FOOTNOTES:
[B] I am writing in Westerly's snuggery, and in Providence they believe in Webster. I dare say it is worse in Worcester. A good many things are.
[C] The reader who cares to follow the detail is referred to Diodorus Siculus, XII.; Strabo, VI.; Ælian, V. H. 9, c. 24; Athenæus, XII. 518; Plutarch in Pelopidas; Herodotus, V. and VI. Compare Laurent's Geographical Notes, and Wheeler and Gaisford; Pliny, III. 15, VII. 22, XVI. 33, VIII. 64, XXXI. 9; Aristotle, Polit. IV. 12, V. 3; Heyne's Opuscula, II. 74; Bentley's Phalaris, 367; Solinus, 2, § 10, "luxuries grossly exaggerated"; Scymnus, 337-360; Aristophanes, Vesp. 1427, 1436; Lycophron, Alex. 1079; Polybius, Gen. Hist. II. 3, on the confederation of Sybaris, Krotan, and Kaulonia,—"a perplexing statement," says Grote, "showing that he must have conceived the history of Sybaris in a very different form from that in which it is commonly represented"; third volume of De Non, who disagrees with Magnan as to the site of Sybaris, and says the sea-shore is uninhabitable! Tuccagni Orlandini, Vol. XI., Supplement, p. 294; besides the dictionaries and books of travels, including Murray. I have availed myself, without other reference, of most of these authorities.
THE PIANO IN THE UNITED STATES.
Twenty-five thousand pianos were made in the United States last year!
This is the estimate of the persons who know most of this branch of manufacture, but it is only an approximation to the truth; for, besides the sixty makers in New York, the thirty in Boston, the twenty in Philadelphia, the fifteen in Baltimore, the ten in Albany, and the less number in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis, and San Francisco, there are small makers in many country towns, and even in villages, who buy the parts of a piano in the nearest city, put them together, and sell the instrument in the neighborhood. The returns of the houses which supply the ivory keys of the piano to all the makers in the country are confirmatory of this estimate; which, we may add, is that of Messrs. Steinway of New York, who have made it a point to collect both the literature and the statistics of the instrument, of which they are among the largest manufacturers in the world.
The makers' prices of pianos now range from two hundred and ninety dollars to one thousand; and the prices to the public, from four hundred and fifty dollars to fifteen hundred. We may conclude, therefore, that the people of the United States during the year 1866 expended fifteen millions of dollars in the purchase of new pianos. It is not true that we export many pianos to foreign countries, as the public are led to suppose from the advertisements of imaginative manufacturers. American citizens—all but the few consummately able kings of business—allow a free play to their imagination in advertising the products of their skill. Canada buys a small number of our pianos; Cuba, a few; Mexico, a few; South America, a few; and now and then one is sent to Europe, or taken thither by a Thalberg or a Gottschalk; but an inflated currency and a war tariff make it impossible for Americans to compete with European makers in anything but excellence. In price, they cannot compete. Every disinterested and competent judge with whom we have conversed on this subject gives it as his deliberate opinion that the best American piano is the best of all pianos, and the one longest capable of resisting the effects of a trying climate; yet we cannot sell them, at present, in any considerable numbers, in any market but our own. Protectionists are requested to note this fact, which is not an isolated fact. America possesses such an astonishing genius for inventing and combining labor-saving machinery, that we could now supply the world with many of its choicest products, in the teeth of native competition, but for the tariff, the taxes, and the inflation, which double the cost of producing. The time may come, however, when we shall sell pianos at Paris, and watches in London, as we already do sewing-machines everywhere.
Twenty-five thousand pianos a year, at a cost of fifteen millions of dollars! Presented in this manner, the figures produce an effect upon the mind, and we wonder that an imperfectly reconstructed country could absorb in a single year, and that year an unprosperous one, so large a number of costly musical instruments. But, upon performing a sum in long division, we discover that these startling figures merely mean, that every working-day in this country one hundred and twelve persons buy a new piano. When we consider, that every hotel, steamboat, and public school above a certain very moderate grade, must have from one to four pianos, and that young ladies' seminaries jingle with them from basement to garret, (one school in New York has thirty Chickerings,) and that almost every couple that sets up housekeeping on a respectable scale considers a piano only less indispensable than a kitchen range, we are rather inclined to wonder at the smallness than at the largeness of the number.
The trade in new pianos, however, is nothing to the countless transactions in old. Here figures are impossible; but probably ten second-hand pianos are sold to one new one. The business of letting pianos is also one of great extent. It is computed by the well-informed, that the number of these instruments now "out," in the city of New York, is three thousand. There is one firm in Boston that usually has a thousand let. As the rent of a piano ranges from six dollars to twelve dollars a month,—cartage both ways paid by the hirer,—it may be inferred that this business, when conducted on a large scale, and with the requisite vigilance, is not unprofitable. In fact, the income of a piano-letting business has approached eighty thousand dollars per annum, of which one third was profit. It has, however, its risks and drawbacks. From June to September, the owner of the instruments must find storage for the greater part of his stock, and must do without most of his monthly returns. Many of those who hire pianos, too, are persons "hanging on the verge" of society, who have little respect for the property of others, and vanish to parts unknown, leaving a damaged piano behind them.
England alone surpasses the United States in the number of pianos annually manufactured. In 1852, the one hundred and eighty English makers produced twenty-three thousand pianos,—fifteen hundred grands, fifteen hundred squares, and twenty thousand uprights. As England has enjoyed fifteen years of prosperity since, it is probable that the annual number now exceeds that of the United States. The English people, however, pay much less money for the thirty thousand pianos which they probably buy every year, than we do for our twenty-five thousand. In London, the retail price of the best Broadwood grand, in plain mahogany case, is one hundred and thirty-five guineas; which is a little more than half the price of the corresponding American instrument. The best London square piano, in plain case, is sixty guineas,—almost exactly half the American price. Two thirds of all the pianos made in England are low-priced uprights,—averaging thirty-five guineas,—which would not stand in our climate for a year. England, therefore, supplies herself and the British empire with pianos at an annual expenditure of about eight millions of our present dollars. American makers, we may add, have recently taken a hint from their English brethren with regard to the upright instrument. Space is getting to be the dearest of all luxuries in our cities, and it has become highly desirable to have pianos that occupy less of it than the square instrument which we usually see. Successful attempts have been recently made to apply the new methods of construction to the upright piano, with a view to make it as durable as those of the usual forms. Such a brisk demand has sprung up for the improved uprights, that the leading makers are producing them in considerable numbers, and the Messrs. Steinway are erecting a new building for the sole purpose of manufacturing them. The American uprights, however, cannot be cheap. Such is the nature of the American climate, that a piano, to be tolerable, must be excellent; and while parts of the upright cost more than the corresponding parts of the square, no part of it costs less. Six hundred dollars is the price of the upright in plain rosewood case,—fifty dollars more than a plain rosewood square.
Paris pianos are renowned, the world over, and consequently three tenths of all the pianos made in Paris are exported to foreign countries. France, too, owing to the cheapness of labor, can make a better cheap piano than any other country. In 1852, there were ten thousand pianos made in Paris, at an average cost of one thousand francs each; and, we are informed, a very good new upright piano can now be bought in France for one hundred dollars. But in France the average wages of piano-makers are five francs per day; in London, ten shillings; in New York, four dollars and thirty-three cents. The cream of the business, in Paris, is divided among three makers,—Erard, Hertz, and Pleyel,—each of whom has a concert-hall of his own, to give éclat to his establishment. We presume Messrs. Steinway added "Steinway Hall" to the attractions of New York from the example of their Paris friends, and soon the metropolis will boast a "Chickering Hall" as well. This is an exceedingly expensive form of advertisement. Steinway Hall cost two hundred thousand dollars, and has not yet paid the cost of warming, cleaning, and lighting it. This, however, is partly owing to the good-nature of the proprietors, who find it hard to exact the rent from a poor artist after a losing concert, and who have a constitutional difficulty about saying No, when the use of the hall is asked for a charitable object.
In Germany there are no manufactories of pianos on the scale of England, France, and the United States. A business of five pianos a week excites astonishment in a German state, and it is not uncommon there for one man to construct every part of a piano,—a work of three or four months. Mr. Steinway the elder has frequently done this in his native place, and could now do it. A great number of excellent instruments are made in Germany in the slow, patient, thorough manner of the Germans; but in the fashionable houses of Berlin and Vienna no German name is so much valued as those of the celebrated makers of Paris. In the London exhibition of 1851, Russian pianos competed for the medals, some of which attracted much attention from the excellence of their construction. Messrs. Chickering assert, that the Russians were the first to employ successfully the device of "overstringing," as it is called, by which the bass strings are stretched over the others.
The piano, then, one hundred and fifty-seven years after its invention, in spite of its great cost, has become the leading musical instrument of Christendom. England produces thirty thousand every year; the United States, twenty-five thousand; France, fifteen thousand; Germany, perhaps ten thousand; and all other countries, ten thousand; making a total of ninety thousand, or four hundred and twenty-two for every working-day. It is computed, that an average piano is the result of one hundred and twenty days' work; and, consequently, there must be at least fifty thousand men employed in the business. And it is only within a few years that the making of these noble instruments has been done on anything like the present scale. Messrs. Broadwood, of London, who have made in all one hundred and twenty-nine thousand pianos, only begin to count at the year 1780; and in the United States there were scarcely fifty pianos a year made fifty years ago.
We need scarcely say that the production of music for the piano has kept pace with the advance of the instrument. Dr. Burney mentions, in his History of Music (Vol. IV. p. 664), that when he came to London in 1744, "Handel's Harpsichord Lessons and Organ Concertos, and the two First Books of Scarletti's Lessons, were all the good music for keyed instruments at that time in the nation." We have at this moment before us the catalogue of music sold by one house in Boston, Oliver Ditson & Co. It is a closely printed volume of three hundred and sixty pages, and contains the titles of about thirty-three thousand pieces of music, designed to be performed, wholly or partly, on the piano. By far the greater number are piano music pure and simple. It is not a very rare occurrence for a new piece to have a sale of one hundred thousand copies in the United States. A composer who can produce the kind of music that pleases the greatest number, may derive a revenue from his art ten times greater than Mozart or Beethoven enjoyed in their most prosperous time. There are trifling waltzes and songs upon the list of Messrs. Ditson, which have yielded more profit than Mozart received for "Don Giovanni" and "The Magic Flute" together. We learn from the catalogue just mentioned, that the composers of music have an advantage over the authors of books, in being always able to secure a publisher for their productions. Messrs. Ditson announce that they are ready and willing to publish any piece of music by any composer on the following easy conditions: "Three dollars per page for engraving; two dollars and a half per hundred sheets of paper; and one dollar and a quarter per hundred pages for printing." At the same time they frankly notify ambitious teachers, that "not one piece in ten pays the cost of getting up, and not one in fifty proves a success."
