Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Volume 14
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Elbert Hubbard >> Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Volume 14
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Devotees of the histrionic art can lay just claim to having more than
their share of whim, but the musical profession has no reason to be
abashed, for it is a good second. However, the actor's and the
musician's art are often not far separated. In speaking to James McNeil
Whistler of a certain versatile musician, a lady once said, "I believe
he also acts!"
"Madame, he does nothing else," replied Mr. Whistler.
Art is not a thing separate and apart--art is only the beautiful way of
doing things. And is it not most absurd to think, because a man has the
faculty of doing a thing well, that on this account he should assume
airs and declare himself exempt along the line of morals and manners?
The expression "artistic temperament" is often an apologetic term, like
"literary sensitiveness," which means that the man has stuck to one task
so long that he is unable to meet his brother men on a respectful
equality.
The artist is the voluptuary of labor, and his fantastic tricks often
seem to be only Nature's way of equalizing matters, and showing the
world that he is very common clay, after all. To be modest and gentle
and kind, as we all can be, is just as much to God as to be learned and
talented, and yet be a cad.
Still, instances of great talent and becoming modesty are sometimes
found; and in no great musician was the balance of virtues held more
gracefully than with Mozart. He had humor.
Ah! that is it--he knew values--had a sense of proportion, and realized
that there is a time to laugh. And a good time to laugh is when you see
a mighty bundle of pretense and affectation coming down the street.
Dignity is the mask behind which we hide our ignorance; and our forced
dignity is what makes the imps of comedy, who sit aloft in the sky, hold
their sides in merriment when they behold us demanding obeisance because
we have fallen heir to tuppence worth of talent.
* * * * *
Laporte: Mozart had a sense of humor. He knew a big thing from a little
one. When yet a child the tendency to comedy was strong upon him. When
nine years of age he once played at a private musicale where the
Empress, Maria Theresa, was present. The lad even then was a consummate
violinist. He had just played a piece that contained such a tender,
mournful, minor strain that several of the ladies were in tears. The boy
seeing this, relentingly dashed off into a "barnyard symphony," where
donkeys brayed, hens cackled, pigs squealed and cows mooed, all ending
with a terrific cat-fight on a wood-shed roof. This done, the boy threw
his violin down, ran across the room, climbed into the lap of the
Empress and throwing his arms around the neck of the good lady, kissed
her a resounding smack first on one cheek, then on the other. It was all
very much like that performance of Liszt, who one day, when he was
playing the piano, suddenly shouted, "Pitch everything out of the
windows!" and then proceeded to do it--on the keyboard, of course.
On the same visit to the palace, when Mozart saluted Maria Theresa in
his playful way, he had the misfortune to slip and fall on the waxed
floor.
Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, just budding into
womanhood, ran and picked him up and rubbed his knee where it was hurt.
"You are a dear, good lady," said the boy in gratitude, "and when I
grow up I am going to marry you." Liszt never made any such promise as
that. Liszt never offered to marry anybody. But it is too bad that Marie
Antoinette did not hold the lad to his promise. It would have probably
proved a valuable factor for her in the line of longevity; and her
husband's circumstances would have saved her from making that silly
inquiry as to why poor people don't eat cake when they run short of
bread. These moods of merriment continued with Mozart, as they did with
Liszt, all his life--not always manifesting themselves, though, in the
way just described.
As a companion I would choose Mozart--generous, unaffected, kind--rather
than any other musician who ever played, danced, sang or
composed--excepting, well, say Brahms.
* * * * *
South Bend: We take an interest in the lives of others because we
always, when we think of another, imagine our relationship to him. "Had
I met Shakespeare on the stairs I would have fainted dead away," said
Thackeray.
Another reason why we are interested in biography is because, to a
degree, it is a repetition of our own life.
There are certain things that happen to every one, and others we think
might have happened to us, and may yet. So as we read, we unconsciously
slip into the life of the other man and confuse our identity with his.
To put yourself in his place is the only way to understand and
appreciate him. It is imagination that gives us this faculty of
transmigration of souls; and to have imagination is to be universal; not
to have it is to be provincial. Let me see--wouldn't you rather be a
citizen of the Universe than a citizen of Peoria, Illinois, which modest
town the actors always speak of as being one of the provinces?
