Church Chant Versus Church Music.
Concluded.
“Ah! but it is sad to think,” objects a friend at our elbow, “that your rigid principles deprive the church of the use of the best music. I think she ought to have the very best of all that this world can offer.”
We have already given our friend his answer, from one point of view, in a former article. We will endeavor to give a fair interpretation of the answer which the church herself would make:
“It is not the best music, as such, that I want for my divine offices, any more than I wish my priests to decorate the walls of my churches with the chefs-d'œuvre of painting and sculpture simply because they are masterpieces of art. I certainly want, and rejoice to possess, the best that is suitable in art, whether of melody, painting, or sculpture, and even of scientific discovery or invention; but my canons of suitability would be a besom of destruction to gas-lighted altar-candles and sanctuary lamps, fixed or portable opera-glasses for the use of distantly-placed worshippers, the manufactured mimic rain, hail, and thunder storms at the beck of organ pedals, the statues of the Apollo Belvidere or the Greek Slave, valuable paintings of first-class yachts, fast horses, or prize cattle, even if they came from the pencil of a Landseer or a Rosa Bonheur; and if I cared for melody of any style for its own sake, my child, I would strongly advise my American clergy to engage the services of Theodore Thomas or Patrick J. Gilmore, whose orchestral performances are truly delicious, and the best for their purpose that can be procured in my beloved dominions of the western hemisphere. But the purpose of these delightful concerts is not a part of my programme. The disciples of the Grand Lama, I am told, turn off their rosaries and other prayers by means of a crank, as music is often made by mechanical organs; but my prayers and melodies are not made in this fashion. Have your best music, as you define it, sung and performed where it suits the best; go and hear it, and God bless you; but please do not let me hear of your inventing and using a small patent steam-whistle to replace the acolyte's altar-bell, nor a large one either in lieu of the church-bell, for that would smack a little too much of the cotton-mill or the iron-foundry; and I do not think I would tolerate that.”
We must confess to having our patience severely tried when the question of “suitability” comes under discussion, and we burn to cry out, Where is the honest musician who is not so engrossed with, and mastered by, his art as to become, like it, deprived of ideas, or at least of the power of expressing them in one single logical affirmation, and who has a principle which he will fairly state and reason from instead of taking us into the pathless dreamland of sentiment, or enticing us for ever off the track on to side switches of individual tastes [pg 318] and special pleas that lead nowhere? Discussing the relative suitability of music and plain chant for the use of the Liturgy of the church is, in our experience, only equalled by the purgatory of suffering one's reason endures when talking “controversy” with a Protestant. Has art no first principles? Is there no relation between art and the nature and purpose of the object to be expressed or illustrated by it? Do you dare define “suitability” to be the harmony of the subject with your present mood, with the fashion of the hour, or with the demands of ignorance and prejudice, or presume to close all discussion with your “Sic volo, sic jubeo; stet pro ratione voluntas”?
But this is a digression. Let us return to our argument.
Thirdly. If we were to say that, contrasted one with the other, the expression of plain chant is unimpassioned, and that of modern music is impassioned—in other words, that the former has not much, if any, capacity for expressing human passions, and that the latter has not only a great capacity for expressing them, but also for exciting them, we think we are affirming what every one who knows anything of the philosophy of music, as well as every one who has been subjected to the influence of both, will readily acknowledge to be true. There is martial music for soldiers, to excite them to combat, or cheer them in victory, or stir their enthusiasm on the triumphant return from battle. There is music for the dancers, and distinct kinds of dance music which invite and sustain those who may wish to waltz or polka, thread the figures of the quadrille, or indulge in the lascivious mazes of other such-like enjoyments not worthy of our mention or consideration outside of our duty as confessor or preacher. There is funny music to make us laugh, and there are funereal dirges to keep us in fit mood as we march after a coffin. There is music which we know will rouse the wrath of our enemy, and there is amorous music which awakes the passion of love, pure and impure.
We have already signalized the cause which gave to music its sensuous character. Lest it may be supposed that we are endeavoring to create a theory without sufficient warrant, we quote from one who holds an undisputed post of honor in the musical world:
“Very well! that which musical doctrine had condemned, that which ages had proscribed, a man one day dared to do. Guided by his instinct, he had more confidence in what it counselled him than in what the rules commanded, and in spite of the cries of horror which arose from a whole nation of musicians, he had the courage to bring into relation the fourth note of the gamut, the fifth, and the seventh (the tritone). By this one act he created the natural dissonances of harmony, a new tonality, the kind of music called chromatic, and, as a consequence, modulation. What a world of things produced by one single harmonic aggregation! The author of this wonderful discovery is Monteverde.[84] He gives himself the credit, in the preface of one of his works, for the invention of the modulated, animated, and expressive style of melody. In fact, the impassioned accent (l'accent passionné) does not exist, and cannot exist, except in the leading note (la note sensible), and this cannot itself be produced, except by its [pg 319] relation with the fourth and fifth degrees of the gamut—in other words that any note placed in the harmonic relation of augmented fourth with another note produces the sensation of a new tone, without the necessity of hearing the tonic or making a cadence, and that by this faculty of the augmented fourth to create immediately a leading note, modulation—that is to say, the necessary succession of different tones—is rendered easy. Admirable coincidence of two fruitful ideas! The musical drama is born; but the drama lives on emotions, and the tonality of plain chant, grave, severe, and calm, could not furnish it with impassioned accents; for the harmony of its tonality does not contain the elements of transition. Hence genius found inspiration in the demand, and all that could give life to the music of the drama was brought into existence at one blow.”[85]
We cannot refrain from adding the reflections of another eminent musician—M. Jos. d'Ortigue:
“Is it not evident that a new order of ideas, a new social element, and a novel spirit, were introduced in music by the fact alone of the creation of a tonality, and that dissonance, modulation, transition, the leading or sensible note, the impassioned accent (mark the words), were but the material clothing, the means, the outward expression, thanks to which this new principle—namely, the moi humain—which had already, so to speak, broken through the upper strata of thought, made for itself a vent by means of the art of music? For just as the ancient tonality, by the fact of its constitution, inspired the sentiment of repose—that is to say, gave birth to the ideas of permanence, of immutability, of the infinite, which comport with the expression of divine things—so also disturbance, agitation, the febrile and tumultuous expression of the passions, which are the essential characteristics of all earthly things, are inherent in the modern tonality precisely in virtue of its constitution, which depends upon dissonance and transition.”[86]
Those wise old Spartans who made it a capital crime to add a new cord to the lyre, lest the people should be rendered effeminate, would certainly despair of finding a man living in our XIXth century who was fit to be called a man, if they were told that the chord of the minor seventh was in such common use that hardly one melody can be found where its effeminate dissonance is not made to appear and to be felt.[87] We pray to be understood when we call the tonality of “impassioned accent” effeminate. A few words from M. Victor de Laprade will convey our meaning: “I dare to class music, and even women themselves, in the order of femininity—that is to say, in that class in which sentiment rules ideas, in which the heart is more manifestly active than reason. It is bold, I acknowledge. We are no longer living in the age of the Book of Wisdom, of the sacred lawgivers, of the prophets, of the philosophers, nor simply of Molière; we are of the age of Saint-Simon, of Fourier, of Auguste Comte, and we have changed all that. We have put the heart on the right side. I am obstinate enough to feel it beating on the left.”
In his famous Instructions (we beg our readers to recall our proposed amendment of their title) the cardinal vicar feels the necessity of protesting against this emotional tendency of music. “We forbid,” he says, “too lively or exciting movements,” and dreads lest some composers may be led to express “the unbridled liveliness of the dance.” He would not “deprive the music of that grace and coloring which art and good taste suggest,” but thinks it necessary to add that “an effeminate softness is to be avoided.”
Without question, the best music, allied to words, as music, is in the compositions for the opera. Those eminent composers who have written for the opera and for the church have indisputably produced works of a higher order of musical merit for the former than they have for the latter.[88] And is not operatic music the most intensely impassioned of all melody, and is it not, alas! becoming a vehicle for the expression of the most debased and lascivious passions of the human heart? Give to modern music language and a stage, free it from all the restraints of Catholic morality, and who does not see, after the experience of an operatic season in one of our great cities, that it would soon become the most powerful and dangerous of all the forces which are now threatening to enervate and demoralize our modern society? We must not be surprised, therefore, nor should we much regret, that “modern composers have failed in their works to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion.”
Let us see what spirit marks the ceremonies of the church when considered as opportunities for exhibiting, or as exciting causes of awakening, the passions. It is not possible to find one such occasion. All gesture which might suggest aught but the most perfect calm and repose of the soul in the actors is absolutely out of place. It is very difficult in sudden, unlooked-for instances of disturbance for the priest not to show in his countenance or by his manner symptoms of alarm, disgust, or annoyance; but he ought not to do so, and would not fail to scandalize the people, unless such disturbance happened to be extraordinary. To betray by look, gesture, or intonation of voice the slightest emotion of sensual passion, however innocent in itself, would disgust and horrify all observers. Neither do the rubrics permit him or his assistants to excite any passion in the hearts of others; for the ceremonial directs their most simple movements, the position of the body, the tenue of the eyes, the hands, and the feet. That “ecclesiastical modesty” which forms so constant a theme of instruction to candidates for the sacred ministry here finds its perfect realization, and is exacted in the highest degree.
