ANDREW CARNEGIE AND THE BLAINE FAMILY
In the spring of 1887 I sailed for Europe to spend the summer in study with Hans von Bülow, and on the steamer I met Andrew Carnegie and his young wife Louise. They were on their wedding trip and on their way to Scotland, where Mr. Carnegie had rented “Kilgraston,” a lovely old place near Perth. He had known my father and had invited him a few years before to a dinner given in honor of Matthew Arnold who had been in America on a lecture tour. Mr. Carnegie spoke of my father with great affection and respect, and expressed his delight that I had taken up my father’s work. He invited me to come for a visit to Scotland after my studies with von Bülow were over.
In the late summer, I accordingly sailed in a small steamer from Hamburg to Leith and was received with great friendliness by Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie at Kilgraston. Among their guests were James G. Blaine, his wife, and two of their daughters. My acquaintance with this remarkable family soon ripened very fortunately for me into close friendship and resulted finally in my marriage to Margaret, one of the daughters—but I am progressing too fast.
Mr. Blaine had been defeated for the presidency in 1884. Since that time he had been occupied in completing his book “Twenty Years of Congress,” and in the spring of 1887 he and his family were taking a year’s holiday abroad.
Because of my youth and the exigencies of my profession, most of my life had been spent among musicians and those interested in music. This was the first time that I came into personal relations with a great statesman, at that time the foremost in our country, and I found to my amazement that, although an atmosphere of great dignity surrounded him, he was absolutely simple and gentle in his contact with other people.
His wife, a woman of singular strength of character, with a highly original mind and an absolute devotion to her husband and his ambitions, was in many ways as remarkable as he. Her knowledge of and interest in literature—poetry, history, memoirs—was very comprehensive, and the discussions thereon, which were constant at Mr. Carnegie’s table, interested me immensely and opened new worlds to me.
The two daughters, Margaret and Harriet, high-spirited and sharing the interests of their parents, gave them a devotion and love so partisan and intense in its character that it seemed at first to attract me toward them almost more than anything else. As a boy I had suffered agonies at seeing my father misunderstood and often attacked by men not worthy to tie his shoe-strings, and here I found similar conditions but on a much greater scale, as Mr. Blaine’s career had been national and his triumphs and defeats had enlisted the sympathies or execrations of millions of American citizens. Music had entered but little into the lives of the Blaine family—although since then my wife has become enthusiastically devoted to it—and I was really delighted that for the first time in my life I was compelled to establish relations from a purely human standpoint and without the assistance of any of the “romantic glamour” of my profession. At this time, however, I got but a glimpse of the Blaines, as they stayed only a week after my arrival, but there were delightful rumors of a four-weeks coaching trip from London to Scotland which Mr. Carnegie was planning for the following summer and for which we were all to be invited.
Mr. Carnegie was at that time a generous supporter of Gladstone and the Liberal Party, and several of its leaders came to Kilgraston to visit him, among them John Morley, who impressed me immensely and for whom at his own and the Carnegies’ request, I played excerpts every evening from Wagner’s “Nibelungen Trilogy,” explaining the music and the text, as Mr. Morley had never heard the music before. I was very proud of being able to interest so fine a mind as his in Wagner’s music, and like to think that my Wagner lecture recitals, which in later years I gave all over America, had their origin in these informal talks in Scotland for Morley and the Carnegies.
Incidentally, Mr. Carnegie became more and more interested in the New York Symphony and Oratorio Societies and consented to become their president and chief financial supporter. The more intricate symphonic works did not appeal to him, but he had a natural and naïve love for music. Because of his study and intimate knowledge of Scotch literature, poetry especially, together with an intense affection for the country of his birth, he particularly loved the folk-songs of Scotland, and in a high, quavering, and somewhat uncertain voice could sing literally dozens of them from memory. To me these folk-songs were a revelation, and I still think that they have a variety and charm beyond those of any other race.
I even adore the Scotch bagpipes and am almost in sympathy with the Scotsman who says that his idea of heaven is “twenty bagpipers a’ playin’ t’gither in a sma’ room and each one playing a different tune.”
On our long walks and fishing excursions together, Mr. Carnegie talked continuously and freely regarding his many plans to better the world through liberal benefactions. He had already begun the founding of free libraries all over Great Britain and America, and would often tell me of his own great poverty as a child and the difficulty of obtaining the books and education which he craved. His imagination would kindle at the opportunities which his libraries would give the youth of to-day, and a constant optimism as to the future of the world seemed to direct all his plans.