The piano, though its recent development has been so rapid, is the growth of ages, and we can, for three thousand years or more, dimly and imperfectly trace its growth. The instrument, indeed, has found an historian,—Dr. Rimbault of London,—who has gathered the scattered notices of its progress into a handsome quarto, now accessible in some of our public libraries. It is far from our desire to make a display of cheap erudition; yet perhaps ladies who love their piano may care to spend a minute or two in learning how it came to be the splendid triumph of human ingenuity, the precious addition to the happiness of existence, which they now find it to be. "I have had my share of trouble," we heard a lady say the other day, "but my piano has kept me happy." All ladies who have had the virtue to subdue this noble instrument to their will, can say something similar of the solace and joy they daily derive from it. The Greek legend that the twang of Diana's bow suggested to Apollo the invention of the lyre, was not a mere fancy; for the first stringed instrument of which we have any trace in ancient sculpture differed from an ordinary bow only in having more than one string. A two-stringed bow was, perhaps, the first step towards the grand piano of to-day. Additional strings involved the strengthening of the bow that held them; and, accordingly, we find the Egyptian harps, discovered in the catacombs by Wilkinson, very thick and massive in the lower part of the frame, which terminated sometimes in a large and solid female head. From the two-stringed bow to these huge twelve-stringed Egyptian harps, six feet high and beautifully finished with veneer, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl, no one can say how many centuries elapsed. The catgut strings of the harps of three thousand years ago are still capable of giving a musical sound. The best workmen of the present time, we are assured, could not finish a harp more exquisitely than these are finished; yet they have no mechanism for tightening or loosening the strings, and no strings except such as were furnished by the harmless, necessary cat. The Egyptian harp, with all its splendor of decoration, was a rude and barbaric instrument.
It has not been shown that Greece or Rome added one essential improvement to the stringed instruments which they derived from older nations. The Chickerings, Steinways, Erards, and Broadwoods of our day cannot lay a finger upon any part of a piano, and say that they owe it to the Greeks or to the Romans.
The Cithara of the Middle Ages was a poor thing enough, in the form of a large P, with ten strings in the oval part; but it had movable pegs, and could be easily tuned. It was, therefore, a step toward the piano of the French Exposition of 1867.
But the Psaltery was a great stride forward. This instrument was an arrangement of strings on a box. Here we have the principle of the sounding-board,—a thing of vital moment to the piano, and one upon which the utmost care is bestowed by all the great makers. Whoever first thought of stretching strings on a box may also be said to have half invented the guitar and the violin. No single subsequent thought has been so fruitful of consequences as this in the improvement of stringed instruments. The reader, of course, will not confound the psaltery of the Middle Ages with the psaltery of the Hebrews, respecting which nothing is known. The translators of the Old Testament assigned the names with which they were familiar to the musical instruments of the Jews.
About the year 1200 we arrive at the Dulcimer, which was an immense psaltery, with improvements. Upon a harp-shaped box, eighteen to thirty-six feet long, fifty strings were stretched, which the player struck with a stick or a long-handled hammer. This instrument was a signal advance toward the grand piano. It was a piano, without its machinery.
The next thing, obviously, must have been to contrive a method of striking the strings with certainty and evenness; and, accordingly, we find indications of a keyed instrument after the year 1300, called the Clavicytherium, or keyed cithara. The invention of keys permitted the strings to be covered over, and therefore the strings of the clavicytherium were enclosed in a box, instead of being stretched on a box. The first keys were merely long levers with a nub at the end of them, mounted on a pivot, which the player canted up at the strings on the see-saw principle. It has required four hundred years to bring the mechanism of the piano key to its present admirable perfection. The clavicytherium was usually a very small instrument,—an oblong box, three or four feet in length, that could be lifted by a girl of fourteen. The clavichord and manichord, which we read of in Mozart's letters, were only improved and better-made clavicytheria. How affecting the thought, that the divine Mozart had nothing better on which to try the ravishing airs of "The Magic Flute" than a wretched box of brass wires, twanged with pieces of quill! So it is always, and in all branches of art. Shakespeare's plays, Titian's pictures, the great cathedrals, Newton's discoveries, Mozart's and Handel's music, were executed while the implements of art and science were still very rude.
Queen Elizabeth's instrument, the Virginals, was a box of strings, with improved keys, and mounted on four legs. In other words, it was a small and very bad piano. The excellent Pepys, in his account of the great fire of London of 1666, says: "River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and good goods swimming in the water; and only I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in it, but there were a pair of virginalls in it." Why "a pair"? For the same reason that induces many persons to say "a pair of stairs," and "a pair of compasses," that is, no reason at all.
It is plain that the virginals, or virgin's clavichord, was very far from holding the rank among musical instruments which the piano now possesses. If any of our readers should ever come upon a thin folio entitled "Musick's Monument," (London, 1676,) we advise him to clutch it, retire from the haunts of men, and abandon himself to the delight of reading the Izaak Walton of music. It is a most quaint and curious treatise upon "the Noble Lute, the best of instruments," with a chapter upon "the generous Viol," by Thomas Mace, "one of the clerks of Trinity College in the University of Cambridge." Master Mace deigns not to mention keyed instruments, probably regarding keys as old sailors regard the lubber's hole,—fit only for greenhorns. The "Noble Lute," of which Thomas Mace discourses, was a large, heavy, pot-bellied guitar with many strings. We learn from this enthusiastic author, that the noble lute had been calumniated by some ignorant persons; and it is in refuting their calumnious imputations that he pours out a torrent of knowledge upon his beloved instrument, and upon the state of music in England in 1675. In reply to the charge, that the noble lute was a very hard instrument to play upon, he gives posterity a piece of history. That the lute was hard once, he confesses, but asserts that "it is now easie, and very familiar."
"The First and Chief Reason that it was Hard in former Times, was, Because they had to their Lutes but Few Strings; viz. to some 10, some 12, and some 14 Strings, which in the beginning of my Time were almost altogether in use; (and is this present Year 1675. Fifty four years since I first began to undertake That Instrument). But soon after, they began to adde more Strings unto Their Lutes, so that we had Lutes of 16, 18, and 20 Strings; which they finding to be so Great a Convenience, stayed not long till they added more, to the Number of 24, where we now rest satisfied; only upon my Theorboes I put 26 Strings, for some Good Reasons I shall be able to give in due Time and Place."
Another aspersion upon the noble lute was, that it was "a Woman's Instrument." Master Mace gallantly observes, that if this were true, he cannot understand why it should suffer any disparagement on that account, "but rather that it should have the more Reputation and Honour."
There are passages in this ancient book which take us back so agreeably to the concert-rooms and parlors of two hundred years ago, and give us such an insight into the musical resources of our forefathers, that we shall venture to copy two or three of them. The following brief discourse upon Pegs is very amusing:—
"And you must know, that from the Badness of the Pegs, arise several Inconveniences; The first I have named, viz. the Loss of Labour. The 2d. is, the Loss of Time; for I have known some so extreme long in Tuning their Lutes and Viols, by reason only of Bad Pegs, that They have wearied out their Auditors before they began to Play. A 3d. Inconvenience is, that oftentimes, if a High-stretch'd small String happen to slip down, 'tis in great danger to break at the next winding up, especially in wet moist weather, and that It have been long slack. The 4th. is, that when a String hath been slipt back, it will not stand in Tune, under many Amendments; for it is continually in stretching itself, till it come to Its highest stretch. A 5th. is, that in the midst of a Consort, All the Company must leave off, because of some Eminent String slipping. A 6th. is, that sometimes ye shall have such a Rap upon the Knuckles, by a sharp-edg'd Peg, and a stiff strong String, that the very Skin will be taken off. And 7thly. It is oftentimes an occasion of the Thrusting off the Treble-Peg-Nut, and sometime of the Upper Long Head; And I have seen the Neck of an Old Viol, thrust off into two pieces, by reason of the Badness of the Pegs, meerly with the Anger and hasty Choller of Him that has been Tuning. Now I say that These are very Great Inconveniences, and do adde much to the Trouble and Hardness of the Instrument. I shall therefore inform you how ye may Help All These with Ease; viz. Thus. When you perceive any Peg to be troubled with the slippery Disease, assure your self he will never grow better of Himself, without some of Your Care; Therefore take Him out, and examine the Cause."
He gives advice with regard to the preservation of the Lute in the moist English climate:—
"And that you may know how to shelter your Lute, in the worst of Ill weathers (which is moist) you shall do well, ever when you Lay it by in the day-time, to put It into a Bed, that is constantly used, between the Rug and Blanket; but never between the Sheets, because they may be moist with Sweat, &c.
"This is the most absolute and best place to keep It in always, by which doing, you will find many Great Conveniencies, which I shall here set down....
"Therefore, a Bed will secure from all These Inconveniences, and keep your Glew so Hard as Glass, and All safe and sure; only to be excepted, That no Person be so inconsiderate, as to Tumble down upon the Bed, whilst the Lute is There; For I have known several Good Lutes spoil'd with such a Trick."