The sacred offices are essentially unlike opera, and the church has the good sense to dread the introduction of anything in connection with her divine ceremonies that might be suggestive of it. We now understand why the cardinal vicar throughout the Instructions vehemently proscribes, and over and over again warns composers not to write, operatic or theatrical music, or anything like it, either in its melodies or its character, nor borrow [pg 321] from it, nor imitate it in the use of ariettas, duets, trios, recítative, finales, or cabaletta. Truly, “the best music” is pretty well ruled out by his eminence. By his cautious discrimination, and prudent lopping off, and general toning down he has pretty closely clipped the wings of the steed of Helicon, and, after all, it must be acknowledged, has made of him rather a sorry and unreliable nag, not worth half the old horse who all his lifetime has never given out, or baulked, or behaved in any unseemly manner.
We trust that a distinct disavowal of any intent on our part to treat with flippancy and disrespect the oft-quoted Instructions of his eminence is not needed, for nothing could be further from our thought; but that our readers will perceive that the point of our lance is directed against the endeavor to impose a restrictive and prohibitory circular-letter of the cardinal vicar as a brief in favor of modern music with apostolic sanction. We complain, also, that the words of Benedict XIV. have been quoted by the same writers in such a way as to leave the impression on the mind of the general reader that the learned pope treated modern music as un fait accompli, and rather preferred it if composed according to certain demands which he makes of musicians. Wherefore we quote again his words, by which we get at his real sentiments: “The Gregorian chant is that song which excites the minds of the faithful to piety and devotion; it is that music, therefore, which, if sung in our churches with care and decorum, is most willingly heard by devout persons, and is justly preferred to that which is called figured or harmonized music. The titillation of figured music is held very cheaply by men of religious mind in comparison with the sweetness of the church chant, and hence it is that the people flock to the churches of the monks, who, taking piety for their guide in singing the praises of God, after the counsel of the prince of psalmists, skilfully sing to their Lord as Lord, and serve God as God with the utmost reverence.”
The learned Suarez has also been cited in favor of modern church music—rather a strange fact, as the great theologian was dead and buried before the system of modern music was invented! S. Alphonsus—no mean theologian, nor a rigorist either—says: “The devil usually gets more by it than God does.”
This attempt to argue a positive approval from prohibitory enactments reminds us of “a little story.”
“I had the honor this morning,” boasted a vain soldier, “of holding a conversation with his majesty the king.”
“You converse with his majesty?” exclaimed his companion. “And what did you say to him?”
“Oh! I said nothing. His majesty alone conversed.”
“And pray, what did he say to you?”
“He said: ‘Fellow, stand out of the way!’ ”
Who has ever thought of denying that the old plain chant suits exactly the ceremonies of the church? There were never any “Instructions” promulgated, that we know of, to curb its worldly, operatic, sensual, or effeminate tendencies, simply because by its essential melodic form it does not lend itself to any such aberrations. By its short intervals, its grave and unmeasured movement, and its intellectual [pg 322] character,[89] it is freed from all sensuousness. You can neither march to it, dance to it, nor make love with it. But you can appropriately accompany any of the ceremonies of the church with it, and pray with it; that is—to forestall the special plea of a theological “distinction”—you can adore with it, propitiate the divine justice with it, supplicate with it, praise and thank God with it; and doing all this, we respectfully ask, what more do you want, and, if you do want more, what right have you to ask it?
In the interests of art, do you say? Pshaw! You know well that the church can offer but a very confined field for the cultivation of music as an art, and, compared with music inspired by other wants and tastes, the music written for her use is not worth mentioning. It is only fit to be consigned to the flames, as our friend observes. Besides, the church is not an Academy of Arts and Sciences. Try again.
If being content with what the church prescribes, refusing to admit what she has not distinctly commanded, and contending stoutly for the fitness of that melody for the expression of her divine prayer, and as an accompaniment to her sublime offices, and which she has never declared to be unsuitable, be to “censure the whole church, and even the Pope himself,” as it is insinuated we do, then we offer ourselves at once for safe conduct to a lunatic asylum, for assuredly we have lost our senses.
Fourthly. We hear much of the coloring in the phraseology of modern music. That it is essentially rhetorical is plain enough. It is pretty much all made up of figures of speech, musically expressed. It is especially antithetical, full of striking contrasts, and highly metaphorical. We used to hear frequently in our own church, when we had a “mixed” choir and a gallery, a finale of the Gloria in Excelsis which the unlearned in musical gymnastics were accustomed to say sounded like the men scampering after the women, and the women scampering after the men, and neither coming out ahead of the other. This rhetorical character of music, this dealing in figures of musical speech, which we dare affirm is not free in many an instance from the faults of tautology, bombast, and mixed metaphor, lucidly explains the reason why the frequent repetition of morceaux de musique, whether anthems, motets, “grand Masses,” or “musical Vespers,” by any celebrated composer whomsoever, soon grows tiresome. The same rhetorical phrases and identical figures of speech in the discourses of a preacher Sunday after Sunday would set all the people yawning, and, if the sacredness of the place and of the speaker were not a hindrance to such emotional display, laughing and hissing as well.
The metaphorical character of music is the result of its theme, which may be, as we have already said, either pastoral, martial, amorous, saltatory, funereal, or even prayerful, etc.; but it is not really pastoral, for there are no green fields to pipe in or any hay-making going on. It is like pastoral music, and would be only tolerable, even in a concert-room, on the strength of the maxim, “Art for art's sake”—a principle we contend [pg 323] to be unphilosophical at best, and absolutely intolerable when applied to sacred ceremonies, and not sanctioned by a single instance in the rubrics. So, also, there are no military evolutions, no love-making or dancing, going on, for which reason the music is not really martial, amorous, or saltatory, but only like such music. But there may be a funeral, and there certainly is prayer going on; and what objection can there be to funereal and prayerful music? We have never heard any funereal music that was fit to accompany a Requiem Mass. We have heard musical howling, wailing, sobbing, groans and sighs of despair, and even the spiteful cursing and gnashing of teeth of the damned, as in the confutatis maledictis of Cherubini's Requiem; but let that pass for the present. Prayerful music there is of incomparable sweetness and ravishing harmony, but prayer music—i.e., music which is prayer—is quite another thing. Music does not lose its metaphorical character because its theme is prayerful. There is the greatest difference in the world between first-class paste and real diamond, or between vermeil and pure gold, although it is possible that neither you nor we could distinguish them without the application of a scientific test. The paste may have a perfect diamondful glitter, if you will; but that this glitter is the expression of the substance of real diamond needs no argument to disprove.
Let us again apply our test. The official acts of the celebrant and his assistants at the altar are not figurative, but real. The priest acts as a priest, and not like a priest. The chorus rise, kneel, bow, prostrate, as a chorus should, and not as a chorus might. All their acts are real, finding their ratio in themselves, and not in something else of which they are now a good and admirable, or now a poor and far-fetched, figure. Melody for such performances should be a faithful and true expression of these realities. That is to say, when you hear the melody, you should hear the prayer which is the form of the corpus rubricarum, as the soul is the form of the human body. Subjected to this test, the paste is easily distinguished.
Now, will the diamond, as we choose to typify the church chant, be as readily known by the like test? There is nothing corresponding or similar to figures of speech in the chant, neither is it based upon metaphorical themes. It has properly no theme, but only modes, with their special intonations, mediations, and cadences. Considered in its melodic form, it is a rhythmic combination of unities, the purest artistic expression of communion with the Infinite Unity—with God. Sung in or out of the celebration of the divine offices, if it be not simple rehearsal, it is prayer, and nothing else but prayer. It rejoices in the “perennial freshness” of the Holy Mass and Divine Office, because, like these, it is not metaphorical, but real; and hence we deduce at once the explanation of its lasting character. Its melodies do not wear out or become tiresome. It would never occur to a child of the church, although he were the most accomplished musician the world ever knew, if his age surpassed that of Mathusala, and he had heard High Mass every day of his life, that the Preface or the Pater Noster (and wherefore any other chant?) was a worn-out or tiresome melody. There is a truth [pg 324] for the lovers of church music to digest.
The essential reason—to go to the very bottom of the matter—of the lasting character of the chant, lies in the form of its phraseology, which is purely didactic, consisting of simple and therefore sublime affirmations; this simplicity of its phraseology being often reduced to the utterance of pure substantives, as if the soul were in rapture, meditating upon God and his attributes, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Being of beings, the Eternal, the Omnipotent, the Everlasting, the All in all, the All wise, the All fair, and the All good.
There is an instance of this sublime simplicity of language in Holy Scripture which is an apt example to illustrate our meaning. It is the twelfth verse of the viith chapter of the Apocalypse: “Amen. Benedictio, et claritas, et sapientia, et gratiarum actio, honor, et virtus, et fortitudo Deo nostro in sæcula sæculorum, amen”—Amen. Benediction, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, honor and power, and strength to our God, for ever and ever, amen.
The test being applied, we think we may affirm and certify the diamond.
