his admiration for Ole Bull’s dexterity and muscle, and asked him to accept the bowie knife, which he had meant to use against him. This was not the only present of the kind he received—as five knives, four given him in the Southern States, and one in Spain, were kept among his curiosities at home, and sometimes drew from him a story of his adventures. He was often obliged, while in the South, to take the cash box, after his concerts, from one place to another, the banks being few and far between, and was finally warned by detectives of a gang of men who were following him for the sake of plunder. He had several encounters with them, and was more than once in serious danger. He writes at this time:—

My brave servant Henry watches over me as a father over a son. He always fears that I may be attacked by villains; but I do not think I am in danger from any weaponed hand.

One more story will sufficiently illustrate his Southern and Western adventures. Going down the Mississippi, he met on the steamboat a party of half–savage men, colonists from the far West. While reading his newspaper he was accosted by one of the men, who had been sent as spokesman by his companions, with the request that the fiddler would take a drink with them, offering him a whiskey flask at the same time. “I thank you,” said Ole Bull politely, “but I never drink whiskey.” With a curse, the fellow asked if he was a teetotaler. “No, but whiskey is like poison to me.” “If you can’t drink, come and fight then!” The man’s comrades had gathered round him meantime, and they all cried, “If you won’t drink, you must fight. You look d‑‑n strong; show us what you are good for.” “A Norseman can fight as well as anybody when his blood is up, but I can’t fight when my blood is cold, and why should I?” “You look like a strong fellow, and d‑‑n it, you shall fight.” Seeing no way of escape, Ole Bull quietly said, “Since you insist on testing my strength and there is no reason for fighting, I will tell you what I will do. Let any one of you take hold of me in any way he likes, and I’ll wager that in half a minute he shall lie on his back at my feet.” A big fellow was chosen, who stepped forward and grasped the violinist round the waist, but was instantly thrown over his head by a sudden wrench and lay senseless on the deck. Ole Bull now felt himself in a very uncomfortable position, for he saw one of the man’s comrades draw his bowie knife, but was relieved when it was used only to open a flask. A good dose of its contents poured down his throat soon revived the fainting man, and his first question, “How the devil was I thrown down here?” was answered by a shout of laughter from his companions, in which he himself joined. He sprang to his feet, and after vainly trying to persuade Ole Bull to show him how he had thrown him, he said: “Take this knife home with you; you fight d—d well; you are as quick as lightning!” The artist heard of the same fellow later as having gone to an editor to call him to account for an adverse criticism on his playing, ready to fight for “the strongest fiddler he had ever seen, anyhow!”

Ole Bull now decided to visit Cuba, and landed in Havana. He there wrote two compositions on Cuban motives: “Agiaco Cubano,” and “Recuerdos de la Habana,” which he played at his last concert.

He wrote to his wife from New Orleans, January 24, 1844:—

All these days we have had summer weather, very warm but extremely damp; the atmosphere is very heavy, and my strings break constantly.... Yesterday I gave my last concert in New Orleans for this visit; I was overwhelmed with bouquets and flowers. I have practiced speech–making, and it goes better than one would think, as I have no facility in speaking English; but a firm will can accomplish much.... The French are still pursuing me, that they may hold up Vieuxtemps and Artot; they invent all manner of outrageous stories to lower me in the public estimation, but as yet without success. It is probable that these rumors will be circulated in Paris, with the same end in view. Well, my dear, one must bear much malice and misrepresentation when he has become a public character, and you know I have already had my share; but, at the same time, I have met with forbearance and generosity, and this ought not to be forgotten. My life has hitherto, as you know, been a most changeful one, and superhuman strength is sometimes needed to enable one to stand against such infamous attacks and—keep silence. But enough of this.... I am sorry you are not satisfied with the nurse Miette; she is the only servant to whom I feel really indebted for the care she has given our children, and I believe that she loves us. Try to overlook little faults, which are of no consequence; we must remember her good qualities, and the attachment she has shown us in the past. Give her my greetings, say that I am grateful for all the love she has shown our children up to this time, and that I thank her for what I know she will still do in the future.... My regards to the Vuillaumes. Say that when I return I desire to play in Paris. They shall see that I have not wasted my time during our separation....