The poor salaries paid to our teaching profession would especially arouse his ire, as he considered that the entire future of America lay in the hands of its teachers and that, therefore, the greatest minds of the country should be enlisted in the work and suitably rewarded. As the reader knows, this conviction finally culminated in his remarkable and comprehensive scheme of pensions to college professors who had served their calling a certain number of years.
As he would unfold to me his various dreams and plans, he became really eloquent. His little hands would clinch, and for a moment even his fishing-pole and a possible trout at the other end would be forgotten, especially when he talked of his greatest aversion—war—and of its hideous uselessness in settling any disputes.
As a boy he had had hardly any school education, but he had inherited the Scotch passion for books. He had read omnivorously and, what is better still, remembered what he read. Burns and Shakespeare he knew by heart and could quote very aptly to clinch a point in his arguments.
His sympathy for suffering, especially that caused by poverty, was very great and expended itself in practical help in every direction. The hard struggles of his early youth had made him very understanding, and many widows left destitute received immediate help from him and the children were put through school and placed in business through his assistance.
His attitude toward religion was very curious. In those days he professed to be an agnostic, but he had old Scotch prejudices in favor of a “Scotch Sunday.” He despised theology and yet was really religious, but he did not care to define his God or to explore the mysteries or possibilities of a future life. His prejudices were as unyielding as the pig iron which he manufactured at his Homestead works, and no argument would move him if his mind was made up.
While Mr. Carnegie had a real admiration for music in its simpler forms, this never crystallized into as great a conviction regarding its importance in life as that which he had regarding the importance of science or literature, and though always generous in its support, his benefactions never became as great as in other directions. He could understand that a library, a school, or a hospital could not and should not be self-supporting, but I could not convince him that music should fall into the same category. He always insisted that the greatest patronage of music should come from a paying public rather than from private endowment. He built Carnegie Hall in order to give New York a proper home for its musical activities, but he did not look upon this as a philanthropy, and expected to have the hall support itself and give a fair return upon the capital invested.
In the spring of 1888 I again sailed for Europe with the Carnegies, and on arriving at the Metropole Hotel in London we found the rest of the coaching party already assembled—the Blaine family, Mr. Henry Phipps a partner of Mr. Carnegie’s, and Mrs. Phipps, Gail Hamilton (Miss Dodge), a cousin of Mrs. Blaine’s well known as a writer; also a young Universalist clergyman, Doctor Charles Eaton, who was the pastor of Mrs. Carnegie’s church.
We left the Hotel Metropole June 8, in the morning, on top of Mr. Carnegie’s four-in-hand. There was a great crowd of people to see us off and wish us “Bon voyage,” among them John Morley and Lord Rosebery. All the men of our party looked very sporty in high gray top-hats which we had hurriedly acquired at a hatter’s in the neighborhood that morning.
I had been appointed treasurer of the tour by Mr. Carnegie, “with no salary but all the usual perquisites,” as he put it.
The coachman, a stout, good-natured Scotsman of real ability, drove his four-in-hand with such skill and care that when we arrived in Invernesshire four weeks later, his horses were in even better condition than when we started.
It was certainly an ideal way to travel, and the pace was leisurely enough for us to see and enjoy the exquisite countryside of England and Scotland. Every night we stopped at a different inn but always carried our lunch in hampers, and at noontime halted at some picturesque nook by the bank of a river or on some grassy meadow in the shade of the trees and enjoyed our meal in lazy fashion.
The discussions between Mr. Blaine and Mr. Carnegie at these picnic luncheons were certainly fascinating to listen to, and especially illuminating to an American musician whose horizon had perhaps been bounded too exclusively by his own ambitions and the problems of his own art. Mr. Blaine knew England, its history, and its great families far more intimately than any Englishman I have ever met. It is well known that he never forgot anything, and whenever we stopped either for luncheon or at an inn for the night, he would immediately proceed to add to his immense store of knowledge by questioning the local farmers, field workers, or innkeepers regarding the economic or political conditions of that part of the country.
An amusing opera-bouffe element of the entire coaching trip was added by the constant but furtive appearance and disappearance of four American newspaper reporters who had been sent by their respective papers to “shadow” Mr. Blaine because the Republican convention for the presidential nomination was about to be held in Chicago, and it was eagerly hoped that Mr. Blaine would accept the nomination again. He, and through him we, of course, knew that nothing was further from his mind, but in the dusk of evening, when we would arrive at our inn for the night, these four reporters, having travelled by train, would already be there and try directly or indirectly to obtain “inside information” regarding Mr. Blaine’s intentions. The reporters included Stephen Bonsal for the New York World and Arthur Brisbane for the New York Sun. The latter, wishing to combine pleasure with business, would sometimes scorn the train and hire a high dog-cart.