Fifthly. From what we have already said, and to judge from the extraordinary pretensions of its capacity for expression put forth in these later days, modern music is essentially dramatic, mimetic, or imitative. That it is especially suitable as the melody to accompany and aid the expression of dramatic representation there is no question. There appears also to be hardly any limit of its capacity, as musicians affirm, for word-painting and scene-painting. If the musical critics are not deceived, we think that, with the full score of some genius who may be even now about to graduate in the school of “the music of the future,” a Thomas or a Gilmore might dispense with the actors on the stage altogether, and with the services of the scene-painter as well. What is thought of this power of word-painting, when employed to illustrate the sacred text of the church's offices, we quote from the Dublin Review, Oct., 1868:
“What is called word-painting in music is, of course, very effective, but, as a rule, it cannot be carried so far in sacred as in secular music without detriment to the dignity of the subject. Indeed, even where it is not otherwise objectionable, it sometimes becomes tiresome from its conventionality. The run down the notes of the scale at the descendit de cœlis, and such like effects, do not bear much repetition. Indeed, the attempt at minute expression has often led to odd blunders, such as in the passages resurrectionem mortuorum, where the music for the first word is usually made to have a joyful effect, the latter a lugubrious one (and that, too, sometimes drawn out into musical passages cut off from the previous word, as if it were a fresh sentence), the composer forgetting that the phrase only comprehends one idea—that of the resurrection. So with the passage remissionem peccatorum, exaltavit humiles, and others that might be named.”
We have already mentioned a notable instance of this word-painting—the confutatis maledictis from the Dies Iræ of Cherubini. The vividly descriptive and intensely dramatic power of that passage is well known; and if it were further heightened by a mechanically-darkened [pg 325] church, with a flash or two of stage-lightning and the rumbling of sheet-iron thunder, we are sure the effect would be quite as much as we could bear, whether as celebrant or as near relatives of the departed. Overpowered with the emotions of horror and fear which we are sure we would experience in thus having hell opened to us, we would be thinking a great deal more of the devil than of the God of mercy and compassion when the cry of fright broke from our lips, “Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna!” Certainly, deprived even of any stage effects, we have never listened to it without a shudder. And now comes the pertinent question, Is dramatic, theatrical effect what the church desires to obtain from her melody, or, at least, is she willing that there should be anything of this kind at all employed to illustrate her liturgy? We refer to the Instructions of his eminence the cardinal vicar. He is “polarized,” as we say in America, on that subject. We also quote from the late articles on church music in this magazine:
“ ‘Humana nefas miscere divinis’ finds its application here. To carry the minds of worshippers in the church back to the theatre by the music is a crime, for it is a desecration.”
Musicians themselves are not wholly devoid of the sense of propriety. Mme. de Sévigné relates that Baptiste—the celebrated Lulli—hearing at Mass one day an air which he had composed for the theatre, cried out: “Lord, Lord, I crave your pardon. I did not write it for you!”
We wonder if the correspondent of the Herald was aware of the satire contained in the following late announcement: “Signor Verdi protests indignantly against his Requiem being played in a circus at Ferrara.”
Yet let us see if our comparison with the ceremonies of the liturgy and the character of the actors holds good as before.
There is no scenery, nor should there be any for any occasion. No, good reader, not even for the Repository of Holy Thursday. Those puppet-show “tombs,” with pasteboard soldiers sleeping and watching before pasteboard rocks, are not prescribed by the rubrics, or even tolerated, and are therefore entirely out of order and unmeaning. The Holy Mass is a continuation of the crucifixion and sacrificial death of our Lord on Mount Calvary; but there is no dramatic representation of that event, for the reason, among others that we have alleged before, that it is not a representation, but a reality. We could readily understand its propriety if the Episcopalians or other sects of Protestants were to have a stage erected with scenery of the “upper room,” and a supper-table with living actors or wax-figure ones, à la Mme. Tussaud or Mrs. Jarley, in order to vividly represent to their people the celebration of the Last Supper, because their “celebrations,” high, low, broad, or evangelical, expect to have nothing more at best than a representative sacrifice or commemorative supper; but the Catholic Mass is a perfect and real sacrifice in itself, and mimics nothing.
Apart from the Mass, we have a remarkable example in our own day of a sacred drama, the Passion Play of Ober-Ammergau, which is not a real but an imitative crucifixion, mechanical in the highest degree, passional, figurative, and dramatic. Music for that, à la bonne heure!
Let us again bring the chant into comparison. When we say that it is pre-eminently the chant of priests, each one of whom is “alter Christus,”[90] the chorus song of psalmists, we at once proclaim it as pre-eminently fitted for the expression of the liturgy, and therefore to be wanting in dramatic or word-painting capacity. There have been a few insignificant attempts made by late composers to express, after a musical fashion, the descendit de cœlis with square notes on a four-lined staff, in the hope, probably, that it would be mistaken for plain chant; but the guise is too thin!
Here is a fitting opportunity to explain our former intimation that horrifying, tearful, and groaning melody is not suitable even for a requiem. How often have we not heard it said, “Oh! Gregorian chant is admirable for occasions of sorrow; just the thing for a Dead Mass”; or again, “I think the chant is so lugubrious and solemn; every inflexion seems to be in the minor key,” to which we reply:
In the first place, they who suppose plain chant to be in the minor key are simply in ignorance of its tonality. These we advise to study enough of the chant of their church to avoid making ridiculous objections to it. The others evidently suppose, 1st, that the church intends to excite emotions of sadness at a requiem, and to perform, especially with the services of the choir, the office of a paid mute; and if the friends and relatives are moved to weep bitterly and for a long time, every one will say, “How impressive, how touching!” meaning, “How saddening! How depressing to the spirits!” 2d. That the Gregorian chant Requiem is most admirably suited to this purpose, being a melody of such a sorrowful character and of so lugubrious a tone.
On which we remark that they are most egregiously mistaken in both suppositions. The object which the church has in view at a requiem is not to make people weep and wail, but to console, comfort, and soothe the bleeding hearts of the bereaved mourners; to pray herself, and to excite them to pray earnestly, for the soul of the departed. Nothing could be further from her thought than to horrify them with visions of the grave and imaginations of the torments of the damned. No, it is rest, eternal rest, the rapture of the soul's enjoyment of the everlasting light of glory in heaven, that forms the burden of her funereal refrain,
“Requiem æternam dona ei Domine,
Et lux perpetua luceat ei!
Requiescat in pace!”
Those who love to indulge in the luxury of woe, and who fancy that plentiful tears and a thoroughly broken-hearted manner are the proper accompaniments to a mourning dress, highly approve of the anti-rubrical exhibition of painted or embroidered skulls and cross-bones, heightened in effect by a diapering of gigantic tears, which the artist in funereal trappings has intruded upon the altar or about the catafalque. The Requiem Masses of Mozart and Cherubini would certainly admit of these imitative skeletons and mechanical grief; but not so the Gregorian Requiem.
Hark! what are those strange words which break the silence as [pg 327] the coffin is borne into the church? “Subvenite sancti Dei, occurrite Angeli Domini, suscipientes animam ejus, offerentes eam in conspectu Altissimi. Suscipiat te Christus qui vocavit te, et in sinu Abrahæ angeli deducant te.”[91]
And now the Introit begins, which gives the keynote, so to speak, to the whole Mass:
“Requiem æternam dona eis Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis.”[92]
What a world of comfort in those words! How soothing and hopeful; and chanted to such a smooth, sweet melody, like oil poured out upon the troubled waters, calming the agitated and fretted spirits of the mourners, and gently turning all hearts away from the thoughts of the irreparable loss they have sustained, and shutting out the memory of the scenes of anguish and horror that marked the hours of the agony and death, solicits them to pray for the soul of the beloved departed, and to cast all their sorrow at the feet of God.
Doubtless you presume the chant is very sorrowful; and, like all Gregorian chant, this is, of course, “in the minor key.” Not at all, however inexplicable it may appear to you. Read over again what we have just written above, and now learn one more astonishing fact. The chant for this Introit is written in the sixth mode, the only one of all the Gregorian modes whose scale is identical with the scale of the modern major key!
There is not an invitation to weep in the whole Requiem, neither in the words nor in the melody. It is true the church takes care to improve the occasion by preaching her sermon on the Judgment in the chant of the Dies Iræ; but she soon returns to her keynote of comforting prayer, and at the Communio (which, of course, is not sung at all at our concert requiems) she essays even a bright and cheerful melody in the triumphant eighth mode, to the old refrain,
“Lux æterna luceat eis,”
and, addressing the sweet mercy of God, inspires hope and submission to the divine will by the reminder that he is ever kind and good—“quia pius es.”
Oh! what is this? It is the sympathizing pressure of the hand of the old, old friend who has always been true in sunshine and storm, in our sins and our miseries; it is her sheltering arm that folds our drooping head upon her gentle breast, and her cheery voice that has so often gladdened us in days gone by, soothing our broken heart with the only words that have power with us now—“God is good,” “It is his holy will.”