He also wrote of Havana as follows:—

I was advised to be very careful; not to expose myself to the sun or moonlight, to keep quiet after dinner, and to eat no fruit in the evening. As I heeded this advice, I remained seven weeks in Havana without an attack of the yellow fever or the diseases raging there. I gave ten concerts, four in the principal theatre and six in the immense Tacon Theatre. To show the inhabitants how grateful I felt for their enthusiasm, I composed two pieces, in which I introduced some of the most popular Cuban airs. I think you will like them. I was much excited and nearly beside myself when I composed and played them for a people so favored by nature and climate. The fairy–like and beautiful climate of the tropics surpasses all description. How strange to see an orchestra composed almost without exception of negroes and mulattoes! Their faces recorded the sentiments and passion of the music, at times laughing, then weeping, and sometimes rolling their eyes in a melancholy fashion, as they turned their good–natured physiognomies to the audience, to their music stands, or towards me. They are the best musicians in all America! In the “Polacca,” which was demanded at nearly every concert, I was accompanied by picked players from the seven regimental bands in Havana.

But suddenly a dangerous conspiracy was discovered among the negroes; they had planned to poison all the whites on the island! The owners of several sugar and coffee plantations were murdered in the most barbarous manner; nobody dared to go out after dark; the soldiers killed people in the streets without warning, nor were they called to account for it. More than seven hundred negroes were shot by order of the governor. I had engaged support, and my expenses were four thousand francs a night. I considered myself fortunate not to lose money in the circumstances. But who could foresee such a catastrophe? I exerted all my strength in that intense heat. I played with all possible animation, and truly the enthusiasm of the Havanese paid me amply for my exertions! They sent me many beautiful poems, and garlands enough to cover the stage; one of the wreaths, with inscriptions, I have saved for you, my beloved.... I shall work for you and our children, and do all in my power to assure them a good education. This is a great and sacred duty, which gives me strength to brave all danger. From Havana I returned by sea to Charleston. I slept for a couple of hours exposed to the sun, and the consequence was that my whole body, a week after, was poisoned. My face was covered with a thick crust, and I suffered very much; it was a miracle that I did not die on the spot! But I treated myself with cold water, ate very little, took cold baths and much exercise.... I pray you not to have the least anxiety, since I am now well again.

From Charleston he went to Columbia and Norfolk, and thence by sea to Baltimore, giving concerts in each place. He then went direct to Boston, by way of New York, where Schubert (who had come with him from Hamburg as secretary) had him arrested for debt, though in reality Schubert was himself indebted to Ole Bull for the publication of his compositions. The arrest compelled Ole Bull to give security for $5,000, and brought upon him a troublesome lawsuit, which was not decided till 1852, and then in his favor. He never received from Schubert a penny of the sum promised him for his compositions, which passed through many editions. This attempted detention was intended to prevent the artist’s meeting his engagements in Boston, but it rather benefited than injured him, so far as the public was concerned. He gave his concerts in Boston in the “Melodeon,” which seated 2,000 persons, but the orchestra had to go on the stage to make room for more seats. The papers were filled with articles and anecdotes concerning his life and work. A visit which he made to a lady, too ill to attend his concerts, taking his violin and playing for her, was commented on; but to his countrymen at home, who knew how often he had done this, for the sick or poor, special mention of the incident seemed strange. The insane hospitals were often visited by him in the different cities, and he felt a real pleasure in seeing the delight that his playing gave the inmates.

No expression of thanks for a visit to the sick–room was ever more appreciative than the account written by Alice Cary of his coming one morning, after she was confined to her room during her last illness, and bringing the cheer and comfort of his voice and instrument. Her sensitive, beautiful face was radiant with a loving welcome, which kept bravely back the pain and weakness fast gaining the ascendency. Fearing that this was to be his last sight of her, he resolved that he would share and soothe one of the many hours of pain and apprehension, which those noble and lovely women were bearing so patiently. When he again visited this country, both Alice and Phebe Cary had passed away, leaving their friends how much the poorer for their loss!