Our itinerary took in all the cathedral towns of the east coast of England. We were bound by no time-tables and, therefore, had every opportunity to see and study the mighty Gothic churches of Cambridge, Ely, Peterborough, York, and Durham.
I had agreed to conduct a concert in London on the 19th of June, and so very reluctantly said a temporary good-by to our party at York. This concert was given by Ovide Musin, an eminent young Belgian violinist, who wished to perform a concerto of my father’s which he had played in New York about eight years before under my father’s own direction. I had an excellent London orchestra of seventy-five players and also gave Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody Number One. It was my first experience as a conductor in England, and as the concert passed off very well I was much elated, especially when, just before catching my train for Durham to rejoin the coaching party, I read some complimentary criticisms of the concert in the London Times and Telegraph.
It was raining when I left the railroad station in Durham to walk to the road along which Mr. Carnegie’s coach was to appear. I well remember my thrill of joy when I heard a merry fanfare played on the coaching horn by one of the footmen—whom, by the way, I always envied for his virtuosity on this instrument—and shortly after, at a turn of the road, I saw the coach appear with everybody on top attired in gray rain-coats and waving a friendly welcome. My wife has always insisted to my children that on this entire trip I wore a double-breasted frock coat which had done previous duty at my matinée concerts in America, but I think this is a gross slander and not based on fact.
We crossed the border into Scotland and of course stopped at Walter Scott’s home and also visited the ruins of Linlithgow Castle, in which Mary Queen of Scots was born. And here the four reporters, who had been as constant as leeches and as inevitable as death and the taxgatherer, solemnly entered the ruins and gave Mr. Blaine a telegram which they had just received announcing Benjamin Harrison’s nomination at the convention. As Mr. Blaine had expected this for weeks, the news did not excite him greatly. He bade a friendly good-by to the four young sleuth-hounds, several of whom have since achieved fame in their profession, and we continued our journey farther north until we arrived at Mr. Carnegie’s home, Cluny Castle, on the evening of July 3.
It was bitter cold and the wind was whistling shrilly over the Dalwhinny Moors as we first caught sight of Cluny, but an American flag was floating proudly over its turrets, and inside warm fires and a delicious dinner were awaiting us.
Then began a summer of delights for me. Mr. Carnegie had a piper who, according to old Scotch custom, would walk around the outer walls of the house every morning to awaken us. My room was in the bachelor quarters and had a little fireplace in which a peat fire smouldered comfortably. The smell of peat and the sound of the piper as he drew nearer and nearer to my window and then again receded in the distance are always inseparably associated in my memory. In the mornings I usually worked at my studies in counterpoint and composition, but from luncheon on it was nothing but delightful entertainment or listening with keenest interest to discussions of all kinds—political, economic, poetical. Miss Dodge was a most stimulating person. She had a mind that would accept nothing without analysis or proof, and the verbal duels between her and Mr. Carnegie were fascinating, for, although she was not Scotch, she, as much as Mr. Carnegie, typified the story of the two Scotsmen who meet each other and one says: “Where are you going, Donald?” “Oh, just doon to the village to contradict a wee.”
Occasionally I would accompany Mr. Carnegie to some lonely loch among the hills to fish for trout, but I have never developed into a very ardent disciple of Izaak Walton. I used to get more pleasure from lying on my back watching the marvellous Scotch sky with its low-hanging clouds framing the hills in their loving embrace, with perhaps now and then just a speck of blue shining through, than from the catching of the “finny monsters.” These, however, rarely measured over six inches in length, although I certainly enjoyed them the following morning, when we had them for breakfast, rolled in oatmeal flour and deliciously fried.
In the evenings I had to contribute my little quota toward the house-party by playing Beethoven and Wagner on an excellent Broadwood piano.
During all this time I was amazed at the extreme simplicity and gentleness which characterized Mr. Blaine’s demeanor toward all with whom he came in contact. Here was a man who at that time was the most loved and the most execrated American, and yet he had in him absolutely nothing of the “prima donna” manner of many of those in my profession who have achieved fame. His dignity, however, was innate and unconscious, and during the many years that I knew him and knew him intimately I have never seen any one who dared to presume on his simplicity and general cordiality of manner by undue familiarity. His power of abstraction from his surroundings was remarkable. He enjoyed working in the room in which his family were talking, laughing, and disputing on all manner of subjects, while he would sit in a corner concentrated on some problem of his own and work it out, absolutely oblivious to what was going on about him.
