Ole Bull: A Memoir

by Sara Chapman Thorp Bull

TO OLE BULL.

BY BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ.

[From his Preface to his “Selected Works,” where he introduces it as “a song of salutation to one who, honored by me as master, is not less dear to me as a man” (Tracy’s translation).]

Profoundly dreamt a youth on Norland waste;
But no—it is not waste where fairy rings
Reflect the past as well as future things,
When love and woe in boding tones are drest.
They greeted him, they kissed him, and retreated;
They left for him an instrument of sound,
Whose forceful strings with highest deeds could bound,
And yet with childish frolics be entreated.
He wakes—the gift he seizes, comprehending
Its sweet mysterious pleasure how to prove,
And pours it forth in pure harmonious blending.
O mayst thou, ever victor, joyful move,
Thou Northland sailor, on life’s voyage wending,
Conscious of God within thee and above.

ON HEARING OLE BULL IN 1879.

BY PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.

What note is this of infinite appeal
That wakes beneath thy hand’s inspired control?
Is it a prayer from man’s most secret soul
To the dim gods Death only can reveal,—
Whose hands we know can wound, yet trust may heal?
Hark, now, for ’twixt the prayer and the prayer’s goal,
From far away, beyond where planets roll,
Something I hear, or something subtly feel:

Down all the deep, untraveled, star–watched way,
Faint as a wind at dawn of a June day,
Comes a divine response: Ah! now ’tis here.
Lo! prayer is turned to passionate triumphing,
And in thy music’s moon–thrilled atmosphere
My soul drinks deep of some immortal spring.

OLE BULL.

BY JULIA R. ANAGNOS.

There’s a fairy in the violin,
A Norse imprisoned fay;
She struggles in her master’s arms,
And fain would flit away.

But, like the bird whose prison pours
Song’s gold upon the air,
Stretching our Northern frost–framed walls
To Southern forests rare,

The gentle chord that binds her breaks
The fetters of our care;
The song of her captivity
Makes all our lives more fair.

O gentle Fairy! Lead the way
Through realms of fiction sweet,
The cradles of Sicilian day,
The North–King’s halls of sleet.

The whirlwind and the icy blast
Meet in thy captive wail;
Flowers and gems are round thee cast,
Flung from thy forehead pale;

But, though we glean a golden glow
From the sweet spirit’s strife,
Say, is it fair to hold her so,
A prisoner for life?

O Master, set the fairy free!
End her poetic pain:
Nay, tastes she but the common air,
She’ll soon fly home again!

IN MEMORY OF OLE BULL.

[On Board the City of Chester, April, 1881.]

BY LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

Strong as a Viking of his own proud North
He trod this deck, two little years ago—
A kinglier man, or one of nobler worth,
Nor his nor any land shall ever know—
So brave, so good, so simple and sincere,
That but to know him was to hold him dear.

The most alive of any man on earth,
His soul on fire with love for all things true,
Anointed music’s high–priest from his birth,
A reed heaven’s voices seemed to whisper through,
Shaken at times by their tumultuous sweetness,
Then hushed with calm of some divine completeness.

To hear his music was to see strange things—
To enter bright far worlds of love and light—
To know how star with star forever sings,
Or weep for deeds that may not be undone
And souls in bondage to some evil fate,
With ungirt loins, and lips that cry, “Too late!”

Thus in his strain the depths of all men’s hearts
He sounded—he whom all men loved—
Then left us, as some gracious guest departs
For whom a higher mansion waits, and proved,
By the great space left vacant, what his worth
To us, who see his face no more on earth.

But yet he is not dead. To–night I hear
The old strain steal across the April sea;
Almost I fancy ’tis himself draws near,
So much the face of life wears memory—
When I recall him in those days gone by,
I know he was too full of life to die.

FROM PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON.