Mrs. Mary Clemmer, in a letter recently received, says:—

My own first personal meeting with Ole Bull was at the house of Alice Cary; indeed, on that special evening she invited him expressly to give me the great pleasure of meeting him.

Before I saw him, she said: “In meeting Ole Bull I seem to renew my entire youth; not merely the years of youth, but all the freshness, fullness, rapturous sweetness of its impressions. I have the feeling that should I stay in his presence I could never grow old. It is many years since I have met any human being who could arouse in me such emotions.”...

Recalling what the presence and music of Ole Bull were to Alice Cary in her comparative health and fullness of life, you can realize what they must have been to charm and uplift her spirit when, wistfully dropping human loves, with pathetic grief, yet with abiding faith, she stood at the very close of the valley of shadows, listening to his seraphic strains, sweet to pain, yet full of the promise and melody of heaven.

You may be sure, in the silence that came afterwards, she breathed out her swan–song to him.

Of this first visit to Boston and the many things written concerning it, none were of more interest, perhaps, than this extract from Margaret Fuller’s private journal, written in March, 1844, and sent by a friend afterwards to the artist:—

At six o’clock William and C‑‑‑‑ came out with carriage to take me to the Ole Bull concert. The music this evening plunged me in anguish, and raised me to rapture. The “Mountains of Norway,” and the “Siciliano e Tarantella” were the great pieces. The last is unlike anything I ever heard, and how he looked when he played it! When encored, he played, among other things, “On the Lake where drooped the Willow,” and again, “The Last Rose of Summer.” He loves that as I do. I could not sleep at all, and went up to C.’s room and wrote.

Evening. Ole Bull again. I am extremely happy in him. He is one of my kin....

He played to–night, first, “Recollections of Havana.” This begins with a great swelling movement in the orchestra, and then his part comes in like the under–song of thought. I do not know whether the piece was fine or not. I soon forgot it, and was borne away into the winged life. Being encored, he played “The Last Rose of Summer,” and modulated into “Auld Robin Gray.” These sweet simple strains of human tenderness become celestial in his violin; their individual expression is more, not less, definite by being thus purified. Next, a “Notturno Amoroso,” and, being encored, the “Adagio Religioso.” Both were enchanting. I felt raised above all care, all pain, all fear, and every taint of vulgarity was washed out of the world!

From Boston he went to the chief towns of New England, New York, and Canada, returning to Bristol, R. I., for rest in the months of August and September. He there wrote down his musical thoughts of Niagara. He had spent many days at the falls at different times, and saw them in all lights—in sun and storm. One evening great forest fires added their blaze and glare to the silvery shimmer of the moonlit rapids, and the lurid light with the grand rush and roar of the waters made a deep impression upon him. His enjoyment was heightened during that visit by the society of Mr. George Ticknor and his family, whom he happened to meet there. He had already been hospitably received by Mr. Ticknor in Boston, and the notes of invitation preserved among his papers show that their intercourse at Niagara was of the same pleasant nature. The last winter he spent in Boston, when he again visited this house, so famous for its generous hospitality, and was kindly welcomed by the venerable hostess, grateful recollections of the eminent man and scholar, who had done so much to make him at home when a stranger, crowded upon his memory.

While in Bristol Ole Bull had received a letter from the directors of the Musical Fund Society in Philadelphia, in which they asked him to appear at their first concert for the season, and expressed the hope that he would make his terms as moderate as possible, as their object was to start a fund for the support of poor musicians. He returned a letter of thanks, and said “his only remuneration should be the honor of assisting so highly esteemed a society in its noble efforts.” When they received this answer they resolved to strike a medal in his honor, and it was presented to him at the close of the concert.