When we were aforetime groping in the darkness of heretical error, and denied all privilege of stretching out our hands in prayer to help our beloved dead through the mysterious way that death had opened to them, and sternly forbidden to hope for a deeper look into the future than the yawning chasm of corruption opened to our gaze in the earth, we felt—alas! how keenly—the appropriateness of the only burial service we knew of then, whose doleful burden—“ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” and “We commit this body to the ground”—expressed well the faith that was of the earth, earthy. But [pg 328] now our voice is lifted up in praise, and our heart-strings tuned to strains of festive joy, when God has spared our innocent loved ones the dangers and sorrows of life, chanting their translation to the skies in robes of white, and in words of joy that erst were sung by angels proclaiming “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men”; and at the borders of the tomb which hides from our sight the forms of those who for many a year have grown with our growth, and knit our very existence unto theirs, the earth with its darkening clouds is made to disappear, and heaven itself is revealed as the herald who precedes the soul to the gates of everlasting light, chants in our hearing its melodious welcome to the home of rest and glory.
“In paradisum deducant te angeli; in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres, et perducant te in civitatem sanctam Jerusalem. Chorus angelorum te suscipiat, et cum Lazaro quondam paupere æternam habeas requiem.”[93]
The Catholic Church calm in the face of death, and triumphant at the edge of the grave! Why does not the sight convert every Protestant and unbeliever before the setting of the sun? This is our answer: Because you have brought upon the true Israel the calamity which Mardochai the just prayed God to avert when “the mouths of them that sing unto God are shut,” and by your music have bedimmed one of the most sublime manifestations of the church, and by the banishment of her chant have silenced her voice in that supreme, faith-inspiring hour!
Music at a funeral! We would as soon think of getting an Episcopalian parson to read his gloomy burial service, or of hiring a Methodist preacher to declaim by the hour, for the purpose of exhibiting his own vanity and ministering to ours.
The reason why the much-lauded musical Masses, whether of requiem or for other occasions, have failed to meet the requirements of Catholic devotion, is because their composers have sought by word-painting to illustrate the words, as separately defined in a dictionary, instead of grasping the chief and leading ideas to which the church strives to give expression; pretty much as if a painter, intending to paint a man, should most carefully sketch apart every separate bone, muscle, nerve, artery, and organ in the body. The result obtained would be a series of most excellently delineated anatomical drawings, no doubt, but no bodily form of a man, and no expression of what makes the body a living body, which is the soul.
Hence we deduce a most important conclusion. The form of modern music is not prayer, but recreation, the delectation of the imaginative faculty. It aims at producing the impressions which material things excite by their contact with the senses. It seeks to imitate motion in direction or velocity, light and darkness, cold and heat, serenity or disturbance in nature. The piano alone is supposed to make us hear the booming of cannon, the galloping and neighing of horses (the tritone Si, Fa, which in the palmy days of Gregorian chant was called diabolus in musica, and which is the essential chord in the tonality of modern music, will be found to give the exact notes of [pg 329] an ass' braying), the dying moans of the wounded in battle, the rising and setting of the sun, and a host of other equally curious things. “I shouldn't wonder,” exclaims a witty writer, “if one day I might see upon a piece of sheet music, ‘Demonstration of the square of the hypothenuse,’ or ‘The theory of free trade!’ ” Will not some composer produce a “work” which will give the impressions produced on the souls of the people at Mass and Vespers? It might be found convenient for home use on rainy Sundays!
This suggestion quite tickles our fancy. It has the smack of originality about it, and we feel like playing with it, as a cat plays with a mouse. Who does not see at once that it opens a vast field for development of music as an art, and precisely in the order in which musicians are now striving to give it expression? Yes, the glory of the invention is ours.
“Patent Musical Impressions, adapted to every want in church and state.”
“Save your fuel! Summer Impressions, warranted for the coldest climate.”
“Watering-places superseded! Refreshing Winter Impressions, deliciously cool, flavored with hops, serenades, moonlight excursions, sea-views, Adirondack trips, etc., according to taste.”
“Sermon Impressions, a great variety. Parties ordering will please state their religious views or the particular branch of the Episcopalian or other denomination to which they belong.” N.B.—Agents and composers wanted.
If our readers think this to be nonsensical trifling, let them read a few of those lucubrations styled “musical criticisms.”
Musical coloring has only been equalled in its fantastic conceptions by the so-called ocular harmony and visual melody imagined by the French Jesuit, Father Castel, who lived about the beginning of the last century. Starting with a fancied principle that colors are reducible to a harmonic scale corresponding to the scale of musical sounds, he had manufactured what he called his universal ribbon, on which were graduated all colors and their most minute shades. Of this ribbon he made a little book, which he ingeniously attached to a harpsichord in such a manner that certain leaves would open at the touch of the different keys, thus presenting to the sight a particular shade of color at the same time that the hearing perceived the musical note. It is said that he spent large sums of money on this hobby. He wished also to have silks and other stuffs woven after this principle and “dans ce goût” of which the sacerdotal vestments ought to be made, so that every feast and season would be not only distinguished by those parti-colored robes, but also, according to his principle of the harmonic proportions of color, that by a scientific arrangement of the colors derived from his graduated ribbon one might, and, as he contended, should, note upon the vestments melodies, and even harmony, so that a chasuble would sing the Gloria in Excelsis or a cope the Antiphons at Vespers! We do not find, however, in his works, any proposal to sing, in colors, either at Mass or Vespers, thunder and lightning, landscapes and sunrises, jigs and waltzes, serenades of love-sick swains, the shrieks and gnashing of teeth of devils and lost souls, as our modern musicians have done with their musical coloring.
Sixthly. One of the chief complaints justly made against church music is its liability to the abuse of bringing certain singers of remarkable talent into an undue and often indecent prominence, and thus ministering rather to personal vanity, to petty jealousies and envies, and to the critical delectation of the audience (?), than to the praise and glory of God. That music can be written so as to preclude such an offensive result we are not prepared to deny; but that there is any reasonable hope that it ever will be we do not believe. The principle upon which choice is made of it in preference to chant, and which has extorted the restricted and evidently unwilling toleration of it, forbids us to entertain such a hope. We fancy that such a chastened style of music, composed so as to meet this requirement, would soon be voted as “confessedly unequal to the task of evoking and expressing the feelings of Christian joy and triumph,” and, with plain chant under the same ban, this world would become indeed a vale of tears and
“... plain of groans,
Whose arid wastes resound with moans
Of weepers over dead men's bones.”
The style inherent in music certainly calls for more or less of personal display, and consequently for some sign of appreciation from the listeners, if it be nothing more than that entranced silence which is often the most flattering applause, especially in church.
A little incident has just occurred in connection with our own church choir—we hardly need say that no women sing in it, or that chant is its accepted melody—which illustrates better than long argument the spirit that Gregorian chant inspires in the hearts of the singers. One of their number, a little chorister, lies sick in a hospital. The members of the chorus have made an offering of all the merit they gain in the sight of God, on account of their singing, for his recovery. We imagine the look of puzzled surprise if such an “act” were proposed to the singers of a musical chorus in one of our ordinary gallery-choirs.
We would furthermore ask whether music for the church could be, or is at all likely to be, composed so as not to betray the hand of the composer and elicit applause for him? Ought the people, or priest either, to suffer the distraction of remarking interiorly, “We have Mgr. Newsham's Mass to-day, but it is not so pleasing as Mr. Richardson's revised Mozart that we had last Sunday. I do hope the organist will soon give us one of those Mechlin prize Masses; but we cannot have that, I suppose, until we get a better tenor, for ours is rather a poor voice, etc., etc., etc.”?
We say that all such reflections are out of order, and are a valid argument against the use of musical compositions.
What of personal display in church ceremonies? It is not only in bad taste, but irrational, stupid, and contemptible, if it be not grievously scandalous, as it might very easily become. Does any one ever dream of applause to be either given or acknowledged? Why does not the church offer prizes for the composition of “Masses” which will vie with each other in their literary style, their devotional phraseology, and other characteristics, so that the people may have the enjoyment of hearing a Mass, now of the celebrated Dr. Brown, now of Dean Jones, and now of Canon Robinson, instead of being obliged to listen [pg 331] week after week to the same old, tiresome Masses of the Feasts of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and the saints, the productions of the same “barbarous” age which formed the chant, and whose composers are not known to one in a million? Do not the exigencies of modern progress, and the aspirations to see themselves in print of more literati than she can find room for in her contracted temple of fame, demand that the church shall take this matter into serious consideration? We advise the American daily press to press this matter into the notice of the hierarchy at once, or at the reassembling of the Vatican Council at furthest.
As to plain chant, it corresponds exactly with this anonymous character of the present liturgy of the church, as every one can see—immortal works, that immortalize only the common faith which produced them—and then that will be got rid of, which is all we need or care to say on this point. Verbum sap.
Seventhly (and lastly, for the present). Modern music is essentially national and secular. It is the product of a natural and sensual civilization (a question we have not the space to fully discuss here), and advances in a degree corresponding to the cultivation of the arts for their own sake by this or that nation, besides receiving a marked impress from the national habits and tastes.
Art for art's sake! What else could we expect from a civilization which has ignored the supernatural and placed scientific investigation above the revelations of God, whose painters have abandoned the ideal for servile copying of nature, and whose highest type of beauty for the sculptor's chisel is a naked Venus?