The following, from Mr. Hamerton’s “Thoughts about Art,” is an appropriate commentary on the advice that Ole Bull used to give the artist, “Play little, and think much:”—

Thus it is said that Ole Bull, the celebrated Norwegian violinist, arrived at his most wonderful effects less by manual practice than meditation. He practiced less and thought more than other violinists. This is quite in keeping with his reflections after hearing Paganini. Ole Bull actually sold his last shirt to hear the mighty master, and, having heard him, instead of saying like the crowd that nothing new was possible after that, began to seek after hitherto unknown effects that even Paganini had not discovered. Both these facts indicate clearly that Ole Bull was a musical transcendentalist, and his long retirement confirms it. A true transcendentalist dislikes publicity, and loves to cultivate himself in solitude.

FROM MR. LONGFELLOW.

[Extracts from Letters.]

It seems hardly possible that I shall see that radiant face no more; and long, long shall I say

“O for the touch of a vanished hand
And the sound of a voice that is still!”

Remarkable as Ole Bull was as an artist, he was no less so in his social intercourse. His nature was eminently sympathetic. He not only liked his friends, but he loved them. His manners were gentle and affectionate; his presence in a room filled it with sunshine.

It was said of the French author, Villemain, that when he spoke to a lady, you would think he was presenting her a bouquet. With equal truth might it be said of Ole Bull, so gracious was he and so amiable in his conversation.

OLE BULL.

BY JAMES T. FIELDS.

It is nearly forty years since I was first introduced to one of the most genial and delightful men I have ever chanced to know. I distinctly recall the sunny morning when I made Ole Bull’s acquaintance and began a friendship that was never dimmed during all that long period. Years would intervene when I lost sight of him and knew nothing of his whereabouts, but when he returned from Norway or Italy or Russia, we came together as if we had never parted company for a day. Often when in Boston he made our home his resting place, and his advent was a delight to us all. He brought sunshine with him, and in the words of the old song—

“His very foot had music in ’t,
When he came up the stair.”

His conversation had that indefinable flavor in it which we call charm, flowing on and on with indescribable magnetism. To hear him picture with glowing enthusiasm his home in Norway among the fjords, his early days while studying his art, his adventures in the capitals of Europe before his fame had been secured, his various voyages about the world, the celebrated men and women he had known in musical and social walks in every corner of the globe, was a never–failing pleasure. Often, far into midnight, we sat and listened to his reminiscences of Paganini, Malibran, Rubini, Lablache, Liszt, and numerous other distinguished artists, and we never heeded the clock, when he was fairly warmed into enthusiasm by his exciting themes. Ole Bull was an eloquent talker par excellence—one of the most vivifying companions I have ever been intimate with. I carried him one evening many years ago to a scientific club, and asked him to say something to its members about the construction and makers of the violin. When the president called upon him he modestly rose with the instrument in his hand, and discoursed in a conversational tone for half an hour, so captivating his auditors that they would not allow him to stop, although there were several other speakers on the evening’s programme expecting to be heard. Every one was charmed, and to this day the memory of that exceptional appearance at the club is still recalled with the warmest interest.

Ole Bull was not a man of negations. His likings and dislikings were positive and not always settled by the wisest judgment, but his leaning was habitually toward the simplest and straight–forward in all things. He said to me once of a person I was inclined to have him like, “Yaas! but he always seems to be behind a corner, peeping round when he should be in front!” He was a delightful mimic, not one of the ungenial, critical sort, but full of impulsive vivacity, eager to impart clear and dramatic impressions of character. No book of travels in the North of Europe ever conveyed to me so graphic a presentation of the manners and customs of the people as his personal sketches, acted out on the parlor floor, of the way in which the inhabitants in cities and villages danced and sang, marched in festive processions, held their fairs, ate their meals, and lived their daily lives. When he thought his voice was not conveying the impression he desired to impart, he would seize his violin and cause that to speak for him in the most picturesque and engaging manner.

He was a spiritual–minded thinker, a sayer of deep things, as well as of witty and merry ones. No man had a finer sense of the mysteries of human life, or could discourse of them more earnestly. The love of liberty was a passion with him, and when he chanted of Freedom his countenance was as of one inspired. It would be superfluous to repeat here what rapturous pleasure Ole Bull’s music has afforded to hundreds of thousands in America during the many years he lived among us.