As I read biography I always keep thinking what I would have done in
certain described circumstances, and so not only am I living the other
man's life, but I am comparing my nature with his. Everything is
comparative; that is the only way we realize anything--by comparing it
with something else. As you read of the great man he seems very near to
you. You reach out across the years and touch hands with him, and with
him you hope, suffer, strive and enjoy: your existence is all blurred
and fused with his.
And through this oneness you come to know and comprehend a character
that has once existed, very much better than the people did who lived in
his day and were blind to his true worth by being ensnared in cliques
that were in competition with him.
* * * * *
Elkhart: I intimated a few pages back that I would have liked to have
Mozart for a friend and companion. Mozart needed me no less than I need
him. "Genius needs a keeper," once said I. Zangwill, probably with
himself in mind. We all need friends--and to be your brother's keeper is
very excellent if you do not cease being his friend. And poor Mozart did
so need a friend who could stand between him and the rapacious wolf that
scratched and sniffed at his door as long as he lived. I do not know why
the wolf sniffed, for Mozart really never had anything worth carrying
away. He was so generous that his purse was always open, and so full of
unmixed pity that the beggars passed his name along and made cabalistic
marks on his gateposts. Every seedy, needy, thirsty and ill-appreciated
musician in Germany regarded him as lawful prey. They used to say to
Mozart, "I can not beg and to dig I am ashamed--so grant me a small
loan, I pray thee."
Yes, Mozart needed me to plan his tours and market his wares. I'm no
genius, and although they say I was an infant terrible, I never was an
infant prodigy. At the tender age of six, Mozart was giving concerts and
astonishing Europe with his subtle skill. At a like age I could catch a
horse with a nubbin, climb his back, and without a saddle or bridle
drive him wherever I listed by the judicious use of a tattered hat. Of
course I took pains to mount only a horse that had arrived at years of
discretion, matronly brood-mares or run-down plow-horses; but this is
only proof of my practical turn of mind. Mozart never learned how to
control either horse or man by means of a tattered hat or diplomacy:
music was his hobby, and it was long years after his death before the
world discovered that his hobby was no hobby at all, but a genuine
automobile that carried him miles and miles, clear beyond all his
competitors: so far ahead that he was really out of shouting distance.
Indeed, Mozart took such an early start in life and drove his machinery
so steadily, not to say so furiously, that at thirty-five all the
bearings grew hot for lack of rebabbitting, and the vehicle went the way
of the one-horse shay--all at once and nothing first, just as bubbles do
when they burst.
At the age which Mozart died I had seen all I wanted to of business
life, in fact I had made a fortune, being the only man in America who
had all the money he wanted, and so just turned about and went to
college. This I firmly hold is a better way than to be sent to college
and then go into trade later and forget all you ever learned at school.
I had rather go to college than be sent. Every man should get rich, that
he might know the worthlessness of riches; and every man should have a
college education, just to realize how little the thing is worth.
Yes, Mozart needed a good friend whose abilities could have rounded out
and made good his deficiencies. Most certainly I could not do the
things that he did, but I should have been his helper, and might, too,
had not a century, one wide ocean, and a foreign language separated us.
* * * * *
Waterloo: Friendship is better than love for a steady diet. Suspicion,
jealousy, prejudice and strife follow in the wake of love; and disgrace,
murder and suicide lurk just around the corner from where love coos.
Love is a matter of propinquity; it makes demands, asks for proofs,
requires a token. But friendship seeks no ownership--it only hopes to
serve, and it grows by giving. Do not say, please, that this applies
also to love. Love bestows only that it may receive, and a one-sided
passion turns to hate in a night, and then demands vengeance as its
right and portion.
Friendship asks no rash promises, demands no foolish vows, is strongest
in absence, and most loyal when needed. It lends ballast to life, and
gives steadily to every venture. Through our friends we are made
brothers to all who live.
I think I would rather have had Mozart for a friend than to love and be
loved by the greatest prima donna who ever warbled in high C. Friendship
is better than love. Friendship means calm, sweet sleep, clear brain and
a strong hold on sanity. Love I am told is only friendship, plus
something else. But that something else is a great disturber of the
peace, not to say digestion. It sometimes racks the brain until the
world reels. Love is such a tax on the emotions that this way madness
lies. Friendship never yet led to suicide.