The Blaine family left Cluny all too soon, and not only I, but the entire household felt their absence keenly.
Other guests followed, among them John Morley, with whom I went on long and to me very interesting walks. He seemed a very lonely and perhaps a disappointed man. He was married, but childless, and told me once that the great regret of his life was that he had no son, as he would like to have brought him up and educated him according to a theory all his own as to what an Englishman’s training really should be. How many men have had such dreams and how few, if any, can really control the future of their children!
In March, 1889, Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated President and Mr. Blaine became his secretary of state.
I was, as usual, terribly busy that winter with the opera, concerts, and Wagner lecture recitals, and there were times when Washington seemed very far away, but Margaret Blaine had good friends in New York whom she visited occasionally, also a sister, the wife of Colonel Coppinger of the United States army, who was stationed at Governor’s Island in New York harbor. Whenever she stayed with Mrs. Coppinger I was a very frequent passenger on the little ferry-boat which seemed to me maintained by our beneficent War Department for the sole purpose of enabling young men like myself to reach this picturesque though antiquated military fortress.
Mr. Carnegie was absolutely unconscious of my aspirations regarding Margaret Blaine, and the following summer he suggested a visit to Bar Harbor, where Mr. Blaine had built a summer home. I accepted with an alacrity which he mistook as springing only from the same source as his own desire to see again the friends who had contributed so much toward the delights of the coaching trip and Cluny Castle. When I afterward told him of my hopes and that they had received some encouragement during our Bar Harbor visit, he was very much put out and vowed that if he had ever suspected anything of the kind he would never have taken me with him. He told me that he had hoped I would not think of marriage for many years, but would remain as a kind of semi-attached musical member of his household, which at that time consisted only of himself and his wife. Of course I listened to his many arguments absolutely unconvinced, and obstinate though he always was, he found his equal in me. I must confess, however, that when he saw how much in earnest I was, he not only completely receded from his position, but accepted my engagement and marriage with absolute good humor and approval.
My engagement to Margaret Blaine was announced in October of the following year at the wedding of her brother, Emmons, to Anita McCormick, of Chicago.
Mr. Blaine had bought the old Seward mansion on Lafayette Square, very near the White House, and Mrs. Blaine, who had a remarkable flair for harmonious house furnishings and decorations, proceeded to make it into a dignified and charming house, the special feature of which was a large drawing-room on the first floor, created by changing two rooms into one.
I have told elsewhere how in those days I was compelled, because of my youth, to confine myself at the Metropolitan to the conducting of such operas as “Le Prophète,” “La Juive,” and “Trovatore.” Seidl, my older colleague, completely monopolized the Wagner operas, which I was of course particularly anxious to conduct. Against “Trovatore” I had at that time a particularly strong and unreasonable aversion, although it was partly justified in that we did not have a cast in our German Opera Company that could do justice to its Italian atmosphere or its vocal demands.
Whenever good luck would have it that the Saturday matinée was a Wagner opera, I would ask for and obtain from Director Stanton the permission to leave for Washington on Friday night, as this would enable me to spend Saturday and Sunday with my fiancée. On one of these Fridays, just after I had received my permission, my brother Frank came to me and urged me to take the first train to Washington that I could catch, as he had just heard that the tenor who was to sing in “Siegfried” on Saturday afternoon was ill, and that in all probability the opera would be changed to “Trovatore.” I quickly took the hint, and when the message came that I was to conduct “Trovatore,” I was nowhere to be found and Anton Seidl was compelled to conduct it. He was furious, as he had no greater love for it than I, and my brother told me afterward that he conducted the entire opera with a black scowl on his face, which was bent low over the score and from which he never lifted his eyes once to give a sign to singer or orchestra.
During the following winter, tragedies began to overwhelm the Blaine family. Walker, the eldest son, a young man of great talent who had inherited much of his father’s personal charm and who had become a great help to Mr. Blaine in the State Department, died, to be followed shortly after by the oldest daughter, Mrs. Coppinger.
These two tragedies, following so closely upon each other, were the first break in that perfect family circle, and this affected Mr. Blaine’s spirit and health to such an extent that I do not think his vitality ever recovered from it.
I was married to Margaret Blaine on May 17, 1890. I should like to write much more than a chapter about the thirty-two wonderful years of our married life, but as my wife has sternly forbidden me to even mention her name in these memoirs, this chapter must close with the best left unsaid, though the most deeply felt.