To me he was always a magician and I yielded to his skill whenever he chose to command me. He was an enchanter—a bright, eager, imaginative spirit. He was a companion, lovable, and unparagoned: his absence from those who knew him best can never be supplied.

FROM MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE.

Mrs. Howe, whose acquaintance Ole Bull had the pleasure and honor of making at the Woman’s Congress in Madison, Wis., the autumn of 1879, sent this warm tribute:—

I can contribute a few grateful words concerning his chivalrous interest in all that regards the welfare of women, recalling also the great personal charm of his own companionship.... His death, which was so sincerely and so publicly mourned in his own country, did not fail to cast in our midst its shadow of sorrowing sympathy. In the association of the New England Women’s Club, Ole Bull will long be remembered as a kind friend, as a distinguished artist, and as a personality unique and charming. He was at once cosmopolitan and patriotic. He loved his own country, and loved ours also, which became his by a sort of adoption. He was a lover at once of art and of humanity, and deserves a place in the record of those who unite skill with sympathy, the artist’s cunning with the frank loving nature of the child.

FROM REV. DR. BARTOL’S MEMORIAL SERMON, OCTOBER 10, 1880.

“I have raised up one from the North.” Isaiah, xli. 25.—It is a curious case of the truth of the old Bible to nature, or rather of the coincidence of the two, that both make more physical and moral account of the north point of the compass than of the south. “Fair weather,” saith the book of Job, “cometh out of the north;” and thence, too, in all ages, has come the clearing of the social sky. All the old prophets and modern geographical scientists, like Mr. Buckle, agree. The south, says the old writ, is “invaded” with “whirlwinds” and armed men. The upper strong Barbarians fall upon to purge the dissolute empire of Rome. From high latitudes come the Scandinavian rovers to be converted into English lords. From Norway, the north way, comes Leif Ericson before Columbus to discover America and have his monument, let us trust, in these last days; and more than forty years ago, yet in the memory of many that hear me, Ole Bull, whom his friend and compeer of kindred genius, the poet and novelist now among us, Björnstjerne Björnson, calls “our greatest citizen,” at his burial in the land where seventy years ago he was born, dying in his own house on the Isle of Light or Lysö of a malignant disease, yet with little pain and in full possession of his powers till within a half hour of his expiring breath....

I must not omit my thanks for the delight Ole Bull gave with his violin at his first coming to this country more than forty years ago. From the touch of his bow, as if Neptune were speaking to the sea, a wave swept over the land from that ocean of harmony that slumbers in the human soul. Out of the same deeps came a second wave at the voice, much later among us, of Jenny Lind. Technical criticism cannot countervail much when a man has just wrought a miracle on the spot, and the United States rose to this as, in the same calling, never to any other man. Young and green then, as respects concord and melody, we may have been. The matchless personal grace of the musician, alike at thirty and three–score, may have had its part in the effect. Who that saw it does not remember the appearance that, as Björnson says, made it here, as well as in Norway on his return, “a feast to look at him;” the supple sway that was rhythm in his frame, so tall, with its breadth of shoulder and tapering waist, the firm feet which the broad platform seemed not worthy to be a stool for, the arms of wrought steel, more flexible than willow wands, the face in which, as much as in any countenance we ever beheld, the smile was a benediction, and the hair that was tossed about his brow as if inspired with the unison of the strings; and had he spoken on the stage where he stood, the whole audience would have known as well as some of us in private soon did, that the violin was not, and no instrument made with hands could be, so sweet as the voice. He was embodied beauty and an incarnate hymn—a mesmeric, irresistible man....

His speech, of which I shall give some samples as I close, like Anton Rubinstein’s, was as rare and original as his notes. He was not, like some people I have known, marvelous in a performance as of a sermon or a tune, and, on leaving desk or orchestra, with nought of interest left, the whole man gone, spent, exploded in what had been sounded or said. To be a true artist is a wonderful thing. But into the artist the whole of him, as of none truly great or good, could not be put....

