Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis to John S. DwightP.S. If you loved some one ardently who wonderfully resembled personally some one you hated ardently what would you do? It is not my case, but a question some evil genius whispered to make me perspire in these torrid days.
XXVIII
CONCORD, _Sept. 14, 1845._
My dear Friend,--I returned last week from a long and beautiful visit to the mountains, among which I had never been before. I went in the middle of July to Berkshire, and returned home for two or three days to set off for the White Hills, and back again through the length of Berkshire. In all about seven weeks. The garden served us very well. We had weeded so faithfully that weeds did not trouble us, and Burrill stayed in Concord a part of the time I was in New Hampshire.
When I first came towards the mountains it was twilight, and they looked very cold and grim; their outline traced against the sky, and seemingly made of some other material than earth or sky--too dense for the one and too ethereal for the other. But when I came to them in broad day, they had lost their terror, as any other night phantom would have done. When I could scale them with my eye, and stand upon their highest peak, I seemed to have subdued them. But as I retreated, and looked back, they resumed their twilight majesty; and I could not realize I had been so proud among them. Yet, after all, they did not command me as the sea does. The charm of that is not robbed by being in it or upon it. All night and all day its murmur sounds an infinite ba.s.s to all that is done and said; and in the night, when you awake, it holds you still in thrall. Like the song of the locust in a summer noon, which fills the air with music and intensifies the heat, so the sound of the sea constantly draws thought and life to its depth and sweetness. Among the hills I was haunted with the vague desire of some corresponding sound. They were like a dumb Apollo, a thunderless Jupiter.
In Berkshire they are less grand than in New Hampshire, but high enough to cease to be hills, and wooded quite to the summit. They give an endless variety to the landscape, and are full everywhere of beautiful places and commanding prospects through the openings. The aspect of the country and the character of the people were so different from the country and people near a city, that it seemed to be more recently created.
Frank Parley is there in Stockbridge, and seems to be very happy. At Williamstown, the northern town in the county, we saw George Wells. He has only changed to become more entirely a collegian, but retains the same cordiality and carelessness that made us love him at Brook Farm. I have so many things to say about my wanderings that I cannot write any more, for I mean to come to Brook Farm and see you some day during the autumn. In the late autumn we are going to New York to pa.s.s the winter.
Give my love to Mrs. Ripley and the Archon, and to the two Charleses, and believe me, as always, your friend,
G.W.C.
On the next page I write a little song, which you shall print if you think it worth the s.p.a.ce. Nameless and dateless if you please.
AUTUMN SONG
The gold corn in the field And the asters in the meadow, And the heavy clouds that yield To the hills a crown of shadow, Mark the ending of the Summer, And the Autumn coming in, A crimson-eyed new-comer, Whose voice is cold and thin, As he whispers to the flowers, "Lo, all this time is ours."
I remember, long ago, When the soft June days were wasted, That the Autumn and the snow In the after-heats were tasted; For the sultry August weather Burned the freshness from the trees, And the woods and I, together, Mourned the Winter, that must freeze The silver singing streams Which fed our Summer dreams.
Through the yellow afternoon Rolls the wagon harvest-laden, And beneath the harvest moon At the husking sings the maiden; While without the winds are flowing Like long aerial waves, And their scythe-sharp breath is mowing The flowers upon the graves.
When the husking is all o'er The maiden sings no more.
To ----
Thy spirit was a flexile harp, whereon The moonlight fell like delicatest air, Thro' thee its beauty flowing into tone Which charmed the silence with a sound as rare.
Thou peaceful maid! the music then I heard, Whose influence had moulded thy soft eyes To their deep tone of tenderness: O! bird, Whose life is fed with thine own melodies.
XXIX
CONCORD, _Oct. 25, 1845._
My dear Friend,--My Concord days are numbered, but before I go I should like to write you again, although it is not impossible that I may come here again next year. The autumn since I saw you has fulfilled the promise of the day I left Brook Farm--bright, clear, and cool. On Wednesday, the day was so remarkably beautiful that, having nothing especial to do, and seeing that Ole Bull was to give another concert, we walked to Boston and heard him once more, I fear for the last time; and walked back again the next morning. The air was very still and bright, and cold enough to spur us on, without an unpleasant chill.
I was very glad to part with Ole Bull having my first impressions deepened and strengthened. The wonder with which I heard him in New York had subsided, and I gave myself, or rather he drew me, wholly to his music. It seems as if he improvised with the orchestra as a poet would at the piano.