We may infer from Master Mace his work, that the trivial virginals were gaining in popular estimation upon the nobler instrument which is the theme of his eulogy. He has no patience with those who object to his beloved lute that it is out of fashion. He remarks upon this subject in a truly delicious strain:—
"I cannot understand, how Arts and Sciences should be subject unto any such Phantastical, Giddy, or Inconsiderate Toyish Conceits, as ever to be said to be in Fashion, or out of Fashion. I remember there was a Fashion, not many years since, for Women in their Apparel to be so Pent up by the Straitness, and Stiffness of their Gown-Shoulder-Sleeves, that They could not so much as Scratch Their Heads, for the Necessary Remove of a Biting Louse; nor Elevate their Arms scarcely to feed themselves Handsomly; nor Carve a Dish of Meat at a Table, but their whole Body must needs Bend towards the Dish. This must needs be concluded by Reason, a most Vnreasonable, and Inconvenient Fashion; and They as Vnreasonably Inconsiderate, who would be so Abus'd, and Bound up. I Confess It was a very Good Fashion, for some such Viragoes, who were us'd to Scratch their Husbands Faces or Eyes, and to pull them down by the Coxcombes. And I am subject to think, It was a meer Rogery in the Combination, or Club-council of the Taylors, to Abuse the Women in That Fashion, in Revenge of some of the Curst Dames their Wives."
Some lute-makers, this author informs us, were so famous in Europe, that he had seen lutes of their making, "pittifull, old, batter'd, crack'd things," that were valued at a hundred pounds sterling each; and he had often seen lutes of three or four pounds' value "far more illustrious and taking to a Common eye." In refuting the "aspersion that one had as good keep a horse (for cost) as a Lute," he declares, that he never in his life "took more than five shillings the quarter to maintain a Lute with strings, only for the first stringing I ever took ten shillings." He says, however: "I do confess Those who will be Prodigal and Extraordinary Curious, may spend as much as may maintain two or three Horses, and Men to ride upon them too, if they please. But 20s. per ann. is an Ordinary Charge; and much more they need not spend, to practise very hard."
Keyed instruments, despite the remonstrances of the lutists, continued to advance toward their present supremacy. As often as an important improvement was introduced, the instrument changed its name, just as in our day the melodeon was improved into the harmonium, then into the organ-harmonium, and finally into the cabinet organ. The virginals of 1600 became the spinet of 1700,—so called because the pieces of quill employed in twanging the strings resembled thorns, and spina, in Latin, means thorn. Any lady who will take the trouble to mount to the fourth story of the Messrs. Chickering's piano store in the city of New York, may see such a spinet as Mrs. Washington, Mrs. Adams, and Mrs. Hamilton played upon when they were little girls. It is a small, harp-shaped instrument on legs, exceedingly coarse and clumsy in its construction,—the case rough and unpolished, the legs like those of a kitchen table, with wooden castors such as were formerly used in the construction of cheap bedsteads of the "trundle" variety. The keys, however, are much like those now in use, though they are fewer in number, and the ivory is yellow with age. If the reader would know the tone of this ancient instrument, he has but to stretch a brass wire across a box between two nails, and twang them with a short pointed piece of quill. And if the reader would know how much better the year 1867 is than the year 1700, he may first hear this spinet played upon in Messrs. Chickering's dusty garret, and then descend to one of the floors below, and listen to the round, full, brilliant singing of a Chickering grand, of the present illustrious year. By as much as that grand piano is better than that poor little spinet, by so much is the present time better than the days when Louis XIV. was king. If any intelligent person doubts it, it is either because he does not know that age, or because he does not know this age.
The spinet expanded into the harpsichord, the leading instrument from 1700 to 1800. A harpsichord was nothing but a very large and powerful spinet. Some of them had two strings for each note; some had three; some had three kinds of strings,—catgut, brass, and steel; and some were painted and decorated in the most gorgeous style. Frederick the Great had one made for him in London, with silver hinges, silver pedals, inlaid case, and tortoise-shell front, at a cost of two hundred guineas. Every part of the construction of the spinet was improved, and many new minor devices were added; but the harpsichord, in its best estate, was nothing but a spinet, because its strings were always twanged by a piece of quill. How astonished would an audience be to hear a harpsichord of 1750, and to be informed that such an instrument Handel felt himself fortunate to possess!
Next, the piano,—invented at Florence in 1710, by Bartolommeo Cristofali.
The essential difference between a harpsichord and a piano is described by the first name given to the piano, which was hammer-harpsichord, i. e. a harpsichord the strings of which were struck by hammers, not twanged by quills. The next name given to it was forte-piano, which signified soft, with power; and this name became piano-forte, which it still retains. One hundred years were required to prove to the musical public the value of an invention without which no further development of stringed instruments had been possible. No improvement in the mere mechanism of the harpsichord could ever have overcome the trivial effect of the twanging of the strings by pieces of quill; but the moment the hammer principle was introduced, nothing was wanting but improved mechanism to make it universal. It required, however, a century to produce the improvements sufficient to give the piano equal standing with the harpsichord. The first pianos gave forth a dull and feeble sound to ears accustomed to the clear and harp-like notes of the fashionable instrument.
In that same upper room of the Messrs. Chickering, near the spinet just mentioned, there is an instrument, made perhaps about the year 1800, which explains why the piano was so slow in making its way. It resembles in form and size a grand piano of the present time, though of coarsest finish and most primitive construction, with thin, square, kitchen-table legs, and wooden knobs for castors. This interesting instrument has two rows of keys, and is both a harpsichord and a piano,—one set of keys twanging the wires, and the other set striking them. The effect of the piano notes is so faint and dull, that we cannot wonder at the general preference for the harpsichord for so many years. It appears to have been a common thing in the last century to combine two or more instruments in one. Dr. Charles Burney, writing in 1770, mentions "a very curious keyed instrument" made under the direction of Frederick II. of Prussia. "It is in shape like a large clavichord, has several changes of stops, and is occasionally a harp, a harpsichord, a lute, or piano-forte; but the most curious property of this instrument is, that, by drawing out the keys, the hammers are transferred to different strings. By which means a composition may be transposed half a note, a whole note, or a flat third lower at pleasure, without the embarrassment of different notes or clefs, real or imaginary."
The same sprightly author tells us of "a fine Rucker harpsichord, which he has had painted inside and out with as much delicacy as the finest coach, or even snuff-box, I ever saw at Paris. On the outside is the birth of Venus; and on the inside of the cover, the story of Rameau's most famous opera, Castor and Pollux. Earth, Hell, and Elysium are there represented; in Elysium, sitting on a bank, with a lyre in his hand, is that celebrated composer himself."
This gay instrument was at Paris. In Italy, the native home of music, the keyed instruments, in 1770, Dr. Burney says, were exceedingly inferior to those of the North of Europe. "Throughout Italy, they have generally little octave spinets to accompany singing in private houses, sometimes in a triangular form, but more frequently in the shape of an old virginal; of which the keys are so noisy and the tone is so feeble, that more wood is heard than wire. I found three English harpsichords in the three principal cities of Italy, which are regarded by the Italians as so many phenomena."
To this day Italy depends upon foreign countries for her best musical instruments. Italy can as little make a grand piano as America can compose a grand opera.
The history of the piano from 1710 to 1867 is nothing but a history of the improved mechanism of the instrument. The moment the idea was conceived of striking the strings with hammers, unlimited improvement was possible; and though the piano of to-day is covered all over with ingenious devices, the great, essential improvements are few in number. The hammer, for example, may contain one hundred ingenuities, but they are all included in the device of covering the first wooden hammers with cloth; and the master-thought of making the whole frame of the piano of iron suggested the line of improvement which secures the supremacy of the piano over all other stringed instruments forever.
Sebastian Erard, the son of a Strasbourg upholsterer, went to Paris, a poor orphan of sixteen, in the year 1768, and, finding employment in the establishment of a harpsichord-maker, rose rapidly to the foremanship of the shop, and was soon in business for himself as a maker of harpsichords, harps, and pianos. To him, perhaps, more than to any other individual, the fine interior mechanism of the piano is indebted; and the house founded by Sebastian Erard still produces the pianos which enjoy the most extensive reputation in the Old World. He may be said to have created the "action" of the piano, though his devices have been subsequently improved upon by others. He found the piano in 1768 feeble and unknown; he left it, at his death in 1831, the most powerful, pleasing, and popular stringed instrument in existence; and, besides gaining a colossal fortune for himself, he bequeathed to his nephew, Pierre Erard, the most celebrated manufactory of pianos in the world. Next to Erard ranks John Broadwood, a Scotchman, who came to London about the time of Erard's arrival in Paris, and, like him, procured employment with a harpsichord-maker, the most noted one in England. John Broadwood was a "good apprentice," married his master's daughter, inherited his business, and carried it on with such success, that, to-day, the house of Broadwood and Sons is the first of its line in England. John Broadwood was chiefly meritorious for a general improvement in the construction of the instrument. If he did not originate many important devices, he was eager to adopt those of others, and he made the whole instrument with British thoroughness. The strings, the action, the case, the pedals, and all the numberless details of mechanism received his thoughtful attention, and show to the present time traces of his honest and intelligent mind. It was in this John Broadwood's factory that a poor German boy named John Jacob Astor earned the few pounds that paid his passage to America, and bought the seven flutes which were the foundation of the great Astor estate. For several years, the sale of the Broadwood pianos in New York was an important part of Mr. Astor's business. He used to sell his furs in London, and invest part of the proceeds in pianos, for exportation to New York.
America began early to try her hand at improving the instrument. Mr. Jefferson, in the year 1800, in one of his letters to his daughter Martha, speaks of "a very ingenious, modest, and poor young man" in Philadelphia, who "has invented one of the prettiest improvements in the forte-piano I have ever seen." Mr. Jefferson, who was himself a player upon the violin, and had some little skill upon the harpsichord, adds, "It has tempted me to engage one for Monticello." This instrument was an upright piano, and we have found no mention of an upright of an earlier date. "His strings," says Mr. Jefferson, "are perpendicular, and he contrives within that height" (not given in the published extract) "to give his strings the same length as in the grand forte-piano, and fixes his three unisons to the same screw, which screw is in the direction of the strings, and therefore never yields. It scarcely gets out of tune at all, and then, for the most part, the three unisons are tuned at once." This is an interesting passage; for, although the "forte-pianos" of this modest young man have left no trace upon the history of the instrument, it shows that America had no sooner cast an eye upon its mechanism than she set to work improving it. Can it be that the upright piano was an American invention? It may be. The Messrs. Broadwood, in the little book which lay upon their pianos in the Exhibition of 1851, say that the first vertical or cabinet pianos were constructed by William Southwell, of their house, in 1804, four years after the date of Mr. Jefferson's letter.