The secular character of music—by which we mean its variability with succeeding centuries or still shorter periods of time—is also unquestionable. It is of this age or of that; now “all the rage,” and now “old-fashioned” and “out of date.” Modern musical airs enjoy a very short-lived popularity. Fashion is the autocrat, almost the divinity, of modern civilization. It is the logical expression of cultivated sensualism, and the art of music has basely given itself up to its tyrannical rule and whimsical lusts. Church music has been forced to bend its neck and go under the same yoke, and we do not believe it has the power to shake it off. Talk of making the style of music “alla Palestrina” popular now! We have been offered Chevalier Pustet's costly Musica Divina for a song; and Herr Franz may call the attention of church musicians to the works of Durante until he is hoarse. We tell you that such music is “out of fashion”; and fashion's ban in the kingdoms of this world is as blasting as the ban of the church's excommunication in the kingdom of Christ.
There must be nothing national or secular, nothing suggestive of the petty partisanship and strifes of the world, about the melody which expresses the universal and everlasting liturgy of the church. Kenelm Digby, whose judgment is of worth, says: “Sooth, no tongue can be adequate to give an idea of the impression produced by the plain song of the choir. It is full of poetry, full of history, full of sanctity. While the Gregorian chant rises, you seem to hear the whole Catholic Church behind you responding.”
Music may do for religions that are national or fashionable. Hymns [pg 332] in the German style may do for German Protestants; hymns and anthems in the English style may do for English Protestants; and American music (if there be such) may answer for all the requirements of devotion among the fifty odd sects that are struggling for existence amongst us—and we advise them, if they wish to make their churches “pay,” to keep their music well up to the fashion—but the Catholic Church, who knows no present, past, or future in her eternal faith, whose liturgy has never been subjected to the genius of national language, whose motto, “Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus,” has defied the attacks of fashion, as her rock-founded edifice defies the gates of hell, she must have, and, thank God, she has a melody no nation or age shall call “its own,” whose purity no soí-disant “civilization” shall ever be able to defile, which her faithful children shall always recognize as the voice of their true mother, and know it well from the voice of a foreign step-dame or of a hireling housekeeper—a voice which, through the mysterious link of divine generation, will ever speak to the child of the Father, who is his through the church, and whose Paternal compassion is sure to be moved by the tones of that song which the Mother taught him to sing.
Assunta Howard. V. Sienna.
It was on a beautiful evening in June, just when spring was merging into summer, that Mr. Carlisle's family arrived in Sienna, and found a truly delightful home awaiting them, thanks to Giovanni's energy and thoughtful skill. The soft but somewhat enervating air of Rome had failed to restore Mr. Carlisle's strength; and the physician imperatively ordered that panacea which seems, in the opinion of the faculty, to be the last resource when other prescriptions have failed—complete change. An almost unaccountable attraction had drawn their thoughts towards Sienna, and Giovanni had been despatched to Tuscany with carte blanche as to preparations. He had proved himself entirely worthy of confidence; and the praises bestowed upon him by all the family, as they inspected the result of his efforts, were not unmerited. He had succeeded in engaging, for the season, a pleasant, airy villa about a mile beyond the Florentine gate of that quaint, proud city, and no expense had been spared to render it comfortable and home-like. A small grove in front of the house and a flower garden on one side promised many a pleasant hour during those days when shade and beauty afford relief and divert the mind from the power of the midsummer sun. The loggia in the rear of the house, where Mr. Carlisle, his sister, and ward were now standing, commanded a most extensive [pg 333] and beautiful view. Directly beneath them the land sloped down into a graceful valley covered with vineyards. Beyond was a long stretch of campagna; and in the far distance, like a giant sentinel, rose Radicofani, on the summit of which still lingered the glory of a sunset whose gorgeousness had already departed. There is much in first impressions—more, perhaps, than we are willing to acknowledge—and it may well be doubted whether any after-sunshine would have secured for Sienna the favor it now enjoyed had Radicofani appeared for the first time before the little group assembled on the balcony, rising weird-like from out a veil of mist and cloud.
Mrs. Grey actually sighed, as, instantly spanning with a loving, womanly thought the distance which separated her from the lover she had regretfully left in Leghorn, she turned to her companions, saying: “Oh! I wish George were here. I think Sienna is lovely. There! I have seen the new moon over my left shoulder, and now I am sure he will not come this month.”
Mrs. Grey was evidently very much in love. Mr. Sinclair's presence and absence formed the light and shade of her life's picture; and a picture it was whose colors were too glaring, its contrasts too striking, and it lacked deep feeling in its tone. After a pause she continued:
“But then I have always noticed that George does not like views.” And removing her pretty travelling-hat, she went away to superintend Amalie's unpacking.
“He certainly did not like my views,” said Mr. Carlisle in a low voice to Assunta, “when I expressed them to him rather freely the other day. But neither did I like his; so we were quits there.”
But the attention of the traveller was soon entirely engrossed in securing the rest needful after so fatiguing a journey; and it was some days before Mr. Carlisle was sufficiently strong to explore the city, whose walls and towers could be seen, in all their mediæval picturesqueness, from the loggia.
At last, however, the change recommended began to tell upon the invalid, and each day added its portion of renewed strength, until Mr. Carlisle threatened every possible and impossible herculean labor, by way of proving that he was, as he said, “ready for anything.”
The ladies had insisted upon postponing any sight-seeing until all could enjoy it together, though Clara protested that complete stagnation was evidently her fate. One could not find much excitement in a grove and a mountain after the first hour of novelty. Still, as long as the mail brought her a daily letter from Mr. Sinclair, and took in return the dainty, perfumed envelope containing so many pretty, loving nothings, she did not appear to be hopelessly inconsolable.
Assunta had, without scruple, made one exception to the generous resolution of waiting. But it was because she knew that the expedition she wished particularly to make alone would afford no pleasure to the others, while their presence might be the occasion of much pain to herself. Of course the interest Sienna had for her was its association with S. Catherine; and she longed to see the spot consecrated by the heroic sanctity of one whose humility was as profound as her influence on the world was powerful. She took the opportunity on Sunday, after she and Marie had assisted at Mass in a little suburban church, to visit the [pg 334] house of the dyer whose honor and privilege it was to be the father of a woman the life and character of whom might well be studied by the women of to-day. S. Catherine possessed all that the most ambitious of her sex in the present day could desire—an immense public influence. How did she gain it? Only by seeking to lose herself in the obscurity of an ignoble origin; in labors and privations for the sake of a love whose consuming fire many waters of tribulation could not quench; and in that truly hidden life in which God delights to work his wonders. The only right she claimed was that of loving, and consequently of suffering, more than others. The only insignia of rank she coveted was a crown of thorns, and it was granted to her by her Eternal Lover, who could refuse her nothing. Her power was in God's exaltation of the humble, in his use of the weak things of the world to confound the mighty. Well might those hands, which were privileged to bear in them the marks of the Lord Jesus—the sacred stigmata—be made instrumental in leading back to Rome its exiled pontiff-king. Self-annihilation was the secret of the influence of those glorious women of the ages of faith who have since been placed upon the altars of the church. O restless, self-seeking women of to-day! striving for a power which will curse and not bless you, where is the sweet perfume of your humility? Where are the fruits of mortification? Where the aureola of sanctity? Where are those grand works for God, offspring of a faith that believes all and a love that dares all? For these are the virtues in a S. Catherine or a S. Teresa which all can imitate. Or, if these standards are too high for modern souls, where are the homely qualities of those women commended by S. Paul, who adorn themselves with modesty, learn in silence, are faithful in all things, having a care of the house? Thank God, the hand of the Lord is not shortened, and holy mother church cherishes many a hidden gem of sanctity which will one day adorn the bride at the coming of her divine Spouse! Yet these are but the exceptions, unknown in the midst of the vast, ever-moving multitude seeking the open arena of life, and desiring a part in its contests, animated by hopes as false as they are human, placing that almost insuperable barrier of pride between their souls and the Sacred Heart of our divine Lord. S. James has given us this simple rule of a holy life: “To visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world”—in two words, charity and purity. May the ever Blessed Mother of God and her glorious servant S. Catherine intercede for the women of the church, that they may never covet those empty baubles for which the women of the world are now spending their lives!
Assunta, simple child of the faith, thought nothing of all this, as she passed reverently over the threshold of the house, whose rooms, retaining still something of their original appearance, are now converted into chapels. The sacristan, perceiving in the young girl an earnestness of piety to which he was not accustomed in most of the strangers who visited this holy spot, showed to her, without solicitation, the crucifix before which S. Catherine was kneeling when she received the stigmata. With kind attention the good man [pg 335] placed a prie-dieu before the precious object of veneration and, then retiring, gave Assunta an opportunity to satisfy her devotion. Making a place for Marie beside her, she was soon absorbed in prayer. Here, where the very atmosphere was filled with a spirit of love and sacrifice, where the crucifix before her spoke so eloquently of the closeness of the union between the faithful soul and its suffering Lord, how easy it seemed to make aspirations and resolutions which would of necessity lose something of their heat when exposed to the chilling air of the world's indifference! How far off now was Mr. Carlisle's affection, of whose influence she never ceased to feel something; how near the divine love of the Sacred Heart, that one sole object of S. Catherine's desire and adoration! It had been the last request of Father Du Pont, when he gave Assunta his good-by and blessing, that, while in Sienna, she would often visit this holy house. He judged rightly that the evident presence of the supernatural would help to counteract the spirit of worldliness which surrounded her in her daily life. She herself already felt that it was good for her to be there; and though, when she returned home, the sensible fervor of the moment died away, the effects remained in reanimated strength. “Courage, my child, and perseverance; God is with you,” were the last words she had heard from the good priest's lips; and they kept singing on in her soul a sweet, low harmony, like the music of seashells, soothing her in many an anxious hour.