The “Niagara,” which he played for the first time in New York that winter of 1844, was disappointing to the general public, while the criticisms were favorable. It gradually came more into favor, and was well received on its first performance in Philadelphia. Another composition, “The Solitude of the Prairies,” won a more immediate popular success, and had to be played at nearly every concert. A religious composition, “David’s Psalm,” was also much liked.

N. P. Willis wrote as follows of the “Niagara”:—

We believe that we have heard a transfusion into music—not of “Niagara,” which the audience seemed bona–fide to expect, but of the pulses of a human heart at Niagara. We had a prophetic boding of the result of calling the piece vaguely “Niagara,”—the listener furnished with no “argument” as a guide through the wilderness of “treatment” to which the subject was open. This mistake allowed, however, it must be said that Ole Bull has, genius–like, refused to misinterpret the voice within him—refused to play the charlatan, and “bring the house down”—as he might well have done by any kind of “uttermost,” from the drums and trumpets of the orchestra.

The emotion at Niagara is all but mute. It is a “small, still voice” that replies within us to the thunder of waters. The musical mission of the Norwegian was to represent the insensate element as it was to him—to a human soul, stirred in its seldom reached depths by the call of power. It was the answer to Niagara that he endeavored to render in music—not the call!

After his December concerts in New York Ole Bull returned to Boston, where he gave several concerts, and revisited some of the New England towns. He then returned to New York, to give his last concert in that city for the season, at the Tabernacle, to an audience of 3500 people.

The criticisms from the papers of that date would be pronounced as extravagant as Mrs. Child’s letters, while her accounts are more vividly descriptive of the intense excitement which prevailed. Another quotation from her is therefore given—from the letter dated December 24, 1844:—

You ask me for my impressions of Ole Bull’s “Niagara.”

It is like asking an Æolian harp to tell what the great organ of Freyburg does. But since you are pleased to say that you value my impressions because they are always my own, and not another person’s—because they are spontaneous, disinterested, and genuine,—I will give you the tones as they breathed through my soul, without anxiety to have them pass for more than they are worth....

Grand as I thought “Niagara” when I first heard it, it opened upon me with increasing beauty when I heard it repeated. I then observed many exquisite and graceful touches, which were lost in the magnitude of the first impression. The multitudinous sounds are bewildering in their rich variety.

“The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep.”
“The whispering air
Sends inspiration from the rocky heights,
And dark recesses of the caverned rocks;
The little rills, and waters numberless,
Blend their notes with the loud streams.”

There is the pattering of water–drops, gurglings, twitterings, and little gushes of song.

“The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if, with pipes and music rare,
Some Robin Goodfellow were there,
And all the leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy.”

It reminded me of a sentence in the “Noctes Ambrosianæ,” beautifully descriptive of its prevailing character: “It keeps up a bonnie wild musical sough, like that o’ swarming bees, spring–startled birds, and the voices of a hundred streams, some wimpling awa’ ower the Elysian meadows, and ithers roaring at a distance frae the clefts.”

The sublime waterfall is ever present with its echoes, but present in a calm, contemplative soul. One of the most poetic minds I know, after listening to this music, said to me: “The first time I saw Niagara, I came upon it through the woods, in the clear sunlight of a summer’s morning; and these tones are a perfect transcript of my emotions!” In truth, it seems to me a perfect disembodied poem; a most beautiful mingling of natural sounds with the reflex of their impressions on a refined and romantic mind. This serene grandeur, this pervading beauty, which softens all the greatness, gave the composition its greatest charm to those who love poetic expression in music; but it renders it less captivating to the public in general than they had anticipated. Had it been called a Pastorale composed within hearing of Niagara, their preconceived ideas would have been more in accordance with its calm, bright majesty.

She also mentions his “Prairie Solitude,” and says:—

A friend acquainted with prairie scenery said it brought vividly before her those “dream–like, bee–sung, murmuring, and musical plains.”