But musical was with him largely a form of patriotic feeling, and for love of liberty for himself and all men he was a living flame. He respected more the nobility of nature than of political schemes. The pretensions of barons and earls in England or elsewhere, not backed up by personal merit, were nought to him, mere ciphers, deriving all their value from their situation in a column. In the honest but reactionary King of Norway he had a social friend; but, in pushing the right assumed of veto against laws of the Norwegian parliament, this little potentate of two or three millions of subjects became his diplomatic foe; and Ole Bull represented the peasant population of the kingdom. It was natural he should sympathize strongly with us against secession and slavery in our civil war, and he maintained our cause abroad as warmly as he did in our midst. Like David, he declared God’s statute of freedom, “speaking of his testimonies before kings and was not ashamed.”...

It remains to consider Ole Bull not only as an artist and patriot, but man; for, beyond all else, he was humane, cosmopolite, a citizen of the world, and did not distinguish himself, save by genius which he could not help, from other men, but was in union and close communion with all; and detract as we may from a man’s talents, or criticise as we will his accomplishments, the fact of a great wide and common love for him and from him cannot be set aside. He was a magnet. Living nearer to the North Pole, had he borrowed a bit of the lodestone that poises the planet? His attraction was as constant and inexhaustible for the world. A young man, a natural player, from our rough Cape Ann yonder, seeks him abroad to get lessons, and Ole welcomes him at once. “How did you like him?” the young man was asked. “Like him? I cannot say enough to tell you.” Money went from him, as it came, like wind or water. Being unpractical if not careless almost to a fault, he was imposed upon by a false title of land for a Norwegian colony in Pennsylvania; charges for litigation were added; he had intended to buy a ship to transport the colonists at his own expense,—and out of pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars, he became poor, sick, and subject to arrest. He said, “I shall pursue the swindlers;” then, reflecting, he remarked: “That is not according to the Master’s precept, but if I kiss my enemy what have I left for my friend?” “My friends,” he said, “will never defraud me, for they know I am theirs.” “I am not content,” he told me, “with the golden rule, for I cannot expect others to do to me as I do to them.” He was not a professor of Christianity or of religion in any form. He informed me he got such a shock and revulsion from the doctrines he heard preached in his youth that he was permanently alienated from going to church; but so much the worse for the Christians if they reject and excommunicate him. He said to me: “They showed me so many statues and images, coarse or blood–colored, in Italy, it made me sick and I wanted to see a cow!” Why, I inquired of him, do the manufacturers of violins not illustrate the law of evolution, and make as good instruments at least as Stradivarius, Amati, and Gaspar da Salo? “Because,” he answered, “they do not consider it a holy mission.” Earnest in his nature, like the hot geysers of the North, he was as winsome in his manners as any prince of the East; and, I doubt not, a true test would detect blood of the Orient in his veins, as he said he learned from Italy what it is to sing. Yet Norway, says Björnson, gave to his music its theme or ground, and well does Henrik Wergeland make Norway herself sing to him.

We must, he one day told me, see our fellow’s errors and sins, but often “not say what we see,” putting his long forefinger on his lips as he spoke. He graciously insinuated, rather than bluntly asserted, what he thought. At the Chestnut Street club he made a marvelous speech, in which he praised the curvilinear instead of direct style of the Spanish tongue. He preferred suggestion to proposition, as do all the likewise finely–strung. But, although he had no dogmas to offer, never lived one who accredited more the being of God and immortality of the soul, and the immense superiority of unseen supernal forces to the seen. Thus he lived an ideal life, free from mercenary aims, so charming and enchanting men that his name became a household word, and the great manager in any city had to spend little time or means advertising him, if it were in the air that the magician would come....

Honor, then, in this sacred place, to the man and artist, Ole Bull. He held a sublime and tricksy, yet utterly simple bow. If he lifted us, round after round, to heaven, he could lower us, too, with his art, gently and safely to the ground.... He displayed wondrous tone–gyrations, and never, as with a wooden rule, drew mechanical parallel lines. He was a troubadour with his shell. When, like a merryman, he made us laugh, the expression of his face showed his soul still aloft. He was no materialist or sensualist, but a spiritualist in the deepest sense. I judge of men by their treatment of women; and how refined and grand his bearing was to the sex is well known in every country our strange and singular fascinator visited....