When once Mr. Carlisle was able to go out without danger of fatigue, Mrs. Grey could no longer complain of stagnation. The cathedral, the academy, and the numberless places of interest within the city walls, the drives, the walks through the shady lanes near the villa, twilight strolls through the vineyards, and excursions into the surrounding country, filled up the time through all those pleasant weeks. Before they could realize it Assunta's birthday, her day of freedom, was at hand. A week before the eventful occasion Mr. Sinclair had arrived in Sienna, making Mrs. Grey superlatively happy. The joy he imparted to the others must be expressed in something less than the positive degree.
The sun rose brightly on the 15th of August. Nature responded to the joyous Benedicite, and “all the works of the Lord” seemed to “magnify him for ever” for the great things he had done in giving to heaven a Queen, to earth an Advocate. Nor was man silent. The grave city of Sienna put off its wonted dignity, and, by the unfurling of its gay flags, the spreading of tapestries, and the ringing of bells, testified its share in the common rejoicing of Christendom. It was the Feast of the Assumption, and Assunta Howard's twenty-first birthday. Was it strange that the young girl should have arisen with a heavy heart but little in sympathy with the glad sights and sounds that greeted her in these first waking moments? Surely, to those who understand the workings of the human heart it was most natural. On this day ended the relations between herself and her guardian. However hard the tie which bound her had made her duty towards him, it was harder still to nature to sever the bond. She was free now to go where she would; and it would soon be right for her to separate from him who was no [pg 336] longer her guardian, and was not satisfied to be only her friend. She had not realized before how much happiness she had experienced in the relationship which existed no longer; how she had rested content in the very face of danger, because the peril had in it so much more of pleasure than of pain. How sweet had been the intercourse which duty had sanctioned, and which duty must now interrupt! The feeling was all wrong, and she knew it, and she would not fail to struggle against it. Her will was resolute, but it was evident that she was not to conquer in life's battle by throwing aside her arms and withdrawing from the contest. The bearing of the cross must be daily, and not only day after day, but year after year. Only to-day she seemed to feel its weight more, and she sank a little beneath it. Was it her guardian angel that whispered courage to her soul, or was it the Blessed Mother, to whose loving protection she had been specially confided, who reminded her that our dear Lord fell three times beneath the overwhelming burden of his cross, and bade her be comforted? Yes, it was the feast of that dear Mother, and no mere human feeling should prevent her joining in the church's exultation and corresponding to her salutation in the Introit: “Gaudeamus omnes in Domino.”
Assunta had ordered the carriage to be in readiness to take her to San Domenico for early Mass, and Marie's knock at the door informed her that it was waiting. She had before visited the church, but only in the way of sight-seeing. She had then been struck with its many points of interest; she had no idea until this morning how devotional it was. After Mass, at which she had received, in the Holy Communion, strength and peace, she remained a long time before the chapel containing those most beautiful frescos, by Razzi, of incidents in the life of the great saint of Sienna. The finest of all, S. Catherine in Ecstasy, is a treasure both of art and devotion. Apparently fainting, supported by two of her nuns, the countenance of the saint has that indescribable expression of peace which we see in those whose conversation is in heaven. But, more than this, the evident absence of all sensation indicates that the soul is rapt into an ineffable union with its divine Lord, and has passed, for the moment, beyond the confines of earth. Seemingly dead, and yet alive, the frail body, with its beautiful, calm face, rests upon its knees in the arms of the two Sisters, who, with all the tranquillity of the cloister, yet form a contrast to her who is so wholly dead to the world.
Assunta gazed upon the picture until it seemed to impart rest to her own soul; and yet the impression was very different from that she always received in looking at the other S. Catherine whom angels are bearing to her sepulture. Marie at last interrupted her, and, reminding her that she was the important personage at the villa on that day, suggested that she should return to breakfast. And Assunta determined that no cloud should disturb the serenity of the occasion, which all intended should be joyous.
Mr. Carlisle met her at the door on her return, and assisted her to alight. Then he took her hand in both his, and his eyes spoke volumes, as he said:
“Let me look at you, child, and see how you bear your honors. [pg 337] You are more of a heroine than I thought; for even at this distance we have heard the bells and have seen the flags. What an important little body you are! No one thought it worth while to ring me into my majority.”
“It is because you did not come into the world under the same auspices,” replied Assunta.
“Auspice Maria—that is the secret, then.” And Mr. Carlisle lowered his voice as he added: “Consider me a Mariolater from this time, my devotion deriving an ever-increasing fervor from the doctrine of the Assumption. Well, you are free, and I suppose I am expected to congratulate you. How do you enjoy the sensation of liberty?”
“I do not think that I am yet enough accustomed to the use of my wings to feel the difference between what I was yesterday and what I am to-day. But in one point I am unchanged. I have an excellent appetite for my breakfast.”
Assunta was determined to ward off all approach to sentiment.
“And here is Clara, wondering, no doubt, if I have been left behind in Sienna.”
Mrs. Grey came out into the garden, looking very lovely in her white morning dress, and followed by Mr. Sinclair.
“Severn, you are the most selfish man I ever saw,” exclaimed the impetuous little lady. “Do you flatter yourself that you have the monopoly of Assunta, and that no one else is privileged to wish her cento di questi giorni, as Giovanni says?—though I am sure I should not like to live a hundred years. My beauty would be gone by that time.” And she looked archly at her lover standing beside her.
“I fancy that even relentless time would ‘write no wrinkles on thine antique brow,’ reluctant to spoil anything so fair,” said Mr. Sinclair in his most gallant tone; then extending his hand to Assunta, he continued:
“Miss Howard, allow me to congratulate you, and to wish that your life may be as cloudless as is this wonderful sky. The day is like yourself—exquisitely beautiful.”
The color mounted into Assunta's cheeks, but it was with displeasure at such uncalled-for flattery. Mr. Carlisle turned away, and walked into the house; while his sister, with that amiability which often atoned for her want of tact, exclaimed:
“Bravo! George, you have said quite enough for us both; so I will only ditto your speech, and add to it my birthday kiss. Now, dear, let us go to breakfast. Severn is already impatient.”
The table had been placed in a large hall running the whole length of the house; and as the three were about to enter, Assunta paused on the threshold, in astonishment and delight at the magical transformation. The walls were literally garlanded with flowers, and fresh greens were festooned from the ceiling, while in the centre of the breakfast-table was a basket of the rarest exotics. Not only Sienna, but Florence, had been commissioned to furnish its choicest flowers for the occasion. Assunta's eyes filled with tears, and for a moment she could not speak. Mr. Carlisle, perceiving her emotion, offered her his arm, and led her towards a side-table, saying:
“And here are our trifling birthday gifts, which you must not despise because they fall so far short of expressing all that we feel for you.”
There was a beautifully-framed proof engraving of Titian's masterpiece, the Assumption, from Mr. Carlisle. Clara had chosen as her gift a set of pearls, “because they looked so like the darling,” she said. Mr. Sinclair's offering was a bouquet of rare and exquisite flowers. He had all the penetration of an experienced man of the world, and understood well that Miss Howard would prefer not to accept from him anything less perishable. Assunta put her hand in Clara's, as she said:
“I never can thank you, it is all so beautiful.” And then she paused, until Clara exclaimed:
“Why, Assunta love, what a solemn birthday face! To be sure, the flight of time is a serious thing. I begin to feel it myself, and shall very soon dispense with birthdays altogether—such disagreeable reminders as they are.”
“What is it, petite?” asked Mr. Carlisle. “You know that to-day you have only to command us, and we will prove your most obedient subjects.”
“Oh! it was nothing of any consequence; only a thought that you would consider very foolish crossed my mind. I am sure my solemnity was quite unintentional.”
“Well, a penny for that thought, twice told.”
Assunta, perceiving that Mr. Sinclair was out of hearing, explained:
“All this for my poor worthless self and nothing for Her whom God has delighted to honor. I think I was feeling a little jealous for my dear Mother. I did not want my feast to be better than hers.”
“Is that all?” said Mr. Carlisle. “To hear is to obey.” And without another word he quickly removed from the table everything but the picture, and, taking flowers and candles from the mantel-piece, he improvised a really artistic shrine. Giovanni, who was serving breakfast, lighted the candles, and surveyed the effect with satisfaction.
“Thank you,” said Assunta, and she would not even remember that the love was wanting which would give value to the offering. “I shall hardly dare think a wish to-day, the consequence is so magical.”