After 1800 there were a few pianos made every year in the United States, but none that could compare with the best Erards and Broadwoods, until the Chickering era, which began in 1823.
The two Americans to whom music is most indebted in the United States are Jonas Chickering, piano-maker, born in New Hampshire in 1798, and Lowell Mason, singing teacher and composer of church tunes, born in Massachusetts in 1792. While Lowell Mason was creating the taste for music, Jonas Chickering was improving the instrument by which musical taste is chiefly gratified; and both being established in Boston, each of them was instrumental in advancing the fortunes of the other. Mr. Mason recommended the Chickering piano to his multitudinous classes and choirs, and thus powerfully aided to give that extent to Mr. Chickering's business which is necessary to the production of the best work. Both of them began their musical career, we may say, in childhood; for Jonas Chickering was only a cabinet-maker's apprentice when he astonished his native village by putting in excellent playing order a battered old piano, long before laid aside; and Lowell Mason, at sixteen, was already leading a large church choir, and drilling a brass band. The undertaking of this brass band by a boy was an amusing instance of Yankee audacity; for when the youth presented himself to the newly formed band to give them their first lesson, he found so many instruments in their hands which he had never seen nor heard of, that he could not proceed. "Gentlemen," said he, "I see that a good many of your instruments are out of order, and most of them need a little oil, or something of the kind. Our best plan will be to adjourn for a week. Leave all your instruments with me, and I will have them in perfect condition by the time we meet again." Before the band again came together, the young teacher, by working night and day, had gained a sufficient insight into the nature of the instruments to instruct those who knew nothing of them.
Jonas Chickering was essentially a mechanic,—a most skilful, patient, thoughtful, faithful mechanic,—and it was his excellence as a mechanic which enabled him to rear an establishment which, beginning with one or two pianos a month, was producing, at the death of the founder, in 1853, fifteen hundred pianos a year. It was he who introduced into the piano the full iron frame. It was he who first made American pianos that were equal to the best imported ones. He is universally recognized as the true founder of the manufacture of the piano in the United States. No man has, perhaps, so nobly illustrated the character of the American mechanic, or more honored the name of American citizen. He was the soul of benevolence, truth, and honor. When we have recovered a little more from the infatuation which invests "public men" with supreme importance, we shall better know how to value those heroes of the apron, who, by a life of conscientious toil, place a new source of happiness, or of force, within the reach of their fellow-citizens.
Henry Steinway, the founder of the great house of Steinway and Sons, has had a career not unlike that of Mr. Chickering. He also, in his native Brunswick, amused his boyhood by repairing old instruments of music, and making new ones. He made a cithara and a guitar for himself with only such tools as a boy can command. He also was apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, and was drawn away, by natural bias, from the business he had learned, to the making of organs and pianos. For many years he was a German piano-maker, producing, in the slow, German manner, two or three excellent instruments a month; striving ever after higher excellence, and growing more and more dissatisfied with the limited sphere in which the inhabitant of a small German state necessarily works. In 1849, being then past fifty years of age, and the father of four intelligent and gifted sons, he looked to America for a wider range and a more promising home for his boys. With German prudence, he sent one of them to New York to see what prospect there might be there for another maker of pianos. Charles Steinway came, saw, approved, returned, reported; and in 1850 all the family reached New York, except the eldest son, Theodore, who succeeded to his father's business in Brunswick. Henry Steinway again showed himself wise in not immediately going into business. Depositing the capital he had brought with him in a safe place, he donned once more the journeyman's apron, and worked for three years in a New York piano factory to learn the ways of the trade in America; and his sons obtained similar employment,—one of them, fortunately, becoming a tuner, which brought him into relations with many music-teachers. During these three years, their knowledge and their capital increased every day, for they lived as wise men in such circumstances do live who mean to control their destiny. In plain English, they kept their eyes open, and lived on half their income. In 1853, in a small back shop in Varick Street, with infinite pains, they made their first piano, and a number of teachers and amateurs were invited to listen to it. It was warmly approved and speedily sold. Ten men were employed, who produced for the next two years one piano a week. In 1855, the Messrs. Steinway, still unknown to the public, placed one of their best instruments in the New York Crystal Palace Exhibition. A member of the musical jury has recorded the scene which occurred when the jury came to this unknown competitor:—
"They were pursuing their rounds, and performing their duties with an ease and facility that promised a speedy termination to their labors, when suddenly they came upon an instrument that, from its external appearance,—solidly rich, yet free from the frippery that was then rather in fashion,—attracted their attention. One of the company opened the case, and carelessly struck a few chords. The others were doing the same with its neighbors, but somehow they ceased to chatter when the other instrument began to speak. One by one the jurors gathered round the strange polyphonist, and, without a word being spoken, every one knew that it was the best piano-forte in the Exhibition. The jurors were true to their duties. It is possible that some of them had predilections in favor of other makers; it is certain that one of them had,—the writer of the present notice. But when the time for the award came, there was no argument, no discussion, no bare presentment of minor claims; nothing, in fact, but a hearty indorsement of the singular merits of the strange instrument."
From that time the Steinways made rapid progress. The tide of California gold was flowing in, and every day some one was getting rich enough to treat his family to a new piano. It was the Messrs. Steinway who chiefly supplied the new demand, without lessening by one instrument a month the business of older houses. Various improvements in the framing and mechanism of the piano have been invented and introduced by them; and, while some members of the family have superintended the manufacture, others have conducted the not less difficult business of selling. To this hour, the father of the family, in the dress of a workman, attends daily at the factory, as vigilant and active as ever, though now past seventy; and his surviving sons are as laboriously engaged in assisting him as they were in the infancy of the establishment.
Besides the Chickerings and the Steinways, there are twenty manufacturers in the United States whose production exceeds one hundred pianos per annum. Messrs. Knabe & Co. of Baltimore, who supply large portions of the South and West, sold about a thousand pianos in the year 1866; W. P. Emerson of Boston, 935; Messrs. Haines Brothers of New York, 830; Messrs. Hallett and Davis of Boston, 462; Ernest Gabler of New York, 312; Messrs. E. C. Lighte & Co. of New York, 286; Messrs. Hazelton and Brothers of New York, 269; Albert Webber of New York, 266; Messrs. Decker Brothers of New York, 256; Messrs. George Steck and Co. of New York, 244; W. I. Bradbury of New York, 244; Messrs. Lindeman and Sons of New York, 223; the New York Piano-forte Company, 139. About one half of all the pianos made in the United States are made in the city of New York.
To visit one of our large manufactories of pianos is a lesson in the noble art of taking pains. Genius itself, says Carlyle, means, first of all, "a transcendent capacity for taking trouble." Everywhere in these vast and interesting establishments we find what we may call the perfection of painstaking.
The construction of an American piano is a continual act of defensive warfare against the future inroads of our climate,—a climate which is polar for a few days in January, tropical for a week or two in July, Nova-Scotian now and then in November, and at all times most trying to the finer woods, leathers, and fabrics. To make a piano is now not so difficult; but to make one that will stand in America,—that is very difficult. In the rear of the Messrs. Steinway's factory there is a yard for seasoning timber, which usually contains an amount of material equal to two hundred and fifty thousand ordinary boards, an inch thick and twelve feet long; and there it remains from four months to five years, according to its nature and magnitude. Most of the timber used in an American piano requires two years' seasoning at least. From this yard it is transferred to the steam-drying house, where it remains subjected to a high temperature for three months. The wood has then lost nearly all the warp there ever was in it, and the temperature may change fifty degrees in twelve hours (as it does sometimes in New York) without seriously affecting a fibre. Besides this, the timber is sawed in such a manner as to neutralize, in some degree, its tendency to warp, or, rather, so as to make it warp the right way. The reader would be surprised to hear the great makers converse on this subject of the warping of timber. They have studied the laws which govern warping; they know why wood warps, how each variety warps, how long a time each kind continues to warp, and how to fit one warp against another, so as to neutralize both. If two or more pieces of wood are to be glued together, it is never done at random; but they are so adjusted that one will tend to warp one way, and another another. Even the thin veneers upon the case act as a restraining force upon the baser wood which they cover, and in some parts of the instrument the veneer is double for the purpose of keeping both in order. An astonishing amount of thought and experiment has been expended upon this matter of warping,—so much, that now not a piece of wood is employed in a piano, the grain of which does not run in the precise direction which experience has shown to be the best.
The forests of the whole earth have been searched for woods adapted to the different parts of the instrument. Dr. Rimbault, in his learned "History of the Piano-forte," published recently in London, gives a catalogue of the various woods, metals, skins, and fabrics used in the construction of a piano, which forcibly illustrates the delicacy of the modern instrument and the infinite care taken in its manufacture. We copy the list, though some of the materials differ from those used by American manufacturers.
