The Divine Loadstone.
"And I, if I be lifted up from the earth,
will draw all things to myself."
The Disciple.
"Ah me! what doth my feet restrain,
That I thy cross behold—
A loadstone all divine—
Drawing men's hearts with mystic chain
As misers lured by gold,
And yet it draws not mine?"
The Master.
"My word is very truth, my son;
All hearts to me should freely run;
And if I draw not thee
As sweetly as the rest,
'Tis thou who wouldst the loadstone be,
And draw the hearts of men to thee—
Their love doth mine contest."
The Disciple.
"Nay, Lord; 'tis only for thy heart I pine."
The Master.
"Say'st so? Then give me, also, all of thine."
Translated From The German.
The Rival Composers.
Late one afternoon, in the autumn of the year 1779, a gentleman, walking in the garden of the Tuileries, was observed by the guard near the gate of the palace private grounds, gesticulating in a manner to excite suspicion. He was plainly dressed, and advanced in years. When the sentinel saw him, after walking briskly to and fro, and muttering half aloud, stop and lift his hand in a threatening manner toward the royal abode, he promptly arrested him. Calling two gens d'armes, he put the suspected man, supposed guilty of designs against the king, into their hands, to be conveyed to prison.
At the gate they met a richly gilded open carriage, in which sat two ladies, with a child and nurse. The taller of the ladies wore a hat of dark velvet, with drooping plumes, and a mantle of the same, with a flowing dress of satin, the sleeves trimmed with rich lace. The soldiers stopped to salute the young Queen Marie Antoinette, and the prisoner removed his hat and bowed low. At the same instant the lady leaned from the carriage, exclaiming, "Ah! Master Gluck!"
The queen laughed heartily when she heard her old music-master had just been arrested for disloyal practices near the palace; when he was only declaiming a passionate recitative out of his new opera! She insisted on his entering the carriage and going to the palace with her; while the astonished guards went to report their mistake.
Not unfrequently had the celebrated composer been the guest of the royal lady. He was wont to visit her in the garden of the Trianon, talking German with her, and exchanging reminiscences of Vienna. When the opera-house in Paris had resounded with the applause called forth by the representation of one of his operas, and he was sent for to the royal box, the queen's own hand had crowned him with the chaplet his genius had won.