“And now, Severn,” said his sister, “if you have finished your popery, you had better call Assunta's attention to my ever-increasing appetite. Giovanni, too, will not like to have his efforts to honor the occasion slighted by a want of appreciation.”
Mr. Carlisle offered the young girl his arm, and led her to the table, saying:
“This is my first attempt at Mariolatry. Quite a success, is it not?”
“If it were only an outward sign of inward grace,” said Clara, laughing, “exterior piety would be quite becoming to you, Severn. You really have an artistic taste. But you are too absent-minded to-day! Can you not see that we are starving?”
Assunta was so accustomed to hear sacred things spoken of lightly, and often irreverently, that she had learned to make a little solitude in her heart, into which she could retire from the strife, or even the thoughtlessness, of tongues, and many a short act of reparation was there performed for those who were unconscious of offence.
“I wonder,” said Mrs. Grey, as after breakfast the party were standing on the loggia—“I wonder if Giovanni has succeeded in finding a good balcony for the races [pg 339] to-morrow. I would not miss seeing them for the world. I dote on horses.”
“I very much doubt,” replied her brother, “if the horses will excite the least admiration, judging from the specimens Sienna has thus far produced. But the races will be interesting, because they are entirely unique. I believe that Giovanni has been very successful in securing a balcony, and he intends to have it surpass all others in decoration; so I hope that the ladies will do their part, not to disgrace his efforts. He will expect the jewels to be set in a manner worthy of the casket which contains them.”
“Never fear, Severn! Do you think a lady ever failed to look her best on such an occasion? An open balcony and a crowd—surely, she needs no other occasion for vanity.”
George Sinclair removed his cigar to remark carelessly:
“And so the admiration of one is, after all, insufficient to satisfy you?”
“No, it is not, you dear, lazy, old fellow, and you know it. It is only because I like your taste to be appreciated that I want others to admire me. I do not think there is a more delicious sensation than to feel that you are pretty to begin with, and then dressed so as to show every point to the best advantage, and to know that every eye is fixed upon you. One can be so innocently unconscious of it all the time.”
“Clara, I am ashamed of you,” exclaimed her brother. “You are a perfect mirror of your sex; only, unfortunately, it is the weaknesses that you reflect to the life, and none of the virtues.”
“Hush, impertinence!” replied Clara, laughing merrily. “One cannot always be a well awfully deep and reflecting only the stars. Come, George, what will be most becoming to me for to-morrow?”
If it had been a few months after marriage, instead of before, this devoted lover would probably have replied, “A fool's cap and bells, for all I care!” As it was, he concealed his inward irritation, and no one would have doubted his sincerity as he said: “You cannot fail to be charming in anything; and I will not choose or suggest, because I would like to enjoy the pleasure of a surprise.”
Mr. Sinclair was sometimes fascinated by Clara's piquancy and brightness; but she did not suit all moods, and to-day Assunta's quiet dignity and the antagonism that Mr. Carlisle always excited more or less, produced an interior disturbance of which a wife would surely have received the full benefit. It is strange that an entirely worldly man will often, from a selfish motive, show a power of self-control which Christians find it difficult to practise, even for the love of God. Alas! that the devil should receive many a sacrifice, many an offering of suffering and heroism, which, the intention being changed, would produce a saint.
Mrs. Grey had not penetration enough to see below the surface, and she was entirely satisfied with her lover, whom she considered the best and handsomest man in the world, not even excepting her brother. She could rush fearlessly against a mood which would have kept a more appreciative nature at a distance; and here, perhaps, she had an advantage.
She was now about to answer Mr. Sinclair's very gratifying speech [pg 340] when an interruption came in the shape of Giovanni with a note for herself, which she read hastily, and then said: “Severn, it is from Lady Gertrude. They were passing through Sienna, and have remained over a day expressly to see your humble servant. They wish me to dine with them this evening, accompanied by my preux chevalier—her own expression, George. But I do not know about leaving Assunta alone on her birthday, even for Lady Gertrude.”
“Oh! I hope you will not disappoint your friends on my account,” said Assunta. “I have already had my celebration this morning, and it is quite proper that I should devote this evening to reflections upon my coming responsibilities.”
“Besides,” said Mr. Carlisle, “I beg to inform you that Assunta will not be left alone. I flatter myself that I count for one, at least; and I will endeavor to act as your substitute, Clara, in most effectually preventing those contemplated reflections. Responsibility and golden hair are an association of ideas quite incongruous, in my opinion.”
“I see,” said Clara, “that the balance is in Lady Gertrude's favor. What do you say, caro?”
“If you mean me,” said George Sinclair in a slightly unamiable tone, “I am always at your service.”
“You bear!” replied the irrepressible Clara, “I will not allow you to go if you are cross. Well, Giovanni, come to my room in ten minutes for the answer; and remember to order the carriage for half-past five.”
“Truly,” said Mr. Carlisle, turning to Assunta after his sister had left the loggia, “I think I never saw so sunshiny a person as Clara. It is always high noon with her.”
While Assunta assented cordially, Mr. Sinclair said to himself:
“Too much sunshine makes an unpleasant glare, and noon is always the most disagreeable part of the day. I confess to liking a little of the shadow of repose.”
He was careful, however, to keep his thoughts to himself. If the lover could feel imperfections so keenly, it argued but poorly for the blindness of love on the part of the husband. And yet this blindness, false and unworthy as it is, seems to be the only chance of peace for worldly husbands and wives, the only protection against the evil tendencies of uncontrolled human nature. All Clara's sunshine might fail to make even a silver lining to the cloud rising in the distant future.
The sun shone brightly enough, however, when Mrs. Grey and Mr. Sinclair took their seats in the barouche to drive into Sienna; and the lady, who so much delighted in the delicious sensation of undisguised admiration, must have been more than satisfied this afternoon. Many eyes followed the handsome pair, as they passed rapidly towards the hotel. Clara knew that she was looking uncommonly well, and she was very proud of her companion's distinguished air and manner; so, altogether, she enjoyed quite a little triumph.
Assunta and Mr. Carlisle dined alone; and, as they rose from the table just at sunset, Mr. Carlisle proposed a walk down into the vineyards.
“It will soil that pretty white dress of yours, I know; but the air is so refreshing, and I want you to occupy for a while the new rustic seat I have had placed near the brook, in that lovely spot we discovered the other day. Take a [pg 341] shawl with you, petite, for it will be cooler as soon as the sun sets.”
They strolled along slowly down through the narrow paths which separated the vines heavy with the fast-ripening fruit, pausing now and then, as some new beauty in the distant view or in their immediate surroundings excited their attention. At last, at the bottom of the valley, close beside a brook, and beneath a clump of trees, they came upon one of those fairy spots where nature seems to have arranged herself expressly to attract an artist's eye.
“Giovanni is truly invaluable,” said Mr. Carlisle. “I had only to give him a suggestion, and see how well he has carried out my ideas. This is the very luxury of comfort.” And seating himself, he lighted a cigar, advised Assunta to put on her shawl, and was evidently prepared for a pleasant hour.
As they sat there, almost in silence, the Angelus sounded from a distant convent tower; and, as if in answer to its summons, Assunta began to sing in a sweet, low voice Schubert's Ave Maria. Mr. Carlisle did not say a word until it was finished; then he begged for just one more, and, knowing how much he liked the simple Scotch songs, she sang “Robin Adair.”
“Assunta, your voice grows sweeter every day. It is perfect rest to me to hear you sing.” Then, after a pause, he threw away his cigar, and turned towards her a very earnest face.
“Petite, listen to me patiently a moment. I am a very proud man, as you know, and one who is not apt to sue, even where he greatly desires. It seems”—and the peculiar smile broke over his face—“that you have exercised some magic power, and with a touch of your finger have thrown down the barrier of pride against which an army might beat in vain. My child, you know what I am going to say, because I have not changed since that moonlight night in the Colosseum, except, indeed, that the feeling I then expressed has strengthened and deepened every day. I made you a promise that night. I confess that it has been poorly enough redeemed; still, you must judge me by my self-conquests rather than by my failures. But to-day releases me: and having ceased to be your guardian, I cannot give you up. I need not repeat to you what I have already said. You know that you are dearer to me than the life you have saved. I only ask, as before, the right to devote that life to you. May I?”
“I had hoped, Mr. Carlisle, that you would consider my former answer as final,” said Assunta; but, though her words were cold, her voice trembled. “I, too, am unchanged since that night you speak of. I am compelled to be so.”
“Assunta, you are such a child; do you, then, think it nothing to have won the love of a man who has reached middle life and has never loved before?”
“Mr. Carlisle,” said the young girl sadly, “if I thought it nothing, I should not feel the pain it costs me to repeat to you, that it cannot be. I am so unworthy of your love; you must not think I do not value it. Your friendship has been more to me than I dare tell you, lest you should misunderstand me.”
“Your heart pleads for me, child.”
“Then I must not listen to it; for the voice of God in my soul pleads more loudly.”
“Assunta,” said Mr. Carlisle, “I [pg 342] think you did not understand me before—you do not understand me now. Do you suppose I should interfere in your religion? No more than I have ever done. You do not know me, child.”