| Materials. | Where used. | |
| Woods. | From | |
| Oak | Riga | Framing, various parts. |
| Deal | Norway | Wood-bracing, &c. |
| Fir | Switzerland | Sounding-board. |
| Pine | America | Parts of framing, key-bed or bottom. |
| Mahogany | Honduras | Solid wood of top, and various parts of the framing and the action. |
| Beech | England | Wrest-plank, bridge or sound-board, centre of legs. |
| Beef-wood | Brazils | Tongues in the beam, forming the divisions between the hammers. |
| Birch | Canada | Belly-rail, a part of the framing. |
| Cedar | S. America | Round shanks of hammers. |
| Lime-tree | England | Keys. |
| Pear-tree | —— | Heads of dampers. |
| Sycamore | —— | Hoppers or levers, veneers on wrest-plank. |
| Ebony | Ceylon | Black keys. |
| Spanish Mahogany | Cuba | For decoration. |
| Rosewood | Rio Janeiro | For decoration. |
| Satinwood | East Indies | For decoration. |
| White Holly | England | For decoration. |
| Zebra-wood | Brazils | For decoration. |
| Other fancy woods | —— | For decoration. |
| Materials. | Where used. |
| Woollen Fabrics. | |
| Baize; green, blue, and brown | Upper surface of key-frame, cushions for hammers to fall on, to damp dead part of strings, &c. |
| Cloth, various qualities | For various parts of the action and in other places, to prevent jarring; also for dampers. |
| Felt | External covering for hammers. |
| Leather. | |
| Buffalo | Under-covering of hammers-bass. |
| Saddle | " " tenor and treble. |
| Basil Calf Doeskin Seal Sheepskin Morocco | Various parts of action. |
| Sole | Rings for pedal wires. |
| Metal. | |
| Iron Steel Brass Gun metal | Metallic bracing, and in various small screws, springs, centres, pins, &c., &c., throughout the instrument. |
| Steel wire | Strings. |
| Steel spun wire | Lapped strings. |
| Covered copper wire | " " lowest notes. |
| Various. | |
| Ivory | White keys. |
| Black lead | To smooth the rubbing surfaces of cloth or leather in the action. |
| Glue (of a particular quality made expressly for this trade. | Woodwork throughout. |
| Beeswax, emery paper, glass paper, French polish, oil, putty powder,spirits of wine, &c., &c. | Cleaning and finishing. |
Such are the materials used. The processes to which they are subjected are far more numerous. So numerous are they and so complicated, that the Steinways, who employ five hundred and twelve men, and labor-saving machinery which does the work of five hundred men more, aided by three steam-engines of a hundred and twenty-five, fifty, and twenty-five horse-power, can only produce from forty-five to fifty-five pianos a week. The average number is about fifty,—six grand, four upright, and forty square. The reader has seen, doubtless, a piano with the top taken off; but perhaps it has never occurred to him what a tremendous pull those fifty to sixty strings are keeping up, day and night, from one year's end to another. The shortest and thinnest string of all pulls two hundred and sixty-two pounds,—about as much as we should care to lift; and the entire pull of the strings of a grand piano is sixty pounds less than twenty tons,—a load for twenty cart-horses. The fundamental difficulty in the construction of a piano has always been to support this continuous strain. When we look into a piano we see the "iron frame" so much vaunted in the advertisements, and so splendid with bronze and gilding; but it is not this thin plate of cast-iron that resists the strain of twenty tons. If the wires were to pull upon the iron for one second, it would fly into atoms. The iron plate is screwed to what is called the "bottom" of the piano, which is a mass of timber four inches thick, composed of three layers of plank glued together, and so arranged that the pull of the wires shall be in a line with the grain of the wood. The iron plate itself is subjected to a long course of treatment. The rough casting is brought from the foundery, placed under the drilling-machine, which bores many scores of holes of various sizes with marvellous rapidity. Then it is smoothed and finished with the file; next, it is japanned; after which it is baked in an oven for forty-eight hours. It is then ready for the bronzer and gilder, who covers the greater part of the surface with a light-yellow bronzing, and brightens it here and there with gilding. All this long process is necessary in order to make the plate retain its brilliancy of color.
Upon this solid foundation of timber and iron the delicate instrument is built, and it is enclosed in a case constructed with still greater care. To make so large a box, and one so thin, as the case of a piano stand our summer heats and our furnace heats (still more trying), is a work of extreme difficulty. The seasoned boards are covered with a double veneer, designed to counteract all the tendencies to warp; and the surface is most laboriously polished. It takes three months to varnish and polish the case of a piano. In such a factory as the Steinways' or the Chickerings', there will be always six or seven hundred cases undergoing this expensive process. When the surface of the wood has been made as smooth as sand-paper can make it, the first coat of varnish is applied, and this requires eight days to harden. Then all the varnish is scraped off, except that which has sunk into the pores of the wood. The second coat is then put on; which, after eight days' drying, is also scraped away, until the surface of the veneer is laid bare again. After this four or five coats of varnish are added, at intervals of eight days, and, finally, the last polish is produced by the hand of the workman. The object of all this is not merely to produce a splendid and enduring gloss, but to make the case stand for a hundred years in a room which is heated by a furnace to seventy degrees by day, and in which water will freeze at night. During the war, when good varnish cost as much as the best champagne, the varnish bills of the leading makers were formidable indeed.
The labor, however, is the chief item of expense. The average wages of the five hundred and twelve men employed by the Messrs. Steinway is twenty-six dollars a week. This force, aided by one hundred and two labor-saving machines, driven by steam-power equivalent to two hundred horses, produces a piano in one hour and fifteen minutes. A man with the ordinary tools can make a piano in about four months, but it could not possibly be as good a one as those produced in the large establishments. Nor, indeed, is such a feat ever attempted in the United States. The small makers, who manufacture from one to five instruments a week, generally, as already mentioned, buy the different parts from persons who make only parts. It is a business to make the hammers of a piano; it is another business to make the "action"; another, to make the keys; another, the legs; another, the cases; another, the pedals. The manufacture of the hardware used in a piano is a very important branch, and it is a separate business to sell it. The London Directory enumerates forty-two different trades and businesses related to the piano, and we presume there are not fewer in New York. Consequently, any man who knows enough of a piano to put one together, and can command capital enough to buy the parts of one instrument, may boldly fling his sign to the breeze, and announce himself to an inattentive public as a "piano-forte-maker." The only difficulty is to sell the piano when it is put together. At present it costs rather more money to sell a piano than it does to make one.
When the case is finished, all except the final hand-polish, it is taken to the sounding-board room. The sounding-board—a thin, clear sheet of spruce under the strings—is the piano's soul, wanting which, it were a dead thing. Almost every resonant substance in nature has been tried for sounding-boards, but nothing has been found equal to spruce. Countless experiments have been made with a view to ascertain precisely the best way of shaping, arranging, and fixing the sounding-board, the best thickness, the best number and direction of the supporting ribs; and every great maker is happy in the conviction that he is a little better in sounding-boards than any of his rivals. Next, the strings are inserted; next, the action and the keys. Every one will pause to admire the hammers of the piano, so light, yet so capable of giving a telling blow, which evoke all the music of the strings, but mingle with that music no click, nor thud, nor thump, of their own. The felt employed varies in thickness from one sixteenth of an inch to an inch and an eighth, and costs $5.75 in gold per pound. Only Paris, it seems, can make it good enough for the purpose. Many of the keys have a double felting, compressed from an inch and a half to three quarters of an inch, and others again have an outer covering of leather to keep the strings from cutting the felt. Simple as the finished hammer looks, there are a hundred and fifty years of thought and experiment in it. It required half a century to exhaust the different kinds of wood, bone, and cork; and when, about 1760, the idea was conceived of covering the hammers with something soft, another century was to elapse before all the leathers and fabrics had been tried, and felt found to be the ne plus ultra. With regard to the action, or the mechanism by which the hammers are made to strike the strings, we must refer the inquisitive reader to the piano itself.
When all the parts have been placed in the case, the instrument falls into the hands of the "regulator," who inspects, rectifies, tunes, harmonizes, perfects the whole. Nothing then remains but to convey it to the store, give it its final polish and its last tuning.
The next thing is to sell it. Six hundred and fifty dollars seems a high price for a square piano, such as we used to buy for three hundred, and the "natural cost" of which does not much exceed two hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred dollars for a grand piano is also rather startling. But how much tax, does the reader suppose, is paid upon a fifteen-hundred-dollar grand? It is difficult to compute it; but it does not fall much below two hundred dollars. The five per cent manufacturer's tax, which is paid upon the price of the finished instrument, has also to be paid upon various parts, such as the wire; and upon the imported articles there is a high tariff. It is computed that the taxes upon very complicated articles, in which a great variety of materials are employed, such as carriages, pianos, organs, and fine furniture, amount to about one eighth of the price. The piano, too, is an expensive creature to keep, in these times of high rents, and its fare upon a railroad is higher than that of its owner. We saw, however, a magnificent piano, the other day, at the establishment of Messrs. Chickering, in Broadway, for which passage had been secured all the way to Oregon for thirty-five dollars,—only five dollars more than it would cost to transport it to Chicago. Happily for us, to whom fifteen hundred dollars—nay, six hundred and fifty dollars—is an enormous sum of money, a very good second-hand piano is always attainable for less than half the original price.
For, reader, you must know that the ostentation of the rich is always putting costly pleasures within the reach of the refined not-rich. A piano in its time plays many parts, and figures in a variety of scenes. Like the more delicate and sympathetic kinds of human beings, it is naught unless it is valued; but, being valued, it is a treasure beyond price. Cold, glittering, and dumb, it stands among the tasteless splendors with which the wealthy ignorant cumber their dreary abodes,—a thing of ostentation merely,—as uninteresting as the women who surround it, gorgeously apparelled, but without conversation, conscious of defective parts of speech. "There is much music, excellent voice, in that little organ," but there is no one there who can "make it speak." They may "fret" the noble instrument; they "cannot play upon it."
But a fool and his nine-hundred-dollar piano are soon parted. The red flag of the auctioneer announces its transfer to a drawing-room frequented by persons capable of enjoying the refined pleasures. Bright and joyous is the scene, about half past nine in the evening, when, by turns, the ladies try over their newest pieces, or else listen with intelligent pleasure to the performance of a master. Pleasant are the informal family concerts in such a house, when one sister breaks down under the difficulties of Thalberg, and yields the piano-stool to the musical genius of the family, who takes up the note, and, dashing gayly into the midst of "Egitto," forces a path through the wilderness, takes the Red Sea like a heroine, bursts at length into the triumphal prayer, and retires from the instrument as calm as a summer morning. On occasions of ceremony, too, the piano has a part to perform, though a humble one. Awkward pauses will occur in all but the best-regulated parties, and people will get together, in the best houses, who quench and neutralize one another. It is the piano that fills those pauses, and gives a welcome respite to the toil of forcing conversation. How could "society" go on without the occasional interposition of the piano? One hundred and sixty years ago, in those days beloved and vaunted by Thackeray, when Louis XIV. was king of France, and Anne queen of England, society danced, tattled, and gambled. Cards have receded as the piano has advanced in importance.