Many who have hitherto been moderate in their enthusiasm about Ole Bull recognize in these new compositions more genius than they supposed him to possess. Tastefully intertwined Fantasias, or those graceful musical garlands, Rondos, might be supposed to indicate merely a pleasing degree of talent and skill. But those individuals must be hard to convince who do not recognize the presence of genuine inspiration in the earnest tenderness of the “Mother’s Prayer,” that sounds as if it were composed at midnight, alone with the moon; in the mad, wild life of the “Tarantella”; in the fiery, spirit–stirring eloquence of the “Polacca Guerriera”; in the deep spiritual melody of the “Prairie Solitude”; and in the serene majesty of “Niagara.”

If I appear to speak with too much decision, it is simply because my own impressions are distinct and strong, and I habitually utter them alike without disguise and without pretension. In the presence of mere skill, I know not what to say. It may please me somewhat; but whether it is more or less excellent than some other thing I cannot tell. But bring me into the presence of genius, and I know it by rapid intuition as quick as I know a sunbeam. I cannot tell how I know it. I simply say, This is genius, as I say, This is a sunbeam.

It is an old dispute, that between genius and criticism, and probably will never be settled, for it is one of the manifold forms of conservatism and innovation. In all departments of life, genius is on the side of progress, and learning on the side of established order. Genius comes a Prophet from the future to guide the age onward. Learning, the Lawgiver, strives to hold it back upon the past. But the Prophet always revolutionizes the laws, for thereunto was he sent. Under his powerful hand, the limitations gradually yield and flow, as metals melt into new forms at the touch of fire.

“Over everything stands its dæmon, or soul,” says Emerson; “and as the form of the thing is reflected to the eye, so is the soul of the thing reflected by a melody. The sea, the mountain ridge, Niagara, superexist in precantations, which sail like odors in the air; and when any man goes by with ears sufficiently fine, he overhears them, and endeavors to write them down without diluting or depraving them.” Thanks to “old, ever–young Norway,” she has sent us her finely–organized son, to overhear the voices and echoes, and give them to us in immortal music....

America, in taking the Norwegian minstrel thus warmly to her heart, receives more than she can give. His visit has done, and will do, more than any other cause to waken and extend a love of music throughout the country; and where love exists, it soon takes form in science. All things that are alive are born of the heart.

From New York and Brooklyn he went to Philadelphia, and then, after visiting Louisville and Wilmington, he returned to New Orleans, where he gave five concerts in the Great Armory Hall.

While in New Orleans, he gave a banquet to his friends at the St. Charles Hotel. Late in the evening a stranger was announced, who had just arrived from Europe, Mr. Alexander, the prestidigitateur. He was cordially received by Ole Bull. Alexander soon suggested to his host that it would give him pleasure to entertain the company with some of his tricks, if, in return, he might hear Ole Bull play. After he had astonished the company with his sleight–of–hand marvels, he turned to Ole Bull and asked to see the silver medal presented him in Philadelphia. On opening the case it was found to contain only a piece of lead; and when the violin was taken from its case, the strings were found broken, and the instrument cracked as it was lifted out. Ole Bull turned pale, as he feared his own instrument had been tampered with, but soon discovered that both his violin and medal were safe. He played far into the night for his friends, who insisted that they had not heard him do so well in public.

During the spring and summer months concerts were given in every place of note in the Mississippi Valley. The Mammoth Cave in Kentucky was also visited. At one point in the cave the artist was too venturesome, and his rashness nearly cost him his life. He had gone on in advance of the guide, and was near falling into one of the subterranean rivers, his light being extinguished as he crawled through an opening which at one point seemed too narrow to permit of his going forward or retreating. Fortunately, he had scaled the narrow ledge in the darkness, and was quite unconscious of the chasm on the verge of which he had been creeping till lights were brought, when he found that one false move would have precipitated him into the depths. He played in the cave, and the music had a weird, unearthly sound, as it was echoed through those eerie, uncanny chambers.