* * * * *
Toledo: Yes, just at the age when Mozart wrote and played his "Requiem,"
getting ready to die, I was going to school and incidentally falling in
love. I was thirty-four and shaved clean because there were gray hairs
coming in my beard. Love has its advantages, of course, and the benefits
of passionate love consist in scarifying one's sensibilities until they
are raw, thus making one able to sympathize with those who suffer. Love
sounds the feelings with a leaden plummet that sinks to the very depths
of one's soul. This once done the emotions can return with ease, and so
this is why no singer can sing, or painter paint, or sculptor model, or
writer write, until love or calamity, often the same thing, has sounded
the depths of his soul. Love makes us wise because it makes room inside
the soul for thoughts and feelings to germinate; but passionate love as
a lasting mood would be hell. Henry Finck says that is why Nature has
fixed a two-year limit on romantic or passionate love. "War is hell,"
said General Sherman. "All is fair in Love and War," says the old
proverb. Love and War are one, say I. Love is mad, raging unrest and a
vain, hot, reaching out for nobody knows what. Of course the kind which
I am talking about is the Grand Passion, not the sort of sentiment that
one entertains towards his grandmother.
"But it is good to fall in love, just as it is well to have the
measles," to quote Schopenhauer. Still, there is this difference: one
only has the measles once, but the man who has loved is never immune,
and no amount of pledges or resolves can ere avail.
Just here seems a good place to express a regret that the English
language is such a crude affair that we use the same word to express a
man's regard for roast-beef, his dog, child, wife and Deity. There are
those who speedily cry, "Hold!" when one attempts to improve on the
language, but I now give notice that on the first rainy day I am going
to create some distinctions and differentiate for posterity along the
line just mentioned.
* * * * *
Elyria: As intimated in a former chapter, I was a successful farmer
before I went to college. I was also a manufacturer, and made a success
in this business, too. I made a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars
before I was thirty, and should have it yet had I sat down and watched
it. If you go into a railroad-car and sit down by the side of your
valise (or manuscript), in an hour your valuables will probably be there
all right.
But if you leave the valise (or the manuscript) in a seat and go into
another car, when you come back the goods may be there and they may not.
That is the only way to keep money--fasten your eye right on it. If you
leave it in the hands of others, and go away to delve in books, the
probabilities are that, when you get back, certain obese attorneys have
divided your substance among them.
However, there is good in every exigency of life, and to know that your
fortune is gone is a great relief. When the trial is ended and the
prisoner has received his sentence, he feels a great relief, for it is
only the unknown that fills our souls with apprehension.
* * * * *
Cleveland: In all the realm of artistic history no record of such
extremes can be found in one life as those seen in the life of Mozart.
The nearest approach to it is found in the career of Rembrandt, who won
fame and fortune at thirty, and then holding the pennant high for ten
years, his powers began to decline. It took twenty-six years of steady
down grade to ditch his destinies in a pauper's grave.
But Rembrandt, during his lifetime, was scarcely known out of Holland,
whereas Mozart not only won the nod of nobility, and the favor of the
highest in his own land, but he went into the enemy's country and
captured Italy. Mozart's art never languished: he held a firm grip on
sublime verities right to the day of his death. The high-water mark in
Mozart's career was reached in those two years in Italy, when in his
thirteenth and fourteenth years. The arts all go hand in hand, for the
reason that strong men inspire strong men, and each does what he can do
best. In painting, sculpture and music (not to mention Antonio
Stradivari of Cremona) Italy has led the world. A hundred years ago no
musician could hope for the world's acclaim until Italy had placed its
stamp of approval upon him.
Savants in Milan, Florence, Padua, Rome, Verona, Venice and Naples,
tested the powers of young Mozart to their fullest; and although he had
to overcome doubt and the prejudice arising from being "a barbaric
German," yet the highest honors were at the last ungrudgingly paid him.
He was enrolled as an honorary member of numerous musical societies, old
musicians gave their blessings, proud ladies craved the privilege of
kissing his fair forehead, and the Pope conferred upon the gifted boy
the Order of the Golden Spur, which gave him the right to have his mail
come directed to "The Signor Cavaliere Mozarti."