From such a drawing-room as this, after a stay of some years, the piano may pass into a boarding-school, and thence into the sitting-room of a family who have pinched for two years to buy it. "It must have been," says Henry Ward Beecher, "about the year 1820, in old Litchfield, Connecticut, upon waking one fine morning, that we heard music in the parlor, and, hastening down, beheld an upright piano, the first we ever saw or heard of! Nothing can describe the amazement of silence that filled us. It rose almost to superstitious reverence, and all that day was a dream and marvel." It is such pianos that are appreciated. It is in such parlors that the instrument best answers the end of its creation. There is many a piano in the back room of a little store, or in the uncarpeted sitting-room of a farm-house, that yields a larger revenue of delight than the splendid grand of a splendid drawing-room. In these humble abodes of refined intelligence, the piano is a dear and honored member of the family.
The piano now has a rival in the United States in that fine instrument before mentioned, which has grown from the melodeon into the cabinet organ. We do not hesitate to say, that the cabinet organs of Messrs. Mason and Hamlin only need to be as generally known as the piano in order to share the favor of the public equally with it. It seems to us peculiarly the instrument for men. We trust the time is at hand when it will be seen that it is not less desirable for boys to learn to play upon an instrument than girls; and how much more a little skill in performing may do for a man than for a woman! A boy can hardly be a perfect savage, nor a man a money-maker or a pietist, who has acquired sufficient command of an instrument to play upon it with pleasure. How often, when we have been listening to the swelling music of the cabinet organs at the ware-rooms of Messrs. Mason and Hamlin in Broadway, have we desired to put one of those instruments in every clerk's boarding-house room, and tell him to take all the ennui, and half the peril, out of his life by learning to play upon it! No business man who works as intensely as we do can keep alive the celestial harmonies within him,—no, nor the early wrinkles from his face,—without some such pleasant mingling of bodily rest and mental exercise as playing upon an instrument.
The simplicity of the means by which music is produced from the cabinet organ is truly remarkable. It is called a "reed" instrument; which leads many to suppose that the cane-brake is despoiled to procure its sound-giving apparatus. Not so. The reed employed is nothing but a thin strip of brass with a tongue slit in it, the vibration of which causes the musical sound. One of the reeds, though it produces a volume of sound only surpassed by the pipes of an organ, weighs about an ounce, and can be carried in a vest-pocket. In fact, a cabinet organ is simply an accordeon of immense power and improved mechanism. Twenty years ago, one of our melodeon-makers chanced to observe that the accordeon produced a better tone when it was drawn out than when it was pushed in; and this fact suggested the first great improvement in the melodeon. Before that time, the wind from the bellows, in all melodeons, was forced through the reeds. Melodeons on the improved principle were constructed so that the wind was drawn through the reeds. The credit of introducing this improvement is due to the well-known firm of Carhart, Needham, & Co., and it was as decided an improvement in the melodeon as the introduction of the hammer in the harpsichord.
At this point of development, the instrument was taken up by Messrs. Mason and Hamlin, who have covered it with improvements, and rendered it one of the most pleasing musical instruments in the possession of mankind. When we remarked above, that the American piano was the best in the world, we only expressed the opinion of others; but now that we assert the superiority of the American cabinet organ over similar instruments made in London and Paris, we are communicating knowledge of our own. Indeed, the superiority is so marked that it is apparent to the merest tyro in music. During the year 1866, the number of these instruments produced in the United States by the twenty-five manufacturers was about fifteen thousand, which were sold for one million six hundred thousand dollars, or a little more than one hundred dollars each. Messrs. Mason and Hamlin, who manufacture one fourth of the whole number, produce thirty-five kinds, varying in power, compass, and decoration, and in price from seventy-five dollars to twelve hundred. In the new towns of the great West, the cabinet organ is usually the first instrument of music to arrive, and, of late years, it takes its place with the piano in the fashionable drawing-rooms of the Atlantic States.
Few Americans, we presume, expected that the department of the Paris Exposition in which the United States should most surpass other nations would be that appropriated to musical instruments. Even our cornets and bugles are highly commended in Paris. The cabinet organs, according to several correspondents, are much admired. We can hardly credit the assertion of an intelligent correspondent of the Tribune, that the superiority of the American pianos is not "questioned" by Erard, Pleyel, and Hertz, but we can well believe that it is acknowledged by the great players congregated at Paris. The aged Rossini is reported to have said, after listening to an American piano, "It is like a nightingale cooing in a thunder-storm."
AN EMBER-PICTURE.
How strange are the freaks of memory!
The lessons of life we forget,
While a trifle, a trick of color,
In the wonderful web is set,—
Set by some mordant of fancy,
And, despite the wear and tear
Of time or distance or trouble,
Insists on its right to be there.
A chance had brought us together;
Our talk was of matters of course;
We were nothing, one to the other,
But a short half-hour's resource.
We spoke of French acting and actors,
And their easy, natural way,—
Of the weather, for it was raining
As we drove home from the play.
We debated the social nothings
Men take such pains to discuss;
The thunderous rumors of battle
Were silent the while for us.
Arrived at her door, we left her
With a drippingly hurried adieu,
And our wheels went crunching the gravel
Of the oak-darkened avenue.
As we drove away through the shadow,
The candle she held in the door,
From rain-varnished tree-trunk to tree-trunk
Flashed fainter, and flashed no more,—
Flashed fainter and wholly faded
Before we had passed the wood;
But the light of the face behind it
Went with me and stayed for good.
The vision of scarce a moment,
And hardly marked at the time,
It comes unbidden to haunt me,
Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme.
Had she beauty? Well, not what they call so:
You may find a thousand as fair,
And yet there's her face in my memory,
With no special right to be there.
As I sit sometimes in the twilight,
And call back to life in the coals
Old faces and hopes and fancies
Long buried,—good rest to their souls!—
Her face shines out of the embers;
I see her holding the light,
And hear the crunch of the gravel
And the sweep of the rain that night.
'Tis a face that can never grow older,
That never can part with its gleam;
'Tis a gracious possession forever,
For what is it all but a dream?
AN ARTIST'S DREAM.
When I reached Kenmure's house, one August evening, it was rather a disappointment to find that he and his charming Laura had absented themselves for twenty-four hours. I had not seen them since their marriage; my admiration for his varied genius and her unvarying grace was at its height, and I was really annoyed at the delay. My fair cousin, with her usual exact housekeeping, had prepared everything for her guest, and then bequeathed me, as she wrote, to Janet and baby Marian. It was a pleasant arrangement, for between baby Marian and me there existed a species of passion, I might almost say of betrothal, ever since that little three-year-old sunbeam had blessed my mother's house by lingering awhile in it, six months before. Still I went to bed disappointed, though the delightful windows of the chamber looked out upon the glimmering bay, and the swinging lanterns at the yard-arms of the frigates shone like some softer constellation beneath the brilliant sky. The house was so close upon the water that the cool waves seemed to plash deliciously against its very basement; and it was a comfort to think that, if there were no adequate human greetings that night, there would be plenty in the morning, since Marian would inevitably be pulling my eyelids apart before sunrise.
It seemed scarcely dawn when I was roused by a little arm round my neck, and waked to think I had one of Raphael's cherubs by my side. Fingers of waxen softness were ruthlessly at work upon my eyes, and the little form that met my touch felt lithe and elastic, like a kitten's limbs. There was just light enough to see the child, perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue dressing-gown trailing over the white night-dress, while her black and long-fringed eyes shone through the dimness of morning. She yielded gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, childish shoulders. Yet sleep still half held me, and when my cherub appeared to hold it a cherubic practice to begin the day with a demand for lively anecdote, I was fain drowsily to suggest that she might first tell some stories to her doll. With the sunny readiness that was a part of her nature, she straightway turned to that young lady,—plain Susan Halliday, with both cheeks patched, and eyes of different colors,—and soon discoursed both her and me into repose.
When I waked again, it was to find the child conversing with the morning star, which still shone through the window, scarcely so lucent as her eyes, and bidding it go home to its mother, the sun. Another lapse into dreams, and then a more vivid awakening, and she had my ear at last, and won story after story, requiting them with legends of her own youth, "almost a year ago,"—how she was perilously lost, for instance, in the small front yard, with a little playmate, early in the afternoon, and how they came and peeped into the window, and thought all the world had forgotten them. Then the sweet voice, distinct in its articulation as Laura's, went straying off into wilder fancies, a chaos of autobiography and conjecture, like the letters of a war correspondent. You would have thought her little life had yielded more pangs and fears than might have sufficed for the discovery of the North Pole; but breakfast-time drew near at last, and Janet's honest voice was heard outside the door. I rather envied the good Scotchwoman the pleasant task of polishing the smooth cheeks, and combing the dishevelled silk; but when, a little later, the small maiden was riding down stairs in my arms, I envied no one.
At sight of the bread and milk, my cherub was transformed into a hungry human child, chiefly anxious to reach the bottom of her porringer. I was with her a great deal that day. She gave no manner of trouble: it was like having the charge of a floating butterfly, endowed with warm arms to clasp, and a silvery voice to prattle. I sent Janet out to sail, with the other servants, by way of holiday, and Marian's perfect temperament was shown in the way she watched the departing.
"There they go," she said, as she stood and danced at the window. "Now they are out of sight."
"What!" I said, "are you pleased to have your friends go?"
"Yes," she answered; "but I shall be pleased—er to see them come back." Life to her was no alternation of joy and grief, but only of joy and more joyous.
Twilight brought us to an improvised concert. Climbing the piano-stool, she went over the notes with her little taper fingers, touching the keys in a light, knowing way, that proved her a musician's child. Then I must play for her, and let the dance begin. This was a wondrous performance on her part, and consisted at first in hopping up and down on one spot, with no change of motion, but in her hands. She resembled a minute and irrepressible Shaker, or a live and beautiful marionnette. Then she placed Janet in the middle of the floor, and performed the dance round her, after the manner of Vivien and Merlin. Then came her supper, which, like its predecessors, was a solid and absorbing meal; then one more fairy story, to magnetize her off, and she danced and sang herself up stairs. And if she first came to me in the morning with a halo round her head, she seemed still to retain it when I at last watched her kneeling in the little bed—perfectly motionless, with her hands placed together, and her long lashes sweeping her cheeks—to repeat two verses of a hymn which Janet had taught her. My nerves quivered a little when I saw that Susan Halliday had also been duly prepared for the night, and had been put in the same attitude, so far as her jointless anatomy permitted. This being ended, the doll and her mistress reposed together, and only an occasional toss of the vigorous limbs, or a stifled baby murmur, would thenceforth prove, through the darkened hours, that the one figure had in it more of life than the other.