I have missed the portrait, I meant, if a facsimile could be furnished of it for any other man. We sometimes say of a man he was a paragon, gem, “one entire and perfect chrysolite.” Jean Paul Richter the only, the Germans say. My subject to–day is unique. There never on earth will be another Ole Bull. He was the diamond called solitaire. The Jews were mistaken when, in the new teacher, they thought Elias or one of the old prophets had come again. God does not repeat himself; genius is a fresh revelation, and never, in just the same form, descends. Speaking as in the presence of those to whom companionship, country, and kindred blood endeared this man of transcendent stature, yet with none of our occidental stiffness, so lowly and familiar that he wanted once with a friend to leave the chairs and get down on the floor to converse, I should be bankrupt if at least in this paper money I did not try to pay my debt. Seventy years of age; the Scripture term was his prime. He died young in heart and hope, and friend and housemate declare they cannot think and do not know him dead, as the tropical sun, suddenly setting, is not quenched, though leaving all dark behind. Aspiring and proceeding, despite his gray locks, he seemed an undeveloped child. Nothing in his mental constitution was fixed or had grown hard. He had not subsided from the gush and sparkle of life into the sediment of a form or stalagmite of a creed. The crystallization went on unfinished in the upper chambers of his soul, and had no cavern like the stalactites of the mine in which to drop. No decay gave hint of an end. There is sickness, death, but no end. He grew, advanced, never stopped, nor did the sutures, even at seventy, quite close over that busy brain. “To have to work so at my age!” said the French painter, Thomas Couture; but Ole Bull said, “I should vegetate without new engagements to fulfill.” He so lived, therefore, as to convince us of immortality. I know not of what sovereign or captain from the North, the hill–country of Judæa, Isaiah wrote; but when I think how majestic and gentle was this head man and leader from our modern Norway, I give him the tribute of my text, as one might salute a born deliverer and true king.

FROM REV. DR. A. McKENZIE’S SERMON ON THANKSGIVING DAY, 1880.

From these men of our own Commonwealth let me turn to a man of another land, whose venerable and stately presence has been often seen in our streets; who has been the citizen of many climes, making his name a familiar word, and filling the air with melody; a man who stood before kings and held them in wondering silence by the witchery of his fingers, and the harmony of his thoughts; who drew the souls of men after him by the sound of the mystic strings he touched. He made to himself a great renown, the music and the man; both were honored, both were loved. Now the hands have lost their cunning, and the good, gray head is seen no more. Yet will he keep his place with all who knew him. It was among his own people that he was greatest and best. He loved his country, its men and women, its mountains and valleys, its rivers and lakes, its history and its hope. He carried it with him where he went. He sought its honor and toiled for its welfare. Loyal and loving, he wore its name upon his brow. When he stood as one entranced, his tall form swaying to and fro, his eye gazing far away, and the utter stillness was scarcely broken by the sweet, weird strains which floated into it, it was the heart of Norway we saw and heard, incarnate in her son, beating, breathing, singing in his spirit.

When he lay wearied and dying in his island–home Norway grew still. Spacious and comely was the room which he had made for song, where the singer rested; but the land which mourned was wider.

He heard the requiem there, but the land was to be full of requiem. From off the quiet waters came the tribute of admiring minstrelsy, which long will be repeated.

When he was gone, royalty and humanity hastened with their homage to his memory. The great city begged for his honored form to give it choicest burial. It lay in state in his own house. It was borne in grand procession to the distant shore. The walks were strewed with living green. The people wept and praised. His trophies went before him, but the stricken hearts of men were on every side of him. The eloquent words of friendship and reverence were spoken. He found his resting–place among the great, on a spot which had been kept for a king—which had found a king.

And he wore no royalty but his great manhood.

Why this honor to a man? Because he had dealt well by the land. He had given it good and glory, and the gift returned. Norway loved him because he loved Norway.