The music is full of every sort of movement and variety, but has great unity of character, and constantly suggests beautiful and distinct images rather than pictures. I thought of glorious young gladiators leaping into the lists, of fleecy clouds sweeping over starlight skies, and the beach-line of the sea. Every image was of the graceful, vigorous, and entirely healthy character of his person, which I suppose is only a fair expression of his soul. The music should not be criticised as a work of art, but only as the articulate reveries of Genius, for it is such as only he should play, because it is so entirely individual. It is full of delicate tenderness, and each piece is much like a gentle, strong child wandering in Fairyland, melted now by the sweets of child-deep piety in the Adagio Religioso, now leaping down the Polacca Guerricra like a young angel down a ladder from heaven, and roaming wistful and silent and amazed in the solitude of the Prairie, at times leaping and running and shouting, and then sighing and weeping and losing its voice in aerial cadences, until the smiles make rainbows through the tears again.
All these things whirled through my mind as I sat listening to him, with my eyes closed to preserve the realm of vision una.s.sailed, last Sat.u.r.day evening. But there is no end to such stuff. Music is so fully suggestive; and, after all, if you abandon yourself to that you are very apt to find yourself only among corresponding images. The adagio of the Fifth Symphony reminds me in one part of majestic waves, black and crowned with creamy foam; and they swell as if the whole sound of the ocean thundered in each, and when they have almost gained a height through which the sun may shine and reveal the long-haired mermaids, and the splendid colors which hide so much, then they fall upon themselves and stream backward into the sea, the foam uppermost like a shroud. But when I considered this one evening I found it was only the image of the sound transformed to a visible object.
It is like watching the clouds and seeing their palaces and mountains. It is easy to sport with the symbol, and shows the greatness of the composer when he arouses the thought of the sea and sky for an echo; but that is only the sensuous influence of his music, and further we cannot go in words, for good music is so because it is inexpressible in words. There is always correspondence but not ident.i.ty. And the impression of the same object in a poem, painting, or statue should be as different as the different necessities which const.i.tuted those arts and the differing direction of the various genius which so expresses itself.
Ole Bull's last concert (that I heard) was a cheap one, and the audience was very cheap. I felt at once the want of sympathy between that and him, and that destroyed the unity of the impression, which is so pleasant. The music which he played was of the best and played in the best way, but was played apart from the sympathy of the hearers to the soul of his art. When he was encored he came and showed his mastery of the violin as a juggler his power over cards. I should have been sorry to have seen it in any one but a true artist; but while he satisfied every just claim in the style and selection of the music of the concert, he permitted the rabble to hear what they had paid fifty cents to hear. He could not be accused of lowering or pampering the popular taste, for the music that he played was elevating, and the gymnastics not music at all.
I was glad to see Mrs. Ripley last Monday, and to hear from her the result of your Sunday meeting. I was a little sceptical, because I think permanent forms of worship spring from a very deep piety, and the pious persons whom I know I could count on my hands. Such themes are too good for heel-taps to a letter, and I shall wait the issue of your movement with a great deal of interest. Give my love to Mrs. Ripley, and tell her I hope the whole winter will not pa.s.s without my hearing from her.
I feel sorry to go from Concord, which we shall do in about a fortnight, for it is a quiet place, full of good people and pleasant spots. But I have found the same everywhere, so
"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."
Your friend,
G.W.C.
x.x.x
NEW YORK, _December 22, 1845._
A merry Christmas and happy New Year to you, if you are still alive, for since small-pox has joined your Phalanx I am not sure but his ambition for the supreme power has swept you all away. Yet every Sat.u.r.day's _Harbinger_ is a missive from Brook Farm which tells of other things than the cosmogonies, etc., of which it ostensibly discourses. I shall be glad to smuggle myself in for a share of the commendation bestowed upon those who have increased your list with the new volume, but my New York friends are pale at Greeley's _Tribune_, and would christen your sheet "An Omen Ill"
instead of _Harbinger_.