On the next morning Kenmure and Laura came back to us, and I walked down to receive them at the boat. I had forgotten how striking was their appearance, as they stood together. His broad, strong, Saxon look, his noble bearing and clear blue eyes, enhanced the fascination of her darker beauty.
America is full of the short-lived bloom and freshness of girlhood; but grace is a rarer gift, and indeed it is only a few times in life that one sees anywhere a beauty that really controls us with a permanent charm. One should remember such personal loveliness, as one recalls some particular moonlight or sunset, with a special and concentrated joy, which the multiplicity of fainter impressions cannot disturb. When in those days we used to read, in Petrarch's one hundred and twenty-third sonnet, that he had once beheld on earth angelic manners and celestial charms, whose very remembrance was a delight and an affliction, since all else that he beheld seemed dream and shadow, we could easily fancy that nature had certain permanent attributes which accompanied the name of Laura.
Our Laura had that rich brunette beauty before which the mere snow and roses of the blonde must always seem wan and unimpassioned. In the superb suffusions of her cheek there seemed to flow a tide of passions and powers, which might have been tumultuous in a meaner woman, but over which, in her, the clear and brilliant eyes, and the sweet, proud mouth, presided in unbroken calm. These superb tints implied resources only, not a struggle. With this torrent from the tropics in her veins, she was the most equable person I ever saw; and had a supreme and delicate good-sense, which, if not supplying the place of genius, at least comprehended its work. Not intellectually gifted herself, perhaps, she seemed the cause of gifts in others, and furnished the atmosphere in which all showed their best. With the steady and thoughtful enthusiasm of her Puritan ancestors, she combined that grace which is so rare among their descendants,—a grace which fascinated the humblest, while it would have been just the same in the society of kings. And her person had the equipoise and symmetry of her mind. While abounding in separate points of beauty, each a source of distinct and peculiar pleasure,—as the outline of her temples, the white line that parted her night-black hair, the bend of her wrists, the moulding of her finger-tips,—yet these details were lost in the overwhelming gracefulness of her presence, and the atmosphere of charm which she diffused over all human life.
A few days passed rapidly by us. We walked and rode and boated and read. Little Marian came and went, a living sunbeam, a self-sufficing thing. It was soon obvious that she was far less demonstrative towards her parents than towards me; while her mother, gracious to her as to all, yet rarely caressed her, and Kenmure, though habitually kind, seemed rather to ignore her existence, and could scarcely tolerate that she should for one instant preoccupy his wife. For Laura he lived, and she must live for him. He had a studio, which I rarely entered and Marian never, while Laura was constantly there; and after the first cordiality was past, I observed that their daily expeditions were always arranged for two. The weather was beautiful, and they led the wildest outdoor life, cruising all day or all night among the islands, regardless of hours, and, as it sometimes seemed to me, of health. No matter: Kenmure liked it, and what he liked she loved. When at home, they were chiefly in the studio, he painting, modelling, poetizing perhaps, and she inseparably united with him in all. It was very beautiful, this unworldly and passionate love, and I could have borne to be omitted in their daily plans, since little Marian was left to me, save that it seemed so strange to omit her also. Besides, there grew to be something a little oppressive in this peculiar atmosphere; it was like living in a greenhouse.
Yet they always spoke in the simplest way of this absorbing passion, as of something about which no reticence was needed; it was too sacred not to be mentioned; it would be wrong not to utter freely to all the world what was doubtless the best thing the world possessed. Thus Kenmure made Laura his model in all his art; not to coin her into wealth or fame,—he would have scorned it; he would have valued fame and wealth only as instruments for proclaiming her. Looking simply at these two lovers, then, it seemed as if no human union could be more noble or stainless. Yet so far as others were concerned, it sometimes seemed to me a kind of duplex selfishness, so profound and so undisguised as to make one shudder. "Is it," I asked myself at such moments, "a great consecration, or a great crime?" But something must be allowed, perhaps, for my own private dissatisfactions in Marian's behalf.
I had easily persuaded Janet to let me have a peep every night at my darling, as she slept; and once I was surprised to find Laura sitting by the small white bed. Graceful and beautiful as she always was, she never before had seemed to me so lovely, for she never had seemed quite like a mother. But I could not demand a sweeter look of tenderness than that with which she now gazed upon her child.
Little Marian lay with one brown, plump hand visible from its full white sleeve, while the other nestled half hid beneath the sheet, grasping a pair of blue morocco shoes, the last acquisition of her favorite doll. Drooping from beneath the pillow hung a handful of scarlet poppies, which the child had wished to place under her head, in the very superfluous project of putting herself to sleep thereby. Her soft brown hair was scattered on the sheet, her black lashes lay motionless upon the olive cheeks. Laura wished to move her, that I might see her the better.
"You will wake her," exclaimed I, in alarm.
"Wake this little dormouse?" Laura lightly answered. "Impossible."
And, twining her arms about her, the young mother lifted the child from the bed, three or four times, dropping her again heavily each time, while the healthy little creature remained utterly undisturbed, breathing the same quiet breath. I watched Laura with amazement; she seemed transformed.
She gayly returned my eager look, and then, seeming suddenly to penetrate its meaning, cast down her radiant eyes, while the color mounted into her cheeks. "You thought," she said, almost sternly, "that I did not love my child."
"No," I said, half untruthfully.
"I can hardly wonder," she continued, more sadly, "for it is only what I have said to myself a thousand times. Sometimes I think that I have lived in a dream, and one that few share with me. I have questioned others, and never yet found a woman who did not admit that her child was more to her, in her secret soul, than her husband. What can they mean? Such a thought is foreign to my nature."
"Why separate the two?" I asked.
"I must separate them," she answered, with the air of one driven to bay by her own self-reproaching. "I had, like other young girls, my dream of love and marriage. Unlike all the rest, I believe, my visions were fulfilled. The reality was more than the imagination; and I thought it would be so with my love for my child. The first cry of that baby told the difference to my ear. I knew it all from that moment; the bliss which had been mine as a wife would never be mine as a mother. If I had not known what it was to love my husband, I might have been content with my love for Marian. But look at that exquisite creature as she lies there asleep, and then think that I, her mother, should desert her if she were dying, for aught I know, at one word from him!"
"Your feeling is morbid," I said, hardly knowing what to answer.
"What good does it serve to know that?" she said, defiantly. "I say it to myself every day. Once when she was ill, and was given back to me in all the precious helplessness of babyhood, there was such a strange sweetness in it, I thought the charm might remain; but it vanished when she could run about once more. And she is such a healthy, self-reliant little thing," added Laura, glancing toward the bed with a momentary look of motherly pride that seemed strangely out of place amid these self-denunciations.
"I wish her to be so," she added. "The best service I can do for her is to teach her to stand alone. And at some day," continued the beautiful woman, her whole face lighting up with happiness, "she may love as I have loved."
"And your husband," I said, after a pause,—"does your feeling represent his?"
"My husband," she said, "lives for his genius, as he should. You that know him, why do you ask?"
"And his heart?" I said, half frightened at my own temerity.
"Heart?" she answered. "He loves me."
Her color mounted higher yet; she had a look of pride, almost of haughtiness. All else seemed forgotten; she had turned away from the child's little bed, as if it had no existence. It flashed upon me that something of the poison of her artificial atmosphere was reaching her already.
Kenmure's step was heard in the hall, and, with fire in her eyes, she hastened to meet him. I seemed actually to breathe freer after the departure of that enchanting woman, in danger of perishing inwardly, I said to myself, in an air too lavishly perfumed. Bending over Marian, I wondered if it were indeed possible that a perfectly healthy life had sprung from that union too intense and too absorbed. Yet I had often noticed that the child seemed to wear the temperaments of both her parents as a kind of playful disguise, and to peep at you, now out of the one, now from the other, showing that she had her own individual life behind.
As if by some infantine instinct, the darling turned in her sleep, and came unconsciously nearer me. With a half-feeling of self-reproach, I drew around my neck, inch by inch, the little arms that tightened with a delicious thrill; and so I half reclined there till I myself dozed, and the watchful Janet, looking in, warned me away. Crossing the entry to my own chamber, I heard Kenmure and Laura down stairs, but I knew that I should be superfluous, and felt that I was sleepy.
I had now, indeed, become always superfluous when they were together, though never when they were apart. Even they must be separated sometimes, and then each sought me, in order to discourse about the other. Kenmure showed me every sketch he had ever made of Laura. There she was, in all the wonderful range of her beauty,—in clay, in cameo, in pencil, in water-color, in oils. He showed me also his poems, and, at last, a longer one, for which pencil and graver had alike been laid aside. All these he kept in a great cabinet she had brought with her to their housekeeping; and it seemed to me that he also treasured every flower she had dropped, every slender glove she had worn, every ribbon from her hair. I could not wonder. Who would not thrill at the touch of some such memorial of Mary of Scotland, or of Heloise? and what was all the regal beauty of the past to him? Every room always seemed adorned when she was in it, empty when she had gone,—save that the trace of her still seemed left on everything, and all appeared but as a garment she had worn. It seemed that even her great mirror must retain, film over film, each reflection of her least movement, the turning of her head, the ungloving of her hand. Strange! that, with all this intoxicating presence, she yet led a life so free from self, so simple, so absorbed, that all trace of consciousness was excluded, and she seemed unsophisticated as her own child.
As we were once thus employed in the studio, I asked Kenmure, abruptly, if he never shrank from the publicity he was thus giving Laura. "Madame Récamier was not quite pleased," I said, "that Canova had modelled her bust, even from imagination. Do you never shrink from permitting irreverent eyes to look on Laura's beauty? Think of men as you know them. Would you give each of them her miniature, perhaps to go with them into scenes of riot and shame?"
"Would to Heaven I could!" said he, passionately. "What else could save them, if that did not? God lets his sun shine on the evil and on the good, but the evil need it most."
There was a pause; and then I ventured to ask him a question that had been many times upon my lips unspoken.
