The music of Wagner is filled with landscapes. There are some strains, like midnight, thick with constellations, and there are harmonies like islands in the far seas, and others like palms on the desert's edge. His music satisfies the heart and brain. It is not only for memory; not only for the present, but for prophecy.
Wagner was a sculptor, a painter, in sound. When he died, the greatest fountain of melody that ever enchanted the world, ceased. His music will instruct and refine forever.
All that I know about the operas of Wagner I have learned from Anton Seidl. I believe that he is the noblest, tenderest and the most artistic interpreter of the great composer that has ever lived.
THE FRANK B. CARPENTER DINNER.
New York, December 1, 1891
* There was a notable gathering of leading artists, authors,
scientists, journalists, lawyer, clergymen and other
professional men at Sherry's last evening. The occasion was
a dinner tendered to Mr. F. B. Carpenter, the famous
portrait and portrait group artist, by his immediate friends
to celebrate the completion of his new historical painting,
entitled "International Arbitration," which is to be sent to
Queen Victoria next week as the gift of a wealthy American
lady. No such tribute has ever been paid before to an artist
of-this country. Let us hope that the extraordinary
attention thus paid to Mr. Carpenter will give our "English
cousins" some idea of how he is prized and his work indorsed
at home. The dinner to Mr. Carpenter was a great success—
most enjoyable in every way. The table was laid in the form
ol a horse shoe with a train of smilax, and sweet flowers
extending the entire length of the table, amid pots of
chrysanthemums and roses. Ex-Minister Andrew D White
presided in the absence of John Russell
Young..........Mr. White said: "During the entire course of
these proceedings we have been endeavoring to find a
representative of the great Fourth Estate who would present
its claims in relation to arbitration on this occasion.
There are present men whose names are household words in
connection with the press throughout this land. There is
certainly one distinguished as orator: there is another
distinguished as a scholar. But they prefer to be silent. We
will therefore consider that the toast of 'The Press in
Connection with War and Peace' has been duly honored
although it has not been responded to, and now there is one
subject which I think you will consider as coming strangely
at this late hour. It is a renewal of the subject with which
we began, and I am to ask to speak to it a man who is
admired and feared throughout the country. At one moment he
smashes the most cherished convictions of the country, and
at another he raises our highest aspirations for the future
of humanity.
"It happened several years ago that I was crossing the
Atlantic, and when I had sufficiently recovered from
seasickness to sit out on the deck I came across Colonel
Ingersoll, and of all subjects of discussion you can imagine
we fell upon the subject of art, and we went at it hot and
heavy. So I said to him to-night that I had a rod in pickle
for him and that he was not to know anything about it until
it was displayed.
"I now call upon him to talk to us about art, and if he
talks now as he talked on the deck of the steamer I do not
know whether it would clear the room, but it would make a
sensation in this State and country. I have great pleasure
in announcing Colonel Ingersoll, to speak on the subject of
art—or on any other subject, for no matter upon what he
speaks his words are always welcome."
New York Press, December 2, 1891.
TOAST: ART.
I PRESUME I take about as much interest in what that picture represents as anybody else. I believe that it has been said this evening that the world will never be civilized so long as differences between nations are settled by gun or cannon or sword. Barbarians still settle their personal differences with clubs or arms, and finally, when they agree to submit their differences to their peers, to a court, we call them civilized. Now, nations sustain the same relations to each other that barbarians sustain; that is, they settle their differences by force; each nation being the judge of the righteousness of its cause, and its judgment depending entirely—or for the most part—on its strength; and the strongest nation is the nearest right. Now, until nations submit their differences to an international court—a court with the power to carry its judgment into effect by having the armies and navies of all the rest of the world pledged to support it—the world will not be civilized. Our differences will not be settled by arbitration until more of the great nations set the example, and until that is done, I am in favor of the United States being armed. Until that is done it will give me joy to know that another magnificent man-of-war has been launched upon our waters. And I will tell you why. Look again at that picture. There is another face; it is not painted there, and yet without it that picture would not have been painted, and that is the face of U. S. Grant. The olive branch, to be of any force, to be of any beneficent power, must be offered by the mailed hand. It must be offered by a nation which has back of the olive branch the force. It cannot be offered by weakness, because then it will excite only ridicule. The powerful, the imperial, must offer that branch. Then it will be accepted in the true spirit; otherwise not. So, until the world is a little more civilized I am in favor of the largest guns that can be made and the best navy that floats. I do not want any navy unless we have the best, because if you have a poor one you will simply make a present of it to the enemy as soon as war opens. We should be ready to defend ourselves against the world. Not that I think there is going to be any war, but because I think that is the best way to prevent it. Until the whole world shall have entered into the same spirit as the artist when he painted that picture, until that spirit becomes general we have got to be prepared for war. And we cannot depend upon war suasion. If a fleet of men-of-war should sail into our harbor, talk would not be of any good; we must be ready to answer them in their own way.