At Naples the result of his marvelous playing was ascribed to
enchantment, and this was thought to be centered in a diamond ring that
had been presented to the lad by a fair lady in a mood of ecstasy. To
convince the Neapolitans of their error Mozart was obliged to accept
their challenge and remove the ring. He wrote home to his mother that he
had no time to practise, as in every city where he went artists insisted
on his sitting for his portrait.
The acme of attention and applause was reached at Milan, where he was
commissioned to write an opera for the Christmas festivities. The
production of this opera at La Scala was the most glorious item in the
life of Mozart. A boy of fourteen conducting an opera of his own
composition before enraptured multitudes is an event that stands to the
credit of Mozart, and Mozart alone. "Evviva the Little Master--Evviva
the Little Master!" cried the audience. "It is music for the stars," and
against all precedent aria after aria had to be repeated. The boy,
always rather small for his age, stood on a chair to wield his baton,
and the flowers that were rained upon him nearly covered the lad from
view.
* * * * *
Ashtabula: The place of a man's birth does not honor him until after he
is dead, and every man of genius has been distrusted by his intimate
kinsmen. If he is granted recognition by the outside world, those who
have known him from childhood wink slyly and repeat Phineas T. Barnum's
aphorism, a free paraphrase of which the Germans have used since the
days of the Vandals.
Leopold Mozart returned home with his wonderful boy not much richer than
when he went away. He had left the management of finances to others, and
was quite content to travel in a special carriage, stop at the best
hotels, and have any "label" he might order, just for the asking.
Reports had reached Germany of the wonderful success of the youthful
Mozart in Italy, but Vienna smiled and Salzburg sneezed.
* * * * *
North East: It is not so very long ago that all the beautiful things of
earth were supposed to belong to the Superior Class. That is to say, all
the toilers, all the workers in metals, all the bookmakers, authors,
poets, painters, sculptors and musicians, did their work to please this
noble or that. All bands of singers were singers to His Lordship, and if
a man wrote a book he dedicated it to His Royal Highness. At first these
thinkers and doers were veritable slaves, and no court was complete that
did not have its wise man who wore the cap and bells, and made puns,
epigrams and quoted wise saws and modern instances for his board and
keep. This man usually served as a clerk or overseer, during his odd
hours, and only appeared to give a taste of his quality when he was sent
for.
It was the same with the musicians and singers--they were cooks, waiters
and valets, and when there were guests these performers were notified to
be in readiness to "do something" if called upon. It was the same with
painters--every court had its own. Rubens, as we know, was looked upon
by the Duke of Mantua as his private property, and the artist had to run
away, when the time was ripe, to save his soul alive. Van Dyck was court
painter to Charles the First, and married when he was told to do so.
There is no such office as "Poet Laureate of England"--the Laureate is
poet to the King, and used to dine with the Master of the Hounds. Later
he was allowed to choose his domicile and live in his own house, like
Saint Paul, the prisoner at Rome. His yearly stipend is yet that tierce
of Canary.
* * * * *
Silver Creek: Leopold Mozart, and the son who caused his name to endure,
were in the employ of the Archbishop of Salzburg. The Archbishop was a
veritable prince, with short breath and a double chin, and no shade of
doubt ever came to him concerning the divinity of his succession. He
ruled by divine right, and everybody and everything were made to
minister to the well-being of his person and estate. The Mozarts were
too poor to escape from the employ of the Archbishop, and he took pains
to warn all interested persons not to harbor, encourage or entice his
servants away on penalty of dire displeasure. Mozart ate with the
servants, and we have his letters written to his sister showing how his
seat was next below that of the coachman. When he was to play before
invited guests he was made to wait in the entry until the footman called
him, and there he often stood for hours, first on one foot, then on t'
other.
It is easy to ask why a man of such sublime talent should endure such
treatment, but the simple fact is Mozart was gentle, yielding,
kind--immersed in his music--with no power to set his will against the
tide of tendency that 'compassed him round. The Archbishop forbade his
playing at concerts or entertainments, and blocked the way to all
advancement. The Archbishop didn't have a diplomat like Rubens to cope
with, or a fighter like Wagner, or a plotter like Liszt, or a
stiletto-bearing man like Paganini, and so Mozart wrote his music on a
table in one corner of a beer-garden, and waltzed with his wife,
Constance, to keep warm when there was no fire and the weather was cold,
and all the time danced attendance on the Archbishop of Salzburg. All of
his feeble, spasmodic efforts at freedom came to naught, because there
was no persistency behind them.