Individually I am grateful for your article upon De Meyer. It gives me an idea of his exhilarating impression, which I had dimly supposed from what I heard of him. I wait eagerly for his reappearance here, and cannot discover why he tarries so long in Boston. Privately I have heard very much good music since I have been here, mainly Mendelssohn and Spohr, with singing of Schubert and "Adelaide," etc. Publicly I have heard Huber, the German opera, and Mendelssohn's "St. Paul," a rich, melodious oratorio, squeezing the utmost drop from the power of the orchestra, and uniform at a point of the most luminous delicacy, refinement, and grace. I missed the heavy choruses of the Handel and Haydn, for, particularly, "Stone him to death," and "Lovely are the messengers," and "Oh, be gracious, ye Immortals" are magnificent. From what I have heard I prefer Mendelssohn to Spohr, as being the most original and luxuriant genius, although I hear that I shall not maintain that opinion when I have heard Spohr more.
Rossini and Donizetti are the Musical G.o.ds here; now and then you meet a person who really loves what is better, but in mixed societies and at all concerts, particularly in fashionable circles, where music is a fashion now, the merest exercises for the voice and the fingers elicit the most--rapturous bravoes and tapping of white gloves. Last evening I was at one of my musical friends', who, with another girl, plays the symphonies, etc., and is a most wonderful performer. She has the grand-piano which Miss Gserty (?) owned. For an hour we had the "Fingal's Cave," Schubert's "Wanderer" by Liszt, and Quatuors of Spohr; then entered "our fashionable friends" (for my musical lady is in such a sphere), and songs from Donizetti's operas and Thalberg's "Moses in Egypt," and the "Marche Maracaire," which seems nothing or very little without De Meyer, followed; and two mortal hours of such followed. I am always a little angry that my friends don't do something better on such occasions; but why cast pearls before swine? Yet I have no right to complain. They willingly play good music when they have good listeners.
Literature I serve quite faithfully. I have read the "Aminta," and am deep in "h.e.l.l." In German I am reading the second part of "Faust," with sc.r.a.ps from Novalis. English reading is Swedenborg and "Festus" and "Cromwell,"
with dips into the dramatists. I am sorry such good men have no better reader at this present, but trust they find some somewhere. The weather is vile. We are pinched with "nipping" airs which do not remain clear and steady, but unbend themselves in a dirty slush called snow in the papers.
And just now I have no business to write you a letter, for I am torn every way by longings and doubts, not at all of a moral nature. This copy of verses, written last summer, is somewhat harmonious with my present mood, and shall be printed if you approve.
I have seen Cranch several times, and his pictures. Some I like very much, but they have his faults. I went with him to the Art Union Gallery the other day, and some beautiful landscapes that I saw of his and others made my heart "babble of green fields" to itself for some days afterwards. One does not fully realize the value of art until he is in the city, as away from home you realize the worth of a mother's portrait. A great charm of a picture-gallery is the perfect stillness which belongs to the paintings, and which they suggest. My overcoat seemed superfluous, for I was full of sultry noontide feeling, gathered not from any special picture, but the atmosphere of so many portraits of trees and waters and hills.
In New York I feel how life is a glorious opportunity wasted. A halo seems forever to float over our heads everywhere, even on the tips of the hair, which might crown us with glory and honor; but no man is yet crowned. The richest and grandest music of the world is. .h.i.therto in a minor key. But, indeed, every sigh is a waste of so much energy that I try to turn my stone towards the erection of the infinite temple without grieving that it was not long since built. I used to despise justice as a shabby virtue, but now it seems to me the only lack. We are unjust in our treatment and in our opinion of persons. In the first we are too sweet, in the last too severe. For we eternally measure men by a standard suggested by our individuality, instead of sympathizing so fully that we stretch them on their own line. But here of all places there can be no sham. If we are not just in our own thought we cannot pretend to be, since only we are the persons concerned, and no man ever cheated himself.
I should be very glad to hear from you, for, knowing how busy you are, I have learned to value your letters. Remember me most kindly to Mrs.
Ripley, and believe me always Yr friend,
G.W.C.
DIRGE
Time laid within an early grave Those hopes, so delicate and sweet, I wondered not I could not save, But that they did sooner fleet.
Life has its fading summer dream, Its hope is crowned with one full hour, And yet its best deservings seem Buds all unworthy such a flower.
How well that happy hour is bought By an after-life of sorrow!
The golden sunset yields a thought Which adorns the dreary morrow.
We meet no more as we have met; Thy heart made music once with mine, Which now is still, and we forget The art that made our youth divine.
One glance reaps beauty, nevermore It wears a l.u.s.tre as at first; We come again--the harvest o'er To no new flow'ring can be nursed.