In St. Louis the only concert hall belonged to a private gentleman. It was lighted by oil lamps, as gas had not been introduced. A local paper relates the following incident:—

The hall was crowded by the élite of this old French city; the audience was enjoying the last encore, when a sudden draught from an open window extinguished one of the lamps, which, smoking and spluttering, sent a puff of smoke and soot over Ole Bull’s face and person. Absorbed in his performance, he did not notice what had happened, but having finished, and taken out his pocket handkerchief to wipe his forehead, alas!—what a change was there in the appearance of poor Ole! His face was black, his pocket handkerchief, his hands, his violin—all black! Looking at his violin, he exclaimed, “My poor fiddle, I am so sorry for you!”

In October, 1845, Ole Bull returned to New York and Boston, to give a series of concerts before his departure for Europe. The knowledge that he was so soon to leave the country made the rush for places greater than ever. A new composition, to the “Memory of Washington,” a descriptive piece, was much liked then, and was found to be effective when played the last time in 1876, in Boston. On the 30th of October he gave his last concert in New York, in the Broadway Tabernacle, to an audience of more than 4000 people. The proceeds were given by the artist to a fund for the widows and orphans of Masons. During the intermission between the parts of the programme, he was presented with the regalia of the Masons of the State of New York. The Secretary concluded his long presentation speech with, “You will be followed by the ‘mother’s prayer’ and the warm gratitude of the fatherless.... The world will learn that the strongest bond is the union of free and honest men in the indissoluble tie of brotherly love.”

The warmth of feeling shown by the audience, in response to the words spoken, deeply touched Ole Bull. He said in a low voice:—

“My homage to the memory of Washington is not mine alone; it is the homage of the whole Norse folk that is heard through me. The principles for which this people drew the sword and shed their blood inspired the Norwegians, and strengthened them in their struggle for independence. The admiration of the Norsemen for American institutions and for their great founder was early implanted in my breast, and admiration for Washington and love of liberty were indelibly impressed upon the tablets of my heart.”

In November he gave concerts in Philadelphia and Baltimore, and was just preparing to leave America when he received a letter signed by the principal musicians of New York, requesting him to visit that city once more before he left. He consented to do so, and appointed the 26th of November for the concert, to which he invited all the inmates of the New York Asylum for the Blind, by the following letter:—

Astor House, N. Y., November 18, 1845.

My Friends!—I have heard that many of you are fond of music. In a few days I am to leave America, and if I, before my departure, could afford you some pleasure, it would be to me a pleasant thing to remember. If, therefore, all of you, pupils and teachers, will come and hear me next Wednesday, I will do my best to entertain you. It would be my greatest desire to be able for a moment to make you forget that you are unable to enjoy the beauty of the flowers.

Your sympathetic friend,
Ole B. Bull.

To the Members of the Asylum for the Blind.

This invitation was accepted, and the house was filled two hours before the performance began. Among the manifestations of regard he received from the great audience must be mentioned a song written for the occasion and sung by a choir of the pupils from the Blind Asylum, after an address of thanks. From his first appearance in the country to the last, he was welcomed with more than cordiality and kindness. He left the shores of the New World feeling that his love of liberty and republican government was strengthened, though he could not help recognizing their unequal distribution in the United States. Slavery could not but be hateful to him; its evil effects on the whites seemed to him as apparent as on the blacks.

He wrote to his wife November 30, 1845:—

Soon after you receive these lines you will have me with you. I leave Wednesday, December 3, on the Baltimore for Havre. There are several reasons for my preference to go by a sailing vessel. First, its movements are much pleasanter; you haven’t the smoke or jar of the machinery. I shall, too, avoid unpacking my cases in England; and lastly, I need some rest after my exertions and late hours. I have been greatly benefited by my intercourse with noble and distinguished men and women here. My relation to the Americans is that of an adopted son.... My farewell concerts in Boston, in Philadelphia, and especially in New York, were remarkable for the regret which the people expressed at my departure, and I was deeply touched.

The New York Herald wrote as follows of his American visit:—

The unparalleled enthusiasm awakened by him everywhere and his popularity in every city were most remarkable.

He gave his first concert in New York in the Park Theatre, and the house was crowded; with the same success he gave six more in the same hall. Then by the advice of his friends he went to the Tabernacle, which seats 4000 people, and here too he had a full house. On one occasion he played to 7000 people for the American Institute in Niblo’s Garden.