"Does it never occur to you," I said, "that Laura cannot live on earth forever?"
"You cannot disturb me about that," he answered, not sadly, but with a set, stern look, as if fencing for the hundredth time against an antagonist who was foredoomed to be his master in the end. "Laura will outlive me; she must outlive me. I am so sure of it, that, every time I come near her, I pray that I may not be paralyzed, and die outside her arms. Yet, in any event, what can I do but what I am doing,—devote my whole soul to the perpetuation of her beauty, through art? It is my only dream. What else is worth doing? It is for this I have tried, through sculpture, through painting, through verse, to depict her as she is. Thus far I have failed. Why have I failed? Is it because I have not lived a life sufficiently absorbed in her? or is it that there is no permitted way by which, after God has reclaimed her, the tradition of her perfect loveliness may be retained on earth?"
The blinds of the piazza doorway opened, the sweet sea-air came in, the low and level rays of yellow sunset entered as softly as if the breeze were their chariot; and softer and stiller and sweeter than light or air, little Marian stood on the threshold. She had been in the fields with Janet, who had woven for her breeze-blown hair a wreath of the wild gerardia blossoms, whose purple beauty had reminded the good Scotchwoman of her own native heather. In her arms the child bore, like a little gleaner, a great sheaf of graceful golden-rod, as large as her grasp could bear. In all the artist's visions he had seen nothing so aerial, so lovely; in all his passionate portraitures of his idol, he had delineated nothing so like to her. Marian's cheeks mantled with rich and wine-like tints, her hair took a halo from the sunbeams, her lips parted over the little milk-white teeth; she looked at us with her mother's eyes. I turned to Kenmure to see if he could resist the influence.
He scarcely gave her a glance. "Go, Marian," he said,—not impatiently, for he was too thoroughly courteous ever to be ungracious, even to a child,—but with a steady indifference that cut me with more pain than if he had struck her.
The sun dropped behind the horizon, the halo faded from the shining hair, and every ray of light from the childish face. There came in its place that deep, wondering sadness which is more pathetic than any maturer sorrow,—just as a child's illness touches our hearts more than that of man or woman, it seems so premature and so plaintive. She turned away; it was the very first time I had ever seen the little face drawn down, or the tears gathering in the eyes. By some kind providence, the mother met Marian on the piazza, herself flushed and beautiful with walking, and caught the little thing in her arms with unwonted tenderness. It was enough for the elastic child. After one moment of such bliss she could go to Janet, go anywhere; and when the same graceful presence came in to us in the studio, we also could ask no more.
We had music and moonlight, and were happy. The atmosphere seemed more human, less unreal. Going up stairs at last, I looked in at the nursery, and found my pet seeming rather flushed, and I fancied that she stirred uneasily. It passed, whatever it was; for next morning she came in to wake me, looking, as usual, as if a new heaven and earth had been coined purposely for her since she went to sleep. We had our usual long and important discourse,—this time tending to protracted narrative, of the Mother-Goose description,—until, if it had been possible for any human being to be late for breakfast in that house, we should have been the offenders. But she ultimately went down stairs on my shoulder, and, as Kenmure and Laura were out rowing, the baby put me in her own place, sat in her mother's chair, and ruled me with a rod of iron. How wonderful was the instinct by which this little creature, who so seldom heard one word of parental severity or parental fondness, yet knew so thoroughly the language of both! Had I been the most depraved of children, or the most angelic, I could not have been more sternly excluded from the sugar-bowl, or more overwhelmed with compensating kisses.
Later on that day, while little Marian was taking the very profoundest nap that ever a baby was blessed with, (she had a pretty way of dropping asleep in unexpected corners of the house, like a kitten,) I somehow strayed into a confidential talk with Janet about her mistress. I was rather troubled to find that all her loyalty was for Laura, with nothing left for Kenmure, whom indeed she seemed to regard as a sort of objectionable altar, on which her darlings were being sacrificed. When she came to particulars, certain stray fears of my own were confirmed. It seemed that Laura's constitution was not fit, Janet averred, to bear these irregular hours, early and late; and she plaintively dwelt on the untasted oatmeal in the morning, the insufficient luncheon, the precarious dinner, the excessive walking, the evening damps. There was coming to be a look about her such as her mother had, who died at thirty. As for Marian—but here the complaint suddenly stopped; it would have required far stronger provocation to extract from the faithful soul one word that might seem to reflect on Laura.
Another year, and her forebodings had come true. It is needless to dwell on the interval. Since then I have sometimes felt a regret almost insatiable, in the thought that I should have been absent while all that gracious beauty seemed fading and dissolving like a cloud; and yet at other times it has appeared a relief to think that Laura would ever remain to me in the fulness of her beauty, not a tint faded, not a lineament changed. With all my efforts, I arrived only in time to accompany Kenmure home at night, after the funeral service. We paused at the door of the empty house,—how empty! I hesitated, but Kenmure motioned to me to follow him in.
We passed through the hall and went up stairs. Janet met us at the head of the stairway, and asked me if I would go in to look at little Marian, who was sleeping. I begged Kenmure to go also, but he refused, almost savagely, and went on with heavy step into Laura's deserted room.
Almost the moment I entered the child's chamber, she waked up suddenly, looked at me, and said, "I know you, you are my friend." She never would call me her cousin, I was always her friend. Then she sat up in bed, with her eyes wide open, and said, as if stating a problem which had been put by for my solution, "I should like to see my mother."
How our hearts are rent by the unquestioning faith of children, when they come to test the love which has so often worked what seemed to them miracles,—and ask of it miracles indeed! I tried to explain to her the continued existence of her beautiful mother, and she listened to it as if her eyes drank in all that I could say, and more. But the apparent distance between earth and heaven baffled her baby mind, as it so often and so sadly baffles the thoughts of us elders. I wondered what precise change seemed to her to have taken place. This all-fascinating Laura, whom she adored, and who had yet never been to her what other women are to their darlings,—did heaven seem to put her farther off, or bring her more near? I could never know. The healthy child had no morbid questionings; and as she had come into the world to be a sunbeam, she must not fail of that mission. She was kicking about the bed, by this time, in her nightgown, and holding her pink little toes in all sorts of difficult attitudes, when she suddenly said, looking me full in the face: "If my mother was so high up that she had her feet upon a star, do you think that I could see her?"
This astronomical apotheosis startled me for a moment, but I said unhesitatingly, "Yes," feeling sure that the lustrous eyes that looked in mine could certainly see as far as Dante's, when Beatrice was transferred from his side to the highest realm of Paradise. I put my head beside hers upon the pillow, and stayed till I thought she was asleep.
I then followed Kenmure into Laura's chamber. It was dusk, but the after-sunset glow still bathed the room with imperfect light, and he lay upon the bed, his hands clenched over his eyes.
There was a deep bow-window where Laura used to sit and watch us, sometimes, when we put off in the boat. Her æolian harp was in the casement, breaking its heart in music. A delicate handkerchief was lodged between the cushions of the window-seat,—the very handkerchief she used to wave, in summer days long gone. The white boats went sailing beneath the evening light, children shouted and splashed in the water, a song came from a yacht, a steam-whistle shrilled from the receding steamer; but she for whom alone those little signs of life had been dear and precious would henceforth be as invisible to our eyes as if time and space had never held her; and the young moon and the evening star seemed but empty things, unless they could pilot us to some world where the splendor of her loveliness could match their own.
Twilight faded, evening darkened, and still Kenmure lay motionless, until his strong form grew in my moody fancy to be like some carving of Michel Angelo, more than like a living man. And when he at last startled me by speaking, it was with a voice so far off and so strange, it might almost have come wandering down from the century when Michel Angelo lived.
"You are right," he said. "I have been living in a dream. It has all vanished. I have kept no memorial of her presence, nothing to perpetuate the most beautiful of lives."
Before I could answer, the door came softly open, and there stood in the doorway a small white figure, holding aloft a lighted taper of pure alabaster. It was Marian in her little night-dress, with the loose, blue wrapper trailing behind her, let go in the effort to hold carefully the doll, Susan Halliday, robed also for the night.
"May I come in?" said the child.
Kenmure was motionless at first, then, looking over his shoulder, said merely, "What?"
"Janet said," continued Marian, in her clear and methodical way, "that my mother was up in heaven, and would help God hear my prayers at any rate; but if I pleased, I could come and say them by you."
A shudder passed over Kenmure; then he turned away, and put his hands over his eyes. She waited for no answer, but, putting down the candlestick, in her wonted careful manner, upon a chair, she began to climb upon the bed, lifting laboriously one little rosy foot, then another, still dragging after her, with great effort, the doll. Nestling at her father's breast, I saw her kneel.
"Once my mother put her arm round me, when I said my prayers." She made this remark, under her breath, less as a suggestion, it seemed, than as the simple statement of a fact.
Instantly I saw Kenmure's arm move, and grasp her with that strong and gentle touch of his that I had so often noticed in the studio,—a touch that seemed quiet as the approach of fate, and as resistless. I knew him well enough to understand that iron adoption.
He drew her toward him, her soft hair was on his breast, she looked fearlessly in his eyes, and I could hear the little prayer proceeding, yet in so low a whisper that I could not catch one word. She was infinitely solemn at such times, the darling; and there was always something in her low, clear tone, through all her prayings and philosophizings, which was strangely like her mother's voice. Sometimes she seemed to stop and ask a question, and at every answer I could see her father's arm tighten, and the iron girdle grow more close.
The moments passed, the voices grew lower yet, the doll slid to the ground. Marian had drifted away upon a vaster ocean than that whose music lulled her from without,—upon that sea whose waves are dreams. The night was wearing on, the lights gleamed from the anchored vessels, the bay rippled serenely against the low sea-wall, the breeze blew gently in. Marian's baby breathing grew deeper and more tranquil; and as all the sorrows of the weary earth might be imagined to exhale themselves in spring through the breath of violets, so it seemed as if it might be with Kenmure's burdened heart. By degrees the strong man's deeper respirations mingled with those of the child, and their two separate beings seemed merged and solved into identity, as they slumbered, breast to breast, beneath the golden and quiet stars. I passed by without awaking them; I knew that the artist had attained his dream.