“I think I know you better than you know yourself, presumptuous as this sounds,” said Assunta, forcing a smile. “I am sure that, were I to marry you, you would not be satisfied to hold a place in my heart second even to God. But,” she added, as the old expression of bitterness crossed her guardian's face, “all this is useless. Let me put a question to you, and answer me candidly. Suppose I had made a promise to you, who love me—made it, we will grant, out of love for you—and afterwards, yielding to my own weakness, I should break that promise. Would you feel that I had done rightly—that I was to be trusted?”
“Certainly not, child. You ask strange questions.”
“Well, I have, out of love for our dear Lord, made him a promise which I believed his love required of me. He is a jealous Lover, Mr. Carlisle. I dare to say this reverently. Suppose, for the sake of a human affection—for your sake—I should fail to keep my promise; would you not have reason to doubt my fidelity to you, when I could be unfaithful to my God?”
“My child, I do not comprehend such reasoning. You either do not, cannot love me, or else you have suffered religious fanaticism to get the better of your judgment. I hoped that the plea of love would be sufficient to win my cause; but it is not all. Look your future fairly in the face, Assunta. What are you going to do? You are young; I need not add, beautiful. Surely, you understand that without me you are unprotected. Have you any plans, or have you already become so independent that you prefer not to make me your confidant? My pride is gone indeed when I put my suit in another form. I ask only your hand. Let me have the right to protect you in the world you know so little. I will wait to win your heart.”
“Mr. Carlisle,” interrupted Assunta with more emotion than he had ever seen in her before, “you are cruel in your persistence. You wilfully misunderstand me. It seems to give you pleasure to make this trial as hard for me as possible. I have told you before that I can never marry you; let that be enough.” And bursting into tears, she rose hastily from her seat.
Her guardian was so taken by surprise that for an instant he sat motionless; then he followed the excited girl, and joined her before she had proceeded far along the vineyard path.
“Take my arm, petite,” he said gently, and they walked some distance in silence. At last Assunta said with regained composure:
“Mr. Carlisle, you asked me about my plans, and you have a right to know. I have thought much of the future, as you may believe. My desire is to return to Baltimore with Clara after her marriage, and pass the winter with Mary Percival. Further than this I need not look.”
There was no immediate answer. After a pause Mr. Carlisle said:
“You are your own mistress now. I shall of course place no obstacle in the way of your carrying out any wish or design which will conduce to your welfare. As for myself, the time may come when I shall cease to regret that I am in no [pg 343] wise necessary to your happiness. Meanwhile, it shall be as you say. Good heavens! to think that a mere girl should have the power to move me so,” he went on, as if speaking to himself.
And apparently his thoughts were so full of Assunta that he forgot her actual presence, for they reached the house in silence, and then Mr. Carlisle proceeded at once to his own room; and so ended the birthday.
The Sienna races are a thoroughly unique spectacle—almost childish, like many features of the Roman Carnival, to the over-cultivated and consequently over-fastidious taste of this age. They take one back to the days when men were more simple, when hearts did not grow old and faith was strong. These childlike traits produced a race of men who were but “children of a larger growth,” and, like children, amused with even a small amount of pomp and show, heroes as they were. And a strange contrast were the races of that 16th of August to the usual occupations of the Siennese. Mr. Carlisle's carriage passed beneath innumerable flags and between gayly-tapestried windows, as it drove to the amphitheatre-shaped piazza, the centre of which was already filled, while every seat placed against the houses which bounded the square was occupied. The bright colors worn by the peasant women, with their large Tuscan hats and the more subdued dress of the men, produced an effect at once very peculiar and very picturesque. A little cheer from the bystanders greeted Mr. Carlisle's party, as they appeared upon the balcony; for no other decorations in all that vast piazza were so fine as those in which Giovanni had shown so much skill, and surely no other ladies were as beautiful. There was no appearance of heartache or disappointment on any of the four faces which now looked out upon the crowd. We all, sooner or later, learn to wear a mask before the world, and the interior life of each one of us is often a sealed book to our nearest friends.
“Clara,” said Assunta, as they seated themselves after their survey, “you seem to know more about the races than the rest of us. Please to enlighten my ignorance.”
“I heard about them at the hotel last night,” replied Mrs. Grey; “so you will find me very learned. Sienna is divided into seventeen wards; but only ten take part in the race, and these are decided by lot. The victor receives a prize and a sort of diminutive triumph, while the losers may think themselves lucky if they only get a scolding from their respective wards. The oracle has spoken, and further than this she is not informed.”
“The rest we shall now see for ourselves,” said Mr. Sinclair, “for I hear the music which I suppose accompanies the procession.” And, as he spoke, the band entered the piazza from a side street. Then followed, in turn, the representatives of the different wards, each representation consisting of two flags—the colors of the ward—a number of pages, the race-horse led by an esquire, and the man who was afterwards to ride the racer, on horseback as a knight. The flag-bearers, as well as all in each division, wore exactly the colors of the flag of the ward, in costumes of the olden time; and, as these flags were of entirely different combinations of colors, and most of them very brilliant, the procession would have been very effective [pg 344] without its peculiar charm. The flag-bearers were men of grace and skill, and from the moment of entering the square the flags were in continual motion—waved above their heads, flung into the air, passed under their arms and legs, and all without once touching the ground. It was a very poetical combination of color and motion, and Mrs. Grey impulsively clapped her hands with delight—a performance which her dignified lover evidently looked upon as childish. After this part of the procession came a large chariot drawn by four horses, with postilions, and bearing the ten different flags tastefully arranged. This was the model of the old Siennese battle-car, which bore the standard, and was in consequence the scene of the thickest of the fight. Upon it, in time of battle, stood a priest, invoking by his prayers protection and success. There also was the trumpeter, in readiness to give signals. A truly mediæval picture was this chariot, with associations which carried one back hundreds of years into the past. A band of music closed the procession, which, after passing around the piazza, entered the court-yard of the Palazzo Pubblico. Here the knights exchanged their helmets and plumes for jockey-caps, and mounted their racers. As they emerged from beneath the archway, and proceeded slowly towards the starting-place, across which a rope was drawn, Mr. Carlisle exclaimed, with a laugh in which there was more sarcasm than merriment:
“Are you a judge of horses, Clara? If so, you, who yesterday announced your jockey proclivities, must be greatly disappointed; for truly a set of sorrier-looking steeds I never beheld. The prize ought to be given to the one that comes in last; for, where all are so slow, there would really be no little exercise of skill in moving more slowly than a coach-horse going up-hill, and yet moving at all.”
“I think, Severn,” replied his sister, “that your temper was not improved by the fever. It is very disagreeable in you to inform me that the horses are not Arabian chargers, for I never should have been the wiser.”
“Most men are disagreeable,” he retorted.
“George, you hear that, and do not resent it?” said Mrs. Grey indignantly.
“I leave that for you to do when you can, from experience of the contrary, deny the charge. But the horses are starting on their three times round.” And Mr. Sinclair leaned over the balcony with an air of interest.
“Why do the men carry those short sticks in their hands?” asked Assunta.
“I believe,” said Mr. Sinclair—for Mr. Carlisle became strangely inattentive—“that the riders are allowed by rule to do all the damage they can with the sticks, which are short, so as to limit somewhat their power; for their aim is to knock each other off the horses.”
“The barbarians!” exclaimed Clara. “Oh! look, see how many are falling back on the third round. It rests with the two now. I bet on the sorrel.”
“And he has won, Clara,” said Assunta.
The whole piazza was now in motion. Shouts greeted the victor, and the defeated retired into obscurity.
“The modern Olympics are finished,” said Mr. Carlisle. “Shall we go?”
As they drove towards home in [pg 345] the red glow of the setting sun, Mr. Carlisle said abruptly:
“Clara, when did you tell me that you and Sinclair intend to make each other miserable?”
“I will not answer such a question, Severn. You are a perfect dog in the manger. You will not marry yourself or let any one else.”
“If you wish to know,” said Mr. Sinclair, “when your sister intends to make me the happiest of men, she has permitted me to hope that the end of September will be the term of my most impatient waiting.”
“Then,” continued Mr. Carlisle in the same abrupt tone, “we had better be on our way to Paris. We might start day after to-morrow, I think.”
Mrs. Grey gave a little scream.
“Severn, you must be out of your mind. I thought you wished never to leave Sienna.”
“I am weary to death of it; but that is not all. I have business matters to arrange, and the preparation of your trousseau will no doubt occupy weeks.”
“But it will be so warm in Paris,” persisted Mrs. Grey.
“Do people whose hearts are filled with love and their minds with coming matrimony think of weather, then? I thought such sublunary interests were left to those whose hearts were still unthawed. However, there are fans and ices enough in Paris to cool you off. I will write to-night to engage rooms.” And then Mr. Carlisle relapsed into silence and abstraction.
Assunta understood well enough the cause of this change in the plans; but she was powerless to act, and could only submit. It, indeed, made little difference to her.
“George,” said Clara to her lover, as they were strolling down the avenue in the moonlight, “can you imagine what is the matter with Severn? I never saw him in such a mood.”
“Disappointed in love, I should judge from appearances,” he replied indifferently.
“Nonsense! He does not know the meaning of the word,” was the not very intelligent reply of the lady.
To Be Continued.