From New York, Ole Bull traveled through the United States and Canada and a part of the West Indies, and everywhere called forth the same tremendous enthusiasm and overwhelming joy. He traveled in these countries more than 100,000 miles, and played in every city of importance. From his first landing till his departure he gave over 200 concerts, of which some netted him only $200, while others, as for instance those in New York, netted him over $3000. Estimating them as low as $400 on the average, his concerts must have given him a profit of $80,000. Besides he contributed more than $20,000 by concerts to charitable institutions, and to artists who assisted him he paid $15,000.

No artist has ever visited our country and received so many honors. Poems by the hundred have been written to him; gold vases, jewels, medals, etc., have been presented to him by various corporations. His whole remarkable appearance in this country is really unexampled in glory and fame. He came from Norway, the most northern country of Europe, the birthplace of Odin, and inspired all America. His tender farewell composition in New York made the tears come to many eyes.... After having thus for over two years won triumph upon triumph and an abundance of gold and fame in the New World, Ole Bull left on December 3d for Havre, whence he intended to go to Paris....

Mrs. Child’s and Mrs. Botta’s good–byes seem most fitting to close this account of Ole Bull’s first American trip. The former is as follows:—

Where on this planet is a place so sublimely appropriate as the rocky coast of Norway, to the newly–invented Æolian sea–signals? Metal pipes, attached to floating buoys, are placed among the breakers, and through these do the winds lift their warning voices, louder and louder, as the sea rages more and more fiercely. Here is a magnificent storm–organ, on which to play, “Wind of the winter night, whence comest thou?”

On this coast has Ole Bull, from childhood, heard the waves roar their mighty bass to the shrill soprano of the winds, and has seen it all subside into sun–flecked, rippling silence. There, in view of lofty mountains, sea–circled shores, and calm, deep, blue fjords, shut in by black precipices and tall green forests, has he listened to “the fresh mighty throbbings of the heart of Nature.” Had he lived in the sunny regions of Greece or Italy, instead of sea–girt Norway, with its piled–up mountains, and thundering avalanches, and roaring waterfalls, and glancing auroras, and the shrill whispering of the northern wind through broad forests of pines, I doubt whether his violin could ever have discoursed such tumultuous life, or lulled itself to rest with such deep–breathing tenderness.

I know not what significance the Nordmen have in the world’s spiritual history; but it must be deep. Our much boasted Anglo–Saxon blood is but a rivulet from the great Scandinavian sea. The Teutonic language, “with its powerful primeval words—keys to the being of things”—is said by the learned to have come from the East, the source from which both light and truth dawned upon the world. This language has everywhere mixed itself with modern tongues, and forms the bone and nerve of our own. To these Nordmen, with their deep reverence, their strong simplicity, their wild, struggle–loving will, we owe the invention of the organ, and of Gothic architecture. In these modern times, they have sent us Swedenborg, that deep in–seeing prophet, as yet imperfectly understood, either by disciples or opponents; and Frederika Bremer, gliding like sun–warmth into the hearts of many nations; and Thorwaldsen, with his serene power and majestic grace; and Beethoven, with aspirations that leap forth beyond the “flaming bounds of time and space;” and Ole Bull, with the primeval harmonies of creation vibrating through his soul in infinite variations. Reverence to the Nordmen; for assuredly their strong free utterance comes to us from the very heart of things....

Wordsworth thus describes the young maiden, to whom Nature was “both law and impulse:”—

“She shall lean her ear
In many a secret place,
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And Beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face.”

The engraved likeness of Ole Bull often reminds me of these lines. It seems listening to one of his own sweet strains of melody, passing away, away,—and vanishing into the common air, fine as the mist scattered afar by the fountains. The effect, thus transmitted in form by the artist, reproduces its cause again; for, as I look upon it, a whirling spray of sound goes dancing through my memory, to the clink of fairy castanets. When I look at Domenichino’s “Cumæan Sibyl,” and Allston’s wonderful picture of the “Lady Hearing Music,” my soul involuntarily listens, and sometimes hears faint, wandering strains of melody....