Gladly would he have sold his services for three hundred gulden a year,
but even this sum, equal to one hundred fifty dollars a year, was denied
him. He was always composing, always making plans, always seeing the
silver tint in the clouds, but all of his music was taken by this one or
that in whom he foolishly trusted, and only debt and humiliation
followed him.
When at long intervals a sum would come his way from a generous admirer
touched with pity, all the beggars in the neighborhood seemed to know it
at once. Then it was that music filled the air at the beer-garden,
carking care and unkind fate were for the time forgot, and all went
merry as a wedding-bell.
Finally the position of Court Musician to the Emperor of Austria fell
vacant, and certain good friends of Mozart secured him the place. But
the Emperor was not like Frederick the Great, for he could not
distinguish one tune from another, and did not consider it any special
virtue so to do. The result was that his musicians were looked after by
his valet, and Mozart found that his position was really no better than
it had been with the Archbishop of Salzburg.
And still his mind proved infirm of purpose, and he had not the courage
to demand his right, for fear he might lose even the little that he
had.
* * * * *
Buffalo: Mozart was in his twentieth year when he met Aloysia Weber. She
was a gifted singer, surely, and was needlessly healthy. She was of that
peculiar, heartless type that finds digression in leading men a merry
chase and then flaunting and flouting them. Young Mozart, the
impressionable, Mozart the delicate and sensitive, Mozart the AEolian
harp, played upon by every passing breeze, loved this bouncing bundle of
pink-and-white tyranny.
She encouraged the passion, and it gradually grew until it absorbed the
boy and he grew oblivious to all else. He lived in her smile, bathed in
the sunshine of her presence, fed on her words, and as for her singing
in opera it was not so much what her voice was now but what he was sure
it would be.
His glowing imagination made good her every deficiency. He thought he
loved the girl. It was not the girl at all he loved: he only loved the
ideal that existed in his own heart. His father opposed the mating and
hastily transferred the youth from Vienna to Paris; but who ever heard
of opposition and argument and forced separation curing love? So matters
ran on and letters and messages passed, and finally Mozart made his way
back to Vienna and with breathless haste sought out the object of his
whole heart's love.
She had recently met a man she liked better, and as she could not hold
them both, treated Mozart as a stranger, and froze him to the marrow.
He was crushed, undone, and a fit of sickness followed. In his illness,
Constance, a younger sister of Aloysia, came to him in pity and nursed
him as a child. Very naturally, all the love he had felt for Aloysia was
easily and readily transferred to Constance. The tendrils of the heart
ruthlessly uprooted cling to the first object that presents itself.
And so Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Constance Weber were married. And
they were happy ever afterward. It would have been much better if they
had quarreled, but Mozart's gentle, yielding character readily adapted
itself to the weaker nature of his wife. In his music she took a sort of
blind and deaf delight and guessed its greatness because she loved the
man. But when two weak wills combine, the net result is increased
weakness--never strength.
Constance was as beautiful a specimen of the slipshod housekeeper as
ever piled away breakfast dishes unwashed, or swept dirt under a settee.
If they had money she bought things they did not need, and if there was
no money she borrowed provisions and forgot to return the loan.
Irregularity of living, deprivation and hope deferred, made the woman
ill and she became a chronic sufferer. But she was ever tended with
loving, patient care by the overburdened and underfed husband.
A biographer tells how Mozart would often arise early in the morning to
set down some melody in music that he had dreamed out during the night.
On such occasions he would leave a little love-letter for his wife on
the stand at the head of the bed, where she would find it on first
awakening. One such note, freely translated, runs as follows:
"Good-morning, Dear Little Wife. I hope you rested well and had sweet
dreams. You were sleeping so peacefully that I dare not kiss your cheek
for fear of disturbing you. It is a beautiful morning and a bird outside
is singing a song that is in my heart. I am going out to catch the
strain and write it down as my own and yours. I shall be back in an
hour."
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