This spiritual expression of music is heard in very different degrees by different people, and by some not at all. One man remarked, as he left Ole Bull’s concert, “Well, there is no such thing as getting a dollar’s worth of music out of a fiddle, in three hours.” Of the same concert, a man of thorough musical science, and deep feeling for his musical art, writes to me thus: “Ole Bull has certainly impressed me as no man ever impressed me before. The most glorious sensation I ever had was to sit in one of his audiences, and feel that all were elevated to the same pitch with myself. My impulse was to speak to every one as to an intimate friend. The most indifferent person was a living soul to me. The most remote or proud I did not fear or despise. In that element they were all accessible, nay, all worth reaching. This surely was the highest testimony to his great art and his great soul.”

An eloquent writer, who publishes under the fictitious signature of “John Waters,” describes his first impressions of Liszt’s piano–playing, with an enthusiasm that would doubtless seem very ridiculous to many who listened to the same sounds. He says that, “with blow after blow upon the instrument with his whole force, he planted large columnar masses of sound, like the Giant’s Causeway. The instrument rained, hailed, thundered, moaned, whistled, shrieked round those basaltic columns, in every cry that the tempest can utter in its wildest paroxysms of wrath.... Then we were borne along, through countless beauties of rock and sky and foliage, to a grotto, by the side of which was a fountain that seemed one of the Eyes of the Earth, so large and darkly brilliant was it, so deep and so serene. Here we listened to the voices rather than the songs of birds, when the music by degrees diminished and ceased.”

A lady to whom he spoke of the concert acknowledged that the sounds had brought up very similar pictures to her soul; but probably not ten of the large audience listened in such a spirit. That it was thus received by any, shows that it was in the music, whether the composer was aware of it or not; and genius only can produce those magical effects, even on a few.

To Him who made the ear a medium of pleasure to the soul, I am humbly grateful for delight in sweet sounds; and still more deeply am I grateful that the spiritual sense of music is more and more opened to me. I have joy in the consciousness of growth, as I can imagine a flower might be pleased to feel itself unfolding and expanding to the sunlight. This expressiveness of music no man ever revealed to me like Ole Bull, and therefore, in my joy and gratitude, I strive, like a delighted child, to bring all manner of garlands and jewels wherewith to crown his genius.

Here is a wreath of wild flowers to welcome his return:—

Welcome to thee, Ole Bull!
A welcome warm and free!
For heart and memory are full
Of thy rich minstrelsy.

’Tis music for the tuneful rills
To flow to from the verdant hills;
Music such as first on earth
Gave to the Aurora birth.

Music for the leaves to dance to;
Music such as sunbeams glance to;
Treble to the ocean’s roar,
On some old resounding shore.

Silvery showers from the fountains;
Mists unrolling from the mountains;
Lightning flashing through a cloud,
When the winds are piping loud.

Music full of warbling graces,
Like to birds in forest places,
Gushing, trilling, whirring round,
Mid the pine–trees’ murm’ring sound.

The martin scolding at the wren.
Which sharply answers back again,
Till across the angry song
Strains of laughter run along.

Now leaps the bow with airy bound,
Like dancer springing from the ground,
And now like autumn wind comes sighing,
Over leaves and blossoms dying.

The lark now singeth from afar
Her carol to the morning–star,
A clear soprano rising high,
Ascending to the inmost sky.

And now the scattered tones are flying,
Like sparks in midnight darkness dying;
Gems from rockets in the sky,
Falling—falling—gracefully.

Now wreathed and twined—but still evolving
Harmonious oneness in revolving;
Departing with the faintest sigh,
Like ghost of some sweet melody.

As on a harp with golden strings,
All nature breathes to thee,
And with her thousand voices sings
The infinite and free.

Of beauty she is lavish ever;
Her urn is always full;
But to our earth she giveth never
Another Ole Bull.

Mrs. Botta’s poem is entitled